[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] india i am the president of federation of indian rationalist associations i am a spokesperson of one of the pro science movements the rationalist movement our central mission is to make people think scientifically rationally and go according to the constitution of india which has got an article 51 a h which says that it's the duty of every citizen to develop scientific empire the spirit of inquiry and humanism our movement has a unique place that's why they want to get rid of us there's a list of people whom they want to kill and
i am on that and hence i need to be guarded we are fighting against the anti-science attitudes that exist in this country for example today we are taking up the coronavirus pandemic scientific misinformation is being converted by the government which is in power we are taking up the claims of the various non-scientific people for example the astrologers the puja people who do worship and rituals people who claim crack remedies in fact there was a cows within party just a few days before they locked down in which they were drinking cow's urine and saying that it
will stop the corona virus from infecting them initially when the pandemic started it was ignored one of the cabinet ministers said that with all these millions of gods in this country they'll all protect us against this corona virus just yesterday it was burning the cat before that it was banging pots and pans and everybody said oh the corona virus is killed by this brilliant man over by our tribes but nothing happened the cases went on increasing we have got another man who calls himself a sad guru or a good guru and he is the man
who speaks up for the government so when we have people like that the religious leaders in top positions unofficially advising the government where does science go it goes for a task the anti-black magic act is a small step in the direction to remove these superstitions from the society they're all used to exploit the people we are fighting against that separation of religion and state is the most important for the primacy of science in our public life we are being fully disaster unless things change because we are a very crowded nation particularly when you take the
metropolitan cities that's why i'm saying we are on a taking time bomb we are in for a disaster that's all i can say [Music] please go back to your house [Music] my name is natalia pasternak and i live in sao paulo brazil where i run the first brazilian institute for the promotion of rational and scientific thinking it's true that people are banging pots and pats at the windows every time that the president makes a statement as a way to protest with regards to science brazilian government's response to the pandemic has been the worst possible the
government disregards all scientific evidence that the lockdown is necessary and there are no medications and we will not have a vaccine soon so it's giving false information and false hope to people and people are starting to relax the lockdown because of the government and because of the president himself that goes out on the streets as if nothing was happening it's impossible to build bridges with this government it's the most anti-scientific government we ever had the president bolsonaro said that the pandemic it's not a big deal and we should face it like men not boys he
also said something very bizarre he said that a brazilian should be studied because they are immune to anything they can go into the sewers and come out and skate the public response to the pandemic is much better than the president's and if we take the example of what's happening in the favelas the drug lords organized the lockdown in the favelas and they are doing a much better job than the federal government i don't think most brazilian government officials and even the medical community really understands what an approved medication means we got a lot of the
chloroquine hype here in brazil and this happened because people don't understand how you test a drug and why do you need to test a drug to be sure that it's safe and it's effective and people rely on the doctoral evidence on stories the problem when public policies are based on ideology and antidotes is that public policies are not based on science and this is not the best use of public money i'm a microbiologist and i'm a research fellow at the university of sao paulo every decision that we make on our daily lives is based on
what we know or what we don't know about science so when people decide whether to vaccinate their children they are using what they understand about science to make that decision my job is to make that decision science based vaccination campaigns in brazil has always been a role model for the world until we got hit by the anti-vax movement all of a sudden our vaccination rate starts to drop we are deeply worried about this anti-vaxx movement here what gives me hope in the midst of the pandemic is that at last i see people turn into signs
for solutions people may come to realize that it's not possible to live in a world without vaccines for instance for the lack of one single vaccine see what's happened to us so this is my hope that people after the pandemic they start to look on science as something that can help society and as something that is essential to the development of the country and to the well-being of every citizen in the world brazilian india are very similar in in that both governments accept pseudoscience and alternative medicine but when it comes to valuing and funding science
i think brazil is doing much worse i think the indian government handles science particular branches of science better because they give some autonomy to some people yeah i think the lessons that we can get from this pandemic is for the government to value science and to value science funding yes because the government has now realized that quack medicines will not work so they may be more scientific in the future the pandemic brings us a very good opportunity to explain science better to the population for instance now everybody wants to understand how a clinical test is
performed everybody wants to understand how a vaccine is made everybody wants to understand the difference between viruses and bacteria so now it's the time to explain that because people are interested and we can take advantage of that explain to them what things are what medicine is what a virus is what a vaccine is and thereby educate the people so that they start thinking they learn more in fact we have organized some debating clubs because of this shutdown so we have taken young people and we have organized online debates every week we have two to three
of them and that's how we get to the people now there's no such thing as a quick fix now we have to be patient and wait for science to come up with the answers i think the pandemic could be a launching pad to restructure a very faulty healthcare system here although we are very proud of the brazilian healthcare system because we cater with a public healthcare system to 200 million people we also rely on alternative medicine and maybe now it's time to restructure that because we all realize that alternative medicine doesn't work and we need
real medicine because there are only two medicines medicine that works and medicine that doesn't so what doesn't work is called as alternative medicine and it has no place in any medical system i would echo narendra's words and say that you know what they call alternative medicine that has been proved to work medicine if some traditional knowledge proves to be efficient as a medication it will be a medication it will be institutionalized and it will be tested and it will go into the market and at least we'll study we'll know what dosage to use we'll know
what people can use it so it's not about shining traditional medicine or traditional knowledge out of the mainstream it's about honoring these traditions enough to test them and to take them seriously but after we test them if they prove not to work then it's proved not to work and we should abandonment and move on i will look at from a humanist angle what we say is well you have your belief system you stick to it but when it comes to some issues medical treatment social policies education system stick to science stick to evidence so first
we have to listen and then we talk and when we talk we we can't come right as we own the truth we are the scientists we know it all no we have to be patient and explain how science works and how we came to those conclusions and why they are important and of course as narendra says respecting people's beliefs always i don't think we disagree on much or anything at all i wouldn't say we disagree over anything scientific maybe we disagree about food i don't know we'll have to talk about that no no no no
no why i would eat anything that humans eat good because i think she's talking about me so we'll meet some time for dinner and lunch here in brazil [Music] [Music] you
