Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
Some thoughts and concerns
Most of us are already well aware of the premiere of Cosmos. A different kind of show that aims to entertain while at the same time educating and astonishing its audience. It is a show that many of us have been anxiously awaiting and now that it’s here it raises a few concerns.
We live in a time where [in America at least] it is “uncool” to be a science geek; where a person is more likely to follow Kim Kardashian on twitter than Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, or even Bill Nye. Most people would rather share a photo with the caption “Share if you love Jesus” than share an article that explains how the Higgs Boson particle gives matter its mass. This is deeply concerning especially when you look at how television programs have changed to accommodate these new interests. The Discovery Channel and History Channel are perfect examples of this.
Words cannot describe how excited I am for Cosmos to air tomorrow night. I’m so sick of Honey Boo Boo shit and how everyone is so interested in “reality TV” nonsense. All of it is mind-numbing garbage. The Discovery channel is what drove me to study the sciences when I was a kid, now it shows people digging for gold and fishing for crab. The History channel is what sparked my interest in where we came from and how we got here. Now all we get is Pawn Stars which used to have some history in it but now is just scripted drama within the family. Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Seth MacFarlane made an amazing choice when they stuck with Fox for Cosmos. This is a huge step and I hope everyone watches because it’s a work of art. Just be careful; you might learn something.
Cosmos is aiming to substitute this need for television drama with a wave of new interest in science and one can only hope it succeeds because we need scientists, we need engineers, and we need people to care about progress. The citizens of a country need to be shown that learning can be not only interesting but exhilarating. What pains me most are the people who see a science show like Cosmos and choose to toss it aside based on their own personal beliefs. It makes me cringe, the idea that these people [who would otherwise be intelligent] can be so ignorant, simpleminded, and vacuous; Impeding the advancement of human civilization in the process. They refuse to accept that their beliefs and science are irreconcilable. There is far too much cognitive dissonance for an argument to even be made.
This predicament doesn’t end with teenagers or religious extremists. The American government spends more money on their military than their schools which is extremely alarming. Don’t get me wrong, the American military is one of the best in the world and I applaud them for that. What needs to be understood is that the future of our country, of any country, isn’t going to be found looking through the scope of a gun; it’ll be found looking through the lens of a microscope.
