Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The War On Science 20160903

[inaudible conversations] heres a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening in september. On september 18th the brooklyn book festival in brooklyn, new york. Later in the month the annual baltimore book festival in the inner harbor. On saturday, september 24th book tvs live from the National Book festival at the Washington Convention center in the Nations Capital including author talks from an at gordon reed and joey warwick as well as your phone call for authors john lewis and others. For more information about the book fairs, booktv will be covering watch previous festival coverage, the book fair tab on our website at booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] okay. Lets get started. I am albert teich, Research Professor for International Science and technology and policy at George Washington university and i want to welcome you on behalf of our center, and the center for science and democracy in the union of concerned scientists, they are cosponsoring with George Washington university. Shawn otto is an awardwinning science advocate and a man of many talents, when you get to know him he is quite an impressive guy. A writer, teacher and speaker. Cofounder of sciencedebates. Org for which he received the usa National Distinguished Public Service award. He advised science debate effort in other countries as well. He is a novelist and a filmmaker. His novel sins of our fathers, a literary thriller was a finalist in the la times book prize and the house of sand and fog which is something i saw several years ago before i met shawn otto is a terrific film. It isrr available on amazon and youtube. I would suggest if you have a chance you view it. It was nominated for three academy awards, it stars Jennifer Connelly and ben kingsley, he cowrote the screenplay for it. His latest book, is the one you see displayed up here and outside on the table called the war on science whos waging it, why it matters, what we can do about it. That is what he is talking about today. Shawn otto lives in minnesotaab and has an environmentalist house, solar, wind powered too. He is a very interesting guy. Shawn otto will do a power point presentation and then he andnd will have a conversation and open it up for q and a and after that and enjoy refreshments that are left. Without taking from his time i give you shawn otto. [applause] thanks, everyone for coming. Representative mccollum made sure i knew she couldnt make it because of the voting schedule, trying to move several bills but we will see if she can join us later as well. I was involved in an Organization Called sciencedebate. Org which is still around and i encourage you to as a n if you have not supporter of science debate, a nonprofit effort to get the candidates for president primarily but also the office of the United States to talk about the big science, technology, health and Environmental Issues that face all of us. As you see from mynd presentati this is an issue that will only grow in importance as we move forward in time. What i tried to focus on throughout the course of this is bridging a gap that exists in large part between what we are able to do with science and our ability to think and talk about it in the Public Policy process and that is kind of what the war on science started out of that efforts and an observation on the relationship between science and democracy. Science is a great force for equality and if you care about justice you have to care about science in democracy and it is an effort to defend democracy from a rise in authoritarianism. A number of people wonder if there really is a war on science. At the American Association for the advancement of science there was a panel questioning that. Spoiler alert, yes, there is a war on science right now. And let me give you examples from politics, politicians are not causing the war on science. For reasons i will explain a science is not partisan but they are participating in it. A beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back into week later got a tremendous fever, got very sick, now is artistic. Antiscience politics over the course of the last 20 years have been completely acceptable in American Public dialogue. When i was a kid, would not have been tolerated. If somebody made a statement that was that blatantly flew in the face of what we knew would be the end of their political career. That doesnt happen anymore. The reason it doesnt leads us to a curious examination of what is going on in american politics and why that could be. What has changed to make that possible. It is nott just happening on th right, although many in the Science Community seem to think it is. It is also happening on the left. I will show some examples of that. Bernie sanders has the most aggressive climate plan of all the candidates for president and probably embraces support by climate scientists. At the same time he is against nuclear power, he supports alternative medicine and is for gml labeling all of which have nuances and elements that are not antiscience but are formed often by a lot of antiscience ideas like the idea not supported by science that genetically modified crops are not healthy to eat. It is not just happening in president ial races but in congress. The chairman of the house subcommittee on environment and the economy and participating in this hearing on Climate Change. Only when god declares it is time to be over man will not destroy this earth and earth will not be destroyed by a flood. I appreciate having panelists who are men of faith and we can get into the theological discourse of this position but i believe gods word is infallible, unchanging, perfect. Two other issues, we have 388 parts per million in the atmosphere, in the age of the dinosaurs we had for a and anna we were at 4000 ppm. There is a theological debate this is a harvest star plan. Be change how many of you notice the signs of report in his hand . The question is why in a Committee Hearing where we are discussing matters of national import, presumably talking about evidence is he waving a bible to begin with . Why go to ideology instead of evidence . Why is that and authority in this particular case . My father read the bible to our family over the dinner table for a year and i dont recall the part about carbon in the bible. Maybe i missed it that day. It is all happening in the state legislatures across the country. A famous example from a couple years ago, North Carolina legislature banned sealevel rise. In the climate war, it is a problem because it was more reminiscent of china than the United States, where local officials had to go to the state legislature and central State Government in order to get approval and use the numbers that they provided, not actual numbers when making zoning decisions and things like that. In developments close to the ocean. This is also happening in city governments, for instance last summer, the use of fluoride was banned over concerns it might be dangerous to your health, cdc considers it one of the greatest Public Health advances of the 20th century. It is not just the United States. Public policies that are completely contradicted by the evidence is spreading worldwide. Canada during the harper administration, a lot of their policies on some of the Bush Administration policies by limiting what scientists could say and their interactions with the press and placing ideological appointees over them and closing libraries and Scientific Enterprises engendered a demonstration on their capitol hill in ottawa talking about no science, no evidence, no truth, noa ar democracy. A mock funeral for democracy and science. This also is happening in australia where cities are representing half 1 million people, recently been fluoride in france where there are outbreaks of measles because of low vaccination rates. The United Kingdom also has problems with the antivaccine movement, the United Kingdom is the birthplace of the antivaccine movement. In germany there is the teaching of creationism in Public School science classes. Ireland, dublin band fluoride. Is real, the defense minister who does not have a background in science band fluoride for the entire country. Nigeria where groups like boca herat is very name means western knowledge is forbidden are reacting in their version of a rightwing reaction against science and china where there is a burgeoning environmental movement. At the same time a movement against genetically modified crops which are seen as something from the west so why is this spreading, why is it spreading throughout western democracies which have been associated with science, freedom, free thought, Critical Thinking with individual rights, all the things that seem to have been associated with science, there is something happening that is quite odd and that is what this explanation tries to get at. The best place to start is understanding why it matters. Science is the great equalizer, the one thing that stands between two brothers with as much power as these two brothers have, charles and david koch and two brothers with as much of these two have, my nephews in chicago. In theory these two sets of brothers in the United States should have the same access to justice, the same access to education or employment, at least 2 voting and science is the equalizer that neutralizes the size of the megaphone of the brothers on the left side of the screen and gives opportunity to the brothers on the right. This is based in core ideas that date back to the founding of the United States, Thomas Jefferson said wherever people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government. There is the crux of thee problems we are running into. If you have ever been to the library of congress you willth have seen Thomas Jeffersons library that was recreated there with its round bookcases that contain virtually the entirety of Human Knowledge and he had read all those books, he was a scientist and an attorney like Francis Bacon was. That was a possible idea, the well informed voter. What happens now . Nearly a quarter millennium later when science has continued to advance, it is not possible for one person to know even a fraction of all there is to know. How do we have well informed voters that are able to govern themselves successfully in a democracy in the age dominated by complex science and technology . That is the rub we are bumping up against. In order to come up with this idea for democracy, to convince other enlightenment nations to not intercede in the revolutionary war jefferson reached for the greatest thinking of what he called his trinity of three greatest men to come up with an argument that would convince him to stay out, thinkingng of isaac newton, inventor at the time of physical is that a man may imagine things that are false but can only understand things that are true. This is part of where we get into trouble today because if you take out your cell phone and turn it over and unscrew the screws there are no philips screws on the back, it is hard to have knowhow, hard to understand things that are true when science and technology have become so complex that it is difficult for the average person to break them down. A generation ago you could sit down at your Kitchen Table and make a radio. That is no longer true of cell phones. At the moment, cell phones, which like flying brooms are made by people far away wearing robes and uttering strange incantations, the moment science becomes indistinguishableis fro magic we become vulnerable to disinformation campaigns because science by its nature must become in a way a function of belief. What dodo you believe in . Scientists believe in journals and the peer review process. Even those are vulnerable as we have seen lately from certain for profit journals and journals for higher. Jefferson next turned to Francis Bacon. A scientist and an attorney, the attorney general is thought to circumscribe the power of the king, the monarch, and he worked hard to build a lot of the core ideas jefferson relied on in creating democracy and he said what a man would rather were true he more readily believes which is one of the reasons he worked hard to create inductive reasoning and the method we came to call western science drawing on muslim scholars that worked on developing observational based science before that. He saw that as a way to guard against confirmation bias, tendency t to see what we want the environment and instead of starting like dick hart did from the top down, our thinking, i think therefore i am, start with nature and see what nature has to say and confirm your observations there and build up from that and then jefferson turned to a man conservatives appreciateff these days, john locke. Aside from his conservative by todays standards credentials was seeking to solve a problem. He looked at all the factions of protestantism that had broken down and arguing with one another who had the true path to god. He decided there must be a way to know what is real, what is knowledge versus as he called it face or opinion. He kno came up with three tests intuitive knowledge, things like 2 2 equals 4, or here we go, 2, 2, put them together, four, you can see it intuitively. There is no arguing with it. The next firmest form of knowledge is demonstrative,xt a feather and a penny fall at different rates. Put them in a vacuum tube, suck out the air and they fall at the same rate. Therefore i conclude air has an effect on the way gravityy acts on these different objects. I built that up from intuitive knowledge. Made a deduction or induction, did an experimentf and created demonstrative knowledge and his third but sensitive knowledge. I smell arose, look around for a rosebud might be deceived because i i might smelling perfume. Sensitive knowledge or common sense was the least reliable form of knowledge the kind that most often deceived us, the weakest. Anything that fell short of these was opinion. Anyone could argue about it much like we have factions in the political sphere arguing with one another now that science has begun to break down in society. Finally to. Guard against that every argument should be argued in a way similar to a mathematical theorem, bringing the mind to the source at which it bottoms and that is what jefferson sought to do in writing the declaration of independence because his life hung on it and it was these ideas that led to the core functioning idea that the United States which was if anyone can discover the truth for him or herself using the tools of reason and science been no pope, no monarch, no wealthy lord has any more authority to govern us than we do ourselves and that was an argument to support the new form of government called democracy. Without science the United States would not have been here so our whole system is dependent on this kind of thinking. Jefferson himself fell into common traps in thought that we all fall into. This kind of thinking is not intuitive, it is difficult. Here is an early draft of the declaration of independence and you will notice in the top of the second paragraph he wrote we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal. That doesnt sound quite right. What he was doing his fell into mistake of thinking and appealed to the divine. We hold these truths to be sacredut and undeniable. The moment he did that he opened the United States, the argument up to anyone who had a different faith to argue no, theres was thesa more sacred and undeniabl truth. They have greater authority. He violated john lockes idea of knowledge. Benjamin franklin was the leading scientist at the time, took a look at the draft, gave it to him and franklin made those edits. That is franklins handwriting, the word self evident which he was quoting from david hume. This edit is arguably the most important edit in the history of the United States because it circumscribed democracy as a secular form of government independent of and nonjudgmental towards religion. It did not make a religious appeal or judge. In jefferson avenue thinking democracy had a virtuous example. It began with some governance issue, that we would turn to the educated and informed from whom we would draw congress and Commission Scientific research as jefferson did with the lewis and clarke expedition to build knowledge about that issue and based on that Knowledge Congress would debate the best policy response. That is the way it was supposed to work but what has been happening over the last 40 to 50 years and i will show you why, that process instead of that, vested interest seek to provide alternative theories to children and propagandaat to adults. For instance seeking to teach not evolution but creationism is the way human beings came to be. Based on that instead of turning to Scientific Research to build knowledge we turn to authority and ideology for knowledge. As much as representative shimkus was when he was waving that scientific report. The best policy based on that knowledge debated on dogma. That is a formula for transforming democracy into authoritarianism. At that point, who writes the dogma . The person with the biggest megaphone. Instead ofd turning to knowled that any one of us citizens can generate we turn to received wisdom from those already in authority. This is not a conservative or progressive problem in specific. Science is not partisan. But science is always political. That is an important distinction to keep in mind. The reason is science creates knowledge and knowledge is power because it gives the ability to act in the real world, to change the world. When you do thatat you are goin disrupt confirm or somebodys vested interest. Also new knowledge about an issue, when and how life begins causes us to refine our moral, ethical policy code to respond to the new knowledge andnd thats a political process, and the ideological disruption will see that those are driving what we are experiencing right now. Instead of the left right think of politics as a plane with a left right continuing between leftwing and rightwing, or also a topdown continuum between antiauthoritarian, science is never partisan because it is conservative and progressive. The scientists will always research what has been established before the tradition before they publish on something or embarrass themselves but they are always going to be open to the frontier where new knowledge is happening. That is how you make your career. You have to be both. It is decidedly antiauthoritarian occupation. Show me the evidence and i will judge for myself. Science takes a position politically but not in a partisan way you think about american politics in terms of this, it is possible to imagine there is a liberal conservative. In fact there once were and there probably still are. So used to hearing about these things that opposite ends of the spectrum but liberal really means open to evidence, open to exploration and conservative is not exclusive of that. I would argue going to american politics and the Republican Party is more its argument over authoritarianism and the rise of authoritarianism and those who view policy is being dictatedliy authoritarian sources and those who dont this isnt just happening on Climate Change vaccines or evolution. It is happening on a wide range of topics that are emerging because of emerging science. With all these blue lines, this represents facebook connections. Ok connections the great fireball of china. That we might as well represent in those federal loan incurred geographically constraint at the same time. With a vastly increasing number of scientists working in the last 13 or 40 years so now we have a vast increase of scientist and quality will be creating as much new knowledge as we have since the beginning of the scientific revolution. A if you think about that and income about the issues in the slide and how many of our patz scientific discovers have engine at thed large political discussions and conflict and gridlock because of the moral and ethical or economic disruption they posed we could be in for a very rocky next half century. And we certainly need to find a new system, a better system, incorporating complex scientific information into our policy dialogue in a democracy. The system is starting to break down and we need to find a new strategy. Be so the question emerges, are the people still well enough informed to be trusted withth their own government . This picture works particularly well with both science. You need them both. This guy is going to be voting on all these issues. And it becomes easy to see that we have an issue with outrage, with education, with that wellinformed voter. Judging from congress there they are, working hard on their laptops the answer is probably not. The 535 members of congress, there are only 11 of them that have a professional background in science. According to the Congressional Research survey. Acco one microbiologist, one physicist, one checkist, and icr eight engineers. Some of the pure scientists mike take issue with the engineers, randy, sorry, but im not going the. Except for a cheap joke. By comparison, how many do you suppose are lawyers . Who mostly ducked science classes in college. Huh . 400 . Wow. We got in cynics in this audience here. But youre not far off sadly. Its 211 or 40 . 40 of congress are attorneys. Now, this is important because attorneys approach problems prof fact a different way. They use science, of course, but dont start from the ground up and see where the evidence leads. They start with a predetermined conclusion they seek to convince you of and then selectively use the science that supports that conclusion. And that certainly research all the other science so theying are argue against it. That becomes a problem when more and more issues have vast inputs of knowledge from science. These people are not necessarily well equipped to make the best decisions in that case. I especially since congress has abolished its science advisory body. Defunded. Should be fair. But it has not come back in 20 years. And that is an issue only to the extent that members now rely on lobbyists and the internet. Fortunately those two sources always tell the truth so well possibly be okay. But to the extent they dont, were in trouble. So, where is this battle coming from . In order to understand that we first really need to understand what it driving it in society because those are the action points where antiscience campaigns can move people. So lets take a quick look at the line of u. S. Science politics. Im talking about the emotional movements here. The Public Attitude about science, and the lines are redus and blue for a reason. A little over 100 years ago science was really quickly commercialized, new technology was developed. A lot of engineering was done based on science, and vast fors were made. So a support of great economic pride, jobs, american cando attitude and enjoyed aside from certain democrats like williams generalization brian, who campaigned against evolutioa for destroying the moral underpinnings of society. Otherwise most people have favorable Attitudes Towards Science because of this. Then something happened around 1945. With the explosion of the atomic bomb, and that led the United States into a great moral reflection in the immediate postar years with a lot of even military generals talking about how they thought we had become intellectual giants but moral w and ethical infants. S. Theres a lot of discussion about whether or not we had overstepped our ability to selfgovern, with our ability ty technologize, and who we had made a big mistake. Additionally there was a lot of fear that began to happen, particularly in 1949 after the soviet unioning untilled their atom bomb, and the possibility this could boomerang back and haunt and kill our population, began to haunt a lot of americans and theres a generation, many of you in this rhyme recall the duck and cover movies and growing up with the idea you could be annihilated at any moment. That fear krisalizeed in 19 a 57 with the launch of sputnik, and for the first time, the idea that we should have a peacetime investment in science was finally funded, and the National Science foundation received money and began to Fund Government science in peacetime. This also led to a big race, not just a space race but a science race, in order to beat thee soviets to the moon and to establish american dominance. Now, this is not just a science objective. This is a political objective that kennedy set, using the tools of science to defend democracy as he apprehended they really stood to do. But something very interesting happened at that point in time. Nsf, another government granting agencies had to develop methods of judging Grant Applications, and otherwise you cant just grant taxpayer money willynillt and if you send it to somebody who has a goofball Grant Application you could open up the whole program to a lot of criticism and political problems. So it was fraught with danger in a lot of ways, so they delved reasonably and rationally a of judging Grant Applications that were judge bid other scientist. But what they didnt do in the school of unintended consequences is provide for the same level of Public Engagement that scientists had had to make before then. In the years prior to that, for instance, people like jedwin hubble, the cost nothingist, travel around the country talking about what he had soonoy through the telescope on the of of mt. Will wilson this type of public edge georgia gaugement with casino had lasted 50 years. And scientist did not node to engage with the public in the same way in order to get much of their funding. Much of the started funneling through university, tenure system domed and also did not value public outrange and had strong disincentives againstvesi public outrage so science became more silent in this period, unexceptionally and for good reason, but with some consequences that we are now living with. Around the same time, the post war period, saw a lot of other changes, too. Particularly in the application of other technologies that were developed during the war. For instance, the you of ddt which protected soldiers in Pacific Island from malaria, was broadly used throughout the United States then, and this broad use of chemicals in the environment led to silent bring . 1962. The birth of Environmental Science and the environmental movement, in a lot of ways. Also she became a massive target of a Public Relations campaign by Chemical Companies and agroChemical Companies that parallelled in many ways attacks on climate scientist we see today. So, we saw a splitting off, really, of petroChemical Companies whose Business Models that had developed prior to the war and during the war, and that they were seeking to maintain the same level of production in peacetime now with these domestic applications, suddenly potentially being undermined by the new science that was coming out, started at that Rachel Carsons book, was the tip of the iceberg for. So we saw the beginning of the war against science. Ten yore later fundmentallists started seeing ox, raising ox to growing control over the human reproductive process. The pill had been out since 1960, roughly, and this cover of Time Magazine from 1978 talked about test tube babies babies ad religious consecutives were debating whether or not test tube in vitro babies would have souls to the extent we know so far they seem to have souls just like the rest of us. But the fundamentalist objection to origins scientist, whether the cosmos or us as human beings, was treading on gods turf. Ironic, since protestantism is where much of western science grew out of, that seems had somewhat come full circle. But the discomfort between the two groups picketer trough Chemical Companies and religious conservatives may start sounding familiar to you. In fact the digs between old industry and old religion on one side and science and environmentalists on the other side, came to define some of the basis of our modern Political Party structure as democrats and republican realign themselves reasons the issues. Today, antiscience is on the right is around the theme of creeping socialism. And its generally directed at Climate Change, evolution, reproduction, and recentry vaccines under two arguments. One is the hpv concern that eliminating the risk of Cervical Cancer is going to encourage young women to have sex, and the other is that thelyber tarean concern that the government doesnt have any business intruding on our bodies on the left its more about hidden dangers and some of this is quite justified but when it gets into antiscience its extending concerns in a way not supported by the evidence. Suspicion of mainstreamed sin or the idea that cell phones may cause brain cancer. Ick tell you based unifies seconds, chemistry and biology its physically impossible, of d that are vaccines may cause autism, that Waste Energy Plants are driving Climate Change, that emf pollution is making you sick or that flowerwide in water poisons you, and that genetically modified croppers are unsafe to eat. There are other political issues around gmo whether or not companies should control a genome or the road use of pesticide. Gm oui is not an ingredient of food. Just another way of breeding. In fact, interesting side note for those who dont know, you can bombard seeds with cancercausing chemicals and radiation, process called mute to genesis in order to get them to change genetically, and then you can plant those resulting changed plants and you can call that organic. So, food for thought. The motivation on the right is largely antiregulation, antireproductive control and procorporate. On the left the motivation is proper environment, prochoice, and anticorporatism. Sounding familiar . The theme on the right is liberal scientists want to control your life and limit your freedom. M. Cour life so really about ultimate is individualism. And on the left its doctors, growedy corporations and hide the interesting thing is that since nsf scientist have largely not participated in the public dialogue. Its mostly happen among people who are not working scientists. So this is occurring across the mark battlefield. Identity politics war on science being fought on universities ands ologial wore on science being fought by fundamentalth lists and an industrial war on scientists fought by corporations who dont like what science suggests about their profit structure. Lets take quick brief looks at the three of them and then get to a couple solutions then well have ha conversation and participate with you. The first is the identity t politics war on science which now out, again, post war, about the idea that all truth is subjective and we should have suspicion of metta narratives, and metta narratives are essentially stories that groups in power spin in order to retain power, and science is just one of those metta narratives. Science is, therefore, just another way of knowing. Equivalent with indigenous knowledge or alternative medicine or any other way of knowing that we have. Now, the problem with this thinking is that science itself really is a method that is designed to strip what is true out of all of those individual sources of bias that postmodernism emphasizes. What away from racial i identity, able from cultural or sexual for police cal or religious identity so we rave at the kernel that is science goes not to us but to nature and thats where the humanities departments being depolessed by the science departments got ity wrong when they started arguing that science was subjective, and thats where thomas coon got it wrong and humanity departments still point to thomas coop. I have a trend who triches screen writing at a universe and was sitting in a classroom because he is on the Tenure Committee, and he observed her, sitting in the back, and she was telling the students that we cant know for sure that the earth goes around the sun. W foru and he walked up to her afterwards and he said, hate to trying to draw them out and get them to engage and be provocative. She said, no, we cant really know that. How can be foe the earth guess havent you read tom that coon . Structure of scientific revolution. All politics. He went to the Tenure Committee and said, you know, i cant vote for this person because she is disseminating nonsense and not wellequipping people to be good citizens of democracy. How can i support her . And they considered it and they backed her up because we cant know, according to them whether the earth goes around the sun. So this is not a fantasy. This is happening in manyy universities across the country right now. But its decidedly wrong and thats where these professors have become confused and lay down a philosophical groundwork as being taken advantage of by disinformation campaigns with shouldnt believe anything unless its supported by evidence. One area where this is a really coming to fruition is in journalism where Journalism Schools for the last two generation have taught theres no such thing as objectivity. Now, that may be good may be a good idea to embrace your own bias to acknowledge that to not say im writing with a voice of objectivity when doing an earl. And its important to disempower voices because the more perspectives on a probable hem that science has the more likely it is to arrivety truth because its been tested from a variety of different points of view. Thats not the same thing as saying theres no such thing as objectivity. Here is in the voice of san diego new reporter guidelines. Theyre one of many, many,s who do the same thing but there it is. No such thing as objectivity. Even nick gillespie, the editor of vague theres no such thing as objectivity. So we have problem when journalists belief this. How can they drill down and get objective facts and truth of something. To are we devolving into a prejohn lock eray all different parties are warring with one anotherll with equal claims on what is true and not true, its only a matter of ones opinion. Thats just your opinion we hear often on the news. Here it is illustrated in journalism. Journalists will say im a generalist. Im not an expert on anything. There are always two sides to every story. I seek truth but i also seek balance and i seek in order to present a balanced story i will get two different points of view. Ill talk to a scientist, and ill talk to somebody standing in the corner and see what they think, and its the more dynamis story if they dent agree tremendous idea is that somehow youll flush out the truth in that process. Fl but it doesnt work that way if youre equating somebody speaking with knowledge on the one hand and some you yahoo with an opinion or worse a very informed person seeking to convince you of the rightness of their opinion that is contradicted by the evidence. So, journalists say theres always two sides to every is to be. Bob sis two plus two is fours. Julie says two plus two is six. The controversy ranges. Rs they sell up nos. The scientist will say most times one side is objectively wrong. Even though the reporter says, well, jowlly might have legitimate reins for her perspective. Scientists will sea i can somehow you with four amendment that possible is clearly right. Doesnt matter how julie feels about it. And then you have politics. How about a compromise . We get a new law saying that two plus two equals five. And thats american politics inn a nutshell these days. The problem with this is that it is reliant on the journalistic practice of false balance. This equation on a half of a screen of a scientist speaking with the accumulated experience of thousands of scientist conducting tens of thousands off experiments, working sometimes with billions of data points, representing all that knowledge to the public so that they can make an informed Public Policy decision, and the other half of the screen you have somebody that is highly motivated to convince the public of the rightness of their position and there are probably much more articulate at it pause the bar for them, they feel, is high sore they work as hard as they can to be convincing as possible. What that does in our Public Policy die dialogue excuse are it excuses the dialogue to more extreme positions by driving usway from what is supported by evidence and knowledge and providing a voice to knowledge that or to opinion that is not supported by knowledge. All right. Weve got the ideological war on science which journalists often fail to take on pause of this concern about balance or about selling newspapers. This, too, in its modern form, began in the postwar period. The ideological conflicts with science date back to galileo and the priest that refused to even look through his telescope to see the evidence that he was pointing to and talking about. But here, after the russians detonated their bomb in 1949, billy graham took at the toe the road and took to the road and talking about how society was going through a moral nosedive, how were elevating man and were taking god off of his stool and society was beginning to crumble because of it. And it was all due to science. At the same time we, as science advanced, a decade later we had television and a lot of evangelicals saw this as a great opportunity to exercise the commission of matthew to go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations and take advantage of the new medium of television to convert poem tee advantage limp and to encourage them to run for office, to instill evangelical values in democracy. So, james dotson declared the 1990s the beginning of a civil war on values and recently the other day, franklin graham, Billy Grahams son, was preparing in st. Paul, on themmp capitol, encouraging people to run for Public Office if they were pro life and against gay marriage. He said society is in a moral nosedive. Virtually echoing his fathers words from 1949. So some things have not change in the relationship between fundamentalists and science. Then theres an industrial war on science which journalists also fail to take on. In the industrial war on science tends to be about regulations. A regulation where science has provided us with some information thats been comerrallized the some way or another, and then about ten years down the road it provides new information saying, wait a minute, we have some unintended consequences here we got to regulate this. S. The business is built up on that older science, dont like that, and seeks to protect their profit model and we wind up with science fighting science. So, there are always the different expects of regulation where we see attacks by industry on scientists and on the known science in these particular areas, and in a few others. For example in 1968 Stanford Research institute, now become a private research inconstitute, was largely serving Economic Development for corporations, they actually did a study for the American Petroleum institute, final report, talking about how significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000, and they could bring about climatic changes. This is 1968. Id say the nailed it pretty well. The Petroleum Companies were members of the American Petroleum institute knew about this at that point in time. In 1990s also the kyoto protocol was being discussed to limit Carbon Emissions a number of Oil Companies and other activists in that same vein, Public Relations firms and others, got together and created the Global Science Communications action plan. And they laid out what in 1998 what has now become a series of very familiar talk point wes hear over and over. Emphasizing, as you see here, uncertainties. Calling into question the validity of viewpoints or supporting the validity of viewpoints that challenge the commercial wisdom. Theres moral uncertainties. And appearing to making mainstream science appear to be out of touch with reality. To the extent that we can cause a controversy, we can take advantage of the belief that debate is health but if one side of the debate is informed by college the other is informed by opinion or some other motivation, its not a fair fight. Not an evenhanded debate. Journalists, of course, feed into this because of their focus on balance, and thats why it was developed that way. In 2008 we noticed the paucity of discussion of big science issues and im coming towards the end here. By these top five tv news anchors. Matthew chapman,my co founder of science tee bait four other people and i noticed this, and at that point in time these five has conjected 171 different vied for the then candidates for president and asked them nearly 3,000 questions. How many do you suppose mentioned the words Global Warming or Climate Change. The biggest economic and environmental question. Any guesses . Ten . I heard member else. Two . Another cynic, youre stealing all my material. Six. It was six. To put that in perspective, there were three questions about ufos. That the seriousness the National Press corps placed on the issue youve think thats 2008. We have come a long way, right . We just had the paris climate accords. 159 Different Countries came together for the first time to begin rebuilding the International Economy and moving us slowly off of carbon. In the week following, the democrats and the run republics both had president ial debates. One on cnn, one on abc. How many question dozen you suppose the journalists asked them in the Republican Debate about Climate Change . Zero. Right. But how many do you suppose citied in the democratic debate . One . Two, five . Zero. Zero. So we really havent made much progress in the enter sleeping years, particularly when it comes to journalists and their ideas about contentious issues that have political ramifications put that are nevertheless driven and informed by the evidence. Science. The foundation of democracy. And yet we cant talk about it. I dont care what party youre with. If we dont base our decisions on evidence were shooting ourselves in the foot because nature doesnt care what party we are. This is a worldwide hoax and the primary target is you, the people of the United States of america, Rush Limbaugh says, james inhofe says its a hoax. Itsman making industry, says donald trump. Its a hoax a lot of it. 1920, germany, similar comments were made. Rightwing relativity theories attacking albert eye einsteins theory as a big hoax, and jewish science. These are terms commonly used by authoritarians when they seek to convince people that the wool is being pulled over their eyes and everybody believes the way i do and this is a big hoax. This world is a strange madhouse, einstein wrote a friend. Arch openman and waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. This is based on party affiliation. Sound familiar . Part four. Winning the war. The book has several battle plans and i wont go into all of them in detail here. ll just skip over the surface of a couple of them. The first and most important thing is to realize, science is not partisan. No matter ones party affiliation, the great equalizer in democracy was evidence from science and assertions against science are made usually by people whose position is not supported by the evidence. Theyre, therefore, author tear yip. I suggest we look at the National Science center to promulgate policy, develop legal theory and models that protect democracy and encourage a more robust democracy in an age when science is having huge inputs into our policies. Retraining the media and proevidence journalism and holding them to account as far as media matters for america does by developing important met distribution on skewed Public Policy reporting in the media. To provide that important back pressure on the media, to consider evidence as part of balanced reporting. As a friend of mind, don shelby says, he is a pea body and emmy winning newsmaker, really baseballed reporting, is what he tells reports, you imagine it not as a. And b. But as a set of scales and you report on the side of the story that has a preponderance of the evidence, weight of the evidence on that side. Theres a lot to do we reforming granting bodies but requiring and funding five percent on lab outreach i would be a good start so we build in more science communication for the health of democracy, for the robustness of democracy, into the process, because its fine to extend science way out on narrow hims but if we are not bringing the rest over society with us were creating a gap that creates a weakened science enterprise. Make knowledge more accessible and integrated. Get it out of some of the journals and into a vast online journal that is broadly searchable. Create model bills to tackle science denial and the misof shareholder value being the soul determinant of corporate performance, theres frankly no law that requires corporations to strictly maximize share holder value, as the Supreme Court recently stated in an opinion. Focus on process versus outcomes in education. This is so important because it teaches people how to think and how to make that leap from, sure, its fine to question everything, but then what do you replace it with . You have to good with evidence, not the opinion of your best friend or political cohort. Faith leaders. Actually i encourage them that they join the aaas and equipment their flocks to live in the modern age of science. We have immense, complex science and engineering issues facing us. They all have finally tuned moral and ethical components that pastors could actually have fascinating discussions, helping people navigate this complex new world were living in. Coordinating science and the scientific enter press with disempowered groups because science equates to civil rights. Its the foundation of the idea of civil rights, and theres not enough of up emotional and political unemotional and political and refuting the myth of nonindependent self. The idea my own actions are the only thing i node to take into account. One last step is, again, as i said, sign on, support science debate. Org. This was a project created by six people that went viral within weeks had 40 some thousand scientists and engineers sign on and transform the Science Enterprises relationship with politics in the way that certain people think about it. A couple hundred universities, dozens of nobody bell laureates, companies, calling for candidates to talk about these things because if we get them in the public discussion, then we can trust in this beautiful process of democracy that we have developed, to vet these ideas, this thinking, and move them forward. Science debate. Org in 2008 and 2012 held online exchanges between president obama and his opponents, senator mccain and governor romney, anyone the two evident wes made nearly two billion media impressions in newspapers and Online Publications in news reports robe the world, mostly in the United States, creating coverage of these issues that hadnt and probably wouldnt have been discussed where are it for this issue. So, it really is true that old adage that a small group of determined individuals can change the world. In fact president obama quoted our Mission Statement in his inauguration speech and appointed several of our earliest and most are depth supporters to ardent supporters to his cabinet. So, again, science debate. Org. In 1948, Albert Einstein sent a desperate tell gram out tell gram to supporters that they needed to support a new change in our die local between dialogue between americas relationship with science, and argued everything has changed, save our ways of thinking. I would suggest that were still dealing with the same question. So thank you for listening. Well have a discussion now. [applause] i should also say that the tv crew, when it comes to q a theyll bring around a microphone not tied into the audio and pathway system in the room but a its so they can pick up your question so please work with them on that and speak loudly. We should explain the presence of tv cameras and all that as well. This is being videotaped for booktv, which is a cspan production. So, the microphones are going to feed into the audio feed for that program. Okay. You have raised a lot of questions. Im i ive been doing science policy my whole contrary, i was head of science policy at triplea s before coming here to gw and a lot of these questions are familiar. Youre not a scientist. How did you get into this business . I started out as a scientist and then got interested in policy and pursued that. But i look at your resume, and where is this interest in science . Im a bit of an odd duck that way. I studied a combination of things, physic, neuroscience and psychology in college. Wrote my own degree at a School Called Mcallister College where you could do that. And maintained an interest in it, although a lot of my heroes were writers and i just wanted to be a writer. I pursued that, but i became known in hollywood as somebody would write about science, and matthew chapman, cofounder of science debate. Org and happens to be Charles Darwins greatgreat grandson is a screen writer, wrote runaway injure and a directow, and we were up for adapting the biography of Albert Einstein and then the hollywood writer strike came along and we were all without work and we had time on our hands and were frustrated by the low quality of the political discussion at that it point in time, and how the candidates werent talking about any of this science, tech, health, environmental challenges were days, and those have as large an impact as economic challenges or Foreign Policy challenges on everybodys daily lives so we decide to ted try to do something about it, which led us down a very twisty rabbit hole. Okay. So, have written this book titled the war on science and described it its bit but sound to me like the term way for on science suggests an organized opposition. Are we science advocates facing an organized opposition to science or is this just coming from quarters as you described, industry and rightwing politics. Its both. Its both. It is organized particularly the industrial war on science. Theres a Large Network of grassroots, front groups being funds by the energy industry, that follow a fairly prescribed strategy that i lay out in the book, and for instance, americans for prosperity, one of them founded by essentially the Koch Brothers is four times the size of the Republican Party. So, they carry enormous weight in the american political conversation, these days, and have a specific objective theyre pushing. Why do you suppose theyre doing this . What is their stake in this business. If youre an oil company Climate Change is an exextension shall issue and these days witch 17 attorneys general going after energy companies, investigating hem and whether or not they did in fact know that carbon products, fossil fuels were causing Climate Change in the 60s and 70s and set about disinformation campaigns to defraud investors and the public, its very much an execs stenshall issue. I was increased by your raising the issue of false balance. I see these myself. How do you teach journalist that this is not the way to serve the Public Interest . Its a big problem. Journalist is a generalist. Theyre not an expert in anything. And so they would in some ways be irresponsible by portraying their reportage as objective when its not. They have to acknowledge their biases. But at the same time, where theyre falling down, as i point out to them whenever i have the opportunity, is failing to consider the weight of the work of evidence, and they need to balance their reporting by telling a story that is most supported by thed and some people i point to that do this very well in the become. For instance, i talk with stephanie kurtis, the producer of a problem called climatecast, which is distributed in several markets around the country because its the only weekly radio show that actually gets goes in depth in Climate Change and doesnt get caught in details whether its happening or not. Turnouts that once you get past the biggest level political question the whole world opens up as far as the fascinating questions you can get into about how el nino affects lake inside the midwest or weather patterns and how we should be preparing for coming changes. So its actually an approach that could make meteorologists, for instance, into am can core level positions and could vastly increaser their importance to their viewership because theyre providing real solid information that people need to know. This is a more speculative kind of question. How do you think future scientific developments are likely to affect the war on science and the on opposition to the war on science, and to expand on that, is there a way to promote science in a direction that will help in fighting this war on science . Yeah. Well, one line that has to do with short circuiting democracy in order to for for stall or curtail regulation or bills that will affect your business or your bottom line. So usually involves Public Relations campaigns in order to paralyze the process or get people to vote one way or another and to provide them with quoteunquote science that is cherry picked that can challenge the traditional mainstream science. The other is the issue when science presents us with a moral quandary or with an area that we need to, as knowledge advances, to refine our moral and ethical understanding that always carries the debate and always engenders concern from religious conservatives who often are biblical litterralis and dont like the idea of scientists telling us what to do. Thats inextruding on gods territory. The most fascinating area is the emergence of knowledge in neuroscience and what that says about free will, and the enter relationship between neuroscience and computer science, because if people have only limited agency and we can define when they do and dont have agency and what the limits are, what does that say about our legal system and about Holding People accountable for their actions . So i think there are a lot of very interesting moral and ethical and legal and policy questions well be getting into the next few years. There is just one example. Very good. I think thats a good point at which to open this up to questions from the audience and i see one immediately and i see ay over here with microphone on a wand. Thank you for your presentation, this certain lay very good lecture but i think the war on science basically we change the war on science to justice and fairness. We chang the substitute this word and your political system will be whether you are republican or democrat. So, you said Public Comment and the problem with the forprofit corporation, whether that individual or whether thats a Koch Brothers, the important thing is they use in their debate. So everything is really in terms who get the most money whether from the consumer or whether from the government, so it really can substitute in if you see they want to level him mental ill instead of the is a great scientist. So if we just change the worth. Justice and the fairness and the whole thing we want to debate. So, people are thats a real request good observation. Important to our people to stand up. Dont allow them to control the microphone. A lot of people to speak. Thank you. Thank you. It is about justice, absolutely, and science is by creating evidence that is impartial is of course the foundation of not only our Justice System but our political system as well. And so i think that the emphasis on justice is actually a very good suggestion. Thank you. Let me remind you that these are questions and in a question your voice rides at the excepted ended with a question mark. So, it should be no more than a short paragraph. Okay. Im really sorry we cant the microphone is not feeding into the pathway system here. Im just sorry that whole listic medicine and genetically modified organisms were swept into some of what i would agree is really antiscience, where evidence is denied, but i would like to know what youre basing that on because as a medical researcher, and a social scientist, i found that medical research did not meet social science standards, often apples and oranges were mixed together and yet the authors claim to have a definitive finding, say, about agent low very low sis when they looked at plasma exchange, medications, very sick patients and still claimed to have a finding, and one last example would be the nihs examination of vitamin c under pressure but then they said, were not going to look any further back than 1982. Social science tries to be as exhaustive as possible so you dont miss anything. So, what research did you use to lock holistic medicine as an antiscience. Okay. So, i think if i understand it right the question is, what research did i use to lump holistic medicine as an antiscience. I dont think i said holistic, i think i said alternative. If you mean homeopathy, there is no Scientific Evidence to show that homeopathy works. If you when youre talking about genetically modified food, a lot of people are thinking that genetically modified means some additional ingredient that we are adding to it or Something Like that, and all it is is a more precise form of plant breeding in it is safer in some ways than prior breeding methods. But where it gets into trouble, i think, and where there is a politically important issue is how its genetically modified and for what purposes. If its genetically modified to save the papaya or prevent blindness, then those are good purposes that, like any tool science is a tool, remember that serve humanity. If its genetically modified to make plants withstand herbicides and insecticides that are borrowing from the environment by creating other problems, then generally theres probably going to be some unintended con generalses and were seeing that and i talk about that in the book with the emergence of super wheats. So, its a danger to broadly say that all gmo is banned to eat which is often argued by those in the organic food movement, for instance. That not true. There is a political legitimate controversy about how its applied. Over here. Then the gentleman next to you. My question and it its a question has to diseducation. How do we start . Im concerned about not only in College Campus odd trigger warnings and things that students get they dont want to be upset, yet if youre going to truly learn, learning is fundamentally dangerous in my opinion. Where do we start so that children and young peoples minds are prepared are open to receive information that might be controversial, because i think that is the key to ending the war on science. Right. Yeah. Good question. One of the things that when i talk to teachers i talk about process a lot, and about different techniques you can use. When youre teaching Young Students you want to create cognitive dissidence, you want to elevate their level of concern so theyre engaged, and then science shows theyre actually receptive to new information because its a solution to the problem or answer to a question they raised themselves in anywhere own mind. Well, what better tie raise concern than to talk about politically contentious science issues. Now, administrations often are uncomfortable around that, but student science debates are a fantastic tool. One that i often talk about. Taking politically contentious topics surrounding science, for instance, making an assertion, vaccines cause autism, or that Climate Change is humancaused or not humancaused. Something like that. And then assigning students to research both sites of the question but not telling them which side theyre going to debate until the day of, which case you flip a consistent. This students learn for themselves some of the more interesting differences between rhetorical arguments or Public Relations arguments and actual science. And theyre equipped on both sides and kind of learn the difference. So thats one interesting tool thats actually a lot of fun that doesnt have the teacher responsible for taking a position if the administration is uncomfortable about it. Another one i like to do is working with students on the fundamental questions, like is something alive or not alive . My wife used to be a Science Teacher and she would use a unit to explore this with air ferns, which if you know im not going to tell you whether air ferns are alive or not. But theyre like viruses in that it is a fascinating area to begin to explore some of the fundamental questions about life and the universe, and if you can engage students in that, and where the answer is not readily apparent and there are some twists and turns, you can capture their imagination in a way that i think is very important, because its not about rejudger tasting the right answer which is not what is. Its about big ideas were step grappling with. Im an engineer and my band i had a competent and a couple questions. The comment was the people that need to read your book arent going to read your book, so that kind of leads me to my first question, which is, what can we do about it . And i think you answered the education piece perfectly. Of you get students engaged and thats a great way forward, but beyond student engagement, what does your book recommend that we do about it . The second question is, just dishll ask the second question in a minute, but okay. First, let me apologize for the wisecrack about engineers at the top of the talk. I was just having fun. But are predisposed in one perspective about, say, Climate Change and going to assume this is a book about Climate Change, which is not, although it has a chapter deal withing the industrial war on fines which is often fought on the climate front now. They arent going to pick it up. But their family members might, their friends might, members of the media, certainly hope will. And by equipping people with some tools to think about this, and to think about the to be reminded what they may have known and forth get toen about the fundamental role of evidence and science in democracy. I think well give those people tools to begin to change the conversation, to at least feel equipped to challenge some of the pithy talking points that are being provided on a daily basis to the other side. I guess my other question was just what is the next book going to be . Well, im actually im exploring a topic right now that is pretty facinating to me about bear bile and about which was discovered by a guy at university of minnesota, and it slows or stops cell on to sis and its an amazing chemical compound that is manufactured in our guts and appears in very high levels in bear bile. For a variety of reasons, even though its kind of a wonder drug that can treat parkinsons, and als and all kinds of degenerative issues, health issues. Its not being produced because of the structure of our pharmaceutical system. Sounds like alternative medicine. Thats the fascinating part, it involves the chinese mafia. Bears are have been kind of their bile has been eaten and their gallbladders have been eating for 3,000 years in china. Yes, over here, and then in the back. How would you evaluate the work of journalists in places like the science science section of the New York Times and if i have found, as my name is stephanie and i try to be an informed layperson, and i have found many of their articles to be informative. What is your evaluation about, a. , how well do they do to combat disinformation and how well do they enter act with a journalists who may be that they avoid evidence. Id say the New York Times science section generally does a good job. The problem is there are so few science sections left. Less than seven percent of the National Association of Science Writers have positions in their field. Many of them have to work in other fields or work as science bloggers because newspapers have cut those sections by and large. My question is simple, what is the role of scientist in this war on science . That is a great question. It is simple. Because it is very important. The most important thing i think is to get out and be involved in the community and be out as a scientist. Because we need to reconnect that severed link between science and society. The best way to do that is by personal, emotional relationships. That is how people make many of their decisions and that is what influences many people in their thinking. Right now, polls show that the majority of americans cannot name a single living scientist, even though there are about 2 million working among us like zombies. You just touched on the topic i was going to ask you about. You said touching people emotionally and personally. Now, with your association in hollywood, why not have sexy tv shows that are all connecting the dots scientifically and getting the people to be associated with it. Them in their homes, do it emotionally because look at what has been happening politically recently. That is a great idea. The National Academy of sciences and engineering actually has a program called the science and entertainment exchange. They work to do just that. They provide scientist as Science Advisors to films and tv shows so they get the science right. They also have an alter your motive i think by forming those relationships between producers, writers, scientist so they see that scientists are actually somewhat generally cool people who are interested in a lot of things. Often multi talented and not a dry, boring asexual asexual people talking in a monotone. So i think it is having a positive effect although still hollywood has a hard time with science. We have to face that. It is it is hard for them to do comedies without making fun of scientist, making them into either idiotic nerds or evil that is something that comes out of that two cultures divide. And we are still struggling with it right now. It is certainly something that i would like like to find a way to continue to make progress on. We have a hand here and one back there. So i have a strong interest in a future career in science policy. As i have begun to attract with people who advise congressmen on science issues, they are typically with a Public Policy or a Political Science background as well. So im wondering if you have perspective of if that should change more largely, what is internal to the process. He talks a lot about the external forces dividing people but internally how can we mend this relationship and what standing in the way . One thing that i tell scientists collier member of congress and ask if they have a science advisor. A lot of times they will say no. In which case, volunteer. Help them and say i will put together a team even. The thing about it is it doesnt matter what their Political Party is, you are providing them with the latest objective knowledge in partially. You are doing a great service. That is good no matter who the member is. The other thing that i try to encourages taken a nonpartisan approach. I talk in the book about a structural issue right now and the problem with the way that we do science advice in the United States, particularly the president ial science advisor which is appointed by the president and therefore is inherent in lee looked upon as biased by the opposing Political Party. Goodman provides a good example of how to do differently. He is the science advisor of new zealand. He made a great decision early on when he was asked to advise the Prime Minister he said i will only do it if i can equally advise the other side. Because i am there for the government and im speaking objectively. On the Prime Minister agree. They had a lot of problems with morbidity and their team population and drug abuse, lot of teen pregnancy, suicide rates, they commissioned him to form a team to get to the bottom of it and come up with policy solutions. Instead of putting together a team of stakeholders which would be basically a team of vested interests with their own bias coming together to see what the best biased compromise they could make is. He went to academics and scientists that researched the question impartially. It was peerreviewed about nationally and internationally and they came up with a number of recommendations. The fascinating thing was, through that process which is very transparent at the end of it the Prime Minister stood up and said, we do not know which of these recommendations are going to work because this is a new problem. There is not a lots of history on vent. But based on what we do know, these are the best recommendations and we were going to go forward with it. And he went on stage with it and they had tremendous support because of that. So the public i think is found that refreshing. That approach. So part of it is a conceptual approach to science advice that is very encouraging, but in the u. S. System as it is now, reach out in a matter of Political Party as a person and offered to serve. I know as a former republican congressman from michigan the tell that story as a personal story. He volunteers as a Science Advisors advisors and ended up as a member of congress. Yes. He is a terrific terrific guy, one of our earliest supporters. In the back. All of the way in the back. I just wanted to know if you felt it would be inevitable that science would actually win this war in the long run concerning, considering that the earth is finite, its resources is finite, population is exploding, the needs of the population are going to become thorny and it is going to demand Scientific Answers to resolve them and to make life on earth that much better for humanity and society. Yes, i will repeat it more broadly. His question is, because the finite limits of the planet whether ultimately science is going to win the war anyway just because we are bumping up against the limits with our increasing population and the limited pasture or limited appeal. I think to a certain extent that is true. There are a lot of people who question that. A couple of people i talk about question that pointing to how science has repeatedly broken that thinking by innovating ways to increase the productivity of the pasture of the bounded field. But i do think that there is a very strong argument to be made that we are facing a limiting factor. Whether science gets us to a sustainable solution i had of nature is the ultimate question. I think we would all like to manage our own sustainability instead of having nature manage it worse because i do not think that outcome is going to be a very pretty one. As a layperson, i guess my question is, i think it is hard, there are things that scientists make mistakes or they learn different things. And i think maybe this has to do just with reporting, but especially in the area of health or nutrition, there are claims that people make rather arrogantly. I do not know whether it is based on science or one of these other factors, but then people buy into that and it becomes a fad. And then pretty soon you are off to another thing. What it does is undermine peoples confidence in what they read about science and maybe this just gets back to how science is reported. I think you are absolutely right. What you are talking about particularly in the health and nutrition area, a lot of that, i would say about 95 of the science that you hears absolute crap. Its not really. Its not really science, a lot of it is industry funded phony science that takes advantage of journalism and journalists of course love to get nice lead and great headline. I outline a couple of cases where scientists have worked to expose this by, for instance doing a phony study about whether or not chocolate would help you lose weight. And using it technique called p hacking where you sample all kinds of different variables and then, with the advantage of complete hindsight you look through those variables are and you pick the one that is the typically significant that gives you a funny argument. So you have not actually done a doubleblind study at all. You are statistically manipulating it. Then you can say well it look like people who ate chocolate actually lost weight 10 faster. Of course youre going to sell a lot of chocolate bars and that is going to be on the cover of People Magazine or wherever. So it is a big problem, particularly particularly in the health and nutrition fields in popular press. This question addresses what i was leading up to. Who gets to decide what is the final word on what is scientifically established . On the cutting edge of things things are fuzzy, things go back and forth. I spent a career working in regulation of toxic substances. You have things that are bogus are things you may suspect are bogus of things that are not in dealing with epidemiology studies, their nature experiments and uncontrolled. They go go up and they go down. Its a mess. And going to the National Academies of science engineering and medicine, they can do a good job of going to experts and getting of balance of biases and all the rest. At the same time, science has gotten so complicated and so specialized that for a scientist in one area to make judgments about results in another is not easy. I think for instance this business about the gm. It is really, really hard to explain to an educated layperson who is convinced that. fg. Ecl much of this is driven by a certain focus on