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Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: October 5
Actor
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Cosmologist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
Physicist
Science Communicator
Science Writer
Teacher
Trekkie
The Bronx
New York City
Neil Tyson
Today
Brainpower
Lacked
Extinct
Dinosaurs
Thumbs
Program
Build
Space
Opposable

More quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Three and a half million years ago our ancestors - yours and mine - left these traces [indicates footprints]. We stood up and parted ways from them. Once we were standing on two feet, our eyes were no longer fixated on the ground. Now, we were free to look up and wonder.
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Our five senses are faulty data-taking devices, and they need help.
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Most of what Einstein said and did has no direct impact on what anybody reads in the Bible. Special relativity, his work in quantum mechanics, nobody even knows or cares. Where Einstein really affects the Bible is the fact that general relativity is the organizing principle for the Big Bang.
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The discovery of any kind of life [in Space] at all would be a tremendous watershed moment in biology, as well as all of science.
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But my vote for Venus's most peculiar feature is the presence of craters that are all relatively young and uniformly distributed over its surface. This innocuous-sounding feature implicates a single planetwide catastrophe that reset the cratering clock... turning Venus's entire surface into the American automotive dream-a totally paved planet.
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As a child, I was aware that, at night, infrared vision would reveal monsters hiding in the bedroom closet only if they were warm-blooded. But everybody knows that your average bedroom monster is reptilian and cold-blooded.
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The trend lines in research and innovation look good for places such as India and China and less good for America as we go forward. So even if you're not enchanted by the prospect of cosmic discovery, the prospect of dying poor may be what it takes to understand the role of this adventure in the future of the natural world in which we live.
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I've known from long ago that the universe was calling me. If you were one of those annoying adults that said, 'Oh, what are you gonna be when you grow up?' I would say, 'Astrophysicist .' And then they'd walk away real quickly.
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Today, scientists sound the alarm on other environmental dangers. Vested interests still hire their own scientists to confuse the issue. But in the end, nature, will not be fooled.
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Give a kid a book, and you change the world. In a way, even the universe.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Why can't Pluto be a planet? Some people like Pluto. And if it doesn't exist then they don't have a favorite planet. Right? Please write back but not in cursive because I can't read cursive.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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It's better to understand something than to memorize something.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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No one wants to die, and no one wants to die poor. These are the two fundamental truths that transcend culture, they transcend politics, they transcend economic cycles.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I don't see why there is no intelligent alien life in the universe.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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You can deceive yourself into thinking that America is a technological leader, but if you don't see what anyone else is doing you have no accurate assessment - you can't make an accurate assessment of where you fit and why. I consider our moving frontier in space as the anecdote to that downward trend.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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No doubt, the most challenging class of questions in science is the origin of things.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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If it's a new planet, sign me up. I'm tired of driving around the block, boldly going where hundreds have gone before in orbit around earth-give me a place to go and I'll go.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Some of us wake up in the morning and just wonder how it is any of us actually sustain a paid job.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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When everyone agrees to a single solution and a single plan, there's nothing more efficient in the world than an efficient democracy.
Neil deGrasse Tyson