I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God, I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don’t.
Interpretation
The quote questions the reasons behind belief in God within a scientific community that predominantly rejects such ideas.
Neil Degrasse Tyson's quote prompts a reflection on the nature of belief, especially among scientists. Rather than focusing on the majority opinion that rejects the concept of God, he highlights the curiosity about the minority that still holds onto their faith. This serves as an invitation to explore the reasons behind differing beliefs, emphasizing understanding and dialogue over division.
In practice
This quote can be used during a discussion on the intersection of science and spirituality in a classroom setting.
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.
Our job as writers and thinkers in the time is how to bring about the occasions that let people have that first-person experience - or the metaphoric experience that allows them to see human continuity as opposed to total threat, total willingness to do violence.
The solution of the social problem is in liberty.
We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown.
Introspection is always retrospection
La memoria no guarda películas, guarda fotografías.
Our individual life is brief, and perhaps the whole life of mankind will be brief if measured in astronomical scale
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