so I grew up in an incredibly beautiful
place called La Jolla California and
growing up in La Jolla ain’t bad let me
tell you I used to hang out on the beach
all day long I used to ride my bike with
my friends everywhere around town and we
didn’t have cell phones then so our
parents had no idea what we were getting
into it was awesome but one day when I
was 14 years old I decided to go off on
my own and ride around the campus of the
University of California San Diego which
was just a few blocks away from my house
and the great thing about UCSD and
probably every University back then was
nobody locked their doors you could just
walk into buildings and check stuff out
and I decided to take advantage of that
one day and I walked into this building
which was really cool-looking and I was
going down this hall and there was a
door open halfway down the hall and I
looked in and I saw this gentleman at a
desk holding a human brain in his hands
this gentleman turns out to be robert
Livingston who was one of the foremost
neuroscientists at the time and I was
just staring at this brain I was
transfixed and he looked at me finally
realizing I was there and said would you
like to see this would you like to come
in and look at this and I kept thinking
you know my mom always said don’t take
candy from strangers but she never said
anything about brains so I walked in and
I got this incredible tour of the human
brain and from that moment on I decided
neuroscience was really cool and in fact
I got to work in his lab after school
and got to do science fair projects
which I eventually took me to a career
in neuroscience it started by going here
in Portland Oregon at Reed College and
then on to get a PhD at OHSU
now what’s remarkable was that entire
time something I learned about science
and scientists was that scientists are
really well-liked and well respected
people at least they were then and
science was thought of by everybody I
talked to has an answer for most of the
problems that we face on our planet I
went off to Karlsruhe Germany from my
postdoctoral research
section kind of like a look like an
apprenticeship if you will and in
Karlsruhe what was remarkable was I was
told that if you tell the utilities
people that your hair dr. Schurman not
just hair doctor but hair dr. Schurman
and not just hair Sherman they’re gonna
hook up your utilities faster because
scientists are respected people and they
think it’s important that your phone
lines work kind of cool so this business
impression that I’ve always had that
scientists in science was something that
was really respected and something
changed when I came back to the United
States I came to work at the University
of Cincinnati and for several years and
his assistant professor and during those
years in that lab I realized that people
were really becoming very skeptical
about science all sorts of things were
coming up saying maybe scientists aren’t
such the best people why what was
happening and I thought this is crazy
but then if you think about it this has
been happening for a very very long time
we have this image of scientists in
science that you know has changed not so
much if you think about it
if you go back to the earliest science
we have this idea that the Earth
revolves around the Sun because of the
work of one particular scientist and
that scientist was the gentleman here on
the Left Galileo
looking on with a very skeptical looking
member of the Catholic Church
now Galileo did some amazing things he
came up with the first ideas for how to
do science what we call the scientific
method he also came up with mathematics
to describe data and in a quantifiable
way which was really revolutionary and
using these text techniques he did all
sorts of great things he discovered
properties of motion properties of
materials and he did some amazing things
with astronomy including showing using
data that Copernicus was right that in
fact the earth does revolve around the
Sun not the other way around and for
this discovery he was labeled a heretic
and imprisoned and as a result of that
we had this version of the universe for
quite some time now this is not unique
to astronomy if we go forward just a few
hundred years
we found that Darwin faced similar
opposition to his data Darwin used
amazing techniques to come up with his
treatise on the Origin of Species to
suggest the idea that natural selection
leads to this evolutionary process
he used a lot of data tremendous amounts
of studies observational studies to come
up with this theory and yet even at the
time of Darwin but just a few years
afterwards in 1925 for example in this
country
Tennessee outlawed the teaching
altogether of evolution and when that
law was challenged by a teacher it led
to a trial
the famous Scopes trial the Monkey Trial
people called it in which not only was
the teacher Scopes put on trial but the
whole theory of evolution was put on
trial and unfortunately it lost now that
has led to what we have today that was
the beginnings of an anti science
movement if you will an anti rational
thinking movement if you will call it
what you will creationism or intelligent
design but the basis of these ideas is
simply that it’s too complicated
therefore it can’t be explained by
science it’s not just evolution though
for some reason which is unbelievable to
me in the 21st century there are people
who believe the earth is flat what’s
more there are people who fail to accept
the possibility even despite tremendous
amounts of data from very well-respected
scientists and lots of them I should add
that our word our world is actually
warming not only is our world world
warming but the effects of that seem to
be linked to changes in carbon dioxide
generated by mankind and this trend is
continuing and we continue to argue
about it as the world continues to heat
up now that has been denied on so many
levels and what’s interesting is the
groups that deny it come up with names
for themselves like this one the Friends
of science but we know that these are
not friends of real science instead
they’re friends of science that is
trying to be defending something else
the other that the remarkable thing is
in this day and age despite having a
history in humanity where millions of
people die from flu epidemics for
example that vaccines are some
evil this was actually nothing new the
anti-vaccine movement actually was very
strong in the 1800’s possibly for good
reasons there were very bad vaccines
back then but things have changed
vaccines have proven themselves time and
again to save millions of lives every
every time something hits our population
and yet people have been in the wings
just almost like they’re waiting to
attack this idea that vaccines are still
good today because one single study
comes out from a gentleman named
Wakefield claiming that there’s a link
between vaccination and autism and yet
it’s been proven time and again that
there was a lot of corruption involved
in this study the study was false it’s
actually been retracted and yet we still
have people who are denying vaccinations
are a good idea so there are many
reasons why people attack science money
is one of them if there’s a financial
interest that is being challenged
because some scientific evidence says
that for example a company’s processes
are polluting or damaging to the
environment they’re gonna really try to
protect that money and this happens time
and time again religion is also
unfortunately our driving force between
a lot of science denial as we saw in the
case of Galileo and in the case of
Darwin but it’s still true today
if your dog mind your beliefs are being
challenged by a scientific study it’s
understandable that you’re going to
react negatively to it and of course
politicians take advantage of both of
these things but in addition people take
advantage of the fact that there’s an
emotional response to some of these
studies in the case of the Wakefield
paper on autism people want to know why
their children are coming down with
autism and if there’s a cause out there
they’re going to react at a very
emotional level so the tactics that
these groups are using to sort of
amplify these ideas include manipulating
public messaging like calling yourself a
friend of science but the organization
name and and denying all the climate
data but also taking any state statement
made in some paper and either blowing
out of proportion in one way or the
other
to sort of meet the needs of the people
and their messaging economic
manipulation is also a clear tactic
withholding funds or making it very
difficult to get certain types of funds
or selectively funding the studies that
are in agreement with what your
corporation
or your group wants to hear delay is
also another tactic for example causing
some sort of litigation that will
prevent some study from going forward
demanding every piece of little data at
each step of process harassment is also
something that we see happening quite a
bit in science people are harassed for
the work they do and it causes again
delays and their ability to do their
work and then finally it’s this also
called hidden identities masquerading as
grassroots organizations for example
when in fact you’re being funded by
another interest so the consequences are
interesting this is a map and there’s
consequences for every field of science
that’s where we’re seeing this happening
and I and I think most of us are
familiar with the potential consequences
of climate change but here’s a map from
2008 of outbreaks of various diseases
like whooping cough measles and mumps
for example and you can see the
distribution it’s there’s there are
outbreaks for sure of 2008 but then the
anti-vaxxer movement really got it
started and in 2017 this is what the map
looks like we’ve had increases in
diseases that we haven’t seen in years
popping up all over the place and these
diseases are not just mild cases of
outbreaks of colds these are diseases
that kill people and so we may actually
in fact continue if we don’t continue to
prevent this type of thing from
happening have another pandemic what can
we do well I think we all have our own
ideas about how to change people’s ideas
about science I have taken a personal
approach and I would like to challenge
everybody here to do this if you’re a
scientist or even if you’re not a
scientist but you believe that science
has value the first thing is to dedicate
yourself to challenging people to accept
that science is a rational thing to
accept
not all science is correct science is a
process it’s not a sprint it’s a
marathon
we come up with theories based on
hypotheses the theories are pretty solid
ideas once we get to them once you get
to that point use that dedication to
educate people around you in your
communities and educate people to
understand what science is really all
about and then communicate communicate
that science in a way that’s
clear and concise and something that
people can really follow I’ve done
something that’s I’ve been having a lot
of fun with in this regard for the
guards of the education arm for the last
15 years I’ve been running a science
fair workshop and a science fair for
fifth graders and these kids come up
with the most amazing ideas but in the
process of doing these projects they’re
challenged to come up with something
novel and something that they have a
passion for that they’re really
interested in and they learn what
science is like they learned that
experiments go wrong they also learn
that how to interpret data properly they
also know that sometimes to averages
compared to each other may not be
meaningful unless you do something else
to analyze those data and we hear about
this all the time it’s great seeing them
challenge this data the other thing
that’s remarkable and fun for me is
talking about my science to the general
public now unfortunately I have a
profession which is just laden with
lingo there are words that I don’t even
know how to pronounce this is one of our
our papers from several years ago and
the title as you can see is Holley
Iranian accumulates Indy myelinated
lesions and inhibits the leakage like
oligodendrocytes enter maturation and
most of you are probably thinking what
does that mean and why should I care
well if I want to talk to people who are
not in my own field I need to come up
with a different language and that’s not
a bad thing not all of us I probably
won’t understand your lingo from your
field either a better title might be a
sugar molecule that builds up following
brain injury and it prevents cells from
repairing the damage in fact this is
work that we’re using now to try to find
a way to get the brain to repair itself
in people with multiple sclerosis so we
need to learn how to talk about our
science as scientists to people and as
science communicators and educators and
community members we need to be able to
learn about those science findings and
communicate them clearly finally I love
talking about science and I love to get
people excited about science and my
approach has been to take things that
I’m really interested in and kind of let
people know there’s science and just
about everything my favorite thing to do
is I play the piano and I get to talk
about music in the brain and I make
people sing which is awesome
and when I get to talk about all these
things in the brain and the music and
put it all together people think Oh
neuroscience is pretty cool I also talk
about love in the brain especially about
Valentine’s Day it’s a lot of fun so
these kinds of activities maybe they’re
not for everybody but this communication
education and dedication when you put
these three things together I think we
have a chance of bringing rationality
back to the way we talk about the world
there’s a respect that we need from
scientists and for science and the next
time some kid walks into a loud and sees
a brain they’ll be inspired and have a
world where the science that they’re
gonna do is gonna be appreciated thank
you so much [Applause]