George Hrab - Secret Skeptics: Critical Thinkers Hidden in Popular Culture

I wanted to talk about skeptics that are sort of hidden in popular culture now not just skeptics that are sort of hidden but skeptics that don't necessarily identify themselves as skeptics there are plenty of popular characters that are scientists that are skeptics that that are label themselves as critical thinkers I'm not so interested in those I'm more interested in the ones that are sort of secret the ones that are hidden the ones that might not even themselves realize that they are indeed critical thinkers but who have influenced generations of people now when I was growing up when I was very young there was a particular TV show that had a scientist on it and he would do the most fascinating experiments he would do unbelievable experiments that would sort of change the the life of the people that were around him and it impressed me to no end that this particular scientist could do could do these unbelievable experiments and that of course is the professor on Gilligan's Island now now in my prepubescent discussions at school that the topic was always you know Mary Ann or ginger the professor is the correct answer so is Maryann but that's that's a different why does everyone know because here was a guy who could make you know we could make a hang-glider out of coconuts I mean this is the guy you want on the island with you when you're stuck yeah Mary Ann and ginger are both wonderful human beings but the professor fixes stuff and he fixes stuff continuingly and he's the one who tells Gilligan it's not a spirit in the cave it's just some weird bad or whatever it is this was the guy that first in popular culture opened me up to this idea of a critically thinking scientist and when you know his real name with a character's name on the show very good Roy Hinkley very Hinkley yes very good well Hinkley deeply deeply influential so there is this lovely history of of critical thinkers in popular culture starting all the way back with the Apostle Thomas doubting Thomas Wright doubting Thomas is this idea which is kind of an insult oh you're a doubting Thomas but Thomas was the one apostle when he heard that Jesus had been brought back from the dead said what and wondered he say he said he said except I shall see in John 20 he says except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side I will not believe that's exactly so there is of course I love that painting it's soaked so cool so now I think you know we talked about having our skeptical sort of patron saint I think Thomas should be our patron saint a skepticism doubting Thomas because even even he himself alive at the time supposes and others all story but whatever even he at the time was able to sort of say like no I want Jesus in front of me and once Jesus was in front of him and he stuck his finger into his chest vag then he finally said oK you've come back from the dead I accept the proof I think that's the technical term I'll check with Steve so now we go back in history there was this thing in the 16th century in Italy called Commedia Dell out of tape commedia dell'arte which is an Italian Street Theatre which sort of introduces all of the ideas of popular tropes of drama and comedy these characters that we still have today there's a direct line from the commedia dell'arte archetypes these sort of characters that romantic the boss the buffoon the the the lovers the the inventor who's doing all kinds of schemes and there's one particular character Harlequin Oh Harlequin who became a Harlequin Harlequin Oh is like the clown sort of he turns into Skippy no also Skippy no is becomes this this proto Bugs Bunny character and he is the one that doubts a lot of things he's the one that pulls sort of the the pomposity out of situations there's this direct correlation is a direct line from Skippy no - Groucho Marx - Bugs Bunny - Hawkeye - Black Adder it's the same character and this is this is centuries-old this character who's one of my favorite sort of skeptical critical thinkers going wait why does why do we do it that way or why do you think that's going to work and this has been this has been in culture for a very very long time so along the same time in the 16th century we have this gentleman you may have heard of before Billy shakes there is and he has some lovely lovely skeptical critical thinking things and Henry the fourth part one is to two characters having a conversation and one says I can call spirits from the vasty deep and the other character says why so can i or so can any man but will they come when you call them Michael Shermer totally stole that you know anyone can talk to the dead it's when they talk back that's when you have to worry you know so that's that's Shakespeare and that's a couple hundred years ago in Julius Caesar The Fault dear Brutus is not in Our Stars but in ourselves I mean again talk about a scientific skeptical mantra there's this wonderful thing a character in King Lear Edmund has this I just love this expression this is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick and fortune often the surface of our own behavior we make guilty of our disasters the Sun the moon and the stars this idea is that yeah when when bad luck or I'm making bad decisions I'm going to blame the stars I'm going to blame astronomy or astrology or blame whatever and Shakespeare is saying not so much especially this character Edmund no he is the antagonist of King Lear but still there's sort of an interesting thing there so we're talking hundreds of years this character has sort of been around and has been popularized and in no way would Edmund I think label himself as a skeptic or as a critical thinker but he totally is we move on to literature and I'm going to sort of be mixing a lot of sort of characters characters that in movies characters and books there's a lot of a lot of sort of cross pollenization so I apologize if something's get repeated but this is the sort of idea that within literature there are a number I mean there's a countless number I'm going to forget people and I'm aware that I'm leaving people out so please tweet and email me right now I'm aware I'm leaving people out so yeah first and foremost the person that when you think of in literature that wouldn't necessarily self-identify as a skeptic but who totally is a Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle basically devised this idea of sort of thinking through a problem critically looking at the evidence evidence based thinking starts with Sherlock Holmes and the thing that I love about Sherlock Holmes and his creator Arthur Conan Doyle is that Arthur Conan Doyle believed in fairies the conning Dale fairies you've heard this story where these girls are in their backyard and they just made paper cutouts and they took pictures of them and of course all of England believed that these were actual fairies and Conan Doyle would have arguments with Houdini Houdini would just sit there and facepalm just think how can you believe this is real you made Sherlock Holmes and you think that these are real things is what Conan Doyle's wife was a spirit writer so she would just sit with an ink with a pad and a pen and she would do these circles and she would be overcome by the spirit and you know absolute nonsense but he was the guy that created Sherlock Holmes kind of the first sort of really really evidence-based character there's a wonderful character named Jeeves there's the Jeeves and Wooster series by P G Wodehouse this is like between 1917 and 1974 this is these books are written he's a fictional character it's a series of shorts jeez sort of is the quintessential Butler so much so that like Kleenex meaning tissue Jeeves becomes too mean Butler and he's always helping Wooster because Wooster the man he works for it gets into horrible predicaments weird situations and Jeeves very calmly very very sort of dispassionately solves the problems by using critical thinking by using evidence by doing by thinking in a way that's sort of clear in the scarlet letter hester prynne so john updike said this about about Hester Prynne she's an arresting and slightly ambiguous figure she's a funny mix of truly liberated defiantly sexual woman but in the end a woman who accepts the penance that society imposed on her I don't know I suppose she's an epitome of female predicaments she's a mythic version of every woman's attempts to ingratiate her sexuality sorry to integrate her sexuality with societal demands again she wouldn't necessarily self-identify as a skeptic and there's religious aspects of this story as well but this is a fierce independent woman who's trying to do the best you possibly can there's more examples that are similar to that Lizzie Bennet from Pride and Prejudice similar thing she's just full of energy she's got the spirit and resilience she's this real complex many-sided character it's almost like a human being it's really fantastic and again a very early sort of example of us non self identifying but definitely critically thinking critically minded person Joe March from Little Women same thing you know she has a job like what women work what she's a free spirit she's a writer she wants to fight in the Civil War she wants to fight in the Civil War and they're saying no you can't fight in Civil War cuz you're a woman and she questions everything all the time she's constantly questioning another example Jane dear you know it's it's there's a lot of religion that steeped in there because of the sort of sort of dogmatic Victorian sensibility that's associated with the book but she's surprisingly progressive she's surprisingly progressive and and she finds this kind of balance between conscience and passion again by sort of looking at the evidence looking at what's in front of her and trying to make the best decisions you possibly can and it's very culturally influential we get a little bit more modern George Orwell has two characters in particular Winston from 1984 who again he's the he's the hero of this story but it's a tragedy because poor Winston of course by the end of the of the book has been brainwashed completely but throughout he is questioning he is questioning is this is this the way we need to live is this how we need to live his his spirit gets crushed obviously by the end of the thing which is its own sort of story and did you I never realized that Winston Churchill the name Winston wasn't a very common name apparently so this obviously was a homage to Winston Churchill which Orwell knew his readers would identify that with Winston Churchill he was a big fan so that was very interesting Benjamin from Animal Farm as a child one of the most heartbreaking sort of sequences of any book I ever read is when poor Benjamin is trying to warn a boxer that he's in not in a hospital truck but he's in a glue truck if you're not familiar with Animal Farm it's obviously an allegory for for communism and things like that and Benjamin is kind of kind of a he's seen everything he's done everything he realizes that it's all it's all bs all all that stuff is just nonsense and that it's just it's all a show so he's a cynic but there is a certain amount of skepticism and critical thinking there and when he desperately is trying to yell at boxer who's been put into the glue oh my kids stilt I just kills me it just absolutely kills me because because that finally he's acting out because his friend is being taken to the glue factory we get into some modern examples and again there's so many more but Lisbeth Salander from from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I mean obviously a little bit more self-identifying maybe as a skeptic or as a critical thinker but just an incredibly strong independent solves problems solves problems incredibly efficiently so that magically you know millions of dollars end up in her bank account that's the kind of problems that she's solving there's also this one was pointed out to me by a friend a Elphaba throught which is the Wicked Witch of the West in the wicked book as well as the wicked show she's she's surprisingly sort of critically minded she's she's a supporter of animal rights she protects a lion club in a life sciences class she refuses to eat meat she questions everything and tries to rationalize her choices and motivations her goals are sort of revolutionary goals fade when there's I guess an assassination attempt that happens and sort of she ends up being kind of a mean witch that she is but there is a reason that she sort of sort of gets nasty which is sort of lovely moving on we go to works for children and this really surprised me we just had this panel about this as well as Jays talk and there's there's a there's a huge amount of works that have this lovely genesis point of sceptical critically minded characters so we start with like I said Bugs Bunny the scatino character the huddle Aquino character the the inheritor of Groucho Marx or they're about the same time Groucho and bugs and you know just questioning everything just just not not letting fools be fools very influential to me personally just you know there is does anyone know who he's imitating right here now as leopold's leopold leopoldovich either conducts in Fantasia and was conducted in this great way so that's there's total making fun of Fantasia there which is really great Bugs Bunny huge influence on me we go to kind of not so much an American influence but a European influence Tintin Belgian cartoonists George Remi he wrote under the name Hal J so Tintin's like 14 to 19 years old somewhere on there he sort of threw out he grew a couple of couple of years but I love this he's adept at driving or fixing any mechanical vehicle or device that he comes across he's a skilled radio operator he knows Morse code he demonstrates impressive swimming skills he's a crack shot he proves himself a capable engineer and a scientist during his adventures to the moon haha more than anything else Tintin is a quick thinker and an effective diplomat imagine that a quick thinker and an effective diplomat well that must be like we'll probably never know he's very like I said very influential in Europe not so much in the US for whatever reason sort of moving through Wendy from the Peter Pan sort of series more so from the the books in the movie I have Walt Disney there I know he didn't create the character but sort of the presentation of her she can be seen as being this kind of downer like this isn't going to work like that when you can't fly what he talked about but that's a great critically minded character who then once has shown the evidence says hey I can fly I can fly I can fly but it's nice but the initial thing isn't much like her younger your younger siblings are just like they're in it they're ready to go she's a little bit more hesitant and skeptical which I always appreciate it as a kid the the super influential and again very straightforward but scooby-doo right now I enjoyed scooby-doo for a certain amount of time and then I couldn't enjoy scooby-doo because the motivation of Shaggy and Scooby I thought was ridiculous because it's always a guy in a mask it's always a guy in a mat why are you scared why there's like seven seasons in why are you scared you should just walk up to the guy and just go okay we're done that's fine so I was waiting for that but again they're there it's always and now I know the movies and the modern cartoons change a little bit they get a little bit more paranormal but if we talk about classic scooby-doo it's always a dude in a mask that's a great great message for kids one of my personal favorites Lisa Simpson I know I know so Lisa literally on a sort of a side tossed-off joke as you can see there she created junior skeptic magazine so if you know this junior skeptic did not exist until this was sort of a joke and the folks at skeptic magazine said yeah let's make a junior skeptic addendum in the back of the magazine so that's thanks to Lisa someone once asked me you know do you have any tattoos I said no I said are you going to get a tattoo I said no he said if you were to get a tattoo what would you get and I said probably Lisa Simpson just cuz she's you know she's a musician she's a scientist that's great our next president very good yeah hopefully it wouldn't that be something Lisa Simpson for president moving on going back a little bit in time we've got the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and we read these books growing up it's great stuff right again sort of selecting clues finding stuff it's never ghosts it's always someone trying to with the secret room and it's always Pirates and whatever the thing is but it's always there's always some solution I love this explanation of Nancy Drew compared to Tintin so she studied psychology in school she's familiar with the power suggestion Association she's a painter she speaks French she runs motor boats she's a skilled driver a sure shot an excellent swimmer skillful oarsmen expert seamstress gourmet cook and a fine bridge player as you play tennis and golf and rode like a cowboy she danced like Ginger Rogers and could administer first aid like Florence Nightingale no pressure ladies no pressure these books are great and there's a thousand of them and they're really really fun and they keep repurposing them and these characters are good because what do they do they search for evidence they find evidence they teach kids that there's usually a really logical answer speaking of which the great brain this is something I read as a kid that was just really really fun it's again just a it's a kid just figuring stuff out and what's neat is they deal with topics like racism intolerance the lives of Native Americans on reservations the second-class status of Jews you know some heavy stuff for kids books but it's dealt with and it's shown how illogical that kind of behavior is so very influential we get encyclopedia brown I know another one just it's so wonderful these books totally hold up and what's great about encyclopedia brown is there's actually a logical fallacy inserted into the story so that was the first time I had heard that term of a logical fallacy being used that someone made some kind of an assumption and at the end the final chapter of the book sorry the end the final chapter of the book always explains this is a logical fallacy that was made and this is what was actually going on really really fun um Madeline Madeline she's adventurous she's always getting in trouble but she's great at solving problems another one Harriet the Spy now Harriet the Spy if you're unfamiliar she is an anthropologist she has her notebook and she just watches she watches people and their behavior so she can figure out what she needs to figure out she is in essence an anthropologist taking notes I love I love that about her and teaching kids the value of observation this one was pointed out to me as well Princessa marine from dealing with dragons I love this description she runs away from her parents when they try to when she they try to make her marry some dopey prince she gets a job and moves into a cave with a sassy talking dragon she refused to be rescued she makes friends with a cool witch and ends up saving the day you know it's nice yeah these are kids books perhaps the most influential right now in terms of children's books and movies is Hermione Granger now yeah Hermione of course is surrounded by magic but in in the midst of this ocean of magic and stuff that obviously isn't real she is still being very critically minded she's going to library she's finding old spells she's finding old potions she's finding old histories she's doing research she's doing the stuff that that that kids can do to imitate her and to solve problems yes you're not going to be solving exactly the same kind of problems that hermione is trying to solve but you'll be using the same methods and the same processes it's really really cool there's also the Disney Princesses who it's interesting they get more and more self-assured and more and more critical and more and more kind of independent as the stories go on so you have you have Milan and Merida from brave from brave Moana Pocahontas sort of they get they get far away from Cinderella and things like that so these are very influential on on women okay you've got this idea of authority figures and again we're going to kind of mix genres a little bit here but I sort of wanted to think about authority figures in in popular culture and the first group is sort of law related I mentioned Sherlock Holmes now house is included there as well even though he would pretty much self-identify as a skeptic as an atheist and when I first realized that that house was Holmes it was like oh yeah right and he is he's Sherlock Holmes I mean it's it's actually quite amazing and there's a thousand parallels between the two and that was totally done on purpose I mentioned him previously but Hawkeye who's not so much a law related but just an authority figure Jay and I have talked about Hawkeye as portrayed by Alan Alda and just greatly influential he wouldn't necessarily come straight out and say he's an atheist or but you could kind of tell and it didn't matter what was great was he in essence is Groucho Marx but he's Groucho Marx that is an amazing surgeon and that's the thing he has a skillset he has this skill set that is incredibly impressive which allows him to be Groucho Marx that was very influential on me that at the end and when put to the test Hawkeye could do unbelievable feats in the surgical tent that others necessarily couldn't do and that's why he got to be the kind of guy who didn't salute because he thought that was silly he didn't carry a gun because he thought that was silly he questioned everything so it's very influential on me you've got a from the Seven Samurai combi who is the sort of the quiet again this is a bit of a trope sort of this quiet silent warrior kind of comes in and fixes problems and so Chris Adams is the same character for the Magnificent Seven as portrayed by Yul Brynner same idea sort of this quiet he just fixes things he fixes stuff he doesn't believe in any nonsense he fixes things we move on to other law characters as a bunch Joe Friday from dragnet Perry Mason Kojak Columbo even Richard Kimble from The Fugitive these are all guys that are sort of sort of self not necessarily self identifying but they are using the process of critical thinking to do their jobs really really well Richard Kimble escaping looking for the one-armed man and avoiding being pursued and he's doing it for what four seasons so he's doing it really really well but all these guys they use that process of critical thinking Columbo with his you know Socratic Socratic questioning without just one more question just one word I just one more thing I don't understand explain this to me explain this to me great it's a great great example and then my favorite oh no sorry this year Josiah Barlet from the West Wing as well also sort of a skeptical critical thinking guy has a great thing about it's a great clip on YouTube where he questions a woman who won't stage she doesn't stand up and he walks into the room and I've you ever see that thing and he talks about she says that gay marriage shouldn't be allowed because it's because the Bible says so and he goes on this rant basically listing all the stuff in the Bible like oh are you wearing mixed fabrics well that shouldn't be allowed oh if I'm going to stone someone that you know went to church while she was menstruating what kind of stone should I use because it's a great great clip check that out okay now my favorite Batman now Batman's great because he's a scientist he's a crime fighter he's a psychologist he's a guy who pushed himself to absolute physical limits using a scientific process he doesn't have an amulet he doesn't have some secret power he doesn't have some magic spell he's not born on Krypton he is just a guy who has pushed himself using scientific methods to be as smart as he possibly can to be as physically fit as he possibly can to be as competent as he can you know it's a defined scientific process what's great about Batman is that anyone can be Batman that's what's so great about this character I always think is anyone we can't be born on Krypton you can't be born on Krypton and yet you could you could train yourself to eventually become Batman I had this theory that that Trump is actually like has just pushed the Bruce Wayne being an thing too far that's my theory that he's actually Batman somewhere but maybe not we'll say now we move on to authority figures in the parental column Atticus Finch again earth scope fighting fighting racism as best as you can critically thinking you know letting his kids know not to be scared of the dark doing that kind of stuff is necessary just brilliant portrayal of course in the film but in the book as well Katie Nolan and the Tree Grows in Brooklyn is she's a single mom a sort of doing the best she possibly can it's a great example of a critically minded just solves problems it's a single mom solving problems a wrinkle in time again this is a children's book but such a great great interesting book and the parents the the father is a physicist and the mother is a microbiologist this is the first time I read the word tesseract in a book there's just like what is that yeah so that was very very exciting you've got sort of these parental figures from 50s TV monpa angles I mean always just come again they would self-identify as religious but they are problem solvers and they're ones that just use rationality use skepticism and they just approach problems really smartly Ben car right on bonanza everyone calm down we'll fix the problem I know the Ponderosa is on fire we'll fix it it's totally fine Andy Taylor same thing this idea almost like this extension of this Skippy no character this kind of just really chill calm guy he may come across as a bumpkin but he actually knows way more than anyone else in the room really really cool mrs. Garrett and mr. Drummond now mrs. Garrett again like you watch these shows and you sort of see that she is this calm Center amidst this fury of crazy teenage based behavior and they always turn to mrs. Garrett and they say what are we going to do and mrs. Garrett figures it out save me mr. Drummond you know mr. Drummond integrating his his house it's just it's a it's an interesting father figure sort of critically thinking critically minded and not not caring what the neighbors think necessarily now this might seem like it's a silly joke but growing up there's three episodes of The Brady Bunch that influence and I'm showing my Gen X tendencies I know I know and I apologize for the younger people in the audience but we used to have this thing called TV and there's three episodes of particulars is the one that greg has the UFO in the backyard which he does with the thing right don't don't clap it's not really worth it but proven to be just BS by the by the dad there is the one where they have the trial where the guy that used to play Uncle Fester is claiming that he had whiplash and mr. Brady throws the briefcase and the guy turns his head and it's just like that was a great solution never being a kid thinking like yeah mr. Brady is really smart and what's the third one there's a third thing a Department of Defense no what was the third one not the Hawaii one all over the driving competition yeah where they have a driving competition to see what the better driver is and they put the egg on the cone you know they have a parking cone and they have to pull up as close as they possibly can and if you knock the egg off then they don't get the license or they don't get the car for the weekend or whatever it was it's like a problem solving a critically minded problem solving to a situation in the family that didn't have a solution towards so I always love mr. Brady now from the regrettable baggage Department these two characters Claire Huxtable has maintained as she from The Cosby Show obviously but she's a lawyer again very calm problem solver Roseann also sort of sort of along the lines of Andy Taylor sheriff Andy Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show a similar thing kind of blue-collar and yet questioning a lot trying to solve her life's problems as best as she possibly can probably the biggest father figure the doctor yes the doctor from from Doctor Who of course who is just that is all he is he is all about using using rationality and and brains and not weapons and hate and that's pretty much I mean if we're going to have a mantra that's pretty much where it should be at which brings us into our sort of authority figure science fiction so the captains of course which again these now somewhat start to self-identify as skeptics and scientists but you understand what I'm getting for the best all-time skeptical line ever said by any Star Trek captain excuse me what does God need with a starship right just like yeah and that's what Star Trek five which is not a good one but it still got the best skeptical line of all times and then sort of in that in that party with them as well Spock obviously gets gets mentioned then you've got Princess Leia and Ellen Ripley again problem solvers yeah just hard core problem solvers really cool maybe one time now we're good moving over into comedy now this is again sort of we had before that line straight through from the Italian Street Theatre of the sixteenth century all the way up to Black Adder if you're not familiar with Black Adder it's so fantastic Black Adder takes place and if every season is in a different time period which is just mixes things up just enough to keep it interesting going all the way up to World War one one of the one of his nemesis here has this great line if nothing else works the total pigheaded unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through you know that's that's the person that Black Adder is always up against so it's kind of those are his enemies so these are now these characters sort of are comedians that portray portray characters so you've got Richard Pryor has his mudbone character who's like a wino philosopher again sort of questioning things the smother Smothers Brothers playing a version of themselves on TV but again questioning stuff had a huge influence on helping to to curb the vien Vietnamese war Elaine may Mike Nichols very influential always playing interesting characters that are questioning stuff the Lee Tomlin also Stan Freberg I had to include I'm a personal just I adore Stan Freberg Stan Freberg was refused to have a cigarette company be his radio sponsor in the 50s which was like a really big deal he did a great bit about the commercialization of Christmas in again in the 50s so very very influential very big deal very religious person but he would totally identify as a as a skeptic and now we sort of cross over into not so much characters but these comedians and this is where we get into actual people now who are just sort of skeptical I mean obviously George Carlin Lee Bruce Mort Sahl Alan King Joan Rivers Richard Pryor George Carlin I mean if one of the best sort of philosophical arguments is him talking about how he doesn't believe in God he believes in Joe Pesci I think it's from a from I think it's from you're all diseased which i think was was his third or fourth to last HBO special that he did look that up on YouTube just Carlin god Pesci and he says you know I I don't I don't pray to God I pray to Joe Pesci he seems like a nice guy I pray to Joe Pesci and the weather is going to do what it's going to do you know I that's my terrible distillation of what that's of what that is so we move on to a sort of hosts along that same line so you've got Steve Allen Dick Cavett you've got Johnny Carson there with some I'm not sure who that is with Johnny Carson but as well as sort of sort of in that same category Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage from Mythbusters and the Mythbusters never wanted to do a skeptical show that was not their intent they did not say let's make a show about skepticism they made a show you wanted to make a show about curiosity goes to our previous panel and it's one of the most successful science shows of all time there's a straight-through line where you get sort of the SNL influence now where you again have these news people sort of our influencing and they're critically minded thinkers so you go from Al Franken who is now a senator he goes literally from playing poor trees the only person to portray a senator in an SNL sketch and become a senator in real life which is really great Tina Fey Lizz Winstead sort of the creators The Daily Show obviously Samantha P if you're not watching Samantha B she is so incredibly funny and smart and good and an absolute critical thinking hero a skeptical hero so it's very very cool quickly we jump ahead and I just I had to include some some music examples obviously Frank Zappa Tom layer my favorite band rush because I have to put them in the middle because there you go Weird Al Pink Floyd they all have I know there's tons of examples and I'm leaving tons of people out but the whole punk movement this idea the clash this idea of questioning things questioning things questioning things you question why do we do it that way why do we do it that way why are these things set up the way they are and they do it musically songs like you know free will by Rush or the whole whole album about free will in essence really wonderful stuff okay so in conclusion like I said I left a lot of people out I am sure and there's tons of examples please PLEASE angrily email me and I will ignore it but feel free to make yourself feel good so I mentioned that an early influence on me was the professor from Gilligan's Island who was he was a great big influence on me but there was someone before the professor that was an even larger influence on me I think and I was much younger and it was the first time that a piece of non logical thinking was scaring me it was something that I thought about and and that frightened me and this particular TV personality assured me that it was okay and that it wasn't going to be a problem like many boys or children in general I was worried that I would go down the drain when I was a kid I was worried that I would I would I would go down the toilet or that in the shower I would go down the drain and of course mr. Rogers he assured me is that you couldn't hear much you can never go down the drain you're much too big to go down the drain and you had to think about it logically for a second and say oh yeah okay okay I am I'm too big to go down the drain it's not it's not going to happen mr. Rogers has this wonderful thing that he talked about well what do you tell children when they're in the middle of some kind of when they're observing some kind of horrible disaster some kind of a horrible thing whether it's 9/11 whether it's a piece of news whether it's just even something that's in your in your town or across the street that's happening and he says this I'll always look for the helpers there's always someone trying to help and it's a great point because in the worst of times sort of the best of us can be brought out and the best of us often is inclusive and critically minded and willing to help so I ask you finally as a final sort of question who maybe has had more influence across the board and across the world in tackling societal problems and addressing clear concise and universal concepts of sharing thinking clearly the values of ideas and skill is it a firebrand shouting about how stupid belief is or is it a calm soft voice minister sporting puppets and wearing a cardigan and sneakers thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: NECSS

Views: 927

Keywords: science, skepticism, necss, pop culture, critical thinking

Id: qnecu42pjnQ

Length: 36min 39sec (2199 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2017