StarTalk Live! Let’s Make America Smart Again (Part 2)

Our mission to Make America Smart Again continues with the conclusion of our show from the Count Basie Theatre. Ft. Neil Tyson, Eugene Mirman, Sen. Cory Booker, science policy advisors John Holdren and Jo Handelsman, Ophira Eisenberg, Baratunde Thurston. #LMASA NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

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.

• 0:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are live at the Count Basie Theater, Red Bank, New Jersey.

• 0:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's make America smart again.

• 0:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so Joe, what more advances are coming down the pipe? What can we look for?

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Well, I think one of the big areas that I'm excited about is microbiology because we're starting to understand that not only the human body, but all ecosystems on Earth are driven in part by their microbiomes, which means their collection of microorganisms.

• 1:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The microorganisms that live on you and in you.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like mostly, probably in your intestines.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Right, that's where a lot of them are, but also the skin, the ears, every orifice of the body.

• 1:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is nasty.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm thinking, you know, you tell anyone under 30 that everyone over 50 at one time would walk into something called a phone booth and take the receiver and put this side to their ear and this side to their mouth, where 100 other people had done it that day. So now you have shared earwax and mouth spittle.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  But, that illustration...

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no but to that, that's just nasty.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe that's why the older generation doesn't have all these allergies and diseases. We're like, steeped in germs.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Well, and that's right. And it points to exactly the issue that most microbes are not germs. They're not harmful to us. There are only about 80 species of germs, and there are thousands, if not millions, of other species of microbes. And so, we don't think of them as the good guys, but in fact, they're keeping us healthy, controlling our behavior, controlling our vulnerability to disease all the time.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  But even, I mean, I've read a lot of the research on this. I mean, even things like depression and a lot of things that we've been thinking have other active, actually, our gut microbiome is affecting so much of our well-being, how we're dealing, fighting cancer.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a whole frontier now.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  It is an amazing frontier.

• 2:30Eugene Mirman?

  Wait, that it has to do with depression?

• 2:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 2:33Eugene Mirman?

  Tell me.

• 2:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She was telling me backstage.

• 2:36Eugene Mirman?

  I'm very curious.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're telling me the microbes in my body are affecting the... Shoot. I gotta say this. I gotta say this because it was so cool. She was saying that there's some, you correct me if I'm wrong, I know I'll get some of this wrong. She was saying that there are microbes in you that actually like chocolate and communicate this fact to your, to your eating desires, and you say, gee, I want some chocolate, when in fact, it's your microbiome that's asking for it.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  That's right. We're totally driven by our bacteria. Absolutely.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  But I hate to tell you this, I mean, this, everything I'm reading is, there's good gut bacteria and bad gut, and the bad gut bacteria really breathes off of empty carbohydrates and things like that. But if you really want to breed better gut bacteria, you need to eat more fiber, more vegetables, more, more plant-based diet.

• 3:26Speaker 04

  Five people are pro-fiber.

• 3:28Eugene Mirman?

  Flapping for carrots, bunch of jerks.

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, tell me about this, this gene editing tool, CRISPR, that I've heard. That's an acronym, right?

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because this sounds like it's the future of all biology.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's very important because it lets us make very, very precise changes in genes or around genes.

• 3:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is a tool for, in the laboratory.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  That can never go wrong.

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughter)

• 3:54Speaker 04

  Photoshop for genetic.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  What we could do wrong with that?

• 3:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What could go wrong? So, is there a biologist concerned about the ethics of that? Making new life or altering life to your own whims?

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think that was a big issue when John and I were in the White House, was trying to figure out what are the limits to what we're comfortable with. And one that was clear, and the President said this in his policy, was that we're not going to edit the germ line, which means the embryos that are forming. So, we're not going to create heritable changes in people in the test tube.

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heritable would mean the ability to transfer that from one generation to the next?

• 4:37Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 4:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  And so, we're thinking more in terms of what used to be called gene therapy, where regular tissue, not your sexual tissue, but your skin, or your heart, or your lungs, would be modified. So, it would only have an effect in your lifetime. But that hasn't stopped the Chinese from doing exactly the experiments we decided not to do, and affecting embryos, and having gene changes that will be passed on.

• 5:04Eugene Mirman?

  Do we have super soldiers?

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw that movie.

• 5:07Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, but it sounds like it might be real.

• 5:11Speaker 05

  Or at least, people that live off of chocolate only. That'd be cool.

• 5:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I mean, it seems to me, you can, if you can modify the individual, you can, you know, we joke about this, and I'm not even a fan of it, but people are imagining, if you're going to live on Mars, just genetically modify you so that everything that's different about Mars is okay for your genetically modified body. And that way, you don't have to live in a hab module. That's an extreme case, but clearly, you could use this to cure us of our traditional diseases.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Right. And so, the human body has evolved over many millennia to be what it is today, with a few mistakes, certainly, but we haven't evolved to be on Mars. So, I don't think we're just going to make a few tweaks.

• 5:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just put that out there, because people occasionally talk about it. But is this real, and is NIH funding this research? And does Congress know about this? And are they behind it?

• 6:04Eugene Mirman?

  Are you learning about it now, here?

• 6:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's kind of saying, taking notes.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  And have you watched Westworld?

• 6:12Speaker 05

  And can we delete the Republican gene?

• 6:19Speaker 04

  Edit, oh, Vera, edit.

• 6:21Speaker 05

  Sorry, sorry. I know that's mind controlled, and I'm for it.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what is, so, so is there a, an awareness of the value of that, of that power?

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Incredibly.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The good value of that power?

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, incredibly so. It's not to where I would want it to be. I would like us to get back to being a science, technology, innovation, leading nation. And, and that's my frustration is, the excitement that I get when I hear a scientist like this talk about what is possible. I wish we could somehow, sort of, expand the moral imagination of this country about what we are capable about in terms of leading the human race into a, into a safer, to a stronger, to a more prosperous world for all of us. And, and that's the challenge we have right now. I get back to this idea of what I think you play a good role in, and we all have to accept responsibility in doing, is we all, we can't expect the world to change unless we're willing to change, and be a part of that change, and lead that change. And so,

• 7:22Speaker 02

  we all should be excited about science, excited about innovation. The more we get excited about it, the more that will ripple out. The more we demand our elected leaders are, the more, more likely they are to respond to our demands.

• 7:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so what do you see are the, are the barriers between that goal and, sort of, making America smart, in a way that we become wise, wise shepherds of our future?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Well, look, I, I want to be very blunt. We are going to have some very tough fighting years ahead of us. We've got three-plus years now of a president who has made it clear on many of these issues that he is contrary, you know, that the Chinese made up global warming. You saw what the values of his budget he put forward. And so, much of what I'm doing in Washington right now, still looking for partnerships across the aisle to get things done, but I'm preparing to fight a president that I think wants to take our, our country backwards in terms of science, innovation.

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but, but, so I, I don't beat politicians over the head, you know why? Because they're elected by an electorate, right?

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, you can beat them on the head, but, and even get rid of them, but then there's the matter with the electorate that voted for them in the first place.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 8:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so your gripe is not actually with the president, your gripe is with the 60 million people who voted for him.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  No, no. In fact, hold on. I don't think we get anywhere as a country when we are in the course of demonizing each other. I think what we need to do-

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I see this as a matter of education. If it's a matter, if you're saying, if you're actually saying, "This policy will harm these people and they don't know it," then somebody's got to educate them.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Right, and I'll give you two quick examples. One is, this is why the science march is so important. Because when you saw the-

• 9:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eight people are going to the-

• 9:11Speaker 02

  When we saw the- I was down in Washington for the women's march, and people didn't march around saying, "Get-" you know, there wasn't people with signs like, "Be Republicans." In fact, I bumped into women that were Republicans there, that were against a lot of policy issues. But a lot of this is just-

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw no anti-Republican signs, at all.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  No, not one.

• 9:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there were a lot of innovative signs.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  The March on Washington, you had people like Strom Thurmond, literally the longest filibuster in the senate, is a racist rant by a man trying to block the civil rights legislation. But the March on Washington, listen to the speakers, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, they weren't speaking against those folks, they were calling to the moral imagination of this country. And what my frustration is, is often, we are not engaged, we luxuriate in this incredible nation. We have the four most powerful words you can say as a human being. In fact, only four and a half percent of humanity can say, "I am an American." And that comes because of the labors and the sacrifices and struggles

• 10:12Speaker 02

  of generations before. And this generation, we see what happens when we disconnect. We see what's happening in Washington as a result of people not voting. I saw this one pie graph, you know, fifty, you know, what is it, sixty million people voting for Hillary Clinton, fifty-seven for Donald Trump, million voting for Donald Trump, and seventy-four million other people, like, "Oh my god, look what just happened."

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  (laughing)

• 10:33Speaker 02

  You know, and so, and so, I'll give a very real example of the EPA and what's happening right now. This isn't because of Donald Trump. This was happening under a great president that wished he could change it. We in our nation right now were Ronald Reagan reauthorized and Mitch McConnell voted for a simple solution to clean up superfund sites. These are corporations that create the most toxic spots in all of America. There's a superfund in every state. Unfortunately, New Jersey has the most of them. Now, that has-

• 11:07Eugene Mirman?

  Lucky you.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  That has lapsed, that funding has lapsed. Because this congress now, suddenly, not like Reagan, not like the old Mitch McConnell, decides not to reauthorize the cleanup for that. So there's all of these so-called orphan sites. There's no corporation anymore to go after to clean them up. But now we have something called data. When I was mayor, I learned this real quick. A lot of people coming to me, a lot of promotion, and I said, "Look, in God we trust, but everybody else bring me data. If you're not a deity, then show me the numbers." Well, now we have longitudinal data from Princeton University about what are the long-term effects of living around a superfund site. And we now know that if you have a child around a superfund site, there's about a 20% more likely of an increase in autism, 20% more likely of an increase in birth defects.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  So talk about a threat to our children. This isn't the Russians or ISIS coming. This is problems we have right here in our country that the only thing that's allowing these to proliferate. I have two superfund sites in Newark that are close to where I live, but the only thing stopping us from doing something is decisions being made in congress. But most of us don't even know that fact.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  But we also, look, we have the gene editing, so we can just get that deployed there first.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  I guess what I'm saying is that my, this is the greatest country on the planet Earth. I don't care what Donald Trump says, "We need to make it great again." We are an amazing country with reservoirs of love and goodness and kindness, but something is missing. And it was missing in the 1960s, too. It took geniuses. I remember Martin Luther King, if you know the history, the Taylor branch. He comes out of Birmingham jail after writing one of the greatest pieces of American literature, "The Letters from the Birmingham Jail." But he was failing. Two young people with an imagination, Dorothea Cotton and James Bevel, came up to him and said, "Hey, you're failing here, let us try something different." And the thing they did different was to organize other young people, ages 8 to 18, to march against Bull Connor,

• 13:01Speaker 02

  to create the spectacle of 10, 12, 14, 16-year-olds marching. And what Bull Connor did, he sprayed them with water hoses, the next time, he released dogs on them. But suddenly, people sitting home in Iowa and New Jersey saw this spectacle going on. Literally, the Soviet Union was making fun of our democracy on the front pages of their newspapers. And it so awoke that reservoir of love in this country. Within days, segregation fell in Birmingham, because this country, when they decide to do something, nothing can stand in our way. And so the challenge is, now... It just sounds like you gotta sink really low before you do something. I think what we need to do is find creative ways, I mean you jokingly said Snapchat about it, but I'm sorry. No, no. I've done the political-

• 13:46Speaker 02

  You should do it. I've done, yes, I've done the political science research about what influences people to act. And did you know the most persuasive thing to get your friends to vote? Is knowing if they're voting or not. Is literally talking to your circle of friends, more than one of my campaign commercials in New Jersey. If somebody says, "Hey, everybody, I met Cory Booker, he's a great guy, vote for him." That's far more persuasive than anything I could put on TV or anything I can do. We have so much power. And so this is my thing, I don't think we need to light rivers on fire.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  That was his idea. I'm not crazy. Whose idea was that?

• 14:22Speaker 02

  It was a Russian that said that.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  Who Russian said that?

• 14:24Speaker 02

  I don't think we need to do it, I think it's effective.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  What we need to do is ignite our own spirits and I promise you that that light will cast away some darkness. I just think we all need to say, "What can I do different this year around issues that I care about? Whether it's science, or super funds, or space exploration. Pick something and be a patriot with love in pursuit of that end. And you will make more of a change than you could ever imagine.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  What I want to know now is beyond. Do we have the policy in place to-

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Invent the future, or again, we're only reacting to bad things that have happened in the past. So, John, let me begin with you. How much duties of your office was to have people think about tomorrow?

• 15:39Speaker 06

  A lot. And in fact, you have on your list, space exploration. When we entered office, we knew we had a challenge in space exploration because a lot of the science had gone out of NASA, a lot of the advanced technology had gone out of NASA. We had to rebalance NASA. We said we were putting the science back in rocket science, in fact.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did it work?

• 16:01Speaker 06

  And, you know, we had a bit of a struggle.

• 16:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a no?

• 16:05Speaker 06

  It worked. I'm sorry, it worked. We did rebalance NASA, and a lot of good stuff got done.

• 16:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, you were in Washington for eight years.

• 16:14Speaker 06

  Eight years.

• 16:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, that's like, longer than any science advisor ever in the history of the universe.

• 16:19Speaker 06

  Well, of course, the history of the science advisors doesn't go back quite as far as the history of the universe. It goes back to the last term of Franklin D., well, the second-to-last term of Franklin D. Roosevelt. So, but I was the longest-serving science advisor in that jury.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So, you had perspective?

• 16:41Speaker 06

  Well, sure. And of course, like everybody else, and like you, I had been watching. I was a space geek when I was a little kid. I was making solid fuel rockets out of my mother's used lipstick tubes when I was nine. They went about a hundred feet in the air. But, yeah, I'd been watching it for a long time, and it was a pleasure to have the opportunity working with President Obama and working with Charlie Bolden, the NASA Administrator, to get some things done.

• 17:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You made rockets out of lipstick tubes?

• 17:10Speaker 06

  No.

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did that hurt your background check?

• 17:12Speaker 06

  When they did the background check, and they found out that you blew things up as

• 17:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  a kid?

• 17:15Speaker 06

  Well, yeah, it was a bit of a problem, but they decided to let me through.

• 17:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You made rockets out of lipstick tubes?

• 17:21Speaker 06

  Little solid fuel rockets, yeah. I had chemistry set ingredients that made the solid fuel. I made time fuse, burned an inch a minute, so I could get away before it went off.

• 17:32Speaker 05

  Next time I see sixteen-year-old boys in Sephora, I'll know what they're up to.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One hundred and one things to do with lipstick tubes.

• 17:42Speaker 05

  That's amazing.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm sorry, I was very distracted by that.

• 17:46Speaker 06

  I apologize, it was my fault.

• 17:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, I think I'm back on track.

• 17:50Speaker 06

  But we did, we did get a lot done in reshaping the priorities in NASA. More investments in the technologies that would be needed to go to Mars. You know, a lot of people are saying, "Why don't we go to Mars tomorrow?"

• 18:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 06

  Let's put the money in, and you know Neil as well as I do, that we don't yet have the technologies to send people to the surface of Mars and bring them back. Of course, there are some who are willing to take a one-way trip, and some others who would be my candidates for a one-way trip.

• 18:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have a one-way trip.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you're citing NASA in response to my question about the future. Is NASA the repository of our future hopes among agencies?

• 18:30Speaker 06

  No, it's only one. It just happens to be a particularly evocative one, and one that still, by the way, inspires young people in the way almost nothing else in science does. At the big science fairs we've had in Washington, the two exhibits that always attract the most attention are NASA and robots. Those are the two that really do it, that get kids going about science and technology.

• 18:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, how do you draw the line between the research you do that helps invent a future and the research that Congress will tell you you shouldn't be doing because corporations should be doing that as part of their R and D? Where's that line? It's gotta be somewhere in there.

• 19:09Speaker 06

  Well, there is, there's a fairly obvious line. In fact, the corporate sector funds more than two-thirds of all the R and D in this country, but they fund less than half of the basic research, the fundamental research that's the seed corn from which all the future applies.

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The long-horizon research.

• 19:26Speaker 06

  And the reason the private sector doesn't do that is perfectly understandable. Time horizon is too long, the risk is too high, the return is too uncertain, and they're not sure that if there's a breakthrough from this basic research, that they, the corporation that paid for it, will get the benefits.

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I always hear in Congress...

• 19:44Speaker 06

  And the result is, the government needs to do it. The government needs to do that sort of basic research, they need to fund it.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 19:49Speaker 06

  But it won't get done.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When that happens... Congress stands up and says, "Why is taxpayer money being wasted on this research that has no application to any known thing on earth?"

• 20:00Eugene Mirman?

  What are examples of some of this terrible research?

• 20:03Speaker 06

  Well, yeah, then I'll give you some. The nature of basic research is you can't tell where it's going to go. Great example, Charles Townes, who got the Nobel Prize for thinking up the science behind the mazer and then the laser, had no idea, when he did that work, that 50 years later, lasers would be the way we do eye surgery, cut metal, copy documents, play movies, measure distances. None of that was obvious at the time the work was done.

• 20:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We even measured the distance to the moon with lasers.

• 20:33Eugene Mirman?

  I think lasers are worth it. Yeah. Just my opinion.

• 20:38Speaker 06

  There's another great example. There was a science project funded by the National Science Foundation many years ago, was called "The Sex Life of the Screwworm."

• 20:48Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of the Screwworm?

• 20:50Speaker 06

  Of the Screwworm. The Sex Life of the Screwworm.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a worm? That's a real worm?

• 20:54Speaker 06

  A real worm.

• 20:55Eugene Mirman?

  Guess what it does?

• 20:56Speaker 06

  And there was, a lot of fun was made of this in the Congress. I think it got Senator Proxmire's Golden Fleece Award, in fact.

• 21:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The award given to the greatest waste of taxpayer money.

• 21:09Speaker 06

  The greatest waste of taxpayers' money. And the fact is, the Screwworm was a livestock pest that did some $100 million worth of damage every year to the livestock industry in the United States. And this basic research on the sex life of the Screwworm led to a means of biological control of the Screwworm, which basically eradicated it as a livestock pest.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Was that immense savings to the US economy? Was that just a marketing failure, though? Like, shouldn't it have been called, like, "Save Our Agriculture Business Research"? Because you can't vote against that.

• 21:39Speaker 06

  The people doing the research didn't know that that would be the outcome. That's the nature of basic research. And then they put condoms on the Screwworms.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  Save sex for Screwworms, better agriculture for America.

• 21:53Speaker 06

  The solution was actually somewhat similar to that. Really? The solution was releasing sterile males, because it turns out that the Screwworm only mated once, the female only mated once. And if the female mated with a sterile male, then...

• 22:05Speaker 04

  She was done.

• 22:06Speaker 06

  No offspring. And so the idea was, you just release it.

• 22:13Speaker 04

  You just release a ton of sterile males.

• 22:15Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 04

  And, and the screw worm goes out of business.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't believe we just spent 10 minutes talking about the screw worm.

• 22:21Eugene Mirman?

  They do the same thing in Skidmore, actually.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  I apologize.

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's fine.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  You asked for an example.

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we know, Corey, that there are people who don't, in Congress, both sides of the, both branches, that don't appreciate this.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Absolutely. There's people that don't.

• 22:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do we get them to appreciate it?

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Again, that's the, that's the political process. That's the sort of sausage making or screw worm funding process.

• 22:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not just education. It's not just examples like this.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  No, it's not.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why can't, why can't he stand up, give that example? I give three others, and they, these are tangible examples. Why doesn't that convince people? Is there missing part of the K-12 education where the receptors aren't there for, for examples that might change their mind?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Again, it is a, this is a process in which there's tons of competing demands, and there are people that are dead set against this kind of science research and, and don't get the larger picture.

• 23:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it because they dug in their heels, and that's it?

• 23:20Speaker 04

  That, look, with respect, Neil, I think...

• 23:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I don't ever want you to respect me. Just bring it out.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  Then with...

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll take care of you later.

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Then with extreme disrespect. You're, you're coming at this as a scientist, and you're leaning on these facts as if facts have ever always been enough. Any parent knows that you just tell the kid a fact once, why don't, why do they keep misbehaving? I told them, if this happens, this will be the consequence. But we do it, because we have emotions, and we have tribalism, and want to feel a sense of belonging. So I think some of these reasons that people are being obstinate, information alone is never enough to close a case. And so it's, it's an important first step, but you've got to build some layers on top of that telepathy.

• 24:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. In the day, it was called an ass whipping.

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's how you convince someone. If the data didn't otherwise work. I'm just curious about that. There are other branches of NASA, of the government, other than NASA. I don't know if they were in your portfolio, but DARPA is something we've always heard of. Defense, Advanced Research Projects Administration.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  And there's DARPA E.

• 24:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Huh?

• 24:27Speaker 02

  There's DARPA E.

• 24:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is?

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Which I'm very interested in. It's about, it's investments in alternative energy.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So E for energy?

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these are funded by the Department of Defense?

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 24:39Speaker 06

  Now, ARPA E is funded by the Department of Energy.

• 24:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but they're both, neither of them are in OSTP's portfolio?

• 24:45Speaker 06

  Oh, they are.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Oh, they are.

• 24:46Speaker 06

  OSTP has oversight of all the science and technology.

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No matter who's doing it?

• 24:50Speaker 06

  No matter who's doing it.

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 24:53Speaker 06

  And we work together with the departments and agencies in developing the president's budget.

• 24:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell me about robots. You said robots get everybody's attention at the science fairs.

• 25:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 25:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I know DARPA's been making some robots.

• 25:07Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 25:13Eugene Mirman?

  Made it sound naughty, but anyway.

• 25:16Eugene Mirman?

  Would it help to just reframe all our science as a weapon?

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Yes. But, but look, I mean, one of the reasons why we can get a lot of very good research done through the Department of Defense, because it's often easier to get people to fund the Department of Defense than it is to get them to fund some of these other agencies.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they're invoking the "I don't want to die" urge.

• 25:36Eugene Mirman?

  If the screw was a weapon, there'd be no problem.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  There is a battle going on right now about defense spending versus domestic spending. And this idea of should there be parity in the increases and the like. But I just have a question, because I've got two scientists here, and something I've read a lot about, when you talk about larger planetary threats, isn't there a real threat of an EM pulse, for example, a naturally occurring one, that could really knock out America's infrastructure?

• 26:06Speaker 06

  Yes, is the short answer.

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. You happy now?

• 26:09Speaker 02

  I'm not happy. I'm one of these people that wants to see more infrastructure.

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell everyone about an EM pulse.

• 26:14Speaker 06

  No.

• 26:15Eugene Mirman?

  Wait, is the Matrix real it?

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Right, the Matrix had, and Ian Puls to get rid of the...

• 26:23Eugene Mirman?

  Robot squids that he...

• 26:24Speaker 02

  The squiddy, the squiddy thing, what were they called? The sentinels. You guys didn't see the Matrix?

• 26:29Speaker 06

  Oh my god. So there are two kinds of electromagnetic pulse. One is if you explode a nuclear bomb in the atmosphere, among many other things, it generates a pulse of electromagnetic energy that can fry the electronics in your cellphone and your car's ignition, in the controllers of the electricity grid and so on. So that's one of the many good reasons not to explode nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.

• 26:52Eugene Mirman?

  Is that it will ruin your phone.

• 26:54Speaker 06

  It will ruin your phone.

• 26:55Eugene Mirman?

  It will ruin, like you would need a new phone.

• 27:00Speaker 06

  But, uh...

• 27:01Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 27:02Speaker 06

  The, uh...

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Didn't the Nokia 7 have one of these? Yeah. No, Samsung 7.

• 27:07Speaker 06

  Samsung. But the natural version of an electromagnetic pulse is when a solar storm...

• 27:15Speaker 02

  A solar flare.

• 27:16Speaker 06

  A solar flare throws charged particles in the direction of the earth, and they interact with the earth's magnetic field in a way that generates a pulse of electromagnetic energy at the surface. And that too can fry your phone, your electricity grid, and everything else.

• 27:34Eugene Mirman?

  Has that ever happened?

• 27:35Speaker 06

  It has happened.

• 27:36Eugene Mirman?

  On a massive scale?

• 27:37Speaker 06

  It happened in Canada.

• 27:38Eugene Mirman?

  Thank goodness.

• 27:39Speaker 06

  It's happened in modern times, it happened in a part of Canada.

• 27:42Eugene Mirman?

  Ottawa?

• 27:43Speaker 06

  But it also happened, there was an event in the late 19th century...

• 27:47Speaker 02

  1860s, right?

• 27:48Speaker 06

  That if, that was so severe, it knocked out telegraph over a very large area, but there wasn't much electrical equipment in those days. And so it didn't do that much damage. But we know that if an event of that magnitude occurred today, it would be devastating.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Could cripple our country.

• 28:06Speaker 06

  And as a result... So where at war with the sun? As a result of that possibility, we have invested now substantial effort in trying to build a multi-pronged strategy to protect us from those kinds of events. That strategy, that strategy includes sensors on the Discover satellite to give us early warning. The strategy includes the ability to disconnect parts of the electricity grid on warning very quickly. But there are other things that we should be doing, and that the study recommended that we do, that we're not yet doing.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:39Speaker 06

  And that's something that I'm very glad you're interested in.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  No, this is my point, these are things I read, there's too much I read that I get now worried about. Okay, but that's not all you should be worried about. So...

• 28:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we should be worrying about that as a globe.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, when's this happening?

• 28:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We don't know.

• 28:54Eugene Mirman?

  Is it on Artie Brown?

• 28:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not predictable. So, so there's not only that, there's, there's always talk about AI running amok. And does the United States have a major investment in this, the future of this technology?

• 29:08Speaker 02

  So we've basically gone from The Matrix to Terminator now, but keep going.

• 29:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 04

  Both happy movies.

• 29:14Eugene Mirman?

  Can we just ask the regular, like, in my regular life, about how scared should I really be? Like, uh, I got one out of 10. Like, uh, six?

• 29:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, well, let me get, so AI, let me ask you this. I, we had Ray Kurzweil as a guest on StarTalk, and I was delighted by that conversation because I'd only known of him from what other people wrote, and I finally got the horse's mouth, and, and I love the guy to no end. Uh, just, he's a deep thinker, he's brilliant, and so what I ask, there's a lot of talk about connecting human biology to the internet in some way, so that your brain is now actively processing the world. And do you see this biologically as a real thing coming down the line?

• 29:58Speaker 01

  I think so. I don't think it's-

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes?

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yes. I don't think it's imminent. I, I think that's way, ways off.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  But we're steps, we're steps there already. There's, there's biologics you can put inside of yourself, they're gonna be able to monitor, distribute medicine, all, your doctor could literally sit at a computer. Uh, we're, we're getting close to that and be able to deliver you doses of medicine based upon the information they're getting over distances about what's happening inside of your body.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  And that's precision medicine. We were talking about it before.

• 30:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so, but how, but AI now is making decisions that I didn't authorize. Right? So, the big fear is that AI, a- a- and I tweeted this once, I said, "We better behave because when AI achieves consciousness, we want to give it as fewer reasons as possible to exterminate us." Okay? So-

• 30:48Speaker 02

  People are clapping for extermination by AI.

• 30:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I think they agree.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  They're like, "Don't worry, Arnold will save us." So is there an agency that's thinking about AI? Surely the

• 30:59Speaker 01

  John Siri.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 31:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, we had many, many meetings in the White House about AI, many of them including President Obama, who's very interested in it and concerned about it.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Did he write a paper on it?

• 31:11Speaker 06

  It has an upside. It has an upside in terms of increasing the capacity to get a lot of important things done. It has a downside, like many technologies. If it's misused, if it evolves in a bad direction, it could be problematic. And so the question is, how do you manage the evolution of this technology in a way that gets the benefits while minimizing the dangers? But my own view is that the dangers, as we currently understand them, are being overstated. The proposition that computers are going to become, in some general sense, smarter than humans sometime soon, is not believed by many of the experts in the field. There are some who think it will happen.

• 31:56Speaker 06

  There are many who think it won't happen. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be vigilant and trying to figure out how to make sure that AI doesn't evolve in a way that takes over our lives.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  But can I tell you where AI scares me right now in Israel? Is that our enemies, sorry Eugene, like Russia.

• 32:13Eugene Mirman?

  I'm a US citizen, just to be clear.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 32:18Eugene Mirman?

  I mean, I'll blend in if they win, but...

• 32:28Speaker 02

  This is, so we have a real problem in this country with cyber attacks. And one of the reasons, one of the areas in which AI technology is now being used, look, Russia and China will never beat us, tank for tank, worship for worship. We spend more money on military, have a bigger military, the next six, seven countries combined. But where they can now offer a threat, we just saw this with a massive cyber attack, is with what the advancements are being made in hacking and that kind of technology. And AI is being used... Invested in and explored by the Chinese and the Russians as a way of having a far more intelligent way where the computer can itself begin to learn about what the defenses are of a system and better break into them.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  And so when you see our competitors, and remember it's not just Russia, it's China who's doing extraordinary jobs stealing business technologies and the like, using these very sophisticated AI, blockchain, all these new next generation sort of technologies and innovations against us and beating us to the punch. It's a massive vulnerability for our nation that we should be very aware and be concerned about.

• 33:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that would come under the Department of Defense. But the Department of Defense, other than the DARPA and the DARPA-E, is not really as equipped, it seems to me, to attract the best and the brightest to solve that problem.

• 33:48Speaker 06

  Well, I don't think that's quite right. The Department of Defense includes the National Security Agency. National Security Agency employs more PhD mathematicians than any other organization in the world.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you got it.

• 33:59Speaker 06

  They are thinking about AI extensively, as is DARPA, which has a lot of smart folks as well. I'm not saying there's no problem. I agree with the Senator, this is a big risk. It's a big area of competition. Our adversaries are very busy. We're very busy too, by the way. And AI can be used to defend our cyber systems, just as it can be used by our adversaries to attack them. So this is an ongoing tension.

• 34:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we can put our AI against their AI and then just let them fight and we go off and go to the park?

• 34:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, that would be good.

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me just get into your lives for a moment. Each of you left academic posts to serve in the White House. And you became a sort of a citizen scientist servant of needs. What each of you, what drove you to do that?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Well, for me, there were two factors. One was John Holdren, the other was Barack Obama.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  They were totally impressive intellects, committed to science. And I think John convinced me when we first talked about the position that working for this president would be a privilege beyond all else for a scientist, and he was right. It was an honor to work for a president who cared so much about science.

• 35:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, nine years ago, what were you thinking?

• 35:34Speaker 06

  Well, first of all, I had had the good fortune to meet President Eisenhower's second-term science adviser, George Kistie Akowski, when I was 29-years-old. And he became one of my mentors, and I learned a lot from him about his service for Eisenhower. Then I met Jerry Wiener, who was JFK's science adviser, and he became a mentor. And I ended up knowing every science adviser to every US president from Eisenhower on. And so I had a secret ambition, as a result of all those interactions, that I might someday be a president's science adviser, and I just happened to luck out and get the best president in modern times to be the science adviser too.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If there were a president who you didn't like, but asked you to be his or her science adviser, what would you say?

• 36:25Speaker 06

  Well, it would depend on the president.

• 36:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why? If you're asked to advise them, why should it depend on the president? It depends on you.

• 36:32Speaker 06

  No, you have to believe that the president will listen. You have to believe that the president is interested, that he's not just trying to check the box.

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait. If you're not an adviser at all, if you're not even in the room, they're clearly not listening to you because you're not in the room.

• 36:47Speaker 06

  No, that's true.

• 36:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So then, there's a chance they'll listen to you if you're in the room.

• 36:51Speaker 06

  You have to figure out whether you're going to be more effective advising this particular president, or more effective pursuing the same issues from outside.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From outside.

• 37:00Speaker 06

  You have to make that decision.

• 37:01Eugene Mirman?

  It can't always work to yell "science" into a wig.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  But can I just say something about these two doctors that's extraordinary, and people should recognize this? The whole idea of our country in the Declaration of Independence, which, this genius document, but frankly, had flaws. It was, you know, referred to Native Americans as savages, and all the flaws of the genius of the writers at the time, that they had flaws, but they kind of came to a conclusion at the end. Where they basically said for this country, the idea of this nation, which was not founded like other countries, because we all look alike, or pray alike, or descended the same way. This was, the idea of this country was the first nation of ideas and principles. And that's a tenuous, especially then, it was a tenuous way of forming a nation. And so what these two doctors really represent to me is, what our founders said is gonna have to happen.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  If this country is gonna make it, they basically said, we have to have an unusual commitment to each other that goes beyond just tolerating each other, or kind of admiring each other. They basically said, we have to commit to each other, and this is the final words of the Declaration of Independence, we must mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. And it's something we all should think about. Are we living our lives this way? These folks, and they're very humble, but trust me, they could have probably made a lot more money.

• 38:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  A lot more resources.

• 38:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't get rich working in government.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  You do not get rich. But these are folks that said, you know what? My love of this country, my sacred honor, my commitment of my fortune, will be to this nation's goodness. And it's been those folks, who are those irrational people throughout history, who may not even make it into the history books, but have had consistently had this commitment. Those people that built the greatest infrastructure this nation has ever known, most of them whose names aren't known, the Underground Railroad. Those people who, I can't name the people, who whether they stormed beaches in Normandy, or sat in laboratories, designing technologies, innovations that I use every day, but I take it, I take for granted. And so I just wanna thank them publicly, because they don't often get a moment like this before a huge audience.

• 39:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hardly ever.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  Hardly ever, to get the kind of gratitude and celebration that we do. So thank you very, very much.

• 39:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me, let me just go down the line here, before we close this out. And just, one by one, if you could, what would be your recipe for making America smart again? Just Eugene.

• 39:36Eugene Mirman?

  Hi, I don't know what he said.

• 39:41Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, I guess, um, I guess voting. Voting. Voting for science, and also I think things like the science march, I think. I think being active and being... I'm optimistic in the end. I think that you can forward good things and over time, it will work, is sort of, so I think, science marching. These immigrants are so hopeful. I am very hopeful. I'm also sitting on a stage with you guys joking around, so I totally believe it. Immigrants, they get the job done. I believe in the American dream. I adore it. Uh, Ofira.

• 40:19Speaker 05

  You know, I think we, we talk a lot about, um, like right now, everyone's stressed out by what's going on, and they're like, "How am I gonna deal with the climate?" Self-care. "I'll go to do some meditation and yoga." I think we have to stop focusing on ourselves. I think we have to focus on other people and our community, and think outside of ourselves more often, and think about, um, how we are together, rather than just laying down and going, "10 minutes of headspace is gonna make it all better."

• 40:53Eugene Mirman?

  John.

• 40:55Speaker 06

  I'm gonna build on what Ofira has said, and suggest, as I've done elsewhere, that everybody who is in science, in technology, or who cares about science and technology, should tithe 10% of their time, whatever else they do, tithe 10% of their time to talking with other people, to engaging on how and why science and technology matter to our society, to our well-being, to the world, what science is, how it works, what the sources of credibility in science are, and why we need to preserve and protect science. We need all of us to be better storytellers about this, to be activists, to be engaged in the policy process.

• 41:38Eugene Mirman?

  Citizen activists.

• 41:41Eugene Mirman?

  Babatunde.

• 41:44Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me here. No, I'm serious. It's been an incredible honor to be onstage with these civil servants, whether it's the comedic arts or the arts and sciences, and I'm humbled to be a part of this. I want to echo what Eugene said. I happened to be at a meeting of the organizers of the science march, and one of them cited a Niels Bohr quote, quantum physics pioneer, and I'm going to paraphrase it, but he essentially described science as the steady reduction of prejudice. And if you think about what science actually is, you constantly challenge what you think to be true and replace it to what you know to be true. And if you're not constantly challenging, that's not science. So we've been challenged up here. I encourage folks out there to do it. And I think what's coming up with the science march, whether it's before, during, or after,

• 42:29Speaker 04

  is a testament to something much larger than the politics of the moment. It's about the larger pursuit of science, which is the reduction of all of our prejudices.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  One of the things I found really striking today was when we talked about things that excite the public about science, it was either because of fear or inspiration. And I think we need to find a way to explain science and teach science in logical ways, not fear-mongering, but that either incite fear or people's imaginations and inspiration. And it can't be just discovering new planets and discovering new cures. It has to go way beyond that to all of science. And I don't know how to do that, but I would challenge all of us to think about that. How do we inspire people about the fundamental quest for knowledge, which is the basis of science?

• 43:31Speaker 02

  I guess I just would encourage people to, as Eugene said, to be people of hope. But what I mean by that is, I think this last 100 days has been some of the most hopeful period in my time as a senator. And it's not because the situation looks great, but I spent eight years living in these high-rise projects in Newark, and the tenant president there, who had her son murdered in the lobby of the building which I lived in... She was one of the most hopeful people that I met. And basically, what she taught me was that hope doesn't exist in the abstract. It's always a response to despair. It's saying that despair will not have the last word. And that hope also is not a being word. You don't just sit in a state of being that's hope. Hope isn't active, it's a fighter.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  It is constantly working to create that belief that you haven't surrendered. And so, my hope is that I've seen the greatness of my country, whether it was the Women's March, or how that healthcare bill, which was so awful, was beat back, not by politicians, but by a public, Republican and Democrat, who just said, "There's no way we're gonna tolerate that." And so, right now, my prayer is that everybody remembers those ten-two-letter words. That this country will succeed or fail based on those ten-two-letter words. And those ten-two-letter words is, "If it is to be, it is up to me." I have gotta be an agent of hope. And that's sort of my parting.

• 44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I could offer some final reflections here. You guys said almost everything I would have said. So, you really left me with nothing. I got nothing now. But let me share with you. Personally, I try not to have hope. Because hope is the confession that you have no control of the outcome. And I don't ever wanna cede that to a word. I wanna say to myself, "There's an outcome that I have some access to, some control over." And let me reiterate again why I don't beat back politicians. There's something else deeper than that. And in our K-12 system, what do we do?

• 45:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we view students as these vessels, where you unzip their brain, their head, and pour information in for 12 years. And then you zip it back up, hand them the diploma, and send them off. And so, we think that being educated is knowing stuff. When somewhere in there, one ought to be taught... How to question knowledge? How to evaluate information and evidence? These are the foundations of science. We don't even have to call it science. Let's just call it curiosity. Because what is a scientist but a kid who never really grew up?

• 46:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, it's a kid who, who in adulthood retained childlike curiosity. And when you retain childlike curiosity, anything that happens before you is up for questioning. And you say, "Well, why are you doing it that way? Can it happen this way?" Well, let me research that. And if you, in addition to being trained how to think about information, you're, if somehow we can retain your curiosity from childhood through adulthood, retain that curiosity, then you become lifelong learners, lifelong inquisitors. Because we will spend many more years outside of school than in school. How many people do we know, if not among ourselves,

• 47:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the last day of school, you take your books, throw them into the air and say, "School's done." As though that's the state you want to be in, where you no longer have to learn? That's a failure in the educational system. You should come out of school and say, "Gee, I'm still curious. Can I go back in? Or is there some ways I can keep learning?" And I think that if we breed an entire generation of people that are curious into adulthood, then you will never elect someone who just states things that are not true. That kid, that would never happen, okay?

• 47:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if you build into the system curiosity. And where does the politics come? The politics layers on top of that. Alright, so you don't say, "There is no global warming." We know there is. Alright, so now that we know there is, let's have the polit- the political conversation. Are there carbon credits? Do you fu- do you, uh, uh, subsidize? Or do you put up tariffs? That's where the politics needs to happen. Not at any level below that. So my sense of this is, if you want to make America great, you first have to make it smart. And to make it smart... We have to retain the curiosity that we all had as children.

• 48:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that way, we can turn a sleepy country into an innovation nation. Amen.

• 48:38Speaker 07

  Red Bank, New Jersey. This has been StarTalk. And I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And my guests, Bob Attende, the senator, Joe, John, and Peter. Yugi. Thank you all, New Jersey.

• 49:02Speaker 07

  As always, keep looking up.