Design Matters with Debbie Millman

Guest: Neil deGrasse Tyson | Recorded: Sept 22, 2025 | Released: Oct 13, 2025
Episode Theme: Science, Tribalism, and the Role of Curiosity in an Era of Crisis

Episode Overview

In this live conversation, Debbie Millman hosts astrophysicist and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson before an On Air Presents audience. The episode explores the intersection of science, society, and identity—from how scientific advances have transformed human health and lifespans to the enduring impact of tribalism, misinformation, and belief. Tyson discusses the reactive nature of American innovation, the roots of scientific denial, and how to inoculate future generations against pseudoscience, all with his trademark humor and directness.

Key Topics and Insights

1. The State of the World—and the Cosmos

• Earth vs. Cosmos
  • Tyson immediately sets a tone of wry realism:

    “Cosmos is fine. It's Earth. That's messed up. Okay.” (04:49, Tyson)

• Millman and Tyson launch into a discussion of global instability, science under attack, and the contrasting steadiness of the universe itself.

2. Longevity and Science’s Impact on Human Life

• Life Expectancy Through the Ages
  • Tyson explains how, despite a romanticized vision, ancient humans had drastically shorter lifespans—about half dead by age 30—due largely to high infant mortality.

    “Half of everyone born was dead before the age of 30. And that's no kind of life to have.” (05:39, Tyson)

  • Millman points out these people lived “organic,” “free range,” “clean air, clean water” lives (06:19), yet it was science (not mere purity) that extended lives:

    “From caveman to 1840, the life expectancy increased to 35. And everybody throughout that time was eating organic. ... The biggest forces operating there are advances in our understanding of human physiology. Vitamins, sanitation, vaccines. ... At the end of the day, it’s really the science that's doing it.” (07:17, Tyson)

3. Interdependence of Science Disciplines

• Cross-field innovation is vital. For example, hospital machines stem from physics discoveries unrelated to medicine.

  “Every machine in a hospital that has an on off switch that's brought into the service of diagnosing your condition without cutting you open is based on a principle of physics discovered by a physicist who had no interest in medicine.” (07:45, Tyson)

• Tyson warns that cutting science funding erodes national power and progress.

  “Budgets ... reduced or cut, constrained, impeded, that's going to come back and bite us.” (09:44, Tyson)

4. America as a Reactive Innovator

• Sputnik and the Moon Race
  • Tyson dismantles the myth of America as a frontier innovator; we are “reactive innovators.” The race to the moon was a geopolitical reaction to the Soviet Union.

    “We like to think of ourselves as proactive innovators, but really what we are are reactive innovators.” (12:19, Tyson)
    “We were scared witless about being bested in this world by a sworn enemy on every front.” (17:46, Tyson)

• Even the return to the moon (Artemis) is spurred by China's ambitions.

  “Why are we going back to the moon now? ... China says they're going to put Taikonauts on the moon. All of a sudden, you know, it would be a good idea to go back to the moon, we tell ourselves, and there it is.” (20:44, Tyson)

5. Tribalism, Flags, and the Human Instinct for Group Identity

• Tyson connects branding, ritual, flag-waving, and even religion to primal tribal instincts that foster group survival—even at the cost of violence.

  “Survival is a highly tribal phenomenon, and anything that enables you to survive works evolutionarily in the survival of the fittest.... If you have a tribe ... whatever are their rituals ... they're rituals that have kept them together. It's a binding force, and binding forces mattered.” (39:14, Tyson)

  • The simplest identifiers (e.g., shirt colors) provoke automatic, unconscious in-group behavior.

    “The shirts gather according to what color they have. Even though you're complete strangers ... people naturally segregated by shirt color.” (39:14, Tyson)

6. Science Denial, Belief, and Social Division

• Tyson draws a bright line between belief and evidence:

  “Frankly, I don't care what you believe. But if you think Earth is flat, I would just rather you not, for example, become head of NASA.” (27:53, Tyson)

• He’s blunt about our collective failure to teach scientific thinking—not just facts but methods:

  “Science is taught in school [as] this book of information ... At no time is it really taught as a means of querying nature to establish what is objectively true and what is objectively false.” (30:17, Tyson)

• Misinformation thrives not only because of belief, but due to a lack of training in skepticism and inquiry.

7. Vaccines, Misinformation, and Responsibility

• Drawing from his work on the documentary A Shot in the Arm, Tyson unpacks the complexities behind vaccine hesitancy, tracing it across political divides:

  “Anti-vaxxers have become purple, blending the blue and the red. Why? Because the Liberals were the OG anti vaxxers.” (35:23, Tyson) “As an educator, you can't ever give up. Then you're not really an educator. You're just an opportunist. You have to be there even when it feels hopeless.” (35:44, Tyson)

8. Tribalism, Religion, and War

• Tyson identifies organized religion as a form of tribalism that, historically, can be a source of conflict:

  “I'm grouping religion as just another way to tribalize, period.” (45:14, Tyson)

• Millman pushes on why, if science is built on truth, it wields such little trust in the current era:

  “Because we're not trained to learn what science is, nor are we trained to communicate science.” (46:56, Tyson)

• The conversation traces the evolution from physically violent tribal conflict (ancient/fatal wars) to more state- or idea-driven disputes in modern times.

  “The overall trend from 10,000 years ago to today is one where we are much milder and much more gentle to our neighbors than ever before.” (41:14, Tyson, citing Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature)

9. How to Inoculate Against Misinformation: The Curriculum Question

• Millman asks Tyson how he’d design education to build “scientific immunity.”
• Tyson’s answer: focus on how to think, not just what to know.

  “It's not what you learn. It's ... you train your mind how to think. What do you do when you're confronted with something that's mysterious, interesting, amazing, odd? What do you do? Do you just believe it? No. Do you reject it? No. You ask questions.” (58:21, Tyson)

  • He gives an anecdote about his children questioning claims about Mercury in retrograde or the healing power of crystals—not to be dismissive, but to probe, to be scientifically curious.

10. Religion, Atheism, and the Natural Selection of Faiths

• Tyson discusses how most religious adherents are “atheist” towards other religions, which explains the drive to proselytize or enforce exclusivity:

  “Almost every deeply religious person is an atheist to all other religions in the world. ... Most religious people believe that their religion is the one true religion. So that means they're atheist to everybody else.” (59:47, Tyson)

• Religion spreads or persists based on rules that incentivize retention (e.g., penalties for leaving, prohibition of birth control).

11. Reading the Bible and Engaging on Relatable Terms

• Tyson shares how he read extensively across religious texts to give more nuanced answers to the ubiquitous question of science vs. God, and illustrates how even biblical details (like Leviticus’s role in the execution of Joan of Arc) have influenced history.

  “I'm not religious fluent to play Gotcha. I'm just religious fluent so that I can absorb themes and ideas that I know you care about in my answer when we have the conversation.” (64:43, Tyson)

12. “Just Visiting This Planet” – Tyson’s New Book

• Tyson and Millman discuss the reissue of Merlin's Tour of the Universe (as Just Visiting This Planet), a playful, Q&A-style book answering the public’s most fascinating space questions through the voice of the immortal Merlin.
  • Tyson describes engaging with questions that go beyond Google, with wit and illustrations by his brother.
  • Anecdote: a dinner guest tries to predict Tyson’s answers via ChatGPT, which both amuses and unsettles the author.

    “He asked ChatGPT how you would answer that question. So I said, how am I doing? And he says, yeah, this is exactly what you just said.” (73:41, Tyson)

Notable Quotes

• “At no time is [science] really taught as a means of querying nature to establish what is objectively true and what is objectively false.” (30:17, Tyson)
• “As an educator, you can't ever give up. Then you're not really an educator; you're just an opportunist.” (35:44, Tyson)
• “We like to think of ourselves as proactive innovators, but really what we are are reactive innovators.” (12:19, Tyson)
• “We can tribalize on anything.” (39:14, Tyson)
• "Almost every deeply religious person is an atheist to all other religions in the world. ... Most religious people believe that their religion is the one true religion. So that means they're atheist to everybody else." (59:47, Tyson)
• “It’s not what you learn. It’s ... you train your mind how to think.... Do you just believe it? No. Do you reject it? No. You ask questions.” (58:21, Tyson)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:40 — Opening framing, "Cosmos is fine. Earth is messed up."
• 05:36 — How life expectancy and mortality have changed thanks to science
• 09:11 — The true power and danger of cutting scientific funding
• 12:19 — America as a "reactive innovator" in space, science, and tech
• 20:44 — Return to the moon: geopolitics vs. exploration
• 27:53 — On flat earthers, scientific evidence vs. belief
• 30:17 — The failure of science education as method, not facts
• 35:23 — The surprising political roots and blending of anti-vaxxers
• 58:21 — How to "inoculate" against misinformation: teaching curiosity and skepticism
• 59:47 — Why most religious people are “atheist” towards other faiths
• 69:33 — Why republish "Just Visiting This Planet" now; AI and the transmission of scientific knowledge

Tone & Style

The conversation is lively, witty, and peppered with Tyson’s signature clarity and accessible analogies. Millman steers the dialogue with warmth, curiosity, and incisive questions, allowing Tyson space for deep dives and memorable anecdotes.

Takeaways

• Science as the true driver of civilization’s progress—not virtue, purity, or nostalgia
• Tribalism is hard-wired, affecting everything from branding and flags to war and faith
• Education must focus on how to think, not just what to know
• Belief and evidence: Respect for belief until it dictates policy or undermines collective good
• History is complicated: Even world-changing scientific achievement is often reactive to perceived existential threats
• Cultural humility and dialogue: Entering conversations about religion and belief with curiosity and preparation, not antagonism
• The mission of the educator: Never give up on critical thinking, even in a world awash with misinformation

“Anytime I'm in front of an audience who thinks Earth is flat or no vaccines or anything, I think of stanzas from that song [‘The Impossible Dream’] and I persist.”
—Neil deGrasse Tyson (37:14)