Neil deGrasse Tyson says science deniers in White House are a profound threat to democracy

[OKIsItJustMe]

Source: Independent

One of America’s most influential and popular scientists has issued a stark warning over what he termed the Trump administration’s rejection of science - saying it is a threat to the country’s “informed democracy”.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of the StarTalk podcast and TV show and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, said when he grew up, the US had relied on science to drive its innovation. But no longer.

“People have lost the ability to judge what is true and what is not, what is reliable, what is not reliable,” he says in a video posted on Facebook. “That’s not the country I remember growing up in. I don’t remember any other time where people were standing in denial of what science was.”

…

Mr Tyson’s comments came as many thousands of scientists and their supporters prepare to hold marches to highlight what they say is the Trump administration’s decision to reject science on issues ranging from climate change to public safety.

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Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/neil-degrasse-tyson-trump-science-deniers-white-house-threat-democracy-a7696186.html

[SunSeeker]

1. They are a threat to humanity. nt

[Delphinus]

2. Indeed.

His video is quite powerful - hopefully it spreads and makes me people think.

[dalton99a]

12. +1

[red dog 1]

3. K&R...Thanks for posting

Tyson's remarks are chilling:

"It's not just on climate change, it's on issues of public safety, things that impact child development," he said.
"We have never seen things as bad as this."

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. You're welcome n/t

[LakeArenal]

5. Neil has more knowledge in is thumb than the whole dump bunch.

[lastlib]

9. That bunch is twenty pounds of stoopid in a ten-pound bag....

...with five pounds of elephant-poo already in it.

[DK504]

6. Such an amazing guy, he is a must have

to make people understand the science isn't fake.

“That’s not the country I remember growing up in. I don’t remember any other time where people were standing in denial of what science was.”

I don't remember this being the norm when I was growing up either.

[lastlib]

10. Reagan turned it loose.

he dumped the right-wing fundamentalist evangelicals on us and let them roll out their know-nothing "science" of creationism, and then all the other know-nothing crazies had to have their turn at the stoopid. Now the snakes are out of the bag, and they won't go back in where they belong. We have to burn the field and chase them back into their holes one at a time, whack-a-mole style.

[Fast Walker 52]

7. He's right, and they are a threat to more than Democracy

[WinkyDink]

8. We live in a time when corporate greedheads meet Christian Fundamentalists, which means a hatred

of science, at least the kind of science that might hurt profits and might contradict Biblical passages.

[JohnnyRingo]

11. K&R

Thanx for posting.

My only bumper sticker on both cars is from the Union of Concerned Scientists. It says: "Got Science?"

Go to their website for a free sticker. They need your email address, but they don't sell it.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. You're welcome (no text)

(This space intentionally left mostly blank.)

[tenorly]

14. The problem is, the base loves them.

Denialists are good for absolutely nothing - except talking over the very people who make the knuckle-draggers feel most talked down to.

That in, Republican politics, makes them invaluable.