Transcript

TEDxSwarthmore - Amy Cheng Vollmer - The Role of Science and Science Literacy

[Applause] I'm going to take my stab at talking about a good Society based on learning from the best teacher nature I hope to convince you by the end of my talk that it is everyone's Collective respon Collective responsibility to help promote science and science literacy as the best teacher let's look what Nature has taught us some of the best societies we've studied are social insects bees ants they have Specialists among them who take on unique roles in the society later on I'll talk about the fact that these Specialists can only do their jobs well if they function at a high level and they communicate between the specialized groups when an ant com Colony suffers an upset all of the players abandon their normal routine and follow a program that allows them to rebuild the colony or reestablish a new colony in biology a field that I know best there are many levels of specialization and from each we can learn important lessons at the cellular level my best study system bacteria are the premier chemists of our world here you see a picture of bacteria taking over the surface of an inanimate object by doing that they're laying down a complex Matrix the likes of which the adhesive properties um require Heavy Artillery such as what your dental hygienists use to get the plaque off of your teeth in the right panel you see chloroplasts derived originally from cyano bacteria but functioning in plant cells to harness the energy from the Sun take CO2 something that we cannot use and produce sugar that's a true specialist probably the most specialized cell I can think of that we're familiar with are neurons in fact for many years people debated whether neurons were cells their processes were so tiny and so difficult to see by microscopy that it had to be Ramon kahal who developed the stain the allowed us to visualize and show that these were cells for the first time but what's more remarkable about a neuron that can receive information and deliver information is the fact that they can be organized into networks and in some some animals that's all there are networks of neurons that allow them to do complex behaviors but in us we reach the organ level where neurons are organized into specialized domains in the brain Each of which has a particular function and of course we learn about those functions often times when something goes wrong but we can also look at plants we saw um evidence of the the banion tree roots that show most trees don't show their Roots like that and when you look at a tree it certainly doesn't end where it meets the soil perhaps some of you have been in the area where there's a tree that's come down down and the first thing you say is wow that's a lot of biomass right and all that biomass came from Individual chloroplasts taking individual carbons from CO2 and stringing them together and making little carbon compounds that made bigger carbon compounds that made a tree but more than that the part of the tree I'm really interested in is what's below the ground the part that interacts with the soil because of trees they they stabilize soil in many areas and we certainly have seen the result of what happens when you take away trees what happens to the ecosystem there so let's look at the organismal level of somebody something with a nerve net all right so anemone can capture prey doesn't even have a brain but it has a lot of organized neurons all right they're all specialized some detect the prey some contract the tentacles some bring the food in all right and some aid in digestion the chameleon which is one of my favorite animals all right does a lot of really cool things needs a brain to do that but one of the amazing things it does is capture prey with its very sticky tongue and then an ecosystem filled with Specialists how do they make an ecosystem there's give and take there's communication and especially when that ecosystem is suffering from stress it takes all members of the system to to re establish homeostasis after a stressful situation that requires intense amounts of communication and collaboration and finally the human body one of our favorite ecosystems you in fact are an ecosystem because in fact only 10% of the cells in you are human the rest are bacterial and before you want to all leave and go take a shower most of them are inside you and most of them are beneficial in fact they're probably the reason you're not home homesick in bed beyond that the genes that are responsible for you and your behavior only a fraction of them actually come from your big genome the rest of those genes and their products that affect your health and well-being come from your microbiome so be nice to it so communication you have Specialists they have to communicate to do their thing if a male copium moth never got together with a f female copium moths we wouldn't have anymore and they get together because of phermones right but bacteria also communicate my friend Bonnie Bassler at Princeton talks about bacteria communicating through the air these are two eoli one of which the hairy one is sharing its DNA with its recipient of course back to the brain the two hemispheres of the brain talk to each other through the Corpus kosum we know what happens when those ties are severed we also get communication by other modalities such as auditory modalities right auditory signals fabulous examples in nature bioluminescence V visual signals is uh a characteristics that's evolved many times independently throughout Evolution the glowing in the dark and sometimes a signal can have more than one audience so you see the yellow flowers that's what we see visually a perspective pollinator sees a much more welcoming Landing Pad all right so what does all this biology have to do with a good Society Amy well the human society is made up of a lot of Specialists think about the Specialists that interact that you interact with in your life and who impact your life every day but we're not just off in our own little worlds doing our thing we've got to work together as a group there are people who produce there are people who are in finance there are people in the service industry there are people in the education industry what I'd like to focus on for the rest of my talk is people who create now you're going to hear after me from John Alon who creates and you saw an example of Randy exxon's beautiful artwork in Rebecca's talk there are artists and musicians whom we all acknowledge create but some people might be surprised to to learn that scientists are creative the scientific process is AB absolutely creative and the thing is we often share our rough drafts with the with each other every model every paper is only as good as the latest data and you heard from Steven Wong it's all about the data and so the scientific process is a creative process people get inspiration just like artists and composers do all right and the process requires imagination all that thinking outside the box you hear of isn't just for business people it's for scientists as well and the process is iterative it's recursive all right as we go back and refine our uh hypothesis to test them Men new the key between scientists is communication and that's where we have what I believe is a problem today we have become so specialized that we talk with each other quite well we have a common experience we have common processes we have developed our common little language so much so that it's very difficult sometimes for us to communicate with people outside of our tribe right hence outside of our tribe there is often a lack of trust and an unhealthy skepticism that does not promote further discussion scientists communicate very well they communicate through peer peer-reviewed Publications two of the biggest ones science and nature they're written for other scientists but I find it difficult to read um outside of my field these days because of the jargon I can't even imagine what it would be like for a nine scientist to pick up science or nature and try to plow through a a genetics paper to be sure there are magazines and I've left many of them off that are written for the public but exactly who picks those up it's been shown in surveys most of them are picked up by scientists who want to read outside their field and they can't through get through science and nature outside their field so they pick up this so really that's not what we're after and there is so much worth knowing just just curiosity but also thinking of helping to think hard about how we can do good there are prehistoric findings there are things that benefit Modern Life we can talk about the acellular virus that affects us as well as subcellular ways of communicating we can assemble bones of a skull we can put together membrane channels that are selective about what they'll let in and what they'll let out and often the basis of disease there are things we have in common are 46 chromosomes and there are ways to describe diversity there are basic features that we learn about health and Agriculture and very quickly we can turn those into d disease and crop treatment and yet most of this is inaccessible to the public even among scientists it's hard to keep up with things going on in your own field much less in Allied fields and part of it is we we don't have a Common Language anymore so when we communicate when scientists communicating with non-scientists it's not anything new it's something that was noticed over 50 years years ago in a lecture and the problem is that we really need to collaborate to solve society's complex problems we have amazing technology we have to know what to do with it in an ethical and humanitarian manner Charles Percy snow gave a read lecture at Cambridge University in 1959 and he said I believe the intellectual life of the whole of Western Society is increasingly being split into two polar groups when I say the intellectual ual life I mean to include also a large part of our practical life literary intellectuals at one poll and at at the other scientists and he was actually this was a critique of the British educational system but I think what he says pertains to the greater uh Arena today in a reissue of his book of his lecture he uh had some thoughts four years later he says between the two a gulf of mutual in comprehension sometimes particularly among the young hostility and dislike but all um due to a lack of understanding and I contend a lack of compassion for one another if you had compassion for someone you wouldn't speak in a different language in front of them but that's what scientists are doing and yet here at Swarthmore we're all about improving the lives of the whole right right through humanitarian projects we have basic knowledge we look at application we're one of the few small colleges with a wonderful educa engineering program through Vehicles like Ted we're trying to think about these things as a group and not in individual silos right and we need to think about the application of these Technologies and and scientific content to problems that affect all of us in a way that is inclusive accessible and humane and sustainable there are things being done now to bridge the two cultures all right John Brockman wrote a book uh in the last decade urging scientists to communicate more broadly and as a result of that science cafes have popped up in many metropolitan areas my own attempt at Bridging the two cultures involved inviting my colleagues Intrepid individuals from other fields to come and work in the lab for mon out of the year the first two brave souls Philip Jefferson and Cheryl grood um taught me so much if you took into directory biology and you did the antibiotic lab you have them to thank they convinced me to take it out of my microbiology course and place it into General biology and what they said to me was Amy everybody should know about how antibiotics work and how resistance is transferred not just microbiology students so I did what they said they were followed by two more intrepid explorers Barbara msky some of you know is still here on campus Bruce Maxwell has moved on to become chair of Colby's computer science department I was flattered to see that after he worked in my lab he brought a group of Colby students back to campus the following year to present their results at a microbiology research Symposium and finally the bravest of them all came all by himself Tim Burke spent the summer part of the summer with me as you can see we have ecal treatment of faculty in my lab um but he and I initiated conversations about science as part of the liberal arts and a very important part of the liberal arts and so I look forward to continuing those conversations with the entire community so now it's SW Swarthmore what what now and what next I remind you although I love our current seal the former seal I believe is even more instructive there's a microscope a telescope and a book we need to be bridging these cultures faculty lectures I would invite more students and and non-science faculty to attend when a scientist is speaking as part of the lifelong studies I'm hoping to develop little science cafes that would be available for staff particularly who can't take the long uh lifelong studies courses um we need to find ways to build science literacy not only within our curriculum but in um ancillary activities we have great role models in our Swarthmore family Maxine singer among other things was awarded the national medal of Science in 1992 recognizing her efforts to promote Science Education in K through 12 she's had a distinguished career and is still one of my great role models many of you know Bennett lber he is currently on our Board of managers he to me is the renaissance man all right he used both sides of his brain equally well former Chief of infectious disease at Temple University he's still uh at temple on the faculty but he's an artist and a musician and a true renaissance man and through him we we uh came to know Abraham vges who to whom we bestowed an honorary degree um he kind of founded the area of Humane medicine and is now on the faculty at Stanford University and has written some really excellent novels they to me are examples of people who are in very specialized Fields who have reached out across many many boundaries okay we need to communicate with compassion you we've heard about empathy the speaker and the audience really have to give each other a chance all right and what we must avoid as we heard in the last talk was this idea of polarization and what we must demand in our communication is rigor we know how to do that here what's happening elsewhere there are wonderful books being written now that are accessible to the public and two of my favorite uh science Educators on TV are David Suzuki a Canadian geneticist who's on PBS and many of you are probably more familiar with Neil degrass Tyson who is an American astronomer they have uh really increased science literacy in their areas manyfold at Rice University Rebecca cardum um Rebecca Richards cardum has taken students all over the world and they were recently recognized for their development of a microscope that cost $240 that can diagnose malaria and TB in the field I'm finally going to highlight uh the Boston Arts Academy I happen to know the um head mistress and they have t changed stem into steam right they've put in the Arts as part of stem education because they believe the Arts are a strong link that helps us Bridge those cultures and you'll hear much more about the Arts from John Austin coming up so let's think about Building Bridges across these two cultures at Swarthmore okay I urge all of us to be part of that and while we're thinking about Building Bridges across these cultures let's think about some other cultures all right socioeconomic divides ethnic and racial divides gender differences that pull us apart doesn't have to be a bridge could be a fairy boat could be stepping stones whatever you like but most of all we need those bridges to be anchored in mutual respect and compassion without those we really can't have a conversation thank you [Applause]