Scientific discovery has transformed the world, bringing us life-saving medicine, globe-trotting transportation, and the powerful, tiny computer you're using to read this story.
Yet today in the United States, science is increasingly under threat, the famed astrophysicist and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson warns in a powerful new video.
"People have lost the ability to judge what is true and what is not," Tyson said.
Exhibit A: President Donald Trump. He and members of his cabinet have refuted and rejected scientific evidence on human-caused climate change, vaccines, evolution, and more. The administration wants to significantly slash funding for scientific research.
"When you have people who don't know much about science standing in denial of it, and rising to power, that is a recipe for the complete dismantling of our informed democracy," Tyson said in the video, produced with StarTalk Radio.
The video -- emotional and raw -- drops ahead of Earth Day, on April 22, when people around the world will host events and projects to support environmental protection.
That same day, thousands of scientists are expected to gather in Washington, D.C., and cities nationwide for the March for Science, a new movement born in the wake of Trump's presidency.
Topics Donald Trump
