1
00:00:05,587 --> 00:00:09,940
I can't think of any more human activity

2
00:00:10,555 --> 00:00:16,020
than conducting science experiments.

3
00:00:16,773 --> 00:00:20,462
That's what we do as human beings.

4
00:00:20,462 --> 00:00:25,001
and we do that more thoroughly and better than any other species on earth

5
00:00:25,001 --> 00:00:27,003
that we have yet encountered.

6
00:00:27,736 --> 00:00:34,142
We explore our environment more than we are compelled to utter poetry when we're toddlers

7
00:00:34,142 --> 00:00:36,401
We start doing that later.

8
00:00:37,340 --> 00:00:41,678
Before that happens every child is a scientist.

9
00:00:43,835 --> 00:00:46,460
Think about it! What the kids do?

10
00:00:46,460 --> 00:00:51,302
Young kids, kids they can barely walk, what are they doing?

11
00:00:51,302 --> 00:00:58,180
They are exploring their environment through experimentation.

12
00:00:58,180 --> 00:01:04,781
I don't care about your economic background, I don't care what town you born in, what city, what country,

13
00:01:04,781 --> 00:01:07,540
if you are a child you are curious about your environment,

14
00:01:07,540 --> 00:01:08,861
you are overturning rocks

15
00:01:08,861 --> 00:01:13,902
you are plucking leaves off a trees, and petals off a flowers, and looking inside,

16
00:01:13,902 --> 00:01:19,543
and you are doing things create disorder in the lives of the adults around you.

17
00:01:19,543 --> 00:01:21,621
And so then, what the adults do?

18
00:01:21,621 --> 00:01:25,857
They say, "Don't pluck the petals of the flowers. I just spent money on that. 


19
00:01:25,857 --> 00:01:30,722
Don't play with the egg. It might break. Don't …" Everything is a don't. 


20
00:01:34,376 --> 00:01:36,223
I'm often asked by parents 


21
00:01:36,223 --> 00:01:41,303
what advice can I give them to help get kids interested in science? 


22
00:01:41,303 --> 00:01:43,668
And I have only one bit of advice. 


23
00:01:44,637 --> 00:01:50,135
Get out of their way! Kids are born curious. Period. 


24
00:01:57,964 --> 00:02:00,260
We spend the first year teaching them to walk and talk 


25
00:02:00,260 --> 00:02:02,669
and the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit down. 


26
00:02:03,530 --> 00:02:06,001
So... you get out of their way. 


27
00:02:06,001 --> 00:02:11,861
And you know what you do? You put things in their midst that help them explore. Help 'em explore.

28
00:02:11,861 --> 00:02:15,460
Why don't you get a pair of binoculars, just leave it there one day? 


29
00:02:15,460 --> 00:02:20,380
Watch 'em pick it up. And watch 'em look around. They'll do all kind of things with it.


30
00:02:20,380 --> 00:02:24,300
For me at age 11, I had a pair of binoculars and looked up to the moon, 


31
00:02:24,300 --> 00:02:26,751
and the moon wasn't just bigger, it was better. 


32
00:02:26,751 --> 00:02:31,002
There were mountains and valleys and craters and shadows. And it came alive. 


33
00:02:31,002 --> 00:02:36,855
I was transformed by picking up a pair of binoculars and looking up. 


34
00:02:36,855 --> 00:02:42,168
And so when i think of science I think of a truly human activity. 


35
00:02:42,168 --> 00:02:45,500
Something fundamental to our DNA. 


36
00:02:45,500 --> 00:02:49,585
Something that drives curiosity. 


37
00:02:49,585 --> 00:02:54,697
They go together. The act of being curious and the act of wanting to do the experiment. 


38
00:02:54,697 --> 00:03:03,968
When you conduct science it is the natural world that is the ultimate decider of what is true and what is not. 


39
00:03:04,617 --> 00:03:08,422
You have to create what it is that you do best 


40
00:03:08,422 --> 00:03:13,056
that layers onto the formal training that may be behind it. 


41
00:03:13,056 --> 00:03:17,380
I think the greatest of people that have ever been in society, 


42
00:03:17,380 --> 00:03:25,585
were never versions of someone else. They were themselves. 


43
00:03:26,523 --> 00:03:33,341
It's the great tragedy - People employed in ways that don't fully tap everything they do best in life.


44
00:03:34,048 --> 00:03:40,580
And so... I think the greatest of people in society carved niches 


45
00:03:40,580 --> 00:03:45,821
that represented the unique expression of their combinations of talents, 


46
00:03:46,913 --> 00:03:54,502
and if everyone had the luxury of expressing the unique combinations of talents in this world, 


47
00:03:54,502 --> 00:03:59,077
our society would be transformed over night.