We can allow that catchy buzzwords make something timely and that they are a snapshot of the culture of the period. Even the most aggressive climate change models and their 20-foot ocean rises don’t predict that for Earth, no matter how many Chevy Volts we don’t buy. Tyson assures us right away that we are to “question everything” so we have to ask why he thinks Venus is the way it is due to the greenhouse effect - which is another way of saying global warming. Venus is almost 900 degrees Fahrenheit and the clouds are sulfuric acid. In the spirit of Sagan, here are four things the new Cosmos gets wrong, plus one more thing that is a bit of a style problem. They had three years to write this, after all.

Tyson, like Sagan, believes that the mindset needed for a healthy science understanding is the same mindset needed for a healthy democracy – don’t just accept what authority tells you, as intellectual and moral docility is suicidal. “Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid,” Sagan wrote in his famous Cosmos book, and Tyson will happily concede if you show him to be wrong about something. Tyson knows valid criticism either forces him to hone his argument or it reaffirms his position. No, flawed science is flawed science and Sagan wanted to hear valid criticism, just as Tyson does now. You don’t get the host of a science show in a GQ photoshoot unless expectations are high.īut how accurate is the science? Does it matter? Isn’t science, like pizza, still pretty good even if it’s bad, in a way that companies feel all publicity is good publicity? The stage is set to put television science – not that Ghost Labs pseudoscience stuff – back on the cultural map.

Carl sagan pbs