Neil deGrasse Tyson — "I'm not trying to convert anyone to atheism. I'm trying to convert people to sci…"
I'm not trying to convert anyone to atheism. I'm trying to convert people to science.
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More from Neil deGrasse Tyson
"We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us."
"When you look at the universe, you realize how insignificant we are. But then you realize how significant we are, because we are the universe looking at itself."
"Science is not a battle between good and evil. It's a battle between ignorance and knowledge."
"If you're not curious, you're not human."
"The universe is a stage, and we are all actors in it."
About Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958)
American astrophysicist, Hayden Planetarium director, and Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey host who carries the Carl Sagan public-science mantle. Closely associated with Bill Nye (fellow science communicator) and Brian Greene (theoretical physicist and string-theory popularizer). For an intellectual contrast, see Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum — Ham's career has been organized around defending biblical 6-day creationism — exactly the science-education position Tyson's mainstream-science communication is structured to refute.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
This quote draws a clear line between scientific literacy and atheism — two things often conflated but genuinely separate. Tyson is saying his goal is not to challenge anyone's faith but to get people thinking empirically, valuing evidence, and engaging with how the universe actually works. You can hold religious beliefs and still reason scientifically. His mission is broader participation in curiosity and data-driven inquiry, not ideological conversion away from religion.
Relevance to Neil deGrasse Tyson
Tyson has deliberately avoided the atheist label throughout his career, identifying instead as agnostic, and has publicly pushed back when people conflate the two. As host of StarTalk and the rebooted Cosmos series, he built his entire platform on mass-audience science outreach — not culture-war combat. A Black astrophysicist from the Bronx who became America's most visible scientist, he consistently redirects religion debates toward a simpler ask: embrace curiosity and evidence, whatever you believe.
The era
Tyson rose to prominence during intense US culture-war battles over science — intelligent design lawsuits in public schools, surging vaccine skepticism, and climate change denial coded as partisan ideology. Associating science with atheism in this climate handed ready-made ammunition to those resisting it. His deliberate decoupling of scientific literacy from irreligion was a strategic move to make science less threatening to a majority-religious American public at a moment when science itself had become contested ideological territory.
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