When Did Neil deGrasse Tyson

Start Using the Arguments of

Christian Apologists?

April 25, 2012

By Hemant Mehta  

 

***Update***: Dr. Tyson has responded to this thread here.

…

This is weird for me to say: Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t get it.

In the video below, he claims to be an agnostic… but when you listen to his reasoning, it doesn’t seem like he knows the difference between an agnostic and an atheist.

 

 

[Agnostic refers] to someone who doesn’t know… but hasn’t yet really seen evidence for it… but is prepared to embrace the evidence if it’s there… but if it’s not, won’t be forced to have to think something that is not otherwise supported.

So he’s someone who won’t say definitively that god doesn’t exists, but he open to the evidence.

In other words, he’s an atheist… at least that’s the term I’ve always used for that definition.

Without going into (boring-to-me) philosophy that breaks the categories down even further (“He’s a weak atheist,” “He’s an agnostic atheist”), it sounds like Tyson is just trying to back away from using the A word.

To some extent, I understand that. He doesn’t want to be known to the public as an “atheist scientist” (like Richard Dawkins). He wants to be known as a scientist, period. There’s a huge advantage to that.

But one of the reasons so many of us respect Dr. Tyson is because he tells it like it is (and he’s so effective in the process). I have a hard time believing he just misunderstands the terminology (at least as it’s used by the general public).

He goes on to explain that one of the reasons he’s not an “atheist” is because the atheists he knows are fervent activists, fighting for that cause, debating god’s existence, etc. But again, that’s not what makes someone an atheist. You can be an atheist and never talk about it with anyone. If you don’t believe god exists, you’re an atheist. End of story. What you do with that belief is your business, but you don’t become a “bigger” atheist because you talk about it openly, and you’re not a “lesser” atheist if you don’t come out of the closet.

At the end of the video, he talks about how he wouldn’t join a group for people who don’t enjoy golf… as if all atheists do is sit around and not pray. As if there is no anti-atheist discrimination to fight against. As if we’re not opposing attempts to make this a “Christian nation.”

If people who didn’t play golf were discriminated against, then we’d make a bigger deal about that, too. But people who don’t play golf can still get elected to Congress all across the country. People who don’t believe in god are banned from even running for office in several states (at least in the books).

I’ve never said this before, but I’m really disappointed in Neil deGrasse Tyson after watching that video.

Had he just stuck to his opening statement of explaining that he doesn’t like labels — “the only ‘ist’ I am is an ‘scientist’” — it would’ve been fine. A copout perhaps, but a respectable copout. But hearing him elaborate on those ideas, he just fell into misguided definitions and false accusations we so often hear from Christian apologists. He should know better than that.

Am I off base?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

About Hemant Mehta

Hemant Mehta is the chair of Foundation Beyond Belief and a high school math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He began writing the Friendly Atheist blog in 2006. His latest book is called The Young Atheist's Survival Guide.

__________________________

 Neil deGrasse Tyson • 8 months ago

 

I'm impressed by the fervor with which this thread has proceeded. Thanks for your interest in my (and each other's) views. In response to some of what has been said, I offer a few perspectives:

0) The opening sentence to this blog: "Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t get it" should instead have said "we don't see eye to eye" or "we don't agree on important points".  As worded, it implies that you "get it" while I and everyone who agrees with me does not.  That's a strong assertion, which, in my experience, is hardly ever justified.  As a minimum, it does not allow there to be an argument you have yet to consider that would change your view.  That is the essence of dogma.
1) I have not received money from NASA for the past five years or so.  Back then, I received was a small fraction of large pot of research money to study data from the Hubble Telescope.  Right now I have access to seed monies from the National Science Foundation to birth the radio show StarTalk: http://www.startalkradio.net/.  So my "financial support" is, and has ever been, only partially derived from tax-based sources.  My day job since 1995 has been the Director of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC.

2) My collected writings and speeches that reference god, religion, spirituality sum to about 1/2 of 1% of my output. And, with the exception of my "Perimeter of Ignorance" talk (and essay from which it was derived), whenever I do reference these subjects in talks, it's typically because I was directly asked by somebody during Q&A.  But because of forums such as this blog, I find myself being continually pulled back into the conversation. Evidence that people care, for sure, but from my view, a misdirection of energies...

3) In my opinion, ideas matter more than words and labels.  In a point I've made before, our language has only two words that reference or measure a person's non-religiosity.  So werre left debating who's sortable into one word or another, rather than discussing the access that religious zealots have to school curricula, or the subjugation of women in many religious philosophies.  Consider that Christopher Hitchens was a tireless fighter for human rights his entire life.  But at no time were you compelled to say "Go Atheist, Go!"  Instead you couldn't help notice: "This guy cares deeply about the disenfranchised."

4) I care deeply about science literacy and the impact it can heave on dreams, ambitions, and the wealth of nations.  Occasionally this mission crosses paths with dogma.  I'm there what that happens, but not typically on the front lines.  That's because others step forward who've written books on the dangers of dogma - religious or otherwise.  These people have forged their careers on debating dogma.  I'm their backup, although I'm usually not needed.  When I do step forward it's typically with a qualitatively different argument than what preceded me.  e.g. http://www.haydenplanetarium.o... The concept that you can't prove a negative is often applied to "you can't prove God does not exist".  This notion, while strictly true in logic and philosophy, is simply rubbish to the practicing scientists.  That's why logicians and philosophers, in modern times, make bad scientists.  We prove negatives all the time.  But our language is a bit different.  Instead we might say, "Evidence is overwhelming for the absence of "WXYZ", such that we will abandon all further  experiments on the subject and go on to other problems"  For example, if you say there's a bear in a cave, and I surround the cave with footprint-powder and observe for a year that no bear tracks are left outside of the cave - at any time,  I have **in practice** demonstrated that there is no (living) bear within.  For these reasons I will never say "You cannot prove that God does not exist."

6) The world (but especially America) contains productive, practicing scientists who pray to a personal god (about 40% of the demographic).  So being a scientist is **empirically** not equivalent to being an Atheist.  Typically they have filtered their religious texts for spiritual fulfillment, ignoring patently false statements about the physical world.   So the fight for science literacy is not against religion, it's against religious people (and perhaps others) who are trying to change policy in ways that undermine the training of scientists and practice of science here and elsewhere.  For those who want to fight religion beyond these battle fields, I will not stop them.  But my portfolio of energy and interest does not include such conduct or activities.

7) Don't take any of this personally, I don't debate astrologers, faith healers, palm readers, UFOlogists (etc.) either.  I'd rather get people thinking straight in the first place.  If I fail, that's when I hand them over to the rest of you.

8) More on these points of view from my acceptance remarks upon receiving the 2009 American Humanist Association's  Isaac Asimov Science Award.  http://www.thehumanist.org/hum...

Respectfully submitted,
Neil deGrasse Tyson
New York City