Neil deGrasse Tyson at #CannesLions 2014 with Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy & Mather, Tham Khai Meng

1. p h o t o c r e d i t : N A S A , E S A , an d T h e H u b b l e H e r i ta g e ( S T S c I /A UR A ) - E S A / H u b b l e C o l l a b o r at i o n
“a knowledge
egg on your ass”
Neil
deGrasse
Tyson is
about to
crack

2. p h o t o c r e d i t : N A S A , E S A , an d T h e H u b b l e H e r i ta g e ( S T S c I /A UR A ) - E S A / H u b b l e C o l l a b o r at i o n
neil
degrasse
tyson’s
13 part reboot of the famous Cosmos
series is airing all over the world, and
he’s become this generation’s Carl
Sagan—only way cooler. His Cannes
talk¬—the fourth entry in the Ogilvy &
Inspire series—earned a standing
ovation (the first one we’ve seen
at Cannes this year) from
a packed house.

3. p h o t o c r e d i t : N A S A , E S A , an d T h e H u b b l e H e r i ta g e ( S T S c I /A UR A ) - E S A / H u b b l e C o l l a b o r at i o n
Accessory
to
Planetcide
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson had something
he needed to get off his chest. “I was blamed for
killing Pluto,” he said, “but I was just an accessory. I
drove the getaway car.” But he’s not recanting his
confession—it’s still not a planet. Even though
an American discovered Pluto, a British girl
named it. After all, at the time of Pluto’s
discovery, Americans were enjoying a
widely-advertised mineral laxative
branded Pluto Water. Just
remember: “When nature
won’t, Pluto will.”
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4. Integrated
and
differential
creativity
Planet, Tyson reminded us, means wanderer. To the ancients, they
wandered against the black velvet of the night sky. This inspired
wonder—and poetry: “When I trace at my pleasure the wanderings of
the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the
presence of Zeus himself.” 1500 years Issac Newton looked up at the
stars and was having none of that. He went off and just figured it
out. “Talk about creativity. This is stuff we slog through today, and
he invented it just because he had a problem to solve.” In the
hands of a creative mind, “what was previously viewed to be
complex was made simple.” Those are the people who
drive the world. When confronted with something
new, they apply the tools and methods they
have learned, and the figure it out.
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5. Elemental
nationalism
The right hand side of the periodic table were discovered and
named by the British. They are inert, and are called the noble
gasses. “They don’t interact with anybody else. You’ve got
your class system on the periodic table, just so you know.” The
Americans, by contrast, discovered a whole bunch along the
bottom row. Uranium, Neptunium, and Plutonium (the last one
named for that non-planet Pluto). Plutonium was discovered
in the 1940 and had it weaponized by 1945. Look what
that said about the US at that time: “The United States
valued research in physics driven by war.” Other
countries put great scientists and their discoveries
on currency. The US has only Ben Franklin, and
he’s there for being a Founding Father, not
a great investigator into electricity.
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6. Cultivating
Science
Two-thirds of stars that have names have Arabic names. 1000 years
ago, the Arab culture sparked “one of the most intellectually fertile
periods in the history of the human species.” Algebra was invented
then—algorithm, too, Arabic numerals, major advances in navigation
and medicine. All of that happened “while Europe was disemboweling
heretics.” A culture of scientific curiosity is no guaranteed thing. In
the wake of a the codification of what a good Muslim should do (hint:
manipulating numbers wasn’t on the list), Arab scientific discoveries
dried up. If you’re content that happens is the will of God, “you will not
be the one who discovers gravity…You have been removed from the
company all of those whose curiosity leads to solutions to problems.”
Contrast this with the Jews today. The Jews have 25% of the
Nobel Prizes in science, despite having a population of just 15
million. “Look at Islam,” Tyson laments. “Three. I lie awake
at night wondering how many secrets of the universe lay
undiscovered because 2 billion people are no longer
participating in that exercise.” Tyson wonders what
will happen to his country, the place that
“tried to invent the 21st century In the
United States, we’re losing it.”
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The
Source of
Creativity
Scientific curiosity is important to ad folks, too, since “It’s all
related. If you’re in a creative culture, you solve problems. You
discover problems you didn’t even know were there previously.”
After that explanation, Tyson showed the audience a map distorted
by the vibrancy of each nation’s scientific culture. The results
tracked closely to the distribution of health and wellbeing around
the globe. The US has done well, perhaps, because it is an
irreverent culture. But what of cultures where you cannot correct
your elders. Can you ever break free of their world view? Is
irreverence, Tyson wonders, “the source of creativity.” If you
step outside of well-trod paths, you’ll make mistakes, to
be sure. But, “if you stop making mistakes, you are no
longer on the frontier. Because the mistakes you
would make are mistakes no one would have
ever made before—because no one has
ever stepped there before.”
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8. p h o t o c r e d i t : N A S A , E S A , an d T h e H u b b l e H e r i ta g e ( S T S c I /A UR A ) - E S A / H u b b l e C o l l a b o r at i o n
“I was blamed for
killing Pluto...
but I was just
an accessory.
I drove the
getaway car.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson