Down there between our legs, it's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?
Interpretation
The quote humorously critiques the human anatomy by comparing it to an absurdly designed structure.
Neil Degrasse Tyson uses humor to highlight the peculiarities of human anatomy, suggesting that the design of our reproductive system is both complex and flawed. By comparing it to an entertainment complex amidst a sewage system, he emphasizes the irony of a place meant for pleasure being juxtaposed with something unpleasant, prompting reflection on the mysteries of biological design.
In practice
Sharing this quote at a light-hearted gathering to spark laughter.
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.
Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke-and that the joke is oneself.
Comedians are sociologists. We're pointing out stuff that the general public doesn't even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.
I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes.
Who's judging American Idol? Paula Abdul? Paula Abdul judging a singing contest is like Christopher Reeve judging a dance contest!
Nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. Theyβre the only things we can pay.
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