Neil deGrasse Tyson on Triggernometry

[Igneococcus]

Is anybody watching? I lasted five minutes. I can't listen to more, I might have to get a wee bit drunk first, or watch it in very small doses.

Tbh, he looks like he's on something. He's not right. I genuinely believe the mental contortions required to gear you to argue this cause the way he does in this interview must require some release of adrenaline or other excitatory hormones, because to promote it you have to be aggressive and dominating.

To try and argue it calmly and rationally and dispassionately is not possible. It requires you to become a motormouth, incoherent and sledgehammer. Effectively angry.

Yeah, it was that weird. Maybe he is a cokehead?

I just couldn't get over how he was explaining things in "baby steps" that a slightly intelligent adult would be able to understand in about 10 seconds, as if they were complicated. I don't know that the Triggernormatry guys are geniuses or anything, but they interview a lot of really really smart people, and manage to grasp what they are saying without it being explained like they were 9 years old.

Even with the first question about people trusting in science, like, man, what you are saying is not complicated. Just say it, no one needs to hear it spelled out in 39 steps.

Around 18 minutes in he does a really dodgy example as to why scientists use % to say how confident they are in a finding.

He's sloppy in his thinking.

It's a really bad explanation for what science is and why the scientific method is a good thing. Most of the sciencey types I know can put up a very passionate defence for searching for truth through what you can observe, forming testable hypotheses, being open to revision etc etc. The most he can do is say "if lots of people say something it's probably true. We just need to educate people that that's the case". It's really depressing.

Also his bridge example is stupid. If you turn it round and say "95% of engineers say its safe but 5% say its dangerous" then I'm still not going on the bridge without more information. Also X% of people say its safe/dangerous doesn't = there's an X probability something is safe/dangerous. That's not how you calculate risk.

It's amazing to watch someone supposedly educated to a high level as a scientist gabbling out half-digested religious dogma without applying any critical thinking to what's coming out of his own mouth. Indeed, consciously going along with the rule that this bonkers stuff must be parotted out but must not be critically examined.

A lot of people are tying this performance together with the collapse in confidence with scientists in many segments of society. I think they've got their own problems (much of it is anti-vax motivated) but I do understand where they're coming from.

I subbed to Triggernometry when they only had a couple of thousand subscribers and rarely click off if I’ve opened an episode. But I couldn’t get past the intro to this one. I could tell by Francis’ face it wasn’t going to be good for my blood pressure.

The guy has a nice voice, he should be easy to listen to. But he speaks such bilge on some topics, and I don’t believe he believes most of what he is saying. He’s just not a good an actor as he thinks he is. So it grates on me.

I feel like his proposed solutions to the problem are ones a reasonable person could suggest, but they are likely to involve a huge amount of collateral damage. In order to avoid acknowledging this he has to do loads of mental gymnastics to minimise the problem. The comparison with the civil rights movement suggests he thinks there should be no segregation between men and women at all, but then he seems to acknowledge that some is still necessary without really considering why. It’s incoherent unfortunately and he’s failed to think of it from women’s point of view. Most women can understand why mixed sex toilets, even with a private cubicle, are a major problem but men seem to often have a failure of imagination in this respect. I think he thinks he’s got oppression credentials and therefore can’t be wrong.

My worry is the next phase of Operation Penis is that levelling the playing field of sex means all kids being given puberty blockers.

I can't see any other way.

I couldn't watch this guy, the clip on twitter was bad enough.

What struck me with this was that he was talking about covid related things in his example - which he was interviewed a lot about on CNN - and he was talking as if the "consensus" as he said was actually super clear, and anyone who thought otherwise was an idiot.

But his example of testing masks being easy was actually idiotic, that is not how you would test for that, or at least, it would be very limited as a lab based test. And the evidence was not clear as he suggested - the growing consensus, for years, had been that masking for respiratory illness was near useless. The Cochrane review published near the beginning of the pandemic said the same; and the most recent update to that review, in this past year, again said that even looking at the studies done with covid, recommending masking isn't supported by the evidence.

So in a way he was exactly exemplifying what the hosts were asking about - is this kind of thing not why the public is feeling distrustful of scientists, when they are claiming science says things clearly, and being pompous asses about it, despite the evidence not baking it up?

I'd always assumed that the real point about masks was for people to be continually and repeatedly reminded about the need to take care about things like social distancing and hygiene and the masks themselves wouldn't actually provide protection to any significant degree. But that the government and medical authorities knew they couldn't actually acknowledge the reality about masks. Also that part of it was masks were a kneejerk response at the start and as the reality became clear, the government and medical authorities felt that changing the story would undermine public confidence in other measures.

I’m not entirely sure of the timeline in Britain, but over here (a stone’ throw from Codogno, Europe’s first Red Zone, Locked Down, Locked In, Army patrolling sort of “funtimes’) we were told in no uncertain terms masks were useless. And from the studies I could access that seemed to be the scientific consensus. Before I panicked and made some from T-shirts anyway cos … youtube.

And then when they extended the red zone, we were ordered to wear any sort of covering over our mouths, cos there were no masks due to supply issues before the pandemic officially hit.

After Easter the council dropped us off one (surgical, non fancy) mask per occupant, which were to be worn at all times we were outside of our own property. Except for our house which got two masks for 3 adults, cos I’m foreign. So apparently viruses can’t see me.

The messaging was all over the place and in retrospect it went like this

Media throws a fit about “no masks ! stupid various national, regional and provincial governments couldn’t organise a piss up in a vineyard! The bastards!”

Everybody panics

Government panics due to public panicked after reading headlines. Says masks are useless. Sees this is not the panic de-escalation they hoped for. Orders mouths to be covered (with anything). Still not de-escalating. Works with local companies (and Armani) to generate masks in place of usual products. Masks arrived. Marks compulsory.

Media throws fit about masks being a useless item in face of virus and an infringement of civil liberties.

Civilians panic in two directions, often at each other. A war of words (and occasionally blows) breaks out.

Government plays in-out-in-out-shake it all about with mask mandates for …however long it was.

I don’t think any actual science got much of a look in for a while. There were just some very strident opinions (that ended up splitting to some degree along political lines) and once positioned people (in gov. media or in town) were not budging, no matter what any expert said.

Half the time I can put my hand on my heart and say from the top of national, to the most lowly of provincial or municipale, those in charge were more influenced by journalists than they were scientists. Cos the media head honchos were the ones who decided the headlines.

I’ve only ever consumed our local paper since then. Any trust I had in higher up levels of media got flushed down the loo.

I get why politicians panic at public panic. Especially when the world’s media is pointing you out as plague nation and telling anybody who will listen all the zillion things you aren’t doing right. Even if the “the right thing” changes every news update.

But it hasn’t left me feeling secure that anybody in charge is level headed enough to do what makes the most evidenced based sense, and communicate that effectively, rather than flop all over the place in an attempt to tame the headlines.

Well he's getting a kicking on Trig Twitter posts on it so he's not following anyone.

That's very interesting AlienatedChildGrown. In my view what went wrong was that science got twisted out of shape to suit political and public order purposes. I can understand some of why this happened, there was a belief that if science was explained in its messy fullness, ie lack of certainties, the existence of gaps, it would have been exploited by those looking to undermine the governments' responses.

It was a real lose-lose situation and in the heat of the moment I have no idea what I would have done. I still don't, even with hindsight.

It's worth reading this interview with the scientist who led the review. Elements of it will be very familiar to those who question what the hell happened with gender ideology in the medical world.

https://maryannedemasi.substack.com/p/exclusive-lead-author-of-new-cochrane

Initially when they started recommending them they were trying to placate the population, IMO. It was completely clear that the idea that you would have one mask you kept using was obviously not scientifically based.

What I found most crazy though was that a lot of medical people with authority to make or recommend policy then seemed to fall for their own hype.

It's worth reading the interview with the scientist who led the review, it becomes clear that the medical issues we see with gender ideology are way bigger than that.

I can understand some of why this happened, there was a belief that if science was explained in its messy fullness, ie lack of certainties, the existence of gaps, it would have been exploited by those looking to undermine the governments' responses.

Right, but that's basically every bit of fascist/dictatorship/totalitarian self-justification ever.

Once you accept this logic, you've given up on the fundamental tenets of a liberal democratic society.

The fact that this was even deemed remotely acceptable is horrifying.

Oh, shoot, there is a paywall. I will see if I can find a different summary. But what was shocking was that he thought there was pretty direct political influence at the organization to suppress the review that came out at the beginning of the pandemic. He's very blunt about calling it anti-scientific.

Watching this now and I've got to the part where he's saying he can distinguish men from women because women are more likely to have longer hair and more jewelry, makeup and groomed eyebrows.

Hard to believe that an educated person is actually arguing this. Womanhood really is a costume to him. Conflated with performing femininity. (And he notices all these details but not whether the person has an Adam's apple!?)

Essential viewing.

😂

I was reading this thread and thought - Nah - I’ll be giving this a pass - until your comment.

What really came through loud and clear from the interview was the stark contradiction between DGT's extolling the necessity of remaining open-minded and questioning, and his insistence that he was right.

His didactic finger-wagging lay completely at odds with the kind of humility that defines those who are considered, who have doubts, who really are the ones who demonstrate that not only have they seen as many sides as they can, but that they also listen to what others have to say to them. He became the very thing that he criticised in others, which is pop-psychology 101, and he should know better.

Worst of all: his utter fixation on grooming, accessories and accoutrements as the only way of determining sex from a visual point of view. Is the man blind or what?!

I wouldn't trust Stephen Hawking to know what a woman is either. he is, after all, a man. Alot of scientists are misogynists anyhow, science is typically male-dominated.

Neil deGrasse Tyson was one of my favourite astrophysicists 😮

Utterly dismayed 😫

*Neil deGrasse Tyson was one of my favourite astrophysicists 😮

Utterly dismayed 😫*

dp is following Sabine Hossenfelder and is quite a fan of her (he might just have a thing for German lady scientists though :) ), if you're looking for another physicist's blog.

Sabine Hossenfelder covered trans in one of her youtube videos. It would have been better had she not relied on ideologically compliant "science".

He was accused of sexual assault by several women. He said they had created false memories.