Scientific literacy is an intellectual vaccine against the claims of charlatans who would exploit ignorance. Neil deGrasse Tyson More Quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson More Quotes From Neil deGrasse Tyson After 50 years of television, there's no other conclusion the aliens could draw, but that most humans are neurotic, death-hungry, dysfunctional idiots. Neil deGrasse Tyson aliens television years Would a NASA reality show "Lunar Shore" be more popular than "Jersey Shore?" Civilization's future depends on that answer. Neil deGrasse Tyson mind-blowing civilization reality Do you realize that if you fall into a black hole, you will see the entire future of the Universe unfold in front of you in a matter of moments and you will emerge into another space-time created by the singularity of the black hole you just fell into? Neil deGrasse Tyson black space fall Somehow it's O.K. for people to chuckle about not being good at math. Yet if I said, 'I never learned to read,' they'd say I was an illiterate dolt. Neil deGrasse Tyson bad-ass math people If you want to assert a truth, first make sure it's not just an opinion that you desperately want to be true. Neil deGrasse Tyson opinion want firsts My goal is not to shove information into your head. It's to find ways to reignite the curiosity that we all had as children for the natural world. You don't have to tell a child to explore the backyard. Neil deGrasse Tyson curiosity goal children Just to settle it once and for all: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The egg, laid by a bird that was not a chicken. Neil deGrasse Tyson eggs bird funny It's better to understand something than to memorize something. Neil deGrasse Tyson To achieve this density of a neutron star at home, just cram a herd of 50 million elephants into the volume of a thimble. Neil deGrasse Tyson stars home science Where did the concept of "without borders" come from? No one had that concept until you saw Earth from space, illustrated not by a mapmaker who's color-coding political boundaries; it's illustrated by nature itself and there's land, there's ocean, there's atmosphere. Neil deGrasse Tyson color ocean land Society needs to see science not as a luxury of funding but as a fundamental activity that drives enlightenment, economics, and security. Neil deGrasse Tyson enlightenment luxury needs 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. Neil deGrasse Tyson educational believe school The great tragedy is that they're removing art completely, not because they're putting more science in, but because they can't afford the art teachers or because somebody thinks it's not useful. An enlightened society has all of this going on within it. It's part of what distinguishes what it is to be human from other life forms on Earth - that we have culture. Neil deGrasse Tyson bad-ass teacher art For decades, we've been trying to cook up the building blocks of life, in the lab, and recreate the origins of it all, but the parts didn't seem to fit together, until now. Neil deGrasse Tyson block together trying If an artist is reaching for the universe as a source of creative muse, then I'm there. I'm gonna say, "Yeah. Here's Saturn. Here's a black hole. Here's twisted space-time. Talk to me. What do you need? What do you want?" And I'll just feed you, because I think only then does science become mainstream - when science becomes a legitimate topic for artists. Neil deGrasse Tyson creative artist thinking Science literacy is the artery through which the solutions of tomorrow's problems flow. Neil deGrasse Tyson flow tomorrow problem I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna during my lifetime Neil deGrasse Tyson body energy earth We are star dust in the highest exalted way, called by the universe, reaching out to the universe Neil deGrasse Tyson dust stars way I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up — many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. Neil deGrasse Tyson stars sky night I've said multiple times that the world's first trillionaire is going to be the person who exploits the resources of asteroids, the natural resources that are rare on earth and common on selected asteroids. So there are many different reasons you might want to go into space. You might want to spend your honeymoon on the far side of the moon. Neil deGrasse Tyson space moon want
