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  • Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.

  • I’m Sam. And I’m Rob.

  • Once in a while along comes a scientist who captures the 

  • public imagination and communicates 

  • their passion for science in an exciting and understandable way.

  • In this programme, well be meeting one of America’s best-known 

  • popular scientists. Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s a man with

  • gift for communicating and inspiring people with his television shows and 

  • books on cosmologythe study of the origin and nature of the universe.

  • In his day job he runs the Hayden Planetarium in New York’s American 

  • Museum of Natural History, but Neil’s real mission is to encourage 

  • scientific thinking among the American public.

  • Well be hearing from the famous astronomer, and learning 

  • some new vocabulary, soon. But first I have a question 

  • for you, Sam. Science is ever-changing with new discoveries updating our 

  • understanding all the time. For centuries, the Earth was 

  • thought to be the centre of the Universe - but who was the 

  • first astronomer to have the correct idea that

  • in fact, the Earth and the planets revolve around the 

  • Sun? Was it a) Nicolaus Copernicus 

  • b) Isaac Newton c) Galileo Galilei

  • Hmm, I’ll say it was c) Galileo.

  • OK, Sam. I’ll reveal the correct answer later in the programme

  • Recent events like 

  • the Covid pandemic and climate crisis have put scientists under 

  • pressure from critics motivated by political views. Neil deGrasse 

  • Tyson thinks facts are not dependent on politics

  • but should be established with the scientific method, a 

  • process of finding the truth through testing and experimentation.

  • Here’s Neil explaining more about the 

  • scientific method to BBC World Service programme, HardTalk.

  • If you have a brilliant idea and you test it and it unearths so 

  • much of what has been known before, were gonna double-check that 

  • the rest of uswell say, ‘But did he do it? Did he cross 

  • his t’s and dot his i’s? Did heLet me check the power 

  • that’s driving his experiment, you know, the wall current

  • let me check how that was conceived and done’. 

  • And if no-one can duplicate your results, it’s not a result.

  • Before scientists can confirm the truth of an experiment

  • their findings must be doubled-checked - making certain 

  • something is correct by carefully examining it again. This 

  • process is calledpeer review’ - other scientists double-checking 

  • the experiment to make sure everything was done correctly

  • One way they do this is to duplicate, or repeat, the 

  • experiment to see if they get the same result.

  • In other words, Neil wants scientists to have crossed 

  • the t’s and dotted the i’s, a phrase which means paying 

  • attention to the small details of whatever you are doing.

  • A scientific approach requires an open mind and critical thinking

  • but Neil believes the most important thing is to know the difference 

  • between fact and opinion. People have opinions about all kinds 

  • of things but that doesn’t make what they believe a fact.

  • Yet fact and opinion are becoming harder to separate. As protests by 

  • anti-vaccine groups and climate change deniers have shown, many Americans

  • even presidents, seem suspicious of scientific fact. It’s a worrying trend 

  • that Neil thinks is a result of the US education system

  • as he told BBC World Service programme, HardTalk.

  • It has to do with how science 

  • is taught in schools. It’s currently taught as a body of information

  • a satchel of facts that are imparted upon you and then you regurgitate 

  • that for an exam. That’s an aspect of science, but it’s not the most 

  • important part of science. The most important part of science 

  • is knowing how to question things and knowing when 

  • an answer has emerged that represents an objective truth about this world.

  • Neil says that science is taught by encouraging students to regurgitate 

  • facts - to repeat information without properly understanding it.

  • Knowledge is important

  • but what’s also needed is a questioning attitude than can 

  • recognise objective truth - a truth about the natural world 

  • which is not influenced by human bias, opinions or emotion

  • Without that, anyone is free to call whatever 

  • they like a ‘fact’, which only leads to chaos.

  • Right. No matter how hard I believe that the Moon 

  • is made of cheese, or the Sun goes round around the Earth

  • believing it doesn’t make it true.

  • That sounds like something Neil deGrasse Tyson would 

  • agree withand maybe Galileo too!

  • Yes. In my question I asked who first came up with the 

  • idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

  • And I said it was Renaissance astronomer, Galileo.

  • Which was the wrong answer, I’m afraid. Galileo knew the 

  • Earth revolved around the Sun, but the first person 

  • with the idea was Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus

  • in 1543 – unfortunately, centuries before the invention of television 

  • could spread the news of this objective truth – a provable 

  • truth which is uninfluenced by human bias or opinion.

  • OK, let’s recap the rest of the vocabulary from our chat 

  • about American scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson and his 

  • love of cosmology - the study of the Universe.

  • To double-check something means to make certain it’s correct by 

  • carefully re-examining it. One way scientists do this is to 

  • duplicate, or repeat exactly, an experiment.

  • The idiomcross the t’s and dot the i’s’ means to pay close 

  • attention to the details of what you are doing.

  • And finally, if you regurgitate facts, you just repeat them without 

  • properly understanding themsomething a true scientist 

  • would never do!

  • Once again, our six minutes are up. Goodbye for now!

  • Bye!

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.

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Restoring trust in science - 6 Minute English

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    王杰 に公開 2022 年 06 月 30 日
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