Tyson confronts the Big Bang in the new Fox series Cosmos – A Spacetime Odyssey

Are you watching Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s remake of Carl Sagan’s iconic mini-series Cosmos?  The theme of the first episode was that space-time is really, really big.  The episode has received excellent reviews and I agree: the special effects and cinematography were stunning (“faster, brighter, and more explosive” as Wired says), though the use of cartoon animation to present a historical story struck me as less compelling than live action would have been.  There seem to be high hopes that the new Cosmos will rekindle America’s love affair with science, as anecdotes (if not rigorous studies) suggest the original Cosmos did.  I’m not sure what impact Cosmos had;  Star Trek inspired kids, too.

Sagan’s Cosmos first aired in 1980, a decade before the Cold War fizzled out. As noted in The Atlantic, “so much of postwar funding for American scientific research depended on an implicit bargain with the military-industrial complex… [Sagan] was no fan of the military-industrial complex, but he understood that expensive research in fields like astrophysics had historically been supported by the government for reasons that fell short of idealism.”

Today, as Tyson told space.com, “there are other prevailing concerns that we have: What is our effect on the environment? Do we know enough to be good shepherds of this Earth? Do we understand the risk of asteroids that could render us extinct? These are broad questions, and ‘Cosmos’ takes some element of science and shows you why it is way more relevant to your life than you ever previously imagined.”

I was puzzled by the choice to include 16th-century philosopher Giordano Bruno in the first episode. Bruno was not a scientist, and his epiphany that the cosmos is infinite was not based on science.  He was persecuted and martyred for his view which, as Tyson says, was a lucky guess.  Tyson told space.com the producers wanted a different historical figure than the familiar Galileo, and I suppose the pre-scientific Bruno does illustrate that the urge to follow new insights is not a recent invention of science.  The new Cosmos wants to show “what comes when those [new] results encountered the social, political, cultural and religious mores of the day.”  I still wonder at the choice but I acknowledge that, at least for some people, science and religion are in conflict, though not everyone thinks “science” should participate in the clash.

The second episode tackled a fundamental principle that also has religious implications for some people: evolution.  Cosmos did not shy away, mentioning Darwin and our chimp relatives as well as a nicely done segment on the evolution of the mammal eye.  The special effects showing a trip into living cells were excellent; I especially liked the DNA and protein images.  The five great extinctions on Earth were presented as wings in a solemn museum-like pyramid.  The episode also presented the fascinating tardigrade, the only creature known that can survive, unprotected, in space. Maybe the producers won’t allow an entire episode to be set on Earth; There was a quick trip to the hydrocarbon seas of Saturn’s moon Titan.  Again, the animated cartoon (dogs becoming domesticated) seemed the weakest part of the show.

All in all, I like Tyson’s Cosmos and will watch the rest of the series.  I plan to simply enjoy the show and not burden it with expectations of inspiring a generation of scientists or solving our political problems.