Talk:Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Neil Degrasse Tyson has created an IAmA on Reddit responding to many users questions.

Many quotes can be mined from Tyson here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/mateq/i_am_neil_degrasse_tyson_ama/

Proof that Neil Degrasse Tyson is making these posts: https://twitter.com/#!/neiltyson/status/135764787127787521

I believe the quote "God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as﻿ time goes on" is very much taken out of context. In the context, Tyson was rebuking the argument of "You can't understand it- God did it". This quote is not a simple statement, it's pointing out the fallacy of the rebuked argument. It's not "B is true", it's "if A is true then B is true".


 * To the above, unsigned comment -- that is my interpretation as well, but it's still a valid quote. The full quote, by the way is: "[In response to the view beholden by some religious people that God is the cause of various inexplicable events...] If that's how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on. So, just be ready for that to happen, if that's how you want to come at the problem.  So that's just simply the God of the gaps argument." Specifically, this discussion was brought about as a result of Bill O'Reilly's supposition that, since humans don't understand how or why the tides rise and fall each day, that God must be the cause of this inexplicable mystery.  Source: January 20, 2011 video interview with Roger Bingham from The Science Network (TSN) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ulkX-DA9BM 68.197.117.230 07:41, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The longer form, starting "If that's how you want to invoke your evidence for God..." should be used, in my opinion. Context changes that from "human ignorance is all God is" to something tamer ("if you believe human ignorance is evidence of God, then that evidence is getting smaller"). 83.70.170.48 08:31, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * True, but the problem with using the above "full" quote is it has even less context. He starts with: "If that's how you want to...".  When you read this without context, you don't know what the word "that's" is referring to, so the quote has even less meaning.  I would agree with you in principal that his context should be preserved as much as possible, but in order to do so we have to basically include an entire conversation between him and the interviewer, which seems too long and unwieldy to be listed as a quote. 68.197.117.230 00:18, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

"First years" quote
There's a new quote going around on FB, appears to be legit:


 * We spend the first year of a child’s life teaching them to walk and talk, and the rest of their life telling them to shut up and sit down.

Here's the source I found, not certain if it's reliable:

I'd add it myself, but I am more experienced with Wikipedia and less with Wikiquote, so I'm not sure on the criteria for reliability, the proper citation format, etc. I'll let the experts take it from here :)  --24.93.16.177 15:45, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Marina Leight (May 21, 2009). Global Ideas from Pluto's Challenger. Retrieved on December 7, 2010.
This link is not current. When attempted there is an error message of "error redirect". Does anyone know about a current link? I like the quote but won't use it on my blog without proper citation.