WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.040 Welcome back to another deep dive. Today, we're 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:04.820 doing something a little different. Usually, 00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:07.759 we take a concept, you know, glide holes or the 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:10.400 history of coffee or the mechanics of inflation, 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:12.500 and we just tear it apart to see how it works. 00:00:12.539 --> 00:00:14.779 Right. We look at the machine itself. Exactly. 00:00:15.019 --> 00:00:18.660 But today, we're turning our lens on a person. 00:00:18.899 --> 00:00:21.039 And really, not just a person. We're looking 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:23.460 at a phenomenon. It's a necessary distinction 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:26.480 to make, I think, right at the top. We're examining 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:29.359 a figure who has, for all intents and purposes, 00:00:29.640 --> 00:00:33.039 become the face and definitely the voice of modern 00:00:33.039 --> 00:00:37.100 science for a massive chunk of the global population. 00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:39.619 Oh, absolutely. You've seen the memes. You've 00:00:39.619 --> 00:00:41.700 heard that voice in... I don't know, a dozen 00:00:41.700 --> 00:00:43.500 documentaries and probably a few blockbuster 00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:45.600 movies. You've seen him debating on cable news. 00:00:45.759 --> 00:00:48.100 We are talking, of course, about Neil deGrasse 00:00:48.100 --> 00:00:50.259 Tyson. And the stack of sources we've got for 00:00:50.259 --> 00:00:52.500 this deep dive is, well, it's honestly massive. 00:00:53.020 --> 00:00:55.100 We're looking at biographical records. We have 00:00:55.100 --> 00:00:57.579 transcripts of his public appearances, details 00:00:57.579 --> 00:01:00.020 on his actual academic research, the full timeline 00:01:00.020 --> 00:01:02.039 of his controversies, and we'll get to those, 00:01:02.159 --> 00:01:05.120 plus his extensive media portfolio. It's a lot. 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:09.379 It is. So our mission, really, is to decode how 00:01:09.379 --> 00:01:12.760 a kid from the... ends up with the title, Sexiest 00:01:12.760 --> 00:01:15.920 Astrophysicist Alive. Which is a real title. 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:17.560 We should just state that for the record. That 00:01:17.560 --> 00:01:20.099 actually happened. A real title held by a real 00:01:20.099 --> 00:01:23.560 person. And at the same time, he's the guy who, 00:01:23.659 --> 00:01:26.299 in the public consciousness at least, killed 00:01:26.299 --> 00:01:30.140 Pluto. He's this fascinating mix of public, intellectual, 00:01:30.439 --> 00:01:32.719 and public villain, depending on who you ask. 00:01:32.900 --> 00:01:34.480 And along the way, we have to look at the friction 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:36.659 points. Because, you know, you don't become a 00:01:36.659 --> 00:01:38.500 figure of this magnitude without stepping on 00:01:38.500 --> 00:01:40.840 a few toes. We have source material covering 00:01:40.840 --> 00:01:44.060 his clashes with, say, the entire field of philosophy. 00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:46.459 Oh yeah, that was a whole thing. His very complex 00:01:46.459 --> 00:01:49.459 and often misunderstood stance on religion, and 00:01:49.459 --> 00:01:51.659 of course, the serious allegations of misconduct 00:01:51.659 --> 00:01:55.040 that really threatened to derail his entire career 00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:57.040 just a few years ago. It's a lot. to unpack. 00:01:57.260 --> 00:01:59.319 I want to understand the cool side of the science, 00:01:59.420 --> 00:02:01.959 you know, the wrestling, the ballroom dancing, 00:02:02.079 --> 00:02:05.079 the fact that he helped find a real world location 00:02:05.079 --> 00:02:07.700 for Superman's home planet. Which is just amazing. 00:02:08.199 --> 00:02:10.580 But I also want to understand the engine that's 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:13.099 driving this whole machine. What is his actual 00:02:13.099 --> 00:02:15.919 philosophy on science communication? Because 00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:18.139 he isn't just, you know, reading facts off a 00:02:18.139 --> 00:02:21.550 teleprompter. He's performing. It's a specific 00:02:21.550 --> 00:02:24.810 brand of pedagogy. It is performance art mixed 00:02:24.810 --> 00:02:27.370 with astrophysics. And to understand it, I think 00:02:27.370 --> 00:02:29.330 you really, really have to go back to the beginning. 00:02:29.710 --> 00:02:32.409 Because the Neil deGrasse Tyson we see on TV 00:02:32.409 --> 00:02:35.210 today didn't just appear out of a vacuum. So 00:02:35.210 --> 00:02:36.990 let's do it. Let's hit the origin story. We're 00:02:36.990 --> 00:02:39.969 starting in 1958, Manhattan born, but as you 00:02:39.969 --> 00:02:41.889 said, really a Bronx guy through and through. 00:02:42.009 --> 00:02:45.219 Right. Castle Hill, Riverdale. And to understand 00:02:45.219 --> 00:02:47.000 his trajectory, you have to look at the household 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:50.020 he grew up in. His father, Cyril deGrasse Tyson, 00:02:50.180 --> 00:02:52.840 he wasn't a scientist. He was a sociologist and 00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:54.719 a human resource commissioner for the mayor of 00:02:54.719 --> 00:02:57.300 New York City, John Lindsay. So a civic -minded 00:02:57.300 --> 00:03:00.330 household. Very. And his mother, Sanchita, she 00:03:00.330 --> 00:03:03.050 was a gerontologist. So you've got this environment 00:03:03.050 --> 00:03:05.849 where education, social science, and public service 00:03:05.849 --> 00:03:08.169 are just, they're the baseline. It wasn't a house 00:03:08.169 --> 00:03:09.629 where you just sat around. You were expected 00:03:09.629 --> 00:03:12.969 to contribute, think about society. But the science 00:03:12.969 --> 00:03:16.770 part, that didn't come from them directly. The 00:03:16.770 --> 00:03:19.550 source material highlights a very specific moment, 00:03:19.710 --> 00:03:23.129 the inciting incident, if you want to use a screenwriting 00:03:23.129 --> 00:03:25.990 term. He's nine years old. Nine. And he takes 00:03:25.990 --> 00:03:28.669 a trip. He visits the Sky Theater at the Hayden 00:03:28.669 --> 00:03:30.710 Planetarium. Which is just so poetic, right? 00:03:30.810 --> 00:03:33.210 Considering where he ends up decades later. It's 00:03:33.210 --> 00:03:35.750 almost too perfect for a script. But it's true. 00:03:35.889 --> 00:03:39.590 He sits there in that big, dark room. The lights 00:03:39.590 --> 00:03:41.830 go down and the stars come out on that massive 00:03:41.830 --> 00:03:45.129 dome. And Tyson describes this moment not just 00:03:45.129 --> 00:03:48.590 as like a cool field trip. He calls it an imprint. 00:03:49.069 --> 00:03:52.210 He uses this very specific phrase, the universe 00:03:52.210 --> 00:03:54.810 called me. I find that phrasing so interesting. 00:03:55.069 --> 00:03:57.819 It's almost passive. It suggests a lack of agency, 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:00.020 doesn't it? Like he didn't choose science. Science 00:04:00.020 --> 00:04:02.000 just grabbed him by the collar. He felt he had 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:04.300 no choice in the matter. And frankly, if he hadn't 00:04:04.300 --> 00:04:06.539 walked into that specific room at that specific 00:04:06.539 --> 00:04:09.099 age, I think you could argue the landscape of 00:04:09.099 --> 00:04:11.099 science communication today might look very, 00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:12.759 very different. And it wasn't just a one -time 00:04:12.759 --> 00:04:14.780 thing. This is where the obsession starts, right? 00:04:14.860 --> 00:04:17.399 He starts going back. He does. During his high 00:04:17.399 --> 00:04:19.519 school years, he's attending astronomy courses 00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:22.360 at the Hayden Planetarium. He's not just a visitor 00:04:22.360 --> 00:04:24.379 anymore. He's a student there. And this is where 00:04:24.379 --> 00:04:27.910 we find the first real clue. to his future persona. 00:04:28.129 --> 00:04:29.949 You're talking about the director of the planetarium 00:04:29.949 --> 00:04:32.750 at the time. Dr. Mark Chartrand III. And Tyson 00:04:32.750 --> 00:04:35.449 calls him his first intellectual role model. 00:04:35.649 --> 00:04:38.310 But you have to pay attention to why. It wasn't 00:04:38.310 --> 00:04:40.250 just because Chartrand was a brilliant astronomer 00:04:40.250 --> 00:04:43.009 or published papers. It was his style. It was 00:04:43.009 --> 00:04:45.449 his style. He was funny. He was enthusiastic. 00:04:45.990 --> 00:04:49.269 He had a flair for the dramatic. Chartrand proved 00:04:49.269 --> 00:04:52.089 to a young, impressionable Tyson that you didn't 00:04:52.089 --> 00:04:55.589 have to be this dry, boring, monotone, academic. 00:04:56.509 --> 00:04:58.829 stereotype. You could mix humor with teaching. 00:04:59.089 --> 00:05:01.829 You could be charismatic. You can see that DNA 00:05:01.829 --> 00:05:04.050 directly in Tyson's work today, the way he uses 00:05:04.050 --> 00:05:06.490 a booming voice, the hand gestures, the punchlines. 00:05:06.829 --> 00:05:09.290 That's all there. It's the blueprint. So he's 00:05:09.290 --> 00:05:11.689 a teenager. He's completely obsessed. And he's 00:05:11.689 --> 00:05:14.050 apparently quite precocious. I mean, the notes 00:05:14.050 --> 00:05:15.709 say he was already giving lectures on astronomy 00:05:15.709 --> 00:05:19.540 at age 15. To adults. Just stop and picture that 00:05:19.540 --> 00:05:21.660 dynamic for a second. You're a 15 -year -old 00:05:21.660 --> 00:05:23.639 kid from the Bronx. You're standing in front 00:05:23.639 --> 00:05:26.160 of a room of adults, and you are explaining the 00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:29.139 cosmos to them. The confidence required. It requires 00:05:29.139 --> 00:05:31.379 a level of innate confidence that, you know, 00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:34.360 probably borders on arrogance, but in a necessary 00:05:34.360 --> 00:05:36.300 way. You cannot hold a room like that if you're 00:05:36.300 --> 00:05:38.540 riddled with self -doubt. And that reputation, 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:42.300 that confidence, it started to ripple outward. 00:05:42.639 --> 00:05:44.519 It rippled all the way to upstate New York. To 00:05:44.519 --> 00:05:47.120 Ithaca, specifically. To Cornell University. 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:50.060 and right to the desk of Carl Sagan. This story 00:05:50.060 --> 00:05:53.000 is so famous and for a good reason. Yeah. It 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:55.220 feels almost mythic in the science community. 00:05:56.680 --> 00:05:59.300 Tyson applies to Cornell when he's 17, still 00:05:59.300 --> 00:06:02.139 in high school. The admissions office sees this 00:06:02.139 --> 00:06:04.699 application that is just, I mean, dripping with 00:06:04.699 --> 00:06:06.959 passion and experience. They've never seen anything 00:06:06.959 --> 00:06:08.800 like it. And they do something unusual. They 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:11.399 actually forward his application. directly to 00:06:11.399 --> 00:06:13.560 Carl Sagan. Who was already a superstar. I mean, 00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:15.839 this is pre -Cosmos, the TV show, but he was 00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:17.959 the guy. He was a regular on The Tonight Show. 00:06:18.060 --> 00:06:21.100 He was a massive public figure. And Sagan doesn't 00:06:21.100 --> 00:06:22.800 just, you know, glance at it and pass it back. 00:06:22.980 --> 00:06:25.259 Yeah. He writes a personal letter to this high 00:06:25.259 --> 00:06:27.839 school kid, inviting him up to Ithaca for a visit 00:06:27.839 --> 00:06:31.300 to tour the labs. A personal tour. And it isn't 00:06:31.300 --> 00:06:33.540 just a handshake and a generic campus brochure. 00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:36.139 No, not at all. Tyson goes up there. It's winter 00:06:36.139 --> 00:06:38.060 in upstate New York, which, if you've ever been, 00:06:38.100 --> 00:06:41.240 you know it's freezing. It's snowing. Sagan spends 00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:43.439 the whole day with him, shows him the labs, talks 00:06:43.439 --> 00:06:45.639 to him not as a kid, but as a potential colleague. 00:06:45.980 --> 00:06:48.660 And then at the end of the visit, Sagan drives 00:06:48.660 --> 00:06:51.540 him to the bus station. And here is the key detail, 00:06:51.699 --> 00:06:55.040 the detail that Tyson always, always emphasizes 00:06:55.040 --> 00:06:57.980 when he tells the story. The scrap of paper. 00:06:58.360 --> 00:07:00.259 Sagan writes his home phone number on a scrap 00:07:00.259 --> 00:07:02.560 of paper. And he gives it to Tyson and says, 00:07:02.740 --> 00:07:04.920 if the bus doesn't get through because of the 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:07.839 snow, you call me. You can spend the night at 00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:10.949 our place. That is just... It's such a profound 00:07:10.949 --> 00:07:13.189 gesture of kindness. I mean, here is a titan 00:07:13.189 --> 00:07:15.810 of science, a celebrity, offering shelter to 00:07:15.810 --> 00:07:18.810 a complete stranger, a teenager, just because 00:07:18.810 --> 00:07:22.110 of a snowstorm. And that single moment, Tyson 00:07:22.110 --> 00:07:24.589 has said repeatedly, shaped him more than any 00:07:24.589 --> 00:07:26.889 physics equation he ever learned. He made it 00:07:26.889 --> 00:07:28.990 a focal point in the very first episode of his 00:07:28.990 --> 00:07:31.730 own Cosmos revival. He said he already knew he 00:07:31.730 --> 00:07:33.410 wanted to be a scientist. That was set in stone 00:07:33.410 --> 00:07:35.930 since he was nine years old. Right. But that 00:07:35.930 --> 00:07:38.470 afternoon, he learned from Carl Sagan what kind 00:07:38.470 --> 00:07:41.180 of person he wanted to become. It established 00:07:41.180 --> 00:07:44.139 a standard of care, of mentorship, a standard 00:07:44.139 --> 00:07:46.740 for how he treats students and the public. It 00:07:46.740 --> 00:07:48.439 wasn't just about the data. It was about the 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:50.959 humanity behind the data. Which makes the next 00:07:50.959 --> 00:07:54.040 plot point in the story kind of ironic. Hilarious, 00:07:54.040 --> 00:07:56.540 really. Because after all that warmth, all that 00:07:56.540 --> 00:07:59.879 hospitality, that career -defining moment, he 00:07:59.879 --> 00:08:02.680 didn't go to Cornell. He ghosted Carl Sagan's 00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:05.399 program. He chose Harvard. That takes some nerve. 00:08:05.819 --> 00:08:08.050 Hey, Carl. Thanks so much for the ride and the 00:08:08.050 --> 00:08:09.949 life lesson and the offer of a place to stay, 00:08:10.050 --> 00:08:12.569 but I'm going to Cambridge. It shows you he follows 00:08:12.569 --> 00:08:15.370 his own compass, right? He wasn't starstruck 00:08:15.370 --> 00:08:18.009 to the point of blind loyalty. He wanted the 00:08:18.009 --> 00:08:21.170 Harvard experience for whatever reason. So he 00:08:21.170 --> 00:08:24.050 lands at Harvard, class of 1980, majoring in 00:08:24.050 --> 00:08:26.430 physics. And again, if you're picturing this 00:08:26.430 --> 00:08:29.610 stereotypical physics nerd from the movies, you 00:08:29.610 --> 00:08:31.970 know, pocket protector, allergic to sunlight, 00:08:32.169 --> 00:08:34.980 locked in the library. Tyson is just breaking 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:36.960 that mold immediately. Oh, he's shattering it. 00:08:37.019 --> 00:08:38.720 He's on the rowing team his freshman year. He's 00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:41.519 a varsity athlete. And then he switches to wrestling. 00:08:41.639 --> 00:08:44.659 And he letters in wrestling his senior year at 00:08:44.659 --> 00:08:47.480 Harvard. It speaks to a certain physicality, 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:50.700 a presence. He occupies space. You see it today 00:08:50.700 --> 00:08:53.759 when he walks onto a stage. He commands it physically, 00:08:53.980 --> 00:08:56.840 not just intellectually. But the detail that 00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:59.379 always surprises people, the one that really... 00:08:59.929 --> 00:09:03.070 adds this incredible layer of color to his character 00:09:03.070 --> 00:09:06.210 is the dance the ballroom dancing it's just wild 00:09:06.210 --> 00:09:08.529 to picture it wasn't just ballroom the sources 00:09:08.529 --> 00:09:12.110 list jazz ballet afro -caribbean and latin ballroom 00:09:12.110 --> 00:09:14.870 he was part of a dance team that won a gold medal 00:09:14.870 --> 00:09:17.370 in a national tournament I suppose there's a 00:09:17.370 --> 00:09:19.350 connection there, right, between physics and 00:09:19.350 --> 00:09:21.669 dance. I mean, it's all about momentum, vectors, 00:09:21.830 --> 00:09:24.809 balance, rotational velocity. It is, and it's 00:09:24.809 --> 00:09:26.629 about performance. Don't forget the performance 00:09:26.629 --> 00:09:29.909 aspect. Being a competitive dancer prepares you 00:09:29.909 --> 00:09:32.889 for being on a stage, under the lights, in a 00:09:32.889 --> 00:09:35.669 way that a lab bench just doesn't. He learned 00:09:35.669 --> 00:09:37.929 how to move, how to present himself, how to connect 00:09:37.929 --> 00:09:40.129 with an audience physically. So he graduates 00:09:40.129 --> 00:09:42.529 from Harvard, is a decorated athlete, a dancer, 00:09:42.629 --> 00:09:45.129 a physicist. It seems like his path is just a 00:09:45.129 --> 00:09:48.309 straight lineup. You'd think so. But despite 00:09:48.309 --> 00:09:51.009 all this success at Harvard, the next phase of 00:09:51.009 --> 00:09:55.169 his academic life was, well, it was not smooth 00:09:55.169 --> 00:09:57.509 sailing. This is what we're calling the Texas 00:09:57.509 --> 00:09:59.690 stumble in our notes. This is the part of the 00:09:59.690 --> 00:10:01.690 deep dive that I think gives the most hope to 00:10:01.690 --> 00:10:04.570 anyone who has ever failed a class or hit a major 00:10:04.570 --> 00:10:07.049 wall in their career. He goes to the University 00:10:07.049 --> 00:10:09.429 of Texas at Austin for his graduate studies. 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:12.940 This is the early 80s. And he just hits a wall. 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:15.539 A hard wall. He gets his Master of Arts in Astronomy 00:10:15.539 --> 00:10:19.200 in 1983, but he is struggling with the PhD program. 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:21.299 And he's admitted this openly in his memoirs 00:10:21.299 --> 00:10:23.059 and interviews. He wasn't spending enough time 00:10:23.059 --> 00:10:24.539 in the research lab. What was he doing instead? 00:10:24.840 --> 00:10:27.070 Well... By his own account, he was maybe a little 00:10:27.070 --> 00:10:29.370 too social, a little too interested in the broader 00:10:29.370 --> 00:10:32.610 picture and not focused enough on the grueling, 00:10:32.610 --> 00:10:36.090 lonely, meticulous hours that observational astronomy 00:10:36.090 --> 00:10:38.850 requires. He was teaching other students how 00:10:38.850 --> 00:10:40.629 to use the telescopes. He was working on his 00:10:40.629 --> 00:10:44.049 car. He was still dancing. He was living a life, 00:10:44.070 --> 00:10:47.830 but maybe not the life. of a single -minded PhD 00:10:47.830 --> 00:10:51.370 candidate. Exactly. And the faculty noticed this 00:10:51.370 --> 00:10:53.750 wasn't something he could hide. His professors 00:10:53.750 --> 00:10:56.389 actually sat him down and encouraged him to look 00:10:56.389 --> 00:10:58.570 for alternative careers. Just think about that 00:10:58.570 --> 00:11:01.210 for a second. Someone looked at Neil deGrasse 00:11:01.210 --> 00:11:03.840 Tyson and said, Hey, maybe this whole astronomy 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:05.960 thing isn't for you. It's incredible. And it 00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:08.299 culminated in his doctoral dissertation committee 00:11:08.299 --> 00:11:11.059 being dissolved. In the world of academia, that's 00:11:11.059 --> 00:11:12.840 the polite way of saying you're fired. Get out. 00:11:12.980 --> 00:11:15.620 It effectively ended his pursuit of a doctorate 00:11:15.620 --> 00:11:18.100 at Texas. That had to be a massive gut check. 00:11:18.279 --> 00:11:20.159 I mean, this is the kid who lectured at 15, the 00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:22.480 guy Carl Sagan personally recruited. And now 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:24.639 he's being show the door. It's a rare moment 00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:27.360 of genuine, unambiguous failure in his public 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:29.860 narrative. And I think it's important because. 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:33.220 It proves he isn't infallible. But what defines 00:11:33.220 --> 00:11:36.480 him isn't the failure. It's the pivot. He didn't 00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:39.600 quit science. No, he regrouped. He did. He lectured 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:41.500 at the University of Maryland for a bit. He took 00:11:41.500 --> 00:11:43.980 some time. And then in 1988, he got into the 00:11:43.980 --> 00:11:46.200 astronomy graduate program at Columbia University. 00:11:46.299 --> 00:11:49.149 Back to New York. The home court advantage. Exactly. 00:11:49.169 --> 00:11:51.750 And this time he was different. He was focused. 00:11:51.809 --> 00:11:54.370 He earns his MPhil in 89 and then his Ph .D. 00:11:54.370 --> 00:11:58.129 in 91. And this time he locked in. He was supervised 00:11:58.129 --> 00:12:00.409 by a professor named R. Michael Rich. He got 00:12:00.409 --> 00:12:03.850 funding from NASA and he was doing real heavy 00:12:03.850 --> 00:12:06.789 lifting frontline research. The notes mentioned 00:12:06.789 --> 00:12:10.269 the Calantilolo Supernova Survey. This sounds 00:12:10.269 --> 00:12:13.230 serious. He was down in Chile observing on telescopes. 00:12:13.590 --> 00:12:16.110 Yes, and this research was incredibly significant. 00:12:16.230 --> 00:12:18.009 It wasn't just, you know, busy work to get a 00:12:18.009 --> 00:12:20.289 degree. He was part of a team that helped establish 00:12:20.289 --> 00:12:23.350 Type Ia supernovae as standard candles. Okay, 00:12:23.409 --> 00:12:25.350 we need to clarify standard candle for this. 00:12:25.370 --> 00:12:26.950 It sounds like something you buy at a scented 00:12:26.950 --> 00:12:29.529 candle shop, but I know it is absolutely crucial 00:12:29.529 --> 00:12:32.110 for cosmology. It's one of the most important 00:12:32.110 --> 00:12:35.629 tools in our entire cosmic toolkit. Imagine you're 00:12:35.629 --> 00:12:38.850 standing on a long, dark highway at night. You 00:12:38.850 --> 00:12:41.710 see a single light in the distance. Okay. Now, 00:12:41.750 --> 00:12:44.429 is that a dim little flashlight that's only 10 00:12:44.429 --> 00:12:47.809 feet away from you, or is it a massive blazing 00:12:47.809 --> 00:12:50.309 searchlight that's 10 miles away? You can't tell, 00:12:50.409 --> 00:12:52.509 can you? Because you don't know the intrinsic 00:12:52.509 --> 00:12:54.669 brightness of the light source. Right. You need 00:12:54.669 --> 00:12:57.070 a reference point, a known wattage. Exactly. 00:12:57.070 --> 00:13:01.029 You need a 100 -watt bulb. In space, a type I, 00:13:01.090 --> 00:13:05.019 a supernova, is our 100 -watt bulb. It's a specific 00:13:05.019 --> 00:13:07.919 type of stellar explosion, a white dwarf star 00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:10.220 in a binary system that eats too much matter 00:13:10.220 --> 00:13:12.830 from its companion and goes kaboom. And the key 00:13:12.830 --> 00:13:15.590 is they almost always explode with the same amount 00:13:15.590 --> 00:13:17.769 of energy, the same intrinsic brightness. So 00:13:17.769 --> 00:13:19.529 they're a standard brightness. A standard candle. 00:13:19.830 --> 00:13:22.669 So if we see one in a distant galaxy and it looks 00:13:22.669 --> 00:13:24.730 really dim to us here on Earth, we know it must 00:13:24.730 --> 00:13:26.629 be incredibly far away. If it looks relatively 00:13:26.629 --> 00:13:29.149 bright, it's closer. It acts as a cosmic ruler, 00:13:29.309 --> 00:13:32.590 a yardstick. Tyson's work helps solidify our 00:13:32.590 --> 00:13:34.809 ability to use these explosions to measure the 00:13:34.809 --> 00:13:37.210 size and, crucially, the expansion of the universe. 00:13:37.509 --> 00:13:39.789 So he went from being effectively kicked out 00:13:39.789 --> 00:13:42.659 of a program in Texas... to helping build the 00:13:42.659 --> 00:13:45.480 very ruler we use to measure the cosmos. That 00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:49.000 is a substantial redemption arc. It's huge. And 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:51.399 it set him up perfectly for his return to the 00:13:51.399 --> 00:13:53.759 scene of the crime, so to speak. The place where 00:13:53.759 --> 00:13:55.519 it all started. The Hayden Planetarium. Full 00:13:55.519 --> 00:13:58.559 circle. He joins as a staff scientist in 1994. 00:13:59.139 --> 00:14:02.480 Just two years later, in 1996, he becomes the 00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:05.259 director. And he walks right into basically a 00:14:05.259 --> 00:14:08.019 construction site. A massive one. They were in 00:14:08.019 --> 00:14:10.600 the process of tearing the old planetarium down 00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:12.980 and completely rebuilding it as the Rose Center 00:14:12.980 --> 00:14:17.039 for Earth and Space. It was a $210 million overhaul, 00:14:17.159 --> 00:14:20.000 finally completed in 2000. And Tyson has spoken 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:22.340 a lot about his motivation here. He felt this 00:14:22.340 --> 00:14:25.120 deep sense of duty. Since the scientists and 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:27.080 educators at Hayden had invested in him when 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:29.399 he was just a kid from the Bronx, he felt he 00:14:29.399 --> 00:14:30.879 needed to do the same for the next generation. 00:14:31.320 --> 00:14:33.840 He wanted to build the cathedral of science that 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:36.279 he had worshipped in as a boy. But that sense 00:14:36.279 --> 00:14:38.600 of duty, that desire to get the science right, 00:14:38.779 --> 00:14:41.179 led him to make a decision that upset a whole 00:14:41.179 --> 00:14:43.299 lot of that next generation. We have to talk 00:14:43.299 --> 00:14:45.480 about the P word. Pluto. The planetary homicide. 00:14:45.740 --> 00:14:48.309 He was the lead suspect. When they were designing 00:14:48.309 --> 00:14:51.110 the new exhibits for the Rose Center, Tyson made 00:14:51.110 --> 00:14:54.009 a very specific, very deliberate curatorial choice. 00:14:54.269 --> 00:14:56.570 In the display of the solar system, he decided 00:14:56.570 --> 00:14:59.429 not to refer to Pluto as the ninth planet. And 00:14:59.429 --> 00:15:01.809 this was years before the official change by 00:15:01.809 --> 00:15:04.009 the astronomical community. Way ahead of the 00:15:04.009 --> 00:15:06.090 curve. But this was the late 90s, early 2000. 00:15:06.429 --> 00:15:10.269 But his logic was purely scientific, purely pedagogical. 00:15:10.330 --> 00:15:12.929 He didn't want the exhibit to just be a rote 00:15:12.929 --> 00:15:14.929 list of planets, one through nine. He wanted 00:15:14.929 --> 00:15:17.600 to group objects by what they are. So the taxonomy 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:20.000 mattered more than the traditional list. Precisely. 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:22.580 You have the terrestrial planets, these rocky 00:15:22.580 --> 00:15:25.279 little worlds like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and 00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:27.980 Mars. Then you have the gas giants, Jupiter, 00:15:28.179 --> 00:15:31.519 Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. And then you have this 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:33.919 other family of objects way out in the Kuiper 00:15:33.919 --> 00:15:37.440 Belt, these icy debris chunks. Dirty snowballs. 00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:40.039 Basically, yeah. And Pluto is the king of the 00:15:40.039 --> 00:15:42.120 dirty snowballs. It fits perfectly with those 00:15:42.120 --> 00:15:44.039 other icy bodies. It doesn't fit with the gas 00:15:44.039 --> 00:15:45.820 giants, and it doesn't really fit with the... 00:15:45.840 --> 00:15:47.679 terrestrial planets. So he grouped it with its 00:15:47.679 --> 00:15:50.299 family. Logically, scientifically, it makes perfect 00:15:50.299 --> 00:15:53.299 sense. Emotionally, though, it was a PR disaster. 00:15:53.600 --> 00:15:56.720 Oh, people were furious. He received hate mail. 00:15:56.879 --> 00:15:59.519 He talks about getting huge amounts of it, mostly 00:15:59.519 --> 00:16:01.879 from elementary school children. They felt like 00:16:01.879 --> 00:16:04.659 he had personally bullied their favorite underdog 00:16:04.659 --> 00:16:08.029 planet. Dear Dr. Tyson, stop being mean to Pluto. 00:16:08.110 --> 00:16:10.950 It's my favorite. Essentially, yes. He talked 00:16:10.950 --> 00:16:12.629 about this on The Daily Show on the Colbert Report. 00:16:12.950 --> 00:16:15.789 He leaned into it. He effectively became the 00:16:15.789 --> 00:16:17.610 villain of the solar system for a few years. 00:16:17.629 --> 00:16:20.190 Is he stuck to his guns? He did. He said the 00:16:20.190 --> 00:16:22.549 science was clear. And eventually, the rest of 00:16:22.549 --> 00:16:26.210 the world caught up. In 2006, the International 00:16:26.210 --> 00:16:29.769 Astronomical Union, the IAU, the official governing 00:16:29.769 --> 00:16:32.950 body, held a vote. They created a new definition 00:16:32.950 --> 00:16:35.830 for planet, and Pluto didn't make the cut. They 00:16:35.830 --> 00:16:38.850 officially reclassified it as dwarf planet. So 00:16:38.850 --> 00:16:41.529 Tyson was vindicated. He took all the heat early 00:16:41.529 --> 00:16:43.750 so the taxonomy could finally make sense later. 00:16:43.909 --> 00:16:46.470 He did. It shows a willingness to be unpopular 00:16:46.470 --> 00:16:48.509 in the service of what he believes is scientific 00:16:48.509 --> 00:16:51.169 accuracy. Speaking of making sense of things 00:16:51.169 --> 00:16:53.710 in a new way, let's talk about Manhattan, Hench. 00:16:53.750 --> 00:16:55.789 This is another term that he coined that has 00:16:55.789 --> 00:16:57.809 just become part of the New York City vocabulary. 00:16:57.909 --> 00:17:00.470 This is such a great example of his mind at work. 00:17:00.610 --> 00:17:03.470 It's 1996. He's the new director of the planetarium. 00:17:03.549 --> 00:17:05.710 He's living in the city and he's looking at the 00:17:05.710 --> 00:17:08.970 street grid of Manhattan. Which is famously rigid. 00:17:09.049 --> 00:17:12.160 It's all 90 degree angles. Right. But... And 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:14.740 this is the key. The grid isn't perfectly aligned 00:17:14.740 --> 00:17:17.079 with the geographic north -south and east -west 00:17:17.079 --> 00:17:20.500 lines. It's tilted slightly about 29 degrees 00:17:20.500 --> 00:17:24.339 off. Okay. And Tyson does the math. He realizes 00:17:24.339 --> 00:17:26.940 that because of that specific tilt, there are 00:17:26.940 --> 00:17:29.460 two days a year where the setting sun aligns 00:17:29.460 --> 00:17:32.099 perfectly with the east -west streets. So if 00:17:32.099 --> 00:17:34.559 you stand in the middle of, say... 42nd Street 00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:37.539 or 14th Street and look west, you see the entire 00:17:37.539 --> 00:17:40.380 orb of the sun setting, framed perfectly by the 00:17:40.380 --> 00:17:42.640 skyscrapers on either side, all the way to the 00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:45.220 horizon in New Jersey. It's an urban solar alignment. 00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:47.240 And he brands it. He gives it a brilliant name, 00:17:47.380 --> 00:17:51.119 Manhattan Eng. A clear, clever nod to Stonehenge 00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:53.480 in England and its famous solstice alignment. 00:17:54.009 --> 00:17:56.089 It's a perfect bit of marketing for science. 00:17:56.349 --> 00:17:59.269 He took a traffic jam and turned it into an astronomical 00:17:59.269 --> 00:18:02.869 observatory. He popularized it in a 2002 article 00:18:02.869 --> 00:18:05.309 for Natural History magazine. And now it's a 00:18:05.309 --> 00:18:08.089 huge biannual event in New York. People crowd 00:18:08.089 --> 00:18:10.190 the streets. They block traffic to take photos. 00:18:10.390 --> 00:18:12.630 He connected the urban environment to the celestial. 00:18:12.869 --> 00:18:15.789 And that really seems to be his superpower. He 00:18:15.789 --> 00:18:19.670 finds the cosmic in the mundane. Which brings 00:18:19.670 --> 00:18:22.390 us to the media empire. Section four in our source 00:18:22.390 --> 00:18:25.769 stack, the pop culture scientist. He is omnipresent. 00:18:26.250 --> 00:18:28.670 You really can't overstate his reach in the 21st 00:18:28.670 --> 00:18:31.269 century. He started hosting Novia Science Now 00:18:31.269 --> 00:18:34.809 on PBS, which ran for five seasons. A big mainstream 00:18:34.809 --> 00:18:37.049 platform. But then he took on the Holy Grail. 00:18:37.089 --> 00:18:39.950 Cosmos. In 2014, he becomes the host of Cosmos, 00:18:40.069 --> 00:18:42.789 a space -time odyssey, reviving Carl Sagan's 00:18:42.789 --> 00:18:45.349 legendary show. And that is a high -wire act. 00:18:45.549 --> 00:18:47.349 Oh, the pressure must have been immense. If you 00:18:47.349 --> 00:18:49.369 mess that up, the scientific community will never 00:18:49.369 --> 00:18:51.589 forgive you. And the general public might just 00:18:51.589 --> 00:18:54.220 tune out. But he pulled it off. He brought a 00:18:54.220 --> 00:18:55.920 different energy to it, which I think was smart. 00:18:56.319 --> 00:18:59.160 Sagan was more poetic and ethereal, almost a 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:02.680 whisper. Tyson is energetic, commanding, with 00:19:02.680 --> 00:19:05.859 a big, boring voice. He made it his own. And 00:19:05.859 --> 00:19:07.900 then there's StarTalk. This is where I think 00:19:07.900 --> 00:19:10.279 he really innovated the format. I agree. It started 00:19:10.279 --> 00:19:12.619 as a radio show, then a podcast, then it became 00:19:12.619 --> 00:19:15.440 a TV show on National Geographic. The format 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:18.240 is the key to its success. He doesn't just sit 00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:20.640 there and lecture. He brings in comedians as 00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:23.359 co -hosts. People like Chuck Nice or Eugene Merman 00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:25.980 from Bob's Burgers. Exactly. He realized that 00:19:25.980 --> 00:19:28.019 if you want to keep people listening to an hour 00:19:28.019 --> 00:19:31.039 of talk about physics, which can be dry and intimidating 00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:33.579 for a lot of people, you need a release mouth. 00:19:34.059 --> 00:19:36.240 You need to laugh. It breaks the tension. It 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:38.079 makes the medicine go down. He understood that 00:19:38.079 --> 00:19:41.099 comedy opens the mind to learning. And he's willing 00:19:41.099 --> 00:19:43.319 to be the punchline or at least play along with 00:19:43.319 --> 00:19:45.339 the joke, which is probably why he gets invited 00:19:45.339 --> 00:19:47.920 to do so many cameos. He's been on The Big Bang 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:50.940 Theory, Stargate Atlantis, Brooklyn Nine -Nine. 00:19:50.940 --> 00:19:53.960 He was even in Zoolander 2. He voiced a pig in 00:19:53.960 --> 00:19:56.569 the animated show Gravity Falls. Waddles the 00:19:56.569 --> 00:19:58.849 pig. Yeah. In an episode where the pig becomes 00:19:58.849 --> 00:20:01.930 super intelligent. And he was Neil the Buckweasel 00:20:01.930 --> 00:20:04.269 in Ice Age. Collision course. He's not afraid 00:20:04.269 --> 00:20:05.950 to be silly, which makes him more approachable. 00:20:06.089 --> 00:20:09.609 But my absolute favorite entry in this entire 00:20:09.609 --> 00:20:13.140 pop culture log is the Superman story. This is 00:20:13.140 --> 00:20:15.400 just pure nerd gold. It is. This happened in 00:20:15.400 --> 00:20:18.900 2012. DC Comics was writing a story where Superman 00:20:18.900 --> 00:20:21.299 is trying to find the remnants of his home planet, 00:20:21.460 --> 00:20:24.319 Krypton, using Earth's telescopes. And they wanted 00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:26.880 to ground it in some kind of reality. They did. 00:20:26.940 --> 00:20:29.980 So they called Tyson. They asked him as an astrophysicist 00:20:29.980 --> 00:20:32.839 to help them find a real star system that could 00:20:32.839 --> 00:20:35.440 plausibly be where Krypton was. And he didn't 00:20:35.440 --> 00:20:37.839 just like point at a random dot on a star chart. 00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:39.660 No, no, no. He took it seriously. He did the 00:20:39.660 --> 00:20:42.450 research. He found a real red dwarf star. called 00:20:42.450 --> 00:20:46.269 LHS 2520. It's about 27 light years away in the 00:20:46.269 --> 00:20:48.509 constellation Corvus. And there's a hidden layer 00:20:48.509 --> 00:20:50.230 to that specific choice, right? A little Easter 00:20:50.230 --> 00:20:52.799 egg. There is. Corbus is the Latin word for crow. 00:20:52.940 --> 00:20:55.559 And in the Superman lore, especially from the 00:20:55.559 --> 00:20:58.099 Smallville TV show and some of the comics, Superman's 00:20:58.099 --> 00:21:00.700 high school mascot in Kansas was the Smallville 00:21:00.700 --> 00:21:03.500 Crows. That is deep. That shows he's actually 00:21:03.500 --> 00:21:06.039 respecting the source material of the comic book, 00:21:06.140 --> 00:21:08.460 not just dropping in with the science and leaving. 00:21:08.700 --> 00:21:10.720 It shows he engages. He didn't just phone it 00:21:10.720 --> 00:21:13.519 in. And to top it all off, he actually appeared 00:21:13.519 --> 00:21:16.160 in the comic book itself. Action Comics number 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:19.539 14. He's drawn into the panels, helping Superman 00:21:19.539 --> 00:21:22.240 with the calculations. That is a level of cultural 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:24.920 crossover that most scientists never even dream 00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:27.579 of. He's even shown up on music albums. Right. 00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:30.339 He's on a track by the heavy metal band Avenged 00:21:30.339 --> 00:21:33.480 Sevenfold called Exist and on a track by the 00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:37.089 rapper Logic called Africarian. Doing what? Delivering 00:21:37.089 --> 00:21:39.569 these spoken word monologues about the universe, 00:21:39.670 --> 00:21:42.690 about consciousness. Musicians use his voice 00:21:42.690 --> 00:21:45.349 to add this instant layer of gravitas and cosmic 00:21:45.349 --> 00:21:48.170 scale. He has become a cultural shorthand for 00:21:48.170 --> 00:21:50.670 the universe. But it's not all comic books and 00:21:50.670 --> 00:21:54.210 cameos. Tyson has some very specific and at times 00:21:54.210 --> 00:21:56.349 very controversial worldviews that have gotten 00:21:56.349 --> 00:21:58.390 him into hot water over the years. We need to 00:21:58.390 --> 00:22:00.670 look at the worldviews and advocacy section of 00:22:00.670 --> 00:22:03.349 our sources. And let's start with religion. This 00:22:03.349 --> 00:22:06.119 is a nuance that the internet often... often 00:22:06.119 --> 00:22:09.640 misses. Tyson is widely claims of the atheist 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:11.779 community. They really want him on their team 00:22:11.779 --> 00:22:14.579 because he's this prominent man of science. But 00:22:14.579 --> 00:22:18.220 he actively and consistently rejects that label. 00:22:18.359 --> 00:22:22.079 He identifies as agnostic. And he's really serious 00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:24.119 about that distinction. There's a funny story 00:22:24.119 --> 00:22:26.099 from an interview where he talked about his own 00:22:26.099 --> 00:22:29.420 Wikipedia page. For years, it listed him as an 00:22:29.420 --> 00:22:31.680 atheist. So he actually went in and edited the 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:34.039 page himself to change it to agnostic. And the 00:22:34.039 --> 00:22:36.359 Internet immediately corrected him on his own 00:22:36.359 --> 00:22:39.339 beliefs. Within a week, someone had changed it 00:22:39.339 --> 00:22:41.539 back to atheist. It was this little edit war. 00:22:41.680 --> 00:22:43.940 He eventually had to reword it to something like 00:22:43.940 --> 00:22:46.240 Tyson states he is an agnostic, though he is 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:49.750 widely claimed by atheists. His point is that 00:22:49.750 --> 00:22:52.210 atheist has become more than a description. It's 00:22:52.210 --> 00:22:54.569 a movement, a form of activism. And he doesn't 00:22:54.569 --> 00:22:56.130 want to be part of that debate. He doesn't want 00:22:56.130 --> 00:22:58.529 to spend his energy arguing about non -belief. 00:22:58.809 --> 00:23:01.289 He just wants to do the science. He sees the 00:23:01.289 --> 00:23:03.430 atheist -theist debate as a distraction from 00:23:03.430 --> 00:23:05.849 studying the cosmos. But he doesn't shy away 00:23:05.849 --> 00:23:07.950 from stating his views on the nature of the universe 00:23:07.950 --> 00:23:11.150 itself. No, not at all. He defines spirituality 00:23:11.150 --> 00:23:13.769 as an emotional connection to the universe, a 00:23:13.769 --> 00:23:16.769 sense of awe. But he draws a very hard line at 00:23:16.769 --> 00:23:19.809 the idea of a benevolent designer, a loving God. 00:23:20.049 --> 00:23:22.609 He has a famous quote about this. Yes. When I 00:23:22.609 --> 00:23:24.910 look at the universe and all the ways the universe 00:23:24.910 --> 00:23:27.250 wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile 00:23:27.250 --> 00:23:30.089 that with statements of beneficence. Asteroids, 00:23:30.109 --> 00:23:32.390 black holes, gamma ray bursts, super volcanoes, 00:23:32.869 --> 00:23:36.640 pandemics. It is a violent place. It's an actively 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:39.220 hostile environment for human life. And he points 00:23:39.220 --> 00:23:42.339 that out. He views the universe as a grand, beautiful, 00:23:42.420 --> 00:23:45.819 but ultimately indifferent mechanism, not a nurturing 00:23:45.819 --> 00:23:48.759 nursery built for us. Now, where he really stepped 00:23:48.759 --> 00:23:50.980 in it, though, was with philosophy. The 2014 00:23:50.980 --> 00:23:53.380 Nerdist podcast incident. This was a big deal 00:23:53.380 --> 00:23:55.859 at the time. A huge deal. He was on the podcast 00:23:55.859 --> 00:23:58.660 and he basically called philosophy useless. He 00:23:58.660 --> 00:24:00.980 said something like a philosophy major can really 00:24:00.980 --> 00:24:03.160 mess you up. And it implied that philosophers. 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:05.819 just sit around asking unanswerable questions 00:24:05.819 --> 00:24:08.519 like, what is the sound of one hand clapping 00:24:08.519 --> 00:24:10.819 while scientists are out there actually solving 00:24:10.819 --> 00:24:13.059 real problems? That seems incredibly dismissive 00:24:13.059 --> 00:24:15.220 for a guy who presents himself as a deep thinker. 00:24:15.259 --> 00:24:17.720 It was. And the backlash from the philosophical 00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:21.119 community was swift and sharp. Philosophers, 00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:24.579 most notably Massimo Pigrucci, came after him 00:24:24.579 --> 00:24:27.960 hard. And they argued, correctly in my opinion, 00:24:28.119 --> 00:24:30.500 that science is a philosophy. What do you mean 00:24:30.500 --> 00:24:32.819 by that? Well, the scientific method itself is 00:24:32.819 --> 00:24:35.819 a philosophical framework. Empiricism, logic, 00:24:36.099 --> 00:24:39.079 falsifiability, ethics, and research, these are 00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:41.539 all branches of philosophy. You cannot do science 00:24:41.539 --> 00:24:44.640 without them. It was a moment where Tyson's hard 00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:48.099 science bias showed a real blind spot. He seemed 00:24:48.099 --> 00:24:50.819 to value the collection of data over the intellectual 00:24:50.819 --> 00:24:53.500 framework we use to interpret that data. He's 00:24:53.500 --> 00:24:56.099 also had to navigate the very complex issue of 00:24:56.099 --> 00:24:58.819 race in the world of science. He is without question 00:24:58.819 --> 00:25:00.880 one of the of the most visible black scientists 00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:03.700 in history. But he handles that role in a very 00:25:03.700 --> 00:25:06.539 specific and for some a controversial way. He 00:25:06.539 --> 00:25:09.180 does. The sources show that since 1993, he has 00:25:09.180 --> 00:25:11.420 had a policy of refusing interviews that use 00:25:11.420 --> 00:25:14.000 his race as the primary premise. He won't give 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:16.119 talks specifically for Black History Month. That 00:25:16.119 --> 00:25:17.819 might surprise a lot of people. What's his reasoning? 00:25:17.980 --> 00:25:20.500 He wants to be known for his astrophysics. Full 00:25:20.500 --> 00:25:23.059 stop. He doesn't want to be pigeonholed as the 00:25:23.059 --> 00:25:25.680 black scientist. He wants to be a scientist who 00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:28.460 happens to be black. He feels that if he allows 00:25:28.460 --> 00:25:30.779 the conversation to always be framed around his 00:25:30.779 --> 00:25:33.279 race it distracts from the universal message 00:25:33.279 --> 00:25:35.859 of the cosmos. He wants his contribution to be 00:25:35.859 --> 00:25:39.180 the data the discovery the inspiration. But he's 00:25:39.180 --> 00:25:41.579 not pretending that racism doesn't exist or that 00:25:41.579 --> 00:25:43.519 it didn't affect him. No absolutely not. There's 00:25:43.519 --> 00:25:46.160 a very powerful moment from a panel at the National 00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:50.029 Academy of Sciences in 2005. It was a tense time. 00:25:50.170 --> 00:25:52.750 The president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, had 00:25:52.750 --> 00:25:55.170 just made some controversial comments about innate 00:25:55.170 --> 00:25:57.210 differences between men and women in science. 00:25:57.410 --> 00:25:59.750 The panel was discussing it. And Tyson took the 00:25:59.750 --> 00:26:02.049 mic. He did. And he pivoted the conversation 00:26:02.049 --> 00:26:03.890 to his own experience. He talked about what he 00:26:03.890 --> 00:26:06.569 called the path of most resistance. He said that 00:26:06.569 --> 00:26:08.950 from the moment he, as a young black kid in the 00:26:08.950 --> 00:26:11.549 Bronx, showed an interest in the universe, society 00:26:11.549 --> 00:26:14.509 threw obstacles in his way, teachers, neighbors, 00:26:14.789 --> 00:26:17.349 counselors, they all tried to skewer him towards 00:26:17.349 --> 00:26:20.109 sports. The expectation was that he should be 00:26:20.109 --> 00:26:23.049 an athlete, not an astrophysicist, simply because 00:26:23.049 --> 00:26:25.410 of how he looked. So his argument was essentially, 00:26:25.670 --> 00:26:28.690 don't you dare talk to me about innate genetic 00:26:28.690 --> 00:26:31.329 differences until you've fixed the broken social 00:26:31.329 --> 00:26:33.289 system that filters people out before you even 00:26:33.289 --> 00:26:35.750 get a chance. Exactly. He famously said, I have 00:26:35.750 --> 00:26:38.609 never been female, but I have been black my whole 00:26:38.609 --> 00:26:41.599 life. He used his own life as a case study for 00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:43.720 how much talent is wasted by societal prejudice. 00:26:44.099 --> 00:26:46.200 But his strategy for fighting that prejudice 00:26:46.200 --> 00:26:48.700 is to normalize his presence by simply being 00:26:48.700 --> 00:26:51.099 excellent and focusing on the science. Though 00:26:51.099 --> 00:26:53.680 he has been more vocal on other social issues. 00:26:53.880 --> 00:26:57.079 Yes. He's a vocal supporter of LGBTQ plus rights. 00:26:57.339 --> 00:27:00.039 He's publicly debated conservative commentators 00:27:00.039 --> 00:27:02.940 like Ben Shapiro on transgender issues. He usually 00:27:02.940 --> 00:27:04.740 approaches it from a biological or scientific 00:27:04.740 --> 00:27:07.640 lens, arguing that nature is filled with diversity 00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:09.839 and spectrum. Why should we expect human society 00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:12.019 to be any different? There is one area of advocacy 00:27:12.019 --> 00:27:14.400 where I think he has been consistently brilliant 00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:18.559 and effective. Money. Specifically, NASA's budget. 00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:21.640 The penny for NASA idea. This is a brilliant 00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:23.660 piece of science communication. He points out 00:27:23.660 --> 00:27:27.160 this massive public misconception. If you ask 00:27:27.160 --> 00:27:29.859 the average American how much of their tax dollar 00:27:29.859 --> 00:27:33.500 goes to NASA, what do you think they say? Oh, 00:27:33.500 --> 00:27:35.559 I've seen these polls. They guess like five cents, 00:27:35.700 --> 00:27:37.920 10 cents, sometimes even 25 cents on the dollar. 00:27:38.039 --> 00:27:40.640 Which would be a colossal hundreds of billions 00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:43.559 of dollars budget. But the reality is it's about 00:27:43.559 --> 00:27:46.460 one half of one penny on the dollar. It's a rounding 00:27:46.460 --> 00:27:48.759 error in the federal budget. It's basically nothing. 00:27:48.920 --> 00:27:51.839 And Tyson has hammered this point home. He testified 00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:54.599 to the Senate in 2012. He made this incredibly 00:27:54.599 --> 00:27:57.240 passionate argument that if we just doubled that 00:27:57.240 --> 00:27:59.519 investment to one single penny on the dollar, 00:27:59.640 --> 00:28:02.589 we could transform the country. He said it would 00:28:02.589 --> 00:28:05.170 take us from a sullen, dispirited nation weary 00:28:05.170 --> 00:28:07.910 of economic struggle to one that dreams of tomorrow. 00:28:08.109 --> 00:28:11.029 He links space exploration directly to economic 00:28:11.029 --> 00:28:13.730 innovation, to national mood, to inspiration. 00:28:14.130 --> 00:28:17.170 He argues that stopping exploration or underfunding 00:28:17.170 --> 00:28:19.690 it doesn't just cost us discoveries. It kills 00:28:19.690 --> 00:28:22.190 the spirit of a nation. It's a very compelling 00:28:22.190 --> 00:28:24.410 pitch. Give me a penny and I will give you the 00:28:24.410 --> 00:28:27.049 future. It's powerful. Now we have to pivot. 00:28:27.619 --> 00:28:29.940 We have to go to a much darker and more difficult 00:28:29.940 --> 00:28:32.339 chapter in the source material. We can't do a 00:28:32.339 --> 00:28:34.400 full deep dive without looking at the whole picture. 00:28:34.539 --> 00:28:37.579 Section six in our sources, this sexual misconduct 00:28:37.579 --> 00:28:39.500 allegations. Right. And we have to cover this 00:28:39.500 --> 00:28:41.279 impartially, just laying out the facts as they 00:28:41.279 --> 00:28:43.200 were reported, because it's a significant part 00:28:43.200 --> 00:28:46.799 of his recent history. In late 2018, these allegations 00:28:46.799 --> 00:28:49.960 surfaced against Tyson. It happened pretty quickly. 00:28:50.140 --> 00:28:52.779 Yes. It was mainly in November and December of 00:28:52.779 --> 00:28:55.380 2018. A number of women came forward with different 00:28:55.380 --> 00:28:57.650 accounts spanning several decades. Let's break 00:28:57.650 --> 00:28:59.650 down who they were and what the specific allegations 00:28:59.650 --> 00:29:02.470 were. The most serious allegation came from a 00:29:02.470 --> 00:29:05.170 woman named Chia Amet Elmont. She was a fellow 00:29:05.170 --> 00:29:06.930 graduate student with Tyson at the University 00:29:06.930 --> 00:29:10.650 of Texas at Austin back in 1984. She accused 00:29:10.650 --> 00:29:14.369 Tyson of drugging and raping her. That is a devastating 00:29:14.369 --> 00:29:17.380 and extremely serious criminal accusation. It 00:29:17.380 --> 00:29:20.500 is. Then there was Caitlin Allers, a professor 00:29:20.500 --> 00:29:22.819 of physics and astronomy at Bucknell University. 00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:26.079 She alleged that at a conference afterparty in 00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:29.440 2009, Tyson touched her inappropriately following 00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:31.940 a tattoo of the solar system she had on her arm 00:29:31.940 --> 00:29:34.160 up to her shoulder and into her dress. Okay. 00:29:34.220 --> 00:29:36.279 And there were others related to his professional 00:29:36.279 --> 00:29:39.819 life more recently. Yes. Ashley Watson, who worked 00:29:39.819 --> 00:29:42.640 as Tyson's assistant on the show Cosmos, alleged 00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:45.539 a pattern of inappropriate advances. She said 00:29:45.539 --> 00:29:47.460 that one evening he invited her to his apartment 00:29:47.460 --> 00:29:50.480 for wine. He held her hand and stared into her 00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:53.000 eyes for a long 10 seconds and made a comment 00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:55.859 about wanting to give her a Native American handshake, 00:29:55.900 --> 00:29:58.200 which she said involved feeling for a pulse. 00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:00.880 She resigned shortly after this. And there's 00:30:00.880 --> 00:30:03.160 one more, right? An anonymous woman who alleged 00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:05.059 that at a holiday party for the American Museum 00:30:05.059 --> 00:30:07.960 of Natural History in 2010, he made inappropriate 00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:10.720 sexual comments to her. So a range of allegations 00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:13.180 from different periods of his life. How did Tyson 00:30:13.180 --> 00:30:15.539 respond when these became public? He addressed 00:30:15.539 --> 00:30:19.000 them directly in a lengthy public post. Regarding 00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:22.279 the rape accusation from Chia Ahmet dating back 00:30:22.279 --> 00:30:26.140 to 1984, he denied it entirely and unequivocally. 00:30:26.569 --> 00:30:29.109 He said they had a brief, consensual relationship. 00:30:29.450 --> 00:30:31.569 And for the other incidents. Regarding the incidents 00:30:31.569 --> 00:30:33.609 with Professor Allers and his assistant Ashley 00:30:33.609 --> 00:30:37.480 Watson, his response was more nuanced. He corroborated 00:30:37.480 --> 00:30:39.700 the basic facts of the interactions, that they 00:30:39.700 --> 00:30:42.680 did happen, but he claimed his actions were misinterpreted. 00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:44.640 He framed them as attempts at being friendly 00:30:44.640 --> 00:30:46.900 or jovial that were clumsy and misread rather 00:30:46.900 --> 00:30:49.619 than predatory. He apologized for any offense 00:30:49.619 --> 00:30:52.220 or discomfort he caused. So a denial of intent, 00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:54.980 essentially. Yes. He basically said, I'm a friendly, 00:30:55.059 --> 00:30:57.380 tactile guy. I touch people on the arm. I stare 00:30:57.380 --> 00:30:59.119 intently when I talk. I didn't mean anything 00:30:59.119 --> 00:31:01.259 by it, but I'm sorry it made them feel uncomfortable. 00:31:01.720 --> 00:31:03.900 And what was the institutional fallout from all 00:31:03.900 --> 00:31:06.549 this? Because he was at the height of his fame 00:31:06.549 --> 00:31:10.029 hosting major TV shows. The fallout was immediate. 00:31:10.369 --> 00:31:13.250 Fox and National Geographic, the networks behind 00:31:13.250 --> 00:31:15.329 Cosmos and StarTalk, launched investigations. 00:31:15.789 --> 00:31:18.289 The American Museum of Natural History, where 00:31:18.289 --> 00:31:20.069 he's the director of the Hayden Planetarium, 00:31:20.190 --> 00:31:22.910 also launched its own investigation. And the 00:31:22.910 --> 00:31:25.500 shows were pulled off the air. Yes. StarTalk 00:31:25.500 --> 00:31:28.559 was put on hiatus. The premiere of the new season 00:31:28.559 --> 00:31:30.500 of Cosmos, which was supposed to be in early 00:31:30.500 --> 00:31:34.339 2019, was delayed indefinitely. It was a complete 00:31:34.339 --> 00:31:37.180 career freeze while these institutions looked 00:31:37.180 --> 00:31:39.519 into the claims. But eventually the shows came 00:31:39.519 --> 00:31:43.089 back. He came back. They did. In March of 2019, 00:31:43.430 --> 00:31:45.089 the networks announced that their investigation 00:31:45.089 --> 00:31:47.890 was complete and that both StarTalk and Cosmos 00:31:47.890 --> 00:31:50.410 would resume. They didn't release any details 00:31:50.410 --> 00:31:52.990 of the investigation. They just issued a statement 00:31:52.990 --> 00:31:55.170 saying the matter was concluded and they were 00:31:55.170 --> 00:31:58.039 moving forward. And the museum. In July of 2019, 00:31:58.500 --> 00:32:00.519 the American Museum of Natural History announced 00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:02.980 that their investigation was also complete and 00:32:02.980 --> 00:32:05.180 that Tyson would be retained as director of the 00:32:05.180 --> 00:32:07.579 Hayden Planetarium. So he weathered the storm, 00:32:07.720 --> 00:32:10.119 professionally speaking, even though the allegations 00:32:10.119 --> 00:32:13.160 remain part of his public record. He did, though 00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:15.140 it certainly left a mark on his public image 00:32:15.140 --> 00:32:17.259 for some. And it sparked a lot of conversation 00:32:17.259 --> 00:32:19.660 about power dynamics and appropriate behavior 00:32:19.660 --> 00:32:22.869 in academia and media. Moving to our final section, 00:32:23.049 --> 00:32:24.910 let's look at the recognition he's received, 00:32:25.049 --> 00:32:27.630 because despite the controversies, the list of 00:32:27.630 --> 00:32:30.289 accolades is stacked pretty high. It is. And 00:32:30.289 --> 00:32:33.329 it's a mix of very serious honors and very unique 00:32:33.329 --> 00:32:36.049 ones. On the serious academic and public service 00:32:36.049 --> 00:32:39.210 side, he has the NASA Distinguished Public Service 00:32:39.210 --> 00:32:42.509 Medal from 2004, which is the highest honor NASA 00:32:42.509 --> 00:32:45.609 awards to a non -government employee, and the 00:32:45.609 --> 00:32:47.509 Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy 00:32:47.509 --> 00:32:50.890 of Sciences in 2015. These are major high -level 00:32:50.890 --> 00:32:53.089 honors from his peers. The highest level. And 00:32:53.089 --> 00:32:54.549 then you have the pop culture side of things. 00:32:54.769 --> 00:32:58.269 Which brings us back to People Magazine's sexiest 00:32:58.269 --> 00:33:01.109 astroph - physicist alive in the year 2000. I 00:33:01.109 --> 00:33:03.430 still can't get over that. It's just such a perfect 00:33:03.430 --> 00:33:05.569 turn of the millennium thing to happen. A sign 00:33:05.569 --> 00:33:08.250 that science was becoming cool. He was also one 00:33:08.250 --> 00:33:10.549 of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people 00:33:10.549 --> 00:33:12.849 in the world in 2007. And then there are the 00:33:12.849 --> 00:33:14.490 scientific honors, which I think are probably 00:33:14.490 --> 00:33:16.390 the ones that mean the most to him. He has an 00:33:16.390 --> 00:33:18.390 asteroid named after him. Which one is that? 00:33:18.690 --> 00:33:21.890 Asteroid 13123 Tyson. It's out there in the asteroid 00:33:21.890 --> 00:33:24.980 belt, but my personal favorite is the frog. The 00:33:24.980 --> 00:33:28.599 frog. Yes. In 2016, a new species of leaping 00:33:28.599 --> 00:33:30.740 frog discovered in the western ghats of India 00:33:30.740 --> 00:33:34.019 was named Indirana Tisoni in his honor. You know, 00:33:34.039 --> 00:33:36.259 you've really made it when you have an amphibian 00:33:36.259 --> 00:33:38.099 named after you. Yeah. And of course, we have 00:33:38.099 --> 00:33:40.700 to mention his books. He's written many, but 00:33:40.700 --> 00:33:43.799 some have been massive hits. Death by Black Hole, 00:33:43.980 --> 00:33:47.440 The Plutophiles. And the huge one. Astrophysics 00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:49.599 for People in a Hurry. That book was a phenomenon. 00:33:49.819 --> 00:33:51.680 It stayed on the New York Times bestseller list 00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:54.839 for over a year. It really cemented his status 00:33:54.839 --> 00:33:56.539 and showed that people are hungry to understand 00:33:56.539 --> 00:33:58.660 this stuff. They just need it broken down in 00:33:58.660 --> 00:34:00.680 a way that respects their time and their intelligence. 00:34:01.059 --> 00:34:03.539 So bringing this all together, let's try to find 00:34:03.539 --> 00:34:06.180 the final synthesis here. We have a wrestler, 00:34:06.319 --> 00:34:10.159 a dancer, a scientist, a media mogul, a pop culture 00:34:10.159 --> 00:34:13.400 icon, a controversial figure. What does Neil 00:34:13.400 --> 00:34:15.619 deGrasse Tyson represent at the end of the day? 00:34:28.219 --> 00:34:35.400 He has that line. Science literacy is a vaccine 00:34:35.400 --> 00:34:38.079 against charlatans. That's a powerful line, a 00:34:38.079 --> 00:34:40.840 vaccine against charlatans. He argues that if 00:34:40.840 --> 00:34:43.519 you know how to think critically, how to demand 00:34:43.519 --> 00:34:46.579 evidence, how to think like a scientist, you 00:34:46.579 --> 00:34:48.980 are harder to fool, whether it's by a politician, 00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:52.159 a snake oil salesman, or a conspiracy theorist. 00:34:52.300 --> 00:34:54.679 And he challenges us to question our own deepest 00:34:54.679 --> 00:34:56.880 held beliefs. He does. He has this provocative 00:34:56.880 --> 00:34:59.440 argument that even great historical scientists 00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:01.440 like Isaac Newton were ultimately limited when 00:35:01.440 --> 00:35:03.289 they stopped asking questions and just accepted 00:35:03.289 --> 00:35:06.170 intelligent design or God did it as the final 00:35:06.170 --> 00:35:09.010 answer for things they couldn't explain. He believed 00:35:09.010 --> 00:35:11.769 that answer stopped their inquiry. So he pushes 00:35:11.769 --> 00:35:14.969 us to always ask the next hard question. Exactly. 00:35:15.010 --> 00:35:17.309 And that's the provocation he leaves us with. 00:35:17.389 --> 00:35:19.869 If we apply that to our modern lives, where else 00:35:19.869 --> 00:35:22.789 are our unquestioned beliefs, our personal versions 00:35:22.789 --> 00:35:27.190 of God did it, stopping us from discovery? What 00:35:27.190 --> 00:35:29.130 are we not seeing because we've already decided 00:35:29.130 --> 00:35:31.949 we have the answer? On that note, I think we 00:35:31.949 --> 00:35:33.869 have plenty to think about. Whether you're looking 00:35:33.869 --> 00:35:36.349 down at a frog named Tyson or looking up at the 00:35:36.349 --> 00:35:38.130 constellation Corvus trying to find Krypton, 00:35:38.329 --> 00:35:40.789 there's a lot of universe out there. Indeed there 00:35:40.789 --> 00:35:44.010 is. We encourage you, as Tyson would, to look 00:35:44.010 --> 00:35:46.369 up and think about your own place in the cosmos. 00:35:46.849 --> 00:35:48.769 Thanks for joining us on this deep dive. See 00:35:48.769 --> 00:35:49.230 you next time.