Partial Anatomy of my Public Engagement
August 10, 2014 at 1:04pm
Some have said, "You're an astrophysicist, why are you speaking on GMOs?". The simple answer, in this case, is that I was asked. By a reporter. Several years ago. On my book-signing line. After a talk I gave on the universe. I barely remember the occasion. It was video-recorded. Then re-discovered a couple of weeks ago by a news aggregator (I'm told
Mother Jones). Got posted on YouTube. Became viral. Triggered a wave of reactions in the Blogosphere. Prompting me to fully clarify the points I made in the 2m 20s interview.
People commonly ask me things that are not about astrophysics because (I think) they trust my capacity to analyze information. And they are confident that I might offer a perspective or point of view that can assist their own analysis and understanding. That's what any educator would do.
I am counted among the ranks of experts on Space Exploration, the Universe and, I suppose, Science Literacy — common topics of my invited talks. But I nonetheless think deeply about hundreds of other subjects. (such as genetics, baseball, war, peace, cloning, photography, intelligence, athletic performance, fountain pens, insects, aliens, human aggression, martial arts, impressionist art, Broadway musicals, mob psychology, human physiology, food fads, film-making, human rituals, food preparation, and fine wine.) Yet I hardly ever volunteer those thoughts publicly, unless asked directly -- as what happened with GMOs.
At first glance it may not be obvious, but if you carefully review my postings, and almost anything else i do publicly, including my Twitter stream, I rarely express opinions. More typically, I offer ways of looking at things that, at their best, make you think. And at their worst, are just idle, pointless thoughts that I share. I resist offering opinions because I actually don't care if anybody share my opinions. They are my opinions, not yours. That's the entire reason why I don't (publicly) debate people. Often, debates are for when you want everybody who is paying attention, to have your opinion and not the opinion of your opponent. Instead, I attempt to offer tools and perspectives to help you see the forces of nature, empowering the reader or the listener or the viewer to think rationally about the world. (Hmm. I suppose that's, itself, an opinion: I think it's good for the individual, the nation, and the world to see and value objective realties.)
By the way, scientific debates happen all the time - at scientific conferences. But they are not typically staged. They arise after a talk is given and your colleagues challenge your claims or assertions or conclusions or assumptions in your research paper. No matter how this unfolds, the underlying premise is that there would be little or no disagreement if the data were better, or if there were more of it. So nearly all scientific arguments occur on the bleeding edge of research. Once a better state of data solves the dispute, we go drink a beer and move on to the next unsolved scientific questions.
There rest of the world is different. As we all know, armies of arguers lurk in the internet brush, waiting to pounce on every opinion offered by anyone who dares express one.
A while ago I posted a Tweet that implicitly juxtaposed both the First and Second amendments of the US Constitution. After one of the more publicized school shootings in America, I Tweeted: "In Walmart, America's largest gun seller, you can buy an assault rifle. But company policy bans pop music with curse words." That's simply a fact. People who presumed I was trying to express an opinion were actually divided on which way they though my opinion was leaning. Some ranted, "They have every right to sell guns!" Others proclaimed, "As a corporation Walmart has every right to protect children by not selling harmful music if they choose to!". The urge was high to presume I was expressing an opinion worthy of attacking.
In yet another example, there's a Meme of me out there with the following quote: "God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance". Well, that for sure looks like an aggressively expressed opinion, poised to rile millions of religious people. Turns out, I actually did say it in an interview. So, unlike so many other Memes of me out there, this quote is accurate — but COMPLETELY out of context. What I actually said, in reaction to Bill O'Reilly's attempt to give evidence for God by listing things that science can't explain, was: "If that's how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance." Want to re-live the clip? It's here:
http://bit.ly/X5dhdP So I'm not even in that sentence. It's a simple if/then statement.
These pedagogical philosophies had an occasion to merge when the New York Times asked me in 2011 what I would do if I were President. Here's what I replied:
http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2011/08/21/if-i-were-president
I remain honored and flattered that so many people care so much about what I say — a responsibility that I do not take lightly.
Respectfully Submitted
Neil deGrasse Tyson, a servant of curiosity.
