Stephen Colbert Interviews Niel deGrasse Tyson

-science from "scientia", Latin, meaning knowledge

-is it better to know or not to know?

- bluntly, yes. because it empowers you to react. And possibly do something
about it.

- there are some people who don't value science and if they don't value science
are they valuing ignorance?
-yes, they not be on that frontier making any discoveries, they're not in a
position to enhance their life for having access to those discoveries themselves

- Can knowledge be a bad thing?

- no. regarding oppenheimer; when people asked: "Have you ursurped the power
of god?". reply: If god didnt want this power to be there, he shouldnt have put it
in the atom in the first place.
- the world is accesible to us.

- God made a fruit he didnt want anyone to eat, meaning he does put things
he doesnt want us to know about.
- don't blame the knowledge. have better knowledge management.

- Should scientists be allowed to do whatever they can?

- during one of president bush's speeches, he warned against man-animal
hybrids. should that be made.
- what we should do is come to some understanding of what the prevailing
social mores are and know science should not cross those barriers and by the way
scientists are often ones.
- Einstein among them for example he didn't want to make the bomb. after he
first told Roosevelt he should make the bomb, he changed his mind because his
conscience, his moral conscious descended upon him

- scientists don't lead marching armies scientists don't invade other nations

-a discovery itself is not moral, it's our application of it that has to pass that
test

-would you agree that there's a distrust of science?

- distrust is not because of what it can do, but bcoz people dont understand
how it does it. absence of understanding of the power of science is what makes
people afraid of it.
- draw your own conclusions, rather than turning to a particular TV station
to have your conclusions handed to you

- Any sufficiently avanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C.

Clarke

-It's simple, yet it accounts for hugely complex things and for me that is where
the beauty lies in the truth.

- "Is it better to not know? it's better to know" uhm Can it be beautful? Is
science a thing or is it a way to look at the world
- Is it a verb, or is it a noun? It is .. both. the world is not just "is it
this or that?" It's fuzzier than that sometimes.
-who do you want: the person who can figure stuff out that they've never seen
before, or the person who can rattle off a bunch of facts? at the end of the day, I
want the person that can figure stuff out. and science say, if you were trapped on
an island
- It's a way, not only of approaching the world it's a way of equipping
yourself to interpret what happens in front of you
- Think of science as the methods and tools that enable it as kinda like a
utility belt that you walk around with

- science literacy is .. vaccine against charlatans of the world that would exploit
your ignorance of the forces of nature.

- discoveries in space have an impact on our ego. because the more we learn about
the universe, the smaller we get in time. you are consumed by it and you fear it
and you shun it. I don't want to know that I live on a speck called Earth orbiting
an undistinguished star, in the corner of an ordinary galaxy in an expanding void
of the cosmos

-the real issue is, if we find life on another planet that's smarter than we are
that would totally mess with our ego That'd be the last, like, nail in the coffin
of our ego

- today you hear people saying "why are we spending money up there when we got
problems on Earth".
- people don't connect the time delay between the frontier of scientific
research and how that's going to transform your life later down the line all they
want is a quarterly report that shows the product that comes out of it.that is so
shortsighted and that's the beginning of the end of your culture.

- So; its better to know

-practically impossible to discover a new law of physics on your tabletop we've

been there we've done that. and almost the entire history of physics is: go to the
edges, of your points of exploration and then take a step beyond that.

-practically every time you have two working understandings of the world at they
have to coexist in the same universe there's something that's going to connect
them.

-quantum physics is kind of magic because none of it issues forth from your common
sense.

- How do you figure all this out?

- Isaac Newton did it all by himself he was like, really, really really
smart. so some people invent their own tools and methods to discover the world.
most people learn the tools from someone else and then apply them to make
incremental changes some people make huge changes.

- "if i can see farther than others it's because I've stood on the shoulders of
giants who have come before me" - newton

- I'd like to hear your opinions of where the policy needs to go to make a positive
impact in that area. where do you think we need to go as a nation what do we need
to do to increase of scientific literacy.
- two-pronged one is: what do you do with your kids?kids need to be able to
explore freely. Because it's those seeds of curiosity that is the foundation of
what it is to become a scientist.
- Derek Bok, one-time president of Harvard once said if you think education
is expensive, try the cost of ignorance.
 - there's a point where your weapons are not as useful as the brain of the
scientist who you could bring to bear on the problem and so i see science and
technology and creative investments in it as the most significant infusion to our
economy that could possibly be conceived.
- the problem is, it's not going to boost the economy next quarter it's got a
time horizon longer than most people have the patience for.

- what i want is a level of science and cultural literacy that will allow the
public to be able to think beyond the election cycle to think for themselves and
say this is a good investment.

- the greatest need is to be able to have the foresight necessary to make

investments on the frontier of science, even if at the time you make those
investments you cannot figure out how that might make you rich tomorrow.

- why is there something instead of nothing?

- words that make questions may not be questions at all.