On Neil Degrasse's "Cosmos" Remake

[shunyadragon]

Yeah, war is violent, isn't it?



Well, it never says everyone in the city was killed, it simply says that many were killed....sooo, yeah, sorry.

Oh, and also:



Oh! Caught in another lie I see!

The slaughter of tens of thousand after Jeruselum was taken, and the war is over. The accounts beyond this of course vary, but they all agree with the slaughter. How many survived according to the sources, maybe 10, 100, or a thousand? Please document your numbers!!!!

No lie here, your just quibbling over a few survivors, unless you can document anything significant.

You should be reveling in the blood bath slaughter of tens of thousands of heretics and 'Christ killer' Jews considering the fact that you endorse the inquisition.

[TimelessTheist]

The slaughter of tens of thousand after Jeruselum was taken, and the war is over. The accounts beyond this of course vary, but they all agree with the slaughter. How many survived according to the sources, maybe 10, 100, or a thousand? Please document your numbers!!!!

I don't remember them documenting the precise number of people who survived, nor did they document the 'precise' number of the people who were killed either. Anyway, the fact that the armies were defeated is pretty much irrelevant at the point the city is taken. There's bound to be some destruction, looting, and killing if the invading army breaks through the gates, and pushes back the protecting troops into the city. Such is the case with every battle ever fought.

[shunyadragon]

I don't remember them documenting the precise number of people who survived, nor did they document the 'precise' number of the people who were killed either. Anyway, the fact that the armies were defeated is pretty much irrelevant at the point the city is taken. There's bound to be some destruction, looting, and killing if the invading army breaks through the gates, and pushes back the protecting troops into the city. Such is the case with every battle ever fought.

Not on this scsle. tens of thousands slaughtered.

[TimelessTheist]

Not on this scsle. tens of thousands slaughtered.

Actually, this was typical in warfare back then.

[shunyadragon]

Actually, this was typical in warfare back then.

The war was over, and the slaughter began.

[rogue06]

The war was over, and the slaughter began.

Look at what happened when Baghdad fell in 1258. Realistic estimates range from 90,000 to 200,000 civilians slaughtered. Or the execution of an estimated 100,000 by Tamerlane outside of Delhi in 1398. For a much more recent example look at what has become known as the Rape of Nanking that has estimates from 40,000 to 300,000 killed by the Japanese during a six week period in 1937.

[shunyadragon]

Look at what happened when Baghdad fell in 1258. Realistic estimates range from 90,000 to 200,000 civilians slaughtered. Or the execution of an estimated 100,000 by Tamerlane outside of Delhi in 1398. For a much more recent example look at what has become known as the Rape of Nanking that has estimates from 40,000 to 300,000 killed by the Japanese during a six week period in 1937.

I have not made any reference to justify any slaughter. There are many over the millennia. What's your point??? A slaughter of innocents is the slaughter of innocents.

[Juvenal]

I just posted this on another site and figured it would go along with the discussion here as well:

There's a good deal of nit-picking here, all of which, from what I've seen, is coming from axe-grinders with little interest in applying the same standard of accuracy to themselves.

Just f'rinstance ...

I just re-watched it and there are many things that the revisionist portrayal of Giordano Bruno in Cosmos got wrong.

First, right before the animated segment Neil DeGrasse Tyson informs us that in “1599 everyone knew the sun, planets and stars were just lights in sky revolving around the earth.”

Really? I'd bet that would have come as quote a shock to Copernicus who over half a century earlier published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres"). And let's not forget Thomas Digges who "was the first to expound the Copernican system in English but discarded the notion of a fixed shell of immoveable stars to postulate infinitely many stars at varying distances."

At least after the commercial break Tyson does mention Copernicus and his "radical proposal."

Copernicus, d. 1543
Thomas Digges, d. 1595

Second, Tyson continues saying "there was only one man who envisioned an infinitely grand cosmos.”

Really? Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (or Nicolaus Cusanus)in his De Docta Ignorantia ("Learned Ignorance") asked whether there was any reason to assert that the Sun (or any other point) was the center of the universe which he apparently thought was limitless. Bruno even quotes him in his works.

Nicholas of Cusa, d. 1464

Third, in the animated segment Bruno is depicted as sneaking about and pulling a book out from hiding from under the floor boards as we are told that “He dared to read the books banned by the Church.” The book in question was De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) by Lucretius which Tyson declares “was his undoing” shortly before Church officials burst into his room like a scene from Monty Hall's Spanish Inquisition skits.

Really? While Lucretius was on the banned list, his reading it would not have troubled the authorities that much because such texts were often consulted by scholars if only to refute them. In fact the aforementioned Nicholas of Cusa had read and commented quite extensively on Lucretius, which is likely what lead Bruno to On the Nature of Things in the first place.

Further, it most certainly not the ideas from Lucretius that was Bruno's "undoing." Not by a long shot. But I'll get to that.

Banned books! Defending the banning of books by religious authorities. Let me know how that works out for you.

For the rest of us, about the only thing more repugnant than the intellectual vice-grips historically wielded by religious authorities and their banned book lists are the modern day apologists for same.

Copernicus intended to publish post-mortem, because he knew the reaction he'd receive. His publisher inserted prefatory material cushioning the text, unsuccessfully; it was the banned book list for him, too.

Fourth, in the animation Bruno is depicted as being kicked out of the Church after being caught reading Lucretius' book as Tyson informs us that “It was the last steady job he ever had.”

Really? Actually Bruno was not kicked out but rather ran off after he began to defend the heresy of Arianism (which has nothing todo about the universe but rather concerns the relationship of God the Father to the Son of God, Jesus Christ -- with the view that the Son of God was a subordinate entity to God the Father).

Further after this Bruno had no trouble finding work. He was doing quite fine in Paris as a lecturer where he had powerful patrons including Henry III who offered him royal support. Bruno boasted that he was awarded "an Extraordinary Lectureship with a salary." He went on to England with a letter of recommendation from Henry and as a guest of the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. It was only after leaving there, primarily due to isolating supporters with his abrasive manner and a change in the political climate, that he could be considered a wanderer going from teaching position to teaching position.

The depiction of him in the animation of him in tattered and patched clothes alone in the wilderness, sleeping on the hard, cold ground is pure fantasy.

His political appointment was a steady job until it stopped being a steady job when the politics changed, as they always do. He had no problem getting one of these "steady" jobs, which he kept losing after a year or two.

But the animation, that's fantasy!

Don't violate the standards you're setting for deGrasse Tyson in your critique of deGrasse Tyson.

Because, well, there's a word for that.

Was he fired, or did he quit? Did he leave voluntarily, or was he coerced by the religious authorities? Kicked out, or ran off, it reads the same. There's little point in distinguishing between theological and scientific truth claims in an age where all truth claims were theological.

Fifth, According to Tyson his dream about the nature of the cosmos was what "sealed his fate."

Really? While he was indeed excommunicated by the Catholics as well as the Lutherans and expelled from Switzerland by the Calvinists it wasn't for his views on the infinity of the universe.

For instance, he left Geneva for publishing a broadsheet that attacked a distinguished Calvinist professor, Antoine de la Faye, listing 20 errors Bruno thought he had made during a religious lecture.

And the timeline is skewed for the Cosmos animation has Bruno being kicked out of Germany before he headed to Oxford. In fact he went to London in 1583 and didn't go to Germany until 1586.

Good catch on the timeline issue.

Sixth, the penalty for supporting Copernican ideas or even the view that there were other worlds (something that Nicholas of Cusa also had proposed) was not as Tyson stated "the most vicious form of cruel and unusual punishment." That issue wouldn't come to a head for over a decade and a half after Bruno's death.

You're talking about the trial of Galileo, prosecuted by the same Bellarmine who ordered Bruno burned at the stake. There is little doubt Galileo would have received the same punishment.

Seventh, according to Tyson, the purpose of the Inquisition, as horrible as it was, did not have as a "sole purpose" of tormenting those that disagreed with Catholic teachings.

Really? Nothing made them happier than for someone accused of heretical teachings to immediately and voluntarily recant and rejoin the Church. And again not to excuse the brutality that they inflicted, the Inquisition almost always tended to be less brutal than the secular courts and methods they employed during this time. But again I reiterate, killing people who disagree with us is indefensible.

That's just warped. The secular courts performed the executions, but that's no absolution for the religious courts that handed them over to be executed.

Finally, Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges including denial of the Trinity, denial of the divinity of Christ, denial of virginity of Mary, and denial of Transubstantiation. Yes his ideas concerning the plurality of worlds (not the infinite nature of the universe) were included among many other charges (and he was encouraged to abandon them), but nearly every historian agrees that they played little if any role during the trial. He was convicted of religious heresies and occult practices -- not advocating science.

At least the animated segment got it right when they had Robert Bellarmine read out the religious heresies that he was tried and convicted of before bringing up Bruno's pluraity of worlds idea but it seems silly in the extreme that they had Bruno only addressing his view about an infinite creation.

Not silly at all. Bruno offered to recant his purely religious heresies, saving out only the plurality of worlds, but was denied, and in consequence, recanted none.

Cont'd.

[Juvenal]

There are many other smaller points (I especially loved the way he is depicted as some meek and humble lamb :D) but these should serve to illustrate what I mean.

It is a stretch to make Bruno a martyr for science when he was executed for religious heresies that had nothing to do with science. He was not, as Tyson said, one of those "searchers strictly adhering to a simple set of rules" who "test ideas by experiment and observation. Build on those ideas that pass the test. Reject those that fail." Bruno conducted no experiments, and wrote no scientific works -- his insight came to him as a revelation and stopped there. He was a mystic, a radical heretic, and an occultist. He abandoned Christianity in favor of worshiping the ancient Egyptian god Thoth and believed in Hermeticism (believed to be derived from ancient Egyptian wisdom) and magic (Both Hermes and Thoth were gods of magic)

Is this a grammar fail?

"He was not, as Tyson said, one of those ..." should be "He was, as Tyson said, not one of those ..."

It would be a stretch to call Bruno a martyr for science, but deGrasse Tyson never went there. On the contrary, as deGrasse Tyson said in the program, Bruno was a martyr, but not a martyr for science, explicitly enumerating the reasons you've given.

The overall message of the opening show was the expansion of our views of the universe in the past few hundred years since the development of the telescope from a single world in the center of creation surrounded by relatively insignificant points of light … to a possible multiverse of universe upon universe, within which lies our observable universe, composed of hundreds of billions of galaxies, each composed of hundreds of billions of solar systems, all nestled in a vast ocean of dark energy and dark matter.

In this reincarnation of the Cosmos of Carl Sagan — Neil deGrasse Tyson’s mentor! —deGrasse Tyson gives our address as:

Earth
Solar System
Milky Way Galaxy
Local Group
Virgo Supercluster
Observable Universe

Each of the lines following “Earth” was nailed down in the past four hundred years. That dividing line is directly associated with Galileo and his telescopes, which in turn is directly associated with Galileo’s persecution in the face of the church's theological abstention from what he described and defended. Galileo’s recantation was in turn directly associated with Bruno’s failure to do the same, with tragically brutal consequence, as described: a vicious form of cruel and unusual punishment.

It’s beyond grotesque to engage in blaming a victim who was burned at the stake for thought crimes.

If Bruno was abrasive and belligerent, and also heretical, so was Newton, whose work corroborated Bruno’s vision in a way Galileo —often described as the father of the scientific method — never could. Newton went beyond measurement to a mathematical modeling so precise its discrepancies from the observations would pave the way for Einstein.

Even beyond his unquestionably heretical writings on mysticism and the occult, Newton’s theory of gravity was subject to accusations of heresy. If Newton escaped Galileo’s fate, not to mention Bruno’s, it was only because he lived outside the time and place of the Inquisition, which deGrasse Tyson described, accurately enough, as an institution which existed to investigate and torment any with views that differed from theirs.

If “Nothing made them happier than for someone accused of heretical teachings to immediately and voluntarily recant and rejoin the Church,” we have a disagreement on what the word “voluntarily” should mean. If they were able to force a recantation without physical application of their torture devices, the threat of their use was still coercion. There’s no question the threat worked on Galileo. And if it is true that the suppression of heresy was higher bliss for them than an objective search for truth, that is its own indictment.

Having read the commentary surrounding this show, I’m well aware your list of criticisms originates with church apologists, axe grinders if you will, who take these historical excesses personally and respond by lashing out at the ill-fated Bruno. Appealing to context, they minimize the crimes perpetrated by their church authorities and magnify their accusations against Bruno by refusing to lodge the same appeal: Bruno was no more abrasive than his opponents, giving as good as he got, and besting them at their own game, only losing out when his patron was outranked by theirs or they managed to upgrade their champions.

Bruno was guessing, and could well have been wrong. But it was an awfully good guess, inspired by both secular and religious thinking, and specific enough to be tested as the technology evolved. If he wasn’t martyred for a science that did not yet exist, he was certainly martyred for the free thinking that allowed that science to come into being. His multiplicity of worlds, with a boundless, omni-centered universe in which the stars are suns like our sun, surrounded by planetary systems was far beyond his time, and has since been spectacularly verified. None of his influencers can say the same.

And, if the visceral reaction to his biographical sketch on the first episode of Cosmos is any clue, the same religious suppression of free thought is still active today, making his inclusion all the more apt.

As ever, Jesse

[Juvenal]

Some of the Things That Molecules Do is up and available for the next seven weeks.

It's about the theory and fact of evolution.

Let the umbrage begin.

[Darth Executor]

Is this a grammar fail?

"He was not, as Tyson said, one of those ..." should be "He was, as Tyson said, not one of those ..."

It would be a stretch to call Bruno a martyr for science, but deGrasse Tyson never went there. On the contrary, as deGrasse Tyson said in the program, Bruno was a martyr, but not a martyr for science, explicitly enumerating the reasons you've given.

The overall message of the opening show was the expansion of our views of the universe in the past few hundred years since the development of the telescope from a single world in the center of creation surrounded by relatively insignificant points of light … to a possible multiverse of universe upon universe, within which lies our observable universe, composed of hundreds of billions of galaxies, each composed of hundreds of billions of solar systems, all nestled in a vast ocean of dark energy and dark matter.

In this reincarnation of the Cosmos of Carl Sagan — Neil deGrasse Tyson’s mentor! —deGrasse Tyson gives our address as:

Earth
Solar System
Milky Way Galaxy
Local Group
Virgo Supercluster
Observable Universe

Each of the lines following “Earth” was nailed down in the past four hundred years. That dividing line is directly associated with Galileo and his telescopes, which in turn is directly associated with Galileo’s persecution in the face of the church's theological abstention from what he described and defended. Galileo’s recantation was in turn directly associated with Bruno’s failure to do the same, with tragically brutal consequence, as described: a vicious form of cruel and unusual punishment.

It’s beyond grotesque to engage in blaming a victim who was burned at the stake for thought crimes.

If Bruno was abrasive and belligerent, and also heretical, so was Newton, whose work corroborated Bruno’s vision in a way Galileo —often described as the father of the scientific method — never could. Newton went beyond measurement to a mathematical modeling so precise its discrepancies from the observations would pave the way for Einstein.

Even beyond his unquestionably heretical writings on mysticism and the occult, Newton’s theory of gravity was subject to accusations of heresy. If Newton escaped Galileo’s fate, not to mention Bruno’s, it was only because he lived outside the time and place of the Inquisition, which deGrasse Tyson described, accurately enough, as an institution which existed to investigate and torment any with views that differed from theirs.

If “Nothing made them happier than for someone accused of heretical teachings to immediately and voluntarily recant and rejoin the Church,” we have a disagreement on what the word “voluntarily” should mean. If they were able to force a recantation without physical application of their torture devices, the threat of their use was still coercion. There’s no question the threat worked on Galileo. And if it is true that the suppression of heresy was higher bliss for them than an objective search for truth, that is its own indictment.

Having read the commentary surrounding this show, I’m well aware your list of criticisms originates with church apologists, axe grinders if you will, who take these historical excesses personally and respond by lashing out at the ill-fated Bruno. Appealing to context, they minimize the crimes perpetrated by their church authorities and magnify their accusations against Bruno by refusing to lodge the same appeal: Bruno was no more abrasive than his opponents, giving as good as he got, and besting them at their own game, only losing out when his patron was outranked by theirs or they managed to upgrade their champions.

Bruno was guessing, and could well have been wrong. But it was an awfully good guess, inspired by both secular and religious thinking, and specific enough to be tested as the technology evolved. If he wasn’t martyred for a science that did not yet exist, he was certainly martyred for the free thinking that allowed that science to come into being. His multiplicity of worlds, with a boundless, omni-centered universe in which the stars are suns like our sun, surrounded by planetary systems was far beyond his time, and has since been spectacularly verified. None of his influencers can say the same.

And, if the visceral reaction to his biographical sketch on the first episode of Cosmos is any clue, the same religious suppression of free thought is still active today, making his inclusion all the more apt.

As ever, Jesse

Hilarious. "Axe grinder" pretty much sums you up. The fact that you'd defend Tyson's lies in the name of free thought just adds an extra touch of hard irony that makes this all the more entertaining.

[TimelessTheist]

Bruno was no more abrasive than his opponents, giving as good as he got, and besting them at their own game, only losing out when his patron was outranked by theirs or they managed to upgrade their champions.

This sentence is beyond hilarious. Bruno never "outsmarted" anybody, especially the church fathers. He was a border-line insane pagan magician, who's 'scientific' work with heliocentrism was refuted by all scientists, everywhere.

[Juvenal]

This sentence is beyond hilarious. Bruno never "outsmarted" anybody, especially the church fathers. He was a border-line insane pagan magician, who's 'scientific' work with heliocentrism was refuted by all scientists, everywhere.

The church fathers answered him by burning him at the stake. Some of us find that argument less than hilarious, and a perception of hilarity more than borderline insane. Which makes it of questionable value to respond to you at all. But I am at least slightly curious about what you believe have been the scientific refutations of heliocentrism.

Because, well, that's way past borderline crazy.

Do tell.

[TimelessTheist]

\The church fathers answered him by burning him at the stake.

No, actually, they answered him with logic and evidence, multiple times, and he refused to accept it, multiple times. 'Then' they responded to his dishonesty by burning him at the stake.

But I am at least slightly curious about what you believe have been the scientific refutations of heliocentrism.

Heliocentric is correct. His theory of it, however, wasn't, and was well-refuted at that time. Aristotle was the main source of arguments against heliocentric theory, arguments that both, Bruno and Galileo, failed to respond to.

[OingoBoingo]

There's a good deal of nit-picking here, all of which, from what I've seen, is coming from axe-grinders with little interest in applying the same standard of accuracy to themselves.

All that nitpicking and axe-grinding of the nitpicking axe-grinders and you failed to notice the reference to Monty Hall's inquisition rather than Monty Python's, which is the only thing worthy of actual nitpicking and axe-grinding.