Local news delivered daily to your email inbox. Subscribe for FREE to the rdnewsNOW newsletter.

Neil deGrasse Tyson apologizes for weekend tweet about death

Aug 6, 2019 | 7:30 AM

Neil deGrasse Tyson has learned after a tweet that pointing out truths is not always helpful.

The astrophysicist and author apologized Monday for a Sunday tweet in which he noted more people died in less attention-getting ways in the same two-day period as a pair of mass shootings.

He concluded his tweet with: “Often our emotions respond more to spectacle than to data.” The tweet trended on Twitter and prompted outrage of being tone-deaf in nature.

Tyson said on Facebook that he “miscalculated” how the tweet would be perceived and “genuinely believed” it would be helpful to “anyone trying to save lives in America.”