Why we should trust scientists
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0:01 - 0:04Every day we face issues like climate change
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0:04 - 0:05or the safety of vaccines
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0:05 - 0:09where we have to answer questions whose answers
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0:09 - 0:12rely heavily on scientific information.
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0:12 - 0:15Scientists tell us that the world is warming.
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0:15 - 0:17Scientists tell us that vaccines are safe.
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0:17 - 0:19But how do we know if they are right?
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0:19 - 0:21Why should be believe the science?
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0:21 - 0:25The fact is, many of us actually
don't believe the science. -
0:25 - 0:27Public opinion polls consistently show
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0:27 - 0:30that significant proportions of the American people
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0:30 - 0:34don't believe the climate is
warming due to human activities, -
0:34 - 0:37don't think that there is
evolution by natural selection, -
0:37 - 0:40and aren't persuaded by the safety of vaccines.
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0:40 - 0:44So why should we believe the science?
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0:44 - 0:48Well, scientists don't like talking about
science as a matter of belief. -
0:48 - 0:50In fact, they would contrast science with faith,
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0:50 - 0:53and they would say belief is the domain of faith.
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0:53 - 0:57And faith is a separate thing
apart and distinct from science. -
0:57 - 1:00Indeed they would say religion is based on faith
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1:00 - 1:04or maybe the calculus of Pascal's wager.
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1:04 - 1:07Blaise Pascal was a 17th-century mathematician
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1:07 - 1:09who tried to bring scientific
reasoning to the question of -
1:09 - 1:11whether or not he should believe in God,
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1:11 - 1:14and his wager went like this:
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1:14 - 1:16Well, if God doesn't exist
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1:16 - 1:18but I decide to believe in him
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1:18 - 1:20nothing much is really lost.
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1:20 - 1:22Maybe a few hours on Sunday.
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1:22 - 1:23(Laughter)
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1:23 - 1:26But if he does exist and I don't believe in him,
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1:26 - 1:28then I'm in deep trouble.
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1:28 - 1:31And so Pascal said, we'd better believe in God.
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1:31 - 1:34Or as one of my college professors said,
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1:34 - 1:36"He clutched for the handrail of faith."
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1:36 - 1:38He made that leap of faith
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1:38 - 1:42leaving science and rationalism behind.
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1:42 - 1:45Now the fact is though, for most of us,
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1:45 - 1:48most scientific claims are a leap of faith.
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1:48 - 1:53We can't really judge scientific
claims for ourselves in most cases. -
1:53 - 1:55And indeed this is actually
true for most scientists as well -
1:55 - 1:58outside of their own specialties.
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1:58 - 2:00So if you think about it, a geologist can't tell you
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2:00 - 2:02whether a vaccine is safe.
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2:02 - 2:05Most chemists are not experts in evolutionary theory.
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2:05 - 2:07A physicist cannot tell you,
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2:07 - 2:09despite the claims of some of them,
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2:09 - 2:12whether or not tobacco causes cancer.
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2:12 - 2:14So, if even scientists themselves
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2:14 - 2:16have to make a leap of faith
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2:16 - 2:18outside their own fields,
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2:18 - 2:22then why do they accept the
claims of other scientists? -
2:22 - 2:24Why do they believe each other's claims?
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2:24 - 2:27And should we believe those claims?
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2:27 - 2:30So what I'd like to argue is yes, we should,
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2:30 - 2:33but not for the reason that most of us think.
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2:33 - 2:35Most of us were taught in school
that the reason we should -
2:35 - 2:39believe in science is because of the scientific method.
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2:39 - 2:41We were taught that scientists follow a method
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2:41 - 2:44and that this method guarantees
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2:44 - 2:46the truth of their claims.
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2:46 - 2:49The method that most of us were taught in school,
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2:49 - 2:51we can call it the textbook method,
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2:51 - 2:54is the hypothetical deductive method.
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2:54 - 2:57According to the standard
model, the textbook model, -
2:57 - 3:00scientists develop hypotheses, they deduce
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3:00 - 3:02the consequences of those hypotheses,
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3:02 - 3:04and then they go out into the world and they say,
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3:04 - 3:06"Okay, well are those consequences true?"
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3:06 - 3:10Can we observe them taking
place in the natural world? -
3:10 - 3:12And if they are true, then the scientists say,
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3:12 - 3:15"Great, we know the hypothesis is correct."
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3:15 - 3:17So there are many famous examples in the history
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3:17 - 3:20of science of scientists doing exactly this.
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3:20 - 3:22One of the most famous examples
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3:22 - 3:24comes from the work of Albert Einstein.
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3:24 - 3:27When Einstein developed the
theory of general relativity, -
3:27 - 3:29one of the consequences of his theory
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3:29 - 3:32was that space-time wasn't just an empty void
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3:32 - 3:34but that it actually had a fabric.
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3:34 - 3:36And that that fabric was bent
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3:36 - 3:39in the presence of massive objects like the sun.
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3:39 - 3:42So if this theory were true then it meant that light
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3:42 - 3:43as it passed the sun
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3:43 - 3:45should actually be bent around it.
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3:45 - 3:48That was a pretty startling prediction
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3:48 - 3:50and it took a few years before scientists
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3:50 - 3:51were able to test it
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3:51 - 3:54but they did test it in 1919,
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3:54 - 3:56and lo and behold it turned out to be true.
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3:56 - 3:59Starlight actually does bend
as it travels around the sun. -
3:59 - 4:02This was a huge confirmation of the theory.
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4:02 - 4:03It was considered proof of the truth
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4:03 - 4:05of this radical new idea,
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4:05 - 4:07and it was written up in many newspapers
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4:07 - 4:09around the globe.
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4:09 - 4:11Now, sometimes this theory or this model
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4:11 - 4:15is referred to as the deductive-nomological model,
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4:15 - 4:18mainly because academics like
to make things complicated. -
4:18 - 4:24But also because in the ideal case, it's about laws.
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4:24 - 4:26So nomological means having to do with laws.
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4:26 - 4:29And in the ideal case, the hypothesis isn't just an idea:
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4:29 - 4:32ideally, it is a law of nature.
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4:32 - 4:34Why does it matter that it is a law of nature?
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4:34 - 4:37Because if it is a law, it can't be broken.
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4:37 - 4:39If it's a law then it will always be true
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4:39 - 4:40in all times and all places
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4:40 - 4:42no matter what the circumstances are.
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4:42 - 4:46And all of you know of at least
one example of a famous law: -
4:46 - 4:49Einstein's famous equation, E=MC2,
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4:49 - 4:51which tells us what the relationship is
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4:51 - 4:53between energy and mass.
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4:53 - 4:57And that relationship is true no matter what.
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4:57 - 5:01Now, it turns out, though, that there
are several problems with this model. -
5:01 - 5:05The main problem is that it's wrong.
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5:05 - 5:08It's just not true. (Laughter)
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5:08 - 5:11And I'm going to talk about
three reasons why it's wrong. -
5:11 - 5:14So the first reason is a logical reason.
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5:14 - 5:17It's the problem of the fallacy
of affirming the consequent. -
5:17 - 5:20So that's another fancy, academic way of saying
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5:20 - 5:23that false theories can make true predictions.
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5:23 - 5:25So just because the prediction comes true
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5:25 - 5:28doesn't actually logically
prove that the theory is correct. -
5:28 - 5:32And I have a good example of that too,
again from the history of science. -
5:32 - 5:34This is a picture of the Ptolemaic universe
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5:34 - 5:36with the Earth at the center of the universe
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5:36 - 5:39and the sun and the planets going around it.
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5:39 - 5:41The Ptolemaic model was believed
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5:41 - 5:44by many very smart people for many centuries.
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5:44 - 5:46Well, why?
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5:46 - 5:49Well the answer is because it made
lots of predictions that came true. -
5:49 - 5:51The Ptolemaic system enabled astronomers
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5:51 - 5:54to make accurate predictions
of the motions of the planet, -
5:54 - 5:57in fact more accurate predictions at first
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5:57 - 6:01than the Copernican theory
which we now would say is true. -
6:01 - 6:04So that's one problem with the textbook model.
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6:04 - 6:06A second problem is a practical problem,
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6:06 - 6:10and it's the problem of auxiliary hypotheses.
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6:10 - 6:12Auxiliary hypotheses are assumptions
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6:12 - 6:14that scientists are making
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6:14 - 6:17that they may or may not even
be aware that they're making. -
6:17 - 6:20So an important example of this
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6:20 - 6:22comes from the Copernican model,
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6:22 - 6:25which ultimately replaced the Ptolemaic system.
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6:25 - 6:27So when Nicolaus Copernicus said,
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6:27 - 6:30actually the Earth is not the center of the universe,
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6:30 - 6:32the sun is the center of the solar system,
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6:32 - 6:33the Earth moves around the sun.
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6:33 - 6:37Scientists said, well okay, Nicolaus, if that's true
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6:37 - 6:39we ought to be able to detect the motion
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6:39 - 6:41of the Earth around the sun.
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6:41 - 6:43And so this slide here illustrates a concept
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6:43 - 6:44known as stellar parallax.
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6:44 - 6:48And astronomers said, if the Earth is moving
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6:48 - 6:51and we look at a prominent star, let's say, Sirius --
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6:51 - 6:54well I know I'm in Manhattan
so you guys can't see the stars, -
6:54 - 6:58but imagine you're out in the country,
imagine you chose that rural life — -
6:58 - 7:00and we look at a star in December, we see that star
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7:00 - 7:03against the backdrop of distant stars.
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7:03 - 7:06If we now make the same observation six months later
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7:06 - 7:10when the Earth has moved to this position in June,
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7:10 - 7:14we look at that same star and we
see it against a different backdrop. -
7:14 - 7:18That difference, that angular
difference, is the stellar parallax. -
7:18 - 7:21So this is a prediction that the Copernican model makes.
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7:21 - 7:24Astronomers looked for the stellar parallax
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7:24 - 7:29and they found nothing, nothing at all.
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7:29 - 7:33And many people argued that this proved
that the Copernican model was false. -
7:33 - 7:34So what happened?
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7:34 - 7:37Well, in hindsight we can say
that astronomers were making -
7:37 - 7:39two auxiliary hypotheses, both of which
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7:39 - 7:42we would now say were incorrect.
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7:42 - 7:46The first was an assumption
about the size of the Earth's orbit. -
7:46 - 7:49Astronomers were assuming
that the Earth's orbit was large -
7:49 - 7:51relative to the distance to the stars.
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7:51 - 7:53Today we would draw the picture more like this,
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7:53 - 7:55this comes from NASA,
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7:55 - 7:57and you see the Earth's orbit is actually quite small.
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7:57 - 8:00In fact, it's actually much
smaller even than shown here. -
8:00 - 8:02The stellar parallax therefore,
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8:02 - 8:05is very small and actually very hard to detect.
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8:05 - 8:07And that leads to the second reason
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8:07 - 8:09why the prediction didn't work,
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8:09 - 8:11because scientists were also assuming
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8:11 - 8:14that the telescopes they had were sensitive enough
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8:14 - 8:16to detect the parallax.
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8:16 - 8:18And that turned out not to be true.
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8:18 - 8:21It wasn't until the 19th century
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8:21 - 8:22that scientists were able to detect
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8:22 - 8:24the stellar parallax.
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8:24 - 8:26So, there's a third problem as well.
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8:26 - 8:29The third problem is simply a factual problem,
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8:29 - 8:32that a lot of science doesn't fit the textbook model.
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8:32 - 8:34A lot of science isn't deductive at all,
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8:34 - 8:36it's actually inductive.
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8:36 - 8:39And by that we mean that scientists don't necessarily
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8:39 - 8:41start with theories and hypotheses,
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8:41 - 8:43often they just start with observations
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8:43 - 8:45of stuff going on in the world.
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8:45 - 8:48And the most famous example
of that is one of the most -
8:48 - 8:51famous scientists who ever lived, Charles Darwin.
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8:51 - 8:54When Darwin went out as a young
man on the voyage of the Beagle, -
8:54 - 8:57he didn't have a hypothesis, he didn't have a theory.
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8:57 - 9:01He just knew that he wanted
to have a career as a scientist -
9:01 - 9:03and he started to collect data.
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9:03 - 9:05Mainly he knew that he hated medicine
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9:05 - 9:07because the sight of blood made him sick so
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9:07 - 9:09he had to have an alternative career path.
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9:09 - 9:11So he started collecting data.
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9:11 - 9:15And he collected many things,
including his famous finches. -
9:15 - 9:17When he collected these finches,
he threw them in a bag -
9:17 - 9:19and he had no idea what they meant.
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9:19 - 9:21Many years later back in London,
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9:21 - 9:24Darwin looked at his data again and began
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9:24 - 9:26to develop an explanation,
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9:26 - 9:29and that explanation was the
theory of natural selection. -
9:29 - 9:32Besides inductive science,
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9:32 - 9:34scientists also often participate in modeling.
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9:34 - 9:37One of the things scientists want to do in life
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9:37 - 9:39is to explain the causes of things.
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9:39 - 9:41And how do we do that?
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9:41 - 9:43Well, one way you can do it is to build a model
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9:43 - 9:45that tests an idea.
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9:45 - 9:46So this is a picture of Henry Cadell,
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9:46 - 9:49who was a Scottish geologist in the 19th century.
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9:49 - 9:51You can tell he's Scottish because he's wearing
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9:51 - 9:53a deerstalker cap and Wellington boots.
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9:53 - 9:55(Laughter)
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9:55 - 9:57And Cadell wanted to answer the question,
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9:57 - 9:59how are mountains formed?
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9:59 - 10:00And one of the things he had observed
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10:00 - 10:03is that if you look at mountains
like the Appalachians, -
10:03 - 10:04you often find that the rocks in them
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10:04 - 10:06are folded,
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10:06 - 10:08and they're folded in a particular way,
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10:08 - 10:09which suggested to him
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10:09 - 10:12that they were actually being
compressed from the side. -
10:12 - 10:14And this idea would later play a major role
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10:14 - 10:16in discussions of continental drift.
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10:16 - 10:19So he built this model, this crazy contraption
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10:19 - 10:21with levers and wood, and here's his wheelbarrow,
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10:21 - 10:24buckets, a big sledgehammer.
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10:24 - 10:25I don't know why he's got the Wellington boots.
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10:25 - 10:27Maybe it's going to rain.
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10:27 - 10:30And he created this physical model in order
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10:30 - 10:34to demonstrate that you could, in fact, create
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10:34 - 10:37patterns in rocks, or at least, in this case, in mud,
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10:37 - 10:39that looked a lot like mountains
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10:39 - 10:41if you compressed them from the side.
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10:41 - 10:44So it was an argument about
the cause of mountains. -
10:44 - 10:47Nowadays, most scientists prefer to work inside,
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10:47 - 10:50so they don't build physical models so much
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10:50 - 10:52as to make computer simulations.
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10:52 - 10:55But a computer simulation is a kind of a model.
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10:55 - 10:57It's a model that's made with mathematics,
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10:57 - 11:00and like the physical models of the 19th century,
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11:00 - 11:04it's very important for thinking about causes.
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11:04 - 11:07So one of the big questions
to do with climate change, -
11:07 - 11:08we have tremendous amounts of evidence
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11:08 - 11:10that the Earth is warming up.
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11:10 - 11:13This slide here, the black line shows
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11:13 - 11:15the measurements that scientists have taken
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11:15 - 11:17for the last 150 years
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11:17 - 11:18showing that the Earth's temperature
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11:18 - 11:20has steadily increased,
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11:20 - 11:23and you can see in particular
that in the last 50 years -
11:23 - 11:24there's been this dramatic increase
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11:24 - 11:27of nearly one degree centigrade,
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11:27 - 11:29or almost two degrees Fahrenheit.
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11:29 - 11:32So what, though, is driving that change?
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11:32 - 11:34How can we know what's causing
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11:34 - 11:35the observed warming?
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11:35 - 11:37Well, scientists can model it
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11:37 - 11:40using a computer simulation.
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11:40 - 11:42So this diagram illustrates a computer simulation
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11:42 - 11:44that has looked at all the different factors
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11:44 - 11:47that we know can influence the Earth's climate,
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11:47 - 11:50so sulfate particles from air pollution,
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11:50 - 11:53volcanic dust from volcanic eruptions,
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11:53 - 11:55changes in solar radiation,
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11:55 - 11:57and, of course, greenhouse gases.
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11:57 - 11:59And they asked the question,
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11:59 - 12:03what set of variables put into a model
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12:03 - 12:06will reproduce what we actually see in real life?
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12:06 - 12:08So here is the real life in black.
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12:08 - 12:10Here's the model in this light gray,
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12:10 - 12:12and the answer is
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12:12 - 12:16a model that includes, it's the answer E on that SAT,
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12:16 - 12:18all of the above.
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12:18 - 12:20The only way you can reproduce
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12:20 - 12:22the observed temperature measurements
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12:22 - 12:24is with all of these things put together,
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12:24 - 12:26including greenhouse gases,
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12:26 - 12:28and in particular you can see that the increase
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12:28 - 12:30in greenhouse gases tracks
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12:30 - 12:32this very dramatic increase in temperature
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12:32 - 12:34over the last 50 years.
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12:34 - 12:36And so this is why climate scientists say
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12:36 - 12:39it's not just that we know that
climate change is happening, -
12:39 - 12:42we know that greenhouse gases are a major part
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12:42 - 12:45of the reason why.
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12:45 - 12:47So now because there all these different things
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12:47 - 12:49that scientists do,
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12:49 - 12:52the philosopher Paul Feyerabend famously said,
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12:52 - 12:54"The only principle in science
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12:54 - 12:58that doesn't inhibit progress is: anything goes."
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12:58 - 13:00Now this quotation has often
been taken out of context, -
13:00 - 13:03because Feyerabend was not actually saying
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13:03 - 13:05that in science anything goes.
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13:05 - 13:06What he was saying was,
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13:06 - 13:08actually the full quotation is,
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13:08 - 13:10"If you press me to say
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13:10 - 13:12what is the method of science,
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13:12 - 13:15I would have to say: anything goes."
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13:15 - 13:16What he was trying to say
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13:16 - 13:19is that scientists do a lot of different things.
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13:19 - 13:21Scientists are creative.
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13:21 - 13:23But then this pushes the question back:
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13:23 - 13:27If scientists don't use a single method,
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13:27 - 13:29then how do they decide
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13:29 - 13:30what's right and what's wrong?
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13:30 - 13:32And who judges?
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13:32 - 13:34And the answer is, scientists judge,
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13:34 - 13:37and they judge by judging evidence.
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13:37 - 13:40Scientists collect evidence in many different ways,
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13:40 - 13:42but however they collect it,
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13:42 - 13:45they have to subject it to scrutiny.
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13:45 - 13:47And this led the sociologist Robert Merton
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13:47 - 13:49to focus on this question of how scientists
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13:49 - 13:51scrutinize data and evidence,
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13:51 - 13:54and he said they do it in a way he called
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13:54 - 13:56"organized skepticism."
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13:56 - 13:58And by that he meant it's organized
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13:58 - 13:59because they do it collectively,
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13:59 - 14:01they do it as a group,
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14:01 - 14:04and skepticism, because they do it from a position
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14:04 - 14:05of distrust.
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14:05 - 14:07That is to say, the burden of proof
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14:07 - 14:09is on the person with a novel claim.
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14:09 - 14:13And in this sense, science
is intrinsically conservative. -
14:13 - 14:15It's quite hard to persuade the scientific community
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14:15 - 14:19to say, "Yes, we know something, this is true."
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14:19 - 14:21So despite the popularity of the concept
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14:21 - 14:23of paradigm shifts,
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14:23 - 14:24what we find is that actually,
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14:24 - 14:27really major changes in scientific thinking
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14:27 - 14:31are relatively rare in the history of science.
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14:31 - 14:34So finally that brings us to one more idea:
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14:34 - 14:38If scientists judge evidence collectively,
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14:38 - 14:41this has led historians to focus on the question
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14:41 - 14:42of consensus,
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14:42 - 14:44and to say that at the end of the day,
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14:44 - 14:46what science is,
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14:46 - 14:48what scientific knowledge is,
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14:48 - 14:51is the consensus of the scientific experts
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14:51 - 14:53who through this process of organized scrutiny,
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14:53 - 14:55collective scrutiny,
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14:55 - 14:57have judged the evidence
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14:57 - 14:59and come to a conclusion about it,
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14:59 - 15:02either yea or nay.
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15:02 - 15:04So we can think of scientific knowledge
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15:04 - 15:06as a consensus of experts.
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15:06 - 15:07We can also think of science as being
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15:07 - 15:09a kind of a jury,
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15:09 - 15:12except it's a very special kind of jury.
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15:12 - 15:14It's not a jury of your peers,
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15:14 - 15:16it's a jury of geeks.
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15:16 - 15:19It's a jury of men and women with Ph.D.s,
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15:19 - 15:22and unlike a conventional jury,
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15:22 - 15:23which has only two choices,
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15:23 - 15:26guilty or not guilty,
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15:26 - 15:29the scientific jury actually has a number of choices.
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15:29 - 15:32Scientists can say yes, something's true.
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15:32 - 15:35Scientists can say no, it's false.
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15:35 - 15:37Or, they can say, well it might be true
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15:37 - 15:40but we need to work more
and collect more evidence. -
15:40 - 15:42Or, they can say it might be true,
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15:42 - 15:44but we don't know how to answer the question
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15:44 - 15:45and we're going to put it aside
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15:45 - 15:48and maybe we'll come back to it later.
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15:48 - 15:52That's what scientists call "intractable."
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15:52 - 15:54But this leads us to one final problem:
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15:54 - 15:57If science is what scientists say it is,
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15:57 - 16:00then isn't that just an appeal to authority?
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16:00 - 16:01And weren't we all taught in school
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16:01 - 16:04that the appeal to authority is a logical fallacy?
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16:04 - 16:07Well, here's the paradox of modern science,
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16:07 - 16:10the paradox of the conclusion I think historians
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16:10 - 16:12and philosophers and sociologists have come to,
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16:12 - 16:16that actually science is the appeal to authority,
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16:16 - 16:19but it's not the authority of the individual,
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16:19 - 16:22no matter how smart that individual is,
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16:22 - 16:26like Plato or Socrates or Einstein.
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16:26 - 16:29It's the authority of the collective community.
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16:29 - 16:32You can think of it is a kind of wisdom of the crowd,
-
16:32 - 16:36but a very special kind of crowd.
-
16:36 - 16:38Science does appeal to authority,
-
16:38 - 16:40but it's not based on any individual,
-
16:40 - 16:42no matter how smart that individual may be.
-
16:42 - 16:44It's based on the collective wisdom,
-
16:44 - 16:47the collective knowledge, the collective work,
-
16:47 - 16:49of all of the scientists who have worked
-
16:49 - 16:51on a particular problem.
-
16:51 - 16:54Scientists have a kind of culture of collective distrust,
-
16:54 - 16:56this "show me" culture,
-
16:56 - 16:58illustrated by this nice woman here
-
16:58 - 17:01showing her colleagues her evidence.
-
17:01 - 17:03Of course, these people don't
really look like scientists, -
17:03 - 17:05because they're much too happy.
-
17:05 - 17:09(Laughter)
-
17:09 - 17:14Okay, so that brings me to my final point.
-
17:14 - 17:16Most of us get up in the morning.
-
17:16 - 17:18Most of us trust our cars.
-
17:18 - 17:19Well, see, now I'm thinking, I'm in Manhattan,
-
17:19 - 17:21this is a bad analogy,
-
17:21 - 17:23but most Americans who don't live in Manhattan
-
17:23 - 17:25get up in the morning and get in their cars
-
17:25 - 17:28and turn on that ignition, and their cars work,
-
17:28 - 17:30and they work incredibly well.
-
17:30 - 17:32The modern automobile hardly ever breaks down.
-
17:32 - 17:35So why is that? Why do cars work so well?
-
17:35 - 17:38It's not because of the genius of Henry Ford
-
17:38 - 17:41or Karl Benz or even Elon Musk.
-
17:41 - 17:43It's because the modern automobile
-
17:43 - 17:48is the product of more than 100 years of work
-
17:48 - 17:50by hundreds and thousands
-
17:50 - 17:51and tens of thousands of people.
-
17:51 - 17:53The modern automobile is the product
-
17:53 - 17:56of the collected work and wisdom and experience
-
17:56 - 17:58of every man and woman who has ever worked
-
17:58 - 18:00on a car,
-
18:00 - 18:03and the reliability of the technology is the result
-
18:03 - 18:05of that accumulated effort.
-
18:05 - 18:08We benefit not just from the genius of Benz
-
18:08 - 18:09and Ford and Musk
-
18:09 - 18:12but from the collective intelligence and hard work
-
18:12 - 18:14of all of the people who have worked
-
18:14 - 18:16on the modern car.
-
18:16 - 18:18And the same is true of science,
-
18:18 - 18:21only science is even older.
-
18:21 - 18:23Our basis for trust in science is actually the same
-
18:23 - 18:26as our basis in trust in technology,
-
18:26 - 18:30and the same as our basis for trust in anything,
-
18:30 - 18:32namely, experience.
-
18:32 - 18:34But it shouldn't be blind trust
-
18:34 - 18:37any more than we would have blind trust in anything.
-
18:37 - 18:40Our trust in science, like science itself,
-
18:40 - 18:42should be based on evidence,
-
18:42 - 18:43and that means that scientists
-
18:43 - 18:45have to become better communicators.
-
18:45 - 18:48They have to explain to us not just what they know
-
18:48 - 18:50but how they know it,
-
18:50 - 18:54and it means that we have
to become better listeners. -
18:54 - 18:55Thank you very much.
-
18:55 - 18:57(Applause)
- Title:
- Why we should trust scientists
- Speaker:
- Naomi Oreskes
- Description:
-
Many of the world's biggest problems require asking questions of scientists — but why should we believe what they say? Historian of science Naomi Oreskes thinks deeply about our relationship to belief and draws out three problems with common attitudes toward scientific inquiry — and gives her own reasoning for why we ought to trust science.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 19:14
Adrian Dobroiu commented on English subtitles for Why we should trust scientists | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why we should trust scientists | ||
Morton Bast approved English subtitles for Why we should trust scientists | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why we should trust scientists | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why we should trust scientists | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why we should trust scientists | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why we should trust scientists | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why we should trust scientists |
Adrian Dobroiu
2:50 is the hypothetical deductive method. --> the hypothetico-deductive method.