Cosmic Queries - The Science of Love

What’s love got to do with it? Find out in our Valentine’s Day edition of Cosmic Queries when co-host Chuck Nice gets down on his knees and pops your questions to Neil deGrasse Tyson and biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher.

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.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and this is StarTalk.

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a special edition of StarTalk. It's our Valentine's Day edition.

• 0:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we're gonna talk about love.

• 0:37Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yes.

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, luuuv. And I know we could probably handle that our own, but we bring in some expertise.

• 0:48Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're gonna bring in Helen Fisher. She's been on StarTalk before, and it hit a new book, Anatomy of Love.

• 0:55Chuck Nice?

  The Anatomy of Love.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what color is it? It's red.

• 0:59Chuck Nice?

  Well, not mine.

• 1:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A red cover. Helen Fisher, you're like the world's expert on like love, marriage, relationships. You worked for the Kinsey?

• 1:10Speaker 02

  I'm at the Kinsey Institute.

• 1:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Kinsey Institute. This is the famous Kinsey.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  This is the famous Kinsey who really studied love. He did.

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  He was very good, way before everybody else did, he did.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent, excellent. And in this edition, this is-

• 1:22Speaker 02

  But sex, he actually studied a lot of sex more than he did love.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sex.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  We really broke into studying love. I mean, people really thought this was part of the supernatural, part of the stars.

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what's love got to do with it?

• 1:32Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Everything. People pine for it, live for it, kill for it, and die for it. It's one of the most powerful brain systems on earth.

• 1:39Chuck Nice?

  Is that love or sex we're talking about?

• 1:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know.

• 1:41Chuck Nice?

  It's what you just said, everybody-

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's sex. We agree. We agree that happens for sex.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  I don't think, if you ask somebody to go to bed with you and they say, "No, thank you", you don't kill yourself, but around the world-

• 1:49Chuck Nice?

  Speak for yourself, Helen. Gotta tell ya-

• 1:52Speaker 02

  People kill-

• 1:52Chuck Nice?

  You take rejection well.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, nobody takes rejection well. And nobody gets out of love alive.

• 1:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  You know, we all-

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have some scars.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  As a matter of fact, it's an addiction, you know, a very powerfully wonderful addiction when it's going well, and a perfectly horrible addiction when it's going poorly. But anyway, you know, you say, "Is it a sex or is it love?" I've mentioned this to you before, I think, "I think we've evolved three distinctly different brain systems for mating and reproduction. One is a sex drive, one is feelings of intense romantic love, and the third is feelings of deep attachment." And I think people go-

• 2:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I got one out of three. Not bad, not bad.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Jesus, now.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so for this, for this edition of StarTalk, we're gonna be, we're soliciting, we solicited questions from our fanbase through our various media platforms, and they're all about sort of Valentine's Day and love.

• 2:37Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and all that goes with it.

• 2:39Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 2:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I have one love anecdote, just to start off with. So, in the medical community, there is a disease of lovemaking, which is collectively called venereal diseases, and that is actually named after Venus.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Really?

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Goddess of love. So, the genitive form of Venus is venera.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, in fact, the Russian space missions to Venus were all called venera. Venera 1, Venera 2, Venera 3. The medical doctors said, "Oh, here's a disease peculiar to lovemaking, and love and beauty and all that go with it, let's name it after Venus." So, they call them venereal diseases. Then we astronomers came along and said, "We need a name of some, of an alien who might be from Venus. We're not gonna call them venariales now." The word is taken.

• 3:26Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We had to invent a non-legitimate word, and so you're Venusian if you're from Venus. But you're technically, you should be venereal.

• 3:34Chuck Nice?

  Venereal. Oh, okay.

• 3:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When the venariales come...

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Say, "I'm a Venusian."

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yes, yeah, say you're Venusian.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  You're a man, man.

• 3:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get a little further in the social ladder, if you're...

• 3:43Chuck Nice?

  Cool thing about that is, doctors gave us the term for VD, which actually is the same Valentine's Day as VD as well.

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, ouch!

• 3:53Chuck Nice?

  Why didn't think about it?

• 3:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ouch!

• 3:56Chuck Nice?

  Valentine's Day, venereal disease.

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ouch, Chuck!

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Wait a minute, there's good parts of this Valentine's Day. We're all fun.

• 4:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, we're just laying, laying the, laying the...

• 4:05Chuck Nice?

  I'm just saying, it's never been a good day for me.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  No, me neither, I'm always working on that day.

• 4:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Chuck, you got some questions? I have, none of us have seen him, and Helen is here to, you know, I'm just here to, like, direct them to Helen, 'cause I don't, what the hell do I know?

• 4:17Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, these are our cosmic queries, of course, like you said.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic queries.

• 4:20Chuck Nice?

  Taken from all over the internet. So, let's start off with Chris Reed coming to us from Twitter. CD Reed is his handle. "Evolution is about the natural selection of traits. How has love evolved, and what traits..." Were left behind, so. That's a really good. Yeah, that's a really good question.

• 4:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I wonder if I can add to that. If, you know, we think of love as distinctly human, but does this preclude other animals, especially other mammals? From having the same sentiment? And why, why else would we say, oh, look at the love birds? Would analogize our love to what we know are two birds.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  So there's three questions really on the table. And let me start with the, with the evolution of it and, and the brain, you know, I put people in brain scanners and study the brain circuitry of romantic love.

• 5:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what scares me about you.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Well, I wouldn't say, you know.

• 5:11Chuck Nice?

  Talk about your foreplay.

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put your mate in the brain scanner, see if he really does love you.

• 5:17Chuck Nice?

  Girl, go ahead and get in that brain scanner. That's how we starting this off tonight. Brain scanner, that's what we doing.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  You know, you can know every ingredient in a piece of chocolate cake and then when you sit down and eat that cake, you feel that joy in the same way I can know everything you can know about love and still make the same mistakes.

• 5:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, to guys, chocolate cake is really just chocolate cake. I'm sorry.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  This is a brain system, it came from other mammals, it came from other birds, all kinds of animals feel attraction to certain creatures and not attraction to others, you know, too old, too young, too feathers out of order. Antlers too big, too little, et cetera, et cetera.

• 5:56Chuck Nice?

  I know that part.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  So the bottom line is, we did evolve.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your antlers out of this.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  I want to see your antlers.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Show me your antlers. Anyway, the bottom line is this brain system came out of nature. So long before mankind came down out of the trees, began to stand up on two feet, began to need to form pair bonds to re their young and the brain circuitry for romantic love began to evolve to in order to make us focus on one particular individual and start the mating process. But you can see that in other mammals, particularly ones that form pair bonds, you know, you'll see an immediate attraction uh, from, of one animal for another and, you know, they, they're going for it. In fact, this is the evolution of love at first sight.

• 6:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it attraction or is it just they want to mate? How, how do you distinguish them? Did you ask them?

• 6:43Speaker 02

  There's actually academic studies that when a female chimpanzee, for example, is in heat and in estrus, she'll copulate with actually almost all of the males, but there's some she won't copulate with, and it's because she doesn't like them.

• 6:55Chuck Nice?

  Cause he's a real a-hole that guy.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  The bottom line is, these are different systems, and just the sex drive will get you out there looking, but then it's romantic love that, or attraction in other animals, or magnetism, just animal magnetism, that enables you to sift between all these other animals and focus on the one that works for you.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's one thing if they don't sleep with you because they're sleeping with only one other person, but they're sleeping with everybody and not you.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  That's bad. I don't know, yeah, it's all bad.

• 7:23Chuck Nice?

  Let me just find out that the reason, the pandas that they had wherever in San Francisco, that they've been trying to mate, that the reason they didn't mate was because the female didn't like the male.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 7:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they just assume, you put the man, oh.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  That is a really important point, because no animal on this planet will copulate with anything that comes along. They all have preferences, and we evolved that system for preferences, and then of course, when we began to stand up on two legs, females began to have to carry their babies in their arms instead of on their backs, they began to need someone to help them out, at least while they raised the child through infancy, and so this brain circuitry for animal attraction evolved into what we call today, romantic love.

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there anything that was left behind, like the question or ask?

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a beautiful question, nobody's ever asked me. Sure, the ability to share, we're not an animal that shares very well, we're a jealous animal.

• 8:10Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  You know, I mean, I was talking last night to some people who are polyamorous, and they really have to work very hard to keep their...

• 8:18Chuck Nice?

  Which means several partners?

• 8:19Speaker 02

  These people actually believe that you can have several partners.

• 8:22Chuck Nice?

  Swingers, baby.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Swingers are the sex, they're swinging for sex. Polyamorous are...

• 8:29Chuck Nice?

  Are relationships?

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:31Chuck Nice?

  So they're, they're...

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Romantic, so they want to keep their deep attachment to one partner, and then have a lot of romances on the side, and they say they can overcome this jealousy and the, you know, the self-deception and all, but they can't, they work very hard on it, you know, but the bottom line is, no, we're not a good animal, we don't share well. Um, and of course, they're also cheaters, you know, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's an example.

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so, so, uh, so in the Mormon tradition of multiple wives for the men, then this is, you're saying there, there might be an evolutionary force that makes that not stable? Cause they've, they've been doing it for a hundred something years.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  You know, um, eighty-six percent of world cultures permit a man to have several wives.

• 9:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Um, but actually.

• 9:10Chuck Nice?

  Wrong place.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know, it can be a toothache, I can tell you that. It can be a real panic. I think I told you last time, I knew a man in, in, uh, you know, in Highlands of New Guinea, who had three wives, and when I asked him how many he wanted, he said none.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there you go. Be careful what you wish for.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  It can be a toothache, yeah.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Plus, as I understand it, historically, the, the, in particular, the Middle East, as I've come to understand it, that was initially put forth as protection for women, so that if you actually got romantically involved with a woman, she actually, you had to then take care of her.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so it was a matter of accountability for who you were.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  It was also ecological reasons, um, but, uh, you know, uh, most societies permit a man to have several wives, but only about five to, or ten percent of men in almost all cultures actually have several wives. Cause you gotta have a lot of money, a lot of cows, a lot of sheep, a lot of education or something to get two women to share you.

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So are there any cultures where a woman has multiple husbands?

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Only very few. Among the very rich, um, of Southern Alaska, traditionally, um, these people lived in these archipelagos, and the men went out fishing every, every.

• 10:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These would be the native peoples of Alaska, not the.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Native peoples of Alaska, yes. And, um, a woman.

• 10:20Chuck Nice?

  Not Sarah Palin.

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 10:23Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I have four husbands, you betcha. You betcha.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  But, um, it's very, um, impractical from a Darwinian perspective, because, you know, if, if a woman is sharing several men, you know, she can't have a baby, uh, every nine months. Whereas if a man has several wives, he could have a lot of babies simultaneously.

• 10:41Chuck Nice?

  Four babies at one time, at one time, same.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Or more, but the problem with, um, polygyny, poly meaning many, gynie meaning women, is that the women fight, sometimes they, uh, uh, try to poison each other's children.

• 10:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, not my problem.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right, keep it that way.

• 10:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I'm not a husband, I'm dead. Guys, do your thing. Don't come bother me with your petty squabbles.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  To bond is human. We're a pair bonding animal, but we're also an animal that cheats. And we seem to do both. And I think one of the great 21st century issues is to what degree do we want intimacy with one individual and what degree do we want autonomy? That great balance between the two is something we all have to wrestle with.

• 11:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What intrigues me is how we cherry pick the animal kingdom to use as examples of how we want to behave. So we'll say, oh, an eagle will mate for life.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Swans.

• 11:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They'll mate for life. Okay, well, but how about the, what's the one that just has sex as often as it can with as many other, uh...

• 11:38Speaker 02

  All of them.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the, all the rest of them.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  The rest of them.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All the rest of them.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Even eagles, even eagles, even, even swans. We have not found a completely...

• 11:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The naked mole rat has two subspecies. One of them mates for life, the other is just whores. Just to, they whore themselves out.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  It's the prairie vole. Yeah.

• 11:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The prairie vole, sorry, maybe that's what I meant. Not to make a mole rat.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  And we know the genes of that, the genetics of that. And then you take one of the genes from one of those prairie voles that does mate for life and put them in a non pair bonding, uh, mouse or something, and it'll start to form a pair bond too. So there is biology to, to, um, feelings of attachment, yes.

• 12:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they put the attachment gene in the ones that were not allowed to be attached. But how about the, the wandering gene? Does that make them wander?

• 12:22Speaker 02

  We haven't really found a wandering gene. We've found, uh, genes in which you attach less. Uh, you know, there's one gene in which the, if you have no copies of that gene, you're the most, among men, actually. It's a study of men.

• 12:33Chuck Nice?

  Promiscuous.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Uh, the least promiscuous. One gene are going to be more promiscuous and the, and two genes are going to be the, actually not promiscuous, but in unstable relationships that are going to lead to promiscuity. So we're, we're finding some, but you know what?

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your promiscuity coefficient.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That should come out in the speed dating rounds, right? What is your...

• 12:52Speaker 02

  But you know what? It's important. Even though we have predispositions, you can say no to them, you know, um... Uh, because, uh, you know, uh,

• 13:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we live in civilization, that's why.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can, you know, people can be, um, uh, quit their bad habits.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:07Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah. And then some of it is called age for men as well.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 13:12Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's just-

• 13:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, but just to be clear, just to be clear, they're not habits if we're genetically predisposed. So they can, you can overcome a genetic predisposition because we live in civilization where certain conduct is necessary.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Very well said.

• 13:26Chuck Nice?

  And then you just get too old.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  It's amazing how many people don't, though.

• 13:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, of course.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  I mean, I looked at adultery in forty-two societies and you find it even in places where you can get your head chopped off.

• 13:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, it's not even adultery, there's murder. There are things, there's transgressions of a society.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Well, that's, I mean, I think that most of our crimes of passion come because people have been, they've lost a true love. They've lost, from a Darwinian perspective, they've lost life's greatest prize, which is a mating partner.

• 13:49Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:50Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they need to rethink some things. That's what I'm saying.

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got another, you got another question?

• 13:54Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, let's move on. That was fascinating stuff, man. All right, let's get down to, here's one from The Teen Poet.

• 14:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:02Chuck Nice?

  Coming to us from Twitter.

• 14:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a Twitter handle, okay.

• 14:04Chuck Nice?

  It's a Twitter handle, uh, at TheTeenPoet322. Uh, wants to know, is human love more than chemical reactions, as in Interstellar's unrealistic ending? Well, thanks for the critique inside the question.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just in case people missed that moment in Interstellar-

• 14:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where, uh, Anne Hathaway's character says, maybe, I'm paraphrasing, you know, love is something that transcends even dimensions.

• 14:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 14:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it's love that they're using to communicate with us through, uh, basically space and time.

• 14:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, through the space-time continuum.

• 14:39Chuck Nice?

  Through the space-time continuum. Love is the language that transcends the space-time.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so if I can tighten the question, how much of your research tells us that love is just electrochemical in your brain? And it's nothing more or less than that?

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Well, bottom line is everything is electrical and chemical in your brain. I mean, everything, you know, you think of anything, do anything, uh, feel anything, any kind of drive thirst, hunger, all of them.

• 14:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, it doesn't permeate the fabric of the space-time continuum?

• 15:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, kid, and now my heart is broken.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  And then we make a whole lot of things out of it and we make beautiful things. I mean, all of the love poetry from around the world. I mean, all our plays, our poems, our novels, our sitcoms, our ballets, our operas, our, our theater, our myths, our legends. I mean, the world is cluttered.

• 15:21Chuck Nice?

  Don't forget porn.

• 15:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't forget porn. That was conspicuously absent.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  We got it in there. Chuck, thank you.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But why isn't that just the spectrum of human emotion of which love is one?

• 15:35Speaker 02

  It's actually a drive.

• 15:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is hate. Hate is as big a drive as love.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  No question about it. In fact, they're not even the opposites. The opposite of love is indifference.

• 15:45Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, look at that.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's deep.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  In fact, you can hate and love somebody at the same time.

• 15:50Chuck Nice?

  Oh, now that explains my parents.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 15:54Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That way you get the frenemy. The frenemy. Yeah.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  I had a wonderful girlfriend who said of her husband, it was a wonderful marriage, but she said, you know what? Sometimes I hate him, but I always love him. And so you, these are different brain systems and you can flop from one to the other. It's indifference. That's when you are kill, when you've killed the passion. But you know what? It's a drive. This is not even an emotion. It comes, emanates from brain, a little factory in the base of the brain that is, lies right next to the brain regions that orchestrate thirst and hunger. Because this is so essential to survival and it has been for so long. Because if you don't have babies, you don't form a pair bond, you don't pass your DNA on to.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is. That's the end of your, your line.

• 16:30Chuck Nice?

  So it's just, it's basically the second greatest driving force in, in, in our, in our being, which the first is gotta eat.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, eating makes you live another day. You know, having sex will make you live genetically.

• 16:46Chuck Nice?

  Make you want to live another day.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Right. That is for sure.

• 16:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how you really gotta do it.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Good for you, by the way. Sex is really good for you if it's with the right person.

• 16:53Chuck Nice?

  Preach it to the choir, baby.

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it is reducible in a fundamental way to, I came up with three in the list. So there's sex, there's food, sex and shelter. We're three things that we need for our survival. And so we ought to be pretty energetic in the acquisition of those three.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 17:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And also, if you don't-

• 17:15Speaker 02

  I've never seen anybody kill themselves when they couldn't get something to eat. But I've certainly seen people kill themselves when they couldn't get a particular sweetheart.

• 17:23Chuck Nice?

  Couldn't get the love.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't think you go around, well, you might go around murdering somebody for bread, you know, in the right place when you're starving, but-

• 17:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, yeah.

• 17:31Chuck Nice?

  You won't kill yourself, you'll kill somebody else, and that's why.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  I bet this, our jails are much more filled with people who have committed a crime of passion. I mean, this is a powerful brain system. What people will do for love is out of this world.

• 17:47Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  And particularly around right now, you know, I am the chief scientific advisor to Match.com, and between the day after Christmas and Valentine's Day, the amount of people going on to that site and other sites increases everywhere from 30 to 60 percent. This is the time, this is the season for love.

• 18:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk. Stay tuned for another segment. Welcome back to StarTalk. Here's more of this week's episode. So Chuck, what questions you have called from our listening audience?

• 18:36Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, I recognize this handle as somebody I know on Twitter, so I figure I'll go ahead and read this. This is from @BenMakesTV.

• 18:46Chuck Nice?

  And he wants to know this, why does no one love me?

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 18:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm gonna say it's because, uh, you pleasure yourself publicly on the train. And people, people just can't forgive that bad. They can't forgive you for it.

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me, let me broaden the question Helen and ask, is there someone for everyone?

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If there is, then the person who can't find love is not looking hard enough.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  They're not looking hard enough. You, you know, if you go on these dating sites, it does require some work, you know? First of all, he's probably too picky, uh, you know, lower your standards, uh.

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The guy who's looking for, for, for love.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Looking for love. I mean, um.

• 19:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When in doubt, lower your standards. Is this advice you're giving us Helen? I got your book here, The Anatomy of Love. You're telling us.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  Think of reasons to say yes. You know, there's a huge part of the brain that enables us to overlook the negative and focus on the positive.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do it all the time. And we want to.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, when you, but one of the problems when you're meeting people online is you know so little about them when you start out that you over, you know, you overweight those few things that you know.

• 19:47Chuck Nice?

  That you don't know, that you don't like.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  And you break it up before you, the more you get to know somebody, the more you like them. You gotta give people a chance, you know?

• 19:55Chuck Nice?

  But see, now that is a chemical thing because, and I'm, I'm probably gonna get in trouble if I say this, uh, oof, I'm gonna say this.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can edit this Chuck.

• 20:04Chuck Nice?

  Okay, good. Alright, so here's the truth. I have often sat and said to myself, why after eighteen years of marriage?

• 20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, stop there. Okay. No, no. Let me protect Chuck from himself.

• 20:19Chuck Nice?

  You're not gonna protect me. I'm not gonna say this. I'm just gonna.

• 20:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta protect Chuck.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  I'm dying to hear it. I'm dying to hear it.

• 20:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back away from the microphone.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  But I've put people in scanners.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  It's possible to remain in love long time. I, we have, I and my colleagues have put, um, seventy people into the scanner who were married an average of twenty-one years. So you're, you're behind the game.

• 20:41Chuck Nice?

  I'm still in love. No, that's my point.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back away from the mic Chuck.

• 20:46Chuck Nice?

  No, you're right. I said, okay, but I'm still in, in love. I mean, however, no, now listen to me. Don't, and I'm, you know what? Listen, if I were to put it down on paper.

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 20:57Chuck Nice?

  I should not be in love.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:00Chuck Nice?

  I should not be.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Very unrealistic.

• 21:01Chuck Nice?

  I should not be. This woman, I love her to death and there's nothing she can do that's wrong. And if I were to actually go and say all the stuff that I probably would be like, no, I don't like that. No, I don't like, I should have left long ago.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you, if you, if you deconstruct.

• 21:17Chuck Nice?

  If I deconstruct my relationship.

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's nothing there, but in total, it's working for you.

• 21:21Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. It's the best thing ever happened to me.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so Helen.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  We evolved it.

• 21:25Chuck Nice?

  Thanks.

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We evolved to deceive.

• 21:29Chuck Nice?

  Chuck, you're lying to yourself.

• 21:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  No, you're not.

• 21:32Chuck Nice?

  No, here is why you are in love with your wife.

• 21:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, Helen, Helen.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  You are overlooking the negative and there's a huge part of the brain that enables you to do that and bless it.

• 21:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, but let me, let me get, let me come in the back door there. If you do have a list of what you like in someone and then you put it on one of these websites and then you find someone that matches it, the premise is that's your, that's your soulmate. But what Chuck is saying is if you laid out the, the inventory, if you laid out the portfolio of, then no, he would have never met her in this way.

• 22:04Chuck Nice?

  I would have never met her this way.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  I bet that there are real, no, you wouldn't have met her. But once you did meet her, there is things about that woman that you really like that, that ring deep into your love map.

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then what of these websites that are matching people up and slicing and dicing them in these very, what, what is it? Farm.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Farmers.com.

• 22:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Farmers.com. Farmers can mate other farmers.

• 22:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Meet and mate with other farmers.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  It's a whole lifestyle so that you can understand it. But the bottom line is these are not dating services. These are introducing services. The only true algorithm is your own human brain. So the faster you can get out and meet the guy or a girl in the bar, in the street, you know, it's just giving you a whole range of people and then you gotta do the job. We can give you the people, but you gotta do the job and that's what's really thrilling.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But would you agree that if you pre, if you proscribe?

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you think you're going to be attracted to, that is greatly restricting your options.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  The problem is.

• 23:02Chuck Nice?

  Or it could be at least.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, but.

• 23:03Chuck Nice?

  At least there's a potential for that, right?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  It's, listen, staying at home and looking for somebody under the couch is certainly gonna, you know, not do much for your options. I mean, the bottom line is, you know, how many people do you meet through your friends? How many do you meet at work? How many people do you meet when you're playing, you know, at the fitness center? And you run through all that. And then how are you gonna meet people? No, I think these dating services, introducing services, give you a much broader range than you, than we've ever had in all of our history.

• 23:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I would agree. Well, even the ones that specify, because there's JDate for Jews, and lately, there's like a white people one.

• 23:36Chuck Nice?

  White people meet?

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, white people?

• 23:37Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 23:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, do they really have a hard time finding?

• 23:40Chuck Nice?

  They have black people meet, to which I told a friend, how could I ever meet a white girl on black people meet?

• 23:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but, do, do white people actually have a problem finding other white people in a country that's, that?

• 23:52Chuck Nice?

  Apparently, all these white people live in Detroit.

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that what it is?

• 23:56Chuck Nice?

  It's like, I don't know where I'm gonna find another white person. Every time I look around, I'm here in Detroit, and I can't find any white people.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I need a web service to help me find one.

• 24:05Chuck Nice?

  A web service to help me.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  But you do meet many more people on these dating sites than we ever did through all of history. Plus, throughout your life. I mean, we've got things like Our Time, which is for people over 50. I mean, I can't stand in a bar and have the perfect boy walk by, you know?

• 24:21Chuck Nice?

  Ah, you're selling yourself short there, Helen.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 24:24Chuck Nice?

  You're right now.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  What party do you have in mind?

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, what other questions you got there?

• 24:33Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's get back to this.

• 24:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell, tell, we told our boy here to get out, get the hell off the couch.

• 24:37Chuck Nice?

  Get out the house, get out the house, Ben. That's the answer to your question, all right?

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, just, just, I'm sorry. Just to round that out, round out that question.

• 24:48Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 24:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Should someone change themselves to be more attractive to other people?

• 24:53Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 24:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Should they go through a makeover? Should they change their hair? Should they, other than the minimum hygiene that we expect in society, should someone do that if they're desperate for love?

• 25:05Chuck Nice?

  And let me just-

• 25:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then, then, if they find that person, did that person fall in love with what they created for themselves? And is it not really that?

• 25:11Speaker 02

  We do fall in love with what we created for ourselves, no matter what. Even if somebody finds- It's somewhat within your love map. You overlook what doesn't fit and you focus on what you do.

• 25:19Chuck Nice?

  Your love map, I like that, yeah.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what it is. We have this, you know, we evolve, as small children, we grow up and we we create a list, unconscious list of what we're looking for in a partner. And then you see the perfect person at the perfect time, and they fit pretty much in your love map, and you get rid of, excuse me, what you, what you don't like, and you just focus on what you do. So that's, that's good. But what was that other question?

• 25:40Chuck Nice?

  Trick, what were you gonna say? No, I'm saying that, you know, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Should you change yourself?

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 25:46Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you know, and on the one hand, the answer is no. Uh,

• 25:49Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I mean,

• 25:50Chuck Nice?

  If you're a man, because don't worry, she's gonna do that for you. For you. You do not have to worry. Zip in the card. Be yourself, man, because whatever you are and whoever you are, that is not what you are going to be in two years.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Right. It's a good project for us girls, yeah. We have a lot, a lot of, a lot of work to do.

• 26:09Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you, I have, I have a friend that I saw, it has been 20 years since we've seen each other. And we are, we, we got to hang out. I was in Philadelphia, and we got to hang out, we haven't seen each other in 20 years. And Philly's your place. That's my hometown. And at the end of the night, he was like, wow, man, you, you really have changed. And he really hadn't. But he's not married. Okay.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  What did you change?

• 26:31Chuck Nice?

  Uh, he's just me. I'm

• 26:33Speaker 02

  I mean, what did you change?

• 26:34Chuck Nice?

  Well, mostly now that I'm married, I'm gay. Um, that's the most thing, you know, cause

• 26:42Speaker 02

  I think you need to do change. Listen, if it's not working, you might ought to make some changes. But I wouldn't certainly make any changes. I mean, first of all, we, it's very hard to make, um, changes in personality. You can be somebody else, but it's tiring.

• 26:53Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, okay.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Back out of character.

• 26:54Chuck Nice?

  It's an investment of energy at all times.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and as it turns out, you know, you'll turn off, I mean, by being who you are, you will turn off some people. But when you find the right one, that person's gonna really love you. So I wouldn't make huge changes. Sure, you, you know, you can, you can change your hair and, and maybe stop swearing, or, or, you know, read a little bit more, uh, so that you're better educated, or whatever.

• 27:14Chuck Nice?

  Comfort changes. Yeah, yeah. That might make the other person comfortable. Good, good. Without really totally messing with you.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  Exactly. And there's parts you don't like of you, and you know, you can work on that too, but You know, as you say, she's gonna work on your toe.

• 27:28Chuck Nice?

  Oh, you rest assured.

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 27:30Chuck Nice?

  Next question. Let us move on.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  But men do their work too, you know, women are always scrambling to please.

• 27:36Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we don't know that that's what you're doing for us. You just appear that way and we think, hey, wow, I really like that. Not knowing that you spent five hours creating that which we just said we liked.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  But don't, doesn't your wife come and say?

• 27:46Chuck Nice?

  That was very profound what you just said. Yeah. Because that is the difference between what makes a woman appreciate you. Because you noticed what she did, you just gave the true male perspective, which is, we're appreciative of it. We just think like, wow, look at you. This is how you look.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we're completely oblivious.

• 28:04Chuck Nice?

  Completely oblivious that you actually took effort and time to make yourself look that way. We're just like, wow, okay, that looks good.

• 28:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're idiots, basically. We can...

• 28:12Speaker 02

  I don't know. I am for men and I don't think you're idiots. Um, but, uh, but, uh, yeah, I, yeah, I'll keep to my self-deception on that.

• 28:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, exactly. Exactly.

• 28:23Chuck Nice?

  All right, all right. Here we go. Uh, this is Ray coming to us from Twitter as well. And Ray has a very simple succinct question, but I think it's, uh, quite, uh, in-depth when you look at it. Uh, why does love hurt?

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 28:39Chuck Nice?

  Boom. That's all he asked, but I gotta say, that's, that's pretty prolific what he just said. He just asked.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  It really does. So we've put, um, a lot of people into a, a scanner who've just been dumped. And the brain regions that become active when you've been dumped is three brain regions linked with intense craving. A brain region linked with physical pain.

• 28:57Chuck Nice?

  Physical pain.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Uh, physical pain, a brain region, and actually, uh, aspirin helps, um, when you're rejected in love with, there's an academic article on that.

• 29:04Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  And also anxiety that goes along with the physical pain. And you're also brain regions linked with trying to figure out what went wrong, the costs, the benefits, what happened here. And I think so the brain is in overdrive. It is in, it's in a terrible state. This is why we have all these crimes of passion, you know? And why does it hurt? It hurts because you've lost, once I said, you know, life's greatest prize, a mating partner. You've, you've lost, uh, um, the ability to pass your DNA on to eternity. I think nature overdid it, to be perfectly honest. We really, uh, we really suffered. terribly and there's basically two stages of getting rejected the first is protest you just try to win the person back you'll try to seduce you'll try to threaten you'll you'll try to make them jealous and all that and then you slip into this incredible depression

• 29:49Chuck Nice?

  unless you get them back in which case you slip into indifference like why did I ever want you in

• 29:55Speaker 02

  why do I keep doing this

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  you've heard that other people say this

• 29:59Chuck Nice?

  yes

• 30:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  read about it Chuck

• 30:01Speaker 02

  but I I think it hurts

• 30:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  she thinks a real part of the brain center that is responsible

• 30:05Speaker 02

  no question about it big parts of the brain become incredibly overactive you know you can't eat you can't sleep you can't stop crying

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  so it's disruptive to your human physiology

• 30:15Speaker 02

  yes and to your social relations

• 30:17Chuck Nice?

  so lovesick is actual sick

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  it's an actual sick

• 30:20Speaker 02

  and you can die from being rejected

• 30:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  wait don't tell me you die from a broken heart

• 30:24Speaker 02

  you die from um heart attacks and strokes

• 30:27Chuck Nice?

  so the stress

• 30:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  okay so your heart did break

• 30:29Chuck Nice?

  a great deal of anxiety stress actually manifests itself physically and you end up dying of a stroke or a heart attack because of

• 30:36Speaker 02

  yeah it drives up the dopamine system in the beginning that gives you all that energy and focus and motivation and craving and then after a while you can't get them you finally give up and you slip into sort of a profound

• 30:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  how about okay as a corollary to this there are people who are in love with people they've never met

• 30:51Speaker 02

  yes isn't that

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  so now are they they're not

• 30:55Speaker 02

  they're practicing

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  they're not the mating partner that they got to know intimately but nonetheless that sentiment is still there

• 31:02Speaker 02

  it's a crush and it's most largely teenagers but it can be somebody at work you don't ever dare come close to but you know you you feel all that it'll go away

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  they're grown I agree with the teenager thing but isn't that more women and when you get older it's the male stalker of the of the women of the women

• 31:16Speaker 02

  no um men fall in love faster than women do they fall in love more often than women do uh when they meet somebody that they really like they wanna uh introduce them to friends and family sooner men want to move in sooner men have more intimate conversations with their wives than women do with their husbands because women have their intimate conversations with their girlfriends and men are two and a half times more likely to kill themselves when a relationship is over so men are the more

• 31:38Chuck Nice?

  wow so basically

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  wait just to be clear I think we're we're more likely to commit suicide in all categories

• 31:44Speaker 02

  probably yes

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think so

• 31:46Speaker 02

  yes and homicide you know

• 31:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  right right

• 31:48Speaker 02

  it's a more delicate

• 31:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  men are just completely messed up

• 31:50Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say it sounds to me like we're a bunch of love pussies that's what it comes down to

• 31:55Speaker 02

  oh my god I can't live without you women are pretty bad believe me I've had them on my couch

• 32:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, okay, so we've established it's a, it's, it's real.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  It's real.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The pain is real, it's not imagined.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Nobody's that alone.

• 32:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't just say, "Get over it." It's like breaking your leg and saying, "Get over it."

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Exactly. As a matter of fact, a week later, you can't remember any physical, uh, pain in your tooth, but a week later, you're still really suffering from romantic rejection.

• 32:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm. Wow. So that's baggage, I think. That's evolutionary baggage.

• 32:23Chuck Nice?

  Is there any truth to the fact that they say for every, uh, for every year you're together, it takes six months to get over?

• 32:31Speaker 02

  I don't know the, that's interesting.

• 32:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they say so forever, if you're together with somebody.

• 32:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So at some point, it would take longer than your life, your actuarial life expectancy.

• 32:38Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 32:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get over it.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  It's gonna depend on who you are, what your other alternatives are, how much you invested in it, how well you are. There's gonna be many forces in how you get over it, and it's not...

• 32:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whether you bought the couch together, because then you'll have to take the chainsaw, cut it in half when you split up.

• 32:52Chuck Nice?

  Well, thank God we didn't buy the dog together.

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk Radio. Stay tuned. More up next.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back. Here's more of StarTalk.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, you've got questions from the internet?

• 33:25Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I do.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, what do you have?

• 33:26Chuck Nice?

  So, let's jump right back on this. Uh, Melissa McCurdy from Facebook says, "Is the state of being in love considered mental illness or chemical imbalance? In other words, are you crazy to be in love with somebody?"

• 33:42Speaker 02

  I don't think so. I mean, it's, you're gonna do, it's the most important thing we do with our lives, but you are a little crazy. I mean, you, you, you can't eat, you can't sleep, you forget your coat, you, you know, you don't get to work, you forget to feed the cat, you don't call your mother, you're obsessed. It's an obsession.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so why isn't it counted as some kind of mental disorder? Because you're not otherwise.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  It's a natural drive. It's a natural obsession. In fact, I think that all of the chemical addictions hijack this basic brain system that evolved for um natural craving. So we're trying to actually to say to the medical community that uh it's a very positive addiction when it's going well and a perfectly horribly negative addiction when it's going poorly, but it is an addiction.

• 34:21Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  The addiction centers become activated, but I don't want to call it a mental illness.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't there like an album or a song with that title?

• 34:27Chuck Nice?

  Yes, it is. Who is that? Uh Robert?

• 34:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Robert Palmer.

• 34:31Chuck Nice?

  Robert Palmer. Might as well face it, you're addicted to love.

• 34:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's got the models.

• 34:35Chuck Nice?

  Yes, all the red lips. And I'm like, I see why you're in love.

• 34:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember that video.

• 34:40Chuck Nice?

  Pretty hot chicks behind you.

• 34:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a, that was an early MTV video. Oh my gosh, that was like.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Our poets have said it for centuries. I mean, the oldest love poetry is over 4,000 years old and this describing love exactly the way we describe it today.

• 34:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so even though it disrupts our normal functioning.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Our responsible functioning as members of society because of its frequency among we humans.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not going to say.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  It's a central purpose.

• 35:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're not going to say it's a disorder. We're going to say it's, it's something, it's, it's like today where they have drugs, living with this disease.

• 35:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not going to cure, it's just going to live with it. It's going to teach us how to live with our love.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what you're saying.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  I would basically say that an awful lot of people would be happy to live with their love. I mean, we're, people are madly in love, think of nothing else. They don't care if they forget to feed the cat. They're just happy, happy, really. I mean.

• 35:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cat will care if he forgets.

• 35:33Chuck Nice?

  But that, see now what you just did there, you actually described uh the uh textbook case scenario for a, a person addicted to drugs. I don't care about anything. I don't care if I feed the cat.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 35:47Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  That's, there's a big difference, there's many big differences though. I mean, what, you know, the right love affair is going to um give you tremendous pleasure. It's going to give you optimism. It's going to give you hope. I mean, as you drive that dopamine system up when you're madly in love, you get energy, focus, motivation. You know, when you take drugs, you're not getting necessarily, and by the way, the drug's going to be gone tomorrow morning when you wake up and it's still going to be.

• 36:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't party with me.

• 36:09Chuck Nice?

  Tomorrow morning, boy. You mean nine o'clock tonight? No, go ahead.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Well, that sounds good.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's, that's a fascinating point. There are upside, the upside of this.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  It's a wonderful addiction.

• 36:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fundamental contribution to society and people's happiness.

• 36:24Chuck Nice?

  Okay, all right, we got that. Here we go, let's move on.

• 36:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Move, move, move on up.

• 36:29Chuck Nice?

  This is Joe Pettingill from Portland, Portland, Oregon, coming to us through Facebook wants to know this. Biologically, how does the love of a pet differ from the love of a person or love of an object?

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does it mean a person's love of a pet, not a pet's love of the person?

• 36:47Chuck Nice?

  Right, not a pet's love of a person, but even though that's a very interesting, I'd like to know about that now that you brought it up. Like, you know.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if she studies non-human animals.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  Well, I do, I do, because you have to understand.

• 36:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You scare me every day you keep talking and telling me what you put in your machine.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  I think that's very cool.

• 37:04Chuck Nice?

  I think my dog wants to bang me.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  But, you know, there's a constellation of traits that are linked with feelings.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have permission to use that word in that way for me.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 37:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Constellation, yes, good.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  And among those things are the drive to actually have sex with the person. And you really don't, most people want to have sex with their dog, so you have many of the traits linked with romantic love. I mean, the obsession, the focus, the, the, you know, you think your dog's the best-looking dog in the whole universe. It's the only dog that's alive that counts, et cetera, et cetera. So it has some of the characteristics of intense romantic love and feelings of deep attachment, that second brain system. But you don't have any of these sex, sexual things and, you know.

• 37:43Chuck Nice?

  So it's, it's the intimacy or physical intimacy that sets that apart?

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so here's an interesting.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  You're not gonna fall in love with your small baby too, and, you know, you can fall in love with all kinds of things. But yes, it's that sexual component that's missing.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fall in love with a toaster.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:58Chuck Nice?

  Just don't have sex with.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  It'll be hot.

• 38:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so I have a question on that animal frontier. Dogs were basically bred for their loyalty to humans, among other properties. So, you know, there's an old saying, be the person who your dog thinks you are.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Oh, how wonderful.

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because your dog thinks you're the greatest thing ever. You come home, no matter what, no matter the day the dog had, no matter the day, you are the best person there ever was to happen to them. So, that might fool you into thinking that this is a relationship.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the person appreciates you for who and what you are. Now, cats, not so much.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  No, not so much.

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, do we have data to show that people have stronger relationships with their dogs than they do with their cats? Because the dog is reciprocal in its...

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yes, and in fact, you know, they call it chick bait. I mean, a man with a dog walking down the street picks up more girls than if he's walking along with a cat.

• 39:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Must love dogs, the whole movie with that title. Must love dogs.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  He's basically advertising that he can take care of something.

• 39:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a pretty low bar. Take care of a pet. Maybe he's good mating material.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Actually, we've got data on that.

• 39:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He picks up the poop.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  But, you know, dogs are pair bonding animals naturally. Only 3% of mammals form a pair bond to rear their young. And all the wild wolves, foxes, coyotes, dingos, you know, and dogs form pair bonds.

• 39:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I thought they'd travel in packs with one...

• 39:37Speaker 02

  They do, but there's one male and one female who are the breeding pair, and everybody else is a helper at the nest.

• 39:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, oh, so it's not one male mating multiple females? Okay, like a pride of lions.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 39:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha, that's the difference. I didn't know that, okay, good.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  So, this is why we bond so easily with them. As a matter of fact, anthropologists think that it's dogs that picked the bonding with us and followed along with us, you know, and...

• 40:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we left food behind. Yeah, yeah.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Well, you know...

• 40:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We did that on Cosmos. We did like a whole episode, and it's titled "And the Wolf Shall Become the Shepherd."

• 40:10Speaker 02

  Oh, good of us.

• 40:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know, dogs are, I mean...

• 40:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's Anne Druyan's poetic, she's got, there's a poetry side of her that contributes to the scripting, so that's where that came from. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, so, okay, so that's real.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, it's real.

• 40:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  And it probably creates a lot of the oxytocin, you know. The, the, the brain system for attachment is the oxytocin system in the brain. I think what people, men and women, get out of their relationship with their dog is all the hugging and touching and everything, and all of that drives up the oxytocin system in the brain, linked with feelings of attachment.

• 40:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Attachment.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  Yes, and it probably is the same in the dog, but it's certainly in that feeling in, in a human being. So, um, you know, as you put your arm around somebody, as you hold hands with them, as you hug them, as you learn to sleep in their arms, you're driving up this oxytocin system and, um, and, and, and it's a feel-good chemical, no question about it.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You're good.

• 41:05Chuck Nice?

  Feel good.

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. I don't need you, I got my oxy- uh, oxytocin pills. That's all. I don't need you for nothing, I'm just thinking about my own.

• 41:13Chuck Nice?

  Just don't crush it up and snort it.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, we've got five minutes left, we're going into lightning round.

• 41:18Chuck Nice?

  Lightning round?

• 41:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so no, so, uh, no longer the luxury of long answers.

• 41:22Chuck Nice?

  Long answers.

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll try to get through the list, because we have, Chuck, you have multiple pages of questions.

• 41:26Chuck Nice?

  I do, I've got quite a few.

• 41:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm gonna test my bell. Good, there it is. Okay, so you're gonna give soundbite answers, pretend you're on the evening news, and you have two minutes to give your entire interview.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you ready, Chuck?

• 41:36Chuck Nice?

  Here we go. Jeffrey Clark on Twitter says, "What's the science behind attraction? Am I pre-programmed to be attracted to certain traits? Or is attraction a learned behavior?"

• 41:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love it, go for it.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  It's not a learned behavior. I mean, some of it is learned, but, uh, chemically, we're drawn to certain people rather than others. I've figured out when people say, "We have chemistry," I understand what that means now.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so that's real?

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Yes, we're gonna be naturally drawn to some people rather than others, bas- basically because of body chemistry.

• 42:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Body chemistry, that's called B.O., I think.

• 42:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's keep going, go, next question.

• 42:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, this is from Dan Larkins on Facebook, wants to know this. "If evolution favors individuals who seek out the strongest and the best suit it mates to pass on their genes, is there a biological advantage to falling in love over choosing the most advantageous partner gene-wise? No insult intended to my beloved."

• 42:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 42:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 42:29Chuck Nice?

  Right, Dan, there you go.

• 42:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, so that, that's a pretty clean question. So, if you just wanna propagate a survival, you pick the person, and then you do that, why does it, what's love got to do with it?

• 42:38Chuck Nice?

  Why do we fall in love with a guy who looks like the Penguin from Batman, and he's not rich, and you're a supermom? How does that even?

• 42:46Speaker 02

  That doesn't happen too often, basically.

• 42:50Chuck Nice?

  Thank you, thank you for your honesty. Thank you.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  I mean, penguins go for penguins.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  I mean, we tend to fall in love with somebody with the same socioeconomic background, same general level of intelligence, same general level of good looks, same religious and social values. We are drawn to people to some extent like ourselves.

• 43:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that's environmental, of course. Your religion that you're born into is you're born into it.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 43:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so socioeconomic, those are the people you hang out with.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  But I do think, you know, people who are very novelty-seeking and risk-taking go for people like themselves. People who are very traditional go for people like themselves.

• 43:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Helen, except some of the greatest stories ever told where people fall in love who were completely not the same anything. From Romeo and Juliet to...

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Up to Hillary and Bill Clinton. I mean, Hillary's high testosterone and Bill is, I think, high estrogen.

• 43:39Chuck Nice?

  Whoa, look at that.

• 43:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Snap. So I can't accept the blanket statement that people tend... I mean, yes, statistically perhaps, but the exceptions to that are so extraordinary as to be a lesson to us all.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  There's always exceptions.

• 43:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  We are an animal that's flexible. No question about it. An environment always plays a role.

• 44:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 44:01Chuck Nice?

  There we go. All right, that was a good one. Quick, here we go. This one is for Dr. Tyson from Joy Green on Facebook. Dr. Tyson, my question revolves around the following topic. How can an average, everyday citizen get others to fall in love with science?

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 44:19Chuck Nice?

  Look at Joy Green.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good one.

• 44:23Chuck Nice?

  Going outside the box.

• 44:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Outside the box.

• 44:25Chuck Nice?

  Outside the box.

• 44:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta team up with Helen here to find out, can you fall in love with things that are not other members of your species? Can you fall in love with an idea, a principle, a philosophy?

• 44:37Speaker 02

  I don't wanna have sex with it.

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A pursuit. People who are... Serious hobbyist, you, the only word you can say is that they're in love with their craft.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  I agree with you. These are basic all-purpose systems in the brain.

• 44:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you got your oxy, oxy...

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Well, that's the dopamine system when you fall in love. It's the oxytocin system with feelings of attachment. But sure, these are, you know, the attachment system in the brain. You can be attached to your motorcycle. You can be attached to your girlfriend.

• 45:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But are those same chemicals being excited when you're, when you're waxing your motorcycle?

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Yes, probably, yes.

• 45:06Chuck Nice?

  Or to lesser extents.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:09Chuck Nice?

  So can there be measured releases of these, you know, when you say dopamine, like for instance, you do cocaine, your brain floods with dopamine.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It does. Absolutely. And you can fall in love.

• 45:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 45:20Chuck Nice?

  With cocaine.

• 45:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last question.

• 45:22Chuck Nice?

  You don't love it, just the way it smells.

• 45:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Time for one more question.

• 45:24Chuck Nice?

  Here we go, one more. Here we go. From DeWormo Dave on Google Plus says, "Is chastity healthy and what are the effects of chastity?"

• 45:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  To each his own.

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  To each his own, that's it.

• 45:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's an awesome cop-out answer.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I think you learn a huge amount about somebody when you, when you make love to them. And it, it triggers the brain circuitry for romantic love. It triggers some of the brain circuitry for attachment. And it drives up the testosterone system so that you want more sex with them.

• 45:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I can tell, I can...

• 45:55Speaker 02

  We're built to have sex and fall in love and...

• 45:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can tell you this. If you have a gene for chastity, you didn't inherit it.

• 46:04Chuck Nice?

  Very nice.

• 46:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for listening to StarTalk Radio. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Many thanks to our comedian, our guest, our experts, and I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Until next time, I bid you to keep looking up.