Neil deGrasse Tyson SILENCES Steve Harvey On God & Science

0:00 Wrote this new book. It's called Letters from an astrophysicist. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And uh you asked What happened was a lot of people was writing you letters and asking you tough questions. >> strangers writing me like I was their best friend. >> And so you you took all these letters and put them in a book. >> I've been doing it for 30 years. Under the hood, most people would never know that that's what I was doing. They just see me, you know, on YouTube videos and on TV doing public stuff. But underneath there, I've had one-on-one exchanges with people who are in some deep point of angst in their life. They they're trying to find a path that they want to take. And I think most people have never even met a scientist in their lives, much less claim one as their friend. So to have these letters come in, it's a huge

0:47 responsibility because they're thinking of me as their friend. Asking me about career advice. There's one letter talk about from somewhere else, from a Jewish woman with a 10-year-old son who's on the autism spectrum, takes him to Hebrew school every week, and one day he came home and said he doesn't believe in God. And she asked him, "Why don't you believe in God?" He said, "Because I've been watching Cosmos." Okay. So I said, "Okay, the rest of this letter >> Jew say? >> So the rest of this letter I said is not going to end well if this is how it's beginning. But she said that she respects her son. And she doesn't want him to believe something that might not be true. And she focused primarily not so much on whether God exists or not, but on the

1:33 Bible stories that he was rejecting. He said he believes in science. And so she asked me, "Can science and God coexist?" And what She wants to be a good mother. How should she handle this? >> Does a person have to choose between God and science? >> It depends on what your belief in God has you also believe in society. For example, uh for the longest while, anyone who fell on the ground writhing, frothing at the mouth, they were clearly occupied by the devil. So, what happened? You get the You get the exorcist priest, they come over, got the holy water, and they chant some Latin words, and then the symptoms dissipate. They got that. They got rid of the

2:19 devil. Well, of course, it's not the devil. It's epilepsy. We see this. We know what that is. We have We have medicines for this, okay? So, so if your belief in God is so strong and so widespread that your your holy books from thousands of years ago are informing your understanding of the natural world in modern times, that could make conflict. >> I believe in science. I believe science is work has a lot of validity. I was talking one time, and a lady said to me, I said, "I believe God created heaven and earth." She said, "Well, scientifically, it's been proven that it came from a

3:06 cosmic dust that spun into a ball of gas, and it cooled off." I said, "Okay." They cooled off, and we had Earth. That's what she said. I said, "Okay, let me ask you something. Where did cosmic dust come from?" And then she said, "It's part of the universe." I said, "Where did the universe come from?" She said, "It's part of the galaxy." I said, "Where did the galaxy come from? I'm just trying to get to where something formed something. >> Hold on. If you are enjoying this video, please like and subscribe. Make sure you watch this clip all the way to the end because my full reaction and breakdown are coming up right after it. Let's jump straight into the footage. >> We can do that. We say, "Where did dust come from?" It came from uh the cores of

3:53 stars. And where did that come from? That And then ultimately we get to the Big Bang. Then you say, "Well, where did the Big Bang come from?" And I say, "I have no idea. It is a frontier of science, and we've got top people working on it." >> Okay. >> And now you want to put God there, I don't have a problem with that, but why won't you allow me to ask you where did God come from? >> Well, see, guess what? You ain't got no answer to where the Big Bang come from. >> Not yet. >> Well, you ain't FINNA HAVE ONE. >> [applause] >> I'M NOT HERE TO ARGUE WHERE THE God exists. >> I AIN'T ARGUING. I KNOW you I know you believe in that. I KNOW YOU DO. BUT KEEP YOUR SCIENCE STUFF. >> I'M JUST SAYING, if your list of things

4:38 that you provide that we don't have a good answer for it, and that's where God resides within you, >> the unexplained. >> you have to be ready >> Mhm. >> for the moving frontier of science to then answer those questions. >> Yes. >> And if that's how you want your relationship to God to be, you have to be prepared for what you understand God to be to be an ever-shrinking pocket of scientific ignorance. So, I'm saying so >> Was it in Job or um >> Here we go. We got We got some church people here. >> Well, if you don't I got some >> church people out here. >> Yeah, I would I would I just people out

5:23 here. where God lists God's judgment gets gets gets critic- questioned, and God says gives a whole list of things that Is it Job who can't explain? Is it Job? Thank you. We got some church ladies in the back right there. >> you they was here. >> Okay. Okay. >> Cuz they rocking back and forth. THEY THEY GOING to jump on your ass in the parking the Bring your little scientific ass over here. Come here. TELL YOU SOMETHING. >> ALL I'M SAYING is this is a very impressive list. It's a list of things that nobody understood at the time about the natural world. So you can look at that list today and say, "Okay, we got this. We understand that. We got this." There's a couple we don't fully

6:08 understand yet, but we're we're working our way on that list and other lists. So I'm just saying that I will recommend to you that God needs to be something deeper to you than just whether a statement in the Bible matches what science shows today. God needs to be something deeply more spiritual to you than just thinking of the Bible as a science textbook. That's what I'm saying. >> I'm I believe in science. I really do. I just it's limited knowledge that I have about science. And I just seen through scriptures and I've seen through a belief system that I was taught that anything is possible.

6:56 And that I have risen from the dirt to a place I never saw I could get to and I have no scientific explanation for that. That's all I'm saying. >> [applause] >> Tell us for those who don't know such as myself, describe to us what is an astrophysics. >> Yeah, it's it's you're on Earth and you see how nature works. Uh how matter, motion, energy, particles, just see how everything fits together, how forces operate, and then we apply it to the rest of the universe. So the astrophysicist takes the physics we learn on Earth and applies it to the past, present, and future of the universe itself.

7:41 >> Now, okay, let me ask you something. You got people out here that have kids, grandkids, nephews, and nieces. What would you do to expose a young person to to the science and >> So, um I think our kids need to be a little more free-range, you know? As as I've said before, we you spend years teaching your kids to walk and talk the first few years, and then the rest of their lives tell them to shut up and sit down. Let them Let them free-range. If they're playing with an egg If there's an egg on the shelf, and you and you say, "Don't touch that egg." Why not? Oh, cuz they might break it. That's That's part of the experiment. >> No, if that's the egg we eating, and your ass knocks that egg off that damn shelf, you can crack on the egg as you crack on your

8:27 >> That's the thing. >> That's what we learned at my house. I'm going to tell you. >> I'm going to tell you, if the kid plays with the egg, you know it's going to end up breaking, okay? But they learn something. Something can be hard, but brittle. Hard, but fragile. Most things that are hard are not fragile. Eggshells are hard, but fragile. That's kind of weird. This is a lesson for the child. The egg breaks. What is that? It's like gooey. There's transparent part. There's yellow part. You say, "That might have been a chicken." That'll freak the kid out. Then Then you say, "Do you know if you heat this, >> Yeah. >> it turns solid." Most things when you heat melt. That's different, okay? So, this is an entire lesson plan that got lost. And I

9:12 will quote the once president of Harvard who said, "If you think the cost of education is high, try the cost of ignorance." Wow. >> Yeah. [applause] >> On the surface, it plays out as a light-hearted broadcast exchange, but underneath lies one of the most compelling critiques of modern apologetic, the theological trap of relying on the God of the gaps. When Steve Harvey raises the age-old question of whether a person must choose between scientific inquiry and personal faith, Tyson establishes a vital distinction right out of the gate. Conflict only arises when religious doctrines or sacred texts are treated as literal empirical science manuals for the physical world. Throughout human history, whenever society encountered a phenomenon it couldn't explain, the

9:59 default reaction was to attribute it directly to divine intervention. Take epilepsy as a prime historic example. For centuries across various cultures, grand mal seizures were widely interpreted as demonic possession or divine punishment. Religious leaders performed exorcisms because society was operating at the absolute limit of its medical knowledge. Today, neurology and pharmacology explain epilepsy as an abnormal surge of electrical activity in the brain. The critical takeaway is that if your definition of God relies on physical phenomena that science hasn't explained yet, your faith is ever make. Anchored directly to human ignorance, as empirical discovery marches forward, those pockets of ignorance inevitably shrink, leaving a gap-based theology

10:45 constantly retreating into smaller and smaller corners of the cosmos. Then comes the pivotal turning point of their discussion, the cosmological origin story. Steve Harvey pushes Tyson into a classic philosophical corner, asking where the original cosmic dust came from and what caused the Big Bang. When Tyson openly responds that science does not fully know yet, Steve asserts that God created the universe. But when Tyson counters with a simple direct question, "Where did God come from?" Steve brushes it aside, claiming God doesn't require a beginning. This dynamic highlights a fundamental logical error known as special pleading. If someone insists that every complex entity in existence requires a creator or a prior cause, then by by exact rule,

11:31 an infinite all-powerful deity would also require a cause. But if you claim that God is the sole exception, an uncaused, eternal entity, you have already conceded that uncaused, eternal things can exist in reality. And if an uncaused reality can exist without a creator, why apply that exemption exclusively to a divine persona? Why couldn't the fundamental laws of physics or the energy of the cosmos itself be eternal and uncaused? Look closely at the difference in intellectual posture. When Steve demands an immediate answer to the origin of everything, Tyson comfortably admits, "I don't know. It's the frontier of science." In everyday culture, saying, "I don't know" is often mistaken for weakness or failure. But in science, "I don't know"

12:17 is the ultimate virtue. It is the exact engine that drives curiosity, experimentation, and discovery. When you fill an unknown scientific gap with God did it, you effectively close the door on human inquiry. You stop asking questions. Centuries ago, natural wonders like lightning, rain, and planetary orbits were viewed as mysteries reserved for the divine. Today, meteorology and astrophysics explain them routinely. Tyson isn't trying to destroy personal spirituality or invalidate someone's lived experience. What he is advocating for is intellectual honesty. Using God as a substitute for scientific ignorance does a disservice to both scientific progress and spiritual faith. True intellectual maturity means

13:03 realizing that acknowledging what we don't know isn't a defeat. It is the necessary starting point for every great discovery humanity will If this breakdown gave you a fresh perspective on the collision between science, philosophy, and faith, hit the like button and subscribe for more commentary. What's your take? Does the God of the gaps argument still hold weight, or is empirical science closing those pockets of ignorance for good. Drop your thoughts in the comments below. I want to hear where you stand. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.