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Scientific literacy is an intellectual vaccine against the claims of charlatans who would exploit ignorance.

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
Intellectual
Charlatans
Would
Exploit
Vaccines
Exploits
Literacy
Scientific
Claims
Ignorance
Vaccine

More quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson

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I try to keep this in mind when tied in to a rope 75 feet up in a tree... The history of ideas about our place in the universe has been a long series of let-downs for those who like to believe we are special.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Who knows how dead Lazarus was? Was Lazarus decomposing in a six-foot grave when Jesus resurrected him? No, he wasn't.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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On Venus you could cook a 16-inch pepperoni pizza in seven seconds, just by holding it out to the air. (Yes, I did the math.)
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Dark matter and dark energy are two things we measure in the universe that are making things happen, and we have no idea what the cause is.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I agree that we should go back to the moon and on to Mars. We should treat all objects in the solar system, including comets and asteroids, as exploration targets.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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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
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If something comes up that is completely freaky, it's spiritual-looking to the scientist, the first explanation is not going to be that it's God, because the history of that has failed. It would have to be, like, the hundredth explanation.
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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I want to create the airplane that flies in the rarified atmosphere of Mars. This is what galvanizes a generation to want to become scientists and engineers in the first place, not we need a scientist to develop a plane that's 20 percent more fuel-efficient than the one your parents flew.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I object to religion in science classrooms not because it's religion but because it's not science.
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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Not only do we live among the stars, the stars live within us.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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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.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I don't have an issue with what you do in the church, but I'm going to be up in your face if you're going to knock on my science classroom and tell me they've got to teach what you're teaching in your Sunday school. Because that's when we're going to fight.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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We're quite happy with our Big Bang description of cosmic origins. But actually, the Big Bang accounts for what happened only after the beginning. The beginning itself, and especially what happened before, remains the biggest mystery of all.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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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
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Asteroids have us in our sight. The dinosaurs didn't have a space program, so they're not here to talk about this problem. We are, and we have the power to do something about it. 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.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Some morning while your eating breakfast and you need something new to think about, though, you might want to ponder the fact that you see your kids across the table not as they are but as they once were, about three nanoseconds ago.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Only when creative people take ownership of cosmic discovery will society accept science as the cultural activity that it is.
Neil deGrasse Tyson