"You will never find scientists leading armies into battle. You just won’t. Especially not astrophysicists—we see the biggest picture there is. We understand how small we are in the cosmos. We understand how fragile and temporary our existence is here on Earth. We understand there are bigger problems we need to solve as a species than what God you pray to.
“Any time scientists disagree, it’s because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I’m right or you’re right or we’re both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion. It does not exist in so much of what we do as human beings on this Earth that it’s almost tragic.
“I feared for the future of the world on witnessing [9/11]. I thought we had gotten past that, that the greatest atrocities the world had seen previously were over…. I was disappointed in us as a species.”
Just think about that for a moment. And then realize that the majority of the politicians in this country are lawyers, not scientists or teachers, but lawyers.
Lawyers are trained to win debates at all costs, usually through adversarial means. They focus on the win with no regard to the innocence or guilt of their client, and beyond that their focus is on making money.
These are exactly the wrong people to be making moral, educational, and optimistic plans for this country's future.
Personally I would be all in favor of having a Senator de Grasse Tyson from my state. And I think that if each state were to recruit educators and scientists and send them to Washington many of our most pressing problems might be cleared up in decade or less.
But, then again, it wasn't lawyers who lobbied the US military to set up the Manhattan project. It wasn't a lawyer who built an atomic bomb. Some people lead troops into battle. Some people build the weapons that allow the troops to kill each other. How is one morally superior to the other?
ReplyDeleteAwareness.
Delete"In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose."
J. Robert Oppenheimer
I agree with him about 9/11 being a sobering reminder about the challenges we face as society....but for a different reason.
ReplyDeleteCheck out the Rethink 911 web site. Our government had as much to do with 911 as any Muslim extremist did. That is even more frightening.
You are on ignore.
DeleteYou are absolutely correct about what entity was involved in the events of Sept. 11, 2001. And it is too bad Mr. de Grasse Tyson doesn't want to pay attention to the science of that day, as the official conspiracy theory contains extremely problematic science concerning how the buildings were destroyed.
DeleteNikogriego is also on ignore.
DeleteAnonymous @ 10:04 and 8:38 is on ostrich mode-stick head in sand and hope everything is okay while not paying any attention to reality. Can he explain how WTC7 collapsed at free-fall acceleration for 2.25 seconds without the use of explosives? Nobody else can, including NIST. Or how three steel-framed high rises collapsed due to small localized fires, on the same day, when it had never happened before, ever?
Delete9:29 is also, too, on ignore.
DeleteGRYPHEN: Lawyers are trained to win debates at all costs, usually through adversarial means. They focus on the win with no regard to the innocence or guilt of their client, and beyond that their focus is on making money.
ReplyDeleteNot true in so many ways. I'm not sure why you think you are so superior to those judgmental Christians you disdain.
Lucy
Judgmental Christian is an oxymoron.
DeleteRead your Bible.
Think Sadduccees & Pharisees (and our modern version today represented by many, and tolerated by many more, who identify as Christians.
DeleteIT was a lawyer that bankrupted the KKK through clever use of lawsuits. It was a lawyer that brought the first case of child abuse by a clever use of the cruelty to animals act (there not yet being any protection for children). It was a lawyer who saved thousands of lives by suing Ford for the Pinto, with dangerous designs.
ReplyDeleteThe legal profession has the hightest expectations of any profession for doing pro bono work so that everyone has access to the courts - and lawyers put in LOTS of hours every year. Higher expectations than doctors, accountants, physical therapists, psychotherapists. I'm not saying other professionals don't also do pro bono work. None have the expectation bulding into the ethics of the profession the way lawyers have.
It was a lawyer who bankrupted himself to go after toxic torts in Massachusetts.
Do you really believe that lawyers don't care about clients, guilt, innocence, and only care about money?
Like 1000+ and more.
DeleteHis wife is one lucky woman. Brains are the sexiest things on the planet.
ReplyDeleteSo very true!
DeleteUntil some time in the mid-fifties or so, we had all sorts of professions in Congress. Doctors. Lawyers. Car dealership owners. Teachers. All sorts. Justin is only partly right.
ReplyDeleteThen we began to put in place the professional politician and the shit hit the fan. Byrd. Hollings. Thurmond. They were the first.
I personally don't see the problems we have as a lawyer thing, although I have to admit they do have a tendency to write laws no one can understand.
I see the problem as professional politicians. We need a mix of people who run for office and stay there for a couple of terms then go back home to their old jobs and businesses and practices.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to successfully and permanently change that until we DO return to the days of short term times in office. At that point we can attempt to write an amendment to the Constitution that will limit terms.
It's time we returned to having all sorts of people in Congress, but for short terms that enabled us to truly be a representative government. Not the crap we have today with politicians who don't listen to their constituents, only the money.
Of course, the amount of money the country would save on federal elected officials pensions would certainly go a long way toward helping reduce our deficit!
I hear ya. It is easy to get dejected.
DeleteBut I never lose hope.
Gabrielle Giffords sold tires in the family business before becoming a member of Congress.
Simple human decency is alive and well in our government.
Exhibit A: Barrack Obama.
Let's vote the professional politicians out of office!
The problem isn't one of profession but one of motivation and intention. A good lawyer can know how to construct legislation to best serve the public or he can be the most deceptive--s/he might make the best or the worst elected official.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with using sweeping statements to make a point is that, if the statement can be found mistaken in any part, the greater point is compromised. Patrick McCray points out to de Grasse Tyson -
ReplyDelete...your statement is simply wrong. Consider just one university — Caltech. Its Physics Department was entirely militarized during World War Two and churned out over 1 million of bombardment rockets. Caltech’s Willy Fowler (Nobel Prize, 1983) did pioneering work on nuclear reactions in stars; he also led a secret 1951 study to promote the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a Soviet attack. Speaking of nuclear weapons – J. Robert Oppenheimer did astrophysics. So did Hans Bethe (Nobel Prize, 1967), Stirling Colgate, and scores of others who also helped design nuclear weapons. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, there was Yakov Zel’dovich (AAS Bruce Medalist) who made major contributions to astrophysics – and to designing weapons of mass destruction for a murderous totalitarian regime. Some might say this isn’t the same as scientists leading armies into battle. Well, chemist Fritz Haber took the lead in introducing poison gas at the front during World War One.
The rest can be read here -
http://www.patrickmccray.com/tag/neil-degrasse-tyson/
Others have remarked about your statement re. lawyers. I will only add, I doubt, without knowing for sure, that there are any professions devoid of people whose priorities are skewed towards making money. Knowing that is not necessarily to know anything useful about the profession itself.
Well, hell, you just nailed the climate change scientists.
DeleteIt can be misunderstood that at the heart of science lies uncertainty. The good scientist is prepared to shift her/his viewpoint when new evidence is unveiled. The very flexibility that de Grace Tyson talks about does not necessarily mean that what scientists thought before was incorrect but rather it was previously correct, given the state of knowledge at the time, and may be modified with new data. Details within Darwin's theory of evolution, for example, have been and will continue to be modified and argued over, even as the overarching concept holds, as no evidence has been uncovered which would make it collapse.
DeleteI'm sure, as a scientist, de Grace Tyson will modify his generalization about scientists leading us into battle if he is convinced by evidence to the contrary. My sense is that he may hold out for a narrow definition of "leading armies into battle." That too then can become an area of discussion which potentially can lead to new understanding.
"...at the heart of science lies uncertainty."
Delete^Ｔｈａｔ！
May the spaghetti monster bless you!
Ｉｔ ｉｓ ｗｈａｔ ｍａｋｅｓ ｓｃｉｅｎｃｅ ｉｎｔｅｒｅｓｔｉｎｇ．
I'm neutral on the lawyer idea. There are lawyers out there that do good work, some for little or no money. The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of my go to charities for just that reason.
ReplyDeleteI do get the point you're trying to make, though. I'd like to see more diversity in chosen professions among politicians because they'd more closely understand the people who vote them in to represent the people. The problem is, money talks and justice is more equal for some than others.
I wish we could clone Neil and have more like him in politics. The man's a genius and has a knack of putting things in perspective like no one else can.
I agree with Leland on this one. Term limits coupled with campaign reform would go along way to clean out the sludge. Our democracy has no place for "we the people" anymore, it is all about the money (corps). A congressman or senator gets elected in their 30's and retires in their 70's a millionaire, enjoying all the perks along the way and beyond. Bin Laden had a long term goal....just like they bankrupted Russia in Afghanistan, he hit is in our financial heart and watched us fumble hopelessly under Bush. They promoted so much fear we were transformed into lemmings that supported a war on a sovereign nation for oil under the guise of revenge. Yeah we need lawyers, scientists, teachers and a broad scope of professionals in politics but what sane person would jump into the cesspool that exists now? When you think about what the Obamas have given up to try to right this country.....it is a huge sacrifice. They could have lived very comfortably without politics and led a quiet life but I really feel he had a calling that would not be ignored. When I see his family travel all over the world I hope they truly realize how lucky they are for having that exposure.
ReplyDeleteI saw a speech Biden gave about airports...it was really good. If you put a blindfold on a person that has no idea where he is and you land in an airport....a new, modern sophisticated building that person would assume you were in America. The fact is you are in Europe or Asia. If you land and see an old, decayed inefficient facility you would assume you were in a 3rd world country, but alas you are in America. Infrastructure means major employment, material purchases and moving forward.....investment in ourselves. The select few sit on trillions while the 98% suffer....Bin Laden is dead but he accomplished his mission.
I worked for lawyers for quite a few years. I asked one attorney how he could defend -- get ready for this -- a child abuser. He reminded me that, first, the man was an alleged abuser until he was found guilty by a jury of his peers. Second, his job was to ensure the man received a fair trial by providing him with the best defense possible. It wasn't up to him to decide guilt or innocence; that was up to the jury. His personal feelings regarding the accused didn't enter into it.
ReplyDeleteBTW, that was a pro bono case.
It's easy to denigrate lawyers, until you need one.
Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, was a scientist. A hydrogen bomb is a thousand times more powerful than the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
ReplyDeleteThere are good and bad people in every profession.
however ... scientists built the weapons, the bombs.
ReplyDeleteAnd in many cases, under pressure from their political benefactors.
DeleteBut in some cases, they realized - albeit, after the fact - that what they had done was a bad thing.
DeleteIt was Oppenheimer who said after the detonation: "And now I am become Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds,"
"They focus on the win with no regard to the innocence or guilt of their client, and beyond that their focus is on making money."
ReplyDeleteI find this statement so disappointing. And bitter. And ill-informed. Attorneys, like bloggers, have all sorts of motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. I'm not sure how you can reconcile your love for science and the scientific method and then spew out a Palinesque/politician-worthy generalization about lawyers.
While I shouldn't expect more, I do.
Bitter?
DeleteMaybe.
But I thought it was thought provoking.
I will be interested in his book when it's published -
ReplyDeleteAccessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military
Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang
W. W. Norton & Company (New York), In contract
Seems odd under the circumstances.
Perhaps a moment to clarify might be in order.
ReplyDeleteWhile I certainly recognize the contribution that lawyers have provided in the private sector, I have long lamented the fact that they are overwhelmingly represented in our political arena.
While the training to be a lawyer is undoubtedly helpful when dealing with the legal verbiage contained in most legislation, it may not focus on ethics and the importance of cooperation the way some other disciplines might. Add to that the fact that most politicians have more than their share of ego which compels them to enter politics, and you have a recipe for the kinds of disasters that we see play out over and over again.
I firmly believe that we would be better served with a Senate and House filled with more diversity than what we have today.
Throw in a few economists, scientists, and educators and I think we can work out many of the problems which seem so entrenched currently.
Exactly...and we may see the end of dingbat comments by members of the House Science Committee, to the effect that windmills will slow down the natural wind and cause more problems than CO2 emissions.
DeleteBut on the subject of "going to war"...
Remember the saying from the hippie era of "What if they gave a war and nobody came?"
You'd be left with kings, dictators, and war profiteers holding public office, looking at one another and saying "Oh, shit--we pushed them too far, once too often."
Your issues with too many lawyers in government is understood.
DeleteI don't know how they train lawyers in this country but as a European trained lawyer, philosophy - ethics, theories of justice, epistemology etc. are certainly part of the training - or were in my day.
Most useful, imo, is knowing how to recognize, evaluate and interpret evidence, and understanding, once a pattern emerges, there is a structure within which a "story" is told.
It is a different sort of evidence from that gathered by scientists, and the legal structure is different from structures accepted in different branches of science, but the overarching structure of the processes by which humans research, study, interpret and learn about small slices of the world remain the same.
The fact that may lawyers who go into government may abandon this sort of thinking in the face of negotiating the political morass, is because of who they are, not because they are lawyers.
We already have scientists, etc. Louise Slaughter was a scientist. Rand Paul is a doctor - they're scientists of a sort. There are professors, who are teachers. Newt Gingrich was a teacher. Not sure I can think of an economist.
DeleteI think your focus on profession is hurtfully misplaced. An ideologue scientist/teacher/economist is as bad or worse as an ideologue of any other profession.
Lawyers are not to blame for the obstruction in today's Congress. Think of how many GOP legislators are doctors. One would assume that they would be reasonable, compassionate people. But instead, they are of the ilk of Rand Paul, his father Ron Paul, Dan Benishek (R-MI in the House), and many others in Washington and in state legislative bodies. They think nothing of denying health care, food stamps, unemployment insurance, or even veterans' benefits; they vote agains job programs, infrastructure programs that create jobs and provide for the future; they vote against education programs; they pander to the climate change deniers and they prefer to deny women the health care they need.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the current Congress, both Houses, is not the presence of attorneys, it is the obsession of one party with rigid ideology. Attorneys learn to debate. Debate, in itself, is not a bad thing. Usually out of debate comes compromise, and, ultimately, out of compromise comes agreement. There is no willingness to debate or to compromise coming from the GOP in today's political world. They have worked incessantly at making "compromise" a "dirty word" when it is really the true art of politics. I'll take a good lawyer in Congress any day over an ideological knee-jerk rich guy physician or business person who has no understanding of the Constitution or of the nation's history.
Beaglemom
Smart people in Congress? You are dreaming G. But it is a wonderful dream. Keep dreaming and maybe one day those dreams will come true.
ReplyDelete