Why Neil deGrasse Tyson Shuns Sam Harris’ Swamp of Controversy - Facts So Romantic
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On The Tonight Show, in March 1978, the late astronomer Carl Sagan had lots to talk about. He had just published Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence—which would win the Pulitzer Prize—and Star Wars, released the year before, still captivated the public’s imagination. When Johnny Carson, the show’s then-host, asked Sagan to expand on some comments he’d made prior to the evening, about the film’s indifference to scientific accuracy, Sagan said the “11-year-old in me loved” it, but it “could have made a better effort to do things right.” His critique would resonate today: After making the biological point that the Star Wars scenario—humans evolving long ago, in a faraway galaxy—is vastly improbable, Sagan said there’s another problem: “They’re all white.” Carson, (...)