our solar system, series. es.cerie this is the first spacecraft that uses an ion drive. there may be evidence of liquid water somewhere underneath the surface of the astra. as we were approaching, we took some beautiful images and there were these odd, bright areas inside some of the craters. right-hand we were wondering if they were a lighter rock or we may have seen exposed ice, which is exciting. then the images stopped coming and the reason is because we are using an ion drive. the thrust is small. the equivalent of blowing on your hand. very low thrust. we do not do a darn and loop around. we have to sneak up into orbit. for the last few weeks we have been on the night side, that is why there are not more inches.

we are all waiting until we swing around to the dayside to get more images. this morning, we are getting more images -- more questions. questions, what are you hiding? this does not seem to get people to emotionally respond. i want the month of my life act that that 2012 apocalypse was because i was getting calls from people who were frightened. afraid the world was coming to an end. bet theple would say, i world is not coming to an end but where can i go to see this astronomical can -- conjunction happened. there was nothing astronomically interesting happening on that date. that was made up. it is one of the reasons i stopped working with the history channel. , was one of the regular host but they would present a show i was doing about asteroids or possible life on mars from a

scientific respect of and then they would have ancient aliens on right after it. seriously. right after it. and they would be presenting these things as equivalent. this was enough to make me stop working with the history channel. you know, the strange thing was, i think this gets at what a lot is going on with denial of some, someone called me at nasa and said, all my god, is a jew the world is going to end next week? really polite and i had had enough. youid, think about it, do think i would be in my office answering the phone if i thought the world was ending in a week? i said, you know, start getting worried when all of the scientists by up extensive wine out their credit cards and go to a tropical island. then you know something bad is going to happen. this idea that to i am not a person, that i do not have feelings, emotions, in a family,

and a reason to be alive, that i would not react emotionally if i knew the world was coming to an end, what an odd disconnect. you know, somebody wants to separate the fact that you are a scientist from the fact that you are a human being. this is something i have seen over and over again. listening to the wonderful keynote leonard was giving and he did not quite up but i've heard of before, the weapons of mass destruction. when there are things going on that are bad for consumerism, or people might say they are bad for the economy or any number of reasons, bad for the reactionary culture, conservativism and culture, people try to distract you with something else. this started to make me very uncomfortable and i actually really enjoy working with the discovery channel and i talked to producers about this. i am beginning to have an ethical problem doing a show about the risk the earth stands

from a burst or the fact and asteroid could destroy is when there is an even greater risk present right now. where not talking about that on the discovery channel. we're not talking about the huge amount of data that makes human-driven climate change a fact and, you know, this is the sort of thing where, you know, if you asked me for an elevator speech, right? i'm in an elevator with you for three minutes, why should you believe climate change is real and human-driven. very quickly. what are the things i think are the most compelling arguments? --a has 20 seller lights satellites that deliver information. that is why we have to protect our earth science budget. some of the things, like land use, the entire land surface of the world for the last 43 years. we have a record of what things have changed in that time.

my friends are flying research aircraft over the icecaps of the world right now. they are wonderful. they are incredible young scientists. young women, especially. from orbit.ing one of our satellites i am great -- most proud of is called grace. you know that? yeah. the thing with grace, grace is sd that fly about 100 miles way. there is a microwave heat beat the two. they can measure the distance tiny accuracy. the diameter of a human hair. as they fly over, they respond to the math underneath them. underneath them. when one of them is flying over a mountain, it dips down and it changes the distance, and so the rightrafts are above us

now. they are doing the stance. the reason we measure mass is because there are areas on the earth where mass is changing. one of the things we can measure our aquifers. grounder deep under the from 300 miles in space we can measure the amount of water in aquifers hundreds of feet below the the ground. draining.se aquifers all of this data is not only free to everybody in america, it is free to everybody in the world. we want everybody to see the ada. we're also measuring the health of the icecaps. greenland was an reasonable equilibrium 30 or 40 years ago. icecaps out bigger in the winter, small in the summer. a cycle. with the last 15 years, the in greenland have lost 200 billion tons a year that have not been replaced. if anything, that trend is accelerating. antarctica, the ice sheets, the land-based ice sheets were

stable until a few years ago and now there is one, the western and arctic ice sheet is losing to injured billion tons year, and another ice sheet is beyond saving. that water will go into the ocean, at this point there is no way to reverse that trend. that is something you can save. are youften ask me, allowed to say this as a nasa scientist? the answer is, absolutely yes, because these are the fact. about hisnot telling policy. as a federal official, i cannot comment on what we should do about whether we should do trade, not use fossil fuels, that is not my right as a federal official and i take that very seriously. you know, i serve the united states government and you no matter what your political affiliation is and i will give you the best information nasa has about what is going on with

climate change. it is not my place to argue about the politics of it. so, you know, the idea, the attack on what a scientist is, you know, are we not allow to be human? am i not allowed to go on television, which i've done, and say, i am scared. it is not that i am going to tell you what to do, but i can tell you my emotional response. it has become a parent to nasa scientists that delivering more and more data about, ok have this about the oceans. i can show you the ratio of carbon dioxide's it is human activity doing this, not the sun. we have been studying the sun very closely. all of these data are not helping in the debate. we are trying to draw back into our skills as storytellers and people and as emotional human beings trying to tell the story. with one quick anecdote. if you ever wonder how much of

an entertainment value people veryetting out of this important debate, i put -- i appeared on fox and friends this year will stop steve had done a huge piece a few days before about how nasa scientists were lying about the climate change record, but how there was a temperature point for 1934 and they had moved it. the show they were lying about the long-term climate trend of the united states. this was immediately -- this was actually rated as a pants on fire live by a fact check her. what happened was we we calibrated a number of weather stations and they became more consistent as to what time of day they took weather measurements and they also calibrated for height differences, which is what you in boulder know about. i went on to steve's show at the invitation of the show. before the show, steve was talking to me about the facts, climate change data, what had happened.

just like i was you, i was being very friendly and nonconfrontational and saying, your money is my salary i am here to help. i am here to clarify the situation. the camera rolled, where on-air, steve gave me a very soft all question about air quality and then got me off. would not let me talk. so, they are not interested in telling you what defects are. they are interested in entertainment, clicks, selling ads. it is one of the things we have to d-couple. what if you heard about climate change and why are you skeptical? that is something we really have to delve into. thank you. [applause] >> we will hold questions till

the end. tom: i am one of those climate scientists. we use the nass said data. my friends are in those places too. noah do fantastic rings. we were talking about grace. i was pointing out there are places where we are getting our food by pumping water out of the ground so fast that it is not being replaced, it is changing the orbit of satellites. people get that. all right? i am a climate scientist. occasionally he e-mail that says, you are at a liar. i am into fiery. i am going to watch where you are. i have also waded into the evolution issues and editorialized on that. the people who do not want to see evolution taught 10 to be much nicer the end the people who do not want to see climate

change taught. i am a geologist. i do climate. i do ice. i do ice sheets falling into the ocean. if you come back later, i will tell you a little bit about how we can solve this. but i am going to tiptoe a little bit into chips world. michelle gave me a beautiful opening. there is some research on some of the many well springs of this. this, i don't want to know the facts. i'm going to show you a little piece of that. ofould like you to think when you have ever been in one of the great cities of the world. london, paris, new york. and tried to drive a car or seen somebody driving a car. or when you have heard about people driving cars and one of the great cities of the world.

i would like a show of hands, how many of you have the impression that the great cities of the world are uniquely and beautifully designed to be absolutely optimal for moving the modern mix of traffic. [laughter] right? there is a number of reasons for this and the reason is the great cities of the world are designed for an ox cart coming to market 1000 years ago. they have hope themselves around carttreets built for an ox to 1000 years ago. under passes, around a hand who passes, but they are still serving the street from 1000 years ago from an foxconn. now, i want you to think of a baby. a when-year-old, a to europe. how fast they learn. what they learn. by the time they are 1

--year-old, or 2 --year-old, they have a unique physics. willdoes in midair, it fall down. i said in on something, it will stay there. it is not rotating around 24 hours going 25,000 miles on his earning earth. it sits there. and you know, i am a baby there are certain things that come out of me that require my diaper be changed. but a gaseous a mission is not one of them. -- gaseous emission is not one of them. i am learning who is reliable, who might block, and so forth. i get a view of the world that is -- that works. to be auppy grows up god. and, if i throw something it hits where i threw it. -- a puppy grows up to be a dog.

if i throw something, it hits where i threw it. i am on a giant ball spinning through space. falling to the center of mass all the time. gases thate trays come out of my rare and and tailpipe are going to change the climate even though i know they don't matter because they don't have to change my diaper. but if you watch the pay grow into a dog long enough, there is a reason for selection that affects survival. you will get something different. none of that makes sense. none of that is the ox cart that was laid down in my brain when i was one-year-old. a seven-year-old. they have been told the world is round. they have a little trouble with this.

they will draw the world around with you living inside. or a flat spot where you live. it may be nine-years-old before you get that. eventually, all of us, with some exceptions, eventually almost all of us get that. but we get it to because all of the trusted authority figures in our world tell us that. and, we have trusted authority figures. we have built a hierarchy of who we are going to believe and where we are going to take our information from. all of our trusted authority figure say yes, the world is round, we get it. nasahen some of them say is lying to you from those satellites. taking up the data. sneaking around. now, the idea that to maybe the

gas that comes out of me does not changed the world because i do not have to change my diaper, maybe you can stick with it will stop you do not have to believe the scientists. what we have seen is this rise of authority figures. the two of us are evil liars. [chuckles] so, in some sense, we can go into our radio bubble, our cultural bubble, and stay there. in some very real sense, these media bubbles are scrubbing reality. i will pass it along to chip and see what he does to that. [applause]

>> haiku for climate change. reality rights. see levels keep rising. water nips our feet. so, if you have a authority figures, there has to be a mass base that listens to the authority figures. i will argue the mass base has been groomed since the late 1800s to reject science. to reject collectivism and government will stop all of which is evidence that climate scientists are agents of satan. it is ok. you can get over it. it starts with evolution, the big lie of science. protestantream religions reach an accommodation saying, wasn't god clever? easy out.

come on. what happens, unfortunately, is about the same time this accommodation is happening there is a rise of organized labor in the united states which is a form of collectivism. it is determined by a handful of protestant ministers to be a satanic distraction from the -- the rugged individualism that allows you to have a direct relationship god. they become concerned with what are the fundamentals of christianity and they actually write a series of books and efforts called the fundamentals and they are known as on the mentalist. that is where the term comes from. one of the things is, science is a lie because if you believe science as evolution, you are rejecting god. now, if you are a bible-believing literalist and

god is a centered heart of your life, this is not something you brush aside. ingrained in your worldview through the doctrine of your religious ideology or theology. so, ok. let us go through the roots of this. involve this corporations today who are funding science deniers to go on television and say things? in the 1800s, it is evolution, in the 1920's, it is bolsheviks and anarchists. 35-45, roosevelt into a massive corporate funding of anti-a government labor unions. anti-collectivists organizing around the country. one of the most massive propaganda campaigns ever launched. in the 1950's, the red scare.

let's not forget, god was -- godless communism. in the 1970's, the christian right which a number of scholars point out when you have the collapse of the this gary threat becomes internal. there are internal subversives. the internal subversives are people who want you to embrace this false claim of science and reject your biblical understanding of god. and they have taken position in the office, both the political scene and in religion which happens to tie into one of the most significant aspects of evangelical and fundamentalist sanity in the united date that is distinct from your which gives us the idea that we are living in the end times, the apocalypse -- apocalyptic end

times during which trusted leaders will lie to you. scientists are, the lackeys of religious leaders who are lying to you. who could possibly believe this? roughly 75% of the united states , depending on how you do the holding is christian or they claim they go to church on sunday. a lot of them are lying. let us not go there. social science has gotten over that. you have to actually ask leading questions that get them to admit it is only once a month or even christmas and easter. i am a christian so i get to tell these jokes. don't get mad at me. i am a different kind of christian. i like i. our kind of branch -- i like science. our -- our kind of branch got over that.

conservative fundamentalists and evangelicals who reject science because it interferes with their relationship with god. of so, it then becomes part an alliance which includes at the top, corporate profiteers, who really want to keep making money because they have got to their wind before the earth turns into a dustbin or covered by water. no big deal. taking any industry, stripping it and living the high life. except it is the earth. yesterday so il totally am agreeing with you. there is a tiny group of narco libertarians that read conspiracy theories.

i am happy to talk to you. are theest base conservative christian fundamentalists and evangelicals who are convinced we are living in a time where satanic agents walk the earth and they are going to try to get you to abandon god. this is tough. it is science collectivism and big government and if they are part of satan's plan, the roots of the corporate manipulation do not start climate change, they start back in this late 1800s trying to get fundamentalists to reject big labor. ofy are in fact a form collectivism which divides you from god. the stakes are much higher. and the joke is of ours that if these fundamentalists only in an

apocalyptic outcome, they are bringing it all. for the first time, we actually have the ability to create and apocalypse that you are not going to lose the bet. it -- it is going to happen if we do not change things. they are going to say, the apocalypse happened and it did not happen the way we got but that would be a brief thought in their minds. [laughter] what can i say. here is the thing. person who does write about social science and am a journalist, and i worked for a think tank for 30 years that researched right-wing movements to try to help left-wing organizers to understand why they are saying such things as there is no climate change and gay people should be shot or hang. that is only in two states. i'm sorry.

a to them,work is your religion is a farce, get over it, embrace science. because you are not going to convince these people that that is true. what does work is to talk about the difference between dominion and stewardship. dominion is one way of understanding within christianity what god gave to humans and dominion meet you get to do whatever you want. you get to shit in your own kitchen. this is what we are doing to our planet. ,he other view is stewardship an obligation as a christian to preserve what we have and make it better and to pass it on to the next generation. this is not just the same in christianity. it is a theme in all major religious. not just this idea of serving the planet but seeking justice. there are similar ideas in judaism and islam and other faiths.

if we want to convince the mast base of climate denial list that sts,thing -- climate deniali we have to work on the christian community and work on a dialogue with them. pushing them up against a wall will not work. [applause] >> good morning. i thought i would be the only christian on the science panel. i feel a little less alone. there are three of us. >> praise the lord. >> praise god. [laughter] >> there are two minutes that i want to make. the first, when we talk about science the nihilism -- denialism we need to talk about

this in context. it is not just denial of the reality of global warming and the fact that the climate is changing. that should be seen in the nation where we now embrace what i call designer fax -- facts. where we have given ourselves any factn to reject that does not comport with what we have already chosen to believe. i want to tell you a brief story. i wrote about henry johnson a few years ago. he was an african-american soldier in the first world work. , and weighedt 5'4" about 150 pounds. he was on observation duty one night in 1918 when his post was overrun. no windows the exact number of germans. the low count is about a dozen. the high count is about 30. the miracle of the story is that

henry johnson and his companion outnumbered the germans. he was wounded 21 times. he live the rest of his life with one foot. an amazing story. call the battle of henry johnson if anyone wants to look it up. and amazing story of this very slight african-american man who defeats a horde of germans who overran his post. i wrote that story in a column and i got an e-mail from a dominate 10 -- from a gentleman named ken. bunk.d it was all pc [laughter] did not blame him for not believing the story because it is an amazing story. proof. him

we sent him the proof. of what had happened. -- there is a quote from teddy roosevelt talking about henry johnson's bravery. in variousas covered news accounts including the saturday evening post. it is even on the web. mr. thompson was not convinced. to believen refused even though we had overloaded him with all of the verification that we could think of very and this was one of the first in the that helped me to clarify what was going on in this country. we have reached a point where we no longer have a pool of facts in common. previously, we had a pool of facts in common, assuming we are all of goodwill and are trying to solve the outlook. we all pulled from the same pool

of facts and made our arguments. and maybe i interpret the facts in one way and you in another but we are all pulling from the thing pool of facts. what has happened with the rise of the internet, with the rise of the conservative news media , is we noer fact era longer have the same pool of facts. i have a pool over here and someone else has won over there. we are talking past one another. you don't just see this with science and denialism of the with a change, but also presidential candidate, now president who was born in a u.s. state whose birth was attested to not only by his birth certificate but by notifications in two contemporaneous newspapers.

there is this whole cottage industry, books and fox news appearances and radio appearances debating whether or not barack obama was born in this country. the obvious fact is there is a need for some people to believe that there is something other about him or something for an about him. there are not enough facts you can bring to the table to convince them otherwise. that is the context in which we are swimming. the other point i wanted to make is that one of the worst things that ever happened to science and to religion i think is when antiscience became seen as a religious value. i want to reach you from a column i wrote. this was a few years back when the state of kansas was launching one of its schemes to allow the teaching of creationism. creationism being taught in

schools. here is the thing i keep coming back to. why are those who accept every bible passage as literal truth so fanatical in their quest to make the others of us a sense. -- assent. know, itow what you seems he would be serene and the celebration of it. in the last roughly 20 years, and all of the time that they sought --e their -- it is not too much to say that the characteristic that seems to mark them more is an abiding lack of faith. no faith in their ability to survive unaided in the marketplace of ideas. nobody in their ability to pass that knowledge to their kids. no faith, only the fear that conflicting ideas pose imminent threat. that they and their children must be kept hermetically sealed

because exposure to opposing views or simple questions is destructive to their convictions. i have never perceived evolution theory as incompatible with religious faith. it contradicts jenna's -- but not the sense. we're told that humans and apes all have common ancestors. before this, there were dinosaurs. and before that there was a primordial planet. i say fine. who live the fuse on the bank -- who lit the fuse on the bang. only one name suggests itself to meet which leaves me marveling at the week need create -- weak- espoused by some.

is there a god so small that he is challenged by charles darwin. mine is not. that was the column i did in 2000. [applause] toave long felt that trying use science to understand faith or faith to understand science is sort of like using out to read to understand poetry or astronomy to understand motown songs and why we love them. they serve different needs. this whole idea that science conformitymered into with the letter of genesis or exodus or whatever is destructive. tohink it is has drink science but ultimately it is destructive of religion because what is says to evil like me and a lot of others is that you have heard -- abandon faith all you

who enter here. they say -- abandon logic. i refuse to do that. i believe that there is what speaks to my soul. and there is that which speaks to my intelligence, my intellect. i do not see that those things life orssarily in this death struggle that a lot of christians seem to feel. i think there is a weakness in what they call their faith. look at it, really they would be embarrassed by it. i am not threatened by science. i am enlightened by science. [applause] >> thank you altered before we get to the question period, from the audience, i would like to offer to the panel members an opportunity to respond to the others. richard.

i would like to follow on leonard's statement. we have one of these efforts to teach false problems with evolution in pennsylvania. before i waited into it in a spoke to our pastors, we are methodists. what i was doing and they said it was fine. in pennsylvania, they were trying to teach this intelligent design. people who are not biologists say high school teachers should tell people to believe in an unnamed intelligence. know, yousaid, you are unhappy with the lack of science in that. we are more unhappy with the lack of religion in that. they said this may be bad science but it is worse the allergy. you're completely correct. [applause]

>> the thing that amazes me with regard to faith approach to approach tofaith's a lot of things as how often people of faith give themselves a get out of jail free card from doing the hard personal stuff that we are wired to do. it becomes -- i have always understood my faith as an obligation to do forward, not a license to hit someone over the head. not to take itan to sunday school, but if you have ever read the sermon on the mount and all of the things that you are wired to do, you could spend the rest of your life to live up to that. i have never lived up to that. a much better person for that but you would never have enough time to call a scientist and leave death threats on the telephone. turn the other cheek. if a man take your shirt give him your cloak.

if you take my shirt, we are fighting. that is still where i am. it really is fascinating. the same holds true when i look the more extreme proponents of islam. h book saythe tora he who saves one person saves the entire world. why are we not literal about that. [applause] there is no social science data that fundamentalist christians are more or less intelligent or crazy than people in their own neighborhood. they tend to reflect the -- the background demographics. if you hear on liberal left programs, or those envelopes you get from the dnc that these

people are scary crazy, it is not true. [applause] me throw out a question. nothing that any of you have said has made me feel any better. [laughter] ok, now it is time. how do we go from here to improve the situation? >> i think it is getting a little bit better. when the internet first became a really big prevalent part of my about 5-10 years ago, when you started to get a lot of e-mail and social media, i had a greater volume of people that going to be killed by the exploding star. there did seem to be a

recalibration especially among young people. what you read on the internet could have very little bearing to fact. this is anecdotal. i would be interested to see data on how people are responding to this. there was a barrage of interest in all of the apocalyptic theories that were coming out. that has called down a little bit. we had a large -- that has calmed down a little bit. we had a large asteroid passed by a little -- a week ago and i didn't get a single e-mail. warinessng a bit of that i think is encouraging. i think that is anecdotal what there may be a cultural shift. the internet may be -- may have made the spreading of these ideas so tempting. if i might follow on for a moment. i have here my smartphone. it is turned off.

itave here my smartphone and is a fascinating exercise to take this into a high school class and say -- what is it? what is it? i have done this very recently. how would you make it? i put circuit boards together. what is a circuit board? this is about that much of sand with silken and glass and that much of oil for the plastic and some of the right rocks. a little bit of some of the elements. sand, oil, and rocks. the sand,e to take the oil, and the rock and take it into the senate and say make me a smart phone. or get to the football team or the bridge club and ask them to make you a smart phone. this is science, engineering, and marketing.

is in here. without relativistic calculations your gps will drop you in new mexico in about a week. you cannot design a computer without modern mechanics. this is communicating -- the same that we used to calculate the changes in the climate. there are still people in the world that will take this and send me a message and say scientists do not know what they are talking about. [laughter] [applause] but i actually think most of them know better now. it really honest-to-goodness is sand, oil, and rocks and science and engineering. [applause] >> without further comments from

the panel, we will turn to the question. . let me remind you that if there are students who would like to ask questions please allow them to go to the front of the line. and also remind you that there are two microphones and all questions should come from one or the other of those microphones. feel free to lineup behind the people who are already there to ask the questions. finally, let me remind you not to make dateless. we have an expert panel here and these are questions to allow the panel members to expand on a subject. for the first question -- >> i see a student. >> it is very hard for us to an -- to see you. student first. >> here is the question. you commented on the profit motive of the corporate driven anti-climate change junk science.

would you comment on the profit motive of the cottage industry among religious right leaders in their science denial. he is a ringer. he is one of my pastors. i have been to his church here when i come to my conference very he is an old friend and he was one of the first people to write about the dangers of the religious right. of the the leaders religious right live a very lavish lifestyle. and they raised millions and tens of millions of dollars to build their little empires. for a religion that is supposed to reject mammon and the profit motive as a core element of -- it hasg, it is always been remarkable that a lot of leaders of the christian right has been extremely clever

practitioners of a kind of rapacious form of fundraising and scaremongering. it is a blemish on christianity. >> the only thing i would add is that i think the politicization may be mininge it someone's coffers in the short run, in the long run it is proving to be damaging to faith. i think the akron is a is american religious identification, i wrote about this a couple of years ago. religion is on the decline by some measures in this country. the percentage of people that defined themselves as christian is on the decline. the percentage of people who believe in god has not declined. in a lot of ways, by making the church of whatever denomination, seems to be wholly-owned subsidiary of the republican party. a lot of these folks are doing themselves a disservice because

people who are going to look for the comfort or the genuineness that they find in charge nevertheless do not want to the identified with what seems to be identified as charge in the media these days which is denying and not very good. ultimately, the church faces a challenge from itself or some of its more extreme members of this whole idea of god as a political candidate who abhors climate science is really not a good business model. [applause] >> so, people who are discrediting science -- is that coming from those -- from the human race becoming more gullible? -- is it coming from

our politicians having such radical believes that we believe them because they are authority figures? from interpretation of religion differently? >> there is nothing new under the sun. earthquake knocked buildings in san francisco. the people of the east are scared to go to san francisco don'te -- scientists say worry now. that saidist says there may be another one and they try to hold them back. they set up early warning systems so when the next one hits, you can call boston were washington and say don't worry. ity start a campaign saying

was not an earthquake but of fire. what happens. the earthquake breaks the gas lines. it breaks the electric lines that sparked the gas lines. it breaks the water lines so you cannot put out the fire. but that is not what hundred percent the whole story. the business of when people feel that they are living or that their beliefs are threatening -- threatened and they try to defend them with all of the tools that they have available is not new. what is new is how efficiently this is done. it is a dynamic relationship that starts with corporate profiteers, researchers paid to lie -- i'm sorry, do serious research that contradicts what these people say. the media profiteers. his you end up with

subcultures that live in information silos. these silos are impenetrable except with face-to-face communication. that is not how the democrats actually work anymore. they do not organize people anymore. they do not try to go out and convince people to change the way they think about something. they put ads on tv saying republicans are idiots and scary and will ruin america. and republicans do the same thing. and as a nation, we do not talk with each other and discuss ideas like we do at my organization. [applause] i am a retired medical research scientist. interactions i had was of finding the amish would come to the hospital for their meningitis but they would not vaccinate their

children for the same disease. resident who was mennonite out to define what the problem was. she found that each parishioner had a very different insight. my question is the following. right, it religious that whenmandatory you are dying from cancer, you will show what to the medical profession and get the latest. major difference of opinion. can you speak on that. we are all mortal. what it is -- what is it about death that brings us back to science? [laughter] [applause] >> [laughter] [applause]

>> fear? it is a one-word answer. fear. >> to a very real extent, you can reject science and still benefit from it in this nation. some of the science denial is fairly low-cost to some communities. at the point where your life is on the line. >> i hate to advertise another panel, but they put me on a panel about science and religion tomorrow, which i am dreading because it is not my expertise. i do not think they intersect very much. one of the things that people do not understand about science, being a scientist, is that we do not believe we have found truth. as amazing as the equations of albert einstein are, and i have studied graduate-level quantum mechanics, we cannot find one small deviation from these laws

that were set up 100 years ago. when you measure how light bends around the black hole or around the sun, we know it is not the truth. einstein's theories do not work inside an atom. the laws of quantum mechanics contradict them. when you are a scientist, you give up this idea of there ever being an answer or a truth. view ons influence my spirituality. i live in a world where you .earn to swim in doubt beautiful, complex, ever-increasingly accurate, getting towards the truth but never getting there. there is a beauty trying to lose your ego in that.

we are fairly sure that time does not exist the way we think it does. it is not a simple progression from start to end. the modern laws of physics almost require that to not be true. view,e other dimensional you can see all of my life from beginning to end. we believe the big bang most likely created all of time and space. and that instant of creation, not only was space created, but time, whatever that means to temporally-based creatures like me. we expect to die and not have anything after death. when the universe began, i was holding your hand. when the universe ended, i will be holding your hand. there is another way to be an swim in doubt and still find beauty. [applause]

>> i hate to come back to present, but it is worth keeping in mind that, as a scientist, we have given up the idea that we have reached truth. our job as educators is to make sure that we promote those students who will find the things we missed and we still educate. we know there are things that we missed. but the practical parts -- this building was not built with quantum wave functions and relativity. this was built with newton. the practical parts of science we do not overthrow when we change the big picture. we add to them. , newton'sein came in calculations for how you make insteadutiful building of to not go away. people will say science is not absolute truth, therefore,

everything we know about climate change, we should not believe you. i am an applied newtonian physicist in a lot of ways. newton was in mind for designing this voting. [applause] whatwant to cosign michelle said about swimming in doubt. that is not just science. that has been my experience as well, living in doubt. there is this misconception that they drive doubt. the only people who do not have questions are people who are not thinking. i do not care what your religious background is. it is truer to say that faith and doubt live side-by-side. one of my favorite verses or stories from the bible has a man approaching jesus and saying, lord, my son is sick.

heal my son if you can. jesus takes offense and says, if i can? he says, lord, i believe. help my unbelief. >> i very much understand that. it is another great line that scientist are not people of faith. there is a huge range of interpretations of the universe and the approach to god that scientists have. going back to what we were doubtg about about how means you don't know anything, that is a debate that is thrown at us a lot. where you are going to publish a paper is when you disprove something or find out something new. your career is on the edge of what we know. the huge not negate amount of stuff that we do know. as you were saying, for the climate to not respond to what

we are doing to it would break the laws of physics. there is a lot that we know. we had only made the first actual measurement in all of when werecipitation launched a global satellite last year. that was the first time we ever made that measurement, last year. there is a lot that we don't know about the climate system because we do not have the data yet. how much rain and snow is falling? should we worry about methane or other gases? there are lots of things we have to find out. that is why we have 20 satellite doing these measurements. none of that is trying to figure out the details, to gauge the fact that we know this is happening. that is well-established. st that i amher mi very angry aboutruth -- mistruth that i am very angry about.

[applause] >> next question. >> my question comes on reflecting what is, at least to me, a new insight that this panel has expressed, and especially leonard, that anti-science is a statement of religious faith, which is religious faith in a weak god. god is aweak circumstance of personal fear and perhaps pathological, up anal fear which ends expression of a feeling of helplessness. our national path of escape from and is material consumerism financial development. i wonder if you all could comment on that connection of a weak god with a cultural fear and such a helplessness with --

which then promotes escapism. >> wow. [laughter] mr. pitts: i have heard it said that wisdom, and i'm am not sure this answers your question, but -- having what you want. instead of having what you want, you want to want what you have. i do not know that that ties but there isod, definitely a sense in this country that satisfaction can be found at the mall. and the joy and completeness and whatever -- i think the attraction of faith is that there is a sense of -- it offers the possibility of completeness. it offers the possibility of

being satisfied within your own self. i think that that is sort of antithetical to consumerism in this country. the whole point of consumerism is to make you feel as if you are incomplete. you are not doing so well, but if you buy this car, if you get this soda pop, if you buy this brand of whatever, then your life will be complete. the trick is that it is always a state of incompletion because there is always something else to buy. i has -- i have an iphone that says 5, i guess it is. the latest is 6. i have the previous model. let's put it like that. there is a multimillion dollar campaign out to get me to upgrade this to whatever the next model is. leonard, you are incomplete until you get the next iphone.

why the time i get that one, the one after that will be out. it is a constant shell game which i am able to decline to buy into. i do not believe that consumer goods will make me a better person. [applause] ms. thaller: it is not something that scientists are trained for. it is not our education to deal with these restaurants. the interesting and is how much that is changing. we are working with people -- alan alda has an amazing .nstitute at suny stony brook this is an odd one. this is a true story. at nasas a meeting headquarters and we were going to be talking about advertising strategies. the people who were hosting said mars. i thought, ok, we will be talking about the mars rovers and how we can communicate. it turned out to be the mars candy company.

isy at nasa headquarters that going to happen. they brought in advertising executives from mars. they talked about how they designed an advertising campaign. as a federal agency, we cannot advertise. it is starting to be with us to understand more about how the strategy works and how this is done. i am sure i am not saying anything that mars would not want me to say, because i know this is probably advertising shocks me is they were talking about their candy bar campaigns and how the way they designed their campaign has nothing to do with the candy. they are selling self-esteem. once they were talking about where they were advertising a body spray for young men. the first line of the campaign male insecurity of the body. they identify our psychological tendencies and they know that they are not selling candy.

said, and i speak as somebody who likes a snickers bar every now and then, that for penetration,market more people buying a candy bar, was more important than return customers. it is not so much how good your candy bar is, but how many people initially by your candy bar. not part of training as a scientist. when it comes to what they are , what doubt and very simplistic views of religion, anybody who asks me, do you believe in god, if i say no, does that mean we believe the same thing? if i say yes, does that mean we believe the same thing? that is a dinner conversation. -- we doselling us become more easy consumers when things are simplified and they are going after our innate insecurities about death, fear, our body image, all of these things.

[applause] question. >> what would be steps that everybody can take to eliminate the believe that scientists are liars and basically bring science and religion together and just eliminate the anti-scientific belief? some veryr: there are simple solutions. you have heard this before. it sounds really cliché. i spent a lot of time in congress and on capitol hill. i have talked to all the staffers. i spent a lot of time in the actual offices. theyamazed by how much respond. they will come in and say, what are the e-mails today saying? they really do pay attention to your letters. e-mails and written letters and phone calls.

written letters the most and then probably e-mails and phone calls. i am really encouraged by some of the public figures and science. degrasse tyson, who i have known for years, i think is going to get his own television program. he is funny, quirky, geeky, a good dancer. i love dancing. skewers the stereotype. at the same time, i find him very authentic a scientist. my only criticism of his television show is that he was not given script writing credit. when i saw the show, it seems more like a tribute to carl sagan, who i loved. neil's humor.e more free range. there are some wonderful role models coming up.

also, put pressure on your politicians. they feel it. they will listen to that. there i am, a scientist at nasa. responding to one person when there are thousands of people who might have a similar question or a better question. they got to me. they sent me an e-mail. [applause] >> this has been an excellent panel. my only regret is that there is not a science denier on the panel. i would love to hear what they have to say. a lot of what you said has gone faith and its .ffect on science denial i think there is another more cynical component to it. i saw a trailer at the movies for merchants of doubt that talks about the people who are paid to cynically plant doubt in

our minds about all these things. safetytes or automobile or flood safety or climate change. i would like to hear you address that a little bit. integrity. there are always going to be those people who lack integrity or are going to pander to the basic instincts for money. this seems like an odd thing to say, but if it is good data, i will take it from whoever has it. the problem is bad data. for example, there was an extensive research into client-side -- climate science. climate scientists came up with the same conclusions that the nasa scientists did. there were cases where the studies sponsored by oil companies produced useful data.

that is why we have peer-review. it sounds so ivory tower-ish. people say, you are a scientist at nasa. i have this great idea for a new jet engine. won't you look at it? i tell them, there is a process for this. submitting papers, having discoveries, having people replicate your result and look through your data. not want to do that. i do not want to take that time. that is why we have the process. i think there needs to be a course, a lot of transparency about who is being supported by companies. that is one of the big things about being a fully-federally-funded scientist. we are not allowed to do that. i am not allowed to take money from anyone. i went to talk at a local astronomy club and they handed me a $100 check and i had to hand it right back. from the discovery channel, all of those appearances, not a

penny. i cannot take anything from them. if they sponsored the climate study and the data is good, bring it on. i am not afraid of real data and real debate. >> that does not go to the issue of we live in a society that claims to be a democracy based on informed consent. there is an industry of lying to people for profit. we live in a society that has abandoned the idea that we have that pool of shared knowledge and that we have an ability to make these things because we do not anymore. we live in an anti-democratic oligarchy. [applause] >> next question. for you tomake sense be a science believer when it comes to climate change science and a science denier when it comes to vaccine safety?

who you are talking to, but i would bet that there are many people in this room who are very seriously engaged in making sure that vaccines are safe. and that this is done with and thatnd literature they know a lot about it. vaccines have saved a fantastic number of lives. [applause] there is no good science that says that vaccines are unsafe read i am sorry. the entire study was discredited. that person was on the payroll of a drug company trying to do a different sort of vaccine. we know the whole story. it is one of the things that i have to say has shocked me a little bit coming to boulder. i have met some wonderful, excellent people here who are not in favor of vaccinating their children. i am very much in the spirit of

civil discourse. i am very polite. i am very, very frightened. [applause] >> my question sort of rides on that one a little bit. from science, we kind of pick and choose. we have been talking about people accepting science. just some quick examples. water is bad for you and a few decades later, they change their mind. people sort of pick things. what i am wondering is, how do we influence the people that are taking data and refusing to switch when new data comes out? prof. alley: we are supposed to look for the next new thing. the next science paper may be the next new thing and it may not be.

one paper is not science. you know this very well. i am preaching to you. but governments have worked out ways to find out what the scientists know with the public watching in the public good. it is a fantastic story. , lincolne civil war signs the document for the national academy of sciences that makes them the advisors to the nation on matters scientific. then we have the national academy of sciences during the institute of medicine as well. the civil war breaks out. what happened, the u.s. navy is now splintered. some of the ships sail out of the cell and some of them get burned. one of them that got burned was a virginia, the merrimack. they burned it. they take her into battle and they are trashing the union. then the monitor comes to fight the merrimack.

everyone in the world is building ironclad ships. you just put giant slabs of metal next to your compass or he -- compass. which way is north? they call the national academy of sciences and they say, how do we find north? these people are trying to sell you this. it does not work. these people are trying to sell you this. it does not work. this one does. to this day, the academy gets the full range of use scientifically. gets them to sit in the public eye for the public good without paying them. when the mid-1970's people were saying, is it going to get warmer or colder? newsweek ran an inflammatory disease -- piece about getting colder. in the late 1970's, they said it was going to get warmer. they have said it was going to get warmer ever since.

when george bush was elected president, he said the academy would tell us what has going on. they got a most prominent scientist that has been skeptical about this. that scientists said, we are making it warmer. the difference between one paper and the assessed science coming out of the national academy of sciences, the panel on climate change, be wary of the next paper. look for the voice of science pulling together what is known in the public eye. [applause] >> i am sorry for the people who did not get to ask their questions, but we are out of time. i would just like to thank this fabulous panel. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> tuesday night, starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, we will hear from celebrity activist, including musician elton john, actor ben affleck, and ducked honesty -- "duck dynasty's" phil robertson. here is a preview. >> he is saying jesus was here. you are counting time by jesus of galilee, including the elites in the crowd. we are all counting time by it. do you know what he did? one who the cosmos was created. died on the cross to take your sins. three days later, raised from

the dead. problem.es your grave the reservation takes care of your fear of dying. you say, there is a way off planet earth alive. you got a better story? lay it on me. all of these -isms, atheism, agnosticism, humanism, idealism, naturalism, what is all that about? trying to get around what i just told you. >> there was a time when i thought it would be impossible to be out. 18 months ago, with the help of your love and support, i shared my story. me.ything changed for i am still feeling the effects of that moment today.

and i know how lucky i am to be in this position. i acutely remember the pain i was in before i was out. been able to experience a lot of things for the first time in the last 1.5 years. having my arms wrapped around my girlfriend, samantha, while we walked down the street. [applause] holding her hand on the red carpet, kissing her in the ocean while we serve -- surf. yes, she has taught me to surf. and getting to say, in public, i am in love. >> that was actress ellen page at a human rights campaign event. we will hear from other celebrity activist, including elton john, ben affleck, and phil robertson.

that is tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> on the next "washington journal," a preview of the obama administration's final year in office. and what the president's role will be. after that, a democratic consultant and republican strategist examines the political year ahead and what to expect from the presidential race. plus, your phone calls, facebook comment, and tweets. >> as 2015 reps of, c-span resents -- wraps up, c-span presents congress, year in

review. mitchs as we revisit mcconnell taking his position as senate majority leader, the president historic address to a thet session of congress, resignation of house speaker john boehner and the election of paul ryan, the debate over the nuclear deal with iran, and reaction from congress on mass shootings here and abroad, gun control, terrorism, and the rise of isis. "congress: year in review," thursday on c-span. >> now, former federal reserve chair alan spent talked about expanding the visa program, interest rates, and the economy. he spoke to the council on foreign relations in new york city.

>> welcome, folks. thanks. >> welcome to you. >> yes. a little work to do. thanks for asking me to be in this great spot here moderating a panel with dr. greenspan after the historic decision yesterday. alan greenspan needs no introduction, was the federal reserve chair from 1987-2006. he served under four presidents, was on the 1983 panel that reformed social security. i think we'll talk a little bit about entitlements this morning. also was the economic adviser to president ford and made a very, very important decision sometime in the early 1960's i think not to be a professional jazz musician. was that the 1950's, alan? >> i hate to tell you when that was. 1945. >> i was giving you the benefit of the doubt there, young man. >> you also were factually inaccurate. [laughter] >> alan, i want to turn immediately to the news from yesterday. i know you have some reluctance to talk about the fed comment on the current policy but if you would, give me your reaction