Art and Science for Change, with Anna Deavere Smith

Explore how the intersectionality of art and science can spark cultural change with Neil deGrasse Tyson, actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, comic co-host Eugene Mirman, contemporary scholar Dorothy Roberts, primatologist Natalia Reagan, linguist Renée Blake, and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Thanks to this week's Patrons for supporting us: Erica Thoits, Edward Mann. Dan Cowden, John Yonosh, Peter Kronenberg, and Jane Tanner. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/art-and-science-for-change-with-anna-deavere-smith/ Photo Credit: Brandon Royal

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

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and beaming out across all of space and time, this is StarTalk, where science and pop culture collide. Welcome to the Hall of the Universe. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and tonight, we're going to explore the power of art and science to inspire change, featuring my interview with actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith. So, let's do this!

• 0:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To my co-host tonight, comedian Eugene Mirman. Eugene, give it up!

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And joining us is social scientist Dorothy Roberts. Dorothy, welcome!

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Hello, yeah, thank you!

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are professor of law, sociology, and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To write down in Philly.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there you go. Founding director of the Penn Program on Race, Science, and Society. These are big topics.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  They are, they are, especially together.

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Especially all in one.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  And we're gonna add art.

• 1:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a busy person, I am sure. We'll be tapping your expertise tonight as we discuss my recent interview with writer, performer Anna Deavere Smith. She's known for her roles on TV shows like "The West Wing" and "Nurse Jackie", and she pioneered the genre of documentary theater. Who would've thought that was even a thing? She plays multiple real-life characters in a live, one-person show. And I asked about any early experiences with math and science that may have helped shape her creative path. So let's check it out.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  I was afraid of math. I don't think that's like a big deal, right? I was okay in geometry, because I did very well in geometry, because it's logic.

• 1:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  I wasn't good at calculus.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you took calculus?

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had to. Yeah, it was required.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. Did it affect you in any way? The science classes, did you see the world a little differently?

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Well, I'll tell you this. I think I didn't think that I had any ability in it. I don't remember having trouble in biology or chemistry somehow, but it didn't make a mark on me. It was more that I always thought that scientists were inventors, and that was interesting to me. And way back in some class, third grade or something, I played Thomas Edison's mother in something that ended up on television.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Like, local television.

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  And so I thought that that, I remember thinking it would be fun to invent something.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be a, that would be a pretty annoyed mother, given what you know he would experiment with.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was annoyed. Yeah. Tom, Tom, that's all I remember. I was yelling at him to come out of the barn or whatever.

• 3:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The reason why I ask is whether or not someone becomes a scientist, often taking a science class and possibly enjoying it.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or a math class and possibly doing well in it.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can actually affect how you think later on, how you logic things through.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, well, so no, I didn't do that, but I will say that I'm fascinated with scientists. I do still believe that they legitimize things. I put a scientist in Fires in the Mirror, which was not my first play that I wrote this way, but the first breakout play, I put a physicist in it.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that had to come from somewhere.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People just don't think, gee, I think this play needs a physicist.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, no, yeah, yeah, I, I thought that it was. No, I did, well, yeah.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How many, stop there. How many playwrights, how many anybody says, hmm, this needs a physicist right here? Nobody says that. That had to come from somewhere.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Well, the title of the play was gonna be Fires in the Mirror.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fires in the Mirror.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  And I thought that I would deal with what a mirror really was. And I'm always interested in metaphors, and when I can make a jump like that, like bring something into a play about race, who would expect a physicist, as you say? Then I think it wakes the audience up a little bit.

• 4:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Fires in the Mirrors, Anna's one-person play about race riots in Brooklyn in the 1990s. I think I remember those, too. And so, Dorothy, what do you think about Anna bringing a physicist into a story about race relations?

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Well, as she said, it wakes up the audience because you don't expect it because we're so used to these divisions that scientists have one way of thinking about reality and artists another way and then policymakers another and social scientists another. And they're so often divided from each other instead of thinking about how we can contribute to each other's view of reality. And so I think it's genius.

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She should be head of the department or something. You gotta make her head.

• 5:07Eugene Mirman?

  I hope.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With that kind of point of view.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  No, I'm avoiding that, but...

• 5:11Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, there's a lot of paperwork. You actually don't want to be the head. You want to be right below it where you get to really do the stuff.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  That's exactly right.

• 5:19Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, I know. Somebody give me a master's.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'm interrupted, I'm sorry.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  No, I think it's genius, as Anna Deavere-Smith is, to bring together these different perspectives and it forces people to think about the world differently.

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's almost like comical. I mean, in a sense, Eugene, do you think plays and TV should have more physicists in it?

• 5:44Eugene Mirman?

  I can think of a lot of situations in my life where I could have really used a physicist, where I would have benefited.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Dorothy, Anna played Thomas Edison's mother in third grade. So how important is it for kids to have performance opportunities like that?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  It's really important. A lot of children are in situations where they don't have the structures that allow them to imagine being an inventor, for example.

• 6:13Eugene Mirman?

  I actually want to play a game where you both have a chance to guess whose mother of invention this is.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, OK.

• 6:21Eugene Mirman?

  So I'll read a quote and you guess the person. "If you don't have anything nice to telegraph, don't telegraph at all."

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, I don't remember who invented the telegraph. I mean, Edison perfected the telegraph.

• 6:42Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, this wasn't about who made it perfect.

• 6:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, no, I forgot who.

• 6:45Eugene Mirman?

  But let me, what if I, one, two?

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, Morris, Samuel Morris?

• 6:50Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, his mom.

• 6:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, his mom, okay, okay.

• 6:53Eugene Mirman?

  Now you get the game.

• 6:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gave me a hint.

• 6:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'll give you a hint.

• 6:56Eugene Mirman?

  I'm not trying to trick you.

• 6:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay, Samuel Morris.

• 6:59Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mom, yes.

• 7:01Eugene Mirman?

  I told you not to go out in a thunderstorm.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  Oh, I have to answer.

• 7:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you're a Philadelphia lady.

• 7:08Speaker 04

  Benjamin Franklin.

• 7:09Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  Coming from Penn, if I didn't get that answer, then I might be made sure of the apartment.

• 7:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rotate you off the stage. Like in game shows, right?

• 7:21Eugene Mirman?

  I don't care if you invented it, so help me, I will turn this car around.

• 7:27Speaker 04

  That's pretty easy.

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hand me four.

• 7:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no. Well, actually, that's.

• 7:33Speaker 04

  No, that was a trick. That was a trick question.

• 7:35Eugene Mirman?

  I didn't know it was a trick question, but.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, no, no, it's Carl Benz.

• 7:39Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 7:41Eugene Mirman?

  Nice.

• 7:42Speaker 04

  That's good.

• 7:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He invented the internal combustion engine.

• 7:45Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before then, they had cars, but they ran on steam.

• 7:49Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Remember, we had steam power.

• 7:51Eugene Mirman?

  We called them trains.

• 7:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Trains, right, and they said, let's make a car out of that. But then you had to shovel coal into it. You know, it was just not convenient.

• 7:58Eugene Mirman?

  Sounds.

• 7:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, Carl Benz, and his niece, I think, was named Mercedes.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Are you serious?

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  That sounds made up to me.

• 8:06Eugene Mirman?

  Sounds believable, I mean, those cars exist. I don't know.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  I think he just made it up.

• 8:10Eugene Mirman?

  We'll see.

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just what I say sounds like it's made up doesn't mean it's made up.

• 8:14Speaker 04

  All right.

• 8:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying, I could say stuff.

• 8:16Eugene Mirman?

  We'll look it up later, Mr. Liar Benz. Okay, who's mom said this? If you don't have anything nice to tweet, don't tweet at all.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  Who invented Twitter?

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 8:28Eugene Mirman?

  No, it's not who invented Twitter. It's whose mom said that. And by that, I mean...

• 8:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that'd be Donald Trump, of course.

• 8:33Eugene Mirman?

  Well, oh my god.

• 8:34Speaker 04

  Oh, god. Wow, that's right. These aren't all inventions.

• 8:38Eugene Mirman?

  Not what it says here, but you're probably right.

• 8:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the official answer?

• 8:43Speaker 04

  That's a good answer.

• 8:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, Neil deGrasse Tyson's mom. Oh!

• 8:49Speaker 04

  I liked your answer.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I had a way better answer than that one.

• 8:52Speaker 04

  That was great. That was great.

• 8:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I asked Anna, remember she spoke in that last bit about metaphors? The mirror was a subject. And so I asked her more about the science-inspired metaphors in her one-person play Fires in the Mirror. Let's check it out.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  If you want to see the stars, you make a big telescope. And if it's not perfectly parabolic, two stars are gonna look like one. And then you've blown it. And I was using that, and I don't even think the audience necessarily got it, to suggest that in the study of race relations, if we mush it all up, we can't possibly really fix it. It has to be very distinct. We need a big telescope. We need a mirror.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need good optics.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  We need good optics.

• 9:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See the metaphors out there?

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. By the way, I was thinking that pre-Fires in the Mirror, when I was trying to write something about race, I knew I was doing that. Again, one of the first people I went to talk to was a geneticist named Marcus Feldman at Stanford, who...

• 10:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been all into science from way back.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  I really have.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't pretend like you hadn't done some science, girl.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  He studied twins. And he was trying to, you know, fight down Shockley and all those people. And I went back again when I wrote a play about, that included some stuff about Thomas Jefferson. The story was breaking about how Sally Hemings had had Jefferson's children. And as you know, somebody came up with the DNA and all that. So, yeah, I mean, scientists are very, very important to me.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Actually, I think of Sally Hemings having her own children, but...

• 10:34Speaker 01

  And that's true. That's well said. I never heard anybody put it that way. Yeah, so I, yeah, I, as sitting here talking to you, I realize that, for some reason that I can't answer, I always want to have a scientist as a part of my research. And then if I, if I can get him into the play, I want them in the play.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Dorothy, are there any favorite metaphors that you might gravitate to when you're teaching students about social issues?

• 11:09Speaker 02

  My favorite, I think, or at least one I gravitate to a lot, is a lens. That there are multiple lenses with which we view society.

• 11:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some are rose-colored.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  Some are rose-colored. Some are distorted.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Funhouse mirrors.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, but depending on where your place is in society, you may have a different, you will have a different lens. And so it's important to look at lots of different lenses. I often say, let's use a critical lens to look at assumptions that have been passed down and that many people just adopt without questioning. How can we critically look at them through a particular lens?

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a lens to analyze all other lenses.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. That's right, a super lens. I try to give my students a super lens to look at. That's my lens, yeah.

• 12:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So she swiftly and briefly mentioned William Shockley, who's a physicist, was a physicist at Bell Labs, co-inventor, co-discoverer of the transistor.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Just another answer.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of the transistor.

• 12:21Eugene Mirman?

  It's so bad to say Bell. He discovered the Bell?

• 12:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bell Telephone Laboratory, the research arm of the Bell system.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He discovered the transistor, which transformed modern electronics. We could go from tubes that you'd have to swap in and out of TVs to tiny little electrical components. And he later decide, after he won his Nobel Prize, he just thought it'd be really cool if he bred Nobel Prize geniuses. And so he started a sperm bank.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of Nobel Prize sperm.

• 12:56Eugene Mirman?

  But he wasn't one of those creepy people who, like...

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Used his own.

• 13:00Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, people were like, "I'd like to..." Anyway, you get it.

• 13:05Eugene Mirman?

  He wasn't like a sneaky doctor on Law and Order.

• 13:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, no. No, no, it was a sperm bank and you'd pay.

• 13:11Eugene Mirman?

  And it was all just him? Wow.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, he'd get his fellow Nobel laureates and things. And he also, out of that came this...

• 13:22Eugene Mirman?

  Go on.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was an exponent of the racial biasing as a result of that. Saying, "Well, you don't want any black people's sperm because they're not smart. You want the white people's." This is like part of the posturing that he took. And that, and by the way, that's not the first time you had this sort of case where people are trying to establish your intelligence. You go back 100 years, you had phrenology. This study of the bumps and wiggles and irregularities in your skull. And there was a claim that if you had a bump here, you're a criminal type. And if you had this, you're kind. And so, I'm just wondering, Dorothy, in your work in sociology, at some point you have to encounter these forces operating from outside your field,

• 14:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  influencing how society structures itself.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Absolutely, and I wouldn't leave sociology out. Those forces exist.

• 14:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even within.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Throughout various forms of science. And so, this is why I say we have to be critical, even of science. Because some scientists have promoted myths, like William Shockley, that races are biologically distinct and some are superior to others. That there's such a capacity as intelligence that can be measured even with a single number, that it's inherited. And that the reason why there's social inequality, this is what Shockley was getting at. The reason why there's racial inequality and poverty and other forms of inequality, he argued, as others at eugenicists, for example, argue.

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it goes back.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  It goes back because of inherited traits. And those ideas unfortunately continue to circulate today. And it's important for scientists and artists and social scientists, like sociologists and others, to refute those myths that have caused so much damage.

• 15:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you've been failing at this, so get back to work.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, believe me.

• 15:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put her on the next train, get back to your office.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  I am trying my best to challenge those ideas.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, up next, Anna Deavere Smith explains how blowing your mind with science can open up a universe of new ideas when StarTalk returns.

• 15:55Speaker 05

  The future of space and the secrets of our planet revealed.

• 16:05Speaker 05

  This is StarTalk.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. We're featuring my interview with actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith. Let's check it out.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  In my new play, Notes from the Field, which is about education and jails and, you know, kids who can't get through school and get incarcerated.

• 16:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the tagline? Incarcerating is all about education?

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Well, it's a school to prison pipeline. It's about that, but...

• 16:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  School to prison pipeline.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  One of my favorite people who have talked to...

• 16:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fact that that's even a sentence that we all understand is tragic.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. But anyway, one of my favorite people who I interviewed and evoke all the time when I'm doing interviews now promoting the movie is a scientist, Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller University, who's a neuroendocrinologist. And he's trying to find the interventions that can help kids, you know, now they know or they say they know that biologists, that trauma and stress, toxic stress, can affect cognitive development, not just emotional development. So he's, he's working on that. That's interesting to me. And, you know, so, yeah, I, I do look to scientists because I think they are stimulating in a different way. I enjoy, especially if we're gonna have the discourse of activists.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  I like to have a nice, understandable scientist to blow my mind, to open my mind, and then sometimes they end up in my play.

• 17:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that. Joining us now to help blow our minds with science is StarTalk All-Star Natalia Reagan.

• 17:58Speaker 06

  Hi. Thanks for having me.

• 18:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a science educator specializing in anthropology?

• 18:04Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Primate anthropology in particular?

• 18:06Speaker 06

  Yes, specifically, I studied spider monkeys.

• 18:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spider monkeys?

• 18:09Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly.

• 18:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so, what, in what way should anthropology? When I think of sociology, I think of people in societies. In what way might anthropology be important in discussing social issues?

• 18:21Speaker 06

  That's a great question. So anthropology is the study of humans. And in theory, anthropology is a four-field approach. It, it studies the past, archaeology, the present, current cultures, linguistics, the study of language, and also biological anthropology, which is the study of how humans became human, forensic anthropology, genetics, and so on. Anna Deavere Smith is a hero of mine because I think that the social sciences have an obligation... If, you know, a need to inform the audience about what we know about, you know, the fact that race, there's no biological basis to racial classification. It is a social construct, which is real, but it doesn't mean that there's actually like lines you can cut between the races. So we bring different scientists, so we have different scientific lenses,

• 19:05Speaker 06

  like we talked about, you know, so sociology.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm liking the lens metaphor, just so you know.

• 19:09Speaker 06

  Right?

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm liking the lens.

• 19:11Speaker 06

  I love the metaphor. And we also involve activists. So there's performance too, because we want it to be all scientists with lived experiences. So I kind of sit back and it's the scientists that tell their story and use their own work to explain social issues in a way that hopefully promotes tolerance. So we have less pearl-clutching white ladies calling the cops on kids, because that is a thing that needs to stop and needs to change.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool. So Dorothy, let me ask you, if you're talking about social issues, is there any lines of research that are just simply taboo? Because people are afraid what they might find if research in race, gender, any of these hot topics?

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Well, I'd actually like to turn that around.

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sure, do it.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Because there's this idea that there is really these differences in, deep in the biology of people of different races or people of different sexes and genders, and that it's taboo for social scientists to explore them.

• 20:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm asking, is it taboo?

• 20:25Speaker 02

  But that's not true.

• 20:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not true.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  That's not true. The long-lasting myth is that there really are biological races, when in fact, social scientists, as well as evolutionary biologists and anthropologists have proven that race is invented. It's not a natural division of human beings. But yet, that idea continues. And I think it's the people who want that idea to continue, who claim that there's a taboo against it, when in fact, there isn't at all. It's well-established, it's in science, and it's the scientists and social, life, biological scientists and social scientists and artists and community activists

• 21:11Speaker 02

  who have to come together and work to rid. Science and society of this false claim of biological division. It's absolutely essential to humanity, to equality, to human rights.

• 21:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She should be head of her own department.

• 21:27Eugene Mirman?

  No, I don't think you understand. It's just a lot of busy work, all this stuff.

• 21:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Natalia, you work with spider monkeys in Panama. Is there anything we can learn about human society from other primates?

• 21:42Speaker 06

  Well, they can be jerks, but we got that covered.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The humans or the chimps?

• 21:47Speaker 06

  We are jerks. Well, this is an actually interesting study. So years ago, Harry Harlow did a study, which is very controversial nowadays, or even back then, where basically he was studying macaque monkeys and he was giving them access to a real mother. Some monkeys had a terry cloth mother.

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Soft and squishy.

• 22:08Speaker 06

  Soft and squishy, but still not a living being. And then other monkeys were given a wire monkey, or you know, figure.

• 22:15Eugene Mirman?

  Meaning one was a better fake monkey?

• 22:18Speaker 06

  Basically.

• 22:19Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 22:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. One was a...

• 22:21Eugene Mirman?

  Sounds controversial.

• 22:24Speaker 06

  But basically, I call it like a no-dah study, where he discovered that those that had the wire figure had years of basically, you know, emotional disturbances, acted, you know, would rock back and forth and were never quite the same.

• 22:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As developing baby monkeys.

• 22:40Speaker 06

  Exactly, yeah. And as adults. I mean, they never recovered. They never recovered. And so...

• 22:44Eugene Mirman?

  Because their fake monkey mom was very firm?

• 22:50Speaker 06

  Firm, yes, and lacking of the love and affection that they...

• 22:52Eugene Mirman?

  Well, the terry cloth mom was...

• 22:54Speaker 06

  At least absorbent, you know.

• 22:58Eugene Mirman?

  I think you're telling me about a real study, right?

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, it's real. I've read about this study.

• 23:04Speaker 06

  Point being, though, that what monkeys and apes can tell us about our own species, because we're primates first and foremost, is that we're social species. And that's one of the things I think is also interesting about anthropology. We look at our species as not just a biological species, but a cultural one. And we need to be around one another. And so to be sequestered in a way from love and affection, or to be disciplined in a school setting in an exclusionary fashion is going to lead to problems down the line.

• 23:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anna also mentioned neuroendocrinologist. And I counted, I think I got eight syllables there. Natalia, what do you know about how stress and trauma? I mean, you mentioned the MacAC study.

• 23:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, very good.

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, stress and trauma can affect development. There's like this epigenetics I've heard. It can actually turn on and off gene expression. After you've already have a genetic profile.

• 24:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, so you're born with your genome as intact. And then think of the genome as your hardware and the epigenome as the software. So you have, you know, your genome is there and all.

• 24:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And epi means above, like epicenter.

• 24:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The point on earth above where the earthquake actually took. So this would be a genetic influence above your gene.

• 24:19Speaker 06

  Above your genes and markers, you're born with certain markers. And you, and it's interesting because they can be rewritten throughout your life. So it's like a code and every experience you have could potentially change the markers on your genome. And this can either turn on or turn off certain genes that are expressed.

• 24:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This means in sociology, you can't just, you can't just only think of

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  behavior outside of the biology that could also have been affected by it.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  That's very true. It's absolutely true that we have to think about.

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's multidisciplinary now.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  The relationship between biology and social life. But let's not forget that it is the inequality that produces these biological changes. And not turn it around the way William Shockley did and argue that biology determines social status.

• 25:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta take a break. Natalia, thanks for joining us on StarTalk. Natalia Reagan, everybody.

• 25:15Speaker 06

  Thanks.

• 25:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Up next, we're going to explore how the science of language shapes identity when StarTalk returns.

• 25:30Speaker 05

  Unlocking the secrets of your world and everything orbiting around it. This is StarTalk.

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. We're featuring my interview with playwright and performer Anna Deavere Smith. She pioneered the genre of documentary theater. And I ask, what sparked this unique form of storytelling? Let's check it out.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  A question.

• 26:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A question?

• 26:00Speaker 01

  A question. Yeah.

• 26:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A question without an answer?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  A question without an answer. To understand something about language and identity and feeling. So, yeah, so it started with that question and then it ended up as an experiment. I fumbled around a lot and experimented. I did several plays like this. And then it takes somebody to acknowledge the value of it. And in this case, it happened to be Frank Rich in The New York Times. Now, there was a critic in San Francisco who saw the same method and completely dismissed it.

• 26:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Right? Now, if Frank Rich had dismissed it, I wouldn't be sitting here with you.

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  So, I mean, I think that's...

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't want to believe that.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  That's also the thing about creativity.

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I agree with you. I don't want that to be true.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  But it's almost like it needs, even if you've invented it, it needs somebody to receive, understand it, and understand its value.

• 27:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've brought language into the equation and we got to bring in some language expertise, which we've just done. So, joining us now to discuss the power of language is linguistic expert Renee Blake. Renee!

• 27:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. You're associate professor in the Department of Linguistics and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University.

• 27:32Speaker 07

  That's correct.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Renee, what is the science behind the origins of human language?

• 27:39Speaker 07

  Well, this is fascinating because we actually don't know how language originated.

• 27:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We like thinking of ourselves as special, being humans, and having language.

• 27:50Speaker 07

  Of course, and I think we are special.

• 27:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 27:55Speaker 07

  And so, look, we don't know how language actually originated, but we can actually infer if we look at present day. So if we look at language diversity, if we look at language acquisition studies, look at fossil records, archaeology, then we can infer how language might have originated, either, let's say, through monogenesis, so it starts with one language, and then it's the language from which all languages come.

• 28:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The root language.

• 28:23Speaker 07

  Exactly, or polygenesis, so that it actually starts in different areas and then it expands through time and space, evolves through time and space. So I was trying to figure this out.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that she said "time and space." That's good.

• 28:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I asked Anna Deavere-Smith how she actually captures the language of the people she portrays. Let's check it out.

• 28:47Speaker 07

  It's been this big, big experiment of studying people and how they talk, and how they, the fact of their having absorbed something about the world around them is imprinted on their language. But I don't know the scientific reasons for that. I just know it is so.

• 29:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So language, as it is expressed by one individual to the next, becomes a window into their soul.

• 29:13Speaker 07

  The world.

• 29:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The world.

• 29:14Speaker 07

  The world around them.

• 29:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As seen through them. It's their lens.

• 29:18Speaker 07

  It's their lens. They see the world a certain way. And so I believe that circumstances, the actual circumstances of how you live or what you've gone through, begin to have an impact on how you express yourself.

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you capture this and you put it on, in a performance?

• 29:32Speaker 07

  Yeah, I hope so, yeah.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the goal.

• 29:34Speaker 07

  That would be the goal, exactly.

• 29:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Renee, how difficult is it to capture and perform the language, and especially the dialect of others?

• 29:47Speaker 07

  Well, I'm horrible at it. But it doesn't mean that people can't, right? And so, it's difficult to the extent that dialects of language are meaningful for us. It tells us about our childhood. It tells us about our friendships. It tells us about our communities. So, you're not really inclined to want to give up your dialect, but there are people like Anna Deavere Smith, who is actually doing this kind of very important work, where she is mimicking other dialects. She does a wonderful job at it. Some people believe that more people who are more musical can do better at mimicking dialects.

• 30:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, interesting.

• 30:23Speaker 07

  I'm horrible.

• 30:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carrying a note, yeah.

• 30:25Speaker 07

  Yes, and I don't even think I'm that great of a singer, except in the shower, but, you know.

• 30:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll sing awesome in the shower.

• 30:32Speaker 07

  Exactly, exactly.

• 30:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Dorothy, how does language and dialect influence cultural identity?

• 30:39Speaker 02

  Well, communities have particular experiences based on their status in society, the way others treat them, the way in which they've had a joint history, joint experiences, and so that affects the way they express themselves.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Eugene, you're born in Russia.

• 30:57Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, I remember.

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, yeah, you remember when you were born, yeah. So, how did that affect your sort of language identity? What age were you when you left?

• 31:05Eugene Mirman?

  I was four, and I grew up here during the Cold War, a famously great time for Russians in America.

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you left when you were four, so you didn't really have language yet.

• 31:14Eugene Mirman?

  I had Russian language.

• 31:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Russian.

• 31:15Eugene Mirman?

  And I nailed your language.

• 31:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 31:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're pretty good.

• 31:19Eugene Mirman?

  Not bad, you know.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you're pretty fluent, yeah. So Renee, what's the most important thing you want your students to know about the science of language when you teach it?

• 31:29Speaker 07

  My students and everyone out there is that language matters. And I'm actually using it in two different ways. So that language is, we should study language in terms of how words themselves, the lexicon, the morphology, the sound system, the phonetics, the phonology, how words are put together, the syntax, to understand the brain and how the brain works and communication, but also matters of language. Language matters in terms of the fact that we can change through language how we treat people, that we can be change agents using language, that language has the capability of hurting,

• 32:12Speaker 07

  but also has the capability of changing the world for better. My goal is for students to understand that the better world is the world where we can use it for the good. And then how do we, when it is used in a bad way, how do we recognize it and how do we turn it on its head? And how do we challenge notions through spoken word?

• 32:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Language for a Better World. Very cool. Renee, thank you for joining us on StarTalk, on our language segment. Up next, we explore the language of science when StarTalk returns.

• 33:15Speaker 08

  Hey, we want to give a big shout out to some of StarTalk's Patreon supporters. A big thank you to John Yanis, Peter Cronenberg, and Jane Tanner. To hear your name here and to get other benefits like ad-free audio and video episodes, visit patreon.com/StarTalk.

• 33:33Speaker 05

  The future of space and the secrets of our planet revealed.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  This is StarTalk.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back from StarTalk. We're here for my interview with actor and playwright Anna Delmira Smith. And her show, A Rap on Race, acts out a conversation recorded in 1970 between anthropologist Margaret Mead and essayist and novelist James Baldwin. So I asked about the dynamic of that famous and unusual conversation. Let's check it out.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  They fought a lot. And the fighting was very often about the because Mead wanted to know facts.

• 34:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Margaret Mead, the scientist.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  The scientist wanted to know, talk about facts. And he only wanted to talk in metaphors. And it was very frustrating to her and to him. You know, at that moment in the Black Revolution or whatever, he was, "I don't care about your facts because I think they're lies."

• 34:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  And to me, that's almost the most interesting thing about it, is the scientist as the fact finder and the artist as the metaphor maker.

• 35:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Jossie, do you share that view?

• 35:14Speaker 02

  I actually have a bit of a problem with the view that scientists are fact finders and artists are metaphor makers, as if those are two separate ways of explaining reality, when in fact, scientists produce metaphors and artists help us understand facts. So I think it's not as clear cut. And, you know, James Baldwin was not saying to Margaret Mead, "I don't care about facts." He was saying, "Your interpretation of reality is wrong." And it has harmed black people. That's what he was saying.

• 35:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  That certain forms of racial thinking and mythology make it difficult for many Americans to reach reality. It makes reality hard to reach. And that is almost a scientific statement. You know, how can we reach reality? And he recognized that racism blinded many white Americans to the reality of racial inequality in America. And that's what he was referring to, I think.

• 36:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, our StarTalk fanbase had questions of their own on this topic, which brings us right now to Cosmic Queries.

• 36:41Eugene Mirman?

  Alrighty.

• 36:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where we take your questions about your favorite scientific metaphors.

• 36:49Eugene Mirman?

  Loretta Azada in Charlotte, North Carolina asks, "Imagine when chemistry became biology and the first cell divided itself, producing a second one. Can we use Adam and Eve as a metaphor for that moment?"

• 37:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh. Ooh.

• 37:06Eugene Mirman?

  No apple.

• 37:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 37:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but it ends really quickly. It just, because, because Adam and Eve don't divide.

• 37:21Eugene Mirman?

  No. Well, there's a rib.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  That happened before.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was to make them in the first place. They didn't keep using ribs to make their kids, right?

• 37:32Eugene Mirman?

  Not everybody, but some did.

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. They didn't just like, like amoebas divide.

• 37:37Eugene Mirman?

  Well, I don't know. It's the very mo— yeah, you're right.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think the idea that it's the first— so here's one. Here's one, okay? There's the mitochondrial Eve.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can go back in the tree of life and find— sorry, you go back in human ancestry.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And find the woman

• 37:52Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  who is the mother of everyone who's alive today. And she has, for some, been called the mitochondrial Eve, like the first woman. But in fact, she wasn't the— that's wrong. So while she's the mother of everyone who's alive today, she's not the first woman, nor was she the only woman at the time. There were other women. It's just that none of them have descendants that are alive today.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Oh, I see.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in that sense, you know, so the religious communities grabbed onto it. We have found Eve. But— Fine, but that as a metaphor only works so far. And you part the curtains and there's much more going on there that does not apply to Eve. Yeah.

• 38:32Eugene Mirman?

  Well, maybe you'll like this one also.

• 38:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, what do you have?

• 38:34Eugene Mirman?

  Uh, Starfarer14 on Twitter asks, "If Newton had found himself under a tree on Jupiter, ignoring the lack of solid surface," thank you, "would he get a concussion or worse?"

• 38:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, so Newton was not actually hit in the head with the apple?

• 38:52Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 38:53Eugene Mirman?

  No.

• 38:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He saw an apple fall while the moon was in the sky. And he wondered whether the same phenomenon was responsible for both. And most people say, "Well, this is an apple falling. How could it possibly relate to the moon?" But he was so brilliant, he went deeper than the surface features and said, "This is precisely the same thing." Both the apple and the moon are falling towards Earth.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 39:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The difference is the moon has a sideways speed. So that as it falls towards Earth, it never actually reaches Earth.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  Oh, thank goodness.

• 39:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he described the very first orbit. So they both fall towards Earth. One has sideways motion, the other doesn't. And in fact, when you see spaceships launch, they say, "Oh, it's going into space." No, it's going horizontally into orbit. Very quickly after it launches, it goes sideways. Most of the energy of those engines is to get enough speed so that as it goes sideways, it doesn't fall and hit the ground. It goes downrange far enough so that by the time it fell a foot, the curvature of the Earth curved a foot.

• 39:59Speaker 04

  Cool. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

• 40:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got that? There you go.

• 40:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I think the flat-earthers, it's a plot to have them all shot into orbit on the first time we get to Centaurus.

• 40:13Eugene Mirman?

  I think it would be worth this, a project that sent flat-earthers into space. You didn't say, though, if you would get a concussion if a tree fell.

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay, so if, okay, so an apple, your skull is harder than an apple?

• 40:27Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what would happen is the apple would fall and just crush on his skull. It's not gonna break his skull. Your skull is very hard.

• 40:33Eugene Mirman?

  Even on Jupiter, even on whatever.

• 40:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jupiter doesn't make the apple harder.

• 40:38Eugene Mirman?

  Why not?

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's an apple.

• 40:41Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, meaning it doesn't have, make it, uh...

• 40:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the way to do this is if it was a coconut that didn't fall very far, and it hurt on Earth, and then you're on Jupiter, yes, it would crush a skull. But an apple would, no.

• 40:59Eugene Mirman?

  Well, how fast, you could, you could probably, could you shoot an apple so fast it would crush someone's skull? Or no?

• 41:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think, I, I, I don't think so.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Or what about the height? Because they always say you could drop a penny from a tall building.

• 41:15Eugene Mirman?

  Penny's much harder.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh.

• 41:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm saying, I can take, I can take an apple, okay? And smash it with my fist.

• 41:24Eugene Mirman?

  Very impressive.

• 41:31Eugene Mirman?

  And that's been StarTalk.

• 41:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The end of the, no, I'm just saying, if the thing is crushable, and you have a hard head, your head will crush the apple.

• 41:39Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 41:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Worry about the safety of the apple, not the safety of your head.

• 41:42Eugene Mirman?

  That's what I tell you.

• 41:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if it's a coconut...

• 41:45Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a fifty-fifty, you know.

• 41:46Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, that's terrible. Don't drop a coconut on Jupiter, guys.

• 41:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta go to commercial. Up next, Bill Nye the Science Guy gives his thoughts on the symbolic power of art and science when StarTalk returns.

• 42:06Speaker 05

  Unlocking the secrets of your world and everything orbiting around it. This is StarTalk.

• 42:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. We're talking about the power of art to inspire change. And my buddy Bill Nye has a dispatch for us on that topic. Check it out.

• 42:29Bill Nye?

  Why do we create art? Well, I claim it's to evoke emotions, to make you feel something. Now, these open work sculptures were created by an artist named Simon Rodea, virtually single-handedly, in the 1920s. They're in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, and they're called the Watts Towers. Now, when I'm near them, I feel their imposing height and their strength. But when you look closely, you see they're adorned with mosaics of subtle beauty that were created from artifacts found right here in the local community. Now, these towers have come to stand for the strength required to fight injustice. Because after all, they're in the Watts neighborhood,

• 43:14Bill Nye?

  which was infamous for the riots of 1965 in which 34 people died. Those protesters were angry and very frustrated with the way things were. But as angry as they were, they did not touch the towers. Somehow, their subtle beauty reminded people of the strength required to fight injustice and to appreciate the beauty around us. Now, really something. Back to you, Neil.

• 43:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dorothy, Anna Deavere Smith's play Twilight, Los Angeles, 1992, which I've seen twice, actually. Once live and another one once on TV. It addressed the riots in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict came through, where the police were judged not guilty. So, I'm just curious, as a sociologist, how do events like that reshape society? Because it's not just a thing, "Oh, look what happened." It's, we're on a different path after that, aren't we?

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, because the protest is a message to society that there has to be change. It's usually by people like the uprisings in L.A. that Bill and I talked about and that Anna Deavere Smith performed about. People who don't have other means to change society because they've been excluded. There may be barriers to voting. There may be barriers to becoming a politician. There may be barriers to having TV shows or op-ed pieces in the paper. And so, without the ability to protest, without people listening and watching,

• 45:08Speaker 02

  there would not be the changes that we've seen in America today, without those kinds of protests of everyday people who rise up against the injustices they see in their communities.

• 45:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these are pivot points?

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 45:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I had one final question for Anna about the purpose of her performance art. So let's check it out.

• 45:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you perform in voices, is your objective to effect change in our culture for people having seen you? Or are you just, or are you putting ideas in people's heads where they go off later on and then they're just changed and they might not even know why? Is that a fair question?

• 45:55Speaker 01

  It's a very fair question. I mean, my work is very emotional. You know, sort of starts with, tends to start with rage. Then you go to grief. Then you go to, you know, love. It usually, you know, moves along. It's an emotional journey. And I do want people to do something about the fact that...

• 46:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Act on it.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Act on it. I want them to, I want them to, you know, run for office. I want them to write checks. I want them to, you know...

• 46:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whatever's in your power of action.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Just do it.

• 46:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That interview in my office was with an artist. And we spent the time talking about

• 46:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  how to

• 46:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  spawn positive forces on our society. I do science. And without a TV show, without a book, without some means of reaching the public, no one will have any clue what I'm doing. I'm in my office, I'm in the lab, I'm in an observatory. That's true for most of science. Most people don't even know a scientist. And so

• 47:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've always valued artists who reach for science

• 47:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  to help them tell their stories. I will go as far to say

• 47:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that art is a source of meaning for what it is to be human. And science has no meaning without art to express it. That is a cosmic perspective. You've been watching StarTalk.

• 47:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And I want to thank Eugene Mirman. Eugene. Dorothy Roberts.

• 48:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.