Adam Savage's Answer to Questions About Mythbusters

Hey folks, Adam Savage here in my cave answering questions about my tenure on Mythbusters. These questions have been submitted in advance by tested patrons and this is a really nifty question from C-Morgan says that they use the results from roundabouts as more efficient than four-way stops experiment in a cyber security class they teach at university as an analogy to demonstrate how it is beneficial for internet users to make an informed choice about risks through a program of security awareness rather than blocking their access indiscriminately. What a lovely analogy to make from the traffic tricks episode to that C-Morgan wants to know what other uses of the results from Mythbusters experiments have you been made aware of.

Um, by teachers I mostly hear about I think that for a while now we've been one of the default science classes for the home schooling crowd which means I would I don't know if there's been an uptick in that during covid um I haven't gotten a lot of emails or I haven't been tracking that so I don't know so I know a lot of parents use Mythbusters who are homeschooling to show their kids about science I know a lot of science teachers use Mythbusters as a reward um but one of my favorite things I've heard is science educators using Mythbusters as a way of demonstrating to people how messy and creative science is um that is something I really deeply appreciate because it wasn't something I understood before we started making the show it was something that I came to grasp as we made the show.

I already understood the scientific method was a creative process Robert Pearsig in Zen in the Art of motorcycle maintenance goes to some lengths to explain that the scientific method is a deeply creative process form a hypothesis is a creative act out of what from what well your experience and your knowledge but still it's coming from in here it's generated by by you and your experience but he noticed something about forming hypotheses which is the more you form the more you can form they seem to be self-generating which is a definition of a creative act like the more you come up with the more you can come up with um so I really appreciated that because look Mythbusters was we loved the controversy when it happened for airplane on a conveyor belt or something like that that controversy was bread and butter to us it's totally great we're we didn't have a horse in the race we don't care what the answer is we just wanted to build a suitable methodology for testing and coming to an answer um but as to what that answer is we we give two craps there's no we're agnostic with every test as to what the final result would be um and building a good methodology is hard and exciting and when you do it it's thrilling it's really thrilling.

Um but that controversy meant that a lot of people were constantly complaining you know calling us idiots go I mean I i per standard practice of a YouTuber I don't do that I think I'm pretty cool um but seriously the reason we did what we did was because we wanted to challenge some stuff and make it more accessible and to show that science isn't some monolith of facts out there that some people know and most people don't that's a really damaging cultural way to think about discovery and knowledge it's not something that other people know it's something that you could know it's something that you could grasp and the more we understand that the better stewards of our culture and our world and our neighbors we can be.

Soit is that it's this it's the it's the educators who have explained to me that they've used Mythbusters to show the messiness and creativity of science creativity of science that is the other use I've heard of for Mythbusters and it's one I'm incredibly proud of thank you So much uh see morgan for that awesome question tested patrons keep submitting your questions and I will continue to answer them some of the answers will be long some of them will be short they'll all come from me safe and I'll see you guys next time

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey folks adam savage here in my cave answering questions about my tenure on mythbusters  uh these questions have been submitted in advance by tested patrons and this is a really  this is a nifty question c-morgan says that they use the results from the roundabouts are  more efficient than four-way stops experiment in a cyber security class they teach at university as  an analogy to demonstrate how it is beneficial for internet users to make an informed choice about  risks through a program of security awareness rather than blocking their access indiscriminately  what a lovely analogy to make from the traffic tricks episode to that c morgan wants to know what  other uses of the results from mythbusters experiments have you been made aware ofum by teachers i mostly hear about i number one i think that for for a while now we've been  we've been one of the default science classes for the home schooling crowd which means  i would i don't know if there's been an uptick in that during covid um i haven't gotten a lot  of emails or i haven't been tracking that so i don't know so i know a lot of parents  use mythbusters who are homeschooling to show their kids about science i know a lot of science  teachers use mythbusters as a reward um but one of my favorite things i've heard is science educators  using mythbusters as a way of demonstrating to people how messy and creative science is um that  is something i really deeply appreciate because it wasn't something i understood before we  started making the show it was something that i came to grasp as we made the showi already understood the scientific method was a creative process  robert pearsig in zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance goes to some  lengths to explain that the scientific method is a deeply creative processform a hypothesisis a creative act out of what from what well your experience and your knowledge but still  it's coming from in here it's generated by by you and your experience but he noticed something about  forming hypotheses which is the more you form the more you can form they seem to be self-generating  which is a definition of a creative act like the more you come up with the more you can come up  with um so i really appreciated that because look mythbusters was we loved the controversy when  it happened for airplane on a conveyor belt or something like that that controversy was  bread and butter to us it's totally great we're we didn't have a horse in the race we don't care what  the answer is we just wanted to build a suitable methodology for testing and coming to an answer um  but as to what that answer is we we give two craps there's no we're agnostic with every test as to  what the final result would be um and building a good methodology is hard and exciting and  when you do it it's thrilling it's really thrilling um but that controversy meant  that a lot of people were constantly complaining you know calling us idiots go  i mean i i per standard practice of a youtuber i don't read my comments for the most partuh but in those early mythbuster days the comment boards were just packed with people being like  these two idiots don't know what they're doing and there are particular people who got upset at the  way we performed science a particular group of people um and if i had excuse me just a moment  right as i was saying there's a particular class of people that took the most umbrage  at mythbuster's way of performing science and that group of people i would classify as grad studentsi'm only being sort of facetious i think grad students get upset about our methodology because  they still believe that there's some perfect answer out there but the people that would jump to  our defense would always be the working scientists of the world who would explain yeah no sure their  iterations are small sure they're working under ridiculous constrictions sometimes but  they mythbusters i'm so proud of this thing that we did which was that we showed that  the scientific method is messy and confusing and creative and beautiful none of these words show up  in a fourth grade science class or none of those words showed up in my fourth grade science classes  but the more we help people understand those things about scientific discovery the more we help  them understand that science isn't some monolith of facts out there that some people know and most  people don't that's a really damaging cultural way to think about discovery and knowledge  it's not something that other people know it's something that you could know  it's something that you could grasp and the more we understand that the  better stewards of our culture and our world and our neighbors we can besoit is that it's that it's this it's the it's the educators who have explained to me that  they've used mythbusters to show the messiness and creativeness of science creativity of science that  is the other use i've heard of for mythbusters and it's one i'm incredibly proud of thank you  so much uh see morgan for that awesome question tested patrons keep submitting your questions  and i will continue to answer them some of the answers will be long some of them will be short  they'll all come for me safe and i'll see you guys next time\n"