Joe Rogan Experience #1159 - Neil deGrasse Tyson

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   So, why aren't there…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:07

      So, why aren't there flying cars?

   2. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson0:09

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      (laughs)

   4. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson0:10

      You're just jumping right in. You don't say hi. You don't say-

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      I said hi already.

   6. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson0:15

      ... how's the wife and k- how's the wife and kids? (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      How is everybody, man? How's life? How's your book? It's been on the Times bestseller list for how many weeks?

   8. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson0:22

      Oh, the, the Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. That's been on the, on the New York Times bestseller list for 67 weeks.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:29

      That's pretty intense.

   10. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson0:30

       It's cra- that's, that's a lot for any book, much less for a science book. And so, that tells me, while all these Trump books are wafting in and out, this is bobbing like a cork, like a cork on the ocean waves as the book of the moment th- that either praises Trump or criticizes, or criticizes him come in and off of that list.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       Mm.

   12. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson0:49

       So this tells me that there is this unserved hunger that people have. There's a curiosity that this is serving. And it's (laughs) to, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, that's kind of a, that's very purposefully juxtaposed. It's like, Neurosurgery in Four Easy Steps. You know, if you saw a book with that title, you'd have to pick it up.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:11

       (laughs)

   14. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:11

       (laughs) 'Cause you'd wonder what's going on.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       Well, not to kiss your ass again, but I always say this about you and I think it's important. You make learning stuff about astrophysics fun. And that's what's missing, you know. It's not that people don't like to be educated, that they don't like to learn. They just don't wanna be bored.

   16. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:30

       That's a perceptive point because, you know, think of the image we have of, let's say you're in a school where most people don't go to college, uh, you're in high school. And then last day of school comes. What do people do? They toss their papers in the air as they run down the steps, "School's out. No." What, what's the Rock song?

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:48

       (sings) School's out for summer.

   18. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:52

       (sings) School's out for...

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:52

       Summer.

   20. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:52

       ... at summer. Was it forever?

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:53

       And then ever. Ever, yeah.

   22. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:54

       Then forever.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:54

       Ever, yeah.

   24. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:55

       Right? So that attitude must mean the school didn't train you to embrace curiosity.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:02

       Right.

   26. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson2:03

       That learning was a chore, and now the chores are over.

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:07

       Yeah.

   28. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson2:07

       So I think the educational system needs an adjustment. Forget whether or not you go to college, 'cause you're gonna spend more years not in school than in school even if you do go to college. What you want, I think, are lifelong learners, lifelong curiosity.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:21

       Yes.

   30. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson2:21

       Where once you are trained and, and, and, and, and your curiosity is stimulated, the curiosity we all had as children. You're ... Children don't need to be taught to be curious. They are curious to the point of destruction of whatever it is they touch. "Oh, what is this egg on the counter? What is this glass? What is this plate? What's under a rock? What happens if I pull a leg off a daddy longleg?" You know, they are-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. And I'm delighted…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      an appetite for this stuff out there.

   2. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson15:01

      Yeah. And I'm delighted to be a servant of that curiosity. And, um, uh, this, I, I brought this just 'cause ... It's not even out yet. This ... You're airing like now live? This is it? You're live?

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:16

      We're live.

   4. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson15:17

      You are live. Okay, so this-

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      There's like a five-second delay or something.

   6. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson15:20

      (laughs) Five second ... Is that to bleep all my expletives? (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:23

      'Cause the ... Just internet ... No, no, no, no, no, no. What is this Accessory to War?

   8. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson15:27

      Oh, this, this is like another book. I just... This is coming out in three weeks.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:31

      Is this about space war?

   10. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson15:32

       Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:39

       Oh.

   12. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson15:40

       Yeah, so, so this other book was Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. If you're in a hurry, do not buy this book. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:48

       (laughs)

   14. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson15:48

       This is not for people in a hurry. This is not, this is not what... This is not an impulse item at the checkout line. This is y- you got ... This is, this is all about ... By the way, we know what role the physicist plays in war. The physicist makes the bomb.

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:04

       Mm-hmm.

   16. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson16:04

       Invents the bomb. The chemist perfects napalm. The biologist weaponizes anthrax. And the astrophysicist, well, we sit at the end of a telescope and wait for photons to cross the universe and enter our detector, and we go into conferences and argue about them. So there is no obvious connection between what we do and military strength, hegemony, uh, dominance, empire building. It's just not obvious. That's why the subtitle, The Unspoken Alliance. It's not a secret, it's just, it's not there. It's there, but it's not ... Nobody's talking about it. Do you realize ... I- I'll just give an example, okay? If you needed more reasons to think that Columbus was a dick (laughs) , okay?

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:57

       (laughs)

   18. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson16:57

       Let me add one to it, okay?

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:59

       There's a difference between when we were kids and today.

   20. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson17:01

       (laughs) Yeah, I know, I know, but actually I- I do have something s- mildly redeeming to offer about Columbus if you have the time.

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:09

       Oh, yeah.

   22. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson17:09

       I just wanna ...

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:10

       Okay.

   24. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson17:10

       Okay.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:11

       We'll start off with that.

   26. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson17:12

       You want me to start off with that?

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:13

       What do ... How do you want to do it? You want to go-

   28. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson17:14

       No, no, I'll do the dick part and then-

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:15

       Do, let's do a dick part first.

   30. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson17:16

       Okay. So on his third voyage, he's in... B- by the time of his third voyage, he had already planted enough Spanish flags that Spain had already begun to set up governments and infrastructures in these places that he had d- uh, um ...
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   That would be ideal,…

   1. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson30:00

      You said, "Oh, I can plug it in. This is great." You're not even thinking what you need. So yes, there are all of these applications, but, but I don't th- That's a good reason to do it, but I don't think it's the best re- The best reasons are, my gosh, don't you wanna keep dreaming? Don't you wanna keep looking into the future?

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:17

      That would be ideal, but that's not attractive to people that are spending tax dollars. When it comes to tax dollars, people get super pragmatic and they go, "Why do we need to go to Mars? No, what we need to do is take care of this and pay for that, and w- with the deficit and the budget, and..."

   3. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson30:33

      You know, so, you know, NASA's budget today is 4/10 of 1% of the federal budget. So if you take a dollar-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:43

      4/10 of 1%?

   5. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson30:44

      I, I, I will quantify it for you. Take, take a, a, a dollar bill and imagine that's your tax dollar, and you can like cut it to whatever percent you want. So let's cut 4/10 of 1% off of the edge.That doesn't get you into the ink. You're still in the-

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:00

      The white area.

   7. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson31:00

      ... the white border around it.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:02

      Yeah.

   9. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson31:02

      Right?

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:02

       No one would even notice-

   11. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson31:03

       You wouldn't e-

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:03

       ... they took that dollar.

   13. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson31:03

       (laughs) You wouldn't, you could trim that off the dollar-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:06

       And pay for anything.

   15. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson31:06

       ... and pay for... So my point is, most of the people who say, "Don't spend it here, spend it there," they think NASA has more budget than it actually does.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:17

       Hmm.

   17. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson31:18

       They just, they, they're... If you ask them, "How much do you think you're getting?" "Oh, 10%, 5%." You know, "Several percent." No, it's one half of 1%. So if you're gonna tell me that if you can take that four tenths of 1% and spend it in these other problems and solve them, I would say, "Yeah, go right ahead." But is this, is this where you really wanna pull the money from? When it's the only thing that has us thinking about tomorrow, that has us thinking about a future.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       Well, for a guy like you, that's super important. But for a guy who lives in Cleveland, who doesn't give a shit about science-

   19. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson31:51

       Oh, oh, excuse me, that's like the person who says, "Okay, I don't need the space program. Uh, why do I need the space program? I have my cell phone-"

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:59

       (laughs)

   21. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson31:59

       "... and I have The Weather Channel and I'd know anything I need." (laughs) You know, this is... (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:04

       Yeah.

   23. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson32:06

       You're using GPS satellites to understand where you are on this earth, to, to understand where grandma's house is-

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:12

       Do you know who created it?

   25. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson32:12

       ... when you pull up the... Who created what?

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:14

       Who created spread spectrum technology that led to GPS and wifi?

   27. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson32:18

       Uh, who is that?

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:19

       Hedy Lamarr.

   29. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson32:19

       Oh, I did know that! Yes.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       Beautiful actress.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Oh. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      was a woman in India, and it's really a highly criticized case, but she was convicted of a crime, I believe it was murder, because she had functional knowledge of the crime scene. And the arguments against it were like-

   2. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson45:14

      Oh.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:14

      ... if you're gonna be accused of a crime, clearly you're gonna study the evidence, you're gonna talk to a lawyer, you're gonna go over some things, you're gonna be-

   4. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson45:21

      I don't know if fMRI is that precise.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:24

      Yeah, they don't think it is.

   6. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson45:25

      That's, yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:25

      That's why it was very disturbing that this was used in court. It's like, do you remember when these Italian, um, uh, geologists were, I think they were tried because they should have known about an earthquake before it happened. And then scientists had to say, "Hey guys, this is not how it works."

   8. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson45:44

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:44

      Like, this shit can just happen.

   10. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson45:46

       Yeah. That's so, I think-

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:48

       Do you remember that?

   12. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson45:48

       No, I don't, but that's, uh, what I do know, let, let me share a couple of things with you that I've thought deeply about recently. There are three kinds of truths in the world.

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:59

       Oh.

   14. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson45:59

       Okay? Because we're in like a-

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:01

       Three?

   16. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson46:01

       Let me give, I'll give you three. Okay?

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:03

       The Rudy Giuliani kind?

   18. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson46:05

       Yeah, well... (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:07

       Because-

   20. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson46:08

       Okay, so you ready?

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:09

       ... apparently true isn't always true.

   22. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson46:10

       I know. So let me try to-

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:11

       Okay.

   24. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson46:11

       ... unpack that.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:12

       Okay.

   26. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson46:12

       All right, you ready? Okay.

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:14

       Alternative facts?

   28. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson46:14

       I, there's something called an objective truth. An objective truth is something that is true whether or not you believe in it, and the methods and tools of science are uniquely conceived to seek out and establish objective truths. And this, I'm in, referring to the invocation of the scientific method. No one scientific result, result, research result is true until it is verified by other peoples' research results using a different experimental method, with different wall current from another country. W- when your competitor says, "I think you're wrong, let me show how you're wrong." And they re- reproduce your experiment and get the same result. When you have generally the same results emerging, that is a newly discovered objective truth about the natural world. And when you have objective truths, they're not later shown to be false.

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:08

       Hmm.

   30. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson47:08

       That's an objective truth. Then you have personal truths. These are truths that you hold dearly. Jesus is your savior, Mohammed is the final prophet on Earth. You, you know, uh, Abraham is your, th- these are your personal truths. There's a heaven you're going to. No one is gonna take that from you, not in a free country where freedom of expression and speech and religion is protected.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Wow. …

   1. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:00:00

      there it is. So in A Seseri to War where we go back many centuries, the editor said, "Well, we should use BCE 'cause that's a liberal forward thing." I said, "I am not using BCE-"

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:09

      Wow.

   3. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:00:09

      "... and CE." Get... And by the way, there, there was no year zero. You know why-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:14

      Hm?

   5. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:00:14

      ... there's no year zero? 'Cause the Romans came up with the calendar and they counted using Roman numerals and Roman numerals don't have a zero.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

      Ooh.

   7. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:00:22

      It was not yet invented.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:23

      They didn't have a zero?

   9. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:00:24

      No! No! So it went from 1 BC to AD 1.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

       Jesus Christ.

   11. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:00:31

       BC is Before Christ, AD is Anno Domini in Latin, the year of our Lord.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

       Wow.

   13. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:00:36

       Yeah. Now of course in, in, in Islam and in China and in, uh, um, in Hebrew cultures, uh, Israel in particular, they have access to the Chinese calendar, the Muslim calendar. Muslim, of course, dates to Mohammed. Chinese calendar dates to actually a planetary alignment i- in 4700 BC.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:57

       Yeah, they don't... They use a different system, right?

   15. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:00:59

       They use a different system, that's right. And the, uh, Hebrew calendar dates to, like, the beginning of the universe as interpreted in the, in the Torah. So they have access to those, but when they're conducting international business, we just simply use the Gregorian calendar. Just get over it. Move on.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:16

       But did they use it, in China, did they use it constantly and consistently or do they alternate between the Gregorian calendar and something else?

   17. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:01:22

       I- I- I'm not a Chinese expert, but from what I know of China and my friends and colleagues, ev- for c- conducting business, the world's business is conducted in, on the Gregorian calendar, with a 12-month calendar, with a, uh, with the year as referenced by everybody else.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:37

       And does it have to be done that way in terms of, like, is there... Has anyone ever done a study on-... possibly creating a more effective-

   19. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:01:44

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:44

       ... more accurate calendar that doesn't invoke leap years and-

   21. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:01:47

       Uh, the problem is the length of the day does not cut evenly to the time it takes Earth to go around the sun. So there will always be fractions of days that you're accumulating.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:02:00

       Right.

   23. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:02:00

       And now what do you do with them? You wait til you accumulate a day and you put it in or take it out.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:04

       What did the Mayans have?

   25. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:02:05

       The, theirs, theirs, theirs-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:05

       They had a lunar cycle calendar, right?

   27. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:02:07

       The, the, it was, they had a, a calendar based on Venus.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

       Mm-hmm.

   29. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:02:10

       And so, yeah, they had a really good calendar.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:12

       Yeah, it was a 13 lunar cycle-
6. 1:15:00 – 1:17:43

   Oh, there... So what,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

      end."

   2. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:15:01

      Oh, there... So what, so every decade, there's somebody predicting the end of the world.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:04

      Sure.

   4. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:15:04

      And I, I'm actually quite entertained by this exercise.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:07

      Do you remember when they, they had billboards all around LA-

   6. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:15:08

      Yes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:15:09

      ... just a few years ago?

   8. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:15:10

      Well, no, that, that's a different end of the world.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:12

      Oh, it's a different one.

   10. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:15:12

       That's, that's a guy with a radio podcast church that he-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:15:17

       Oh.

   12. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:15:17

       Yeah. And then the other world didn't come and so he pushed it forward. So that's, it's entertaining. We live in a free country. It's evidence that we live in a, a, a free country where freedom of speech is protected and you can practice any religion you want.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:15:31

       Right.

   14. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:15:31

       That's... And, uh, they didn't learn much science in school.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:15:35

       That's a part of it.

   16. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:15:35

       That's part of the fact that you have this in our world. I don't mind it, actually. It's f- I, I find it entertaining. But it becomes an issue if people such as that gain power over legislation, over the rest of us 'cause this would b- c- count this as a personal belief. It's your personal belief the world is gonna end on October 19th, uh, in the, uh, that's your personal... You, you're... Fine.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:15:58

       Right. You believe that.

   18. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:15:58

       But if you now create laws that require I go with that, you just imposed your personal belief on me. And your personal belief is not true for everyone, it's only true for you.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:16:11

       Yeah, that's a problem, right?

   20. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:16:12

       And an objective truth is true for everyone. So if you're gonna have, if you're gonna have governance, you're gonna wanna base governance on what is objectively true 'cause it would apply to everyone, independent of your belief system.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:16:26

       Hmm. Yeah. I agree with that.

   22. NTNeil deGrasse Tyson1:16:29

       And by the way, there're, there're, there're, there're, there are things that we're not sure are true yet, that we're still researching. That's not what I'm talking about as an, as an objective truth. Objective truth have been verified by multiple scientific studies, not just one study. This was the problem with the, the cholesterol study. There's a cholesterol study that set everybody on the course to drop their cholesterol levels. Okay? Saying it would be good for your heart and all the rest of this, because a series of countries were studied where they have longevity and low heart, low heart disease and low cholesterol intake. That study happened to leave out France. It happened... It just wasn't in the study and a couple of other places that have high cholesterol intake, but don't have higher heart disease. So that study was flawed, but it was hard to replicate it because it went over many years and it was thousands of people and so everyone just jumped on it. You don't have a scientific truth... And this, this is a general problem with medical results 'cause the press is waiting at the, at the, at the journal editor's office, "Oh, uh, here's a new study that shows that this gives you cancer. Oh, that must be true." And out comes the headline 'cause you wanna be the first to report it.

Episode duration: 3:21:08