Just to settle it once and for all: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The egg, laid by a bird that was not a chicken.
Interpretation
The quote explores the origins of a fundamental question about existence and evolution.
Neil Degrasse Tyson uses the chicken-and-egg dilemma to illustrate concepts of evolutionary biology and the nature of species. By stating that the egg came first, laid by a bird that was not quite a chicken, he emphasizes the gradual process of evolution, suggesting that definitions of species are not always clear-cut and that change occurs over time.
In practice
This quote can be used in a biology class when discussing evolution and species.
The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
The press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.
The whole point of the kingdom of God is Jesus has come to bear witness to the true truth, which is nonviolent. When God wants to take charge of the world, he doesn't send in the tanks. He sends in the poor and the meek.
I watched my brother and my father. The truth was very different from what we learned in school. The truth was the line between the living and the dead could be, it seemed, murky and blurred.
In many parts of the world, chaining of people with mental illnesses is not uncommon, nor is seeing people walking around in clearly an unwell state, half naked, and no one takes any notice of them. It is tragic. There is a basic human right, which is not about just healthcare, but it is about the right to life with dignity, a right to citizenship.
Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.
In analysing history do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.