Scientists Who Are Actually Really Stupid # 1, By Neil Degrasse Tyson

The Art of the Half-Truth In Breitbart’s 2015 article “Scientists Who Are Actually Really Stupid #1, Neil DeGrasse Tyson” Milo Yiannopoulos, an alt right personality and writer for Breitbart, attempts to breaks down Mr. Tyson’s academic, scientific, and public history to tear down his credibility as a scientific figure and by extension the left-wing arguments that Mr. Tyson supports. Before getting to Tyson’s record, however, Milo quickly associates Tyson with liberals who love him “because they are racists who can’t believe a black guy could be smart enough to be a scientist,” setting the stage for the attacks on his left-wing ideas later. In general, you could argue Mr. Tyson’s credibility comes from two sources, his academic background,

Tyson’s academic record, Milo asserts that he “didn’t exactly have the most glittering record,” (citations, from which paragraph) going on to say that Mr. Tyson failed at the University of Texas due to a lack of commitment saying “Tyson was playing in bands and appearing on stage instead of completing essays.” This quote links out to an article by Rose Cahalan entitled “Star Power” that is indeed an interview with Mr. Tyson and does talk about his failure at the University of Texas, but nowhere in the article do the words “essay” “band” or “stage” even appear. While the article does mention off-hand Mr. Tyson’s many extracurricular activities, things like competitive dance, wrestling, and basketball, Milo’s interpretation paints a much less friendly picture of Mr. Tyson’s time at the University of Texas. Immediately after, Milo goes on to say Mr. Tyson “insists that racism is responsible for his academic failures” which links to the same article above. Now, the article indeed does mention Mr. Tyson’s experiences with racism at the University of Texas, but even that section of the article says “racism, while an everyday reality, didn’t play a major role in his leaving the University,” and included a quote from Mr. Tyson saying “If race was at play in all this, it was only at the edges of the experience.” To put the icing on the cake, Mr. Tyson did end up completing his PhD at the University of Columbia in Astrophysics, further undermining Milo’s points

Tyson’s post collegiate career, Milo’s attacks do not let up. Immediately Milo paints Mr. Tyson as the person solely responsible for the reboot of Cosmos, calling it “His reboot of Cosmos.” This allows Milo to attribute any mistakes made in Cosmos directly to Mr. Tyson with no regard to the myriad of writers and researchers that work on the show. Not only that, but Milo’s attack hinges on a tribute Cosmos made to Giordano Bruno, possibly the first person to believe the stars were other suns with other worlds. Milo boldly states that “None of the details are correct” citing an article that critiques Cosmos’ tribute to Bruno. However, this article, and the subsequent response from one of Cosmos’ co-writers offer a far more nuanced look in to Bruno’s past. To say that “None of the details are correct” in Cosmos couldn’t be further from the truth. In the very next paragraph Milo asserts that Cosmos made another error, and that Mr. Tyson is solely responsible. Here Milo takes issue with Cosmos’ assertion that Venus suffered from a run-away greenhouse effect, even though that’s one of the more accepted theories for why Venus is the way it is today. Taking a break from being objectively wrong, Milo decides to just take a quote out of context claiming that Mr. Tyson “is a philistine with no love of learning except for popularizations and oversimplifications that serve his political purposes. This, like everything else, is cited, but the citation once again doesn’t