The same scientist who famously "killed Pluto" (as a planet, that is) says it's "brilliant" that there's an effort underway in Congress to name a science laureate.
But Cal Tech's Mike Brown tells Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon that he doesn't think a laureate's main responsibility should be to visit schools and talk to kids about why science matters.
"You want the person with that national forum to be on The Daily Show ... or halftime of the Super Bowl," says Brown. "The goal would be to encourage the public to think about science and to understand science."
And he hopes a laureate would weigh in on issues such as climate change, to move the discussion out of the world of politics.
It sounds to us like he's thinking of someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson. Do other names come to mind?
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