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Monday, March 10, 2014

Cosmos, with Neil deGrasse Tyson

I watched part of the first part of Cosmos, a series about (what else) the cosmos, on Fox TV and also on the National Graphic Channel, on Sunday evenings, with Neil deGrasse Tyson as narrator. This is an upgrade of a previous series, with the same name, with Carl Sagan as narrator, which may have been the most widely watched TV series of all time. It looks like the new one is going to be a great series, with great graphics, and magnificent subject matter, but Tyson unfortunately started it off by quoting Sagan, who said that "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." (Cosmos, p. 4. New York, Random House, 1980.) That's an interesting statement. It may even be true, although I personally don't believe it, because the Bible contradicts it -- the Bible says that there is a God who is superior to the cosmos. And it's not a scientific statement at all. It's a philosophical statement, one that can't be proved or disproved by science. Sagan didn't do any experiments that showed it to be true. Neither did Tyson, or anyone else.

Here's the Wikipedia page on the new series. The Sagan series also has a Wikipedia article -- see the "previous series" link above.

Thanks for reading.

4 comments:

David W. Rankin Jr. said...

My problem with the show and Tyson was that they desperately tried to make Giordano Bruno a scientific martyr. He wasn't. It was the scientific community of the day that rejected his scientific views.

He was killed for being a heretic because he was a universalist, a unitarian/Arian, and a bunch of other -ists that got people killed in the 1600s. His beliefs on the order of the universe were barely mentioned in his conviction orders.

Martin LaBar said...

I didn't watch long enough to see that.

The Wikipedia article on Bruno agrees with you on the cause of his execution:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

Thanks.

atlibertytosay said...

I found it of note that they mentioned Jesus, amongst other religious icons as certainties for birth ~ placing them in the last minute of the cosmic calendar.

I was skeptical because the executive producer, Seth McFarlane is an atheist as was Sagan, and as is Tyson (who claims agnostic over atheist).

The show I felt, while visually stunning, was harsh on science in the church.

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks, atlibertytosay. I haven't seen more of the series, but the previous commenter, on Giordano Bruno, probably was reinforcing your point about science in the church.