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Chimpanzees are an evolutionary hair's-width from us.... Now imagine a species on Earth, or anywhere else, as smart compared with humans as humans are compared with chimpanzees. How much of the universe might they figure out?

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
Imagine
Evolutionary
Universe
Compared
Science
Anywhere
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Earth
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Chimpanzees

More quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson

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95, 96 percent of all that drives the universe has no known origin.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Knowledge of the natural world and how it works should be counted as fundamental to informed governance. You can't have a functioning democracy, if the electorate is under-informed or, worse, mis-informed.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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You can get an Egg McMuffin all day you just can't get the hamburger all day.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I was born the same week NASA was founded, so we're the same age and feel some of the same pains, joys, and frustrations.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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We are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That's kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It's not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.
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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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
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The miniaturization of electronics, which ultimately was driven by the marketplace, was started by NASA, because it costs money to get something into orbit. So you want to trim your electronics, miniaturize your electronics, miniaturize your satellites.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I'd bet almost anything that life from another planet, if formed independently from life on Earth, would be more different from all species of Earth life than any two species of Earth life are from each other.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I think the material that inspires artists is the fabric of the soul of civilization.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I can tell you that in my modern life I enjoy language. I enjoy words, their meaning, what they sound like to the ear, what they sound like to the listener. I strive to write the perfect sentence in all that I do, and when I write [the] perfect sentence I know it. If I had a second life I'd be a librettist for Broadway musicals.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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All of the full moons for the entire year are special in that they have particular names.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Most science fiction is about tomorrow, a tomorrow brought to you by innovations in science and technology, and China was worried that if they just have everybody learning what is, they're not going to be in a position to invent a tomorrow because their brain isn't even wired to go in that direction.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The news media reported the $250 million as an unthinkably huge waste of money and proclaimed that something was wrong with NASA. The result was an investigation and a congressional hearing. Not to defend failure, but $250 million is not much more than the cost to produce Kevin Costner's film flop Waterworld.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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People are really excited about robotic exploration. I understand the feeling there because, in fact, robots can do things humans can't. They can survive harsh conditions, they can explore places we would never go, plus you never actually have to bring them back.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The world, I think, has too many late-night talk shows.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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If factual information upsets you, then you are creating a world that is not embracing objective truths, and that's not how you advance a democracy.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The Earth is just one place of many that we could hang our hats.
Neil deGrasse Tyson