Neil Degrasse Tyson – Stupid Design
Posted by James on July 7, 2010 · 34 Comments
Neil deGrasse Tyson was born and raised in New York City where he was educated in the public schools clear through his graduation from the Bronx High School of Science. Tyson went on to earn his BA in Physics from Harvard and his PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia. Tyson’s professional research interests are broad, but include star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of our Milky Way. Tyson obtains his data from the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as from telescopes in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and in the Andes Mountains of Chile. In 2001, Tyson was appointed by President Bush to serve on a 12-member commission that studied the Future of the US Aerospace Industry. The final report was published in 2002 and contained recommendations (for Congress and for the major agencies of the government) that would promote a thriving future of transportation, space exploration, and national security. In 2004, Tyson was once again appointed by President Bush to serve on a 9-member commission on the Implementation of the United States Space Exploration Policy, dubbed the “Moon, Mars, and Beyond” commission. This group navigated a path by which the new space vision can become a successful part of the American agenda. And in 2006, the head of NASA appointed Tyson to serve on its prestigious Advisory Council, which will help guide NASA through its perennial need to fit its ambitious vision into its restricted budget. In addition to dozens of professional …
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Some Design!-Christopher Hitchens This present-day version of God of the gaps goes by a fresh name: intelligent design. The term suggests that some entity, endowed with a mental capacity far greater than the human mind can muster, created or enabled all the things in the physical world that we cannot explain through scientific methods. An interesting hypothesis. But why confine ourselves to things too wondrous or intricate for us to understand, whose existence and attributes we then credit to a superintelligence? Instead, why not tally all those things whose design is so clunky, goofy, impractical, or unworkable that they reflect the absence of intelligence? And what comedian designer configured the region between our legs-an entertainment complex built around a sewage system? Stupid design could fuel a movement unto itself. It may not be nature’s default, but it’s ubiquitous. Yet people seem to enjoy thinking that our bodies, our minds, and even our universe represent pinnacles of form and reason. Maybe it’s a good antidepressant to think so. But it’s not science-not now, not in the past, not ever. -Neil deGrasse Tyson Religious fundamentalists may deny that evolution exists, but in the natural world it is religion that does not exist. -John Maisey of American Museum of Natural History
I love the look on Richard Dawkins’ face out there, he’s like “Yes, I am well aware of how stupid it really is, but I am enjoying your method of highlighting that, do go on”
BrennanAndrewWittig: He also mistyped “multi cellular” on the screen, it said “milti”
6******
but wow im digging those abortions
i need to see da rest of it !!
5 *****
Yeah, life is short.
What is going on right here, right now, where you are, that’s the question. What are YOU going to do next.
Did anyone else get a cheap laugh when he said “feces” when he meant to say “fetuses”?
I noticed the audience didn’t laugh…
Great, favourited, 5*****
Awesome….thanks for posting.
5 *****
All of this ignores the fundamental question ‘to what end?’ If humans beings purpose is to live happy lives free of suffering for an eternity in this physical universe, then the design is ‘stupid’ or ‘flawed’, because it clearly does not serve that purpose. But what theist or intelligent design proponent believes that that is the purpose of this life? Not a single one. Thus none of these facts even address the issue of intelligent design, nor are they evidence of a ‘stupid’ design.
@johnnyd101 Are you trying to say that we can comprehend the universe in its vastness? What are you, 10? Have you ever studied astronomy? The whole point of astronomy is that we know jack shit about the universe. Just recently they disproved a long standing limit when they found a star twice the mass they thought stars could be.
Everything we have ever known about anything has been disproved by something else. We don’t even know how gravity works.
@Masterwinks no the universe is not beyond are compression or his job would be futile
Yes, humans will die instantly in various places throughout the universe…but then why does life exist on this planet? The Earth met the perfect infinitesimally improbably conditions necessary to sustain life long enough for it to become intelligent or self aware. At least he says that “the universe was not made for us” which I can agree with but he has a totally skewed perspective on it. The universe is beyond human comprehension. That is the actual point behind intelligent design.
@xavtron lol, I hear you there. He can speak existence into being, and yet to get human beings into heaven he has to have a son on earth that is himself and then have him killed or commit suicide, whichever, which really isn’t a sacrifice considering he has eternal life, 😛 Why couldn’t he just say: “And let man enter heaven.” and it be done? Hm. Funny that. 😛
@Swidhelm a tradeoff of mobility is fragility after all, apparently god can create the universe in a week but that ones in the too hard basket
Exactly, if it was made for us it would be so much better.
If it was made BY us it would be so much better. Assuming we had the resources and it isn’t eternal.
HE’S MY IDOL
Where’s part 2?
This talk is just epic.
Hilarious. But, it’s impossible to have an argument on this level with someone who insists that the universe is fine-tuned.
This is so funny. I love the hysterical laughter. Catch Richard Dawkins in the audience.
Neil Tyson is insanely intelligent….he’s making a real time machine by concentrating heat with lasers that exceed the temperature of the sun.
@trombonemaniac, you don’t make any sense. “More likely” and “chance” in the same sentence? Wtf? The point is the universe isn’t designed for us, and that it’s amazing that we’re even here. If the universe were designed, and we were the focus, then most of the universe wouldn’t be hostile to life, especially us.
@trombonemaniac yep.
Aborted feces @ 3:15
LOL?
Ball socket of the shoulder is great, but super easy to injure . . . as I have since found out for myself 😛
So wait, you’re telling me that the amount of apparent design we see in the world around us was MORE likely to have arisen through chance, when you just showed that life existing AT ALL is almost a miracle. Interesting argument…… who’s side is he on? He seems to be proving the other side. The universe is a terrible place and the earth is a terrible place and yet there is life, complex, varied, and absolutely beautiful life on this planet….. but it all came about by CHANCE?
I say intelligent design is ‘technically true’ in a sense. Not only the fact that I am the FSM, but because humanity recently made the first synthetic cell.
So true, but hey we’re all here so thanks for stupid design. I dont care if my entertainment system in the middle of a sewage system” (hahaha) its all good with me and im just glad we can realize that we r a funny species
@oran6es He’s explaining how ridiculous Intelligent Design is….
hah, I’ve seen this before, but this is the first time I’d noticed the dig he took at Francis Collins with the ‘frozen waterfall’ bit.
The truth can be quite funny.
This guy’s a riot. He’s a human describing the universe from a human’s point of reference. The universe is what it is. If you didn’t have cold, you wouldn’t know hot. No peace without war, no hunger without fulfillment, no happy without sad, no glory without suffering. It’s a human thing, part of living, and it’s a cool thing……..truth and love.
Haha. I love Tyson.
our dna has a distinct conection at the bottom part of the tripple helix. it is formed in a way that no other animal bug or plant on our planet is. it is the reason for our overdeveloped frontal lobe