What Can Science Learn from Other Disciplines?

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Nick Oswald: hello, and welcome to another edition of the happy scientist podcast, this is the place to be if you want to be a happier healthier and more productive scientist.

Nick Oswald: i'm Nick, the founder of bite sized bio.com and today we will be drawing on the wisdom of Mr Kenneth booked Mr bite bite size by was Mr miyagi.

Nick Oswald: and founder of the executive mentoring company viera curators.

Nick Oswald: Today, and in all of the other happy scientist podcast episodes you get to benefit from Cannes wisdom and G to help you increase your performance enjoyment and success in the lab.

Nick Oswald: today's episode is an interesting one, so we scientists tend to look tend to get stuck in the idea that science can explain everything when, in reality, it is just one way to look at the world.

Nick Oswald: So today we'll be opening that up and exploring what science can learn from other disciplines, or you can take it away.

kennethvogt: Well i'm stirred by that introduction.

kennethvogt: And in fact that was thinking.

kennethvogt: There was something you just said that science teams to look to science for answers, but I didn't even know if that's true I think scientists tend to look to their own branch of science for answers.

kennethvogt: could be no so you know, the point is is that if you can change your outlook on this.

kennethvogt: and start looking.

kennethvogt: You know, you know to cast a wider net for where can you draw other ideas from you're going to realize there's a there is a rich world out there there's a lot of opportunity.

kennethvogt: for things that will that will improve your science not me in some cases, it may actually improve the science itself, but in other cases it's going to it's going to improve the.

kennethvogt: The structure and the you know the infrastructure that is supporting your science and you know you can't you can't ignore that either it's that's also important.

kennethvogt: And if you're if if you become aware of other things that have already been done and are already working that have a proven track record means that's about a scientific approaches, there is, you know.

kennethvogt: that these are these are hypotheses that have been formulated and tested and proven well why not implement them in the scientific realm as well.

kennethvogt: And and get the benefit from that and I want to start off in in in what I think is probably the easiest place to look.

kennethvogt: Because it's a place you're already familiar with, because you had to spend a lot of time there before you got to the lab and that's the academia.

kennethvogt: And in fact that can be me is had a lot of influence on science, it has a lot of influence on the structure of science and, in fact.

kennethvogt: Many scientists are still working in academic institutions, you know it's that's where the labs are so so that being the case, and then I gave Nick about 30 seconds warning that I was gonna really drag him into this one.

kennethvogt: And he's Nick spent more time in academia than I have so I want to, I want to open up this idea of what what is going on in academia that could be instructive for science so.

kennethvogt: Anything come to mind, for you, Nick.

Nick Oswald: there's a question.

kennethvogt: Okay.

Nick Oswald: Well, I didn't spend that much time in academia.

kennethvogt: So I did.

Nick Oswald: I did an undergrad and then I did a PhD and then I was out of academia.

kennethvogt: you realize everybody doesn't have a PhD.

Nick Oswald: Well Okay, I mean compared to some people listening to this have spent a lot of.

Nick Oswald: hearing me so they will know a lot more about academia than I do my.

Nick Oswald: soul going what episode, do you discuss this spiral dynamics stuff most somewhere on episode 129.

kennethvogt: that's that's an in episodes, four, five and six.

Nick Oswald: episodes, four, five and six okay so.

Nick Oswald: You know, have a look back in.

Nick Oswald: academia, is very much blue or you probably know that anyway it's very structured is very much about.

Nick Oswald: Creating for me, anyway, you know, looking at from the kind of outside and it's about creating structure of our of our silos of knowledge around personalities in a way the personnel is being.

Nick Oswald: principal investigators, you know the star scientists and then you know the next layer up being institutions.

Nick Oswald: So.

Nick Oswald: You know what you can learn from that versus.

Nick Oswald: or I don't know, but what you can learn from it, but it's a different mindset isn't it all these are.

Nick Oswald: In a way, they're just different mindsets whereas.

Nick Oswald: In business and industry, you could never get away with or i'd be much more difficult to justify chipping away at something to just for the sake of creating knowledge.

Nick Oswald: You that wasn't generating an application for example, or wouldn't have any didn't look like it was going to generate an application that you could make profit out of an academia it's the other way around, you can you you literally poor.

Nick Oswald: hours and brainpower and equipment and manpower and and all that stuff passion power into.

Nick Oswald: into creating silos of knowledge to see how they connect up and then what can come from them application wiseman that normally you know goes out into industry.

Nick Oswald: So that's I don't know if that's what you meant but that's The way I see the mindset being in the distinction being some boat academia as a boat generating knowledge.

Nick Oswald: For the sake of generic knowledge.

kennethvogt: As you've mentioned, you know they they are blue and and, by the way, if you don't know what we're talking about when you say they're blue listen to episode four through six please, it will all become clear.

Nick Oswald: Basically, just just very structured and it's a boat.

Nick Oswald: yeah it's a boat blobs.

kennethvogt: yeah but that structure is beneficial.

kennethvogt: The structure.

kennethvogt: Has has its upside and so sometimes you can you can realize, if you look back at how things are organized there that.

kennethvogt: It could give you clues is now, you might want to organize your lap or how you organize your procedures, so you know so there's advantages to having that kind of that kind of structure that's that's reliable and and regulated and and replicable so.

Nick Oswald: Well, I mean another way to look at it is, if you are an industry, I know that you know, in your tenant to go for the project.

Nick Oswald: Especially if you're a smaller company or you're tending to go for the things that will make money you know because you're right that's that's the survival, but I know of companies.

Nick Oswald: who allowed things to happen on the site, and you know you know examples of this from outside of you know, not in science other areas of business, would you allow people to just tinker for the sake of tinkering.

Nick Oswald: And then stuff came out really good stuff came out of it so that's maybe you.

Nick Oswald: guys famous for that exactly so that's maybe one lesson from academia, to bear in mind, regardless of which.

Nick Oswald: area of science sure and is that it doesn't all have to be driving towards the goal, allowing a bit of play at the side can often help, especially if you want to be a groundbreaker you know you don't just want to turn right the money sort of thing you.

kennethvogt: know now that being said, there's a lot to be learned from business also.

kennethvogt: Yes, that is a football in business, in many cases, more orange rather than then blue.

kennethvogt: And when we say orange we mean that.

kennethvogt: they're they're about ambition they're about achievement there about getting something done, you know, which is a little different than, say discovery and discoveries about.

kennethvogt: Finding things but achievement means I don't I don't care whether you find anything or not, I just have to make sure that something is accomplished by the end of the day.

kennethvogt: And, and that mindset isn't necessarily bad, in fact, it can drive discovery and and and, on top of that, it can just drive practical solutions because you know a lot of the stuff that the writers by us talking about is a basic science, you know it's the fundamentals.

kennethvogt: The applications come often well beyond fundamentals, though, and, and that is where money comes money does Monday does matter according to Randy Newman.

kennethvogt: it's money that matters, but you know that's.

kennethvogt: Sometimes you might look at this and go I don't want to I don't want to corrupt my my lab with that kind of thinking he's like well it isn't necessarily corrupt.

kennethvogt: And yet I will grant you could be corrupted but doesn't have to be is there plenty of businesses out there.

kennethvogt: That are just to sell touristic is funny labs out there in fact there's plenty of labs out there that are less altruistic than some businesses.

kennethvogt: So you know money doesn't automatically corrupt things you know that the miss the misstatement than money is the root of all evil that's not what it said it's the love of money is the root of all evil so there's a you know it's different.

yeah.

Nick Oswald: hmm that's interesting because.

Nick Oswald: As the more I look at this, the more that this is just.

Nick Oswald: it's about is easy to judge the mindsets of other areas when you're not in them, you know other disciplines when you know in them, but this is just a by.

Nick Oswald: it's almost about different viewpoints on the same problem, if you like.

Nick Oswald: um you know you even just start thinking about talking about a business being altruistic or a business, not being altruistic.

Nick Oswald: A lot of that will depend on whether they're in survival mode or not.

Nick Oswald: Which is a can be a function of where they are in their in their growth, you know in their development, you know, a start up is very unlikely to be on an.

Nick Oswald: altruistic because they're trying to put all of the power into growing the business or the money the power that they have into growing the business, whereas a business that's huge then has more more scope to be altruistic.

Nick Oswald: But you can't it's um.

Nick Oswald: it's easy to judge businesses that are not altruistic and you know when you are like put the cat amongst the pigeons if you're you know you're.

Nick Oswald: you're sitting in a in an academic lab which has a bunch of funding that secures up for the next five years, and you can you know, trying to make a model.

Nick Oswald: A model comparison is not really valid because it's two completely different situations.

kennethvogt: Exactly, and in some businesses their you know their their basic tenant isn't a moral argument, like, for instance let's let's talk about.

kennethvogt: let's mentioned the petroleum industry, a lot of people just hate the petroleum industry, but the fact is, is that petroleum is.

kennethvogt: was an absolutely critical component for the industrial revolution and everything that exists today but it hadn't been for petroleum we wouldn't have the science, we have today.

kennethvogt: So it's not necessarily all evil, you know I mean can it be used wrong, of course, can it can it be tone deaf about certain things, yes, it could be.

kennethvogt: But doesn't have to be and, by the way, that's instructive to when we see when we see failings in other disciplines there's lessons there you don't have to learn in your discipline.

kennethvogt: You can you can you can take that lesson ago wow let's not go down that road.

Nick Oswald: So i'm looking at this list that you have here let's looking a bit daunting we'll start with the easy ones already.

kennethvogt: Well, I still want to break down business a bit.

kennethvogt: Is kind of a subset of businesses finance finance or something you're certainly familiar with in the scientific world because man, if you know.

kennethvogt: getting money to do what you do is is a huge part of the job, unfortunately I say, unfortunately, but it is what it is, you know and.

kennethvogt: But how do, how do businesses finance themselves and how do they treat finance and how do they manage finance, you know that that stuff.

kennethvogt: is just as applicable to your operation, you know you run a you know you may run or you may be part of an organization.

kennethvogt: That has a financial structure to it, that is just as critical as any other business or any of the nonprofit or any school, you know so.

kennethvogt: It still has to be taken into consideration, you can't say well you know we're above that we don't we don't mess with that you can't ignore it, it has to be part of what you do and and having a scientific mind it's meant, you may well.

kennethvogt: find you can do it as well, or better than then someone else you know you know, one of the things that that I do is when you know I do executive coaching for companies and i've worked with.

kennethvogt: A variety of different kinds of companies and often what's The case is the person who comes to me for assistance.

kennethvogt: is very good at what they do, I mean really good outstandingly good at it.

kennethvogt: But they never run a business before it's so it's a it's a new skill set for them, you know it doesn't mean it's a skill set beyond their capability it's not it's not rocket science to run a business, but then again it's not kindergarten either you know so.

kennethvogt: So it's worth getting good at parts of business that are touching you know, this may not be true for everyone who's listening, right now, maybe you know, maybe you're.

kennethvogt: You know you're in a new position in a lab you don't touch the financial part of this at all it's never it's not part of your world okay that's fine.

kennethvogt: But for many of you, it does touch you and for many of you have it isn't touching it out it's going to touch you.

kennethvogt: So it's not a bad idea to have some familiarity with these things and it's not hard to get knowledge of these, and these these topics, thank goodness for the Internet, and you know there's so much free.

kennethvogt: Information, you know that that can get you up to speed pretty quickly so.

kennethvogt: So.

kennethvogt: that's what the mundane stuff you're familiar with how about psychology.

kennethvogt: How would psychology be beneficial in science, and I think a lot of scientists have looked at that and say, not only is it not beneficial, it is detrimental.

kennethvogt: To get your head stuck in these Willy nilly notions and you know, some people you believe in argue that psychology is barely a science itself that it's too soft, but the fact is it's had a big influence on you know modern society and certainly.

kennethvogt: At least Western society but possibly not just Western society there's a there's a lot of.

kennethvogt: call them important psychologists that come from the other side and and, to my mind there's two types of psychology that one could could know about, one that is professional psychology and popular psychology.

kennethvogt: And you know professional psychology is going to be, you know the people that are actually.

kennethvogt: educated and degreed and and and.

kennethvogt: we're talking about deep thinkers.

That.

kennethvogt: That are well known, even to the public, you know we've we've all heard of Sigmund Freud and Carl young.

kennethvogt: You know that they've been influential in that regard, and what they've had to say was extremely influential and a lot of people have built on their work and a lot of the work that they did.

kennethvogt: will impact, how you work, I mean talks about how you work it talks about why you're driven to do the work you do it talks about why you have certain blind spots in.

kennethvogt: Many of the episodes that we've done in the past are reminiscent of some of those concepts that and and many of you have commented about how it's been helpful to you and use with you.

kennethvogt: So don't blow it off automatically it's it's there, and if you, you know if you took some psychology classes in the course of getting your education.

kennethvogt: And that that struck a chord with you take a look at that again through the lens of how will this help me in the lab what is what will this tell me about what my motivations are and what other people's motivations around me are.

kennethvogt: Now, if we flip over to the POP psychology side, and I think that term pop psychology as opposed to popular psychology it's mentoring degrading.

kennethvogt: Like I yeah this is this is phony psychology is the argument, but the fact is, is there's a lack of sound foundational tools in.

kennethvogt: Popular psychology that are useful, you know and again we've talked about some of those things in past episodes and and their whole books written on just single cancer.

kennethvogt: yeah and meant to be accessible meant to be applicable in your life and in your world well my argument i'm making now let's make sure you apply them in the lap.

kennethvogt: You know it's it's it's like you know we've we've done episode of time and habits, for instance that's one one thing comes to mind, you know we probably talked about time management.

kennethvogt: You know these are these are part of that particular psychological discussion out there that apply that that actually matter.

Nick Oswald: is a core psychology again I probably talk about this every second episode.

Nick Oswald: But the recorded the record psychology at the heart of science, which is non attachment to the result.

Nick Oswald: and

Nick Oswald: You know you get that about psychology wrong in yourself or in your lab where you're chasing results and suddenly it's not science anymore so there's a fundamental psychology as to science.

There you go.

kennethvogt: Alright, so so The next area that I was thinking about was society society has a lot of impact on what you could do in science and I break the the idea of society to end a couple of different things, but.

kennethvogt: The the broad point of this is that that what is going on around us in our culture impacts our science and we've seen cultural impacts on science being be horrifying the past.

kennethvogt: And you know what there's been you know human experimentation and and you know people people being.

kennethvogt: You know science guinea pigs, without even their knowledge and you know some terrible things have happened based on lessons from society.

kennethvogt: But there are other things about society that are that are very, very positive things that that have been truly beneficial and and we don't want to miss those lessons.

kennethvogt: We want to bring into science like just looking at society from the standpoint of history, you know what can we learn from history, it will teach us about how to approach science.

kennethvogt: You know science used to be.

kennethvogt: Say basically part of the Church is like wow science and church right those things practically practically natural enemies like both no not really and.

kennethvogt: There was a reason why that was there, back in the day that the only people are educated word for the priests, you know.

kennethvogt: I mean you go back way back, and that was that was literally, the only education in society was was the priesthood.

kennethvogt: So.

kennethvogt: And i'm a mother i'm not arguing for that being the way it should be now i'm just, but I am pointing out that there's.

kennethvogt: There has been a connection there we don't lose the benefit of connections of what historically sciences meant in the past they used to be, that being a scientist wasn't a separate thing.

kennethvogt: You were you were always also a scientist, you were never exclusively a scientist, but we've gotten pretty darn compartmentalize these days and and.

kennethvogt: So there's not as much sharing with other areas of knowledge, for instance, other other parts of society, so the opportunity is there.

kennethvogt: Another one I thought that was interesting when we think about societies politics, and of course there's been a lot of controversy around politics affecting scientific decisions lately but there's a lot of positive things about politics to politics of driven.

kennethvogt: How certain sciences developed, you know, think about this, think about landing on the moon, for instance it's also driven what's important like finding finding a vaccine for polio, you know it became an all in feature and politics matter because politics added.

kennethvogt: It added focus it had a conversation um you know, in the population, it added possibilities of funding, you know, there was all kinds of all kinds of parts to this young.

kennethvogt: So we want to look the old, how can we at least make this be beneficial into you know you can look at this from yeah, how do we stop causing harm.

kennethvogt: Because the fact is, is the all the controversy about about you know coven science being politicized pointed out some weaknesses in science to you know so.

kennethvogt: it's it's worth looking at and saying Okay, what do we learn from this what, how can we make this better and how do we fill the holes that were were uncovered because it got too political you know so yeah man i've taken aside and I didn't even know what the sides are anymore, but.

kennethvogt: But I can say that it's pretty obvious that there's been an impact and it hurt the reputation of science, to a certain degree in among you know the general population started to have some doubts about science well.

kennethvogt: that's something needs to be short up.

Nick Oswald: Now, I think that the one good thing here is that are one.

Nick Oswald: Like, how can I put this one kind of lesson here from from the the recent struggles with this is that.

Nick Oswald: Science has driven law, I mean a lot, especially in biology, but all other areas of science as well really you're you're.

Nick Oswald: Fundamentally, from for gaining knowledge, but also the direction of that that effort is generally aimed mostly aimed at being altruistic you know it's almost aimed at.

Nick Oswald: Solving problems for society to make quality of life better for everyone.

and

Nick Oswald: There was a there was a very acute need for that during covert, for you know to solve a problem, and you know so there's a play a play between society and politics politics being that, ultimately, the expression of what the people want really so people wanted a.

Nick Oswald: cure for covert or you know something to at least blunt the effect of covert to help us cope with covert and so that gets taken into into politics and and then.

Nick Oswald: Politics is a distortion for, for you know always gets distorted, because that you know it's about controlling narratives and stuff like that, however, the push did come from the people and science did respond so.

Nick Oswald: it's almost like that the lesson is that again it's about being a bit more detached I think about it's fine for politics influence science, but the St has got to lead.

Nick Oswald: The scientists, a very gentle fragile and submit that you can cast out and find the direction but as soon as you squash it with your own ambition, or with.

Nick Oswald: or your own bias or or a political bias, or even a very strong public need, then, then the saints becomes you know gets overrun it gets crushed and and I think science, a relatively well to stand up to that in June and corvid we still managed to get out something that was.

Nick Oswald: You know, coherent and that helped in the end, but there are certainly lessons a boat for me it's a lot of it comes back to the stepping back and allowing signs to be science dependent, regardless of the motivations that are that are pushing it.

kennethvogt: Exactly.

kennethvogt: So alright well, let me lead to another notion in society and minute think of that could have lessons for for the lab and that's fiction and art and let's add music to that.

kennethvogt: They will, how would that be useful, well, let me give you a simple example there was there was a book written by somebody named Andy we're called the martian.

kennethvogt: And he was written this blog piece by piece and people got really excited about it, and a lot of scientists got really excited about it.

kennethvogt: Because he was going out of his way to try to be as scientific as possible, and when he wrote well that turned into a movie with matt damon is the star, and you know.

kennethvogt: And, and it was a it was a fascinating but and that's, of course, is creating or creating or has been part of the creation of this drive to go to Mars.

kennethvogt: You know that's that's took that's a huge deal, you know and so many different areas of science are impacted by that that it's On top of that, I have to be written another book by Andy where.

kennethvogt: it's called hail Mary that was no I won't go into the whole story, but there's a lot of biology and it's it's a science fiction book and you know the martian was renowned for being pretty pretty scientifically accurate me he went and he got a lot of.

kennethvogt: A lot of help with that, because the the author himself is not a scientist, but the main character in hail Mary is a biologist a biologist and was sent to outer space.

kennethvogt: So it's it's pretty amazing, but the but the point being is it's getting this into people's heads and people are reading this and getting interested in the science and and you know kids are reading this and getting interested in being sciences and.

kennethvogt: And it's planning to do problems that may need to be solved, you know we don't maybe we don't have them today, but we're going to have them.

kennethvogt: So you know fiction and art and music talk about problems or potential problems and sometimes they're just fantasies.

kennethvogt: But their fantasies that are are credible fantasies think they could happen.

kennethvogt: And part of what science can do is to head off problems and so it's you know it's beautiful there stuff that there are people out there positing these potential problems because it just it's just creating something in design guys something else for us to think about.

kennethvogt: And then.

Nick Oswald: My last year.

Nick Oswald: Well, well what you take from that is is imagination yeah.

Nick Oswald: it's the fear of imagination and your own work as well.

Nick Oswald: You know you you cast out stuff you cast out ideas wild ideas and then suddenly.

Nick Oswald: You it opens up your mind to the possibilities.

kennethvogt: In truth, is stranger than fiction.

kennethvogt: As I bet you many, many of you scientists can point out that you've had that experience, where you've you've came across something go wow that's just nuts, nobody would believe this I didn't have all this data to prove it.

Nick Oswald: yeah yeah I mean again and also goes back to the the idea of allowing yourself to daydream you know, like to just daydream about you know what are the, what are the possible directions here, what are the possible solutions, but I mean as a St Louis you know that lateral thinking and.

Nick Oswald: You know, things like that can can really help you and that's just you know that it's a basically a facet of imagination so yeah I like that that's, what can you learn from our imagine more.

Nick Oswald: Give yourself time to imagine don't just get get your head out of the.

Nick Oswald: Of the you know the lab book and and let your imagination run yeah.

kennethvogt: And if you know, so you know fiction and other fictional things can be a starting point for that.

kennethvogt: But those are all made up what about folk wisdom, you know, there are plenty of things out there that.

kennethvogt: that people have been operating on for a while and and there's something to it and, in many cases it hasn't been scientifically investigated.

kennethvogt: And, of course, a lot of lot of a lot of drugs have have come out of that kind of.

Nick Oswald: investigating.

kennethvogt: You know, we have heart medications thanks to did you tell us you know because somebody somebody figured out a long time ago that that that plant had an impact on you.

kennethvogt: And you know, there are many plants that have impacts and you know so so much of our so much of our.

kennethvogt: Medicine chest has been drawn from the rain forest, you know because and people have already figured this stuff out, you know the ancient societies and sometimes it's it's not just about not just about medicine it's about.

kennethvogt: about methods and approaches to life that have you know become you know colloquial sayings, and things well.

kennethvogt: it's worth looking at that and saying well how do I apply this, or is there an application here for this and i've noticed that often in my consulting practice i've i've found that popular sayings are.

kennethvogt: You know, focused on coming all the time, because you see there the here's here's a situation where it matters where it applies and that memory of that thing.

kennethvogt: makes it an easy handle for somebody to grasp like i've heard that, before you know, a stitch in time saves nine you know why does that matter oh yeah oh yeah if I if I plan ahead, I do better, you know.

kennethvogt: If I buy watch from mistakes in advance, I can hit them off, you know so there's plenty of opportunity there to make an application to how you operate your lab how you operate your experiments, how you plan how you structure things.

kennethvogt: How you how you implement safety protocols.

kennethvogt: The linear system, it goes deep and a lot of the stuffs already built into you we've all got that because you know just comes from growing up in society and being in families.

kennethvogt: We have things we brought forward but let's use that you know there's that thing that grandma said, you know, maybe your grandma said mine didn't So if you don't bring it to if you don't bring it to the lab how's it going to get there, you know, so you know we have a certain.

kennethvogt: obligation to take our life experience and bring it forward into the lab.

kennethvogt: So the last area was thinking about this philosophy and I, and I know for a lot of folks that's going to be like wow that is like anti science, that is, that is, the unprovable stuff that is the stuff for the scientific method just the there's nowhere to use it.

kennethvogt: However, there are there are parts of philosophy that are are extremely important in science and the first one that came to mind was ethics, you know there, I mean there are now now.

kennethvogt: Scientific emphasis you know everywhere it's a full discipline, because there are things you can do in science, now the argument is should you do them.

kennethvogt: And there have been times and things that were done that that probably shouldn't have been done or there are times when things should have been done.

kennethvogt: And there was a lack of will, there was a lack of drive to do it because there was no scientific pressure to do it, but if there was an ethical.

kennethvogt: Pressure to do something, then it would move forward so you don't want to leave the ethics out, and I think you know, for the most part, you don't you probably don't want to leave them out.

kennethvogt: To me, there are cases obviously where ethics could get in the way and, like I think about them there's a situation where somebody had.

kennethvogt: got Ahold of crisper and thought we can edit out the genes for this this couple.

kennethvogt: wouldn't leave could lead to their child having asthma and that experiment actually got done and there's actually a genetically modified, maybe, as a result.

kennethvogt: Look at that and go well that's about as innocuous as it could be, but it does open up questions and their questions that ought to be asked, because, is there a line well.

kennethvogt: What first off, we need to know, is there a line, and second, of all, then we need to know if there is a line where is that line so you know ethics do matter in science and you might think, well, I just do basic research, I don't think that's going to touch me but.

kennethvogt: it's it's it it's surprising how often it does matter how often it will show up and the issue is, you know how far in advance what we think about we think well.

kennethvogt: Maybe there's nothing wrong with this particular science, but if it's only application is for something that we don't want to touch you know well, you know that that's something to think about.

kennethvogt: And then the final area and one dimension, I can I mentioned this before, but religion all religion in science, they don't have anything to do with each other.

kennethvogt: or even there even at odds, in some cases as well, some people have made it it adds but that's, the fact is that religion and science have a long storied history together and they have driven each other.

Nick Oswald: Well they're both about the same thing.

kennethvogt: Exactly.

Nick Oswald: What the hell is this all about.

Nick Oswald: And how does it work.

kennethvogt: And into you know wanting answers questions that other the other can answer you know people look at at at holy books well they're not science books they're not meant to be science books.

kennethvogt: And then they're full of stories and allegories and then P, some people have sometimes take an issue with that well this this allegory isn't scientifically accurate well it's an allegory cut if.

Nick Oswald: You look at what those things are and its people as attempt, and what what whether you think.

Nick Oswald: They are valid attempts or not people is attempts through the ages to.

Nick Oswald: capture something about what the hell that says, you know.

kennethvogt: And they have the limitations of the times you.

kennethvogt: know so when you didn't have a telescope and you'd never been to outer space there's certain things you can't see.

kennethvogt: But the other side of it is is.

kennethvogt: Religion is about wonder and awe and that wondering on has That is how science came to be.

kennethvogt: People were looking for a way to answer that.

kennethvogt: In science was born.

Nick Oswald: it's funny because a lot of scientists that I know have.

Nick Oswald: use this what we know about science to squash the wonder and all.

Nick Oswald: And whether you believe, whether you believe in in You know, as you know, a.

Nick Oswald: Higher being or however you want to talk about the fact is that this is weird.

Nick Oswald: You know this whole thing is like why, why did How did this happen.

Nick Oswald: You know and.

Nick Oswald: And why is it here, and even if you know you go with the extreme kind of you know thousand monkeys with a typewriter would eventually creep you know, whatever the watch of 16 or whatever else you want to go with that it's still pretty remarkable that that.

Nick Oswald: How the CDS of chance events that led to that you know, so you can still be an order that.

Nick Oswald: But.

kennethvogt: By the way, i'll you scientists out there.

kennethvogt: there's a good experiment go get your thousand monkeys let's see if you can do that.

Nick Oswald: Or you need a billion years or a few billion years or whatever, but I don't know how he how he feels about dawkins.

Nick Oswald: doesn't.

Nick Oswald: That doesn't mean but.

Nick Oswald: The yeah I think that the lesson, you can take from it is to just have a as a bit like the opening up and have an imagination it's like be amazed look at your watching cell division happening in a microscope and.

Nick Oswald: be amazed at the.

Nick Oswald: What what that is amazing that is mind blowing and if you minimize how mind blowing that is you're missing out.

kennethvogt: Exactly.

kennethvogt: You know so so all all This being said, look at all these areas that could be instructive to how science can be done.

kennethvogt: And and i'm not saying this is an exhaustive list, you may have other things i'm just few other things came to mind like like sports or.

kennethvogt: or TV, you know, the Internet, you know what what does one of the things are out there.

kennethvogt: That have figured something did where they figured some things out and we could take those lessons and apply that in the lab and apply that in scientific research and.

kennethvogt: In the scientific community, this lots and lots of opportunities so don't cut yourself off don't don't get all proud that well my area of life is the one that is most important and most matters and it's most.

kennethvogt: effective and efficient, because you know, probably, there are other areas of life that have a few bright spots so so bring them in yeah.

Nick Oswald: Those are very useful perspective on perspectives.

Nick Oswald: Okay.

Nick Oswald: Thank you can so.

Nick Oswald: Just to the are you going to include the.

kennethvogt: Third, a couple books on yeah i'll include the martian and and.

Nick Oswald: he'll marissa de la the machine is an incredible book.

Nick Oswald: yeah i've got i've got haven't read he'll marry so i'm going to do that so that's why I was asking repeat it until I can get it yeah right.

Nick Oswald: So you, you will find references to those are links to those books.

Nick Oswald: That can mentioned in the on the website bite size by.com forward slash the happy scientist, this being episode 52 yes 52.

Nick Oswald: And you so those will be in the show notes the same place, you can in that same place, you can find all of the previous episodes, including one to nine episodes 129 the famous foundational principles from Mr miyagi himself and.

Nick Oswald: it's actually four to six, we talked about those today.

Nick Oswald: yeah read and 40 seconds, we talked about today, when we talked about the blue orange things which is that that's an incredible.

Nick Oswald: it's just a lens on the world but it's a really useful one.

Nick Oswald: Anyway, so I would recommend you go back and and take a look at those of you who have listened to those if you haven't already, and you can also join us@facebook.com forward slash the happy scientists club.

Nick Oswald: All one word and ask those questions say hello and get additional content in there we'd love to see you in there, so thank you, Ken for another another great episode.

Nick Oswald: And thank you to all thank you to you for listening in, and we hope to see you on the next episode of that scientist bye bye.

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