March 16, 2013 1:44 pm

Revisiting “The Political Science of the Daily Show” this Sunday

Did you see astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s guest appearance on The Daily Show last week? If you did, I have just 5 words for you: “All you had to do was reverse the video.”

And if you didn’t catch the show, I’ll hold off on saying anything more, since a couple of you already rightfully complained that my live tweeting and Facebooking during the show created spoilers for those of you in different time zones that hadn’t watched the show yet. (Again, sorry about that!)

The show was great, and the extended interview between Jon and Neil gave impetus to what has become a growing refrain. Not that Jon coined that phrase… there’s a Facebook page named IFLS that has over 4 million likes and is one of the most exuberant science loving communities out there today.

Click now to watch Part 1 of the interview and the extended interview Part 2 and Part 3. To see the opening credits, though – and you want to see them, trust me – you’ll need to click here.

There’s a long history between the director of the Hayden Planetarium and Jon Stewart.

Perhaps the most famous moment in their relationship came when, near the end of Neil’s February 27^th appearance on The Daily Show, he pointed out to Jon that the globe at the beginning of the show was turning in the wrong direction.

In fact, there are many StarTalk Radio fans for whom their first exposure to Neil came long before StarTalk Radio even existed, when he first appeared on The Daily Show back on January 30, 2007 and gave Jon a much-needed hug.

Now if you are a fan of The Daily Show, you also know that last week Jon Stewart announced that he’d be taking an 8-week hiatus from the show to go to Europe and direct a movie about an Iranian journalist who was thrown in jail and accused of plotting a revolution after he appeared in an episode of the show where Jason Jones pretended to be a spy. (During the hiatus, John Oliver, who was a guest at our recent StarTalk Live in Manhattan with Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, author Andrew Chaikin and of course, Eugene Mirman, will be taking over the hosting job.)

So we thought this Sunday would be the perfect time to replay The Political Science of The Daily Show. In it, Neil talks with Jon Stewart about the impact of politics on science, his love for science, the difference between having scientists and politicians as guests on The Daily Show, and the cosmic connections that unite us all. Leighann Lord is the guest host, and guest astrophysicist Charles Liu provides a scientist’s perspective on the influence of politics on technological innovation and inquiry from the past to the present and the Earth to the Moon.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!

–Jeffrey Simons