ASM116 String Theory, Psychological Diversity, and Punching a Nazi

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string theory psychological diversity

and punching a nazi

all that and more on this week's episode

of ask science mike

[Applause]

welcome to ask science mike the weekly podcast where i answer your questions about science faith and life i'm your host mike mccarth known across the internet as science mike which is kind of strange for a non-scientist anyway we've got lots of new events to talk about lots of great questions to answer and a little bit of chaos related to my move so what do you say let's do a show and get it started [Music] i am so all over the place honestly it's crazy my stuff is in boxes people keep coming into my house to look at it because they're thinking about buying it and i'm trying to find a place to rent in the los angeles area that has decent public schools and allows pets and doesn't cost a trillion dollars a month so i'm gonna do my best to have a show that is much more cohesive and approachable than my life is right now really wild i want to start with an exciting announcement as as you know if you listen to the show i've been working on this united kingdom and republic of ireland tour to support finding on the waves over there my book which is available by the way in the uk and i've got a new date to announce october the 11th we'll be doing an ask science mic live in london so that's october 11th that's a wednesday at saints mike live right in the heart of london and tickets are available now for that so you can get tickets now we will be uh getting tickets available in the next week week and a half hopefully for the other stops on the at science mike live uk tour i'll also be doing uh the rubicon conference in dublin on october 21st so that's two things right now if you want to catch up with me over in that part of the world those tickets are on sale now both are going to be really great science mike live as you know is this in a live format the rubicon conference is a more in-depth experience and features people other than just me so i've heard it's fantastic and i'm really looking forward to attending myself of course september 5th we'll be in los angeles with the liturgist gathering october 6th in boston for the liturgist gathering and october 27th in seattle for the liturgists gathering more information on that at the liturgistsgathering.com or if you'd like to learn about any of these events just go to ask sciencemike.com click on the menu and then tap events on your phone or just click the events tab on your computer and you can learn about all of these and get tickets to come see me at an event i'd love to see you and now let's answer some questions [Music] hi mike i recently became a patron and i really like engaging with your other listeners on the site which is cool and i also really enjoy your work especially as i wasn't naturally interested in science in school my question is about brain development and social development in babies and toddlers my daughter is 21 months old and her favorite thing to do at the moment is to watch a montage from the original super end films to the superman score my husband is very proud but i'm a little concerned these images aren't awful but they do show things like a falling helicopter and people's scared reactions before superman flies in what impact would this have on my daughter's brain and social development will she be scared by the images or will she learn to be scared from our reactions will they give her a darker view of the world and she'll grow up with some deep-seated belief that helicopters might fall out of the sky um or is she only taking in the bright colours of superman and the exciting theme june thank you very much this is a great question i have a lot of interest in something i researched a lot when i first became a parent myself and i'll warn you when studying the effects of media consumption on childhood development you run into a ball of spaghetti it's it's very hard to parse things apart it's very difficult to follow any one thread there's competing ideas competing theories competing models and as is so often the case in the social sciences models can be very situational we don't have like a unified model of human cognition or anything like that you know i will say like in brief if you take anything away from the answer [Music] you know watching images in media for children and adults is much more likely to desensitize us than to increase our sensitivity to something so it's more likely specifically helicopters falling out of the sky that repeat exposure is going to make that seem like less of a deal less of an important event to your child than to make her afraid the helicopters are going to fall from the sky unless the first viewing or an early viewing traumatizes her and then subsequent viewings reinforce that traumatic experience or as you say the context of people around her lets her know that this should be something feared but if you think about how we consume media we tend to be in a relaxed environment we tend to be in very comfy chairs nice and safe and we watch things happen on screen and nothing bad ever happens we're never hurt physically we're never uh in danger we can get a little thrill but if you watch a lot of movies in a row you know your brain kind of kind of cooks out and uh the intensity is gone because we get desensitized so in terms of what the research says and more in depth it i think you can make a case that media affects children a great deal there's lots of studies to support that so let's let's say for example uh studies have shown violent media consumption in childhood is an excellent predictor for aggression in adults also an excellent predictor for being desensitized to violence both on screen and in the real world people are in many cases less moved or affected by real world violence if they consumed a lot of violent media growing up and this effect is amplified when you have a same-sex on-screen hero so if it's a male child and you have male heroes on screen who are aggressive uh the effect is amplified the same would be true if you had a violent uh female protagonist then the effect will be more pronounced for a girl watching that program and this may contribute to one of the reasons boys are more aggressive than girls i wouldn't want to say solely contributes but it could be a contributing factor for why we see increased aggression among boys compared to girls because media typifies and normalizes that and it dramatically shapes media dramatically shapes our perception of gender roles what we see on screen the kind of commentary that happens between men and women plays a factor in how people view gender roles for the rest of their lives it affects how people see race the the relationship between different races what's appropriate pertaining different races and especially how someone views their own racial identity if we if we tease this out it turns out that when you adjust for other factors media only has a net positive effect on self-esteem for white males it has a modest negative effect for white females and a more pronounced negative effect especially for african-american girls and boys they aren't typically presented as protagonists they appear less often on screen when they do appear they speak much less often and in less flattering contexts and this this affects how children see the world and how children see themselves so media absolutely has an effect on children including very young children this is an effect that will remain for their entire lives now this is not an inescapable edict this is more we're talking influence and probabilities here like when i was a kid i played violent video games all the time i watched a ton of violent movies especially horror movies but i'm horrified by real world violence and i always have been i was an empathetic kid i'm an empathetic adult physical pain of others affects me profoundly because it's the interaction between our knowledge structures our personality our behavioral scripts our beliefs our goals our instincts all these factors come together to influence our behavior and indeed to shape our world view media does not do it alone it is merely one factor and how significant a factor it is will vary from person to person and one of the reasons it will vary is the amount of time spent consuming media people in strong family environments people with other entertainment options people with uh large social spheres or large social webs or deep connections in social webs will spend more time doing other things and so the effective media will be lessened on them i like to use this metaphor think about stacking quarters okay and let's say that a behavior is a stack of quarters that falls so if you stack three quarters on top of each other it's a very stable but if you stack 200 quarters on top of each other it's not very stable at all and you can imagine that your instincts stack a few quarters for you some people their genetic instinctual predisposition towards aggression is very low in other people it's higher and when you consume violent media if you have a small stack of quarters well you can consume lots and lots of media without your quarters ever falling down but if you have a greater predisposition media may have a more dramatic effect and what if the table is shaking what if what if life circumstances are difficult these messages played to you via media may have a more pronounced effect when you are stressed or tired or angry or experiencing trauma all these things come together so what does that mean for us as parents what does that mean for us as societies well i think one we need to be intentional about the kinds of media that our children consumes not not in censorship but if we're going to spend time viewing media why not view media that embodies the kind of world we'd like to live in the kind of experiences we'd like our children to have why not watch media where men and women play equal roles perhaps even where women are protagonists why not consume media where the casting is representative of the population of the united states of america or whatever country you may live in why not intentionally consume media that reflects the world you hope will be one day and ultimately i think it's important to reduce the effect of media on how our children develop by limiting the overall consumption of screen based media i was very strict about the minutes per day of screen time my children got when they were very young i'm much more lenient now in their pre-teen years though maybe too lenient but i i strongly encourage my children to spend more time playing with other children to spend more time in conversation with us in conversation with others doing things in the physical world which have been consistently shown in studies to have dramatic benefits on their learning their problem solving their emotional health i'm not against video games my kids play video games i'm not against television or movies my children watch both but i am about intentionally curating a balanced media landscape and having a strong emphasis on real-world social interactions and traditional play for my children's well-being and hopefully that will make them well-rounded people who can be aware of the way media influences them as adults and therefore make better media decisions [Music] our next question came in via email and it reads hi mike i'm a former christian turned atheist i know you hear this a lot but i want to thank you for your work it was instrumental in helping me through my d conversion i was watching a program on national geographic called year million the show covered a wide range of topics on what the earth and humanity could look like in the year 1 million ad or something like that one of the topics discussed was the possibility of custom dna alteration in the human species the idea that we could genetically engineer our babies before they were born and weed out genes that produce cancer and other diseases including psychological disorders like depression however the program cautioned against the psychological portion of this citing the potential problems with the lack of psychological diversity for example if there was no may we not be able to fully relate with happiness in a meaningful and fulfilling way anyway my question is about psychological diversity and how it branches into religion and belief in short do we as a human species need diversity of religion and belief or non-belief to thrive do theists need atheists or vice versa thanks for your time love the show it's a timely question i think because precise gene editing is likely coming sooner than later technologies like crispr potentially will dramatically dramatically reduce the time expense and complexity of altering dna sequences and we'll see that first treating genetic disorders cancer and disease that's what the first applications for this technology will be but once that's happening there's absolutely no reason you couldn't use gene editing technology to filter out depression or even pick your child's eye color but let's remember when we said something like depression that's an umbrella term that includes a lot of distinct concepts like clinical depression or situational depression which are dramatically different in both their origin and treatment and prognosis so let's let's i want because of the inherent complexity discussing depression let me take another attribute that's maybe easier for us to wrap our heads around but is is definitely a component of psychological diversity what if we could decide if our children would be extroverts or introverts before they were born what if we could do that but after all we live in an extroverts world yeezy social skills are valued the ability to speak publicly is valued being outgoing is valued networking is an essential component of commerce in our societies it is an extrovert world especially in the west but we're learning more and more the profound value that introverts bring to society at large and families in particular so even though you may imagine if you could choose to make your child an extrovert or an introvert many many many people would choose extroverted children we'd lose something wouldn't we i'm way more towards the extrovert end of the spectrum than the introverted end although the brain injury has certainly helped me understand introverts a lot better but think about this living full-time with an introvert has taught me a lot about how they function in the world they pay more attention they listen they focus and they think deeply and my wife's ability to perceive detail compared to mine is dramatic and i don't ascribe that to gender differences based on the science i've seen and based on my own personal experiences that seems to be more related to introversion and extroversion i know a lot of extroverted women who are similarly big picture focused as i am and i know a lot of introverted men who are as focused and as detail-oriented as my wife by the way i'm not saying that extroverts are shallow in terms of how their brains function experts literally just need more sensory stimuli for their brains to achieve a state of arousal and attention whereas introverts brains are overwhelmed by that level of sensory stimulus and this plays out in like the the classic image of an introvert canceling a social date and being excited about it the home is quieter there's less stimulus the brain is therefore able to achieve a more optimal state of stimulus to focus and to feel at peace whereas extroverts in the same situation they feel cut off from the world isolated lonely bored even depressed unless i'm exhausted a hotel room alone is a dungeon to me [Laughter] i can't stand it when my family travels and i'm home by myself i need stimulation right now by the way one last thing most people are actually ambiverts introversion extroversion is a spectrum and most people are closer to the middle then the poles and very few people are at the far ends of either spectrum either way my point is what will we lose if instead of a roughly even mix of extroversion introverts we had 80 percent or 90 or 95 of children who were born were extroverts would society be better off i think we would all say no no of course not of course society would not be better off in the same way that 95 introversion among birth would be bad for society bad for culture bad for the world it turns out yes psychological diversity is a component of a healthy society now let's think about belief atheists and theists atheists people who lack a belief in any god or gods theists who believe in a specific god that is not the entire pie of belief by the way but for this example let's stick with those two maybe in a truly secular society there would be no such thing as atheists at all atheists don't like being defined in opposition to something we just don't have a word for you know i don't believe in god that works without the assumption of god in the first place i think this is the reason you're seeing more and more people simply identify as non-religious or non-spiritual or free thinking some term other than atheist that isn't premised on a polarity or a disagreement what if we just flipped a switch and got rid of all knowledge of religions let's imagine that for a moment well i think research is pretty clear what would happen we'd make new religions we have a really strong inclination homo sapiens our species to see the divine in the world oxford's done studies on this and you know we've got lots of sociological data that tells us you have an increased likelihood of children of atheists parents to be not just religious but fundamentalists we seek out religion we seek out spirituality as a species but what if we just uh what if we just use gene editing if we could isolate the genetic markers that led to these biases what if we could just do that or what if we could just screen out the kind of biases that lead to doubt and skepticism what if we could get rid of that prefrontal bias prefrontal cortex bias i think that would be horrific for society how would we know in the process of switching off those genes what other effects that would have on a human's behavior and belief over time i am not a slippery slope argument kind of person i think that's a logical fallacy but i do think we should trend very carefully with gene editing you know we're still reeling from the unintended consequences of digital social media in politics and culture worldwide you would think it'd be a great thing to allow free communication with anyone across the globe at the speed of light that should be wonderful but it turns out the algorithms that drive these systems the the tools we use to search through this torrent this fire hose of information directed at us amplify our cognitive biases we've used all this technology to feed ourselves things we like to hear more and in doing so caused a really really dangerous destructive political environment it seems like in some ways we're moving backwards instead of moving forwards in the world in america in europe because sometimes the biases of the human organism produce incredibly powerful unforeseen consequences when force amplified through our technologies and my concern is that with the best intentions for our children and the best intention for the species if we start having designer babies whose psychology or at least psychological inclinations and predispositions we determine through intent instead of through recombination we could introduce self-reinforcing self-amplifying effects in our society that we cannot foresee when we begin the process maybe i'm a genetic luddite and i want to be clear i am all for gene editing technologies to treat disease and i understand it will be difficult to delineate the difference between treating disease and tailoring a child i understand that that is a difficult and some would even argue arbitrary line i'm just saying we should tread carefully the system that produces the diversity of human life has worked incredibly well for a couple of billion years it's done a good job there's life everywhere we've had these crazy extinction events six of them in the earth history and we keep having life why because the way dna replicates and recombines it works very well i just want to be careful that we don't mess it up the same way we seem to messing up person-to-person communication with social media i tell you what a really weird resource for this one instead of sending you to an article on the web uh i'm going to link you to a novel a giant if it fell off the shelf it would crack your skull novel called seven eaves which is uh about basically humanity almost dying out and having to use genetic technology to bring itself back if you want to explore this topic more deeply it could be interesting food for thought [Music] hey mike patrick here my question is in regards to the label scientific theory recently i finished reading brian green's the elegant universe from what i gathered from the difficult topics covered in the book and based on my admittedly infantile understanding of said topics i don't see how string theory can be properly labeled a scientific theory in the sense that something like evolution is an accepted theory how has physics that we don't currently have the ability to observe measure and experiment on been granted the coveted label of theory shouldn't it rather be called a hypothesis since people i've known will often use the it's only a theory line and their misunderstanding of the evidence for evolution i struggle with the idea of explaining the idea of string theory to people in fear that it might bolster their misplaced idea of what a scientific theory is thanks so much for all you do it means a lot to this once christian most days agnostic somedays mystic listener bye this is a fantastic question this is going to tie up a lot of loose ends that have been happening in the show lately and hopefully uh if you've sent me an email related to refuting a metaphor i've used on the program i hope this can help you understand why okay so listen up everybody the way humans learn is by incorporating new insights into familiar metaphors and images so think about when you know the the apollo astronauts first headed toward the moon and apollo 13 had so much trouble and they're trying to help people visualize well how far away is the moon and so people would use metaphors of objects people know a baseball a basketball distances therefore people could understand when trying to describe the precise angle with which apollo 13 and other apollo capsules would have to use to re-enter the earth's atmosphere they would describe the the size of this opening is at scale the width of a sheet of paper okay things like this familiar metaphors that's how humans learn and i think you could argue it's the only way people learn we build these metaphor ladders okay and this is why we teach school children that electrons orbit around the nucleus of an atom like a moon orbits around a planet it's a familiar metaphor it evokes an image in the mind it creates a model that's useful for instruction even though it's not true electrons don't orbit the nucleus of an atom at all they exist in probabilistic clouds in the space of an atom and sometimes beyond it but do you see what you see what i just did i just lost a third of the listeners of this program by saying that what do you mean beyond the atom yeah statistically you know an electron in one of your atoms might be in the sun for a moment that's totally within the models as a possibility you see what i mean you can't start there you've got to start with something familiar because this idea of an electron orbiting the nucleus that leads you to chemistry you can understand the periodic table with an orbital model of atoms so even though the model is not entirely correct it is useful and then as you continue to learn you climb this ladder of metaphors now that you have some knowledge of protons neutrons and electrons and their relationship we can give you a more sophisticated and more nuanced metaphor that has more uses in describing the world and making predictions the more you learn accurate metaphors the more you discover the shortcoming of the metaphor you knew before the previous metaphor and this happens all the time it happens in science it happens in religion heck it happens when you get to know a new friend you thought they were just like this person but it turns out they're different in a lot of ways as you get to know them better so what does this have to do with string theory and the word theory and science well we tell people that science has theories theories with a capital t and the way the word theory is used in science is not the same as popular or common usages in science a theory is a body of well-supported work with evidence that makes predictions about the natural world that has been verified that's a theory the theory of relativity that einstein produced is an excellent example of a scientific theory the theory of evolution via natural selection is a great example of such a theory capital t here's the problem science is not a monolithic entity there are many disciplines in science and many different language norms and language and science has the same problems it has everywhere else it is imprecise for example the standard model of physics is much is developed far beyond a model we still call it the standard model that's how the people who originally worked on the standard model described it it's how it was popularized and language is sticky right the big bang is a terrible terrible name for the big bang there was no bang a bang bangs into something a firecracker bangs into the air around it the beginning of the universe as we know it in that in big bang cosmology was an expansion of a singularity the bang's a really terrible metaphor but it's stuck so in physics a theory can just be a mathematical model that explains something it doesn't even have to have experimental support now we couldn't call it the string hypothesis by the way because the hypothesis is a single testable claim and string theory is a body of work that includes hypotheses and and different mathematical models and now mathematical models that link distinct mathematical models into larger models like m theory and the reason we can't say string theory is like the theory of relativity is because so far even though string theory does make predictions we can test the tests haven't come out well or the predictions made by string theory require such incredibly high energy levels that humanity can't yet test them it becomes a dead end so what do we do do we stop developing the mathematical models or do we continue and wait for a day when we can what do we do if we never can this is a big debate in the sciences but what just happened by saying wait a second string theory isn't a theory like the theory of evolution is you just demonstrated that you've grown beyond the old metaphor and this comes to the heart of how i answer questions on ask science mike i listen to your question and then to the best of my ability offer a metaphor at the right level on the right rung of the ladder of metaphors to take you forward in your understanding of the sciences without overwhelming or confusing you by the way this is why some questions land really well with you and some don't when someone is at a similar level as you are then i'm going to use metaphors more appropriate and sometimes people ask questions and it's very clear they understand more metaphors than i do on the show and that's usually when i apologize and go i don't know because i'm not a guru i'm a guy who reads a lot this that's what's happening you're brushing up against the problems with human language and and the best thing you can do now is let go of the assumption if you hold it that science is a single entity with a normative use of language across the enterprise science is a methodology for learning science includes more than the scientific method science is got lots of dreaming and lots of hoping and interactions between axiomatic models and observational and experimental models and dead ends and await what just happened that's a huge part of science what just happened we have a grant we're doing research that effect wasn't expected where did that come from and in the the process you've just got people trying to describe something something that no one else has described before to others so they they pick some words and sometimes they stick and sometimes they're semantics weren't correct or their semantics were correct at first but as their findings grow they transcend the original language but it doesn't matter this is the label everyone has stuck to that phenomenon it's fascinating we actually did an episode about this on the liturgist podcast called the asymptotic fidelity of words the asymptotic fidelity of words i'll have a link in the show notes on sciencemike.com to talk about the ways that language is squishy and imprecise which is in many ways antithetical to what science tries to do to describe the world with ever increasing accuracy which is tough using weird tools like words our last question came in via email and it reads hey science mike i have a question about violence and disruption in politics many on the left were overjoyed to see a video of a man punching richard spencer in the face because he holds aberrant views by the way this is not in the letter if you don't know who richard spencer is he's a prominent leader of the alt-right and uh well basically a nazi i mean by his own admission back to the letter recently charles murray was shouted down at middlebury college in vermont by students who found some of his views to be racist he was invited to speak but was not able to do so due to disruptive protesting this protesting escalated into violence when alison stenger a middlebury professor was injured in the incident my question is the following is violence or disruption ever an acceptable response to someone whose views you disagree with no matter how reprehensible also what effect does violence and protesting have when it comes to promoting one's own viewpoint is punching someone in the face an effective means of getting someone to agree with you or is it merely done as a way of showing solidarity with those who have been hurt by the viewpoints the punched person has expressed is there a point at which words and arguments about ideas become futile and brash acts and demonstrations become necessary what does science have to say about the effectiveness of discussion and argument versus violence and protest when it comes to convincing someone to change their views i realize that was more than one question so you can ignore all but the first and last questions as rhetorical i'd like your personal opinion for the first question if you'd like to express it and the best scientific response you can come up with the last one thanks so much for taking the time out to do this show it has been great listening through all of the episodes michael well michael uh the first time someone's prescribed in what manner i should answer which questions they sent in so impressive and given my terrible memory i won't be able to remember what you said about how to answer them so here we go uh first question is violence or disruption ever an acceptable response to someone whose views you disagree with no matter how reprehensible in my opinion absolutely absolutely what do you mean by violence do you mean strangling them stabbing them shooting them do you mean shoving them do you mean physically restraining them it's a continuum of violence so the more extreme the violence the more lasting the cause on the person in question the more reticent i would be to see that violence employed but i can't get worked up that somebody punched a neo-nazi an alt-right white supremacist you know why because the effects of that punch are so insignificant compared to the effect of the viewpoint we're seeing a frightening trend in the data that as the percentage of the population who is white declines the attitudes toward race become more resentful and more aggressive the effects on people's lives by the words of someone like richard spencer and the way that gets propagated into national dialogue and into policy is far more profound than a punch it's not even close so even if i had some philosophical objection to any and all violence against ideas which frankly i don't know if i do or not in terms of as a pragmatist the impact this is having on people people getting punched to our nazis is nowhere near as big a deal as the implicit assumptions of white supremacy in our society towards people of color is nowhere near the impact that chauvinistic masculinity has on women economically physically emotionally the effects that punching a neo-nazi has on the world are such an insignificant rounding error compared to our reviews on sexuality and the way they affect trans people and gay people and lesbians and bisexual people and asexual people and queer people of all stripes is not comparable in the least and believe me michael your question is welcomed on this program i'm happy that you asked it genuinely happy that you asked it but in terms of the amount of time we've spent in the media and in popular attention dissecting punching a nazi is so overblown compared to the time we spent examining and combating white supremacy or patriarchy or sexuality we should talk about those things much more we should do more about that than we do protests on college campuses about differing views which i don't think the protest should turn violent there but i welcome the protest i welcome the protest the thing is the marginalized folks of the world have had enough they have had enough they are tired of having people in power mainly white straight men dictate the terms of dialogue dictate the next steps dictating what feelings they may have in response to a system that holds them down that i'm surprised more richard spencers don't get punched i'm surprised more campuses don't erupt in protest folks have had enough and i would be happy to discuss punching neo-nazis and the effects of affirmative action and the tone minority people have when discussing issues of race when those issues rise to prominence in our society they have not let's talk about why affirmative action is racist against white people once we have economic racial equality in america i'm telling you the day the day you have similar household wealth and household income when you have similar incarceration rates similar prosecution rates similar rates of state violence when the metrics on paper actually say we're equal i would love to have a conversation about affirmative action i'd love to have these conversations about how white people could be marginalized but today it's not happening it's a hypothetical distraction to the horrible reality that our world is inhospitable to most of the humans on it because of our structures in our society white people aren't most of the world population we just consume most of the stuff now that's how i feel what's effective ask martin luther king how effective protest is oh you can't you can't someone killed him but has anyone in recent american history done more to change the status quo anyone martin luther king has been sanitized by our history he was not complacent he was active he ruffled feathers and in the time he was living by the way he was much less popular in america than he is now protest works so do safe conversations there's no one solution to changing people's views people are at different stations they respond to people in different ways protest is necessary and indeed i think punching nazis is necessary to continue an awareness that things have got to change that the way things are is unacceptable but on a one-on-one basis i think you can make a scientific case that yeah absolutely sitting down listening showing empathy honoring people's dignity and then relating to them the stories of people whose lives are affected by their beliefs and actions is very effective in changing beliefs over time as well i've i've talked about that at length on this program how to change people's minds over time how to influence them tell better stories tell better stories and to do that you have to maintain relationships with people this falls on those who have the societal position and the emotional energy to do so no one else can talk to my family about white supremacy as well as i can nobody can talk to my friends about how asexual people are marginalized i can so i do that work and you should too if if you have a visceral reaction to violence in protest first ask yourself why how much of that might be related to some of your own uh cultural norms it is a very culturally white thing to say hey look you never ever ever ever hit you never yell anger's bad order's important and that's not all bad by the way it's not all bad but if you if you have that reaction congratulations that's not how you drive change [Laughter] if you're asking a question about the science of how to peaceably change people's minds i think you just found your role in the process to be a patient listener involved in long relationships to help expose your friends and family and acquaintances to the humanity of people of all races and all genders and gender identities in all sexual orientations that's how you do it and science says it's a great approach science also says protests work i think free speech is essential to a healthy society and i don't think it's in danger even from this this you know movement among young people on the left today and here's how i know here's how i know if we were moving faster towards equality i bet you wouldn't see these same protests i i don't know if you've noticed the protests on college campuses have increased in intensity since donald trump was elected president because in the eyes of many marginalized people and in their experiences america is moving backwards in its movement towards liberty and justice for all i think punching a nazi was calling out a failure to keep that promise of liberty and justice for all well i got really preachy there at the end of the show [Laughter] sorry about that uh i don't know i do know i do know i'm i'm ready for a different world not for my children for everyone's children ready for a different world so thanks for listening to another episode of ask science mike if you'd like to get me on a preachy rant you can totally do that by going to ask sciencemike.com scrolling down to the bottom of the page and right there you'll see you can send a voicemail or an email to get a question on the program that question will be reviewed by my good man andrew galucky who picks the the questions that make it to our poll that's voted on by the patrons the people who support the show financially actually pick the questions that are on the show every week if you'd like to join them go to ask sciencemike.com just click that patreon button you can learn more about what it's like to throw me a buck a month or five bucks a month to keep this show going and i believe me i appreciate everyone who does that of course you can go to sciencemike.com there'll be show notes where you can find more resources related to questions that have been asked on the program and by the way the program sounds so good and so lovely because greg nordin is our producer and sound designer whose work i am always grateful for of course jeff botterford wrote that amazing theme song and hey if you want music produced he's incredible at it you can connect to andrew and greg and jeb on sciencemic.com as well thanks for listening everybody and i can't wait to talk to you [Applause] [Music]