Astrophysicist and television personality Neil deGrasse Tyson is upset about the lack of discussion surrounding issues of science and innovation in the 2016 presidential race.
“My great disappointment with the election cycle as it is unfolding is that I don’t see anyone talking about science or technology. I don’t see it,” the “Cosmos” star said in a video on Tech Insider.
Tyson, who is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, voiced his frustration with the issues the candidates in both parties have been focusing on instead of more science-based topics.
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“They talk about jobs, they talk about sex, or the absence of it,” he said. “They’re topics that are these hot-button emotional topics, but at the end of the day, what is it we really want? I think we want health, wealth and security.”
In Tyson’s view, “Innovations and science and technology are the engines of the 21st-century economy.”
He said his life’s mission is to “inform an electorate” so they can “make as informed a decision as they can about who they elect to be their president.”
Unfortunately, Tyson lamented, he feels he has “failed as an educator and as a scientist” because science issues are not currently a big enough part of the political conversation.
Tyson also took the opportunity to make it clear that he has zero political ambitions.
“I don’t want to be president,” he said. “If I were in charge, I wouldn’t be in charge. I don’t care to lead. I care to inform.”
