Reactions to "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey"?

  • Thread starter Thread starter gracepoole
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
without said:
did too! 😛 lol…

How about we read up on this Bruno guy egs.edu/library/giordano-bruno/biography/

Agree or disagree, you will know more then you did. Perhaps the Cosmos program is doing some good? 👍
Click to expand...
From the article you just cited:
Some of these charges included blasphemy, immoral conduct, engaging with magic, and heresy that could be found in the doctrines of his philosophy* and cosmology*. Giordano Bruno was of course rather controversial as he held many opinions contrary to the Catholic faith, such as his theory of multiple worlds and transubstantiation. He was asked to recant his philosophy but he only attempted a partial recantation so as to retain the basis, and perhaps integrity, of his philosophy. Unfortunately, this was not enough for the Pope who recommended that he be put to death. To be sure, as there was not an official Catholic Church position on the Copernican system in 1600,* Bruno’s views on Copernicus were not the ‘sole’ reason he was declared a heretic.*
Click to expand...
That was very enlightening. Thank you. Goodbye.
 
didymus said:
Why should believe anything Tyson says on any subject?
Click to expand...
Maybe because he’s one of the world’s foremost astrophysicists? Maybe because he’s widely recognized as a master science communicator?
 
Is he really one of the foremost astrophysicists? What has he done?
 
I was thinking about watching it given that, despite Carl Sagan’s religious-like commitment to naturalism, the production values of the original were great.

But thanks for informing me of this disgusting historical ignorance put forth by the show, OP. I will not be watching this show, much for the same reason I don’t watch shows that deny the holocaust. I have a real pet peeve for historical myths that get passed around as fact and serve as a defense mechanism for an ingrained ideology (secularism and neo-nazism in these two examples)

Would it have been that hard to get a professional historian as a “talking head” on the show to explain this bit about Bruno, Galileo or what have you? Cosmology is interesting enough that you shouldn’t have to invent lies, promote myths, or make up some demonstrably false idea about a “universe from nothing” to attract people to it.

Edit: also Seth MacFarlane produces this? LOLOLOLOL. Is there a talking dog in there fornicating with adult women as well?
 
gracepoole said:
Maybe because he’s one of the world’s foremost astrophysicists? Maybe because he’s widely recognized as a master science communicator?
Click to expand...
Maybe, maybe not. You’ve heard the adage “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus”.
Click to expand...
de Grasse Tyson’s intellectual laziness in accepting long discredited attacks on Catholicism as anti-science. Who knows to what other subjects that laziness and sloppy research extends?
For someone who is supposedly has devoted himself to the pursuit of truth why has it never occurred to him to wonder why the scientific method was born in the Christian West and not in other cultures that were for a time far ahead of the West in natural philosophy (China, Islam, India, Mayas, &c).
Click to expand...
 
Just watched my recorded episode two on evolution. sigh

Why do they HAVE TO make a point of discrediting intelligent design. Not the kind offered up by fundamentalists, but the kind that evolution was a part of the intelligent design?

What I really hate is the way ‘evolution’ is portrayed as an intelligent designer!!!

Evolution “decides” who survives, “chooses” the best specimen, “does not care” about maintaining the status quo etc. etc. “evolution” does EVERYTHING! But does science EVER question WHY evolution itself was chosen? No, of course not, because evolution already decided that! It is science’s encroachment into theology and philosophy that I find so galling. :mad:

Anyway, I noticed they mentioned the “great die off” but didn’t even mention the others that occurred prior to that one. So even their science is pure pop-culture. :rolleyes:

I’m not impressed with the show at all. As much as I like shows like Nova, this one is like a coffee table book, full of splashy full color pictures, but no content worth mentioning.
 
Father Robert Barron notes on the first episode .
AmbroseSJ said:
Why do they HAVE TO make a point of discrediting intelligent design. Not the kind offered up by fundamentalists, but the kind that evolution was a part of the intelligent design?

I’m not impressed with the show at all. As much as I like shows like Nova, this one is like a coffee table book, full of splashy full color pictures, but no content worth mentioning.
Click to expand...
It is a shame Dr. Tyson can’t just offer science for science sake. Sharing observations of evolution most certainly can be offered without the agenda.
 
gracepoole said:
Offhand, changing Pluto’s planetary status comes to mind. But his full CV is available via Hayden Planetarium’s web site: haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/curriculum-vitae
Click to expand...
you can see from the “research publications” that he was an active researcher publishing regularly in peer-reviewed astrophysics & astronomy journals from mid-'80s (probably his PhD reserach) all through the '90s. Even though I don’t know astrophysics so well, the publications suggest he was collecting and analyzing data on supernovae and various other phenomena.

Sometime in the last 15 years or so he assumed this position at the Hayden Planetarium which is not an academic posting - so far as I know he’s not a professor with grad students and postdocs to keep churning out the publications. The later publications from 2000-onward suggest he now collaborates periodically with academic types on various big projects, puts together proposals for large research consortia, maybe making use of resources they have at the Planetarium.

If you want to know what “big” things he discovered - well that’s not necessarily the way physics research works. As to whether he’s a brilliant mind on the order of Einstein, maybe he is, maybe he isn’t; it doesn’t really matter. His publication record indicates that he is a competent scientist capable of doing original research. Not all research can be boiled down to headline-grabbing statements like “we discovered the Higgs boson” or “we observed cosmic inflation seconds after the Big Bang”, and even if you are part of one of those teams that does those noteworthy things, it just means you were lucky enough to join up with the right project as a grad student. It doesn’t mean you are any smarter than some guy reporting variations in the radio frequency red-shift from some distant supernova.

Tyson’s current position (including his celebrity and TV appearances) is probably due more to his personality, communication abilities, and charisma, but he wouldn’t be where he is if he didn’t prove himself to be a reasonably good scientist as well.
 
There are plenty of ways to stay current with cosmology without the agenda. The Bruno thing, and subsequent sermon on letting go of religion, and opening your mind was easily remedied with the push of one button on the clicker. I highly doubt Tyson is presenting anything that isn’t already known in modern cosmology. I am, however, really looking forward to the documentary about several scientists at cern in some theaters now called, “Particle fever”.
 
AmbroseSJ said:
Just watched my recorded episode two on evolution. sigh

Why do they HAVE TO make a point of discrediting intelligent design. Not the kind offered up by fundamentalists, but the kind that evolution was a part of the intelligent design?

What I really hate is the way ‘evolution’ is portrayed as an intelligent designer!!!

Evolution “decides” who survives, “chooses” the best specimen, “does not care” about maintaining the status quo etc. etc. “evolution” does EVERYTHING! But does science EVER question WHY evolution itself was chosen? No, of course not, because evolution already decided that! It is science’s encroachment into theology and philosophy that I find so galling. :mad:

Anyway, I noticed they mentioned the “great die off” but didn’t even mention the others that occurred prior to that one. So even their science is pure pop-culture. :rolleyes:

I’m not impressed with the show at all. As much as I like shows like Nova, this one is like a coffee table book, full of splashy full color pictures, but no content worth mentioning.
Click to expand...
If someone has an agenda to change your mind, it helps if they can gain the semantic high ground. Hence, gaining control of the language helps control the discourse with terms like “Marriage Equality” (for homosexual marriage), “Reproductive Freedom” (for abortion) to promote their agenda, as who can be against Equality and Freedom?

Likewise, “Creationism” is used as a convenient cudgel against anyone who believes God used the tools He created to shape this world (i.e., the majority of the American population, left and right, according to Gallup). Most any Christian is a “Creationist,” in that we believe God created and guides the universe, but the term has become mixed with Young Earth Creationists, vague ideas about the Scopes Monkey Trial and political repression, etc.

And you’re right, “Evolution” becomes a thinking, active agent in the minds of many who would argue that they are only using a metaphor, but speak as if it were a being, expand the role of natural selection into scientific realms in which its function is tenuous at best (such as “evolutionary psychology,” which manages to shoehorn every human behavior into natural selection a priori.)
 
Should we not expect friction when discussing our origins ? “Hath God really said…” has been around a long time. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks . I think the producers/writer/narrator profess atheism, and don’t hide it in Cosmos. Tyson has been quoted as saying he doesn’t understand how the 15% of scientists are still theistic. In true Horace Mann fashion, father of our public school system and signer of the Human Manifesto (dump God from the public sector as a rocket jettisons it’s boosters), Cosmos plays the pied piper to our children and culture. He has a touching moment recalling long ago interaction between master and disciple (Sagan and Tyson). “Come with me” Tyson amiably says. See the power of nature producing the "tree of life’, the "whole earth is one’, have a spiritual experience with cosmic knowledge. “Sweep away the need for a clock maker”, and we are “orphans” and were given no “notes”. “Set us free” (from theistic hindrances). “Our intelligence” will reveal the light of truth and power of materialism. We have the answers as sure as there is gravity. After fifty minutes of such assuredness Tyson humbly adds a disclaimer that “we don’t have all the answers”. Easy to say after he gets you to dump your theistic moorings. You are all his, and he has an out in case down the road his teaching is put on the ash heap of science as the steady state theory…All this in the face of a decent portrayal of Isaac Newton and his amazing discoveries. At the end of the ten minutes on Newton Tyson quickly and almost quietly says Newton had faith in God. Don’t see what has changed that says religion and science can’t mix now as then. It is another case of the strong status quo majority shunning diversity. This is certainly not the entire village teaching our kids. Even Carl Sagan would abhor this (not questioning established scientific authority)…Pray for discernment. Pray for scientists and teachers. Use this as a tool for teaching our kids of the age old battle between light and darkness, in the physical and spiritual realm, of which we are all partakers , being on one side or the other, as began back in Genesis.
 
New series is OK; don’t care for for the long animated cartoon scenes; I realize they are trying to educate kids but would have preferred human reenactors and actual settings as much as possible. It would have been much more interesting seeing the actual Royal Society in London than a cartoon version of it.

But the original Cosmos 1980 TV series is a lot better 👍 (even though old Carl was a secular humanist atheist and bashed religion every chance he could, much like the new host of the show does).

These science programs (and the occasional news coverage of science which is almost always about Evolution) always exaggerate the Religion / Science “War of Ideas” or whatever you want to call it. The Vatican and Catholicism love Science and it really was just the Galileo Trial and Copernicus was scared to publish and maybe some other incidents but it was relatively a brief period in Catholic Church History where the Church was openly hostile to Science, I think.

Science may still pose a problem for the very Conservative sects of Protestantism that literally interpret the Bible.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top