- Hey everyone, we're here today for a special episode of Above the Noise, so we're here in San Francisco in the very cool working space of Adam Savage, cohost and co-exec producer of the amazing show Mythbusters. Adam's going to be speaking at the March for Science tomorrow and we thought we'd come here and ask him a few questions.

- And I plan to answer them.

-I didn't leave you a second to say hello in there, I was just. So Adam why are you going to the March for Science tomorrow?

- It's a good question. I don't have a degree in science. I have a high school diploma, but I am a scientist. Mythbusters, 14 years of doing that show turned me into a scientist and helped me understand that I was always a scientist in the way that I thought and the way I wanted to parse the world. And I feel like I'm there to expand horizons of what people think of as a scientist. In this culture we are unfortunately raised by a lot of poor science teaching in school. That science is this citadel of facts to memorize and if you don't memorize them correctly, you won't pass the test, and that scientists are people in white lab coats figuring out all the truths of things. And both of these are totally wrong. Science is not a collection of facts. In fact, there are precious few absolutes in science. Really, science is about the relationships between things. And so facts change, they change based on where they are, they also change over time as we get better data. And they're nothing without context. This is the great realization I had on Mythbusters is that science is in fact storytelling just the same way that art is. They're just two different modes of telling stories to each other about how the world works. Demystifying that is really important culturally, because when it's a mystery it's easy to get angry at this citadel of what we think of as the gods of academia, of science telling us how things should go. I think that's where a lot of the anti-science anger in this country comes from, they think of science as being an elitist, provocative way of looking at the world when in fact it is merely just an attempt to look at the world clearly.

- So why now? Like, science has always been important, and it's always important to make it accessible, but why the March for Science now, why this time?

- The March for Science now is because it feels like science is in trouble and I agree that science is in trouble. That's terrifying to me. The hostility to facts is super dangerous, not just in the short term of how we listen to our leaders, but in the long term of the ways in which we treat each other moving forward. There's also this idea that somehow science is politicized, that global warming is some sort of political cult and again, this is such a dangerous idea that we have to make our voices heard.

- One thing that we try to do on our show is teach young people how to separate fact from fiction in the media.

- That's great.

- Why do you think that that's important or?

- So what you're talking about when you're teaching someone to separate fact from fiction you're teaching them how to analyze, but you're also teaching them how to take their own counsel. And one of the things I learned on Mythbusters was the ability to encounter material I wasn't familiar with, which is what it is to read the paper, read enough into it and read enough about it until something clicks and then I realize I might have something to contribute. And if you read the paper with an analytical eye towards trying to uncover the unconscious bias in the paper, in the subject, in the writer, 'cause it's all there, it's always there. We can't remove it, all we can do is look out for it. When you teach a kid to do that, you're also teaching them the self-sufficiency of like, your counsel matters, the way you think about this. This article isn't something just for you to absorb. It's something for you to think about and you might not agree with it, and that's what it is to be a person. One of the sad things about all this fake news and the bombardment of stories that have come down the pike over the last year, is that it exploits this uncritical reading that so many of us do on the web. And I am just as addicted to this thing as everybody else is but it is really vital as citizens, as good citizens of both our world, our country, our culture, and our families that we don't read things or absorb things uncritically. So I think teaching kids how to analyze and come to their own conclusions about what they're reading that might not be the conclusion of the writer, is a really important way to build the right kind of future citizen.

- On Mythbusters, you used the scientific method, right, to go and investigate crazy topics. Why do you think it's important to use that scientific method and that method of inquiry?

- The asking of questions and the figuring out of a rigorous way to answer them is what makes us human. It's what makes us, for better or worse for this planet, the most successful species that has ever existed. The scientific method sounds like, oh really, are there other methods, 'cause that one's kinda tough. No, no, no, there is no other method. When you, like I'm going to say this at the science march tomorrow, you probably ate something recently that was not awesome, but you have some empirical experience that adding a seasoning to that might make it more awesome. So you add a little salt and then you tasted it. You did a test, needed a little bit more. You are using the scientific method and science to make your food better. You're empirically testing and coming to a conclusion based on prior experience. So the scientific method isn't some mystery.

- Well, thank you so much for your time, Adam.

- Thank you very much, you did a wonderful job hosting. Thanks for these great questions.

- Thank you. Alright everyone, well, please subscribe to our show and make sure to watch our next episode. We're Above the Noise, the show that cuts through the hype.

- And takes you Above the Noise.