Merged The Fabrications of Neil deGrasse Tyson

[Modified]

The last point: Uh, yeah. I'm pretty sure Tyson understands the difference between mean and medium. In common, imprecise use, describing more or less normally distributed data, saying "half of schools are below average" is stupid. Unless the mode is significantly removed from the median, and unless the headline and/or article actually explain distribution with any sophistication-- which is unlikely-- it's stupid.

If I saw that headline in a local paper, I would assume they were comparing local schools to a state or national average.

 

[Brainiac]

Tyson used a made-up quote, a falsity to attack Bush. Rather than confound the alleged point of Bush, it confounds TYSON's point.

You're not suggesting, are you, that anything in support of a cause you think is good is okay, regardless of whether it's true or not?

And when I see someone use dubious evidence like this to support his point, I have to wonder why. He didn't have anything better to use?

He wasn't attacking Bush. He was pointing out how religious fundamentalism's reliance on revelation instead of observation is ultimately harmful.

Whether or not the Bush quote was 100% accurate to 10 decimal places has nothing to do with the message he was attempting to convey. In fact, the same thing could be said for just about every "misquote" that has been brought up in this thread.

 

[jj]

Have to love this. Anyone who looks like a scientist needs to be torn down.

This is just like the new creationist meme: Why should we care about science, anyhow, we have God?

 

[marplots]

Have to love this. Anyone who looks like a scientist needs to be torn down.

This is just like the new creationist meme: Why should we care about science, anyhow, we have God?

Wait till they hear about the whoppers God's told.

 

[Meed]

I don't view it as scandalous as you're making it out, but this does somewhat lower the chances that I'd go out and see NDT talk if given the opportunity. The mean/median thing is not a big deal. The mean and median should be pretty close together in a typical distribution. The Bush thing is pretty bad, but perhaps unwittingly so (I don't thing his intention was to attack Bush).

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

No kidding. Which congressman? When?

Maxine Waters, December 9, 1998, as quoted in the Los Angels Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1998/dec/09/news/mn-52296

Not exactly the quote Tyson used, but it is the general idea, and Waters got teased about it a bit. But perhaps not enough because apparently she said it again in 2003 telling the Speaker of the House that they are 360 degrees apart on an issue.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

He wasn't attacking Bush. He was pointing out how religious fundamentalism's reliance on revelation instead of observation is ultimately harmful.

As you use the term, does GW Bush qualify as a "fundamentalist"?

Whether or not the Bush quote was 100% accurate to 10 decimal places has nothing to do with the message he was attempting to convey. In fact, the same thing could be said for just about every "misquote" that has been brought up in this thread.

It wasn't accurate even to the sign. Tyson flatters scientific illiterates by allowing them to feel smart relative to bible-thumping religious warriors, even if he has to falsify material to make Bush into a bible-thumping partisan. Charles "I enjoy sodomizing pre-teen boys" (exact quote) Gibson did this to Sarah Palin, too.

 

[fuelair]

Hmm . . . sensitive electronics + zero-G + graphite dust . . . let's see . . .

Yep, you got it in one!!!

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Well, I'm convinced. I'm downgrading NdGT from a AAAAAAA rating to a mere AAAAAA. That'll learn him!

 

[Robin]

What GWB didn't say about star names

There are two things that I hate to do - side with the religious right and spoil a good story against George W Bush. But I have to do both here.

The RR have been saying a lot about this video from TAM 2008 http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/watch/2008/06/19/george-bush-and-star-names in which Neil deGrasse Tyson makes some derogatory remarks about a speech that GWB supposedly made in the week following 9/11. In particular they have been saying that the speech is an invention from beginning to end.

Now I don't think that Tyson made it up, but as far as I can see the speech is entirely mythical and so Tyson is mistaken.

The gist of Tyson's claim is that GWB, a couple of days after 9/11, tried to distinguish the US from the Islamic terrorists by saying "Our God is the God who named the stars". Tyson then goes on to say that two thirds of the stars that have names have Arabic names.

GWB did not make this speech, as far as I have been able to find out and did not utter the phrase mentioned. About two years later he quoted Isaiah about God naming the stars to the relatives of the victims of the Columbia Shuttle disaster. He did not use that phrase, said nothing about "our God" and it had nothing to do with Muslims.

Again, I am sure that Tyson made the remarks in good faith, but he was mistaken.

I am no great GWB fan, but I will give him that he pretty quickly and sharply called out the people who were attacking and abusing Muslims in the wake of 9/11 "that's not the America I know". It is unfair to suggest that he contributed to any of that if he didn't.

So I think that it is unfair that the video is still out there on his Hayden Planetarium page.

Also, it is hardly a good look for so called skeptics who all fell for the story hook, line and sinker.

 

[PixyMisa]

He wasn't attacking Bush. He was pointing out how religious fundamentalism's reliance on revelation instead of observation is ultimately harmful.

Whether or not the Bush quote was 100% accurate to 10 decimal places has nothing to do with the message he was attempting to convey.

If the evidence you offer in support for your position is a quote you made up, then it has rather a lot to do with the message you are attempting to convey.

 

[ctamblyn]

There's another thread on the topic in SMMT (ETA: oops, GS&P):

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=283095

 

[Robin]

Oops, I started another thread on the subject before seeing this.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Oops, I started another thread on the subject before seeing this.

This is why we can't have nice threads.

 

[Robin]

Wow, what shocking transgressions.

NDT seemed to think that the congress woman who made a minor slip of the tongue like the "360 degrees" instead of "180 degrees" deserved to be slagged off in a speech and yet his complete misrepresentation of GWB using an entirely fictional quote is nothing at all?

That seems a little one sided.

Let's go through this again.

The quote is entirely fictional. GWB did (two years later) say something about God naming the stars, quoted from Isaiah, but he did not say "Our God", it was nothing to do with 9/11 and nothing whatsoever to do with Muslims.

Nearly everything he said in that video is completely wrong.

Now NDT may not have realised the story was not true, he may just have been careless and not checked his facts.

But in my books, if you inadvertantly tell an untruth about someone that paints them in a bad light, then you set the record straight as soon as possible and you apologise to them.

As far as I know NDT has done neither. Furthermore the video itself is still available on his page at Hayden Planetarium, which page is linked from his Twitter account and is on YouTube with views over 70,000.

And as I said in the other thread, it is not a good look that he and all of the alleged skeptics at TAM 2008 were gullible enough to believe this story in the first place.

 

[Robin]

He wasn't attacking Bush. He was pointing out how religious fundamentalism's reliance on revelation instead of observation is ultimately harmful

If so then it has pretty much backfired on him, hasn't it?

He somehow forgot to take his own advice and use observation to check if his story was true or not. Instead he believed it because someone revealed it to him and his audience believed it because he revealed it to them.

Maybe in future he will find that his reliance on revelation rather than observation is ultimately harmful.

 

[Robin]

Anyone saying that he is not attacking Bush, just watch the video: http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/watch/2008/06/19/george-bush-and-star-names

At least he should have it taken down on sites where he has some influence over the content.

 

[Robin]

The rest of the religious right's criticisms of NDT seem rather overblown. A slight inaccuracy about Giordano Bruno in Cosmos, for which he did not even write the script becomes a federal case. I wonder if there are any documentaries without at least small inaccuracies.

The GWB one just kind of irritates me.

 

[PixyMisa]

But in my books, if you inadvertantly tell an untruth about someone that paints them in a bad light, then you set the record straight as soon as possible and you apologise to them.

Exactly.

 

[Joey McGee]

Whoa Neil makes clothes? I'd for sure wear his threads...

...ok this thread is not interesting at all...