Racialicious Crush Of The Week: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson
What I don’t get is snark–at least not the vicious kind–from Dr. Tyson. BAMF-brilliant? Yes. Can break it down as to why people need to become science-literate to help make their lives better on mulitmedia platforms, from books and columns, to PBS and podcasts, to Twitter? Absolutely. (In this sense, he’s like the Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry of astrophysics.) Doesn’t let bullshit fly–and gets a bit impatient when it happens–because he’s just that no-nonsense? Oh yeah. Doesn’t create false dichotomies between science and art? Doesn’t, won’t, and refuses. As he says in an interview:
“In my life experience, it’s not that bringing kids to the museum, taking kids to a museum, makes them interested in science…the goal here is not to make everybody a scientist. That’s not the goal. What a boring world that would be. You want artists; you want musicians; you want poets, novelists, comedians, actors. You want the rest of this. What matters is if they’re scientifically literate and maintain that literacy and curiosity throughout their lives, no matter what becomes their profession.
“Kids are born scientists. You don’t have to turn them on to investigating the world around them; they do that coming out of the womb. Kids turn over rock and poke at the millipede; they pick apart flowers; they bang on posts and pans. They will do things that are experiments in the world around them. So, the challenge isn’t getting kids interested in exploring the world around them. The challenge is staying out of their way. That is the challenge of the adult.”
And, in this closed-captioned video, Dr. Tyson explains how he got out of his own way regarding his “racial duty” of disseminating scientific knowledge in the media:
And, considering The Squee Heard ‘Round The R Virtual Office, I think quite a few of us are glad he did. Including me, his newest fan.
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