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Cosmos ----why again?

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ant

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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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I think we have a lot of lawyer'ly type argument here.
It's abundantly clear that it's not argument for the sake of discovering the truth (as it relates to Bruno's history) but simply for the sake of winning an argument.

I'm of the opinion that COSMOS intention was to perpetuate the MYTH of science AS religion; stories of battles fought and won, martyrs, apostles, etc, etc. Shoddy publications in the late 1800 are responsible for most all of what's become the conflict thesis that COSMOS promoted in its first show. It's disingenuous of everyone involved.

The entire Bruno segment was a soundbite oversimplification. Unfortunately, that's mostly how people are educated these days by television and Hollywood. Without placing a historical figure in proper context, historical accuracy is not likely to be achieved.
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Interbane

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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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It's abundantly clear that it's not argument for the sake of discovering the truth (as it relates to Bruno's history) but simply for the sake of winning an argument.
The truth of Bruno's history has been more or less discovered and is a dead horse now. Cosmos made a mistake. I know that doesn't satiate your desire to throw the show under the bus, but it will have to do. My issue is that the mistake is used to segue into anti-science rhetoric under the guise of finding "mistakes". This is directed at Stahrwe, not you ant. If anything is abundantly clear, it's that his motive is to bash the scientific worldview in favor of his young universe worldview.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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Interbane wrote:
It's abundantly clear that it's not argument for the sake of discovering the truth (as it relates to Bruno's history) but simply for the sake of winning an argument.
The truth of Bruno's history has been more or less discovered and is a dead horse now. Cosmos made a mistake. I know that doesn't satiate your desire to throw the show under the bus, but it will have to do. My issue is that the mistake is used to segue into anti-science rhetoric under the guise of finding "mistakes". This is directed at Stahrwe, not you ant. If anything is abundantly clear, it's that his motive is to bash the scientific worldview in favor of his young universe worldview.
Made a mistake? Oh common now.
Do you think a mistake was made with how they fashioned the villainous cartoon characters?
How might those Disney-like characters impress a young mind? Or any ill-informed, uneducated mind, for that matter??

You're a smart dude, Interbane.
You know exactly how. And you really don't mind.

Why don't you just be honest and say it: If it convinces people to join YOUR camp, a sprinkle of indoctrination here and there is okay.

Geez. I'd respect you more if you did.

I've said nothing negative about the rest of the show.
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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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Made a mistake? Oh common now.
Do you think a mistake was made with how they fashioned the villainous cartoon characters?
How might those Disney-like characters impress a young mind? Or any ill-informed, uneducated mind, for that matter??
Sorry, I understated the impact. Cosmos is a crime against humanity and we should riot.
Why don't you just be honest and say it: If it convinces people to join YOUR camp, a sprinkle of indoctrination here and there is okay.
What normal person isn't okay with that? It's how our brains operate, right? We each justify it by saying that a slight meandering of the means is justified by the end. Overall, it's a good show for our society by eliciting passion in our youth. I honestly don't care if it shows religion in a bad light. Your comments won't make me care either. Religion in the US is leagues beyond "science" when it comes to indoctrination. Fight fire with fire, right?

But then, saying that Cosmos is indoctrinating people is a bit extreme. Influencing, yes. Indoctrinating, no. :mrgreen:
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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NDT's credibility has been compromised but I have not claimed he is either anti-religion or anti dogma (I would beinterested in hearing his explanation of the distinction). I have accused him of sloppy science, factual errors, compromising accuracy for special effects, self promotion, and perpetuating false information.
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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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ant wrote: Why don't you just be honest and say it: If it convinces people to join YOUR camp, a sprinkle of indoctrination here and there is okay.
So what "camp" does Cosmos fall under again? You mean, if you're interested in a show about science, you have to join a camp? Fact is, most people aren't going to watch Cosmos and get so totally bent out of shape about a particular animated sequence.

And, also, how could Cosmos depict the Inquisition as anything but sinister and villainous? Or maybe they should leave that part out because, heaven forbid, we can't have religion cast in a negative light.

I'll point out that other shows like Cosmos have also depicted the Catholic' Church's ideological opposition to scientific ideas (including the original Cosmos and Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man). It really happened. What's new is the Discovery Institute type mentality of folks who are in fact joining the "camp" in opposition to a show about science.
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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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Hey, i wonder what the discovery institute has to say about cosmos?

Got any subscribers here to "evolutionnews"?

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/03/co ... 83061.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_institute

I am hearing some echos out of that link it seems...
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Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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NDT's credibility has been compromised
As an historian? Wouldn't that accusation be better directed at the scriptwriter's source? Or did NDT lose credibility because he dared to use metaphor?
I have accused him of sloppy science, factual errors, compromising accuracy for special effects, self promotion, and perpetuating false information.
Begin the inquisition! :P

Sloppy science? Says the nonscientist about the astrophysicist. You're justified in not trusting him as an historian. But as a scientist? You haven't shown any sloppy or incorrect science Stahrwe. It's all in your head.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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ant wrote:there were other men at the time who held beliefs different than the orthodoxy at the time: Copernicus, Kepler, Stigliola, Digges, Maestlin, Rothmann, and Brahe. Cosmos and NDT start the Bruno tale with a complete falsehood: “1599 everyone knew the sun, planets and stars were just lights in sky revolving around the earth.” It was “a universe made for us.” And “there was only one man who envisioned an infinitely grand cosmos.” The above is simply false. All the men I've listed above were alive while Bruno was busy....
By ant's purported standards, what does the fact that Copernicus died more than half a century before Bruno was burnt at the stake by the Pope say about ant's credibility? It is completely shot. Ant is indifferent to facts, but only interested in dogma. By contrast, Giordano Bruno was a martyr for the scientific world view and a champion for truth.

I have yet to see what the "mistakes" the fundamentalists allege were committed by Neil Degrasse Tyson in Cosmos actually were. Was it because Cosmos implies that the Bible is not reliable as scientific fact? Which other astronomers in the 1500s expressed theories of the real scale of the universe with the same clarity as Bruno?
ant wrote: As to a thought police discouraging freedom of thought? Well, tell that to the prestigious universities at the time and their intellectual students. It would be interesting bringing them all back from the dead to ask them - "Did anyone keep you from thinking freely while you were at university?"
The rampant ignorance and wanton disinformation in this comment from ant about ancient universities as supposed bastions of free thought is beyond belief. Universities in the Counter Reformation period when Bruno was murdered were dominated by dogma, and actively suppressed free inquiry, in league with the Inquisition. That is why Copernicus did not receive his published copy of his magnificent scientific work On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres until his dying day in 1543. That is why Galileo was instructed not to speak by the church in the 1600s.

Bruno was a pioneer of free thought. That is why there is a concerted black propaganda campaign by apologists for the Catholic Church to tarnish his image, in order to attempt to restore the shackles of religious social control.

A More Perfect Heaven, a recent biography of Copernicus by Dava Sobel, is an excellent book to read about the social climate surrounding the emergence of modern astronomy. It shows that ant's myth of freedom of thought is farcical.
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Re: Cosmos ----why again?

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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christophe ... ays-later/
In retrospect, I believe the views they expressed were correct – that the segment gives the impression, as New York magazine said, of “painting organized religion as an irrelevant and intellectually discredited means of understanding factual reality” and as part of the show’s larger “pushback against faith’s encroachments on the intellectual terrain of science.” But I still should have waited until seeing the show myself before writing about it because some of my assumptions were, unsurprisingly, proved wrong.
“painting organized religion as an irrelevant and intellectually discredited means of understanding factual reality”

yes, organised religion really helped me understand factual reality with doctrines like...

original sin
eternal damnation
biblical inerrancy (the word of God, no less)
etc etc

“pushback against faith’s encroachments on the intellectual terrain of science.”

yes, when Jesus returns He is going to encroach on the intellectual terrain of science like you wouldn't believe, you unbeliever you :-D

God is so powerful that His believers feel the need to protect the minds of the innocent from the deceptive power of Satan who could easily overpower them and make them believe wrong stuff, like science :lol:

curiouser and curiouser indeed.
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