0:00:00.952,0:00:02.714
I'm a meteorologist by degree,

0:00:02.738,0:00:05.881
I have a bachelors,[br]masters and PhD in physical meteorology,

0:00:05.905,0:00:08.041
so I'm a meteorologist, card carrying.

0:00:08.444,0:00:13.143
And so with that comes[br]four questions, always.

0:00:13.167,0:00:15.723
This is one prediction[br]I will always get right.

0:00:15.747,0:00:17.603
(Laughter)

0:00:17.627,0:00:19.675
And those questions are,

0:00:19.699,0:00:22.099
"Marshall, what channel are you on?"

0:00:24.048,0:00:27.541
"Doctor Shepherd, what's the weather[br]going to be tomorrow?"

0:00:27.937,0:00:29.524
And oh, I love this one:

0:00:29.548,0:00:32.993
"My daughter is getting married[br]next September, it's an outdoor wedding.

0:00:33.017,0:00:34.227
Is it going to rain?"

0:00:34.251,0:00:35.633
(Laughter)

0:00:35.657,0:00:38.545
Not kidding, I get those[br]and I don't know the answer to that,

0:00:38.569,0:00:40.169
the science isn't there.

0:00:41.185,0:00:44.088
But the one I get a lot these days is,

0:00:44.112,0:00:48.964
"Doctor Shepherd, do you believe[br]in climate change?"

0:00:49.331,0:00:52.037
"Do you believe in global warming?"

0:00:52.807,0:00:56.506
Now, I have to gather myself[br]every time I get that question.

0:00:56.530,0:00:58.212
Because it's an ill-posed question,

0:00:58.236,0:01:00.236
science isn't a belief system.

0:01:00.911,0:01:04.177
My son, he's 10,[br]he believes in the tooth fairy.

0:01:04.998,0:01:08.387
And he needs to get over that,[br]because I'm losing dollars fast.

0:01:08.411,0:01:10.728
(Laughter)

0:01:10.752,0:01:12.577
But he believes in the tooth fairy.

0:01:12.601,0:01:14.572
But consider this.

0:01:15.361,0:01:17.909
Bank of America building,[br]there in Atlanta.

0:01:17.933,0:01:20.488
You never hear anyone say,

0:01:20.512,0:01:23.091
"Do you believe, if you go[br]to the top of that building

0:01:23.115,0:01:25.369
and throw a ball off, it's going to fall?"

0:01:25.807,0:01:29.141
You never hear that,[br]because gravity is a thing.

0:01:30.427,0:01:32.712
So why don't we hear the question,

0:01:32.736,0:01:34.541
"Do you believe in gravity?"

0:01:34.565,0:01:36.423
But of course we hear the question,

0:01:36.447,0:01:38.780
"Do you believe in global warming?"

0:01:40.161,0:01:42.573
Well, consider these facts.

0:01:43.799,0:01:46.895
The American Association[br]for the Advancement of Science, AAAS,

0:01:46.919,0:01:49.768
one of the leading[br]organizations in science,

0:01:49.792,0:01:53.712
queried scientists and the public[br]on different science topics.

0:01:53.736,0:01:54.935
Here are some of them:

0:01:54.959,0:01:58.886
genetically modified food,[br]animal research, human evolution.

0:01:59.709,0:02:02.209
And look at what the scientists[br]say about those,

0:02:02.233,0:02:04.947
the people that actually[br]study those topics, in red,

0:02:04.971,0:02:07.598
versus the gray, what the public thinks.

0:02:07.622,0:02:09.208
How did we get there?

0:02:09.982,0:02:11.474
How did we get there?

0:02:12.743,0:02:16.644
That scientists and public[br]are so far apart on these science issues.

0:02:17.260,0:02:19.656
Well, I'll come a little bit[br]closer to home for me,

0:02:19.680,0:02:20.830
climate change.

0:02:21.339,0:02:24.231
Eighty-seven percent of scientists

0:02:24.255,0:02:28.463
believe that humans are contributing[br]to climate change.

0:02:29.450,0:02:31.717
But only 50 percent of the public?

0:02:33.323,0:02:34.704
How did we get there?

0:02:34.728,0:02:36.031
So it begs the question,

0:02:36.055,0:02:40.792
what shapes perceptions about science?

0:02:42.655,0:02:44.045
It's an interesting question,

0:02:44.069,0:02:46.647
and one that I've been[br]thinking about quite a bit.

0:02:48.434,0:02:53.100
I think that one thing that shapes[br]perceptions in the public about science

0:02:53.124,0:02:55.314
is belief systems and biases.

0:02:56.339,0:02:57.775
Belief systems and biases.

0:02:57.799,0:02:59.399
Go with me for a moment.

0:03:00.005,0:03:02.458
Because I want to talk about[br]three elements of that:

0:03:02.482,0:03:06.155
confirmation bias, Dunning-Kruger effect

0:03:06.179,0:03:08.044
and cognitive dissonance.

0:03:08.068,0:03:12.091
Now, these sound like big, fancy,[br]academic terms, and they are.

0:03:12.585,0:03:16.212
But when I describe them,[br]you're going to be like, "Oh!

0:03:16.236,0:03:19.969
I recognize that, I even know[br]somebody that does that."

0:03:21.355,0:03:22.934
Confirmation bias.

0:03:24.260,0:03:28.732
Finding evidence that supports[br]what we already believe.

0:03:28.756,0:03:31.680
Now, we're probably all[br]a little bit guilty of that at times.

0:03:33.427,0:03:34.966
Take a look at this.

0:03:34.990,0:03:36.307
I'm on Twitter.

0:03:36.331,0:03:38.735
And often when it snows,

0:03:38.759,0:03:40.648
I'll get this tweet back to me.

0:03:40.672,0:03:43.148
(Laughter)

0:03:43.172,0:03:46.901
"Hey, Doctor Shepherd, I have 20 inches[br]of Global Warming in my yard,

0:03:46.925,0:03:49.909
what are you guys[br]talking about climate change?"

0:03:49.933,0:03:51.671
I get that tweet a lot, actually.

0:03:52.909,0:03:55.846
It's a cute tweet,[br]it makes me chuckle as well.

0:03:55.870,0:03:59.815
But it's oh, so fundamentally[br]scientifically flawed.

0:04:00.292,0:04:01.850
Because it illustrates

0:04:01.874,0:04:03.895
that the person tweeting[br]doesn't understand

0:04:03.919,0:04:06.021
the difference between[br]weather and climate.

0:04:07.466,0:04:11.014
I often say, weather is your mood

0:04:11.038,0:04:13.497
and climate is your personality.

0:04:14.981,0:04:16.132
Think about that.

0:04:16.156,0:04:18.600
Weather is your mood,[br]climate is your personality.

0:04:18.624,0:04:22.609
Your mood today doesn't necessarily[br]tell me anything about your personality.

0:04:22.633,0:04:25.403
Nor does a cold day tell me anything[br]about climate change,

0:04:25.427,0:04:27.427
or a hot day, for that matter.

0:04:29.974,0:04:31.124
Dunning-Kruger.

0:04:31.616,0:04:34.671
Two scholars from Cornell[br]came up with the Dunning-Kruger effect.

0:04:34.695,0:04:37.037
If you go look up[br]the peer review paper for this,

0:04:37.061,0:04:39.569
you will see all kinds[br]of fancy terminology:

0:04:39.593,0:04:43.236
it's an illusory superiority complex,[br]thinking we know things.

0:04:43.260,0:04:46.077
In other words, people think[br]they know more than they do.

0:04:47.553,0:04:50.486
Or they underestimate[br]what they don't know.

0:04:50.847,0:04:53.314
And then there's cognitive dissonance.

0:04:54.831,0:04:57.164
Cognitive dissonance is interesting.

0:04:57.538,0:05:00.188
We just recently had Groundhog Day, right?

0:05:01.132,0:05:03.853
Now, there's no better definition[br]of cognitive dissonance

0:05:03.877,0:05:07.395
than intelligent people asking me[br]if a rodent's forecast is accurate.

0:05:07.419,0:05:10.150
(Laughter)

0:05:10.174,0:05:12.721
But I get that, all of the time.

0:05:12.745,0:05:13.999
(Laughter)

0:05:14.023,0:05:17.626
But I also hear[br]about the Farmer's Almanac.

0:05:17.650,0:05:20.846
We grew up on the Farmer's Almanac,[br]people are familiar with it.

0:05:22.259,0:05:25.671
The problem is, it's only[br]about 37 percent accurate,

0:05:25.695,0:05:28.829
according to studies[br]at Penn State University.

0:05:31.458,0:05:35.029
But we're in an era of science

0:05:35.053,0:05:37.117
where we actually[br]can forecast the weather.

0:05:37.141,0:05:40.562
And believe it or not, and I know[br]some of you are like, "Yeah, right,"

0:05:40.586,0:05:43.609
we're about 90 percent accurate, or more,[br]with weather forecast.

0:05:43.633,0:05:46.363
You just tend to remember[br]the occasional miss, you do.

0:05:50.263,0:05:53.668
So confirmation bias,[br]Dunning-Kruger and cognitive dissonance.

0:05:53.692,0:05:59.104
I think those shape biases and perceptions[br]that people have about science.

0:05:59.625,0:06:01.774
But then, there's literacy[br]and misinformation

0:06:01.798,0:06:03.865
that keep us boxed in, as well.

0:06:05.911,0:06:08.395
During the hurricane season of 2017

0:06:08.419,0:06:12.632
media outlets had to[br]actually assign reporters

0:06:12.656,0:06:16.813
to dismiss fake information[br]about the weather forecast.

0:06:18.204,0:06:20.138
That's the era that we're in.

0:06:20.644,0:06:23.081
I deal with this all the time[br]in social media.

0:06:23.105,0:06:24.692
Someone will tweet a forecast --

0:06:24.716,0:06:27.652
that's a forecast for hurricane Irma,[br]but here's the problem:

0:06:27.676,0:06:29.676
it didn't come from the Hurricane Center.

0:06:30.608,0:06:33.395
But people were tweeting[br]and sharing this, it went viral.

0:06:33.419,0:06:36.284
It didn't come from the National[br]Hurricane Center at all.

0:06:38.363,0:06:40.847
So I spent 12 years of my career at NASA

0:06:40.871,0:06:42.903
before coming to[br]the University of Georgia,

0:06:42.927,0:06:45.442
and I chair their Earth Science[br]Advisory Committee,

0:06:45.466,0:06:47.283
I was just up there last week in DC.

0:06:47.307,0:06:49.294
And I saw some really interesting things.

0:06:49.318,0:06:52.556
Here's a NASA model[br]and science data from satellite

0:06:52.580,0:06:54.863
showing the 2017 hurricane season.

0:06:54.887,0:06:56.953
You see hurricane Harvey there?

0:06:57.649,0:07:00.158
Look at all the dust coming off of Africa.

0:07:00.617,0:07:05.604
Look at the wildfires up in northwest US[br]and in western Canada.

0:07:05.628,0:07:07.428
There comes hurricane Irma.

0:07:08.923,0:07:11.066
This is fascinating to me.

0:07:11.688,0:07:13.783
But admittedly, I'm a weather geek.

0:07:14.982,0:07:18.458
But more importantly, it illustrates[br]that we have the technology

0:07:18.482,0:07:21.061
to not only observe the weather[br]and climate system,

0:07:21.085,0:07:22.235
but predict it.

0:07:22.625,0:07:24.387
There's scientific understanding,

0:07:24.411,0:07:27.498
so there's no need for some[br]of those perceptions and biases

0:07:27.522,0:07:29.092
that we've been talking about.

0:07:29.116,0:07:30.315
We have knowledge.

0:07:30.339,0:07:31.577
But think about this...

0:07:31.601,0:07:34.783
This is Houston, Texas,[br]after hurricane Harvey.

0:07:35.736,0:07:38.669
Now, I write a contribution[br]for "Forbes" magazine periodically

0:07:38.693,0:07:43.264
and I wrote an article a week before[br]hurricane Harvey made landfall, saying,

0:07:43.288,0:07:46.130
"There's probably going to be[br]40 to 50 inches of rainfall."

0:07:46.776,0:07:49.260
I wrote that a week before it happened.

0:07:49.284,0:07:51.410
But yet, when you talk[br]to people in Houston,

0:07:51.434,0:07:54.507
people are saying, "We had no idea[br]it was going to be this bad."

0:07:55.093,0:07:56.268
I'm just...

0:07:56.292,0:07:57.442
(Sigh)

0:07:58.657,0:07:59.831
A week before.

0:07:59.855,0:08:01.045
But --

0:08:01.069,0:08:03.567
I know, it's amusing, but the reality is,

0:08:03.591,0:08:09.735
we all struggle with perceiving something[br]outside of our experience level.

0:08:09.759,0:08:12.029
People in Houston[br]get rain all of the time,

0:08:12.053,0:08:13.853
they flood all of the time.

0:08:14.513,0:08:16.847
But they've never experienced that.

0:08:17.561,0:08:21.950
Houston gets about 34 inches of rainfall[br]for the entire year.

0:08:21.974,0:08:24.529
They got 50 inches in three days.

0:08:25.300,0:08:28.391
That's an anomaly event,[br]that's outside of the normal.

0:08:30.188,0:08:33.029
So belief systems and biases,[br]literacy and misinformation.

0:08:33.053,0:08:36.936
How do we step out of the boxes[br]that are cornering our perceptions?

0:08:38.633,0:08:42.366
Well we don't even have to go to Houston,[br]we can come very close to home.

0:08:42.390,0:08:43.571
(Laughter)

0:08:43.595,0:08:45.508
Remember "snowpocalypse?"

0:08:45.532,0:08:47.333
(Laughter)

0:08:47.357,0:08:48.857
"Snowmageddon?"

0:08:48.881,0:08:50.032
Snowzilla?

0:08:50.056,0:08:52.085
Whatever you want to call it?

0:08:52.109,0:08:54.426
All two inches of it.

0:08:54.450,0:08:57.053
(Laughter)

0:08:57.077,0:08:59.942
Two inches of snow[br]shut the city of Atlanta down.

0:08:59.966,0:09:01.537
(Laughter)

0:09:02.982,0:09:07.236
But the reality is,[br]we were in a winter storm watch,

0:09:07.260,0:09:09.895
we went to a winter weather advisory,

0:09:09.919,0:09:12.569
and a lot of people perceived that[br]as being a downgrade,

0:09:12.593,0:09:14.260
"Oh, it's not going to be as bad."

0:09:14.284,0:09:17.514
When in fact, the perception[br]was that it was not going to be as bad,

0:09:17.538,0:09:19.172
but it was actually an upgrade.

0:09:19.196,0:09:21.783
Things were getting worse[br]as the models were coming in.

0:09:21.807,0:09:25.613
So that's an example of how[br]we get boxed in by our perceptions.

0:09:26.165,0:09:28.141
So, the question becomes,

0:09:28.165,0:09:31.656
how do we expand our radius?

0:09:33.823,0:09:35.633
Area of a circle is "pi r squared".

0:09:35.657,0:09:38.000
We increase the radius,[br]we increase the area.

0:09:38.024,0:09:42.005
How do we expand our radius[br]of understanding about science?

0:09:42.593,0:09:43.993
Here are my thoughts.

0:09:44.720,0:09:47.791
You take inventory of your own biases.

0:09:47.815,0:09:49.831
And I'm challenging you all to do that.

0:09:49.855,0:09:52.879
Take an inventory of your own biases.

0:09:52.903,0:09:54.188
Where do they come from?

0:09:54.212,0:09:57.586
Your upbringing, your political[br]perspective, your faith,

0:09:57.610,0:10:00.029
what shapes your own biases?

0:10:01.982,0:10:03.419
Then evaluate your sources --

0:10:03.443,0:10:05.894
where do you get[br]your information on science?

0:10:06.553,0:10:08.529
What do you read, what do you listen to,

0:10:08.553,0:10:10.553
to consume your information on science?

0:10:11.022,0:10:13.768
And then it's important to speak out.

0:10:13.792,0:10:17.910
Talk about how you evaluated your biases[br]and evaluated your sources.

0:10:17.934,0:10:20.704
I want you to listen to this[br]little 40-second clip

0:10:20.728,0:10:25.506
from one of the top[br]TV meteorologists in the US, Greg Fishel,

0:10:25.530,0:10:27.053
in the Raleigh, Duram area.

0:10:27.077,0:10:28.752
He's revered in that region.

0:10:28.776,0:10:30.181
But he was a climate skeptic.

0:10:30.205,0:10:32.442
Listen to what he says about speaking out.

0:10:32.466,0:10:36.278
(Video) Greg Fishel: Mistake I was making[br]and didn't realize until very recently,

0:10:36.302,0:10:38.704
was that I was only[br]looking for information

0:10:38.728,0:10:41.682
to support what I already thought,

0:10:41.706,0:10:45.813
and was not interested[br]in listening to anything contrary.

0:10:46.559,0:10:48.630
And so I woke up one morning

0:10:48.654,0:10:52.352
and there was this question in my mind,

0:10:52.918,0:10:55.522
"Greg, are you engaging[br]in confirmation bias?

0:10:55.546,0:10:59.287
Are you only looking for information[br]to support what you already think?"

0:11:00.069,0:11:02.337
If I was honest with myself,[br]and I tried to be,

0:11:02.361,0:11:04.647
I admitted that was going on.

0:11:05.269,0:11:07.783
And so the more I talked to scientists,

0:11:07.807,0:11:09.865
and read peer-reviewed literature

0:11:09.889,0:11:14.601
and tried to conduct myself the way[br]I've been taught to conduct myself

0:11:14.625,0:11:16.958
at Penn State when I was a student,

0:11:17.665,0:11:20.357
it became very difficult for me[br]to make the argument

0:11:20.381,0:11:22.441
that we weren't at least[br]having some effect,

0:11:22.465,0:11:24.901
maybe there was still a doubt[br]as to how much,

0:11:24.925,0:11:29.640
but to say "nothing" was not[br]a responsible thing for me to do

0:11:29.664,0:11:31.464
as a scientist or a person.

0:11:33.387,0:11:37.248
Greg Fishel just talked[br]about expanding his radius

0:11:37.272,0:11:38.895
of understanding of science.

0:11:38.919,0:11:40.974
And when we expand our radius,

0:11:40.998,0:11:44.196
it's not about making a better future,

0:11:44.220,0:11:47.287
but it's about preserving[br]life as we know it.

0:11:48.180,0:11:54.268
So as we think about expanding[br]our own radius in understanding science,

0:11:54.292,0:11:57.664
it's critical for Athens, Georgia,[br]for Atlanta, Georgia,

0:11:57.688,0:12:00.546
for the state of Georgia,[br]and for the world.

0:12:00.857,0:12:02.928
So expand your radius.

0:12:02.952,0:12:04.135
Thank you.

0:12:04.159,0:12:08.174
(Applause)