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Bufale, bufalicchie e mezze verità: scienza vs. giornalismo | Silvia Bencivelli | TEDxSiena


[Music]

thanks thanks for being 4 other a place

beautiful I did not know him and saw him

from here the lights are even more

beautiful

I forgot the pointer then

I get out of the red dot but I wanted to tell you that

for the occasion I put a

very special dress because I do not know

if you know the legend from the days of coco

chanel onwards every adult woman must

have a black dress invested in one

sheath me no I took this here

especially to tell you why

this is over in my wardrobe is

a rather strange story and it is

this this dress belonged to one

so take her an American actress

I can not say the name

this American actress has done her

tour in Italy had been in Milan

Venice in Rome and then it was taken

a few days of vacation here in Tuscany

and had ended up in a farmhouse in the

country after my grandparents have the home of

therefore, therefore, a family where I too am with

my cousins ​​are used to going

when so a summer weekend

what she did was hers

days in the farm has sent the

dressed to wash then instructed

the assistance and the personal settante of

go laundry and laundry was

washed the dress remained there

laundry and no one is more gone to

withdraw it then the American actress is

broken down for america and this dress

he stayed here in a country here in the

next day one day the lady of the

laundry has realized that this

the dress had remained her

nephew told her yes to put it on

ebay but she, in short, kept us a bit

day and I saw it go by and it has me

chased on the road with silvia segnò

a thing to show you maybe maybe

you like it too and I went in the

back room gave me this dress

I put it on and used it perfectly

it seemed made for me

and then the lady in the laundry has

Well said, it’s yours now

because I told you this story

I’ve told because false because

it’s not true at all it did not go

at all events, however, history is not of the

all false

I want to say there are real parts

of the likely parts of the parts

plausible parts that you could

check now for example if mine

family has a home owned here

in the neighborhood it is plausible to hear mine

100 I speak Tuscan so could not

be wrong instead false and there are

of the unlikely parts but enough

have for example that this dress

I had it after a passing of

someone famous from Italy is

true enough but I work in the area

rai and it also happens that things can

be gone much more

simple of such a veil also told

because I now come from profession

call and here too there was

there was a little this this this

call to tell bufale fake news

what is false in the things that that i

journalists especially when they have to

what to do with science tell us

But I thought maybe it could be

more interesting to tell the story

contrary, to tell you how much

instead the truth may not be so

true and how difficult it is to talk about

truth, in short, the buffaloes leave it alone

those we say we give it for and established

if something is a dance it’s a dance

But truths can also take on

very different aspects can adapt

for example you could think of the only one

true thing that this dress is black

even this for science can be

questionable are you are your eyes

who see it this way because it does not reflect

the light and we have a physiologist then

this thing can explain it to us

explain better however in general yes

he can say that the original problem is

the science, that is, that I must write about

science when dealing with the truth

of science I have to understand what it is

intends in that area there for truth

science speaks of laws of nature but

the laws of nature do not exist in the

nature is the way we read them

things that happen to us around and around

consequently they are also valid as long as they are

we of nature have a certain

vision then they are overcome in fact

scientists keep us

which are provisional then not

provisional and perhaps circumscribed

if now I drop the pointer

the pointer falls to the ground and goes

fine newton to rewrite this

singular phenomenon but if instead I want

go to mars i need to know

the twentieth century physics

in the same way science will tell you

fired will tell me the most honest ones

that science uses words and numbers

and formulas that are conventions

exactly like in our language

therefore already the word truth in the

science is already an object enough

quite delicate then there are many

situations in which it is convenient for us

this truth adapt it to ours

life

I will make him see four are

situations in which adaptation is

clear and recognizable and also let’s say

honest the others are situations in which

I could discuss it for a long time

I show four if they could

be thousands

one is the question of the earth who says

we put it today that the earth is flat

in the buffalo side though if I come from here

I have to go to Piazza del Campo you me

make a marchetta on a piece of paper

it is considered the flat earth

modeled the earth as if it were

flat and it’s fine with me that I have to

go only to Piazza del Campo

and not on mars and it’s great for you

so this truth we are

adapting the comfort of our life

then there are circumstances a little more

complicated in which to adapt the truth

that’s what we want the

truth tells us then for example

this gentleman here you all know him

how many and darwin

he has described laws of nature

who wanted this gentleman in biology

here herbert spencer that he took

they are practically coeval

the laws of nature described to give you

in the adapted to the description of the

company then began to say

what a refrein you hear

quite often still today than in

world survives those who adapt better to

changes this by describing one

quite ruthless company that leaves

back who does not make it and the

Social darwinism that we say one

stretching that give me would not have

never granted because you realize

that very classy also no

and today, however, they have come down from them

let’s say social theories enough

controversy is not yet very present

in our lives

third system for which the truth

scientific we have to do it from time to time

reviewing very closely

our lives and above all ours

health then there and as far as the

scientific truth science tells us

we owe these things to us

adapted to other systems the values

we must discuss we must make ourselves

read we can not think that as

in biology, things are like that then

Italian law absolutely must

behave accordingly because between

we value systems exist

respectable as those of the

religion

someone was not there anyone has it

we must agree

and this thing is about more than the

science in itself concerns the kind of

company we want to build with

the help among other things of science

fourth case concerns the science of per

self science itself scientists

they tend to describe it as a world

very pure where they are pursued by the

social purposes that are beneficial for

all humanity and scientists

they work together to get to gods

common goals well it’s not actually

so science needs money

science becomes cooperations la

science needs politics again

we must decide together what kind of

society of what kind of future we want

in short, you have to decide

if the money of the European taxpayers there

we put on the infrared or on the carbon

for one thing

on robotics or neurosciences are

so much money we have to build together

this type

of debate and are choices of fact

policies there is no objectivity

within these these choices

all this I summarized it so but

obviously there are several centuries of

philosophy several centuries of system

logie I tell science

and so now I take a step forward

I show four ways with which

we who tell the science we can

let’s say distort this more

truth

1 does not depend only on us this ce

I put it because it always speaks badly

of journalists I would like to show you that

sometimes if we are wrong and because the

truth there is a little frigate this was the

2014

we talk about these cosmic inflation

they are the institutional sites of the agencies

that deal with this kind of

research in short, gravitational waves 2014

gravitational waves we write all of them

how many yet a year later officers

That

Well, they were wrong, they did not

we were wrong we were was of the

dust that in short, a little confused and i

tools happens

science progresses so acceptable

indeed it is almost beautiful in the science system

occasionally make mistakes and correct them

with the comfort of the whole community

go forward February 2016 waves

Gravitationals have really been seen

the second system can happen that

what happens in biology to physics is

much simpler in physics are all

how many always agree in biology

in biomedical research there can

be things like this

concerning genetic editing

news that only come 20 days later

a little in our parlance is said

resize well it’s not that we have

precisely correct genetic errors

of human embryos

we said it so a month later everyone

together we do not resize the third case

the third case and when one arrives

truth we understand fired have

understood that red meat can be

carcinogenic but it is too complicated star

to explain how when and why us

we have two and a half lines to make one

title and here is this title here is not

false it is true that red meat e

carcinogenic but it is not true that he is

how much smoke is asbestos and it is

it’s a pretty subtle thing that

unfortunately it has passed so here it is not

nobody’s fault, however, the truth is

arrived in a way a little different from

what should have been hers

fourth system path is clearly

the scam this too should

put in the hoaxes there is

who somehow distinguishes I’ll show you

this case only because they have here

cheated both scientists and i

journalists so there is no

guilty

this is a French newspaper that

publish the news that finally yes

the evidence of the

carcinogenicity of GMOs

I have spent so many decades trying to say

that GMOs do not cause cancer

he had succeeded

and here is good here is the journalist

both the scientist had done let’s say

Error aware that they had the

very serious cases the scientists had

journalist research did not do it

they had checked it would be two

very big mistakes if we want

call them errors actually in reality

it’s something worse so we have

since the scientific truth itself

he has problems

science itself is a construction one

little bit more complex than an object in

able to give us 10 true false

the story of science in turn the

change there is a third element that

things get worse

and it’s like you understand it I told you the

dressed in black maybe not so i

your eyes see it as black but then

there is another actor than yours

brain that plays that stuff there

how black your brain is like the

mine like that of scientists is not

a perfect system if told

a fairy tale you will have understood that I have mentioned

cinderella in putting on the dress that

he used to fit me in this one

fairy tale look good looking bad

look for a hero who defeats the villain

and if so it is not you more or less like that

you understand then however you make it easy for

you red meat cause cancer for

as for us, in short, it is the fact that

reception is not always perfect is

the third actor who complicates things in

all this short, I want to tell you that the

our brain is made on purpose by

evolution for a thousand reasons

to believe things a little patchy

and sometimes even just to the false ones

buffaloes

as for science and its story

do not ask us the truth I will not do it

we can give us that we tell the story

science we will never be able to give you the

truth

but we will see the story of something

better something human and in my opinion

also terribly fascinating thanks

I hope I enjoyed my dress

[Applause]

[Music]

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