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Today secular philosophers call that kind of divine invocation God of the gaps-which comes in handy, because there has never been a shortage of gaps in people's knowledge.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Age: 65
Born: 1958
Born: October 5
Actor
Astronomer
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Philosopher
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Trekkie
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Neil Tyson
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More quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson
It seems that we're better at finding someone to blame for our problems than we are at finding creative solutions to fix them.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
We still refer to sunrise, sunset. That only has meaning if you think that Earth is in the center of things, and everything is moving around us. So even though we know intellectually Earth goes around the sun, the language is still pre-Copernican, as we would call it.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Nature is not here to keep you alive. It has just as many ways to kill you as it does to sustain you. And if you cherry-pick this fact, you are left thinking that earth is some haven for life, but 96, 97 percent of all species that ever lived on earth are now extinct from the actions of the earth itself and an occasional asteroid to stir the pot.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Even with all our technology and the inventions that make modern life so much easier than it once was, it takes just one big natural disaster to wipe all that away and remind us that, here on Earth, we're still at the mercy of nature.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?
Neil deGrasse Tyson
I don't need my name anywhere.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
One should not be too distracted by definitions. Ideas transcend definitions.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
This fear factor, this war driver is a very strong one and it's been with the species ever since the beginning and it motivated the Great Wall of China. War can be aggressive or defensive, right? So it motivated the Great Wall of China. Our space program was reactive to Russia.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Any time we are answer-driven rather than idea driven, we have lost the true meaning of education.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Space exploration is a force of nature unto itself that no other force in society can rival.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Unlike what you may be told in other sectors of life, when observing the universe, size does matter, which often leads to polite ‘telescope envy’ at gatherings of amateur astronomers.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
I remain fearless of airplanes after 9/11. But during a trip to Los Angeles on a Boeing 767, I couldn't keep my mind from drifting: What's the largest piece of this airplane that could crash into the World Trade Center, explode out the other side, and survive intact? The landing gear? My computer battery? My belt buckle? My wedding ring?
Neil deGrasse Tyson
In the animal kingdom, one of the keys to survival is to outwit your enemies. And when you're surrounded by carnivores, one of the best strategies is to fade into the background and disappear.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Grab something off the shelf that's on the spaceship-an ashtray, it doesn't matter what. Because I can tell you, if they flew here from another galaxy, no matter what you've pulled off the shelf, it'll be unlike anything we have on Earth.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
If an alien lands on your front lawn and extends an appendage as a gesture of greeting, before you get friendly, toss it an eightball. If the appendage explodes, then the alien was probably made of antimatter. If not, then you can proceed to take it to your leader.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Scientists are human. We have our blind spots and prejudices. Science is a mechanism designed to ferret them out. Problem is we aren't always faithful to the core values of science.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
When I needed to overcome the low expectations of others or the bias that would be expressed in one circumstance or another, I'd keep on keeping on. And I climb over the obstacle, go around it, dig under it, fly over it. That's what kept me going. Otherwise I would have never been an astrophysicist.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
No one with a living room radio that was a piece of furniture at the time would say, gee. I want to carry that around on my hip pocket. That was not a thought until NASA initiated this whole exercise. So there's an influence that's not just spinoff.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
You should chose your heroes a-la carte. Picking and choosing from one and then another, thereby assembling a kind of composite hero. That way when you discover something reprehensible about any one of them it matters nothing to you because that's not the part of them that piqued your interest.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
So while you're getting ripped apart head to toe as you fall into a black hole, you will also extrude through the fabric of space and time, like toothpaste squeezed through a tube. To all the words in the English language that describe ways to die (e.g., homicide, suicide, electrocution, suffocation, starvation) we add the term spaghettification.
Neil deGrasse Tyson