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" I said that if an alien came to visit, I'd be embarrassed to tell them that we fight wars to pull fossil fuels out of the ground to run our transportation. They'd be like, 'What?' "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Alien
Run
Said
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" Just think for how long humanity was controlled by mystical, magical thinking - the diseases and suffering that led to. We managed to survive, but just barely. It wasn't pretty. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Humanity
Thinking
Think
" I don't want to be the embarrassment of the galaxy to have had the power to deflect an asteroid, and then not and end up going extinct. We'd be the laughingstock of the aliens of the cosmos if that were the case. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Want
End
Galaxy
" I don't comment on the physics errors of 'Star Wars,' all right. I just - you let that one go. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Physics
Star
Comment
" All the traditional STEM fields, the science, technology, engineering, and math fields, are stoked when you dream big in an agency such as NASA. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
NASA
Technology
You
" The caricature of science is that we hold tight to the theories we have, and shun challenges to them. That's just not true. In fact, we hold our highest rewards for those scientists who can prove others wrong. And by the way, they are famous in their own lifetimes. We don't wait until they're dead. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Famous
True
Science
" You can't come away with this cosmic perspective thinking that you are better than others and want to fight. That's why you'll never have astrophysicists leading nations into war. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Perspective
War
You
" For most of human civilization, the pace of innovation has been so slow that a generation might pass before a discovery would influence your life, culture or the conduct of nations. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Culture
Influence
Innovation
" What people are really after is, what is my stance on religion or spirituality or God? And I would say, if I find a word that came closest, it would be agnostic. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Word
Find
God
" In nature, when you conduct science, it is the natural world that is the ultimate decider in what is true and what is not. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
You
Nature
Science
" Computers have proved to be formidable chess players. In fact, they've beaten our top human chess champions. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Top
Human
Computers
" Venus has a runaway greenhouse effect. I kind of want to know what happened there because we're twirling knobs here on Earth without knowing the consequences of it. Mars once had running water. It's bone dry today. Something bad happened there as well. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Today
Earth
Consequences
" 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. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Famous
Responsibility
High
" I claim that space is part of our culture. You've heard complaints that nobody knows the names of the astronauts, that nobody gets excited about launches, that nobody cares anymore except people in the industry. I don't believe that for a minute. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
People
Space
Culture
" We explore our environment, more than we are compelled to utter poetry, when we're toddlers. We start doing that later. Before that happens, every child is a scientist. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Start
Child
Doing
" 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. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
More
Important
Facts
" If a scientist is not befuddled by what they're looking at, then they're not a research scientist. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Looking
Research
Scientist
" It was unthinkable not long ago that a biologist or paleontologist would be at the same conference as an astrophysicist. Now we have accumulated so much data in each of these branches of science as it relates to origins that we have learned that no one discipline can answer questions of origins alone. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Long
Discipline
Data
" If you slid Pluto to where Earth is right now, heat from the sun would evaporate that ice, and it would grow a tail. Now that's no kind of behavior for a planet. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Heat
You
Grow
" There's a lot to do in space. I want to learn more about the greenhouse effect on Venus, about whether there was life on Mars, about the environment in which Earth and the Sun is immersed, the behavior of the Sun. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Behavior
Life
Environment
" I never got into 'Star Wars.' Maybe because they made no attempt to portray real physics. At all. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Never
Real
Because
" Space exploration is a force of nature unto itself that no other force in society can rival. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Space
Nature
Exploration
" You have not fully expressed your power as a voter until you have scientific literacy in topics that matter for future political issues. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Matter
Political
Power
" People credit me for making the universe interesting when in fact the universe is inherently interesting, and I'm merely revealing that fact. I don't think I'm anything special for this to happen. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Me
Think
Universe
" For centuries, magicians have intuitively taken advantage of the inner workings of our brains. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Magicians
Inner
Advantage
" I have a personal philosophy in life: If somebody else can do something that I'm doing, they should do it. And what I want to do is find things that would represent a unique contribution to the world - the contribution that only I, and my portfolio of talents, can make happen. Those are my priorities in life. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Doing
Life
Priorities
" The only way you can invent tomorrow is if you break out of the enclosure that the school system has provided for you by the exams written by people who are trained in another generation. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
People
School
Tomorrow
" There's something about witnessing something in the sky that makes people think they're seeing something unique or special. I don't really understand the psychology of it, to be honest. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
People
Unique
Think
" You've never seen me debate anybody. On anything. Ever. My investment of time, as an educator, in my judgment, is best served teaching people how to think about the world around them. Teach them how to pose a question. How to judge whether one thing is true versus another. What the laws of physics say. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Me
Best
Think
" When we see animals doing remarkable things, how do we know if we're simply seeing tricks or signs of real intelligence? Are talented animals just obeying commands, or do they have some kind of deeper understanding? One of the biggest challenges for animal researchers is to come up with tests that can distinguish between the two. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Intelligence
Know
Animal
" So the history of discovery, particularly cosmic discovery, but discovery in general, scientific discovery, is one where at any given moment, there's a frontier. And there tends to be an urge for people, especially religious people, to assert that across that boundary, into the unknown, lies the handiwork of God. This shows up a lot. "
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Discovery
Moment
God