The Power of Political Satire, with Bill Maher

Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with Bill Maher to discuss satire and the state of society. Featuring comic co-host Maeve Higgins, political scientists Alison Dagnes and John Hibbing, and Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free. https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/the-power-of-political-satire-with-bill-maher/ EXCLUSIVE: Hear host Neil deGrasse Tyson’s extended interview with Bill Maher: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/extended-interview-bill-maher/

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the Hall of the Universe. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Tonight, we're featuring my interview with comedian Bill Maher. We talked about everything under the sun, from aliens, to religion, to what it is to be politically correct. So, let's do this.

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as you know, I never do this alone. My comedic co-host, Maeve Higgins. Maeve, welcome back. Thank you. And I've got Alison Dagnes with us. Professor of Political Science at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. And you research the effect of media on American politics. I do. Yep, that's my area. You're the right person for this show because we've got my interview with Bill Maher. And at his best, he criticizes the state of society. So I had to ask him, where did that path to comedy start? So let's check it out.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Oh, I could always be a glass clown. I always knew what I was gonna be.

• 1:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People said, "What, are you a comedian?" And you said, frankly, "Yes."

• 1:22Speaker 01

  When I was at, when I took physics for, there was literally a course at Cornell, Physics for Poets. And I remember, uh, the speed of light, c, right?

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nice, the lowercase c.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Right. If a man is traveling at 3/5ths c on his wedding night, how disappointed will his wife be? Because length shrinks as we approach the speed of light. Right?

• 1:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, this is true.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  So, there's a joke.

• 1:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a joke in there. So, you knew you were gonna be a comedian your whole life?

• 1:54Speaker 01

  I really did. I was, uh, very young when I thought, "This is my destiny." And I, of course, was too shy and not confident enough to ever even say it to anybody because I thought they would just laugh at me, which, of course, they did when I finally had to say it. At me, not with me, at me.

• 2:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At you.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when you look to find humor, of course, you're famous for reaching into politics, but I'm just wondering, are there, might science be a place that you could reach for some of your humor going forward?

• 2:25Speaker 01

  That's why we have you on.

• 2:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you can make fun of me?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  That's right. You're here at my studio. You did my show tonight. No, I mean, you bring humor into it, which is great.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I think the universe is hilarious, and I get a lot of, you know, timing cues from you guys. I mean, you guys are just pros at it.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  I mean, you are somewhat of a natural at that. You really are.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But my advantage is if I'm giving a lecture, and any of my humor fails, they're still learning something.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, you're totally...

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm way better off than you guys are.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  You're a professor. You're totally playing with the house money. Any laugh you get is gravy.

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's bonus.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  You're not expected to get any.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's bonus laugh.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  It's not like being a comedian where they're looking for you to do that.

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. But I think it's great. You still go on the road, and you still do your thing.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  I'll be in Cleveland tomorrow.

• 3:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I hate to say it, but there's nothing sadder than someone who I knew was a sharp stand-up comedian, then they do movies and TV, and then they try to go back on the stage, and it's not there. It's not... They miss something.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  It's a muscle.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The muscle.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, you have to work at it all the time, and you have to enjoy it. I mean, I enjoy it a lot.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you've got to feel the risk of not getting your audience. I mean, that's part of the challenge when you're standing up in front of a...

• 3:43Speaker 01

  I mean, that's not much of a challenge anymore. When people ask me about stand-up, and they say it's so hard, I always tell them the truth, which is that it's hard at the beginning. It's painful at the beginning, and the beginning can last years.

• 3:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, anyone who comes to you is a fan of yours, today.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Of course. I mean, anyone who pays money.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  And good money.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's good money.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's theater money.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Theater money, you know. Of course, they are absolutely wanting me to do what I want to do for them.

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, and there it is.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  That's why it's such a love fest, is because there's a specific thing I can do for them, and they want me to do it. It makes me want to do it, and that's true of any performer, anybody. And it's very rare in any field of show business where they quit. Very few people have ever walked away. Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, done. Everybody else hangs on as long as they can, even at the expense of their dignity. They would rather do reality TV, I'm in the jungle, get me out show, whatever show it is. They would rather be humiliated than not be famous, not stay in the game. But back to what we were saying. Of course, there's nothing that makes people want to put their guard down and listen to something like humor, whether it's politics or science.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Or anything, right. Anything.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Maeve.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Humor opens doors.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it does. That's why there's the famous joke, knock-knock.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Opens all kinds of doors.

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's there? So.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  But yeah, I think because it's surprising. Often humor is surprising. So you're like, I wasn't expecting that. And it's in those moments that you're open to like learning something else.

• 5:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Alison, I mean, there's humor, then there's political humor, which I think is a little riskier because it's one of those never talk politics or religion.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the best comedians live in both of those spheres.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, like because if you're, if somebody's preaching at me, I just shut down. Sure. You know, if I feel like somebody is just like telling me the way. But if somebody makes me laugh, then I like pretty much believe anything they tell me.

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I've been invited often to these shows. And some of them, it's just an easy date because we're here in New York City. And Colbert tapes here and The Daily Show is here. So I got the sense that they were bringing me in so that they have a lifeline to science, something to anchor what might otherwise be the hot air of politics.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  You don't think it was just a bit of eye candy?

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I had, no, I don't, no, no.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I have a clip from my recent appearance on Bill Maher's Real Time. And you get a sense of how he's bringing my science into his shtick. Let's check it out.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  All right, the brass, Tyson, how are you, my friend? All right. Look at you. You always have one of your...

• 6:41Speaker 01

  You always have one of your sciency ties on.

• 6:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I never know when I need to reference it in conversation.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Actually, that's good for me, because I can see it. Now, that's Saturn, right?

• 6:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, four of our giant planets have rings, but this is likely Saturn.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Now, I watched your show Cosmos, like, over and over. I love that show.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, thank you.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  And...

• 7:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  You referred to Saturn on that show as the crown jewel of our solar system.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's beautiful. If you've ever seen Saturn...

• 7:12Speaker 01

  No, I just wanted you to give me credit for remembering that.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, thank you. You not only get credit for remembering, if you've ever seen Saturn through a telescope, it is jaw-dropping.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Really?

• 7:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it can transform your life, as it did mine.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Why?

• 7:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Saturn's a telescope. It's a planet with a ring and other moons orbiting around it.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm just saying, it's...

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Okay, all right, all right, all right. Easy there. We're not all nerds, okay?

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  We don't all look for the telescope with an orgasm about it. Okay. So, but speaking of that...

• 7:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It just means you've never seen it through a telescope. That's evidence.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  But even if I had...

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You wouldn't be speaking that way.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  It wouldn't even...

• 7:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even if you had. I am certain...

• 7:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thus is the power of the universe on the soul.

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Allison, let me ask you. You get political pundits on, and they're going to argue about something they don't agree with.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or agree on. So, is there a role of objectively true science in the political discourse?

• 8:17Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Um, of course there is. The problem...

• 8:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we'd like there to be a role, but is there a role?

• 8:24Speaker 03

  There is. I think that the problem right now is that we have sort of siloed ourselves, and we talk just to people who think like us. Um, and we reaffirm our own beliefs, and that feeds on our confirmation biases. I love that. And so, but it's true. I love doing that. It's so much easier. It's easier, and it's more relaxing. Yeah. You don't have to think too much. And like, you feel so right? You really do. You really, really do.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With your shoulders, too.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, you do like a shimmy thing. Right, yeah, exactly. But that leads to a problem, because then you have one group of people who believe something about science and a different group of people who believe something different about science. And so, we have a hard time, I think, we have a rejection of truth right now and a rejection of fact. And that's difficult, and so my...

• 9:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're telling me I'm failing at my job?

• 9:12Speaker 03

  I am absolutely not telling you that you're failing.

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, how do you think science should infuse that dialogue? Because if people... Of course, you'd expect people to have different political views. But when they also take political views of a scientific fact...

• 9:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then choose sides, do you have insights from your research that could inform me and my colleagues how we can better show that science is true whether or not you believe in it?

• 9:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I joke about this, it's like, you can't just pick the science that you want. You can't say, "I gained a few pounds last week, I want to repeal the law of gravity." You can't do that.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  That's exactly right. No, that's exactly right. And I think that another thing that we've done is kind of this false equivalency of opinion. You know, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, that's what we like to say. And now there's so many platforms out there where you can get your opinion out, and so when you do and somebody likes it, then it's a good thing and you know that you're right. And if somebody disagrees with you, then they are wrong. And what you've done is you've kind of moved everybody into separate camps.

• 10:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Polarized them.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  Exactly. And so I think we need an asterisk system with opinion. And so, if we were to get into a debate about funding for science, then you and I would come to this debate with facts and it would be an interesting and informed debate. But if you and I have a debate and you are talking about astrophysics and I say I don't believe in space, then I think that you deserve an asterisk next to your opinion that says...

• 10:42Speaker 02

  He would do so much worse than an asterisk. You would go crazy if somebody said they didn't believe in space.

• 10:46Speaker 03

  But I think that everybody else who could read it could kind of look at that and say, "This is a person who has studied astrophysics and this is a person who has not and who is a dumb-dumb, and therefore, my opinion is not equal to yours."

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so that's a fascinating point, but I would answer that a little differently.

• 11:01Speaker 03

  Tell me.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not answer that, I have a different outlook on this.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if you have to believe me because I'm an astrophysicist, then I failed as an educator.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  You should just believe in astrophysics.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, I want to convince you why it's true. So you don't have to reference me after I've shared that information with you. I understand. Now you move on and you can tell others.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  But don't you think that if you're looking at two opinions, that we should be able to weigh where those opinions are coming from? That we should be able, just to gauge a tiny little bit?

• 11:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Little bit.

• 11:36Speaker 03

  Just a smidge, maybe. Because this is what you've spent your life doing. You clearly know more about this than someone who says there is no space.

• 11:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  So can't we just sort of say?

• 11:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or someone who says the earth is flat.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  Exactly, right.

• 11:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're still out there.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  And don't you want us to also be able to use that in a...

• 11:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, I was just talking about flat-earthers and you said us?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Oh, whoops. I mean, sure, it's round.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  But it's great to be able to pull out a name in an argument, do you know what I mean? To be like, well Carl Sagan said boom. It's like, I'm a comedian, who's going to listen to me? But I can at least point to somebody else who knows more than I do.

• 12:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So here's more of my interview with comedian Bill Maher, let's check it out.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  In my twenties, when I look back, what was the thing that was just driving it? Don't be a failure. Succeed. You know, thirties, it's like, get girls.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Sixties, live. Keep living. Don't die.

• 12:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you could live forever, would you?

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Yes. Absolutely.

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. I like life. I mean, it's a good life.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you don't know is, had you known you could live forever when you were younger, would your life have been focused enough to have succeeded in the way you have?

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Well, maybe not.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because there's always a tomorrow. You get lazy, you get fat and lazy. If you live forever. Maybe knowing that you're gonna die is focus to your life.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  What I would want to know is if I live forever, at some point would I get bored of the things that I have yet to get bored with? Like if I was 800, would I be like, "Man, I've been doing this crossword puzzle for 748 years and I'm just over it." You know, it was good for that amount of time, or sex. You know, would I be like, "Yeah, boy, I never thought I'd get tired of this, but you know, 1,000 years and I'm ready to..."

• 13:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  1,000 years of sex.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  1,000 years of sex and I feel like I've done it all.

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, when we come back, we'll try to push your buttons in a conversation about political correctness on StarTalk.

• 14:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're featuring my interview with Bill Maher, the comedian and political commentator, and he's made his career out of offending people. So today, there's a rising tide of political correctness everywhere, especially on college campuses. And I had to ask him about it. Just what is up with this political correctness? Let's check it out. How do you track this wave of political correctness I now see on campuses? So it's more than I've ever seen it before.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  It's worse than ever, and it's humiliating to me because I did a show called Politically Incorrect in 1993. I was trying to drive a stake through this beast's heart and obviously failed miserably. The internet certainly did not help because of the anonymity. But, you know, I'm always on liberals about this. I think liberals got extremely lazy.

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People get disinvited from universities?

• 15:09Speaker 01

  They don't want, they don't understand what free speech is.

• 15:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  The First Amendment should be to liberals what the Second Amendment is to conservatives. It should be what they prize the most. But they only want to hear, especially on campuses where it is the worst, uh, what is their approved view on any particular subject.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And any view that is not that view is either nut job, or a crazy person, or whatever else.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  And they're like beyond sensitive. I mean, you can't wear a Pocahontas Halloween costume because that would defend Indians and this one and this, and it's just, it's just a Halloween costume. I mean, they have no idea how to lighten up. I mean, I get it here in my studio audience.

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I heard it. That was, you begin a joke, people react. They pre-react.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  They pre-react. There used to be a phrase, knee-jerk liberal. That's what it meant. You're knee-jerks before you even think. And we, this happens all the time. Uh, there's been so many comedians, among them Jerry Seinfeld, whose, whose act is so clean it whitens teeth.

• 16:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's true.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Who will not do campuses anymore because nothing's funny. Nothing's funny and it, that's not sensitive, that's not, it's like, you can't laugh. You can't laugh freely.

• 16:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe there's another way to bring humor to that generation and, and you're, you're not, and you don't want to test that energy.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Soviet humor, or a puppet show, or something that has, something that has absolutely no teeth to it. What, what people who like me like about the humor is that it's getting at a truth. But when you get at truths, yes, you do offend people sometimes. Truth is offensive. But it's also, for me, what my bond with my audience has been. They'll boo me one second, but they'll love me the, the next because I did tell the truth.

• 16:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, one of my most retweeted tweets of recent weeks was one where I said, uh, there's no, there's no constitutional amendment that guarantees that you should not be offended by the truth.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. There's no, just, that's.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  But people used to just be offended and they would move on with their lives. They didn't feel the need to stop their life, interrupt it, try to make the person who.

• 17:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stop you.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Stop me, go away forever. It's not enough just to, to remonstrate, just to register your disapproval. They have to go away forever. Yeah, I see things that offend me all the time. I turn the page. Next, I turn the channel, whatever. I don't feel the need to like stop my life about it.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, should Bill Maher have the right to offend? Or should I have the right to not be offended?

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 17:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta bring people in to help out that question. And who do I have here? I got Greg. Greg Lukianoff, welcome to StarTalk.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  Greg.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a trained attorney? And you've dedicated your career to try to get college campuses to just lighten up? And, but not as a lawyer, you're president of FIRE. But give me, what's the acronym?

• 18:08Speaker 04

  Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. You stretched that acronym a little bit, but we'll give it to you.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  We'll reach for it.

• 18:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what do you do?

• 18:18Speaker 04

  Well, I defend free speech and due process on college campuses. And I've been doing it since 2001. But it's only been the last couple of years that we've really seen what Bill Maher was talking about, about the idea of students becoming suddenly much more sensitive. That hasn't been the case for most of my career. But I did notice it maybe three or four years ago, when there was this big push to get people like Bill Maher disinvited.

• 18:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, somebody invites them?

• 18:40Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who likes his brand of humor?

• 18:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then that word gets out. And then some other community on that campus disinvites him, has the power to disinvite him?

• 18:49Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you can't stand that?

• 18:51Speaker 04

  That's actually, you know, we actually thought it was a joke for a long time. And I do think actually some of it does come from a response to more diverse campuses. But it mostly is a bad response from mid to upper level administrators saying, "Oh, if people are gonna get offended at each other and talk across lines of differences and feelings are gonna get hurt, why don't we just shut that down?"

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so campus is not making it illegal, they're just disinviting you.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So why don't you leave them alone? It's their own campus.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  Because we think it was reaching the point when, nope. Because it wasn't just they were disinviting people who were coming to speak at commencement, they were disinviting speakers that people could just choose not to go to. And if you reach a point where campuses can't have to be incredibly safe with who they invite, what's the point of having a marketplace of ideas in the first place?

• 19:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Maeve, are there jokes you avoid depending on your audience? Would you just say, "Here's, I'm gonna feed them everything I got"?

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Um, I'd probably be, I'm kind of careful not to hurt people with my comedy, you know? Like, I, I feel like, it's interesting what Bill Maher said about like the Pocahontas costume, because you know, that was my character for, you know? Because, and then he said-

• 19:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because Irish people look so much like Pocahontas, you know?

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a, you know, spinning image. Colors of the wind. First thought.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  But I think there's like a difference, like the way I look at it, if I'm not sure about a joke and if I feel like, is this worth it? Then I am like, am I punching up or am I punching down? And so I feel like Bill Maher also talks about speaking truth to power, but usually the powerful are above you. But I would say in the case of like Pocahontas costume, that's like Native Americans who've had a really rough time.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so they're punching down?

• 20:28Speaker 02

  That's punching down.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  So that's where I, like, just as a writer and performer, that's my own kind of limit.

• 20:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, cool.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's how I figure it out.

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nicely thought out. Is there, is there some joke that will not work now? That you have, you're gonna have to really wait a few years before it lands?

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. I can tell you a joke right now and [BLEEP] happened [BLEEP], okay? So basically [BLEEP] and like [BLEEP] maybe [BLEEP]. And then like [BLEEP] and like [BLEEP]. And it turned out it was my father the whole time.

• 21:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  See?

• 21:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, too soon, too soon. So Greg, tell me about, you know, the big buzz topic today on campuses are safe spaces.

• 21:17Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 21:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, or, or trigger warnings?

• 21:20Speaker 04

  Yep. If you put professors in a situation where they have to guess what they're allowed to say, you end up chilling speech in the classroom. And you have professors, including professors at Harvard Law School, saying that they're afraid to teach the law related to sexual assault because they're afraid it will be too triggering for students. Now, of course, the irony of that is that the people who suffer the most when you can't teach the law of sexual assault are victims of sexual assault.

• 21:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So how do we find the balance, if it's findable at all, between free speech and just respect for fellow human beings?

• 21:52Speaker 04

  Free speech is basically an anarchical system where you trust in people to figure it out on their own and you don't trust in power, you don't trust in government, you don't trust in people who can punish people to make them think right. But the most frustrating, frustrating thing about the national discussion of trigger warnings and particularly safe spaces is that basically there are four or five different things that people mean when they say safe spaces.

• 22:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 22:13Speaker 04

  And if you support them, you go with the version that is just like, well, I just wanna have a group of friends that all like each other. And when people are critical of them, they're saying, well, the situation's when students are saying, this whole university is my safe space and I don't want Bill Maher speaking here. So they're talking past each other most of the time on this.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so vocabulary is not uniformly defined?

• 22:30Speaker 04

  We're having a crisis of vocabulary.

• 22:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We had that issue with Pluto, alright, so don't get me started there. So Greg, just thanks for coming in this segment and just putting some legal expertise on what we were trying to get across here.

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, up next, we'll try to answer your question, could your political affiliation be biological? On StarTalk.

• 23:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History beneath the Hayden Sphere, right here in New York City. We're talking about the power of political satire with comedian Bill Maher. Check it out. So, science denialism, let's go there briefly. I looked carefully to see whether the denialism, perhaps in different subjects, but whether it existed for liberals, and I came up with a list. There's like, you know, the new age remedy movement has to reject some mainstream science for that to happen. The anti-GMO movement is rejecting some mainstream science for that to happen. The anti-vax movement is rejecting... So, these are centered, or leaning, left.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Okay, yes, and I would agree with you on that. But, again, perspective is important and size matters. From my way of thinking, the most important issue, and this is of all the issues, is climate. Because without that, if we don't fix that, there are no other issues.

• 24:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Okay, so, if there is one side, and it's broken down, it's very politicized, one side thinks climate change is real, and one side doesn't. Everything else is second place to that. That's all I was saying.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, just to be fair to you and your... I mean, as critical as you are of the right, and as associated with the left as everyone in the right makes you, you are still critical of the left when the left needs it, when they need to be smacked in the head.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  I'm the one on the left who's critical of the left.

• 24:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, yeah, the left otherwise doesn't criticize itself.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  More than anybody else. Everybody else just panders.

• 24:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, so all I was trying to get at was, if you look carefully, there's plenty of science denialism in the left, a community that likes to think and does not deny science. So, Allison, do you agree with that?

• 24:56Speaker 03

  Sure, I mean, I think that there's room for ignorance on both sides of the ideological spectrum. But I think that Mara is right, that there is more denial on the right because there are more beliefs there that give alternate explanations for things that are scientifically proven. And a lot of those are rooted in religion, and a lot of those are rooted in kind of some old-school beliefs. But, sure, there definitely is some science denial on the left as well.

• 25:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, how would you characterize that distinction between science denialism on the left and right? Because I gave a list of things.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Crystal healers. I don't know any of them that are conservative, okay? But the crystals have power, and they want to be healed by them.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is denying science.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Yes, it is. I think that the way that the folks in the drum circle would frame it is that this is an alternate belief in something that is greater than us, and so it's essentially the same as the folks on the right, who believe that, you know, dinosaurs roamed the Earth 6,000 years ago.

• 26:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we all occupy the same reality. How does this happen?

• 26:04Speaker 03

  Oh, no. Oh, no, I think we're occupying two different realities at this point.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm a scientist, we are occupying the same.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  And like, healthcare is so expensive, but crystals are so cheap.

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I'm just wondering, how this happens? Is it training? Is it in school? Could it be biological? And so, there's a recent book called, "Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences." It was like, "Yeah, let's get some science." Roll some science into this conversation. And it suggests that political views may be hardwired into our DNA. Oh, my gosh. And we have the author of that book, political scientist John Hibbing, standing by live right now on video call. John, are you there? I am here. Hello, Neil. Hey.

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So John, you operate a political physiology lab?

• 27:02Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 27:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln?

• 27:04Speaker 05

  That's correct.

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. So what is a political physiology lab?

• 27:08Speaker 05

  Well, political physiology is an attempt to measure how people react.

• 27:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just get them thinking about stuff and you get to see how the brains differ?

• 27:17Speaker 05

  That's right, exactly. And the simple thing to do would be to show them pictures of Barack Obama or Donald Trump, but we actually go the next step and show them non-political images and see if there are differences across the political spectrum and how they respond to those images.

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh. So what have you found?

• 27:33Speaker 05

  Well, our kind of go-to measure is electrodermal activity. You know, we know that when the body is aroused even mildly, the sweat glands open up a little bit, so this is easy to measure. And we can see if people are tending to respond more strongly to negative images, like a picture of a bear, or positive images like a picture of a loved one. And we know overall that people respond more to negative images. We want to look at individual differences and see if those differences correlate politically.

• 28:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So not everyone has the same reaction to something that could harm them, basically?

• 28:08Speaker 05

  Exactly. Some people respond a lot more to things that could harm them than to things that they love. Other people respond about the same.

• 28:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it seems to me if you were to make a political career, you could get everyone who has that sensitivity to vote for you by feeding that fear.

• 28:24Speaker 05

  There's some truth to that. And, you know, I think where you're going with that is that you might see some of that happening in the political arena today.

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I wasn't, no, I, I, no.

• 28:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So who was more sensitive to this threat of violence?

• 28:41Speaker 05

  Conservatives are, yeah. Across the board. We do a lot of things. For example, we do things with memory. We show them a whole bunch of pictures, some positive, some negative. Then we'll do a distractor task. Then we'll show them a whole bunch more pictures, some that they've seen before and some that they haven't. And we see who can remember things. Liberals and conservatives remember about the same, overall, but conservatives remember the negative images much better. The liberals remember the positive images much better.

• 29:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. Okay, so, so did the, did the brains look different when you?

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The different parts lit up?

• 29:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, we have done some neuroimaging work and it really is pretty easy to predict who is a liberal, who's a conservative, simply on the basis of looking at the brain activation patterns.

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it would have been fun to have this conversation with you with an image of your brain, like, right next to you, just so we can see what's lit up or not as you spoke.

• 29:35Speaker 05

  I think that's none of your business.

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, John, thank you for this deep insight you brought to our conversation.

• 29:44Speaker 05

  Fun to be with you, yeah.

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, next, in my interview with comedian Bill Maher, we'll talk about religion, aliens, and more when StarTalk continues.

• 30:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk, right here at the American Museum of Natural History. We're talking about satire and the state of society with comedian Bill Maher. And he offered his thoughts about aliens. Check it out.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  I don't think it's at all unscientific to think it's possible that there is alien life, you know, life on other planets, or even life here. You know, they could be here. There's nothing unscientific about that.

• 30:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I joked that maybe they have landed, but they landed in San Diego during Comic-Con, and nobody noticed. Wrong time to be visited by aliens.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  I mean, we don't know that. And Hillary wants to open up Area 51.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I said, "Let her do it. Go ahead." People say, "Well, there's secrets. Could the government..." I think, you know, if we've been visited by aliens, I don't think it's the kind of secret the government can successfully keep. That's all.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Unless the aliens want to keep it a secret. And they may. They may be here. You know that there's a whole group of people who think... There's that guy Alex Jones. Trump goes on his show. He's one of these right-wing nuts. And he believes that there are lizard people among us. The Queen of England is one, George Bush was one. They are actually lizards. They take human form, but if you sometimes catch them, you know, when their guard's down, you see the lizard. I mean, this is the whole thing. I interviewed this guy for Religious. It didn't make it into the movie, but...

• 31:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it is. I saw the movie. I don't remember.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  It was not in the movie, but, yeah, that's a theory that people have. And Trump goes on this guy's show and calls him amazing, so...

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Huge.

• 31:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Allison, are some demographics, demographic groups in America more susceptible to conspiracy theories than others?

• 31:51Speaker 03

  I think so, because the root of a conspiracy theory is that you don't trust something, you don't trust the government, or you don't trust the media who are telling you this.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, I always thought of it differently. I thought it's people who don't understand how data works. See, the role of data in drawing a conclusion.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 32:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it didn't occur to me to think that they just, they don't know how to trust.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  Well, think about it this way, for the last forty years, particularly conservatives have been sort of banging this drum, that the government is corrupt and untrustworthy, that the media are biased and untrustworthy, and that academics are left-leaning and thus untrustworthy. And so, after you yell this for forty years, people tend to believe it. And as a result of that, when these institutions come forward and say, "Here's some truth", the response is, "I don't trust you."

• 32:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that leaves them open to have whatever the hell thought they want.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  That's exactly right.

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Bill Maher is also known for his 2008 film, "Religulous", and in it, he examines and challenges people's closely-held religious beliefs. And, but he's a devout atheist. Can I say that? So I asked him how his atheism and his critique of religion impacts his comedy. So, check it out. One kind of atheism is, "I'm not religious." Another kind is, "Let's rid the world of religion." These are two kind of different levels of militancy.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Within the movement. So where would you put yourself on that spectrum?

• 33:20Speaker 01

  I only love to make fun of it. If you make fun of it enough, the problem will take care of itself.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, in your film, "Religulous", you were, you were trying to give people their time on camera.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely, and I did, right. I mean, you don't have to make fun of it, it makes fun of itself. Just, just point the camera and ask the question, they will do it for you. When I pitched the movie, I said, "Religion is the side of a comedic barn. If I can't hit it in this movie, I am going to get out of the business." And it is. I mean, there's nothing easier to make fun of. Ask Noah.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll give you a chance to critique me, okay?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Critique you?

• 34:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm on record for putting a little distance between myself and the atheist movement. And the atheist movement is like, there's some ire in there.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Oh, for f-

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, what- I've said, but, but, so my point is, here's why. I do things that people who would label me as an atheist would not expect me to do. And as a result, end up saying, "I thought you were an atheist."

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Like what?

• 34:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as long as that continues, if I say I'm an atheist, that comes with a whole portfolio of what people think I am, or what I would say, or what I would believe, not all of which is true. So I say, I thought, so find some other word for me.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Do you believe in a talking snake? Then you're on our team.

• 34:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm unconvinced.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  I, I, I have this argument with-

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that the threshold?

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Yes, I have this ar-

• 34:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that the quiz?

• 34:49Speaker 01

  I have this argument with-

• 34:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The one-question quiz.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  People all the time also, that, you know, are you an atheist or agnostic?

• 34:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  I'm like, okay. To me, it's just semantics. It's, uh, so, I don't know what you're talking about when you say you do things that are-

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so, for example, I had a friend of mine go on the space shuttle, ready to fix the Hubble telescope. On my Facebook page, I said, "Uh, good luck to the space shuttle, and Godspeed."

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Oh, God, I say, I use that phrase all the-

• 35:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People came in, said, "I thought you were an atheist."

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "Why are you using that?" They would jump all over me. It's like, back the [BLEEP] off!

• 35:23Speaker 01

  And then- And this gets back to what we were saying a little while ago about lazy liberals. Instead of attacking the real enemies, what they like to do is find a little piece that's not quite clean enough. It's pretty clean, it's almost pure, but it's a lot easier to polish that up and ignore the giant pile of [BLEEP] over on the other side of the room. So, yeah, you're on our team. That's all I care about.

• 35:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Allison, can or should comedians make fun of religion? This is the, religion is a sacred thing that, our country is founded on the freedom of expression of religion. It's kind of a cultural point of respect that's implicit in what we call civilized America. So, so now you have comedians just trampling the rose garden there. So what's going on?

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Well, that's what comedy is supposed to do. Comedy is supposed to sort of point at sacred cows and take them down a bit.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  I must, I must take notes.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  Okay, okay, so this is what comedy is supposed to do. But in addition to that, our country was founded on religious freedom, which has to include not being religious at all. And so I think that making fun of religion is not only fair, but I think well within our history of approaching religion.

• 36:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Mabe, do you have like, religion jokes?

• 36:45Speaker 02

  It's funny, I feel like I can make fun of, I grew up Catholic, so I feel like I can make fun of like Catholic rituals.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  But I wouldn't feel as comfortable making fun of somebody else's.

• 36:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we live in a country now where the fraction of people who do not associate with a religion is growing. Allison, the last I saw 23% and rising.

• 37:06Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 37:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is people who may be spiritual but not affiliated with a formal religion, and that would include agnostics, where no one is telling them what they should believe out of some revealed truth in a document. So, that's a trend line, do you see that continuing?

• 37:22Speaker 03

  Um, I do, and then I also see folks who are religious really embracing that in a strong way too. And so, this kind of leads back to that bifurcation that we're seeing sort of writ large, the polarization.

• 37:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're saying the religious community is a little fearsome then? That they would lose adherence to this growing demographic?

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, the information, the data is showing that churches are losing membership. And so, they're trying hard to keep those members in line and keep them in their flock. And that makes sense, because they need a flock in order to be a church.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Maybe churches should do like more pranks on their congregations, that could be cool.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  That's a really good idea.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, they should do more.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You heard it here first.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Like when you're kneeling and then you go to sit, but they like the priest will pull the chair away. Yeah, just like. It's a good idea. Simple, physical comedy could bring people back.

• 38:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, up next, I try to explain the Big Bang to Bill Maher when StarTalk continues.

• 38:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk, featuring my interview with comedian Bill Maher. And every time we talk, he always tries to stump me with a question about the Big Bang. This was no exception. Check it out.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  So tell me again how the universe fits inside of a little marble.

• 38:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it doesn't do that today, but it did that nearly 14 billion years ago.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Wink, wink. I'm not saying it's not true. I'm just saying I've packed a suitcase and you really gotta, I mean, you know, you jump on it and then you, one last thing.

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're using your life experience packing your suitcase.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  It's just.

• 39:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To pass judgment on the Big Bang.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  But I was trying to get at that point. There must be so much space inside the molecule, right?

• 39:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's not only.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Because the atoms.

• 39:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's true, but that's not, it's still, it's still an effort to get it down there.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Right. Well, that's, that's my, that's my basic question.

• 39:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How could the universe have fit into a volume that size? And I'm just saying, very high temperature, matter becomes energy, and out of V equals mc squared, you cram as much energy into the smallest volume of space that exists. But it's not stable and it must expand, and that's what the universe did. So you have it.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Well, that clears that out. Now I can sleep tonight.

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that was Bill Maher's chance to ask an astrophysicist a question, and now it's our fans' turn, because it's time for Cosmic Queries. Yes.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Okay, so our first question comes from Pratyamna Padala from India. How would the universe look if our eyes could see all the wavelengths of light?

• 40:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, it would be, oh, I so want that superpower. That'd be like a superpower.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Would it be like a disco, like a glitter ball?

• 40:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Better.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Yeah?

• 40:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that your measure of good thing? Right, so, so we see Roy G. Biv. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And we celebrate the power of our eyes to see. However, if you lay the visible spectrum in the full electromagnetic spectrum, we are practically blind. You go beyond red, there is infrared, can't see that. Go beyond infrared, there's microwaves, can't see that. Go beyond microwaves, radio waves, can't see them. Go back the other way, beyond violet, ultraviolet, can't see it. X-rays, can't see it. Gamma rays, can't see it. So the existence of things in the universe were traceable to bands of light that we didn't previously even know existed.

• 41:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you could see all of this, the world would look so different to you. Someone would be on the phone, on their cellphone, and there'd be a glow in microwaves. They'd be all around their head. You'd look at a microwave tower. That would be the brightest thing on the horizon if you tune in to microwaves. You can tune to infrared and all the hot things would be a glow. And so, yeah, it'd be really, I think about this all the time. I lay awake at night wanting this kind of vision.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Well, great, so our second question.

• 41:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  If everything in the world has a beginning, so there's a beginning of the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of the universe?

• 41:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I never said everything had a beginning.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry dude.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, that's an assumption. If you can assume that's the case, then you're stuck asking questions like that. I don't assume anything. Maybe the universe always was. I'm perfectly happy thinking that that's a possibility that I could then research. But the moment you start asserting what you think the universe should be, should have been, will be, in the absence of data, there's assumptions that feel good to you that you then implant on the universe. So we've been talking about the role of comedy in shaping politics. Featuring my interview with comedian Bill Maher. Let's check it out.

• 42:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're old enough, we're ish the same age.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, remember Apollo and all of this.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 42:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was an era.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Today, you got any reflections?

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Um, well, it's a shame we don't really have one.

• 42:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, it's become privatized. I mean, that's where space exploration has moved. I don't know what NASA is doing.

• 42:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's one of the problems.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Do they even spend, send the space shuttle?

• 42:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're certain they've got a mission statement that they're fulfilling, but nobody, it doesn't get out there.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  I mean, uh, listening to you, actually, is what convinced me, you know, we, we should probably be exploring space.

• 43:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really? I convinced you.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Yes, I think you did, because, you know, you make the good point that it, it may not be an immediate result you get from it, but that's the way science works. Sometimes you can't foresee what the benefit is gonna be.

• 43:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  I wouldn't spend the whole kitty on it.

• 43:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  But, uh, I think there is a place for it. I also think-

• 43:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I'm honored to have influenced your view.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 43:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're a strongly viewed per- you, you have strong views. They're so strong, no one, it, it's not imaginable that someone can come in and, and-

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Well, that's not true at all.

• 43:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, in the sense that I know you're a deep thinker about a lot of issues.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  But if you're a thinker, then you're willing to change your view.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course, but if you're a deep thinker-

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Especially when you-

• 43:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have to think of something you haven't thought of.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Well, exactly.

• 43:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's a challenge.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  And I'm always happy when someone does that.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's great, that's a great point.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  I used to be friends with Timothy Leary. He, he once said to me, "My favorite three words in the English language are 'I don't know,' because every time I say it, I learn something."

• 43:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's as it needs be.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  And then I said, "Pass the joint."

• 44:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Allison, I don't hear politicians say "I don't know" as often as perhaps they should.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  I agree. I think we'd all be a whole lot better if they said "I don't know" more often.

• 44:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In my field, we live in the "I don't know." The "I don't know" is what gets us out of bed every morning, running to the lab or the telescope to do the experiment.

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that one day we do know, and open up another "I don't know."

• 44:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, should we teach more "I don't know" in school?

• 44:23Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 44:26Speaker 03

  Sorry, you walked into that one. Um, yes, we absolutely should be, but the problem with politics is that you're, you're running on the idea that you do know, that that's the reason that you wanna get elected, that's the reason that people should vote for you, is that you've got this.

• 44:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, they don't know that they don't know.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  Well, I think that's kind of the big thing, is that they don't know what they don't know. And then, when they get there, they realize, "Holy crap, there's a lot that I don't know."

• 44:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, it's one thing to not know what you don't know, it's another thing to think you know something that you don't.

• 44:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's another side of that.

• 44:59Speaker 03

  True.

• 45:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's just embarrassing to others who know.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  That is absolutely true. And Stephen Colbert actually kind of created a term for this a little bit.

• 45:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Truthiness?

• 45:09Speaker 03

  Truthiness. That's exactly right. So there's a comedic term, you know, truthiness, when it isn't fact-based, but you kind of feel it in your gut a little bit.

• 45:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh. So Bill Maher said he's ready to change his mind in the face of evidence. Cited me as an example of somebody who changed his mind. But I didn't change his political views. I just gave him more information he didn't have.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 45:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And after we learned today that your brain is maybe hardwired, I don't know that you can change a person's political views.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  I think Professor Hibbing was on to something, though. It's not really about changing views. It's about compromise and about discussion. And if you close off somebody else because of their views or because of their beliefs, and you don't have a conversation about it, then you're never gonna learn anything.

• 45:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maeve, where are you?

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Now I'm thinking like, maybe I should mature my material. I have like a lot of material about like, how cats are snobby.

• 45:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  So I'm like, I'm feeling a lot of responsibility after this show.

• 46:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  To open people's hearts and change people's minds.

• 46:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I've always valued comedy. It's why I wanted a co-host who's a professional always next to me. In part because I think the universe is hilarious, in ways that I can think of, and I know certainly others would have the power to do so.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Do you believe like, if you don't laugh, you'll cry? Like, that it staves off kind of a despair?

• 46:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's an interesting point. You have to laugh, otherwise you would cry. No, I don't believe it.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Oh, good. Yeah, me neither.

• 46:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when I think of politics and comedy...

• 46:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know. For me, it's all about the truth. Are you after the truth, or are you not? And so, then I thought, well, of course, deeply religious people are certain they have found the truth. So what kind of truth is that? And then I thought this through, and I concluded the following. If you are deeply religious, and you have certainty that derives from scriptures that belong to your religion, we can call that a personal truth. Because it matters deep within you, how you feel regarding that content.

• 47:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Politicians have another kind of truth. It turns out, a politician can create a truth simply by repeating information. We have learned through psychology experiments. So you can have a political truth that is only true because it got repeated. Then you have objective truths. These are established by experiment, by observation. And my great frustration in our modern times is how many political conversations unfold with people who think they have the truth, but in fact don't. And the more we recognize what an objective truth is, versus a political truth, versus a personal truth, the more we can get the job done,

• 48:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  passing legislation that affects us all, based on objective truths. And then you go home and have your personal truth, of whatever kind you want. You can go to the bar and have whatever political truth you'd like. That's the kind of world I want to live in, because I see that from the cosmic perspective. You've been watching StarTalk.

• 48:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks to my guest, Allison. Me.

• 48:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To Bill Maher. I bid you to keep looking up.