Joe Rogan Pushes Back Against Terrence Howard During Podcast
Joe Rogan challenged some of Terrence Howard's perspectives as he sat down with the actor weeks after a headline-making conversation about science.
During an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience that went live in May, Empire star Howard spoke at length about his lifelong interest in physics and challenged the foundations of the science as he touted various theories. Howard criticized the foundations of principles like event horizon and gravity, saying that basing beliefs on straight lines instead of waves and curves has distorted any true understanding.
The Hustle & Flow star, who told Rogan he holds 97 patents, also stated that the universe is finite rather than infinite and that planets in the solar system are slowly moving away from our sun, with Venus on course to eventually take Earth's place.
In a return to the podcast, posted to YouTube on Monday, Howard met with Rogan's friend Eric Weinstein—who holds a Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Harvard University and is a member of the Galileo Project research team—to further discuss the actor's theories.
The conversation turned to Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famed astrophysicist who Howard previously said had made notes all over one of his treatises in a manner that he likened to an "attack."
"I want to be able to show you the things that I tried to show Neil deGrasse Tyson that he would not even and really take a look at," Howard told Weinstein.
"No, he did take a look at it," Rogan pushed back in defense of Tyson. "He responded in a long video recently."
"Yeah, but his response was disingenuous," Howard countered. "He was so disingenuous because I sent him a long email after he sent me back the red line thing, thanking him for reviewing it and saying [I] look forward to when we can discuss these things.
"I sent the treatise to him so we could discuss that on the show. His whole point was, 'I'm going to bring you on my show and we're going to talk. So here's the stuff that I would like to talk about.' He never followed up from that point forward, just sent one-line emails. 'Any other thing you got, you've got to go to somebody else.' So he's pretended like, 'Oh I was trying to be very helpful,' but that's not what the email trails show."
Newsweek has contacted representatives of Tyson and Howard via email for comment.
Continuing to defend Tyson, Rogan said: "He did make this one very large response though, right? He did he did go over the treatise, like, all the red stuff. He only has so much time. To defend him, he might be in a position where he's like, 'Look, I just said what I said about all this stuff, good luck. I don't have the time to like sit here and discuss these things in depth.'"
"That's great, but it's like, you invited me to come and do your show," Howard said of Tyson. "I put this stuff together to come and talk to you on your show and then there's no follow-up with the show."
"Got it. I understand it," Rogan said. "I mean, I understand your perspective for sure. He might have got to a point where it's like a thing where he thinks it's ridiculous and he doesn't want to engage it on show."
Weinstein, who described Tyson as a "colleague," stepped in to defend the scientist. Describing Tyson as a "complicated guy," Weinstein said that the science field is markedly discriminating and discerning in the work taken seriously.
Howard repeatedly expressed admiration for Tyson throughout the podcast and said that he would "still like to sit down with" him. However, Weinstein told him: "I don't know how serious he is about that beer."
Later in the show, Rogan said: "But Terrence, you know what he's saying about not being an expert in teaching and then coming from the outside? It's insulting. It's a bad way to approach a concept because the people that have been studying these concepts for so long instantaneously are told that they don't know, but you know and that's offensive to people that are actual experts in a thing.
"I think the same ideas could be portrayed in a way that does not do that... It's just you're so much smarter than most of the people you're talking to, that's what the problem is."
During a recent episode of his StarTalk podcast last month, Tyson confirmed that Howard had sent him a 36-page treatise about eight years ago. The treatise saw Howard "attempting to reinvent mathematics and physics," said Tyson, who explained that he read through it and left notes along the way.
"I thought, out of respect for him, what I should do is give him my most informed critical analysis that I can," he said. "In my field, we call that a peer review." Tyson said that the purpose of the process sees those involved performing "their duty to alert you of things about your ideas that are either misguided or wrong."
In a note left at the start of the document, Tyson described it as "an ambitious work that is a clear indication of a restless, active mind," but one that contains "assumptions and statements that are under-informed, misinformed, or simply false."
Stressing the importance of peer-reviewed work, Tyson cautioned: "The platform to be accepted for the ideas is not social media. It is not Joe Rogan. It is not my podcast. It is research journals where attention can be given on a level that, at the end of the day, offers no higher respect for your energy and intellect than by declaring that what's in it is either right or wrong."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
