I've been looking forward to Cosmos since it was announced months ago. While too young to have watched to original series, I spent my late teens/early twenties reading everything of Carl Sagan's I could get my hands on. I even stole my parents' copy of "Cosmos" (in book form), when I moved out (in my defense, no one noticed). So this show will be like crack to me. Especially because it will be hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
If you don't know who Neil deGrasse Tyson is, just know this: he has the four most amazing jobs on the planet. First, he's the head of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center at the AMNH, New York City. Second, he's a bestselling author of astronomy books like "The Pluto Files". Third, he hosts the podcast called StarTalk Radio which combines celebrity interviews, comedy and astronomy. All of which make him ridiculously qualified for his fourth dream job: hosting the new "Cosmos".
The series itself is introduced by President Obama, to explain that we have a patriotic duty to learn this stuff. With collaboration from Ann Druyan (Carl Sagan's widow and collaborator), and Seth MacFarlane (animation), Cosmos has great science and great production values. So...
Tyson spends part of the episode on rocks. Near the ocean. His other appearances are on the fictional spacecraft "Imagination". Imagination might be over the top and a little gratuitous. But it's also a darn cool spaceship. Tyson spends the episode introducing the history of the original show, giving Carl Sagan props for inspiring generations of scientists, and introduces the context for future show content. He emphasizes the essential nature of science in some principles. "Use observation to gather evidence. Test ideas with said evidence. Discard ideas the evidences eliminates. Develop ideas the evidence supports. Question everything." More on the last later.
Tyson starts by establishing where we Earthlings are in the universe, and even introduces the multiverse concept. The graphics are stunning. Adults should really know about 80% of this, but it's a great segment for kids. It would have been nice if Tyson defined a light-year.
After telling us about space, Tyson introduces time, and it's relationship to us knowing the boundary of the known universe (we can only see light that goes back about 13.8 billion years, so anything older than that is basically invisible). Tyson then goes to the old calendar-year-universe-timeline, comparing the history of the universe to a calendar, and placing the universe's history and our planet's history in appropriate places in the year's calendar. Suffice to say, that our solar system is pretty young and we are basically just arrived compared to the universe as a whole. Tyson literally puts human history and human recorded history in perspective, so you understand not just what a small physical part we are in the universe, but what a small part of time we've actually been here.
During the time sequence, Tyson covers the beginnings of life on Earth, stating that the origin of life is a mystery, since no theory has enough evidence to conclusively show it's true. But from there, he describes, very briefly, the evolution of living things. This includes him standing at a shoreline with an awesome-AWESOME! Tiktalik coming out of the water right by him, to demonstrate the first known amphibian.
Tyson and one of our distant ancestors
Tyson spends some time after this explaining one of the first people (in Europe, at least), to seriously propose that the Earth went around the Sun, was a planet like the others, and that the stars were other Suns. His name was Giordano Bruno, and he was inspired by the ancient Roman philosopher Lucretius. Bruno wasn't the absolute first; Copernicus formally proposed it in De Revolutionibus, published the year he died. But Copernicus only proposed that the planets all went around the Sun as a mathematical model, and kept most of the pre-approved astronomy of the time in his theories, mostly because he didn't want to be treated the way Bruno would be treated by the Church. Suffice to say, the Church looks awful in this segment. Remember when Tyson said "Question everything"? Well, he lists it as a basic scientific principle because when authorities won't let you question anything, science as we know it doesn't happen.
After showing Bruno's sad fate, he then briefly notes Galileo confirming Bruno's heliocentric theory years later with the new-fangled telescope. While I get why Tyson wants to show the difference between dogma and science, Bruno's persecution isn't exactly why I'm watching. Keep in mind, Carl Sagan also sometimes told the stories of scientists who died because of the Early Christian Church (notably Hypatia, mathematician at Alexandria). What I don't get is why Tyson focused on Bruno. Sure, it's an interesting story of a man we all know was right being horribly persecuted by ignorant, cruel people. But Tyson is clear: Bruno had no evidence for his theories. Without any way to gather credible evidence, all people had to go on was accepted "truth". And your local Church had the monopoly on that. Tyson might have had better luck delving into Galileo's story more, mostly because Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons proved Copernicus/Bruno correct and paved the way for observational science.
Tyson spends some more time talking about Carl Sagan, and produces an old-fashioned calendar/journal of Sagan's from the 1970s. On a particular day, is noted Neil's name. Tyson traveled to Ithaca, NY, and met Sagan for a day in the mid-70s so Sagan could impress upon a teenager from the Bronx the importance of a science career. The day was pretty important to Tyson, and still is, and I dare you not to tear up yourself when Tyson tells you that Sagan told Tyson to call if the bus couldn't get him home, so Tyson would have a safe place to go.
The premiere pays a lot of homage to the past, both Sagan's and astronomy's in general. Am wondering if this will be a regular feature, or if we're going to stick to science and graphics. I think it will be a regular feature. Tyson's point, throughout the show, is that you can't separate science from the people who make the discoveries and develop the theories. You can't separate those people from the society that influenced them and they influenced right back. You can't do those things any more than you can separate us from the universe we live in, at the time we live in it.
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