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tv   Up Front  Al Jazeera  March 11, 2023 5:30am-6:00am AST

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to detail in recreating scenes from that era, as well as some of the monsters, as fantasy mixes with reality. ah, guillermo del toro is pinocchio is nominated for the best animated feature film oscar. it's already won that category in the golden globes. but this exhibition here at the moma is about a lot more than just recognizing the director, the show ends with the board with all the collaborate, his photographs, everyone who worked on this film, i think people leaved and see the faces of the people, the crated. what they just experienced, it'll be inspiring for them. and exhibition that's as much about those who made the art as the art itself. gabriel's ando al jazeera new york. ah, suffolk of the headlines here on al jazeera, iran and saudi arabia have
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a great to re establish diplomatic relations and reopened their embassies. it follow 7 years of tension after we had broke of ties with terror on the deal was broken by china in beijing. this week, alhashan has more from tara, the context is there that the timing is a bit surprising at what in general, the whole region seemed to be welcoming this move mainly the out up countries in the and the region were welcoming this move because any think that and the escalating and that approach more between saudi arabia and iran will have its own impact on the whole region. regulators in california have shut down silicon valley bank. it's the 2nd largest bank failure in u. s. history and is now raising fears about the health of other financial institutions. as phoebe catered mainly to tech startups and venture capital firms, the u. k as agreed to pay france more than $570000000.00 over the next 3 years in
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an attempt to cut the number of asylum seekers crossing the english channel in small boats. funding will go towards a new detention center and more border forces. rescue teams have saved nearly 50 migrants found stranded in a boat off the coast of the canary islands. the group included 3 pregnant women and 6 children last year, more than $15000.00 microns caused by boat from africa to the canary islands. columbia government and ellen rebels had agreed to start negotiating a truce. the breakthrough came during the 2nd round of peace dogs in mexico city on friday, columbia. president, gustavo petro has bowed to stop hostilities. george's ruling party has dropped to bill that protest is feared, would silence the media and opposition bill would have forced media organizations and en jose, who received more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as foreign agents. at least 6 people have reportedly died after heavy rains in flooding in northern peru, sanction jak, who has left
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a trail of destruction under space. hundreds of families since making landfall air this week. more severe weather is forecast in the coming days. so those were the headlines. news continues here now to 0 after up front station. thanks so much bye for now. round good. as she is governed by the founding fathers, daughter, how is she facing the challenges brought on by the roving refugee crisis? this paper should go back to their own land and his vote is prepare for a general election. we'll ask her about allegations of persecution of opposition. members shake athena talks to al jazeera. we are at an extraordinary moment for space exploration and 2022. for the 1st time ever astronomers were able to capture an image of a super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy nations, hubble space telescope identified the most distant star ever observed. and the launch of the james web telescope delivered the sharper image of the distant universe to be. but despite these brown breaking advancement, 5 to facing a crisis of legitimacy,
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public distrust and finance on the right side to pick this information continues to flow, respond line. so how do we win the battle for evidence base true. and then up front special. i'll ask where now national physicists, the autograph, type the near the graph, tyson, thank you so much for joining us. an upright. delighted to be with you. thanks for having me. there's a poll that says it over a quarter of americans don't believe that climate change is caused by human activity and 6 percent. don't believe it's happening at all right. there's another one that says that over a quarter of americans are skeptical of vaccines. now, you actually just produced a documentary on misinformation. they're going to ask you when the science in scientific backs becomes something that's up for public debate. yeah, and so i hate to just sound so obvious about this, but part of it is a failure of the educational system which teaches science as a sort of
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a satchel of facts that you sort of pour into the empty vessel that you are as you sit there in the classroom and you and you're given this fat book in there, these words that are boldface, and you got to remember, i remember those words for the exam, and then you move on. and at no time, really, i think not even in the lab sections of the classes, do you really deeply learn what science is and how and why it works? and so if somebody comes out with a research result that's intriguing or controversial, depressed typically rushes towards it, but it's not really an authentic result until it's verified by other researchers. because there could be bias manifested within it. maybe the wall current fluctuated when they got their result. anything could have happened. so
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a fundamental feature of science is that whatever result you get, i'm going to try to verify it or falsify it, alright, effect, i might be a competitor of yours and i don't trust anything. the guy that i'm going to do it myself. okay. i got the same result and somebody in another country does it somebody with a different might. and then once you get agreement of these research results, then you have an objective truth. but if you only sample science on that bleeding frontier, that messy frontier, you would think we didn't know what the hell we were doing at any time when it's a feature of science that we have these, that frontier information is contested. your book start messenger, cosmic perspective civilization. you say that certain beliefs about science become true in people's minds when they are constantly repeated in the media. and you called this the fundamental feature of propaganda. talk to me a little bit about this propaganda. where did these police come from? and what's the primary source of the propaganda as you put it in?
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who's the most culpable outside of the media itself? thank you. great question. you know, i tried to think what is truth mean? and i don't want to you, sir, the word and give it only one definition, because then you get into fights. so i'll give people how they use the word. so i split the kingdom of truths into 3 categories. so one of them is objective truths. these are the, these are things that are true, whether or not you believe in them. and the methods and tools of science are exquisitely tuned to establish objective truths in this world than is personal truths. these are truths that are true to you, but you, they may not be true to some one else. is jesus, your savior is mohammed your last prophet on earth? these are your personal truths. and in a free country, no one can take those away from you. a 3rd kind of truth. i call it political truth is just something that becomes true in your head simply because it's repeated so
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often. and we have this system, we evolved to say to ourselves, well, if we hear something often it must be true. otherwise, why would it happen that often? and so the brain, we wires as it. yep, that's the truth. and this is the soul a propaganda. so what's our response to that? i'm thinking specifically. for example, during the pandemic, when you had people spreading all kinds of misinformation online, not just people. ah, who said this isn't so bad, right? but people who are actually promoting ever met in awe hydro chloral quinn as actual miracle cures for coven, i mean that's dangerous stuff. all of this stuff is happening in a, in a sphere on line. the political fear sometimes in a white house press room, even when this stuff is happening, what should be our response? should we be regulating speech online? i'm not talking about, oh, just saying people don't have a right to express their opinions. okay? but so what about this other stuff?
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there's a whole chapter in the book called risk and reward. and i make the point, which i'm going to make here, that our brains, the human brain, is not natively wired to think statistically, or probabilistically about anything. ok. and some people know this and fully exploit this fact. and so they've created what we call casino. it's to completely exploit our inability to understand probability and statistics. they exploit this fact and they take your money and you go home without it. ok. but typically that's what happens. and so because we don't think statistically about it, we think anecdotally about it. and this infuses in all decisions we make in our lives. and what we say, why don't trust the cdc, but i'm going to trust my aunt matilda. well, i'm going to trust this guy on the internet and you know what sells on a youtube?
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just watch that, okay, you ready? it's at the establishment thinks this, but what i have is actually true and they don't want you to know it. oh my gosh, if you lead off your youtube video that way, millions of use guaranteed. there's something about doing something that is not the establishment that is irresistibly attractive to us. and i don't full, i'm not a psychologist. i don't fully understand it, but it's pernicious in our environment and it could be the seeds of the unraveling of an informed democracy. there's another pasted this though because i agree with you. there are people who say, look, you can't trust the state, you can't trust the government. you can't trust the establishment because i had this great story, this great anecdote that appeals more to your desires, true, but then there are legitimate reasons, not to trust the establishment. i'm thinking, for example, about the history of medical abuse and medical racism in the united states. i'm thinking about the tuskegee study ah, ah, i'm thinking about of
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a low point in the medical, any annals of medical treatment. absolutely. and from williams, the sake of course, that's a study that started in the 19 thirty's when black men were left to die untreated of syphilis. a we've indigenous people who use the subject for tuberculosis vaccine trout also in the thirties and in the seventy's, thousands of indigenous women were also forcibly sterilized. so against the backdrop of that, for example, there's a legitimate reasons why a certain community, certain people, or maybe all of us say, look, i can't trust the establishment. that's why i'm vaccine hesitant. how do we get to the ways to do that? so you say, especially in the black community, or what if you're worried that the vaccines oh, you know, ah, what if you're worried about their weather go harm you. and there is some racist motive for it. because of this, these cases in the past. what you do is step in the vaccine line between 2 white people that through the solution. it's not going to make light of these re, very real problems that, that institutionalized racism,
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sexism, and practically every other ism has manifested. yes. ok, you have to ask yourself is reason to never trust anything they ever do since and if so this is, this is sort of cancellation principles that have been rampant and especially social media. so if, if an institution is one thing wrong, if you don't trust anything they do. yeah. but it's that, that one thing it's, there's a fundamental belief that the state, as such, almost by definition is untrustworthy. that's a different position in. oh, you messed up. one isn't about a saying the medical establishment, scientific 1000, the politicization of medicine is untrodden. i grew up. yeah. you know, i mean, yes, yes, it's hard. line them up. so you line them up. he said, that's bad. and they, we were deceived. yes. now, next to that, make a list of achievements earned by the state. ok. look at
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the distribution of the polio vaccine and how many lives were stay, stay look at the statistics of that. look at the increased longevity of the human species everywhere in the world brought about by advances in medical technologies and, and the science associated with it. put that along side. you realize 150 years ago, the life expectancy of humans on earth was only slightly higher than when we were living in caves 30000 years ago. so put it next to it. what else have that quote, state done. the state runs, nasa. ok and put stuff on the moon and on mars and on asteroids. very very you talk in talk about nasa. i want to think about nasa little bit because last year was a huge picture nasa right there on you. all right there the, the james web telescope on the side of your set up last year, last year was
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a significant year of work for space discoveries for the 1st time, astronomers captured an image of a super massive black hole in the center of our galaxy. also of the hubble space telescope identified the most distant star ever observed. and of course, at the james web, ah, space telescope delivered a deep field image of the quote invisible universe showing us unseen parts of the casualties. it's quite fascinating stuff, and the most distant galaxy we've ever observed are now accessible to us in a certain kind of way. can you talk to me about 2022, out of everything that happened. what was the biggest discovery in your estimation, and how does it influence our understanding of space and maybe even science in the years to collect europe? i'm, i'm delighted to report that investments in this country and others are partners in science, continues and continues to push the frontier of cosmic discovery. and that image of a black hole, we can always knew it was there. but to get evidence of what it's doing to the distorted fabric of space in time around it,
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that was justifiably banner headlines and the deployment of the james web space telescope. oh, my gosh. i mean that so much could have gone wrong. you know, who doesn't get enough credit in this or the engineers that figured out how to build this thing. how do you make an 8 meter telescope fit into the fairing of a rocket? well, you fold it, astrophysicist didn't figure that out. engineers did you fold it and then on furlough when you get to your destination. all right, they figure that out. and so i'd a tip, my hat with my hat tip, my hat up to the engineers that enable our discoveries in astrophysics. so, so yet people who are into science, you could also be into engineering and still participate on that frontier of research. so it was all good. on the year he said something interesting and in interview with steven co bear talking about the web telescope. and you said that as our area of knowledge grows,
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so to does the perimeter of our ignorance for those beautifully put, you should be a poet in addition to a scientist up book. how, how ignorant are we of the vastness of the universe. that's a great question. by the way, i wrote an essay some years ago called the parameter of ignorance. the point is, as you learn what is going on in the universe, then your area of knowledge grows so that this is a, this is a highly potent analogy. i think you area grows, but wait a minute. the perimeter of that area is also growing. so the so, so for example, i know to ask questions to day because i'm standing in a new place brought to you by the james web space telescope and the hobble. if you want to go back a couple of decades, i can ask a question today that i didn't even think to ask 20 years ago, 10 years ago, in some cases,
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5 years ago. so your curiosity fed by this, that the, that the intent, the intention to advance this moving frontier puts you in a new vista. you can see where you've never seen before. so now you're going to say, well, how vass is that field of ignorance? we don't know, but i tell you what we do know. there are 2 drivers in the universe. we, we have terms for them, but we don't know what they are, but we call them dark matter and dark energy. these are some of the longest unsolved problems in astrophysics. if you add up their effect on the universe, it is 96 percent of what's going on. and we do not know or understand what they are or what causes them. everything you know and love about that we all know and love about this universe, the chemistry, the biology, the physics, the aerodynamics the, the, the,
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the orbital dynamics. everything we understand is contained in 4 percent of what's driving the universe. so we're in a odd situation where we know enough about the universe to quantify what we don't know. and that's exciting to the scientists. it's not terrifying, it's exciting is exciting to the site is exciting to the everyday nerd. it's exciting to lots of us. right. and then there's a part of me though that says yes, as much as i'd like to know more as much as i'd like to use your quote to make the entire solar system like our a backyard. that sounds great, but that investment both of time, of intellectual resources and of money to some is, is what should be devoted to our problems here on the ground on this planet that they're systemic issues, institutional, asian, structural issues that we have to deal with. and it's, and that it's a 0 sum game that when we spend too much time out there, we're not dealing with what's going on down here. what do you say to that argument? well, you can ask, how much do you think we're spending in space?
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the space station, the james web, the hubble, the mission to the moon, the artemus missions. what fraction of your tax dollar? if you're an american, do you think we're spending? and when i ask that to people, it's out of 10 percent. maybe 15 percent were spending 4 tenths of a penny. of your tax dollar, doing all those activities. so you can take up a greenback, take a dollar bill, and cut for tenths of one percent off of the edge. and it doesn't even get you into the ink. so you're saying, why are we spending there when we should be solving these problems? here, we're spending 99.6 percent of a budget down here. and you want to grab it from this point 4 percent and say that's going to solve the problem. really take a look at the budgets. take a look at how and where and why we're spending money to a person. none of them have actually look at how that 99.6 percent of the budget is
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invested. and i think if you did, you might be say, well, we're spending too much over here or we're here. the 29 dozen places you could point to. meanwhile, when nasa makes a discovery, it has headlines in a why because people care, they want to look up. they want some kind of hope for what science and technology can be and do for their future. and, and, and it's it transformative. it's space technology. they gave you gps that you take for granted this sitting on your smartphone. and that's how you can find the short the quickest way to grandma in the that grandma's house in traffic. yeah. without thinking why these are satellites or been sent to middle earth orbit. ok, middle earth, not middle earth, and it's sort of the rice but so, so, so it's basically how do you know the hurricane is coming and what pass it's going
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to take the satellite technology port that, you know, we spend money in space and we shouldn't spend it down here, so i can, here's what i'm going to do. we'll sneak into your house in the dark of night and remove everything in your home. that was inspired or enabled by investments in space, technology and you. but when you wake up in the morning, it might be indistinguishable from a cave because that kind of where we be without what those investments have delivered to modern civil is those investments also delivered some other stuff in 2000 when you propose creating a space force which eventually came into existence in 2019 under president donald trump. the u. s. space force is now defined as a military service that organizes trained and equipped space forces in order to protect us an allied interest in space. you examine the relationship between national physics and the military in accessory to war, your book, accessory, the war. i'm curious at the same time that we think about these extraordinary advances and technological benefits. you worry about potential consequences of
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militarize in space. so a couple of points in 2001 i was in a white house commission where that was discussed yet, but we were not the only commission where that was discuss. i'm so that the space force has been percolating for decades. and so donald trump decided to act on it, so trump haters would, would associate it with trump, but really it's been in discussion long. long predates donald trump just to be clear about that. second. i know nobody wants war. nobody want know, nobody wants that. all right, so, so i want to 1st say that the space force wasn't created out of in or out of the ether. it kind of already existed how in what was called the u. s. space command, which was a branch of the u. s. air force. it already existed, they're the ones who launched the gps. so when you create a space force,
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what primarily occurred was that this branch of the air force was separated out and given its own budget line, but it feels like we're expanding that the theater of war. i mean, i hear donald trump saying, ah, he wants it, that the space force was created because quote, space is the world's newest war fighting domain. and amid grave threats to our national security, americans appear already in space is absolutely vital. i agree. i know you don't want war and i know most saying normal people don't want war with it, but, but as out of money was a lot of investment or so. so now we are in modern times and ask yourself, i'm how much space assets do we have and how much of our economy depends on it. you know, what is wilbur valued at in billions? oprah does not exist without space assets. neither does directv. neither does the weather channel, neither does i of the apple tinder. ok. just to take an absurd limiting example
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of the financial value of our space assets. so you say to yourself, what should the military be doing as in their got, well, i want them to protect our assets. i said, i think that's a natural need of a sovereign nation to have any military that they fund to protect their assets and our assets in space to day are huge. yeah. huge. and i know we got i on that's i'd way asked is attorney, i appreciate that. i think though, the idea that this sort of posture in these investments are purely to protect assets rather than to expand power and maybe empire. that's where the tension comes in. right. like we're not just protecting our stuff, we're getting other stuff. and in that we'll get a car that's, that's a, that's a, a caricature of our presence in space. ok, so the military is going to protect our assets, make sure we can conduct business,
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make sure we can do the things we normally do based on all of the things we have put into space. now, if, if there is someone else that's perceived as a threat, then we can think of military actions rather than just a defensive action. so offensive actions or, or let me, let me not say often. so let me say, if there's a satellite that we believe is putting us at risk, then i wouldn't put it past the space forced to take out the satellite in, by some way. and a lot of ways to do that. but this whole thing with star wars with, with ships fighting each other. no, that is not what's going on. okay. it is not what's happening here is not how space works. you said something in your bookstore a messenger that stick sticks with me. you said cosmic perspectives, can force us to take pause and reflect on the meaning of life and when the value of piece that sustains it, that, that really resonates with me. what does it mean?
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what is the significance for all of us regular folk to have a cosmic perspective? yeah, so what happens is it takes you out of yourself and out of your own ego. and it forces you to look. i really don't like this. we're been able to use it here holistically. i had life on earth much as humans on earth, but life on earth and the eco system that sustains us. and it's not just a stratus ferric view, it say, it's higher than that. and with your permission, i want to quote appalled 14 astronaut, edgar mitchell. you develop an instant global consciousness. a people orientation an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world and a compulsion to do something about it from out there on the moon, international politics look so betty. you want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter 1000000 miles out and say, look at that son of a wolf. that,
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that is, that is a cosmic perspective. i only knew that i'm telling you that is the cause of perspective to end all cosmic perspective. so i have to have these fantasies where the lawn creates a space bus. it was air bus, the company space bus, get all the worrying leaders, put him on the bus, set him to the moon and have him look back at earth. and you say, you see the border between your country and the one you're fighting? no. do you see the people dying? no. do you see that the havoc your weekend? no, that's just earth and we're all in it together and it's all we have. and there's no hope. there's no hint that that, that, that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. it's up to us to do something about a carl sagan wrote about this in the pale blue dot decades ago. so yeah, it can transform the world. and yes, bring it out everlasting piece. a to sound like a beauty pageant contestant,
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but yes, world peace if possible, when you look at earth from above, i love it. i love it near the grass ice and thank you so much for joining us in a friend. thanks for having. that is our show up front will be back. ah ah. and we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. so no matter what you see when use in current calls that matter to you,
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out 0 goes beneath the waves with a team of women determined to save the dolphins. we all share the same. it was really when needed, something floaty, brought back to me. the amazing on him, i'm using a variety of scientific techniques to study their behavior. we can monitor them and report variable photos and behavior. we're able to how they're adapt me for their new environment. women make science dolphins sanctuary on al jazeera, a legacy of southern africa's colonial histories family, a blend of traditional music with western instrument. valentina died born in the villages of this little book now echoes in apartheid disused mines where a new illegal gold rush has taken hold. guy has organized crime, gangs battle for control of this lucrative industry. huge that started in song too often and, and bloodshed. the accordion was on as jesse era,
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the native movies as it breaks. so trump is still the favorite here among the grass roots and, and many of the polls the be the republican presidential nominee, with detail coverage fire has swung the applied back on the struggle based on daily basis by everyone here from around the world. fire that and go to the 1st to cause of this trade was so hot. it may have cremated the victims exactly where they were killed. ah, saudi arabia and iran agree to restore diplomatic ties after 7 years of tension in the deal that china helps to broker.

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