A Cosmos Sequel Hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson!

This is so cool. A sequel to Cosmos is going to be made, and its going to be hosted by the best candidate I can think of, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. If any scientist seems to understand and carry on the legacy of the late, great Carl Sagan, it's Tyson. They both excel at bringing science to the public. People still watch Cosmos, which stands the test of time quite well. But it is a science show, so it will be great to have the latest research (and updated graphics!).

There is one bit of bad news. It's going to be on Fox on prime time. And they are taking their time. It won't be on until 2013.

Ann Druyan (Sagan's widow and Cosmos writer) is going to write and produce it, along with astrophysicist Steven Soter and Seth McFarlane, the creator of The Family Guy. It will be called Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey and will be 13 episodes long. The National Geographic channel will co-produce it, so it will air on their station as a same-night encore later in the evening.

McFarland said, "Never more than at this moment in the modern era have we needed a profound reminder of the colossally important and exciting role that science, space exploration and the human quest for knowledge must continue to play in our development as a species. We should be vigorously exploring the solar system by now, and who better to inspire us to get there than Ann Druyan, Steven Soter, Neil deGrasse Tyson and, of course, Carl Sagan."

According to the producers, the new series will tell "the story of how human beings began to comprehend the laws of nature and find our place in space and time. It will take viewers to other worlds and travel across the universe for a vision of the cosmos on the grandest scale. The most profound scientific concepts will be presented with stunning clarity, uniting skepticism and wonder, and weaving rigorous science with the emotional and spiritual into a transcendent experience."

Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage was first broadcast in 1980 on PBS and was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television for 10 years. As of 2009, it was still the most widely watched PBS series in the world. It won an Emmy and a Peabody Award and has been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 500 Million people. There is also an accompanying book.

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Resources:

• Wired


• Deadline


• Wikipedia

 

We Are All Children of Africa

Symphony of Science has released their 10th song, Children of Africa (The Story of Us).



Lyrics:

[Jacob Bronowski]
Man is a singular creature;
He has a set of gifts which make him unique among the animals
So that unlike them, he is not a figure in the landscape
He is the shaper of the landscape

[Alice Roberts]
We are all children of Africa
They say this is where it all began

[Bronowski]
In a parched African landscape
Man first put his foot to the ground

[Roberts]
Africa was our only home
for tens of thousands of years
until a small handful of people made their way
out of Africa

[Carolyn Porco]
These beings with soaring imagination
Eventually flung themselves and their machines
Into interplanetary space

[Roberts]
We are all children of africa
This landscape has been home to humans
Two hundred thousand years

[Porco]
We have come so far
All of this is cause for great celebration
We have come so far
This is a story about us

[Roberts]
Those early Europeans
Were people like you and me
But it is humbling
When you see the challenges they faced

People like you and me
Overcame the Neaderthals
People like you and me
Made it through the ice age

[Refrain]

[Jane Goodall]
We are not the only beings
With personalities, minds, and feelings
Chimpanzees have very clear personalities

[Robert Sapolsky]
Take a chimp brain foetally
And let it go two or three more rounds of division
And out comes symphonies and ideology

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]
Everything that we are
That distinguishes us from chimps
Emerges from that one percent
Difference in DNA

[Roberts]
People like you and me
Overcame the Neaderthals
People like you and me
Made it through the ice age

[Refrain]

[David Attenborough]
Using his burgeoning intelligence,
This most successful of all mammals
Has exploited the environment to produce food
For an ever increasing population.

Instead of controlling the environment
For the benefit of the population
Perhaps it's time we controlled the population
To allow the survival of the environment

The Poetry of Science: Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson

Here is a very special video treat. Over an hour of Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson talking to each other about their fields of science. They are two of my favorite living scientists. Enjoy!



Two of science's luminaries converse on the beauty of science. Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and host of NOVA and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explore the wonders of the Cosmos and of Life, its origins, its inspirations, and why science is not just an option, it is the only reality we possess.

Logical Fallacy 11: God of the Gaps in Science and Faith

"I can't understand this so God did it."

I like what Iron Chariots says about this argument: It is a form of non sequitur, since the hand of God is posited without proof and often with complete disregard to other possible explanations. In a nutshell, this is an argument from ignorance. But ignorance is never an argument for something. It just means we don't yet know the cause of something.

This is Part 11 in a series about Logical Fallacies. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacious arguments. I’m going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there’s a particular fallacy you want me to tackle, or if you have success with refuting an argument using a good technique you can share.

I want to share this video of a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson from 2006 is about 38 minutes long. He talks about the god of the gaps throughout scientific history, intelligent design and then about Stupid Design. Highly recommended watching:

Arguments For God's Existence Are Wrong - Teleological Argument

Recently, the Morgantown Atheists hosted a satirical night of (re)Conversion where our Brights friend Rachel tried all the arguments she could think of to convince us to turn back to god. No one took her up on her offer. But she did go through a bunch of classical arguments that I thought I might share with you. It's good to hear what people use as excuses for believing in god, and it's good to have sound arguments against those beliefs.

Let's start out with the Teleological Argument.

Teleology: the philosophical study of design and purpose. The supposition that there is purpose or direction in the works and processes of nature.

Teleological Argument: the Argument from Design: argues for the existence of god or a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design or direction in nature.

Here's the basic argument:

• The universe is too complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful or beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidentally.


• Therefore the universe must have been created by a sentient, intelligent, wise or purposeful being.


• god is a sentient, intelligent, wise or purposeful being.


• Therefore god exists.

You can substitute just about anything in for the universe. The eye, humans, the fundamental constants of the universe, etc.

Many great men have used this argument over the centuries, but that doesn't make it valid. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero to name a few. Cicero started the Watchmaker Analogy:

"When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance. How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence, when it embraces everything, including these artifacts themselves and their artificers?" (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 34)

Panel Discussion of Secular Society, Center for Inquiry

I wanted to share a video with you by the Center for Inquiry. It's not a new video, even though it's dated July 21, 2009. I think it's from during the Bush Administration, from what I can tell.

Anyway, it's Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan and Victor Stenger. Moderated by D.J. Grothe (of Point of Inquiry), it took place at the New York Academy of Sciences at a Center for Inquiry conference titled "Secular Society and its Enemies."

The panel discusses atheism versus science, science education, the nature of science, various strategies for advancing society in society, threats to science education including religion and popular culture, racism and sexism in science, and many other topics. It's about an hour long and quite interesting:



I know this may seem biased, but Neil deGrasse Tyson is the MAN. His passion and clarity of expression are awesome. My interests lie more in the microscopic while his lie in the cosmos, but it doesn't matter. He still inspires me.

By god, he's a Bad Designer!

The other day I was pondering how our bodies have features that are poorly designed. Not to get too personal, but I have a hard time with coughing over the least little thing. Sometimes if I inhale wrong, my uvula freaks out and I start to cough like crazy. It's horrible.

So I wanted to write down some goofy examples to share with you, as if there were a god, he's pretty bad at designing. Then my mind kind of fizzled out, so I thought, hell, I'm not the first person to come up with this brilliant idea. I'll Google it. That's when I found the following video, which sums it up in about 6 minutes rather perfectly.

Neil deGrasse Tyson did a talk back in late 2006 where he ended with the following: (I have reproduced most of his slides below for your convenience)