Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
Last week, I wrote a post titled “Cosmos” Host Neil deGrasse Tyson Speaks Out about the News Media, Flat Earthers, Science Deniers, Climate Change Skeptics, Religion, and Dogma. Tyson—an astrophysicist, director of the Natural History Museum’s Hayden Planetarium in New York City, and the host of Fox Networks’ new science series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey—appeared on a multi-part series on Moyers and Company in January. Tyson and Bill Moyers explored a variety of topics—including the nature of an expanding, accelerating universe (and how it might end), the difference between “dark energy” and “dark matter,” the concept of God in cosmology and why science matters.
In the final episode of the series—which I’ve posted below the fold—the two men discuss science literacy and why it’s so critical to the future of our democracy, our economy, and our country’s standing in the world. Their discussion lasts about twenty minutes.
“Science is an enterprise that should be cherished as an activity of the free human mind. Because it transforms who we are, how we live, and it gives us an understanding of our place in the universe.”
~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
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~ Submitted by Elaine Magliaro
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
Anon,
That’s why so many men feel the need to carry guns these days–to protect themselves from the Feminazis who are out to emasculate them.
Women: Know Your Limits!
“Most men these days are rather feminine. They have been emasculated by the feminist movement.”
Oh, brother. Another day, another wingnut.
davidm, This is the pathology of faux feminists. You treat them as equals when they really want that ol’ fashioned deference afforded women in the 50’s. They pull this horseshit on me also, and they sometimes bring in my wife, as was done w/ you in a weasel way.
annie,
Wow! I’m impressed. I recently enrolled in the How to Feminize Your Man in Ten Easy Lessons program. I can’t wait for the first class!
Has Neil deGrasse Tyson, or other atheists who use science as their religion address the Francis Bacon issue I addressed earlier?
http://www.accsedu.org/filerequest/3712.pdf
Haha Elaine, that’s my clinical specialty! I got my Emasculation Certification framed, hanging on the wall of my office.
annie,
This one’s for you:
davidm,
Okay…I’ll make that a more generalized statement: You have a problem with women…especially outspoken women.
I never generalize about men. They are all so different. My husband isn’t the kind of man who hangs out in bars, drinks too much, and then gets in fist fights. BTW, that doesn’t sound like “manly” behavior to me. That sounds like juvenile/puerile behavior.
Brit Hume: ‘Old-Fashioned Tough Guys’ Like Christie Can’t Survive in Today’s ‘Feminized Atmosphere’
Elaine, David acts as midwife, birthing his own babies at home, that’s takes testicular fortitude. His wife is pretty brave too. Unless you make your wife give birth at home with no real midwife, you just aren’t a real man.
Well after questioning his masculinity, David perhaps should rethink having that beer after all.
davidm,
So sorry to hear you’ve been emasculated by the weaker sex. Maybe that’s why you have a problem with outspoken women like me. I’m really not after any male’s manhood. If a man can’t convince me he is right about a subject…maybe it’s not because he’s been emasculated–maybe it’s because he hasn’t got a good argument.
😉
BTW, my husband doesn’t drink beer. He also doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
Elaine wrote: “Maybe that’s why you have a problem with outspoken women like me.”
I don’t have a problem with you. Please stop taking these discussions so personal.
See, that’s another difference between a man and a woman. Two men can get in an all out fist fight with one another, then put their arms around each other, head back to the local bar and be best buds. Two women… not so much. Disagreements for them are much more personal.
davidm said: “I do not understand your logic, but living with many women in my household, I have come to accept that men and women have different brains and think differently.”
*****
Thank heavens I think differently from you…so does my husband. He must have a “female” brain…huh?
Elaine M wrote: “Thank heavens I think differently from you…so does my husband. He must have a “female” brain…huh?”
Maybe. Most men these days are rather feminine. They have been emasculated by the feminist movement. I would love to have a beer with your husband sometime and find out what he really thinks about polonium halos when you are not around. 🙂
I’m beginning to think that Nick is jealous of Elaine…… That has to be something true…. Every time he gets the opportunity to say something to her in a derogatory way he does…. Oh…. I think I know how that feels….l
Radiometric Evidence of Rapid Creation
http://www.icr.org/article/young-age-for-moon-earth/
Excerpt:
Dr. Robert V. Gentry has radiometric evidence that the basement rock of the earth was formed in a cool state, not in a molten condition. A cool initial state of the earth gives support to a young age for the earth. His research involves the study of pleochroic halos (colored spheres) produced by the radioactive decay of Polonium 218. He analyzed over one hundred thousand of these halos in granitic rocks which had been taken from considerable depths below land surface and in all parts of the world.
Two very important conclusions were drawn from this research 1) The Polonium 218 was primordial, that is to say, this radioactive element was in the original granite. 2) Because the halos can only be formed in the crystals of the granite, and the Polonium 218 half-life is only 3 minutes, the granite had to be cool and crystallized originally. The Polonium 218 would have been gone before molten granite could have cooled. It would take a very long time for a molten earth to cool.
The final conclusion can be summarized in this brief quote from one of Gentry’s technical papers: “The simple evidence of the halos is that the basement rocks of the earth were formed solid.” “Halos in other minerals can be shown to give equally startling evidence of a young earth.”5 One needs to read some of Gentry’s technical articles to see how clearly he established his conclusion that the Polonium 218 was primordial. That in itself presents problems to conventional radiometric dating. The conventional radiometric dating postulates would not jibe with this initial state which Gentry has identified.
Dr. Robert V. Gentry, Nuclear Physicist
Earth Science Associates
http://www.creationists.org/robert-gentry.html
Excerpt:
Background
Dr. Robert V. Gentry is a nuclear physicist who worked 13 years for the Oakridge National Laboratory as a guest scientist. During the time he worked there, he was recognized as the world’s leading authority on polonium halos. It is interesting to note that when he began his research, he was an evolutionist. Today, Dr. Gentry is a fully convinced young earth creation scientist.
Elaine – so because Gentry is a young earth creationist, you think this work with polonium halos is suppose to prove a young earth? I do not understand your logic, but living with many women in my household, I have come to accept that men and women have different brains and think differently.
Right-wing billionaires, creationism and pseudo-science: Why is a wingnut giving commencement speech at Montana’s best tech college?
Uproar at Montana Tech as a conservative funder of creationist museums is asked to speak at top engineering school
Eric Stern
3/27/14
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/27/right_wing_billionaires_creationism_and_pseudo_science_why_is_a_wing_nut_giving_commencement_speech_at_montanas_best_tech_college/
Excerpt:
A major funder of “creation museums” has been selected — strange as it may seem — to be the commencement speaker at Montana’s leading institution of science, Montana Tech, the mining and engineering school in Butte that has produced some of the world’s top geologists.
The speaker is Greg Gianforte, a conservative billionaire whose philanthropic endeavors include funding museums whose purpose is to discredit Darwinism and persuade visitors that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that North America’s geology was carved by Noah’s flood, and that dinosaurs coexisted with early humans.
To say the least, Gianforte is an odd choice to address an audience of young men and women who are embarking on careers in the earth sciences, many as mining and petroleum engineers. On the day Gianforte speaks, these graduates will be ending four years of studying how the Earth, and everything in it, formed over billions of years out of stardust.
They will now be sermonized by a man who bankrolled the 20,000-square-foot Dinosaur and Fossil Museum in Glendive, Mont. This museum’s website warns that “when you visit a major natural history museum, you will see wide-eyed children being funneled into an abyss of deception.” The curator of the museum told the Billings Gazette that “there’s no scientific proof whatsoever that evolution ever took place.” Visitors are shown displays and dioramas that explain how the dinosaurs likely died out 4,300 years ago, during the great flood.
Odder still is the fact that Gianforte is no stranger to science at all. He is a computer scientist, who built a massively successful company, RightNow Technologies, that he sold for over a billion dollars in 2011 to the Oracle Corp. And he has donated money to Montana Tech for its computer science program, which is presumably why the chancellor of Montana Tech, Don Blakketter, invited him to be the guest of honor at graduation.
Professors have asked Blakketter to revoke the invite on the grounds that Gianforte is anti-science whereas Montana Tech is pro-science, and students are discussing staging a walkout during the speech. I put in a call to Blakketter, but did not hear back.
The objectors are not only upset about Gianforte, but also the inclusion of his wife, Susan, in the program. She was invited to co-deliver the commencement speech with her husband. Susan Gianforte is a vociferous opponent of laws designed to protect gay people from being targets of discrimination. She believes businesses should have the legal right to refuse service to gay customers, and she has been leading the charge against an anti-discrimination ordinance that is now being debated by the city council of Bozeman, where the Gianfortes live.
Elaine quoted an article by Eric Stern: “Why is a wingnut giving commencement speech at Montana’s best tech college?”
The ignorance and bigotry of Eric Stern toward creationists is very disturbing. This kind of bigotry leads to book burnings, censorship, intellectual tests for political office, and objecting to speakers based upon the content of their speech.
Rock-star astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson urges crowd to embrace science
Lecture » Questions can lead to societal progress, says Tyson.
By Lindsay Whitehurst
The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Mar 25 2014
Last Updated Mar 27 2014
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57729290-78/tyson-science-cosmos-lecture.html.csp
Excerpt:
When science loses ground in culture, the world becomes darker. We become less able to defend ourselves from natural disasters. We ask fewer questions. We even dream less.
So says rock-star astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who spoke to a sold-out crowd at the University of Utah on Wednesday.
“We are steeped in science. All of us. It has shaped the society and culture in which we live. Without it, we’d still be in caves, so you got to embrace it,” he said.
That’s one of the mission statements of his reboot of the TV show “Cosmos.”
“I sense a trend in America that STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math] fields, that they’re just a luxury … or you don’t need to think about it because we’re not interested,” he said. “That’s not the America I grew up in. I don’t recognize it.”
He recalled the 1960s, when the country was trying to get to the moon — and despite the political turmoil of the times, artists and writers were imagining what wonders might come next. That changed.
“People stopped dreaming about tomorrow,” he said. But there’s an easy way to begin to turn that around, he said.
“Being scientifically literate doesn’t mean you know science. It just means you know how to ask questions,” he said.
davidm,
You claim you are an old Earth creationist. Yet, you provide information about Gentry’s work–which is “supposedly” proof of a young Earth.
Elaine wrote: “You claim you are an old Earth creationist. Yet, you provide information about Gentry’s work–which is “supposedly” proof of a young Earth.”
Proof of a young earth? No it is not. You obviously have not read Gentry at all. Perhaps you just embrace the biggest rock star scientist rather than looking at the empirical evidence the way a scientist does. Gentry’s work does not prove a young earth. His novel theory is that granites were not formed through a remelting of sedimentary rocks, but rather they were formed through a process yet to be understood that involves very rapid formation — within minutes rather than millions of years. His theory also is that granites rather than basalts are the foundation rocks of the earth. What about his work makes you think it is supposedly proof of a young earth?