in thinking about my remarks for today I
went back to some of my former students
and I asked them in the courses they’ve
taken with me what were they what were
the major takeaways what were the things
that they valued the most from from our
time together and and from my courses it
was clearly a humbling experience and
the results were rather rather
unexpected and it actually made me pivot
and transitioned to give a much
different talk than I had originally
intended when I started sure I in all my
courses I I presented the basic tenants
of science to all the students I even
introduced them to kind of the
excitement of fieldwork and and
measurements of the natural environment
and the various concepts of science and
how it how it relates to the natural
environment but that wasn’t what they
took away from the course what they took
away from the course was a different
understanding of science and in fact
what what they valued the most was an
understanding of how science is done the
process of discovery the process of how
we use science to systematically and
critically think about questions and
that it was an iterative process
[Music]
typically we have this impression of
science and it’s it starts with how I
guess science is presented in grade
school which is this concept or even on
television this concept of someone in
you know in a white lab coat typically
with strange shaped glassware always has
strange colored fluids in it and and we
learn this sort of approach of science
where a hypothesis is proposed then we
go out there and we collect data we
analyze the data and we reach some sort
of conclusion and that this conclusion
represents some truth some certainty and
that everyone would agree on it and that
experts will agree on it science is not
really done that way
at least the great discoveries of
science rarely occur through that
process they kind of occur through a
more iterative and creative process
there are usually ideas out there and
we’re looking to improve upon them or
revise them or think of how they can
explain more of the phenomena that we’re
trying to measure we go when we collect
data but the data are messy they’re
ambiguous
we can’t go it collect the data we
really want so we’re interpreting data
we’re using proxy data notice we use
this expression interpret data we don’t
actually analyze data we interpret data
and different people looking at the same
data can actually arrive at different
interpretations and typically we don’t
have conclusions but we arrive at
findings and with these findings we
realize that additional work can always
be done and this brings us back to the
beginning because then we predict what
what we should see we predict what new
data we should find we make up stories
to explain the data and then we go when
we test those stories in a very
iterative and creative process I think
what this requires is sort of a humble
approach to science and that is the
sense that we always need to be able to
as we collect data and as we get new
information to do what we – to do what
we refer to as to entertain an
alternative hypothesis in other words to
be open-minded in other words to be
willing to change our mind now some of
you may have heard of this
problem-solving principle called Occam’s
razor it’s it’s not clear whether this
the attribution is correct or not but
basically Occam’s razor is the idea that
if you’re thinking about a problem and
looking for a solution you should begin
with the solution that is a simplest
solution that explains the data in other
words you should not unnecessarily add
complexity this is often translated into
the idea that if you see hoof prints on
the ground the first thing you should
think of should be horses not zebras
idea here is you look for the simplest
most likely explanation and if that
fails then you look at other
alternatives the important concept here
though is that with Occam’s razor it
doesn’t necessarily say that the
simplest solution or the simplest theory
that satisfies the data is the correct
one it says that that is the beginning
that is where you begin the process and
you then add complexity as needed to
explain the additional data if for
example you know in this situation you
turn around in the animal that’s that’s
that’s creating those hoofprints happens
to have stripes on it then you may want
to think of severs if you go back and
you look at who were some of the most
famous scientists or some of the ones
that we think of da Vinci Edison Albert
Einstein many of these scientists were
known to have very strong or significant
cases of AD D and the gene associated
with AD D is actually sometimes referred
to as the Explorers gene and one theory
about this is that having a DD actually
allows people to let go of some of the
pre-existing ideas it allows them to be
more intellectually nimble it allows
them to be more willing to adopt a new
hypothesis or a new theory and to let go
of the old one the idea is that perhaps
if you can’t you know if you can’t
remember all the facts of the old theory
you’re less you’re more likely to be
willing to abandon that and adopt the
new theory this is I had the experience
of of this scene a transition in science
when I first came into geosciences the
prevailing theory right in the 50s and
going into the into the early 60s was
that the earth was essentially like an
apple and that as the earth aged it was
cooling and shrinking and that cooling
and shrinking caused wrinkles on the
surface of the Apple and that explained
the mountainside basis
now I think even as a very young child
first being introduced to this in grade
school I realized that clearly this was
a field that was wide open and that also
in my experience I had never seen a
wrinkled apple to me they were more
mushy as they got older so anyway we
accepted that yet in the 1960s the
theory of plate tectonics came along and
also in all this data was collected that
indicated that the seafloor was
spreading and that the we had magnetic
anomalies which were symmetric around
the seafloor it indicated that the
seafloor was spreading and we developed
a theory of continental drift and this
completely changed her theory of how the
earth was formed how the earth was
evolved and created a revolution in her
sciences that went through the 60s and
the 1970s now that there were several
holdouts people who resisted this
because it was a big body of literature
and all this information that was
available so how do you accept this new
theory how do you accept this new idea
and abandon so much of what was there
before
Max Planck who won the Nobel Prize in
Physics approximately a century ago and
by any objective assessment was a pretty
interesting person pointed out that a
new scientific truth does not triumph by
convincing its opponents and making them
see the light but rather because the
opponents eventually die and I think
there’s a there’s an important concept
here and that is that I think we all
know certainly any of us who have been
in relationships that you don’t change
someone’s mind by proving them wrong and
that there’s always going to be a
certain amount of outlier opinion that
that exists but that doesn’t mean that
there isn’t a consensus and that doesn’t
mean that science cannot move forward
what happens is a lot of this opposition
is then supported through what we call
anecdotal information an anecdotal
information is both interesting and
useful but it’s also dangerous
anecdotes are stories and we like these
stories because they’re easier easy to
relate to they’re easier to relate to
than facts or graphs or numbers or data
the problem with anecdotes is inevitably
we cherry pick them we cherry pick them
to support our predetermined point of
view and in science we have the same the
plural of anecdote is not data we think
this is a very clever statement
it’s Houston a lot of talks it’s a
statement that every scientist knows
because a bunch of stories and a bunch
of examples do not necessarily
constitute what we would consider to be
a rigorous analysis the series of
anecdotes are not in fact a collection
of data and they can be quite dangerous
anecdotes are typically what’s used to
support outlier opinions anecdotes are
typically the basis of what we see for
prejudice anecdotes are used to support
creationism and they are the hallmark of
conspiracy theories so we are anecdotes
are often often things that we try to
avoid so what I’d like to propose here
is that if we’re looking for when we
deal with science and in a society where
increasingly more of our decisions are
being based on science and technology
and increasingly in a situation where I
don’t think we can afford to wait for
funerals if we’re looking for truth and
certainty we need to realize that
findings will always be revised there
will never be a hundred percent
agreement more research can always be
done results will be challenged with
anecdotal information and yet we have to
be careful that we don’t allow this to
be used as an excuse for inaction and
some people have actually pointed out
there’s a strange symbiotic relationship
where if you’re a policymaker and you
want to avoid making difficult decisions
you can call for more research to be
done and the scientific community is
always anxious to accept additional
support and can always think of
additional problems and ways of asking
the question so we have to be careful
that as this iterative process of
science continues we don’t allow that to
distract us
from using science and taking it
advantage of science to make the
decisions that we need to make and the
reason why I find this to be valuable
and I think this is important is because
as we look for those footprints or as we
see those footprints we don’t want to
allow or we don’t want to lose the
possibility that those footprints if we
turn around and see an animal and it has
this big horn sticking out of its head
that we may have in fact found the
Unicorn
and we need to be open to that and
understand that science is this
iterative process that it’s a creative
process that science is actually more of
an art than a science and that if we
embrace it that way it can lead us to
new discoveries now what I’m saying is
this won’t necessarily make our lives
easier but it will make them richer and
I think that it just might also make
this world a little bit of a better
place thank you
[Applause]
you
[Applause]
went back to some of my former students
and I asked them in the courses they’ve
taken with me what were they what were
the major takeaways what were the things
that they valued the most from from our
time together and and from my courses it
was clearly a humbling experience and
the results were rather rather
unexpected and it actually made me pivot
and transitioned to give a much
different talk than I had originally
intended when I started sure I in all my
courses I I presented the basic tenants
of science to all the students I even
introduced them to kind of the
excitement of fieldwork and and
measurements of the natural environment
and the various concepts of science and
how it how it relates to the natural
environment but that wasn’t what they
took away from the course what they took
away from the course was a different
understanding of science and in fact
what what they valued the most was an
understanding of how science is done the
process of discovery the process of how
we use science to systematically and
critically think about questions and
that it was an iterative process
[Music]
typically we have this impression of
science and it’s it starts with how I
guess science is presented in grade
school which is this concept or even on
television this concept of someone in
you know in a white lab coat typically
with strange shaped glassware always has
strange colored fluids in it and and we
learn this sort of approach of science
where a hypothesis is proposed then we
go out there and we collect data we
analyze the data and we reach some sort
of conclusion and that this conclusion
represents some truth some certainty and
that everyone would agree on it and that
experts will agree on it science is not
really done that way
at least the great discoveries of
science rarely occur through that
process they kind of occur through a
more iterative and creative process
there are usually ideas out there and
we’re looking to improve upon them or
revise them or think of how they can
explain more of the phenomena that we’re
trying to measure we go when we collect
data but the data are messy they’re
ambiguous
we can’t go it collect the data we
really want so we’re interpreting data
we’re using proxy data notice we use
this expression interpret data we don’t
actually analyze data we interpret data
and different people looking at the same
data can actually arrive at different
interpretations and typically we don’t
have conclusions but we arrive at
findings and with these findings we
realize that additional work can always
be done and this brings us back to the
beginning because then we predict what
what we should see we predict what new
data we should find we make up stories
to explain the data and then we go when
we test those stories in a very
iterative and creative process I think
what this requires is sort of a humble
approach to science and that is the
sense that we always need to be able to
as we collect data and as we get new
information to do what we – to do what
we refer to as to entertain an
alternative hypothesis in other words to
be open-minded in other words to be
willing to change our mind now some of
you may have heard of this
problem-solving principle called Occam’s
razor it’s it’s not clear whether this
the attribution is correct or not but
basically Occam’s razor is the idea that
if you’re thinking about a problem and
looking for a solution you should begin
with the solution that is a simplest
solution that explains the data in other
words you should not unnecessarily add
complexity this is often translated into
the idea that if you see hoof prints on
the ground the first thing you should
think of should be horses not zebras
idea here is you look for the simplest
most likely explanation and if that
fails then you look at other
alternatives the important concept here
though is that with Occam’s razor it
doesn’t necessarily say that the
simplest solution or the simplest theory
that satisfies the data is the correct
one it says that that is the beginning
that is where you begin the process and
you then add complexity as needed to
explain the additional data if for
example you know in this situation you
turn around in the animal that’s that’s
that’s creating those hoofprints happens
to have stripes on it then you may want
to think of severs if you go back and
you look at who were some of the most
famous scientists or some of the ones
that we think of da Vinci Edison Albert
Einstein many of these scientists were
known to have very strong or significant
cases of AD D and the gene associated
with AD D is actually sometimes referred
to as the Explorers gene and one theory
about this is that having a DD actually
allows people to let go of some of the
pre-existing ideas it allows them to be
more intellectually nimble it allows
them to be more willing to adopt a new
hypothesis or a new theory and to let go
of the old one the idea is that perhaps
if you can’t you know if you can’t
remember all the facts of the old theory
you’re less you’re more likely to be
willing to abandon that and adopt the
new theory this is I had the experience
of of this scene a transition in science
when I first came into geosciences the
prevailing theory right in the 50s and
going into the into the early 60s was
that the earth was essentially like an
apple and that as the earth aged it was
cooling and shrinking and that cooling
and shrinking caused wrinkles on the
surface of the Apple and that explained
the mountainside basis
now I think even as a very young child
first being introduced to this in grade
school I realized that clearly this was
a field that was wide open and that also
in my experience I had never seen a
wrinkled apple to me they were more
mushy as they got older so anyway we
accepted that yet in the 1960s the
theory of plate tectonics came along and
also in all this data was collected that
indicated that the seafloor was
spreading and that the we had magnetic
anomalies which were symmetric around
the seafloor it indicated that the
seafloor was spreading and we developed
a theory of continental drift and this
completely changed her theory of how the
earth was formed how the earth was
evolved and created a revolution in her
sciences that went through the 60s and
the 1970s now that there were several
holdouts people who resisted this
because it was a big body of literature
and all this information that was
available so how do you accept this new
theory how do you accept this new idea
and abandon so much of what was there
before
Max Planck who won the Nobel Prize in
Physics approximately a century ago and
by any objective assessment was a pretty
interesting person pointed out that a
new scientific truth does not triumph by
convincing its opponents and making them
see the light but rather because the
opponents eventually die and I think
there’s a there’s an important concept
here and that is that I think we all
know certainly any of us who have been
in relationships that you don’t change
someone’s mind by proving them wrong and
that there’s always going to be a
certain amount of outlier opinion that
that exists but that doesn’t mean that
there isn’t a consensus and that doesn’t
mean that science cannot move forward
what happens is a lot of this opposition
is then supported through what we call
anecdotal information an anecdotal
information is both interesting and
useful but it’s also dangerous
anecdotes are stories and we like these
stories because they’re easier easy to
relate to they’re easier to relate to
than facts or graphs or numbers or data
the problem with anecdotes is inevitably
we cherry pick them we cherry pick them
to support our predetermined point of
view and in science we have the same the
plural of anecdote is not data we think
this is a very clever statement
it’s Houston a lot of talks it’s a
statement that every scientist knows
because a bunch of stories and a bunch
of examples do not necessarily
constitute what we would consider to be
a rigorous analysis the series of
anecdotes are not in fact a collection
of data and they can be quite dangerous
anecdotes are typically what’s used to
support outlier opinions anecdotes are
typically the basis of what we see for
prejudice anecdotes are used to support
creationism and they are the hallmark of
conspiracy theories so we are anecdotes
are often often things that we try to
avoid so what I’d like to propose here
is that if we’re looking for when we
deal with science and in a society where
increasingly more of our decisions are
being based on science and technology
and increasingly in a situation where I
don’t think we can afford to wait for
funerals if we’re looking for truth and
certainty we need to realize that
findings will always be revised there
will never be a hundred percent
agreement more research can always be
done results will be challenged with
anecdotal information and yet we have to
be careful that we don’t allow this to
be used as an excuse for inaction and
some people have actually pointed out
there’s a strange symbiotic relationship
where if you’re a policymaker and you
want to avoid making difficult decisions
you can call for more research to be
done and the scientific community is
always anxious to accept additional
support and can always think of
additional problems and ways of asking
the question so we have to be careful
that as this iterative process of
science continues we don’t allow that to
distract us
from using science and taking it
advantage of science to make the
decisions that we need to make and the
reason why I find this to be valuable
and I think this is important is because
as we look for those footprints or as we
see those footprints we don’t want to
allow or we don’t want to lose the
possibility that those footprints if we
turn around and see an animal and it has
this big horn sticking out of its head
that we may have in fact found the
Unicorn
and we need to be open to that and
understand that science is this
iterative process that it’s a creative
process that science is actually more of
an art than a science and that if we
embrace it that way it can lead us to
new discoveries now what I’m saying is
this won’t necessarily make our lives
easier but it will make them richer and
I think that it just might also make
this world a little bit of a better
place thank you
[Applause]
you
[Applause]
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