Cosmos - final thoughts

I watched the majority of Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson and over all, I liked it a lot. But, getting my minimal criticism out of the way, I think it lacked focus and went off on a lot of tangents. I thought it was going to focus on space, but it seemed to be mostly about Science with a capital S, and great scientists, with many episodes focusing on one important discovery and the (often little-known) scientist responsible.

These flashbacks required a lot of animation, which I thought was mostly good. I thought it was funny how evil they made members of the Catholic church look:

Not unjustified.

Speaking of, the most enjoyable part of Cosmos was watching Neil deGrasse Tyson throw some serious shade at science-deniers. Made all the more enjoyable by the show's host-network: Fox. He attacked those who don't "believe" in global warming, as if it's a matter of belief, and those who question evolution and the age of the universe.

I loved the point that if the universe were really as young as some believe it to be, we would not be able to see stars millions or billions of lightyears away. Because the light that we see is millions or billions of years old. That is so simple and logical, I love it.

My favorite bit, from the last episode was the comment he made that he likes being a scientist because they don't have to "pretend to know everything."

Hm. I wonder who that was directed toward.

This brings me to my little rant about Creationism - not even why it's improbable. That's a boring and overdone argument. I want to talk about why it's not even an idea that I enjoy emotionally.

Literal Creationsim (that is believing that the earth is only a few thousand years old and that the entire universe was created in seven days and that all the species were created as they are today) makes the universe incredibly small - and makes it all about us. Neither of these things is true. The universe is unimaginably vast and we are unimaginably inconsequential. And I think that's really reassuring.

Most of all, though, I think that evolution is a beautiful concept. Life just sprang from the void one day: unprecedented, unprovoked, it just happened. By accident. A few more accidents down the line and look where we are today. That's beautiful. I find coincidence and randomness to be far more compelling concepts for the origin of life than fate and agenticity. 

Evolution also means that every form of life of earth shares a single common ancestor. If that isn't magnificent I don't know what is. We are related to trees. I love trees.

I liked the romanticization of scientific concepts in Cosmos. It doesn't all have to be about logic and cold hard reason. That's not very appealing. Neil deGrasse Tyson did a great job showing that science, and also atheism, can be very emotionally satisfying realms of thought. And I really appreciated that.