Science is Bigger
Than Politics (or Religion). Neil deGrasse Tyson on The rise (and fall?)
of America (from Abraham Lincoln's founding of the National Academy of Sciences
in 1863, to the US currently leading the world in the Nobel Prize count (a third
of which we owe to immigrants), America was built on science. What happens when
we doubt and defund it?
Transcript: I have to chuckle a little bit when I'm approached by anybody,
but in particular journalists, and say, “Are scientist worried that the public
is in denial of science or is cherry-picking it?” And I chuckle not because
it's funny but because they're coming to me as a scientist when they should
be going to everyone. Everyone should be concerned by this, not just scientists.
In fact, scientists will just continue as they're doing. You might withdraw
funding, but then there isn't any science done—okay. You are transforming your
civilization if you choose to either stand in denial of science or withdraw
science funding from those who are actually doing the research. Everything we
care deeply about that defines modern civilization pivots on innovations in
science, technology, engineering and the math that is the foundational language
for it all. Everything: transportation, your health, your communication through
smart phones that talk to GPS satellites to find out where Grandma is. To make
a left turn to find her address or the nearest Starbucks. Whatever is your need,
whatever is your want, the emergent innovations in science and technology are
not only enabling it, they are creating for you solutions to challenges you
always lived with but never thought that they could be solved. The message is
clear: if you do not understand what science is and how and why it works—by
the way, I'm not even blaming you. I look back as an educator, I look back to
K through 12, kindergarten through 12th grade, and I say there's something missing
there. If you, as an educated adult, can say, "This is what these scientists
agree to, but I don't agree with them." If that sentence even comes out of your
mouth it's like: oh my gosh. Okay, well, we live in a free country, you can
say and think what you want. I'm not even going to stop you. But if you rise
to power and have influence over legislation and that legislation references
what you think science is but is not, that is a recipe for the unraveling of
an informed democracy. So I'm not even going to blame you. It's not your fault.
I'm an educator. Let's go back to K through 12. Somewhere in there while you're
learning about reading, writing, and arithmetic and while you have a class in
earth science and biology and chemistry, maybe physics, somewhere in there there
needs to be a class, possibly taught every year, on what it is to analyze knowledge,
information, how to process facts, how to turn data into information and information
into knowledge and how to turn knowledge into wisdom. Because it is wisdom that
you need to invoke when you're a leader. You need insight into not only what
is going on but what will then happen in the future as a consequence of your
decisions. You know who had all of that? Abraham Lincoln. We remember him for
the Civil War and slavery, two top categories that he's justifiably remembered
for. You know why I also remember him? In 1863, you know what he did? By the
way, that year he had plenty of other things, many other priorities in his life.
1863: middle of the Civil War, Gettysburg Address. That same year, he signed
into law the National Academy of Sciences who were charged with advising the
executive and the legislative branch of all the ways that science needs to be
recognized as a fundamental part of what will assure the future health, wealth,
and security of the nation. By the way, Abe Lincoln was a Republican president,
greatly valuing what science is going to tell him. This puts into motion a valuation
of academic science that would boost the United States from a backwoods country
into the world's leading economic force. And he had the wisdom, the insight,
the knowledge. He knew how to think about that problem. Today you have partisanship
over what is science? Again, people somehow don't understand what science is
and how and why it works. That has to be a course in the curriculum K through
12, right through college, because everyone in Congress went to college. And
so if you come out of college and don't know this, we need some of that in college
as well. Now the partisanship: you hear liberals claiming the science high ground,
accusing right-leaning people of science denial, generally in reference to climate
change data and, as well but less frequently, teaching evolution in the biology
classroom. People want to teach biblical creation. So this high ground is not
as high a ground as the liberal community would want to claim, because there
is a portfolio of things that for you to think that way will require that you
reject some mainstream science. And in that portfolio you find people who lean
left. If you are all-in for alternative medicine, and if you're anti-GMO, if
you're anti-vax, you are in denial of mainstream science—period. So we have
these two political ends of the spectrum each accusing the other of whatever,
and I'm saying science has no political party. It is true—when you establish
an objective truth with the methods and tools of science, it is true no matter
what political party you are, what your philosophies are, what religion you
belong to, what country you're born in. That's why it's science. It may be unique
among human enterprises that it transcends all of this. Now what we need to
do is recognize what science is, how and why it works and what are the objectively
established scientific truths, then have the political conversation. Do you
put in carbon tax or tariffs on solar panels? Should you invest in this industry?
Should you subsidize it? Those have political solutions. My jaw drops open every
time I see people having a political conversation, arguing about a scientific
truth. We're wasting time, people. Because nature is the ultimate judge, jury,
and executioner, and the whole point of science is to find out what nature is,
how it works, how we can best use our knowledge of nature in the service of
our needs, and the needs of others across the world. So if this keeps up the
United States will just fade, and the rest of the world that understands how
to invoke scientific insight and knowledge will rise up, and we will just become
irrelevant on the world stage. By the way, when you innovate your jobs don't
go overseas because you are innovating here and this is where the intellectual
capital for that is located. That's how that works. If you're going to complain
about trade imbalances it's because you're doing what everybody else is doing
and now you want to protect your jobs by putting tariffs on other people so
that we can buy our own products. But if you innovate you are making products
that no one else knows how to make yet. So the whole concept of tariffs, that's
what you do when you're not leading. You have those conversations when you're
the same as everybody and then you go into a protectionist mode. And one last
point, about immigrants: on average since 1900 about one in ten Americans was
born in another country, so ten percent immigrants, average. It's fluctuated
from like five percent to 14 percent, but since 1900 it averages about one in
ten. The Nobel Prizes have been given since 1900. Let's ask the question: what
percent of American Nobel Prizes in the sciences were won by immigrants? One
third of all Nobel Prizes given to Americans since Nobel Prizes began have gone
to immigrants. They are a factor of three more represented in scientific scholarship,
as represented by the Nobel Prize, than they are even in the population. How
does this happen? We were leading the world in science, technology, engineering
and math, so the most brilliant minds around the world were attracted to us,
contributing to who and what America became. As we begin to fade, that all goes
away. The brilliant minds are attracted elsewhere and America fades. It's not
a cliff face, it's just a slope. Maybe so gradual you're not even thinking about
it, and one day we wake up and we start running behind other countries saying,
"Can we join in? Tell us how you did it." That's actually not the America I
grew up in.