The danger of science denial Michael Specter

[Music]

let’s pretend right here we have a

machine a big machine a cool Teddy Sh’ma

sheen and it’s a time machine and

everyone in this room has to get into it

and you can go backwards you can go

forwards you cannot stay where you are

and I wonder what you’d choose because

I’ve been asking my friends this

question a lot lately and they all want

to go back I don’t know they want to go

back before there were automobiles or

Twitter or American Idol I don’t know

I’m unconvinced that there’s some sort

of pull to nostalgia to wishful thinking

and I understand that I’m not part of

that crowd I have to say I don’t want to

go back and it’s not because I’m

adventurous it’s because possibilities

on this planet they don’t go back they

go forward so I want to get in the

machine and I want to go forward this is

the greatest time there’s ever been on

this planet by any measure that you wish

to choose health wealth mobility

opportunity declining rates of disease

there’s never been a time like this

my great-grandparents died all of them

by the time they were 60 my grandparents

push that number to 70 my parents are

closing in on 80

so I there better be it there better be

a nine in the beginning of my death

number but it’s not even about people

like us because this is a bigger deal

than that a kid born in New Delhi today

can expect to live as long as the

richest man in the world did a hundred

years ago think about that it’s an

incredible fact and why is it true

smallpox smallpox killed billions of

people on this planet it reshaped the

demography of the globe in a way that no

war ever has it’s gone

it’s vanished we vanquished it poof in

the rich world diseases that threatened

millions of us just a generation ago no

longer exists hardly diphtheria rubella

polio does anyone even know what those

things are vaccines modern medicine our

ability to feed billions of people those

are triumphs of the scientific method

and to my mind the scientific method

trying stuff out seeing if it works

changing it when it doesn’t is one of

the great accomplishments of humanity so

that’s the good news

unfortunately that’s all the

News because there are some other

problems and they’ve been mentioned many

times and one of them is that despite

all their accomplishments a billion

people go to bed hungry in this world

every day that number is rising and it’s

rising really rapidly and it’s

disgraceful and not only that we’ve used

our imagination to thoroughly trash this

globe potable water arable land rain

forests oil gas they’re going away and

they’re going away soon and unless we

innovate our way out of this mess we’re

going away too so the question is can we

do that and I I think we can I think

it’s clear that we can make food that

will feed billions of people without

raping the land that they live on I

think we can power this world with

energy that doesn’t also destroy it I

really do believe that and know it ain’t

wishful thinking but here’s the thing

that keeps me up at night one of the

things that keeps me up at night we’ve

never needed progress in science more

than we need it right now never and

we’ve also never been in a position to

deploy it properly in the way that we

can today we’re on the verge of amazing

amazing events in many fields and yet I

actually think we’d have to go back

hundreds 300 years before the

Enlightenment to find a time when we

battled Progress when we thought about

these things more vigorously on more

fronts than we do now people wrap

themselves in their beliefs and they do

it so tightly that you can’t set them

free not even the truth will set them

free and listen everyone’s entitled to

their opinion they’re even entitled to

their opinion about progress but you

know what you’re not entitled to you’re

not entitled to your own facts sorry

you’re not and this took me a while to

figure out about a decade ago I wrote a

story about vaccines from The New Yorker

a little story and I was amazed to find

opposition opposition to what is after

all the most effective public health

measure in human history I know what to

do so I just did what I do I wrote a

story and I moved on and soon after that

I wrote a story about genetically

engineered food same thing only bigger

people were going crazy so I wrote a

story about that too and I couldn’t

understand why people thought this was

frankenfoods why they thought

molecules around in a specific rather

than a haphazard way was trespassing on

nature’s ground but you know I do what I

do I wrote the story I moved on I mean

I’m a journalist we type we file we go

to dinner it’s fun but these stories

bothered me and I couldn’t figure out

why and eventually I did and that’s

because of those fanatics that were

driving me crazy weren’t actually

fanatics at all they were thoughtful

people educated people decent people

they were exactly like the people in

this room and it it just disturbed me so

much but then I thought you know let’s

be honest we’re at a point in this world

where we don’t have the same

relationship to progress that we used to

we talk about it ambivalently we talk

about it in ironic terms with little

quotes around it progress okay there are

reasons for that and I think we know

what those reasons are we’ve lost faith

in institutions in authority and

sometimes in science itself and there

there’s no reason we shouldn’t have you

can just say a few names and people will

understand Chernobyl

Bhopal the Challenger Vioxx weapons of

mass destruction hanging chads I mean

you know you can choose your list there

are questions and problems with the

people we used to believe we’re always

right so be skeptical ask questions

demand proof demand evidence don’t take

anything for granted but here’s the

thing when you get proof you need to

accept the proof and we’re not that good

at doing that and the reason that I can

say that is because we’re now in an

epidemic of fear like one that I’ve

never seen and hope never to see again

about 12 years ago there was a story

published a horrible story that linked

the epidemic of autism to the measles

months in rubella vaccine shot very

scary tons of studies were done to see

if this was true tons of studies should

have been done it’s Anna serious issue

the data came back the data came back

from the United States from England from

Sweden from Canada and it was all the

same no correlation no connection none

at all doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter

because we believe

does we believe what we see what we

think we see what makes us feel real

we don’t believe a bunch of documents

from a government official giving us

data and I do understand that I think we

all do but you know what the result of

that has been disastrous disastrous

because here’s a fact the United States

is one of the only countries in the

world where the vaccine rate for measles

is going down that is disgraceful and we

should be ashamed of ourselves it’s

horrible and what kind of what kind of a

thing happened that we could do that now

I understand it I do understand it

because anyone have measles here does

one person in this audience ever see

someone die of measles doesn’t happen

very much doesn’t happen in this country

at all but it happened 160,000 times in

the world last year that’s a lot of

death of measles twenty an hour but

since it didn’t happen here we can put

it out of our minds and people like

Jenny McCarthy can go around preaching

messages of fear and illiteracy from

platforms like Oprah and Larry King

lives and they can do it because they

don’t link causation and correlation

they don’t understand that these things

seem the same but they’re almost never

the same and it’s something we need to

learn and we need to learn it really

soon

this guy was a hero Jonas Salk he took

one of the worst scourge of mankind away

from us no fear no agony polio poof gone

that guy in the middle not so much his

name is Paul Offit he just developed a

rotavirus vaccine with a bunch of other

people it’ll save the lives of four

hundred five hundred thousand kids in

the developing world every year pretty

good right well it’s good except that

Paul goes around talking about vaccines

and says how valuable they are

and the people ought to just stop the

whining and he actually says it that way

so Paul’s a terrorist when Paul speaks

in a public hearing he can’t testify

without armed guards he gets called at

home because people like to tell them

that they remember where his kids go to

school and why because Paul made a

vaccine I don’t need to say this but

vaccines are essential you take them

away disease comes back horrible

diseases and that’s happening we have

measles in this country now and it’s

getting worse and pretty soon

kids are going to die again because it’s

just a numbers game and they’re not just

going to die of measles what about polio

let’s have that why not a college

classmate of mine wrote me a couple

weeks ago and said you know she thought

it was a little strident no one’s ever

said that before she wasn’t going to

vaccinate her kid against polio no way

fine why because we don’t have polio and

you know what we didn’t have polio in

this country yesterday today I don’t

know maybe a guy got on a plane in Lagos

this morning and he’s flying to LAX

right now he’s over Ohio and he’s going

to land in a couple hours are going to

rent a car and he’s going to come to

Long Beach and he’s going to attend one

of these fabulous TED dinners tonight

and he doesn’t know that he’s infected

with the paralytic disease and we know

either because that’s the way the world

works that’s the planet we live on don’t

pretend it isn’t now we love to wrap

ourselves in lies we love to do it

everyone take their vitamins this

morning echinacea a little echinacea a

little antioxidant to get you going I

know you did because half of Americans

do every day they take the stuff and

they take alternative medicines and it

doesn’t matter how often we find out

that they’re useless the data says it

all the time they darken your urine they

almost never do more than that it’s okay

you want to pay twenty eight billion

dollars for a dark urine I’m totally

with you

dark urine dark why do we do that why do

we do that well I think I understand

we hate Big Pharma we hate big

government we don’t trust the man and we

shouldn’t our health care system sucks

it’s cruel to millions of people it’s

absolutely astonishing cold and soul

deadening to those of us who can even

afford it so we run away from it and

where do we run we leap into the arms of

big placebo that’s fantastic I love big

bar but you know it’s not it’s

it’s really a serious thing because this

stuff is crap and we spend billions of

dollars on it and I have all sorts of

little props here none of it ginko fraud

Echinacea fraud akai I don’t even know

what that is but we’re spending billions

of dollars on it it’s fraud and you know

what when I say this stuff people scream

at me and they say what do you care let

people do what they want to do it’s it’s

it makes them feel good and you know

what you’re wrong

because I don’t care if it’s the

Secretary of HHS who’s saying hmm I’m

not going to take the evidence of my

experts on my mammograms or some cancer

quack who wants to treat his patient

with coffee enemas when you start down

the road where belief in magic replace

evidence in science you end up in a

place you don’t want to be you end up in

Tabo and Becky South Africa he killed

400,000 of his people by insisting that

beetroot garlic and lemon oil were much

more effective than the antiretroviral

drugs we know can slow the course of

AIDS hundreds of thousands of needless

deaths in a country that has been

plagued worse than any other by this

disease please don’t tell me there are

no consequences to these things there

are there always are now the most

mindless epidemic we’re in the middle of

right now is this absurd battle between

proponents of genetically engineered

food and the organic elite it’s an

idiotic debate it has to stop it’s a

debate about words about metaphors its

ideology it’s not science every single

thing we

we grain of rice every sprig of parsley

every brussel sprout has been modified

by man you know there weren’t tangerines

in the Garden of Eden

there wasn’t any cantaloupe there

weren’t Christmas trees we made it all

we made it over the last eleven thousand

years and some of it worked and some of

it didn’t we got rid of the stuff that

didn’t now we can do it in a more

precise way and their risks absolutely

but we can put something like vitamin A

into rice and that stuff can help

millions of people millions of people

prolong their lives you don’t want to do

that I have to say I don’t understand it

we object to genetically engineered food

why do we do that well the things I

constantly hear are too many chemicals

pesticides hormones monoculture we don’t

want giant fields of the same thing

that’s wrong we don’t want companies

patenting life we don’t want companies

owning seeds and you know what my

response to all of that is yes you’re

right let’s fix it it’s true we’ve got a

huge food problem that this isn’t

science this has nothing to do with

science its law its morality its patent

stuff you know science isn’t a company

it’s not a country it’s not even an idea

it’s a process it’s a process and

sometimes it works and sometimes it

doesn’t but the idea that we should not

allow science to do its job because

we’re afraid is really very deadening

and it’s preventing millions of people

from prospering you know in the next 50

years we’re going to have to grow 70%

more food than we do right now 70% this

is investment in Africa over the last 30

years disgraceful disgraceful they need

it and we’re not giving it to them and

why genetically engineered food we don’t

want to encourage people to eat that

rotten stuff like cassava for instance

because I was something that half a

billion people eat it’s kind of like a

potato it’s just a bunch of calories it

sucks it doesn’t have nutrients it

doesn’t have protein and scientists are

engineering all of that into it right

now and then people would be able to eat

it and they’d be able to not

they wouldn’t starve and you know what

that would be nice wouldn’t be Chez

Panisse but it would be nice and all I

can say about this is why are we

fighting it why I mean let’s ask her

such why are we fighting it because we

don’t want to move genes around this is

about moving genes around it’s not about

chemicals it’s not about our ridiculous

passion for hormones our insistence on

having bigger food better food singular

food

this isn’t about rice crispies this is

about keeping people alive and it’s

about time we started to understand what

that meant because you know something if

we don’t if we continue to act the way

we’re actually we’re guilty of something

that I don’t think we want to be guilty

of high-tech colonialism there’s no

other way to describe what’s going on

here it’s selfish it’s ugly it’s beneath

us and we really have to stop it so

after this amazingly fun conversation

you might want to say so you still want

to go in this ridiculous time machine

and go for it and absolutely absolutely

I do it’s stuck in the present right now

but we have an amazing opportunity we

can set that time machine on anything we

want we can move it where we want to

move it and we’re going to move it where

we want to move it we have to have these

conversations and we have to think but

when we get in the time machine and we

go ahead we’re going to be happy we do I

know that we can and as far as I’m

concerned that’s something the world

needs right now

thank you

you