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Will history remember Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a great scientist?

Winston

Winston

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Will history remember Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a great scientist?
 
PirateMk1 said:
What did he do?
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Written books, published research, doctorate from Columbia as well as received honorary doctorates, won awards. He also made science cool again to an apathetic generation.
 
Winston said:
Will history remember Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a great scientist?
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Great? No. He's no Stephen Hawking. He's a good scientist, but he'll be remembered for his work in media and pop science, not astrophysics.
 
Winston said:
Will history remember Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a great scientist?
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Very doubtful. He's done some science, yes... but mostly he's just a populist whose fame has gone to his head. IMHO.
 
Winston said:
Written books, published research, doctorate from Columbia as well as received honorary doctorates, won awards. He also made science cool again to an apathetic generation.
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Too bad only a fraction of them get beyong funky pictures on Facebook saying "Like this if you love science!"
 
Winston said:
Will history remember Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a great scientist?
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I don't know much about him as a scientist, but I think he did a superb job of hosting the sequel to "Cosmos" and presenting it to the scientific layman in an easy to understand fashion.
 
Jesse Booth said:
Wasted his genius and degree trying to get retards to stop being so stupid.

To quote Katy Perry, from Tyson's show Star Talk: "Is math related to science?"
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So basically he did this :2brickwal. Got it.

Actually after looking him up he has some chops and made a major discovery regarding the Hubble constant and type 2 supernovae. That lead to a Nobel Prize for someone else following up on the work and lead to some theories about dark matter and helped with resolution on the Hubble Telescope. Actually he doesn't spend all of his time getting a mushy head. He's definitely NOT a Bill Nye. He will have a footnote or two in a journal or two.
 
Jesse Booth said:
Too bad only a fraction of them get beyong funky pictures on Facebook saying "Like this if you love science!"
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Well, I'm sure that he has made valuable contributions to the scientific community. Beyond the "tag a person who wants to bone science" fanfare.

It's a paradoxical age. Information at our fingertips, cat videos and false memes reign supreme.

Someone more learned than I compared our age to the Byzantine era on facebook. Citing that the Byzantines had access to a wealth of knowledge from the Roman republic and empire, but, their historians had their heads up their asses.

that is second hand, and I don't stand by it, but, I find it amusing if historically accurate.
 
PirateMk1 said:
So basically he did this :2brickwal. Got it.

Actually after looking him up he has some chops and made a major discovery regarding the Hubble constant and type 2 supernovae. That lead to a Nobel Prize for someone else following up on the work and lead to some theories about dark matter and helped with resolution on the Hubble Telescope. Actually he doesn't spend all of his time getting a mushy head. He's definitely NOT a Bill Nye. He will have a footnote or two in a journal or two.
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Of course he isn't a Bill Nye; Tyson's actually a real scientist, after all.
 
Winston said:
Will history remember Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a great scientist?
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I'll only remember him as a pompous windbag who's in love with himself and thinks he's so smart he can try and make a flowery response to a question without being utterly transparent.

 
Winston said:
Well, I'm sure that he has made valuable contributions to the scientific community. Beyond the "tag a person who wants to bone science" fanfare.

It's a paradoxical age. Information at our fingertips, cat videos and false memes reign supreme.

Someone more learned than I compared our age to the Byzantine era on facebook. Citing that the Byzantines had access to a wealth of knowledge from the Roman republic and empire, but, their historians had their heads up their asses.

that is second hand, and I don't stand by it, but, I find it amusing if historically accurate.
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I can believe that of the Byzantines. Did you know they practically invented napalm? It was called greek fire. Then they just... kind of forgot how to make it.

I will give Tyson props for the contributions he's made to science, I just think he made a bad call devoting so much of his time to entertaining my generation.
 
Goshin said:
Very doubtful. He's done some science, yes... but mostly he's just a populist whose fame has gone to his head. IMHO.
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He as actually put in some work that lead to Nobel Prizes for others. That's not shabby actually. Most of it was with the Hubble Constant and type supernovae relationships and how that relates to refined astronomical measurements. Good solid upper level journeyman work from the looks of things. Oh I am sure people who get into media regardless almost all have a bit of an ego. He seems to not be an exception.
 
Fishking said:
I'll only remember him as a pompous windbag who's in love with himself and thinks he's so smart he can try and make a flowery response to a question without being utterly transparent.

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Another terrible example of Tyson trying to echo the insight of Carl Sagan, and failing miserably.

Tyson is an example of what happens when you mix entertainment and science - you make people think science is all poetry, and finding meaning in things. Science is about better understanding the world in order for humans to build better civilizations, so we can live longer fuller lives, and survive the hazards of nature. Religion, politics, and philosophy should have as little to do with science as possible, only coming into conversations when absolutely necessary.

He's not the only one. Nye, Krauss, Weinberg, Dawkins, and Stenger are also WAY to political in mixing their anti-theism in their public relations. It's one thing to criticize creationism, climate denial, and other pseudoscience, but to attack religion constantly is to alienate 90% of the public away from science.

I say this is an agnostic leftist that loves science.
 
He is a better qualified version of Bill Nye the Science Guy.
 
I think he will be remembered as a really good science educator. I'm not sure what he has accomplished specifically in his field, but he has definitely stepped up as one of the most recognizable scientists because of his work on NOVA and Cosmos among other things.
 
MovingPictures said:
Another terrible example of Tyson trying to echo the insight of Carl Sagan, and failing miserably.

Tyson is an example of what happens when you mix entertainment and science - you make people think science is all poetry, and finding meaning in things. Science is about better understanding the world in order for humans to build better civilizations, so we can live longer fuller lives, and survive the hazards of nature. Religion, politics, and philosophy should have as little to do with science as possible, only coming into conversations when absolutely necessary.

He's not the only one. Nye, Krauss, Weinberg, Dawkins, and Stenger are also WAY to political in mixing their anti-theism in their public relations. It's one thing to criticize creationism, climate denial, and other pseudoscience, but to attack religion constantly is to alienate 90% of the public away from science.

I say this is an agnostic leftist that loves science.
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Tyson is nowhere near as alienating as any of those guys you mentioned. I don't consider him on par with Sagan, but he is much closer to Sagan than a Dawkins or Krauss. If you think Tyson is failing at being like Sagan because of his insistence on treating science almost as an art you must not have read too much Sagan.
 
Billions & billions & ...

There are a couple of questions there. Who does history remember as a great scientist? Does Oppenheimer qualify? Does Teller? & so on.

Does DeGrasse Tyson rank with them? I think he does well as a communicator - something like the way Sagan did.

I don't know enough about Tyson's astrophysics work to say one way or the other - about his ranking as a scientist. But if it's any comfort, as an astrophysicist, Tyson probably thinks in terms of the lifetimes of stars - billions of years @ a crack. With that perspective, his relative popularity in the media can't be that big a deal to him - other than introducing science in general to the audience he's trying to reach.
 
Winston said:
Will history remember Neil DeGrasse Tyson as a great scientist?
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Winston:

Tyson's career is not yet done, so anything is possible. Based on his accomplishments to date, no, not a great scientist but an important one. He will not reach the stature of a Hawkings or a Higgs. He is no Bose or no Feynman. Not a Watson nor a Crick. He will be remembered for two things most likely. One is his efforts to popularise science and specifically Astronomy. The other is leading the panel which demoted Pluto from a full planet to very large Kyper Body.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
MrPeanut said:
I think he will be remembered as a really good science educator. I'm not sure what he has accomplished specifically in his field, but he has definitely stepped up as one of the most recognizable scientists because of his work on NOVA and Cosmos among other things.
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This was pretty much what I was thinking. I need to get around to listening to his latest book. I bought it when it came out but have been too busy.
 
I view him more as an educator than a scientist.

Not many educators stay in history. Some do but not many. Tyson is fantastic but he needs to publish more to create a long lasting legacy. The youtube videos showing his brilliant conversations will disappear soon enough I'm afraid, whilst 'Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey' is really just a praise for Carl Sagan.

As for pure science, he hasn't really done that much.
 
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