Conversations in Science with Dan Rather and Daniel Colón-Ramos: Encouraging Scientific Exploration

Top

00:00:00:15 (calm electronic music)
00:00:08:03 - I will define scientist as people that produce knowledge.
00:00:12:17 (calm electronic music)
00:00:16:02 They try to see beyond what we assume
00:00:19:07 is the reality that we're exposed to.
00:00:21:25 That's what the scientist does.
00:00:23:06 It pushes knowledge by visiting assumptions and biases
00:00:27:01 and making sure
00:00:28:13 that those assumptions and biases don't blind us
00:00:31:03 to the reality, to the truth.
00:00:33:10 (calm electronic music)
00:00:39:11 - Doctor, thank you very much for doing this.
00:00:41:12 - Thank you, thank you Dan Rather.
00:00:42:18 - But first of all, I want you to tell me a story.
00:00:44:26 Tell me your story.
00:00:46:29 - I was born and raised in Puerto Rico.
00:00:49:23 I grew up in what I considered as a child
00:00:52:18 a tropical paradise.
00:00:54:21 I grew up watching ants self-organize
00:00:58:00 and going to their ant-holes and haunt
00:01:00:10 and wondering how does that happen?
00:01:02:02 Or looking at sea turtles when they come
00:01:04:29 and lay their eggs
00:01:07:01 and the baby turtles hatch out
00:01:09:00 and then they go into the ocean,
00:01:10:07 wondering how does that happen?
00:01:12:11 And that curiosity led me
00:01:16:03 to where I am today,
00:01:17:13 which is I'm a scientist here
00:01:20:10 at Yale University, where we're conducting this interview.
00:01:24:11 And I study how,
00:01:26:27 essentially what can be described as how memories form.
00:01:30:10 So when you think about
00:01:35:03 the image of your parents
00:01:37:02 or your first kiss.
00:01:39:23 That very intimate memories that make us who we are.
00:01:42:04 What are they?
00:01:45:25 How is our brain able to
00:01:48:07 recall those moments with the emotions and everything?
00:01:51:19 How does that happen?
00:01:53:19 And I'm not the only person
00:01:55:10 interested in that question, by the way.
00:01:56:12 There are many scientists, for a long time,
00:01:58:10 have an interest in that question.
00:02:00:04 And from that work, we know,
00:02:01:16 from the work of those many people,
00:02:03:25 we know that the nervous system, the brain,
00:02:05:15 is very important for that
00:02:06:15 and that the brain is made out of cells
00:02:09:25 call neurons,
00:02:11:20 and that the neurons talk to each other
00:02:13:09 through connections we call synapses.
00:02:15:14 The names are not important
00:02:16:15 but they're these connections
00:02:17:12 that are made very precisely between cells.
00:02:19:12 And what I do is I study how those connections are made.
00:02:22:24 So how do cells find each other and connect each other
00:02:26:15 so that you and I can have this conversation?
00:02:28:25 And
00:02:30:29 what are your sound waves that my mouth are making?
00:02:33:07 They can get transform into ideas and thoughts
00:02:38:28 and our brains all of a sudden are communicating.
00:02:40:10 So that's what I do.
00:02:42:05 - At roughly what age did you say to yourself,
00:02:44:14 I think maybe I want to dedicate my life to science?
00:02:47:22 You know Dan, I will actually argue
00:02:50:02 that we are all born scientist.
00:02:54:00 So I have four little kids
00:02:56:18 and I've been watching them and their classmates.
00:03:00:08 And I've seen my kids decipher language
00:03:03:16 and learn about the environment.
00:03:05:09 And I will say that
00:03:06:29 those interests that they have, that innate curiosity
00:03:09:14 that all human beings share.
00:03:12:00 That's what makes scientist scientist.
00:03:15:17 In my case, I was one of those fastidious kids
00:03:18:21 that was always asking questions in class.
00:03:21:03 And so in my case, I continued to ask questions,
00:03:23:01 and that's what I do today.
00:03:24:13 But I will argue that
00:03:26:06 we all have that scientific instinct.
00:03:28:21 - We all have that scientific instinct,
00:03:30:23 and you said earlier,
00:03:32:09 in a way, everybody's born a scientist.
00:03:35:08 Then why is it that so many people,
00:03:38:22 including myself in my younger years,
00:03:41:15 have a fear of science
00:03:43:00 and sees science and scientists as a world apart.
00:03:47:11 Why is that?
00:03:48:08 - I include myself there too.
00:03:49:21 I love science,
00:03:50:28 I couldn't tell you that when I was a child
00:03:52:27 because I hated science class.
00:03:54:13 And I think the reason was because the way we teach science.
00:03:58:23 We teach science like the questions are answered.
00:04:02:11 So you come into the classroom
00:04:04:01 and somebody's standing in front of you
00:04:05:16 telling you these are the answers to the questions.
00:04:08:11 Here's the question, here's the answer.
00:04:09:24 Here's the question, here's the answer.
00:04:11:08 And that's not how science works.
00:04:13:02 In science, you always end up
00:04:14:18 asking a question, not answering a question.
00:04:16:27 You know, when I get students in the lab,
00:04:18:23 students that are academically very bright,
00:04:21:05 I warn them that the skills
00:04:22:13 that made them academically bright
00:04:24:03 are not gonna be the skills
00:04:25:09 that are gonna help them as scientist.
00:04:27:09 If you're a chemistry professor,
00:04:29:11 you have a chemistry problem,
00:04:30:12 so you give it to the students.
00:04:32:09 And there's a number call Avogadro's number
00:04:34:12 that you're using the equation
00:04:35:14 and you have to memorize that number.
00:04:37:13 If you're a student, you memorize Avogadro's number
00:04:39:20 and you use it in the equation to get the right answer.
00:04:42:09 If you're a scientist, you are Avogadro.
00:04:45:08 You have to derive that number.
00:04:47:02 And if you're not Avogadro,
00:04:48:02 you have to figure out if Avogadro was wrong.
00:04:50:03 You have to question authority,
00:04:51:15 you have to question the knowledge that is out there,
00:04:53:11 and you have to use the existing knowledge
00:04:56:00 as a first step towards
00:04:58:11 entering this
00:05:00:15 wonderful space of the unknown
00:05:03:24 where you're guided by imagination and by search.
00:05:07:27 - Question.
00:05:09:07 True or untrue?
00:05:10:10 That if you're not particularly good in mathematics
00:05:14:00 you're not gonna be good at science.
00:05:15:18 - I think the deeper question
00:05:16:26 is why are you not good in mathematics?
00:05:18:25 Because mathematics is beautiful.
00:05:20:18 So how were you taught mathematics?
00:05:22:16 This value of being good or not being good at something,
00:05:25:15 it's more nuanced than how you create your identity
00:05:29:29 when you're first exposed to those things.
00:05:32:09 I'll give you an example.
00:05:33:06 I'm the father of triplets.
00:05:35:06 And when I look at my three daughters navigate the world,
00:05:38:18 I realized that many times they navigated
00:05:41:11 in the context of each other.
00:05:42:26 So they derive identity by comparing with their sisters.
00:05:46:24 So if I like the color green
00:05:48:29 then you're gonna like the color violet.
00:05:51:20 That's what differentiates us.
00:05:53:02 So when we're in a classroom, we might identify a person,
00:05:55:21 the first person that gets the first
00:05:57:18 set of problems right
00:05:58:25 or guesses the teacher's answer right, or whatever.
00:06:01:11 That is the good person in math.
00:06:02:22 And then I'm gonna self-identify as a
00:06:05:05 person that is not good in math.
00:06:08:06 And I think if you ask many scientists,
00:06:11:01 they were not good in these disciplines
00:06:13:23 but then later they realized
00:06:15:15 that the reason they were not good
00:06:16:15 is because what was asked of them at the time
00:06:20:03 were qualities that are not necessarily
00:06:24:03 as important in science,
00:06:26:02 like memorization
00:06:30:04 or speed,
00:06:31:01 being able to answer a lot of questions very fast
00:06:34:15 in math.
00:06:35:17 There are other things that make you a good scientist and
00:06:39:06 I will say that all of us,
00:06:40:22 when I say that all of us are born scientist,
00:06:43:02 it's not that all of us
00:06:43:29 should be scientist as professionals,
00:06:46:06 but all of us can appreciate
00:06:48:27 what curiosity is.
00:06:51:10 The same way that not all of us are gonna be artists
00:06:53:11 but all of us can go to a museum of art and appreciate
00:06:57:06 beauty and
00:06:58:16 things like that.
00:06:59:17 - What is the importance of science today?
00:07:01:26 - Science is what allows you to learn what you don't know.
00:07:06:22 And there's a lot we don't know.
00:07:09:15 And this is very fundamental.
00:07:10:13 If you take biology, I'm a biologist.
00:07:12:15 If you take biology, the study of life,
00:07:14:12 that's what biology means.
00:07:16:07 What is life?
00:07:18:03 We all know when something is alive
00:07:20:12 and something is not alive.
00:07:23:16 But
00:07:24:11 I don't think there's a living scientist
00:07:26:08 that can really tell you what is the difference?
00:07:29:23 What is the difference between an organism
00:07:32:09 when it's alive and
00:07:35:26 the millisecond after it lost life?
00:07:37:21 What did it lose?
00:07:39:07 And no scientist can recapitulate that.
00:07:41:28 We don't understand it.
00:07:42:25 And that is what we're defining as the study, right?
00:07:45:18 We're studying life but we cannot define what life,
00:07:47:14 so there are all these fundamental questions.
00:07:50:18 That's my message to students when I tell them,
00:07:52:21 and to everyone actually.
00:07:55:07 We don't understand a lot.
00:07:56:23 - How do we encourage
00:07:57:25 scientific exploration in our children?
00:08:00:15 You're a father of what, four?
00:08:02:25 Including three girls who are triplets.
00:08:05:06 But how do you encourage scientific exploration?
00:08:08:03 - By not getting in the way.
00:08:09:19 I think it's our naturally
00:08:12:19 curious
00:08:14:01 and that's what scientific exploration is.
00:08:16:10 I'm a human being like any other parent,
00:08:18:06 so I also get tired and I get tired of questions now
00:08:21:20 as an adult.
00:08:22:20 But when my kids are asking questions
00:08:24:21 and I don't know the answer,
00:08:25:19 I tell them,
00:08:26:14 "Look, I don't know the answer,
00:08:27:28 "I'll try to find out the answer."
00:08:29:07 And if I can't find out the answer,
00:08:31:13 I tell them, "You know, maybe no one knows the answer.
00:08:33:13 "Maybe you're the person that will figure out
00:08:34:25 "the answer to this question."
00:08:36:23 And I think that's important for kids to hear.
00:08:39:05 - For many people, science seems unapproachable.
00:08:42:09 And scientists seem like (mumbles) a separate species.
00:08:46:18 - Right.
00:08:47:18 We are weird, yeah.
00:08:48:24 - How do we cut through that?
00:08:49:28 Well, we're all weird.
00:08:51:07 (both laugh)
00:08:52:04 - No, I think
00:08:54:00 part of, why do people see it that way.
00:08:55:22 I saw it that way.
00:08:56:18 I mean, I look back on my first experience
00:08:59:18 going to a lab, and it was so intimidating.
00:09:01:25 It looked so foreign.
00:09:03:09 You have all this machines,
00:09:04:15 you're worried you're gonna break them.
00:09:06:09 It has to be sterile.
00:09:08:19 There are all these rules
00:09:09:16 and you just feel out of place.
00:09:12:10 And I empathize with that.
00:09:14:28 When I was growing up in Puerto Rico as a kid,
00:09:18:10 I was telling you I love science but
00:09:21:05 science felt very de-contextualized for me.
00:09:24:24 And the reason it felt that way is because
00:09:26:22 I'll give you a few concrete examples.
00:09:28:16 We will get textbooks,
00:09:30:09 many textbooks were printed here in the Northeast.
00:09:33:18 And they will have these beautiful examples
00:09:36:10 about seed dispersal.
00:09:37:13 I still remember this.
00:09:38:15 These beautiful examples about seed dispersal.
00:09:40:08 And they will talk about maple trees,
00:09:42:22 which is a beautiful example of seed dispersal.
00:09:44:27 It forms this helicopter shaped seeds
00:09:47:09 that blow and everyone recognize them
00:09:50:09 if you live in the Northeast.
00:09:52:15 But if you lived in a tropical island
00:09:54:05 you never seen a maple tree.
00:09:55:24 So to me (chuckles),
00:09:57:02 they might as well have been talking about,
00:10:00:18 fictitious thing.
00:10:01:13 And, look, I think examples
00:10:02:23 from elsewhere are important
00:10:04:07 because science is universal.
00:10:05:27 But it's also important that science is contextualized.
00:10:08:20 So I think there are beautiful examples
00:10:10:03 in the tropics of seed dispersal.
00:10:11:26 And I'll give you another example.
00:10:13:06 When I was learning
00:10:15:20 my first lessons in physics as a kid, right?
00:10:18:03 They had these cool pictures of these kids,
00:10:19:26 they were usually white kids
00:10:21:17 with a balloon, and they had
00:10:23:14 rubbed a balloon in their hair
00:10:24:29 and their hair was standing up.
00:10:26:09 And look then,
00:10:27:04 if you've grown up in Puerto Rico,
00:10:28:12 you don't need a balloon for your hair to stand up.
00:10:30:17 It's 90% humidity (laughs).
00:10:33:17 Your hair is standing up all the time.
00:10:34:12 So those examples, I will look at that
00:10:36:09 and I will say, "Wow, science is so cool,"
00:10:38:12 but it's irrelevant to me.
00:10:40:18 I mean, those are dramatic examples from my context
00:10:43:15 but I think everyone could come up
00:10:44:19 with examples like that from their context
00:10:46:11 of things that are just,
00:10:48:01 it feels irrelevant or out of reach.
00:10:49:29 I think the way to mitigate that
00:10:52:10 is to contextualize science.
00:10:54:07 To explain to people why science is relevant to them.
00:10:58:01 So 10 years ago,
00:11:01:26 I created a
00:11:03:13 webpage, really.
00:11:04:08 It was a very simple webpage.
00:11:05:20 Because I didn't know
00:11:06:15 where the Puerto Rican scientists were.
00:11:07:12 There were so few, I didn't know where they were.
00:11:09:05 And I created a webpage so that they could self-identify.
00:11:11:29 It was my Bat-Signal to the sky, where are we?
00:11:15:09 So we asked the scientist, can you contextualize
00:11:18:19 to a kid in Puerto Rico,
00:11:19:18 to yourself when you were a kid,
00:11:20:22 why what you're doing is important?
00:11:22:26 And scientists started writing these essays.
00:11:24:11 Some of them I wouldn't have been able to write.
00:11:25:28 There was this beautiful essay from a geologist
00:11:29:26 that said, "Look,
00:11:31:24 "Puerto Rico was born in the Pacific.
00:11:34:17 "In the Pacific Ocean."
00:11:36:05 And then he explained that there's a part in Puerto Rico
00:11:38:28 called Cabo Rojo, it means red cape.
00:11:41:02 And it's called Red Cape because it has these hills
00:11:43:00 that are kind of red, the sediments are red.
00:11:45:21 And he explains those hills,
00:11:47:09 the sediments are red because they have
00:11:49:07 these fossilized exoskeletons
00:11:51:28 of these microorganisms
00:11:53:21 that have never existed in the Atlantic.
00:11:55:20 They're from the Pacific.
00:11:57:09 So all of a sudden,
00:11:58:13 you had teachers in classrooms
00:12:00:17 using that to explain this concept of Pangaea.
00:12:04:12 This concept of the fact
00:12:05:24 that the world is not the way it is today.
00:12:08:13 It was not that way.
00:12:10:19 There are tectonic plates and they move around
00:12:12:06 and that's why you have earthquakes.
00:12:13:29 There are many ways of explaining that concept.
00:12:16:04 But when somebody points at a hill
00:12:18:09 and tells you that hill
00:12:19:06 was born in the Pacific, you remember that.
00:12:21:03 - And you have a lot of questions.
00:12:23:18 - And you'll have a lot of questions.
00:12:27:03 - Well let's change the subject
00:12:28:00 and talk about your research, what you're doing now.
00:12:31:04 I do want to quote from your lab page, so quote,
00:12:34:19 "The human brain consists of 100 billion neurons
00:12:39:20 "and over 100 trillion synaptic connections.
00:12:44:07 "There are more neurons in a single brain
00:12:47:11 "than stars in the Milky Way."
00:12:50:03 Now that touches off a lot of sunbursts of thought
00:12:53:20 in my mind
00:12:55:17 but let's start with consider my mind blown.
00:12:59:04 How does all this work?
00:13:00:27 - Every time a child is born, they have
00:13:03:29 hundred of billions of neurons.
00:13:05:16 I tell the students that when they look at the sky,
00:13:09:11 they see the Milky Way,
00:13:10:09 that to think that that is just
00:13:12:06 but a reflection of the potential of
00:13:14:03 all the cells that they have,
00:13:15:27 all the neurons that they have,
00:13:16:27 all the connections that they have in their brain.
00:13:19:14 And what blows my mind is the fact that
00:13:22:10 all of these neurons have to connect to each other
00:13:25:03 in a way that makes sense.
00:13:26:22 So imagine that you have
00:13:28:12 the most important theater production in your life
00:13:32:09 and you have 100 billion characters
00:13:35:09 and they all have to play their part precisely,
00:13:38:00 otherwise the theater production is gonna be a disaster,
00:13:40:23 and there's no rehearsal.
00:13:43:07 So how does that work?
00:13:45:14 There's no rehearsing here, it has to happen,
00:13:48:20 otherwise you're gonna end up
00:13:49:15 with neurodevelopmental diseases,
00:13:51:06 with problems that we recognize
00:13:52:29 as cognitive problems from development.
00:13:55:14 So what my lab does
00:13:58:02 to try to understand that question,
00:14:01:12 and this is the part where I confuse everybody (laughs).
00:14:03:09 So we don't look at the human brain,
00:14:05:15 we actually look at a worm.
00:14:07:10 It's called a nematode.
00:14:08:13 It's a tiny worm that's called C elegans.
00:14:12:04 And the reason that we can look at a worm
00:14:14:14 and learn about the brain is because
00:14:16:23 there's this fundamental concept in biology,
00:14:19:12 in nature, for that matter,
00:14:21:00 which is that when nature finds an answer to a problem,
00:14:24:11 it uses it over and over again.
00:14:27:04 So our brains are product of evolution.
00:14:29:29 And the fundamental circuits that power our brain,
00:14:33:18 they're of course different from brain of a worm.
00:14:35:09 But the fundamental circuits that power our brain
00:14:38:20 are similar to the fundamental developmental pieces
00:14:41:26 that power the brain of a worm.
00:14:44:25 So
00:14:46:03 by analogy, it will be like saying,
00:14:47:25 look, an Apple Watch
00:14:50:16 is gonna be different from a supercomputer.
00:14:53:09 But if you want to understand how circuits work,
00:14:56:04 how they have to be precisely connected,
00:14:58:09 what are the instructions, how they store information,
00:15:02:07 you can gain a lot of knowledge
00:15:04:06 from a simple circuit
00:15:06:06 and then extend that to the supercomputer.
00:15:11:18 So this is
00:15:13:10 how a typical lab looks like.
00:15:17:24 You know, when you're working with systems like this,
00:15:21:06 the simpler the better.
00:15:23:21 - You know, I'm still trying to get my head around
00:15:25:23 the whole concept that you can study something
00:15:28:11 as small as a worm's brain.
00:15:30:13 - Right.
00:15:31:08 So we use these microscopes here
00:15:33:01 just to be able to pick the animals and move them around
00:15:35:23 but we cannot really see their brains
00:15:37:12 using these microscopes.
00:15:38:10 We need other microscopes to be able
00:15:39:26 to look at other brains.
00:15:43:00 Now, the worms that were put in here,
00:15:44:23 we train them to like a temperature or another.
00:15:47:22 So in a worm that likes a given temperature,
00:15:50:21 that remembers that temperature,
00:15:52:05 what is that memory?
00:15:53:02 What changing its brain?
00:15:55:12 There's a temperature gradient here
00:15:56:24 that goes between 15 degrees to 25 degrees.
00:15:59:08 So animals that learn to like 15 degrees,
00:16:01:26 what change in their brain
00:16:02:29 that allows them to now move to that preferred temperature?
00:16:06:00 It's how do you create a memory?
00:16:07:04 How does that animal remember something like a temperature?
00:16:12:06 - It occurs to me
00:16:13:16 that there will be people watching this interview,
00:16:16:00 some of them people in very powerful positions,
00:16:18:11 political and otherwise,
00:16:19:27 who will say, "Ah, you see.
00:16:21:27 "This is exactly what's wrong with science,
00:16:24:26 "particularly the study of science in this country.
00:16:26:28 "Here is this very nice man,
00:16:28:17 "obviously an intelligent gentleman from Puerto Rico.
00:16:31:17 "But he's spending his time, and spending a lot of money
00:16:35:03 "studying, God help me, the brains of worms."
00:16:38:25 (laughs)
00:16:40:03 - Why?
00:16:41:08 - Exactly.
00:16:42:03 - Why? - Why?
00:16:43:05 - And I will add to that.
00:16:44:08 We have received millions of dollars to study that worm.
00:16:47:12 Why?
00:16:48:14 Is that a waste of money?
00:16:49:09 Why didn't we spend that
00:16:50:21 on studying autism or studying,
00:16:53:15 so to answer that question, I'll tell you a story.
00:16:56:00 There was a scientist that ended up donating a building,
00:16:58:22 actually he made a lot of money
00:17:00:03 and ended up donating a building
00:17:01:01 not far away from where we are.
00:17:02:25 His name is Herb Boyer.
00:17:05:00 And he was studying how bacteria have sex.
00:17:08:06 You may ask why.
00:17:09:29 Who wants to know how bacteria have sex?
00:17:11:27 And he ended up making
00:17:13:12 the most important discoveries in diabetes, I will say.
00:17:17:25 So what this guy did was that in the process of discovering
00:17:20:20 how bacteria exchange genetic information,
00:17:23:00 he identify a set of instructions
00:17:26:28 of how bacteria mix and match genetic information.
00:17:30:20 Once he understood that process,
00:17:32:20 he was able to take a human gene
00:17:34:23 and trick the bacteria into thinking
00:17:36:12 that it was its own gene.
00:17:37:27 And the bacteria then produced insulin.
00:17:42:09 That was the birth of the biotechnology industry.
00:17:45:23 It's a $430 billion industry today.
00:17:48:21 And the company that he set up,
00:17:49:28 which is in South San Francisco now, called Genentech,
00:17:54:04 emerged from these type of discoveries.
00:17:56:02 But note that he didn't start by saying,
00:17:58:00 "I'm gonna make insulin."
00:17:59:20 He started by saying, "How do bacteria have sex?"
00:18:01:23 Now, I can give you
00:18:03:18 10 examples like that.
00:18:05:06 And that's essentially how science works.
00:18:07:18 Because the way that science works
00:18:08:26 is that we have to understand in order to apply.
00:18:13:03 You cannot apply something that you don't understand.
00:18:16:13 If there's a policy-maker
00:18:17:25 from the U.S. Listening to this,
00:18:19:04 I'd like to quote
00:18:20:16 one of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin,
00:18:22:24 who when asked
00:18:24:19 why he was flying a kite, trying to store the electricity,
00:18:29:09 what use did it have, he answered,
00:18:31:12 "What use does a baby have?"
00:18:34:21 So you need to have those seeds of knowledge
00:18:38:16 to be able
00:18:40:00 to apply them.
00:18:40:28 - You do or do not think
00:18:42:03 that we're in a particularly perilous moment
00:18:44:09 for the kind of future
00:18:45:09 that you consider to be ideal as opposed to what's happened
00:18:49:07 with other societies, other countries,
00:18:51:16 other civilizations as they go in decline
00:18:55:08 as the interest in science
00:18:57:16 is not furthered from the top, from the leadership?
00:19:00:17 - I find the current moment troubling
00:19:03:09 in a number of ways, in how
00:19:06:12 scientific facts are treated by policy-makers.
00:19:11:07 Right now, as we have this conversation,
00:19:12:15 there are all these discussion about gun control
00:19:16:11 and there's very little discussion
00:19:18:05 about the research that has been done on epidemiology,
00:19:21:15 on the fact that research
00:19:23:26 at places like the CDC have been limited
00:19:26:12 by political activism,
00:19:27:26 by organizations like the N.R.A.
00:19:31:12 So there's a boxing out of facts and science
00:19:34:23 at different spheres
00:19:36:25 to push for policies
00:19:41:23 that are not based on science.
00:19:44:16 - I take your point about the dangers of,
00:19:46:23 in your phrase, boxing out science.
00:19:49:03 - Right.
00:19:50:10 - Well, I don't think we can have this conversation
00:19:52:12 and not talk about
00:19:54:19 the terrible recent hurricane,
00:19:57:20 what it has done to Puerto Rico.
00:19:59:18 - Two hurricanes.
00:20:00:29 Two devastating hurricanes
00:20:02:00 that hit Puerto Rico one after the other.
00:20:03:22 First Irma and then Maria.
00:20:06:20 And it has been
00:20:09:16 a
00:20:11:22 devastating, devastating series of events
00:20:16:13 that took an already weak infrastructure and
00:20:20:29 pushed it to the limit.
00:20:23:09 - Some years ago, you founded
00:20:24:21 the organization CNCR Puerto Rico.
00:20:28:00 That, as I understand it,
00:20:29:05 combines your passion for science
00:20:31:12 with your ties to your home.
00:20:34:17 What inspired this idea
00:20:36:12 and how has its mission grown?
00:20:39:20 - I wanted to take a community
00:20:40:23 that I realized was geographically dispersed,
00:20:43:06 all these Puerto Rican scientists,
00:20:44:15 many of them have had to leave Puerto Rico
00:20:47:07 and come to the U.S.
00:20:49:07 And also when I think of Puerto Rican scientist,
00:20:51:12 I was thinking about just people
00:20:52:27 interested in science and in Puerto Rico
00:20:55:02 regardless of where they come from.
00:20:56:29 I'd hear about their stories, their narratives
00:20:58:29 of doing science but in a place like Puerto Rico
00:21:03:00 and all of these other scientists
00:21:04:14 that are in other parts of the world
00:21:05:29 that are doing science
00:21:06:24 but they're emotionally attached
00:21:08:06 to this place that we call Puerto Rico,
00:21:09:18 this tiny archipelago in the Caribbean.
00:21:12:12 And the reason I wanted to do that
00:21:13:22 was because in part I wanted to
00:21:16:22 give them visibility
00:21:18:24 and to change the narrative.
00:21:20:27 In the news here we receive
00:21:23:18 information on a very important narrative
00:21:25:26 of what's happening, having to with destruction
00:21:28:25 and helplessness, and that's very real,
00:21:31:06 and it's an important narrative.
00:21:32:24 But it's one narrative out of many.
00:21:34:20 There are many other stories.
00:21:36:10 There are stories of
00:21:38:15 self-determination, of resilience,
00:21:40:26 of discovery, of imagination.
00:21:43:22 I visited Puerto Rico in December to visit my family
00:21:47:04 and I was asked to give a talk
00:21:48:03 at the University of Puerto Rico.
00:21:49:24 And the University of Puerto Rico,
00:21:51:06 like most universities,
00:21:52:01 are closed during the holiday season.
00:21:55:11 But they had decided to open
00:21:56:26 because they had missed so many classes
00:21:58:15 because of the hurricane.
00:22:00:05 My talk was scheduled for December 26,
00:22:02:16 it's the day after Christmas, right?
00:22:04:10 I was thinking, the holidays in Puerto Rico are a huge deal,
00:22:07:05 that's when you see your family.
00:22:09:16 And I was thinking, nobody's gonna be there.
00:22:10:29 And I walked into a lecture hall
00:22:13:01 where there were over 100
00:22:15:08 students, super eager, full of questions.
00:22:19:18 Their brains running
00:22:21:19 at a million miles an hour
00:22:24:15 and all I could think about,
00:22:25:10 besides being incredibly stimulated by their questions
00:22:28:22 and their passion, all I could think about was that
00:22:31:11 at least half of them didn't have any power, right?
00:22:33:09 Just based on the statistics, I even asked them, but
00:22:35:24 at least half of them didn't have any power at any point.
00:22:40:27 I want to make sure those stories are also told
00:22:44:03 because they are also important.
00:22:47:05 - Indeed they are.
00:22:49:02 Doctor, thank you.
00:22:50:20 - Thank you.
00:22:51:28 (calm electronic and guitar music)

This Talk

Speakers: Daniel Rather, Daniel Colon Ramos

Audience:

General Public
Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
Student
Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Researcher
Educators

Recorded: February 2018

Talk Overview

Daniel Colón-Ramos began his life in science by being fascinated as a young boy by the unique environment of his native Puerto Rico. But in formal schooling, he found the excitement of discovery too often absent. Now a respected researcher at Yale University, Dr. Colón-Ramos keeps his boyhood enthusiasm for the awe and wonder of the natural world. He is eager to encourage scientific exploration and share his infectious spirit with his students and the larger world, as he does in this inspiring conversation with Dan Rather.

Speaker Bio

Daniel Rather

Dan Rather has a resume that reads like a history book. He has interviewed every American president since Eisenhower and personally covered almost every important global dateline of the last 60 years, from the Civil Rights Movement to Vietnam, to Watergate to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Rather helped pioneer the very idea that television… Continue Reading