At the time this letter arrived in my office at the Hayden Planetarium I was busy fielding hundreds of such letters and did not reply. But had I done so, this is what I would have said:
Dear Madeline,
If anybody is living on Pluto, I assure you they still exist, even after Pluto’s demotion to Dwarf Planet status. So no need to fear for their lives. Also, if Pluto is anybody’s favorite planet, then it can simply become their favorite Dwarf Planet. No harm there. But in any case, you are right about the textbooks. They will all have to be changed. Bad for book buyers. But good for publishers—they get to sell you the book again.
And here is my actual signature in cursive. It says Neil D. Tyson. Gotta start somewhere.
Your friend,
Moon Lover
Friday, January 6, 2007
Dr. Tyson,
Heard you on the Radio this morning, repeating the standard shibboleths about both Mars and the Moon. It is particularly disappointing, in your case, listening to you bashing the Moon when, as an astrophysicist, you know better than most that telescopes deployed on the dark side of the Moon would far outstrip any other means of studying the cosmos, most assuredly including the Hubble telescope—placing equipment on the lunar surface, we could not dream of and would have no need to put anything into orbit at far higher costs.
The Moon is humanity’s stepping-stone to the next leap in our evolution. Making us into a true space faring species, which will result in a very new and better understanding of who and what we are, and our shared destiny. When I look up in the sky, Dr. Tyson, and see the full Moon so bright and so close I can almost touch it, I certainly don’t think of some dead useless mass floating in the heavens. When I look upon the Moon, I think of it being the year 2050 or 2075 with lights twinkling all over the lunar surface—the clear evidence that a new society is rising there, transforming humanity down here on Earth.
Best wishes,
Arthur Piccolo
Hello Mr. Piccolo,
Thank you for your candid remarks. Allow me to restate some issues for which there is broad consensus in the scientific community.
1.Without atmosphere or any history of running water on the Moon, or any likelihood of substantial quantities of water within the Moon (like aquifers, etc.), or any likelihood of life as we know it—or can imagine it—given its collision-induced formation mechanism, there is no debate about whether the Moon is dead, compared with Mars.
2.The Moon’s primary scientific interest is geological and not chemical, biological, or astrophysical, unlike for Mars, where it is all of the above.
3.The scientific returns to astrophysics from our presence on the Moon will be meager, given the cost to get there, as discussed at length in a recent workshop I attended that explored this very subject, titled “Astrophysics Enabled by the Return to the Moon.” You can Google the title. Radio telescopes on the far side (FYI: there is no permanent “dark side”) led the list. And a few other interesting projects got people’s attention. But overall, we will be piggybacking exploration missions because we can, not because we have made it a priority. And the greatest gains to astrophysics may simply be access to space-based architecture with no direct relevance to lunar surface activities.
4.Proof of liquid water in Mars is not what matters here. It’s that the evidence points to this conclusion, and that is enough to justify further investigation. For if it’s true, then the chances of life as we know it on Mars grow exponentially.
I respect your love for the Moon, but the depth of that love does not change the Moon’s ranking as an object of scientific interest among the multidisciplinary community of research scientists.
Again, thank you for your interest.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
We Suck at Science
Thursday, July 5, 2012
To AMNH† General Mailbox
I was very saddened to read Neil deGrasse Tyson’s tweet yesterday, Independence Day:
Tyson has been serving American and world science well, even coming into his own as a spokesperson. What seems an attempted joke is disappointing as a spokesman derides and mocks a nation of scientists, especially while serving at the public platform of the Museum. While his insulting statement was made from a private account, he should not represent the American Museum of Natural History as listed in his bio.
Thank you for your time in answering my concern.
Jeff Provine
Dear Mr. Provine,
Thanks for your note of concern. I have several reactions to the issues you raise. I tend to be candid in personal correspondence, so I hope you view it as refreshing rather than abrasive.
1.Every metric of America’s performance on the world stage of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM fields) among industrialized nations put us in the bottom 10%. We also have an ever-growing fraction (nearing 50%) of the electorate that denies the discoveries of science when they conflict with their politics and/or religion. So to imply that I have somehow misrepresented the state of American science is simply false.
2.The back story here, known well to people who follow my writings, is that we began construction of the Superconducting Supercollider in the 1980s. That machine was designed with 3x the power of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland today, which is garnering all the physics headlines. Congress cut the project entirely in the early 1990s, crippling particle physics in America. That’s why we are bystanders and not leaders in these international headlines. And all this feeds the potency of the Tweet itself.
3.Your note implies that the Tweet may have somehow done a disservice to science or science education or to AMNH itself. That assumes, in part, that others feel the same as you do about that same tweet. But I have data on that very question. The Twitter-verse keeps full track of replies, responses, re-tweets, etc., for every Tweet that gets posted. Within twelve hours, that tweet was re-posted (re-tweeted) nearly 12,000 times. This number is far and away (factor of three) the largest reposting of any of my previous 2700 tweets in the last three years. So the resonance was (and continues to be) very high, and does not happen to align with your concerns.
4.None of this is to say that your sentiments are not conceived out of deep care for our country. All it says is that your feelings are not representative. And so I’m left with the question of whether I alter what I am doing to satisfy the few, or keep what I am doing, which satisfies the many, drawing more and more people to hear about science.
5.Of course that which is right in the world is not always (hardly ever) a popularity contest. Principles can, should, and do matter without regard to sheer numbers of adherents. But I assert strongly there is no principle violated here at all. I am compelled to change or atone or apologize or adjust only if what I say is wrong or misleading or libelous, but not if what I say (Tweet) captures a deep truth that requires national action to amend.
Sincerely,
Neil deGrasse Tyson
I’m Not Paying!
Friday, May 16, 2008
Via Email to RNASA‡ Organizers
I hated every minute of that award acceptance speech by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. I like him, and I like watching him on shows on the Science Channel, but I don’t like his approach to funding the space program.
If space exploration is so great and so profitable, then why can’t it exist without stealing money from me at the point of a gun (taxes)? Why can’t it just sell all of its innovations and exist without being a socialist program?
He says the Cassini mission to Saturn costs as much as Americans spend on lip balm . . . well . . . I freaking chose to buy the lip balm; you forced me to pay for your lame spacecraft. Whoever is prepared to give up their lip balm are the people that should VOLUNTARILY pay for space travel. Don’t make me pay for it! Then maybe the people/companies that voluntarily pay for it can also be the ones that receive free, innovative, high-tech help from NASA.
Space exploration, funded by socialist means, at the point of a gun, makes this country
worth defending? That kind of crap is what makes this country worth abandoning—it’s the opposite of freedom.
Comparing us to China and the rest of Europe, and their innovations—is that what we want to become? Socialists and Communists, like they are?
Our country didn’t become great because of socialism and big government; our country became great because of our relative freedom, in spite of big government and socialism. The thing that’s ruining our country now is not freedom. What’s ruining us now is big government and socialism. And socialists like Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, trying to get the government to steal more money from me to fund his pet program.
I mean, what if enough losers decided that it would be a good idea to steal tax money from YOU in order to fund a program to teach everyone in the U.S. to speak Spanish, because they have a bunch of reasons why it’s good for all of us to learn to speak Spanish and English? You wouldn’t like it, would you? THAT’S HOW I FEEL ABOUT SPACE EXPLORATION!
I like space exploration, and it’s probably a pretty good thing—just don’t force me to pay for it.
Adam Dirkmaat
Dear Mr. Dirkmaat,
Thanks, first, for spending the time to watch my acceptance remarks after being given the Space Communicator Award this past April in Houston. And thank you for sharing your impassioned view on government spending on space exploration.
You comment that the American space program is the product of a kind of tax-based socialism forced on disinterested Americans such as yourself. But, of course, all taxation is a form of socialism. So your indictment of space exploration is not a unique criticism. Same goes for research funding to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control. By that measure, the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the public schools system are also socialist programs. As are the military (since we no longer sell war bonds) and law enforcement agencies. And let’s not forget the Environmental Protection Agency, Veterans Benefits, the interstate highway system, and airport infrastructures.
At the end of the day, America is a portfolio of spending that captures and expresses the values of its residents, via its lawmakers.
What a fascinating experiment it would be if we all paid taxes by checking boxes on a form (which is basically what Congress does for every year’s budget cycle, but they do it with the populace in mind, not the individual). And suppose it was not a democracy, where majority rules, and you leave the box for NASA unchecked. What happens next? Do anti-tax compatriots come to your home and remove everything from it that was informed, inspired, influenced, invented, or enabled by the space program? That would make an interesting reality show:
•Gone are the integrated circuits of the electronics you use.
•Gone is the Weather Channel from your cable service.
•Gone is your awareness of satellite maps (from any news source) that track developing storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes.
•Gone is the GPS system in your car (time to buy paper maps again, if you can find someone who sells them).
•Gone are all battery powered hand tools from your garage.
•Gone are (some) of your loved ones from breast cancer because the space-imaging algorithm that detects cancer cells earlier than ever before would not have been used on them.
•Gone is the collision warning system in your car, or in the car you might soon buy.
•Gone is the information to you about asteroid Apophis, which is headed toward Earth right now, for a close approach on April 13, 2036.
•Gone are all satellite news broadcasts from Europe and elsewhere around the world to your television.
•Gone is your awareness that something bad happened on Venus (leaving it with a 900 degree F. runaway greenhouse effect) and on Mars (which once had running water but is now bone-dry and frigid) which themselves have informed the international awareness of global warming.
•Gone are aerodynamic efficiencies of the wings on your airplane (remember the first A in NASA stands for aeronautics).
•Gone is your access to Google Maps.
On a more philosophical level . . .
Gone is your knowledge of our place in the universe—the only human pursuit that has transcended culture, region, and time. All supplied by the Hubble Space Telescope, the Martian rovers, and the countless other spacecraft, with and without humans, that have left Earth to explore.
Others who do support space exploration would have access to these things. But not you. All because you would not annually check a box that allocated 6/10 of a penny of your tax dollar. That is the entire allocation to NASA. That is the cost of your access to the universe that you so willingly decline.
How much is the universe worth to you?
Sincerely,
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Feed Christians to the Lions?
In December 2005, Robert, a devout Christian, took issue with Darwinian evolution in particular, and the findings of science in general, wherever and whenever they conflict with scripture. He was sure that scientists see religious people as their enemy and that if scientists were in charge, we might feed them all to the lions. A point that I think was half-serious. My reply was a long and sustained response to each point that he made, in turn.
Dear Robert,
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.§ In modern times, with a thriving growth industry of biotech companies and other business sectors that research the future of our species in relation to all others, if you say, “I don’t believe the theory of evolution, I think we were all specially created,” you must brace for the consequences of that view to your own employability.
If you don’t want to become a scientist, then maybe it doesn’t matter. There are plenty of professions that do not involve scientists. But as I said, the emergent economies are going to be scientifically and technologically driven, with biotech front and center. If you’re coming in saying that there was Adam and Eve, you’re not going to get past the front door.
There are simply fewer job options in industries that require a working knowledge of biology, chemistry, physics, geology, astrophysics, in order to make discoveries. I see no reason why other jobs would not be available to you. But the more important point is that current trends indicate that health science fields may be the future of economic growth, so you would not participate in this economic fertility.
In a nation (America) where Pew¶ polls show that 50% of people believe that there was an Adam and an Eve as the original God-created humans, and that 90% of people believe in a personal God who listens to prayers, you have no foundation to suggest that popular culture will stigmatize you.
You are correct to presume that I celebrate tolerance and diversity, especially of cultures, languages, traditions, etc. But you want this outlook extended to the subset of Christians who take the word of the Bible as literal truth? At any level where claims can be tested—no matter who is making the claim—the issue is no longer about tolerance, it’s about objective truths.
For example, nowhere in the Bible is Earth described as a three-dimensional object. All references to it are flat. And until the 15th century, so too were all maps of the world, informed by scriptures. We can celebrate the cultural history of this notion, but it’s objectively false. Same holds for the value of Pi. In the Bible, a passage (I Kings VII) can only be true if Pi exactly equals 3.0. But we know better than this (so too did the earlier Babylonians, who calculated that Pi was a number between 3 and 4). But just because the Bible says Pi = 3, does not mean Pi = 3. The statement is objectively wrong, and is therefore not a matter of opinion. The fact that the people who wrote the Bible made Pi = 3 and Earth a flat disc is of some historical interest and worthy of study in history class, philosophy class, or religion class. But it has no place in the field of science, whose goal is to find truths of the universe that sit independently of opinion.
Neither I, nor anyon
e I know, have any intent in feeding Christians to the lions, only in keeping religion out of the science classroom. By the way, there is no tradition of scientists knocking down the doors of Sunday School telling the preachers what to teach. Scientists don’t picket outside of churches or shoot people who enter them. Scientists have no tradition of heckling preachers during sermons. And, by the way, nearly half of all scientists (in the West) are religious and pray to a personal god.
You also “accuse” me of being religious—that I follow the religion of science and humanism. Actually I am agnostic.# But I guess I do not know how you are invoking the word. Allow me to find a definition because I hate arguing semantics. I would rather argue ideas.
Here is one from Webster’s:
Religion (noun): the belief in and worship of a super-human controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.
Based on that definition, if you think I am religious, then I’m not sure you know what science is or how and why it works, and which has found success precisely because of an empirical approach to nature rather than a spiritual one.
You declare that neither of us can prove our religious beliefs. But I can (and do) know the shape of the Earth, Moon, stars, and universe, the origin of the chemical elements, the age of the Earth and the universe, the extinction episodes of the fossil record, the impact of asteroids on Earth, the genetic commonality among all life on Earth, the genetic proximity of chimpanzees and humans, and countless other objective truths about the world. So your assertion is false and shows a lack of education about the process of science and the nature of discovery. When this happens, it’s usually not the person’s fault, and is traceable to educators in your life who did not spend enough time training you how to think, as distinct from what to think.
Letters from an Astrophysicist Page 6
