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Cosmos is the new show airing on Fox and the National Geographic channel that returns to the world that Carl Sagan built back in 1980. Sagan’s original creative collaborators – writer/executive producer Ann Druyan and astronomer Steven Soter – have teamed with Seth MacFarlane (FAMILY GUY, AMERICAN DAD) to conceive this 13-part original series.
Enlisting astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the creators of Cosmos have updated the series with today’s modern concerns and breakthroughs, as well as illustrate their detailed science through modern visuals and effects. This is not your father’s Cosmos.
Below is Aaron’s exclusive interview with Host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Writer / Executive Producer Ann Druyan and Executive Producer Mitchell Cannold. Learn more about the series, returning to a classic, and why Tyson is seemingly the only man for the job. Enjoy!
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Aaron Peterson: Neil, would you agree that there seems to have been a cultural shift away from science over the last couple of decades?
Neil deGrasse Tyson: I agree that it had moved away, in the 80’s into the 90’s. But, by several measures that I can offer you, I think the pendulum is shifting back, swinging back. Just look at the various signs. Among them: The #1 sitcom on television, though it may be caricature, portrays scientists and engineers in their daily lives. It’s the #1 show on television!
Other successful shows, Numbers, which has mathematicians’ assisting FBI agents solve problems. Other shows, CSI. Which shows scientists as fully fleshed out characters that have loves and hates and children and…and…this is different from how scientists were once portrayed as lab coat donning automatons behind a table, where you didn’t care anything about them, except for the information they would give you was scientific. And NCSI and CSI, they’re in multiple seasons and multiple incarnations. There is anecdotal evidence in Universities that the rise in majors of chemistry by women is traceable to the inspiration provided to them in middle school and high school, by watching CSI. CSI even has traveling exhibits that go to science museums where you solve a crime, thinking about the physics of the dead body or the decomposition. Real, real interesting forensic analysis.
Other little indicators. I have 1.7 million Twitter followers, what the hell is up with that? I feel like reminding people: ‘People, you remember that I’m an astrophysicist? Do I have to remind you of that?’ And why is that so? That tells me there’s an underserved underbelly of curiosity, cosmic curiosity, that lurks within us all. Or within many more people than had previously been imagined.
And combine that with, if you look at the media rollout of Cosmos, it is being covered not only by the TV reporter who has to cover it because it is tonight’s show, because it’s their job. There is almost a media celebration of the fact that Cosmos is arriving. And where is it arriving? It’s arriving on Fox. Now, how’s that for an unholy alliance, right? And, you know, we were as skeptical going to Fox, as Fox was receiving us in that meeting. It’s like, they looked at each other and tipped their heads the way a dog hears a high pitched whistle and we came to Fox via Seth MacFarlane, who is himself deeply interested in science.
AP: Which surprised me.
NT: Which surprised me, because you only hear fart jokes. But if you look carefully, you know, Stewie’s time machine is rife with scientific elements.
AP: That’s true.
NT: And in one episode he went back to the Big Bang. And there was a glitch in the startup function of his time machine that actually is being credited with starting the universe. In that episode, by the way. So Fox actually has one of the largest distribution chains of any network, because they’re part owners of National Geographic Television and National Geographic has a worldwide marketplace for content. Most of it stays on National Geographic, but now that this is a National Geographic worthy product of Fox, Fox will then farm it out to networks like National Geographic. So, combine all of this, I would claim we are entering an area where science is becoming mainstream.
Have you seen how many followers or members the IFLS Facebook page has? You know about IFLS?
AP: No?
NT: It stands for I F**king Love Science. (Laughs) It’s an internet sort of aggregator of cool science videos, cool things people do with science show up on that Facebook page and that has something like 8 or 9 million, by now probably 10 million likes. So, I don’t agree with you that today science is receding, I think science is recovering. But recovering in a way that may never look back and that tell me that Cosmos has landed on fertile territory, on fertile ground.
