‘We’re not just making sh*t up’: Neil deGrasse Tyson slaughters anti-science crank at press event
Neil deGrasse Tyson blasted an anti-science skeptic who confronted him at a press conference last week when the man tried to convince him that the Large Hadron Collider is an existential threat to mankind but that HIV is not because it doesn’t cause AIDS.
Gizmodo’s Ryan F. Mandelbaum was on the scene to watch the astrophysicist bat aside the skeptic’s arguments and attempt to explain to the man how scientific consensus works. DeGrasse Tyson said that one lone research paper does not make a significant impact on scientific opinion, especially if no other researchers arrive at the same conclusion.
“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you,” deGrasse Tyson said. “It doesn’t give a rat’s *** how your five senses interact with this world.”
DeGrasse Tyson was meeting with reporters after the dedication of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Among them was conspiracy blogger Anthony Liversidge, whose website Science Guardian maintains that science has fallen prey to “crowd prejudice, leadership resistance, monetary influences and internal professional politics” and abandoned its truth-seeking principles.
Liversidge believes in the crank theory that the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is putting the planet in jeopardy with its use of the Large Hadron Collider as well as the discredited theories of physician Peter Duesberg, who has claimed since the 1980s that HIV does not cause AIDS.
‘We’re not just making sh*t up’: Neil deGrasse Tyson slaughters anti-science crank at press event
Neil deGrasse Tyson blasted an anti-science skeptic who confronted him at a press conference last week when the man tried to convince him that the Large Hadron Collider is an existential threat to mankind but that HIV is not because it doesn’t cause AIDS.
Gizmodo’s Ryan F. Mandelbaum was on the scene to watch the astrophysicist bat aside the skeptic’s arguments and attempt to explain to the man how scientific consensus works. DeGrasse Tyson said that one lone research paper does not make a significant impact on scientific opinion, especially if no other researchers arrive at the same conclusion.
“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you,” deGrasse Tyson said. “It doesn’t give a rat’s *** how your five senses interact with this world.”
DeGrasse Tyson was meeting with reporters after the dedication of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Among them was conspiracy blogger Anthony Liversidge, whose website Science Guardian maintains that science has fallen prey to “crowd prejudice, leadership resistance, monetary influences and internal professional politics” and abandoned its truth-seeking principles.
Liversidge believes in the crank theory that the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is putting the planet in jeopardy with its use of the Large Hadron Collider as well as the discredited theories of physician Peter Duesberg, who has claimed since the 1980s that HIV does not cause AIDS.
‘We’re not just making sh*t up’: Neil deGrasse Tyson slaughters anti-science crank at press event