All information is good, even when it is bad.
Interpretation
All information has value, regardless of its quality or impact.
This quote by Neil Degrasse Tyson emphasizes the importance of information in understanding the world around us. It suggests that even negative or 'bad' information can lead to learning and growth, as it allows us to solve problems, recognize mistakes, and adapt our perspectives. In a broader sense, it highlights that information, no matter its nature, is a key component of knowledge and progress.
In practice
During a seminar about critical thinking, one might quote Tyson to encourage openness to all types of information.
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.
I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water.
Always remember that others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.
And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.
Moderation in all things, especially moderation.
Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It's a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we're telling ourselves is what we see on TV.
...I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become more acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice.
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