Neil Degrasse Tyson and Disinformation

In the matter of disinformation I would like to discuss a repeated statement by one Neil D.Tyson. His statement concerning 2012 and the alignment of our solar system with the Milkyway Galactic Center is that we align with the center of the galaxy every year so there is nothing to fear. I will include his tweet here so you can read it yourself. [atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2c6e229ea8a3.jpg[/atsimg] I take exception to this for the simple fact that Dr. Tyson acts as if the solar system does not orbit the Milkyway Galaxy and in this Galaxy it orbits around our piece of spiral. The problem is this, the 2012 alignment has more to do with the area of the galaxy that this will take place. [atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/80a01f2b302a.jpg[/atsimg] 230 million years is the amount of time it takes our solar system to complete one rotation around the galaxy, now depending on our spot in this rotation, some ancient civilization started a calendar to mark when we will complete another rotation and that brings us to the 2012 prediction. I do not know if this is true or not as I tend to keep an open mind about most things, but to just act as if the only thing we do is line up the same way every year to me is very misleading coming from such a esteemed and Columbia University educated astrophysicist. Hopefully I can add the youtube clip of him stating this in 2009. So now that I have rambled enough here, what say you disinformation or not?
( I could not include the entire twitter pic but about 3tweet from the bottom is what I am referring to concerning this post.)

wow, I can't believe Im gonna admit this, but I have a favorite Physicist and a Least favorite one.

Tyson is my least favorite, he is just rude and down right cocky.

reply to post by benrl
Yes, he does exhibit a flare of "I am so above you" but he was one of my favorites.

reply to post by basilray


When the scientist are so sure of themselves and cocky like that, it makes me question if their arrogance is hindering the scientific process.

BUT having worked in a field that required some level of knowledge that many people just don't know, and dealing with people I know dealing with stupid questions like (THE aliens are coming!!!, or NIBIRU IS GONA DESTROY US ALL) you might get a little rude with your answers.

reply to post by benrl
Do you consider his statement misleading and just a side note he will never answer any of my tweets about this when I ask him.

reply to post by basilray


I think that his blatant answer in not so many words of "NO shut up you don't know and I do so :p" is not healthy for scientific discovery.

I don't think he is intentionally misleading, I think he could easily dismiss something plausible due to his own arrogance though.

reply to post by basilray


I trust Neil DeGrasse Tyson way more than anybody on this site when it comes to Astronomy.

230 million years is the amount of time it takes our solar system to complete one rotation around the galaxy, now depending on our spot in this rotation, some ancient civilization started a calendar to mark when we will complete another rotation and that brings us to the 2012 prediction.

I don't understand this. Where does the rotation begin and who chose this location? You said ancient civilizations marked when we would complete this rotation, and does that happen on December 21, 2012? Could you explain that image of the galaxy a little more as well as the calenders used by ancient civilizations, because I am lost.

The twitter status that you highlighted mentions the galactic allignment, and you bash him by posting a thread about how often we rotate the galaxy? I'm confused as to what relevance his status has to what you're saying.

[color=limegreen]I do not know if this is true or not as I tend to keep an open mind about most things, but to just act as if the only thing we do is line up the same way every year to me is very misleading coming from such a esteemed and Columbia University educated astrophysicist.

You don't even know if what you're posting is true, but you make a thread bashing a professor who is right about what he said? Or are you saying you don't know if what he's saying is true?

The thing his status refers to is the galactic allignment, not the rotation of the galaxy. I don't see how that is disinformation.

reply to post by TupacShakur

I don't understand this. Where does the rotation begin and who chose this location? You said ancient civilizations marked when we would complete this rotation, and does that happen on December 21, 2012? Could you explain that image of the galaxy a little more as well as the calenders used by ancient civilizations, because I am lost.

The only thing about the location is where it ends, which is the galactic alignment in question. I am sorry but I assume everyone on this site knows about the Mayan calender. Some of your questions are already answered here if you even paid the smallest attention to the post, of course I am talking about December 21,2012. In the galaxy image, our sun is highlighted by the little yellow dot labeled SOL and we are located on the Orion spur where it also happens we rotation on that axis as well.

The twitter status that you highlighted mentions the galactic allignment, and you bash him by posting a thread about how often we rotate the galaxy? I'm confused as to what relevance his status has to what you're saying.

My post is about the galactic center but how can I not mention the rotation when it's a big part of lining up to the center. It is like talking about runners crossing the finish line on a track without mentioning the race as they run around it.

You don't even know if what you're posting is true, but you make a thread bashing a professor who is right about what he said? Or are you saying you don't know if what he's saying is true?

The thing his status refers to is the galactic allignment, not the rotation of the galaxy. I don't see how that is disinformation.

What I do not know is if the Mayan prediction is true but I do know you can not have galactic alignment without galactic rotation the two go hand in hand as you can not have one without the other. I am really surprised with you being a fan of Dr. Tyson that this is not second nature to you. The disinformation is in not describing everything I just posted.
Let me also say maybe you should google or wikipedia the Mayan calender prophecy just to get familiar with the 2012 prediction. I would be posting all day to really explain it all but I am sure you can search and find a plethora of info here on ATS.

reply to post by basilray

The only thing about the location is where it ends, which is the galactic alignment in question. I am sorry but I assume everyone on this site knows about the Mayan calender. Some of your questions are already answered here if you even paid the smallest attention to the post, of course I am talking about December 21,2012. In the galaxy image, our sun is highlighted by the little yellow dot labeled SOL and we are located on the Orion spur where it also happens we rotation on that axis as well.

Yes I read your post, but I am still confused. You just said "the only thing about the location is where it ends", but who chose this location? The Mayans? They weren't alive 230 million years ago, so did they say "We're going to mark the end of the rotation 2,000 years in the future"? That's what I'm trying to understand, the origins of this "end" in the rotation.

My post is about the galactic center but how can I not mention the rotation when it's a big part of lining up to the center. It is like talking about runners crossing the finish line on a track without mentioning the race as they run around it.

We are always lined up with the center. Draw a line from our Sun to the galactic center, and we are lined up. Do you mean lining up on the same plane as the galactic center? Because as Neil posted in his twitter status, we do that annually.

Or are you referring to us alligning with an imaginary line that represents the end of a full rotation around the galactic center?

What I do not know is if the Mayan prediction is true but I do know you can not have galactic alignment without galactic rotation the two go hand in hand as you can not have one without the other. I am really surprised with you being a fan of Dr. Tyson that this is not second nature to you. The disinformation is in not describing everything I just posted.

I completely disagree, that is not disinformation. He probably heard lots of people saying "We're going to line up with the galactic center in 2012!", and he wanted to set the record straight and tell them what's really happenning.

Until you can explain to me this galactic rotation, when and why the starting point was chosen and by who for what reason, trying to bash a successful astrophysicist because he didn't mention something that he didn't mention is just stupid.

Let me also say maybe you should google or wikipedia the Mayan calender prophecy just to get familiar with the 2012 prediction. I would be posting all day to really explain it all but I am sure you can search and find a plethora of info here on ATS.

Dude I know all about the 2012 prediction, that's not what I asked about.

I do not understand this galactic rotation which you explained in like three sentences. We rotate around the galaxy, I understand this. What I do not understand is this "end-point" that somebody chose to be on 2012. Couldn't anybody pick any point and call it the "end-point"? It's not like we know the exact year when our sun or earth was formed, so I do not understand when somebody chose a point as a starting point for our orbit around the galaxy.

It sounds to me like somebody heard about the Mayan 2012 apocalypse theory, then they heard some weird things happened in space around that time, read that the sun orbits the galactic center every 230 million years, and said "It ends on this date!", even though there isn't a start/end point, it just rotates around.

Originally posted by basilray
reply to post by benrl

 

Do you consider his statement misleading and just a side note he will never answer any of my tweets about this when I ask him.

Misleading?
No.

www.universetoday.com...

Galactic Alignment

by Fraser Cain on May 12, 2009
Just like the Earth orbits the Sun, the Sun itself is part of the Milky Way galaxy. It takes about 220 million years for the Sun to complete a single journey around the Milky Way. But the Sun also bobs up and down as it travels in orbit around the center of the galaxy. The oscillation takes a total of 64 million years to complete. And there's a moment when the Sun passes directly through the galactic disk and there's a perfect galactic alignment between the Sun and the center of the galaxy.

When's that galactic alignment going to happen? It's almost impossible to know exactly. The Milky Way is 100,000 light-years across, but only 1,000 light-years thick. So during the course of that 64 million year cycle, the Sun rises above the galactic plane 500 light-years, passes down through the galactic plane, until it's 500 light-years below and then comes back up again.

There has to be a moment when everything's in perfect alignment, but the timescales are so long that astronomers couldn't calculate it. Of course, this alignment with the center of the galaxy doesn't have an effect on the Earth or the Solar System, it's just like crossing an imaginary line in space, like traveling from Canada to the United States in your car.

There's another type of galactic alignment. This is where the Earth, Sun and the center of the galaxy are in perfect alignment from our perspective. This actually happens every year during the winter solstice, on December 21st. Because of a wobble in the Earth's orbit, the positions of the constellations slowly shift from year to year. The most perfect galactic alignment between the Earth, Sun and the center of the Milky Way happened back in 1998, but now we're slowly shifting away from that alignment. In the coming decades, the perfect alignment will shift to another day.

Again, the alignment of these objects is purely a coincidence.

reply to post by TupacShakur

Mayan Astronomy
April 5, 2000 - FOX News

Approximately one millennium before Archbishop Usher of Armagh concluded that creation occurred at 4004 B.C., the Mayans had calculated the cosmos was 90 million years old.

Like other pre-Columbian civilizations, the Maya had a profound knowledge of the sky. Their priests recorded astronomical observations and passed them down from generation to generation.

The result was an extremely accurate calendar that predicted the coming of eclipses and the revolutions of Venus to an error of one day in 6,000 years.

Only a handful of the parchments that chronicle this knowledge survived the zealous bonfires of the missionaries; those that did are now called codices. In one, for example, Venus is represented as a figure with two masks, symbolizing its appearance in the early morning and evening.

The calendar itself was divided into cycles 3 million years long, subdivided into units of 20 years, 400, 8,000 and 158,000 years. There were also subunits for marking the death and rebirth of the sun and fire. Rituals punctuated the cycles and acted like the needles of a clock, marking the passage of time.

Mayan Astronomy

We are always lined up with the center. Draw a line from our Sun to the galactic center, and we are lined up. Do you mean lining up on the same plane as the galactic center? Because as Neil posted in his twitter status, we do that annually.

Or are you referring to us alligning with an imaginary line that represents the end of a full rotation around the galactic center?

What you are getting confused is this, the end point do not have to be a perfect alignment with the center and that is what most concentrate on but I see it differently entirely. I really respect this ancient group of people for their accurate view of the cosmos even if they thought the world was flat. The very fact they calculated the earth's procession thru the sky among being so accurate with basically two sticks cross each other is very noteworthy.
If I can be anymore clear "I feel this is really not hard to understand but if I give you a half truth and tell you that's all there is to know, would I not be misleading you. The Mayans were deeply involved in the night sky and did have a start point for the solar system and they had an end point as well, maybe not the end but a change but they did have it and considering how dead on they were about all the stuff in between I tend to think they might be right about 2012 as well.

The problem is Tyson doesn't explain himself in that clip - he makes an assertion. It is true that Earth crosses the Galactic equator twice per year - on the Solstices.

We are actually travelling away from the plane of the Milky Way.

Scientific studies indicate that the solar system lies several dozen light-years north of the galactic plane. What’s more, we are continuing to travel northward, away from the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, at some 7 kilometers per second. Therefore, we won’t be physically passing through the galactic plane in 2012 or anytime in the near future.

Source: earthsky.org...

However, that is not the whole picture.

According to the computational wizard Jean Meeus*, the solstice points were in alignment with the galactic equator as recently as the year 1998 – in other words, they were closer on the sky’s dome then. But in 2011 and 2012, these points – the solstice point, and the point where the sun crosses the galactic equator – are near each other on our sky’s dome.

Source: earthsky.org...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/001894c76bf0.jpg[/atsimg]

So, based on this information, the event already happened in 1998.

I know that there is a lot of threads where i could have put this one... but as i was reading this one.. felt compeled to ask to those that seem to know better than I and answered before.. (i am a novice in astronomical issues and 2012 theories) ... if the article written by "Dan Eden" in Viewzone was accurate and if it goes along with the information stated here in this thread and the information provided by Neil deGrasse.. I really tried but i still can't understand many scientific explanations

You can find the article in www.viewzone.com..., but skip the mayan calendar explanation to the scientifical explanation that continues in the following pages.

It was definitely the most "seem-legit" article i've read concerning this "alignment" thing.

I read already in www.abovetopsecret.com... about this article but it didnt answer to my question.

Thx if anyone notice this reply heheh

reply to post by quelmarth

The answer to this question is provided in my last post in this thread. The rest is bollox!

Whatever the importance of 2012, it is not the astronomical fantasies dreamed up and fed to the New Age community.

for all these line-up-enthusiasts i would like to point out that the distance to the galactic center is about 50.000 to 60.000 lightyears.
Now looking at how Sun and Moon influence the tides on earth and how tiny the influence of the sun is. one should be able to make a coarse estimation about the influence of the galactic center, by taking into account the distances involved.

Sun to Earth --> 8 light minutes
Galactic Center to Earth --> 50000+ light years

now please explain to me why should there be any influence at all ?
you might need a magnification glass zu see something else appear then a zero in the term:
0.000000000......00001%

redicolous.

The mayans however, back in the time they lived had astronomy skills of some sort.
they observed things in the sky over a likewise long period and were able to keep their culture alive for long enough to even conclude from long-time observations.
maybe they developped something like a TIMESPAN being implemented into a calendar based on these observations. Now this timespan comes to an end and a new timespan starts seen from their calendars viewpoint.
Now how does this affect us today ?
simple answer: noone thinking likewise rational see's any chance that this will affect us in any way.

something about tyson:
I learned to know tyson just recently, by viewing a few videos on youtube.
As far as i got it, he is such a uncomfortable figure for a few people because he is called to be the 'ambassador of science'. He is a figure who will bring forward public spending into science projects.And his straightforward way in telling you that 'you know nothing' is just the kicker in telling you that you would like to give money to learn. i have no problem with that, since budgets for science are small in relation to the defense-budget for example. Science makes us invest into the future, whereas mayans can just teach us how to drive a culture into irrelevance. sooo
Tyson puts it on the table with the necessary ammount of professionality. he even did not hesitate to kick his collaeges *sses a few times when he sees them propagating there knowlege in a way noone undestands.

science .. is not a delusion for the masses. its a well defined way to figure the true nature about things around us, with pure logic. It delivers the tools and methods for exploration, and tell the rules in how knowledge can be gained from theories.

soooo
2012 ... the galactic center alignment .. the mayans ... irrelevant. Its just attention gathering from a few people who think they can circumvent the rules implied by science, or .lack knowledge even a 4th grader would know.

If you think its necessary to engage in theories like Nibiru, planet-X and other fancy stuff .. well... go for it.
but at some point there'll be a gap in the chain of evidence, and its just up to you if you believe into the crappy patch those hoaxters put in place to keep the BS alive

I'm more inclined to listen to a man with crednetials, over a person on a website using MS Paint to aid his arguement. Just saying.

reply to post by Pimander


Good points, and also the guy is probably taken out of context in that clip who know what is said before or after.