Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks out on space, politics, and science outreach

The BioScience Talks podcast features discussions of topical issues related to the biological sciences.

In the latest installment of the journal BioScience‘s In Their Own Words oral history series, acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson shared insights on a number of topics, including Mars exploration, the COVID-19 pandemic, and numerous themes discussed in the most recent season of his show COSMOS: Possible Worlds.
Over the course of the career-spanning interview, the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History and renowned science communicator also weighed in on the numerous challenges presently facing humanity. “Every disaster movie ends with important people ignoring scientists,” said Tyson, who also highlighted the cyclical nature of history, comparing the current political climate with that preceding the Second World War.
In the interview, which is also published in the pages of BioScience, Tyson shed light on his views on space exploration and the role of commercial enterprise therein. While broadly endorsing public-private partnership, he underscored the continued importance of NASA in pressing the frontiers of human discovery: “The private relationship to the moving frontier of space is historically a second-wave phenomenon,” he said, because “the first wave is hugely expensive.”

To hear the whole discussion, visit this link for this latest episode of the BioScience Talks podcast.

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BioScience, published monthly by Oxford Journals, is the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). BioScience is a forum for integrating the life sciences that publishes commentary and peer-reviewed articles. The journal has been published since 1964. AIBS is an organization for professional scientific societies and organizations, and individuals, involved with biology. AIBS provides decision-makers with high-quality, vetted information for the advancement of biology and society. Follow BioScience on Twitter @AIBSbiology.

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