0:00:01.830,0:00:04.268 Every day we face issues like climate change 0:00:04.268,0:00:05.708 or the safety of vaccines 0:00:05.708,0:00:08.348 where we have to answer questions whose answers 0:00:08.348,0:00:11.659 rely heavily on scientific information. 0:00:11.659,0:00:15.330 Scientists tell us that the world is warming. 0:00:15.330,0:00:17.281 Scientists tell us that vaccines are safe. 0:00:17.281,0:00:19.465 But how do we know if they are right? 0:00:19.465,0:00:21.569 Why should be believe the science? 0:00:21.569,0:00:24.898 The fact is, many of us actually[br]don't believe the science. 0:00:24.898,0:00:27.314 Public opinion polls consistently show 0:00:27.314,0:00:29.634 that significant proportions of the American people 0:00:29.634,0:00:33.225 don't believe the climate is[br]warming due to human activities, 0:00:33.225,0:00:36.724 don't think that there is[br]evolution by natural selection, 0:00:36.724,0:00:40.805 and aren't persuaded by the safety of vaccines. 0:00:40.805,0:00:44.316 So why should we believe the science? 0:00:44.316,0:00:47.957 Well, scientists don't like talking about [br]science as a matter of belief. 0:00:47.957,0:00:50.444 In fact, they would contract science with faith, 0:00:50.444,0:00:53.680 and they would say belief is the domain of faith. 0:00:53.680,0:00:57.238 And faith is a separate thing[br]apart and distinct from science. 0:00:57.238,0:00:59.790 Indeed they would say religion is based on faith 0:00:59.790,0:01:04.254 or maybe the calculous of Pascal's wager. 0:01:04.254,0:01:07.110 Blaise Pascal was a 17th century mathematician 0:01:07.110,0:01:09.630 who tried to bring scientific[br]reasoning to the question of 0:01:09.630,0:01:11.542 whether or not he should believe in God, 0:01:11.542,0:01:13.616 and his wager went like this: 0:01:13.616,0:01:15.935 well, if God doesn't exist 0:01:15.935,0:01:18.082 but I decide to believe in him 0:01:18.082,0:01:20.538 nothing much is really lost. 0:01:20.538,0:01:22.451 Maybe a few hours on Sunday. 0:01:22.451,0:01:23.234 [Laughter] 0:01:23.234,0:01:26.385 But if he does exist and I don't believe in him, 0:01:26.385,0:01:28.522 then I'm in deep trouble. 0:01:28.522,0:01:31.578 And so Pascal said, we'd better believe in God. 0:01:31.578,0:01:33.610 Or as one of my college professors said, 0:01:33.610,0:01:36.106 "He clutched for the handmill of faith." 0:01:36.106,0:01:37.772 He made that leap of faith 0:01:37.772,0:01:41.896 leaving science and rationalism behind. 0:01:41.896,0:01:45.392 Now the fact is though, for most of us, 0:01:45.392,0:01:48.176 most scientific claims are a leap of faith. 0:01:48.176,0:01:52.941 We can't really judge scientific[br]claims for ourselves in most cases. 0:01:52.941,0:01:55.701 And indeed this is actually[br]true for most scientists as well 0:01:55.701,0:01:57.851 outside of their own specialties. 0:01:57.851,0:02:00.491 So if you think about it, a geologist can't tell you 0:02:00.491,0:02:02.251 whether a vaccine is safe. 0:02:02.251,0:02:05.241 Most chemists are not experts in evolutionary theory. 0:02:05.241,0:02:07.053 A physicist cannot tell you, 0:02:07.053,0:02:08.973 despite the claims of some of them, 0:02:08.973,0:02:12.317 whether or not tobacco causes cancer. 0:02:12.317,0:02:14.487 So, if even scientists themselves 0:02:14.487,0:02:16.223 have to make a leap of faith 0:02:16.223,0:02:17.895 outside their own fields, 0:02:17.895,0:02:21.983 then why do they accept the[br]claims of other scientists? 0:02:21.983,0:02:24.231 Why do they believe each other's claims? 0:02:24.231,0:02:27.111 And should we believe those claims? 0:02:27.111,0:02:30.167 So what I'd like to argue is yes, we should, 0:02:30.167,0:02:33.047 but not for the reason that most of us think. 0:02:33.047,0:02:35.200 Most of us were taught in school[br]that the reason we should 0:02:35.200,0:02:38.832 believe in science is because of the scientific method. 0:02:38.832,0:02:41.208 We were taught that scientists follow a method 0:02:41.208,0:02:43.824 and that this method guarantees 0:02:43.824,0:02:46.200 the truth of their claims. 0:02:46.200,0:02:48.720 The method that most of us were taught in school, 0:02:48.720,0:02:51.296 we can call it the text book method, 0:02:51.296,0:02:54.056 is the hypothetical deductive method. 0:02:54.056,0:02:56.924 According to the standard[br]model, the textbook model, 0:02:56.924,0:02:59.601 scientists develop hypotheses, they deduce 0:02:59.601,0:03:02.121 the consequences for those hypotheses, 0:03:02.121,0:03:03.841 and then they go out into the world and they say, 0:03:03.841,0:03:06.715 "Okay, well are those consequences true?" 0:03:06.715,0:03:09.428 Can we observe them taking[br]place in the natural world? 0:03:09.428,0:03:12.228 And if they are true, then the scientists say, 0:03:12.228,0:03:15.434 "Great, we know the hypothesis is correct." 0:03:15.434,0:03:17.313 So there are many famous examples in the history 0:03:17.313,0:03:20.472 of science of scientists doing exactly this. 0:03:20.472,0:03:22.097 One of the most famous examples 0:03:22.097,0:03:24.593 comes from the work of Albert Einstein. 0:03:24.593,0:03:26.985 When Einstein developed the[br]theory of general relativity, 0:03:26.985,0:03:29.201 one of the consequences of his theory 0:03:29.201,0:03:32.100 was that space time wasn't just an empty void 0:03:32.100,0:03:34.209 but that it actually had a fabric. 0:03:34.209,0:03:36.033 And that that fabric was bent 0:03:36.033,0:03:39.057 in the presence of massive objects like the sun. 0:03:39.057,0:03:41.929 So if this theory were true then it meant that light 0:03:41.929,0:03:43.457 as it passed the sun 0:03:43.457,0:03:45.785 should actually be bent around it. 0:03:45.785,0:03:47.985 That was a pretty startling prediction 0:03:47.985,0:03:49.873 and it took a few years before scientists 0:03:49.873,0:03:51.281 were able to test it. 0:03:51.281,0:03:53.521 But they did test it in 1919, 0:03:53.521,0:03:55.971 and lo and behold it turned out to be true. 0:03:55.971,0:03:59.379 Starlight actually does bend[br]as it travels around the sun. 0:03:59.379,0:04:01.763 This was a huge confirmation of the theory. 0:04:01.763,0:04:03.418 It was considered proof of the truth 0:04:03.418,0:04:05.066 of this radical new idea, 0:04:05.066,0:04:06.682 and it was written up in many newspapers 0:04:06.682,0:04:09.098 around the globe. 0:04:09.098,0:04:11.850 Now sometimes this theory or this model 0:04:11.850,0:04:14.874 is referred to as the deductive-nomological model. 0:04:14.874,0:04:18.378 Meaning those academics[br]like to make things complicated. 0:04:18.378,0:04:23.739 But also because in the ideal case, it's about laws. 0:04:23.739,0:04:26.371 So nomological means having to do with laws. 0:04:26.371,0:04:29.595 And in the ideal case, the hypothesis isn't just an idea: 0:04:29.595,0:04:31.811 ideally, it is a law of nature. 0:04:31.811,0:04:34.148 Why does it matter that it is a law of nature? 0:04:34.148,0:04:36.916 Because if it is a law, it can't be broken. 0:04:36.916,0:04:38.964 If it's a law then it will always be true 0:04:38.964,0:04:40.508 in all times and all places 0:04:40.508,0:04:42.684 no matter what the circumstances are. 0:04:42.684,0:04:45.893 And all of you know at least[br]one example of a famous law: 0:04:45.893,0:04:49.268 Einstein's famous equation, E=MC2, 0:04:49.268,0:04:51.188 which tells us what the relationship is 0:04:51.188,0:04:53.701 between energy and mass. 0:04:53.701,0:04:57.381 And that relationship is true no matter what. 0:04:57.381,0:05:01.073 Now, it turns out though that there are [br]several problems with this model. 0:05:01.073,0:05:04.425 The main problem is that it's wrong. 0:05:04.425,0:05:08.237 It's just not true. [Laughter] 0:05:08.237,0:05:11.250 And I'm going to talk about[br]three reasons why it's wrong. 0:05:11.250,0:05:13.429 So the first reason is a logical reason. 0:05:13.429,0:05:17.535 It's the problem of the fallacy[br]of affirming the consequent. 0:05:17.535,0:05:19.831 So that's another fancy academic way of saying 0:05:19.831,0:05:22.851 that false theories can make true predictions. 0:05:22.851,0:05:24.395 So just because the prediction comes true 0:05:24.395,0:05:27.787 doesn't actually logically[br]prove that the theory is correct. 0:05:27.787,0:05:31.818 And I have a good example of that too, [br]again from the history of science. 0:05:31.818,0:05:34.393 This is a picture of the Ptolemaic universe 0:05:34.393,0:05:36.505 with the Earth at the center of the universe 0:05:36.505,0:05:39.081 and The Sun and the planets going around it. 0:05:39.081,0:05:41.097 The Ptolemaic model was believed 0:05:41.097,0:05:44.393 by many very smart people for many centuries. 0:05:44.393,0:05:46.129 Well, why? 0:05:46.129,0:05:49.496 Well the answer is because it made [br]lots of predictions that came true. 0:05:49.496,0:05:51.512 The Ptolemaic system enabled astronomers 0:05:51.512,0:05:54.352 to make accurate predictions[br]of the motions of the planet, 0:05:54.352,0:05:56.811 in fact more accurate predictions at first 0:05:56.811,0:06:01.275 than the Copernican theory[br]which we now would say is true. 0:06:01.275,0:06:03.867 So that's one problem with the textbook model. 0:06:03.867,0:06:06.353 A second problem is a practical problem, 0:06:06.353,0:06:09.518 and it's the problem of auxiliary hypotheses. 0:06:09.518,0:06:12.357 Auxiliary hypotheses are assumptions 0:06:12.357,0:06:14.146 that scientists are making 0:06:14.146,0:06:17.739 that they may or may not even[br]be aware that they're making. 0:06:17.739,0:06:19.770 So an important example of this 0:06:19.770,0:06:22.185 comes from the Copernican model, 0:06:22.185,0:06:25.177 which ultimately replaced the Ptolemaic system. 0:06:25.177,0:06:27.177 So when Nicolaus Copernicus said, 0:06:27.177,0:06:29.737 actually the Earth is not the center of the universe, 0:06:29.737,0:06:31.865 the sun is the center of the solar system, 0:06:31.865,0:06:33.587 the Earth moves around the sun. 0:06:33.587,0:06:36.825 Scientists said, well okay, Nicolaus, if that's true 0:06:36.825,0:06:38.579 we ought to be able to detect the motion 0:06:38.579,0:06:40.667 of the Earth around the sun. 0:06:40.667,0:06:42.803 And so this slide here illustrates a concept 0:06:42.803,0:06:44.731 known as stellar parallax. 0:06:44.731,0:06:48.393 And astronomers said, if the Earth is moving 0:06:48.393,0:06:51.763 and we look at a prominent star, let's say, Sirius 0:06:51.763,0:06:53.747 —well I know I'm in Manhattan[br]so you guys can't see the stars, 0:06:53.747,0:06:57.218 but imagine you're out in the country, [br]imagine you chose that rural life— 0:06:57.218,0:07:00.515 and we look at a star in December, we see that star 0:07:00.515,0:07:03.610 against the backdrop of distant stars. 0:07:03.610,0:07:06.474 If we now make the same observation six months later 0:07:06.474,0:07:09.986 when the Earth has moved to this position in June, 0:07:09.986,0:07:14.275 we look at that same star and we see it against a different backdrop. 0:07:14.275,0:07:18.667 That difference, that angular[br]difference, is the stellar parallax. 0:07:18.667,0:07:21.290 So this is the prediction that[br]the Copernican model makes. 0:07:21.290,0:07:23.371 Astronomers looked for the stellar parallax 0:07:23.371,0:07:29.163 and they found nothing, nothing at all. 0:07:29.163,0:07:32.779 And many people argued that this proved [br]that the Copernican model was false. 0:07:32.779,0:07:34.507 So what happened? 0:07:34.507,0:07:37.100 Well in hindsight we can say that astronomers were making 0:07:37.100,0:07:39.427 two auxiliary hypotheses, both of which 0:07:39.427,0:07:42.069 we would now say were incorrect. 0:07:42.069,0:07:45.635 The first was an assumption about the size of the Earth's orbit. 0:07:45.635,0:07:48.691 Astronomers were assuming that the Earth's orbit was large 0:07:48.691,0:07:51.259 relative to the distance of the stars. 0:07:51.259,0:07:53.723 Today we would draw the picture more like this, 0:07:53.723,0:07:55.260 this comes from NASA, 0:07:55.260,0:07:57.563 and you see the Earth's orbit is actually quite small. 0:07:57.563,0:08:00.604 In fact, it's actually much[br]smaller even than shown here. 0:08:00.604,0:08:01.933 The stellar parallax therefore, 0:08:01.933,0:08:05.637 is very small and actually very hard to detect. 0:08:05.637,0:08:07.421 And that leads to the second reason 0:08:07.421,0:08:09.093 why the prediction didn't work, 0:08:09.093,0:08:11.325 because scientists were also assuming 0:08:11.325,0:08:14.365 that the telescopes they had were sensitive enough 0:08:14.365,0:08:16.245 to detect the parallax. 0:08:16.245,0:08:18.412 And that turned out not to be true. 0:08:18.412,0:08:20.376 It wasn't until the 19th century 0:08:20.376,0:08:22.048 that scientists were able to detect 0:08:22.048,0:08:24.156 the stellar parallax. 0:08:24.156,0:08:26.792 So, there's a third problem as well. 0:08:26.792,0:08:29.064 The third problem is simply a factual problem, 0:08:29.064,0:08:31.976 that a lot of science doesn't fit the textbook model. 0:08:31.976,0:08:34.329 A lot of science isn't deductive at all, 0:08:34.329,0:08:36.217 it's actually inductive. 0:08:36.217,0:08:38.513 And by that we mean that scientists don't necessarily 0:08:38.513,0:08:41.354 start with theories and hypotheses, often they just 0:08:41.354,0:08:44.993 start with observations of stuff going on in the world. 0:08:44.993,0:08:47.602 And the most famous example[br]of that is one of the most 0:08:47.602,0:08:50.767 famous scientists who ever lived, Charles Darwin. 0:08:50.767,0:08:53.759 When Darwin went out as a young [br]man on the voyage of the Beagle, 0:08:53.759,0:08:57.431 he didn't have a hypothesis, he didn't have a theory. 0:08:57.431,0:09:00.687 He just knew that he wanted[br]to have a career as a scientist 0:09:00.687,0:09:02.739 and he started to collect data. 0:09:02.739,0:09:04.699 Mainly he knew that he hated medicine 0:09:04.699,0:09:06.987 because the sight of blood made him sick so 0:09:06.987,0:09:09.395 he had to have an alternative career path. 0:09:09.395,0:09:11.499 So he started collecting data. 0:09:11.499,0:09:14.635 And he collected many things including his famous finches. 0:09:14.635,0:09:16.915 When he collected these finches,[br]he threw them in a bag 0:09:16.915,0:09:19.525 and he had no idea what they meant. 0:09:19.525,0:09:21.412 Many years later back in London, 0:09:21.412,0:09:23.625 Darwin looked at his data again and began 0:09:23.625,0:09:26.113 to develop an explanation, 0:09:26.113,0:09:29.561 and that explanation was the[br]theory of natural selection. 0:09:29.561,0:09:31.390 Besides inductive science, 0:09:31.390,0:09:34.576 scientists also often participate in modeling. 0:09:34.576,0:09:36.872 One of the things scientists want to do in life 0:09:36.872,0:09:39.063 is to explain the causes of things. 0:09:39.063,0:09:40.848 And how do we do that? 0:09:40.848,0:09:43.071 Well, one way you can do it is to build a model 0:09:43.071,0:09:44.872 that tests an idea. 0:09:44.872,0:09:46.663 So this is a picture of Henry Cadell, 0:09:46.663,0:09:49.119 who was a Scottish geologist in the 19th century. 0:09:49.119,0:09:50.912 You can tell he's Scottish because he's wearing 0:09:50.912,0:09:53.064 a deerstalker cap and Wellington boots. 0:09:53.064,0:09:55.304 [Laughter] 0:09:55.304,0:09:57.061 And Cadell wanted to answer the question, 0:09:57.061,0:09:58.748 how are mountains formed? 0:09:58.748,0:10:00.244 And one of the things he had observed 0:10:00.244,0:10:02.908 is that if you look at mountains[br]like the Appalachians, 0:10:02.908,0:10:04.741 you often find that the rocks in them 0:10:04.741,0:10:06.060 are folded, 0:10:06.060,0:10:07.636 and they're folded in a particular way, 0:10:07.636,0:10:09.020 which suggested to him 0:10:09.020,0:10:11.969 that they were actually being[br]compressed from the side. 0:10:11.969,0:10:14.157 And this idea would later play a major role 0:10:14.157,0:10:16.500 in discussions of continental drift. 0:10:16.500,0:10:18.956 So he built this model, this crazy contraption 0:10:18.956,0:10:21.268 with levers and wood and here's his wheelbarrow, 0:10:21.268,0:10:23.044 buckets, a big sledgehammer. 0:10:23.044,0:10:25.388 I don't know why he's got the Wellington boots. 0:10:25.388,0:10:27.165 Maybe it's going to rain. 0:10:27.165,0:10:30.012 And he created this physical model in order 0:10:30.012,0:10:34.525 to demonstrate that you could in fact create 0:10:34.525,0:10:37.139 patterns in rocks, or at least in this case in mud, 0:10:37.139,0:10:39.275 that looked a lot like mountains 0:10:39.275,0:10:41.107 if you compressed them from the side. 0:10:41.107,0:10:44.475 So it was an argument about[br]the cause of mountains. 0:10:44.475,0:10:47.443 Nowadays, most scientists prefer to work inside, 0:10:47.443,0:10:50.043 so they don't build physical models so much 0:10:50.043,0:10:52.371 as to make computer simulations. 0:10:52.371,0:10:55.099 But a computer simulation is a kind of a model. 0:10:55.099,0:10:57.243 It's a model that's made with mathematics, 0:10:57.243,0:10:59.876 and like the physical models of the 19th century, 0:10:59.876,0:11:03.974 it's very important for thinking about causes. 0:11:03.974,0:11:06.509 So one of the big questions[br]to do with climate change, 0:11:06.509,0:11:08.372 we have tremendous amounts of evidence 0:11:08.372,0:11:10.412 that the earth is warming up. 0:11:10.412,0:11:12.636 This slide here, the black line shows 0:11:12.636,0:11:14.756 the measurements that scientists have taken 0:11:14.756,0:11:16.899 for the last 150 years 0:11:16.899,0:11:18.299 showing that the earth's temperature 0:11:18.299,0:11:19.923 has steadily increased, 0:11:19.923,0:11:22.829 and you can see in particular[br]that in the last 50 years 0:11:22.829,0:11:24.683 there's been this dramatic increase 0:11:24.683,0:11:26.843 of nearly one degree Centigrade, 0:11:26.843,0:11:29.188 or almost two degrees Fahrenheit. 0:11:29.188,0:11:31.835 So what, though, is driving that change? 0:11:31.835,0:11:34.052 How can we know what's causing 0:11:34.052,0:11:35.756 the observed warming? 0:11:35.756,0:11:37.300 Well, scientists can model it 0:11:37.300,0:11:39.428 using a computer simulation. 0:11:39.428,0:11:42.380 So this diagram illustrates a computer simulation 0:11:42.380,0:11:44.491 that has looked at all the different factors 0:11:44.491,0:11:46.756 that we know can influence the earth's climate, 0:11:46.756,0:11:49.668 so sulfate particles from air pollution, 0:11:49.668,0:11:53.188 volcanic dust from volcanic eruptions, 0:11:53.188,0:11:54.932 changes in solar radiation, 0:11:54.932,0:11:57.590 and, of course, greenhouse gases. 0:11:57.590,0:11:59.148 And they asked the question, 0:11:59.148,0:12:02.604 what set of variables put into a model 0:12:02.604,0:12:06.076 will reproduce what we actually see in real life? 0:12:06.076,0:12:08.180 So here is the real life in black. 0:12:08.180,0:12:10.290 Here's the model in this light grey, 0:12:10.290,0:12:12.011 and the answer is 0:12:12.011,0:12:16.287 a model that includes, it's the answer E on that SAT, 0:12:16.287,0:12:18.548 all of the above. 0:12:18.548,0:12:20.164 The only way you can reproduce 0:12:20.164,0:12:21.812 the observed temperature measurements 0:12:21.812,0:12:23.900 is with all of these things put together, 0:12:23.900,0:12:25.979 including greenhouse gases, 0:12:25.979,0:12:28.059 and in particular you can see that the increase 0:12:28.059,0:12:29.964 in greenhouse gases tracks 0:12:29.964,0:12:32.084 this very dramatic increase in temperature 0:12:32.084,0:12:34.019 over the last 50 years. 0:12:34.019,0:12:36.484 And so this is why climate scientists say 0:12:36.484,0:12:39.332 it's not just that we know that[br]climate change is happening, 0:12:39.332,0:12:42.220 we know that greenhouse gases are a major part 0:12:42.220,0:12:45.068 of the reason why. 0:12:45.068,0:12:47.228 So now because there all these different things 0:12:47.228,0:12:48.847 that scientists do, 0:12:48.847,0:12:51.823 the philosopher Paul Feyerabend famously said, 0:12:51.823,0:12:53.799 "The only principle in science 0:12:53.799,0:12:57.998 that doesn't inhibit progress is: anything goes." 0:12:57.998,0:13:00.654 Now this quotation has often[br]been taken out of context, 0:13:00.654,0:13:02.742 because Feyerabend was not actually saying 0:13:02.742,0:13:04.342 that in science anything goes. 0:13:04.342,0:13:06.126 What he was saying was, 0:13:06.126,0:13:08.014 actually the full quotation is, 0:13:08.014,0:13:10.023 "If you press me to say 0:13:10.023,0:13:11.766 what is the method of science, 0:13:11.766,0:13:15.455 I would have to say: anything goes." 0:13:15.455,0:13:16.703 What he was trying to say 0:13:16.703,0:13:19.037 is that scientists do a lot of different things. 0:13:19.037,0:13:21.478 Scientists are creative. 0:13:21.478,0:13:23.758 But then this pushes the question back: 0:13:23.758,0:13:26.599 if scientists don't use a single method, 0:13:26.599,0:13:28.758 then how do they decide 0:13:28.758,0:13:30.406 what's right and what's wrong? 0:13:30.406,0:13:32.099 And who judges? 0:13:32.099,0:13:34.078 And the answer is, scientists judge, 0:13:34.078,0:13:37.303 and they judge by judging evidence. 0:13:37.303,0:13:40.302 Scientists collect evidence in many different ways, 0:13:40.302,0:13:42.374 but however they collect it, 0:13:42.374,0:13:44.921 they have to subject it to scrutiny. 0:13:44.921,0:13:47.231 And this led to sociologist Robert Merton 0:13:47.231,0:13:49.551 to focus on this question of how scientists 0:13:49.551,0:13:51.390 scrutinize data and evidence, 0:13:51.390,0:13:53.798 and he said they do it in a way he called 0:13:53.798,0:13:55.967 "organized skepticism." 0:13:55.967,0:13:57.801 And by that he meant it's organized 0:13:57.801,0:13:59.519 because they do it collectively, 0:13:59.519,0:14:01.238 they do it as a group, 0:14:01.238,0:14:03.774 and skepticism, because they do it from a position 0:14:03.774,0:14:05.318 of distrust. 0:14:05.318,0:14:07.038 That is to say, the burden of proof 0:14:07.038,0:14:09.701 is on the person with a novel claim. 0:14:09.701,0:14:12.914 And in this sense, science[br]is intrinsically conservative. 0:14:12.914,0:14:15.406 It's quite hard to persuade the scientific community 0:14:15.406,0:14:19.187 to say, "Yes, we know something, this is true." 0:14:19.187,0:14:21.443 So despite the popularity of the concept 0:14:21.443,0:14:23.092 of paradigm shifts, 0:14:23.092,0:14:24.454 what we find is that actually, 0:14:24.454,0:14:26.699 really major changes in scientific thinking 0:14:26.699,0:14:31.119 are relatively rare in the history of science. 0:14:31.119,0:14:34.642 So finally that brings us to one more idea: 0:14:34.642,0:14:38.460 if scientists judge evidence collectively, 0:14:38.460,0:14:40.972 this has led historians to focus on the question 0:14:40.972,0:14:42.461 of consensus, 0:14:42.461,0:14:44.226 and to say that at the end of the day, 0:14:44.226,0:14:46.061 what science is, 0:14:46.061,0:14:47.820 what scientific knowledge is, 0:14:47.820,0:14:51.119 is the consensus of the scientific experts 0:14:51.119,0:14:53.473 who through this process of organized scrutiny, 0:14:53.473,0:14:55.208 collective scrutiny, 0:14:55.208,0:14:56.970 have judged the evidence 0:14:56.970,0:14:59.577 and come to a conclusion about it, 0:14:59.577,0:15:02.234 either yea or nay. 0:15:02.234,0:15:03.858 So we can think of scientific knowledge 0:15:03.858,0:15:05.890 as a consensus of experts. 0:15:05.890,0:15:07.482 We can also think of science as being 0:15:07.482,0:15:09.290 a kind of a jury, 0:15:09.290,0:15:11.714 except it's a very special kind of jury. 0:15:11.714,0:15:13.618 It's not a jury of your peers, 0:15:13.618,0:15:16.184 it's a jury of geeks. 0:15:16.184,0:15:19.538 It's a jury of men and women with Ph.Ds, 0:15:19.538,0:15:21.730 and unlike a conventional jury, 0:15:21.730,0:15:23.540 which has only two choices, 0:15:23.540,0:15:25.895 guilty or not guilty, 0:15:25.895,0:15:29.466 the scientific jury actually has a number of choices. 0:15:29.466,0:15:32.095 Scientists can say yes, something's true. 0:15:32.095,0:15:35.078 Scientists can say no, it's false. 0:15:35.078,0:15:37.310 Or, they can say, well it might be true 0:15:37.310,0:15:40.324 but we need to work more[br]and collect more evidence. 0:15:40.324,0:15:42.012 Or, they can say it might be true, 0:15:42.012,0:15:43.650 but we don't know how to answer the question 0:15:43.650,0:15:45.027 and we're going to put it aside 0:15:45.027,0:15:47.883 and maybe we'll come back to it later. 0:15:47.883,0:15:51.915 That's what scientists call "intractable." 0:15:51.915,0:15:54.811 But this leads us to one final problem: 0:15:54.811,0:15:57.299 if science is what scientists say it is, 0:15:57.299,0:16:00.085 then isn't that just an appeal to authority? 0:16:00.085,0:16:01.352 And weren't we all taught in school 0:16:01.352,0:16:04.459 that the appeal to authority is a logical fallacy? 0:16:04.459,0:16:07.371 Well, here's the paradox of modern science, 0:16:07.371,0:16:09.603 the paradox of the conclusions I think historians 0:16:09.603,0:16:12.484 and philosophers and sociologists have come to, 0:16:12.484,0:16:15.675 that actually science is the appeal to authority, 0:16:15.675,0:16:19.511 but it's not the authority of the individual, 0:16:19.511,0:16:21.920 no matter how smart that individual is, 0:16:21.920,0:16:25.655 like Plato or Socrates or Einstein. 0:16:25.655,0:16:28.659 It's the authority of the collective community. 0:16:28.659,0:16:31.835 You can think of it is a kind of wisdom of the crowd, 0:16:31.835,0:16:35.291 but a very special kind of crowd. 0:16:35.291,0:16:37.651 Science does appeal to authority, 0:16:37.651,0:16:40.191 but it's not based on any individual, 0:16:40.191,0:16:42.547 no matter how smart that individual may be. 0:16:42.547,0:16:44.528 It's based on the collective wisdom, 0:16:44.528,0:16:47.037 the collective knowledge, the collective work, 0:16:47.037,0:16:48.768 of all of the scientists who have worked 0:16:48.768,0:16:51.595 on a particular problem. 0:16:51.595,0:16:54.571 Scientists have a kind of culture of collective distrust, 0:16:54.571,0:16:56.331 this "show me" culture, 0:16:56.331,0:16:58.331 illustrated by this nice woman here 0:16:58.331,0:17:01.283 showing her colleagues her evidence. 0:17:01.283,0:17:03.510 Of course, these people don't[br]really look like scientists, 0:17:03.510,0:17:05.746 because they're much too happy. 0:17:05.746,0:17:09.618 [Laughter] 0:17:09.618,0:17:13.066 Okay, so that brings me to my final point. 0:17:13.066,0:17:16.338 Most of us get up in the morning. 0:17:16.338,0:17:17.978 Most of us trust our cars. 0:17:17.978,0:17:19.450 Well, see, now I'm thinking, I'm in Manhattan, 0:17:19.450,0:17:20.828 this is a bad analogy, 0:17:20.828,0:17:23.542 but most Americans who don't live in Manhattan 0:17:23.542,0:17:25.086 get up in the morning and get in their cars 0:17:25.086,0:17:27.689 and turn on that ignition, and their cars work, 0:17:27.689,0:17:29.600 and they work incredibly well. 0:17:29.600,0:17:32.475 The modern automobile hardly ever breaks down. 0:17:32.475,0:17:35.358 So why is that? Why do cars work so well? 0:17:35.358,0:17:37.452 It's not because of the genius of Henry Ford 0:17:37.452,0:17:41.113 or Carl Benz or even Elon Musk. 0:17:41.113,0:17:42.905 It's because the modern automobile 0:17:42.905,0:17:47.939 is the product of more than 100 years of work 0:17:47.939,0:17:49.669 by hundreds and thousands 0:17:49.669,0:17:51.135 and tens of thousands of people. 0:17:51.135,0:17:53.226 The modern automobile is the product 0:17:53.226,0:17:55.615 of the collected work and wisdom and experience 0:17:55.615,0:17:58.212 of every man and woman who has ever worked 0:17:58.212,0:17:59.950 on a car, 0:17:59.950,0:18:02.635 and the reliability of the technology is the result 0:18:02.635,0:18:05.438 of that accumulated effort. 0:18:05.438,0:18:08.155 We benefit not just from the genius of Benz 0:18:08.155,0:18:09.551 and Ford and Musk 0:18:09.551,0:18:12.139 but from the collective intelligence and hard work 0:18:12.139,0:18:14.060 of all of the people who have worked 0:18:14.060,0:18:16.039 on the modern car. 0:18:16.039,0:18:18.180 And the same is true of science, 0:18:18.180,0:18:20.744 only science is even older. 0:18:20.744,0:18:23.528 Our basis for trust in science is actually the same 0:18:23.528,0:18:26.162 as our basis in trust in technology, 0:18:26.162,0:18:29.929 and the same as our basis for trust in anything, 0:18:29.929,0:18:32.447 namely, experience. 0:18:32.447,0:18:34.251 But it shouldn't be blind trust 0:18:34.251,0:18:37.301 any more than we would have blind trust in anything. 0:18:37.301,0:18:39.612 Our trust in science, like science itself, 0:18:39.612,0:18:41.655 should be based on evidence, 0:18:41.655,0:18:43.197 and that means that scientists 0:18:43.197,0:18:45.135 have to become better communicators. 0:18:45.135,0:18:47.982 They have to explain to us not just what they know 0:18:47.982,0:18:50.120 but how they know it, 0:18:50.120,0:18:53.610 and it means that we have[br]to become better listeners. 0:18:53.610,0:18:55.439 Thank you very much. 0:18:55.439,0:18:57.452 (Applause)