 Monday, 11 o'clock rock here in Tink Tech and today we have community matters but it's really all about science it's about the march for science and it's part one because we have one at 11 o'clock with some guests and another one part two at noon with other guests so this is a role of science for society with Dr. Philip Johnson at my left Dr. Joe Mobley between and Dr. Helen Spafford at at his left okay and let me make short introductions but I'm sort of relying on you guys to give more information okay Dr. Philip Johnson is a professor in computer sciences at the information computer science department in UH. Yes I am okay that's it good enough okay Joe Mobley is a professor of nursing in the nursing school but he's actually a psychologist that's right okay and that's very important for this discussion and Helen Spafford is an assistant professor a plant whoops assistant associate professor and chair of the Department of Plant Environmental Protection at CITAR welcome to the show thank you so we're going to talk about Earth Day Earth Day is happening on Saturday and I guess in the afternoon it is very important a lot of people are coming together this is a statement of enormous proportions from the University and for the community and actually it will have national visibility tell me about it how to get started I think shortly after the inauguration there was a movement to create a march for science in Washington and then it kind of went viral as you might say and I think at this point over there's over 500 satellite marches all across the world and maybe two months ago there was a very small meeting with I guess you guys were there right at the first one you know maybe five of us now we have over a hundred people helping to put together the Honolulu version of the March for Science yeah well you know if I'm just all the time for example last week in the LA LA ambassador program where the university including the president goes down to the convention center and they talk about bringing big conferences big scientific conferences here and you start to get the feeling that in fact I already had the feeling but get the feeling that UH is a national international organization and it's known around the world and it's considered a center of excellence in science that's short form and so there has to be a lot of people at UH in Manoa and surrounding Manoa who care a lot about science especially earth science natural science who are going to be very enthusiastic very involved in this program how did you get involved Joe well I have a history of being sort of a rabble rouser I was involved in the divestment whole movement at UH we were went to the border regions and got them to divest scholarship money from fossil fuels so my interest in the whole climate movement you know goes back a couple of years and then when this election came along and suddenly they're dismantling all of the you know the web-based information about climate that the Obama administration put up there and putting up you know a climate deniers head of the EPA and even talking about dismantling the EPA I mean I just couldn't stand this seemed a natural outlet for taking out my frustration and yeah so it's just it's just grown from there yeah how about you how did you get involved just exactly how passionate are you about this well passionate enough to be the lead organizer of the event so I got involved because as Philip said that there was a national March being organized and I started following the the Twitter feed on on the national March site and I was looking at who is making comments and I was making comments to try and connect with people to see if something was being organized in Honolulu or in Hawaii and so connected with a few people from there and and then we decided well let's just start organizing it so so we put together a Facebook page and a Twitter account and then we connected with another group on campus that was also having similar conversations and the two groups merged and then it just kind of bloomed from there I'm sure I mean because everybody in town everybody at Manoa and everybody in the community that knows about Manoa has any contact with Manoa is going to be very excited about this yeah and I just want to emphasize that this isn't necessarily as solely a UH Manoa event we actually have people on the organizing committee who are not part of UH Manoa and who are not scientists that we have concerned citizens in the organizing groups we have lawyers, law students, we have a number of people who are just concerned about science in general and the future of science in not only Hawaii but in in the world yeah well it does stand for the proposition that that you don't have to be a scientist to know that climate change is real and you don't have to be a scientist to know that climate denial is ridiculous. You can quote me on that. So what are the facts? I mean where, when, who, how, what's going to happen? So there are actually four marches in the state of Hawaii. The Honolulu event we're holding on Earth Day on April 22nd and we'll have a rally that starts at 3 p.m. at the UH Manoa campus on Bachman lawn which is the corner of Dole and University Avenue. Are we going to be able to do parking? Yes, yes, parking anywhere in Honolulu is a big question. There is a parking garage off Lower Campus Road that will be available for a fee for people to go and park and then so the rally starts at 3 p.m. and we'll have activities and booths and tables and speakers at the rally and then scientific speakers and scientists you guys some scientists but also some non-scientists as well we have for example Chris Lee from the state legislature coming in and speaking we have Mari Matsuda who's a law professor she will be speaking and then we have a number of scientists as well as well we have Hawaii's poet laureate Kealoha doing Slam Poetry. By the way got his degree in nuclear physics at MIT. From nuclear physics at MIT to Slam. So he's yeah so he's a very good example of the power of catching all the bases. And so then at 4 that's when the march begins and and Joe here is going to be leading the march down University Avenue and then we're doing a loop and back up University Avenue so the march itself is just over a mile long and then there's music and you know activities and things for people to participate and and food trucks. So how long is this the whole procedure? So we're envisioning you know the rally will start at 3 till about 6 p.m. Okay but it may last longer. It may last a little bit longer. So Joe you mentioned before that you take these things seriously in fact you're kind of an activist philosophical activist anyway. A recent activist. Have you lived a lot of parades because you know none of us have not had that experience just yet. This will be my first leading parade. How does it feel? Well it's pretty cool. I like the idea but you know it's definitely a group effort. As far as leadership she's been the main one I'm just a figurehead. I'm like the queen of England. What do you do though? You have a white horse and some kind of no better than that we have a banner. We have a two-man banner up front and just making sure that you know along the way that you know everybody's taken care of but you know we're anticipating a lot of people so the HPD has been kind enough to block off a lane for us there are two lanes in fact and we'll have people at each intersection to make sure people cross safely so it's a well-thought-out deal and I want to put a shout out to City and County Department Transportation who did an excellent job in setting things up for us and a remarkable case of functional bureaucracy. In one meeting they had everything all laid out. It's an important thing that's why. It is a public safety. We've actually had nothing but support from almost anybody we've contacted. The UH administration has been extremely helpful to us. We've talked with people from Hawaii Pacific University, Shamanad, local high-tech community so this isn't up. We like to say this is a nonpartisan event so you can have conservatives who believe in science as a way to produce evidence that helps policymaking. You can have liberals that believe that same thing and so this march is really and it's also you know transcends just for example the climate change issue. The current administration for example proposed a cut of six billion dollars to the NIH which would effectively cut off all new research in health so you know these are the kinds of things where we feel people of all kind of political persuasions can come together and say wait a second I like research on cancer. That's a good thing. We're hoping that this can be a movement that can really bring people together to say you know science is a great thing. It really helps society along so many dimensions and that as Americans we want to stand up and global citizens even stand up and say this is a really important technique that humans have evolved to figure things out about how to make things better for themselves and for the other you know plants and animals. So you mentioned that you know every sector in the community is behind this you know we have a community that sometimes people don't vote sometimes they don't read the paper only one. Yeah you know sometimes they don't get involved in community issues national issues especially or global issues why is it you know just extend your comments a minute ago why is it that now we have such support from so many places in this community. Well I think Hawaii the people in Hawaii at least in my experience they're very attuned to the natural environment and they're very attuned to the specialness of this place and they're very attuned to the threats to this place because we are a small island and we see the impacts of things and so perhaps this is an issue that unlike other ones people look at and say this is you know this really directly affects me. Yeah especially in a place where where sea level rise will will affect our lives and where you know pandemics could affect us any day right yeah yeah. So at the parade I mean are you going to have slogans because I like to sort of adapt myself adjust myself to them now songs slogans a chance if you will have you figured that out because you haven't we can spend a few minutes right after the show. We have been having these sign making workshops that have been ongoing all week and so everyone will have their own and all that we've asked people to do is just be mindful that this is a family event so you know nothing nasty aim towards any individual but anything that kind of represents you know all the broad array of issues here my favorite one was alternative facts equals the square root of negative one it's nerd humor yeah isn't that great but that's that's just an example but you know mainly you know to me the broader issue is the undermining of truth and so this gives you a broad array of things it's not just science but the whole issue of truth in general how many people can you can you take in this parade and how many people would you like to have and what do you expect will be the crowd we're thinking that there probably be any way between a thousand to three thousand but if there's more it could be surprise we would love that I mean quite honestly you know our feeling is that anyone who feels that what happens with science or values science whatever they connect with and want to see continue they should come and that's pretty much everybody so if you turn on a light switch there's science that has gone into that process of turning on a light switch if you have a cell phone and you value that and you want to see those kinds of technologies and innovations continue then you should come because this is what we're wanting to support is this this continued support of research and advocacy for science do you think there's anybody in this community would not agree is there a counter movement of some kind no no we deny that well if they do and they tweet about it then they're kind of in contradiction with an avalanche okay we're gonna take a short break that's Spafford and Joe Mowdy and Philip Johnson and all professors and assistant professors at UH Manoa they're all heavily involved in Earth Day in the March for Science which is this Saturday the 22nd of April and right after this break we're gonna talk about exactly how science works in our society that's what I really want to get to we'll be right back Aloha I'm senator Russell Ruderman representing Pune and Ka'u on the Big Island and the host of the Ruderman Roundtable we're here at Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at two o'clock you can join us on ThinkTechHawaii.com and you can find links to our YouTube channel for past episodes there I want to thank Think Tech Hawaii for hosting us and we'll see you again on the Ruderman Roundtable Mahalo hi I'm Steven Philip Katz I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist in Hawaii and I do a show called Shrink Wrap Hawaii where shrinks and sometimes other people come on and talk about the art and science of psychology talking to people relationships and so if you are curious about shrinks and want to be shrunk and don't know where to go tune into Shrink Wrap Hawaii all right all right if you're if you're looking for community matters you're in the right place and this is the March for Science on Earth Day on Saturday the 22nd of April with Helens Bafford and Joe Mobley and Phil Johnson all from UH all going to be there all excited about it and I would like to talk about the role of science in society this is an important overarching question but first I want to ask you what you intend to achieve we know that you'll be there and people will be excited but how do you want to shape or reshape public opinion on science this Saturday what do you want to do well I think the big part is not so much reshaping public opinion because people are always going to have their different opinions about different things but it's really about bringing the community together and creating a community of advocates for science and so as people come to the March they'll have the opportunity to sign up if they want to continue to be involved in science advocacy in the future and and it's also about bringing people together to have the conversation and to stand shoulder to shoulder with others who also think that science is important and want to see you know science education continues funding for scientific research continue and evidence-based decision-making happen in the highest levels of government in addition to the food trucks I don't know how many 20 30 40 different organizations at table so you should come to the March not only to March and make your voice heard but also because this is a fantastic opportunity to learn about many many science-based organizations in Hawaii and find the one that you want to support so it would be fantastic if all of these thousand thousands of people who come on Saturday pick just one organization out of those there and say I'm gonna volunteer and help you I love it you know adopt adopted department adopt the school that you had you know back in the early 2000s it was a popular bumper sticker on a member it said have you hugged your researcher today I mean let's let's reel this all back to DaVinci or something you know and I was talking to you guys about this PBS thing I saw about coming out of the Rift Valley in East Africa and migrating around the world and our species has been very successful and what's the relationship of that success in science and what is the relationship now of that success in science and the survival of the species still go first well that's a tall order I guess you know going back several thousand years you might find one person whose opinion you trusted and they might say whatever they say about the world and you would have to believe it and science arose as a way of a social process that enabled people to work together to produce reproducible findings so you would no longer have to rely on just one person as being the source of truth but you could create a mechanism whereby hundreds or thousands of people could reproduce the same finding and then you'd have much greater faith in that statement about the world because it could be replicated and it could be reviewed by so many different people so science is a very social process science doesn't always get it perfect but what happens with science over a certain period of time is that so many people follow a procedure and come to the same conclusion and gather the same kind of data that makes it vanishingly unlikely that that's not true and I think climate change is one of those situations where there has been so much evidence amassed by so many different people that despite the fact that you can go to some sites and find you know a hundred people or something that that who maybe aren't even climatologists who kind of come to some different conclusion but the vast majority of the reviewed knowledge supports a given outcome and I think that's really important for society that we don't have to just trust a political leader or you know any one person to kind of state what reality is but we have a process whereby over time we can continue to mass evidence to help us understand what's what's actually happening and the most important truth of all you feel the same way or you disagree no I agree go back to the roots of empiricism and you know ancient Greece it was about verifiability and falsifiability maybe otherwise you have different opinions that can never be you know worked out but with positivism you know the idea that you know if something exists it can be verified falsified and then other people agree with that and you know there's the elevation of truth and that is the you know the basis of any civilization you have to have something that can be agreed upon the social compact yeah the scientific or factual contact yeah but now there seems to be reversal of that so that anyone who has something an opinion that resonates with people that becomes truth and so my whole reaction to this has just been you know I've been appalled at how you know the truth has been devalued to the point where anybody's version can be lifted up and then suddenly becomes the idea of the day and to me this is a much bigger deal than just you know hug your favorite researcher yeah it's about you know bringing truth back you know you know in journalism and everything you know it's the thing about science is that it's of all the disciplines it has all the different approaches to knowledge you know it has an established way of a protocol for establishing truth and it elevates it more probably than any other pursuit but it's that to me is the key issue it's taken us farther than any other human endeavor hasn't right we've learned about finding the truth finding the methodology testing the truth making the truth work for us and if you want to make America great you got to be elevating that you've been that's that's the root I thought we were great actually well we can be greater Helen you know what what does this mean to Hawaii now Hawaii has has great science at UH I mean nobody will deny that we have people coming from everywhere telling us that and and this show we we talked to people every single Monday we talked about the research that's going on especially in earth science but once in a while computer science and you know and we have learned that this is a place of excellence but what does this what does it mean these these problems these concepts these problems of truth the determination of truth what does it mean here especially for us in this place I think I think in Hawaii probably more so than or especially reliance on evidence and and factual decision-making is really important because Hawaii faces some critical issues now probably in a more what's the word severe way in terms of climate change in terms of long-term sustainability in terms of don't forget tropical infectious diseases tropical infectious diseases you know then then many other parts of the country are going to face a lot of what we see or we're concerned about for the future is going to happen in Hawaii first and so we really need to address these problems immediately in in our state we can't afford to wait because we're going to see the effects of these things probably first yeah yeah and Philip you know you're a data man I know that yeah because every computer science is a data man what we had but data you know you know get find out the truth of the data so to speak so are you collecting data on who is going to come are you collecting data on doing you know maybe a little social media with the people who come and helping them do social media with the people who didn't come are you going to do that funny you asked that question Jay there there have been a variety of discussions amongst the organizing committee about how are we going to measure how many people are at the March and we thought of lots of different things but we finally decided drones so so one of my colleagues Kim Binstead who you might know project on the big island yes and Mars exploration she will be flying a drone during the March so that we can get some aerial photos and use that to try to get a good count on the tenants yeah yeah you think that Washington might dispute the exact number of people never mind I also want to know you know how you expect people will reach out afterwards in other words you know this event is it's local and the most people there are going to be local I think but you want them to speak out you want them to speak to others how can they best do that who should they write to how should they use you know the technology to get the word out from Hawaii because people do have people in the mainland elsewhere have a lot of regard for Hawaii Hawaii's affinity with science so how do we get that message out I think well that I think the key is to act locally as well so yet communicating with our state legislators and lawmakers but also reaching out to our federal representatives as well is really really important and we are encouraging advocacy so keeping track of what what bills are being put forth what referendums and things like that are being put forward is is important we want to see Hawaii's citizens be engaged in the process okay take a minute and tell the camera one over there what you want them to say just to slip into their shoes for a minute and speak for them science is important funding for science is important and evidence-based decision-making is important that's very succinct but passionate okay how about Joe what would you say to them the people out there who will get the message here that any democracy rests on the importance of truth and anything that undermines truth undermines that democracy a free society most have truth this is important feel your clothes get involved in the Hawaii state science fair it's happening I just I just was a judge last week for the science fair and it is the most inspiring positive experience I think I have all year and I leave it with a newfound hope for the future of Hawaii to see these young people who are so passionate about science and who are inspired about learning as a result of engaging with science and the scientific process so if if anything comes out of this if there are twice as many students involved in science fair that would be a great outcome for me that's great I agree with all these guys that's what think tech is about it's about tech it's about energy which is kind of tech isn't it it's about global awareness it's about diversification of a mono economy it's about making those kids sing and having them express their certain themselves to the state and to the world and come back and live with us and help us survive any disagreement no okay that being the case this meeting is concluded thank you so much everybody