Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tysonis an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth5 October 1958
CountryUnited States of America
There's no greater sign of the failure of the American educational system than the extent to which Americans are distracted by the possibility that Earth might end on December 21, 2012. It's a profound absence of awareness of the laws of physics and how nature works. So they're missing some science classes in their training in high school or in college that would empower them to understand and to judge when someone else is basically just full of it. Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.
Some claim evolution is just a theory. As if it were merely an opinion. The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact. Evolution really happened. Accepting our kinship with all life on Earth is not only solid science. In my view, it’s also a soaring spiritual experience.
I don't require that the main guest [of StarTalk] have any science knowledge or background at all. It's just, I have a conversation with them, it's long and winding, and we find out what parts of what we learn about the person lend themselves to further scientific discussion with an expert who is brought into the studio. So that's how that comes together.
Science literacy is the artery through which the solutions of tomorrow's problems flow.
If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist.
In the end, it's the people who are curious who change the world.
I try to educate the public and let them make the decisions for themselves.
You don't want to raise a kid in a culture where the kid who asks the most questions is annoying. You want a culture where the kid who asks the most questions gets awards and gets another piece of cake.
God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.
Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.
When we try to look farther into the universe we come to what appears to be the end of space but actually it's the beginning of time.
The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?
I know of no time in human history where ignorance was better than knowledge.
So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.'