The greatest explorer of recent decades is not even human.
Interpretation
The exploration of our universe is increasingly driven by technology rather than human endeavor.
Neil Degrasse Tyson's quote highlights the idea that advancements in technology, such as robots, telescopes, and spacecraft, have become the primary means through which we explore and understand the universe, transcending the limitations of human exploration. This suggests that while humans have historically been the explorers, the tools and machines we create have taken on a crucial role in uncovering the mysteries of the cosmos.
In practice
In a speech about the future of space exploration, one might say, 'The greatest explorer of recent decades is not even human, but the technology we've developed to understand our universe.'
The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
The press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
It used to be thought that our genes were historically immutable and that it was not possible to imagine a conversation between culture and genetics.
Having been the discoverer of many splendid things, he is said to have asked his friends and relations that, after his death, they should place on his tomb a cylinder enclosing a sphere, writing on it the proportion of the containing solid to that which is contained.
If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
If we just stay at the crest of the mycelial wave, it will take us into heretofore unknown territories that will be just magnificent in their implications.
While it is quite reasonable for scientists to be skeptical of new ideas that do not fit within the accepted realm of scientific knowledge, the best science often emerges from situations where results carefully obtained do not fit within the accepted paradigms.
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).
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