Without physics there’d be no Fashion Channel — there’d be no TV. But w/o fashion, physicists might just be naked. Not good.— Neil deGrasse Tyson
All music is appreciated equally in space because there is no sound in a vacuum
“Stupid is as stupid does.” My mother said that long before the movie Forrest Gump made it popular. Typically, she would say that when a particularly troublesome child was behaving exactly like its particularly troubled parents. Mother also said that it is, “difficult to teach children who are willing to believe everything without a second thought.” She encountered plenty of both over the years, like the little girl who was afraid to sit in her chair in the classroom because someone told here there were bugs in the wood waiting to eat her butt. Had the child been three or four, she would have been excused of her naiveté, but by fifth grade such nonsense, on both sides of that situation—the girl and the brat who was being mean—could hardly be tolerated.
Why science denial has been so strongly embraced the past eight years, after decades of great American achievement across all the science fields, has been disconcerting. I fail to understand why people who seem otherwise intelligent can just randomly choose to replace that which is reasonably proven through scientific process with some myth that doesn’t even hold together as it passes from one person to the next. Such willful and blind ignorance leaves me quite concerned not only for the future of our country but for the survival of our species.
I had seen noted in some obscure reference that anti-science groups such as the Flat Earth Society were enjoying a resurgence of interest along with those denying climate change, but I had always assumed that their members were limited to those who ingested a severe amount of paint chips as children. Then, over the weekend, this guy, who allegedly is a rapper and calls himself B.o.B. makes an incredible post about the earth being flat. The Internet proceeded to perform its version of a brain explosion.
Not being the world’s greatest rap fan, I had to Google B.o.B. and see who he really is. Bobby Ray Simmons, Jr. from Decatur, GA, a suburban town a few miles South of Atlanta. My first thought was, “Aww shit, I bet this is one of the dudes who tried pushing his CD on me in the parking lot outside Whiskey Peach,” but it couldn’t have been. I was here in Indy by the time someone decided ol’ Bobby knew how to rhyme. Still, I had to roll my eyes. Rappers coming out of Decatur or anywhere on the South side of ATL has become about as cliché as peaches and sweet tea, and not nearly as good. I was all set to just ignore the whole situation, assuming it would go away the next time I refreshed my browser. Such stupidity tends to have an especially short shelf life on the Internet.
But then, something rather wonderful happened. For reasons that are his own, Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson decided to reply to B.o.B.’s tweet about the NYC skyline’s visibility over the horizon:
@bobatl Earth’s curve indeed blocks 150 (not 170) ft of Manhattan. But most buildings in midtown are waaay taller than that.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 25, 2016
The astrophysicist also attempts to educate the rapper on the way stars move. Bobby got offended, apparently, and one of the things I appreciate about Dr. Tyson is that he goes out of his way to make sure people understand that being bad at science doesn’t make someone a bad person. He posted to Twitter:
@bobatl Duude — to be clear: Being five centuries regressed in your reasoning doesn’t mean we all can’t still like your music
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 25, 2016
The astrophysicist is much more magnanimous than I fear I would be in such a situation. In fact, more than a few people were ready to go to the mat for Dr. Tyson, one of those being his nephew, Steve, who is a “hip-hop MC” and DJ in Philadelphia. Steve didn’t take to kindly to Bobby dissing his uncle, so he put together some music of his own with a track called Flat to Fact. Here, go ahead and take a listen (warning, if your ears are not accustomed to the speed of contemporary rap, you may need to listen multiple times before you actually catch what ol’ Steve is layin’ down):
At least Bobby seems to have the good sense to know when to quit, as he’s gone on to other somewhat less offensive methods of hyping his new album. He seems to have dropped the subject of the earth’s shape for now.
What I think this shows, however, is that the Internet doesn’t take kindly to those who display their science ignorance in ridiculous ways and, even more important, one should never, ever diss the astrophysicist. Ever.