“The occupational hazard of making a spectacle of yourself, over the long haul, is that at some point you buy a ticket too.”

This is ridiculous reasoning. Tyson has bought a ticket to his own show.

Also, sad how the peddlers of science usually end up as preachers of scientism. https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/1248576852135993344">https://twitter.com/neiltyson...

Look, I& #39;m all for science. I spent years in the basement of a physics building trying to make superconducting circuits work (it was mostly machining, soldering and welding really).

But most of these science & #39;guys& #39; preach a sort of science as revealed gospel that& #39;s facile.

I can see the charm: when many in the public forum abandon all reason (e.g. anti-vaxxers) the reflex is to worship the opposite. But science itself, as actually practiced, is messy, incomplete, and applicable only in a narrow empirical realm. There& #39;s so much it can& #39;t answer.

Also, anyone who thinks it can& #39;t be tainted by personal politics (cf. OP& #39;s tweet) has never been part of a grant-writing process.

Science is our best hope against the pandemic, but it can at most answer the & #39;what?& #39; in life, and not necessarily the & #39;how?& #39; or the & #39;why?& #39;

For decades, we& #39;ve assumed that things like capitalism and science followed in lock-step with things like human rights and liberal democracy. China has been a resounding counter-example, showing you can have plenty of capitalism and science without democracy.

Even the hardest-core scientist embraces some flavor of metaphysics at some point, even if couched in the most secular language (& #39;human rights& #39; instead of & #39;divine spark& #39;). And whatever ethical principles those might be, they& #39;re not to be found inside a test tube.