Letters from an Astrophysicist
Page 16
1.FYI: The cosmic perspective is all about having a second look at what, on the surface, appears to be important, special, ego-boosting, etc. The Olympic medal count is not immune from this analysis. In fact an even better measure is medals per GDP per capita. This will tell you how efficiently and effectively a country is spending its wealth on athletic excellence. The Tweet, though based only on population, was a playful plea that we could be winning even more medals than we are.
2.I am agnostic, and actively disavow the atheist label, as multiple on-line videos can attest. Even one rising through 3-million views.
3.People who deny human-induced climate change are badly misinformed. This position is neither politically Liberal nor Conservative. It’s factual. Although one could argue that all those who want to preserve the environment are the real conservatives in this discussion.
4.You use “Liberal” as a tag to characterize my politics. Since I have no active public political position, that’s a hard task to accomplish. Climate change deniers are misinformed. But so are people who think vaccines gives you autism. And so are people who think genetically modified foods are bad for you. These science-denying postures cross political boundaries.
5.I am 3x appointed by President George W. Bush, serving on commissions to advise him on the future of the American aerospace industry, on NASA, and on the annual Presidential Medal of Science winners. So your disapproval of my views is not shared by others on the conservative spectrum.
6.Lastly: my research output as a scientist is not hidden. You can find an easy link listing all publications on my webpage.
So when you factor in (or simply subtract) all these elements from your writeup, if what remains still justifies labeling me a horse’s astrophysicist, then, as I said, I’m okay with that.
Respectfully Submitted,
Neil deGrasse Tyson, New York City
Postscript: Neal Larson was ultimately apologetic and contrite after my reply, both publicly and privately, and we’ve become email buddies since then. He hosts The Neal Larson Show on radio and podcast and continues to write occasional newspaper columns.
Don’t Have a Cow
After I posted this short tweet, on Sunday, August 7, 2017:
the popular musician (and vegan activist) Moby launched a barbed attack from his Instagram account.
Via Instagram
When one of your heroes breaks your heart. Neil deGrasse Tyson, really? You can Tweet that and make light of the unspeakable suffering experienced by the hundreds of billions of animals killed each year by humans? Or the fact that animal agriculture causes 90% of rainforest deforestation and contributes up to 45% of climate change? Or that according to the World Health Organization and the Harvard Medical School, a diet high in animal products leads to heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. For a smart physicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, you sound like an ignorant sociopath.
Moby
My reply . . .
Friday, August 18, 2017
Facebook Note
‘Moby vs Tyson’
My cow Tweet was intended to expose a blunt reality: A cow is not a mechanical machine. It’s a biological machine. A biological machine with one purpose (actually, of course, two purposes if you include it as a source of milk), and that is to eat grass (or, of course other food stocks), grow big, and be slaughtered for food. They are generally not kept as pets. They don’t rescue people in trouble. They do not assist the handicapped. And what’s remarkable here is that cows don’t exist in the wild. They have never existed in the wild. Farmers genetically engineered them ten thousand years ago from now-extinct ox-like Aurochs in the service of civilization.
So the Tweet is 100% truthful and accurate. The intensity of reactions to it tells me that people presumed I was trying to get them to agree with some opinion I carry. But the Tweet is fundamentally opinion-neutral. Curious that only a few people took the opposite reaction to the cow Tweet, of how diabolical we are to do this with animals, and that it should stop.
I noticed something similar when I posted this opinion-neutral tweet after one of the horrific school shootings some years ago:
The reaction that followed was highly illuminating to me. Presuming me to be an opinion-forcing pundit, people angrily interpreted it their own way, passing judgment on my intent. The reactions divided evenly on whether they thought I was defending (or attacking) the free market, the first amendment’s protection of free speech, or the second amendment’s protection of gun ownership. A smaller percentage of people, perhaps 20%, saw it as written, with reactions such as, “Thanks. I never thought about that inconsistency!”
If anybody cares about my opinion, I note here that in countries founded on freedom, and where there is resistance to government control of its citizenry (such as the USA), it may be easier to engineer solutions to problems than to get a hundred million people to change their behavior. A possible solution, for which there has been great progress, is the laboratory manufacture of meat proteins, where a person can enjoy a steak that never came from any living creature—a topic explored in a highly popular episode of StarTalk that I hosted, featuring the one-and-only Temple Grandin and Paul Shapiro, VP of the Humane Society.
So, I don’t quite know what to say to people who react explosively in the face of objective truths, attacking the person who delivers the information. But what’s clear is that we now live in a world where differences of opinion lead to fights rather than conversations.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, New York City
Postscript: Moby would later apologize, citing his Instagram post as “unnecessarily harsh.”
Keep Off deGrasse
In August 2009 I was chided by Nzingha Shabaka for keeping (and using) my French middle name. Her Afrocentric sensibilities would have none of it, seeing colonial names as a source of low self-esteem in the African-American community. I try to pick my battles, as my reply surely indicates.
Dear Ms. Shabaka,
Thanks for sharing your ardent concerns, but I remain convinced of Shakespeare’s aphorism:
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
I think we should all work hard to ensure that substance matters more than labels—that’s the society I strive to live in.
Best to you,
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Hollywood Nights
Wednesday, July 22, 1998
New York Times Op-Ed
Now that New York City is relatively safe from muggers, Hollywood has resorted to monsters and meteors to trigger end-of-the-world fears in urban movie-goers. But unlike romantic comedies or action-adventure thrillers, most disaster films pluck the fruits of science for their storylines. Deadly viruses, out-of-control DNA, evil aliens, and killer asteroids are all common themes in recent films.† Unfortunately, a film’s scientific literacy hardly ever measures up to its plot.
Am I the only one who cares?
I’m not talking about simple bloopers, such as when a Roman Centurion happens to be wearing a wrist watch. These mistakes are inadvertent. I’m talking about ignorant bloopers, like reversing the sunset to pretend you have filmed a sunrise. These are not time-symmetric events. Are cinematographers too sleepy to wake up before the Sun and get the real footage? And why is it that movie meteors have such good aim? Earth’s surface is seventy percent water and over ninety-nine percent uninhabited, yet an incoming meteor decapitates the Chrysler Building in one of this summer’s movies.
And why is it that James Cameron took the time to get every imaginable detail correct in his film Titanic— from the rivets to state rooms to the dinnerware—yet he got the wrong nighttime sky? Actually, he comes close. What could be the constellation Corona Borealis (the Northern Crown) is shown overhead on that fateful night. But it has the wrong number of stars. But worse than this, the left half of the sky is the mirror reflection of the right half of the sky. So the universe in Titanic is not only wrong, it’s lazy.
But why? I’d bet the costumes were researched to be pre
cisely the styles of the period. Had someone been on board wearing love beads, bell bottom jeans, and a large afro, you know that viewers would have complained loudly that Cameron had not done his homework. Am I any less justified in my outcries?
My gripes are not just with Hollywood. What about those majestic stars in the ceiling of New York City’s Grand Central Terminal? Rather than just admitting that the backwards constellations were a mistake, a sign in the lobby during renovation tells us, “Said to be backwards, [the ceiling is] actually seen from a point of view outside our solar system.” But a second error has now been committed in an attempt to cover up the first: no point of view in our galaxy will reverse the constellation patterns of Earth’s night sky. As you leave the solar system, and travel among the stars, all that happens to Earth’s constellations is that they become scrambled and wholly unrecognizable.
What society needs are scientifically literate reviewers. Why should a critic be limited to saying things like, “The characters stretched credulity” or “the tonal elements clashed with the emotional flavor of the set designs”? Just once I want to hear a critic say, “Flying saucers don’t need runway lights” (as was depicted in Close Encounters of the Third Kind‡), or “The Moon phases grew in the wrong direction” (as what happened in L.A. Story§), or “An asteroid the size of Texas would have been discovered two hundred years ago” (as was shown in Armageddon). Only then might the public begin to appreciate the role that the laws of physics play in everyday life.
If you want to write a book, make a film, or engage in a public art project, and if this work makes reference to the natural world, all I ask is that you call your neighborhood scientist and chat about it. When you seek “scientific license” to distort the laws of nature, I would prefer you did so knowing the truth, rather than inventing a storyline that is cloaked in ignorance. You may be surprised to learn that valid science can make fertile additions to your storytelling—whether or not your artistic objective is to destroy the world.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
New York City
* My wife has a Ph.D. in mathematical physics.
† Specifically, Armageddon, Touchstone Pictures, 1998, and Contact, Warner Bros., 1997.
‡ Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Columbia Pictures, 1977.
§ L.A. Story, TriStar Pictures, 1991.
Epilogue
A Eulogy, of Sorts
Letter to Dad*
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Repass Remarks
Dear Dad,
Thank you for a lifetime of wisdom you’ve bestowed upon me, drawn from moments, circumstances, and incidences in your life. With your permission, I’ll share a few that for me, rise above all others.
I’ve never forgotten the story of your high school gym teacher, who highlighted your body-type as one that would not make a good runner in the track and field unit of class. Your reaction? “Nobody is going to tell me what I cannot do with my life.” You immediately took up running. You also ran in Hitler’s Berlin Stadium for the 1946 “GI Olympics.” The post-war world was not yet ready for a traditional Olympics, so this special event contested soldier-athletes of the various theaters of conflict around the world. And by college you became world class in middle distance races, at one time capturing the fifth fastest time in the world for the 600-yard run. Drawing upon that example for inspiration, I have overcome the most negative societal forces on my life’s ambitions.
I’ve never forgotten the story of your best friend Johnny Johnson, also a track star, competing in a meet against the New York Athletic Club. In the day, they of course admitted only WASPs, so athletic Blacks or Jews instead competed as teammates for the Pioneer Club, founded for that purpose. As Johnny came around the last turn in the quarter mile, he was ahead of the New York Athletic Club runner by several strides when he overheard the fellow’s coach audibly yell to his runner, “Catch that nigger!” Johnny’s reply to himself was simple and direct, “This is one nigger he ain’t gonna catch!” and lengthened his lead to the finish line. What today might be called micro-aggressions, back then were parlayed into forces of inspiration to excel. From that example, I’ve used such occasions in my life to excel beyond even the expectations I hold for myself.
You told of immigrant Grandma’s work as a seamstress. Grandpa’s work as night watchman for the food service company Horn & Hardart. A good thing, because he would occasionally bring home leftover food when the money was tight. Your stories of strife were never hate-filled. Never bitter. Instead, they were hope-filled and inspirational—conveyed with tentative confidence that the arc of social justice will continue to bend towards righteousness. I carry that vision for society’s future into every day of my life.
You studied hard in school, and took your interest in social justice all the way to your appointment as Mayor Lindsey’s Commissioner of New York City’s Human Resources Administration. Journalists don’t write articles about news that does not happen. But the programs you enabled in the inner city, empowering the youth during the powder-keg years of the late 1960s, ensured that any unrest or disturbance would be mild. Sure enough, New York was calm compared with what went down in Watts, Newark, Detroit, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and especially in Chicago, Washington, DC and Baltimore, for which Federal troops were called to quell the violence. You worked behind the scenes on this, with your only reward the quiet knowledge that the nation’s largest city did not burn during the most turbulent years of the most turbulent decade in American history since the Civil War. Striving to do what is right, without regard to who takes notice, should be a model for us all.
Your stories and perspectives about navigating the people, politics, funding streams, and legacies of institutions deeply informed my (successful) efforts to create, from whole cloth, a brand new Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. You taught me that in life, it’s not good enough to be right. You also must be effective. For that, I now count the formation of that department as one of the highest achievements of my professional career.
So Dad, this “thank you” letter in death is simply public notice of what I’ve already thanked you for in life: bestowing upon me guiding principles for living my life to the fullest, and along the way, when possible, lessening the suffering of others.
I know I will miss you, because I already do.
Cyril DeGrasse Tyson
October 1927 — December 2016
* Based on a eulogy delivered to friends and family, Holy Trinity Catholic Church, New York City.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank my literary agent B. Lerner for her support and enthusiasm from the beginning to the end of this project. I also thank L. Mullen, for the persistent bookkeeping necessary to assemble the archive from which this book is drawn, along with my office assistants M. Gambardella and E. Stachow, who served as backup support at every turn. I further thank my editor J. Glusman of W. W. Norton, who continues to value our publishing relationship. I also thank N. Reagan and T. Disotell for their anthropological expertise and S. Soter for his characteristically critical read of the entire manuscript. Most importantly, I thank all those whose letters were included for their permission to reproduce our correspondence. Some of these queries are personal and sensitive, addressing one’s fickle and often challenging pathways to happiness and success. Their inclusion in this volume just might benefit others with identical or similar trajectories through life.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
“Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.”
Aliens
“Alien Aliens,” Melodie Lander, 23
“ET Phone Home,” Mel, 22
“A Glowing Pattern in the Sky,” Dave Halliday, 27
“UFO Sightings” Trenton Jordan, 24
Astronomy
“Breaking Up Is Easy to Do,” Neil deGrasse Tyson, 69
“Elementary Curiosity,” G
abe Mopps, 188
“First Telescope,” Morg Staley, 217
“Look But Don't Touch,” Marc Jaruzel, 190
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” Georgette Burrell, 62
“Seeing Stars,” Neil deGrasse Tyson, 61
Biology
“Complexity,” Josh S. Weston, 50
“Curing Disease,” Randy M. Zeitman, 134
“Don’t Have a Cow,” Moby, 228
“A Viral Blunder,” Samyuktha Guttha and Aneek Patel, 68
Buddhism
“Buddhist,” Todd Baxter, 172
Careers
“Fear,” Lisa Kalma, 10
“If I Were President,” Neil deGrasse Tyson, 20
“100 mph,” Jarrett Burgess, 17
“Space Cadet,” Ronald Ward, 186
“Stigma,” Dr. Robert Cassola, 191
Christianity
“BC / AD,” Lionel, 55
“The Bible Tells Me So,” Brandon Fibbs, 167
“Losing My Religion,” George Henry Whitesides, 12
“Proof,” Nigel Smith, 175
“Seeing Eye to Eye,” Tom Rodenstock, 165
Conspiracy
“Heavy Metal,” Simon Naylor, 152
Death and Dying
“The Cosmic Perspective,” Robert Clark, 129
“Dead Man Talking,” Seanlai Cochrane, 124
“Farewell,” Morg Staley, 127
“Remembering Holbrooke,” Neil deGrasse Tyson, 123
“Semper Fi,” Jay Scoble, 138