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