Dave Levitan not a sci

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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">november 4, 2017</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not a scientist dave levitan talked about his book not a scientist, in which he offers his thoughts on how politicians misrepresent scientific findings. he spoke at the 2017 wisconsin book festival in madison.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">00:00:06</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;conor moran<span style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">conor moran</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wisconsin book festival, i want to thank you for coming to see dave levitan for his book, "not a scientist." this is the 15th anniversary of the wisconsin book festival. so many authors, so many attendees and so much time has gone into giving us 16 book festivals, and i just really want to say thank you to all of you for coming out today and having come out for 15 years. i also want to say thank you to madison public library for taking this event on when it was unsure whether someone would and for giving us this beautiful space to keep putting on events for the public in madison and from anywhere you came from today. i also want to thank the madison public library foundation. they do all of the private fundraising that keeps these events free and open to the public. this is our fifth festival here at madison public library, and all of our events have been free. we care deeply about that, and we hope you do too. i want to say a huge thank you to all the sponsors. i also would ask you right now to, please, silence your cell phones. and that goes for dave as well. [laughter] and probably me, but, yeah. [laughter] you've got to check. i really would just like to start my introduction today by saying i'm not a scientist, but i really believe that book festivals are the solution to climate change. [laughter] and i have data -- i'm not going to show it to you right now, but it's just true. just believe it, it's true. [laughter] i think we've all heard some version of that in the past, and david's here to tell us why we shouldn't just believe. he is a crusading scientific journalist. i was just saying how important i feel that it is that somebody is writing about these things, you know? in an age where we don't know necessarily what's going on all the time, david's here to say this is going on, and it's going on probably more than you think. i think it's a very important topic. i think, you know, to hold the people who represent us accountable, but to also know what the facts are when we're talking about the facts. so here's dave to tell us what we need to know. [applause] >> well, thank you very much for that introduction, conor, and thank you to the festival and to the library for having me. this is very cool. yeah, my name is dave levitan, and i am a science journalist basedded near philadelphia. i've written for a whole bunch of places on a whole bunch of scientific topics. the book is called "not a scientist."&nbsp; show less text</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">00:02:55</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;dave levitan<span style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dave levitan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9 it is, essentially, a playbook of how politicians get science wrong. i thought what i would do today is sort of go new the origins of the book, where it came from and then also discuss that line, the title, "not a scientist," and where that came from. go through a couple of examples that are in there and maybe talk a bit about how some of the things that i was writing about in the book are playing out today and, more recently, in politics. so to start off, the book actually sort of arose out of my time as a staff writer for factcheck.org. i'm a freelancer generally, but i spent a little bit of time as a full-time staff writer for fact check, which i hope everyone is aware of that web site. they got a grant in early 2015 to start covering science sort of in a dedicated fashion. they had covered some scientific issues before, but they didn't have a science writer trained as a science writer. but they got a grant to start covering science directly, and they hired me to do that. we launched a sort of little, new section of the site called sci-check. my day job was basically paying attention to what politicians were saying about science and explaining why they were wrong when they were wrong, which i did not lack for material. [laughter] and basically early on in that job i started to notice some patterns in the ways that they were talking about science. sometimes this was, you know, actual repeated talking points, just the same exact words from different people. but other times it was more sort of pattern ors of speech, rhetorical tricks, devices that i just started sort of noticing crop up again and again. i started collecting them, basically, at paris just sort of listing -- at first just sort of listing them down. and very rapidly i had a pretty long list of these. and i decided that it might be a useful sort of endeavor to put them all into one place, to basically collect these as a sort of playbook of the ways politicians are trying to fool us when it comes to scientific topics. a publisher agreed with me, so that's sort of where the book came from. i left that job in late 2015 basically to work on the book and to go back to freelancing, which i'm still doing. so that's sort of where it came from. i divided the book up, basically, into types of errors, types of devices of tricks. so some of these would sound very familiar. they're things like the cherry pick. i'm sure people are aware of the oversimplification, obvious what that means. others i had not really seen described specifically before, so i gave them weird names, things like the butter-up and undercut or the certain uncertainty. there's a bunch in there. i was making them up as i went, basically. but, okay. so i'll get into a few of those examples, but first go into that title, i'm not a scientist. i'm sure everyone has heard some version of that line plenty of times before. it really sort of picked up in popularity it was probably around 2009 or '10 when we heard it a whole lot. almost universally as it related to climate change. and it really sort of came from almost any politician you could find. it was remarkably you ubiquitous, i think. so once i decided that was going to be the title of this book, i realized i should probably figure out where it came from. it goes back, actually, a lot farther than i anticipated. but first i should say since i'm all about requiring evidence of people, i cannot promise with 100 president certainty that this is the very first time that someone used this line in exactly this way, but it's the first one i could find. and it's a pretty good example, i think. it actually goes back to september of 1980. during the end of the presidential campaign that year, then-candidate ronald reagan was asked during a campaign stop, i think it was in ohio, he was asked some questions about environmental issues, specifically about sulfur dioxide which is a pollutant you don't hear that much about, but it is the primary component of acid rain. another thing you don't hear about much these days. he said, i have flown twice over mount st. hell especially out on our west coast. i'm not a scientist and i don't know the figures, but i just have a suspicion that that one little mountain out there has probably released more into the atmosphere of the world than has been released during the last ten years of automobile driving and things of that kind that people are so concerned about. okay. so, i mean, i feel like that should sound very familiar. people didn't use this more recently on sulfur dioxide, but it's a similar formulation of how they were talking about something. he starts by saying i'm not a scientist and i don't know the figures, but here's a figure. he just goes right ahead and disavows expertise to start and offers up what amounts to an expert opinion. i mean, obviously the line i'm not a scientist itself is basically meaningless. of course you're not a scientist, we know that. but it is the but that follows it that is always the most important part. it's what they're going to offer up instead of actual science that an actual scientist would say. and i find that the technique sort of amounts to a smoke screen. it's a way to put experts, the actual scientist9s sort of off into the corner that no one is going to bother listening to because they seem sort of out of touch. it's a way to make it seem like we shouldn't listen to experts. and in reagan's particular case, here he was very much wrong on his point about sulfur dioxide. generally speaking, whatever you hear is wrong. i don't think i've ever heard a version where there was a little bit of right following it. [laughter] so quickly, mount st. helens at that point was releasing about 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide into the area, but humans were rereesing 81,000 tons a day, and that's just in the u.s. if he was referring to the eruption which had happened three or four months before that, that was 1.5 million tons -- sorry, in the eruption itself. that's still not enough though, because he said ten years of human activity which would have been something like 200 million tons. again, just in the u.s. it sounded reasonable though, right? i mean, the idea of this huge, massive explosion, this had been a big deal in the u.s. at the time. i mean, it killed a bunch of people, it was this massive thing. to pretend or to claim that humans couldn't possibly compete with something like that sort of sounds like it should make sense, and people have said how could we possibly change the climate, we're so small compared to the earth. but we do manage to change it pretty effectively. anyway, so that is sort of the first version of that line that i ever found. and i find it to be a really good example because, you know, it took -- it's not like suddenly everybody started using it right then. it took them a few decades before people started, you know, taking up that mantle again. it was so bizarre to me when it was being used all the time because it's such a meaningless thing to say. you don't hear people say it about anything else. they don't say i'm not an economist, you know, i'm not an expert on north korean culture and diplomacy. they just say the thing they want to say. and, again, i really think it sort of stands to marginalize experts. and i'm not the only one who thought this was weird. there was a republican strategist and consultant named mike mckenna who once called the line i'm not a scientist the dumbest talking point in minnesota kind. [laughter] i'm going to go through a couple of examples. i mentioned a few of the names of these techniques. i get asked a lot about sort of which one of these -- people can never decide it which is your favorite or least favorite, which is actually appropriate there. it's sort of the one that wounds me the most, i think. it's called the ridicule and dismiss. the concept here is that science, especially basic scientific research can often be described in absurd-sounding terms because it is basic. it is done on model organisms or on just cells. and when you just say something about this quickly, it's not going to sound like you're curing cancer. it's going to sound ridiculous. and politicians seize on that in order to try and question funding of that science. it's always about funding. it's always about trying to undercut our support for federally-funded research. here's an example. this is from kentucky senator rand paul. this was a few years ago. he was talking about funding for the national institutes of health, nih, and he said you know what we did discover, they spent a million dollars trying to determine whether male fruit flies like younger female fruit flies. i think we could have polled the audience and saved a million bucks. he gets a laugh, of course, because it does sound ridiculous if that's actually what you're doing. but that's not even close. it's only, like, in the very basis of sense correct and only without any sort of context. the lab he was actually talking about was at the university of michigan, and they do work on basically how healthy sexuality can promote healthy aging and connections between sexuality and aging. there's a whole bunch of other line of research in this, but when you put it that way, it sounds like that might be, actually, very useful. and you can do this for so much when it comes to basic research that involves model organisms like a fruit fly. it'll always sound ridiculous to study things in a fruit fly if you want it to sound ridiculous. or a mouse or a zebra fish, all these valuable model organisms that scientists use, it's never going to sound reasonable until you make it sound reasonable. this is why this wounds me so much, because it sort of serves to undermine all of our support for scientific research. if we think what the government is spending money on is ridiculous, then we're not going to want the government to spend money on it anymore. but it is not at all ridiculous. even if that particular research, you know, is not going to cure a disease tomorrow, that's just not how science works. we fund a whole town of individual little, basic bits of research that pile onto each other until we come to usable answers for things. and we do this with fruit flies or mice or a whole lot of other things. and the funding that the federal government has put out for that has resulted in incredible amounts of useful discoveries. i mean, we live something like 30 years longer today than we did 100 years ago largely because of principally-funded basic scientific -- federally-funded basic scientific research. that sounds a lot better when you put it that way. people have been doing this, using this technique for many years. former senator william proxmeyer used to give out the golden fleece awards. they were, basically, just trying to call out ridiculous-sounding bits of government spending. he often focused on science because, again, it's easy to focus on science for something like this. he did get in trouble a few times when the thing he said wasly duck louse turned out not to be, of course, and now there's something called the golden goose awards which take things that sound ridiculous and ended up being incredibly useful and gives them an award. my favorite example, there was a study involving massaging rat pups. which does sound ridiculous, til you realize the results of that study was used to change how we treat premature babies. and we have not only saved a whole lot of lives, but billions of dollars in how hospitals have to manage premature babies. so, again, massaging rat pups to saving premature babies. you can choose how you want to describe scientific research. and politicians like paul will sometimes choose to make it sound as ridiculous as possible. he should know better, by the way, because he's an m.d., he's a doctor, and he should understand how basic science works. that's the one that sort of gets to me the most. another example, another technique that i call the demonnizer is another one that's actually very old. this is almost universally used to connect immigration with disease. so politicians who are, you know, very much against immigration are always looking for ways to sort of prove their point on this. one of them that they have come back to over and over over the years is that immigrants bring disease with them. so this is a quote from an alabama congressman named moe brooks. this was a few years ago right when there was a measles outbreak happening that started at disneyland, actually. and he was talking about how -- and at the same time, there was this sort of stream of children who were showing up at the border from some central american countries. and he was sort of arguing that we should be turning them back because they're bringing disease in. so he said, unfortunately, our kids just aren't prepared for a lot of the diseases that come in and are borne by illegal aliens. you have to have sympathy for the plight of the illegal aliens, i think we all understand that, but they have not been blessed with in their home countries with the kind of health care and immunizations that we demand of our children in the united states. so, again, this probably sounds reasonable to a lot of people, that the u.s. health care system is going to be better than, say, nicaragua's where a lot of children were coming from at the time. he specifically mentioned immunizations because of the measles outbreak that was going on at the time. now, i'm sure a lot of people are well aware of the antivaccination movement in this country. i won't go into the details on the background, there's a bunch of it in the book if you're interested. but i think it's really important to realize just how wrong this sort of bit of speech is. he's saying they'reing in that might be bringing diseases that they don't have protection against and might harm us by doing so. so according to the world health organization, the coverage at one year old covered by the mmr vaccine, in the u.s. has been holding pretty steady for the last couple of decades at about 92%. so 92% of 1-year-olds are covered which sounds okay except the really ideal level for maintaining herd immunity for measles which means enough of it get vaccinated that the people among us who cannot because of lee chemoya or other issues, they are protect9 as well, immunity should be around 95% for measles. 92 is kind of at the lower end of where you want to be. this is a little misleading because this is a nationwide statistic. it's a little more relevant to look at smaller areas because it's not like we come into contact with the entire country. there are plenty of pockets because of the anti-vaccination movement that are far below this. places like marin county, california, orange county, i don't have last year's data, but at various points have dropped down into the 70% kind of range which is far away from what herd immunity requires. anyway, so we're at 92% if you coto do just take the white average. mexico for the last couple of decades has been around 95%. there's been, there was one weird year where they dipped, and i don't know why. generally, they have been better than the u.s. nicaragua for at least a decade has been at 99% coverage for the mmr vaccine. el salvador, just another one, has been right around 94, 95, again, a couple years dipped in '92. but again the implications was that all these countries where these kids were coming from have no health care at all, you know, it's nothing. and they're going to come into the u.s. and put all of us at risk when in actuality those kids were put at risk by us. we were the ones who were much more likely to give them measles than the other way around. this sort of technique is so old. you can go back to the aids crisis. there was a huge push to prevent people entering the country who were hiv positive. again, without any particular scientific reason for this. there weren't actually that many people showing up at borders who were hiv positive. and obviously we, in the u.s., were perfectly capable of spreading the disease ourselves. and just to show that these kinds, this kind of rhetoric can have sort of far-reaching implications, because of that discussion about not letting people in, they did pass, basically put in a policy that did not allow anyone to enter the country who was hiv positive. and this lasted all the way until 2009 when president obama lifted it. so that was, i mean, we probably -- no one was even thinking about it anymore, but that still was in place, you know, all through the 2000s and through the '90s. and you can go back even further to find this sort of thing. i just find this hilarious. this is -- so the immigration act of 1917, i'm just going to read you a bit of this to show how far or back this sort of fear mongering goes. that the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the united states: all idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, persons of constitutional psychopathic infear yourty, chronic alcoholism, poppers, professional beggars, persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome, dangerous or contagious disease, and it goes on for a while. the point is this has been used for so long, and it will always, to certain people, be a useful technique. because it's always going to sound scary to bring diseases into a country. you don't want these diseases. generally speaking, if you hear a politician say something like this, the first step should be to doubt it. not saying there won't ever be a time when another country has poorer health care on a given issue than we do. that's certainly possible. but generally speaking, the people who use this technique are not falling back on actual science or data in order to get us to believe it. okay. so that was a couple examples from the book. i should note that president trump is not really in this book very much. he's mentioned a couple of times, but he doesn't make many appearances. there are two main reasons for this. the primary one is a matter of timing. i finished writing the book toward the end of 2015. you know, into 2016 a little bit, but he was not the nominee yet, and, you know, i'm certainly not alone in having not taken him seriously at the time. but the other reason was that when he has talked about science, it's just sort of not worth debunking. [laughter] the point of the book, the point of the book was to offer up, you know, some sort of ammunition towards, you know, understanding and trying to see through some subtle manipulations on science from politicians; subtle, sort of clever manipulations of which there are many, i nuanced. now, do these words sound like the president? subtle, clever, nuanced. when he says global warming is a hoax caused by the chinese, no, it's not. okay, with we're done debunking it. there's no particular reason to do anything about that, they're ridiculous. that's another reason. that being said, the people he has hired do talk about science a lot because it's their job to do so, and many of them -- most of to them are not scientists themselves. and i think it is important to sort of see how, some of the things they've been talking about would fit into the sorts of techniques that i'm describing. so people like rick perry, secretary of energy, scott pruitt, head of epa, or ryan zinke, the secretary of the interior just among others, but they have certainly talked about scientific issues and have made plenty of errors or, errors is generous. used plenty of tricks that would fit right into the book. one that i want to go back to, i mean, we could talk plenty about some more recent stuff, but one i wanted to talk about is from the spring actually. pruitt, the epa administrator, went on tv, and he was asked about climate change, and he said -- here's what he said. i think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. so, no, i would not agree that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. so, okay, first of all, there's no tremendous disagreement, that's just a lie. but the carbon dioxide line is the one i find kind of amazing. this would fit probably best with a chapter in the book that i called the blind eye to follow-up. so if the premise here is that politicians will often seize on a particular finding or study or result that does match with their agenda or their ideology. they'll repeat that often, you know? and then sometimes the next study, the follow-up, will find something different where it'll change that result, sometimes contradict it entirely, and they stick with the original result. and they keep saying it, and it's sort of easy to defend because that really was a finding. they're not lying about anything, it just has changed. scientists are perfectly comfortable with this, you know? if a new result questions a previous result, they're fine adjusting what they say to reflect that. politicians are not so great at that. and so they will, you know, stick with the thing that fits best with their agenda. in this case this is the most egregious blind eye to follow-up in the history of humanity. there is a famous paper, which i'll read the title of, on the influence of carbonic acid, which is carbon dioxide, in the air -- this is a very famous paper written by a danish scientist in 1896. [laughter] describing the greenhouse effect, describing exactly how concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would warm up the world. and he was completely right. he probably has -- it's not precise, the way we know now, but it was completely right. and, in fact, you could go back further. joseph forwriter in 1824 described it in less specific terms, but he also understood what was happening. we'll give pruitt 1896. he basically is ignoring 100-plus years of actual science. and i just find that amazing, that you're literally questioning a result that we have known about for that long is incredible to me. and that's kind of the degree of bad faith arguing that we've started to to see recently. i will say though that just the other day jim bridenstein, who's a house member and the nominee to be the next head of nasa, was at his senate confirmation hearing, and he was asked plenty of questions about climate change because nasa is one of the primary organizations that actually studies climate change. and he actually did say i believe carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. all right, we've made it to 1896, great. [laughter] he went on. i believe humans have contributed to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. this was bizarrely promising for 20 seconds. [laughter] he was then asked to what extent. that is a question that i do not have an answer to. oh, we were so close. you almost made it, jim. so, of course, that is a question even if he doesn't have an answer to it, we very much do. we know exactly how much carbon dioxide we've put into the atmosphere. there are very good observations of this. there's a famous chart called the keeling curve which is very precise measurements of atmosphere carbon dioxide over the last -- that's since the late '50s. really we know pretty much for a fact that before the industrial revolution there was about 280 parts per million in the atmosphere, we are now permanently above 400. just last year we achieved a carbon dioxide in the atmosphere milestone, it was now the highest the planet has seen in at least 800,000 years. and we are 100% sure that that's from us, not from anything else. so even, you know, this potential head of nasa who is willing to admit that these things are actual things is still not exactly playing with a full deck, i guess. [laughter] and one more quick thing about something that happened recently. this actually was just yesterday, i think. the fourth national climate assessment. this is this big report that the government sort of requests, and it's actually by statute from 1990, i think, this has to be done every certain number of years so that the first couple pieces of the new draft came out yesterday. and it said, you know, very clearly this is bad, we did it, we needed to do something about it very quickly. all this is things about climate change that are now completely well understood. but i wanted to read a quick sentence from the, i guess it's from the executive summary. it says for the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence. meaning, the only possible reason for the world warming up is us. that's it. but what i find interesting about that is that's a really boring sentence that's hard to parse. finish like, i just said that to you, and you probably fell asleep halfway through because there's no conservative alternative -- [inaudible] it's so careful. and that's, i think, a really good way to highlight sort of the imbalanced playing field that we are on. scientists have to be careful like this. this is what they do. and i'm not saying this is wrong, that is a very carefully-done sentence. it's accurate, it is correct, but it is so easy for people who are arguing against you and not arguing in good faith to rip it to shreds. .. and i don't have a great solution to that because scientists should still keep try to be as accurate as possible that's not a bad thing. however, i guess it is incumbent on all of pus to sort of try to require that of all of our elected officials this is much easier said than done but that's kind of the point that i have through all of this is -- basically that you know, especially today, scientists very much under assault pif a slide that i can't show you. sorry. about -- [laughter] all of the different times that different headlines about assault on science we're seeing today. this is sort of a very common refrain these days i think it is very much accurate. in that context it is all the more important that we and we in the media for sure should do a better job and we the public need to very much press our elected officials to try to stick to the evidence in every possible situation, and if you hear something that doesn't sound like that's going on, well, i mean, vote them out i guess. but start by just demanding it as often and loudly as you can. so -- i will stop there. thank you very much for listening and i'm happy to answer any questions anybody has. [applause] oh, and i think i have to remind everybody there's a microphone there you want to ask questions we ask you use that because it is recorded and everything. so thank you. mples yes. >> so i have a question about article i just is read in "the washington post" about epa science advisory board where if you have an epa immigrant now you're disqualified because you have a conflict of interest and so now, there are many scientists remaining on the board but they're century scientists so when you you talk about science, it sounds kind of like there's a unified science. but there's a lot of science that is -- industry based and the article referred to scientists was a more conservative you. so i wouldn't think that scientists would have a conservative or a whatever the opposition is. and that could just be the language that "the washington post" has used which is i think a bit sloppy but still there are scientists with different interests. so if there's a war, is it on science or is it on university science? and what do you make of this, i mean, is there a -- is there a problem around you know, science and where science is coming from that they could speak about more differently rather than saying they're attacking science when, in fact, they're embracing some science and, you know, attacking other science. >> no that's an interest question. i mean, the, i mean, epa advisory board has been slammed by everyone outside of industry. [laughter] as , you know, sort of completely ridiculous thing. when we talk about the assault on science or the war on science, i think what we're really seeing is sort of a war on -- you know, objective reality. [laughter] and scientists will disclose scientist so that paper will list pupgding sources that paper will list conflict of interests which is not, you know, no one is free of wise. no one is arguing that but it's at least a good step is, and generally speaking, people who are, you know, funded by the government or funded by foundations or -- you know, and who disclose it or i would say a small step sort of removed from concern from the biases that industry like someone who literally works for exxon would have. that's not to say those people the people who work for exxon are not -- are necessarily bad scientists or anything. i'm sure there are plenty of smart people working for industry. ping we just have to be careful to accept like to -- put them upon the same plane in terms of who we're going to believe. if exxonmobil says we can burn all of the oil we want it is clearly there's clearly a very -- inherent bias so that. if researchers at the university of wisconsin say we have to stop burning oil l now, i feel like you can -- you can more quickly dispense with biases for them. i don't think that's an unfair thing to say. i guess -- it is important to remember that everyone will have some bias that's not bad to remember that we all co. i just think that -- science as we -- as we have developed parking lot scientific system in this country and around the world, avoiding basically it doesed clengt you havely that industry funded science is -- is going to be sorts of inherently lawed pin hairnghtly biased as long as we remember that that's not necessarily a problem. does that answer sort of your question at all or -- more industry research we have to recognize the science differently i guess. the problem there isn't one science. >> well, about -- >> okay, so she said there isn't one science or is there i would say that there is. there is a set of truths about the world that scientists trying to explore. and certainly, you know, we -- we get there incrementally and slowly overtime and sometimes we take a step back but -- no. i don't think there's more than one science. i think a study that, you know, that the you've all heard 98% consensus on climate change which i hate quoting. but -- so okay fine if i think it is probably closer to 99 if 99 studies say climate is change and need to do something about it and one says it is bad we don't need to do anything that doesn't mean like -- that doesn't mean that the one has as much weight as a 9 there's one on objective truth and -- people who are, you know, people who are sort of either purposefully or o by obscuring that are not doing science but their doing something else. and yeah i think it is sort of important to call that out. that doesn't mean we can't have discussion about these they thinks and that's what i -- kind of why i hate had the 97% consensus thing. scientists are having discussions about details all of the time. they're disagrees about things, i mean, you should go to a meeting of climate scientists they're disagrees about everything. just not about the basic facts of reality. [laughter] so i guess i think it is dangerous to argue that there's -- there are multiple truths. there might be multiple paths to the truth. but not multiple truths. i guess -- anybody elsesome? no well okay while l you're thinking about i'll tell another quick story because i'm pretty fascinated i by this one and egg it fits had in. but i will let you go ahead and ask your questions first. >> media's role in this because i see that politicians says false statement. but then the media repeats it over and over and over again. and then it really does become true u to many people. that's good and that you said it that way a while back i interviewed bill foster who is a congressman from illinois who is the only science ph.d. in all of congress. and he has this interesting formulation he thinks there are two kinds of facts he think there's regular facts and political fact. political facts only need to be repeated so many times that they become true. and these aren't necessarily real facts. and yeah, i think that the media plays huge role in -- trying to stifle those political facts. [laughter] and this actually relates back to what i was say about the, you know, the 99 versus one for a long time the media -- i mean, i'm sticking to climate change here because that's the biggest you know issue atsz moment but this could be said for other thing this is too. you would see -- if there was a discussion about climate change eaters on tv which was rare or -- just in an article. you know they would make sure to quote thes other side. this incredible false balance. even if, you know -- if you wanted to do it right then i guess you need 97 voices before you bring in a single one. obviously you can't do that in a given article so you ignore the decent voice and i think the media has gotten a lot better on that particular had issue. i think they're starting at baseline of reality. there's a lot of articles about climb change that you'll read now in in, you know, large mainstream outlets. they don't bother with the debate because there isn't one. they both bother but they just start "reality and whatever the story is about some new findingover whatever it is they'll get into it which i think is the appropriate way to handle that. it is a real challenge, though, when you know a prominent politician says something common wrong or crazy are about science. that's a tough call to -- to fig mother -- ignore or cover and not offering false balance but dow cover the bad science? i think it is a case by case basis another area that sort of comes up in slightly different ways is -- food science and nutrition science. this isn't necessarily something that politicians get in trouble for. but the media gets in trouble for -- i'm sure you've all read plenty of stories coffee is good, coffee is bad. butter is good, margarine is better. no butter this will go back and forth over and over and over, and that's a -- i think the media does need to get better at doing with that particular issue. because they're good stories people will click on them because we drink coffee or wine and whatever the thing is so it is hard for an editor to resist. but i would urge them all to resist. basically -- i think that general rule is if you see a study about something knew tries nutrition based like that a single food item baseline should be disbelief. chances are it is not right. it's a hard field to city we don't eat just butter and hard to figure out exactly what's going on. so supplementation stuff now it is probably all of the years you heard to have vitamin d supplements probably wrong. all of this stuff is probably wrong. so that is a thing that media can get a lot better at and answer there is -- you know, cover things sparingly and very carefully. and i, you know, there are good outlet and bad outlets at this and people make mistakes i remember in journalism school we did a little case study on this famous story in "the new york times" from i think 1998 -- about these new cancer drugs call the ngo basis inhibitors they basically stop blood vessels and starve the tumor and theoretically kill it and this story -- it quoted james watson in kirks name codiscover of the double helix shape of the dna molecule as saying, this guy judah saying he's going to cure cancer within two years. and that was in "the new york times" and it was specifically about this new drug -- and immediately the company and the scientist and the paper were deluged can calls from people who were desperate to try something for their relatives or themselves who had cancer understandably you've been told that cancer will be cured in two years. why wouldn't you want this drug? this drug has been tested in mice, and that's it. there was no human studies at that point and this was so dramatically irresponsible. [laughter] i mean, and again this is something, of course, by the way cancer was not cured within two years, and those drugs do exist. they're on the markets and sometimes they're useful but they are -- not the panacea that they were claimed to be. but yeah i think that's a very good cautionary tale and i think it is one that a lot of the media has taken to heart in recent years. you don't see as much breastless coverage of animal studies which i think is a very good thing. we have cured cancer in mice 200 times. generally doesn't translate very well. doesn't mean we shouldn't keep testing in mice it's an important part of this process but the way that we cover it is a really sort of, you know, it is crucial that you keep in mind how people are going to react to things i guess that was a long answer to your question. but -- [laughter] anyone else? yeah. >> research you happen to find a link with campaign contributions to politicians that do make these incorrect or outline statements are they correlated do you think? >> that's a great question. [inaudible conversations] sure the question was -- in doing research for this did i phoned a link between campaign contributions and , you know, the politicians who are getting certain contributioned and them making certain false statements? it's a good question. i don't have a good answer for you. i specifically stayed away from the why part of this. the intent behind some of these statements the goal to describe the how like how they're try to get stuff passed us, and i didn't really -- ping i think basically it's another book trying to tease out why thaifer done this. and tend point people to is merchant of doubt the book from 2010 or so. by naomi and eric conway which is about -- these sort of long-running financial campaigns to confuse the public on beginning with tobacco. going into things like acid rain, and then into climate change as well sop i didn't get into that really. but -- the obvious answer is yes it is always money. there's a it shall i mean if you look at, you know, who is making u new statements it is the people who are the politicians that say that most good things about fossil fuels people who have a lot of money from fossil fuel companies a direct line connection. but i didn't, you know, do the work of specifically correlating 5789s things like that really. okay i'll tell that other story that i was going to tell now. this was a -- so rick perry speaking eve people with fossil fuel connection secretary of energy now, he i don't know if anyone reads about this. the department of energy put out a proposed rule that would change sort of fundamentally the power markets in this country so the electric power markets. you know where you buy your electricity from. the rule and this is the reason this -- is tough because it's superboringing. the rule would allow cost recovery for power plants that keep at least 90 days worth of fuel on site. so again that sounds superbore but coal plants piles of coal outside enough to last for 90 days. in nuclear plants by the way and very larmingsest hydroelectric plants would qualify. but coal is is the point here. [laughter] they would be guaranteed not only their money back for their cost like their cost of running the plant but also a guaranteed rate of return. so this completely upends whatever degree there's a free market in the power sector this completely changes that because it just allows coal plants to get money. they -- so this was done, i mean, it was really done because they're trying to force all coal plant retirements a lot of coal plants have been, you know, shutting down. partially because they're getting old partially because market is tell them to shut down. renewable energy has dropped in price by a lot so it's a lot cheaper to rebuild gas facility and main driver of this natural gas got, you know, very cheap, very quickly. and sort of started to put coal out of business coal went from around 50% of our power supply couple of decades ago to 30% today and this by the department of energy was very much in attempt to slow that down. now, what i find interesting about this -- is the way that they argue for it. and i'm sorry this is a long story because if it is superbore. [laughter] but they argue this has to do with the resilience of the power grid that -- when there are shocks to the grid so a big storm or they argue specifically about the polar vortex in 2014 this massive cold snap that hit eastern country they need coal an nuclear these very stable dependable source type of generation to withstand that. the problem is there actually is no fed that that's true. they and so -- they sort of just claim that we immediate the without actually offering any reason for it. and in fact, the polar vortex concern there's this big company called pjm interconnection. they are regional transmission organization they move electricity around the country they're sort of you don't buy your electricity directly from them. but the utilities you buy from buy from them. they wrote a report about the po particular very texas they noted that gig watts worth of coal knocked offline by the cold snap, and the dependable source of power during that cold snap was wound power. [laughter] and it was the thing that actually produced more power than they expected through the grid during that -- during that event. so the point here is -- they're willing to say anything -- [laughter] and i don't -- i'm actually very curious how to deal with something like that because it is such a bad faith argument and again it is just such pun level playing field that i don't have a point here beyond it is interesting and something to watch out for. yeah. >> going back to -- studies that you said, i would just clarify that in the state butter is always best. [laughter] the question i have for you, though, is -- you hear a lot of individuals question based on religious beliefs, and is that factor addressed in your book at all? >> so no. it's not in the book much. there is so there are a few toppings in there that are certainly ones that come up when religion come os up. i think it the very first example i have in chapter one is -- about abortion that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks not based on any existing science at all. but that's sort of argument that you definitely get into religious waters with sometimes. i don't, you know, i didn't address how to deal request that or anything. you don't actually hear politicians make religious arguments very often. it's more the people responding to them i think -- so it will sort of a little bit like a next step down in a way. the other one that i did find interesting -- was thrrm some lnls arguments made about hpv vaccination, human paplamo virus can cause cervical cancer and so now we have vaccines which are recommended for young girls and boys, and are very effective at preventing transmission of the virus it will still be a little while before we know exactly how much cancer they're preventing. but when this was being discussed in 2005 and 2006 there were arguments made about -- you know we're encouraging per miscuety and that -- i actually found this interesting because it cut across party lines a little bit. we just talked about rick perry in texas in 2006 rick perry was one who tried to implement a universal vaccination program. which -- is kind of fascinating when you think about it, and he was shot down by the texas legislature making a lot of religious arguments about why this was a bad idea and they a little called it science experiment as if we were giving young girls vaccine which was a mischaracters and we knew it was safe and effective, et cetera. but yeah, i think it is interesting to note that, you know, some of the lnls religious arguments vowpgding science cut across things in weird ways. they don't quite follow the, you know, they don't follow money that we were talking about in exactly same pattern some times but no i can't say there's a ton in there about the -- details about that i guess. yeah. >> so what more can scientists do to educate the public so we're less receptive in addition to your bookless reaccept toif what we hear politicians saying or on the media -- so on. >> yeah, no that's a great question did everybody hear that what more with scientists do -- so there's been a lot of talk in recent years about, you know, how scientists do need to improve their communication skills i think that's true. scientists are are often sort of ill-equipped to deal with the public discourse arranged arranged their work especially work that's not particularly commonly in the public if you're doing climate science at this point you probably know what to expect. [laughter] but if you're doing various other kinds of research that don't often suddenly blow up because of a new drug or a new -- something. i think it would be really helpful for scientists to be better communicators. there are now a lot of programs that, you know, connected with journalism schools connected with just communications schools to help scientists get beaters and workshops for them scientists started doing that sort of thing. so that's -- i think that's all a good thing. the other -- other good thing would be to run for office and we're now seeing that. there's a political pax committee called 3-4 action and named after first three digits of pie that is entirely built to help scientists learn about running for office. and they are supporting dozens of candidates now at all levels there's some running for congress who are scientists or trained in various you know stem fields. but all the way down to, you know, local select men or -- mayors of small town, anything. they're helping people run for office. and i think having, having that degree is sort of scientific literacy -- in public office would be a great step having people who are more kivel talking about science all of the time, i mean that would probably help us all. you know, so that's -- that's a good i don't know if any of those people will win races they're in. but there are, you know, that's a good step too. thes other i guess those are the main point for now. yeah. anybody else? we have another minute or so. any last questions. yes. >> a question more referring to putting stick in it but is the cure for bad speech more free speech when all it does is cause repetition of -- the bad free speech, and reenforces those messages? is there a way out of that ? >> well that's above my pay grade. [laughter] i mean, bad free speech who defines it what's bad free speech? sorry. >> false. okay. so -- inaccuracies yeah, i mean -- no that's a tough one right. yeah it would be great if -- we can somehow prevent the spreads of falsehoods that have an impact on all of our lives. [laughter] but yeah -- i don't think anybody has an answer to that necessarily i don't think you want to get into, you know, stopping people from saying anything. i think, you know -- maybe, maybe cnn should stop showing entire rally without a context things like that that would be a good start. context is everything you're not going to stop people spr talking and i would hope nobody would want that but offering context to all of it is how you educate everybody. is how we all get a little bit better at this. so -- i don't think that's a, you know, supersatisfying apeses to what you're asking and it is an interesting question. but kind of all i got i guess. sure one more. >> thank you for the presentation, and i was just wondering how you would approach -- how they talk about opioid and drug and it seems like every time they talk about about everybody dying opioid they should also talk about how many people die because they smoke cigarettes or how many people die because they smoke alcohol or drink alcohol. you know, you get what i'm saying so it seems like that should be a comparison that goes on all of the time and keeps saying to people opioid opioids then people are going to start freaking out about opioid and they're not going to be able to put that in proper perspective without help from the yeedz. it is careful to know what they mean next to other numbers, and i'm not sure it's that useful actually to compare, you know, epidemic to semiunrelated epidemic. opioid issue -- i think important rhetorical bits to remember on that is -- to, you know, to call addiction make sure to call addiction a disease rather than, you know, a personal feeling which certain people like to do. but i guess i'm not so sure it necessarily needs to connect to how many people cigarettes killed. yiel there's certain connections in terms of the company that -- form basically defrauded all of pus on opioids for a couple of decade certainly related to what happened with cigarettes but i don't know they're pretty different. i mean starts because doctors prescribe something it's not quite the same as a cigarette. i don't know. but yods think i agree with you that it is always great to have numerical context for things to help us understand them a little bit better. but there's a language and as long as we stay away from war on krution kind of talk, i think we'll do okay. it's, obviously, we're not doing great yet, and there are plenty of people who talk about -- indefensible terms but -- i don't know. we'll have to sort of see how that one impose i guess. all right well thank you very much everybody. [applause] thank you so much dave thank you to all of you. dave will be out in the madison preschool signing books, and taking any additional comments. we will start again&nbsp; show less text</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">01:00:42</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">end</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">here at 3:00. thanks so much. [inaudible</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOVEMBER 4, 2017</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not a Scientist Dave Levitan talked about his book Not a Scientist, in which he offers his thoughts on how politicians misrepresent scientific findings. He spoke at the 2017 Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">00:00:06</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Conor Moran<span style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WISCONSIN BOOK FESTIVAL, I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR COMING TO SEE DAVE LEVITAN FOR HIS BOOK, "NOT A SCIENTIST." THIS IS THE 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WISCONSIN BOOK FESTIVAL. SO MANY AUTHORS, SO MANY ATTENDEES AND SO MUCH TIME HAS GONE INTO GIVING US 16 BOOK FESTIVALS, AND I JUST REALLY WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU FOR COMING OUT TODAY AND HAVING COME OUT FOR 15 YEARS. I ALSO WANT TO SAY THANK YOU TO MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR TAKING THIS EVENT ON WHEN IT WAS UNSURE WHETHER SOMEONE WOULD AND FOR GIVING US THIS BEAUTIFUL SPACE TO KEEP PUTTING ON EVENTS FOR THE PUBLIC IN MADISON AND FROM ANYWHERE YOU CAME FROM TODAY. I ALSO WANT TO THANK THE MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION. THEY DO ALL OF THE PRIVATE FUNDRAISING THAT KEEPS THESE EVENTS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. THIS IS OUR FIFTH FESTIVAL HERE AT MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND ALL OF OUR EVENTS HAVE BEEN FREE. WE CARE DEEPLY ABOUT THAT, AND WE HOPE YOU DO TOO. I WANT TO SAY A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL THE SPONSORS. I ALSO WOULD ASK YOU RIGHT NOW TO, PLEASE, SILENCE YOUR CELL PHONES. AND THAT GOES FOR DAVE AS WELL. [LAUGHTER] AND PROBABLY ME, BUT, YEAH. [LAUGHTER] YOU'VE GOT TO CHECK. I REALLY WOULD JUST LIKE TO START MY INTRODUCTION TODAY BY SAYING I'M NOT A SCIENTIST, BUT I REALLY BELIEVE THAT BOOK FESTIVALS ARE THE SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE. [LAUGHTER] AND I HAVE DATA -- I'M NOT GOING TO SHOW IT TO YOU RIGHT NOW, BUT IT'S JUST TRUE. JUST BELIEVE IT, IT'S TRUE. [LAUGHTER] I THINK WE'VE ALL HEARD SOME VERSION OF THAT IN THE PAST, AND DAVID'S HERE TO TELL US WHY WE SHOULDN'T JUST BELIEVE. HE IS A CRUSADING SCIENTIFIC JOURNALIST. I WAS JUST SAYING HOW IMPORTANT I FEEL THAT IT IS THAT SOMEBODY IS WRITING ABOUT THESE THINGS, YOU KNOW? IN AN AGE WHERE WE DON'T KNOW NECESSARILY WHAT'S GOING ON ALL THE TIME, DAVID'S HERE TO SAY THIS IS GOING ON, AND IT'S GOING ON PROBABLY MORE THAN YOU THINK. I THINK IT'S A VERY IMPORTANT TOPIC. I THINK, YOU KNOW, TO HOLD THE PEOPLE WHO REPRESENT US ACCOUNTABLE, BUT TO ALSO KNOW WHAT THE FACTS ARE WHEN WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE FACTS. SO HERE'S DAVE TO TELL US WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW. [APPLAUSE] >> WELL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THAT INTRODUCTION, CONOR, AND THANK YOU TO THE FESTIVAL AND TO THE LIBRARY FOR HAVING ME. THIS IS VERY COOL. YEAH, MY NAME IS DAVE LEVITAN, AND I AM A SCIENCE JOURNALIST BASEDDED NEAR PHILADELPHIA. I'VE WRITTEN FOR A WHOLE BUNCH OF PLACES ON A WHOLE BUNCH OF SCIENTIFIC TOPICS. THE BOOK IS CALLED "NOT A SCIENTIST."&nbsp; Show Less Text</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">00:02:55</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Dave Levitan<span style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dave Levitan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9 IT IS, ESSENTIALLY, A PLAYBOOK OF HOW POLITICIANS GET SCIENCE WRONG. I THOUGHT WHAT I WOULD DO TODAY IS SORT OF GO NEW THE ORIGINS OF THE BOOK, WHERE IT CAME FROM AND THEN ALSO DISCUSS THAT LINE, THE TITLE, "NOT A SCIENTIST," AND WHERE THAT CAME FROM. GO THROUGH A COUPLE OF EXAMPLES THAT ARE IN THERE AND MAYBE TALK A BIT ABOUT HOW SOME OF THE THINGS THAT I WAS WRITING ABOUT IN THE BOOK ARE PLAYING OUT TODAY AND, MORE RECENTLY, IN POLITICS. SO TO START OFF, THE BOOK ACTUALLY SORT OF AROSE OUT OF MY TIME AS A STAFF WRITER FOR FACTCHECK.ORG. I'M A FREELANCER GENERALLY, BUT I SPENT A LITTLE BIT OF TIME AS A FULL-TIME STAFF WRITER FOR FACT CHECK, WHICH I HOPE EVERYONE IS AWARE OF THAT WEB SITE. THEY GOT A GRANT IN EARLY 2015 TO START COVERING SCIENCE SORT OF IN A DEDICATED FASHION. THEY HAD COVERED SOME SCIENTIFIC ISSUES BEFORE, BUT THEY DIDN'T HAVE A SCIENCE WRITER TRAINED AS A SCIENCE WRITER. BUT THEY GOT A GRANT TO START COVERING SCIENCE DIRECTLY, AND THEY HIRED ME TO DO THAT. WE LAUNCHED A SORT OF LITTLE, NEW SECTION OF THE SITE CALLED SCI-CHECK. MY DAY JOB WAS BASICALLY PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT POLITICIANS WERE SAYING ABOUT SCIENCE AND EXPLAINING WHY THEY WERE WRONG WHEN THEY WERE WRONG, WHICH I DID NOT LACK FOR MATERIAL. [LAUGHTER] AND BASICALLY EARLY ON IN THAT JOB I STARTED TO NOTICE SOME PATTERNS IN THE WAYS THAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT SCIENCE. SOMETIMES THIS WAS, YOU KNOW, ACTUAL REPEATED TALKING POINTS, JUST THE SAME EXACT WORDS FROM DIFFERENT PEOPLE. BUT OTHER TIMES IT WAS MORE SORT OF PATTERN ORS OF SPEECH, RHETORICAL TRICKS, DEVICES THAT I JUST STARTED SORT OF NOTICING CROP UP AGAIN AND AGAIN.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;I STARTED COLLECTING THEM, BASICALLY, AT PARIS JUST SORT OF LISTING -- AT FIRST JUST SORT OF LISTING THEM DOWN. AND VERY RAPIDLY I HAD A PRETTY LONG LIST OF THESE. AND I DECIDED THAT IT MIGHT BE A USEFUL SORT OF ENDEAVOR TO PUT THEM ALL INTO ONE PLACE, TO BASICALLY COLLECT THESE AS A SORT OF PLAYBOOK OF THE WAYS POLITICIANS ARE TRYING TO FOOL US WHEN IT COMES TO SCIENTIFIC TOPICS. A PUBLISHER AGREED WITH ME, SO THAT'S SORT OF WHERE THE BOOK CAME FROM. I LEFT THAT JOB IN LATE 2015 BASICALLY TO WORK ON THE BOOK AND TO GO BACK TO FREELANCING, WHICH I'M STILL DOING. SO THAT'S SORT OF WHERE IT CAME FROM. I DIVIDED THE BOOK UP, BASICALLY, INTO TYPES OF ERRORS, TYPES OF DEVICES OF TRICKS. SO SOME OF THESE WOULD SOUND VERY FAMILIAR. THEY'RE THINGS LIKE THE CHERRY PICK. I'M SURE PEOPLE ARE AWARE OF THE OVERSIMPLIFICATION, OBVIOUS WHAT THAT MEANS. OTHERS I HAD NOT REALLY SEEN DESCRIBED SPECIFICALLY BEFORE, SO I GAVE THEM WEIRD NAMES, THINGS LIKE THE BUTTER-UP AND UNDERCUT OR THE CERTAIN UNCERTAINTY. THERE'S A BUNCH IN THERE. I WAS MAKING THEM UP AS I WENT, BASICALLY. BUT, OKAY. SO I'LL GET INTO A FEW OF THOSE EXAMPLES, BUT FIRST GO INTO THAT TITLE, I'M NOT A SCIENTIST. I'M SURE EVERYONE HAS HEARD SOME VERSION OF THAT LINE PLENTY OF TIMES BEFORE. IT REALLY SORT OF PICKED UP IN POPULARITY IT WAS PROBABLY AROUND 2009 OR '10 WHEN WE HEARD IT A WHOLE LOT. ALMOST UNIVERSALLY AS IT RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE. AND IT REALLY SORT OF CAME FROM ALMOST ANY POLITICIAN YOU COULD FIND. IT WAS REMARKABLY YOU UBIQUITOUS, I THINK. SO ONCE I DECIDED THAT WAS GOING TO BE THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK, I REALIZED I SHOULD PROBABLY FIGURE OUT WHERE IT CAME FROM.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IT GOES BACK, ACTUALLY, A LOT FARTHER THAN I ANTICIPATED. BUT FIRST I SHOULD SAY SINCE I'M ALL ABOUT REQUIRING EVIDENCE OF PEOPLE, I CANNOT PROMISE WITH 100 PRESIDENT CERTAINTY THAT THIS IS THE VERY FIRST TIME THAT SOMEONE USED THIS LINE IN EXACTLY THIS WAY, BUT IT'S THE FIRST ONE I COULD FIND. AND IT'S A PRETTY GOOD EXAMPLE, I THINK. IT ACTUALLY GOES BACK TO SEPTEMBER OF 1980. DURING THE END OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN THAT YEAR, THEN-CANDIDATE RONALD REAGAN WAS ASKED DURING A CAMPAIGN STOP, I THINK IT WAS IN OHIO, HE WAS ASKED SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES, SPECIFICALLY ABOUT SULFUR DIOXIDE WHICH IS A POLLUTANT YOU DON'T HEAR THAT MUCH ABOUT, BUT IT IS THE PRIMARY COMPONENT OF ACID RAIN. ANOTHER THING YOU DON'T HEAR ABOUT MUCH THESE DAYS. HE SAID, I HAVE FLOWN TWICE OVER MOUNT ST. HELL ESPECIALLY OUT ON OUR WEST COAST. I'M NOT A SCIENTIST AND I DON'T KNOW THE FIGURES, BUT I JUST HAVE A SUSPICION THAT THAT ONE LITTLE MOUNTAIN OUT THERE HAS PROBABLY RELEASED MORE INTO THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORLD THAN HAS BEEN RELEASED DURING THE LAST TEN YEARS OF AUTOMOBILE DRIVING AND THINGS OF THAT KIND THAT PEOPLE ARE SO CONCERNED ABOUT. OKAY. SO, I MEAN, I FEEL LIKE THAT SHOULD SOUND VERY FAMILIAR. PEOPLE DIDN'T USE THIS MORE RECENTLY ON SULFUR DIOXIDE, BUT IT'S A SIMILAR FORMULATION OF HOW THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING. HE STARTS BY SAYING I'M NOT A SCIENTIST AND I DON'T KNOW THE FIGURES, BUT HERE'S A FIGURE. HE JUST GOES RIGHT AHEAD AND DISAVOWS EXPERTISE TO START AND OFFERS UP WHAT AMOUNTS TO AN EXPERT OPINION. I MEAN, OBVIOUSLY THE LINE I'M NOT A SCIENTIST ITSELF IS BASICALLY MEANINGLESS. OF COURSE YOU'RE NOT A SCIENTIST, WE KNOW THAT. BUT IT IS THE BUT THAT FOLLOWS IT THAT IS ALWAYS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART. IT'S WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO OFFER UP INSTEAD OF ACTUAL SCIENCE THAT AN ACTUAL SCIENTIST WOULD SAY. AND I FIND THAT THE TECHNIQUE SORT OF AMOUNTS TO A SMOKE SCREEN. IT'S A WAY TO PUT EXPERTS, THE ACTUAL SCIENTIST9S SORT OF OFF INTO THE CORNER THAT NO ONE IS GOING TO BOTHER LISTENING TO BECAUSE THEY SEEM SORT OF OUT OF TOUCH. IT'S A WAY TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE WE SHOULDN'T LISTEN TO EXPERTS. AND IN REAGAN'S PARTICULAR CASE, HERE HE WAS VERY MUCH WRONG ON HIS POINT ABOUT SULFUR DIOXIDE. GENERALLY SPEAKING, WHATEVER YOU HEAR IS WRONG.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;I DON'T THINK I'VE EVER HEARD A VERSION WHERE THERE WAS A LITTLE BIT OF RIGHT FOLLOWING IT. [LAUGHTER] SO QUICKLY, MOUNT ST. HELENS AT THAT POINT WAS RELEASING ABOUT 2,000 TONS OF SULFUR DIOXIDE INTO THE AREA, BUT HUMANS WERE REREESING 81,000 TONS A DAY, AND THAT'S JUST IN THE U.S. IF HE WAS REFERRING TO THE ERUPTION WHICH HAD HAPPENED THREE OR FOUR MONTHS BEFORE THAT, THAT WAS 1.5 MILLION TONS -- SORRY, IN THE ERUPTION ITSELF. THAT'S STILL NOT ENOUGH THOUGH, BECAUSE HE SAID TEN YEARS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN SOMETHING LIKE 200 MILLION TONS. AGAIN, JUST IN THE U.S. IT SOUNDED REASONABLE THOUGH, RIGHT? I MEAN, THE IDEA OF THIS HUGE, MASSIVE EXPLOSION, THIS HAD BEEN A BIG DEAL IN THE U.S. AT THE TIME. I MEAN, IT KILLED A BUNCH OF PEOPLE, IT WAS THIS MASSIVE THING. TO PRETEND OR TO CLAIM THAT HUMANS COULDN'T POSSIBLY COMPETE WITH SOMETHING LIKE THAT SORT OF SOUNDS LIKE IT SHOULD MAKE SENSE, AND PEOPLE HAVE SAID HOW COULD WE POSSIBLY CHANGE THE CLIMATE, WE'RE SO SMALL COMPARED TO THE EARTH. BUT WE DO MANAGE TO CHANGE IT PRETTY EFFECTIVELY. ANYWAY, SO THAT IS SORT OF THE FIRST VERSION OF THAT LINE THAT I EVER FOUND. AND I FIND IT TO BE A REALLY GOOD EXAMPLE BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, IT TOOK -- IT'S NOT LIKE SUDDENLY EVERYBODY STARTED USING IT RIGHT THEN. IT TOOK THEM A FEW DECADES BEFORE PEOPLE STARTED, YOU KNOW, TAKING UP THAT MANTLE AGAIN. IT WAS SO BIZARRE TO ME WHEN IT WAS BEING USED ALL THE TIME BECAUSE IT'S SUCH A MEANINGLESS THING TO SAY. YOU DON'T HEAR PEOPLE SAY IT ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE. THEY DON'T SAY I'M NOT AN ECONOMIST, YOU KNOW, I'M NOT AN EXPERT ON NORTH KOREAN CULTURE AND DIPLOMACY. THEY JUST SAY THE THING THEY WANT TO SAY. AND, AGAIN, I REALLY THINK IT SORT OF STANDS TO MARGINALIZE EXPERTS. AND I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS WEIRD.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THERE WAS A REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST AND CONSULTANT NAMED MIKE McKENNA WHO ONCE CALLED THE LINE I'M NOT A SCIENTIST THE DUMBEST TALKING POINT IN MINNESOTA KIND. [LAUGHTER] I'M GOING TO GO THROUGH A COUPLE OF EXAMPLES. I MENTIONED A FEW OF THE NAMES OF THESE TECHNIQUES. I GET ASKED A LOT ABOUT SORT OF WHICH ONE OF THESE -- PEOPLE CAN NEVER DECIDE IT WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE OR LEAST FAVORITE, WHICH IS ACTUALLY APPROPRIATE THERE. IT'S SORT OF THE ONE THAT WOUNDS ME THE MOST, I THINK. IT'S CALLED THE RIDICULE AND DISMISS. THE CONCEPT HERE IS THAT SCIENCE, ESPECIALLY BASIC SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH CAN OFTEN BE DESCRIBED IN ABSURD-SOUNDING TERMS BECAUSE IT IS BASIC. IT IS DONE ON MODEL ORGANISMS OR ON JUST CELLS. AND WHEN YOU JUST SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS QUICKLY, IT'S NOT GOING TO SOUND LIKE YOU'RE CURING CANCER. IT'S GOING TO SOUND RIDICULOUS. AND POLITICIANS SEIZE ON THAT IN ORDER TO TRY AND QUESTION FUNDING OF THAT SCIENCE. IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT FUNDING. IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT TRYING TO UNDERCUT OUR SUPPORT FOR FEDERALLY-FUNDED RESEARCH. HERE'S AN EXAMPLE. THIS IS FROM KENTUCKY SENATOR RAND PAUL. THIS WAS A FEW YEARS AGO. HE WAS TALKING ABOUT FUNDING FOR THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, NIH, AND HE SAID YOU KNOW WHAT WE DID DISCOVER, THEY SPENT A MILLION DOLLARS TRYING TO DETERMINE WHETHER MALE FRUIT FLIES LIKE YOUNGER FEMALE FRUIT FLIES. I THINK WE COULD HAVE POLLED THE AUDIENCE AND SAVED A MILLION BUCKS. HE GETS A LAUGH, OF COURSE, BECAUSE IT DOES SOUND RIDICULOUS IF THAT'S ACTUALLY WHAT YOU'RE DOING. BUT THAT'S NOT EVEN CLOSE. IT'S ONLY, LIKE, IN THE VERY BASIS OF SENSE CORRECT AND ONLY WITHOUT ANY SORT OF CONTEXT. THE LAB HE WAS ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT WAS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, AND THEY DO WORK ON BASICALLY HOW HEALTHY SEXUALITY CAN PROMOTE HEALTHY AGING AND CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SEXUALITY AND AGING. THERE'S A WHOLE BUNCH OF OTHER LINE OF RESEARCH IN THIS, BUT WHEN YOU PUT IT THAT WAY, IT SOUNDS LIKE THAT MIGHT BE, ACTUALLY, VERY USEFUL. AND YOU CAN DO THIS FOR SO MUCH WHEN IT COMES TO BASIC RESEARCH THAT INVOLVES MODEL ORGANISMS LIKE A FRUIT FLY. IT'LL ALWAYS SOUND RIDICULOUS TO STUDY THINGS IN A FRUIT FLY IF YOU WANT IT TO SOUND RIDICULOUS. OR A MOUSE OR A ZEBRA FISH, ALL THESE VALUABLE MODEL ORGANISMS THAT SCIENTISTS USE, IT'S NEVER GOING TO SOUND REASONABLE UNTIL YOU MAKE IT SOUND REASONABLE. THIS IS WHY THIS WOUNDS ME SO MUCH, BECAUSE IT SORT OF SERVES TO UNDERMINE ALL OF OUR SUPPORT FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. IF WE THINK WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS SPENDING MONEY ON IS RIDICULOUS, THEN WE'RE NOT GOING TO WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO SPEND MONEY ON IT ANYMORE. BUT IT IS NOT AT ALL RIDICULOUS. EVEN IF THAT PARTICULAR RESEARCH, YOU KNOW, IS NOT GOING TO CURE A DISEASE TOMORROW, THAT'S JUST NOT HOW SCIENCE WORKS. WE FUND A WHOLE TOWN OF INDIVIDUAL LITTLE, BASIC BITS OF RESEARCH THAT PILE ONTO EACH OTHER UNTIL WE COME TO USABLE ANSWERS FOR THINGS. AND WE DO THIS WITH FRUIT FLIES OR MICE OR A WHOLE LOT OF OTHER THINGS. AND THE FUNDING THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS PUT OUT FOR THAT HAS RESULTED IN INCREDIBLE AMOUNTS OF USEFUL DISCOVERIES.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I MEAN, WE LIVE SOMETHING LIKE 30 YEARS LONGER TODAY THAN WE DID 100 YEARS AGO LARGELY BECAUSE OF PRINCIPALLY-FUNDED BASIC SCIENTIFIC -- FEDERALLY-FUNDED BASIC SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. THAT SOUNDS A LOT BETTER WHEN YOU PUT IT THAT WAY. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN DOING THIS, USING THIS TECHNIQUE FOR MANY YEARS. FORMER SENATOR WILLIAM PROXMEYER USED TO GIVE OUT THE GOLDEN FLEECE AWARDS. THEY WERE, BASICALLY, JUST TRYING TO CALL OUT RIDICULOUS-SOUNDING BITS OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING. HE OFTEN FOCUSED ON SCIENCE BECAUSE, AGAIN, IT'S EASY TO FOCUS ON SCIENCE FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS. HE DID GET IN TROUBLE A FEW TIMES WHEN THE THING HE SAID WASLY DUCK LOUSE TURNED OUT NOT TO BE, OF COURSE, AND NOW THERE'S SOMETHING CALLED THE GOLDEN GOOSE AWARDS WHICH TAKE THINGS THAT SOUND RIDICULOUS AND ENDED UP BEING INCREDIBLY USEFUL AND GIVES THEM AN AWARD. MY FAVORITE EXAMPLE, THERE WAS A STUDY INVOLVING MASSAGING RAT PUPS. WHICH DOES SOUND RIDICULOUS, TIL YOU REALIZE THE RESULTS OF THAT STUDY WAS USED TO CHANGE HOW WE TREAT PREMATURE BABIES. AND WE HAVE NOT ONLY SAVED A WHOLE LOT OF LIVES, BUT BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN HOW HOSPITALS HAVE TO MANAGE PREMATURE BABIES. SO, AGAIN, MASSAGING RAT PUPS TO SAVING PREMATURE BABIES. YOU CAN CHOOSE HOW YOU WANT TO DESCRIBE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. AND POLITICIANS LIKE PAUL WILL SOMETIMES CHOOSE TO MAKE IT SOUND AS RIDICULOUS AS POSSIBLE. HE SHOULD KNOW BETTER, BY THE WAY, BECAUSE HE'S AN M.D., HE'S A DOCTOR, AND HE SHOULD UNDERSTAND HOW BASIC SCIENCE WORKS. THAT'S THE ONE THAT SORT OF GETS TO ME THE MOST. ANOTHER EXAMPLE, ANOTHER TECHNIQUE THAT I CALL THE DEMONNIZER IS ANOTHER ONE THAT'S ACTUALLY VERY OLD. THIS IS ALMOST UNIVERSALLY USED TO CONNECT IMMIGRATION WITH DISEASE. SO POLITICIANS WHO ARE, YOU KNOW, VERY MUCH AGAINST IMMIGRATION ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR WAYS TO SORT OF PROVE THEIR POINT ON THIS. ONE OF THEM THAT THEY HAVE COME BACK TO OVER AND OVER OVER THE YEARS IS THAT IMMIGRANTS BRING DISEASE WITH THEM. SO THIS IS A QUOTE FROM AN ALABAMA CONGRESSMAN NAMED MOE BROOKS. THIS WAS A FEW YEARS AGO RIGHT WHEN THERE WAS A MEASLES OUTBREAK HAPPENING THAT STARTED AT DISNEYLAND, ACTUALLY.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;AND HE WAS TALKING ABOUT HOW -- AND AT THE SAME TIME, THERE WAS THIS SORT OF STREAM OF CHILDREN WHO WERE SHOWING UP AT THE BORDER FROM SOME CENTRAL AMERICAN COUNTRIES. AND HE WAS SORT OF ARGUING THAT WE SHOULD BE TURNING THEM BACK BECAUSE THEY'RE BRINGING DISEASE IN. SO HE SAID, UNFORTUNATELY, OUR KIDS JUST AREN'T PREPARED FOR A LOT OF THE DISEASES THAT COME IN AND ARE BORNE BY ILLEGAL ALIENS. YOU HAVE TO HAVE SYMPATHY FOR THE PLIGHT OF THE ILLEGAL ALIENS, I THINK WE ALL UNDERSTAND THAT, BUT THEY HAVE NOT BEEN BLESSED WITH IN THEIR HOME COUNTRIES WITH THE KIND OF HEALTH CARE AND IMMUNIZATIONS THAT WE DEMAND OF OUR CHILDREN IN THE UNITED STATES. SO, AGAIN, THIS PROBABLY SOUNDS REASONABLE TO A LOT OF PEOPLE, THAT THE U.S. HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS GOING TO BE BETTER THAN, SAY, NICARAGUA'S WHERE A LOT OF CHILDREN WERE COMING FROM AT THE TIME. HE SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED IMMUNIZATIONS BECAUSE OF THE MEASLES OUTBREAK THAT WAS GOING ON AT THE TIME. NOW, I'M SURE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE WELL AWARE OF THE ANTIVACCINATION MOVEMENT IN THIS COUNTRY. I WON'T GO INTO THE DETAILS ON THE BACKGROUND, THERE'S A BUNCH OF IT IN THE BOOK IF YOU'RE INTERESTED. BUT I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT TO REALIZE JUST HOW WRONG THIS SORT OF BIT OF SPEECH IS. HE'S SAYING THEY'REING IN THAT MIGHT BE BRINGING DISEASES THAT THEY DON'T HAVE PROTECTION AGAINST AND MIGHT HARM US BY DOING SO. SO ACCORDING TO THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, THE COVERAGE AT ONE YEAR OLD COVERED BY THE MMR VACCINE, IN THE U.S. HAS BEEN HOLDING PRETTY STEADY FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF DECADES AT ABOUT 92%. SO 92% OF 1-YEAR-OLDS ARE COVERED WHICH SOUNDS OKAY EXCEPT THE REALLY IDEAL LEVEL FOR MAINTAINING HERD IMMUNITY FOR MEASLES WHICH MEANS ENOUGH OF IT GET VACCINATED THAT THE PEOPLE AMONG US WHO CANNOT BECAUSE OF LEE CHEMOYA OR OTHER ISSUES, THEY ARE PROTECT9 AS WELL, IMMUNITY SHOULD BE AROUND 95% FOR MEASLES. 92 IS KIND OF AT THE LOWER END OF WHERE YOU WANT TO BE. THIS IS A LITTLE MISLEADING BECAUSE THIS IS A NATIONWIDE STATISTIC. IT'S A LITTLE MORE RELEVANT TO LOOK AT SMALLER AREAS BECAUSE IT'S NOT LIKE WE COME INTO CONTACT WITH THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. THERE ARE PLENTY OF POCKETS BECAUSE OF THE ANTI-VACCINATION MOVEMENT THAT ARE FAR BELOW THIS. PLACES LIKE MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, ORANGE COUNTY, I DON'T HAVE LAST YEAR'S DATA, BUT AT VARIOUS POINTS HAVE DROPPED DOWN INTO THE 70% KIND OF RANGE WHICH IS FAR AWAY FROM WHAT HERD IMMUNITY REQUIRES. ANYWAY, SO WE'RE AT 92% IF YOU COTO DO JUST TAKE THE WHITE AVERAGE. MEXICO FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF DECADES HAS BEEN AROUND 95%.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;THERE'S BEEN, THERE WAS ONE WEIRD YEAR WHERE THEY DIPPED, AND I DON'T KNOW WHY. GENERALLY, THEY HAVE BEEN BETTER THAN THE U.S. NICARAGUA FOR AT LEAST A DECADE HAS BEEN AT 99% COVERAGE FOR THE MMR VACCINE. EL SALVADOR, JUST ANOTHER ONE, HAS BEEN RIGHT AROUND 94, 95, AGAIN, A COUPLE YEARS DIPPED IN '92. BUT AGAIN THE IMPLICATIONS WAS THAT ALL THESE COUNTRIES WHERE THESE KIDS WERE COMING FROM HAVE NO HEALTH CARE AT ALL, YOU KNOW, IT'S NOTHING. AND THEY'RE GOING TO COME INTO THE U.S. AND PUT ALL OF US AT RISK WHEN IN ACTUALITY THOSE KIDS WERE PUT AT RISK BY US. WE WERE THE ONES WHO WERE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO GIVE THEM MEASLES THAN THE OTHER WAY AROUND. THIS SORT OF TECHNIQUE IS SO OLD. YOU CAN GO BACK TO THE AIDS CRISIS. THERE WAS A HUGE PUSH TO PREVENT PEOPLE ENTERING THE COUNTRY WHO WERE HIV POSITIVE. AGAIN, WITHOUT ANY PARTICULAR SCIENTIFIC REASON FOR THIS. THERE WEREN'T ACTUALLY THAT MANY PEOPLE SHOWING UP AT BORDERS WHO WERE HIV POSITIVE. AND OBVIOUSLY WE, IN THE U.S., WERE PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF SPREADING THE DISEASE OURSELVES. AND JUST TO SHOW THAT THESE KINDS, THIS KIND OF RHETORIC CAN HAVE SORT OF FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS, BECAUSE OF THAT DISCUSSION ABOUT NOT LETTING PEOPLE IN, THEY DID PASS, BASICALLY PUT IN A POLICY THAT DID NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO ENTER THE COUNTRY WHO WAS HIV POSITIVE. AND THIS LASTED ALL THE WAY UNTIL 2009 WHEN PRESIDENT OBAMA LIFTED IT. SO THAT WAS, I MEAN, WE PROBABLY -- NO ONE WAS EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT ANYMORE, BUT THAT STILL WAS IN PLACE, YOU KNOW, ALL THROUGH THE 2000s AND THROUGH THE '90s. AND YOU CAN GO BACK EVEN FURTHER TO FIND THIS SORT OF THING. I JUST FIND THIS HILARIOUS. THIS IS -- SO THE IMMIGRATION ACT OF 1917, I'M JUST GOING TO READ YOU A BIT OF THIS TO SHOW HOW FAR OR BACK THIS SORT OF FEAR MONGERING GOES. THAT THE FOLLOWING CLASSES OF ALIENS SHALL BE EXCLUDED FROM ADMISSION INTO THE UNITED STATES: ALL IDIOTS, IMBECILES, FEEBLE-MINDED PERSONS, EPILEPTICS, INSANE PERSONS, PERSONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL PSYCHOPATHIC INFEAR YOURTY, CHRONIC ALCOHOLISM, POPPERS, PROFESSIONAL BEGGARS, PERSONS AFFLICTED WITH TUBERCULOSIS IN ANY FORM OR WITH A LOATHSOME, DANGEROUS OR CONTAGIOUS DISEASE, AND IT GOES ON FOR A WHILE. THE POINT IS THIS HAS BEEN USED FOR SO LONG, AND IT WILL ALWAYS, TO CERTAIN PEOPLE, BE A USEFUL TECHNIQUE. BECAUSE IT'S ALWAYS GOING TO SOUND SCARY TO BRING DISEASES INTO A COUNTRY. YOU DON'T WANT THESE DISEASES. GENERALLY SPEAKING, IF YOU HEAR A POLITICIAN SAY SOMETHING LIKE THIS, THE FIRST STEP SHOULD BE TO DOUBT IT. NOT SAYING THERE WON'T EVER BE A TIME WHEN ANOTHER COUNTRY HAS POORER HEALTH CARE ON A GIVEN ISSUE THAN WE DO. THAT'S CERTAINLY POSSIBLE. BUT GENERALLY SPEAKING, THE PEOPLE WHO USE THIS TECHNIQUE ARE NOT FALLING BACK ON ACTUAL SCIENCE OR DATA IN ORDER TO GET US TO BELIEVE IT. OKAY. SO THAT WAS A COUPLE EXAMPLES FROM THE BOOK.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;I SHOULD NOTE THAT PRESIDENT TRUMP IS NOT REALLY IN THIS BOOK VERY MUCH. HE'S MENTIONED A COUPLE OF TIMES, BUT HE DOESN'T MAKE MANY APPEARANCES. THERE ARE TWO MAIN REASONS FOR THIS. THE PRIMARY ONE IS A MATTER OF TIMING. I FINISHED WRITING THE BOOK TOWARD THE END OF 2015. YOU KNOW, INTO 2016 A LITTLE BIT, BUT HE WAS NOT THE NOMINEE YET, AND, YOU KNOW, I'M CERTAINLY NOT ALONE IN HAVING NOT TAKEN HIM SERIOUSLY AT THE TIME. BUT THE OTHER REASON WAS THAT WHEN HE HAS TALKED ABOUT SCIENCE, IT'S JUST SORT OF NOT WORTH DEBUNKING. [LAUGHTER] THE POINT OF THE BOOK, THE POINT OF THE BOOK WAS TO OFFER UP, YOU KNOW, SOME SORT OF AMMUNITION TOWARDS, YOU KNOW, UNDERSTANDING AND TRYING TO SEE THROUGH SOME SUBTLE MANIPULATIONS ON SCIENCE FROM POLITICIANS; SUBTLE, SORT OF CLEVER MANIPULATIONS OF WHICH THERE ARE MANY, I NUANCED. NOW, DO THESE WORDS SOUND LIKE THE PRESIDENT? SUBTLE, CLEVER, NUANCED. WHEN HE SAYS GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX CAUSED BY THE CHINESE, NO, IT'S NOT. OKAY, WITH WE'RE DONE DEBUNKING IT. THERE'S NO PARTICULAR REASON TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT, THEY'RE RIDICULOUS. THAT'S ANOTHER REASON. THAT BEING SAID, THE PEOPLE HE HAS HIRED DO TALK ABOUT SCIENCE A LOT BECAUSE IT'S THEIR JOB TO DO SO, AND MANY OF THEM -- MOST OF TO THEM ARE NOT SCIENTISTS THEMSELVES. AND I THINK IT IS IMPORTANT TO SORT OF SEE HOW, SOME OF THE THINGS THEY'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT WOULD FIT INTO THE SORTS OF TECHNIQUES THAT I'M DESCRIBING. SO PEOPLE LIKE RICK PERRY, SECRETARY OF ENERGY, SCOTT PRUITT, HEAD OF EPA, OR RYAN ZINKE, THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR JUST AMONG OTHERS, BUT THEY HAVE CERTAINLY TALKED ABOUT SCIENTIFIC ISSUES AND HAVE MADE PLENTY OF ERRORS OR, ERRORS IS GENEROUS. USED PLENTY OF TRICKS THAT WOULD FIT RIGHT INTO THE BOOK. ONE THAT I WANT TO GO BACK TO, I MEAN, WE COULD TALK PLENTY ABOUT SOME MORE RECENT STUFF, BUT ONE I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IS FROM THE SPRING ACTUALLY. PRUITT, THE EPA ADMINISTRATOR, WENT ON TV, AND HE WAS ASKED ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE, AND HE SAID -- HERE'S WHAT HE SAID. I THINK THAT MEASURING WITH PRECISION HUMAN ACTIVITY ON THE CLIMATE IS SOMETHING VERY CHALLENGING TO DO, AND THERE'S TREMENDOUS DISAGREEMENT ABOUT THE DEGREE OF IMPACT. SO, NO, I WOULD NOT AGREE THAT CARBON DIOXIDE IS A PRIMARY CONTRIBUTOR TO THE GLOBAL WARMING THAT WE SEE. SO, OKAY, FIRST OF ALL, THERE'S NO TREMENDOUS DISAGREEMENT, THAT'S JUST A LIE. BUT THE CARBON DIOXIDE LINE IS THE ONE I FIND KIND OF AMAZING. THIS WOULD FIT PROBABLY BEST WITH A CHAPTER IN THE BOOK THAT I CALLED THE BLIND EYE TO FOLLOW-UP. SO IF THE PREMISE HERE IS THAT POLITICIANS WILL OFTEN SEIZE ON A PARTICULAR FINDING OR STUDY OR RESULT THAT DOES MATCH WITH THEIR AGENDA OR THEIR IDEOLOGY. THEY'LL REPEAT THAT OFTEN, YOU KNOW? AND THEN SOMETIMES THE NEXT STUDY, THE FOLLOW-UP, WILL FIND SOMETHING DIFFERENT WHERE IT'LL CHANGE THAT RESULT, SOMETIMES CONTRADICT IT ENTIRELY, AND THEY STICK WITH THE ORIGINAL RESULT. AND THEY KEEP SAYING IT, AND IT'S SORT OF EASY TO DEFEND BECAUSE THAT REALLY WAS A FINDING. THEY'RE NOT LYING ABOUT ANYTHING, IT JUST HAS CHANGED. SCIENTISTS ARE PERFECTLY COMFORTABLE WITH THIS, YOU KNOW? IF A NEW RESULT QUESTIONS A PREVIOUS RESULT, THEY'RE FINE ADJUSTING WHAT THEY SAY TO REFLECT THAT. POLITICIANS ARE NOT SO GREAT AT THAT. AND SO THEY WILL, YOU KNOW, STICK WITH THE THING THAT FITS BEST WITH THEIR AGENDA. IN THIS CASE THIS IS THE MOST EGREGIOUS BLIND EYE TO FOLLOW-UP IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY. THERE IS A FAMOUS PAPER, WHICH I'LL READ THE TITLE OF, ON THE INFLUENCE OF CARBONIC ACID, WHICH IS CARBON DIOXIDE, IN THE AIR -- THIS IS A VERY FAMOUS PAPER WRITTEN BY A DANISH SCIENTIST IN 1896. [LAUGHTER] DESCRIBING THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT, DESCRIBING EXACTLY HOW CONCENTRATIONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE WOULD WARM UP THE WORLD. AND HE WAS COMPLETELY RIGHT. HE PROBABLY HAS -- IT'S NOT PRECISE, THE WAY WE KNOW NOW, BUT IT WAS COMPLETELY RIGHT. AND, IN FACT, YOU COULD GO BACK FURTHER. JOSEPH FORWRITER IN 1824 DESCRIBED IT IN LESS SPECIFIC TERMS, BUT HE ALSO UNDERSTOOD WHAT WAS HAPPENING. WE'LL GIVE PRUITT 1896. HE BASICALLY IS IGNORING 100-PLUS YEARS OF ACTUAL SCIENCE. AND I JUST FIND THAT AMAZING, THAT YOU'RE LITERALLY QUESTIONING A RESULT THAT WE HAVE KNOWN ABOUT FOR THAT LONG IS INCREDIBLE TO ME. AND THAT'S KIND OF THE DEGREE OF BAD FAITH ARGUING THAT WE'VE STARTED TO TO SEE RECENTLY. I WILL SAY THOUGH THAT JUST THE OTHER DAY JIM BRIDENSTEIN, WHO'S A HOUSE MEMBER AND THE NOMINEE TO BE THE NEXT HEAD OF NASA, WAS AT HIS SENATE CONFIRMATION HEARING, AND HE WAS ASKED PLENTY OF QUESTIONS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE BECAUSE NASA IS ONE OF THE PRIMARY ORGANIZATIONS THAT ACTUALLY STUDIES CLIMATE CHANGE. AND HE ACTUALLY DID SAY I BELIEVE CARBON DIOXIDE IS A GREENHOUSE GAS. ALL RIGHT, WE'VE MADE IT TO 1896, GREAT. [LAUGHTER] HE WENT ON.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;I BELIEVE HUMANS HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE. THIS WAS BIZARRELY PROMISING FOR 20 SECONDS. [LAUGHTER] HE WAS THEN ASKED TO WHAT EXTENT. THAT IS A QUESTION THAT I DO NOT HAVE AN ANSWER TO. OH, WE WERE SO CLOSE. YOU ALMOST MADE IT, JIM. SO, OF COURSE, THAT IS A QUESTION EVEN IF HE DOESN'T HAVE AN ANSWER TO IT, WE VERY MUCH DO. WE KNOW EXACTLY HOW MUCH CARBON DIOXIDE WE'VE PUT INTO THE ATMOSPHERE. THERE ARE VERY GOOD OBSERVATIONS OF THIS. THERE'S A FAMOUS CHART CALLED THE KEELING CURVE WHICH IS VERY PRECISE MEASUREMENTS OF ATMOSPHERE CARBON DIOXIDE OVER THE LAST -- THAT'S SINCE THE LATE '50s. REALLY WE KNOW PRETTY MUCH FOR A FACT THAT BEFORE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION THERE WAS ABOUT 280 PARTS PER MILLION IN THE ATMOSPHERE, WE ARE NOW PERMANENTLY ABOVE 400. JUST LAST YEAR WE ACHIEVED A CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE MILESTONE, IT WAS NOW THE HIGHEST THE PLANET HAS SEEN IN AT LEAST 800,000 YEARS. AND WE ARE 100% SURE THAT THAT'S FROM US, NOT FROM ANYTHING ELSE. SO EVEN, YOU KNOW, THIS POTENTIAL HEAD OF NASA WHO IS WILLING TO ADMIT THAT THESE THINGS ARE ACTUAL THINGS IS STILL NOT EXACTLY PLAYING WITH A FULL DECK, I GUESS. [LAUGHTER] AND ONE MORE QUICK THING ABOUT SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED RECENTLY. THIS ACTUALLY WAS JUST YESTERDAY, I THINK. THE FOURTH NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT. THIS IS THIS BIG REPORT THAT THE GOVERNMENT SORT OF REQUESTS, AND IT'S ACTUALLY BY STATUTE FROM 1990, I THINK, THIS HAS TO BE DONE EVERY CERTAIN NUMBER OF YEARS SO THAT THE FIRST COUPLE PIECES OF THE NEW DRAFT CAME OUT YESTERDAY. AND IT SAID, YOU KNOW, VERY CLEARLY THIS IS BAD, WE DID IT, WE NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT VERY QUICKLY. ALL THIS IS THINGS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE THAT ARE NOW COMPLETELY WELL UNDERSTOOD. BUT I WANTED TO READ A QUICK SENTENCE FROM THE, I GUESS IT'S FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. IT SAYS FOR THE WARMING OVER THE LAST CENTURY, THERE IS NO CONVINCING ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION SUPPORTED BY THE EXTENT OF THE OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE. MEANING, THE ONLY POSSIBLE REASON FOR THE WORLD WARMING UP IS US. THAT'S IT. BUT WHAT I FIND INTERESTING ABOUT THAT IS THAT'S A REALLY BORING SENTENCE THAT'S HARD TO PARSE. FINISH LIKE, I JUST SAID THAT TO YOU, AND YOU PROBABLY FELL ASLEEP HALFWAY THROUGH BECAUSE THERE'S NO CONSERVATIVE ALTERNATIVE -- [INAUDIBLE] IT'S SO CAREFUL. AND THAT'S, I THINK, A REALLY GOOD WAY TO HIGHLIGHT SORT OF THE IMBALANCED PLAYING FIELD THAT WE ARE ON. SCIENTISTS HAVE TO BE CAREFUL LIKE THIS. THIS IS WHAT THEY DO. AND I'M NOT SAYING THIS IS WRONG, THAT IS A VERY CAREFULLY-DONE SENTENCE. IT'S ACCURATE, IT IS CORRECT, BUT IT IS SO EASY FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE ARGUING AGAINST YOU AND NOT ARGUING IN GOOD FAITH TO RIP IT TO SHREDS. .. AND I DON'T HAVE A GREAT SOLUTION TO THAT BECAUSE SCIENTISTS SHOULD STILL KEEP TRY TO BE AS ACCURATE AS POSSIBLE THAT'S NOT A BAD THING.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HOWEVER, I GUESS IT IS INCUMBENT ON ALL OF PUS TO SORT OF TRY TO REQUIRE THAT OF ALL OF OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS THIS IS MUCH EASIER SAID THAN DONE BUT THAT'S KIND OF THE POINT THAT I HAVE THROUGH ALL OF THIS IS -- BASICALLY THAT YOU KNOW, ESPECIALLY TODAY, SCIENTISTS VERY MUCH UNDER ASSAULT PIF A SLIDE THAT I CAN'T SHOW YOU. SORRY. ABOUT -- [LAUGHTER] ALL OF THE DIFFERENT TIMES THAT DIFFERENT HEADLINES ABOUT ASSAULT ON SCIENCE WE'RE SEEING TODAY. THIS IS SORT OF A VERY COMMON REFRAIN THESE DAYS I THINK IT IS VERY MUCH ACCURATE. IN THAT CONTEXT IT IS ALL THE MORE IMPORTANT THAT WE AND WE IN THE MEDIA FOR SURE SHOULD DO A BETTER JOB AND WE THE PUBLIC NEED TO VERY MUCH PRESS OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS TO TRY TO STICK TO THE EVIDENCE IN EVERY POSSIBLE SITUATION, AND IF YOU HEAR SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE THAT'S GOING ON, WELL, I MEAN, VOTE THEM OUT I GUESS. BUT START BY JUST DEMANDING IT AS OFTEN AND LOUDLY AS YOU CAN. SO -- I WILL STOP THERE. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR LISTENING AND I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS ANYBODY HAS. [APPLAUSE] OH, AND I THINK I HAVE TO REMIND EVERYBODY THERE'S A MICROPHONE THERE YOU WANT TO ASK QUESTIONS WE ASK YOU USE THAT BECAUSE IT IS RECORDED AND EVERYTHING. SO THANK YOU. MPLES YES. >> SO I HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT ARTICLE I JUST IS READ IN "THE WASHINGTON POST" ABOUT EPA SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD WHERE IF YOU HAVE AN EPA IMMIGRANT NOW YOU'RE DISQUALIFIED BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND SO NOW, THERE ARE MANY SCIENTISTS REMAINING ON THE BOARD BUT THEY'RE CENTURY SCIENTISTS SO WHEN YOU YOU TALK ABOUT SCIENCE, IT SOUNDS KIND OF LIKE THERE'S A UNIFIED SCIENCE. BUT THERE'S A LOT OF SCIENCE THAT IS -- INDUSTRY BASED AND THE ARTICLE REFERRED TO SCIENTISTS WAS A MORE CONSERVATIVE YOU. SO I WOULDN'T THINK THAT SCIENTISTS WOULD HAVE A CONSERVATIVE OR A WHATEVER THE OPPOSITION IS. AND THAT COULD JUST BE THE LANGUAGE THAT "THE WASHINGTON POST" HAS USED WHICH IS I THINK A BIT SLOPPY BUT STILL THERE ARE SCIENTISTS WITH DIFFERENT INTERESTS. SO IF THERE'S A WAR, IS IT ON SCIENCE OR IS IT ON UNIVERSITY SCIENCE? AND WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THIS, I MEAN, IS THERE A -- IS THERE A PROBLEM AROUND YOU KNOW, SCIENCE AND WHERE SCIENCE IS COMING FROM THAT THEY COULD SPEAK ABOUT MORE DIFFERENTLY RATHER THAN SAYING THEY'RE ATTACKING SCIENCE WHEN, IN FACT, THEY'RE EMBRACING SOME SCIENCE AND, YOU KNOW, ATTACKING OTHER SCIENCE. >> NO THAT'S AN INTEREST QUESTION.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;I MEAN, THE, I MEAN, EPA ADVISORY BOARD HAS BEEN SLAMMED BY EVERYONE OUTSIDE OF INDUSTRY. [LAUGHTER] AS , YOU KNOW, SORT OF COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS THING. WHEN WE TALK ABOUT THE ASSAULT ON SCIENCE OR THE WAR ON SCIENCE, I THINK WHAT WE'RE REALLY SEEING IS SORT OF A WAR ON -- YOU KNOW, OBJECTIVE REALITY. [LAUGHTER] AND SCIENTISTS WILL DISCLOSE SCIENTIST SO THAT PAPER WILL LIST PUPGDING SOURCES THAT PAPER WILL LIST CONFLICT OF INTERESTS WHICH IS NOT, YOU KNOW, NO ONE IS FREE OF WISE. NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT BUT IT'S AT LEAST A GOOD STEP IS, AND GENERALLY SPEAKING, PEOPLE WHO ARE, YOU KNOW, FUNDED BY THE GOVERNMENT OR FUNDED BY FOUNDATIONS OR -- YOU KNOW, AND WHO DISCLOSE IT OR I WOULD SAY A SMALL STEP SORT OF REMOVED FROM CONCERN FROM THE BIASES THAT INDUSTRY LIKE SOMEONE WHO LITERALLY WORKS FOR EXXON WOULD HAVE. THAT'S NOT TO SAY THOSE PEOPLE THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR EXXON ARE NOT -- ARE NECESSARILY BAD SCIENTISTS OR ANYTHING. I'M SURE THERE ARE PLENTY OF SMART PEOPLE WORKING FOR INDUSTRY. PING WE JUST HAVE TO BE CAREFUL TO ACCEPT LIKE TO -- PUT THEM UPON THE SAME PLANE IN TERMS OF WHO WE'RE GOING TO BELIEVE. IF EXXONMOBIL SAYS WE CAN BURN ALL OF THE OIL WE WANT IT IS CLEARLY THERE'S CLEARLY A VERY -- INHERENT BIAS SO THAT. IF RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SAY WE HAVE TO STOP BURNING OIL L NOW, I FEEL LIKE YOU CAN -- YOU CAN MORE QUICKLY DISPENSE WITH BIASES FOR THEM. I DON'T THINK THAT'S AN UNFAIR THING TO SAY. I GUESS -- IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT EVERYONE WILL HAVE SOME BIAS THAT'S NOT BAD TO REMEMBER THAT WE ALL CO. I JUST THINK THAT -- SCIENCE AS WE -- AS WE HAVE DEVELOPED PARKING LOT SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM IN THIS COUNTRY AND AROUND THE WORLD, AVOIDING BASICALLY IT DOESED CLENGT YOU HAVELY THAT INDUSTRY FUNDED SCIENCE IS -- IS GOING TO BE SORTS OF INHERENTLY LAWED PIN HAIRNGHTLY BIASED AS LONG AS WE REMEMBER THAT THAT'S NOT NECESSARILY A PROBLEM. DOES THAT ANSWER SORT OF YOUR QUESTION AT ALL OR -- MORE INDUSTRY RESEARCH WE HAVE TO RECOGNIZE THE SCIENCE DIFFERENTLY I GUESS. THE PROBLEM THERE ISN'T ONE SCIENCE. >> WELL, ABOUT -- >> OKAY, SO SHE SAID THERE ISN'T ONE SCIENCE OR IS THERE I WOULD SAY THAT THERE IS. THERE IS A SET OF TRUTHS ABOUT THE WORLD THAT SCIENTISTS TRYING TO EXPLORE. AND CERTAINLY, YOU KNOW, WE -- WE GET THERE INCREMENTALLY AND SLOWLY OVERTIME AND SOMETIMES WE TAKE A STEP BACK BUT -- NO. I DON'T THINK THERE'S MORE THAN ONE SCIENCE. I THINK A STUDY THAT, YOU KNOW, THAT THE YOU'VE ALL HEARD 98% CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE WHICH I HATE QUOTING. BUT -- SO OKAY FINE IF I THINK IT IS PROBABLY CLOSER TO 99 IF 99 STUDIES SAY CLIMATE IS CHANGE AND NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT AND ONE SAYS IT IS BAD WE DON'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T MEAN LIKE -- THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT THE ONE HAS AS MUCH WEIGHT AS A 9 THERE'S ONE ON OBJECTIVE TRUTH AND -- PEOPLE WHO ARE, YOU KNOW, PEOPLE WHO ARE SORT OF EITHER PURPOSEFULLY OR O BY OBSCURING THAT ARE NOT DOING SCIENCE BUT THEIR DOING SOMETHING ELSE. AND YEAH I THINK IT IS SORT OF IMPORTANT TO CALL THAT OUT. THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN'T HAVE DISCUSSION ABOUT THESE THEY THINKS AND THAT'S WHAT I -- KIND OF WHY I HATE HAD THE 97% CONSENSUS THING. SCIENTISTS ARE HAVING DISCUSSIONS ABOUT DETAILS ALL OF THE TIME. THEY'RE DISAGREES ABOUT THINGS, I MEAN, YOU SHOULD GO TO A MEETING OF CLIMATE SCIENTISTS THEY'RE DISAGREES ABOUT EVERYTHING. JUST NOT ABOUT THE BASIC FACTS OF REALITY. [LAUGHTER] SO I GUESS I THINK IT IS DANGEROUS TO ARGUE THAT THERE'S -- THERE ARE MULTIPLE TRUTHS. THERE MIGHT BE MULTIPLE PATHS TO THE TRUTH. BUT NOT MULTIPLE TRUTHS. I GUESS -- ANYBODY ELSESOME?&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NO WELL OKAY WHILE L YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT I'LL TELL ANOTHER QUICK STORY BECAUSE I'M PRETTY FASCINATED I BY THIS ONE AND EGG IT FITS HAD IN. BUT I WILL LET YOU GO AHEAD AND ASK YOUR QUESTIONS FIRST. >> MEDIA'S ROLE IN THIS BECAUSE I SEE THAT POLITICIANS SAYS FALSE STATEMENT. BUT THEN THE MEDIA REPEATS IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AND THEN IT REALLY DOES BECOME TRUE U TO MANY PEOPLE. THAT'S GOOD AND THAT YOU SAID IT THAT WAY A WHILE BACK I INTERVIEWED BILL FOSTER WHO IS A CONGRESSMAN FROM ILLINOIS WHO IS THE ONLY SCIENCE PH.D. IN ALL OF CONGRESS. AND HE HAS THIS INTERESTING FORMULATION HE THINKS THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF FACTS HE THINK THERE'S REGULAR FACTS AND POLITICAL FACT. POLITICAL FACTS ONLY NEED TO BE REPEATED SO MANY TIMES THAT THEY BECOME TRUE. AND THESE AREN'T NECESSARILY REAL FACTS. AND YEAH, I THINK THAT THE MEDIA PLAYS HUGE ROLE IN -- TRYING TO STIFLE THOSE POLITICAL FACTS. [LAUGHTER] AND THIS ACTUALLY RELATES BACK TO WHAT I WAS SAY ABOUT THE, YOU KNOW, THE 99 VERSUS ONE FOR A LONG TIME THE MEDIA -- I MEAN, I'M STICKING TO CLIMATE CHANGE HERE BECAUSE THAT'S THE BIGGEST YOU KNOW ISSUE ATSZ MOMENT BUT THIS COULD BE SAID FOR OTHER THING THIS IS TOO. YOU WOULD SEE -- IF THERE WAS A DISCUSSION ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE EATERS ON TV WHICH WAS RARE OR -- JUST IN AN ARTICLE. YOU KNOW THEY WOULD MAKE SURE TO QUOTE THES OTHER SIDE. THIS INCREDIBLE FALSE BALANCE. EVEN IF, YOU KNOW -- IF YOU WANTED TO DO IT RIGHT THEN I GUESS YOU NEED 97 VOICES BEFORE YOU BRING IN A SINGLE ONE. OBVIOUSLY YOU CAN'T DO THAT IN A GIVEN ARTICLE SO YOU IGNORE THE DECENT VOICE AND I THINK THE MEDIA HAS GOTTEN A LOT BETTER ON THAT PARTICULAR HAD ISSUE. I THINK THEY'RE STARTING AT BASELINE OF REALITY. THERE'S A LOT OF ARTICLES ABOUT CLIMB CHANGE THAT YOU'LL READ NOW IN IN, YOU KNOW, LARGE MAINSTREAM OUTLETS. THEY DON'T BOTHER WITH THE DEBATE BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ONE. THEY BOTH BOTHER BUT THEY JUST START "REALITY AND WHATEVER THE STORY IS ABOUT SOME NEW FINDINGOVER WHATEVER IT IS THEY'LL GET INTO IT WHICH I THINK IS THE APPROPRIATE WAY TO HANDLE THAT. IT IS A REAL CHALLENGE, THOUGH, WHEN YOU KNOW A PROMINENT POLITICIAN SAYS SOMETHING COMMON WRONG OR CRAZY ARE ABOUT SCIENCE. THAT'S A TOUGH CALL TO -- TO FIG MOTHER -- IGNORE OR COVER AND NOT OFFERING FALSE BALANCE BUT DOW COVER THE BAD SCIENCE? I THINK IT IS A CASE BY CASE BASIS ANOTHER AREA THAT SORT OF COMES UP IN SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT WAYS IS -- FOOD SCIENCE AND NUTRITION SCIENCE. THIS ISN'T NECESSARILY SOMETHING THAT POLITICIANS GET IN TROUBLE FOR. BUT THE MEDIA GETS IN TROUBLE FOR -- I'M SURE YOU'VE ALL READ PLENTY OF STORIES COFFEE IS GOOD, COFFEE IS BAD. BUTTER IS GOOD, MARGARINE IS BETTER. NO BUTTER THIS WILL GO BACK AND FORTH OVER AND OVER AND OVER, AND THAT'S A -- I THINK THE MEDIA DOES NEED TO GET BETTER AT DOING WITH THAT PARTICULAR ISSUE. BECAUSE THEY'RE GOOD STORIES PEOPLE WILL CLICK ON THEM BECAUSE WE DRINK COFFEE OR WINE AND WHATEVER THE THING IS SO IT IS HARD FOR AN EDITOR TO RESIST. BUT I WOULD URGE THEM ALL TO RESIST. BASICALLY -- I THINK THAT GENERAL RULE IS IF YOU SEE A STUDY ABOUT SOMETHING KNEW TRIES NUTRITION BASED LIKE THAT A SINGLE FOOD ITEM BASELINE SHOULD BE DISBELIEF. CHANCES ARE IT IS NOT RIGHT.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IT'S A HARD FIELD TO CITY WE DON'T EAT JUST BUTTER AND HARD TO FIGURE OUT EXACTLY WHAT'S GOING ON. SO SUPPLEMENTATION STUFF NOW IT IS PROBABLY ALL OF THE YEARS YOU HEARD TO HAVE VITAMIN D SUPPLEMENTS PROBABLY WRONG. ALL OF THIS STUFF IS PROBABLY WRONG. SO THAT IS A THING THAT MEDIA CAN GET A LOT BETTER AT AND ANSWER THERE IS -- YOU KNOW, COVER THINGS SPARINGLY AND VERY CAREFULLY. AND I, YOU KNOW, THERE ARE GOOD OUTLET AND BAD OUTLETS AT THIS AND PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES I REMEMBER IN JOURNALISM SCHOOL WE DID A LITTLE CASE STUDY ON THIS FAMOUS STORY IN "THE NEW YORK TIMES" FROM I THINK 1998 -- ABOUT THESE NEW CANCER DRUGS CALL THE NGO BASIS INHIBITORS THEY BASICALLY STOP BLOOD VESSELS AND STARVE THE TUMOR AND THEORETICALLY KILL IT AND THIS STORY -- IT QUOTED JAMES WATSON IN KIRKS NAME CODISCOVER OF THE DOUBLE HELIX SHAPE OF THE DNA MOLECULE AS SAYING, THIS GUY JUDAH SAYING HE'S GOING TO CURE CANCER WITHIN TWO YEARS. AND THAT WAS IN "THE NEW YORK TIMES" AND IT WAS SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THIS NEW DRUG -- AND IMMEDIATELY THE COMPANY AND THE SCIENTIST AND THE PAPER WERE DELUGED CAN CALLS FROM PEOPLE WHO WERE DESPERATE TO TRY SOMETHING FOR THEIR RELATIVES OR THEMSELVES WHO HAD CANCER UNDERSTANDABLY YOU'VE BEEN TOLD THAT CANCER WILL BE CURED IN TWO YEARS. WHY WOULDN'T YOU WANT THIS DRUG? THIS DRUG HAS BEEN TESTED IN MICE, AND THAT'S IT. THERE WAS NO HUMAN STUDIES AT THAT POINT AND THIS WAS SO DRAMATICALLY IRRESPONSIBLE. [LAUGHTER] I MEAN, AND AGAIN THIS IS SOMETHING, OF COURSE, BY THE WAY CANCER WAS NOT CURED WITHIN TWO YEARS, AND THOSE DRUGS DO EXIST. THEY'RE ON THE MARKETS AND SOMETIMES THEY'RE USEFUL BUT THEY ARE -- NOT THE PANACEA THAT THEY WERE CLAIMED TO BE. BUT YEAH I THINK THAT'S A VERY GOOD CAUTIONARY TALE AND I THINK IT IS ONE THAT A LOT OF THE MEDIA HAS TAKEN TO HEART IN RECENT YEARS. YOU DON'T SEE AS MUCH BREASTLESS COVERAGE OF ANIMAL STUDIES WHICH I THINK IS A VERY GOOD THING. WE HAVE CURED CANCER IN MICE 200 TIMES. GENERALLY DOESN'T TRANSLATE VERY WELL. DOESN'T MEAN WE SHOULDN'T KEEP TESTING IN MICE IT'S AN IMPORTANT PART OF THIS PROCESS BUT THE WAY THAT WE COVER IT IS A REALLY SORT OF, YOU KNOW, IT IS CRUCIAL THAT YOU KEEP IN MIND HOW PEOPLE ARE GOING TO REACT TO THINGS I GUESS THAT WAS A LONG ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION. BUT -- [LAUGHTER] ANYONE ELSE? YEAH. >> RESEARCH YOU HAPPEN TO FIND A LINK WITH CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS TO POLITICIANS THAT DO MAKE THESE INCORRECT OR OUTLINE STATEMENTS ARE THEY CORRELATED DO YOU THINK? >> THAT'S A GREAT QUESTION. [INAUDIBLE CONVERSATIONS] SURE THE QUESTION WAS -- IN DOING RESEARCH FOR THIS DID I PHONED A LINK BETWEEN CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND , YOU KNOW, THE POLITICIANS WHO ARE GETTING CERTAIN CONTRIBUTIONED AND THEM MAKING CERTAIN FALSE STATEMENTS? IT'S A GOOD QUESTION. I DON'T HAVE A GOOD ANSWER FOR YOU.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I SPECIFICALLY STAYED AWAY FROM THE WHY PART OF THIS. THE INTENT BEHIND SOME OF THESE STATEMENTS THE GOAL TO DESCRIBE THE HOW LIKE HOW THEY'RE TRY TO GET STUFF PASSED US, AND I DIDN'T REALLY -- PING I THINK BASICALLY IT'S ANOTHER BOOK TRYING TO TEASE OUT WHY THAIFER DONE THIS. AND TEND POINT PEOPLE TO IS MERCHANT OF DOUBT THE BOOK FROM 2010 OR SO. BY NAOMI AND ERIC CONWAY WHICH IS ABOUT -- THESE SORT OF LONG-RUNNING FINANCIAL CAMPAIGNS TO CONFUSE THE PUBLIC ON BEGINNING WITH TOBACCO. GOING INTO THINGS LIKE ACID RAIN, AND THEN INTO CLIMATE CHANGE AS WELL SOP I DIDN'T GET INTO THAT REALLY. BUT -- THE OBVIOUS ANSWER IS YES IT IS ALWAYS MONEY. THERE'S A IT SHALL I MEAN IF YOU LOOK AT, YOU KNOW, WHO IS MAKING U NEW STATEMENTS IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE THE POLITICIANS THAT SAY THAT MOST GOOD THINGS ABOUT FOSSIL FUELS PEOPLE WHO HAVE A LOT OF MONEY FROM FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES A DIRECT LINE CONNECTION. BUT I DIDN'T, YOU KNOW, DO THE WORK OF SPECIFICALLY CORRELATING 5789S THINGS LIKE THAT REALLY. OKAY I'LL TELL THAT OTHER STORY THAT I WAS GOING TO TELL NOW. THIS WAS A -- SO RICK PERRY SPEAKING EVE PEOPLE WITH FOSSIL FUEL CONNECTION SECRETARY OF ENERGY NOW, HE I DON'T KNOW IF ANYONE READS ABOUT THIS. THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY PUT OUT A PROPOSED RULE THAT WOULD CHANGE SORT OF FUNDAMENTALLY THE POWER MARKETS IN THIS COUNTRY SO THE ELECTRIC POWER MARKETS. YOU KNOW WHERE YOU BUY YOUR ELECTRICITY FROM. THE RULE AND THIS IS THE REASON THIS -- IS TOUGH BECAUSE IT'S SUPERBORINGING. THE RULE WOULD ALLOW COST RECOVERY FOR POWER PLANTS THAT KEEP AT LEAST 90 DAYS WORTH OF FUEL ON SITE. SO AGAIN THAT SOUNDS SUPERBORE BUT COAL PLANTS PILES OF COAL OUTSIDE ENOUGH TO LAST FOR 90 DAYS. IN NUCLEAR PLANTS BY THE WAY AND VERY LARMINGSEST HYDROELECTRIC PLANTS WOULD QUALIFY. BUT COAL IS IS THE POINT HERE. [LAUGHTER] THEY WOULD BE GUARANTEED NOT ONLY THEIR MONEY BACK FOR THEIR COST LIKE THEIR COST OF RUNNING THE PLANT BUT ALSO A GUARANTEED RATE OF RETURN. SO THIS COMPLETELY UPENDS WHATEVER DEGREE THERE'S A FREE MARKET IN THE POWER SECTOR THIS COMPLETELY CHANGES THAT BECAUSE IT JUST ALLOWS COAL PLANTS TO GET MONEY. THEY -- SO THIS WAS DONE, I MEAN, IT WAS REALLY DONE BECAUSE THEY'RE TRYING TO FORCE ALL COAL PLANT RETIREMENTS A LOT OF COAL PLANTS HAVE BEEN, YOU KNOW, SHUTTING DOWN. PARTIALLY BECAUSE THEY'RE GETTING OLD PARTIALLY BECAUSE MARKET IS TELL THEM TO SHUT DOWN. RENEWABLE ENERGY HAS DROPPED IN PRICE BY A LOT SO IT'S A LOT CHEAPER TO REBUILD GAS FACILITY AND MAIN DRIVER OF THIS NATURAL GAS GOT, YOU KNOW, VERY CHEAP, VERY QUICKLY. AND SORT OF STARTED TO PUT COAL OUT OF BUSINESS COAL WENT FROM AROUND 50% OF OUR POWER SUPPLY COUPLE OF DECADES AGO TO 30% TODAY AND THIS BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY WAS VERY MUCH IN ATTEMPT TO SLOW THAT DOWN. NOW, WHAT I FIND INTERESTING ABOUT THIS -- IS THE WAY THAT THEY ARGUE FOR IT. AND I'M SORRY THIS IS A LONG STORY BECAUSE IF IT IS SUPERBORE. [LAUGHTER] BUT THEY ARGUE THIS HAS TO DO WITH THE RESILIENCE OF THE POWER GRID THAT -- WHEN THERE ARE SHOCKS TO THE GRID SO A BIG STORM OR THEY ARGUE SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THE POLAR VORTEX IN 2014 THIS MASSIVE COLD SNAP THAT HIT EASTERN COUNTRY THEY NEED COAL AN NUCLEAR THESE VERY STABLE DEPENDABLE SOURCE TYPE OF GENERATION TO WITHSTAND THAT. THE PROBLEM IS THERE ACTUALLY IS NO FED THAT THAT'S TRUE. THEY AND SO -- THEY SORT OF JUST CLAIM THAT WE IMMEDIATE THE WITHOUT ACTUALLY OFFERING ANY REASON FOR IT. AND IN FACT, THE POLAR VORTEX CONCERN THERE'S THIS BIG COMPANY CALLED PJM INTERCONNECTION. THEY ARE REGIONAL TRANSMISSION ORGANIZATION THEY MOVE ELECTRICITY AROUND THE COUNTRY THEY'RE SORT OF YOU DON'T BUY YOUR ELECTRICITY DIRECTLY FROM THEM. BUT THE UTILITIES YOU BUY FROM BUY FROM THEM.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THEY WROTE A REPORT ABOUT THE PO PARTICULAR VERY TEXAS THEY NOTED THAT GIG WATTS WORTH OF COAL KNOCKED OFFLINE BY THE COLD SNAP, AND THE DEPENDABLE SOURCE OF POWER DURING THAT COLD SNAP WAS WOUND POWER. [LAUGHTER] AND IT WAS THE THING THAT ACTUALLY PRODUCED MORE POWER THAN THEY EXPECTED THROUGH THE GRID DURING THAT -- DURING THAT EVENT. SO THE POINT HERE IS -- THEY'RE WILLING TO SAY ANYTHING -- [LAUGHTER] AND I DON'T -- I'M ACTUALLY VERY CURIOUS HOW TO DEAL WITH SOMETHING LIKE THAT BECAUSE IT IS SUCH A BAD FAITH ARGUMENT AND AGAIN IT IS JUST SUCH PUN LEVEL PLAYING FIELD THAT I DON'T HAVE A POINT HERE BEYOND IT IS INTERESTING AND SOMETHING TO WATCH OUT FOR. YEAH. >> GOING BACK TO -- STUDIES THAT YOU SAID, I WOULD JUST CLARIFY THAT IN THE STATE BUTTER IS ALWAYS BEST. [LAUGHTER] THE QUESTION I HAVE FOR YOU, THOUGH, IS -- YOU HEAR A LOT OF INDIVIDUALS QUESTION BASED ON RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, AND IS THAT FACTOR ADDRESSED IN YOUR BOOK AT ALL? >> SO NO. IT'S NOT IN THE BOOK MUCH. THERE IS SO THERE ARE A FEW TOPPINGS IN THERE THAT ARE CERTAINLY ONES THAT COME UP WHEN RELIGION COME OS UP. I THINK IT THE VERY FIRST EXAMPLE I HAVE IN CHAPTER ONE IS -- ABOUT ABORTION THAT A FETUS CAN FEEL PAIN AT 20 WEEKS NOT BASED ON ANY EXISTING SCIENCE AT ALL. BUT THAT'S SORT OF ARGUMENT THAT YOU DEFINITELY GET INTO RELIGIOUS WATERS WITH SOMETIMES. I DON'T, YOU KNOW, I DIDN'T ADDRESS HOW TO DEAL REQUEST THAT OR ANYTHING. YOU DON'T ACTUALLY HEAR POLITICIANS MAKE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENTS VERY OFTEN. IT'S MORE THE PEOPLE RESPONDING TO THEM I THINK -- SO IT WILL SORT OF A LITTLE BIT LIKE A NEXT STEP DOWN IN A WAY. THE OTHER ONE THAT I DID FIND INTERESTING -- WAS THRRM SOME LNLS ARGUMENTS MADE ABOUT HPV VACCINATION, HUMAN PAPLAMO VIRUS CAN CAUSE CERVICAL CANCER AND SO NOW WE HAVE VACCINES WHICH ARE RECOMMENDED FOR YOUNG GIRLS AND BOYS, AND ARE VERY EFFECTIVE AT PREVENTING TRANSMISSION OF THE VIRUS IT WILL STILL BE A LITTLE WHILE BEFORE WE KNOW EXACTLY HOW MUCH CANCER THEY'RE PREVENTING. BUT WHEN THIS WAS BEING DISCUSSED IN 2005 AND 2006 THERE WERE ARGUMENTS MADE ABOUT -- YOU KNOW WE'RE ENCOURAGING PER MISCUETY AND THAT -- I ACTUALLY FOUND THIS INTERESTING BECAUSE IT CUT ACROSS PARTY LINES A LITTLE BIT. WE JUST TALKED ABOUT RICK PERRY IN TEXAS IN 2006 RICK PERRY WAS ONE WHO TRIED TO IMPLEMENT A UNIVERSAL VACCINATION PROGRAM. WHICH -- IS KIND OF FASCINATING WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, AND HE WAS SHOT DOWN BY THE TEXAS LEGISLATURE MAKING A LOT OF RELIGIOUS ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHY THIS WAS A BAD IDEA AND THEY A LITTLE CALLED IT SCIENCE EXPERIMENT AS IF WE WERE GIVING YOUNG GIRLS VACCINE WHICH WAS A MISCHARACTERS AND WE KNEW IT WAS SAFE AND EFFECTIVE, ET CETERA. BUT YEAH, I THINK IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT, YOU KNOW, SOME OF THE LNLS RELIGIOUS ARGUMENTS VOWPGDING SCIENCE CUT ACROSS THINGS IN WEIRD WAYS. THEY DON'T QUITE FOLLOW THE, YOU KNOW, THEY DON'T FOLLOW MONEY THAT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT IN EXACTLY SAME PATTERN SOME TIMES BUT NO I CAN'T SAY THERE'S A TON IN THERE ABOUT THE -- DETAILS ABOUT THAT I GUESS. YEAH.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">>> SO WHAT MORE CAN SCIENTISTS DO TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC SO WE'RE LESS RECEPTIVE IN ADDITION TO YOUR BOOKLESS REACCEPT TOIF WHAT WE HEAR POLITICIANS SAYING OR ON THE MEDIA -- SO ON. >> YEAH, NO THAT'S A GREAT QUESTION DID EVERYBODY HEAR THAT WHAT MORE WITH SCIENTISTS DO -- SO THERE'S BEEN A LOT OF TALK IN RECENT YEARS ABOUT, YOU KNOW, HOW SCIENTISTS DO NEED TO IMPROVE THEIR COMMUNICATION SKILLS I THINK THAT'S TRUE. SCIENTISTS ARE ARE OFTEN SORT OF ILL-EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH THE PUBLIC DISCOURSE ARRANGED ARRANGED THEIR WORK ESPECIALLY WORK THAT'S NOT PARTICULARLY COMMONLY IN THE PUBLIC IF YOU'RE DOING CLIMATE SCIENCE AT THIS POINT YOU PROBABLY KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT. [LAUGHTER] BUT IF YOU'RE DOING VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF RESEARCH THAT DON'T OFTEN SUDDENLY BLOW UP BECAUSE OF A NEW DRUG OR A NEW -- SOMETHING. I THINK IT WOULD BE REALLY HELPFUL FOR SCIENTISTS TO BE BETTER COMMUNICATORS. THERE ARE NOW A LOT OF PROGRAMS THAT, YOU KNOW, CONNECTED WITH JOURNALISM SCHOOLS CONNECTED WITH JUST COMMUNICATIONS SCHOOLS TO HELP SCIENTISTS GET BEATERS AND WORKSHOPS FOR THEM SCIENTISTS STARTED DOING THAT SORT OF THING. SO THAT'S -- I THINK THAT'S ALL A GOOD THING. THE OTHER -- OTHER GOOD THING WOULD BE TO RUN FOR OFFICE AND WE'RE NOW SEEING THAT. THERE'S A POLITICAL PAX COMMITTEE CALLED 3-4 ACTION AND NAMED AFTER FIRST THREE DIGITS OF PIE THAT IS ENTIRELY BUILT TO HELP SCIENTISTS LEARN ABOUT RUNNING FOR OFFICE. AND THEY ARE SUPPORTING DOZENS OF CANDIDATES NOW AT ALL LEVELS THERE'S SOME RUNNING FOR CONGRESS WHO ARE SCIENTISTS OR TRAINED IN VARIOUS YOU KNOW STEM FIELDS. BUT ALL THE WAY DOWN TO, YOU KNOW, LOCAL SELECT MEN OR -- MAYORS OF SMALL TOWN, ANYTHING. THEY'RE HELPING PEOPLE RUN FOR OFFICE. AND I THINK HAVING, HAVING THAT DEGREE IS SORT OF SCIENTIFIC LITERACY -- IN PUBLIC OFFICE WOULD BE A GREAT STEP HAVING PEOPLE WHO ARE MORE KIVEL TALKING ABOUT SCIENCE ALL OF THE TIME, I MEAN THAT WOULD PROBABLY HELP US ALL. YOU KNOW, SO THAT'S -- THAT'S A GOOD I DON'T KNOW IF ANY OF THOSE PEOPLE WILL WIN RACES THEY'RE IN. BUT THERE ARE, YOU KNOW, THAT'S A GOOD STEP TOO. THES OTHER I GUESS THOSE ARE THE MAIN POINT FOR NOW. YEAH.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;ANYBODY ELSE? WE HAVE ANOTHER MINUTE OR SO. ANY LAST QUESTIONS. YES. >> A QUESTION MORE REFERRING TO PUTTING STICK IN IT BUT IS THE CURE FOR BAD SPEECH MORE FREE SPEECH WHEN ALL IT DOES IS CAUSE REPETITION OF -- THE BAD FREE SPEECH, AND REENFORCES THOSE MESSAGES? IS THERE A WAY OUT OF THAT ? >> WELL THAT'S ABOVE MY PAY GRADE. [LAUGHTER] I MEAN, BAD FREE SPEECH WHO DEFINES IT WHAT'S BAD FREE SPEECH? SORRY. >> FALSE. OKAY. SO -- INACCURACIES YEAH, I MEAN -- NO THAT'S A TOUGH ONE RIGHT. YEAH IT WOULD BE GREAT IF -- WE CAN SOMEHOW PREVENT THE SPREADS OF FALSEHOODS THAT HAVE AN IMPACT ON ALL OF OUR LIVES. [LAUGHTER] BUT YEAH -- I DON'T THINK ANYBODY HAS AN ANSWER TO THAT NECESSARILY I DON'T THINK YOU WANT TO GET INTO, YOU KNOW, STOPPING PEOPLE FROM SAYING ANYTHING. I THINK, YOU KNOW -- MAYBE, MAYBE CNN SHOULD STOP SHOWING ENTIRE RALLY WITHOUT A CONTEXT THINGS LIKE THAT THAT WOULD BE A GOOD START. CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING YOU'RE NOT GOING TO STOP PEOPLE SPR TALKING AND I WOULD HOPE NOBODY WOULD WANT THAT BUT OFFERING CONTEXT TO ALL OF IT IS HOW YOU EDUCATE EVERYBODY. IS HOW WE ALL GET A LITTLE BIT BETTER AT THIS. SO -- I DON'T THINK THAT'S A, YOU KNOW, SUPERSATISFYING APESES TO WHAT YOU'RE ASKING AND IT IS AN INTERESTING QUESTION. BUT KIND OF ALL I GOT I GUESS. SURE ONE MORE. >> THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION, AND I WAS JUST WONDERING HOW YOU WOULD APPROACH -- HOW THEY TALK ABOUT OPIOID AND DRUG AND IT SEEMS LIKE EVERY TIME THEY TALK ABOUT ABOUT EVERYBODY DYING OPIOID THEY SHOULD ALSO TALK ABOUT HOW MANY PEOPLE DIE BECAUSE THEY SMOKE CIGARETTES OR HOW MANY PEOPLE DIE BECAUSE THEY SMOKE ALCOHOL OR DRINK ALCOHOL. YOU KNOW, YOU GET WHAT I'M SAYING SO IT SEEMS LIKE THAT SHOULD BE A COMPARISON THAT GOES ON ALL OF THE TIME AND KEEPS SAYING TO PEOPLE OPIOID OPIOIDS THEN PEOPLE ARE GOING TO START FREAKING OUT ABOUT OPIOID AND THEY'RE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO PUT THAT IN PROPER PERSPECTIVE WITHOUT HELP FROM THE YEEDZ. IT IS CAREFUL TO KNOW WHAT THEY MEAN NEXT TO OTHER NUMBERS, AND I'M NOT SURE IT'S THAT USEFUL ACTUALLY TO COMPARE, YOU KNOW, EPIDEMIC TO SEMIUNRELATED EPIDEMIC. OPIOID ISSUE -- I THINK IMPORTANT RHETORICAL BITS TO REMEMBER ON THAT IS -- TO, YOU KNOW, TO CALL ADDICTION MAKE SURE TO CALL ADDICTION A DISEASE RATHER THAN, YOU KNOW, A PERSONAL FEELING WHICH CERTAIN PEOPLE LIKE TO DO. BUT I GUESS I'M NOT SO SURE IT NECESSARILY NEEDS TO CONNECT TO HOW MANY PEOPLE CIGARETTES KILLED. YIEL THERE'S CERTAIN CONNECTIONS IN TERMS OF THE COMPANY THAT -- FORM BASICALLY DEFRAUDED ALL OF PUS ON OPIOIDS FOR A COUPLE OF DECADE CERTAINLY RELATED TO WHAT HAPPENED WITH CIGARETTES BUT I DON'T KNOW THEY'RE PRETTY DIFFERENT. I MEAN STARTS BECAUSE DOCTORS PRESCRIBE SOMETHING IT'S NOT QUITE THE SAME AS A CIGARETTE. I DON'T KNOW. BUT YODS THINK I AGREE WITH YOU THAT IT IS ALWAYS GREAT TO HAVE NUMERICAL CONTEXT FOR THINGS TO HELP US UNDERSTAND THEM A LITTLE BIT BETTER. BUT THERE'S A LANGUAGE AND AS LONG AS WE STAY AWAY FROM WAR ON KRUTION KIND OF TALK, I THINK WE'LL DO OKAY. IT'S, OBVIOUSLY, WE'RE NOT DOING GREAT YET, AND THERE ARE PLENTY OF PEOPLE WHO TALK ABOUT -- INDEFENSIBLE TERMS BUT -- I DON'T KNOW. WE'LL HAVE TO SORT OF SEE HOW THAT ONE IMPOSE I GUESS. ALL RIGHT WELL THANK YOU VERY MUCH EVERYBODY. [APPLAUSE] THANK YOU SO MUCH DAVE THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU. DAVE WILL BE OUT IN THE MADISON PRESCHOOL SIGNING BOOKS, AND TAKING ANY ADDITIONAL COMMENTS. WE WILL START AGAIN&nbsp; Show Less Text</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">01:00:42</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">End</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HERE AT 3:00. THANKS SO MUCH. [INAUDIBLE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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