The Political Science of The Daily Show

From Comedy Central's World News Headquarters in New York, Neil sits down with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show to discuss the comic (and cosmic) connections between the worlds of science and politics.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium. Joining me this week as my co-host is Charles Liu, friend and astrophysicist with the City University of New York. Charles, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for having me. And might I say, Mr. Tyson, the hat you're wearing tonight is absolutely smashing. You're revealing to a listening audience that I'm not in my normal garb, okay? Yeah, so I just came from a commencement at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. Congratulations. And they give you the, I have on the Renaissance version of the graduation hat,

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  which has these multi-corner and it's soft velvet. And I didn't want to take it off because it's the one day a year where you get to, you know, look like you're smart. It sets off your corsage perfectly, sir. Thank you. So, Charles, this week, we're talking, we're going to bring in an interview with Jon Stewart. Fantastic. Jon Stewart, we all know Jon Stewart. Such an impressive man. Host of The Daily Show. And of course, The Daily Show predates him. It's hard to separate him from The Daily Show, but in fact, The Daily Show was around for several years before he took it over, but now they are synonymous with each other. I was not aware of that. And so what, you might ask, what would I talk with him about, you might ask? Did you? What would you talk with him about, Neil?

• 1:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's about, first of all, he has like scientists on the show with some frequency. Regularly, yes. Myself included. Yes. And also, he's smart. Yeah. And I just want to find out if science had any role in his life that helped make or shape who he is, how he thinks, or what he actually does with, how they produce the show. So...

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why don't we go to the first clip and find out what had, and this interview took place in his office in the world headquarters of the Daily Show on the west side of Manhattan, just around the corner from Larry Flynt's Hustler Club. If you've been there, you'll know exactly the location of that spot. Let's check out the beginning of my interview with Jon Stewart.

• 2:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jon, you always have scientists on your show. This is awesome.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  We have you on the show. We don't always have scientists on the show.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me ask you, when you, when you figure out who the guest is gonna be, do you have some deeper philosophical mission statement that you are fulfilling when you ask scientists to appear?

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Here's the thing, you always like to balance guests. We have an awful lot of political guests, we have some actors, we have some things. I personally am very intrigued and interested in science. You know Neil, and I don't know if I've discussed this with you previously, I was a chemistry major in college for the first two years.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  William and Mary. I went through, inorganic chemistry was the first year, organic chemistry was the second.

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's your favorite element, by the way?

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm a huge carbon guy.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, cool. Okay, good.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  I enjoy the molecular slut of the table of elements.

• 3:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is so a molecular slut!

• 3:14Speaker 01

  It will bond with anything.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Totally!

• 3:17Speaker 01

  It's ridiculous.

• 3:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's so out of control!

• 3:19Speaker 01

  And by the way, four bonds. I don't want to say, you, things that people-

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's all the way, all the way around.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I don't know if you knew, you can make more molecules with carbon than you can all other molecules combined.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Didn't know? What, are you kidding me? I had a picture of carbon up in my bedroom when I was a kid.

• 3:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's awesome.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Carbon was my teen idol.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, no, Jon Stewart's been outed.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  I'm a huge carbon fan.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what happened in the last two years of college?

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Well, the last year, it got very hard. The scientists wanted the exact answer all the time, they wanted the right answer. So I switched to psychology where they wanted just an answer.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Any answer.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Any answer, as long as it took up like eight pages, and I thought, well, I can do that.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you've been scientifically baptized, in spite of switching over, you, you have a sensitivity, and so now-

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Don't make it sound like a penicillin allergy. I don't have a sensitivity, I have a love.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A love of science.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  A love of science.

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, here's the thing, most talk shows, they'll bring on the politician because they think the politician matters, because people vote for them and they allocate monies, but at the end of the day, it's, I could be biased, at the end of the day, there's scientific issues that affect us all.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Oh, Neil, here's my thing. You go away and I'm not sure you don't take gravity with you. I don't know what you got planned. I don't know what you got in your little suitcase. You're a scientist.

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  I may, my epidermis could be in there. I don't, you got all kinds of things planned.

• 4:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You would know it if I had your epidermis.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Oh, I, you would think I would know it.

• 4:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'd look really different without your outer skin layer. So when you bring on scientists, it's not just their work. Often the science as it affects policy and society. So if you were to rank your most important sort of science issues, what would it be, you think?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  To me, the science of health and medicine. As a registered hypochondriac with the Hypochondriacs Institute of Hypochondriacs.

• 4:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Card carrying, apparently.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Card carrying, which by the way, we have no meetings because everyone's afraid to shake hands at the beginning of them.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  You know, I would always suggest that health and medicine are at the forefront of any scientific discussion, any scientific breakthroughs.

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If people don't want to die.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  I enjoy a good theoretical, and we're the only animals that seem to know it. Cows, you can walk right up to them with one of them, uh, air guns.

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've seen it and blow out their head.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Blow out the head right next to his buddy. And his buddy just standing there. And then two minutes later, he turns around and he sees a line on the ground. He's like, Jimmy? Jimmy, are you all right? You know, people, because we know we are going to die, science is in essence, that search we have to either come up with an answer or to solve the dilemma or to ease our minds about the uncertainty.

• 5:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we can also use science to make money. So it's, I don't want to die and I don't want to die poor.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Neil, that is so crass. It's not about that. It's about knowledge. It's about learning.

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jon Stewart, being Jon Stewart.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  I like Jon now even more than I did already. Chemistry, carbon geek.

• 6:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We just outed him as a chemistry geek.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is cool.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Although I think he has to learn a little bit about environmental science because, you know, wild cows, they know when they're about to be killed by a lion.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I'm sorry, I've never seen a wild cow. Unless you're talking about a wildebeest.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Well, those guys.

• 6:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those guys, those guys. You know, who just joined us in StarTalk is one of our favorite, one of my favorite co-hosts, Leanne Lord, comedian. Leanne, welcome back to StarTalk Radio.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  Thank you, thank you very much. Good to be back.

• 6:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we got Jon Stewart on, you know, plugged into the show today. I know, he does politics in the world, and I know you've actually done some politics of your own. Like, you went on a tour through Iraq on a comedy tour, is that what you did? Explain, what was that?

• 6:44Speaker 03

  Yes, I did. I did a tour for Armed Forces Entertainment. Actually, I've done several tours with them, going to entertain the troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, because apparently I'll do shows in Baghdad, but not Brooklyn, so...

• 6:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're still calling for you in Brooklyn there.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm not going. I'm not going.

• 7:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you know what I wonder? You know, with Jon Stewart constantly or often having scientists on his show, we can ask a question, even of ourselves. What, Charles, what do you think is the most important scientific issue of the day? Because I can get on the phone, call Jon, and say, "Jon, do this subject."

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Well, it's a little bit prosaic, but honestly, it's science literacy.

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Prosaic, I forgot what that word means.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Oh, kind of boring.

• 7:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Boring, okay.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  But it's all about science literacy. You see, there are so many people in this world today that think that only scientists can do science, which is wrong, and also the idea that there's somehow some huge difference, or even no difference, between scientific knowledge and unscientific knowledge. If we actually knew the difference, then the policymakers wouldn't have to lie about it because they wouldn't understand it.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And Leon, what do you think?

• 7:47Speaker 03

  Wow, what he said.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're agreeing with Charles?

• 7:51Speaker 03

  No, honestly, I mean, part of my answer was going to be the fact that, part of my answer was going to be the fact that science itself is the biggest issue, not enough education, and not enough people being familiar with a subject, and honest enough to say when they don't know. And then that's okay in science, that we can get there if you just say you don't know. We can start from there.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  That is so true.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so Jon Stewart has fun with scientists when they get on there, and he tries to extract what's relevant to pop culture. And he's, there's also sort of the politics of science itself, and how he treats science guests differently or the same from his political guests, because you know he's had some political guests on there, and sometimes they look like a deer in the headlights, you know? If he comes at them, you know, at the wrong angle or in an unexpected way.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  The moment he mentions carbon, they're toast.

• 8:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out what came next in my interview with Jon Stewart.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Political guests lie.

• 8:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  They lie and they don't often know what they're talking about. Scientists have spent years on their craft. They have a basis of knowledge. They have a depth of understanding. So when scientists are on, it's merely a question of trying to chip off a few wisdom chips.

• 9:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Shave them down to present them to an audience. With politicians, you're trying to...

• 9:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you know the scientist is not trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Well, yes, for the most part.

• 9:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For the most part.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Now, you mentioned something earlier, which is the money involved. Now, money is a corrupting influence in any field, even scientists. I'm not suggesting that they are pristine in terms of that finance doesn't in any way influence where science, money is spent, where the research tends to go. Certainly, we see many corporations hire scientists, have them do studies that back up the fact that, "Oh, our product doesn't cause sphincter explosions."

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The pay guy in their back pocket.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. So scientists can also be used and co-opted.

• 9:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know the funny thing, in astrophysics, no one pays us.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Here's your problem. You went into theoretical science. No one cares.

• 9:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who cares which way the black hole is going?

• 9:53Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. Here's what people want. They want old people to be able to no longer be impotent. And that's the science.

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the highest priority.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  That's the highest priority of anything. You are trying to figure out, you're trying to move us next door to God's house. You want to see if man can somehow look into his window and see what's actually going on in the beginning. Many scientists are just trying to figure out a way to help Marlboro sell a cigarette that they can bill as a vegetable.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Because it is a plant. It's a plant.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So are there any particular science subjects that do better with your audience or your polls or however you learn about what they like?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Well, it's very interesting that you would say that. We don't learn about what our audience likes.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They just come to you with whatever, whoever they are.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Well, what you do is you hopefully earn a certain amount of trust from your audience that the people that you bring on and the things that you talk about will have a certain amount of relevance to their lives or at least interest. I mean, it's 11 o'clock at night.

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You do what feels right to you.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then they eat that.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  If I may go with the science of weather, I use my own barometer. I keep bringing it back to science.

• 10:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Weather science.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As it needs to be.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in your show, sometimes you have to like toe a guest?

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely.

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Typically, though, that's a politician. Scientists, you don't have to tell them.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Because they don't want to talk. They don't want to say anything. Because everything they say could be used in a 30-second commercial.

• 11:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, for the politicians. The politicians are worried that you're gonna pull them over.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  That's right. They think that they're about to be ambushed, tricked. That's right.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So scientists will just talk about their craft?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Because there's a confidence, there's a security when they do. Unless it is, once again, somebody that is coming on that has been disingenuous about the type of research that they're doing. But typically, the people that we have on are the non-scientist carnival barkers that have been used to headline a scientific issue.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  And that's a very different animal, again.

• 11:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a political way.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 11:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, exactly.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  And it all breaks down along political lines. And then, once again, you're dealing with, I mean, politicians are the most stage managed. You think that actors have publicists and have caution about their public image. Politicians are, by far.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why did he even come on your show at all?

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Because they are also salesmen. Here's the problem with them. They have a product and they must sell it to a constituency because for them to keep their jobs.

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's a constituency that you're associated with that they want access to. So that means.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  They're the ones doing demographic research, not us.

• 12:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Charles, let me, let me tell you. In our field, because you're my fellow astrophysicist.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Yes, and proud of it.

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We hardly ever have an, Pluto aside. We hardly, we hardly ever have any political, cultural, social controversy.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  True.

• 12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In our trade.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Well, then again, also, I mean, did anyone make a buck off of Pluto not being demoted?

• 12:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I mean, I published a book on it, but, but, you know, anytime I gave a talk, I donated those monies to charity.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Precisely.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  It's, it, you know, we are human too. Scientists, astronomers, we care about our egos and our profits and so forth. But in the end, what we do, or what we've chosen to do for our careers, may insulate us a little bit because it's just as John says, we're, we're trying to find out what's next door to God's house. I mean, that's kind of cool, right?

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, but in, so are there any other fields you think are more susceptible than we are? Because I think we're, we're pretty, like you said, we're pretty insulated from this. But there's like physics or biology or pharmaceuticals, this sort of thing.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, medicine, I think, has a real issue, health issues that we're talking about. Sometimes if there's like a, a car that you want to sell, maybe the engineer will say, well, this car is better than that car. I don't know. But fortunately, I, I feel pretty safe about that. I don't know if Leanne has any ideas.

• 13:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leanne, which, which scientist do you trust the least?

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Which scientist?

• 13:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, which ones do you think are most susceptible to special interest groups?

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Uh, the ones who are trying to sell me chewing gum, actually. Those four out of five guys, I don't know, it seems a little shady to me.

• 13:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more of my interview with Jon Stewart. We'll see you after the break.

• 14:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. With me is my friend and colleague, astrophysicist Charles Liu.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Hi Neil.

• 14:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey, Charles. As well as comedian, LeAnn Lord.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  Hey Neil.

• 14:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you go by comedian or comedienne?

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Um, either one is fine. Comedian, I have no feminist issues surrounding that word.

• 14:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, issues there, because you know, people, some people have issues and I don't want to have...

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Dude, as long as the check clears, I am all good.

• 14:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we've got, in this, in this edition of StarTalk Radio, it's, we've got Jon Stewart as a sort of centerpiece to the subject of the politics of science, as well as political science. And how does politics play out in the conveyance of science on these talk shows, or in science, in, in, in, in, in, in society, and in, in, in Washington, and anywhere else? And so, I was, when we, just before the break, LeAnn, I asked you, were there any scientists who you trusted the least, that you, we were most skeptical about, wondering whether they're bought by somebody? Is anybody? You said the four out of five.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I was joking about that, but I, I do think your esteemed colleague here hit it on the head. I, I'm a little skeptical of the medicine guys.

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The medicine guys.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it, it seems like, you know, for the right amount of money, everybody can line up their scientists and make them say what they want, and make the data say whatever favors their bottom line.

• 15:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you're saying scientists can be bought?

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Maybe not you guys.

• 15:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, of course not us.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Maybe the gentlemen in the room have the highest integrity. Everybody else, not for grabs.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got, we got Jon Stewart to talk about inventions. So, not only just pure science, but inventions that change our lives. Let's see where that takes us.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Well, the problem with technology has always been that the moment it becomes a breakthrough, now the clock ticks down to its obsolescence.

• 15:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Because the unfortunate part is not the science, but whatever it is within ourselves that allows you to become impatient and gratuitously unforgiving of the science. You and I both know, plane travel is a miraculous scientific.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Completely miraculous.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Physical, to reverse the power of gravity and then to harness it, to control it to the point where you actually need to use it to get to, let's say, Toledo. That is a remarkable feat, and yet what do you see at airports? Nothing but frustration. Where is this plane?

• 16:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Where is...oh, I don't know. Maybe God is still lifting at his hand, 30,000 feet above the world.

• 16:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think about this all the time, not the God part, but the fact that...

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Right, no, I understand.

• 16:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm there 30,000 feet in the air.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 16:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Going 500 miles an hour with internet and...

• 16:38Speaker 01

  It's unbelievable.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the people who get off the plane and complain they didn't get a pillow.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Complain that, "Oh, you know, the soda was warm. I didn't get...they didn't have any ice."

• 16:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you don't want to take technology for granted. That's a beautiful...

• 16:49Speaker 01

  I don't ever want to take technology for granted, and yet, look at the way, "Oh my God, it's been 15 seconds. Where's my baked potato?" You know? Back in the day, you had to literally build a fire pit and do that. We take it for granted on a consistent level. Now, the flip side of that, on the science end, is they will dive into things with curiosity and fervor without necessarily know where they're going either.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. Whatever comes out of the shop.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  That's right. So they can drive us into a tree as well.

• 17:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever comes out of the technological oven, there it is.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  It's one of those things like, "Hey, let's try the plane. That could work." But, you know, oh...

• 17:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Early on, they were half-baked.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Oh, jeez, that one just went directly into the ground. I guess we'll have to apologize to Jimmy's family. That's a rough one. So you got the flip side of both things, yin and yang, that's my thing.

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  It's the balance of the universe, Neil, that we're talking about here on your new show, Balance of the Universe with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 17:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That could be a segment of the radio program.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  It should be a segment of the radio program.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The balance of the cosmos.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  The balance of the cosmos. You know what you should talk about? The positive nature that science has improved our lives, and then the moral compass that must be used judiciously.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  You a moral compass guy?

• 17:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I try to always behave in a way where a moral compass is built into the action itself. That implies that you're doing stuff, oh, I gotta check my compass to see if what I'm about to do is bad. Well, that meant it's probably bad if you thought you had to then check it.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. And yet, you have these moral compass issues where pushing forward allows for good to come of it. IVF.

• 18:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's how you push it.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  That's exactly right, how you push it. Now, no one's suggesting they make monkey-pig hybrids, but IVF.

• 18:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why I'm kinda insulated from it. Maybe I have the luxury of speaking prophetically about it.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But in fact, when I study the galaxy or the universe, there's no, you know, unless I say, here, grab this antimatter, that there'd be a moral issue regarding that. But otherwise, the patient doesn't die, no matter what.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Now, do you have any issue, do you have any issue with creating antimatter?

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'll do that anytime.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Anytime, anywhere?

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anyplace.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  That's the kinda thing. If I ever come in and I catch my kid creating antimatter. Hey, hey.

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're grounded.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  I told you about this.

• 18:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, did you create antimatter as a kid?

• 18:56Speaker 02

  I tried.

• 18:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so did I.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it didn't blow up the way I expected it to.

• 19:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  But the whole moral compass thing that John brings up is very, very true, but I would add an additional dimension. That is that science literally helps define the moral compass of our world. In the 60s, the Pope actually quoted the scientific discovery of the Big Bang as proof that God exists. And then, of course, John mentioned IVF, in vitro fertilization, test tube babies. Reproductive scientists can actually tell before implantation which embryos are boys, are girls, which ones have diseases, which ones are healthy.

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the scientific frontier informs the dialogue about moral compass.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that's different from saying that it can decide the moral compass.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Right. So other people, people who don't understand science and try to say, well, scientists have to listen to us because they don't know what they're doing in terms of morality, they actually don't realize how important the science informs their vision of morality itself.

• 19:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's not only the capacity of scientists to inform morality, there's the obligation of those who claim Lordship over the moral compass of the country to be scientifically literate.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Unquestionably.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leanne?

• 20:04Speaker 03

  Unquestionably.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  You're very agreeable, man.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  I am, I am. But don't you guys think that in terms of the moral compass in science, that science pushes that envelope constantly? Like, it's okay, we've got a new invention, where everybody gets upset, and then they're back, and we're good now.

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The monkey-pig hybrid.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  And then science is out there again.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The monkey-pig hybrid, right. And then the pig-human hybrid, right. That's... Give a scientist a cookie, he'll want... How does that story go?

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, syrup, pancakes, yeah, all that.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  I mean, does there ever come a point that, you know, just because we can doesn't mean we should? Does that ever occur to you guys? You're never just happy, like, "Yeah, we're good, we have 3G on our phones, we're fine." No, now we're 4G because of you guys.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People called in 3GS, I think, was that phone, but...

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I kept going with Jon Stewart. I mean, let's see, we kept talking about technology. Apparently, he's extremely opinionated about it. Let's see what he tells us next.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Why is it that we have not been able to overcome the bounds of the combustion engine? That the Industrial Revolution starts...

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's one of the great embarrassing aspects of modern technology.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Right!

• 21:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're still using batteries.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Right!

• 21:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're still using combustion engines.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Thomas Edison could come down here and recognize all the power sources that we are using, he should not be able to. What has happened? That we are still just basically burning carbon.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are, we're basically burning carbon, that's right. That we pull out of the ground.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Right!

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we still run away from energy sources that would be much better to tap.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  But why...

• 21:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A volcano erupts, you know how much energy's in a volcano? Run! A hurricane comes? Run!

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Right, we don't utilize it.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Run! Yeah, we're victims of nature. So, yeah, I don't want to be the one that runs. I want to be the one who figures out how to tap the volcano.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Economics has a lot to do with it, Neil. Obviously, economics and psychology, if there are people who can make billions and billions of dollars forcing us to buy internal combustion engines, they're gonna try very hard to make sure we don't develop new technologies.

• 22:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but if I remove the oil, because there's none left, then...

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Then you go to war.

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, if there's none left, there's nothing to go to war over.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then we can fight over sunlight.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Wow, how much is that gonna cost me?

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, it reminds me, you know, the sun, of course, is powered on thermonuclear fusion, so it's nukes all the way to the center. And I saw a bumper sticker, I think it was a very green bumper sticker, and it said, "No nukes", and the "O" in the "no" had an image of the sun.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Perfect, perfect. The sun puts down more than 1,400 watts per square meter. Now, that's just geek speak for saying that your backyard swimming pool, if it got all the sunlight...

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we all have backyard swimming pools, Charles.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Okay, how about the roof over your bedroom would generate enough sunlight energy if converted properly to light your home all day and all night? That energy is there.

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So roofs are a waste of space unless they can pull in some sunlight.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, all these issues affect culture, and I think we should all be thankful to Jon Stewart for including scientists in his political dialogue. Most people don't, and they think they can solve all the problems arguing with each other about whose political leanings are more accurate than whose.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Well, absolutely. Don't you just need the best soundbite? Seriously, the guy with the best soundbite wins. He's clearly right. That's our culture now, right?

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. That's right. It's not whether you're right or wrong. It's whether you sound cool.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  No, not at all.

• 23:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's unfortunate, this world in which we live.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  See, but now we do have a cool soundbite guy, you, but your soundbites are good. You know what you're talking about. You're actually factual, so that's how we're winning.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, as I said on Bill Maher a couple of months ago, when I was asked to comment on why his previous week's guests... All disagreed with evolution and global warming. I just simply said, you know, the good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it. That's right. So, on StarTalk Radio, we have a, our, our interview with Jon Stewart continues after the break. And when that comes, we will find out much more about what Jon thinks of scientific discoveries, what role he thinks it should play in the show, how, what role it plays in, in public discourse. All of the above is what will happen when we return.

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. Our guest this week is Jon Stewart, who turned out to be quite opinionated about technology and how he reacted to it.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Technology never advances with anything that is less convenient than what preceded it. In the sense that-

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, a car is not more convenient than a horse-drawn buggy?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  No, no, no, that's what I'm saying. Because a car is more convenient than a horse-drawn buggy. But if they want you to switch fuel sources, if they want, people are never going to, of their own volition, switch to something that is less convenient-

• 25:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  -than what it is because of the virtue of that technology.

• 25:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha, gotcha. Because technology has to make your life easier-

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Or give you the illusion that it's easier, that it's faster. You have to be able to, no one's going to switch to a technology-

• 25:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On moral grounds.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  That's right. Or on grounds that, well, in the long run, I will be okay. Each new piece of technology has to make its case.

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can't think that far in advance.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Make your case!

• 25:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles Liu.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, you know, I bought a hybrid.

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you?

• 25:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  But it had to, well, because

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A hybrid car?

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, a hybrid vehicle, because in the long run it would be better for the environment. But it had to cost $5,000 less than the competitor's hybrid for me to buy it.

• 26:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so you can be as green as your pocket

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Wallet allows, precisely.

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Leanne, do you drive a hybrid?

• 26:14Speaker 03

  I do not.

• 26:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You walk?

• 26:16Speaker 03

  No, I drive.

• 26:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you drive?

• 26:18Speaker 03

  I drive a Honda Civic.

• 26:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good, that's the same difference.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  Well, no, not really. I, you know, I can't, I don't have any green street cred here. Like my co-host.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Well, I'm just flipping the SUVs, you know.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I I would never do an SUV. I would never do that.

• 26:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, so the point is that, that Jon Stewart was making is that our, the way we interact with our technology is we will only allow something if it makes our life easier.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 26:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if it makes our life harder but saves the environment, it'll never fly.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  No.

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the worry.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  We're not that species.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that's some other species.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's some other planet. We, we can't, you cannot go back to holding hands.

• 26:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Well, you know, there are some cultures that are willing to do that in, in this world.

• 27:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just not Americans.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Just not us Americans.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Capitalist Americans.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they're also what favorite discoveries exist in science. I was very curious to learn of Jon Stewart's science literacy. And let's find out what, how he thinks about the front, the moving frontier of science and technology.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  What's one of your favorite scientific discoveries over the past?

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That in astrophysics that we learned that the very elements in your body are forged in the cores of stars that exploded, scattered their enriched contents across the galaxy, enabling star systems to form that are enriched with the ingredients of planets and life.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  We are made up of

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are stardust.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  The molecular, yeah, that's true.

• 27:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is true and profound.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  And that is, that is incredible, and I did not realize that. Could you trace, in the way that you have genetic lineage that you could trace?

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Could you trace

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The atom?

• 27:51Speaker 01

  The molecular matter, the stardust, if you will, to what system that you came from? Would there be a way to track? Or is all of mankind based on the same carbon explosion?

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, first of all, who's doing the interview?

• 28:05Speaker 01

  But can I tell you?

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll allow this. You get one exception.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  You're far more interesting than I am. So that's, that's my problem here. But you just brought up a very interesting point. If we are made up of cellular material from the cosmos, then we should be able to trace it back to certain star systems.

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Problem is, that was five billion years ago. But what is certain is that the iron-

• 28:24Speaker 01

  I'm not saying they'd still be home.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. The iron in your body- And all of our bodies, all came from the same supernova explosion. That's a certainty.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  But aren't we all from one singular supernova explosion?

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we're from several, but we're from one sort of birth sac in the universe.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  So are all human beings tied together? Are we all generated from the same place?

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are not only genetically connected to each other and all life form on Earth. We are molecularly connected to all the matter in the universe. And we're atomically connected to the Big Bang itself.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  That's crazy. You know what that reminds me of? Snapple.

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know why.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Just good ingredients. Good natural ingredients put together to taste delicious.

• 29:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll try to get them as a sponsor.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, please. I think that would be one.

• 29:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Snapple.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  That's hilarious, man.

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So what's interesting here, first, I'm trying to interview him and he's interviewing me.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  I noticed that.

• 29:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was ready to slap him. But in any event, there's an important philosophical point to be made. That in practically every political discourse, it's all about we versus they. And we're not the same because we're thinking differently or we're voting differently. And what science shows more and more, and at every turn of the discovery, that we are more connected than ever before. This is two completely philosophically at odds approaches to life. And I'm, so to the extent that politics drives the world, it leaves me with very little hope about what the future of the world would be. Charles?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Well, you know-

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Historically speaking, you can even look back and say archaeoastronomy, like Stonehenge, the Brits a thousand years ago, or the Chinese, or the Native Americans in Central America. They all looked under the same sky. If you look at their astronomical discoveries, even though they never talked to each other, they found the same sky.

• 30:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  And so nowadays, people look back and say, "Oh, it must have been aliens who came in and did that because the people couldn't possibly have learned it." That's so untrue. We have been knit since the past, and so I actually have a little more hope than you have that we can also sleep under the same big sky.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, maybe our future in space is what will provide this kumbaya moment for us all. So, in fact, my conversation with Jon Stewart went to space. We were there together, and let's find out what Jon tells us.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  The 1960s were such a tumultuous decade. Amazing that we went to the moon in the middle of all of that. In the middle of all of it. Assassinations, the civil rights movement, the war, Cold War, Hot War. That's exactly right. And the only hope of that decade was the mission to the moon. Was the mission to the moon. And the mission to the moon was to represent the greatest of what man could do. And I think it was interesting that the achievement in itself became overshadowed by the lack of knowledge of what to do once we got there. If 10 years after landing on the moon, the best we could do is hit a golf ball. It'd be like, "Man, that thing flies." You know, then you're... We'd drive around. That's right. But I do remember just how astonishing. Now, in this, in today's media culture, landing on the moon for the first time would be good for a good week's

• 31:34Speaker 01

  worth of a media cycle, and then something else would happen. But back then, I remember the astronauts came around to schools. They sent moon rocks around to schools. I was in the Boy Scouts at the time, and we... You were in the Boy Scouts? I was in the Boy Scouts. We guarded the moon rock display. It was in a VFW hall, and they had all the NASA stuff set up there in a big display. You flanked the rock with your uniform. That's right. Flanking and protecting. And it was, it's, you know, out of a Rockwell painting. But people were... Where was your hometown? Where was that? This is New Jersey, central Jersey. Okay. I'm thinking Central America. This is Jersey. Central America. It was Nicaragua. But they brought around all the, and these astronauts were... Rockwell didn't paint New Jersey. I'm sorry.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Settle down. It's a lovely state. You know, it's made out of the same stuff as the supernova.

• 32:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  You should remember that.

• 32:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I had to remember that.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  You know, we're all connected, Neil.

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've forgotten.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  No reason to cast aspersions. Thank you. It's all stardust, baby. But they all came around and it was, you know, people lined up to look at the rock. And it was something. And this is also on the heels of terrible accidents within the space program where people died and really brave astronauts and Chuck Yeager and all those.

• 32:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The right stuff.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  And the right stuff.

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  And they captured the imagination of people in a way that.

• 32:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we're trying to go to Mars, you know.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  But nobody can get up the real enthusiasm for it anymore. Because in some respects, I think people had an expectation of what that breakthrough meant, as though it would represent a final triumph over our own sort of vulnerability and helplessness within the universe. And when it didn't, people thought like, what about Mars? Like, meh, I don't know.

• 33:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it had a singular place in our dreams that you can never duplicate.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  I think, listen, it's always going to go down as one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of the country. But then, after a certain point too, science fiction takes over and you're like, why can't we travel just by thinking about it? You know, what about, what about hyperdrive? It's in the intervening 40 years, the advancement has not kept up with the promise of what that was. But which, by the way, I mean that solely based on the unrealistic expectations of what we have for scientific achievement.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Um, Neil, I gotta say, I'm still a little stuck on the last segment. I heard the words birth sack and no one picked it up.

• 33:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the matter?

• 33:55Speaker 03

  No, I just, you know, you don't hear those words every day and we're all from the same birth sack is, I don't know, a little troubling to me.

• 34:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, in a cosmic figurative sense, because we all share the same ingredients from the same region of the galaxy that birthed the solar system. Can I use that word?

• 34:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know I'm a guy and I don't feel the pain when I use the word, but, but, I mean, do I get permission?

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, you do. But to say this, I think the moon would become special again if we figured out how to commercialize it. If we can get a casino up there, if we can get a hard rock cafe going, if we can get a gap moon.

• 34:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Well, you know, Neil, you've said before yourself, aside from war, or religion, or vanity, it's rare that a civilization will muster enough effort to create something truly monumental. The space program originated from war, and now if we're gonna go, we might have to just stick with vanity, because religion doesn't mean anything.

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, there's also money. I mean, Leanne is right. I joke with her, but she's right. What drives huge expenditures of investments is huge expectations of return on those investments. The old ROI.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Return on investment. So, I wish it weren't that, because I like exploring space because it's deep and cool. And we have a talk show host, one of the most famous there ever was, who is similarly inspired by these thoughts and these mission statements. All right, so when we come back, we'll pick up our interview with Jon Stewart.

• 35:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio. Welcome back. So, we've got interviews with Jon Stewart, running rampant throughout this hour. And what intrigues me is, first, the fact that he likes having scientists on his show, and it's a political show. So, there's this intersection between what the scientist does and the politics of the world. And politics is all about how to divide people. And scientists, by and large, is trying to find the one truth that ultimately all scientists agree with. So, I want to get back to you, Charles. Do you see any science versus politics that never resolved itself, or that it's a dangling... sore point in our culture?

• 36:28Speaker 02

  It's a continuous back and forth.

• 36:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me some best, your best examples there.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Oh, I'll tell you. Bad policy leading to good science? How about 400 years ago when Galileo got funded by the Doge of Venice to make telescopes as an early invasion warning system, but instead use it to look up in the sky and discover all kinds of things about the universe?

• 36:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so that's an interesting interplay there.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  And then in our lifetimes, in the 90s.

• 36:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, just to make it clear.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one had a telescope before this.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so the Doges of Venice wants to protect this city, and with the telescope you can identify enemy ships much farther away than ever before.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 37:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he doesn't see it as, gee, I can discover the universe. The Doges of Venice says, I can use this for defense.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  That's right. So military funding led to astronomical discovery, the likes of which had never been seen before. And then even in our lifetimes, the Strategic Defense Initiative, remember Star Wars during the Reagan era?

• 37:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Wars, SDI.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, that money has led to the discovery of exo-.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which was highly controversial in the scientific community at the time.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the assertion, the correct assertion, that you can't make an impervious bubble around the Earth force field like on Star Trek.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That prevent, that missiles bounce off and fall into the sea.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so we all knew this, but it was nonetheless funded.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  That's right. It was lousy policy, but it led to the technology that has led to things like adaptive optics and active mirrors that allow us now to find planets beyond our solar system, which now number almost 2,000.

• 37:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  It's really quite amazing how bad science.

• 37:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  Good science has come from bad policy over the centuries.

• 38:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and how about the opposite?

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Has bad science ever, oh sure, how about the guys in tobacco companies who say that nicotine is not addictive? That's been funded by plenty of people too.

• 38:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so that's very bad science.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  We are humans, and scientists are not ordained, like we said. They're not whole.

• 38:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, you say we are humans like there are other people who might not be humans.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Oh, we just want everybody else who thinks that scientists are not human to remember that scientists are human. We are fo.

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leanne, are scientists human? In your own life experience?

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Oh, that's true. We better let somebody who's.

• 38:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, someone who's not a scientist weigh in on this.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  I, I, I really think the overwhelming perception of you guys is glasses and pocket protectors. And the fact that you guys are both wearing glasses really shouldn't be construed at all. But yeah, no, it is a way that, you guys get dehumanized a bit. You really do.

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, and so part of the advantage of going on these talk shows is people see us in a context of. Real-life politics and culture and society.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Right. We have opinions, we make mistakes, we sometimes make great positive things, and it's all the mixture of all those things that makes science what it is.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would add, by the way, that when a scientist makes a mistake, it's in almost every case, another scientist who finds that mistake. So that the system has built-in error correcting mechanisms that other branches of life and culture don't.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  You don't get that in religion at all.

• 39:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  But this is why, for example, the climate change conversation has become steering more and more clearly towards something that's scientifically correct as opposed to politically correct.

• 39:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it makes for much less fun arguments on the 24/7 talk shows.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Absolutely true. We learned about the importance of greenhouse gases from Venus and from Mars.

• 39:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Venus is 900 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cook a 16-inch pepperoni pizza in nine seconds. I did the math on that.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Yes, you did.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Actually, I got 8.6 seconds, I'm sorry.

• 39:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Meet me outside.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  Wow, it's a geek-off, everybody.

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, all right, so you had global warming. Any other sort of issues that could have been politicized, but in the end, science triumphs?

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Well, I'll give an example of astronomy. When we are asking ourselves, what is a planet? It could easily politicized for whatever reason you want. But in the end, we wound up discussing it like, I don't know, adults, shall we say? And eventually, we came down with an opinion, and people still disagree. But in the end, it's not, you know, knives and pitchforks.

• 40:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, plus Pluto doesn't really care what we think of it. And I think it's perfectly happy out there. We've got another clip of Jon Stewart where I asked him just about his opinions about people and how that might plug in to a new capacity to send people to Mars. Let's find out.

• 40:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know you're not without opinion about the people who populate this world.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 40:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And who influence its fate. So if there was a rocket ship going to Mars.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who'd you put on that first?

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Well, you just came up with the game show idea.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  That is, if that's not the newest Mark Burnett edition of Survivor. I don't know what is. See, here's the problem you have with the Mars thing. You see, your, your question intimates that it's exile. The first person to Mars is, that is.

• 41:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's a hero.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Right. So, you know, that's something that has to be earned.

• 41:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So you leave him here on Earth. That's the punishment.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. We have the person earn, have him go through 10 years of training and then at the last minute go, "Hey, you know what? There's too much weight. We can't, we can't get rid of that." It turns out there was a, "We needed a ratchet set, so you can't go."

• 41:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let's, we don't send people, we send only the brave and the few to Mars and leave the rest behind. Apparently, but that kind of is, that, that kind of rings.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, that, that sounds very rapture-like.

• 41:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rapture-like.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and you know what? That actually brings up something I, I have to apologize.

• 41:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wouldn't, wouldn't the rap, wouldn't the, the rapture faithful be surprised if in fact they were lifted off of Earth and landed on Mars?

• 41:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's totally not what they were expecting at all.

• 41:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  200 degrees below zero, no oxygen.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  It's a little chilly, Lord. It's a little chilly. Thought your love would be warm. But that's actually why I, I, I was late today and completely unprepared. I was really kind of hanging out, waiting for the last minute rapture. I didn't think I would have to be ready for anything after yesterday.

• 42:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just in case they, they, you would last on the list and they could get to you.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  It's like, hey, are we, is there a bouncer here? Are we gonna?

• 42:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles, you're still here, so you weren't raptured either.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  I wasn't. No, I, I must have evolved my position here on Earth as opposed to have been divinely ordained.

• 42:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I quickly just went to Deborah Harry's, uh, rapture. That's all the time we have. This has been StarTalk Radio. I want to thank my guests and as always, I bid you to keep looking up.