If the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates the randomness and inefficiency of existence in relation to human life.
Neil Degrasse Tyson's quote reflects on the vastness and complexity of the universe, suggesting that if humans were the intended result of its creation, the processes involved seem remarkably inefficient. This provokes thought about our place in the universe and the nature of existence itself, questioning whether there is a specific purpose to it all or if we are simply a byproduct of an unfathomable cosmic process.
In practice
In a debate about the purpose of life, one might quote this to emphasize the random nature of existence.
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.
When humans invented material inequality, they came up with a way of subjugating the low-ranking like nothing ever seen before in the primate world.
No individual is alone responsible for a single stepping stone along the path of progress, and where the path is smooth progress is most rapid.
Freedom for supporters of the government only, for members of one party only no matter how big its membership may be is no freedom at all. Freedom is always freedom for the man who thinks differently.
...by and by a change came: I started to muse about the shape of my nose. I put my trivial surroundings aside and mused more and more about myself, and I found this to be a bewitching occupation. I stopped asking and longed instead to speak of my thoughts and feelings. Alas, there was no one besides myself who found me interesting.
Reality denied comes back to haunt.
The universe has become not only conscious and aware of itself but capable in some respects of choosing its path into the future--though all three, the consciousness, the knowledge, and the choice, are dispersed over a vast crowd of beings, acting both individually and collectively.
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