[TV] Cosmos (2014)

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:47 am

My wife is still frustrated that the show presents information without talking about how they figured this stuff out. The segment last night on Titan, the climate and seas of liquid methane/ethane, and the ship going under the surface to "explore for life" were interesting but she kept saying "how do they KNOW that?!" I understand the audience they're aiming at, but since observation and experimentation is such a big part of the scientific method, it would be nice if they occasionally showed how that worked rather than just presenting results.

To the show's credit, we spent the next 30 minutes researching Titan and Cassini and all of the information that's been collected and studied about Titan, to try to figure out how they know that. Turns out, even NASA does a bad job of publishing the methods and analysis by which they derive their conclusions.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:51 am

They do have to work within the confines of a 60-minute commercial-supported show. In order to cover the topics they want to cover, they would need hundreds of episodes if they went into deep explanation of everything.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:52 am

There are now three events. Film runs just over a week, Interactive runs first half, Music runs second half.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:54 am

Isgrimnur wrote:There are now three events. Film runs just over a week, Interactive runs first half, Music runs second half.

Because it wasn't big enough as a music festival with like possibly literally a thousand bands playing?

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:55 am

Zaxxon wrote:They do have to work within the confines of a 60-minute commercial-supported show. In order to cover the topics they want to cover, they would need hundreds of episodes if they went into deep explanation of everything.

Speaking of which, I loved seeing the Boeing ads. Almost felt like PBS.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:58 am

LordMortis wrote:
Isgrimnur wrote:There are now three events. Film runs just over a week, Interactive runs first half, Music runs second half.
Because it wasn't big enough as a music festival with like possibly literally a thousand bands playing?

2000+ per the website.

Rumpy · Post by **Rumpy** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 6:17 pm

My Dad and I got caught up on the first episode last night. We both loved it. Tyson is a great presenter with a similar enthusiasm that Sagan had, and that moment near the end was especially touching. We found it quite inspiring.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 7:21 pm

9:00 ABC Resurrection 3.0/8 10.80
FOX Cosmos 1.9/5 4.91
NBC Believe 1.4/4 6.51
CBS The Good Wife 1.3/3 8.38

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/0 ... is/245084/

Ratings powerhouse.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:30 pm

Rip wrote:
9:00 ABC Resurrection 3.0/8 10.80
FOX Cosmos 1.9/5 4.91
NBC Believe 1.4/4 6.51
CBS The Good Wife 1.3/3 8.38
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/0 ... is/245084/

Ratings powerhouse.

I see you've been reading the Drudgereport. FWIW it was the most viewed show for Fox the entire night.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Tue Mar 18, 2014 1:31 am

It might fare better if you add up all 10 channels that are airing it.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Tue Mar 18, 2014 11:25 am

Now I wish some channel would re-show the old James Burke Connections show.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:56 pm

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 3:48 pm

Boudreaux wrote:My wife is still frustrated that the show presents information without talking about how they figured this stuff out. The segment last night on Titan, the climate and seas of liquid methane/ethane, and the ship going under the surface to "explore for life" were interesting but she kept saying "how do they KNOW that?!" I understand the audience they're aiming at, but since observation and experimentation is such a big part of the scientific method, it would be nice if they occasionally showed how that worked rather than just presenting results.

To the show's credit, we spent the next 30 minutes researching Titan and Cassini and all of the information that's been collected and studied about Titan, to try to figure out how they know that. Turns out, even NASA does a bad job of publishing the methods and analysis by which they derive their conclusions.

My wife has the EXACT same reaction. I know they can't get into much depth on methodology, but they could give at least a little bit of background on what they're basing conclusions on. As it is, you have to trust that there's evidence to back things up.

It's a little frustrating when their main message seems to be "Science is trustworthy because it bases things on evidence", then not presenting the evidence they're basing things on.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:12 pm

For some reason, I kept skipping this thread. Why?

Because I didn't want spoilers.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:17 pm

Blackhawk wrote:For some reason, I kept skipping this thread. Why?

Because I didn't want spoilers.

Spoiler:

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:19 pm

Chaz wrote:It's a little frustrating when their main message seems to be "Science is trustworthy because it bases things on evidence", then not presenting the evidence they're basing things on.

I think the message isn't "science is trustworthy...", the message is "Science is... well, see for yourself." The sad thing I would concur is that it would be nice if they put more of a stool in front of us to help us look.

...

And Connections might be my favorite ever.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:27 pm

I guess my thing is that the concepts they're talking about are huge and hard to conceptualize already, so without giving a concrete example of how we figured this stuff out, it gets trickier to accept as fact. Like when they talked about the structure of the universe and the massive number of galaxies that make it up: obviously there's no way they could have simply observed that. There was some methodology that got us to that conclusion.

Without even touching on why, I worry that it's treading awfully close to asking for acceptance on blind faith. With no evidence presented, "The universe is made up of billions of galaxies" isn't any easier to believe than "There's a God, and he created everything in seven days, 6,000 years ago." The former has evidence though, so show us it!

I know they're trying to move things along as well as avoiding dating the program for future viewing, but by keeping a solid "this is what we know now, and we might be proven wrong later, and we'll probably know even MORE" would avoid that, I think.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:34 pm

Your point is good. Science is a process of ongoing discovery while religion is an unchanging body of revealed knowledge; emphasizing scientific conclusions blurs that distinction. At the same time, getting too deep into "how we know" risks boring people and takes time away from the wonderment that they're going for. Most viewers are tuning in more for a flashy survey course rather than for a history lesson. Given that Cosmos only has 13 hours -- minus commercial breaks -- to address the entirety of scientific knowledge, that's got to be a hard balance to strike.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:44 pm

Kraken wrote:Your point is good. Science is a process of ongoing discovery while religion is an unchanging body of revealed knowledge; emphasizing scientific conclusions blurs that distinction. At the same time, getting too deep into "how we know" risks boring people and takes time away from the wonderment that they're going for. Most viewers are tuning in more for a flashy survey course rather than for a history lesson. Given that Cosmos only has 13 hours -- minus commercial breaks -- to address the entirety of scientific knowledge, that's got to be a hard balance to strike.

Yes.

Smutly · Post by **Smutly** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 8:26 pm

cheeba · Post by **cheeba** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:09 am

Brian wrote:

I find this insanely hilarious for some reason.

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 9:29 am

But it do.

noxiousdog · Post by **noxiousdog** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:37 pm

I will never understand race humor. I'm not judging, I just have no way to tell what is funny and what isn't.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:50 pm

noxiousdog wrote:I will never understand race humor. I'm not judging, I just have no way to tell what is funny and what isn't.

I thought the same thing about these two picture. Sometimes race humor makes me laugh out loud and I don't want to piss in anyone's cheerios and I don't like to be the PC police... but all I see is the offensive and not the funny. I assumed it was just me.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:52 pm

I don't see the humor here, either. But I recognize that many do. Humor is the juxtaposition of reality and expectation (or at least it can be). Is this some combination of sciencey stuff with Ebonics or a black man and intelligentsia? I don't get it, and I don't really try.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:55 pm

It's a quote attributed to Oscar Gamble, a former Yankee, while discussing their management issues.

cheeba · Post by **cheeba** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 2:18 pm

It's the absurdity of the quote, especially against the backdrop of this dream-like, cosmic wonder. Is it racist? Sure, probably. But we should be able to laugh at race as racial differences, real and/or perceived, tend to be inherently funny. That's why Stuff White People Like is also funny.

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 2:20 pm

Tyson is a brilliant man, but that picture of him looking up in wonder with the quote "but it do", which is probably the funniest example of ebonics ever, made me laugh. It's the silliness of it being so far off target that made it worked.

Kurth · Post by **Kurth** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 2:23 pm

cheeba wrote:It's the absurdity of the quote, especially against the backdrop of this dream-like, cosmic wonder. Is it racist? Sure, probably. But we should be able to laugh at race as racial differences, real and/or perceived, tend to be inherently funny. That's why Stuff White People Like is also funny.

I'm happy to laugh at my own race. But not anyone else's. That's just me and what I'm comfortable with. Not making a unilateral declaration of what's right.

cheeba · Post by **cheeba** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 2:43 pm

Kurth wrote:I'm happy to laugh at my own race. But not anyone else's. That's just me and what I'm comfortable with. Not making a unilateral declaration of what's right.

That's unfortunate. You must not be able to watch pretty much any popular comedian.

Kurth · Post by **Kurth** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 3:20 pm

cheeba wrote:
Kurth wrote:I'm happy to laugh at my own race. But not anyone else's. That's just me and what I'm comfortable with. Not making a unilateral declaration of what's right.
That's unfortunate. You must not be able to watch pretty much any popular comedian.

I probably couldn't name many popular comedians (excluding TV and film stars).

That said, I'm also happy to laugh at someone else laughing at their own race. I just wouldn't be comfortable picking up those jokes and making them my own. Again, no judgment. This is all highly context dependent.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Thu May 15, 2014 12:10 pm

The opening story about Giordano Bruno struck me suspiciously as a little to convenient and it was:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... ience.html

What Cosmos doesn’t mention is that Bruno’s conflict with the Catholic Church was theological, not scientific, even if it did involve his wild—and occasionally correct—guesses about the universe. As Discover magazine’s Corey Powell pointed out, the philosophers of the 16th century weren’t anything like scientists in the modern sense. Bruno, for instance, was a “pandeist,” which is the belief that God had transformed himself into all matter and ceased to exist as a distinct entity in himself. He believed in all sort of magic and spirits, and extrapolated those views far beyond his ideas about the infinity of the universe. In contrast to contemporaries who drew more modest conclusions from their similar ideas, Bruno agitated for an elaborate counter-theology, and was (unlike the poor, humble outcast portrayed in Cosmos) supported by powerful royal benefactors. The church didn’t even have a position on whether the Earth orbited the sun, and didn’t bring it up at Bruno’s trial. While the early-modern religious persecution certainly can’t be denied, Bruno was killed because he flamboyantly denied basic tenets of the Catholic faith, not because religious authorities were out to suppress all “freedom of thought.”

De Grasse is a great scientist but not much of an historian.

He also doesn't think much of philosophy or asking questions that he doesn't think can be answered:

http://theweek.com/article/index/261042 ... philistine

Neil deGrasse Tyson may be a gifted popularizer of science, but when it comes to humanistic learning more generally, he is a philistine. Some of us suspected this on the basis of the historically and theologically inept portrayal of Giordano Bruno in the opening episode of Tyson's reboot of Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

But now it's been definitively demonstrated by a recent interview in which Tyson sweepingly dismisses the entire history of philosophy. Actually, he doesn't just dismiss it. He goes much further — to argue that undergraduates should actively avoid studying philosophy at all. Because, apparently, asking too many questions "can really mess you up."

Yes, he really did say that. Go ahead, listen for yourself, beginning at 20:19 — and behold the spectacle of an otherwise intelligent man and gifted teacher sounding every bit as anti-intellectual as a corporate middle manager or used-car salesman. He proudly proclaims his irritation with "asking deep questions" that lead to a "pointless delay in your progress" in tackling "this whole big world of unknowns out there." When a scientist encounters someone inclined to think philosophically, his response should be to say, "I'm moving on, I'm leaving you behind, and you can't even cross the street because you're distracted by deep questions you've asked of yourself. I don't have time for that."

"I don't have time for that."

Kind of strange for a presumably otherwise intelligent man.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Thu May 15, 2014 12:25 pm

Grifman wrote:Kind of strange for a presumably otherwise intelligent man.

Not if you listen to the clip and don't take the out-of-context quotes in the article as the truth.

What he doesn't like is wasting time on "what is the meaning of meaning" and other circular or pointless tangents such as "why do we call that a table". Ultimately, does it matter why we call it a "meter" or is it okay to accept the unit of measurement as a basis to begin measuring without trying to first decipher how we decided it?

That's what he's saying wastes time and can mess you up.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Thu May 15, 2014 12:36 pm

Paingod wrote:
Grifman wrote:Kind of strange for a presumably otherwise intelligent man.
Not if you listen to the clip and don't take the out-of-context quotes in the article as the truth.

What he doesn't like is wasting time on "what is the meaning of meaning" and other circular or pointless tangents such as "why do we call that a table". Ultimately, does it matter why we call it a "meter" or is it okay to accept the unit of measurement as a basis to begin measuring without trying to first decipher how we decided it?

That's what he's saying wastes time and can mess you up.

No, that's not what he is just saying, others have called him out on this:

http://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014 ... hilosophy/

Here's an excerpt:

Neil made his latest disparaging remarks about philosophy as a guest on the Nerdist podcast [4], following a statement by one of the hosts, who said that he majored in philosophy. Neil’s comeback was: “That can really mess you up.” The host then added: “I always felt like maybe there was a little too much question asking in philosophy [of science]?” And here is the rest of the pertinent dialogue:

dGT: I agree.

interviewer: At a certain point it’s just futile.

dGT: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. My concern here is that the philosophers believe they are actually asking deep questions about nature. And to the scientist it’s, what are you doing? Why are you concerning yourself with the meaning of meaning?

(another) interviewer: I think a healthy balance of both is good.

dGT: Well, I’m still worried even about a healthy balance. Yeah, if you are distracted by your questions so that you can’t move forward, you are not being a productive contributor to our understanding of the natural world. And so the scientist knows when the question “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” is a pointless delay in our progress.

[insert predictable joke by one interviewer, imitating the clapping of one hand]

dGT: How do you define clapping? All of a sudden it devolves into a discussion of the definition of words. And I’d rather keep the conversation about ideas. And when you do that don’t derail yourself on questions that you think are important because philosophy class tells you this. The scientist says look, I got all this world of unknown out there, I’m moving on, I’m leaving you behind. You can’t even cross the street because you are distracted by what you are sure are deep questions you’ve asked yourself. I don’t have the time for that. [Note to the reader: I, like Neil, live and work in Manhattan, and I can assure you that I am quite adept at crossing the perilous streets of the metropolis.]

interviewer [not one to put too fine a point on things, apparently]: I also felt that it was a fat load of crap, as one could define what crap is and the essential qualities that make up crap: how you grade a philosophy paper? [5]

dGT [laughing]: Of course I think we all agree you turned out okay.

interviewer: Philosophy was a good Major for comedy, I think, because it does get you to ask a lot of ridiculous questions about things.

dGT: No, you need people to laugh at your ridiculous questions.

interviewers: It’s a bottomless pit. It just becomes nihilism.

dGT: nihilism is a kind of philosophy.

The latter was pretty much the only correct observation about philosophy in the whole dialogue, as far as I can tell.

He pretty much dismisses all philosophical inquiry.

As for your allegation that de Grasse's position is being distorted, I'll leave you with this from the author of that last article I linked to:

Postscript: I sent a preview of this essay to Neil, and a frank, civil email exchange has followed it over the past few days. However, I’m afraid neither one of us has really conceded an inch to the other’s position. We’ll see if we can do better in person over a couple of drinks.

As for a possible reply from Neil, I have, of course, invited him to submit one. Here is his reply, verbatim: “I generally reply to things if, and only if, they are writing about something that I judge to be untrue about me, or that they have misunderstood about what I have said. Neither is the case with you.”

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu May 15, 2014 12:44 pm

Grifman wrote:He pretty much dismisses all philosophical inquiry.

He's dismissing it in the realm of scientific inquiry. And as someone that has devoted his life to it, obviously that means he has no use for it.

The shorthand that I've boiled down into my head is that science is very much concerned with the majority of questions: who, what, where, when. As to how far religion and philosophy concern themselves with them depends on the group.

The deviation between science and (religion or philosophy), to me, is that science adds 'how' to the list, where the others are trying to answer 'why'. Science doesn't concern itself with why, and indeed, in most cases, doesn't believe that there is a why, making it a waste of time to even think about it.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Thu May 15, 2014 12:53 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:
Grifman wrote:He pretty much dismisses all philosophical inquiry.
He's dismissing it in the realm of scientific inquiry. And as someone that has devoted his life to it, obviously that means he has no use for it.

The shorthand that I've boiled down into my head is that science is very much concerned with the majority of questions: who, what, where, when. As to how far religion and philosophy concern themselves with them depends on the group.

The deviation between science and (religion or philosophy), to me, is that science adds 'how' to the list, where the others are trying to answer 'why'. Science doesn't concern itself with why, and indeed, in most cases, doesn't believe that there is a why, making it a waste of time to even think about it.

It's as if you didn't read the second article. Here's just one place Tyson is wrong according to the author:

You and a number of your colleagues keep asking what philosophy (of science, in particular) has done for science, lately. There are two answers here: first, much philosophy of science is simply not concerned with advancing science, which means that it is a category mistake (a useful philosophical concept [11]) to ask why it didn’t. The main objective of philosophy of science is to understand how science works and, when it fails to work (which it does, occasionally), why this was the case. It is epistemology applied to the scientific enterprise. And philosophy is not the only discipline that engages in studying the workings of science: so do history and sociology of science, and yet I never heard you dismiss those fields on the grounds that they haven’t discovered the Higgs boson. Second, I suggest you actually look up some technical papers in philosophy of science [12] to see how a number of philosophers, scientists and mathematicians actually do collaborate to elucidate the conceptual and theoretical aspects of research on everything from evolutionary theory and species concepts to interpretations of quantum mechanics and the structure of superstring theory. Those papers, I maintain, do constitute a positive contribution of philosophy to the progress of science — at least if by science you mean an enterprise deeply rooted in the articulation of theory and its relationship with empirical evidence.

Hmm, it would seem to me to be important for scientists to understand when and why science works and doesn't work, don't you think? Should scientists dismiss this line of inquiry out of hand?

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Thu May 15, 2014 12:53 pm

Grifman wrote:He pretty much dismisses all philosophical inquiry.

I suppose it depends on your point of view... which is what it's all about, right?

To him, as Isgrimnur says, the "How" is what matters and not the "Why" - and it makes perfect sense for a scientist to feel that way.

Why did life evolve on earth? is a useless question and a complete waste of time to him. How did life evolve on earth? is a much more meaningful question for understanding the mechanics of it.

I would wager that he feels "philosophy of science" is a contradictory term and he'd prefer to simply chase "scientific inquiry" and leave behind any "why" that doesn't actually substitute a "how".

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Thu May 15, 2014 12:56 pm

Paingod wrote:
Grifman wrote:He pretty much dismisses all philosophical inquiry.
I suppose it depends on your point of view... which is what it's all about, right?

To him, as Isgrimnur says, the "How" is what matters and not the "Why" - and it makes perfect sense for a scientist to feel that way.

Why did life evolve on earth? is a useless question and a complete waste of time to him. How did life evolve on earth? is a much more meaningful question for understanding the mechanics of it.

But that's not the entirely of the field of philosophical inquiry, not even close. Yet Tyson dismisses it all. See my post above.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu May 15, 2014 12:57 pm

Paingod wrote:
Grifman wrote:Kind of strange for a presumably otherwise intelligent man.
Not if you listen to the clip and don't take the out-of-context quotes in the article as the truth.

What he doesn't like is wasting time on "what is the meaning of meaning" and other circular or pointless tangents such as "why do we call that a table". Ultimately, does it matter why we call it a "meter" or is it okay to accept the unit of measurement as a basis to begin measuring without trying to first decipher how we decided it?

That's what he's saying wastes time and can mess you up.

If you are trust that the responder in the comments is really NDT then he is saying:

And to Charles – what is not conveyed in this interview (my bad to omit it) is that my critique applies solely to those trained in Philosophy from the 20th century onward – the era of Modern Physics: Quantum & Relativity. By my read of history, the formidable brain power of Philosophers (people with PhDs from departments of Philosophy) has made vanishingly little contribution to the advance of the physical sciences in this era. And any any important advances that one might claim to be philosophical in nature were made my physicists.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Thu May 15, 2014 1:03 pm

LordMortis wrote:If you are trust that the responder in the comments is really NDT then he is saying:

And to Charles – what is not conveyed in this interview (my bad to omit it) is that my critique applies solely to those trained in Philosophy from the 20th century onward – the era of Modern Physics: Quantum & Relativity. By my read of history, the formidable brain power of Philosophers (people with PhDs from departments of Philosophy) has made vanishingly little contribution to the advance of the physical sciences in this era. And any any important advances that one might claim to be philosophical in nature were made my physicists.

And contra to this assertion:

Finally, Neil, please have some respect for your mother. I don’t mean your biological one (though that too, of course!), I am referring to the intellectual mother of all science, i.e., philosophy. As you yourself seem to have a dim perception of (see your example of Newton), one of the roles of philosophy over the past two and half millennia has been to prepare the ground for the birth and eventual intellectual independence of a number of scientific disciplines. But contra what you seem to think, this hasn’t stopped with the Scientific Revolution, or with the advent of quantum mechanics. Physics became independent with Galileo and Newton (so much so that the latter actually inspired David Hume and Immanuel Kant to do something akin to natural philosophizing in ethics and metaphysics); biology awaited Darwin (whose mentor, William Whewell, was a prominent philosopher, and the guy who coined the term “scientist,” in analogy to artist, of all things); psychology spun out of its philosophical cocoon thanks to William James, as recently (by the standards of the history of philosophy) as the late 19th century. Linguistics followed through a few decades later (ask Chomsky); and cognitive science is still deeply entwined with philosophy of mind (see any book by Daniel Dennett). Do you see a pattern of, ahem, progress there? And the story doesn’t end with the newly gained independence of a given field of empirical research. As soon as physics, biology, psychology, linguistics and cognitive science came into their own, philosophers turned to the analysis (and sometimes even criticism) of those same fields seen from the outside: hence the astounding growth during the last century of so called “philosophies of”: of physics (and, more specifically, even of quantum physics), of biology (particularly of evolutionary biology), of psychology, of language, and of mind.