Name: Avi Loeb on How the Scientific Community Isn't Open Minded
Uploaded: 2021-01-18T21:17:31.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Avi Loeb on How the Scientific Community Isn't Open Minded' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-01-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Avi Loeb on How the Scientific Community Isn't Open Minded' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-01-18. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience you know Einstein made three three big mistakes at
the end of his career in the 1930s he argued that black holes don't exist
gravitational waves don't exist and quantum mechanics doesn't have spooky
action at a distance you know he argued all these three things at the end of
his
career when he was the most experienced you know and he was wrong we have
experimental data that shows that he was wrong on all three and what is the
lesson from that even the smartest person you know that was last century in
physics can be wrong if he works on the frontier because you never know exactly
where the truth lies okay you have to take risks and if people want to just
demonstrate that they are smart it's better not to take risks and how do you
not take risks if you work on ideas that will never be tested against data
against
evidence so if you work on super string theory or on extra dimensions or on the
multiverse you can do intellectual gymnastics and impress your colleagues
that you're smart and you will get jobs you will get recognition you will get
awards if that's your goal that's a completely legitimate framework but I see
it as a violation of our commitment as physicists to understand nature you know
it's not really about us physics is a dialogue with nature you listen to nature
you see what the experiments are telling you and you learn and perhaps you were
wrong you take risks it's not about your image it's not getting more likes on
Twitter so that's why I don't really care what my colleagues say if this object
looked unusual I just talked about it the way I would talk about any other
anomaly and people were asking you know why isn't he backing down well I will
back
down as soon as there is evidence you know if I saw a photograph showing that
it's a rock or if I saw some other objects like it that we definitely have
clear evidence that they're naturally produced then I will give up on it like
and I'm not afraid of being wrong you know that's that's part of any work on
the
frontiers this is my thoughts on the the quantum physics aspect of this I think
there's not
enough people that understand what they're doing to criticize them so there's
no social pressure the
difference between that and the concept of exploring extraterrestrial life is
extraterrestrial life is inexorably connected to nonsense it's an extra
collected it's
connected to crazy people exactly that they're talking to aliens exactly they're
channeling people but I have to answer I have an answer to that okay suppose
there
was a whole literature on kovid 19 that is completely fictitious you know like
people were saying crazy things about kovid 19 that make no sense whatsoever
and
that was well you can find them yeah suppose there were there were books about
it
there were films about it now would that mean that scientists reputable
scientists
should not work on a vaccine for no no no but there are people that say
nonsense you
don't care you ignore them kovid 19 is a real thing and you can prove it in a
lab
quickly yeah instantly I mean it's it's universally acknowledged as being a
real
thing right the problem with extraterrestrial life is there's no
evidence that it's real well but if you step on the grass and and you say look
it
doesn't grow then obviously because you're stepping on it so if you bully
anyone
that works on the subject then young people don't enter into this research
field if you
don't fund it at all you dry it up then there will not be discoveries no I said
look they're not discovered I step on the grass it doesn't grow therefore there
is
no point in continuing to wait for it you know to grow I agree with you no I I
think
it's a I think it's a side effect of our social interactions and I think a lot
of
professors a lot of people in academia they come from you know maybe a so more
socially awkward environment they come from a a lot of people that get into
teaching a
lot of people that get into being professors they weren't like the class
king they weren't like the most popular person and social interactions with
them
you know maybe they were bullied maybe they're like dr. Carl Hart who's an
academic who was on the couple days ago was actually talking about this very
subject and that a lot of academics they they they try to undermine other
people's work and they they do so in kind of a bullying fashion because it's
all
about the ego you see yeah I was asked by the Harvard Gazette the Harvard
University Gazette which is the Pravda of Harvard you know this official
newspaper they asked me what is the one thing you would like to change about
the world you
know a very big question yeah so I wrote an essay I said I want my colleagues
to behave
more like kids because as a kid I remember that you know I was mostly curious
about the world I I
would not be afraid of making mistakes I wasn't worried about my ego or my
something really
strange happens to those kids that take risks and are not worried about
themselves
so much something bad happens to them when they become tenured professors in
academia tenure is supposed to give you the freedom to explore you know
directions
that might may turn out to be wrong you know that's what Einstein demonstrated
at
the end of his career so you would expect people to take advantage of that but
instead once professors become tenured for life meaning that there is no risk
to
their job they are starting to pursue honors and awards status recognition yeah
they
are afraid of making mistakes they build these echo chambers where they have
students and postdocs repeating their mantras so that their voice will sound
louder so that they will get even more recognition now I say this you know the
scientific inquiry is not about us it's about the dialogue with nature trying
to
figure out what nature is it's not about elevating our status our image you
know we
will all die in several decades so you know it's really not that now you know
actually Lex Friedman was asking me Avi you know so much what do you think is
the
meaning of life and I told him look I think we just exist you know any meaning
that we
assign now will go away in a billion years because the Sun will boil off the
oceans on
earth there will be no life on earth you know all of these things that we call
meaning they are really temporary in the big big skin we should just enjoy the
process just like
eating good food you know I will not mention another example you know doing
these like eating
good food you enjoy the process so learning about the world figuring out what
the world is
is very enjoyable you know I I if I realize something nobody else did and
understand something
that nobody else did it gives me pleasure so just the process of doing that
that gives
me meaning because I enjoy it you know so you should live your life in a way
that you enjoy it if you
like good food that's good enough you know you can live your life just eating
you know that's what
animals do yeah yeah right uh can have sex you can do all kinds but if you want
a deeper sort of
satisfaction I think understanding the world is what humans are capable of
doing and and that's really
a deeper level of of enjoying life so to speak well there's a lot of examples
of professors going out
on a limb being incorrect and then being punished being ridiculed losing their
status in the community or
even being correct but not having the support of your peers who turn on you and
turn against you and
then it turns out ultimately they were correct but there's very little there's
very little repercussions
for that and there's this thing that happens with people and ideas where they
get scared to take on
something that could easily make them look ridiculous and the best example of
that is extraterrestrial
life yeah that is it's so easy to get ridiculed for believing in it it's like
bigfoot and then
extraterrestrial life no I want to change that I say this is a subject the
scientific community can
address with scientific tools okay with telescopes let's discuss it the public
is interested you know
let's forget about the past and look for a better future right and my point is
there are many examples
for unborn babies you know in science where people were ridiculed and ideas
were never pursued or delayed
you know for example looking for planets around other stars you know that was
something something that
was suggested in 1952 by an astronomer called Otto Struve who said if you take
Jupiter the planet Jupiter
put it close to the sun then it will move the sun back and forth a lot and you
could tell if there
is a close in Jupiter near other stars by looking at their motion or looking as
it occults the star
comes in front of it transits in front he suggested that 1952 for four decades
astronomers ignored that
why because they said we know that Jupiter in our solar system is far away and
we understand why it's far
away and therefore we shouldn't waste our time even looking for something like
that then in 1995
a couple of astronomers found a hot Jupiter Jupiter close to a star and they
got the nobel prize a couple
of years ago for that so my point is this is an example of a baby that was
eventually born
so people would say oh yeah science works you see eventually it was found my
point is it took four
decades in those four decades you know we could have done a lot to advance
science and the other
thing is i say okay this baby was born but there might have been other babies
that were not born you
know ideas that were put forward and were scrutinized for no good reason just
because people are close-minded
and you know the strange thing for me is that i see a lot of innovation in the
commercial sector you see
uh you know jeff bezos elon musk you know apple uh google uh they have
parts of their companies that is that are doing blue sky research you know
things that are not applied
start it all started with ibm and before that and
then in academia i see a lot of conservatism much less innovation as in the
commercials now
the commercial sector is after making a profit you would expect academia to be
even more open-minded
but it's not and to me that has that must change is this something that you had
as an idea before
publishing this this oh yeah these thoughts about extraterrestrial life yeah
did that accentuate it for you
yeah yeah yeah i didn't expect the response that i received it doesn't bother
me um you know in my
uh pub i have 800 more than 800 papers that i published and eight books in in
in all of these
i talk about anomalies you know over the years i talked about anomalies in
other contexts you know like
in the early universe and and then when i mentioned speculative ideas in other
contexts there was no
pushback you know it it it wasn't threatening to anyone it wasn't but something
about the subject of
extraterrestrial life bothers people and frankly you know i'm just like a kid i
try to be as close as
possible to the way i was at a young age i'm just doing it innocently working
on this subject the same
way i work on other subjects and i get this response that now the only reason
the two of us are speaking
you know and i get a lot of media attention is because my colleagues are not
behaving the same way
if everyone would accept you know i think it's common sense what is common
sense to me if everyone would
accept it i would be no different than the person next to me you wouldn't speak
you wouldn't be
speaking to me sure i would no i still would be catch new episodes of the joe
rogan experience for free
only on spotify watch back catalog jre videos on spotify including clips easily
seamlessly switch
between video and audio experience on spotify you can listen to the jre in the
background while using
other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs all for free spotify
is absolutely free you
don't have to have a premium account to watch new jre episodes you just need to
search for the jre
on your spotify app go to spotify now to get this full episode of the joe rogan
experience

Avi Loeb on How the Scientific Community Isn't Open Minded

the Joe Rogan experience you know Einstein made three three big mistakes at
the end of his career in the 1930s he argued that black holes don't exist
gravitational waves don't exist and quantum mechanics doesn't have spooky
action at a distance you know he argued all these three things at the end of
his
career when he was the most experienced you know and he was wrong we have
experimental data that shows that he was wrong on all three and what is the
lesson from that even the smartest person you know that was last century in
physics can be wrong if he works on the frontier because you never know exactly
where the truth lies okay you have to take risks and if people want to just
demonstrate that they are smart it's better not to take risks and how do you
not take risks if you work on ideas that will never be tested against data
against
evidence so if you work on super string theory or on extra dimensions or on the
multiverse you can do intellectual gymnastics and impress your colleagues
that you're smart and you will get jobs you will get recognition you will get
awards if that's your goal that's a completely legitimate framework but I see
it as a violation of our commitment as physicists to understand nature you know
it's not really about us physics is a dialogue with nature you listen to nature
you see what the experiments are telling you and you learn and perhaps you were
wrong you take risks it's not about your image it's not getting more likes on
Twitter so that's why I don't really care what my colleagues say if this object
looked unusual I just talked about it the way I would talk about any other
anomaly and people were asking you know why isn't he backing down well I will
back
down as soon as there is evidence you know if I saw a photograph showing that
it's a rock or if I saw some other objects like it that we definitely have
clear evidence that they're naturally produced then I will give up on it like
and I'm not afraid of being wrong you know that's that's part of any work on
the
frontiers this is my thoughts on the the quantum physics aspect of this I think
there's not
enough people that understand what they're doing to criticize them so there's
no social pressure the
difference between that and the concept of exploring extraterrestrial life is
extraterrestrial life is inexorably connected to nonsense it's an extra
collected it's
connected to crazy people exactly that they're talking to aliens exactly they're
channeling people but I have to answer I have an answer to that okay suppose
there
was a whole literature on kovid 19 that is completely fictitious you know like
people were saying crazy things about kovid 19 that make no sense whatsoever
and
that was well you can find them yeah suppose there were there were books about
it
there were films about it now would that mean that scientists reputable
scientists
should not work on a vaccine for no no no but there are people that say
nonsense you
don't care you ignore them kovid 19 is a real thing and you can prove it in a
lab
quickly yeah instantly I mean it's it's universally acknowledged as being a
real
thing right the problem with extraterrestrial life is there's no
evidence that it's real well but if you step on the grass and and you say look
it
doesn't grow then obviously because you're stepping on it so if you bully
anyone
that works on the subject then young people don't enter into this research
field if you
don't fund it at all you dry it up then there will not be discoveries no I said
look they're not discovered I step on the grass it doesn't grow therefore there
is
no point in continuing to wait for it you know to grow I agree with you no I I
think
it's a I think it's a side effect of our social interactions and I think a lot
of
professors a lot of people in academia they come from you know maybe a so more
socially awkward environment they come from a a lot of people that get into
teaching a
lot of people that get into being professors they weren't like the class
king they weren't like the most popular person and social interactions with
them
you know maybe they were bullied maybe they're like dr. Carl Hart who's an
academic who was on the couple days ago was actually talking about this very
subject and that a lot of academics they they they try to undermine other
people's work and they they do so in kind of a bullying fashion because it's
all
about the ego you see yeah I was asked by the Harvard Gazette the Harvard
University Gazette which is the Pravda of Harvard you know this official
newspaper they asked me what is the one thing you would like to change about
the world you
know a very big question yeah so I wrote an essay I said I want my colleagues
to behave
more like kids because as a kid I remember that you know I was mostly curious
about the world I I
would not be afraid of making mistakes I wasn't worried about my ego or my
something really
strange happens to those kids that take risks and are not worried about
themselves
so much something bad happens to them when they become tenured professors in
academia tenure is supposed to give you the freedom to explore you know
directions
that might may turn out to be wrong you know that's what Einstein demonstrated
at
the end of his career so you would expect people to take advantage of that but
instead once professors become tenured for life meaning that there is no risk
to
their job they are starting to pursue honors and awards status recognition yeah
they
are afraid of making mistakes they build these echo chambers where they have
students and postdocs repeating their mantras so that their voice will sound
louder so that they will get even more recognition now I say this you know the
scientific inquiry is not about us it's about the dialogue with nature trying
to
figure out what nature is it's not about elevating our status our image you
know we
will all die in several decades so you know it's really not that now you know
actually Lex Friedman was asking me Avi you know so much what do you think is
the
meaning of life and I told him look I think we just exist you know any meaning
that we
assign now will go away in a billion years because the Sun will boil off the
oceans on
earth there will be no life on earth you know all of these things that we call
meaning they are really temporary in the big big skin we should just enjoy the
process just like
eating good food you know I will not mention another example you know doing
these like eating
good food you enjoy the process so learning about the world figuring out what
the world is
is very enjoyable you know I I if I realize something nobody else did and
understand something
that nobody else did it gives me pleasure so just the process of doing that
that gives
me meaning because I enjoy it you know so you should live your life in a way
that you enjoy it if you
like good food that's good enough you know you can live your life just eating
you know that's what
animals do yeah yeah right uh can have sex you can do all kinds but if you want
a deeper sort of
satisfaction I think understanding the world is what humans are capable of
doing and and that's really
a deeper level of of enjoying life so to speak well there's a lot of examples
of professors going out
on a limb being incorrect and then being punished being ridiculed losing their
status in the community or
even being correct but not having the support of your peers who turn on you and
turn against you and
then it turns out ultimately they were correct but there's very little there's
very little repercussions
for that and there's this thing that happens with people and ideas where they
get scared to take on
something that could easily make them look ridiculous and the best example of
that is extraterrestrial
life yeah that is it's so easy to get ridiculed for believing in it it's like
bigfoot and then
extraterrestrial life no I want to change that I say this is a subject the
scientific community can
address with scientific tools okay with telescopes let's discuss it the public
is interested you know
let's forget about the past and look for a better future right and my point is
there are many examples
for unborn babies you know in science where people were ridiculed and ideas
were never pursued or delayed
you know for example looking for planets around other stars you know that was
something something that
was suggested in 1952 by an astronomer called Otto Struve who said if you take
Jupiter the planet Jupiter
put it close to the sun then it will move the sun back and forth a lot and you
could tell if there
is a close in Jupiter near other stars by looking at their motion or looking as
it occults the star
comes in front of it transits in front he suggested that 1952 for four decades
astronomers ignored that
why because they said we know that Jupiter in our solar system is far away and
we understand why it's far
away and therefore we shouldn't waste our time even looking for something like
that then in 1995
a couple of astronomers found a hot Jupiter Jupiter close to a star and they
got the nobel prize a couple
of years ago for that so my point is this is an example of a baby that was
eventually born
so people would say oh yeah science works you see eventually it was found my
point is it took four
decades in those four decades you know we could have done a lot to advance
science and the other
thing is i say okay this baby was born but there might have been other babies
that were not born you
know ideas that were put forward and were scrutinized for no good reason just
because people are close-minded
and you know the strange thing for me is that i see a lot of innovation in the
commercial sector you see
uh you know jeff bezos elon musk you know apple uh google uh they have
parts of their companies that is that are doing blue sky research you know
things that are not applied
start it all started with ibm and before that and
then in academia i see a lot of conservatism much less innovation as in the
commercials now
the commercial sector is after making a profit you would expect academia to be
even more open-minded
but it's not and to me that has that must change is this something that you had
as an idea before
publishing this this oh yeah these thoughts about extraterrestrial life yeah
did that accentuate it for you
yeah yeah yeah i didn't expect the response that i received it doesn't bother
me um you know in my
uh pub i have 800 more than 800 papers that i published and eight books in in
in all of these
i talk about anomalies you know over the years i talked about anomalies in
other contexts you know like
in the early universe and and then when i mentioned speculative ideas in other
contexts there was no
pushback you know it it it wasn't threatening to anyone it wasn't but something
about the subject of
extraterrestrial life bothers people and frankly you know i'm just like a kid i
try to be as close as
possible to the way i was at a young age i'm just doing it innocently working
on this subject the same
way i work on other subjects and i get this response that now the only reason
the two of us are speaking
you know and i get a lot of media attention is because my colleagues are not
behaving the same way
if everyone would accept you know i think it's common sense what is common
sense to me if everyone would
accept it i would be no different than the person next to me you wouldn't speak
you wouldn't be
speaking to me sure i would no i still would be catch new episodes of the joe
rogan experience for free
only on spotify watch back catalog jre videos on spotify including clips easily
seamlessly switch
between video and audio experience on spotify you can listen to the jre in the
background while using
other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs all for free spotify
is absolutely free you
don't have to have a premium account to watch new jre episodes you just need to
search for the jre
on your spotify app go to spotify now to get this full episo