Science and Social Justice with David Crosby

About This Episode

Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about science fiction, folk music and social justice with rock and roll legend David Crosby. It turns out that David is a major science geek, and has been ever since a librarian suggested the chubby, unpopular teenager might enjoy reading Robert Heinlein. Neil and David discuss the role that science and the lunar landing played in his music and his life, and you’ll even discover why Crosby credits scientific advances with keeping him alive. The pair explore the likelihood of intelligent alien life, and David asks Neil his own Cosmic Query, about dark energy and dark matter, which Neil claims should be renamed dark gravity. In studio, Neil reality checks the Sixties with help of Chuck Nice and Dr. Thomas Sugrue, an NYU professor specializing in the history of an era where, as Neil puts it, “We were inventing tomorrow.” You’ll hear about the role music played in the social upheaval of the ‘60s, and why Crosby believes that kind of societal consciousness raising is still around and important (“It’s 12:00, Congress is bought, things are bad.”), though more fragmented than when everybody knew somebody affected by the draft and the Vietnam War. Plus, Bill Nye drops in from Greenwich Village to talk about the sexual revolution and loving the one you’re with.

NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: Science and Social Justice with David Crosby.