Thomas R. Cech Quotes

I'm a great believer that scientists should spend as much time as possible explaining, and you do explain in the process of teaching.

If I can get some student interested in science, if I can show members of the general public what's going on up there in the space program, then my job's been done.

If you publish a scientific paper it is very hard to start a nationwide debate about something. If you do this in a movie, you can start a debate. We like to create a bridge between those two worlds - film and science.

We need to tap the resource of current and retiring science and math professionals that have both content mastery and the practical experience to serve as effective teachers.

In high school, one of the things I loved doing was this after-school program where you would teach computer skills to some of the maintenance folks at school.

Sometimes I worry that science communication is just preaching to the choir, speaking to the converted. Social media gives us an amazing opportunity to reach new people.

Somehow we must reintegrate the scientific with the popular and reconnect the future to the present. This is less a job for scientists, engineers, bureaucrats, and administrators and more a job for novelists, moviemakers, popularizers, and politicians.

One of the best and most responsible things a scientist can do is to write for the popular press.

After I had this idea to be Bill Nye the Science Guy, I wore straight ties the first couple times, and then I got this thing going and I started wearing bow ties.

I was a good student with mathematical ability and interests. As such, I took the usual college preparatory program in high school for one looking to become an engineer: all the available courses in mathematics and science.

The media thinks that you have to make science sexy and concentrate on themes such as rivalry and the human issues.

Well they have an input into policy but in the end governments are elected to put together policy but the good thing about the Wentworth Group is that you know you've got 11 pretty capable people with a lot of good ideas.

There is not enough funding for basic sciences in India. We have to invest in a big way, and I am pushing that idea.

Anything that promotes a kernel of science, even though it's exaggerated and hyped by Hollywood, I think is a step forward. We in the ivory tower ultimately have to realize that in some sense we have to sing for our supper.

We run courses for government school teachers on Sundays. These teachers pay for their own food and stay; the kind of commitment you find in these people is remarkable.

Science shouldn't be just for scientists, and there are encouraging signs that it is becoming more pervasive in culture and the media.

Almost everyone shuts down when science becomes too technical; you've got to infuse it with entertainment and storytelling to make it effective. From high school on, science is taught in a very dry manner, which isn't as potent.

Science is very cross-generational; you're not just aiming it at twentysomethings, or eightysomethings. Every town's got a really broad selection of people and age groups interested in science.

I think science is a foreign land for many people, so I think of my role as an ambassador's job.

I want to be a science teacher. My friends asked me why, but I'm intrigued by it and I'm quite good at science at school.

If we can teach a teacher we can reach more people.

I hope I have helped to raise the profile of science and to show that physics is not a mystery but can be understood by ordinary people.

I've met some smart people doing security work in the government, and they're starting to reach out to a broader audience, which I think is a good thing.

Between being governor and part of the Senate, one of the things I did was I held a chair at the business school at my alma mater, Indiana University. And I'd go to lecture the graduates, and I loved that, answering their questions. It was real; it was tangible, and it was making a difference every day.

We have been talking about public engagement for a decade. For me it is about recognising that the mission of science has to be embedded within our culture - the direction in which science is going has to be determined by all of us, and so we need a dialogue with the public.