All the people commenting on how Fox being in charge (or suits for that matter) will change the quality of the show should remember two things:
1. In order to produce the show, someone had to convince the bean-counters that there is a market for it
2. Someone will be smart enough to research the market audience, track opinions, and make sure that fans aren’t pissed off

It’s exactly the same reaction that people will have to movies made from novels or comic books. Even Fox isn’t going to be stupid enough to completely change the underlying concepts of the show; and that astronomy heavyweights have signed off on being part of it suggests that they were contractually satisfied that Fox wouldn’t screw up too much.

This isn’t to say that it will be perfect, or that it won’t end up being crap. Only that it’s highly unlikely that a corporation will create something that they know will backfire on their target audience/income. (Assuming their target audience is people who usually watch these kinds of programs, and not, you know, trying to make inroads on a target audience who usually doesn’t)

I’m happy with any new, good popularized documentaries on astronomy, including this one. I’m just not sure whether it should be done under the ‘Cosmos’ flag.

Yeah, I agree with this. Unless they make it a simle updating of the original series, I can’t see why they are using the name. Either it’s a new show about the cosmos (and, hey, why not give it its own name?) or it’ll just be re-inventing the wheel. But with whizzy computer graphics.

It’s a shame you disagree and frankly I can’t fathom why you disagree when all the anti-Pluto mob has on its hands is one big argument from authority fallacy. Seems to me that Pluto and the ice dwrafs are being denied planetary status for the “sin” of being small and having other similiar worlds as well.

To reiterate briefly from the last thread in which this came up:

1. You have claimed that the IAU definition is illogical, but you have not shown this to be so;
2. You claim the IAU “discriminates” against Pluto and Ceres (et al.) because of their size, but this is just false;
3. You misrepresent the “gravitational clearance” criterion but I have yet to see you make any honest attempt to understand it;
4. You conveniently ignore the fact that your preferred definition is at least as arbitrary as the IAU’s;
5. You ignore the fact that your preferred definition would have Pluto and Ceres classed as planets (which they resemble in only superficial ways) and segregated from the KBOs and asteroids respectively (which they resemble in all important respects);
6. You have used an analogy to biological classification, and suggested that excluding Pluto from “planets” is like excluding mice from “mammals”, but classing Pluto as a planet (and therefore separating it from other KBOs) would actually be more like excluding the blue whale from “mammals”.

And so on. Yes, there are additional objections and issues with the arguments you make, but I was trying to be brief here.

yet this applies equally as well against Earth as it does Pluto. After all, Earth is tiny too compared to Jupiter and lies in a belt of similar worlds Venus, Mars and Mercury

This is deliberately obtuse.

Earth, Venus, Mercury and Mars are each by far and away (i.e. several orders of magnitude) the largest and most massive thing in their orbital region. Pluto simply isn’t. And neither are Ceres, Eris, Makemake, Haumea or Sedna.

There is a very real discontinuity between the kind of things that are the 8 IAU planets and the kind of things of which Pluto and Ceres are the largest known examples. This discontinuity could well indicate something fundamentally different about the formation of these objects, or their history within the solar system between the initial formation of planetary objects and the present kinda-stable arrangement.

IIUC, Pluto has been forced into an orbital resonance by Neptune’s gravity, but nothing similar can be said for any of the four rocky inner panets.

I think objectively I *have* made a convincing case for why Pluto and the otherice dwrafs doindeed count as planets just as the gas giants and rock dwarfs do.

It’s a shame you disagree and frankly I can’t fathom why you disagree when all the anti-Pluto mob has on its hands is one big argument from authority fallacy. Seems to me that Pluto and the ice dwrafs are being denied planetary status for the “sin” of being small and having other similiar worlds as well – yet this applies equally as well against Earth as it does Pluto. After all, Earth is tiny too compared to Jupiter and lies in a belt of similar worlds Venus, Mars and Mercury.

Well, I’ll try to keep this brief so’s not to derail this thread too extensively . . .

I personally feel that the “dwarf planet” category is not much more than a sop. It is not needed. I addressed all of your arguments both against the IAU definition and in favour of your own preferred definition in this thread:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/27/wise-finds-the-very-first-earth-trojan-asteroid/#comments
Unfortunately, despite my first rebuttal being only about 12 hours after your latest post there, you have not posted again since, and I can only assume that you gave up visiting that thread before I really got into my stride.

It’s a shame you disagree and frankly I can’t fathom why you disagree when all the anti-Pluto mob has on its hands is one big argument from authority fallacy. Seems to me that Pluto and the ice dwrafs are being denied planetary status for the “sin” of being small and having other similiar worlds as well – yet this applies equally as well against Earth as it does Pluto. After all, Earth is tiny too compared to Jupiter and lies in a belt of similar worlds Venus, Mars and Mercury.

We aren’t “anti-Pluto”, we’re “pro-fact, sentimental feelings for what you learned in grade school be damned.” Pluto is still a very awesome body, it’s just in a different class than the 8 planets. That this implies “anti-Pluto” just shows the underlying emotional basis for this controversy.

All we have is the correct observation that Pluto has not cleared its orbit like the other 8 planets have.

All you have is gross and deliberate misunderstandings of what we are talking about when we say that, and statements of laughable inaccuracy like “yet this applies equally well against Earth as it does Pluto.” No, it doesn’t. The Earth has cleared its orbit to an extent 22,000,000 times greater. That’s seven orders of magnitude difference.

Only someone completely neglecting reason in favor of their pre-determined emotion-based conclusion would ignore a factor of 10^7 difference to say the argument “applies equally well” to both cases.

Fortunately, in the long term, emotions will fade, science will prevail, and history will look back on this time and wonder why there was any controversy at all when the Pluto categorization is so obvious and natural, just like Ceres is viewed today. Heh, that’s not true, it will be clear why there was controversy — human emotions, in particular nostalgia.

#96 Gary wrote “‘updated’ versions of classic science shows usually mean replacing slower-paced but thorough explanations with hyper quick-cut MTV-style computer animations…and the more exploding stars, the better.”

That is indeed one of several possibilities I fear. And bad, generic drum ‘n’ bass interludes

# 93 davem wrote: “I’m OK with Mr Tyson, as long as he calls it the ‘cosmos’ and not ‘cosmose’. Drove me mad at the time, still does…”

Lol. I had come to accept that this was indeed the common American pronunciation (or at least, New Yorkish). But from your comment I understand it’s on the same level as pronouncing ‘suns’ as ‘sunnns’.

As for being ‘objective’, I can’t see why my pro-ice dwarf views are to be condemned as not convincing whilst views that are biased against Pluto are apparently okay.

I think objectively I *have* made a convincing case for why Pluto and the otherice dwrafs doindeed count as planets just as the gas giants and rock dwarfs do.

It’s a shame you disagree and frankly I can’t fathom why you disagree when all the anti-Pluto mob has on its hands is one big argument from authority fallacy. Seems to me that Pluto and the ice dwrafs are being denied planetary status for the “sin” of being small and having other similiar worlds as well – yet this applies equally as well against Earth as it does Pluto. After all, Earth is tiny too compared to Jupiter and lies in a belt of similar worlds Venus, Mars and Mercury.

. . . I think Tyson will spend too much time on BB theory which I believe is almost entirely wrong, and not enough time on logical possibilities, history, and other related subjects.

So, if you think BBT is “almost entirely” wrong, which bits of it do you think are correct?

And do you have a better explanation for facts such as these:
1. The universe is expanding;
2. There is a cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB);
3. The temperature of the CMB is 2.7 K;
4. The CMB is smooth to within 1 part in 10,000;
5. The CMB contains heterogeneities at the level of 1 part in 100,000;
6. The universal abundance of H, He and Li match predictions from the BB model;
7. No elements other than H, He and Li have a universal abundance;
8. The universe is (as far as we can tell) isotropic and homogeneous at coarse resolution;
9. At fine resolution, the heterogeneity we observe matches the BB model;
10. The spectrum of the CMB matches that of a black body.

. . . I’m still looking forward to this with untold excitement.

Oh, but you just told us about your excitement . . . so . . . does that mean that it’s now told excitement?

I think it was the same BBC radio show that introduced material that became [Red Dwarf], that also presented a version of [Cosmos] in which “Sagan”, probably voiced by Christopher Barrie, included in a list of things that scientists know about the cosmos, that it’s an anagram of “smoocs”.

LLOL. Literally laughed out loud. Was “Son of Cliché” the show? That’s what WP says Red Dwarf is from.

You might say I’m a dreamer…

Oh I agree. And that’s the problem, isn’t it (I mean, the part about being profitable, not us agreeing)?

When corporations reward profitability no matter how that is achieved. And only seem to care about the law, reputation, morality and other nasty ‘externalities’ when they get caught.

I do not buy the “they are a huge corporation” excuse. I do not believe the “I was betrayed by trusted insiders” excuse. I believe that it is the responsibility of management to know, in considerable detail, how they earn their money, when, and where. They are to know who they employ and why. If you tell me they did know then they are complicit in organizational failings. If you tell me they did not know then they are incompetent.

Seriously, the business model of the News of the World was on display every day. There was already a cell phone hacking investigation prior to the last one. Why, I remember Princess Diana complaining about the tabloid press and their intrusions, what, 20 years ago?

And it does not equate for me, suggesting that the public’s appetite for the dirt somehow washes clean the body corporate. No it does not. Not in morality nor philosophy.

But on a realistic level, if you want to do something about the situation, you must go after the control points. Which means the corporate sector.

He is the one, btw, who took the first steps towards “demoting” Pluto at the Hayden Planetarium. I saw a lengthy interview with him on the subject, and explained his views with patience and understanding towards those who had sentimental feelings. I would want to see a specific clip of him being “rude”, beyond just refusing to tell children what they wanted to hear. Personally I smell projection on the part of those who were offended by Pluto’s demotion regardless of how it is handled. I mean given how grossly facts are misrepresented by these people in order to make the definition seem silly, I definitely am not going to take their qualitative judgments at face value.

Anyway, that controversy will die off. Hopefully the legacy of Cosmos will live on.

Tyson has two modes: Rehearsed, and interviewed. When he isn’t hosting whatever program one finds him in, he tends to stumble and ramble a bit. I particularly remember one program where he had been asked what would happen if you got sucked into a black hole (or something like that). It was embarrassing to watch him reach for a more detailed response than a grinning “It’ll.. just.. blow you away.”

Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp is a HUGE organization. Their decision to buy News of the World (before the scandal hit) was almost certainly fuelled by two, and only two, factors:

1. News of the World was a media outlet, and
2. News of the World had an attractive balance sheet.

When Muroch bought them out, his instructions were probably little more than “Keep making a profit however it is that you’ve been doing it.”

I can’t decide whether I really expect you to be pleased to know that, or whether I merely am pleased that I do. And it might have been [In One Ear], anyway.

Someone also did a radio “Bleeding Incredible World of Clarke von Dingleberry”, rather lost on a British audience, presented from “Joe’s Beach Bar, Sri Lanka”, where this Clarke apparently -lived-. The bar. (Yes, I know. But wouldn’t you if you could, tsunami aside? Which is one big “aside”.)

In one of the pieces, he discussed the many places around the world where Bigfoot, Yeti, and other such creatures were reported to be seen occasionally, and he had very carefully satisfied himself before moving in that Joe’s Beach Bar, Sri Lanka, wasn’t one of them.

Fair enough, my friend. I notice several others have chimed in to agree with you since I asked my question.

I was just surprised because I’ve read a book by Tyson (Death by Black Hole), seen a TV show hosted by Tyson (Origins), heard his radio show (StarTalk Radio), heard him speak “live” many times (on YouTube), and seen him be a guest on various chat shows – and I just honestly have never noticed the “nastiness” others have referred to.

Anyway, love him or loathe him I urge you to watch at least the first video of his TAM 9 talk last month that I posted earlier (@ 79). His example of “hate mail” he has received over Pluto is an absolute classic