Also a cosmologist, author, and science communicator, Dr. Tyson has the rare ability to combine intellect and knowledge of science and the cosmos, with humor, while explaining the complex dynamics of the universe in layman's terms. This guy was hitting me with so much information, it's what inspired me to create the website, AmazingUniverse.info. Below are a few excerpts of the cosmological banter of one of the greatest minds of the 21st century.
"Hypothetically, lets invent a measure of intelligence that make humans unique. Intelligence would be the ability to compose poetry, symphonies, art, math, and science, and this would be the arbitrary definition of intelligence, because chimps can't do any of that. But we share 99% identical DNA. The most brilliant chimp ever, could possible do some sign language, but so can our toddlers."
"The fascinatingly disturbing thought is, everything that we are that distinguishes us from chimps, emerges from that one percent difference in DNA. It has to, because that's the difference. The Hubble Telescope, and all great human inventions are in that one percent. Everything that we are, that is not the chimp, is not as smart compared to the chimp, as we tell ourselves it is. The difference between constructing and launching the Hubble Telescope, and a chimp combining two finger motions as sign language, maybe that difference is not all that great. We tell ourselves it is, but maybe it's almost nothing."
"How would we decide that? Imagine another life form that is one percent different from us, in the direction that we are different from the chimp. Think about that. We have a one percent difference and we're building the Hubble telescope. Go another one percent, and ask the questions, what are we to them? We would be drooling, blithering idiots in their presence. They would take Stephen Hawking and roll him in front of their primate researchers and say, "this one is the most brilliant among them because he can do astrophysics in his head." 'Oh isn't that cute, little Johnny can do that too, it's on the refrigerator, he did it in his elementary school class.' "
"Think about how smart they would be. Quantitative mechanics would be intuitive to their toddlers. Entire symphonies would be written by their children, and placed on the refrigerator door, the way our pasta collages are on our refrigerator doors."
"The notion that we're going to find intelligent life, and have a conversation with it, is humorous. When was the last time you stopped to have a conversation with a worm, or a bird? We don't have conversations with other species on earth, with whom we have DNA in common, to believe that some intelligent other species is going to be interested in us, enough to have a conversation, is absurd."
"Are we as a species simply too stupid to figure out the universe we are investigating? There could very well be a species, one percent smarter than we are, for which String Theory (theory of everything - TOE - self contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter) is intuitive; for which all the greatest mysteries of the universe, from dark matter, dark energy, origins of life, and all the frontiers of our thought, would be something that this intelligent species could just self-intuit."
Neil deGrasse Tyson on Science, Religion and the Universe
If you knew nothing about science and you read the bible, the Old Testament, which in Genesis is an archaic account of nature. I say to you, 'give me your description of the natural world based on the biblical depiction.
"And the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind" (one of the so-called 'signs of the second coming').
For anyone to write something so utterly ridiculous, means the author didn't have a clue what actual stars happen to be. The author would have no concept of what the universe is about.
Therefore, anyone today, who makes proclamations about the universe, based on bible passages, they're declarations are seriously flawed and inaccurate. Scientific discoveries have been and continue to be made, and you're holding fast to medieval religious belief that the bible is without error; in the 21st century, you have to see something wrong with such a picture.
Unfortunately, this is when the cherry-picking starts. Christian apologist will then say, "oh, that particular scripture was not meant as a literal interpretation." The myriad recapitulations of how 'figurative' the bible is, only came about after science, geology, and archaeological research, clearly proves the bible to be wrong.
Geological science has clearly demonstrated that the world was and still is being designed, over the last 14.5 billion years, not 6 days!
Before the believer tries to turn "6 days" into thousands of years, he might want to take a look at John 11:9, where the protagonist of the Christian story states, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world's light."
So that won't work for you.
