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.
Once you can reproduce a phenomenon, you are well on the way to understanding it.
If your economy grows [by] 4 percent, you ought to reduce child mortality 4 percent.
Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.
Chemistry is necessarily an experimental science: its conclusions are drawn from data, and its principles supported by evidence from facts.
While it is quite reasonable for scientists to be skeptical of new ideas that do not fit within the accepted realm of scientific knowledge, the best science often emerges from situations where results carefully obtained do not fit within the accepted paradigms.
The Big Bang banged, and for some reason we’re here. And that’s astonishing. And that we can understand that, that’s the most astonishing.
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