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How to Become a Passionate Advocate for Science | Jonathan Berman | TEDxSanAntonio


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instead we’re in position and you might
look or delay a potentially life-saving
treatment refused to max people or
children and you could be exposing them
to preventable and deadly diseases like
measles big decision without
environmental policy based the best
available information reducing sciencism
a set of the packets will ever be able
to close book everything there is to
know
according to science science is a
technique the technology the tool is
making our believes proportionate to the
available evidence
it’s an influential engine that helps us
be less wrong but practice as well we
can choose to use science in service of
humanistic values like versity any now
scientific institutions and scientists
have not rightly or just later kindly
because they are imperfect institution
to the people but we can choose to use
science in service of the men ignored in
science with all these words and not be
more experienced we can never make
perfect precision
all the time but we can make possible
decisions recognized here at a moment of
crisis movement strong scientific topics
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it was in government that said funny
policy environmental movement is so huge
happening and GMO rhetoric if you go
there sometimes there is likely to be
sent to an acupuncturist that’s to a
real treatment if you listen to
celebrities you’ll hear in tying
vaccinations in Papua place Twitter
follower countless products plan
real metrics of expertise inference is
being weaponized and denial is being
institutionalized therefore it is
important that we begin to distinguish
between what we want and what we think
is true and what I’m actually detected
believe in Bigfoot might behind us but
the cleric you want to be medicine to be
medicine is not science when we list our
value justice honesty hard work imposed
become passionate advocate for science
do they need to mix passion and science
it’s in the name
passionate arguments are just more
convincing the vaccine denialist says
children are at risk
wow what a persuasive argument you
instantly want to do everything you can
in your power to help but they’re wrong
the data show that they’re wrong even
the studies commissioned by vaccine
denialists show that they’re wrong again
again again again they could not be any
wrong er if their names were wrong aw
wrong in steam but data are boring if I
start talking to you about the r-squared
value of a regression to a four
parameter logistic equation what most
people probably hear is nerd nerdy nerd
nerd nerd scientists need to be more
passionate when presenting our arguments
I can make the same passionate argument
if you refuse to vaccinate your children
you are putting your own children’s
lives other people’s children’s lives at
risk and everyone in this room is
morally responsible to do whatever they
can to prevent that but not everyone is
a scientist with training and a PhD in
super-sexy scientific classes
so passion so activism is already about
passion but it’s easy to be wrong even
if you love science you might not be
steeped in them and you should have the
data what it means how to analyze and
have interpreted even scientists outside
of our own fields might not be able to
interpret data from another field so if
I want to be able that begin for science
how do I learn everything there is to
know about vaccines climate change
agricultural biotechnology physics book
physics oceanography physiology
mathematics sociology etc I don’t have
to I just need to know enough I need to
know enough to be a critical thinker
about who to believe and why it’s not a
matter of trusting person it’s a matter
of understanding process I know that
scientists aren’t necessarily good
people people people people but I know
the feeling of curiosity the drive
scientists to get up in the morning
before the Sun is out you go to a lab in
a windowless basement you come home when
the Sun is down at night I know what
it’s like to urine to know more to
understand more to learn more about how
the world works I know the painstaking
detail that goes into every sentence of
every paper the tweaking of figure
elements single pixels to the left or
right
repeating experiments again and again
and again because that ricotta
controller made a pipetting error or it
was 21 degrees Celsius yesterday and
it’s 23 degrees Celsius today and I know
that when a scientist tells me that the
earth is getting warmer and human beings
are at fault that is because they made
their best effort with the best
available tools and knowledge and
they’re almost certainly right I’m not
asking you to get to know scientists
personally I’m begging you to we’re your
neighbors
find your personal entry point pick up a
biography of rosalind Franklin go for a
walk and learn about the lifecycle of a
maple tree on the answered questions
about our world are more common than you
would think why do we sleep why do we
dream why do birds have glycogen bodies
those little round balls on oak trees
they’re called galls and wasps get the
trees to make them but no one knows how
how do butterflies know where to go is
there life on other planets in our solar
system find a question that excites you
and read about how other people have
tried to solve it and then try to solve
it science is a tool of empowerment
anyone can ask questions anyone can get
answers back from reality
anyone can make their beliefs
proportionate to the evidence and that
can only be taken away from you if your
curiosity dies and once you know that
feeling of curiosity and you know you
have the power to ask questions of
reality and get answers back in doing so
make the world more prosperous more fair
better place once you feel that
excitement and that passion and once you
have fallen in love and you understand
that all of science is driven by passion
listen to what scientists have to say it
won’t always be the same thing sometimes
we disagree and that is wonderful but
when almost every scientist in a field
is telling you the same thing listen
help them spread that message the earth
is getting warmer human beings or at
fault GMOs are safe and can help secure
our food supply vaccines are safe and
can help prevent diseases evolution it’s
a thing
be skeptical ask your own questions but
understand why and how scientists reach
conclusions use your hands use your mind
make the world a better place thank you
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