At the World Science Festival in New York, Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, says that being scientifically literate protect people from charlatans and others who want to take advantage of their ignorance. "You don't have to be a scientist but at least understand what is going on in the world," he says, adding that "scientific decisions inform political decisions."
"I'm here to simply get you excited enough about science that you want to become scientifically literate," deGrasse Tyson says.