General Discussions > Skepticism / Science Talk

Do we need a new Stephen Jay Gould?

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Desert Fox:
Do we need a new popular biological / geology writer who can avoid getting involved in religious issues?
Richard Dawkins seems to be too polarized as far as religion. As well, he is simply getting old.

For Astronomy, we have Neil DeGrasse Tyson

SkeptiKiwi:
Dawkins is great and has many years left of valuable contribution.

So my answer to you sir, is no.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is very good but he has some very clunky utterances such as the phrase 'stars exploding and spewing their chemically enriched guts'. It just sounds so sordid, like a dysenteric celebrity on a drinking binge.

I guess he was trying to distill and modernize Sagans:

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”

Rai:
David Attenborough is still alive and kicking.

We also have a great generation of science bloggers, including the brilliant Brian Switek and Darren Naish who do an amazing job writing articles, books, papers and organising exhibitions while steering well clear of the culture wars. They just need to get on TV.

ting-bu-dong:

--- Quote from: SkeptiKiwi on Jun 28, 2012, 04:25:28 AM ---Dawkins is great and has many years left of valuable contribution.

So my answer to you sir, is no.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is very good but he has some very clunky utterances such as the phrase 'stars exploding and spewing their chemically enriched guts'. It just sounds so sordid, like a dysenteric celebrity on a drinking binge.

--- End quote ---

Dawkins is great for friendly audiences who will actually consider his arguments. I have learned a lot from his books and lectures. But he should not have allowed himself to be the de facto public face of a political movement if he is on record as not caring for political discourse.

What I like about Tyson is that he goes beyond the "Hubble makes nice pictures" school of science popularisation and spends a lot of time talking about the economic cost to antiscience. If any framing is going to have an effect of the antiscience factions that dominate conservatism at the moment, it's that one.

Shibboleth:
The thing I loved about Sagan is that he never used science as an anti-your-beliefs weapon. While he did at times talk about his beliefs in things like God and what have you, he always tried to approach science, "hey, look at this... isn't it cool". That is why he was able to get so many people to listen to him and learn. The minute you go and say something like, "hey look at this... it shows you are wrong" it instantly puts someone on the defensive and they stop listening and start looking for ways to prove you wrong.

The person that is awesome at this right now and the person that I love to listen to is Brian Cox.

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