The Science Gap: Jorge Cham at TEDxUCLA

What is The Science Gap? Jorge will explore the public perception of scientists and academics. Jorge Cham is the creator of the online comic strip "Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD)" as well as the video channel PhD-TV.

I'm a cartoonist as Scott mentioned.

And to me cartooning is about

taking a blank page
and filling it with your ideas.

The idea that I want to
draw out for you guys here today

is this idea of The Science Gap.

Now I'm a cartoonist, but in addition
to that, I also have a PhD in robotics.

Now you might be wondering

what does cartooning and robotics
have in common?

What do they have to do with each other?

Well, I can tell you that my parents
are also very concerned about that.

(Laughter)

But because of this kind of unique
combination of academia and the arts,

I kind of find myself, a lot of the time,
travelling all over the world

talking to scientists and researchers
about what they do and how they do it.

And it's very interesting
to me to find out,

to learn all the things that
we know about the universe,

about our bodies, about ourselves
and about our societies.

But even more interesting,
more amazing to me is to find out

how much we don't know.

So for example, here are
some things that you'd think

that we as a human
species would know by now,

but actually don't.

(Laughter)

Starting with, first of all,

What is 95% of the Universe
made out of?

(Laughter)

95%, right?

Like all those billions of stars,
all the atoms in this room,

inside of me, inside of you.

That's just 5% of the entire Universe.

So what's the other 95%?

We don't actually know, apparently.

Even the stuff that we think
we know about, that 5%,

it's just still so many
questions that we don't know.

Right, like you know, what is cancer?
How do we cure it?

What is gravity?
What makes markets work?

How do we --

What is Alzheimer's disease?
How do we cure it?

And on, and on, and on.

There are so many questions
that we still don't know.

But that's not actually the gap that
I want to talk to you about here today.

The gap that I do want to talk to you
about today is this gap between

the people who are trying to come up
with answers to these questions

and the general public.

So right now if you're a scientist
or a researcher, the only way --

basically the main way that you have

for communicating
what you do to the public,

basically is --
the following things have to happen.

First of all, you have to write
a long and esoteric journal paper,

and then your university maybe
will issue out a press release about it,

and then maybe some reporter somewhere
will catch actually this press release,

and maybe they'll get
interested about it,

and maybe they'll talk
to their editor about it,

and then maybe they'll write
a good story about it,

and maybe they'll do a good job of it,

and then maybe they'll actually
get published somewhere.

But it won't actually
reach the public really unless

the media, general media picks
it up, or the Internet picks it up,

and then maybe it will
actually reach the public,

and then maybe somebody
will actually read it and understand it.

Yeah, so that seems a little bit,
um, sub-optimal to me.

(Laughter)

But then something pretty interesting
happened to me last year.

I was contacted by this physicist
called Daniel Whiteson from UC Irvine.

Yeah, I know you're UCLA,
but you shouldn't laugh at UC Irvine

just because I said UC Irvine.

(Laughter)

Yeah, but he contacted me
and he said, "Jorge, you know,

I want to pay you to write
a comic about the Higgs Boson."

And I said, "What?"

He's like "Yeah, I feel like people
are really curious about this topic,

and, you know, the media's not doing
a very good job of explaining what it is."

And so I said, "Sure!"

So I went and I interviewed him
and I recorded

this conversation that I had with him.

And at the same time
I was looking on the Internet,

people were really experimenting
with YouTube videos

and taking recordings and
making animations of it.

And so I decided to also experiment
and so we made this video

about this animation that
explains what the Higgs Boson is.

Then when the Higgs Boson
was discovered,

or some form of it
was discovered earlier this year,

this video kind of went viral.
It was everywhere.

It was posted in all kinds
of media outlets and websites.

Millions of people saw this video

and they understood
a little bit more about

what these scientists were trying to do.

So imagine that, right, the
best and most clear explanation

of what this complex
and nuanced topic was

came from a scientist
himself, in his own voice,

who took the initiative
to hire a cartoonist,

and experiment with new ways
to sort of close this gap

between him and the public.

He didn't wait around
for the press release.

He didn't wait around
for the reporter to come calling.

He just took the initiative and did it.

So that's pretty cool.

But I think, you know,
part of the general problem is also

that there's another gap, I think,
between scientists and the public

which is in how the public
perceives scientists and researchers.

And I know this because probably
the thing that I'm most known for

as a cartoonist with a PhD,

as the most over-educated
cartoonist in the history of mankind.

One of the things that
I'm probably most known for

is to make this comic strip called
"Piled higher and deeper" or PhD Comics.

(Laughter)

And this is a comic strip that
I started while I was in grad school

because, you know, you have
a lot of free time in grad school.

(Laughter)

But people sometimes call it
like the "Dilbert of academia".

Or they say that it's really interesting
because it actually portrays

scientists and academics
as real people, you know.

Apparently they're not robots,
and you know,

I'm an expert, so I think
I would know the difference.

(Laughter)

But these comic strips,
they're pretty popular in academia.

They get forwarded around a lot

and the website gets about
seven million visitors a year.

But, you know, outside of
academia, in the general public,

most people haven't heard about it.

What they have probably
heard about is probably the most,

one of the most popular television
sitcoms in network TV today

it's a show called "The Big Bang Theory".

(One clap) Exactly.
(Laughter)

Some people groan,
some people cheer.

"The Big Bang Theory" is also a show,
a major TV network show,

but that's also supposed to be
about scientists and researchers.

And, you know, the show has a lot of fans

and I don't want to offend them,

especially on the Internet.

(Chuckling)

This show is, does show smart people,

all the smart people in this show
they have these --

their glasses, they dress
really weird, they're socially inept.

And all the pretty, cool people
are blond, they're dumb,

they're outgoing, etc.

And so I don't have anything
personal against this show.

But I do sort of worry
about what these stereotypes,

what impact they have
on society in general.

So, for example,
I sometimes volunteer

in this middle school in East LA
called Endeavor College Prep.

And these are kids that come
from very disadvantaged communities.

Most of them, their parents
never went to college.

Half of them statistically won't
even graduate from High School.

But, you know, for all we know
the next Einstein,

or the next Marie Curie,
or the next Darwin

could be sitting in
one of those classrooms now.

And so I wonder sometimes,
you know,

what these stereotypes,
the effect that they have.

First of all, how are these kids
going to get communicated

the science that they need to catch up
and become these superstars.

But most importantly, how are
they going to ever see themselves

as future scientists or researchers
if all they see when they turn on the TV

are these stereotypes and caricatures

of what scientists and researchers
are supposed to be?

And so my point here today is that,

you know, what we don't know
about the Universe should inspire us,

but it should also inspire us to try
to close these gaps in communication,

and in perception, so that more people,
more of us, most of the human species

can participate and be engaged
in looking for these answers,

so that maybe we can even discover

blank pages to fill up with ideas.

Thank you.

(Applause)