A few responses to Neil Tyson

There are many fine comments on Tyson’s “I’m sorry I’m too smart for you” post. I will share some.

David Gorski Notpology. You didn’t really apologize for what you said. You just apologized for not realizing how badly it would be received, which is an entirely different thing. do better.

Kavin Senapathy You’re *just now* learning that facts presented without crucial context can be “true but unhelpful,” which shows that you haven’t learned the lesson you need. Anyone with the most basic google skills could have “offered up” a list like this–it reads like something a dime-a-dozen smart-ass account with a handful of followers would tweet, not at all something that “would be helpful to anyone trying to save lives in America,” as you say. People doing the work to save lives in America not only have access to available facts, but know to appropriately contextualize them within the flawed systems that allow for preventable deaths. It wasn’t only offensive, it was poorly-executed and not at all contextualized among all of the other relevant “facts.” You haven’t apologized here for your actions, you’re “apologizing” to those who took offense, as if it’s on them–it’s not.

tl;dr: Your “facts,” presented so callously, were not only not helpful during a time of tragedy, but could never be “helpful to anyone trying to save lives in America,” no matter when you presented them.

Jean Kazez Seriously bad response. The problem with your tweet wasn’t the unanticipated reaction, it was your bad reasoning. There are good reasons why mass shootings like the ones over the weekend upset people more than accidental deaths from disease and the like. They make us unsafe in formerly safe places. They are evidence of extremely sinister attitudes in our fellow citizens. We are doing nothing to prevent them, where we do a lot to prevent the other tragedies in your list. You didn’t think this through. That’s the problem, not people’s reactions.

Mine:

Good grief. “I’m sorry you misunderstood me” is not an apology at all, it’s a passive-aggressive insult.

And you’re the one who missed the point here. We KNOW there are other causes of “preventable deaths” but that’s not the entirety of the issue, to put it mildly. Even other shooting deaths are not a complete parallel. There really IS something special about people going to schools or Walmarts or bars in order to kill as many people AT RANDOM as possible. Add the fact that the intent appeared to be racist and that the president of the US incites racism every chance he gets, and it becomes pretty obvious why we pay extra attention.

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