If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist.
Interpretation
A scientist's contributions should be recognized year-round, not just during a specific celebration.
Neil Degrasse Tyson emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the ongoing contributions of Black scientists beyond just Black History Month. This quote serves as a reminder that the achievements and influence of marginalized groups should be integrated into the broader narrative of scientific progress and recognized throughout the entire year.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech during a panel on diversity in STEM fields.
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.
A problem never exists in isolation; it is surrounded by other problems in space and time. The more of the context of a problem that a scientist can comprehend, the greater are his chances of finding a truly adequate solution.
In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down.
Forging differs from hoaxing, inasmuch as in the later the deceit is intended to last for a time, and then be discovered, to the ridicule of those who have credited it; whereas the forger is one who, wishing to acquire a reputation for science, records observations which he has never made.
It's very important for us to see that science is done by people, not just brains but whole human beings, and sometimes at great cost.
Every carbon atom in every living thing on the planet was produced in the heart of a dying star.
A zero-gravity flight is a first step toward space travel.
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