"Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" has come to an end, but not without a stern warning from the host about adopting an anti-science mindset.
In the year 415 of the Common Era, a mob led by Cyril of Alexandria raided and destroyed the greatest library of the ancient world. The library had been ransacked several times before then, but it was this attack that effectively ended research there.
"What will happen the next time the mob comes?" Tyson asked rhetorically in his final episode.
This brought the 13-week-long series to an end, which was the follow-up to the classic "Cosmos" series, written and hosted by astronomer Carl Sagan in 1980.
Tyson, along with fellow popular science personality Bill Nye, have been the targets of criticism in recent months by some evangelicals, for their views on evolution and climate change. The stations airing the series were strong supporters of the show.
"I was amazed that Fox and National Geographic, but more about Fox, never wanted to change a word in my scripts. That was revelatory. That Standards and Practices would write back to me after reading the script and say 'Cannot wait to see this on television'," Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's widow, told the Washington Post.
In the last episode, the astronomer stated that science carries fewer risks than religion for adherents.
"It's one of the things I love about science. We don't have to pretend we have all the answers," de Grasse Tyson said in the last episode.
Producers of the show knew there would be some backlash over the show's teaching on evolution and global warming. In recent years, more people have started to accept the predominant scientific viewpoint on the issues.
"I think [science is] less under threat today than it was seven or eight years ago, when I felt there was much more of a kind of palpable public hostility to science. I feel that less. In fact, I was really surprised and delighted that the negative reaction to 'Cosmos' has been so meek and so fringe," Druyan stated.
Science and wonder, the two gifts both Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson wanted to spread to the masses, will never end its allure to open minds. Even without Tyson on the airwaves for his series, desire for science and learning will continue to grasp minds.
After all, Carl Sagan opened his original "Cosmos" book and series, with the sentence, "The Universe is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be."
