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Merged The Fabrications of Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is good as an intermediary of science. That's about it. I don't think any of his contemporaries would vote him in the top 1000 of physicist of our time, but he's good at what he does, no doubt. Don't make the mistake of equating having high IQ with being right on social issues*.

*I'm prepared to give numerous examples.

Also, I realize he's a lot smarter than me. :)
 
Hercules Rockefeller said:
Neil deGrasse Tyson is good as an intermediary of science. That's about it. I don't think any of his contemporaries would vote him in the top 1000 of physicist of our time, but he's good at what he does, no doubt.
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Actually, I think his willingness to fabricate stories does raise some doubt about whether he's good at what he does. How is science served by an intermediary who repeats the Astronaut Pen canard, instead of reporting real history and engaging his audience in the real engineering challenges?

ETA: And some of his stories are all the weirder, if they're fabricated. It's one thing to point to real evidence that science education is lacking. It's another thing to encourage one's audience to think science education is lacking, by presenting a mythical account of such a lack. It seems like Tyson wants to have it both ways: He wants to be counted among the serious scientists of our time; but he also wants to be a popular figure in science evangelism, and isn't above indulging in truthiness to achieve that goal.
 
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theprestige said:
Actually, I think his willingness to fabricate stories does raise some doubt about whether he's good at what he does. How is science served by an intermediary who repeats the Astronaut Pen canard, instead of reporting real history and engaging his audience in the real engineering challenges?

ETA: And some of his stories are all the weirder, if they're fabricated. It's one thing to point to real evidence that science education is lacking. It's another thing to encourage one's audience to think science education is lacking, by presenting a mythical account of such a lack. It seems like Tyson wants to have it both ways: He wants to be counted among the serious scientists of our time; but he also wants to be a popular figure in science evangelism, and isn't above indulging in truthiness to achieve that goal.
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I think we agree. What I'm saying is that he's certainly succesful as a popularizer of science. As a layman, I will look elsewhere for information.
 
Earthborn said:
Perhaps he isn't literally quoting any one particular headline, but making up an example headline that is similar to headlines he has seen. Similar to for example this, or this.
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Except that both of those examples are perfectly cromulent, legitimately scientific claims. If it's true newspaper editors understand statistics in headlines better than Tyson does, than we probably need to seriously reconsider the value of Tyson's contributions to society.
 
OMG! A human being got something..........WRONG!!!!

Shocking! Utterly shocking!
 
PixyMisa said:
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.
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But that wasn't the evidence in support of his position. That was just a little anecdote to get people interested as a lead in to a completely different topic.

I do agree, though, that clearly he misquoted Bush, and even seems to have done so intentionally. The point of disagreement is that I think he did it to make it more interesting and spice up his talk a little, not to make his position more convincing, because as I said the quote was unrelated to the point he was making.
 
After watching the first espisode of the new Cosmos recently, I found myself distinctly disappointed that it was riddled with inaccuracies and outright fabrications when it came to history. Especially when he contradicted himself twice.

I like Tyson, and find him quite informative on his subject of expertise; but once he gets off of that subject, anything he says has to be taken with a very large grain of salt. He may be good at what he does, but he's definitely falling short of filling Sagan's shoes.
 
Gawdzilla said:
This is easily the most pathetic attack on NdGT I've seen to date.
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Wait, what?

Have there been other attacks on Tyson? More serious attacks?

I mean, this fabrication thing is mildly dumb, but easily remedied. It only becomes a real problem if he persists in it. I hope you're not sitting on evidence of other, more serious issues. Like, say, historical inaccuracies in the Cosmos reboot. Though, even that wouldn't be too bad. It wouldn't be like a historian and history evangelist, always getting wrong basic facts about Pearl Harbor to get people interested in history. Because that would be pretty bad.
 
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Roboramma said:
But that wasn't the evidence in support of his position. That was just a little anecdote to get people interested as a lead in to a completely different topic.
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Except that it was entirely untrue.

I do agree, though, that clearly he misquoted Bush, and even seems to have done so intentionally. The point of disagreement is that I think he did it to make it more interesting and spice up his talk a little, not to make his position more convincing, because as I said the quote was unrelated to the point he was making.
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If you're a populariser of science and you either (a) have to, (b) choose to, or (c) don't care if you lie to spice up your talk, you have a serious problem.

If you don't see this as a serious problem, you have an even more serious problem.
 
PixyMisa said:
Except that it was entirely untrue.


If you're a populariser of science and you either (a) have to, (b) choose to, or (c) don't care if you lie to spice up your talk, you have a serious problem.

If you don't see this as a serious problem, you have an even more serious problem.
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I actually agree with the above. I'm also concerned with the dishonesty inherent in the way that quote was presented.

That wasn't the part of your position that I was disagreeing with. Do you agree that the quote wasn't used as evidence for his position?
 
Roboramma said:
I actually agree with the above. I'm also concerned with the dishonesty inherent in the way that quote was presented.

That wasn't the part of your position that I was disagreeing with. Do you agree that the quote wasn't used as evidence for his position?
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I'll accept that; I haven't seen the full talk. (Anyone got a link?)

The telling of the anecdote did have its own point, though, which is what I was really referring to.
 
PixyMisa said:
I'll accept that; I haven't seen the full talk. (Anyone got a link?)

The telling of the anecdote did have its own point, though, which is what I was really referring to.
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That's fair.

Here's the video, that quote comes from about 24 minutes in or so:
 
luchog said:
After watching the first espisode of the new Cosmos recently, I found myself distinctly disappointed that it was riddled with inaccuracies and outright fabrications when it came to history. Especially when he contradicted himself twice.
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This sounds like one of those letters to the BBC, that Monty Python used to put on between skits.
 
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