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We knew the Cosmos remake had struggled in the ratings, but didn’t realize…

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… that some didn’t have a clear idea why. Indeed, some have been making excuses like this one at Science 2.0: ratings don’t matter because it’ll be important in twenty years:

This is a TV show which will be more appreciated in ten to twenty years than it is now. … The three big reasons are that 1/2 of the people are at any time on the slower side of the curve. There exist some quality we call intelligence and half of the people are below average by definition. Furthermore, at any time most people are simply trying to survive and don’t want to think about cosmology. Last for the same old reasons as in the past, in today’s America, hearing this content from an African American is just too much for some people. It does not fit the racial profile. Society is evolving and will get beyond that eventually. We are not there yet.

No. Cosmos II never achieved the cultural importance of Cosmos for two basic reasons:

1. It’s just not the cultural event Cosmos was. In an era where we haven’t been to the moon in 40 years, anyone can just speculate about the cosmos. No one is expected to suit up and go into space. And as long as their ramblings support the correct causes, it’s all contradictory but fine.*

2. Much of the program is a shopping list of secular atheist causes, of little interest to people who expected to hear about new findings on the cosmos.

Currently, the remake is safely headed for the captive audience of the compulsory school system.

*See The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (cosmology) for how that happened.

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Comments
I watched it with my kids because it helped me explain to them the difference between science and scientism. After a while they got pretty good at pointing out the wild speculation that was used to promote a secular worldview. I know they will be getting a lot of that kind of drivel from some of their university professors, so I figure they might as well be prepared for it.Limbo
August 15, 2014
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Joe, I hadn't tried music, but I do turn down the TV volume and listen to the game on the radio. The radio announcers actually describe the GAME instead of reading some script written the week before about what shoe size some player wears. I didn't bother to watch Cosmos II. I can remember watching Cosmos I and realizing that Sagan's ONLY reason why would explore Space was to prove God didn't exist.mahuna
August 12, 2014
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When I watch sports I usually turn down the sound and turn on some music. The sportscasters usually ruin the experience so why listen to them? Perhaps the same approach can be taken with Cosmos.Joe
August 11, 2014
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semi related to this: "Cosmos is boring. Religious sermons usually are." is this,, You can't tame God so stop trying - 100Huntley video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDG-G2V1RNQbornagain77
August 11, 2014
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It's no surprise that Cosmos is boring. Religious sermons usually are.Mapou
August 11, 2014
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Prediction: the U.S. won't be doing much more space travel because (a) government money will be swallowed up by the welfare state, and (b) private funders will soon realize that it is a much more costly business than they imagined.Sirius
August 11, 2014
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You write: "In an era where we haven’t been to the moon in 40 years . . ." I ask: Back in 1969, what were the predictions about human space travel, e.g. to Mars? I think they were much more optimistic about space travel then. Now, it's clear that talk of human travel to Mars is little more than NASA-funding hype. These things have all turned out to be much more difficult than they imagined. Ditto the origin of life.Sirius
August 11, 2014
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I watched parts of a couple segments and he spends so much time pissing on what he considers anything close to Fundies and that continual pimping of the secularist worldview, there was very little room for any actual Science about the Cosmos. Then of course all the religious assumptions and doctrinal story telling. There just wasn't anything interesting about the subject matter of the show and Tyson's characteristic arrogance coupled with being a smartass of which he is prone to revealing without a care in the world as to how anyone takes this approach also makes the show worthless. I read it earlier, but now the link doesn't seem to work, but apparently the journalist who wrote this piece believes that if you didn't like Tyson's version of Cosmos, then it's because you're racist bigot because he was black. I noticed the journalist also was black. So if you don't get your way and what you write isn't accepted, pull out the Race or Homophobe card and score points that way, even if it's only in your own low self-esteemed mind that this was the reason for failure.DavidD
August 11, 2014
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What did the producers expect, informing the public -- yet again -- that they are living "on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe"? It's like a ghost story to which everybody has already heard the punch line a thousand times; not so scary anymore. Of course, what they expected was exactly what they achieved, as News deftly points out. Airing the thing was a mere formality toward getting it into the schools. Where they'll not only make steady simoleons courtesy of that most clueless species on earth -- the American taxpayer -- they'll also have new cohorts of thumb-sucking puberts to scare out of their wits on an annual basis. FUN! Now, there is little likelihood that it going to be as lucrative of a publicly-financed franchise as Sesame Street, no doubt. But it'll do.jstanley01
August 11, 2014
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'2. Much of the program is a shopping list of secular atheist causes, of little interest to people who expected to hear about new findings on the cosmos.' When a simple matter-of fact truth is devastating, it's also ROFL material of the first water! Pity the sentence beneath it was a damper. Anyway, like a lot of us on here, I suspect, I have the distinct that the world will be very different very soon, with a healing sunshine, however, after the storm.Axel
August 11, 2014
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