There is one prevalent argument that over time, Neil Degrasse Tyson has been making, which must be the only thing I partially disagree with him. It is the belief that scientists who are also public speakers have a responsibility to make their messages as compelling and persuasive as possible and that if the message is misrepresented it is entirely their fault.
The first instance I (and probably most people) saw of this, was in this public event in which Tyson, along Dawkins, Ramachandran and other great scientists were present:
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In this one, he basically tells Dawkins that as articulate as he is when he speaks, he found that while his commentaries had a sharpness to them, he found that his way of communicating lacked a sensitivity to them. He made the difference between being an educator and being a scientist. Where a scientist just "puts the truth out there", an educator has a sensitivity to the audience's state of mind, so that they can articulate their message in a way that's better understood.
All in all, I don't entirely disagree here. However, I have always felt that part of the problem with Dawkins and why so many people find him to be "arrogant" and "extremist" is because of his accent, which a lot of people associate with "snobbish". But most of these people haven't bothered to actually read his material, for example, and find how well spoken and yes, open minded, Dawkins is. Most of these people draw their conclusions from short video-bytes that spread on the internet, thus drawing a definite conclusion about Dawkins as some old, arrogant british card-carrying atheist.
The second instance was in this interview with Sam Harris, in which they were apparently discussing an event that happened in one of Harris' podcasts, where he got into an argument with an SJW
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Again, Tyson argues that the problem was that Sam Harris, as eloquent as he is, sometimes doesn't know how to reach his audience. That he doesn't "shape the sentences and the paragraphs for the person who's reading it".
I'm sure some of you already see what the problem is with this argument. Especially with the sentence I just quoted. "The person who's reading it" would make sense if this planet was only populated by Sam Harris and another person. Unfortunately, there are billions of human beings in this planet, each one of them with their own level of education, introspection and understanding. No matter how well one shapes their dialogue, one can never reach every single person. And that's precisely the problem: That there are people who, no matter how well articulate you put your argument, will find the way to take one small piece and distort the whole thing, and spew it back at you, changing the whole meaning of what you meant to say.
So I think it's unfair to try and put all of the responsibility on the person who's delivering the message. The communicator certainly should do his/her best to articulate the message as clear as possible, but they cannot be held accountable for each single individual who, no matter how clear the message was, still finds a way to distort it. Lets also not forget the countless people who do that on purpose (In other words, they do know exactly what was meant, but they distort it to stir the waters and cause anger amongst people)
(And now someone will make a joke about mis-reading what I just said :) )
The first instance I (and probably most people) saw of this, was in this public event in which Tyson, along Dawkins, Ramachandran and other great scientists were present:
[yt]2xGIwQfik[/yt]
In this one, he basically tells Dawkins that as articulate as he is when he speaks, he found that while his commentaries had a sharpness to them, he found that his way of communicating lacked a sensitivity to them. He made the difference between being an educator and being a scientist. Where a scientist just "puts the truth out there", an educator has a sensitivity to the audience's state of mind, so that they can articulate their message in a way that's better understood.
All in all, I don't entirely disagree here. However, I have always felt that part of the problem with Dawkins and why so many people find him to be "arrogant" and "extremist" is because of his accent, which a lot of people associate with "snobbish". But most of these people haven't bothered to actually read his material, for example, and find how well spoken and yes, open minded, Dawkins is. Most of these people draw their conclusions from short video-bytes that spread on the internet, thus drawing a definite conclusion about Dawkins as some old, arrogant british card-carrying atheist.
The second instance was in this interview with Sam Harris, in which they were apparently discussing an event that happened in one of Harris' podcasts, where he got into an argument with an SJW
[yt]XkjxVTeQp-I[/yt]
Again, Tyson argues that the problem was that Sam Harris, as eloquent as he is, sometimes doesn't know how to reach his audience. That he doesn't "shape the sentences and the paragraphs for the person who's reading it".
I'm sure some of you already see what the problem is with this argument. Especially with the sentence I just quoted. "The person who's reading it" would make sense if this planet was only populated by Sam Harris and another person. Unfortunately, there are billions of human beings in this planet, each one of them with their own level of education, introspection and understanding. No matter how well one shapes their dialogue, one can never reach every single person. And that's precisely the problem: That there are people who, no matter how well articulate you put your argument, will find the way to take one small piece and distort the whole thing, and spew it back at you, changing the whole meaning of what you meant to say.
So I think it's unfair to try and put all of the responsibility on the person who's delivering the message. The communicator certainly should do his/her best to articulate the message as clear as possible, but they cannot be held accountable for each single individual who, no matter how clear the message was, still finds a way to distort it. Lets also not forget the countless people who do that on purpose (In other words, they do know exactly what was meant, but they distort it to stir the waters and cause anger amongst people)
(And now someone will make a joke about mis-reading what I just said :) )
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