This weekend, 34 people were killed in two separate mass shooting incidents in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. While many took the time following the tragedies to tweet messages of support, prayer, and calls for government intervention, celebrity astrophysicist and host of Cosmos , Neil deGrasse Tyson chose to go a different route.
After the news of the shootings broke, many took to Twitter to express their thoughts.
President Trump also tweeted multiple times to acknowledge the tragedies, announcing the need to seek bipartisan solutions to this growing problem of gun violence in America.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson also commented on Twitter, comparing the loss from these tragedies to losses from the flu or car accidents.
He finished his data collection with “Often our emotions respond more to spectacle than to data,” and seemed to many to be attempting to downplay the importance of the mass shootings.
People were quick to point out the insensitivity of Tyson’s timing.
One Twitter user wrote that Tyson “posting this is a slap in the face to 34 families planning funerals,” while another added, “This is a bad take; it’s tone deaf, and cold.”
Other people took issue with his presentation of the data.
Some Twitter users felt it wasn’t an accurate comparison. “500 deaths to medical errors caused by 500 different people,” one user wrote, “34 deaths to mass shootings carried out by 2 people. See the difference.”
Tyson has now issued an apology on Facebook.
“Yesterday, a Tweet I posted in reaction to the horrific mass shootings in America over the previous 48 hours, killing 34 people, spawned mixed and highly critical responses,” he wrote.
“My intent was to offer objectively true information that might help shape conversations and reactions to preventable ways we die.”
“Where I miscalculated was that I genuinely believed the Tweet would be helpful to anyone trying to save lives in America,” Tyson continued.
“What I learned from the range of reactions is that for many people, some information –-my Tweet in particular — can be true but unhelpful, especially at a time when many people are either still in shock, or trying to heal – or both.”
“I am therefore thankful for the candor and depth of critical reactions shared in my Twitter feed. As an educator, I personally value knowing with precision and accuracy what reaction anything that I say (or write) will instill in my audience.”
“I got this one wrong,” he concluded.
While some fans appreciated his apology and felt he realized that some found his initial remark to show a lack of empathy, others felt this apology was not genuine and that Tyson was more concerned with showing off a knowledge of statistics than providing helpful information.
What do you think? Did Tyson need to apologize, or were people being too sensitive?
