Dr. J. wrote The Czar earlier today:

Dear The Czar, 

You pretty much nailed my issues with the show. Sagan’s show was a series of self-contained episodes. Each one had a logical flow and a beginning and an end. 

Sagan told a story that anyone could understand and he wasn’t talking down to anybody. 

In other words, Sagan was the popular tenured professor giving the freshman survey course for the last 20 years while Tyson is the young faculty who’s taught upper-level and graduate courses (e.g. his highly educated twitter following) who is in his first year teaching that same course. 

As a consequence he comes off patronizing because he’s lowering his expectations. 

Sagan also had the advantage of not being a celebrity yet. deGrasse Tyson clearly believes his own hype while Sagan’s breakthrough was Cosmos. 

Furthermore the original Cosmos was a smash because people had 7 channels to choose from. UHF was worthless on Sunday night and Wonderful World of Disney was the only real competition. 

In our household, Papa J. controlled the remote and said,”Hey son, SPACE!” and we all tuned in. 

Dr. J. 

Sent from the jPhone

Looking back on his analysis, especially in the context of GorT’s rebuttal, he and Dr. J. have basically the same issue, and that is, that Dr. deGrasse Tyson is no Carl Sagan. Dr. Sagan was special, and that’s no slam against deGrasse Tyson. For all his gravitas, his credentials, and his following, he’s just not Dr. Sagan.

Regarding deGrasse Tyson faith, as best as Dr. J. can determine, he’s an agnostic. Indeed, he admitted in an interview to being as uncomfortable being co-opted by his atheist following as he is with the cosmology views of fundamentalists. So there is hope for him.

Dr. J.