Last night, I heard Neil DeGrasse Tyson speak at our nonprofit bookstore’s annual festival. (Much goodness to unpack in that sentence, but not today.)
He challenged us to accept science without partisan influence. If you think you aren’t subject to such an influence, you’re likely wrong. He’s got a whole chapter in his new book about the tendency.
Near the end, when he was getting enthusiastic about the conversation and before he was whisked off to a CNN interview about the asteroid, he was asked a question about Spock.
The man was not interested in untempered logic.
He pulled out his phone and pointed to his screensaver, saying that when Van Gogh painted Starry Night he wasn’t interested in what stars are made of in the empirical sense, but in how stars FEEL. How the night sky felt to him as an artist, a human.
Y’all, I had been laughing and nodding all evening, and at those words, I cried. NDGT brought it home. Relying solely on science would overlook the reasons why we need science. We little ants running around a tiny planet in a small solar system in one of many galaxies have a need to make sense of our surroundings through science. Why do we even bother? We study medicine because we care about the health of those around us. We study materials, energy, and biology to improve our living conditions. We study religion, philosophy, and astronomy to try to understand why we are here and what it all means.
Once again, I’m grateful to be a member of a community that values learning in all its flavors. Thank goodness for people like NDGT, for his existence, his nurturing, his education, and his experiences that allow him to convey such a message.
I think I’ll find a quiet place to look at the stars soon.
“At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.” (Book of Common Prayer, Eucharist Prayer C)
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