Cycling, Physics, and Doping, with Lance Armstrong

Join Neil deGrasse Tyson as he sits down with controversial cycling superstar Lance Armstrong to explore the science of cycling, the ethics of doping, and the history of the sport. Featuring comic co-host Scott Adsit, author Max Glaskin, and bio-ethics professor Arthur Caplan. Photo Credit: Brandon Royal. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/cycling-physics-and-doping-withlance-armstrong/

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.

• 0:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the hall of the universe. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And tonight, we're gonna be talking about the science of cycling. Why? Because we're featuring my interview with controversial world champion cyclist Lance Armstrong. So let's do this.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright. Got my co-host Scott Etzick. Scott, welcome back. Good evening, thank you very much. You're like old timer now with us. Yeah, I'm like the universe. I'm very, very old at this. Very old. And I can't do this with just Scott, because I don't have particular bicycle talent. But we brought someone in who does. Max Glasgow, welcome from the UK. Thank you. Pleased to be here. You wrote a book Cycling Science. I did. This is badass, just so you know. And so you're also an avid cyclist yourself. I am a very keen cyclist, yeah. Clean, is that a Britishism? You're a clean cyclist? Keen. Oh, keen. Keen. Clean, we'll come to that later.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Indeed, we will. Because, in fact, we're featuring my interview this evening with legendary and controversial cyclist Lance Armstrong. And we do talk about performance-enhancing drugs. We did go there. And we will get there on this show, but later. And because this is StarTalk, our primary interest is science. And I want to find out Lance's early experience, just with science and math. What effect that might have had on him in his early years of school. Let's check it out.

• 1:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I have to ask, tell me about your school background. Did you have math teachers, science teachers?

• 2:01Speaker 01

  I had all of those teachers.

• 2:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You had all those teachers?

• 2:03Speaker 01

  English teachers, Spanish teachers. I just didn't, you know, the crazy thing is I turned professional in triathlon at the age of 15.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  So I'm, you know, not even...

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's like an off-ramp from school at that point.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Right, and I was mentally, I was on that off-ramp. And so, I did go to school and I competed in sports in school, but I, the whole time I thought about what I was doing professionally.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh. At age 15, I saw the triathlon and said, "These people are just crazy." So you clearly did not think they were crazy. You said, "These, this is something I want to do."

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Well, I was, yeah.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what was wrong with you at the time?

• 2:38Speaker 01

  A lot, yeah, still is a lot wrong with me, but it, it was more, it made, I mean, I know that most people's reaction to that is, "These people are crazy, who wants to do that?"

• 2:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  I swam competitively from a very young age. I ran track and cross country, so I had two of the three. And so I thought, "Well, you know, let's go find a bike." So I found a bike and then, you know, it, it was surprisingly...

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the triathlon introduced you to the bicycle?

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely. The bike was the last thing that I did.

• 3:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa, yeah, so...

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Max, you're not only an author of a book, you're also a cyclist. You were the first person to, to pedal across the Himalayan Mountains?

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't even know what that means. I mean, there are no roads or anything.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  There is a, there is a road.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now!

• 3:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He just, he just plowed that through, yeah, yeah, okay. So have you also researched the history of bicycles?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  I have, that comes into it because there's a lot of science and technology that's developed with it.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how far back do they go? Because I'm thinking, you can't have bicycles before you have roads. Like bicycle-rideable roads.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, the first roads were made for bicycles, but the very first kind of bicycle was 200 years ago. 1817.

• 3:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  This is the 200th anniversary. It didn't have pedals, it was made of wood. By about the 1880s, someone came up with a bicycle which was much easier to ride with a, with pedals and a chain going to the back wheel.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, today, like, the biggest event in the world is this 2,000-mile race, the Tour de France, right? And Lance Armstrong, he has lifted that trophy seven times.

• 4:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I didn't say he won, because we'll get back to that. He has lifted the trophy. That is a factual, that's a true fact. He has lifted the trophy seven consecutive times.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in the interview, I had to ask him about the origins of the race, because he became a very big part of anyone's understanding and appreciation for what that race was. Let's check it out.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  The Tour started as a gimmick. The original Tour de France, which is over 100 years old. You have a gentleman who owned a sports slash auto magazine called Le Auto. And it was printed on yellow paper. And so he thought, what can I do? What kind of a gimmick can I come up with to promote the paper? And so he comes up with it, he invents the Tour de France. So he gets these crazy guys, these thugs, to go ride around France. And hence, the color of the winner's jersey. It was, it was a stunt.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, was it on tricycles?

• 5:15Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't on tricycles, but it was five stages. Five stages, the same distance that they do today. Think about how long the stage, the stage would be, these stages were 400, 500 miles long. You think it's hard now?

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Do it back then, 400 miles with two gears, with no support. I mean, it was, dudes were getting in trains, holding on to cars. It was crazy. Yeah.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we've got some images of the Tour. What's the first one we have here?

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so there's one yellow jersey there. So what does that mean?

• 5:51Speaker 02

  That means he has completed the race in the shortest amount of time.

• 5:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though he's behind 50 other riders?

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're helping him, they're his teammates.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  So, you get 22 teams, each of nine riders. So there's 198 cyclists at the start. After three weeks, 21 stages, and they've covered more than 2,000 miles. They're not all there at the end. I don't think they're all there at the beginning.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, show me another, we got another image here, so that's like the lead pack. What's going on here?

• 6:29Speaker 03

  There's your winners.

• 6:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, they could say, yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  They're the team cars. Each, each team has a car support car with spare bicycles in case there's mechanical problems.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's not just who's competing, they're like fans who are very, who feel very strongly about this. Show, what?

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Which one are you?

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Max, I don't understand, could you explain?

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, I mean, it's the biggest free show, free sporting show in the world.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What are they wearing?

• 7:00Speaker 02

  It's a mankini.

• 7:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mankini?

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now Scott, I think often how aliens would respond to our culture.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  I think they'd be very excited.

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, um, I, I, I just wonder whether they would just

• 7:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  confirm their suspicions that there was no sign of intelligent life on Earth and just keep flying on.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  Well, I think they'll, they'll see that there's intelligence because all the cars and bikes just keep going past these guys.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I see. So now, um, Lance has worn the yellow jersey more than anyone else. He told me about the intricacies of the, the whole sport of cycling, let's find out.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  You have the athlete, you have the bicycle, that's what people see, right? But the way the sport works, it gets a lot more technical and a lot more intricate. You have the team, you have the team dynamic, you have all of the elements, whether it's wind or, or weather, road surfaces, uh, crashes, flat tire, you have all of these variables that come in to this sport that, that people don't necessarily think about.

• 8:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think about it at all.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  No, you see-

• 8:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just your bicycle.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Right, well, it's, it is, look, it's, it's, I tell people this all the time, it's, it's a marathon meets a chess match meets NASCAR meets, you know-

• 8:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good NASCAR.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Politics.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  So there's just a lot, NASCAR being the drafting element-

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, of course, all of that.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  The chess match being the tactical, strategic part, 20 teams on the road, nine riders per team, you know, and then all the while, the luck is so, you know, a crash that you will end, could end your career any day.

• 8:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Max, you agree with this, I guess?

• 8:48Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, I mean it's a most complex sport. The Tour de France, because you're riding in a team, you're doing flat stages, you get some tremendous mountain stages where they're going up to maybe 4,500 feet, maybe not just one mountain in a day, maybe two mountains. But you're riding with a whole team of people who are supporting you. You have got a whole team who are supporting you, so you need specialists. If you're the leader of the team, you have specialists who help you get up, you have one or two other climbers.

• 9:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, but we're thinking that the winners are because they're particularly physically fit and have a certain amount of grit. And now we're hearing that there's this strategy, it's a chess match, but then of course there's just the pure physics of it. So let's check it out.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  The most important thing for us was the power that we could produce, which interestingly enough, early in my career, we couldn't measure power. You measured heart rate, or rate of perceived exertion, or how do I feel, how hard am I going? That's how you measured things. And then the power meter came along, and you could actually measure watts at the crank. That changed everything. So then you knew how strong you were. You weren't guessing, you weren't timing yourself, you weren't racing somebody else.

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have this in rowing, it's called the ergometer.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you knew exactly.

• 10:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you know if you're slacking up, I mean, oh my gosh.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  And literally overnight, the entire peloton sport went from heart rate to watts. And so that changed everything, it changed the training, it changed the race, it changed it all. And so, but we knew. You knew how much power you could produce, which is number one variable, and you knew how much you weighed in the morning. We call it power to weight. So going up a hill, you can produce 500 watts and you weigh 160 pounds?

• 10:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's Newton's laws of physics, if that's right.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  That's right. It is laws of physics, but you always go back to the fact that there's tactics, there's luck. So you have to always think about that. But obviously, if you don't have that magic number on power to weight, then who cares about the luck?

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it matters if you drop a pound without losing the power?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yep, absolutely. Or you could lose a little power and lose more weight.

• 10:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even more weight, so that the power to weight ratio goes up?

• 11:02Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Max, is there a golden ratio that you should seek?

• 11:08Speaker 02

  The highest you can possibly get to would be the one that you really want. But for riders in the Tour de France, they're doing maybe five watts per kilogram of weight for a flat stage if they're going in a sprint, a really fast sprint. They can get up to the last 150 meters of the race, they can get up to 20 watts per kilogram.

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  So, but yeah, they're fit.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, what we did was, we sent out our senior sidewalk science correspondent. We have such a thing. Yes, Chuck Nice, to find out more about the science of cycling. Let's check him out.

• 11:52Speaker 04

  What's up Neil? We came all the way to Staten Island to the sports science lab to find out how a regular dude like me stacks up against a top cyclist like Lance Armstrong. Oh, it's awe. Gentlemen, how are you? Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. I'm ready to be your lab rat.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  So right now, they're putting a series of sensors all over my body. There is no fear in this dojo. There is no fear in... Oh.

• 12:26Speaker 04

  So, these will actually show up as an avatar on screen, and these smaller ones actually affixed directly to my skin with an adhesive, and they measure my muscle activity. So, basically, I'm a cyborg. Calibration complete.

• 12:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you check out on the screen here, that avatar, everything you're doing, we're moving right there.

• 12:52Speaker 04

  Right. Hey, that's me. What's up? Hey, what's up?

• 13:01Speaker 04

  Okay, what's that?

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the VO2 mask.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  Alright, so I put this on.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep, that's going at the crown of the head. Gotcha.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  Help me out here. Okay, this is great.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, how's that? You're good?

• 13:13Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, just breathe a little bit, nice and deep.

• 13:19Speaker 05

  Alright, so everything that you're breathing in and out, okay? We can tell if your muscles are utilizing your oxygen.

• 13:24Speaker 04

  But can you tell this? I'm your father. Okay, sorry about that. I had to do that. Okay, here we go. Alright, I think I'm on.

• 13:34Speaker 05

  Alright Chuck, all you're gonna do is start pedaling.

• 13:36Speaker 04

  Just start pedaling.

• 13:37Speaker 05

  Yep. Alright, our wattage, our goal's a hundred.

• 13:40Speaker 04

  One hundred?

• 13:41Speaker 05

  Yep, we want to sit right around that one hundred mark.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  Right there?

• 13:45Speaker 05

  Yep, yep. Right there. Perfect. Now we're sitting around one fifty. Bad boy.

• 13:53Speaker 05

  Deep breaths, deep breaths. Breathe. Come on, ten more seconds. Come on, baby.

• 14:01Speaker 05

  There you go, push it, push it, push it. Good. That's it.

• 14:08Speaker 05

  Get this off of you. Let's get some air in now.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 14:14Speaker 05

  Need some water?

• 14:15Speaker 04

  Yes. And a cigarette.

• 14:21Speaker 05

  So here's what we got, so VO2 is milliliters per kilogram per minute. You scored fifty-nine point eight. So we're looking at the scale. In the superior range.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  What?

• 14:33Speaker 05

  That's, that's very good.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  I'm in the superior range?

• 14:35Speaker 05

  For your age.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  Oh, for my age, well, thanks.

• 14:38Speaker 05

  So you're still about halfway away from, uh, Armstrong, all the elite cyclists, for your age.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  That means I'm half as good as Lance Armstrong. I'm half as good as Lance Armstrong.

• 14:51Speaker 04

  Woo, let's do it again!

• 14:56Speaker 05

  Chuck, nice.

• 14:59Speaker 05

  So Max, uh, tell me about the, the V, VO2.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  VO2 Max?

• 15:04Speaker 05

  Max, what is that?

• 15:04Speaker 02

  It's a measurement of how good your... Body is at using oxygen. So it's the respiratory, it's the heart, and it's the muscles. How much oxygen is getting to your muscles to help your muscles work?

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you, you could be working hard, but if your muscles are not getting the oxygen, they'll fatigue faster.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 15:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so that's not good.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  That's not good.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So, does the person who wins every race have the highest VO2 max?

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Not necessarily. They may have the best strategy. They may have the best team support.

• 15:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  And they may be the luckiest.

• 15:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it just helps?

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Oh, it's, it's very, very important.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well Chuck Nice had one more test in that lab to go through, in the sports science lab. It's their high-tech version of, you remember in the old days you have a post-workout ice bath?

• 15:51Speaker 03

  I do, yeah.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, when you, when you were...

• 15:54Speaker 03

  I'm gonna have one after the show.

• 15:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After a rough comedy routine, you gotta go into the ice bath.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  In your mankini.

• 16:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so there's a, apparently it's an updated version of that that Chuck was checking out. Here he goes.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  Okay. Oh my goodness, dude, that's crazy!

• 16:12Speaker 04

  Ready? Oh, you gotta be freaking kidding me!

• 16:19Speaker 04

  Okay, first of all, I can't breathe this because these are liquid nitrogen fumes, and that is an asphyxient... Ah! Oh, snap! What are you doing? Are you lowering the temperature? Okay, Mike, that's it, I gotta get out. Seriously, please. Dude, dude.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  Neil, can you guys explain why athletes put themselves through all of this?

• 16:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so, so Max, liquid nitrogen, so what you actually saw there was not the nitrogen, but the water vapor that would condense under the influence of that, of such cold temperature. So that's what's visible to you. Plus, it's the temperature of the air around him, so it's not gonna... Freeze him solid like a potato chip. As what would happen if we dipped him in liquid nitrogen.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Okay, have you tried that?

• 17:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I tried dipping him in liquid nitrogen, yeah. You would not, you would last maybe five seconds, 10 seconds. So, so the very difference between liquid pulling heat out of your body and air. So, but what I want to know from you is, do you know anything about this new, this new way?

• 17:29Speaker 02

  Well, I've done a little bit of calling around. I spoke to the lead physiotherapist of a national cycling team. And he says that actually, nobody's using it yet in cycling. Because there isn't enough evidence that it benefits a cyclist. Even the ice baths aren't really used in cycling. Because it's really, uh, helps people who have been in impact sports. But in cycling, there's no impact, you hope.

• 17:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay, so it's, for the moment, kind of gimmicky. It could shrink stuff up, too.

• 18:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's, mankinis would look different after you came out of it.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  They'd be slack.

• 18:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, up, up next on my interview with Lance Armstrong. We're gonna trace the evolution of the bicycle on StarTalk.

• 18:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. And we're featuring my interview with controversial cyclist Lance Armstrong. Let's check it out. From when you began riding to when you retired. Did the aerodynamics of the sport change?

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Well, yes, I mean, the biggest thing that changed was in the late 80s. They invented a whole new type of handlebar. And the guy who invented this is a guy named Boone Lennon. And he was an old ski racer. But he also rode bikes. And he worked for Scott, the ski manufacturer, make poles and skis. And he said, well, what if instead of, I mean, I wouldn't ski down the hill like this. What if, you know, a skier who's tucked like this? Like, what if we rode like that? So that, that, that takes away the aerodynamic drag of my arms outside. Everything inside. And now I'm one thing. Yeah, so you look, it was called the Scott bar and it looked like a downhill ski racer. So that revolutionized the aerodynamics.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  But it's been interesting because the bike really hasn't changed. They don't want the bike. How it's gonna get there, tell me about this. Yeah, the bike, the traditional idea of a bike, which is sort of dictated by the governing body, is what they call a double triangle, right? So you have the rear triangle and the front triangle and that makes up the classic shape of a bike. Okay. If you wanted to, you could obviously make a much faster bicycle if you got rid of the idea of the double triangle. A British guy in 1996 by the name of Chris Boardman set the hour record, which is on the track. I love the hour record. Which is like the ultimate. I love that. I mean, you're indoors, there's no wind, there's no draught, it's like the ultimate. And the track is banked, so you just. It's banked at thirty. There's nothing against you. Right.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  So he said, he broke the hour record on a bike, it's called a Lotus bike. It was not a double triangle. You can look it up. To me, and I think if the sport said, okay, you guys evolve technology wise, do whatever you want. That's what the sport would look like.

• 20:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lotus bike looked badass right there. So we've got some examples of the evolution of the bike here. So Max, what do we have on, on our stage here?

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Well, we've got a penny farthing from maybe the replica of an 1860's bicycle. Pedals attached to the front wheel, so your speed is limited by the size of the front wheel.

• 20:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's also dangerous, right? You'd fall off of this thing.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  You can fall off it, but if you start to lean one way or the other, because you're so high, you've actually got more time to correct it before you fall, to change the steering.

• 21:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  But you will fall.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so there's not only bicycle, there's also, of course, as we discussed, the aerodynamics. Okay, and so how big an issue is the aerodynamics of bicycle?

• 21:25Speaker 02

  It's phenomenally important when you're going.

• 21:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only if you're going fast.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  No, no, no, if you're going slow, even if you're just going along at eight or nine miles an hour, half of your energy is being spent pushing the air aside.

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so we have, we have a more traditional bicycle here, but I don't never think of bicycles themselves as aerodynamic.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Oh, well, they, they've done lots of tweaks to make them more aerodynamic. That one there, I think, has got deep section rims, uh, which allows the air to flow more smoothly.

• 21:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's not only that, there's drafting, something we know about in NASCAR and, and other very fast races, but there's also drafting in cycling.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  It's crucial in cycling, in Tour de France.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So somebody in front of you, you can get an advantage from that.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  You certainly can, the energy that you need to expend reduces that by maybe thirty percent.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I asked Lance about that, let's see what he says about drafting.

• 22:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's talk about drafting.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  It's one of the most important parts of the sport.

• 22:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So presumably there's some speed below which drafting is not useful.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Right, that would be like one mile an hour.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Anything more than.

• 22:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anything more than stationary.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Keep in mind, the, the, the speed is important to talk about, but the wind is, if you, if, if you say ten miles an hour, that's not very fast, but if the wind is fifty miles an hour in your face, ten miles an hour is pretty fast.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  So your draft, it's just, it goes up exponentially, the more intense the wind is, the direction of the wind, right, obviously, if it's right in front of you, you stay right behind the rider that's in front of you.

• 23:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  If the wind is from the left, then you inch over to the right.

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  So you just find, it's very, this is why I say NASCAR, you find that sweet spot of where that draft is, right, and that's, and then, of course, that just gets multiplied. If, if there's one rider in front of you, you have a draft. If there are a hundred riders in front of you, you're not even pedaling.

• 23:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Max, first this sounds lazy, first of all.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And diabolical.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're exploiting the energy of the leader.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So then, why does anyone lead the race?

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Because that's their job. Because their team leader may be behind them. So they may be a domestique, one of these servants, to go at the front to take the brunt of the wind, so the people behind their team leader can save their energy by slipstreaming. Now, what if the servant wins?

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  That doesn't happen, Scott. That doesn't happen. Come on. And no, no, no. No one's ever gone rogue? People go rogue on one day, but the next day, suddenly, they find they don't get out of the caravan.

• 24:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you're in the back of the pack, however, and someone trips or whatever falls, then there's a domino effect, and the lead cyclist just keeps going ahead.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  That's right. That's why some people want to be at the front, to avoid the crashes that happen in the peloton, the bunch. Or cause a few. Yep.

• 24:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the peloton, I guess that's French, that is the pack?

• 24:26Speaker 02

  That's right. That's the whole bunch of riders going along the road.

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That are forming their own aerodynamic system.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  That's right. And it changes. It moves. Some people go to the front to take a turn at the front. They're sent up the road by their captains to go and take the brunt of the wind, and others tuck in behind.

• 24:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've told, I've never witnessed this, but I'm told that birds actually exchange place in the front when they're flying through the air in their flocks.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  There has been some mathematics comparing the two. And particularly interesting is penguins huddling. You know, penguins huddle to shelter each other from the cold icy winds. And they actually take it in turns to go to the outside of the flock to shelter their friends, and then after a while, they go back in. And their movement is very similar to the way that the peloton moves, the dynamics of the bunch.

• 25:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you know what time it is now, Scott?

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Is it time for cosmic queries?

• 25:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Indeed it is, cosmic queries!

• 25:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So almost every show, we field questions from our fans about, in this case, the science of cycling.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 25:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  John Clemens from Canada, somewhere in Canada. Is cycling a good way to maintain astronaut health, as depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

• 25:38Speaker 02

  They've been designing bicycles for space stations, and I don't know whether it would work, but there are a couple of...

• 25:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but we've perfected stationary bicycles, right? And the resistance is not against gravity, it's against whatever is the friction against the rim. So, in zero G, you need an assortment of apparatus that doesn't require G for you to work it. Like, you can't have, you can't work dumbbells in zero G, because you lift it up, it'll just keep going up. So, but you can't do push-ups, because you push and then you float up, right? So you need like straps and all, Velcro and all kinds of stuff you get at the corner S&M store, just to keep you, just to keep you not bouncing around the walls of the thing. But, but a stationary bicycle, that, I mean, I would see that as like the best thing you could put on a, on a, on a, on a station.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Well, anything involving a bicycle's gotta be the best, by my book, anyway.

• 26:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Says a guy who wrote a book on bicycles.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 26:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So, coming up on StarTalk, we talk about the science of performance-enhancing drugs. Yeah, we go there. That's next.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. And I sat down recently with cyclist Lance Armstrong, and we discussed his use of performance-enhancing drugs during his seven-time winning streak of the Tour de France. He now admits he did it, and he's been stripped of all of his titles. And we're gonna learn the science behind how and why all that went down. So, let's do this.

• 27:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Joining us in studio to help us in this conversation is Arthur Kaplan, Professor of Bioethics at NYU. Arthur, welcome to Star Trek.

• 27:40Speaker 06

  Thanks for having me.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for being here. So that's a thing, bioethics.

• 27:45Speaker 06

  It is a thing.

• 27:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It wasn't always a thing.

• 27:47Speaker 06

  No, until we figured out a way to get paid for being philosophers, it was nothing, but now it's become something.

• 27:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because it's deep thinking about how things are and how they should be.

• 27:58Speaker 06

  Correct.

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there it is. So let's get back to my interview with Lance Armstrong, and where we talk about these topics that are right in your bailiwick. Let's check it out.

• 28:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How much would you say your performance was enhanced as a percent of yourself from when you were at your peak response to these chemicals?

• 28:20Speaker 01

  So the problem was in cycling, you always had some of that. And I break it up into two categories, low octane and high octane. And you've always had and maybe still have some low octane. So these one, two percenters. And then came...

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Low octane enhancements.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so whatever.

• 28:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One or two percent, if you're world-class and you just have to beat the one person, that'll do it.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Right, but assuming that everybody opts in for low octane, which they did in the old days. But then what happened is somebody came along, Big Pharma, came along with something that was high octane. And that was EPO, and that was not one or two percent. That was 10%. And so it was so great...

• 29:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  EPO...

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Eurythropoietin. So the red cell booster, which, again, power, weight, oxygen. How you get that power is... So you had this, the sport, not even cycling, but the entire endurance world, they discovered it. And it was so beneficial to the ones that made that... It spread like wildfire. And then everybody's faced with this quandary of like, oh my God. Like, what, one or two percent? You can almost manage that. You could say, you know what? I'm not going to do that and I can still compete. 10%? Then you're faced with the decision, do I opt in or do I go home?

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Arthur, was that the only real option? To use illegal enhancements or just go home?

• 29:56Speaker 06

  Well, it might have been true that if everybody's doing it, you gotta do it to compete. But I think the Bicycle Association, whatever the professional group is that monitors the races and the sports, they let this go for a long time, a little bit like Major League Baseball, not doing anything about steroids. You know, you're gonna tolerate it in the interest of keeping the fans around to pay attention. I think the officials, if you will, made a mistake with the EPO.

• 30:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when he says low octane, what are the drugs he's talking about?

• 30:27Speaker 06

  So, you could have low octane cortisone shots. Some of us get them. Me, for my beat-up football knee. It's a kind of pain reliever and a little bit of a lubricant in the joints, obviously for bicycling, kind of a low-tech intervention, drugs around, you might say, "I got a sore knee, get it anyway." Little higher-powered stuff, steroids, builds up muscle strength. The full-blown 10% high-octane stuff he was talking about, that was a drug that was invented.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that the EPO?

• 30:56Speaker 06

  That's the EPO, and that really is a hormone that lets the body make red blood cells. You have more red blood cells, you have more ability to process oxygen.

• 31:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scott, are there performance-enhancing drugs for comedians?

• 31:08Speaker 03

  Parental disappointment? Same as ventriloquists. Would you have one? What would be your performance-enhancing drug?

• 31:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe itself is a drug.

• 31:20Speaker 03

  Wow, man, you blew my mind.

• 31:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think my body chemistry changes when I ascend a mountain and I look up into the night sky, alone, communing with the cosmos. I am a different person. Something biochemically changes within me.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  You wanna be alone with the universe right now?

• 31:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd wanna be, if I could be there 24/7, I would. Okay, so, let's get to brass tacks here. Why is any of this illegal? Why is it wrong? You're a bioethicist. Why is it wrong?

• 31:54Speaker 06

  I have no idea.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 31:59Speaker 06

  I, uh...

• 32:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Says the bioethicist. Yes.

• 32:02Speaker 06

  It's wrong for a couple of reasons, but let me preface that before I reveal the secret reasons. There's no absolutes. We make up the rules of our sport.

• 32:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is my point.

• 32:11Speaker 06

  If we want to have the drug-addled, completely overdosed Olympics, we can. But most people, and you started out the show talking about this, why do we care about what athletes do? We want to see what the humans do. We're not really interested in who has the best pharmacist. So, if you're interested in human competition, you gotta set some limits, otherwise it just doesn't matter. It's who gets the best drugs, and that's what you're watching. It's an exhibition.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but why not just have everybody do it, and that raises the level of the sport? You drink coffee in the morning. You're now more awake to do your sport.

• 32:45Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coffee's not illegal, yet you are enhanced. You slept last night. That made a proper chemistry for you to wake up and be, and be alert for all the things you need. That's not illegal.

• 32:57Speaker 06

  You are going for the A in the bioethics class. I can see that. So, but here's the rejoinder. One, if you do things that are risky, it's not tolerable in athletics. You take those steroids, they damage your liver, they cause all kinds of health problems. Two, kids watch what the grownups do. They start taking the drugs. We saw steroids.

• 33:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're saying, wait, hold on. You're, I'm still, I'm going now going for the A+. You're saying, that, you're implying, that if all of these performance-enhancing drugs did not otherwise damage your health.

• 33:29Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nobody would have a problem with that.

• 33:31Speaker 06

  They probably wouldn't. And the other problem with performance-enhancing drugs, and this is an odd one, but if you care about continuity over time comparing performances, you can see sports like baseball get very nervous about introducing new drugs, because they like to say, is Babe Ruth better than Willie Mays, who's better than, you know, Rodriguez? Oh, he doped. Do we put him in the?

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In New York, we call him A-Rod.

• 33:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, A-Rod. I'm from Boston. We call him a jerk. But anyways.

• 34:01Speaker 06

  But anyway.

• 34:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So where do you draw the line?

• 34:04Speaker 06

  I think you have to do it in a couple of ways. One, watch the health risk. Two, if it gives you an enormous advantage, it's simply going to undermine competition. And that's really what we're paying attention to. Three, if you have some kind of an agreement, you've got to make it available to everybody. You know, if our Olympic team goes and beats up poor nations because we have nutrition and trainers and a good exercise physiologist and on and on, I don't consider that fair. I want to see something balanced out there.

• 34:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And none of that is illegal.

• 34:34Speaker 06

  And none of that is illegal. So again, I'm not saying there's an in-principle reason to say, no, you can't do X. You do want to pay attention to health impact. No doubt about that. We don't want people getting brain tumors because they're using growth hormone. Bad idea. But, you know, are we going to allow trainers better diets? Yeah, I think that does become part of the sport. And we decide how much of that we can tolerate before it becomes an exhibition of pharmaceuticals, not an exhibition of athletics.

• 35:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this splits it into two regimes. One of them is, am I better than you at any given time?

• 35:09Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 35:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And another one is, I'm trying to create a world record. So am I better than all humans who have come before me?

• 35:16Speaker 06

  And people are interested in both. Some want to see, gee, I wonder what you could do if you artificially engineered somebody to have prosthetic legs and some kind of gigantic genetically engineered muscles? How could they jump like over Mount Everest? That would be cool. We'd like to see that on TV. Others would say, you know, that's not a sport. That's become some kind of bizarre exhibition. If you like that, watch pro wrestling. That's what that is. That's some kind of an exhibition. It's not a contest. I want to see what humans can do if they train, if they work, if they struggle. That's sports. So I'm not saying which one you ought to be a fan of. I'm just saying, you know, that's where the line goes.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  Which brings us to our new game show. Is this doping? What counts as doping anyway? And why does it really matter also?

• 36:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've got a game show going here? All right.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  Here we go.

• 36:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm in. Let's do it.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  All right. Neil, you're starting for 10. Listening to music, is it doping?

• 36:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. It completely influences my mood for what I need to do, and I'm better at it for having listened. Yes.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  And Max?

• 36:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Acoustic doping.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, it depends on the music, of course, but yeah.

• 36:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:27Speaker 03

  Arthur?

• 36:27Speaker 06

  Have you dropped acid?

• 36:30Speaker 03

  We can do that after the show. Let's play the game.

• 36:33Speaker 06

  I'm gonna say no. I mean, I think that's part of the natural environment. I don't think you're doing anything.

• 36:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Aren't there some marathons where they don't let you listen to headphones?

• 36:41Speaker 06

  There are, but I still think it's a, you know, basically you can do that as part of what I'll call the ordinary natural world. Uh, nah.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  Okay, so we have two. Yes, it's doping. One, no, it's not doping. The answer is? Maybe?

• 36:56Speaker 03

  All right, question number two. Not having sex, is it doping? Max?

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Now? Not having sex now? Um, uh, no, it's not doping.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Neil? Not having sex. Try to think back.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It has.

• 37:15Speaker 06

  Well, the old bugaboo for boxers used to be, don't have sex at least a month before a match. There is no evidence that that affects performance whatsoever. No.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  Let's see.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would say maybe.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. Answer is?

• 37:27Speaker 06

  Maybe!

• 37:29Speaker 03

  All right, and finally, really believing in dumb superstitions, is that doping?

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes. I'll tell you why. Because if you believe in a superstition, and it gives you the confidence you would not have otherwise had, you perform with a new, extra bit of chemistry that wouldn't, wasn't otherwise.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  Every morning when you get to work, you kiss a meteor, right?

• 37:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I lick, I lick the meteor, yeah. No.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  I'd like to know where you get the meteor from, because I'd like to do that.

• 37:58Speaker 06

  Space.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, take me there. Um, yes, that's doping.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Yes, and Arthur?

• 38:05Speaker 06

  No. Uh, again, I'll beat up on baseball for a second. It takes you 12 hours to, uh, finish up your at-bat, because you have to cross yourself, and jump up and down, and turn left and right, and look toward the north wind, and I don't know what else they're doing. But no, I don't think it gives you any advantage at all, so part of doping is to get an advantage. Superstitious claptrap? Nah.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  All right.

• 38:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  Let's see. Superstitions lead to?

• 38:29Speaker 06

  Maybe, maybe, we don't know. Could be, maybe. This is not the road to the A in biohazard.

• 38:37Speaker 06

  Let me just tell you.

• 38:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I'm wondering, what is the, what is the history of enhancement, of chemical enhancement of the human body?

• 38:45Speaker 06

  It's old. I mean, there were certainly Olympic athletes in the Greek times who were ingesting all kinds of artificial substances, gaining advantage.

• 38:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ancient Greece?

• 38:54Speaker 06

  Yep. Chewing the old, sort of coca leaf type entities to get a little buzz. You can see, oh, even back in the 60s and 70s, people taking the greenies in sports to stay alert, stay awake. That was methamphetamine. It, it's always been with us. Not having sex. Not having sex.

• 39:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so if it's always been with us, but we don't have a memory of it having always been illegal, I guess.

• 39:22Speaker 06

  Correct, correct.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the difference.

• 39:23Speaker 06

  And, you know, on the technological front, you were saying, you know, well, if everybody does it, there are tiny motors now that they're starting to put in some bicycles to get a rest and have an advantage. I think people would look at that and say, gee, I don't know, should we put a tiny motor in every bike? Well, eventually, who needs the cyclist, right?

• 39:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just race the, just race the machine itself.

• 39:42Speaker 06

  Exactly. Google may dream of this, a driverless cycle race, but I don't think it's a sport anymore. It becomes some kind of, you know, exhibition.

• 39:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so, so if, if we follow your line of thinking and we say, it might harm you, it's an unfair advantage, so we stop it all. Is there a point where we will no longer get better at what we're doing and then the interest in the sport might fade?

• 40:08Speaker 06

  No.

• 40:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I asked Lance Armstrong that.

• 40:11Speaker 06

  Well, let's ask an expert.

• 40:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And let's find out.

• 40:12Speaker 06

  Sure, okay.

• 40:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out what he said.

• 40:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you think we've already hit the limit of human performance without enhancements? Without illegal enhancements?

• 40:22Speaker 01

  It, I don't know.

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are we there yet?

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Uh, I, I, I think, uh, look, use cycling as an example. My view of the sport today, you know, at this present time, the sport is much cleaner than it was in my, in my era, fortunately for these guys that race today. Yet the guys still go as fast, if not faster.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So author, if they're not using performance enhancing drugs, how is it that they're riding faster?

• 40:50Speaker 06

  Well, I think training techniques have improved. They're not drugs, but we know more about physiology. You look at the way in which you film people on bikes. You guys had the big discussion about aerodynamics. The bikes themselves are getting a little better. So there's always going to be some technological improvement. And by the way, if we do get to that limit of human performance, the next step is genetic engineering. We're going to start to change ourselves to improve performance.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, so then you're not bionic, you are biologic.

• 41:19Speaker 06

  Correct. And we're going to see people, and by the way, if I tweak-

• 41:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, but before we get there, we see people who have, I mean, if you're missing legs, you have prosthetics. And suppose we develop a prosthetic that is better than the human version of what it's replacing.

• 41:38Speaker 06

  Uh, pretty close to that right now.

• 41:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And should that be allowed?

• 41:40Speaker 06

  And so the track and field guys basically said-

• 41:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They got that blade that they're running on now?

• 41:45Speaker 06

  Yes. And if you have those blades and it gives you a distinct advantage, no. Even if you're handicapped, even if you're born without legs, we're not going to let them in. You can't have that big an advantage. But Oscar Pistorius, the guy who wound up sadly getting involved in the killing of his girlfriend and the trial and all that, before all that happened, he was this close to being able to run because he could show that his artificial limbs didn't give him a big advantage. It just made him competitive. That's our call. We decided that.

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Judgment call.

• 42:16Speaker 06

  Judgment.

• 42:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the spot, given the circumstances. And so now you're imagining a future where we genetically engineer athletic performance.

• 42:26Speaker 06

  So you could either do it by taking cells in your body now, and instead of taking a chemical to make more blood cells grow, you tweak the gene and it makes more blood cells naturally, so to speak.

• 42:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We were talking offline about a mouse that they did this with?

• 42:39Speaker 06

  Super Hercules mouse?

• 42:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hercules mouse?

• 42:41Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 42:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want it to be Mighty Mouse.

• 42:43Speaker 06

  Yes, there you go. And this leads to a wonderful Olympics with mice competing on 10 sport, no, it's a-

• 42:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The mice decathlon.

• 42:49Speaker 06

  The mice decathlon. But what you have is, you've got a mouse who you tweak the genes that control muscle production. It becomes the Arnold Schwarzenegger of, you know, Mouseland. It's very muscular. But the problem with these creatures were, they got so muscular- They actually couldn't, their bones couldn't support them. Their tendons began to fall apart. It didn't work. That's just a technical problem.

• 43:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is because you're not tweaking the right balance of genes.

• 43:13Speaker 06

  Correct.

• 43:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To have it all work in sync.

• 43:15Speaker 06

  It's gotta be integrated, but we'll get there and I suspect we'll see that.

• 43:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then we have to call on you again to figure out whether we should.

• 43:20Speaker 06

  That'll be StarTalk 2 in about 50 years.

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right, well Lance Armstrong was caught and has admitted to using illegal performance enhancing drugs. And he's been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. So I had to ask him about his legacy. I went there, let's check it out.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If everyone does it, including you, and you still win, aren't you still better than everybody else?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Well...

• 43:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I could take it and I'm not gonna win the Tour de France.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so the person still matters.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Right, the person still matters. The, the, there's a bunch of arguments here, okay? There's, there's, there's, first of all, I'm the wrong person to... It would be like me asking you, "Hey Neil, how was your lecture last week? Was it good?" And you would say, "Well, I think it went pretty good, but you should probably ask the 2,000, the students or the people that were there, ask them." So, we can't answer that, right? I mean, I have, I mean, I would say, "Look, ask my, ask my peers, ask my rivals." You could argue that certain substances are more beneficial to certain people.

• 44:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  And less beneficial to others. So that starts to cloud the picture. But then you just don't know what all, every, I mean, it was the, it was the Wild Wild West back then. You didn't have testing. It was crazy. And so, it just all gets murky. Where I go to on that is, I mean, if you ask me, "Do you think you won the Tour de France seven times?", I say yes. And, and I say that because I think, I believe in my heart and soul that my rivals and my peers would support that.

• 45:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Max, did he win it seven times?

• 45:10Speaker 02

  No, he rode according to rules which he kept to himself. As a fan of the sport, those rules were not shared with me and with the hundreds of thousands of millions of other people who follow cycling.

• 45:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'd have to agree. I mean, I think you you agree to compete under certain assumptions, certain conditions, that makes you the champion. You break the rules, even if they're all breaking the rules, it's fake sport. It isn't what the sport was supposed to be. Now, could we shift it and say, okay, you can use a certain amount of drugs, and you can have a certain amount of technology, and that we'll all compete that way? Yeah, but that wasn't what was going on when he did it.

• 45:56Speaker 03

  I think he's like, he deserves it as much as Popeye deserves olive oil. Because

• 46:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have no idea where you're going with that.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  Because

• 46:07Speaker 06

  Spinach?

• 46:07Speaker 03

  He may be, well, that's it. He's very strong, but but unless he opens his can of spinach, he's not going to punch that whale over the horizon.

• 46:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, with one.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Exactly. And, you know, I think the whale is at a very big disadvantage unless the whale has had some spinach too. And in that case, maybe the whale goes home with olive oil.

• 46:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let me let me offer some parting thoughts here that might be a little contrarian, if I may. I deeply respect what each of you have said on this. Scott, thanks for your comments here.

• 46:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have professional sports. They're modern gladiators. That's what they are. They exhibit superhuman strength, speed, agility.

• 47:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we pay to watch that. We want that. And you know something? When they don't perform, we don't watch. We don't pay. So I accuse us of being equally accountable for all the doping that's been going on in all of sports. Because we want to see world records broken. We cherish those people. We heap our greatest prizes and respect upon them. And then we're so surprised that they break a rule to achieve what it is we wanted out of them in the first

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  place. So anytime someone is busted and gets caught,

• 47:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we somehow feel high and mighty and say, "Ah, you broke the rule." I think we should be looking at ourselves, who aided and abetted the entire urge to do that in the first place. That is a cosmic perspective. Thank you. This has been StarTalk. Scott Adsit, thanks, man. Max. Arthur. Excellent. This has been StarTalk, and I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And as always, I need you to keep looking up.