Neil deGrasse Tyson warns that due to a lack of trust in scientific fact America is "already kind of fading."

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

“It’s the beginning of the end,” he told Yahoo News and Finance anchor Bianna Golodryga. “It’s the beginning of the end of an informed democracy, the moment people are debating whether an objectively established scientific truth is true. The moment that happens, there is no informed decision-making.” 

Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said he was disturbed that government leaders were ignoring the scientific reports from the National Academy of Sciences. 

“If you’re going to ignore their reports, there is no future for a country that wants to thrive in terms of its health and its wealth and its security,” he said. 

Tyson said competition in all those fields require “innovation and intelligent investments” in science, technology, engineering and math. 

“If you don’t have that, just watch America fade. We’re already kind of fading. Just watch it continue to fade and just disappear. It’s not a cliff, so you don’t know it. You don’t ‘oh, we’re stepping over the edge.’ No, no. It’s just, we’ll become less relevant. The world starts making decisions without us, where we used to lead those very same decisions.”

“I’m so disappointed that the country that I grew up in ― that put men on the moon, that developed the internet, that invented personal computers and smartphones ― that people are debating what is and what is not scientifically true.”

I actually do not think we need a famous astrophysicist to point this out to us, we are seeing it with our own eyes almost every day.

This is what helped to elect Donald Trump.

This is what is undermining our public education.

And this is what is potentially destroying the future of our country.

It is what the conservatives have been pushing us toward for decades.

If facts have a liberal bias, well then facts need to be undermined and stripped of their ability to shape the opinions and open the minds of the American citizens.

And here we are.

At a place where truth is a matter of opinion, and reality is open to interpretation.

Neil deGrasse Tyson explains how the evidence fails to support the existence of God.

Courtesy of DeadState:  

“The more I look at the universe, the less convinced I am that there is something benevolent going on,” Tyson said. 

“I look at disasters that afflict Earth, and life on Earth: volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, disease, pestilence, congenital birth defects — you look at this list of ways that life is made miserable on Earth by natural causes, and I just ask, ‘How do you deal with that?'” 

Tyson said that if science and inquiry someday leads to evidence of a creator, then that’s “not a problem.” But that’s not where we’re at now. 

“There’s just no evidence of it.” 

“And this is why religions are called ‘faiths’ collectively,” he continued. “Because you believe something in the absence of evidence. That’s what it is. That’s why it’s called ‘faith.’ Otherwise we would call all religions ‘evidence,’ but we don’t for exactly that reason.”

It seems like I rarely get to touch on another of my favorite topics, which is religion and the existence of God these days.

This is STILL in my opinion an incredibly important topic, as religious faith continues to have a significant impact on our politics, foreign relations, and social interactions.

If I believe in anything, it is that what is very important to the survival of our species is that we stop looking for differences which allow us to hate and war against each other, and instead focus on what we have in common, which would then allow us to focus on solving the very real problems we face together.

It is my opinion that one of the main filters we use to find differences with each other in 2017 is still differing religious faiths, and that the very fact that it remains so indicates that we are allowing primitive superstitions to actively interfere in our ability to grow closer together as a community.

That is why I feel it is important to raise awareness about the lack of evidence to support any and all religious faiths, as well as how religion is used to separate and manipulate us into doing things that are ultimately not in our best interests.

I think this interview with NDT, helps to move us a little further in that direction.

A very important, and timely, message from Neil deGrasse Tyson about science in America.

Now see we need to hear as much of this kind of thing as possible to keep us grounded and reality based.

Science is real. It is necessary. And it is ultimately what will save us from ourselves.

Neil deGrasse Tyson schools rapper promoting the flat earth theory.

Okay that was sweet.

A little perspective.

My mother spent the night at my house the other night, because she did not want to drive back to Palmer in the dark.

While here she brought up the topic of religion and we had a long talk about my atheism and her very basic brand of faith.

I played for her Professor Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Most Astounding Fact, and explained how understanding that the entire universe, and everything in it, shared the same DNA if you will was both humbling and exhilarating, and how I saw the fables of religion as interfering with our understanding and acceptance of that simply truth.

She seemed to understand but also said that her faith gave her comfort, and she was worried that I would strip her of it just to make an intellectual point.

I said that I had no intention of doing that, and that at her age there was no reason for her to abandon her faith, so long as she was on guard against those who would use it to manipulate her or take advantage of her.

In the end it seemed that she understood me a little bit better, and that I certainly have no intention of doing anything that takes something away which gives her comfort and a sense of peace.

As I come to the end of this post it suddenly dawns on me that what I have written has virtually nothing in common with what is printed on that image up above.

Oh well it's my blog, and if think a story about a conversation with my mother about religion, and a Carl Sagan quote about the insignificance of human conflict are connected in some way, well so be it.

Majority of Americans more afraid of gun violence than terrorism.

3,400: Americans who died by Terrorism since 2001 3,400: Americans who died by household Firearms since five weeks ago.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) November 9, 2015

Courtesy of McClatchy DC: 

When it comes to danger, voters are far more afraid of gun violence than terrorism. 

But like almost everything else this election season, there’s a partisan split, a new McClatchy-Marist poll finds. 

Overall, 63 percent of registered votes say they’re more worried that they or someone they know will be a victim of gun violence, while 29 percent more fear that they or a friend will fall prey to a terrorist attack. 

Democrats and independents lean heavily toward gun violence as the bigger threat, a sentiment reflected in the party’s push for stricter gun laws in the wake of mass shootings this year in Charleston, S.C., Rosenburg, Ore., and Lafayette, La. 

Democrats fear guns over terrorism by 77-15 percent. Independents fear gun violence over terrorism by 64-28 percent. 

Republicans edge toward terrorism as the bigger threat, but only narrowly, by 50-45 percent over a fear of gun violence. 

African-American voters have the biggest concern about guns: 71 percent say they’re worried about being a victim of gun violence and only 13 percent are afraid of being caught in a terrorist attack. 

Finally people are starting to wake up to the reality of our gun culture.

And it looks as if Hillary's stance on gun control might be EXACTLY what the majority of voters are looking for in 2016.

I am going to hang my hat on the hope that we might actually make the same kind of positive headway addressing guns in this country under a President Hillary Clinton as we made under President Obama on LGBT rights.

Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson just two smart people hanging out on the roof talking science.

Courtesy of the YouTube page:

"Dear Citizen of Planet Earth," 

That's how Carl Sagan addressed the public in an introductory letter about the Planetary Society back in the 1980s. Now Bill (CEO) and Neil (Board Member) reminisce about those days, talk about what we should call people from planet Earth, discuss how Neil's Cosmos TV show stressed Bill out, and tell us who will the first humans will be to orbit Mars.

You know sometimes I just post things because they make me smile.

This made me smile.

Watching these two great men "Nerding out" on that rooftop made me kind of wish I could have joined them.

Kinda reminded me of an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" actually.

Neil deGrasse Tyson identifies the cherry picking of science by politicians as the "great tragedy of modern society."

Participating in a panel with other scientists and mathematicians, Professor Tyson was asked what scientists can do to prevent scientific idea from becoming partisan:  

Tyson said he did not have a problem with people believing in anything they wanted to. “But if that belief is not based on objective truths, you should not be creating legislation based on it,” he said. 

“One of the great tragedies of modern society is that we have politicians cherry-picking science in the interests of their own social, cultural, political and religious belief systems, and that’s the beginning of the end of an informed democracy.” 

If politicians and society had strong scientific literacy, Tyson said, there should be no debate within politics as to whether climate change existed. 

“If you’re trained to understand how and why science works, then the two opposite factions can have a genuine political discussion about how to react to human-induced climate change,” he said. “That’s where the debate should happen.”

I strongly feel that we need to replace the religious litmus test applied to politicians today (And yes trust me there certainly is one.) with a test on intelligence and a basic understanding of science, economics, and history.

I think if the candidates were well versed in those disciplines we would be far less likely to elect idiots like Louie Gohmert, Jim Inhofe, or a Sarah Palin.

Just imagine the civility in conversations about the budget, space exploration, and whether or not we should go to war.

You know if that change were to really take place, we might actually be able to celebrate American exceptionalism with a straight face.

Neil deGrasse Tyson on the importance of scientific literacy.

Very profound, and undeniably true.

The reason that many on the conservative side are constantly arguing against scientific data, and undermining education in this country, is because the facts do not line up on their side, and they realize that with a more intelligent electorate their ability to mislead and oppress will be no more.

Everything about being a progressive is about moving forward, learning more, and accepting differences.

The philosophy of the conservative is almost the exact opposite.

Neil deGrasse Tyson kinda sorta defends Scientology. You know kinda sorta.

This comes from a much longer, more expansive interview over at The Daily Beast.

At one point during the interview Tyson is asked about the HBO documentary "Going Clear" an expose on Scientology.

Here was his response:  

DB: I’m curious what your take on Scientology is, because the intergalactic story of Xenu does encroach on your territory a bit. 

NDT: So, you have people who are certain that a man in a robe transforms a cracker into the literal body of Jesus saying that what goes on in Scientology is crazy? Let’s realize this: What matters is not who says who’s crazy, what matters is we live in a free country. You can believe whatever you want, otherwise it’s not a free country—it’s something else. If we start controlling what people think and why they think it, we have case studies where that became the norm. I don’t care what the tenets are of Scientology. They don’t distract me. I don’t judge them, and I don’t criticize them. 

Now, where the rubber hits the road is, since we are a free country where belief systems are constitutionally protected—provided they don’t infringe on the rights of others—then how do you have governance over “all” when you have belief systems for the “some”? It seems to me that the way you govern people is you base governance on things that are objectively true; that are true regardless of your belief system, or no matter what the tenets are of your holy documents. And then they should base it on objective truths that apply to everyone. So the issue comes about not that there are religious people in the world that have one view over another, it’s if you have one view or another based on faith and you want to legislate that in a way that affects everyone. That’s no longer a free democracy. That’s a country where the few who have a belief system that’s not based in objective reality want to control the behavior of everyone else. 

DB: The documentary essentially argues that Scientology shouldn’t be granted tax-exempt status as a religion. 

NDT: But why aren’t they a religion? What is it that makes them a religion and others are religions? If you attend a Seder, there’s an empty chair sitting right there and the door is unlocked because Elijah might walk in. OK. These are educated people who do this. Now, some will say it’s ritual, some will say it could literally happen. But religions, if you analyze them, who is to say that one religion is rational and another isn’t? It looks like the older those thoughts have been around, the likelier it is to be declared a religion. If you’ve been around 1,000 years you’re a religion, and if you’ve been around 100 years, you’re a cult. That’s how people want to divide the kingdom. Religions have edited themselves over the years to fit the times, so I’m not going to sit here and say Scientology is an illegitimate religion and other religions are legitimate religions. They’re all based on belief systems. Look at Mormonism! There are ideas that are as space-exotic within Mormonism as there are within Scientology, and it’s more accepted because it’s a little older than Scientology is, so are we just more accepting of something that’s older? 

The line I’m drawing is that there are religions and belief systems, and objective truths. And if we’re going to govern a country, we need to base that governance on objective truths—not your personal belief system.

This is essentially what I have been saying for years.

The length of time that a belief system or religion has existed should have no impact on its acceptance. However we tend to trick ourselves into thinking that once something has aged over time, and attracted a number of adherents, that it somehow becomes more acceptable to empty our minds and accept it as truth.

Having said that I also feel that the impact ANY of these religions have should end at the exit doors of their church, synagogue, or temple. There is really no justification for forcing your sense of morality, or faith in an afterlife, on others unless you have quantifiable evidence to support your point of view.

Neil deGrasse Tyson schools Florida voters on the importance of electing scientifically literate politicians.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson had choice words for the state of Florida Monday, saying he was “astonished” by Gov. Rick Scott’s administration’s alleged ban on using the words “climate change.” 

Speaking as part of a lecture series in Sarasota, Florida and at a press conference before it, the renowned scientist and science communicator said that he thought that the U.S., as a country, was above using science as a political debate. Tyson also said voters held responsibility for electing lawmakers like Scott, which points to the need to better educate voters about issues like climate change. 

“I don’t blame the politicians for a damn thing because we vote for the politicians,” he said. “I blame the electorate.” 

Tyson has a point: a poll last year found that Americans are, in general, less concerned about climate change than people in many other parts of the world. And though most Americans believe climate change is happening, many don’t fully understand why. 

Tyson also said that Florida officials should be worrying about what to do to prepare the state for the imminent threat of sea level rise, rather than restricting state workers from talking about climate change. 

“Now we have a time where people are cherry picking science,” he said. “The science is not political. That’s like repealing gravity because you gained 10 pounds last week.”

Professor Tyson's point about Florida's voters being accountable is exactly right. And if they don't start to educate themselves, and allow their children to be educated, then the future of their state is in terrible jeopardy.

Personally I think that politicians should have to pass a basic science test before running for election in this country. At this point things are simply becoming too dire to allow any more idiots like Rick Scott, or Ted Cruz, to hold office.

And while we're at it they should probably also be tested on the Constitution, basic math, and women's reproductive systems. Because many of them seem to have trouble with those subjects as well.

I have found my final resting place. I'm gonna be a tree.

Courtesy of The Collective Intelligence:  

Italian designers Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel recently introduced a new burial technique with the potential to change the world. They call it the Capsula Mundi project, and it's a shockingly simple concept. 

Rather than burying dead bodies in wooden boxes in the ground, bodies are placed in a biodegradable sack like the ones below. 

The sack is then buried in the ground, with a tree planted above. 

The premise is that as the tree grows, it will use the nutrients produced by the human body as it decomposes. 

The designers wish for cemeteries to eventually look more like forests.

Man do I like this idea!

I have never been a fan of funerals, but having a ceremony to plant a tree, now THAT sounds like a celebratory event.

My daughter and I recently discussed this idea and she is all for it. She says she would be much more likely to come and water me if I was a tree, rather than sit and grieve for me if all she could see was a headstone.

And the idea of providing oxygen to the earth after my passing makes me pretty happy as well.

This also falls in line with what Neil deGrasse Tyson has said he would like for his remains to be used for after he breaths his last.

Six year old asks Neil deGrasse Tyson for the meaning of life, and his answer is nothing short of epic.

Courtesy of CNET:  

As an astrophysicist and host of last year's "Cosmos" reboot, Neil deGrasse Tyson has taken on explanations of physics, evolution and the creation of the universe itself. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that when a 6-year-old boy asked him, "What's the meaning of life?" at a small speaking engagement in Boston on Thursday, Tyson didn't balk at the question like most of us would. 

Instead, he launched into a mini-lesson starting with the value of creating meaning through lifelong learning and concluding with granting his permission to splash around in muddy puddles and bang spoons on the family collection of pots and pans. The whole exchange is ridiculously adorable, and Tyson's approach to the precocious kid -- rolling around the stage like a restless first-grader himself -- will almost charm you to tears.

You know I have worked with children almost my entire adult life.

Once many years ago somebody asked me how I had the patience to work with small children without getting frustrated or bored. 

"Are you kidding?" I replied. "Every day I get to see the world through new eyes. I get to watch a child's face as they experience for the first time, something that I have seen, tasted, or heard a thousand times before. There is nothing boring about that."

Parents should take a lesson from what Professor Tyson is saying here.

If you want to raise problem solvers, then let them start solving problems early.

If you want to raise emotionally secure adults, then don't coddle and protect your children from their emotions, even the bad ones.

And if you want to raise successful adults, then let them fail, and learn from those failures, as children.

During all of that I can almost guarantee they will discover the meaning of life, well at least their life. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson gets his own science based talk show. I can almost hear conservatives changing the channel already.

Courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter:  

The astrophysicist and TV personality, who fronted Cosmos in 2014, has nabbed a late-night series on National Geographic Channel called Star Talk. 

“Cosmos allowed us to share the awesome power of the universe with a global audience in ways that we never thought possible,” said Tyson. “To be able to continue to spread wonder and excitement through Star Talk, which is a true passion project for me, is beyond exciting. And National Geographic Channel is the perfect home as we continue to explore the universe.” 

"This is kind of low-risk, I think, for National Geographic," Tyson told the crowd at the Television Critics Association press tour. "Star Talk exists as a thriving podcast right now."

I have actually listened to a few Star Talk podcasts.  They are very interesting though they do tend to meander quite a bit.

I will assume they will tighten things up for the televised version, and that Dr. Tyson will have a few other guests besides Bill Nye and Seth MacFarlane.

Hopefully he will continue to call out the Republicans on their anti-science agenda however.

Tweeted by NDT yesterday morning. Update!

On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 25, 2014

Well at least he was actually born on December 25th.

Personally I would love to see Christmas changed to celebrate the birth of Sir Isaac Newton rather then the mythological birth of the Christ child.

Update: Apparently Professor Tyson's tweets did not go over well with everybody.

Of course that just makes me like them all the more.

Just a reminder that you can pause a video to make anybody look stupid.

I sometimes get angry feedback due to my propensity for finding really terrible pictures of Sarah Palin and using them on this blog. Many of them are ones I create myself by taking screenshots and posting them here.

You know like this one.

And this one.

And this one.

Okay fair enough.

However in my defense I would like to point out that when you hear Professor Tyson speak it immediately dissuades you from believing that he is intellectually impaired in any way.

Yet when you hear Sarah Palin speak people instead think, "That screen capture really failed to fully grasp the stupidity of this woman."

And the defense rests.

Would you like to be inspired? Your wish is my command.

That gentleman is futurist Jason Silva. And he may be just about the most optimistic human on the planet. Well among the top three at least.

Rather than being concerned about where science and technology might be taking human beings, Silva is packing his things so he does not miss the first shuttle to the future.

Here is Silva from an interview with New Statesman in November of last year: 

“I think that technology has always been a double-edged sword,” Silva says. “If you look at the work of Steven Pinker, Better Angels Of Our Nature, the world has never been less violent than today. The chances of a man dying at the hands of another man have never been lower than today. If we can transcend our overactive amygdalas that are always focusing on the danger, you’ll find the world is getting better on a whole range of indicators.” 

“There’s always been a terror about new technology. The same was said about the radio and television. There’s a great book by Steven Johnson - it’s called Everything Bad Is Good For You - he talks about how video games, for example, engage our problem-solving and strategy skills in an immense way. There are all these counter-intuitive examples of tools that we were afraid of, but at the end of the day it’s just evolution, man. Minds like ours were made for merger.” 

Silva is also dismissive of the possibility that we’ll run out of resources, because “technology is a resource-liberating mechanism”. Nanotechnology will allow us to perform alchemy, reconfiguring materials on an atom-by-atom basis. Water wars are ridiculous because “we live on a water planet”, and advanced desalination technology “is going to give us more water than we ever could need”. Overpopulation is misdirection. Technology doesn’t hurt us, it brings us out of poverty and is our method of reaching a higher plane of existence. The little details don't matter when you realise that the big picture averages out as an overwhelming positive. 

“People say these new technologies are only for the rich, I say, ‘yeah, just like cellphones’. Everyone in Africa has better communications technology than the US president had 25 years ago.” If anything, Silva appears to be arguing for a post-scarcity future of the sort written about by a range of economists and science fiction authors for decades, if not centuries. “The capitalist underpinnings of society would be completely transcended - people would be liberated,” he explains.

Essentially Silva believes that our futures are only hampered by our imaginations and our fears of where they may lead.

I am a big fan of this kind of thinking, because in many ways it reflects my own.

Which is one of the main reasons that I am so hard on religion and work to reduce its influence on how we think, and how we perceive ourselves. So long as we see ourselves as subservient and beholden to a magic man in the sky, we undermine our ability to see ourselves as gods and the creators of magic that we live with everyday.

We can communicate across the world in an instant, see into the vastness of space, fly though the air at supersonic speeds, and enter virtual reality worlds almost as real as the one all around us.

When I think of the future I am always optimistic, but I am also very aware that there are people desperate, and I mean DESPERATE, to hold us back.

P.S. If you want to see a great Star talk episode featuring Silva and Neil deGrasse Tyson click here. 

Professor Neil deGrasse Tyson on why some people fear a cosmic perspective, while others embrace it.

"I assert that if you are depressed after learning, and being exposed. to the cosmic perspective you started your day with a unjustifiably large ego."

I love that!

Religious people often attempt to portray themselves as humble servants of God, but I contend that such a thing is virtually impossible if you actually believe the planet and the universe were created just for you.

In other news guess which show drew the largest global audience EVER for National Geographic.

Courtesy of Variety: 

“Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” which premiered this spring on Fox and National Geographic Channel and received an unprecedented rollout in 180 countries, has become the most-watched series ever for National Geographic Channel International. 

A whopping 135 million people — including 45 million in the U.S. — watched at least some of the 13-part science series, National Geographic Channel announced today. Overall, it aired on all 90 National Geographic Channels as well as 120 Fox-branded channels in 125 countries, making this the largest global launch ever for a television series. 

Its March 3 premiere Stateside attracted roughly 8.5 million viewers across 10 channels. In addition to the Fox broadcast network and National Geographic Channel, “Cosmos” aired on cablers FX, FXX, FXM, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo and FOX Life.

All I can say is that I hope this inspires other networks to create science programs of their own and put them on prime time, because I really think this country could really benefit from well done educational programs like "Cosmos."

Hey, and maybe Fox could stop focusing on making the country dumber through their Fox News channel, and instead focus on making more programs which make us all smarter.

Yes I know what you're thinking, "Then where would the Republicans find voters ignorant enough to vote for them?"

Have Conservatives abandoned science altogether?

Courtesy of Salon:  

The recent reboot of the show Cosmos on Fox further demonstrated how partisan the very idea of science and empiricism has become. The show, which features astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson taking over the host role from the original’s Carl Sagan, was aggressive in defending science, curiosity, and following the evidence from people who would rather rely on faith or authority, but it took no partisan positions. Nonetheless, it was immediately understood by Americans both left and right as a “liberal” show, merely for its strong insistence that facts should not be ignored in favor of wishful thinking. 

Even though the show was hosted on the Fox network channel, Fox News, the conservative cable channel, did not hold back in the slightest from attacking Tyson for perceived liberalism. In a shockingly racist segment, host Greg Gutfeld and guest Gavin McInnes dogged relentlessly on Tyson, insinuating that he can’t really be an astrophysicist and making fun of “white liberals” for being enthusiastic about Tyson and his work. It only grew uglier with McInnes claiming that Tyson deserved to be mistreated based on his race when he was young because he “fit the profile” by having “a huge afro.” 

While that was the ugliest example of race-baiting, overall conservative media had a tendency to treat Cosmos like its insistence on empiricism and rationality was inherently a culture war issue, so much so that many Christian conservative media outlets attacked every episode in the series with fervor. It wasn’t just when it came to Tyson’s acceptance of evolutionary theory, either. Christian conservatives threw a fit because the show told the story of how Giordano Bruno, a 16th century monk, was burned at the stake for free-thinking. Even though the story fit directly into the larger argument the show made about the dangers of repressing free inquiry, Jay Richards of the Discovery Institute felt that criticizing the church for torturing a man to death should be off-limits because the man in question was a monk, not a scientist. 

Or, even more hilariously, when Tyson mentioned in passing on the show that Christmas was established by the church not because it’s actually Jesus’s birthday but because the church needed a holiday to compete with the popular pagan Saturnalia, Richards completely exploded in rage and denial. “We learn that the holiday celebrated by a couple billion Christians is really a camouflaged take-over of Saturnalia, the High Holy Day when ancient Romans celebrated Saturn, the god of agriculture,” he whined. The only problem is that when Christmas was established, Christianity wasn’t a religion with two billion followers. It was an upstart faith and Saturnalia was, in fact, one of the hands-down most popular days of the year for the followers of the pagan faiths that had been dominate for thousands of years. None of this requires math to understand, but now the right has gone so anti-evidence that even boring old history is considered up for debate.

Part of what I loved about the new Cosmos is that it so fearlessly discussed facts that I knew were going to cause the Religious Right and conservatives to rend their clothing in response.

And it did so with such nonchalance, as if it were simply stating the obvious and suggesting that those who rejected the reality were simply afraid to let go of the comfort provided by fairy tales told to a child.

It also helped to illustrate just how deeply the divide is between those who rely on faith to navigate through life, and those who rely on reason.

A divide that may have been best characterized by the show's creator Ann Druyan. (The late Carl Sagan's widow):

During my all-too-brief phone conversation with Druyan, we also discussed her brilliant rereading of the story of the Garden of Eden, which she sees as the story of humanity’s escape from “a maximum-security prison with 24-hour surveillance.” Adam and Eve’s capital offense is that they seek knowledge and ask questions, precisely the qualities that define the human species. At least in that story, God appears to demand a subservient and doctrinaire incuriosity, and many of his followers continue to insist on that path to this day. 

The show simply HAD to be attacked by the conservatives who desperately need a populace that makes decisions based on fear and ignorance, rather than facts and intelligence.

Personally I hope the success of the show opens the door to a whole new era of similar programming that will help educate a populace whose public school system is right now under attack by those who cannot abide a well educated citizenry.