Science and math are the ‘engines of tomorrow's economy,’ says astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
February 28th, 2014
07:56 AM ET
By Mick Krever, CNN
Science, technology, engineering, and math will be the “engines of
tomorrow's economy,” astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told CNN’s
Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.“I want to explore because I think it's fun and I like learning something different and new tomorrow that I didn't know today. But I can't require that of everybody.”
“So if you needed a pragmatic reason to explore, the best one out there is innovations in science and technology are the engines of tomorrow's economy,” Tyson, who is director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, said.
“We've known this certainly since the Industrial Revolution. But even before then, those nations that invested in exploration and discovery would lead the world in almost every metric that mattered in anything that we call civilization today.”
NASA this week announced the discovery of 715 new planets, the largest single batch ever announced, by far. By way of comparison, about 1,000 planets total had been identified in our galaxy before Wednesday.
Neil deGrasse Tyson on new planets
Astrophysist Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks with CNN's about hte discovery of 715 new planets.Four of the planets announced are in the so-called “habitable zone,” meaning they could theoretically support life.
“You could ask, are we alone? Is the solar - our solar system unusual? Is it - is it common? And that's one of the great questions we always ask about ourselves, and we've been asking it since we came out of the caves.”
FULL POST
February 28th, 2014
07:56 AM ET
By Mick Krever, CNN
Science, technology, engineering, and math will be the “engines of
tomorrow's economy,” astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told CNN’s
Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.“I want to explore because I think it's fun and I like learning something different and new tomorrow that I didn't know today. But I can't require that of everybody.”
“So if you needed a pragmatic reason to explore, the best one out there is innovations in science and technology are the engines of tomorrow's economy,” Tyson, who is director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, said.
“We've known this certainly since the Industrial Revolution. But even before then, those nations that invested in exploration and discovery would lead the world in almost every metric that mattered in anything that we call civilization today.”
NASA this week announced the discovery of 715 new planets, the largest single batch ever announced, by far. By way of comparison, about 1,000 planets total had been identified in our galaxy before Wednesday.
Four of the planets announced are in the so-called “habitable zone,” meaning they could theoretically support life.
“You could ask, are we alone? Is the solar - our solar system unusual? Is it - is it common? And that's one of the great questions we always ask about ourselves, and we've been asking it since we came out of the caves.”
American children, for one, may be scratching their heads at what it all means. U.S. students rank 27th in science and 35th in math among developed countries, according to the OECD.
“As an American, I would like to have America on the frontier. But as a scientist, science doesn't know national boundaries,” deGrasse Tyson said.
“One of my worries is that here we are, a country with this great legacy, that it'll fade and then what happens to the future of this country?”
deGrasse Tyson is trying to himself stimulate interest in science and math with a reboot of astrophysist Carl Sagan’s famous series “Cosmos,” first broadcast in 1980.
His continuation of the show is called “Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey.”
“Cosmos, we think, has the power to motivate anyone who is watching it to want to become scientifically literate, or at least embrace how and why the methods and tools of science can tell us about our past, present and future in this universe,” deGrasse Tyson said.
“People say, well, can it influence the next generation of kids? Yes. But adults outnumber kids five to one – five to one, in the industrialized world.”
“And so I say to myself, maybe the problem today are not scientifically unmotivated kids, it's scientifically unmotivated adults. Because adults are in charge. Adults wield resources. Adults create or destroy opportunities.”
Nowhere is that power more apparent than in the climate. Human-created climate change is “now more certain than ever,” a new joint paper by American and UK scientists has said.
Nonetheless, the doubters continue their crusade against empirical science.
“The truths of nature are the truths of nature. You can stand in denial of it, I suppose, but what kind of country are you making … if that's how you're going to base your policy, because you don't want it to be true?”
“I mean, it would be like blaming gravity because you're gaining weight.”
The goal of “Cosmos,” he said, is to show how much science has shaped the world in which we live.
He wants people to walk away from the series saying, “‘this is why I understand what a truth is, and here's how I can detect when people's philosophies are interfering with the dissemination of those ideas and that knowledge.’”
February 27th, 2014
03:10 PM ET
By Mick Krever, CNN
Afghanistan should sign an agreement that would keep some U.S. troops
in the country after 2014, Afghan presidential candidate Zalmai Rassoul
told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.“I hope and I'm confident that the zero option will not be an option,” Rassoul said. Leaving no U.S troops after 2014 is “not a good option for Afghanistan and therefore for the United States,” he said.
Rassoul, an establishment figure and former foreign minister, did not directly criticize President Hamid Karzai, who has refused to sign such a deal.
Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, has endorsed the security deal.
The Obama administration announced earlier this week that it had warned Afghanistan that it has started planning for a possible withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of the year if no security agreement is signed.
Rassoul said that he did not believe Afghanistan was at risk of breaking out into civil war, and that the Afghan national security forces are “well trained” and “ready to defend Afghanistan.”
Nonetheless, he admitted that they are “not yet well equipped.”
“They are suffering from that. They need better equipment, training and advice.”
Afghanistan should sign U.S. security deal, presidential candidate and former foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul tells Amanpour
February 27th, 2014
03:10 PM ET
By Mick Krever, CNN
Afghanistan should sign an agreement that would keep some U.S. troops
in the country after 2014, Afghan presidential candidate Zalmai Rassoul
told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.“I hope and I'm confident that the zero option will not be an option,” Rassoul said. Leaving no U.S troops after 2014 is “not a good option for Afghanistan and therefore for the United States,” he said.
Rassoul, an establishment figure and former foreign minister, did not directly criticize President Hamid Karzai, who has refused to sign such a deal.
Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, has endorsed the security deal.
The Obama administration announced earlier this week that it had warned Afghanistan that it has started planning for a possible withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of the year if no security agreement is signed.
Rassoul said that he did not believe Afghanistan was at risk of breaking out into civil war, and that the Afghan national security forces are “well trained” and “ready to defend Afghanistan.”
Nonetheless, he admitted that they are “not yet well equipped.”
“They are suffering from that. They need better equipment, training and advice.”
A security agreement would help with that he said, and would also be in America’s interest “after 10 years of wars and dollars, billions of dollars and sacrifices of the American soldiers and civilians.”
There are 11 candidates contesting to replace President Karzai, who is term limited and will leave office later this year.
Rassoul suggested that if candidates who have the “same views and same program for the future” join forces, that would be a positive development – “better for the Afghan people.”
Chief on the agenda of the next president will be corruption, a problem so endemic in the country that Transparency International ranked Afghanistan among the three worst countries in the world in its 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index.
The other two are Somalia and North Korea.
“That is the main thing that Afghan people ask from us,” Rassoul said. “We cannot bring a lasting security in Afghanistan if you have corruption in the country, and if you have not the good governance.”
“Personally, I'm committed to do that, and that is the main reason that I have been candidate for this election.”
Rassoul praised the progress Afghanistan had made over the past ten years, especially in the “democratic process, the human rights, women's rights, [and] freedom of media.”
Recently, however, a number of laws seem to have made life significantly more difficult for Afghan women. A recent one bars the relatives of men who are accused of abusing their wives from testifying against the husbands.
“The reason I have chosen a lady as my second vice president is not an electoral issue,” Rassoul said. “It is because I believe in that, and I always believe in my life that the women can play very important role in any society, especially in Afghanistan.”
“It's time now. It's fully the time now that they have the rightful part in the Afghan society, and the politics, and the business and any kind of society.”
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