Transcript
>> HINOJOSA: He's been described
as the Carl Sagan of the 21st
Century-- astrophysicist, Hayden
Planetarium director, and NOVA
Science Now host Neil deGrasse
Tyson.
I'm Maria Hinojosa.
This is One on One.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, thank you
so much for being with us.
>> TYSON: It's about time you had me on
the show.
>> HINOJOSA: Just in case people
don't know who you are...
>> TYSON: Okay.
>> HINOJOSA: But of course,
everybody knows.
You are the most famous
astrophysicist in the country...
African American astrophysicist.
You are the director of the
Hayden Planetarium in New York
City.
You're the host of NOVA Science
Now.
And you write books, and you
dance, too.
>> TYSON: I once danced.
Not much anymore.
That was an earlier chapter in
my life.
And odd that you would mention
my ethnicity there.
And I say that because I once
thought about that.
And I realized that I may be the
most visible scientist of any
discipline, of any ethnicity, of
any skin color, in America
today.
And the reason why I went
through that mental exercise was
because there I am trying to
bring the frontier of science to
the public, and I said, "I don't
want to do that alone.
I want some others there with
me."
And I looked around to see who's
there with me.
You know, do we have a geologist
there with me, and a biologist?
And there are a few that are
known-- you know, E .L. Wilson
and Brian Greene and Michio
Kaku.
But given the size of that
science frontier, we need many
more.
And so I'm disappointed that I'm
sitting there alone with that
kind of distinction.
>> HINOJOSA: So when I was
growing up, the most famous
scientist was Carl Sagan.
>> TYSON: Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: And you actually
got a chance to meet him, hang
out with him, exchange ideas
with him.
>> TYSON: Totally.
>> HINOJOSA: You were
extraordinarily inspired by him.
>> TYSON: Yeah, I already knew I wanted
to be a scientist, so that's not
the link that mattered there.
There I was in high school,
already knowing that when I grew
up I wanted to be an
astrophysicist, something I've
known since age 11.
And my application to Cornell
University, it was, like,
dripping with the universe,
because there's all... I had a
telescope, I was in the club,
I... you know.
And so Cornell accepted me, but
then they want you to come if
they accept you, right?
But I hadn't decided yet.
And they, little did I know,
forwarded my application to Carl
Sagan's office, and Carl Sagan
wrote a personal letter to me.
>> TYSON: Oh, my God.
>> TYSON: Hand signed.
>> HINOJOSA: You get it in the
mail?
>> TYSON: In the mail.
I said, "Carl Sagan?
Is that the same guy who's on
the Tonight Show and the..."
I said, "Oh, couldn't be."
And I looked, I rubbed my eyes,
and there it was.
And he invited me to Cornell to
help me decide whether I would
ultimately attend there.
And I said, "Is he joking, is he
serious?"
And so I, you know, called to
make arrangements, and yes, he
met me out front of his
building, out of his lab,
invited me up, chatted about the
universe.
He reached back, pulled out one
of his books.
I thought that was the coolest
thing.
He didn't have to look.
He pulled back the book, it was
the book he wrote, signed it to
me.
And this is Cornell University
in the winter, so, like, it
began to snow that afternoon.
And he drove me back to the bus
station, because I took the bus
up there from New York City.
And saw that the snow was
getting thicker, and he jotted
down his home phone on a piece
of paper, and said, "If the bus
doesn't get through, call me,
spend the night."
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, no.
Oh, my gosh.
>> TYSON: Who am I?
I'm just a high school kid.
I'm 17 years old.
He doesn't know me from anybody.
I'm nobody to him.
Yet he was treating me this way.
And I realized that if it
ever... if I ever remotely
became anybody like him as an
adult, that I would sure as hell
be treating students the way he
treated me.
And to this day, if a student
wants to have time with me, or
to meet me, or get career
advice, all the other
appointments go on hold.
I don't care if the president of
the museum I work for, the
provost, all the pe... doesn't
matter.
The student comes first, and
it's because of that encounter
with Carl Sagan.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, how wonderful.
Here's what I want to know.
How is it that at age 11 you
even understood the nature of
what astrophysics is, and you
could say, "And that's what I
want to be"?
Because honestly, I was pretty
cool at 11, but it wasn't like I
was, "Yeah, I want to be an
astrophysicist."
>> TYSON: I had already been imprinted
at age 9, because my family, my
parents, took me, my brother, my
sister... every weekend we went
to some cultural institutional
organization every weekend.
What I mean is, we went to the
zoo, the... could be a baseball
game, the museums.
Something in the city they took
us to.
And that formed sort of a weekly
exposure to things you can do
and professions you might be.
>> HINOJOSA: But it was all
family outings, right?
>> TYSON: Family outings.
And so at age nine was my first
enounter with the night sky at
the Hayden Planetarium.
And growing up in New York City
in the Bronx, my understanding
of the night sky was, like, a
couple of stars.
So...
>> HINOJOSA: And lots of planes.
>> TYSON: Planes, yeah.
So there's no way I could
commune with the cosmos in the
Bronx.
So I reached the age of nine
before I ever had any
understanding of what the true
night sky was like.
And it was that first day in the
Hayden Planetarium-- the lights
dimmed, the stars came out, and
it was as though the unverse had
poured... flowed into my body,
and coursed through my veins.
And I felt it.
So to this day I think to
myself, "It's not that I chose
the universe.
It may be, in fact, that the
universe chose me."
>> HINOJOSA: That's so
wonderful.
>> TYSON: And it took two years to
figure out that this is not only
really cool to think about, that
you can actually make a career
of it.
And so it was over that two-year
period.
And from thenceforth I took
extra classes at night at the
Hayden Planetarium, the museum,
I joined the Amateur Astronomy
Club, I...
>> HINOJOSA: You were a nerd.
>> TYSON: Oh, completely.
Card carrying, oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: But here's
something that...
>> TYSON: There's a slight difference,
slight difference.
Card carrying nerd, because I
could recite decimals of pi and
all the sort of things that good
old-fashioned nerds can do.
I carried, back then, a slide
rule, and the bigger the slide
rule, the tougher you were,
right?
>> TYSON: Because I went to the Bronx
High School of Science.
And so what's interesting about
the Bronx High School of Science
is that it's a whole other sort
of world of social cliques, but
shifted to the nerd side.
>> HINOJOSA: So there are, like,
cool nerds and not so cool
nerds?
>> TYSON: Yeah, yeah, the jock nerds
and nerd nerds.
>> HINOJOSA: You were a jock
nerd?
>> TYSON: I was a jock nerd.
>> HINOJOSA: Because you were a
wrestler.
>> TYSON: I wrestled, yeah.
Yeah, so I was a jock nerd.
So in the world of the Bronx
High School of Science, I was
the jock.
But in the real world, I'd be
nerd city, oh, yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, but this is
what I love.
You said... and for those of us
who live in cities...
>> TYSON: Which is most people.
>> HINOJOSA: Which is most
people.
And we don't see the stars a
lot.
And my own experience was in
Bolivia, actually, in Lake
Titikaka, in 3:00 in the
morning.
>> TYSON: There really is a lake with
that name?
>> HINOJOSA: Yes.
>> TYSON: Thank you for confirming
that.
>> HINOJOSA: The highest lake in
the world.
Went out, 3:00 in the morning,
and I saw the sky.
>> TYSON: It's not higher than Crater
Lake?
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, don't get me...
oh, we're not going to do
geography now.
>> TYSON: Okay, no, I thought Crater
Lake was pretty high, but go on.
>> HINOJOSA: But as far as I
know...
>> TYSON: Maybe Crater is the deepest
lake, okay.
>> HINOJOSA: Saw all of the
stars, and I thought, "Oh, my
God, there's dialogue.
There is dialogue coming down
from these stars."
>> TYSON: Was that your first time
seeing the night sky?
>> HINOJOSA: No, it was my...
and this was in my 20s.
It was my first time
understanding that the stars
communicated an entire world.
>> TYSON: A universe.
>> HINOJOSA: And that... a
universe, you know?
An entire universe.
But you like to say the fact
that you are an urbanist, and
you said that when you go out
and you see a big beautiful sky
and the mountaintop you're like,
"Oh, yeah, this reminds me of
the Hayden Planetarium."
>> TYSON: Exactly, yeah.
It's embarrassing, actually.
>> HINOJOSA: But it's true,
really?
>> TYSON: I was benchmarked.
I was imprinted by the projected
night sky in the Hayden
Planetarium.
That is my benchmark for what
the night sky is.
So when I go to mountaintops at
the finest observing sites in
the world, and I look up, the
first thought is, "It reminds me
of the Hayden Planetarium."
It's embarrassing, but I've come
to terms with it.
>> HINOJOSA: So your dad was
African American, and your mom
was Puerto Rican.
>> TYSON: Yes.
Well, my father's ancestry is...
both through the Caribbean,
so... but yes.
>> HINOJOSA: And what was going
on in the Bronx when you were
growing up?
>> TYSON: Da Bronx.
>> HINOJOSA: Da Bronx.
Were people saying, "Look at
this smart kid who wants to be a
scientist"?
>> TYSON: Oh, no, no.
>> HINOJOSA: "How cool is that"?
>> TYSON: Oh, no.
No, no.
No one cared about your brains.
Could you jump high, could you
run fast, could you shoot a
basketball?
>> HINOJOSA: All of your
teachers, the community...
>> TYSON: Oh, no.
I'm talking about in the
playgrounds where I grew up.
No one... there was no
intellectual conversation going
on in the playground.
And so to get respect of friends
and of the community, you...
athletics mattered.
And I wonder if my athletic
talents that I accrued over the
years were entirely the
consequence of me fulfilling the
expectations of others rather
than me following any actual
interest that lived deep within
me.
>> HINOJOSA: Really?
So you may not actually have
been a jock?
>> TYSON: It's not obvious to me that
that's where I would have
turned.
And so throughout my years in
school, I knew... as I said, age
nine and 11, I knew I wanted to
study the universe.
And I would express that
interest in class, but teachers
would never... it wouldn't click
with them.
>> HINOJOSA: They'd kind of say,
"He's a little weird because he
likes the stars"?
>> TYSON: Not so much that.
I think there was a racial
dimension to it at the time.
If, you know, the little black
kid in the class says, "I want
to be an astrophysicist," some
people don't even hear that.
They say, "Oh, don't you want to
join the track team, or the
basketball team?"
The... you know, it wasn't
explicit racism, like the
stories I get from my parents
back when they were growing up.
It's kind of an implicit sort of
cultural... they lean you this
way instead of that way if they
have power over your trajectory.
And the directions they lean you
are consistent with their
expectations of what you should
become when you grow up.
>> HINOJOSA: Which means that
you had to be incredibly
powerful to push back.
>> TYSON: Yes.
I had to push back my entire
life, that's correct.
>> HINOJOSA: And that's
exhausting.
>> TYSON: It's energy, yes.
But I was getting energy from
the universe.
I felt it.
It was there.
>> HINOJOSA: You said when you
were giving your convocation
address when you got your
Ph.D...
>> TYSON: By the way, that's a
highlight of my life, was
getting the Ph.D. and being
invited by the Dean to give the
commencement address.
>> HINOJOSA: I was kind of like,
"Oh, wow, does everybody get to
do a convocation address?"
>> TYSON: Yeah, no, no.
It was... I mean, I was very
honored, deeply honored by that,
because it was my lifelong goal
and dream to get a Ph.D. in
astrophysics.
>> HINOJOSA: But you get up
there, and you don't pull any
punches.
>> TYSON: No, no.
>> HINOJOSA: I mean, when you're
giving this convocation address,
you are saying that, essentially
your entire career, people were
saying things... and these were
professors, fellow students...
>> TYSON: People in... now, the fellow
students...
>> HINOJOSA: What were the
things that they would say to
you?
What would they say?
>> TYSON: Well, no one would...
>> HINOJOSA: "You want to be a
computer salesman, you want to
go teach at a community
college"?
>> TYSON: Right.
No one was with me with my
ambitions.
It was a fight at every point.
And I came to realize that I was
trying to create a pathway for
myself that was in violent
opposition to people's
expectations for me.
And whenever that happens, it
sucks energy out of you.
And I wonder how many people
derailed simply because they
didn't have as much energy to
keep fighting as I did.
Because my fuel supply was...
went deep, because it was...
started... you know, the nozzle
was filling it up from age nine.
So I could reach down deep and
pull fuel where others perhaps
might not have, or could not
have.
And so yeah, it's unfortunate.
And I lose sleep at night... not
so much anymore, because I think
opportunities are much more
available than they were back
when I was a kid, and much more
than they were even when my
parents were kids.
But I used to lose sleep
wondering what brilliance could
have been expressed among my
contemporaries had they not been
pushed away from what might have
been their dreams.
>> HINOJOSA: You say that that
kind of fighting, and these are
your words, "Levies an emotional
tax that is a form of
intellecutal emasculation.
It's a tax I would not wish upon
my enemies."
>> TYSON: Yeah, that was a direct quote
from my speech that I gave.
>> HINOJOSA: But essentially you
just felt like the pushing
forward to be an astrophysicist
meant that at every turn, you
had to somehow justify who you
were, justify what you were
doing, justify your
intelligence, prove that you
could do this.
What about now?
>> TYSON: Now it's different.
It's different now.
In fact, there's a fascinating
transition.
Back when I was... in the early
days of when I was becoming
visible, so maybe 15 years ago,
when I was on TV a little bit,
and so occasionally someone
would recognize me, the
fascinating transition which
allows me to say the world has
changed in a positive way.
You know, people like to say,
"Oh, it hasn't changed."
It has changed.
I'm telling you firsthand, it
has changed.
So back then, people would come
up to me, and there'd be this
discomfort with people who...
with, like, Caucasions, they
could never say to me, "Gee, I
wish I was as smart as you,"
because the smart thing was
still operating in society.
Because "White people are smart,
black people are dumb."
This is how society divides.
And so I would see this anxiety
within them, because they knew
they liked what I was doing, but
they weren't doing it, they were
doing something else.
And they'd say, "Oh, yeah, I
could have done the physics, but
I chose to do this."
And they're wiggling through...
>> HINOJOSA: Kind of passive
aggressive kind of stuff?
>> TYSON: Yeah, they're trying to try
to say that they like what I'm
doing, but they could have done
it had they chosen.
And so... but I kept at it, and
what I noticed is eventually
people just started respecting
what I had accomplished without
trying to qualify how they
choose to respect it.
And so that's why I jumped on
you when you said, "Most visible
African American
astrophysicist."
Being African American is not a
part of my public profile.
Yes, you see me in this way, but
I don't say, "Well, this is what
African American astrophysicists
think."
That's not part of what I do.
I talk about, you know, sun,
moon, stars, the big bang, and
will the Earth be here in five
billion years.
>> HINOJOSA: And we'll get to
that in a minute.
>> TYSON: So times have changed.
And I am picked up by taxis now
in ways that was not the case
before.
There'd be a fear factor
that would operate.
>> TYSON: HINOJOrSA: But you now also
are the director of the Hayden
Planetarium in New York City.
>> TYSON: Yeah.
I've been that for 12 years.
>> HINOJOSA: For 12 years.
And it's interesting, because
that's where it all started for
you.
>> HINOJOSA: Yes.
>> TYSON: At the Hayden Planetarium.
>> TYSON: Yeah, I became director of
the planetarium, the place where
first shaped me.
So yes, it is one of these sort
of "Hometown kid comes home and
does good."
>> HINOJOSA: Well, it's pretty
amazing.
>> TYSON: But there are no hometown
stories in New York.
The city is too big.
So it's not a story to tell.
It doesn't play.
>> HINOJOSA: But you have said
that, at least in the beginnings
of your career, when you were
directing the museum, sometimes
you'd be walking into your
office late at night or walking
out, and that security guards
would kind of be looking at you
like, "Yo, what are you doing
here?"
>> TYSON: Oh, no.
That was not at the museum.
That was when I was still in
graduate school.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, oh.
>> TYSON: Beginning the Ph.D.
Oh, yeah, then I'd be stopped
all... yeah.
And I'd go to the office at
night, because sometimes
astrophysicists might want to
work at night.
And I'd get stopped going into
my office.
I was never stopped going into
the gym, though.
I always thought that was
interesting.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, so you have
this, you know, universal view
of who we are and how miniscule
we are.
>> TYSON: The cosmic perspective.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, well, help me
to understand, so within the
cosmic perspective, how you put
that stuff that is so personal,
so racist, actually, where do
you put it?
>> TYSON: It allows me to see the folly
of it all and to rise above it.
>> HINOJOSA: The folly?
So you laugh at it?
>> TYSON: Yes.
Because, well, there are those
who behave this way, but they
don't stand between me and my
goals.
The security guard that stops me
from going into my own office,
it's a nuisance, but he's not
actually between me and my goal.
So I... you know, if you let it
get to you I'd be dead by now.
So at some point you have to
laugh, otherwise you'll cry.
And so the real energy that I
invoke, yes, I put up some
guards there, but the real
energy I invoke is when it
happens with someone who stands
between me and my goal.
Then I have to navigate.
I go around them, above them,
below them, you know, push
through them, whatever.
And so that's where the real
energy was invoked.
But I'm happy to say the last
ten years or so none of that has
revealed itself.
>> HINOJOSA: And we are happy to
hear that.
So recently... well, actually it
was probably around a decade ago
when I went to the Hayden
Planetarium with my husband and
my kids.
And there's something that you
do at the planetarium which...
essentially you make us
understand that we are part of
the universe, but the universe
is part of us.
That the universe is within us.
And...
>> TYSON: And that's a concept, by the
way, that was sort of pioneered
by Carl Sagan and his
contemporaries.
>> HINOJOSA: You know, after
we... and my husband is a huge
Carl Sagan follower as well.
But that became something that
we talked so much about.
I mean, for weeks after that we
were like, "Well, what does that
look like?"
So when you say that... because
I'm sure people are thinking,
"What are you talking about, the
universe is within us?"
We embody this somehow?
>> TYSON: No, no.
No, no.
It's actually very simple.
It's not trying to be deep and
New Agey on you.
It's very simple.
So you've got sort of molecules
in your body.
They have atoms.
And where do those atoms come
from?
And I remember in chemistry
class, you ask the teacher,
"Well, they're just here on the
periodic table of elements."
But actually, we learn from
astrophysics that those elements
are tracable to the crucibles in
the cores of stars that have
lived billions of years before
our own sun.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, I just got,
like, shivers.
I swear, I mean, every time I
hear it I'm just like...
>> TYSON: And these stars, upon
manufacturing these elements in
its core, exploded, scattering
this enrichment across the
galaxy, out of which the next
generation of stars and planets
and life has formed.
And so when you look up at the
night sky, it's not that we're
here on Earth and the universe
is there and that somehow we're
separate from it.
We're in the universe, we are
part of the universe, and the
universe is in us.
And that is one of the most
profound revelations of modern
astrophysics that there ever is.
Of science.
Of science.
And I'd like to... if you put
together all the revelations of
science, that we are
biologically connected not only
to each other but to all the
life forms on the Earth, that
our molecules are the same
molecules that we find in other
plants, that this connectivity
transforms, I think... I'd like
to believe will transform how
you view yourself.
Are you above and apart from
everything, or are you a part of
everything?
Because if you think you're
above and apart from it, then
what's to prevent you from just
taking out the forests, and
dominating all the creatures of
the planet?
>> HINOJOSA: And a lot of people
do that, don't they?
>> TYSON: They do that because their
ego sits high.
But when you study the universe,
the ego needs to take a
different place.
>> HINOJOSA: There's something
else that happens, though.
>> TYSON: Because we're not as... we're
never as big as we ever thought
we were.
We're little.
A quick example how little...
>> HINOJOSA: Well, I am little,
but whenever I go to the
planetarium, I feel really
little.
>> TYSON: We think we're in charge
because we're humans and we have
big brains.
If you take one linear
centimeter of your lower colon,
there are more bacteria that
live and work in that one
centimenter than all the human
beings who have ever been born
on Earth.
And so who's in charge now?
We're just hosts for bacteria.
>> HINOJOSA: Sometimes,
though... and I was at the
planetarium recently.
>> TYSON: I don't mean to freak you out
there.
>> HINOJOSA: No, it's okay, I'm
not freaked.
But here's what happens.
I went to the planetarium, and,
you know, we're overloaded with
so much information about
whatever it may be.
I'm a smart person,
but I am not science literate,
even though my father is a
scientist, and looked at
molecules and atoms through the
electron microscope.
What do you do with people like
me who... we want to know, and
yet we feel like...
>> TYSON: I think you're understandably
confusing two things.
Don't confuse how much you know
about the natural world with
whether or not you're
scientifically literate.
It's one thing to, yes, to be
able to recite how your
microwave oven works.
Fine.
>> HINOJOSA: Don't have a
microwave.
>> TYSON: I don't have a problem with
that.
You don't have a microwave?
Okay.
>> HINOJOSA: No, because I'm
concerned about what those
microwaves...
>> TYSON: Yeah, that would be a
consequence of science
illiteracy.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh.
>> TYSON: Yes.
>> HINOJOSA: Did you just say
that I'm scientifically
illiterate on television?
>> TYSON: Yes, I'm agreeing with you
that you're scientifically
illiterate, but for different
reasons.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, but what you
want to do...
>> TYSON: Here's what my point is--
you're scientifically illiterate
not because you don't know
enough science.
It's... science illiteracy is
not understanding how to look at
the world around you and how to
query things that you don't
understand.
>> HINOJOSA: So what do you want
to...
>> TYSON: It is an outlook.
It is a perspective.
It is a lens through which you
look.
>> HINOJOSA: So when you... I
mean, the most important thing
for you is teaching this science
literacy; is teaching people in
general, young people
specifically, young people of
color very specifically, to be
scientifically literate.
>> TYSON: I want to teach adults who
vote and pay taxes and control
the world how to be
scientifically literate.
>> HINOJOSA: And so what do we
need to know?
Apart from buying all of your
books and reading them, okay,
which...
>> TYSON: Thank you for that.
>> HINOJOSA: Quick plug.
>> TYSON: That'll raise you a couple of
notches, but there's a lot of
good stuff out there.
>> HINOJOSA: But what do we do?
I mean, like, when you say, "I
want to teach science literacy
and I want to make it
accessible..."
>> TYSON: I think kids are born
scientists.
They're born exploring the world
around them.
We... here's the problem.
You spend the first years of a
child's life teaching it to walk
and talk, and the rest of its
life telling it to shut up and
sit down.
That's the problem.
And so what you need to do is
recognize the exploratory
dimension of what it is to be a
child and celebrate that.
>> HINOJOSA: And that's
scientific.
>> TYSON: Yes, of course!
Did I scream at you?
I'm sorry.
So what does... every ki... I
don't know any kid who hasn't
done the following.
They go into the kitchen, open
up the cabinet, pull out the
pots and pans, find the wooden
spoon, and start banging on it.
And you're a parent, what do you
do?
"You just got the pots dirty.
You might break the spoon.
You're making a racket.
Stop it."
Whereas I look at that as
experiments in acoustics.
>> HINOJOSA: And did you say
that to your kids?
>> TYSON: Yeah.
Well, no, I don't tell them
that, I just let them do it.
I don't stop it.
So...
>> HINOJOSA: So it's not about
the talking, and "Let me tell
you what you're doing."
>> TYSON: No, no.
>> HINOJOSA: It's experiential.
>> TYSON: Because then you're... you're
annoying.
You want exploration to be sort
of the free movement in the
natural world around you.
>> HINOJOSA: So do your kids,
for example, do they understand
that they're scientifically
experiential?
>> TYSON: I am right now... I've got a
book in my head to come out in a
few years called How to Raise a
Scientifically Literate Child.
And my kids are, like, the
subjects of this.
>> HINOJOSA: And so give me
just...
>> TYSON: I'm not putting electrodes on
them or anything.
>> HINOJOSA: Good.
>> TYSON: They have no idea they're
actually subjects of this.
I immerse them in environments,
and I just watch how it
unfolds, things that they
explore.
So they'll spill some liquid on
the table.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, my producer's
going to get angry at that.
But okay.
>> TYSON: Okay, and what do you do as a
parent?
You quickly wipe it up.
But if they're playing with it,
I let them play.
That's the exploration.
>> HINOJOSA: But I find it so
interesting that you don't do
the explanation.
>> TYSON: The explanation can drive
them away from the science.
That's why we need to think of
science literacy as a way of
thinking about the world, and
querying the world around you.
And so now my kids, they will
not likely become scientists
when they grow up, but I'm
telling you, they're
scientifically literate.
And I have documented examples
of what I'm judging to be
scientifically literate.
A quick example?
>> HINOJOSA: Okay.
>> TYSON: My daughter, she's 12, likes
Hannah Montana.
I said, "Miranda, I saw a poster
of Hannah Montana.
It was, like, as big as a wall."
And she said, "Well, how big was
the wall?"
And I had not specified this.
So that is a skepticism of
information because she's trying
to receive information and make
sense of it.
That's all a scientist does.
And I gave information
insufficient enough for her to
make sense of it.
And if that ever stops, you end
up growing up as an adult that
just believes whatever anybody
tells you, like, "Microwave
ovens are bad for you."
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, God.
>> TYSON: Okay?
>> HINOJOSA: Why did you bring
that... okay, listen.
>> TYSON: You just believe that because
somebody told you, rather than
thinking about it.
There are microwaves all around
us.
Cell phones use microwaves,
radar detectors.
>> HINOJOSA: Let's not use the
last minute that we have for you
to tell me how I made the wrong
decision.
>> TYSON: Okay.
>> HINOJOSA: So in the 30
seconds we have left...
>> TYSON: I don't want you to stick
your head in the microwave.
>> HINOJOSA: When you see a
young person what do you want...
30 seconds, you tell them, "I
want you to look at the world
like this, through this
scientific prism," what is that?
>> TYSON: I try to share with them not
facts about science, but ideas--
ideas about our place in the
universe that have transformed
our understanding of who and
what we are.
And then they learn that the
methods and tools of science led
to those ideas.
And upon doing so, I'd like to
believe that a flame is lit
within them, and they then have
energy of their own to learn
about the science that excites
them.
>> HINOJOSA: I got the energy,
man.
Thank you so much, Neil.
>> TYSON: We're done?
>> HINOJOSA: You're done.
>> TYSON: My gosh.
>> HINOJOSA: Until next time.
>> TYSON: Can I come back?
>> HINOJOSA: Yes.
>> TYSON: Okay.
>> HINOJOSA: Thank you, Neil.
Continue the conversation at
wgbh.org/oneonone.
Captioned by
Media Access Group at WGBH
access.wgbh.org
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