I like Neil's better, mostly because the way Sagan's voice puts me to sleep.

I gotta say, i loved the original cosmos....up to a point. I have to admit i stopped watching it after a certain point. Sagans soliloquies just went on and on and on and all i wanted him to do was talk about frickin science. And yeah, his voice cadence was so slow.

I think right now they are paying a very nice tribute to Sagan's original vision. I am impressed with the different visual styles they are using, from cutting edge digital effects to stylized animation. I grew up on the original Cosmos and when I watched the updated version at the turn of the century I was still impressed but there was something lacking that my childhood had glossed over. It was visually dated although the writing was still very good.

What had me happy about the newest version it kept my kids interested. They were asking me questions about what they had watched and I can't remember the last time they did that. That alone made the show really good because it engaged them and sparked their imagination.

There have been advances in knowledge that Neil may have to work with, but Carl wins... His was the age of discovery. Carl lead us all on a journey into ourselves. Neil isn't bad, but Carl was classic. I's also a difference between someone with a long history of academic opportunity, vs. someone who lived his passion. Carl was granted the chance to have his ashes gifted to the Cosmos which he spent his life illuminating to us all. When Neil is granted such an honor of a truthful legacy, then the debate can be revisited.

I dunno, I don't think Neil can ever top this lost episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP7K9SycELA

If we they had actually aired that we'de have far less rednecks denying science lol.

They would be DEMANDING a double in nasa's funding to send a manned mission to the meat planet and fighting over which one of them gets to go.

To be honest I don't really like a couple of things from Neil's Cosmos, or rather this new reboot of Cosmos. That bit with Giordano Bruno, they made him seem like a martyr for science... but in reality it was more because of what he said of the Church's teachings; going so far as to calling Jesus a magician, not believing in the virginity of the virgin Mary, and some other things that got him tried for heresy. Galileo only got house arrest ten years after the death of Bruno. It rubbed me the wrong to see Bruno be a martyr, he did give rise to ideas, but he's hardly a martyr in the long run.

Also that tide pool thing! Sagan did that... but Neil really shouldn't have done it. A lot of scientists today believe that life was sustained through the vents at the bottom of the ocean. The tide pool thing is outdated.

Other than that I guess I do like it, it's nice at least that it's on FOX so more people can see it, and it's easy to understand.

Honestly i don't know a ton about Bruno but that sorta seems like someserious revisionist history there. He was tried for a lot of things including specifically teaching things contrary to the catholic church's beliefs in several areas. You can't just ignore what some of those things were. You can't get around it, among many things that raised the ire of the church was teaching his vision of cosmology that was in contradiction to scripture and the dogma of the time. It's a fact that he was run out of places of higher learning for his views on cosmology which contradicted the accepted ideas at the time which came entirely from the church, and he was persecuted for knowledge, books banned by the church.

I kinda think you missed the point of the whole piece, it wasn't to make him a martyr at all, Neil even admitted it was just a lucky guess. The point was to make a commentary about religion based science ignorance and to illustrate that at earlier times the church condemned teachings of science that almost NOBODY that has that faith would deny now, yet they're still told that they MUST deny the realities of other science despite all evidence that validates them. I thought it was an awesome segment and cool way to approach the subject.

Also the vents idea has not replaced any other idea. There are even more than these two ideas of interest in the science of abiogenesis which is something we simply know next to nothing about other than that it was possible. The only reason the vent thing came to prominence was that we discovered a rich eco system that thrives around them and some view the vent heat as a more likely catalyst than the lightning that would be required for the "tide pools" idea. There are scientists that believe life came from crystals which assisted in organizing organic matter into structures. Last i looked still the most likely held idea is the tide pools one, i could be wrong though but i know it's not an area of science that has ANY real accepted science other than the miller/urey and subsequent controlled experiments, which used electricity as a catalyst which worked VERY well. The fact that as far as i know, we have not duplicated any of the abiogenesis controlled experiments with heat instead of electricity makes me think that the tide pools proposition is still probably the most prominent and the most substantiated.

Geocentrism was carried over by the Church from Aristotle, not from the Bible. There is no claim in the Bible of geocentrism. The Church was actually in line with what was accepted as mainstream, orthodox "science" of that time.

Also, I love the sheer blind faith atheists/naturalists have in abiogenesis. There is absolutely no evidence (as of yet) to support the idea that living organic life arises from non-living inorganic matter unaided and by the forces of nature alone, yet they are absolutely certain that it happened. There is no "most substantiated" theory of abiogenesis. The Miller experiment was completely self-defeating since it represented a -controlled- scientific experiment inside a lab with conditions set up intentionally by intelligent beings. Even if it had been more successful beyond merely producing some amino acids, it would have represented a case of intelligent design since design is inseparable from the experiment itself given the presence of intentionality.

Wow. You're actually trying to claim that the Miller-Urey experiment, an experiment which was specifically designed to simulate the natural physical conditions of the early Earth, is not representative of natural physical conditions of the early Earth. So, the fact that the experimenters were watching imparts a "presences of intentionality" that makes the conditions of the experiment somehow fundamentally different from the actual early Earth, and this is in favor of intelligent design? The mental gymnastics you're attempting here are mind-boggling.

The experiment's point was to show how easy it would have been for the building blocks of life to form under those initial conditions without the actions of an intelligent actor. Given that the early Earth had so much more space and so much more time for similar events to unfold, turns out it's not that hard.

There is no specific reference in the bible that outright names geocentrism but several passages like Ecclesiastes 1:5 and 1 Chronicles 16:30 exist and whether your claim that it comes from aristotle is true (after telling me that intelligent design is the most scientifically valid theory of biodiversity that exists, i frankly have ZERO belief that you're even slightly objective or knowledgeable on any subject having to do with theology or science.) , passages like those that clearly illustrate an ignorance of the mechanics of the natural world certainly substantiated the geocentric model that was popular for quite some time as backed up by scripture, which was endorsed by the church which was the LAW OF THE LAND whether you want to admit it or not. To oppose the church on anything carried a death sentence under it's dominion for a long time under the blanket charge of heresy. I frankly don't give a shit if the bible states that geocentrism was the truth, the church believed it and to claim otherwise was heresy which was punishable by death. That's the bottom line. Also, i never even stated that the bible was responsible for the idea of geocentrism. I think given the ignorance and primitive nature of the people of early palestine it was probably just a given since from our perspective, the sun is the thing moving around. I would wager the people made that assumption, passages in the bible seemed to validate it, and there ya go.

Also lol at the blind faith comment. You theists and your insecure projection. There is no blind faith for abiogenesis, there is noo established scientific conclusion for abiogenesis, we have evidence that points towards a proposition, yet hasn't 100% substantiated it. All conclusions of abiogenesis are in part but not entirely speculative as it's one of the great unsolved in science. There isn't a single person studying in any field of biology that will claim the origin of life is proven, so what you're saying is laughable bullshit.

And once again you do show your laughable ignorance of science. THe point of the miller urey experiments was to simulate the conditions on the primordial earth and see what would happen if a catalyst that we knew would be present was applied to the compounds present, it gave results that conclusively prove that organic matter can come from inorganic matter under those conditions. When better science came in we found out that they didn't have the conditions quite right to accurately reflect the primordial earth so they tried it again with the more accurate conditions and got EVEN BETTER results which further propped up the tide pool proposition of abiogenesis. The fact that "intelligent beings" were present is unrelated to the purpose or findings of the experiments.

There is no blind faith in abiogenesis. There is a universe that we live in that has life. Every thing we know about the universe and life has a well understood natural explanation. THere has never been a shred of evidence to indicate there is anything outside the natural world. Until there is it is safe to assume the origin of life has a natural explanation, the miller urey and subsequent experiments do not completely solve the problem but they are strong evidence for the proposition that life had a natural cause.

Blind faith would be the assumption of ANYTHING supernatural anywhere for any reason when you can't demonstrate anything supernatural even exists.

I don't even know why i respond to you. Every time you skulk in, say some smug baseless assertion and don't back it up at all then vanish without even acknowledging the response like a coward. You should pray for a set of balls so you can stand by your convictions and honor 1 Peter 3:15 like you're supposed to.

Honestly.... I think it's too early in the new Cosmos to tell which is better yet. I am kinda put off by the quality of the animations during the Bruno sequence, which seemed to be one of the few new things that have been shown so far. The 3D effects are spectacular, tho. As are the Cosmic Calendar and the Ship of the Imagination is awesome!

Also, and I think I'll be one of very few people to say this, but I'm not as drawn in to Neil's narration as I was Carl's. To me, Carl's voice was one that was meant to teach and to be listened to. I found it very sooth and calming, especially to the song Entends-Tu Les Chiens Aboyer~

I am very much looking forward to watching the remaining 12 episodes.

To be honest I hadn't watched Carl Sagan's Cosmos, so this format is new to me, outside of the Morgan Freeman/Hawking series' attempts to capture its approach (to considerably lesser effect, I would have to say, if Cosmos can maintain the energy it kicked off this reboot with. I'm really impressed by the fluidity in addressing these topics and the show's ability to make them insightful and entertaining).

However well the show progresses from here, though, I think we can all agree that whomever Neil deGrasse Tyson's eyebrow coach is, that guy is GOOD.

If anybody is wanting to compare, but lacking context, this might help:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis.....8DC67D52968201

Sagan. Comedians I don't need.

Comedian? Haven't really noticed any attempts at humor from tyson.

You haven't watched NOVA then.

I watch nova a decent amount. Never seen any attempts at comedy on Nova but i don't watch it religiously.