the goal of my eighth-grade science-fair
project was to solve global warming
using two aquariums water and some saran
wrap looking back now I can safely say
that my research design was flawed from
the outset and the honorable mention I
received was generous at best but that
curiosity and interest in using the
potential of science to benefit our
world has remained a thread between that
eighth grade fair and today as an
archaeologist and a researcher who
contributes studies into human
environment interactions over long
periods of time and what my work has
taught me is that having scientific
evidence isn’t enough to solve our
problems like democracy science isn’t a
spectator sport now a study last year
from science counts showed that an
overwhelming majority of Americans
associate science with discovery and
hope but there’s also this disconnect
that exists between that positive
perception and science feeling relevant
in our lives because it said that most
people would cut science funding first
when there’s a budget crisis and I see
this phenomenon playing out in some
conversations where science is treated
as distinct parts where people separate
science as process from science as
practice
so imagine process as your cookbook and
practice is making the recipe and
serving the food and everybody wants a
good dinner if our goal is to serve as
many people as possible with a meal that
nourishes them we would be asking
ourselves questions like what recipes
are appropriate what ingredients do we
need who is doing the cooking how is it
being served and as my grandmother would
often exclaim is there enough food
who hasn’t eaten so when we treat
science and approach it as these
distinct parts we limit its potential to
serve more people in our communities
better so I’m gonna burst some bubbles
here
this means that science is political
because we don’t create it in a vacuum
or pluck it out of thin air divorce from
our social and political structures how
we the people choose to wield science is
like with any tool that can be used to
destroy or build harm or heal us and
political decisions about science
education funding and policies affect
all of us at every scale from the local
to the global
so in my profession I am trained to
examine patterns in the past so I’d like
to share a historical example that has
direct modern parallels in London in the
1800’s industrialization and high rates
of urban growth accessor baited
unsanitary living conditions with
overcrowding and a deplorable sewage
system waste often flowed into untreated
drinking water meanwhile cholera
epidemics were devastating entire
neighborhoods in the mere span of days
and public mistrust in the medical
profession reached such a pitch that
cholera riots broke out so the social
and political climates were incredibly
tense and a lot of people were weighing
in about what was happening but nobody
really knew what to do or how to fix it
so at the time the most respectable
theory on the cause of Cholera explained
that it was due to my asthma’s or
poisonous gases and a doctor named John
Snow who’s now heralded as a founder of
modern epidemiology went against the
social political and professional grain
by making a scientific case that cholera
wasn’t transmitted by bad air but rather
from living organisms and contaminated
food or water now he first developed
this hypothesis after examining sick
patients in an outbreak that happened
in 1848 and in the course of those
investigations he incriminated to London
companies with servicing their clients
with polluted river water and one of
them actually did end up switching their
source water and started filtering it
about a year later snow also
self-published
a 39 page pamphlet describing his
evidence and reasoning in which he even
engaged in some language acrobatics to
avoid certain trigger words like germs
because germ theory was so unpopular at
the time well unfortunately a lot of
people didn’t buy the book but he
persisted he started giving public
lectures and he continued to hone his
hypothesis over several years so then
when another outbreak erupted in 1854
snow went and systematically and with
painstaking detail collected data on
hundreds of deaths a great personal risk
to his own health using simple tools of
science he accumulated undeniable
evidence to not only support his
hypothesis but also to identify the
proximate cause as coming from one
public water well on Broad Street now he
could have stopped there if he wanted he
could have kicked back and thought given
enough time and on the strength of my
evidence
surely other people would reach the same
conclusions but science has another role
to play besides generating knowledge
science in practice can serve as a
sentinel to sound an alarm to threats in
our communities so Snowe convinced
skeptical officials to turn off the pump
and then when they investigated that
well later they discovered that there
was this nearby unrecorded cesspit that
had been leaking into it vindicating his
argument well that seems like a happy
ending snow left a legacy in the field
of Epidemiology and in the science of
Public Health and he serves as an
example of science marrying process and
practice to better meet its potential
but I want to say one more thing on it
it took a really long time for his idea
to be accepted even when other
scientists discovered the organism that
causes cholera the social and political
climates continue to resist that science
can never have all the answers all at
once with 100% certainty has been a
blunt and well-worn weapon used against
it by people in the past and today
science isn’t handcuffed to labs or
ivory towers or offices the methods of
science belong to everyone and while
only some are in positions to determine
whether and how science is
institutionally practiced and applied
the consequences of those decisions are
shared by all of us in our communities
today our human population exceeds seven
and a half billion and is forecast to
reach almost 10 billion in 2050 global
connectivity and the ways in which we
are interdependent keep increasing so
the world is being made both bigger and
smaller tantalizing us with the promise
of greater human collaboration while
giving rise to the potential for
conflicts and ideological confrontations
this could be both exhilarating and
frightening but it doesn’t need to be
paralyzing science gives us our best
guide to reduce inherent human biases
and provides us with a structure of
reaching a shared understanding and
empowers us with a collaborative roadmap
to address and solve our problems now
more than ever
when misrepresentations of science are
publicly abundant and paid merchants of
doubt’ contradict good science in order
to serve powerful agendas
we must engage in courageous public
discourse and in our civic
responsibilities to insist to those in
power
and to each other to let science serve
and serve us better this year I thought
that call to action more than ever and I
wasn’t alone on April 22 2017 on more
than 600 locations on all seven
continents more than 1 million marchers
United in a great show of public support
to promote science and to champion for a
stronger healthier relationship between
science and society like snow that March
made history but the journey doesn’t end
there when science is heard and not
silenced understood not denied when we
can better bridge the gaps between
having a cookbook and beating people
then we’ll open more doors for science
to reach its potential as that
Enterprise deserving of the hope we
place in it but it’s up to us and it’s a
big kitchen so let’s get to work
thank you
[Applause]
project was to solve global warming
using two aquariums water and some saran
wrap looking back now I can safely say
that my research design was flawed from
the outset and the honorable mention I
received was generous at best but that
curiosity and interest in using the
potential of science to benefit our
world has remained a thread between that
eighth grade fair and today as an
archaeologist and a researcher who
contributes studies into human
environment interactions over long
periods of time and what my work has
taught me is that having scientific
evidence isn’t enough to solve our
problems like democracy science isn’t a
spectator sport now a study last year
from science counts showed that an
overwhelming majority of Americans
associate science with discovery and
hope but there’s also this disconnect
that exists between that positive
perception and science feeling relevant
in our lives because it said that most
people would cut science funding first
when there’s a budget crisis and I see
this phenomenon playing out in some
conversations where science is treated
as distinct parts where people separate
science as process from science as
practice
so imagine process as your cookbook and
practice is making the recipe and
serving the food and everybody wants a
good dinner if our goal is to serve as
many people as possible with a meal that
nourishes them we would be asking
ourselves questions like what recipes
are appropriate what ingredients do we
need who is doing the cooking how is it
being served and as my grandmother would
often exclaim is there enough food
who hasn’t eaten so when we treat
science and approach it as these
distinct parts we limit its potential to
serve more people in our communities
better so I’m gonna burst some bubbles
here
this means that science is political
because we don’t create it in a vacuum
or pluck it out of thin air divorce from
our social and political structures how
we the people choose to wield science is
like with any tool that can be used to
destroy or build harm or heal us and
political decisions about science
education funding and policies affect
all of us at every scale from the local
to the global
so in my profession I am trained to
examine patterns in the past so I’d like
to share a historical example that has
direct modern parallels in London in the
1800’s industrialization and high rates
of urban growth accessor baited
unsanitary living conditions with
overcrowding and a deplorable sewage
system waste often flowed into untreated
drinking water meanwhile cholera
epidemics were devastating entire
neighborhoods in the mere span of days
and public mistrust in the medical
profession reached such a pitch that
cholera riots broke out so the social
and political climates were incredibly
tense and a lot of people were weighing
in about what was happening but nobody
really knew what to do or how to fix it
so at the time the most respectable
theory on the cause of Cholera explained
that it was due to my asthma’s or
poisonous gases and a doctor named John
Snow who’s now heralded as a founder of
modern epidemiology went against the
social political and professional grain
by making a scientific case that cholera
wasn’t transmitted by bad air but rather
from living organisms and contaminated
food or water now he first developed
this hypothesis after examining sick
patients in an outbreak that happened
in 1848 and in the course of those
investigations he incriminated to London
companies with servicing their clients
with polluted river water and one of
them actually did end up switching their
source water and started filtering it
about a year later snow also
self-published
a 39 page pamphlet describing his
evidence and reasoning in which he even
engaged in some language acrobatics to
avoid certain trigger words like germs
because germ theory was so unpopular at
the time well unfortunately a lot of
people didn’t buy the book but he
persisted he started giving public
lectures and he continued to hone his
hypothesis over several years so then
when another outbreak erupted in 1854
snow went and systematically and with
painstaking detail collected data on
hundreds of deaths a great personal risk
to his own health using simple tools of
science he accumulated undeniable
evidence to not only support his
hypothesis but also to identify the
proximate cause as coming from one
public water well on Broad Street now he
could have stopped there if he wanted he
could have kicked back and thought given
enough time and on the strength of my
evidence
surely other people would reach the same
conclusions but science has another role
to play besides generating knowledge
science in practice can serve as a
sentinel to sound an alarm to threats in
our communities so Snowe convinced
skeptical officials to turn off the pump
and then when they investigated that
well later they discovered that there
was this nearby unrecorded cesspit that
had been leaking into it vindicating his
argument well that seems like a happy
ending snow left a legacy in the field
of Epidemiology and in the science of
Public Health and he serves as an
example of science marrying process and
practice to better meet its potential
but I want to say one more thing on it
it took a really long time for his idea
to be accepted even when other
scientists discovered the organism that
causes cholera the social and political
climates continue to resist that science
can never have all the answers all at
once with 100% certainty has been a
blunt and well-worn weapon used against
it by people in the past and today
science isn’t handcuffed to labs or
ivory towers or offices the methods of
science belong to everyone and while
only some are in positions to determine
whether and how science is
institutionally practiced and applied
the consequences of those decisions are
shared by all of us in our communities
today our human population exceeds seven
and a half billion and is forecast to
reach almost 10 billion in 2050 global
connectivity and the ways in which we
are interdependent keep increasing so
the world is being made both bigger and
smaller tantalizing us with the promise
of greater human collaboration while
giving rise to the potential for
conflicts and ideological confrontations
this could be both exhilarating and
frightening but it doesn’t need to be
paralyzing science gives us our best
guide to reduce inherent human biases
and provides us with a structure of
reaching a shared understanding and
empowers us with a collaborative roadmap
to address and solve our problems now
more than ever
when misrepresentations of science are
publicly abundant and paid merchants of
doubt’ contradict good science in order
to serve powerful agendas
we must engage in courageous public
discourse and in our civic
responsibilities to insist to those in
power
and to each other to let science serve
and serve us better this year I thought
that call to action more than ever and I
wasn’t alone on April 22 2017 on more
than 600 locations on all seven
continents more than 1 million marchers
United in a great show of public support
to promote science and to champion for a
stronger healthier relationship between
science and society like snow that March
made history but the journey doesn’t end
there when science is heard and not
silenced understood not denied when we
can better bridge the gaps between
having a cookbook and beating people
then we’ll open more doors for science
to reach its potential as that
Enterprise deserving of the hope we
place in it but it’s up to us and it’s a
big kitchen so let’s get to work
thank you
[Applause]
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