Neil deGrasse Tyson

[Felix Volkbein]

Has Tyson done any real science? He seems to be a media celebrity, but when I look in the Smithsonian/NASA ADS, I can find no record of scholarly work in science, except for popular books and social commentary. Is he in fact a practicing astrophysicist?

Not since graduate school (he did not successfully progress towards a degree at UT/Austin, and convinced Columbia to give him a second try). Aside from the obligatory papers describing his dissertation, he's got a paper on how to take dome flats, a bizarre paper speculating about an asteroid hitting Uranus, and courtesy mentions *very* late in the author lists of a few big projects in which it is unclear what, if anything, of substance he contributed. No first author papers of any real significance whatsoever. Nor is there any evidence that he has been awarded any telescope time on significant instruments as PI since grad school, despite the incredibly inflated claims in his published CVs. He cozied up to Bush and pushed Bush's version of man to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond, and now gets appointed to just about every high level political advisory board. To an actual astronomer, this is almost beyond inconceivable. It's just bizarre. To answer Delong's question, no: he is not a practicing astrophysicist. - Don Barry, Ph.D. Dept. of Astronomy, Cornell University


http://i.imgur.com/UVPhi35.gif

[Felix Volkbein]

http://i.imgur.com/hPaNUGq.jpg

I agree. There are many topics whose validity would be easily established with further research. Let's start with the following:

https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1389/19/1389193981240.jpg

http://images.sodahead.com/polls/004229177/Neil-deGrasse-Tyson-134729511697_xlarge.png

[Felix Volkbein]

An endless parade of irony, this man.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mef4yjgPQX1rnthqyo1_500.png

From John Baker's Race:


The failure of Negroes and members of certain other taxa, living in civilized countries, to reach the same average scores in cognition and attainment tests as Mongolids and Europids has often been attributed to environmental causes. In just the same way, it has repeatedly been suggested that those ethnic taxa that have never attained to civilization by their own endeavours in their native lands have been held back by the unfavourable nature of their habitats. Some authors are dogmatic on this subject. Sommerfelt, for instance, says that the differences between “peoples and tribes” are due to “natural surroundings and history, not to innate characteristics of these peoples.” This, however, is not by any means always the experience of those who have actually travelled among primitive peoples in their natural environments. Livingstone, for instance, was struck by the mental differences between members of different races living in the Kalahari Desert. The Bakalahari, a Kafrid tribe, had been forced into this environment in the remote past.

“Living ever since on the same plains with the Bushmen, subjected to the same influences of climate, enduring the same thirst, and subsisting on the same food for centuries, they seem to supply a standing proof that locality is not always sufficient of itself to account for differences in races.”

And how, on the environmental hypothesis, can one explain the fact that the Negrids inhabiting the tropical rain-forest of central Africa made not even a start in mathematics, while the Maya of the Guatemalan tropical rain-forest, equally cut off from all contacts with civilized people, made astounding progress in this subject, and at one time were actually ahead of the whole of the rest of the world in one important branch of it?

It would be wrong to suppose that civilization developed wherever the environment was genial, and failed to do so where it was not. Indeed, it might be nearer the mark to claim the opposite... It has been pointed out by an authority on the Maya that their culture reached its climax in that particular part of their extensive territory in which the environment was least favourable, and in reporting this fact he mentions the belief that ‘civilizations, like individuals, respond to challenge’.

From Michael Hart's Understanding Human History:


There is certainly something to be said for [Jared] Diamond’s thesis. Eurasia, and particularly the Middle East, did have a far greater supply of useful and easily domesticable plants and animals than any other region. It is also true that both Australia and the United States were badly lacking in such species. However, the facts do not support his theory when it is applied to a comparison between sub-Saharan Africa and Mesoamerica.

1) Flora. Dr. Diamond rightly stresses the importance of cereal crops in the rise of agriculture. The only useful wild cereal that grew in Mesoamerica was teosinte, the ancestor of corn. However, teosinte is not nearly as nutritious as wild wheat, and it was far less amenable to domestication. In contrast, sub-Saharan Africa possessed five useful cereal crops: sorghum, bulrush millet, finger millet, teff, and African rice. It seems, therefore, that SSA had an advantage in this regard. (SSA also had various useful non-cereal crops, including yams, cowpeas, watermelon, oil palm, and groundnuts; but these were balanced by the availability in Mesoamerica of beans, squash, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes.)

2) Fauna. Few regions contain as many species of large animals as SSA, but Dr. Diamond insists that none of the wild species there are domesticable. For example, he states that zebras, although very similar to horses in anatomy, are hopelessly irascible, and points out that recent attempts to tame them have all failed. I find that example unconvincing. Wild horses were long considered to be untamable animals, as was the aurochs (the wild ancestor of domestic cattle), but both were domesticated in time. Until we have spent at least a few centuries trying to domesticate zebras, we should not rush to the conclusion that such attempts are hopeless.

However, even if it turns out that zebras are untamable, it still would not be true that Africa did not possess any potentially useful farm animals. The wild ancestor of domestic cattle — the most useful of all farm animals — was indigenous to North Africa, and domestic cattle were being used in the Sahara by 5.5 kya, probably earlier, and south of the Sahara by 5 kya. (The Sahara was much wetter several thousand years ago than it is now.) In addition, domestic sheep and goats were introduced into Africa by 7.5 kya, and their use had spread south of the Sahara by 4 kya.

Mesoamerica, on the other hand, did not have a single large domesticable animal, since most of the megafauna in the Western Hemisphere had been killed off by the Paleo-Indians by 11 kya. As regards fauna, therefore, SSA had a great advantage over Mesoamerica.

3) Orientation of geographic axes. In Mesoamerica, the longest east-west span (from the eastern tip of Yucatan to Mazatlan, on the west coast of Mexico) is only 1300 miles. Contrast this with sub-Saharan Africa, where a vast stretch of savannah (the Sudan, situated between the Sahara and the tropical rainforest) stretches 3500 miles in an east-west direction, from the highlands of Ethiopia to Senegal. It is clear that transmission of technology and domesticates could — and repeatedly did — take place along the Sudan, and also across Ethiopia.

Furthermore, sub-Saharan Africa was not completely cut off from Eurasia, and some important aspects of Eurasian technology and culture did reach SSA. Techniques of pottery-making, bronze working, and ironworking reached SSA from the Middle East, as did the use of domesticated camels. (In addition, as already mentioned, domestic sheep and goats were introduced into SSA from the Middle East by 4 kya.) In contrast, prior to 1492, no Neolithic flora, fauna, or technology ever spread from the Old World to the Western Hemisphere.

We see, therefore, that the geographic factors mentioned by Jared Diamond strongly favored SSA over Mesoamerica. Using his criteria, civilization should have begun earlier in SSA than it did in Mesoamerica, and it should have progressed more there (prior to the European expansion of modern times) than it did in Mesoamerica.

In fact, though, by 1000 AD, Mesoamerica was far more advanced than SSA was, or ever had been. For example, Mesoamericans had originated writing on their own, had constructed many large stone structures, and had built large cities (rivaling any existing in Europe, and far larger than any in sub-Saharan Africa). Furthermore, the Mayan achievements in mathematics and astronomy dwarf any intellectual achievements in SSA.

We must therefore conclude that, although Guns, Germs, and Steel is an informative book, the obvious superiority of Mesoamerican technology to that of sub-Saharan Africa appears to be a fatal blow to the main arguments presented in it.

[Kalimtari]

http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/curriculum-vitae

[Kami]

He's done an excellent job in popularizing science. He is well-qualified in what he speaks about, too.

[Felix Volkbein]

http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/curriculum-vitae

A glance at the Research Publications section seems to confirm these remarks:


Aside from the obligatory papers describing his dissertation, he's got a paper on how to take dome flats, a bizarre paper speculating about an asteroid hitting Uranus, and courtesy mentions *very* late in the author lists of a few big projects in which it is unclear what, if anything, of substance he contributed. No first author papers of any real significance whatsoever. Nor is there any evidence that he has been awarded any telescope time on significant instruments as PI since grad school, despite the incredibly inflated claims in his published CVs.

He's a public relations man. Now a public relations can still fulfill an important function, but he shouldn't be touted as "one of the most brilliant minds of our age" as Tyson constantly is. He's a lightweight being promoted as a heavyweight, but we're not supposed to notice because of his race.

Perhaps one might claim that the fault lies with the cult surrounding Tyson which exaggerates his accomplishments. But Tyson himself makes frequent pompous statements that encourage this cult while revealing the shallowness of his mind, such as his numerous facile comments on religion and atheism.

http://i.imgur.com/zDiis.png

Wow, thanks for imparting such wisdom, sensei! He wants to be recognized as this fountain of insight. I'm not even religious, but Tyson makes Richard Dawkins look like Dun Scotus in terms of philosophical sophistication.

The Maya quote above is another case in point. If someone had asked him why we should take science cues from Negroes when Negroes have never developed any kind of math or science of their own, how do you think he would've reacted? Not to mention that anyone who conducted even a few minutes of research, which Tyson couldn't be bothered to do, was aware that the Maya apocalypse meme was based on a misinterpretation.

[Also]

I'm not even religious, but Tyson makes Richard Dawkins look like Dun Scotus in terms of philosophical sophistication.

:lol00001::lol::lol::lol:

I can't judge because Tyson doesn't write books promoting atheism and he actually seems to avoid being connected with the new-atheist movement.
You seem to be much focused on the fact he is a black scientist.

[Linebacker]

Mike Tyson has much more popular theories than this guy


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx66LWV-CCk