Yes, it’s been a while since Cosmos premiered, but the outraged cries of the creationists are always fun to revisit, or just savor for the first time. Make yourselves comfy: it’s going to be an awesome journey into the worlds of those who are really very upset that broadcast television had the audacity to feature real, unabashed science.
Ima let the articles speak for themselves.
Salon – Watch out, “Cosmos”! The Holy Inquisition is not happy with you: “If you are the kind of Christian liable to get upset when scientists deploy their annoying facts to prove crazy stuff like their ‘theories’ that the Earth is older than 6,000 years or that the universe began with a Big Bang, then the resurrection of ‘Cosmos’ must be extremely irritating. First, those damned progressives stopped allowing the Church to burn heretics at the stake; now even Fox is broadcasting ‘science’ documentaries. Truly, to quote the great Erick Erickson, ‘we do live in a fallen, depraved world destined for the fire.'”
Happy Nice Time People – Creationists Watch ‘Cosmos,’ Emit Billions and Billions of Sad Words: “We must be reaching some sort of event horizon where evangelicals will participate in no culture whatsoever and will stop whining about it, right? Please? Today brings us the inevitable news that watching ‘Cosmos’ — a show that is (thank god) aggressively up front about explaining evolution — made creationists and fellow travelers SO MAD.
Science League of America – Cosmos & the Creationists: Why Some People Hate Science on Television: “It’s amazing—and somewhat disturbing—that in 2014 we’re still hearing the same anti-science arguments bandied around after 1980. But this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise; creationists haven’t had many original claims to make since the 1925 Scopes trial.”
The Austringer – “Cosmos” and the Bruno Flap: “Neil deGrasse Tyson’s rebooted ‘Cosmos’ series spent a chunk of time relating a version of the life of Giordano Bruno, including his interactions with the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church and subsequent burning at the stake.
This has proven unpopular with the heirs of the Inquisition and other nit-pickers.
Happy Nice Time People – Intelligent Design Proponents Still So Mad at ‘Cosmos,’ Still So Happy They Can Be Mad at ‘Cosmos’: “This week’s sadmad first. We tried — we really did! — to read all the words in the intelligent design shill blog Evolution News review of Cosmos episode two. SPOILER ALERT: They are extra special sugar on top mad about this episode, because Tyson basically said ‘evolution is real, haterz’ and dropped the mic. We even tried to diagram some sentences, because we are a full-service blog. Incompre-fucking-hensible. We did, however, get the gist of the thing, we think, which is that intelligent design IS TOO SCIENCE but also loves Jesus and they are way smarter than Neil Degrasse Tyson ipso facto QED. No matter how hard they try to fling graphs at you, at the end they inevitably circle the Jesus drain.”
Science League of America – Cosmos Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Facts: “Clear explanations of science are precisely what creationists most fear from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s series. They know their spurious arguments wither in the face of any clear presentation of the facts of evolution, especially when such a presentation is made without apology, and in a way everyone can understand.”
Butterflies and Wheels – But by rhetoric and emotion: “Science deniers don’t like the new Cosmos series, Chris Mooney reports in Mother Jones.
Well of course they don’t. That’s because it doesn’t go
God made this.
Then God made this.
Then God made this.
[Repeat until it’s time for the commercials]”
Butterflies and Wheels – The infinite table: “The Huffington Post reports that some creationists are demanding ‘equal time.’
Sure. Let’s do that with everything. There’s a documentary about the Holocaust? Give equal time to David Irving. PBS broadcasts Eyes on the Prize again? Give equal time to someone from the KKK. A documentary about the millions killed by Stalin? Give equal time to a Stalinist – if you can find one.”
EvolutionBlog – The Script: “Prior to reading any essay about science and religion, do a search. If the words ‘nuanced’ or ‘complex’ appear then don’t waste your time. You’re about to get the script.”
Science League of America – Cosmos Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Silliness: “It’s remarkable that so many creationists evangelize the virtues of the competitive ‘free market’ except when it comes to what someone else creates, in which case they demand a ‘tax’ of equal time. Expend your effort and risk your fortune to create a science show, and there’s a creationist with his hand in your pocket demanding his share.”
AlterNet – Neil deGrasse Tyson Shows Why Small-Minded Religious Fundamentalists Are Threatened by Wonders of Universe: There have always been those who prefer a small, comprehensible cosmos, with human beings placed firmly at the center. The religious belief systems that posit such a universe were our first, fumbling attempts to explain the origin of the world, and they rarely share power gladly. Those who clash against conventional wisdom, who dare to suggest that the cosmos holds wonders undreamed of in conventional mythology, have always found themselves in grave peril from the gatekeepers of dogma who presume to dictate the thoughts human beings should be permitted to think.
The Raw Story – Neil deGrasse Tyson trolls creationists on ‘Cosmos’ with puny size of biblical universe: “Creationists complained last month that “Cosmos” didn’t even pay lip service to their beliefs and demanded equal time on the Fox program, but this is probably not quite what they meant.”
ThinkProgress – Creationism Is Not Being Ignored On ‘Cosmos’ — It’s Actually The Focus: “Tyson isn’t ignoring creationism. Creationists wish Tyson were ignoring creationism. Tyson is instead standing on creationism’s home turf and playing by their rules. (Every episode we’ve seen so far has contrasted the Church’s approach to these issues with science’s approach. I’ve read some complaints that Cosmos is too much in love with that old story where everything happens in Europe until white people arrive in the Americas and then some stuff gets to happen here too. But I think that complaint also misunderstands that the history of Christianity as its taught to American Christians is, by and large, that story — everything happens in Europe until some stuff starts to happen here). Tyson is taking creationists’ claims deadly seriously, and showing all the ways they’re wrong.”
