The Cosmic Perspective by Neil deGrasse Tyson

I had the good fortune of being in the same room as "everybody's favorite scientist", the legendary astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. For people who weren't aware of how special the occasion was, he gently reminded us that there's only around 8000 active astrophysicists in the world today, literally making him, "one in a million".

Having watched Cosmos and many YouTube videos of Neil talking about the earth, space, the universe, science fiction, politics etc. I knew what to expect but I was nevertheless in awe for the entire duration of two hours, as he serenaded through his latest show - The Cosmic Perspective.

Aptly named, the show aimed to show us perspective about the universe we lived in from different spheres of life - from numbers, to our closeness with chimps, the elements which make up the universe and their presence within us, of the impact of  the Apollo missions and the cultural change it brought about, and why we need to continue looking upwards in order to sustain that objectivity.

The underlying theme behind all of this, was not scientific, or political. It was philosophical. Neil repeatedly emphasised on our "hubris", and our self-centered view that we are a superior species, that we strive day in and day out to differentiate and isolate ourselves from the rest, to make ourselves feel special and unique, while in reality we are all so closely connected, and so similar, not just to humans, but to every other species alive.

A particular slide which shook the audience was the famous "Tree of Life" (shown below), a chart representing the evolutionary relationships among the 3000 most "successful" organisms, and where our species, "Homo Sapiens", stands among others. Here, we must be cognizant of the fact that the number of species represented on this chart is a miniscule fraction (0.03%) of the estimated 9 million species on this planet -

Source : David M. Hillis, Derrick Zwickl, and Robin Gutell, University of Texas. 

Here's a closer look at where we stand -

Mind blowing, isn't it? In this small fraction of species,  we are sandwiched between the rat (Rattus norvegicus), the mouse (Mus musculus) and the eel (Typholonectes natans). So much for being unique.

The talk moved back and forth, with a lot of lighter moments, ranging from Pluto's exclusion from being a planet (asking us to "get over it") and if alien species of higher intelligence existed, they'd probably look at Stephen Hawking the way we look at chimpanzees.

Carl Sagan's influence on Neil clearly showed, as he quoted him at various points during the talk, including the end, when he repeated his words against the backdrop of the new "Pale Blue Dot", another iconic picture of the earth taken from Saturn by NASA's Cassini Spacecraft -

"We succeeded in taking that picture, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there – on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.[...] To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."— Carl Sagan, speech at Cornell University, October 13, 1994

Against the backdrop of the Pale Blue Dot v.20
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/23jul_palebluedot

I have, for a long time, been fascinated by the expanse of the universe and it has been a constant reminder to me about how little and insignificant my successes and failures are in the grand scheme of things. What I never fully grasped, was how to not let that feeling overcome me, and still feel relevant, while continuing to be mesmerised by the cosmos. Neil opened our minds to the fact that while we are but a small speck in the vast expanse of the universe, trying to understand our place in it and striving to culturally influence people around us to embrace science and space can help us grow together in a more harmonious and fruitful manner than ever.