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
perspective people community
You will never find people who truly grasp the cosmic perspective such as the entire community of astrophysicists leading nations into battle. No, that doesn't happen. When you have a cosmic perspective, there's this little speck called Earth and you say you're going to do what? You're on this side of a line in the sand and you want to kill people for what?
teacher stars community
Science is a cooperative enterprise spanning the generations. It's the passing of a torch from teacher to student to teacher. A community of minds, reaching back to antiquity and forward to the stars.
moon space community
There's an old saying in the space community: 'If God wanted us to be a spacefaring species, he would have given us a moon'.
religious people community
We should not be ashamed of not having answers to all questions yet...I'm perfectly happy staring somebody in the face saying, I don't know yet, and we've got top people working on it. The moment you feel compelled to provide an answer, then you're doing the same thing that the religious community does: providing answers to every possible question.
people community three
There's a saying in the scientific community, that every great truth goes through three phases. First, people deny it. Second, they say that it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say that they've known it all along.
fighting technology community
Once you have an innovation culture, even those who are not scientists or engineers - poets, actors, journalists - they, as communities, embrace the meaning of what it is to be scientifically literate. They embrace the concept of an innovation culture. They vote in ways that promote it. They don't fight science and they don't fight technology.
certainly famous profile shoulder
I'm not as famous as Stephen Hawking, but certainly in the U.S., I have a very high profile for a scientist. It is an awesome responsibility, one that I don't shoulder lightly.
apparent applying evident sure system
The need to create a new taxonomy that isn't just applying to our own solar system will become so evident and apparent that something will come out of it. I'm sure of it, even if it's not tomorrow.
certain created desert divine entire entity government intrigued largely lead lives people secret
I'm perennially intrigued how people who lead largely evidence-based lives can, in a belief-based part of their mind, be certain that an invisible, divine entity created an entire universe just for us, or that the government is stockpiling space aliens in a secret desert location.
science
I'm on a crusade to get movie directors to get their science right because, more often than they believe, the science is more extraordinary than anything they can invent.
advice asked bit born interested kids science
I'm often asked by parents what advice can I give them to help get kids interested in science? And I have only one bit of advice. Get out of their way. Kids are born curious. Period.
I'm often asked - and occasionally in an accusatory way - 'Are you atheist?' And it's like, 'You know, the only 'ist' I am is a scientist, all right?' I don't associate with movements. I'm not an 'ism.' I just - I think for myself.
people perspective
Not enough people in this world, I think, carry a cosmic perspective with them. It could be life-changing.
maybe turns
It turns out our brain is sensitive, maybe too sensitive, to motion. It's a survival mechanism.