Neil deGrasse Tyson on Science, Truth, and the Future of America

crimsonaudio

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For the most part I agree with him - the problem is NDT acts as if science is never wrong, or that it always has the correct answer. The reality is it is an informed guessing game that gets more accurate as time (and data) are accumulated, but I've seen him suggest, over and over, that doubting scientific findings somehow makes you a science hater, ignorant, etc.

He's literally as dogmatic about science as the religious zealots are about their religion.

So while I agree with him, for the most part, I understand why there are those who have doubts about some scientific claims.
 

LA4Bama

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That video is, ironically, not based on science but on political imagery. The entire 20th c. has been an extended argument about the pros and cons of a scientific worldview, the limits of a scientific worldview. Remember, race was science, and homosexuality is a term coined by science to name a disorder, and Bolshevism was cutting edge sociology, and lobotomies and electric shock therapy were awesome uses of science. Now we can't wait to let science make our children into angels by pumping them full of mind altering substances. Today's science is just as likely as yesterday's to be tomorrow's ideology. Of course we should respect the cutting edge of science as the best available opinion, but common sense judgement is also a great source of sanity as well. For Tyson to pretend like things were, you know, better in the fifties when people just, you know, believed science, well, that's not science. It's not even fact. It myth. So while I can get behind the idea that we should have to learn from science, I find scientific propaganda no better than any other kind of propaganda.
 

81usaf92

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For the most part I agree with him - the problem is NDT acts as if science is never wrong, or that it always has the correct answer. The reality is it is an informed guessing game that gets more accurate as time (and data) are accumulated, but I've seen him suggest, over and over, that doubting scientific findings somehow makes you a science hater, ignorant, etc.

He's literally as dogmatic about science as the religious zealots are about their religion.

So while I agree with him, for the most part, I understand why there are those who have doubts about some scientific claims.

Pretty much what I think of NDT
 

CharminTide

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For the most part I agree with him - the problem is NDT acts as if science is never wrong, or that it always has the correct answer. The reality is it is an informed guessing game that gets more accurate as time (and data) are accumulated, but I've seen him suggest, over and over, that doubting scientific findings somehow makes you a science hater, ignorant, etc.

He's literally as dogmatic about science as the religious zealots are about their religion.

So while I agree with him, for the most part, I understand why there are those who have doubts about some scientific claims.
I don't really think that's what he's saying.

He would probably claim that the scientific method is the best means of determining physical truths. I think history tends to agree with that stance. He would probably also admit that different scientific questions have differing levels of attention and rigor applied to answering them. There is a reason that doctors don't spring into action after the very first published study of a new drug. And there's a reason that only study designs of a certain standard are acceptable when determining drug efficacy and safety.

But some questions have been subjected to tremendous scientific scrutiny and rigor. At this point, to deny gravity is not to deny a specific scientific claim; it's a denial of the entire scientific method that ultimately resulted in what NDT is calling "emergent truth." The same applies to evolution, anthropogenic climate change, and the Earth having a spherical shape. To deny the method without proposing a superior way of answering these questions is flawed thinking. To deny emergent truths in order to avoid real conversations is cowardice.

So I don't think he'd argue that science always has the answer. But I think he'd argue that science has the best blueprint for finding the answer.
 

crimsonaudio

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I don't really think that's what he's saying.

He would probably claim that the scientific method is the best means of determining physical truths. I think history tends to agree with that stance. He would probably also admit that different scientific questions have differing levels of attention and rigor applied to answering them. There is a reason that doctors don't spring into action after the very first published study of a new drug. And there's a reason that only study designs of a certain standard are acceptable when determining drug efficacy and safety.

But some questions have been subjected to tremendous scientific scrutiny and rigor. At this point, to deny gravity is not to deny a specific scientific claim; it's a denial of the entire scientific method that ultimately resulted in what NDT is calling "emergent truth." The same applies to evolution, anthropogenic climate change, and the Earth having a spherical shape. To deny the method without proposing a superior way of answering these questions is flawed thinking. To deny emergent truths in order to avoid real conversations is cowardice.

So I don't think he'd argue that science always has the answer. But I think he'd argue that science has the best blueprint for finding the answer.
Agreed, I wasn't talking about just this video, but his views in general.

He's generally correct, but again, he's a zealot. He just happens to be far more grounded than most
 

4Q Basket Case

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I have no problem with his advocacy. It's being closed down, outright hostile, to competing ideas that grates on me.

The very foundation is true science is that there are no sacred ideas. Literally everything is subject to question and challenge. The goal is always a better fact-based explanation.

Trying to insult or berate people into supporting your view is absolutely counter to that.
 

4Q Basket Case

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I have no problem with his advocacy. It's being closed down, outright hostile, to competing ideas that grates on me.

The very foundation is true science is that there are no sacred ideas. Literally everything is subject to question and challenge. The goal is always a better fact-based explanation.

Trying to insult or berate people into supporting your view is absolutely counter to that.
 

92tide

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I have no problem with his advocacy. It's being closed down, outright hostile, to competing ideas that grates on me.

The very foundation is true science is that there are no sacred ideas. Literally everything is subject to question and challenge. The goal is always a better fact-based explanation.

Trying to insult or berate people into supporting your view is absolutely counter to that.
he is not closed down to competing ideas. saying the world is 6,000 years old, or that intelligent design is responsible for creation, or that homeopathy works is not a competing idea.
 

bama_wayne1

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He is speaking the truth whether you choose to believe it or not. Whether convenient to your ideology or not.
I grew up in the 60's and 70's too, and evolution was taught as a theory....of course I was educated in those backward out of date schools provided on military bases.
 

MattinBama

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I enjoy NDT (also DDT's but that's a different subject). I don't agree with everything he says but he's passionate and he tries to educate. His appearances on podcasts and more long-form interviews are usually more entertaining than just blurbs. There is only one Carl Sagan so I'm not going to try and compare the two.

Carl Sagan is probably spinning in his grave at everything going on today as well so at least someone is out there promoting science. There are plenty of Sagan quotes that show how he would feel about a lot of these sillier theories that persist on the internet and in certain religious groups.
 

CharminTide

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he is not closed down to competing ideas. saying the world is 6,000 years old, or that intelligent design is responsible for creation, or that homeopathy works is not a competing idea.
Yeah, I assume he must mean closed down to "competing" non-scientific ideas? Otherwise the statement makes no sense.

If that's the case, I'm not sure that NDT is hostile to the idea of creationism, per se. But he probably would be hostile toward attempts to masquerade creationism and intelligent design as legitimate alternatives to evolution. The three are not equivalent ideas in any way, and only one belongs in a scientific textbook. I have no problem with creationism or intelligent design being taught in a religious setting, but they are non-scientific ideas without any foundation of evidence. The notion of "teach the controversy" is flawed. There is no controversy around evolution; all other scientific explanations have been rejected, and no alternative has survived scrutiny to challenge the theory of evolution.

If someone wants to hold a worldview rooted in creationism, that's fine. But the moment you try and pollute kids' education by pretending that creationism and evolution are equivalent scientific explanations, it's no longer fine.
 

92tide

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I grew up in the 60's and 70's too, and evolution was taught as a theory....of course I was educated in those backward out of date schools provided on military bases.
evolution is a theory. a lot of folks now a days seem to conflate theory with idea.

isaac asimov said:
"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."
 
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