I have never been much of a fan of Mark Twain, but he came up with a pithy quote now and again. One of my favorites is apropos to a large category of pontifications emanating from celebrity “scientist” Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.
It is easy to be irritated by Tyson and not just because his style is so grating. Last week, Sean Davis over at the Federalist website calls out Tyson in a couple of articles titled Super Scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson Doesn’t Understand Statistics and Did Neil deGrasse Tyson Just Try to Justify Blatant Quote Fabrication? I especially liked the header text on the first article, “Bro, Do You Even Science?” and the subtitle on the second, “If Neil deGrasse Tyson is an honest broker, why do the facts in his stories keep changing.” These are a great pair of articles and I recommend you read them both. Here is a quote that captures their flavor (go to the original article to access the links in the quote):
So, contrary to what Tyson claimed about how nuanced and subtle and unique and contextual his presentation last week was, we have evidence that he’s been recycling the same tired trope and same non-existent quotes for years. Like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one. The most baffling aspect of the whole thing, though, is why he feels the need to manufacture proof of how journalists and politicians are bad at math. Of course they’re bad at math. Of course they’re not very bright at a whole host of things.
Proving that water is wet, however, should not be this difficult. All you need to do to prove that politicians are stupid is pay attention. Or, if that’s too hard, you can spend 5 seconds on Google. Likely fewer if you know what you’re doing.
Neil deGrasse Tyson’s participation in the Cosmos television series is bad enough that the Discovery Institute has felt compelled to engage with his prevarications or misrememberings or whatever they are. They started with a series of articles, but it has gotten so bad they have decided to write a book. It is really that bad and, based on history, this new Cosmos will most probably make it into the government school system just like the old one. This is another great reason to homeschool.
Betty Blonde #167 – 03/06/2009
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