Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The War On Science 20160918

Yes, sir. The number of the population. In part because people are springing back and forth between the sides. There is a famous john adams statement a third were loyalist and a third were in the middle. I think that is almost certainly on the loyalist too high. And probably too low on the patriots. And too low on the people in the middle. My best sense, i would say about a fifth of the American People are willing to make a pretty strong commitment to the union of the empire. Two fifths are willing to make a strong commitment to military resistance and ultimately to independence and that leads another two fifths of the population that are in the middle. Those proportions well have an flow over the course of the war but that loyalist fit will keep shrinking over time. They are so frustrated with british treatment and they are so often experienced being subject to severe punishment when they fail to protect them that they make the quite rational decision that if order is ever going to be restored in this category its can be done by the patriots and not the british. Thus the conclusion that most of the make. The patriot proportion grows. A lot of wavering people who are mostly going along with the patriots by the end of the war. How are the numbers . Talking about a populace into a half Million People. 500,000 of whom are enslaved. Most of those 500,000 if they get a choice to express themselves will support the british as a that is a lot of people. A lot of enslaved people are in situations they cant express themselves. Not all 500,000 runaway to the british thats just not possible. The highest estimates will say maybe 30,000. And i think its probably even lower than that. In large parts youve all of these cousins and so forth he cant get can get everybody out at once so you stay put. This is the last question. The title of your book is American Revolutions in the dates are 1750 to 1804 are they not only the revolution of independence but social revolutions religious revolutions can you kind of tell us which ones are you talking about. That is a great question. Why are the start dates that. Why the end date of 1804. Am i call it American Revolutions rather than just American Revolution. 1750 is for me to set the stage for colonial americas because the work doesnt just involve the british colonies along the atlantic seaboard it will involve the spanish colonies mexico, cuba, spanish colonies california and new mexico indirectly. It will also involve british colonies into the north that are not part of the United States. It will involve newfoundland so what is it there are 27 british colonies i think that is the number that i got from your book. So only half of them will reject the British Empire but they are the half with most of the people of british dissent it is the calling needs overwhelmingly that will revolt while the colonies of smaller populations more dependent upon maritime trade and protection will tend to stay loyal to the British Empire. Now the American Revolution is also talking about the coming of the haitian revolution and so im ending 1804 which is when haiti ends their war. If they set the precedent for a revolution of colonial liberation than the second shoe to drop is the french colony which will be haiti in 1804 because this is being done my enslaved people of african descent and a fair number of white people are going to be killed and that it actually ends up being very disturbing to the people who have come to be the leaders of the United States. They are appalled by this. And then contributes to every definition of the American Revolution as the orderly revolution. Something that perhaps only people in the United States were capable of. It is a great narrowing of the vision of a revolution that someone have back in 1776. It is a crystallizing moment for what does revolution mean in the americas and who is into is eligible in the eyes of american leaders. And i start was 1750 to set the stage for all of this. The second way is that it meant Different Things to different people within the Patriot Coalition and so Thomas Jefferson is gonna come out with a very different vision of what it was in should be in this consequences Alexander Hamilton did. There will be a very bitter politic trying to sort out whose vision of the revolution will be triumphant. And in the shorterterm jefferson certainly tramped there. But i think thats a discussion we are still having in our politics. As to what exactly did the founders intend and how can we best be true to that particular legacy. It turns out it was multiple legacies they gave us. We have to keep arguing about it. There are no Great British paintings of the American Revolution. There are paintings of victories against the french and the caribbean and the defense during the same timeframe of the mainly in the war in america. I want to thank alan there is can be a reception which i would encourage you all to attend i would also like you to let alan lead first so he can sign books for anyone who would be interested in purchasing a copy they are available upstairs on the balcony but please join me as he leaves the centerstage [applause]. Okay. Lets get started im a search professor here at the center for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington university which is where you are now. I want to welcome you on behalf of our center and the center for science and democracy they are cosponsoring this event together with George Washington university. Our speaker here is an awardwinning science advocate. He is a man of many talents he is quite an impressive guy. R and a writer, a teacher in the speaker and he is the cofounder of science debate for which he received the usa National Distinguished Public Service award. He is a novelist and a filmmaker. His novel sins of our father which is a literary thriller was a finalist in the la times book a price in his film the house of sand and fog which is something i saw several years ago it was a terrific film. Thatt i would suggest that if yourr chance you view it and rented it was nominated for three Academy Awards it starts jennifer for conley. And cowrote the screenplay for it. His latest book is the one that you see displayed up here outside on the table called the war on science and that is what he is talking about today. Sean lives in minnesota he has an environmental house solar and wind powered. As i said hes a very interesting guy. The way we will do this sean is going to do a Powerpoint Presentation then he and i can have a conversation that we will open it up to q a and after that we will have some time to mingle and enjoy the refreshments that are left without further taking away from his time [applause]. Thank you everyone for coming. She let me know if shes not sure if shes can make it due to the voting schedule and congress today. We will see if she will bebe able to join us for the conversation as well. So as al mentioned i was involved in an Organization Called science debate. Org which is still around and i encourage you to sign on if you have not as a supporter of the science debate. Its basically a nonprofit to get the candidates for president primarily but other Public Offices in the United States to talk about the big science and Technology Health and Environmental Issues that face all of us. This is an issue that is only going to grow in importance as we move forward in time. What i had tried to focus on throughout the course of this we are able to do with the science and our ability to think of him and talk about in the Public Policy process. Essentially that is what the war on science started out and it grew out grew out of that effort the book is really an observation if you care about justice its an effort to defend democracy for a rise in authoritative there is a panel of questions there. There is a war on science right now. The politicians by the way are not causing the work and for reasons i will explain in a little bit its not partisan here but they are certainly participating in it. Went to have the vaccine and came back week a week later got a tremendous fever. Now is artistic. Over the course of the last 20 years have become completely acceptable in American Public dialogue. When i was a kid for instance it would not had been tolerated. Someone made a statement that was flew in the face from what we know it would be the end of their political career that doesnt happen anymore. Ation of it leads us to a curious examination of what is going on in american politics and my that could be. What has changed it to make it possible. It is is not just happening on the right although many seem to think it is. Its also happening on the left and i will show you some examples of that Bernie Sanders has the most aggressive climate plan of all of the candidates for president and embrace and supported by climate scientist. At the same time he is against Nuclear Power he supports alternative medicine and his four gml labor early which have nuances and elements of them that are not anti science but that are informed by a lot of anti science belief. This isnt just happened president ial races but also in inngress. Consider the chairman of the house subcommittee. As he is participating in thispa hearing on Climate Change. The earth will end only when god declares it time to be over. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood. I appreciate having the panelist here who are men of faith and we can get into the theological discourse of that position but i do believe gods word is infallible unchanging perfect to other issues today we head about 388 parts per million in the atmosphere. There is a theological debate that this is a carbon Start Playing it. The question is why in a Committee Hearing where we are discussing matters of national and part presumably talking about evidence is he waving a bible to begin with. By the go to ideology instead of evidence. Why is that an authority in this particular case . I dont recall the part about carbon in the bible. This is all happening in state legislatures across the country. Is a rather famous example this is essentially a move again and the claimant war but its a problem because it was more reminiscent of china than the United States where local officials have to go to state legislature and the Central Government in order to get approval and use the numbers that they provided when making zoning decisions and Development Close to the ocean. This is also happening in city governments. The snowmass last summer and the use of fluoride. They consider it one of the greatest Public Health advances of the 20th century. Its not just in the United States though. Anti science like this believes are completely contradicted by the evidence is spreading worldwide. Canada during the Harper Administration who pattered a lot of their policies on some of the bush blessed ministration policies by limited what scientist could say in their interactions with the press and placing appointees over them and closing libraries and Scientific Enterprises engendered a demonstration on their capitol hill talking about no science, no evidence no truth. It was a mock funeral for democracy and science. But this also has happened it in australia where cities are representing about half a Million People and they have recently banned fluoride in france. The United Kingdom also has a Research Problem with the anti vaccine movement. Where there is a research and teaching of creationism in science classes. Ireland also been fluoride. The Health Minister who does not have a background in science recently banned fluoride for the entire country. Nigeria where of course groups is varies name means western knowledge is forbidden. A reacting and there version of a right wing reaction against science. On the same time a movement against genetically modified crops. Why is the spreading particularly why is it spreading throughout western democracy which have been associated with science with individual rights and all of those things that seem to have been associated with scienceng there is something happening that is quite odd here and that is what this exploration tries to get at. The best place to start is really understanding why it matters. Science as i said a moment ago is really the great equalizer thats the one thing that stands between two brothers with as much power as these two brothers had and twohe brothers that had as much as these head. In theory these two sets of brothers in the United States t should have the same access to justice the same access to potentially to education or to employment at least devoting. And science is the one equalizer that neutralizes the vast size of the brothers. Anna provides the opportunity to the brothers on the right this is based in some core ideas that date back to the very founding of the unitedk states Thomas Jefferson said wherever the people are will informed they can be trusted with their own government and there is really the grasp of some of the problems we are running into. If youve ever been to the library of congress you will have seen Thomas Jefferson library which has been recreated there. Re it creek contains the knowledge. He have read all of those books and he contained that in his mind. Sort of like Francis Bacon was. And that was a possible idea back then. The will informed voter. What happens now. When science has continued to advance and is not at all possible for one person to know even a fraction of all ofee there is to know. How do we have will informed voters that are able to govern themselves successfully. That was the rug we were bumping up again. In order to come up with this idea for democracy to convince other in late meant. They reached for the greatest thinking of what they calledthat inventor at the time of physics who said a man may imagine things that are false but he can only understand things that are true. This is part of where we are getting into trouble today. If you take about your cell phone and turn it over. It is hard to have knowhow. When science and technology had been so complex. Its difficult for the average person to break them down. This no longer true with cell phones. At the moment that cell phones which are made by people wearing that. At the moment that it becomes indistinguishable from magic we become vulnerable science by its very nature must become a function of belief. What do you believe in. They believe in journals. But, even those are vulnerable as we have seen lately from certain journals for hire. The next turn to Francis Bacon. The attorney general who sought to circumscribe the power of the king of the monarch and he worked very hard to build a lot of the core ideas that jefferson relied on he said what a man have rather did. Is one of the reasons why he worked hard to create this. And other muslim scholars. Ervati they saw that as a way to to guard against it. To see what we want in the environment. E see what nature has a say about it. Confirm your observations there. And then jefferson turned to a man that conservatives really appreciate these days. The side from his conservative standards was seeking to solve a problem. Had broken down im and arguing with one another ever who have the true path to god. What is knowledge but faith or opinion. We have it to and to put them together and as for. There is no arguing with it. The next up other independent fall at different rates. It has in fact. I felt that up from intuitive knowledge did an experiment in his third was sensitive knowledge. I smell arose, i look around but i might be deceived so sensitive knowledge and common sense was a least reliable form of knowledge. The kind that most often deceived us. Anyone can argue about it. Now that science has begun to break down in society. To guard against that. Every argument should be argued in a way that was similar to a mathematical theorem. Thats what jefferson really sought to do in writing this because his life really hung on it. It led to the core functioning idea that informed the unitedd states. And no pope and no monarch has any more authority than we do ourselves. Pport its a new form of government called democracy. Without science the United States would not had been here. Our whole system is dependent on this kind of thinking. This kind of thinking is not intuitive. Its difficult. Here is an early draft. You will notice that the top of the second paragraph he wrote that doesnt sound quite right does it. What he was doing there was he fell into a mistake of thinking and it appealed to the divine we hold these truths to be sicker the moment he did that he opened the United States up. He opened it up to anyone who have a different faith to argue that no theirs was the more sacred and undeniable truth. They have a greater authority. Th he violated this idea of knowledge. They took a look at the draft that is franklins handwriting. So in this edit is arguably the most important as fit in the history of the 19th because it circumscribed democracy is a secular form of government did not make a religious appeal. So in his thinking it really have a virtual circle it beganhe in some governance issue. Then we would turn to the educated and informed mass of the people from whom we would drop the congress the Scientific Research asas jefferson did to build knowledge about that issue. And then based on that knowledge they would debateed the best policy response. That was the way it was supposed to work. What has been happening over the last 40 to 50 years they seek to provide alternative theories and propaganda to adults. Seeking to teach it is really the way that human beings came to be. Then based on that instead of turning to Scientific Research we turn to authority and ideology for knowledge. Then instead of debating the best policy based on the knowledge we debated based on this. Is a formula for transforming accuracy into authoritative miss him. At that point then who writes it the person with the biggest megaphone. Instead of turning to knowledge that anyone of us citizens can generate we turn to received wisdom for those already in authority. But this is not a conservative or progressive problem inve specific. Science is not partisan but, science is always political. And that is a really important distinguished distinction to keep in mind. Knowledge is power because it gives you the ability to actle in the real world to change the world. And when you do that you are going to either confirm or disrupt someones vested interest that is always a political process. Also, new knowledge it causes us to define that in order to respond to that new knowledge. And that is a political process as well. There is an economic disruption. And we w that is driving much of that. Think of it more as a plane. Certainly a raft lest left right. Science is never partisan because it is conservative and progressive. A scientist is always going to research what has been established before. Before they publish on something where they could embarrass themselves but they are also always going to be open to the frontier. The progressive end of things because that is how you make your career. Its about protecting yourself and making it your career. Science is decidedly an anti authoritative occupation. It takes nothing on faith by its nature it says show me the evidence and i will i will judge for myself. Science does take a position politically though not in a partisan way. If you think about american politics in terms of this plane becomes possible to imagine that there could be such a thing. There once were and there possibly still is. Because we are so used to hearing about these things but it really means open to exploration and conservative is not exclusive of that. Argue what i would argue is going on in american politics right now is the Republican Party more of the argument over these. And those who view policy. Few pi and those who dont. This isnt just happening on Climate Change or vaccines or evolution its happening on a wide range of topics. That are emerging because of emerging science. With all of the blue lines represent facebook connections. You will notice for instance that china is dark. They might as will represent the connections between scientists working over the internet. Who are no longer geographically constrained to work in the same lab. We had increased the number of a scientist working for University Education in the last 30 to 40 years. So now we have a vast number and increase and the quality of their working together to the point that over the next 40 years we will be creating as much new knowledge as we a have since the beginning of the scientific revolution. And you think about some of the issues listed in the slide and how many of our past scientific discoveries have engendered large political discussions and conflict and gridlock we could be in for a very rocky next halfcentury. We are fighting in that. N into r it started to break down. N you need to find a new strategy. D a new they emerge are they still well enough informed to be trusted with their own government. Own gove it works well with both signs. The sky is good to be voting on all of these issues we have an issue with outreach and education and with that while t informed voter. Judging from congress there we are. The answer is probably not. The members of congress there is only 11 of them that have a professional background in science. According to the Congressional Research survey. One biologist and one chemist and eight engineers some of the pure scientists might take issue with this. But and by comparison to how many are lawyers . Aughter] 400. We have some cynics in this audience here. 40 . Now this is important because they approach this. They dont start from the ground up to see where the evidence leads they start with the pre determined conclusion that they seek to convince you of. They will certainly research all of the other science so they can argue against it. But that becomes a problem when more and more issues have vast inputs of knowledge. Theyre not necessarily wellequipped to make the best decisions in those cases. Especially since congress has abolished that. Defunded. Not abolished. It has not come back in about 20 years. As an issue only to the extent. I think we will probably be okay. Dont where is that battle coming from. Y those are the action points. Lets take a quick look. As the publics attitude about science. A little over a hundred years ago and the vast fortunes were made. A source of great economic growth. An american cando attitude. It enjoyed aside from certain democrats who campaigned against evolution for destroying the underpinnings of society, and something happened. 45 with and that led the United States into the immediate post war years even in the military generals talking about how they thought we would become intellectual giants. There is a lot of discussion about whether or not we had overstepped our ability to self govern with our ability to Technology Nice and whetherto we have made a big mistake. Additionally there is a lot ofti fear that began to happen. They ignited their. And the possibility that this could come back and haunt them and kill our population began to haunt a lot of americans. That fear really crystallized in 19 system 67. And for the first time that we should have a peacetime investment in science was finally funded. They received money this also led to a big race. Also le in order to to the moon using the tools of science to defend democracy as he apprehended that he really stood to do. And they will be judging Grant Applications. If youd you send it to some it has a goofball Grant Application you could open up the whole program to a lot of criticism. It is actually. Judge b what they didnt do. The same they provide for the same level of Public Engagement. In years prior to that for instance they would travel around the country talking about what theyd seen and this kind of Public Engagement have happened for about 50 years. They did not need to engage with the public in the same way in order to get much of their funding. Your it was developed. They did also not value that. Science became much more silent starting in this unintentionally in for good reason. Around the same time we saw a lot of other changes also particularly in the application of other technologies that were developed during the war for instance the use of this. Om malr it was broadly used throughout the United States than in this broad use of chemicals in the environment led to silent spring in 1962. The late the birth of environment to science and Environmental Movement in a lot of ways. Assive t it became a massive target of a Public Relations campaign by Chemical Companies that paralleled in many ways attacks that we see today. We saw a splitting off really a petroChemical Companies whose Business Models that had developed prior to the war and during the war and they were seeking to maintain the same level of production with the domestic applications suddenly being undermined the new science that was coming out and started that book at the tip of the iceberg. We saw the beginning of modern war on science. But 10 y they really started seeing objection toward growing control the pill had been out is 1960 roughly and this cover of the Time Magazine here talked about test tube baby and they were debating whether or not they would have souls or not. The fundamentalist objection asa they were treading on gods turf ironic since it is where much of that science grew out of. Discomfort between these two groups and religious conservatives may start sounding familiar to you. In the science and environmentalists on the other side came to define some of the basis of the modern Political Party structure has democrats and republicans realign themselves around these issues. Today, anti science is on the right and it seemed around the theme of seeping socialism. Under two arguments. One is hpv concern that eliminates the risk of Cervical Cancer and its going to encourage young women to have and the other is that the concern that they dont have any business treating it in our bodies. On the left its more about hidden dangers in some of this is quite justified. Tiscien it is extending these concerns in ways that are not supported by the evidence. It is physically impossible. The waste energy plans are driving Climate Change. Its making you sick or that it is presenting you. They are unsafe to eat. Tical is there are other political issues about whether or not companies should control or about the broad use of pesticides there is no ingredient interesting assignment for those of you who dont know. And then you can plant those resulting change plants you can call the organic. So food for thought. The motivation on the right is largely intact regulation on the left of the motivation is proenvironment, its all starting to sound familiar. The theme on the right is liberal scientist with the social agenda. On the left it is impersonal doctors. They hide the real dangers to help the environment in thee spirit. Since then they have not largely precipitate participated in the public dialogue. This is a cross across three major battlefields. There is an identity politics. Itd in an industrial war on science fought by corporations who dont like what science suggests about the profit structure. Lets take a brief look at the three of them and then we will they will get to a couple of solutions and then we will have a conversation and participate with you in that. The first is the identity politics which really grew out postwar all truth is subjective. We should have suspicion of those narratives. They are essentially stories that groups empower in order to retain power. In science is just one of those meta narratives it is therefore just another way of knowing equivalent with indigenous knowledge or any other way of knowing that we have. 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 they really emphasize. What is true away from her gender identity and racial identity we arrive at the colonel no matter who does the measuring that is what science was designed to do not ignore an us but to nature. They got it wrong when they started arguing that science was subjective and thats where thomas kuhn got it wrong although a lot of those departments although a lot ofug those departments. I have a friend that teaches screenwriting and was sitting in a classroom because he is on the Tenure Committee for a teacher 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. N. And he walked up afterwards and he said thats kind of a draw them out and get them to engage. We cant really know that. How can we know that it. Its all politics. Tion . He went to the Tenure Committee and said you know what i cant vote for this person because she is disseminating. Dot nonsense. How can i support her. And they considered and they backed her up. Because we cant know according to them. Whether the earth goes around the sun. This is not fantasy its happening in many universities across the country right now but it is decidedly wrong and that is where these professors have become confused and laid down a fizzle philosophical down work. We really should unbelief anything unless its supported by evidence. One area where this is really coming to fruition is in journalism the last two generations theres no such thing as subjectivity. That may be a good and it may be a good idea to embrace your own bias to acknowledge that and not say im writing with the voice of objectivity. And certainly it is important to empower disempowered voices because the more perspectives on a problem the more likely it is to arrive at the truth. It has been tested from a variety of different points of view. But thats not the same thing as sane and theres saying that theres no such thing as objectivity. They are one of many publications who do the same thing but there it is. There is theres no such thing as subjectivity. Even the editor of chief publication. Saying that theres no suchiv thing. We have a problem in journalism when they believe this how are they get a be able to drill down and actually get at the objectiveow facts are we devolving into a pre john locke era were all different parties are worried with one another with equal claims on what is true and what is not true. Where its its only a matter of ones opinion we hear this often on the news. Here it is illustrated in journalism. They will say that im a generalist im not an expert on anything. I seek truth but i also seek balance in order to present the balance story i will get two different points of view. I will talk to a scientist and then i will talk to somebody standing in the corner and see what they think. Somehow you will flush out the truth in that process but it p doesnt work that way if you are equating and someone speaking with knowledge on one hand. Or worse very informed person seeking to convince you of the rightness of their opinion that is contradicted by the evidence. Theres always two sides to every story. You sell newspapers anyway. They will say most time one side is objectively wrong. G. Even though they say she might have legitimate reasons for her perspective i will show you with these four apples that bob is clearly right. It doesnt matter how julie feels about it. Then you have politics how about a compromise. Then we get a new law that same two plus two equals five. S the problem is it is reliant on the journalistic practiceou of false balance. Thousands of scientists conducting tens of thousands of experiences working with billions of data points. They can make an informed Public Policy decision and then on the other half you have someone that is highly motivated to convince the public of the rightness of their position and they are probably much more articulate m at it because the bar for them is higher. What that does in our Public Policy dialogue its it skews the whole dialogue towards more extreme positions. By driving us away from what is supported and providing a voice to knowledge is not supported by knowledge. Then we have the war on science which they often fail to take on it because of because of this concern about balance or about selling newspapers. In the modern form began in the postwar timeframe the conflicts with science date back. And the priest to even refuse to do that. But here. After the russians detonated their bomb in 1949 billy graham took to the road and talked about how society was t going through a moral nosedive. Men and society was beginning to crumble all due to science. At the same time a decade later we have television and evangelical saw this as an opportunity of the commission and of matthew to take advantage of the new medium of television and to encourage them to run for office to instill those values in democracy. James dobson declared in the 1990s, the beginning of a civil war on values. Recently, the other day, billy t graham son was preaching in temple where i was farm and he was encouraging people to run for Public Office if they were prolife and against gay marriage but he said society is in a moral nosedive, virtually echoing his fathers words from 1949. Change some things have not changed and the relationship between fundamentalists and science. Then there is an industrial war on science which they fail to take on. In the industrial war on science it tends to be about regulation. Regulation where scientist provided us with some information that has been commercialized in some way or another and then ten years down the road it provides new information saying wait a minute, we have unintended consequences that we have to look at. P like t they seek to protect their profit model and we wind up with science fighting science. There are all these aspects of regulation where we see the industry on scientists and the known science and these particular area and a few others. For example, in 1968, Stanford Research institute which has now become a private Research Institute was largely serving Economic Development for corporations, they actually did a study, and a final report talking about how significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur since 2020. This was in 1968. Id say they nailed it pretty well. The Petroleum Companies knew about this at that time. In 1990s, the protocol was being discussed to limit our Carbon Emissions and a number of Oil Companies and other activists in that same vein, Public Relations firm and others got together and created a global science plan and they left out, in 1998, what has now become a series of familiar talking points that we hear over and over, emphasizing the uncertainties. They are calling into question the validity viewpoints and challenge conventional wisdom. Making mainstream science out of touch with reality. To the extent that we can cause a controversy, we can take advantage that debate is healthy. It goes back to the false balance argument, if one side is informed by knowledge and some other motivation, lets not a fair fight. Its not an evenhanded debate. Journalists feed into this because of their focus on balance. Thats why it was developed that way. In 2008, we noticed the discussion of big science issuee by these top five news anchors, Matthew Chapman and for other people and i noticed this and at this point in time, they conducted 171 different interviews with the different candidates for president and asked them 3000 questions. How many mention the words Global Warming or Climate Change arguably the most controversial question. Any guesses . Ten . I heard somebody else. To . You guys are stealing all my material. Six. It was six. To put that in perspective, there are three questions about ufos. Ghter] thats the relative seriousness that the National Press corps placed on this issue. You think, thats 2008, 2008, weve come a long way. We just had 195 different 95 Different Countries that come together for the first time to have an International Accord to rebuild the economy and move us slowly off of carbon. In the week following, the democrats and republicans both had president ial debates. One on cnn, one on abc. How many questions do you suppose the journalist asked in the Republican Debate about Climate Change. Zero. How many asked in the democratic debate zero. We really havent made much progress particularly when it comes to journalist and their idea about contentious issues that have political ramifications but nevertheless are informed by the evidence, science, the foundation of democracy and yet we cant talk about it. I dont care what party or with, if we dont base our decision, we are shooting ourselves in the foot because nature doesnt care what party where. This is a worldwide host the greatest hopes ever perpetrated in the American People. Its a moneymaking industry said donald trump, its a hoax, a lot of it. In 1920, germany, similar comments were made, white wing relatively called this a hoax. These are terms that are commonly used when it seeks to convince people that the wall is being pulled over their eyes. Then everybody believes i do and this is a big hoax. T this world is a strange madhouse, einstein wrote. Every coachman and every waiter is debating whether the relativity. Reporter is correct. It depends on party affiliation. Does this sound familiar . Winning the war. The book has several battle plans. Im not going to go into all of them in detail. Also skip over the surface of a few of them. The first and most important thing is to realize that science is not partisan. The great equalizer in uniter is evidence from science. The assertions again science are made by people whose position is not supported by the evidence. They are therefore authoritarian. One of the things i suggest we look at is the National Center for science and selfgovernance. They encourage more the robust democracy when they are having huge input into our policy. We need to hold them to account for matters for america like they do on developing metrics for skewed Public Policy reporting in the media. To provide that important back pressure on the media to consider evidence as part of a balanced reporting. As a friend of mine said, really balanced reporting is what he tells reporters when he talks to them, you imagine it not as amb but as a set of scales. The report on the side of the story that has the preponderance of the evidence, the weight of the evidence. Granting bodies, again theres a lot to do with that but requiring funding on lab outreach would be a really good start so that we built in more science and communication for health and democracy into the process because its fine to extend science way out on narrow limbs of chains of evidence but if we are not bringing the rest of society with us, were creating a gap that creates oh weaker prize. Make knowledge more accessible, get it out of some of the journals that is searchable. There is frankly no law that requires corporations to strictly maximize shareholder value. Focus on process versus outcomes and 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 go with evidence, not the opinion of your best friend or your political cohort. Faith leaders, i actually encourage them, whenever i talk to face leaders encourage them to join and live in the modern age of science. They all have moral and ethical components that priests and pastors could have fascinating discussions helping people navigate this new world we are living in. Coordinating science and the scientific enterprise with groups because science really does equate to civil rights. There is not enough of a political connection there and refuting the myth of the idea that my own actions are the only thing i need to take into account. One last step could do is sign on, support science to be. Org. This was a project project created just by six people that went viral. Within weeks it had 40,000 some some scientists and engineers sign on and can transform the way they think about it. You would be in good company 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 that these ideas, this thinking and move them forward. Science debate. Org, in 2008 and 2012 held online exchanges between president obama and his opponent and governor romney. Between those two efforts we made nearly 2 billion media impressions in newspapers and Media Publications and news reports around the world, mostly in the United States. Creating coverage of these issues that happen, and probably wouldnt have been discussed if it were not for this issue. It really is true, the 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 supporters to his cabinet. Again, science science debate. Org, in 1948 Elbert Einstein sent a desperate telegram out to friends and supporters and other people he thought were of influence. He argued essentially that they needed to support a new change in our dialogue between americas relationship and science. Im paraphrasing here but essentially everything has changed our ways of thinking. It would suggest that we are still dealing with that same question. Thank you for listening and we will have our discussion now. [applause] i should also say that the crew, when it comes to the q a we will be bringing around a microphone thats not tied in to the audio in the pa system in the room so they can pick up your question. Please work with them on that and speak loudly. We should explain the presence of the tv cameras as well since this is being videotaped for book tv which is a cspan production. The microphones are going to feed into the audio feed for that program. Okay, youve raised a lot of questions. Ive been doing science policy for my whole career. I was the head of science policy at aaa 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 i got interested in policy and pursued that. I look at your resume and i think wears his interest in science. I am a bit of an odd duck that way. I studied kind of a combination of things, physics, neuroscience and psychology in college. I wrote my own degree at a School Called Mcallister College where you could do that. Ive maintain an interest in it although a lot of my heroes were riders and i just wanted to be a writer i became known in hollywood as someone who would write about science. Matthew chapman who happened to be Charles Darwins greatgreatgrandson is also a screen writer and wrote runaway jury and directed the movies. He and i were up for adapting a biography of Albert Einstein and then a strike came along and we were all without work and we had a little time on our hands and we were frustrated by the low polity of the political discussion of that point time. From our point of view, those have as large an impact of foreign challenges on everyones daily lives. We decided to try to do something about it which led us down a twisty rabbit hole. So youve written this book which you title the war on science and youve described it a bit, but it sounds to me like, the term war on science is just an organized opposition. Science advocates are facing organized opposition or is this just coming from different borders as youve described and industry and politics . Its both, it is organized, particularly the industrial war on science, theres a Large Network of grassroots front groups that are being funded by the industry that follow a fairly prescribed strategy that i lay out in the book and for instance, americans for prosperity, one of them pounded by the coke brothers is four times the size of the Republican Party. So they carry enormous weight in the political conversation these days and have a specific objection that they are pushing. Why do you suppose they are doing this . What is their mistake in this business . Well if youre in the oil company, i meant change is an important issue, especially where the attorneys general is going after energy companies, investigating them and whether or not they did in fact know that it was causing Climate Change and set about to defraud investors and the public. It was very much an issue with multibillion and multitrillion dollar questions hanging in the balance. I was intrigued by your issue of false balance. I see this myself, how do you get around this, how do you teach journalists that this is not the way to serve the Public Interest . It is a big problem. The journalists really is a generalist. Theyre not an expert in anything and so they would in some way be irresponsible by portraying their reporting as objective when its not. They have to acknowledge their biases but at the same time, where they are falling down as i. Out to them whenever i have the opportunity is failing to consider the weight of evidence and they need to balance their reporting by telling the story that is most supported by the evidence. There are some people that i point to that do this very wellin the book. For instance, i talk with Stephanie Curtis who is the producer of a program called the climate cast on Minnesota Public Radio which is actually distributed in several markets around the country because its the only weekly radio show that actually goes in depth and Climate Change and doesnt get caught in the details of whether its happening or not. It turns out that once you get past that baselevel political question, the whole world opens up as far as the fascinating questions that you can get into about how el nino affects latex in the midwest or weather patterns and things like that and how we should be preparing for changes. Its actually an approach that could make meteorologists into almost anchor level positions and fastly increase their importance because they are 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 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 . The war on science occurs in generally one of two ways. One is the line that has to do with short circuit adding democracy in order to curtail regulations or bills that are going to affect your business or your bottom line. Usually it involves Public Relations campaigns to paralyze the process or get people to vote one way or another. To provide them with quote unquote science that is cherry picked that can throw up ways to challenge mainstream science. Also is the issue where we are presented with a moralquandary or an area that as knowledge advances that we need to refine our moral and ethical standards and generates concerns from religious conservatives who often dont like the idea of science telling us what to do because thats really in gods territory. I think there are areas where that will not continue to happen, perhaps the most interesting is the emergence of knowledge and neural science. If people have only unlimited agency, what does that say about our system and Holding People accountable for their actions . I think there are a lot of very interesting questions that we will be getting into over the next few years. I think that is a good point on which to open this up to questions from the audience. I see one immediately and i see a gentleman over here with a microphone on a wand. Thank you for your presentation. This is such a very good lecture, but i think basically. [inaudible] whether youre republican or democrat, it does mention about the problem. [inaudible] everything is really in terms of who gets the money or the government. [inaudible] we need to change the wording about what it is we want to debate. [inaudible] we cannot allow them. [inaudible] thank you. It is about justice, absolutely. Science is creating evidence that is impartial and of course the foundation of not only our Justice System but our political system as well. I think 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 rises at the end and it ends with a question mark so it should be no more than a short paragraph. Im really sorry. Okay, the microphone is not fed into the pa system. Im just sorry that holistic medicine and genetically modified organisms were swept into some of what i would agree is really anti science. I would like to know what you are 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 when they had looked at plasma exchange, medications and very sick patients and still claimed to have a finding. One last example would be that nih examination of vitamin c under pressure, but then they said we are not going to look any further back than 1982. Social science tries to be as exhausting as possible so you dont miss anything. What research did you use to launch holistic medicine as an antiscience . Okay, okay, so i think if i understand it right, what research did i use an anti science. I dont think i said it holistically as a note alternative but if your meaning things like homeopathy, there is no Scientific Evidence to show that it works. When youre talking about genetically modified food, a lot of people are thinking that genetically modified means some additional ingredients that were adding to it and all of it is a more precise form of plant breeding and in some ways it is safer than prior methods. Where it gets into trouble i think and where there is a politically important issue is how it is genetically modified and for what purposes. If its genetically modified to prevent blindness, then those are good purposes that like any tool, science is a tool that serve humanity and if its genetically modified to make plans with stand herbicides and insecticides that are essentially borrowing from the environment by creating other problems, then generally there will be some and intended consequences from that and i talk about that in the book with the emergence of super weights. Its a danger to broadly say that all gm o is bad to eat which is what is often argued by those in the organic food realm and there is a controversy about how its applied. Where do we start, how do we start, im concerned not only about College Campuses and trigger warnings and the things that students get, they dont want to be upset yet if youre going to truly learn, i think learning is fundamentally dangerous in my opinion, where do we start so that children and young people are open to receive information that might be controversial because i think that is the key to ending the war on science. Good question. One of the things when i talk to teachers, i talk about process a lot and about different techniques that you can use, obviously when you teaching young students, you want to create cognitive dissidents, you want to elevate their level of concern so they are engaged and then science shows they are actually receptive to new information because theres a solution to the problem or the answer is a question that they raised in their own mind. What better way to raise concern than to talk about politically contentious science issues. Administration are often uncomfortable around that, but students science debates are a fantastic tool, one that i often talk about. Taking politically contentious topics that are surrounding science, making an assertion that vaccines do cause autism or that Climate Change is human caused or not human caused, Something Like that and then sending students to research both sides of the question but not telling them which side they are going to debate until the day of. In which case you flip a coin. Students learn for themselves some of the more interesting differences between rhetorical arguments or Public Relations arguments and actual science. They are equipped on both sides and they learn the difference. Thats one interesting tool thats actually a lot of fun that doesnt hold the teacher responsible. Another one i like to do is working with students on these fundamental questions like is something alive or not a life. My wife used to be a Science Teacher and she would use a unit to explore this which, im not going to tell you if theyre alive or not, you can research it for yourself. There sort of like viruses and its a fascinating area to begin to explore some of the fundamental questions about life in the universe and if you can engage students in that 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 regurgitating the right answer. That is not what science is. Its about an exploration of these big ideas that we are still grappling with. Those are two examples. My name is roger and im an engineer. My background is science and physics. Could you speak a little louder. I had a couple comments and a question. The people that need to read your book are going to read your book so that kinda leads me to my first question which is, what can we do about it. I think you answered the education piece perfectly. I think if you get students engaged, thats a great way forward but beyond student engagement, what does your book recommend that we do about it. The second question is just, ill ask the second question in a minute. 1 let me apologize for the wisecrack about engineers. I was just having fun. Right, yes, those who are authoritarian by nature or are predisposed in one perspective about Climate Change and theyre going to assume this is a book about Climate Change which its not although it has a chapter that deals with a topic, those people are going to pick it up. But, their family members might, their friends might, members of the media i certainly hope will and by equipping people with some tools to think about this and be reminded of what they may have known and forgotten about the fundamental role of evidence and science and democracy, i think we will give those people the tools to begin to change the conversation to at least feel equipped to challenge some of the talking points that are being provided on a daily basis to the other side. My other question was just whats the next book going to be im exploring a topic right now that is pretty fascinating to me about bear bile and acid which was discovered by a guy named cliff at the university of minnesota and it slows or stops and its an amazing chemical compound thats manufactured by micro organisms in our gut and it 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 health issues, its not being produced because of the structure of our pharmaceutical system. Sounds like alternative medicine. Thats the other thing about it, it involves the chinese mafia. Bears have been, there bile has been eaten and their gallbladders broaders have been eaten for 3000 years in china. Yes, over here and then in the back. I have found, my name is stephanie, i try to be an informed layperson. I have found many of the articles in the New York Times science section to be very informative. What would your impression be about how well do they do to combat this information and how well do they interact with other journalists . I would say the New York Times science section generally does a pretty good job for the problem is there are so few science sections left, only 7 or less than 7 are members of the National Association of science riders actually have positions in their field. Many of them have to work in other fields or work because newspapers have cut those sections by and large. They are more expensive. Same with Investigative Journalism sections. Those are the two sections that really has been asked as a model of free news and the internet has taken hold. Its a big problem because here we are, ironically living in an age where science impacts almost every big policy issue and science is first of all never appearing in the Political Pages because editors dont put it there and second of all most newspapers dont have science sections anymore. People are not even being given the information they need to equip themselves. My question is really simple. What is the role of scientists in this war on science. Thats a really great question. Its simple, deceptively simple because its very important. You know, the 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 and 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, the pole show that the majority of americans cant 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. 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, connect them them in their homes, do it emotionally because look whats been happening politically recently. Thats a great idea. The National Academy of engineering medicine actually have a program called the science and Entertainment Exchange where they work to do just that. They provide scientists as Science Advisors to films and shows so they get the science right and they also have somewhat of an ulterior motive by forming those kind of relationships between producers, riders, scientists so that they see that scientists are actually generally pretty cool people that are interested in a lot of things, often multi talented and not boring people wearing lab coats. I think it is having a positive effect although still hollywood has a hard time with science. We have to face it. Its hard for them to do comedies without making fun of scientists, making them into either idiotic nerds or evil. [inaudible] thats something i think comes out of those two cultures divide, they just dont talk about it and were struggling with it right now. It certainly certainly is something i would like to find a way to continue to make progress on. Im going into engineering right now but i have us drawn interest in scientific policy. As i begin to interact with people who advise congressmen on science issues, they are typically with them, a Public Policy policy or a Political Science background as well. Im wondering if you have a perspective if that should change and more largely, what the penmans, you talked a lot about the external forces that are dividing people, but in turnley how can we mend this relationship and what standing in the way. E. One thing i tell scientists is collier member of congress and ask if they have a science advisor. A lot of times they will say no. In which case, volunteer. Than help them and say all put together a team. The thing about it is that doesnt matter what their Political Party is, if you are providing them with the latest objective knowledge impartially, youre doing a great service. Thats good no matter who the members. The other thing that i try to encourage is taking a nonpartisan approach. I talk in the book about kind of a structural issue right now and the problem with the way we do science advice in the United States, particularly the president ial science advisor which is appointed by the president and therefore inherently looked upon as biased by the opposing Political Party. Peter provides a really great example of how. [inaudible] actually have an interview and profile of him in the book and 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. I am therefore the government and i am speaking objectively. The Prime Minister agreed. They had a lot of problems with morbidity and their team population with drug abuse and teen pregnancy, suicide and they commissioned them to form a team to get to the bottom of this and come up with some policy solutions. Instead of putting together a team of stakeholders which would be basically a team of vested interests, each with with their own bias coming together to find the best biased compromise they can make, he went to academics and scientists that research the question impartially. It was peerreviewed nationally and internationally and they came up with a number of different recommendations the fascinating thing was, through that process which is very transparent, at the end he stood up and said we dont know which of these recommendations are going to work because this is a new problem. Theres not a lot of history on it, but based on what we do no, these are the best recommendations and were going to go forward with them. He had them on stage with him and they had tremendous support because of that. The public is finding that really up refreshing. Its part of a conceptual approach to science and thats why i encourage it, but in the u. S. System, as it is now, reach out and offer to serve. Theres a former republican congressman from michigan who tells pretty much that story, its a personal story and he volunteered as a science advisor advisor and ended up as a member of congress. Vern is a terrific guy, one of our earliest supporters of science debate. In the back. Okay, so i just wanted to know if you felt it would be inevitable that science would actually win this war in the long run considering that the earth is finite, the population is exploding in the needs of the population are going to become thorny and its going to demand Scientific Answers to resolve and make life on earth that much better for humanity and society. Okay, ill repeat it gladly. The question was, because of the finite limits of the planet whether ultimately science will win the war anyway because were bumping up against the limits with our increasing population and the limited pasture. I think to a certain extent thats true although theres a lot of people who question that. A couple people i talked to in the book . , pointing to how science has repeatedly broken that game thinking by innovating ways to increase the productivity of the pastor of the bounding field. I do think there is a very strong argument to be made that we are facing a limiting factor. Whether science gets us to a sustainable solution ahead of nature is the open question. I think we would all like to manage our own sustainability instead of nature managing for it but i dont think that outcome will be a very pretty one. As a layperson, i guess my question is, i think its hard, there are things that scientists make mistake or they learn Different Things. 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 dont know if its based on science or one of these other factors, but then people buy into that and it becomes kind of a fad and pretty soon youre off to another thing. What it does is it undermines peoples confidence in what they read about science and maybe this just gets back to how science is reported. I think youre absolutely right. A lot of it is how science is reported. What youre talking about particularly in the health and nutrition area, a lot of that, i would say 95 of the science you hear is absolute crab. Its not really science, a lot of it is industry funded through phony science that takes advantage of journalism and journalist love to get a nice headline and i outline a couple cases where the scientist have worked to expose this by for instance, doing a phony study about whether or not chocolate would help you lose weight and using a technique called d hacking where there are all kinds of different variables and then with the advantage of complete hindsight you look through all those variables and you pick the one blip that is statistically significant that gives you a funny argument. You have not actually done a blind study at all. You are statistically manipulating it and then you can say well it looks like people who ate chocolate lost weight 10 faster. Of course you are going to sell a lot of chocolate bars and thats going to be on the cover of People Magazine or wherever within a week. It is a big problem. Her question addresses what i was leading up to. Who gets to decide what is the final word on what this scientifically has established. On the cutting edge of things, things get fuzzy. Things go back and forth. I spent a career working in regulation of toxic substance and youth say things that are bogus or that you suspect are bogus and dealing with epidemiology studies, the nature is experiment and their uncontrolled and they go down and its a mess. Going to the National Academy of science and engineering in medicine, they can do a damn good job of going to experts and getting up balance of biases and all the rest. At the same time scientists science has gotten so complicated and specialized that scientists and one areas make judgments and its not easy. This business about the gmo crops and your feelings about that, it is really, really hard to explain to an educated layperson who is convinced what you are saying about fear being hidden dangers and might i say that i have not yet been successful in doing so. That touches on a lot of important things. One is that in the absence of knowledge we often default to fear. For instance, that happens with a woman who was arrested by the fbi last year for getting a pocket heater designed to the chinese which was classified except that it turns out that it wasnt a pocket heater design at all. The fbi failed to do the science necessary, to educate themselves to determine that and instead, fell back on essentially what was kind of of racist bias. The same thing happen to mohammed in irving texas, the kid who brought a clock he designed in school and the police thought it was a bomb and they arrested him largely because he was a muslim kid with electronics. When we dont understand, thats one fear and bias and racism, in the form of bias often take over our thinking. The other point that you made is that science is often, when you are on the frontier things are not welldefined and its not clear. A lot of times it is fuzzy and things that may seem certain or wellestablished now are shown that they are not so certain down the road. This highlights a very important problem in my mind which is a reward structure in publishing and the answer is getting a variety of points of view on this and having a bunch of people seek to confirm current knowledge. This has particularly been highlighted in the social sciences but i think its a problem in the physical sciences as well. Theres not a lot of incentive for me, if im running a lab to go out and do an experiment that reconfirms something that was published on three years ago. Im not going to get any citations from that so im not going to get any new funding from that and we have a problem because a lot of time studies are out there that are only based on, only published on one said study or one set of experiments and we dont know as silently as we should. Science is an imperfect mechanism but its still the best one weve got. The fact that we can have these conversations about it and how to make it better as part of what makes it so robust. Okay, i was was going to say one last question but i see two hands so if there are short each of you can ask a question and then we are adjourned after that i was intrigued by what you said about the humanities and being underfunded. Those folks are perfect for showing the wonder and beauty of science. Youre really into the gut response of people. What do you say to the humanity folks who are bringing them into fight on our side of the war on science. What can we do to help them along . Absolutely, what can we do . One of the things i do is point out when its taken to an extreme, the idea of post modernism are wrong and we work to favorite instead of the opposite. Instead of empowering disempowered groups, they wind up creating the opposite effect. The other thing i try to do is talk about for instance, the great opportunity for Team Teaching things like science civics. Talking about the way that we evolve knowledge and going back through some of the history that i talked about today that is just fascinating stuff that touches on so many big Big Questions about what is the basis of law, how do we arrive at common law and how does that relate to religion and how does the word scientist come out by comparison with artists in 1835 and why did that discussion happen. It was suggested by a poet. There are all of these fascinating relationships between science and the humanities and arts in a way science is an art and in fact it was considered an art until it was defined as science at that meeting of the London Academy of sciences. I think that by going back and asking those Big Questions and encouraging people to reach out and bridge that divide and explore together, we can do a lot. There is a tremendous professor that i had in college, professor kim, he ran physics for poets or maybe it was called cosmos back then. I have been back to teaching and the first time when i went there, i got to go to the airport to pick up john wheeler, the guy that was termed black hole and all the amazing people and it was the most inspirational thing because he was getting at those core questions of what is light and thats how to capture people, going for the imagination. Thank you for that. I am a science communicator and i see some reason for optimism and Citizen Science and i think the genuine sense that geek means cool whereas geek meant not cool when i was a kid, the war on science sounds very pessimistic and are there reasons we can look to for a source of happiness and joy in the future . Thank you. There is absolutely reason for optimism. The human spirit is endlessly resilient and innovative. We have to identify what the problem is before we can work to solve it. That is that old saying. And in many ways it applies to where we have to name thing and make yourself aware of it for we can strategize our own solutions thats what im attempting to do here with this and i do get into Many Solutions in the end of the book. I think that the generation that the millennials have a fundamentally different view on many of these topics, much of this is driven by a certain focus on the self that they just dont have at the same level, partly because they have grown up tied to one another through social media. They do have an experience of reality that is in part much more communityoriented than than some of us in the older generation. To that extent, i think think they are more focused on issues of justice, frankly, than than they are on issues of self opportunity. That gives me reason for hope. I think that to the extent that science is a force for justice and to the extent that being proscience and being a nerd is cool, especially in that young generation, i think we i think we have a lot to look forward to okay, join join me in giving a warm thank you let. [applause] thank you. [inaudible conversation] he was just asking if i would sign, and i will. They have some books for sale outside and hopefully they will have enough. If not i think you can preorder it so i will certainly stay here and sign any copies that you have. Thank you again for coming. I hope you enjoyed it