Some friends and I drove up to Casper, which was in the exact center of the zone of totality of the eclipse. The experience was indescribably spectacular. It was even worth enduring the worst traffic jam of my life in which the normal four-hour drive back to Denver was stretched to ten hours.
This morning I learned that Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted
The divided United States of America will unite today, sharing a cosmic event predicted by the methods and tools of science.
Most commenters have interpreted this as a dig at climate alarmism skeptics. So, let’s play “Spot the Equivocation”!
A. The “methods and tools of science” used to predict the eclipse have been extremely well understood for hundreds of years; are astronomically (literally) precise, and have been used to make an exacting prediction the success or failure of which can be measured with pinpoint accuracy.
B. The “methods and tools of science” used to predict future climate change are based on factors that are not well understood, if they are understood at all. The predictions of past models have failed spectacularly.
Why would any sane scientist compare “A” to “B”? Oh, wait, Tyson was not acting as a scientist. He was acting as a propagandist, and as is often the case, he was attempting to cover his political prejudices with the mantle of science.