Neil deGrasse Tyson could be a great science educator if only he would stick to science. He’s clever, articulate, highly knowledgeable, and has an undeniable folksy charm.
Unfortunately, he also has an unfortunate penchant for engaging in wholly gratuitous and uninformed attacks on religious people. And this is where things get ugly. Tyson may know a lot about science, but his knowledge of philosophy, theology, and religion is abysmal as I have pointed out in the past (see here, for example, and also here).
But yesterday Tyson posted a tweet that was notably worse than his usual anti-religious bile:
Evidence collected over many years, obtained from many locations, indicates that the power of Prayer is insufficient to stop bullets from killing school children.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) February 16, 2018
Using a mass-shooting as an opportunity to score cheap shots against theists and thereby drive a further wedge of division between deeply polarized groups that are already inclined to misunderstand and demonize one another?
Truly this man is without class. He may know a lot about the cosmos, but his utterances on religion are a black hole.