But it was also a year of momentous scientific exploration. On December 21, the first crewed spacecraft reached the Moon. Apollo 8 orbited the Moon ten times before returning to Earth. During one of those passes, astronaut William Anders took a famous photograph. You might not know that it’s called Earthrise, but you’ve likely seen this image of the Earth rising over the eerily empty lunar landscape a hundred times. It’s the cosmic perspective in a single snapshot. One day, a couple of intrepid cave dwellers consult their elders. They want to see what lies beyond. The elders are wise – you don’t live long enough to become an elder without accumulating a little wisdom, after all. They weigh the matter, and ponder the risks and rewards. No, they say – there are more pressing issues. Exploration can wait. And so the group remains in its cave, working out its cave problems. After all that, you’d think only one definition for truth should exist in this world, but no. At least two other kinds prevail that drive some of the most beautiful and the most violent expressions of human conduct. Personal truths have the power to command your mind, body, and soul, but are not evidence-based. Personal truths are what you’re sure is true, even if you can’t—especially if you can’t—prove it. Some of these ideas derive from what you want to be true. Others take shape from charismatic leaders or sacred doctrines, either ancient or contemporary. For some, especially in monotheistic traditions, God and Truth are synonymous. The Christian Bible says so:2 As I was reading this, I didn't expect to learn anything new, but that wasn't really the point. Even the title hints at its true purpose: to inspire awe.

From 1960 to 1990, transistors allow consumer electronics to miniaturize; women enter the workforce in large numbers, especially in professional fields; the modern gay rights movement takes off due to the AIDS epidemic; computers go from expensive room-size machines to desktop models; widespread use of MRIs help doctors diagnose illness without surgery; and humans go to the Moon. No, this certainly is not his typical “science” book about astrophysics but rather his reflections on humanity. The pace of scientific developments with all the biases of each era clouding judgments on what was to come. The polarization of society and the need for rational thinking about issues rather than blindly following the politics of your chosen political affiliation and stereotypes for those your party seems as enemy. The need for reason and rationality and statistics. The danger of “personal truths”, although attractive and appealing, replacing objective truths — even if our mammalian brains seem to prefer the easiness of polarization into “us” and “them”. It’s easy enough to imagine cooking penne in a mountain lodge some 10,000 feet above sea level even if you’ve never actually done it. What about boiling pasta on Mars, though? Let’s leave aside the inconvenient fact that any human who tried to do so would immediately suffocate and die, and focus instead on a technical question: At what temperature does water boil in a Martian kitchen? Here’s where things get interesting. But nature does not limit its beauty to things. Objectively true ideas can carry a beauty all their own. Allow me to choose some favorite examples:Starry Messengeris a wake-up call to civilization. People no longer know who or what to trust. We sow hatred of others fueled by what we think is true, or what we want to be true, without regard to what is true. Cultural and political factions battle for the souls of communities and of nations. We’ve lost all sight of what distinguishes facts from opinions. We lob grenades at one another when we could be sharing beers in pubs. You’ve probably heard that you have to cook things longer if you happen to be making dinner on top of a mountain. Why, though? Well, simply put, it has to do with air pressure.

Objective truths of science are not founded in belief systems. They are not established by the authority of leaders or the power of persuasion. Nor are they learned from repetition or gleaned from magical thinking. To deny objective truths is to be scientifically illiterate, not to be ideologically principled.

On average, the human brain is 2.5 percent of our body weight, yet for some ant species, their brains are closer to 15 percent of their body weight.​"​ With crystalline prose, Starry Messenger walks us through the scientific palette that sees and paints the world differently. From insights on resolving global conflict to reminders of how precious it is to be alive, Tyson reveals, with warmth and eloquence, an array of brilliant and beautiful truths that apply to us all, informed and enlightened by knowledge of our place in the universe. I figure though, that we know for sure other mammals and fish experience pain and are conscious and we don't yet know that about plants, therefore it's better to go with the latter. Also, if you eat meat, you're killing both the animal and the plants it eats, so it's less suffering caused by only eating plants. (Whether or not it still makes me a hypocrite, I'm not sure.) And even though an asteroid took out Earth’s big-toothed, badass dinosaurs, their absence pried open an ecological niche that allowed our tiny mammalian ancestors to evolve into something more ambitious than hors d’oeuvres for T. rex. That’s undeniably a beautiful thing—at least for the branch on the tree of life that became primates, to which we belong. In February 2012, Tyson released his tenth book, containing every thought he has ever had on the past, present, and future of space exploration: Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier.

Another example: he drones on and on about how bad the word “disabled” is, without recognition of what the word really is in reference to (think American Disabilities Act.) So there is a need for a term that describes people with special physical needs, If he doesn’t like the word “disability”, then propose another word, and don’t just be a pretentious finger-wagger. One of the simplest equations in all of science is also the most profound: Einstein’s equivalence of energy ( E) and mass ( m): E = mc2. The small c stands for the speed of light—a constant that shows up in countless places as we unravel the cosmic codes that run the universe. Among a zillion other places that it shows up, this little equation underpins how all stars in the universe have generated energy since the beginning of time. Equally simple, and no less profound, is Isaac Newton’s second law of motion, which prescribes precisely how fast an object will accelerate ( a) when you apply a force ( F) to it: F = ma. The m stands for the mass of the object being pushed. This little equation, and Einstein’s later extension of it from his Theory of Relativity, underpins all motion there ever was or will be for all objects in the universe. Look, I know the world has many problems. I'm a therapist and I've listened to many books about racism, misogyny, politics, poverty, mental health etc....but this book is a great break from it all. There are doses of humor and pop culture, added only where they could also advance the ideas of a chapter. And I'm proud to say that the book is relatively short, making a fast read.

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In addition to dozens of professional publications, Dr. Tyson has written, and continues to write for the public. From 1995 to 2005, Tyson was a monthly essayist for Natural History magazine under the title Universe. And among Tyson’s fifteen books is his memoir The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist; and Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, co-written with Donald Goldsmith. Origins is the companion book to the PBS NOVA four-part mini-series Origins, in which Tyson served as on-camera host. The program premiered in September 2004. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. So I'm proud of this addition to the portfolio. And I thank those of you in the Goodreads Universe who expressed early interesting in this work.

In a time when our political and cultural perspectives feel more divisive than ever, Tyson provides a much-needed antidote to so much of what divides us, while making a passionate case for the twin engines of enlightenment-a cosmic perspective and the rationality of science. I really enjoyed it. Dr. Tyson seems like an interesting guy to hang out with and talk about all sorts of things. The aesthetics of what is beautiful and desired in culture typically shifts from season to season, year to year, and from generation to generation, especially regarding fashion, art, architecture, and the human body. Based on the size of the cosmetics industry and the larger beauty industrial complex, visiting space aliens would surely think that we think we are ugly beyond repair, in persistent need of “improvements.” We’ve designed household tools to straighten curly hair and to curl straight hair. We invented methods to replace missing hair and to remove unwanted hair. We use chemical dyes to darken light hair and to lighten dark hair. We don’t tolerate acne or skin blemishes of any kind. We wear shoes that make us taller and perfumes that make us smell better. We use makeup to accentuate the good and suppress the bad elements of our appearance. In the end, there’s not much real or chromosomal about our appearance. The beauty we’ve created is not even skin-deep. It washes off in the shower. When Galileo Galilei published Sidereus Nunciusin 1610, he brought to Earth cosmic truths that had been waiting since antiquity to descend upon human thought. Galileo’s freshly perfected telescope revealed a universe unlike anything people presumed to be true. Unlike anything people wanted to be true. Unlike anything people dared say was true. Sidereus Nunciuscontained his observations of the Sun, Moon, and stars, as well as the planets and the Milky Way. Two fast takeaways from his book: (1) human eyes alone are insufficient to reveal fundamental truths about the operations of nature, (2) Earth is not the center of all motion. It orbits the Sun as just one among the other known planets. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t quite see it that way. Science can’t stand in for politics – functioning democratic societies have to debate their fundamental values at some point or other. But he does think science has a valuable contribution to make to those debates.Far beyond wine truths, and close cousins of personal truths, are political truths. These thoughts and ideas already resonate with your feelings but become unassailable truths from incessant repetition by forces of media that would have you believe them—a fundamental feature of propaganda. Such belief systems almost always insinuate or explicitly declare that who you are, or what you do, or how you do it, is superior to those you want to subjugate or conquer. It’s no secret that people will give their lives, or take the lives of others, in support of what they believe. Often the less actual evidence that exists in support of an ideology, the more likely a person is willing to die for the cause.” Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson, bestselling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time–war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, race, and tribalism–in a way that stimulates a deeper sense of unity for us all.