‘You are Why People Hate Scientists’: Neil deGrasse Tyson Roasted After Taking on Santa Claus

Kipp JonesDec 25th, 2021, 11:51 am
 

Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was rightly mocked on Twitter Friday and into Saturday after the cynical Grinch attempted to use science to explain why Santa’s reindeer would surely perish while delivering gifts.

In a tweet that can only be described as unnecessary, the former host of Fox’s Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and PBS’ Nova ScienceNow nailed the role of Scrooge. He explained why a fictional cultural icon such as Kris Kringle could never reach six continents in a single night using flying reindeer without them all being vaporized in transit.

“For Santa to deliver gifts to all world’s Christians in one night requires hypersonic speeds through Earth’s lower atmosphere, vaporizing his reindeer & sleigh,” Tyson explained on Twitter. “Just sayin’.”

The basis for Tyson’s inconsequential observation was wholly flawed, and people from innumerable backgrounds who were unfortunate enough to come across it laid into him.

North American Aerospace Defense Command has spent six decades pretending to track Santa’s movements to the delight of both children and adults. So one might have thought that a pugnacious man such as Tyson could have shelved his suffocating anti-fun shtick for the holidays.

Even the Germans briefly laid down their arms for Christmas in 1914.

But Tyson on Friday was either unwilling or unable to leave well enough alone. The man whose observations are so often thought-provoking could not gift the benighted masses a paltry 24 hours to enjoy both the religious and secular aspects of Christmas without making an attempt to ruin all the fun.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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