 Hello, community matters here at noon on a given Monday and today we're excited in community matters to be reporting on the March for Science which is taking place this Saturday on the street all over, all over UH and all over other places too and our guests for this segment part two of this discussion on the March for Science to my left we have Mark Hickson where he is the Shire Endowed Professor of Marine Biology at the Department of Biology at UH Manoa. We have Priscilla Seaborn she's a master of science and a PhD student at the Department of Entomology at UH Manoa and Dr. Grant Yamashita he is an evolutionary biologist and consultant and he has assured us that if we have any questions he will consult with us about evolutionary biology. The problem is it takes 10,000 years. So you guys are all involved in planning and executing this March on April 22nd this Saturday. Talk about it. What have you done? What do you expect? Well this whole thing arose since the election and there's been great concern in the scientific community that's been growing for decades. So this was sort of the you know the spark that lit the flame for people to start self-organizing and a group of scientists and concerned citizens got together and said what can we do? In Washington DC they came up with the idea of a National March for Science and from that spraying almost 500 other marches and clean Honolulu and other islands and something like 40 nations now. I think it's over 50 now. It's outside the US. It's just a global statement about science. Yeah and it's you know it's the motivation is several fold one is just it's time to celebrate science. There's been so many amazing discoveries being made and and you know an actual natural national celebration for science would be a good idea. But then it's also in reaction to the growing denial and abuse of science that's been taking place again for decades but now seeming to reach a crescendo. Abuse is an interesting word. People abuse the truth. They come up with all science if you will. But that's an abuse to all of human knowledge isn't it? Absolutely. Well I mean I'm fascinated with this because I your comment especially about how it's been growing for a while it's not just the election of Donald Trump. No. It's been growing for a while there's been this sort of this separation of you know public thinking public opinion not only in this country but elsewhere and science. Why has that happened Mark? Why has that happened? Well my understanding is that most people are just fine with science and respect science respect scientists until there's a finding that conflicts with their worldview or conflicts with the dogma that they've been taught and then suddenly there's cognitive dissonance and it's typically easier to deny the science or attack the scientists than it is to change one's worldview because that's always a big change inside one's mind. It's like the bubble theory. You live in yours, I live in mine, never the twain we'll meet. Yeah and the thing about science is science being relatively objective and dispassionate will produce results that don't make anybody happy you know when we find that there's an environmental issue or that a chemical causes cancer or whatever it is you know we just have to report it that's what the science says and people are like I don't want to hear that especially if they're somebody who's producing that toxin or that problem. Well who will be affected by it or who would like to deny that they'll be affected by it. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, reality. So Priscilla you know what can you can you tell us the website by the way there's a hint on this March4scienceHawaii.com so can you tell us the website? What do you mean like what the website is? Well yeah there's a Facebook page, there's different ways to access it. I'm actually on the Facebook page because as you know a younger I guess student that's how I get you know most of my social media and it's I mean social media you know it can be a really good resource for things like this and that's actually how I learned about the March4science initially and then I found out my PI or principal investigator was also the organizer for it so I thought who is that? Dr. Helensbaffert. Okay we saw her last hour yeah. Yeah yeah so it's on Facebook they do have a website so. Would that be March4scienceHawaii.com? That's a good question. March4scienceHawaii.com. Where does March4scienceHawaii.com? Good to know. And what's on that website? There's gonna be information about the the different events like I said most of my information I got from Facebook and so that one actually has you know information about the event what it's about so the description and you can also RSVP to the event so it's a good way to kind of keep track of who else is gonna be there. I've actually been working on the website so I can tell you a little bit about what's actually on it. Today the information packet about the website just went online so you can download a 14 page information packet that will tell you everything from the the route of the March where all the parking is all the transportation options that you have who the speakers will be what activities there will be and a nice little coloring sheet at the end as well. A coloring sheet. A coloring sheet. Isn't every website needs a coloring sheet. So that's available today but we have information about our mission and principles things that we want to go on post-march we're calling it after the March and just information about the activities who all our endorsers and sponsors are just to keep everybody up to date about what's going on. You have a ton of endorsers and sponsors I've seen the list and we don't have enough time on this show to go through it but it's just suffice to say there are an awful lot of people organizations in this community that are supporting this march it's a well popular. So one thing we didn't get a chance to cover in the previous part one this is part two last hour is the Neighbor Islands there are marches sympathetic marches on the Neighbor Islands can you talk about it? Yes so right now there's officially there's a march in Kahului on Maui there's one in Lihue in Kauai and there's one in Hilo. The Hilo one is especially interesting because originally they were going to march on Saturday like everyone else but the Mary Monarch Festival is also there that weekend. Priorities. Right so instead they decided to move it to Friday evening the 21st and so we think that they'll actually be the first march around the world the first march for science march around the world and then they'll also be marching in the Mary Monarch Festival the next day and since our march will be in the evening on the 22nd we think we'll have the last march around the world so Hawaii will potentially be the first and last marches this coming weekend. I hope we get national coverage I think we will get national coverage but you said something about the world earlier Mark and this is very provocative you know that the world has this separation you spoke of that's not just Hawaii which I don't think Hawaii is very separate from science I think we are very respectful of science and understand it better than other places not not just the US but the world is having this separation and this therefore this march is as you say granted it's a global march it's in how many countries I think over 50 now 50 countries but what what what is happening here this is fairly remarkable we've had science since since the days of the caves you know the symbols on the walls of the caves were early science those guys figured out what they needed to figure out to survive and that was in its own way science somebody once said that domesticating a dog a wolf to be a dog that was science absolutely it was a tool absolutely to do things that people couldn't do but you know where have people shoved off on this why is this a global issue well I want to add also that the native Hawaiians were amazing scientists you know their knowledge of astronomy and natural ecosystems was just absolutely unprecedented for almost any culture so science has been with us since we've been humans there's no question about it there just seems to be this growing disconnect between what science is telling us and what people want to believe in their hearts you know you can think back all the way to Galileo when suddenly the earth was no longer the center of the universe and he had to run in with the church over that you know but it's that kind of thing but it just keeps growing but in the time of Galileo I think people were were amazed right with Galileo Da Vinci they were amazed that he came up with this stuff they were very respectful somewhere in recent years it's changed is that the media is it science itself has science failed to do the job it should have done in terms of socializing its work to the public scientists on average are not very good at communicating what they do except here except here right now of course all of us but yeah I mean there's that's always been a historical thing scientists tend to like just be focused on their science and that's all they want to do but more and more scientists are stepping up to communicate science efficiently to the public but in my experience having done this for decades now it doesn't matter how articulate I am or how accurate the science is there are people where they just won't let it come in a wall goes up because they seem to believe that their worldview is being violated or they've got a false dichotomy in their mind very typically you can have a healthy environment or you can have a healthy economy but you can't have both and so if anyone starts talking about environmental issues it's like forget it I've got a few more. When I went to school which was in well I hate to tell you what decade we had in school say the 50s and 60s okay we overlapped everybody he has more hair anyway everybody loved science everybody even the people in the social sciences loved science you know and it was you know it was it was it was going to make our lives better it was very clear and somewhere along the line things change and I'm interested in your comments especially the millennials among us if you will yeah yeah what happened to education here I feel like for me when I first started with my master's degree part of the learning experience was being able to even just read scientific papers you know they're kind of littered with scientific jargon and you know it took me one time four hours to read a paper because I was on google like trying to you know look up the words and what they even mean and just trying to put together and so I think in that sense you know we as scientists can make you know things a little bit more accessible so we put out a paper but also taking the step after that you know educating the public about it after you know finding different ways to you know look at our findings and give this to the public because most people I mean unless you're in a scientific you know based program you're probably not going to be looking at these papers you're not going to be looking on google you're going to be looking on facebook where a majority people you know get their information you know not that that's a bad thing but I think the problem is you know we have to find as scientists we have to find a way to make things more accessible for people so I'm actually part of an organization at UH it's called student immunization initiative or SII and part of our job is just to educate the general public about vaccines and you know give them information about a lot of misunderstanding yes yes and it's not to say that you know to make anyone feel you know ashamed or even you know you know feel bad about their beliefs but I feel like a lot of it is misinformation and so our job is to just very nicely educate the public like this is the data this is what the show what they show these are the safety concerns and so we kind of felt as a student body that you know what we need to take away that disconnect and make a connection to the public and help them to understand some of these papers and look at the scientific jargon and that way it's more accessible and so that's kind of something I've been a part of and that's been really good we've been very active as an organization are you succeeding yeah I think we are we have over the course of a year so I'm actually vice president of this organization and we have done over 17 events in a year what's it called your organization student immunization initiative and so this is student ran it's all grad students we also are recruiting undergrads to kind of join us and all of it is based off you know educating young students high school students educating mothers you know people of my generation we just want to get the science out there in a more accessible format so so this is a evolution everything goes back to evolution is that right so this is the evolution of science and I think we are recognizing because we have to that the public has to be socialized on this or the scientific initiative will be stunted somehow I actually think people still love sciences in the same way that they did in the 50s and 60s I agree yeah I think most people love science the way that they did that then I think you know if you ask them do do they love their computers or do they love lactose free milk you know it's it's science I think people understand that I think it's the proliferation of different kinds of news on the internet now I think that's been one of the issues that have maybe so you have so you have school where the teachers teach you about the good things about science and then you have the internet and the internet maybe is undermining what you're learning in school is that what you're saying maybe not undermining it but I think we have so many different avenues of news coming at us that sometimes it's it's it's hard to know which one is correct that's true which one is credible which one is just one of those fake news articles I wouldn't say everything is undermining the true science but we have so many different you know opinions that it's sometimes hard for the for even you know scientists to know which one was it and sometimes you just have to sit back for a little and and let it all settle and that's exactly why we take a break at 14 minutes after the hour yeah so we take a short break now so it can settle a little bit we come back we'll ask you tougher questions yet aloha i'm kawaii lucas host of hawaii is my mainland here on think tech hawaii every friday at 3 p.m we address issues and importance for those of us who live here on the most isolated land mass on the planet please come join me fridays at 3 p.m mahalo hello this is martin dispang i want to get you excited about my new show which is called humane architecture for hawaii and beyond and it's going to be on think tech hawaii from downtown honolulu on tuesday afternoons 5 p.m and we're going to talk about uh to make architecture more inclusive on the islands which is what you which was one of the definitions of humane which is being tolerant of you know many people of nature of many other influences so we're going to have some great guests like today's guest for example my collaborator david rockwood who's the author of the awesome manifestation of humane architecture in the background so see you on tuesdays 5 p.m i look forward to the community matter is back we're live the march for science it's on april 22nd this saturday at u.h manoa and elsewhere and the one in what was it the big island yeah helo is going to be the the day before the night before well so and we have three guests here we have uh mark hixon he's the chow and endowed professor of marine biology department of biology u.h manoa versilla seaboard she's a master of science and a phd student at the department of entomology at u.h manoa well she's involved in this uh initiative initiative for yeah vaccinations yeah and dr grant yamashita evolutionary biologist and also consultant and he promised to consult with us today so let's you you wanted to add something mark to what we were talking about just for the break yeah this question about you know what's happened recently where suddenly this disconnect has occurred between science and society in some ways and you know for the average citizen i think it's what i said before that sometimes scientific findings come up against one's worldview and it's difficult to accept that shift the other big factor here no question is when scientific findings conflict with what a corporation wants so you can imagine well i'm an old one that happened a long time ago was cigarettes and cancer there you go you know so that was way before the present political situation but the tobacco companies poured thousands and millions of dollars into saying no there's no problem with smoking tobacco and cancer and and it just took forever it seemed to finally break through that and bring about the change yeah but they were you know degrading science and scientists and purchasing their own sciences scientists um and that sort of thing continues here's one brand new example it hasn't even really hit the headlines much yet but it was recently found that the active ingredients in sunscreen oxybenzone is has very negative effects on corals i bet the sunscreen companies aren't very happy about that finding but it's a fact it's a truth we must change our sunscreens and it's not going to be difficult to do so same thing happened with the ozone layer back in the 1980s fortunately changing those refrigerant chemicals wasn't that difficult so there wasn't a big outcry now you come to climate change major major sea change must take place in our energy sources and the powers that be in the fossil fuel industry don't want that so it's well documented that they've put millions of dollars into denying the science delaying action and this is one of the big issues we face no question yeah and that's why i think this this march the march for science and the whole event that you guys are involved in it came out of trump that's the reality but it's also a statement of more it's a statement of you guys have got to get used to science you've got to accept science you know all these conferences conventions are credible uh what they're publishing is credible and you can tell how credible it is do not oppose that do not let special interest groups lie to you um as they have been doing let's respect what we know and and i think um so there's another message there isn't there it's not just that the government should you know stop with this uh denying climate change this is the government has to respect science we all we all we all have to know the issue and respect the science thank you for that point thank you so um let's let's talk about your individual uh disciplines to start with you grant your evolutionary biologist i i mean i it's a fabulous area it's it's so provocative and so it strikes the imagination right how can you live with yourself um it's sometimes it's hard ask my wife so i'm i so i'm an evolutionary biologist by training but my my interests have always been in the history and philosophy of science what is the relationship to the discipline of evolution to you know um the history of science philosophy of science so i think what what mark was just talking about is something interesting about what historians of science can actually do right um neomio reskes right her you know um historian of science at harvard her book the merchants of doubt you know it was all about the tobacco industry all about climate change and all the all the corporate work that went into denying connections between the science and what was actually going on i look at somebody that i work with closely dr g in mind shine at arizona state you know she her her work is on the history of embryology so thinking about you know thinking about looking at the history of embryology the evolution of of embryos from you know millions and millions of years ago what can that tell us about um embryos as they pertain to you know abortion rights and and women's rights and stuff like that so uh i think history of science and philosophy of science can actually tell us a ton about policies you know that we had we hadn't really really thought about because there's a way of connecting science to the past that i think is important for current problems and future problems as well yeah you can you track human development by science yes human advances are most accurately reflected in advances in science don't you think yeah i think so we can have wars but that's not much of an advance what about you priscilla what you know what what's your of course the vaccinations are important yeah there are a lot of people out there who deny the value of vaccinations a lot of people out there who deny the risk of pandemic yeah and yet we live in a world of potential pandemic every day yeah very true very true so my history um so i got my master's degree at department of tropical medicine at jabsum and so there i learned about different things like infectious disease we were introduced about you know different vaccines and how to prevent certain pandemics things like that and and we also got introduced into yeah like there are people that um do not want vaccinations unfortunately and do kind of deny the science unfortunately and they think um there's an issue with safety um things like that and so my that was kind of my history is just looking at infectious disease and now that i'm at you know entomology department of entomology so i'm focusing more now on the vectors of disease so mosquitoes particularly and you know one of the things that's been on nationwide news is you know things like zika and really what just last year we had a dengue outbreak on big island so it's important to study um one infectious disease but also the vectors um and so that's kind of my background but um you know i do i do feel very passionate about vaccines and just you know informing people and just giving them the right information so they can make these decisions for their family so it's a really interesting question because the world is a much smaller place i mean we we could have Ebola everywhere if we don't watch out well and like zika yeah the globalization of the humans really has allowed for i mean hawaii actually has no native mosquitoes we are not an island that um hawaii is not somewhere that you know all of the mosquitoes that are currently present have been through invasive um invasive uh occurrences and so you know that happened via globalization you know the fact that we have planes so yeah you're right it's very easy to have um a pandemic more now than it was say even 10 years ago yes and a body flying hither and yon everything is connected even places that weren't connected before exactly and these these vectors can be established uh virtually overnight i saw a piece recently about Ebola and there were a lot of people in Africa who didn't think that the uh you know the that the treatment was necessary and they would break through the the quarantine um and of course that that had to be stopped and so i you know i i offer you this thought sometimes you have an intersection of disease prevention you know what you do and the law sometimes you must say no you you can't cross that line yeah you must have your child vaccinated yeah no you must take the medicine yeah no you must cooperate with us in in saving this particular community or society from a given disease yeah especially we haven't really got there yet though you know yeah well especially when the given disease can be very um you know detrimental to you know majority of the population is that's i think something where that comes into issue and but hopefully you know if we can just continue educating people it won't have to be something that you know is mandated but people just say yeah i you know want to get vaccinated because you know you know the scientific data has shown that it's important and it's safe and it does prevent you know outbreaks like things like measles you know so i feel like we as i said earlier assigned is we have to educate people and we have to just kind of keep doing that you know i would i would make laws that would have sanctions because some people are uneducable yeah yeah there yeah there are people that are unapproachable when it comes to this and they have third like you said we have world people that have worldviews and it's very hard to um educate them and also just persuade them that you know hey there is an issue with your worldview and it doesn't kind of you know balance out with science but that's a hard that's a hard subject to tackle because i i've actually had you know communications with um anti-vaxxers and you know for the most part um there's i've had a friend that you know we did educate her and she was able to understand and you know i approached it from a very nice point of view and just said you know what are your questions what are some concerns you have and let me show you the information you know i didn't attack her but um but i've also had interactions where it was like talking to a wall and i kind of you know just had to stop so i leave you with the most difficult question of all that's good this is not an option science is not an option we have nearly 10 billion people i get that number right on the on the planet today over seven seven okay we're climbing we're climbing okay and um you know they're all at risk our our societies at risk our infrastructures are at risk all the delicate systems by which we live are at risk and if we don't listen to science billions of us are going to die i'd like you to comment the risk of ignoring science is incalculable it's immense it's incredibly immense the issues we're facing now with a number of people on this planet are so extreme and starting to accelerate so rapidly that if science is ignored and delay is met it is going to cost our children and grandchildren dearly and that's why i'm marching for science i have two grandchildren and it's all about them and it's heartbreaking for me to see what's going on now at their ages of four months and four years so um yeah i agree with you at the same time it's it's it's very important not to paint a picture of gloom and doom we can change things on a dime if we choose to i mean it's very similar to when the us decided to go to the moon turned on a dime amazing technological and scientific achievements national pride and just such cool science so we can do this and it's just a matter of the people demanding it the people must demand it the powers that be the corporations are not going to go quietly into the night although some of the more imaginative and creative and ethical ones are saying wow we need to change okay we'll change in some direction it needs to become a movement what joanna massey calls the great turning we must have the great turning well the great turning is implicit in the in the march for science on saturday april 22nd at uh and elsewhere in the state and i i'm i'm grateful for you guys for setting it up for being there for coming down today and talking about it mark priscilla grant thank you so much thank you thank you thank you for having us