Neil deGrasse Tyson gives me hope. And not just that a relatively nerdy guy can become an intellectual sex symbol (according CERTAIN people in my twitter feed). It’s that we can make paying attention and knowing science cool again. Because we need to, and the remade Cosmos is a great start.
It seems as of late science isn’t cool.
- Of course there’s climate change, where apparently 97% of scientists agreeing about it leaves room for controversy, especially if fat donations and speaking gigs can be wedged into that room.
- There’s the disgusting anti-vaccination crusade that means we get measles back to kill our kids. There’s a nice story of leaving the anti-vaxx movement here or you can just stew in anger over the body count site whose URL mocks Jenny Mc Carthy.
- Abstinence only education doesn’t work, though people still seem to think talking about it will convince people it does. Having been a teenager and remembering it, and looking at the numbers, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.
We probably need to clone Neil deGrasse Tyson (Ok, you folks on Twitter, calm down, you know who you are). But baring the possibility of using dark technology to create an Army of Tysons* it’s up to us to enhance science awareness.
It’d kind of be par for the course.
