WEBVTT 00:00:00.952 --> 00:00:02.714 I'm a meteorologist by degree, 00:00:02.738 --> 00:00:05.881 I have a bachelor's, master's and PhD in physical meteorology, 00:00:05.905 --> 00:00:08.041 so I'm a meteorologist, card carrying. 00:00:08.444 --> 00:00:13.143 And so with that comes four questions, always. 00:00:13.167 --> 00:00:15.723 This is one prediction I will always get right. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:15.747 --> 00:00:17.603 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:17.627 --> 00:00:19.675 And those questions are, 00:00:19.699 --> 00:00:22.183 "Marshall, what channel are you on?" NOTE Paragraph 00:00:22.207 --> 00:00:24.024 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:24.048 --> 00:00:26.889 "Doctor Shepherd, what's the weather going to be tomorrow?" NOTE Paragraph 00:00:26.913 --> 00:00:27.913 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:27.937 --> 00:00:29.524 And oh, I love this one: 00:00:29.548 --> 00:00:32.993 "My daughter is getting married next September, it's an outdoor wedding. 00:00:33.017 --> 00:00:34.227 Is it going to rain?" NOTE Paragraph 00:00:34.251 --> 00:00:35.633 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:35.657 --> 00:00:38.562 Not kidding, I get those, and I don't know the answer to that, 00:00:38.586 --> 00:00:40.186 the science isn't there. 00:00:41.185 --> 00:00:44.088 But the one I get a lot these days is, 00:00:44.112 --> 00:00:48.964 "Doctor Shepherd, do you believe in climate change?" 00:00:49.331 --> 00:00:52.037 "Do you believe in global warming?" 00:00:52.807 --> 00:00:56.506 Now, I have to gather myself every time I get that question. 00:00:56.530 --> 00:00:58.292 Because it's an ill-posed question -- 00:00:58.316 --> 00:01:00.316 science isn't a belief system. 00:01:00.911 --> 00:01:04.177 My son, he's 10 -- he believes in the tooth fairy. 00:01:04.998 --> 00:01:08.387 And he needs to get over that, because I'm losing dollars, fast. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:08.411 --> 00:01:10.728 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:01:10.752 --> 00:01:12.577 But he believes in the tooth fairy. 00:01:12.601 --> 00:01:14.572 But consider this. 00:01:15.361 --> 00:01:17.909 Bank of America building, there, in Atlanta. 00:01:17.933 --> 00:01:20.488 You never hear anyone say, 00:01:20.512 --> 00:01:23.091 "Do you believe, if you go to the top of that building 00:01:23.115 --> 00:01:25.369 and throw a ball off, it's going to fall?" 00:01:25.807 --> 00:01:29.141 You never hear that, because gravity is a thing. 00:01:30.427 --> 00:01:32.712 So why don't we hear the question, 00:01:32.736 --> 00:01:34.541 "Do you believe in gravity?" 00:01:34.565 --> 00:01:36.423 But of course, we hear the question, 00:01:36.447 --> 00:01:38.780 "Do you believe in global warming?" NOTE Paragraph 00:01:40.161 --> 00:01:42.573 Well, consider these facts. 00:01:43.799 --> 00:01:46.895 The American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS, 00:01:46.919 --> 00:01:49.768 one of the leading organizations in science, 00:01:49.792 --> 00:01:53.712 queried scientists and the public on different science topics. 00:01:53.736 --> 00:01:54.935 Here are some of them: 00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:58.886 genetically modified food, animal research, human evolution. 00:01:59.709 --> 00:02:02.209 And look at what the scientists say about those, 00:02:02.233 --> 00:02:04.947 the people that actually study those topics, in red, 00:02:04.971 --> 00:02:07.598 versus the gray, what the public thinks. 00:02:07.622 --> 00:02:09.208 How did we get there? 00:02:09.982 --> 00:02:11.474 How did we get there? 00:02:12.743 --> 00:02:16.644 That scientists and the public are so far apart on these science issues. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:17.260 --> 00:02:19.656 Well, I'll come a little bit closer to home for me, 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:20.830 climate change. 00:02:21.339 --> 00:02:24.231 Eighty-seven percent of scientists 00:02:24.255 --> 00:02:28.463 believe that humans are contributing to climate change. 00:02:29.450 --> 00:02:31.717 But only 50 percent of the public? 00:02:33.323 --> 00:02:34.704 How did we get there? 00:02:34.728 --> 00:02:36.031 So it begs the question, 00:02:36.055 --> 00:02:40.792 what shapes perceptions about science? 00:02:42.655 --> 00:02:44.045 It's an interesting question, 00:02:44.069 --> 00:02:46.647 and one that I've been thinking about quite a bit. 00:02:48.434 --> 00:02:53.100 I think that one thing that shapes perceptions in the public, about science, 00:02:53.124 --> 00:02:55.314 is belief systems and biases. 00:02:56.339 --> 00:02:57.775 Belief systems and biases. 00:02:57.799 --> 00:02:59.399 Go with me for a moment. 00:03:00.005 --> 00:03:02.458 Because I want to talk about three elements of that: 00:03:02.482 --> 00:03:06.155 confirmation bias, Dunning-Kruger effect 00:03:06.179 --> 00:03:08.044 and cognitive dissonance. 00:03:08.068 --> 00:03:12.091 Now, these sound like big, fancy, academic terms, and they are. 00:03:12.585 --> 00:03:16.212 But when I describe them, you're going to be like, "Oh! 00:03:16.236 --> 00:03:19.969 I recognize that, I even know somebody that does that." NOTE Paragraph 00:03:21.355 --> 00:03:22.934 Confirmation bias. 00:03:24.260 --> 00:03:28.732 Finding evidence that supports what we already believe. 00:03:28.756 --> 00:03:31.680 Now, we're probably all a little bit guilty of that at times. 00:03:33.427 --> 00:03:34.966 Take a look at this. 00:03:34.990 --> 00:03:36.307 I'm on Twitter. 00:03:36.331 --> 00:03:38.735 And often, when it snows, 00:03:38.759 --> 00:03:40.648 I'll get this tweet back to me. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:40.672 --> 00:03:43.148 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:03:43.172 --> 00:03:46.901 "Hey, Doctor Shepherd, I have 20 inches of Global Warming in my yard, 00:03:46.925 --> 00:03:49.909 what are you guys talking about, climate change?" 00:03:49.933 --> 00:03:51.671 I get that tweet a lot, actually. 00:03:52.909 --> 00:03:55.846 It's a cute tweet, it makes me chuckle as well. 00:03:55.870 --> 00:03:59.815 But it's oh, so fundamentally scientifically flawed. 00:04:00.292 --> 00:04:01.850 Because it illustrates 00:04:01.874 --> 00:04:03.895 that the person tweeting doesn't understand 00:04:03.919 --> 00:04:06.021 the difference between weather and climate. 00:04:07.466 --> 00:04:11.014 I often say, weather is your mood 00:04:11.038 --> 00:04:13.497 and climate is your personality. 00:04:14.981 --> 00:04:16.132 Think about that. 00:04:16.156 --> 00:04:18.600 Weather is your mood, climate is your personality. 00:04:18.624 --> 00:04:22.609 Your mood today doesn't necessarily tell me anything about your personality. 00:04:22.633 --> 00:04:25.403 Nor does a cold day tell me anything about climate change, 00:04:25.427 --> 00:04:27.427 or a hot day, for that matter. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:29.974 --> 00:04:31.124 Dunning-Kruger. 00:04:31.616 --> 00:04:34.671 Two scholars from Cornell came up with the Dunning-Kruger effect. 00:04:34.695 --> 00:04:37.076 If you go look up the peer-reviewed paper for this, 00:04:37.100 --> 00:04:39.569 you will see all kinds of fancy terminology: 00:04:39.593 --> 00:04:43.236 it's an illusory superiority complex, thinking we know things. 00:04:43.260 --> 00:04:46.077 In other words, people think they know more than they do. 00:04:47.553 --> 00:04:50.486 Or they underestimate what they don't know. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:50.847 --> 00:04:53.314 And then, there's cognitive dissonance. 00:04:54.831 --> 00:04:57.164 Cognitive dissonance is interesting. 00:04:57.538 --> 00:05:00.188 We just recently had Groundhog Day, right? 00:05:01.132 --> 00:05:03.853 Now, there's no better definition of cognitive dissonance 00:05:03.877 --> 00:05:07.395 than intelligent people asking me if a rodent's forecast is accurate. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:07.419 --> 00:05:10.150 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:10.174 --> 00:05:12.721 But I get that, all of the time. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:12.745 --> 00:05:13.999 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:14.023 --> 00:05:17.626 But I also hear about the Farmer's Almanac. 00:05:17.650 --> 00:05:20.846 We grew up on the Farmer's Almanac, people are familiar with it. 00:05:22.259 --> 00:05:25.671 The problem is, it's only about 37 percent accurate, 00:05:25.695 --> 00:05:28.829 according to studies at Penn State University. 00:05:31.458 --> 00:05:35.029 But we're in an era of science 00:05:35.053 --> 00:05:37.117 where we actually can forecast the weather. 00:05:37.141 --> 00:05:40.562 And believe it or not, and I know some of you are like, "Yeah, right," 00:05:40.586 --> 00:05:43.609 we're about 90 percent accurate, or more, with weather forecast. 00:05:43.633 --> 00:05:46.257 You just tend to remember the occasional miss, you do. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:46.281 --> 00:05:47.431 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:50.263 --> 00:05:53.668 So confirmation bias, Dunning-Kruger and cognitive dissonance. 00:05:53.692 --> 00:05:59.104 I think those shape biases and perceptions that people have about science. 00:05:59.625 --> 00:06:01.774 But then, there's literacy and misinformation 00:06:01.798 --> 00:06:03.865 that keep us boxed in, as well. 00:06:05.911 --> 00:06:08.395 During the hurricane season of 2017, 00:06:08.419 --> 00:06:12.632 media outlets had to actually assign reporters 00:06:12.656 --> 00:06:16.813 to dismiss fake information about the weather forecast. 00:06:18.204 --> 00:06:20.138 That's the era that we're in. 00:06:20.644 --> 00:06:23.081 I deal with this all the time in social media. 00:06:23.105 --> 00:06:24.692 Someone will tweet a forecast -- 00:06:24.716 --> 00:06:27.652 that's a forecast for Hurricane Irma, but here's the problem: 00:06:27.676 --> 00:06:29.676 it didn't come from the Hurricane Center. 00:06:30.608 --> 00:06:33.395 But people were tweeting and sharing this; it went viral. 00:06:33.419 --> 00:06:36.284 It didn't come from the National Hurricane Center at all. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:38.363 --> 00:06:40.847 So I spent 12 years of my career at NASA 00:06:40.871 --> 00:06:42.903 before coming to the University of Georgia, 00:06:42.927 --> 00:06:45.442 and I chair their Earth Science Advisory Committee, 00:06:45.466 --> 00:06:47.283 I was just up there last week in DC. 00:06:47.307 --> 00:06:49.294 And I saw some really interesting things. 00:06:49.318 --> 00:06:52.556 Here's a NASA model and science data from satellite 00:06:52.580 --> 00:06:54.863 showing the 2017 hurricane season. 00:06:54.887 --> 00:06:56.953 You see Hurricane Harvey there? 00:06:57.649 --> 00:07:00.158 Look at all the dust coming off of Africa. 00:07:00.617 --> 00:07:05.604 Look at the wildfires up in northwest US and in western Canada. 00:07:05.628 --> 00:07:07.428 There comes Hurricane Irma. 00:07:08.923 --> 00:07:11.066 This is fascinating to me. 00:07:11.688 --> 00:07:13.783 But admittedly, I'm a weather geek. 00:07:14.982 --> 00:07:18.458 But more importantly, it illustrates that we have the technology 00:07:18.482 --> 00:07:21.061 to not only observe the weather and climate system, 00:07:21.085 --> 00:07:22.235 but predict it. 00:07:22.625 --> 00:07:24.387 There's scientific understanding, 00:07:24.411 --> 00:07:27.498 so there's no need for some of those perceptions and biases 00:07:27.522 --> 00:07:29.092 that we've been talking about. 00:07:29.116 --> 00:07:30.315 We have knowledge. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:30.339 --> 00:07:31.577 But think about this ... 00:07:31.601 --> 00:07:34.783 This is Houston, Texas, after Hurricane Harvey. 00:07:35.736 --> 00:07:38.669 Now, I write a contribution for "Forbes" magazine periodically 00:07:38.693 --> 00:07:43.264 and I wrote an article a week before Hurricane Harvey made landfall, saying, 00:07:43.288 --> 00:07:46.130 "There's probably going to be 40 to 50 inches of rainfall." 00:07:46.776 --> 00:07:49.260 I wrote that a week before it happened. 00:07:49.284 --> 00:07:51.410 But yet, when you talk to people in Houston, 00:07:51.434 --> 00:07:54.507 people are saying, "We had no idea it was going to be this bad." 00:07:55.093 --> 00:07:56.268 I'm just... NOTE Paragraph 00:07:56.292 --> 00:07:57.473 (Sigh) NOTE Paragraph 00:07:57.497 --> 00:07:58.633 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:07:58.657 --> 00:07:59.831 A week before. 00:07:59.855 --> 00:08:01.045 But -- 00:08:01.069 --> 00:08:03.567 I know, it's amusing, but the reality is, 00:08:03.591 --> 00:08:09.735 we all struggle with perceiving something outside of our experience level. 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:12.029 People in Houston get rain all of the time, 00:08:12.053 --> 00:08:13.853 they flood all of the time. 00:08:14.513 --> 00:08:16.847 But they've never experienced that. 00:08:17.561 --> 00:08:21.950 Houston gets about 34 inches of rainfall for the entire year. 00:08:21.974 --> 00:08:24.529 They got 50 inches in three days. 00:08:25.300 --> 00:08:28.391 That's an anomaly event, that's outside of the normal. 00:08:30.188 --> 00:08:33.029 So belief systems and biases, literacy and misinformation. 00:08:33.053 --> 00:08:36.936 How do we step out of the boxes that are cornering our perceptions? 00:08:38.633 --> 00:08:42.366 Well we don't even have to go to Houston, we can come very close to home. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:42.390 --> 00:08:43.571 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:43.595 --> 00:08:45.508 Remember "Snowpocalypse?" NOTE Paragraph 00:08:45.532 --> 00:08:47.333 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:47.357 --> 00:08:48.857 Snowmageddon? 00:08:48.881 --> 00:08:50.032 Snowzilla? 00:08:50.056 --> 00:08:52.085 Whatever you want to call it. 00:08:52.109 --> 00:08:54.426 All two inches of it. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:54.450 --> 00:08:57.053 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:57.077 --> 00:08:59.942 Two inches of snow shut the city of Atlanta down. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:59.966 --> 00:09:01.537 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:09:02.982 --> 00:09:07.236 But the reality is, we were in a winter storm watch, 00:09:07.260 --> 00:09:09.895 we went to a winter weather advisory, 00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:12.569 and a lot of people perceived that as being a downgrade, 00:09:12.593 --> 00:09:14.260 "Oh, it's not going to be as bad." 00:09:14.284 --> 00:09:17.514 When in fact, the perception was that it was not going to be as bad, 00:09:17.538 --> 00:09:19.172 but it was actually an upgrade. 00:09:19.196 --> 00:09:21.783 Things were getting worse as the models were coming in. 00:09:21.807 --> 00:09:25.613 So that's an example of how we get boxed in by our perceptions. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:26.165 --> 00:09:28.141 So, the question becomes, 00:09:28.165 --> 00:09:31.656 how do we expand our radius? 00:09:33.823 --> 00:09:35.733 The area of a circle is "pi r squared". 00:09:35.757 --> 00:09:38.000 We increase the radius, we increase the area. 00:09:38.024 --> 00:09:42.005 How do we expand our radius of understanding about science? 00:09:42.593 --> 00:09:43.993 Here are my thoughts. 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:47.791 You take inventory of your own biases. 00:09:47.815 --> 00:09:49.831 And I'm challenging you all to do that. 00:09:49.855 --> 00:09:52.879 Take an inventory of your own biases. 00:09:52.903 --> 00:09:54.188 Where do they come from? 00:09:54.212 --> 00:09:57.586 Your upbringing, your political perspective, your faith -- 00:09:57.610 --> 00:10:00.029 what shapes your own biases? 00:10:01.982 --> 00:10:03.419 Then, evaluate your sources -- 00:10:03.443 --> 00:10:05.894 where do you get your information on science? 00:10:06.553 --> 00:10:08.529 What do you read, what do you listen to, 00:10:08.553 --> 00:10:10.553 to consume your information on science? 00:10:11.022 --> 00:10:13.768 And then, it's important to speak out. 00:10:13.792 --> 00:10:17.910 Talk about how you evaluated your biases and evaluated your sources. 00:10:17.934 --> 00:10:20.704 I want you to listen to this little 40-second clip 00:10:20.728 --> 00:10:25.506 from one of the top TV meteorologists in the US, Greg Fishel, 00:10:25.530 --> 00:10:27.053 in the Raleigh, Durham area. 00:10:27.077 --> 00:10:28.752 He's revered in that region. 00:10:28.776 --> 00:10:30.181 But he was a climate skeptic. 00:10:30.205 --> 00:10:32.442 But listen to what he says about speaking out. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:32.466 --> 00:10:34.601 Greg Fishel: The mistake I was making 00:10:34.625 --> 00:10:36.278 and didn't realize until recently 00:10:36.302 --> 00:10:38.704 was that I was only looking for information 00:10:38.728 --> 00:10:41.682 to support what I already thought, 00:10:41.706 --> 00:10:45.813 and was not interested in listening to anything contrary. 00:10:46.559 --> 00:10:48.630 And so I woke up one morning, 00:10:48.654 --> 00:10:52.352 and there was this question in my mind, 00:10:52.918 --> 00:10:55.522 "Greg, are you engaging in confirmation bias? 00:10:55.546 --> 00:10:59.471 Are you only looking for information to support what you already think?" 00:11:00.069 --> 00:11:02.438 And if I was honest with myself, and I try to be, 00:11:02.462 --> 00:11:04.850 I admitted that was going on. 00:11:05.269 --> 00:11:07.783 And so the more I talked to scientists, 00:11:07.807 --> 00:11:09.865 and read peer-reviewed literature 00:11:09.889 --> 00:11:14.601 and tried to conduct myself the way I've been taught to conduct myself 00:11:14.625 --> 00:11:16.958 at Penn State when I was a student, 00:11:17.665 --> 00:11:20.357 it became very difficult for me to make the argument 00:11:20.381 --> 00:11:22.441 that we weren't at least having some effect. 00:11:22.465 --> 00:11:24.901 Maybe there was still a doubt as to how much, 00:11:24.925 --> 00:11:29.640 but to say "nothing" was not a responsible thing for me to do 00:11:29.664 --> 00:11:31.464 as a scientist or a person. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:33.387 --> 00:11:37.248 Greg Fishel just talked about expanding his radius 00:11:37.272 --> 00:11:38.895 of understanding of science. 00:11:38.919 --> 00:11:40.974 And when we expand our radius, 00:11:40.998 --> 00:11:44.196 it's not about making a better future, 00:11:44.220 --> 00:11:47.287 but it's about preserving life as we know it. 00:11:48.180 --> 00:11:53.134 So as we think about expanding our own radius in understanding science, 00:11:54.292 --> 00:11:57.664 it's critical for Athens, Georgia, for Atlanta, Georgia, 00:11:57.688 --> 00:12:00.546 for the state of Georgia, and for the world. 00:12:00.857 --> 00:12:02.928 So expand your radius. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:02.952 --> 00:12:04.135 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:04.159 --> 00:12:08.174 (Applause)