Lawrence Krauss On Scientists As Celebrities: Good For Science? 227
Lasrick writes: Lawrence Krauss explores the reasons why scientists such as Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Neil deGrasse Tyson became celebrities, and he shares his own experience as a best selling author and frequent guest on television programs like Jon Stewart's Daily Show. Krauss describes how public acclaim is often uncorrelated to scientific accomplishment and depends more on communication skills and personality traits. Nevertheless, he argues that the entire scientific community benefits when credible scientists gain a wider audience, and that celebrity is an opportunity that should not be squandered. Scientists who become recognizable have a chance and perhaps even a responsibility, which they have often exploited, to promote science literacy, combat scientific nonsense, motivate young people, and steer public policy discussions toward sound decision making wherever they can.
Yes. (Score:3)
As in subject.
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Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that too many people think "science" is whatever a person credentialed by some authority professes.
That's wrong.
"Science" is more properly a way of thinking. A "scientist" should be anyone willing to put the evidence offered by reality above intuitions, guesses, dogma, culture, and any other authority while also being open-minded to all possible explanations consistent with reality. It's a skepticism, even skepticism of one's own theories -- "a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty" as Feynman put it.
Sometimes even credentialed scientists forget that.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Science the tool, which is often useful
Science the institution, which is always problematic (as are all power structures)
Adding on to your comment, a lot of times when people say, "Science says....." they mean "the institution says........"
What they really want to know is "what has the tool of science measured?"
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Theories aside, you have a solid point.
Science celebrities (DeGrasse-Tyson, Sagan, etc) would be awesome proponents of science... if they would stop yapping politics. Seriously, scientific discovery and history are wonderful things. Enticing folks into wanting to know more about our world and universe is an awesome thing.
But... when you have some scientist-turned-celebrity yammering on and on and on about some purely political viewpoint (and worse, misrepresenting opposing ones and falling victim to even the most basic of logical fallacies), then it sucks.
A good example of a science celeb? Dr. Michio Kaku. Dude sticks to science for the most part, and doesn't try to recruit political acolytes to gain points, controversy, or notoriety.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientist have political opinions too and they are just as entitled to express them as anyone else. I don't see why you would want to limit people's right to politically express themselves. Some are reasonable to limit like police and military in uniform, especially when armed are not entitled to express their political opinions and must first remove the uniform and weapons and express their political opinion as an individual and not as a military or police group.
In fact what we really do need is more scientists expressing their political opinions and backing them up with hard facts and of course working to dismantle the lies put out by professional politicians.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientist have political opinions too and they are just as entitled to express them as anyone else. I don't see why you would want to limit people's right to politically express themselves.
One really big reason that scientists should express themselves is that many understand that without a basic scientific aptitude by the citzenry, an entire nation can fall behind. That's part one
The other part is that people keep trying to inject politics into science
Injecting religion into science classes is politics, certainly as long as they are trying to do it by force of law. Oklahoma would probably be teaching us about Jesus Puppies (dinosaurs) and variable speed of light so they could fit time into the 4004 B.C.E dates their science book demands, if those cacahead scientists hadn't interfered, like those pesky kids in a Scooby-Doo cartoon, they might have gotten away with it.
AGW denialism is heavily politically based.
And yes, it would make life a lot easier for deniers if the asshole scientists would just shut up and learn their place, and stay out of the way of the politicians. But golly gosh, some of these Scientists care and have big mouths.
We'll have to deal with it them, until we make science illegal, and eliminate freedom of speech.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
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You think you are being a smart ass, but you seem to have blurred the lines between fact and conjecture.
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You think you are being a smart ass, but you seem to have blurred the lines between fact and conjecture.
Yes, the fact is that pretty much all the Anti-Capitalist Scientists in the world who have looked at this are in a giant conspiracy with The Government and the all-powerful Green Lobby. Only a few brave voices in the wilderness (coincidentally funded by oil companies) dare to speak out against this Communist Plot.
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Have a nice day.
Its obvious you don't care about the science, you only want to be right and win the debate.
You like to categorise everything in black and white, while the world is actually a whole lot of grey.
There is truth on both sides, but you ignore the side that doesn't agree with you.
The difference is, us sceptics (not the religious nut deniers), we read all the papers and as many articles are we can from both sides, we don't ignore anything. But then we point out where things just don't stand up to p
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Your mistake is thinking AGW alarmism is not heavily politically based.
Classic reactionary false equivalence reasoning.
"You're a racist/misogynist/homophobe."
"Yes but there are black racists, misandrists and straight-haters too, so what's the problem?"
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Its allot more complicated than that.
You know, one thing I find particularly annoying is this Left, right hate, Republican, Democrate and everything that comes with it.
As an outsider (from Canada), its astonishing how easy it is for Americans to reduce everything to left, right. As if there is no middle ground, or nothing in between the 2.
Back to topic, I'm a Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptic. I don't deny science, I research scientific papers, read them, draw conclusions, read others comments about them
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In fact what we really do need is more scientists expressing their political opinions and backing them up with hard facts and of course working to dismantle the lies put out by professional politicians.
A very nice thought, but logic never survives a descent into "my side vs. your side." As soon as scientists enter into the political sphere their points are no longer judged as factual conclusions but as their adopted positions, as one may rightly question whether it was their political conclusion or their scientific conclusion which they arrived at first.
If we don't want science to devolve into "our scientists say this!" and "oh, yeah, our scientists say this!" we need to keep scientists as far away from p
Science and opinion (Score:2)
Scientist have political opinions too and they are just as entitled to express them as anyone else.
Indeed. But they are not entitled to present their opinions as science.
This is a very hard line to walk and it is easy to inadvertently add opinion to a scientific statement. For example, "Scientists are warning that infant mortality will fall significantly over the next 10 years" or "Scientists are warning that CO2 emissions will cause a rise in global temperatures". Both of these statements expression an opinion about a prediction rather than simply stating the prediction. Better to use neutral words to f
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Can't argue with that.
Same thing goes for all government employees, federal and state. No police, no teachers, no politicians, no lawyers (because without the government provided legal system they wouldn't have a job), etc. Also all government contractors. Nobody on welfare. Nobody who uses public infrastructure like roads or is defended by the US military from foreign attacks.
Yeah, basically no one should vote because they are all sucking off the federal tit.
Except pigiron. He lives in Galt's Gulch.
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unprovoked attack in 200 years
Boston bombing???? 9/11????
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Im a Christian with a passion for science and I really enjoy watching Neil talk about science, but it gets really cheesy when he makes the occasional snide remark about the Bible or religion when there isnt any hard science backing up that viewpoint.
It is up to people who believe in the Bible (for instance) to provide the "hard science" as to why it should be elevated above any other collection of words.
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Theories aside, you have a solid point.
Science celebrities (DeGrasse-Tyson, Sagan, etc) would be awesome proponents of science... if they would stop yapping politics.
And Politicians would be awesome if they quit trying to dictate science.
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And Politicians would be awesome if they quit trying to dictate science.
I agree.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather people listen to Carl Sagan or Niel deGrasse Tyson for their scientific advice than Dr. Oz, Jenny McCarthy, Michele Bachmann, or any of the shockingly large numbers of anti-science politicians.
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Ade Edmonson from Bad News.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, as in Carl Sagan and Niel deGrasse Tyson doing more harm than good ...
Umm . . . How so? Sagan was melodramatic, but at least he gave mundanes the idea that people should get excited about complicated ideas. Tyson explains things well, speaks well, shows that one can be a science geek and entertaining all at the same time, and is a living poster child for rational thought (not to mention being a poster child against various forms of prejudice). What do you not like here?
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Interesting)
Overall I'm fine with Tyson, but he has a bad habit of after explaining how science only advances if one questions, that we shouldn't question the science that is proven. Which is a rather serious flaw in science communication.
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"After the 9/11 attacks, when President George W. Bush, in a speech aimed at distinguishing the U.S. from the Muslim fundamentalists, said, 'Our God is the God who named the stars.' The problem is two-thirds of all the stars that have names, have Arabic names. I don't think he knew this. This would confound the point that he was making." From The Amazing Meeting Keynote Speech, 2008. http://www.haydenplanetarium.o... [haydenplanetarium.org]
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I have a huge problem with the concept that Atheism is some sort of prerequisite to doing science. Useful or not, religion is a huge part of a lot of people's lives. The current rationalist approach drives very few people from religion but it does drive a lot of people further away from scientific acceptance. The worst part is the rationalists don't see that they are having the exact opposite effect that they desire.
If you're not being "rationalist" you're not doing science. Your argument makes exactly no sense.
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Didn't you see the movie? It wasn't servants or slaves, it was fallen angels turned into stone creatures.
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No, not that kind of stone creatures.
p.s.: this was posted from 1992. Buy Bitcoins and sell them when they go above one thousand U.S. dollars each!
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Bill Nye has been known to wander off into nutter territory on occasion, lumping all religious folks into the same category as the literal-6,000-year-old-Earth nutters that he opposes.
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Bill Nye has been known to wander off into nutter territory on occasion, lumping all religious folks into the same category as the literal-6,000-year-old-Earth nutters that he opposes.
I don't think anyone who believes in God, Jesus and the Bible is in a position to call someone who takes the very foundation of the Biblical creation myth seriously a nutter.
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The problems with GMOs don't end with "scientific truth". Not that ephemeral faith in a technology ever amounted to much. Our own recent history is littered with disasters of that kind.
"Arguing the science" is just a crass way of ignoring any of the other problems.
it also makes Tyson look like a cheap corporate tool.
It also exposes the obvious hubris and myopia of scientists.
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The problems with GMOs don't end with "scientific truth".
That makes no sense. If they are scientifically proven safe, or if they are scientifically proven unsafe it's truth
Given your post, I suspect if they are proven unsafe, you'll cheer. If proven safe, you'll just deny it and continue your jeramiad.
Not that ephemeral faith in a technology ever amounted to much.
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Our own recent history is littered with disasters of that kind.
It's littered with disasters of a more "truthy" sort also.
That's where you really go wrong. You blame scientists for the disasters brought on by politicians.
Do you figure that say, if the Scientists in the USA had not
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
That's twice you've gotten it wrong, now. "Star stuff". And, of course, we are. With the exception of the hydrongen atoms, almost every atom in our bodies was forged in the heart of an exploding star. Maybe you already knew that--but a lot of people don't, and many more never really stopped to think about. It really is amazing, you know.
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That's twice you've gotten it wrong, now. "Star stuff". And, of course, we are. With the exception of the hydrongen atoms, almost every atom in our bodies was forged in the heart of an exploding star. Maybe you already knew that--but a lot of people don't, and many more never really stopped to think about. It really is amazing, you know.
Oh my GOODNESS. Do NOT correct someone if you're going to say something even less correct. Exploding stars - supernovae - produce everything on the periodic table after Iron (element 26). Carbon, Oxygen and Nitrogen happen as part of regular nuclear burning. They are certainly dispersed by a supernova but regular nuclear burning inside of a star.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis
I repeat: If you want to correct someone GET IT RIGHT.
Fuck sake. Yes, the elements from hydrogen up to iron are produced via nuclear processes in "normal" star. But none of it ended up in us unless the motherfucker exploded you pedantic fuck.
Let me fix that for you... (Score:2)
... Krauss describes how public acclaim is often uncorrelated to scientific accomplishment and depends more on communication skills and personality traits. ...
Should be:
.
Krauss describes how public acclaim is often uncorrelated to accomplishment and depends more on communication skills and personality traits.
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He didn't say they had to be *good* personality traits...
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Two words: boobs.
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God I hate the banality of modern pop culture
I found that my problems with modern pop culture went away when I stopped interacting with it.
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God I hate the banality of modern pop culture
I found that my problems with modern pop culture went away when I stopped interacting with it.
The internet must be a very confusing place for you.
Sure (Score:2)
He's coming to Antwerp with his buddy Dawkins the end of January.
Places are 27 euro a pop, the golden circle is 40 euro.
To preach to the choir.
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It's also good money
He's coming to Antwerp with his buddy Dawkins the end of January.
Places are 27 euro a pop, the golden circle is 40 euro.
To preach to the choir.
Whereas I'm sure you spend most of your time and money going to lectures by people you hate, with views you despise or find ridiculous?
Uncorrelated? (Score:4, Insightful)
public acclaim is often uncorrelated to scientific accomplishment
I hate it when people use "uncorrelated" or "not correlated" to mean: the correlation coefficient isn't quite 1.0 but otherwise yeah, it's pretty high.
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Relax, it is only a fraction of people that use it incorrectly.
Betteridge Is Wrong On This One (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Betteridge Is Wrong On This One (Score:5, Insightful)
We also have seen a rise in glorifying "anti-science." Whether it be from the "we don't vaccinate because we don't support big pharma so we use homeopathy instead" crowd or from the "evolution can't be true because in Genesis the bible says the Earth was created 6,000 years ago" crowd. Both sides put down scientists as elite, "intellectual" (in an attempt to turn that into a bad term), and part of the "status quo" that must be overturned. If these groups got their way, all scientific progress (at least in the US) would grind to a halt. So any pro-science person who hits celebrity status helps to push against the anti-science tide.
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You mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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STEM programs aren't going to be made much more popular by having science celebrities. They'll be made more popular by making them into apparently better and more respected career choices. Science is a really tricky field to make a living in, and I don't think science celebrities do much to push engineering careers.
Re:Betteridge Is Wrong On This One (Score:5, Insightful)
He seems to misunderstand the philisophical basis of science. He also can't seem to avoid antagonizing those he needs to reach most. He's a sort of anti-Sagan.
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According to one of the key decision makers at the time (Steve Jobs), the US lost manufacturing precisely because we lack STEM degrees. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01... [nytimes.com]
Scientists are human beings too (Score:2, Insightful)
Human beings when become celebrities will get their ego 'floated' when they find themselves becoming celebrities, and of course, scientists are no different
We can see how many of the celebrities have fumbled, sport stars, politicians, movie stars, and yes, even religious leaders, they too fumbled
They act different, the content of their speeches have also changed and become boastful. Most have forgotten what 'humble' feel like, and truth does not matter anymore
And truth is what Science is all about - the sea
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No. If you want Truth, Philosophy is down the hall. Science is about collecting data, creating models of the world around us, and testing the models for usefulness and accuracy.
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tell that to the theoretical physicists.
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It's stupid to speak of science in terms of "truth" because science is never anything but a best guess. This undermines the idea that scientists are not Bishops in lab coats and another variation on the same invallid appeals to authority that dominate other important ideas.
Declaring "truth" requires more certainty than an honest scientist should ever have.
It is more the domain of religion.
Re:Scientists are human beings too (Score:5, Insightful)
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Does science ever get the 100% truth? Probably not. What science does do, though, is get closer and closer to the truth in each refinement of each theory until we get to the point where we have, for all intents and purposes reached the truth. For example, we can describe the relativistic motion of spacecraft from launch to multiple planetary slingshots (accounting for the planet's motions as well) and to the spacecraft's destination. Furthermore, we can calculate just what kind of thrust the spacecraft
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It is wrong to say science seeks truth, because it gives a false impression of what science is. Science looks for theories that make the most accurate predictions. If a particular theory tuns out to have problems, that's part of the process of finding one that does.
Too many people, including a lot of not-so-good scientists, regard "scientific truth" as something that actually exists. Some experiment, or a journal article, or a hundred years of experience seems to show something, therefore it's true. Way
Vietnam depicted as a "fumble" in the jungle (Score:2)
Fumbled?
Either that's bait, or you haven't dialed in lately with your trusty USR to the acerbic backwash concerning America's popular reverence for all things Reverend.
Of course it's good for society (Score:2)
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You mean the physician (not a scientist) who started the anti-vax movement?
Other than the bad example, your point is good.
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You mean the physician (not a scientist) who started the anti-vax movement?
Andrew Wakefield started the MMR controvesy by publishing a paper describing research that linked MMR to various negative outcomes. This clearly marks him out as a scientist not just a physician. This paper has since be shown to be both incorrect and fraudulent, so he was equally clearly an immoral person who used science to gain popularity.
As well as being pedantic I am also trying to make the serious point that scientists who become celebrities are not necessarily good scientists.
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If publishing a paper is the requirement to be a scientist, it's not surprising that stuff like what Wakefield pulled gets by. Wakefield was trained as a physician, not a scientist. His "research" was conducted unethically, on children, without approval. It's generally believed now that the whole thing was a fraud perpetrated to boost his interest in a competing vaccine company.
Wakefield was trained as a physician and operated as a con man. He wasn't a scientist. I agree with you that scientist-celebri
scientific stars wannabe (Score:3)
The problem, is that scientific research is now like music was in the 80s. People are much more interesting in writing the article that will be cited 1k times, like people were looking to write that single getting sold 1M times, than actually improving common knowledge.
Well at least in computer vision, I do have this impression.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is hardly a celebrity (Score:3)
Neil deGrasse Tyson is not a celebrity,
No matter how much you want to think so.
To the Joe on the street
Or the cop on the beat
It's "Joe Tyson??? Who's that schmoe?"
Burma Shave
Just another form of scientific contribution (Score:5, Insightful)
I would put communication onto a list of activities that move the science enterprise forward, but tend to be undervalued compared with producing new research results. Great popularizers like Sagan, and great writers like Arthur Clarke, have done an enormous amount to inspire and motivate people.
Another group of undervalued people are the tools builders. Things like ArXiv, Mathematica, and so on improve the effectiveness of every researcher by a little bit, and their cumulative impact is enormous but we tend not to recognize them.
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A list of the most highly cited papers was released recently. All the top papers were tools and techniques. Discoveries like the structure of DNA were well down the list.
The tool builders get recognized pretty well where it counts.
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I would rather have (Score:5, Insightful)
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Scientists become celebrities than celebrities becoming scientists
With the possible exception of Brian May :)
The guy who knows everything (Score:2)
Having a real scientist as a TV spokesmodel isn't all bad, but it just seems to be terribly overdone. I get tired of seeing folks like Neil deGrasse Tyson and especially Michio Kaku (who thankfully was omitted from TFS) on TV. When they appear, each is presented as "the guy who knows everything." Micho Kaku has a particularly smug, know-it-all, condescending presentation that grows old in light of his seeming omnipresence on the science-related channels.
The fact is, though, that true scientists are speci
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To be fair, the topics they get to speak about are usually very basic, so if they are related to their fields at all, I guess they DO know those things.
For me, this is why I can't really stand watching them:
I have never seen them talk about anything really new, or interesting.
In every TV segment, they start off from zero and never get very far, or into much detail.
I guess as actual scientists they do have their own research projects, or at least interests in more advanced topics. It would be interesting to
Say what? (Score:3, Informative)
... scientists such as Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Neil deGrasse Tyson ...
One of these names is not like the others,
One of these names just doesn't belong.
Can you tell me which name is not like the others,
Before I finish this song?
(okay, maybe it should be "two of these names...")
Re:Say what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's see here:
Albert Einstein - Nobel-winning physicist
Richard Feynman - Nobel-winning physicist, later used his celebrity power to popularize physics through his books
Carl Sagan - Astrophysicist (PhD thesis was "Physical Study of Planets", much of his work involved determining environmental conditions on other planets and moons), simultaneously was a television host and science celebrity
Stephen Hawking - Physicist (PhD thesis was on singularities in spacetime), author, and occasionally played himself on TV.
Neil deGrasse Tyson - Astrophysicist (PhD thesis was on star distribution in the galactic bulge), author, television host and science celebrity.
Well, Einstein's the only one who (AFAIK) was not a major pop writer. Tyson's the only one with a Twitter feed. Hawking's the only one with a physical disability, and Feynman was the only one to do engineering as well as science. So I'm actually not sure who you think is different from all the others.
Re:Say what? (Score:4, Funny)
Neil deGrasse Tyson is the only one that has been married just once.
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It's not about the presenter. (Score:5, Insightful)
Einstein and Feynman were both nobel prize winners and Hawkins has Sir Isaac Newton's mathematics chair - we probably shouldn't downplay their achievements!
Carl Sagan was on the slippery slope. He certainly did some good science - but he's hardly up there with the previous three. Tyson has a few decent papers to his name, and his career isn't over yet - but I don't think he's coming close to the others in terms of science achievements.
Einstein was the world's worst communicator. Feynman and Hawkins are better - Sagan was astounding and Tyson may be yet better.
I suppose we might be concerned that there is a pattern here. We're taking people who are better communicators in preference to those who really know their stuff.
But honestly, does it matter? The presenter of a show reads from a script - (s)he is basically an actor. If the author of the script sticks to an accurate portrayal of what's written by the hard-core scientists - then why not pick an engaging personality to present it to us?
The critical part of the cycle is the person who decides WHICH science gets discussed. De Grasse Tyson is often talking about tacheons, wormholes and white holes and other claptrap that's horribly speculative, wildly unusupported, and very probably untrue. As an astrophysicist, he should know better - but as a TV presenter, he does a reasonable job of reading the script.
I'd prefer to have a complete non-scientist who is a supreme communicator be given a script written by good script writers from material handed to them by the hard core scientists behind the scenes - than to rely on a lower-tier scientist (or a high-tier scientist with poor communications skills) to do the entire job.
-- Steve
Re:It's not about the presenter. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd prefer to have a complete non-scientist who is a supreme communicator be given a script written by good script writers from material handed to them by the hard core scientists behind the scenes - than to rely on a lower-tier scientist (or a high-tier scientist with poor communications skills) to do the entire job.
I see three problems with this.
The first is trust, and science is all about trust and credibility. It doesn't matter how good the actor is, if the audience knows they're just reading a script then they're not going to have the same credibility as a real scientist who really understands what they're talking about. I mean Morgan Freeman is a great actor with an unreal voice, but I don't think he could have done Cosmos as well as Tyson.
The second problem is that actor is useless outside the show, one of the advantages of giving people like Tyson and Sagan a public profile is they're in a position to speak on behalf of science outside the show. Your actor can narrate a documentary, but you're never going to be able to train them well enough to match go up against a kook on a panel show.
Finally if you invest enough scientific credibility into that actor you really need to vet the actor since they don't have a scientific career to fall back on when the show is over. Do you really want that pretty face you've taught millions to trust to start shilling magic water when they're in desperate need of a paycheck?
It's still doable and useful in some situations, but for a mass outreach scientific show I think a real scientist is preferable.
Re:It's not about the presenter. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The presenter of a show reads from a script - (s)he is basically an actor.
That may be true of the narrator of a documentary, but for anyone presenting live it matters whether they know the science or not.
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It depends. You can get anyone to read a script on a recorded television show, but that's usually not the point. You can't really do an interesting interview with someone who is a good communicator but isn't familiar with the subject matter.
De Grasse Tyson is often talking about tacheons, wormholes and white holes and other claptrap that's horribly speculative, wildly unusupported, and very probably untrue.
It depends. All of those are supported by theory. They're only "speculative" in that they are permitted by theory but have not been observed and, as a result, it's an interesting question as to whether or not they exist. (If they don't or can't exist, can that informatio
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I'd prefer to have a complete non-scientist who is a supreme communicator be given a script written by good script writers from material handed to them by the hard core scientists behind the scenes - than to rely on a lower-tier scientist (or a high-tier scientist with poor communications skills) to do the entire job.
Oh, now you're asking for David Attenborough.
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And, actually, I think that he makes for a far better model of science communicator than these modern loud mouths/wannabe philosophers.
Without a doubt.
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Try some Edward Witten [youtube.com]
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Einstein was a huge celebrity though. What I think is interesting is how society decides who is or isn't the celebrity. Sure, Einstein was a genius with groundbreaking theory, but then so were many of his peers. What about the other Nobel prize winners? Ok, those who didn't live in America weren't going to be easy for be famous to Americans, or elsewhere in the world if not on the movie reels; some cooperated with the Nazis; some were on top secret projects; etc. But overall it's like American decided
It is good for science at large. Example: (Score:2)
Key problem:people are looking for a yes/no answer (Score:3)
If you really want to advance scientific literacy, you're going to have to dispel the idea that it's common for something to have virtually only positives or only negatives, as in reality, those kinds of things are quite rare.
Press is good (Score:2)
While people who move the course of humanity forward make less than people who chase balls for a living, more press is needed badly.
Imagine all the STEM people disappeared, humanity may collapse.
Imagine all the athletes disappeared...not really a problem.
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Professional athletes could disappear and we'd still have amateurs training for Olympics and local school or park system games. I think it would be better for society to focus on those things, which would be more like sports in most of history, rather than professional sports.
If by celebrity we mean... (Score:2)
If by celebrity we mean that good scientists get famous for actual research and get patronage to run their labs free of government funding, then hell yes.
If by celebrity we mean that their career as a "Scientist" means to be an advocate for one bit of research over others even well outside their own work, then probably not.
Tyson's TV skills (Score:3)
TYSON / NYE 2016! Bring science to the Whitehouse! Write them in, save humanity from itself and superstition!
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Well, Captain Obvious had to take a break from the hotels.com commercials. Guess he got a new job as a writer.
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I'd rather have more Justin Beibers and Paris Hiltons - empty heads but easily ignored and ultimately harmless - than more Jenny McCarthys and Senator Marco Rubios (the latter of which said he couldn't be sure that the Earth wasn't 6,000 years old because he's not a scientist).
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I read the Future of the Mind and have to say that I am inspired to direct my studies towards neurology and man-machine interfaces as well as man-machine interface security.
I introduced myself to Michio Kaku late one night when I couldn't get any sleep. After Bill Nye's challenge to have Creationists stop hurting their children by teaching Creationism to them, I started looking through other postings to the BigThink Channel on Youtube. After seeing a 45 minute lecture on Physics, I thought I found myself
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Really? Krause says he hasn't seen Epstein with underage girls and that means that his scientific papers are invalid? Are you implying that Krause has seen him with underage women? And what was the point of that video? Now I know that someone said that Epstein had an "egg shaped" penis. Does he? Hell if I know.
Here is what seems like a reasonable response from Krause to me:
I will add one remark here, as most people have not read my full set of comments, posted after the post appeared.. I am myself rather disappointed by the lack of skepticality of this community. As I said, I have read numerous reports of orgies on Jeffrey’s island involving me and other scientists during our meetings.. Orgies that never happened, I am VERY skeptical of other claims on his behavior. I am defending Jeffrey for 2 reasons: (1) Based on my knowledge and experience I am skeptical of the claims in the media and of those who have settled claims for money namely I don’t believe the published details just like I tend to be skeptical of many published details on the internet.. I don’t believe Jeffrey did what has been claimed, and unless I see hard evidence, I will trust my own judgement here, and (2) Jeffrey went to prison, and I happen to believe that having served time, even those who questioned his behavior should be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, again until proved otherwise, that he is working hard to live a good life and do good things. I for one am disgusted that people eat up the salacious nonsense the read on the web and then jump to conclusions about things and people they do not know.. I do not jump to condemn people, especially when it concerns their sexual preferences. I DO NOT CONDONE sex with young girls, or young boys for that matter.. because there are real victims there.. Until I know all the facts however, I do not jump to conclusions, and I am sorry, having seen the media frenzy around Jeffrey, and having seen the shoddy behavior of those who have attacked him, I remain skeptical, and I support a man whose character I believe I know.. If you want to condemn me for that, so be it. L. Krauss
I don't know shit about Epstein, but discounting everything Kraus says because he was skeptical of charges brought against a frien