Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has released a video urging Americans to change how they relate to science. 
 
 Tyson posted the video on his Facebook page alongside this note: 
 
 "Dear Facebook Universe, 
 
 "I offer this four-minute video on 'Science in America' containing what may be the most important words I have ever spoken. 
 
 "As always, but especially these days, keep looking up." 
 
 Tyson's message in the video centers on what he sees as a worrisome decline in scientific literacy in the US. 
 
 "Science is a fundamental part of the country that we are," he says in the video. "But in this, the 21st century, when it comes time to make decisions about science, it seems that people have lost the ability to judge what is true and what is not." 
 
 That shift, he says, is a "recipe for the complete dismantling of our informed democracy." 
 
 Tyson's speech is interspersed with clips of political debates and news. The video cuts to a clip of Vice President Mike Pence, then a congressman speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives. 
 
 "Let us demand that educators around America teach evolution not as fact, but as theory," Pence says in the clip. 
 
 The role of science, Tyson says, is to provide the factual grounding for politics. The role of politics is to decide what to do about those facts. 
 
 Watch the full video: 

 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.
– Climate change and evolution are as undeniable as E=mc2, says celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, but "people have lost the ability to judge what is true and what is not." "The sooner you understand that, the faster we can get on with the political conversations about how to solve the problems that face us," he says in a Facebook video, viewed more than 7.7 million times in less than 24 hours. Introduced by Tyson as "containing what may be the most important words I have ever spoken," the four-minute video attacks a decline in scientific literacy in the US, per Business Insider, with Tyson noting that the result could be catastrophic. "Every minute one is in denial" of a scientific truth, "you are delaying the political solution that should have been established years ago," he continues in what Mashable calls an "emotional and raw" tirade. His message is broken up by news reports about skepticism around vaccinations and climate change denial, and a clip of Mike Pence asking that US educators teach evolution as theory. "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 says. Science is "in the service of civilization," he adds. "It's in our hands."