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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2015-04-02
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y44nqo11Fh0
I don't do math it's a common phrase I'm sure a lot of us have heard and maybe rethink guilty of having said it ourselves but it's a funny phrase isn't it because some people say it may seem awfully proud of it like it was a corky trade that they acquired in their sort of excited to tell us about it but we would never say this about
other basic skill sets that you use everyday like you would never proudly assert oh I don't read that would not be something you are excited to tell people but for some reason we feel this way about stem skills science technology engineering and of course math we put the skill set on a pedestal reserved for people in glasses and lab coats we recognize their importance to society
we revere people like Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein but we don't consider them pregnant to everyday life but this idea that stem literacy isn't necessary or worse that you can't be stem later it if you're not a stem career is untrue and dangerous and it's time we threw away that mindset stem literacy is a survival skill set becoming increasingly important in today's world now I want
you all to consider your last trip to the grocery store did you look at a lot of food labels did you feel little bit over wound buying healthy and safe food for yourself and your family didn't use to be as hard as it is today do you buy the food with genetically modified ingredients should you pay extra for organic and what about artificial sweeteners didn't you
read somewhere that they cause cancer or something and these are just a small decisions what about the big scary ones like climate change or net neutrality revenge childhood vaccinations all of these decisions from the big to the small can be better understood with a little research and a critical stem literate mind but what do I mean by this what is stem literacy well I think Carl
Sagan put it best when he said signs is much more than a body of knowledge it's a way of thinking stem literacy doesn't mean that you know what kind of science facts or that you've memorized the quadratic equation or that you know tied to the one hundred digit stem literacy simply means that you are a critical thinker when it comes to decisions based on stem it
means that you question the source of science and demand evidence to back up can conclusions some literacy means that you can beat non emotional and objective when forming your opinion on stand issues and when there's an overwhelming body of scientific evidence this must influence your opinion take for example smoking cigarettes now it wasn't that long ago when smoking cigarettes were considered that free up some people
even thought they were good for you but to date there's an overwhelming body of scientific evidence that proves that smoking cigarettes is harmful to nearly every organ in your body and that it can cause cancer now if you are someone who is persuaded by the scientific evidence and believes that smoking is bad for you then you in fact are stem literate on this topic easy right
so what's the problem while the challenges is that screens and technology are advancing at an exponential pace but Publix level of stem literacy is not Americans apathy to stem literacy is painfully apparent any officials we've elected to represent us today in the current Congress only thirty nine out of five hundred thirty five representatives have a formal background in stem this is just seven percent is that
enough to put it another way are we all okay with over ninety percent of the representatives who are making decisions and passing laws that affect all of us and our highly technological twenty first century world not having any type of formal background in stem now it's important to note that one is not need a formal back on its stand two beats damn literate so let's dive
in a little deeper to this issue and really understand the level of stem literacy and Congress today let's take the example of human caused climate change a phenomenon that over ninety five percent of climate scientists agree to be true this is I will point out the same level of consensus of scientists to believe that cigarettes cause cancer well unfortunately in over fifty six percent of Republicans
in Congress today deny human caused climate change this is over half of the majority party in Congress today that should scare all of us but okay let's take a step back with hubby melodramatic not everybody in Congress is really influential and climate change policy right well I have worse news there are three very powerful officials that have recently taken leadership positions and science driven committees in
Congress and yes they all deny human caused climate change number one we had Jan in hot the new chairman of the environmental and public works committee and the Senate you could say that she needs a nice human caused climate change because he literally wrote a best selling book on it next we have Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz Rubio is the new chairman of the subcommittee that
oversees Noah the national oceanic and atmospheric administration cruise I think in the new chairman of the subcommittee that oversees mass at now why is this a bad thing well it's because you know what and NASA are world leaders on climate science research together they invest three billion wikipedia annually on environmental and climate sign Noah and NASA are scientific eyes and ears on our world and how
we're affecting it now that we have these three leaders overseeing this research we've sent the fox to guard the hen house and unfortunately we are all the hints and the scenario now can we really blame these officials because aren't they just doing their job and representing their constituents after all over sixty percent of Republican Americans deny human caused climate change all of these people are denying
it overwhelming body of scientific evidence that proves otherwise all of these people are stand illiterate on this topic is this a literacy manifests itself in other areas in society more than four in ten Americans deny evolution they believe that humans were put on this world and in our present form on an earth that was less than ten thousand years old they simply can't believe that we
came from those damn dirty apes and today too many parents are refusing to vaccinate their children for fear that vaccines are dangerous and that there's a link to autism a fear that has been disproven time and time again by multiple independent bodies in an overwhelming body of science research and because it says a disease that was thought eradicated in the year two thousand has come back
with a record number of outbreaks in cases in the U. S. in just the past two years clearly we have a problem our country is Stan and literate today the US is faced with decisions regarding the food we put on our shelves and medicine we put in our bodies and and our children's bodies the internet we put on our homes and the pollution we put in
our sky how are representatives make these decisions will affect all of us in a very tangible way in our lifetime before we can expect stem literacy out of our representatives we must expect out of ourselves and those around us but how look we all do starting today to foster a more stem literate society well first we need to change our mindset then we need to change
our actions first and foremost we must change our mindset and believe that one does not need to be in a stem career to beat stem literate in fact when it representatives here tonight human caused climate change are asked why their most popular defenses Hey I'm no scientist this is not mean you can understand what science tells him president Obama addressed this in his most recent state
of the union he said Hey I'm no scientist either but I know a lot of good scientist at NOAA and NASA and our major universities just because you're not a stem career does not mean you can't understand what science tells you and just because you don't have a formal background in stem certainly doesn't mean you can't have a personal interest in it this is how a
girl from the UK at least enters could by herself as the sole curator at the ripe old age of twenty three with no formal background in stem create the immensely popular stem Facebook page called I effing love science and if you're not familiar with this Facebook page it's at page that shares interesting tidbits and articles on various stem topics which are shared tens of thousands of
times by scientists and engineers and others around the world each and every day this isn't Facebook page is more popular than the Facebook page for Madonna Madonna often cited as the most influential female recording artist of all time Madonna at least injuries is no scientists but she surest and whether it now there is a flip side of this right we must be careful not to assume
that those in stem fields are stand literate in all fields not all scientists are the same if you're a rocket scientist or the host of an educational outer space show it's very likely that you know absolutely nothing about neuroscience and if you're a neuroscientist NASA is not likely to come to you to design their next rocket where the signs comes from matters and because of this
there are certain rare cases where a scientist in one field will promote pseudoscience or false science and another take my hand Bilik for example star on the Big Bang theory and a PhD in neuroscience in real life well it's wonderful that she promotes stand there her wildly successful shall unfortunately and her personal life she promotes anti vaccination believes and supports homeopathy and alternative medicine technique that
has absolutely no scientific evidence to prove its efficacy both of these beliefs go against all scientific evidence against them you can actually be very dangerous to those who believe fan and act on them so while my inviolate surely gained a number of stem tools the repeats the inherent science she has unfortunately proven to be stand illiterate and other fields of science now to summarize this first
point we must all change our minds one does not need to be in a stem career to be stunned literate and just because someone is in a stem career doesn't mean you should take their advice on all things science stem literacy gives you the tools to think critically for yourself and this leads me to my second point the second thing that we can all do to
foster a more stand literate society is actionable in you all have the tools and the influence to do it effectively starting today we need to start reaching out to people in our own communities who support and believe pseudoscience people who believe in pseudo science are not often persuaded by scientific they have an inherent distrust of scientists and medical doctors who they believe may be biased but
they may just listen to you these people who believe in pseudo science they can be your friends or your family or even your colleagues at work these are the people to which you are most influential these are the people who are most likely to listen to him and engaging these people on the topics of pseudo science is not going to be easy these are going to
be uncomfortable conversations to have but we must are engaging people who believe pseudoscience and kindly point out the dangers in the fallacies of pseudoscience now as you go out there and fight for this grassroots social movement here are a few tools for your anti pseudoscience to about these are a few common fallacies of pseudoscience that you should look out for and address number one people his
support pseudoscience often like to use the word chemical as a scare tactic they say anything that contains chemicals can be talked and should be avoided at all costs but what these people should know is that technically chemicals are all around us they're make naturally without any human interaction water is technically a chemical they're also made in a lab but whether they come from the earth at
the lab all chemicals can be toxic but here's the important part it's the dose that matters water is a very deadly chemical if you drink enough of that there are people that have overdosed by drinking too much water chemicals are not inherently dangerous doses are dangerous number two people who support pseudo science often like to say things are unnatural as the sole reason why something is
bad for you but the funny thing is there's so many things that we do today that are now considered natural that were considered unnatural just a few centuries or decades earlier traveling faster than we can run wearing clothing taking vitamins pasteurized milk and even indoor plumbing could all be considered unnatural today that does not make them bad free of similarly there are many natural things like
naturally growing organic poisonous mushrooms they're not necessarily good free of natural is a relative concept that changes over time just because something is considered unnatural at this point in time does not make it back for you and lastly people who support pseudo science and the climate change debate often confused whether with climate for example it snowed today therefore global warming is a hoax this confuses weather
with climates whether it's how the atmosphere changes date day and month to month climate is the long term trend of weather over decades and decades of one cold day in one location is just one small part of the larger global climate picture now to summarize if we can accomplish these two things change and mindset in a grassroots effort to combat pseudoscience we can all work together
to foster a more stem literate society a stem literate society a lax stem literate officials to represent them and nation withstand lettered officials is one that is more innovative healthier and more sustainable in a world where science and technology are moving at an exponential pace this is a nation in a society I think we would all be really proud to be a part of me hope
