As for education, I think there ought to be a class in public schools on religion. It occupies an undeniably significant role in civilization. Commensurate with my earlier interest in diversity, the religion class should cover all the world’s faith-based philosophies and belief systems. I think, historically, such a class was omitted because religions themselves are not fans of tolerating other religions. And so religious exposure was left to Saturday or Sunday and as a family affair. Which, in retrospect, is probably for the better.
You called me a fraud, which compelled me to look up that word too. Here is what I found:
Fraud (noun): wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
I don’t see how that word applies in this case. I think I have been quite open, straight, and honest with you. Yet you took this as a personal attack on Christianity. When in fact it’s simply an observation on scientific illiteracy in America.
Thank you again for your interest. I mean that sincerely, as I hope is evidenced by the time I spent in reply.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
* While I did not personally demote Pluto from planet status, I was definitely an accessory to the indignity. This made me a public enemy of elementary school children nationwide.
† The American Museum of Natural History, New York City.
‡ Rotary National Award for Space Achievement, conferred at an annual black-tie banquet in Houston, Texas, the city that is the heart of America’s manned space program. This letter-writer did not attend but viewed my acceptance speech on-line.
§ A phrase first expressed by the Ukrainian-born American geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975) who also happened to be devout Eastern Orthodox Christian.
¶ David Masci, “Religion and Science in the United States: Scientists and Belief,” Pew Research Center, Nov. 5, 2009, http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief (accessed Jan. 2019).
# a-gnostic: A term coined by the nineteenth-century naturalist Thomas Henry Huxley in reference to a person who claims neither faith in, nor disbelief in, God. Today, it references a person who allows the possibility of a God, but remains skeptical.
Chapter 5
Science Denial
Some people don’t like scientists. Some people think that science is a nefarious, political force on society. Some people think that science is over-valued and rampant with smug researchers. Some people are simply in search of what is true. In this chapter, I engage them all.
Middle School Skepticism
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Dear Dr. Tyson,
I am a middle school student and I came across a video that featured scientists who were skeptical about global warming.
My main question to you is: do you think that human-caused global warming is real and worthy of further exploration?
Thank you so much for your time,
Ray Batra
Dear Ray,
There will always be dissenting scientists for any new research findings. What matters most is the peer-reviewed, published data and the trends in research they indicate. I’m familiar with the video you reference. It interviews the half-dozen or so leading anti–anthropogenic global warming scientists, and a bunch of other non-scientists, like politicians.
Nothing in principle wrong with dissenting views. But since global warming has political and economic ramifications, money flows easily to create videos that feature this subset of scientists. I reviewed the published literature from one of them. He is surely a climate scientist, but not in the field of climate change. His anti–climate change publications are predominantly Op-Eds for newspapers, and other non-peer-reviewed publications.
Compare that with the publication record of NASA’s James Hansen and there is no contest who is closer to the problem. Couple that with the huge body of peer-reviewed literature, authored by climate change scientists—and not just climate researchers—and there is no meaningful case to be made. You can find a few dissenters, but they have no data, or they are selective about the data they cite.
Scientists are all human, complete with human frailties and biases and susceptibilities. That’s why trends in the data remain the primary commodity of what is true in science, and not the impassioned testimonies of scientists themselves.
Sincerely,
Neil deGrasse Tyson
More Harm Than Good?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Mr. Tyson,
Has the pursuit of scientific knowledge led to more harm or good for life on this planet?
I just want to clarify and make it clear that I don’t intend to attack you or the pursuit of scientific knowledge. I am a supporter of science and do believe that today it does more to help us than hurt.
My question is more to the fundamental issue of whether we, as humans, have ultimately caused possibly fatal damage to our planet through our activities that we must acknowledge fall under the category of scientific pursuit. Gunpowder, coal-fired power, the internal combustion engine, nuclear weapons—these are scientific contributions to life on Earth.
I do believe that these may in fact have been inevitable innovations, in some way, once we left the savannah and began developing technology that enabled us to survive outside our ecological niche.
But, as you are a deeply thoughtful and brilliant human, more even so than just a scientist, I wanted to ask you if you’d ever considered that question: If we could take it all back, wouldn’t it really be better for this planet? Not just us, humans, but all life?
Anyways, thanks for your excellent work in spreading the word of science in the modern world. Whatever we may have done before, we certainly need science now!
Best Regards,
Dakkan Abbe
Dear Mr. Abbe,
Thanks for your letter.
I think a list of what is good about science will far outweigh the list of what is bad about science. But what actually matters is that science is not inherently good or bad. It’s just a base of knowledge about how the natural world works. It’s the engineering applications of science that take on patinas of good or evil. And since no country with any real power has ever elected a scientist or an engineer as its leader, the people who wield resources to fund such good and evil are politicians. So your question could just as easily have been reworded with the word politics swapped in for science.
Control of nature is not unique to humans. Beavers wreak havoc on their environment. We have revisionist comments regarding what they do: “Their dams create a habitat for all manner of wildlife,” when, in fact, their dams completely change the local ecology. Swarming locusts and cicadas also create imbalances in their habitats. But the worst of them all? Four billion years ago, cyanobacteria transformed Earth’s atmosphere by making O2 in the greatest ecological disruption in the history of life on Earth, killing all surface-living anaerobic bacteria.
Human-induced global climate change is (at the moment) not unstoppable. And, of course, the solution will come from science and technology—via enlightened leadership. Just as the problem arose from science and technology—via shortsighted leadership. But this cycle is nothing new.
We solved the food shortage problem in the world*—which was as big a fear at the end of the 19th century as global warming has been in the 21st century. We have also (in America) made great progress on the pollution problem, after it was identified and articulated in the 1970s. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was formed to oversee this effort, and now the rivers, lands, and air in America are cleaner than at any time since the industrial revolution began.
Many worried that science applied to farming and animal husbandry might eviscerate foods of their nutrients or flavor. Some of this indeed happened. So today (in America, but especially in Europe) there’s a huge and successful movement toward local produce and organic farming.
I therefore retain a confidence that you do not have—that science has the power to solve the problems it occasionally creates, provid
ed the political and cultural will is there to enable it.
And I maintain that without the progress of science, I, today, would be someone’s slave, and half the world would not have not survived past age five. Not only that, 70% of who did survive would be hard at work on farms, barely making enough food for the growing population.
But I nonetheless thank you for your question, your interest, and your kind remarks about my work.
Sincerely,
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Evolution vs. Creationism
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Dear Dr. deGrasse Tyson,
I have been seeing quite a bit of conflict regarding teaching evolution vs. creationism. If I’ve read correctly, you believe in evolution (which I do, too), but does this mean that you don’t believe in “God” or a higher power?
I have become so confused about what I believe. I was raised Catholic all my life (went to an all-girls Franciscan high school and Marquette University, a Jesuit university), but I have very serious doubts about a higher power. We are such a speck in the grand scheme of things . . . actually less than a speck. So I just wonder what your feelings are. I hope I did not ask a taboo question. If I did, I’m truly sorry. If not, I look forward to your response.
Thank you, Dr. deGrasse Tyson.
Sincerely,
Jackie Schwab
Dear Ms. Schwab,
Thanks for candidly sharing your angst about a higher power.
A few points . . .
The theory of evolution is not something to “believe in.” Science follows evidence. And when strong evidence supports an idea, the concept of belief, when invoked the way religious people use the word, is unnecessary. In other words, established science is not an ensemble of beliefs, it’s a system of ideas supported by verifiable evidence.
You did not ask if I believe in the sunrise. Or if I believe the sky is blue. Or if I believe Earth has a Moon. These are non-controversial truths about the physical world for which the word “believe” has no place. Evolution by natural selection is a non-controversial tenet of modern biology. It’s not controversial among biologists, that is. Among religious fundamentalists, biological evolution does not square with their faith-based belief system, in which they invoke the Bible as an inerrant understanding of the physical world.
This leads to claims, for example, that Earth is no more than 10,000 years old. And that there was a literal flood in which all of Earth was covered in water. No evidence supports this. Not only that, all evidence argues against it. And so one is left “believing in” stories that are demonstrably false.
Thanks again for your interest and your questions.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Qur’anic Verses
On Wednesday, June 3, 2009, Tahmid Rahim,† a Muslim, respectfully inquired why, in my various appearances in science documentaries and elsewhere, science in the Qur’an was never mentioned. He declared that the Qur’an contains many verses that reference specific discoveries of modern astrophysics, from relativity to the expanding universe. For a book written by Muhammad 1,400 years ago, this would be extraordinary, if true.
Hello Tahmid Rahim,
Thanks for your note.
A great challenge of revealed truths by divine prophets is that nobody has ever made a successful prediction of previously unknown objects or phenomena based on the contents of any religious texts. What typically happens is that devout people learn what scientists have discovered about the natural world and then go back into their religious texts in search of passages that hint at what is already known. But since the extracted information comes after-the-fact, it’s not useful to the advance of science. What you need to do, if you are convinced of Qur’anic foresight and inerrancy, is come up with predictions about the natural world derived from Qur’anic verse that will stimulate research. If any of it comes true (it would be a first time for such a thing, by the way) then scientists would be mining the Qur’an for its insights daily.
This has never happened—with any religious text—which is why they have no place in the science classroom. Occasionally, when strongly religious people feel that science conflicts with their religious texts, they fight the concepts, declaring something is wrong with the science.
Come up with a list of predictions of unknown phenomena, derived from the Qur’an, and I will be happy to offer comment. Otherwise, science and religion don’t have much to say to each other.
Sincerely,
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Evidence for God
In a long exchange from 2008, Andrew McLemore expressed his enthusiasm for science as a tool to peer into God’s cosmic handiwork. But he wondered what level evidence might convince a skeptic that there’s a better-than-even chance that God exists.
Dear Andrew,
I think often about what would constitute evidence for God. How about if, after adjusting for income and access to health care, pious people all lived longer than non-pious people? How about when a plane crashes, only the pious people survive? How about Jesus comes when people say he will come? (His second coming has been predicted by Christians for hundreds of occasions that have already passed, spanning the last 2000 years.)
How about people pray for peace, and then all wars in the world stop permanently? How about good things happen exclusively to good people and bad things happen exclusively to bad people? How about an earthquake strikes Portugal on All Saints Day, while everyone is in Church, as it did in 1755, and it kills only people who are not in Church, rather than the tens of thousands of people who were, as what actually happened that fateful morning.
These events would trigger serious (scientific) conversation about the existence of God and how he treats people who worship him versus those who do not.
Sincerely,
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Where Is the Proof?
In June 2008, Roger argued heavily against the discoveries of science that conflict with biblical statements about evolution and the age of the physical universe. He even called me an arrogant liar. Based on that name-calling alone, our exchange might have landed in the Hate Mail bin of this volume, but he fundamentally disputed major discoveries of modern science, which instead lands it here, in the Science Denial chapter.
Roger,
You doubt all dating methods that extend timelines of the world beyond that of recorded history. Whatever is the source of your denial does not hold your intellectual enlightenment as its priority.
Measurements obtained by separate groups using distinctly different methods applying different principles of investigations have shown that:
•the age of meteorites is 4.55 billion years +/-0.01
•the age of moon rocks is 4.55 billion years +/-0.01
•the age of the Sun is 4.5 billion years +/-0.1
•the age of the oldest crust on Earth, a planet that recycles its crust in and out of volcanoes, is 4 billion years +/-0.01
Carbon-14 isotope dating is effective for no more than a few tens of thousands of years, and is useful primarily on material that was once alive. So it’s widely used to date cave artifacts from the stone-age times. But the isotopes of various other elements on the periodic table are useful for time intervals of millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, and even billions of years.
After it forms, one can measure what fraction of a radioactive element decays into another element. These are called daughter elements. The bigger the fraction of daughter elements in the sample, the older the sample is. It’s that simple. Some elements decay much more slowly than others, making them useful for reaching and dating longer periods of time.
We determine the age of the Sun from calculations based on its mass and the rate it consumes energy, two easily measured quantities. This requires knowing that the Sun produces energy by thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium.
None of these are controversial results. We are all on to the next problems. If these results sit uneasily to some people, I have foun
d that it almost always derives from conflict with a pre-existing expectation of how the universe must be.
You further wonder how, if humans evolved from apes, why apes stopped evolving. Natural selection drives evolution. And evolution is occurring all around us. All the time. It’s best seen among species that have fast reproductive cycles, where variations can be selected and identified on time scales short compared with a human life. The bacterial branch of the tree of life is huge—much larger in variation than what is found among vertebrates, for example. Among bacteria as well as viruses, we see speciation all the time. Some of the more visible ones are Swine Flu, AIDS, and Legionnaire’s disease. These afflictions did not exist in nature until they mutated from previous forms, becoming new species, enabling them to infect life not previously accessible to them.
Not all species are evolving at all times. For example, the Coelacanth (pronounced See-luh-kanth) is an extremely successful bottom-feeding fish that has not changed substantially for the past 360 million years. Horseshoe crabs go back even further—450 million years. If you are a successful species, there is no driver to influence change. Meanwhile, mammals have changed dramatically over the past 65 million years. When I say dramatically, I mean visually, not biologically. We share more than 90% identical DNA with all mammals, even mice.
Among mammals in the tree of life is the branch called primates, such as lemurs, monkeys, and the great apes, including humans. It’s commonly thought that humans evolved from monkeys. But this is not true. We all have a common ancestor. The ape that is closest to us is the chimpanzee. In other words, chimps and humans have a relatively recent common ancestor.
As you would expect from this information, we are, in fact, genetically closer to chimpanzees than to any other animal in the world. Contrary to your assertions that chimps and humans are completely different from each other, chimps and humans have every muscle and every bone in common. Chimps and humans even have the same facial expressions. But most importantly, we have only trifling differences in our DNA. In fact, genetically, we and the chimps are closer to each other than either of us are to the “Old World” monkeys of Africa.
Letters from an Astrophysicist Page 7