It's True Whether or Not You Believe In It

There's been lots about religion (or not) on the show and Stephen highlighted recent events by various organizations. Some groups want a plaque, others just want to scratch and burp.

But most of the show on Monday was all about Neil deGrasse Tyson. To prove what goes around, comes around, but in a very nice way, we found out that Neil deGrasse Tyson actually met Carl Sagan. Now Neil deGrasse Tyson is hosting Cosmos, A Spacetime Odyssey, just like Carl Sagan also hosted Cosmos.

This was the tenth time Neil deGrasse Tyson has been on The Colbert Report. (And yet there was no cake, no balloons, no award? Oh well.) The first part of the interview was background information about Neil deGrasse Tyson. By the age of 11, when people would ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up, Neil deGrasse Tyson would tell them astrophysicist. And then they would just walk away.

The second part of the interview was about science. Stephen wanted to start some controversy, but Neil deGrasse Tyson was, dare I say it, too smart for Stephen. Neil deGrasse threw out the ideas of a multiverse and dark energy. Stephen thought that there should always be two sides to any discussion of science, sort of a fair and balanced approach. For example, if you have discussion about the earth being round, it only makes sense to bring on someone to talk about the earth being flat.

While Stephen wondered if science is legitimate, that is, is the science in on science, Neil told him that once science has spoken, that's it. Here's what their discussion boiled down to as Neil told Stephen,"You get to say the world is flat because we live in a country that guarantees your free speech, but it's not a country that guarantees that anything you say is correct."

When Stephen appeared dumbfounded, Neil added, "I'm just saying."