Neil DeGrasse Tyson - On Intelligent Design

Neil DeGrasse Tyson can explain just about everything in easy-to-grasp terms. He's a natural communicator, as well as a brilliant scientist, and unlike plenty of other scientists, his astounding intelligence doesn't come off as smarmy or arrogant, which is a plus, in my book.

Here, Tyson discusses how the Universe is not here for our benefit. Indeed, it's about as hostile to humans as any place could be, give or take. I'm not sure if he goes into talking about the Earth - he talks plenty about the Universe as a whole - but the Earth's lack of habitable space is worth mentioning here.

People always talk about what an amazing fit humans and the Earth are, but they don't think of how little of the planet we are able to inhabit. It's a very small percentage, when discussed on the whole. It's not that being here at all isn't amazing. It is. It truly is, but that's just the point.

Plus, we live on an environmental knife-edge, where it is very likely for the balance to teeter in one direction or the other and cause the extinction of the entire human race, so our collective happiness should rest on the fact that we are here at all and not on just how much we mean to the rest of the Universe. Think about it like this: if the Earth was struck by a meteor the size of, say, Mt. Kilimanjaro, then we'd all be gone and the rest of the Universe would just keep plugging along.