Thursday, December 13, 2007

Neil deGrasse Tyson Gets It

D.J. Grothe recently interviewed Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Point of Inquiry podcast (again). That guy gets it, man. Here's what he had to say about our old friend, Science v. Religion:
The conflict is not whether or not you're going to Heaven of Hell, or whether or not you believe Jesus is your savior. That's not where the conflict is. That's not what's going on in the school boards. What's going on in the school boards are people who, based on their religious texts, assert that they have knowledge of the physical universe that is demonstrably false. That's where the conflict is. And I got something to say about that.... If you're going to tell me that Noah had dinosaurs on his ark, I am sorry, you are ignorant and scientifically illiterate. And you don't belong in the science classroom.... You want to teach that in Bible school, I'm not going to go knocking on your door to stop you. By the way, there is no tradition of scientists beating down the door of Sunday school, saying, 'That might not necessarily be right.' Yet, you have fundamentalist religious communities trying to knock down the door of the science classroom. And that asymmetry there bothers me.... [T]he moment you take your religion and put it into the science classroom and claim something that is demonstrably false, I'm going to be up in your face, telling you, "Go learn about how the universe works."

My hero, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

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