Is science our saviour or downfall? | Bret Weinstein, Luc Julia, Marc Edwards and Güneş Taylor
35Bret Weinstein, Luc Julia, Güneş Taylor and Marc Edwards debate the role of science.
Watch the full debate at https://iai.tv/video/our-saviour-or-our-downfall?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=description
From climate change to nuclear weapons, surveillance to resource depletion, science is increasingly in the firing line. As a result, many are highly critical of science and the organisations it is seen to sustain - from agribusiness and military spending to big pharma and big tech. Yet faced with a global pandemic the same critics look to science for the solutions, to find a vaccine, to create drugs to fight the disease, to efficiently manufacture and distribute billions of items of protective equipment.
Should we end the hypocrisy and see science as our saviour? Or have technological advances led humanity into a dark and troubling world from which we need to reverse? To avoid these polarised options, can and should we intervene to direct and control the way science is used and by whom? And if so, is the politics of science and technology central to the future?
Biologist and evolutionary theorist Bret Weinstein, inventor of voice assistant SIRI Luc Julia, genetic researcher Güneş Taylor and Flint water crisis whistle-blower Marc Edwards debate our saviour or our downfall. Mary Ann Sieghart hosts.
#BretWeinstein #LucJulia #MarcEdwards
Bret Samuel Weinstein is an American evolutionary biologist. Until 2017, Weinstein was a professor of biology at Evergreen State College in Washington State. In 2002, he published The Reserve-Capacity Hypothesis, which proposed that the telomeric differences between humans and laboratory mice have led scientists to underestimate the risks that new drugs pose to humans in the form of heart disease, liver dysfunction, and related organ failure.
Luc Julia is the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC) and the co-creator of Siri.
Güneş Taylor is a Postdoctoral Training Fellow in the Lovell-Badge Lab at the Francis Crick Institute. She received her Neural Crest PhD in the Sauka-Spengler Lab at the University of Oxford.
Marc Edwards is a civil and environmental engineer, and the Charles Edward Via Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. An expert on water treatment and corrosion, Edwards's research on elevated lead levels in Washington, DC's municipal water supply gained national attention, changed the city's recommendations on water use in homes with lead service pipes, and caused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to admit to publishing a report so rife with errors that a congressional investigation called it "scientifically indefensible." He is also one of the whistleblowers in the Flint water crisis.
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