Speaker 1: Pushkin, you're listening to Brave New Planet, a podcast about
Speaker 1: amazing new technologies that could dramatically improve our world, or
Speaker 1: if we don't make wise choices, could leave us a
Speaker 1: lot worse off. Utopia or dystopia. It's up to us.
Speaker 1: On Saturday, November seventh, two and twenty, hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of people finally got an answer to a question that
Speaker 1: had consumed them for more than eight weeks of balloting
Speaker 1: and four days of vote counting, who would lead the
Speaker 1: United States of America for the next four years. At
Speaker 1: eleven twenty four am Eastern Time, CNN called the president
Speaker 1: election for Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: Within twenty minutes, every major network followed suit. The race
Speaker 1: was over. But even as one question was answered, another
Speaker 1: still loomed large. Well America now finally be able to
Speaker 1: move forward and tackle the hard problems facing the country
Speaker 1: and the world. My name is Eric Lander, and I'm
Speaker 1: the host of Brave New Planet. When we began planning
Speaker 1: the seven episodes of Brave New Planet more than a
Speaker 1: year ago, I never imagined we'd be wrapping up in
Speaker 1: the days just after a presidential election. We'd originally planned
Speaker 1: to complete and release this series in spring twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: but as with so many things, those plans were upended
Speaker 1: by the pandemic. Somehow, though, the timings turned out to
Speaker 1: be fitting Brave New Plant. And it's about amazing science
Speaker 1: and technology that also poses hard challenges, But it's also
Speaker 1: about how we're going to need to come together and
Speaker 1: work together to make wise choices in many areas. Yes,
Speaker 1: scientific problems, from the current pandemic to climate change, but
Speaker 1: also societal problems from economic security to racial justice. Brave
Speaker 1: New Planet has tried to show smart, thoughtful, passionate people
Speaker 1: who agree on the facts and even agree on the
Speaker 1: societal goals, but who disagree on solutions. Yet nonetheless they
Speaker 1: grapple with complex problems, argue with respect, occasionally even change
Speaker 1: their minds, and make some progress even where there are
Speaker 1: no easy answers. To my mind, it's the only path forward.
Speaker 1: Brave New Planet's mission is to invite everyone into these conversations.
Speaker 1: So today's big question, what's it going to take to
Speaker 1: do more of this as a society, to find common
Speaker 1: ground on goals and argue productively about solutions. As I
Speaker 1: thought about this question, it occurred to me that scientists
Speaker 1: aren't the only people who spend their days gathering information
Speaker 1: to try to help society solve problems. Journalists do too,
Speaker 1: So I thought that a conversation between a scientist and
Speaker 1: a journalist about the common challenges we face might be enlightening.
Speaker 1: I reached out to journalist Nila Boodoo. NILA's worked for Reuters,
Speaker 1: the Miami Herald, and in public radio, where she's hosted
Speaker 1: shows on WBEZ Chicago. Now she's the host of Axios Today,
Speaker 1: a new daily morning news podcast. Nila Boodoo, Welcome to
Speaker 1: Brave New Planet. Hi, Eric, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: great to have you. So, Nila, I'd love to start
Speaker 1: with how scientists and journalists can with the public, At
Speaker 1: least in science, I think there's often a real problem
Speaker 1: with humility and trust. You know. For example, when scientists
Speaker 1: talk about what do we have to do to make
Speaker 1: progress on problems, one of the first things people suggest
Speaker 1: is more science education. That doesn't get me wrong, I'm
Speaker 1: not opposed to more science education. I teach. I love it,
Speaker 1: But I think there's an underlying assumption there that the
Speaker 1: problem is that people are just ignorant, that if they
Speaker 1: just got more science education, they'd know the facts or
Speaker 1: accept the facts and fall in line with the solutions.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that's the right place to start.
Speaker 1: I mean, scientists do spend their days swimming around in facts,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that's a reason to be looking
Speaker 1: down on people. I think there's ever a reason to
Speaker 1: be looking down on people. It's not a good posture.
Speaker 1: We might have been able to get away with it
Speaker 1: in the science of the nineteen fifties and sixties. You know,
Speaker 1: the authority of scientists in the White Lab Code or something,
Speaker 1: but scientists don't have a monopoly on the insights that
Speaker 1: are going to matter. I think, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to go in feeling we got something really important to contribute,
Speaker 1: but it's only part of the puzzle. Yeah, I'm wondering, Nilot,
Speaker 1: do you see that same issue in journalism? Well, I
Speaker 1: think it's the same thing you said, right, Like, so
Speaker 1: you said that, you know the idea that scientists in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties or sixties or whatever, there's this idea
Speaker 1: that scientists where its sort of the end all be
Speaker 1: all of information. Journalists were like that too right. We
Speaker 1: used to think that we were in charge of broadcasting
Speaker 1: out the information to people, and I think, certainly in
Speaker 1: my career as a journalist, we've seen that shift. With
Speaker 1: the advent of social media the way that information flows,
Speaker 1: journalists play a role. I think journalists play a very
Speaker 1: important role in moderating, in sifting through, in amplifying voices
Speaker 1: that don't have an opportunity to do that. But we
Speaker 1: are not the source of I mean, we do not
Speaker 1: broadcast information out to people anymore. And I think when
Speaker 1: you talk about trust, which is a really important thing
Speaker 1: that comes up in journalism, do people trust what we do?
Speaker 1: I think a major reason why a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't trust what journalists do is because of the way
Speaker 1: that we go about doing it, and I think not
Speaker 1: having a humble attitude. Now, I will say, when you
Speaker 1: look at the data about this, people don't trust the media.
Speaker 1: And first of all, I will start with the premise,
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure what the media is. So I
Speaker 1: always say that first, like that's kind of my first
Speaker 1: phrase to everyone is what is this media? I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what you mean? And when you break it down,
Speaker 1: I think people who have relationships, for example, with local journalists.
Speaker 1: Those institutions score very high. People trust those local institutions,
Speaker 1: local journalists as accurate and credible sources of information. I
Speaker 1: think when you look at the national level, that's where
Speaker 1: you see more of a breakdown. What do you think
Speaker 1: about that question of trust? I wonder how important that
Speaker 1: is as well when we're thinking about journalism and in
Speaker 1: your case science. Oh boy, So look, trust, I think
Speaker 1: is the next layer up over humility. You got to
Speaker 1: come in with a humble attitude. But what do we
Speaker 1: mean by trust the scientists. There's maybe two kinds of
Speaker 1: trust that are worth distinguishing between this kind of blind trust,
Speaker 1: that nineteen fifties nineteen sixties thing of just deferred to
Speaker 1: me as the scientist because I know better than you.
Speaker 1: I think there's actually instead a different kind of trust,
Speaker 1: and I might call it like earned trust. Earned trust
Speaker 1: is I'm going to be if I'm the scientist or
Speaker 1: the doctor. I'm going to be transparent about the evidence
Speaker 1: we have. I'll tell you why I believe things, and
Speaker 1: every bit is important. I'm going to be transparent about
Speaker 1: what we don't know. I don't trust people who don't
Speaker 1: say I don't know. Some of the time, I don't
Speaker 1: trust people who can't explain to me why they believe
Speaker 1: the things they believe. So I think we are shifting
Speaker 1: and maybe it's true for journalism as well, but certainly
Speaker 1: in science, to the idea that people should be asking questions,
Speaker 1: they should be probing, and if scientists should bring doubt
Speaker 1: about other people's results in evidence, why shouldn't the general
Speaker 1: public bring doubt. But again, it's worth distinguishing two kinds
Speaker 1: of doubt. There's kind of the cynical doubt. I just
Speaker 1: don't trust this science stuff. You know, the diet studies
Speaker 1: keep contradicting each other, or you can't trust science because
Speaker 1: they can't make up their minds, And I think that's
Speaker 1: a very cynical, nehalistic kind of doubt. I think there's
Speaker 1: a kind of doubt that I would love to see
Speaker 1: more of, which is empowered doubt. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: believe you until you give me the evidence, show me
Speaker 1: hard evidence. So that's the kind of empowered doubt that
Speaker 1: you know, we want to have because that gets people
Speaker 1: like properly at the table as peers in this thing.
Speaker 1: I fantasize about, you know, how the FDA might go
Speaker 1: through its drug approval process for coronavirus vaccines. Just this week,
Speaker 1: Feisser issued a press release saying it had really positive
Speaker 1: results from its vaccine trial, and the press release didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of details, which was, you know, some
Speaker 1: people noted and they're gonna have to come forward with
Speaker 1: those details. But I'm imagining how do we get the
Speaker 1: country involved in the drug approval process. And so you
Speaker 1: can imagine like a Reddit Ama where you know, the
Speaker 1: country's sending in questions and folks at the other side,
Speaker 1: maybe both the drug company and the FDA are trying
Speaker 1: to answer them. And now I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: all effects. I'll just make this up, so don't don't
Speaker 1: take these numbers to be exactly right, but it might
Speaker 1: go something like this. The company starts by saying, well,
Speaker 1: we ran a clinical trial with forty thousand people and
Speaker 1: half got the vaccine and half got a placebo, and
Speaker 1: then we waited until ninety five people had gotten infected
Speaker 1: and shown symptoms. And we looked and we found that
Speaker 1: ninety out of those ninety five people were people who
Speaker 1: got the placebo, and only five of them were people
Speaker 1: who got the vaccine. And so it looks like the
Speaker 1: vaccine is doing a pretty good job of protecting people.
Speaker 1: But then people will write in and they'll say, okay, well,
Speaker 1: tell me what do you know about elderly people, people
Speaker 1: over seventy did they get protection? What about men? What
Speaker 1: about people who have serious health complications? How long is
Speaker 1: this protection gonna last? And are there side effects? Some
Speaker 1: of the times the answers are going to be we
Speaker 1: just don't know. We haven't got enough data yet, we
Speaker 1: haven't run long enough to see how long protection might last.
Speaker 1: I think people are smartan they can take the information
Speaker 1: what we know and what we don't know, and make
Speaker 1: decisions based on that. So I think that's really the
Speaker 1: foundation of trust. Earn trust is to be direct and
Speaker 1: transparent about what we know and what we don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so do you think the credibility then you sort of
Speaker 1: build the credibility and trust with the government regulator and
Speaker 1: in having for example, the CDC or the FDA be
Speaker 1: incredibly transparent about the whole process. Well, the government is
Speaker 1: here to represent the people, and it's got to do
Speaker 1: that job in a way that actually works. Given the
Speaker 1: tensions around all these things and skepticism that has occurred
Speaker 1: and conflicts, I think the more transparent we can be,
Speaker 1: the more that we earn trust. So I think transparency
Speaker 1: is one thing, but then also the actual message and
Speaker 1: the knowledge, because I think oftentimes we tend to see
Speaker 1: this as a binary choice of it either has to
Speaker 1: be simple and easy to understand, or it's we're going
Speaker 1: to get the full information and it's complex. This is
Speaker 1: inherently the problem I think with science communication, and this
Speaker 1: is something as a journalist we struggle with. How do
Speaker 1: you distill something down into a way in my case
Speaker 1: that someone is just hearing it, so they're not even
Speaker 1: going to read it, they just hear it. How much
Speaker 1: can they really take in at that point? Well, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think Axeos talks about sort of smart brevity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a thing. So I think communication is a really
Speaker 1: important thing, and in general science has not mastered the
Speaker 1: art of communication. Putting things in such complete detail that
Speaker 1: they're incomprehensible is not very helpful. I don't know how
Speaker 1: often you take the package insert out of a drug
Speaker 1: and read that big thin piece of paper when you
Speaker 1: unfolded and look at all of the background data on
Speaker 1: this drug. But I bet you know, maybe that's as
Speaker 1: often as you read the click license on a piece
Speaker 1: of software. Actually, you know what I was going to say.
Speaker 1: My mother's a pharmacist, So I just ask her. And actually,
Speaker 1: that I think is the key, Right I ask someone
Speaker 1: who I know has the knowledge and I trust, and
Speaker 1: I think she will distill it down for me. So
Speaker 1: your mother plays the role of good scientific communication and
Speaker 1: good journalistic communication. And the problem is most people don't
Speaker 1: have your mother, And so how do we manage to
Speaker 1: get things clear without pulling the wool over anybody's eyes
Speaker 1: without oversimplifying? Albert Einstein famously said, and it's one of
Speaker 1: the things I quote very often. Everything should be made
Speaker 1: as simple as possible, but not simpler, finding that happy
Speaker 1: medium of saying there is nothing about this vaccine approval
Speaker 1: or many other things that can't be explained clearly without oversimplifying.
Speaker 1: I think communicating with honesty and clarity is the heart
Speaker 1: of it. And I'll say the one leg up I
Speaker 1: feel like I have is at MIT, I teach freshmen
Speaker 1: freshman holds your feet to the fire. They want to know,
Speaker 1: but they want it clearly, And so I think this
Speaker 1: is something we all have to aspire to if we're
Speaker 1: going to get a country that's involved in making wise decisions,
Speaker 1: whether journalistically or scientifically. So Nyla, let's turn to this
Speaker 1: question of bringing people together. Many people feel like they
Speaker 1: just want to give up on the prospect of bringing
Speaker 1: people together. Everybody's in their tribes. Okay, maybe, but this
Speaker 1: isn't gonna work in the long runs. So how do
Speaker 1: we find common grounds or at least find meeting ground
Speaker 1: where we can meet and talk with each other. Because
Speaker 1: I do think most people deep down do want the
Speaker 1: same thing things. They want their family to be secure.
Speaker 1: They would like to have a healthy planet, you know,
Speaker 1: a healthier life for themselves, more peace. I was struck
Speaker 1: in the election coverage that there were instances where people
Speaker 1: tried not to go head on saying I want to
Speaker 1: convince you to vote for my candidate, but instead to
Speaker 1: ask what's bothering you? What's on your mind? What are
Speaker 1: you worried about? By listening and establishing what are common goals,
Speaker 1: when may be able to circle back and say, okay,
Speaker 1: if that's the goal, what are the ways we might
Speaker 1: get there? Now I realize I may seem like a
Speaker 1: hopeless optimist here, and it's not like I'm I'm unrealistic
Speaker 1: about it. It's just I don't see anything else that
Speaker 1: works other than trying to find that kind of meeting
Speaker 1: ground amongst people, and any kind of change has to
Speaker 1: start by finding something that shared. So I don't know
Speaker 1: what your experiences has been with this. I think that
Speaker 1: what I have found as a journalist, and this kind
Speaker 1: of goes back again to communication, but I think it
Speaker 1: also goes back to this idea of humility is language
Speaker 1: is really important here because I think that the way
Speaker 1: that you frame something tells people how to think about something. So,
Speaker 1: for example, as a journalist, when I am interviewing someone,
Speaker 1: I always ask them a question, which seems like a
Speaker 1: very simple thing. But actually, if you listen to a
Speaker 1: lot of journalists when they're interviewing people, they don't ask
Speaker 1: them questions. They make statements or they say, tell me
Speaker 1: about something. Well, if you tell someone to tell you
Speaker 1: about something, they're going to tell you about something. Oh
Speaker 1: that is so interesting because I hadn't actually processed before
Speaker 1: that tell me about something is not really asking a question.
Speaker 1: And so this is my pet peeve as a broadcast
Speaker 1: journalist and as a host, that you should never say
Speaker 1: tell me about something to someone you shouldn't because you
Speaker 1: can always ask it as a question, because I actually
Speaker 1: think our brains hear that differently and they process that differently.
Speaker 1: And I think that's just one example of how language
Speaker 1: can be so important when we're thinking about And this
Speaker 1: is of course we parse every word, you know, as
Speaker 1: journalists and as a broadcast journalist, and on our podcast
Speaker 1: it is not live, and so we literally do parse
Speaker 1: every word. And I wonder for you how you've seen
Speaker 1: language is important to you, especially as you think about
Speaker 1: brave New planet, right, And when I think about, like
Speaker 1: you have this idea, I want to ask you, like
Speaker 1: this whole idea of like stewards of the brave New planet.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting choice of word that you have, stewarts.
Speaker 1: It's a very deliberate one. Stewards of the Brave New
Speaker 1: Planet was chosen very intentionally. I think across the political spectrum,
Speaker 1: from religious conservatives to very progressive people, there is some
Speaker 1: shared sense of stewardship in Eastern religion, the idea that
Speaker 1: people are stewards of the planet, you know, that's fundamental
Speaker 1: and biblical. We all feel like we have an obligation
Speaker 1: to be and want to be stewards of this planet,
Speaker 1: and so it dawned on me one day that this
Speaker 1: was a word that we didn't have to argue about.
Speaker 1: And if we have the common mission of being stewards,
Speaker 1: we can now have a serious discussion about how can
Speaker 1: we be the best stewards. But we start by being
Speaker 1: on the same side. And so let's be optimistic and
Speaker 1: say that we have established a common ground and that
Speaker 1: we're working on building trust. We've been talking about the
Speaker 1: pandemic we've had. You've had some really practical solutions for that.
Speaker 1: Because I remain I would say, as a journalist, I
Speaker 1: am an optimist, but I'm always a skeptical journalist, and
Speaker 1: I remained very concerned about our ability the country to
Speaker 1: unite around the science of the pandemic. I share your concern.
Speaker 1: We all should be very concerned about it and therefore
Speaker 1: work hard to try to overcome it. But then when
Speaker 1: we think about other issues that are just as big,
Speaker 1: arguably bigger, like climate change, I wonder, how do we
Speaker 1: do that well. I think that's a great example to
Speaker 1: think about climate change. We went through a long period
Speaker 1: of time when the argument is climate changing. I think
Speaker 1: we've largely moved past that. The question now is what
Speaker 1: do we do about it? What worries me is how
Speaker 1: many people feel overwhelmed, pessimistic that there's no prospect of
Speaker 1: doing anything without wrecking the economy and dramatically changing daily life,
Speaker 1: you know, banning hamburgers and airplanes. I think it's provoked
Speaker 1: many people across the whole political spectrum to just throw
Speaker 1: up their hands. I think it's terrible. We don't want
Speaker 1: people to feel fatalist, stick and pessimistic and overwhelmed. You know,
Speaker 1: the ultimate answer, it's a climate change. It's actually pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: The only thing that will work in the long run
Speaker 1: is to make renewable energy that's cheaper than fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: The minute that happens, the market will move to renewables
Speaker 1: on its own. So the answer has to be innovation.
Speaker 1: It's just how do you get that innovation. Now, we've
Speaker 1: already seen a lot of progress. The cost of solar
Speaker 1: energy and wind energy has been dropping dramatically. In some places,
Speaker 1: that's cheaper than burning oil. Now, we still need a
Speaker 1: lot more better battery storage and better electrification, but there's
Speaker 1: every reason to think we can do it. So the
Speaker 1: national goal ought to be for America to lead the
Speaker 1: world in inventing and producing and selling new energy technologies.
Speaker 1: And you know that way, addressing climate change and promoting
Speaker 1: economic growth don't have to really be in conflict. There's
Speaker 1: actually a great historical example. One of the reasons America
Speaker 1: became the leader in semiconductors and computers is that the
Speaker 1: government created huge incentives for the semiconductor industry. Way back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties. The military bought huge quantities of
Speaker 1: semiconductors even when they were too expensive to be commercially viable.
Speaker 1: They called it pump priming. So on climate change, I
Speaker 1: think we have our incentives completely backward right now, and
Speaker 1: I think most Americans could get together around the idea
Speaker 1: of using incentives to unleash American innovation. How much do
Speaker 1: you think that inertia for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: whether we're thinking of big things like changes in technology
Speaker 1: and innovation with climate change, but I'm also really thinking
Speaker 1: more on the individual level about people feeling overwhelmed and
Speaker 1: pessimistic and sort of resigned. How much of that do
Speaker 1: you think results from the way that we communicate, And
Speaker 1: by that I'm talking primarily about social media. I think
Speaker 1: that's a significant issue. Looking back. There was a time
Speaker 1: that I think most Americans thought America could do anything
Speaker 1: could put its mind to. I don't think people feel
Speaker 1: that as much as they should, but there was a
Speaker 1: sense not that long ago that we could tackle any challenge.
Speaker 1: I don't think the kinds of wars that people get
Speaker 1: into over social media and takedowns, I don't think they're
Speaker 1: really conducive to letting people have big aspirations. I think
Speaker 1: there are amazing things we can get done. Look at
Speaker 1: what's gotten done over the last fifty years, everything that's
Speaker 1: been able to be transformed. We can still do that
Speaker 1: because I see this as something where people on the
Speaker 1: left and people on the right both know that that's true,
Speaker 1: and they you know, some may come from a market orientation,
Speaker 1: some may come from from a research orientation, but we
Speaker 1: know we've pulled things like this off in the past,
Speaker 1: and so I'd like to reorient the discussion. So on
Speaker 1: that note, how if we're thinking about the stewards who
Speaker 1: are listening, what is your final advice or tips for them?
Speaker 1: Do something doesn't matter what Go make a curriculum for
Speaker 1: schools on some topic that you care about or that
Speaker 1: we talked about in the program. Go organize the discussion,
Speaker 1: Go talk to you know, a local legislator about it.
Speaker 1: I think the key is to start. The point is,
Speaker 1: if you feel pessimistic, if you feel overwhelmed, if you
Speaker 1: feel paralyzed, that's terrible. Do something something will lead to
Speaker 1: something else. Now, no one person changes the whole world,
Speaker 1: but together changing our attitude that we can make change.
Speaker 1: That is really important. It's the basis of science. When
Speaker 1: people set out to try to cure cancer, they say, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, that goal is so huge, how am I
Speaker 1: going to do it? And yet scientists, step by step,
Speaker 1: they take a piece of the problem and they make
Speaker 1: progress against it. And so we go from the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies when nobody had a clue what cancer was about
Speaker 1: two people understanding, oh, cancer is caused by genetic mutations,
Speaker 1: and then discovering, oh, sometimes we can make drugs that
Speaker 1: block the effects of those mutations. Oh, we can harness
Speaker 1: the immune system to make therapies. You know, any given week,
Speaker 1: any given months, you might feel pessimistic because you don't
Speaker 1: really see progress. But if you step back and look
Speaker 1: over the course of a decade or two, it's breathtaking
Speaker 1: how much progress can happen. I think science and society
Speaker 1: are pretty similar in this regard. You can take on
Speaker 1: huge challenges that of enough people are moving that forward. Oh,
Speaker 1: we end up making a big difference. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we found common ground, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: so much that you were willing to sit down and
Speaker 1: talk to me about all of these things. It's an honor.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Thank you, well, thank you, Nila. It's
Speaker 1: been great to talk. And to all the listeners out there,
Speaker 1: I hope you'll check out NILA's podcast Axios today. So
Speaker 1: there you haven't stewards of the Brave New Planet. It
Speaker 1: really is time to choose our future. There are so
Speaker 1: many amazing opportunities ahead and so many challenges to getting
Speaker 1: this right. We can't just throw up our hands and
Speaker 1: leave it to others to decide. We all of us
Speaker 1: have responsibility to make sure that we make wise choices.
Speaker 1: It's going to take a lot. It's going to take
Speaker 1: a commitment to renewing the compact between science and society
Speaker 1: and to following the evidence. It's going to take humility.
Speaker 1: Science is an amazingly powerful way to create new possibilities,
Speaker 1: but we also have to ask what could possibly go wrong.
Speaker 1: It's going to take trust and doubt, not blind trust,
Speaker 1: not cynical doubt. It's going to take earned trust and
Speaker 1: empowered doubt where anyone can raise questions and we're all
Speaker 1: transparent about what we know and what we don't know.
Speaker 1: And it's going to take engagement from everyone. Government, university,
Speaker 1: scientific against its corporations, unions, faith groups, student organizations and
Speaker 1: geo's all willing to debate in good faith about hard questions.
Speaker 1: I'm an optimist, but a realistic optimist. It's going to
Speaker 1: take a lot of work, but what's the alternative? And
Speaker 1: getting this right as great rewards. I'm committed and I
Speaker 1: hope you are too. I look forward to continuing the
Speaker 1: conversation utopia or dystopia, It really is up to us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Brave New Planet is a co
Speaker 1: production of the Brode Institute of Might and Harvard Pushkin
Speaker 1: Industries in the Boston Globe, with support from the Alfred P.
Speaker 1: Sloane Foundation. Our show is produced by Rebecca Lee Douglas
Speaker 1: with Mary Doo theme song composed by Ned Porter, mastering
Speaker 1: and sound designed by James Garver, fact checking by Joseph Fridman,
Speaker 1: and a Stitt and Enchant special Thanks to Christine Heenan
Speaker 1: and Rachel Roberts at Clarendon Communications, to Lee mc guire,
Speaker 1: Kristen Zarelli and Justine Levin Allerhand at the Broade, to
Speaker 1: mil Lobell and Heather Faine at Pushkin, and to Eli
Speaker 1: and Edy Brode who made the Brode Institute possible. This
Speaker 1: is brave new planet. I'm Eric Lander.