Transcriber: Jesse Riggs Reviewer: Denise RQ
So, so thank you for having me,
and I am not going to be on this magic TEDx carpet right over there.
That's my idea of being lassoed.
(Laughter)
I am going to talk to you about what happened to me as a youth.
I had a happy youth, but I had a lot of older brothers,
and let's just say I got hit a lot,
but, but that's OK, that's OK, I'm OK now.
But what I'm going to talk you about soon, when I get my first slide,
was what we used to do at four o'clock, every day,
when there was only three channels,
and my brother Joe had to go up on the roof and fix the antenna,
we would watch Star Trek,
the 1960s iconic TV show.
They flew around on the Enterprise.
Every week was a disaster, a crisis.
Something happened. We had to solve it.
And that's what I'm going to talk about today: Star Trek.
Let's see. So!
Why am I going to talk about Star Trek?
Because I think it's a very powerful tool for science.
When I was younger,
my brothers and I would argue and debate, and I kid you not,
about what was the best Star Trek episode.
And it used to boil down to who was the best villain,
what was the best scene, perhaps, what was the best fight scene,
and I can tell you exactly what my favorite scenes were when I was kid,
but getting ready for this presentation in which I watched,
maybe over 100 hours of Star Trek
(Laughter)
I have a whole new affinity for Star Trek episodes.
And the ones that I like now are ones in which we can use
to educate the public and scientists how to communicate when we have crises.
They could be short term crises like Fukushima or oil spills,
or they can be long-term chronic ones like climate change,
which have been discussed several times today.
So that's what I'm going to talk about today,
and my star of my show is Mr. Spock.
Who knows who Mr. Spock is?
See, all right. See?
So, I'm going to talk about half Vulcan, half human, green skin,
pointy ears, second in number command on the Enterprise behind Captain Kirk.
Bottom line:
my idea that I want to pass on is Spock is great in a crisis.
And when chips come down, and there was another crisis,
I'm calling Spock.
Let's talk about that, all right?
So, next slide.
This is a classic scene.
Key thing to remember is to Spock's left is Mr. Scott.
Number three in command, he is the ship's engineer.
They, again, are in another crisis.
This is the first crisis of two in this episode.
Let's cut this shot. Let's go.
(video) Radha: But somehow I'd say that in a flash, we've been knocked
1,000 light years away from where we were.
Spock: 990.7 light years to be exact, lieutenant.
Scott: But that's not possible. Nothing can do that.
Spock: Mr. Scott, since we are here,
your statement is not only illogical but also unworthy of refutation.
It is also illogical to assume that any explosion,
even that of a small star going supernova,
could have hurled us at a distance of 990.7 light years.
(on stage) Chris Reddy: So...
(Laughter)
Mr. Spock just did the stereotypical,
absolutely annoying scientific scientist, right?
He was cold. He was rude.
He corrected somebody.
Who cares?
We're 1,000 light years off in the distance,
and he's going to say 990.7?
No! We have to fix this problem.
But yet Spock stays cool,
he reminds them that this is where we actually are,
he's unwavering, he stays on message,
and that's very important when you have a crisis,
you have scientists who stay on message, they are unwavering, and they're cool.
He might be a little too cool sometimes, but he's very good.
And you know what?
We mock him for that 990.7,
but maybe that 990.7 means something,
that it's not 1,000, but 990.7 means something.
So let's appreciate that.
He's not flashy, he's not sexy, but he gets the job done.
And that's a classy example of doing that.
OK, now, I am the last person to do
anything on top of Pygmalion of activities
but what if we could just help Spock out a little?
I don't want him to change too much, but maybe we could soften the edges.
I mean, here's an example where, maybe, Spock could have been a little less Spock.
But we don't want to change him too much.
So let's run this clip.
(video) Spock: ...transporter and communications under repair.
Random chance seems to have operated in our favor.
McCoy: Plain non-Vulcan English: we've been lucky.
Spock: I believe I said that, Doctor.
(Music)
(Laughter)
Chris Reddy: He drops technical jargon after they just dodged a bullet,
or in Star Trek, the photon torpedo.
He didn't say we got lucky.
He dropped that big long line.
Dr. McCoy, who's a very passionate guy, calls him out and says,
"You're being obnoxious. Why couldn't you just say we got lucky?"
And what does Spock do? Spock stays on message.
He does not try to please anybody.
He says, "Yeah. That's what I just said."
(Laughter)
A lot of scientists in crisis modes try to make people happy,
especially if they're not well prepared.
He did not.
Now, the question is could he have said, "Yeah. We were lucky."?
It still would have been accurate, it still wouldn't have been over the top,
and what I'm going to argue for the next couple slides
is what makes Spock so good
is that he's an unbelievably passionate scientist.
He has so much passion you can't believe it.
But he's dispassionate in the way he presents it,
and that's what we want in our scientists under crisis mode.
We want them hungry for knowledge.
We don't want them too--
when we want information, we want it dispassionate.
We don't want any bias.
We want to know what do we know, what do we don't know,
what's under debate and what's changing.
Those are what we need, and that's where I think Spock is powerful.
This next slide just shows, on the Enterprise,
which has about 400 crewmen,
the spaceship that they fly around, Spock's street cred.
Just how respected he is.
This is a scene between Captain Kirk
- this is William Shatner when he was skinny and not as annoying -
and Mr. Spock -I mean, no, Dr. McCoy.
Dr. McCoy is the chief medical officer, very passionate.
If you were looking for a sound bite
in terms of science or anything like that, and you were a journalist,
you would be sitting on his lap because his sound bites are spectacular.
So watch, let's watch this scene. We'll run it now.
(video) Kirk: I'm beaming aboard the ship, Doctor. McCoy: You can't leave her.
Kirk: We can't search this whole planet on foot. McCoy: Jim!
Kirk: You could learn something from Mr. Spock, Dr, stop thinking with your glands.
We've equipment aboard the Enterprise
that could pinpoint a match lit anywhere on this planet or the heat of a body.
Reddy: So we can stop this right here. What did you he just say?
He said, "Could you be a little more like Spock,
and stop thinking with your glands?"
(Laughter)
He just said, "Stop thinking with your glands."
That's a great line, and I have to tell you,
I spent the last year and half of my life at Deepwater Horizon.
I've been there, done there, been in discussions, wherever.
A lot of my colleagues, great scientists, they went glandular.
They went a little too glandular.
We can't go there!
We've got to be on, you know, we have to be more like Spock, you know?
This is where you have to respect that.
You have to respect that.
I'm going to tell you a story about what happened when I went glandular once.
I had an opportunity to speak to a reporter with "Good Morning America."
I hate seeing myself on TV.
Worst, I hate hearing my voice
because I sound like a high-school dropout.
I grew up in Rhode Island. It happened.
But, the --
(Laughter)
But, but the point of the matter is I had an opportunity.
I know oil spills. I've been working on it for 15 years.
I had an opportunity to add some clarity.
And the reporter and I were having--
You know, this was "Good Morning America."
I had a good opportunity to add some clarity.
He was so unbelievably obnoxious,
and he was so--I hate to use the word because I don't want to sound like a snob,
but I'm going to say it because I'm a scientist
and I can be a snob sometimes-- stupid.
(Laughter)
I mean just like the stupidest questions.
And instead of me trying to be cool, turn him around,
point him into the direction that I would have liked for him to be,
I just kept going back and forth
until, six minutes later, nothing came out.
I missed an opportunity to communicate
and give clarity in a time when people needed clarity
because I was an idiot.
I was glandular.
Can't do it.
So, this is a long clip, but hang in there with me on this one.
Let's go. It's this guy.
(Video) Kirk: Almost as though they were irrational, drugged.
An engineer sitting there apparently oblivious to everything,
a woman strangled, a crewman with a phaser pistol in his hand.
Spock: He'd used the computer room as if it were an amusement gallery.
Kirk: And a fully clothed man, frozen to death in a shower.
If the image wasn't so ugly, it would be laughable.
Not even a theory, gentlemen?
McCoy: Definitely not drugs or intoxication.
The bio-analysis on the tapes prove that conclusively.
Spock: Could be some form of space madness we've never heard of.
But it would have to be caused by something.
Our spectro-readings showed
no contamination, no unusual elements present.
Scott: Or at least none your tricorders could register.
Spock: Instruments register only those things they're designed to register.
Space still contains infinite unknowns.
Chris Reddy: This is a spectacular scene.
It just embodied what good science should, in a science communication, should happen.
When you are in a crisis, you have people from a wide range of disciplines
discussing, adding ideas, throwing them out there.
Mr. Scott played the perfect skeptic.
He wasn't playing devil's advocate; he was playing the skeptic.
Spock comes back and adds more.
This is the type of dialogue that we need during crises.
And I had bet you - and I've seen it in action -
happens more than you think.
There's this concept that every disaster is way to go--
[Brown], the FEMA director during Katrina.
I disagree. I bet you in many cases we have in crisis modes.
That's the type - and if not - that's what we should aim for.
The problem is that does not make the news;
these insightful discussions amongst all those players.
Here's the next slide.
We can run this?
(video) (sci-fi foley)
Kirk: I 've got to find Janice.
Spock: That's not all, Captain. We've got to find those communicators.
Kirk: We're trying, Mr. Spock. We're trying very hard.
McCoy: It's not good enough!
This could be it, but we can't test it without the ship's computers.
(sci-fi foley)
Spock We've got to have those communicators, Jim.
Kirk: This is the vaccine?
(sci-fi foley)
McCoy: That's what the computers will tell us.
Spock: Without them, it could be a beaker full of death.
(dramatic music playing)
Chris Reddy: Did Spock just become glandular?
(Laughter)
Did he just use "beaker full of death"?
(Laughter)
Did he just say that?
That's a little over the top for him.
Dr. McCoy would say that.
But then, you think about - I've watched this clip so many times -
is that the most accurate way to say something?
And it's dispassionate. It's a beaker full of death.
And I don't know...
I still don't know whether or not
this might have been a place where he was out of character or he wasn't,
we can talk about the innovation lounge.
It'd be really great.
Spock does drop the ball.
I have a degree in chemistry.
That wasn't a beaker.
It was a flask.
(Laughter) So--
(Applause)
Last scene.
I want to paint a picture for you guys.
Spock is not handsome.
He does not have game,
that means he's not very good at picking up women.
(Laughter)
He's got green skin.
He's got pointy ears.
He does not have much going for him.
He is single.
He's been on a vessel for a long time.
(Laughter)
Let's cut this clip. Let's go.
(video) Leila: I missed you.
Spock: Logically, you should all be dead.
Leila: If I tell you how we survived,
will you try to understand how we feel about our life here, about each other?
Spock: Emotions are alien to me.
I'm a scientist.
(Laughter)
Chris Reddy: Spock is full of shit!
(Laughter)
(Applause)
He is such a damn good scientist and so emotional at being a good scientist
that he fought back
this very attractive woman, considerably out of his league
(Laughter)
because he wanted to know where she was
because that planet was going to explode in 15 minutes.
He kept asking her.
He was defiant because he was passionate about what he was doing.
Now, he may not have come off very cool right here,
but he did not let--
he did not let things get in the way of what he was trying to do,
which was trying to learn about what was going on this planet.
We have to respect that, again.
So I'm going to end right here. I'm just going to talk about a few things.
One: in the late 1970s I dressed up like Captain Kirk numerous times
to go to Star Trek conventions.
(Laughter)
OK, I got, OK?
Number two is--
(Laugher)
Number--
Number two is Falmouth is a small town.
If any of you people come up to me and say
any little cute Star Trek quote after today, it's not funny.
(Laughter)
So "Live Long and Prosper", "Beam me up, Scotty,"
No. Today you can make fun of me.
After tomorrow, you can't. OK?
Number three, and most importantly, let's embrace Spock.
Let's think about how Spock, and we can use Spock,
and train future scientists to act like him.
Now, granted, maybe we could put
a little bit of polish on him; not a lot, just a little.
But on the flip side, we also have
to educate the public not to be so glandular, themselves.
That, that maybe just because Spock isn't so flashy,
he's still a great communicator
of what we need to know when we're in a crisis.
And that's really keen.
I encourage you to use this, and hopefully, other scientists will.
iTunes: I spent about 150 bucks.
Last, just want to let you know, as I said before,
I always wanted to be Captain James Tiberius Kirk,
he always got the prettiest woman, always won in a fight,
always solved the problem,
but after watching all these episodes, I'd rather be Spock.
(Applause)