I'm on a crusade to get movie directors to get their science right because, more often than they believe, the science is more extraordinary than anything they can invent.
Interpretation
Tyson emphasizes the importance of accuracy in science depicted in movies, urging directors to reflect real scientific wonders.
Neil Degrasse Tyson advocates for filmmakers to prioritize scientific accuracy in their films, arguing that the realities of science often surpass the most imaginative fictional narratives. By focusing on genuine scientific phenomena, directors can create stories that are not only entertaining but also enlightening, allowing audiences to appreciate the incredible truths of the natural world.
In practice
During a panel discussion on science in media, this quote could highlight the importance of accuracy.
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.
We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying 'Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century', and yet that's what we're demanding in food production.
I'll change the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology.
Civilization begins with distillation
It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
Statistics is the grammar of science.
If you want to become a fossil, you actually need to die somewhere where your bones will be rapidly buried. You then hope that the earth moves in such a way as to bring the bones back up to the surface. And then you hope that one of us lot will walk around and find small pieces of you.
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