To be scientifically literate is _x000D_ to empower yourself to _x000D_ know when someone else is _x000D_ full of bullshit.
Interpretation
Scientific literacy enables individuals to distinguish credible information from misinformation.
Neil Degrasse Tyson's quote emphasizes the importance of scientific literacy in today's world. It suggests that being scientifically informed empowers individuals to critically evaluate information and recognize when falsehoods or misleading claims are presented, ultimately fostering a more discerning and knowledgeable society.
In practice
In a discussion about misinformation in health, I quoted Neil Degrasse Tyson to emphasize the need for scientific literacy.
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.
Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime ministers have never yet been invested.
It was the kind of library he had only read about in books.
Economic inequality is systemic, and one of the most effective barriers is ignorance about how money works beyond the basics.
Learning to sing one's own songs, to trust the particular cadences of own's voices, is also the goal of any writer.
I think children love reading, and they will make time for it if we put the right books into their hands. And I hope I get the chance to keep being one of the people that writes them.
I did poorly in math for a couple of years in middle school; I was just not interested in thinking about it.
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