Neil deGrasse
Neil deGrasse
philosophy unique priorities-in-life
I have a personal philosophy in life: If somebody else can do something that I'm doing, they should do it. And what I want to do is find things that would represent a unique contribution to the world-the contribution that only I, and my portfolio of talents, can make happen. Those are my priorities in life.
mars earth form
If Mars formed life, then life on Earth could have been seeded by life on Mars, making every life form on Earth descended from Martians.
assumption congress driver drivers hand hat justify nasa operate people year
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.
cosmic leading nations others perspective war
You can't come away with this cosmic perspective thinking that you are better than others and want to fight. That's why you'll never have astrophysicists leading nations into war.
became earth large life reason whether
The universe is large and old, and the ingredients for life as we know it are everywhere, so there's no reason to think that Earth would be unique in that regard. Whether of not the life became intelligent is a different question, and we'll see if we find that.
buildings city hard kid literally looking pair picking
I was transformed by picking up a pair of binoculars and looking up, and that's hard to do for a city kid because when you look up you just see buildings - and really, your first thought is to look in people's windows. So to look out of the space - out of living space - and look up to the sky, binoculars go far, literally and figuratively.
fine minority people rejects religious restrict science since sort threatened undo
It's actually the minority of religious people who rejects science or feel threatened by it or want to sort of undo or restrict the... where science can go. The rest, you know, are just fine with science. And it has been that way ever since the beginning.
afford country future luxury might science
The idea that science is just some luxury that you'll get around to if you can afford it is regressive to any future a country might dream for itself.
applying ends history pure research science time ultimately
As history has shown, pure science research ultimately ends up applying to something. We just don't know it at the time.
books discovered half might people seeing stuff time
Half of my library are old books because I like seeing how people thought about their world at their time. So that I don't get bigheaded about something we just discovered and I can be humble about where we might go next. Because you can see who got stuff right and most of the people who got stuff wrong.
came god people religion stance word
What people are really after is, what is my stance on religion or spirituality or God? And I would say, if I find a word that came closest, it would be agnostic.
believe human mind natural relating
It's always interesting just to see how the human mind is relating to the natural universe, and what we try to make of it just so we can believe we understand what's going on.
benefit brains clueless concept gonna kids literacy manifest science squash thinking train
You can't train kids in a world where adults have no concept of what science literacy is. The adults are gonna squash the creativity that would manifest itself, because they're clueless about what it and why it matters. But science can always benefit from the more brains there are that are thinking about it - but that's true for any field.
anymore believe cares claim complaints except gets heard knows names nobody people
I claim that space is part of our culture. You've heard complaints that nobody knows the names of the astronauts, that nobody gets excited about launches, that nobody cares anymore except people in the industry. I don't believe that for a minute.