Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: Between Science Communication and Comedy

Science is often portrayed as a serious, methodical pursuit driven by logic and precision. Yet the history of scientific discovery is messy, surprising, and occasionally hilarious. The Comedy of Science explores the humorous side of science, from accidental breakthroughs and misguided theories to eccentric experiments and memorable rivalries. These stories reveal the very human nature of science—full of curiosity, persistence, and sometimes spectacular mistakes.

The reign of science as our greatest truth-discovery tool is in trouble! With every unrealized prediction and over-confident inference, its credibility erodes. We can (probably) save it, though this rescue will unfortunately involve statistics and probability, the bridge between theory and evidence. This talk will focus on a few core challenges in how we make scientific inferences and how they effect what we think we know. Our journey will feature a case study in carbon fluxes, a critical component to climate change, and will offer an optimistic outlook on how to stop this credibility erosion.

Part of the job of being an engineer at NASA is developing new concepts for how humans can explore the solar system. And part of the job is navigating all the ways communicating those concepts can go right and wrong. In this talk, learn a little about some of the havoc that came from HAVOC - the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept study.