Jen Sorensen for March 18, 2014

But when people scream about black holes causing imminent destruction of the Earth, then those crazies need to be corrected.

Neil is apolitical. He hosted a private planetarium tour for the family of David Koch. “Cosmos” is shown on Fox network stations.

…@#$%!,and I wanted to believe in Black Holes.I sure hope God doesn’t hurt their bottom line….

I thought Mr Tyson made a pretty strong attack against the Creationists when he declared that the “theory” of evolution was proven science, and no more a theory than the theory of gravity. Thank you, Neil.

So is Jen Sorensen then inferring that humankind has created black holes throughout the universe ? Black holes existed long before homo sapiens evolved into modern humans. Simply altering our activity will not cause them to go away. The same can be said for climate change on Earth.

If you don’t get the cartoon, it’s a parallel to what’s happened to the discussion over human-caused climate change. All of the data and science says it’s happening and humans are to blame. But conservatives with business interests have managed to make the lie that there is “debate” over climate change acceptable. Which is why so few scientists are left in the Republican party. (Oh, and trolls, don’t bother trying to convince me by half-brained anecdotes. I trust 10,000 climate scientists over internet trolls who are wrong about everything else as well. Google “James Powell” if you want evidence.)

At least Tyson isn’t rabidly going on about the dangers of nuclear war and its inevitability like Sagan did in the original Cosmos series.By the way Sagan was wrong and I really hope Tyson keeps his Atheist religion under control.

No, not the main worry, but the source of a lot of fraud, exploitation, theft, graft and corruption in politics. I’d rather trust the government than a corporation ANY day.

Bishop Usher was a moron. The world is closer to 4 BILLION years old.

1% of the people control 43% of the wealth, and they are able to buy enough congressmen to keep the tax laws set so that the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is increasing. If corporations aren’t the main worry, what the heck do you think is?

We do have black holes; you send money to the IRS and it goes into a black hole forever.

Please forgive the length of the following comment..I notice the last few years a revisionist, negative view of Sagan’s legacy. These days, any scientist that tries to engage the conscience of the public as regards the use of science is bound to meet instant controversy, real or dishonestly contrived. Such was Sagan’s faith in the logic and search for truth in the scientific method that he stuck out his neck (despite warnings from certain colleagues) to discuss and dispute point-by-point the theories of Velikovsky. He perhaps mistakenly gave them more attention than they were worth. .Yes, he was an unabashed humanist, and that is now a nasty word for some along with “progressive “and “liberal.” He saw a real danger for nuclear war and advanced the theory of nuclear winter as an additional danger of it. Sneer if you will about the worry about nuclear war in those days, but people still remembered the Cuban Missile Crisis and how close we came. Personally I think we are closer than ever at least a smaller scale..I have read nearly everything Sagan wrote, and while he was a confirmed atheist I never thought he allowed it overwhelm the scientific themes of Cosmos or anything else. He was more than a science theorist; he actually used his expertise in planetary science to help do things. As a result of projects in which he took part, we know things about the solar system and the universe that astronomers for thousands of years could only dream of..Now that he is dead, to count coup on Sagan is a cheap occupation for some. In ESCAPE FROM HELL, by Niven/ Pournelle, Sagan is even portrayed as a well-intentioned collaborator with demonic bureaucrats to reform Hell’s rules. And now apparently, this new series Cosmos is causing some to dredge up the issues again, fueled by a distressing rise of pseudoscience allied with fundamentalist religion and business interests..We have in recent decades lost several excellent science writers – Asimov, Sagan, Gould, Gardner – who strongly campaigned against pseudoscience. What relatively petty hucksters and cranks they wrote against have quickly grown into well-funded institutes of misinformation that are eroding public trust in science. Never before have there been so many good science programs in the media, so why is this happening? It is a perverse, puzzling, and shameful development, and I hope this new version of “Cosmos” will help put us back on the right track..Meanwhile, the Voyager probes with their copper-gold-aluminum-uranium recordings sail on …

Close doesn’t count. The world has had numerous actual wars since nuclear weapons were invented. Not one involved their use.In the instance of accidents, there were no actual detonations. Testing is a different thing and that which was done hardly ended civilization.There is a strong argument that nuclear weapons actually decrease the possibility of war rather than increase it as they raise the potential cost of a conflict substancially.

Night Gaunt, you make an argument from ignorance just as someone who is a theist would..Essentially both Theists and Atheists make the same if opposite argument..1. No one has been able to disprove the existence of God.Therefore:.For the Theist God exists.For the Atheist god does not exist..The argument offered neither proves or disproves the existance or non-existance of God..It isn’t a philosophical liberal arts question. It is a logical one. Religion is based on belief. For the Theist a belief there is a God drives their religious faith. For the Atheist a belief there is no god drives their religious faith.Neither can provide positive proof of their position only incidental and ancedotal evidence that strenghtens their own belief.

For what it’s worth: I have recently made acquaintance with a man who retired from the submarine service. He knows my interest in history, and we chat often. He was involved in numerous special operations since the 1960’s. One evening, without going into specifics, he told me that we comfy Americans have no idea how many times we approached a shoot-out with the Soviet Union. He intimated that it was well over a dozen incidents which could easily had flared up if it were not for some cool heads, on both sides. From many previous discussions I have enjoyed with him, I do not believe him to be a BSer.

..Mike..you are one funny dude…

I wouldn’t know 3hour, I’m not a TEA Party member…

Really good, Jen Sorensen. They also wouldn’t want people seeing the direct similarities of a black hole sucking in everything and a corporation sucking in everything.

There’s even a book about this; Merchants of Doubt by Conway & Oreskes. And don’t forget to google the Luntz memo!