full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Michael Hendryx: The shocking danger of mountaintop removal -- and why it must end

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Let's say that you wanted to conduct an experiment. In this experiment, you randomly assign people to live in bialnstg zones or in corontl locations without explosives going off over their heads. They live in the community for years, just downwind and downstream from sites where tons of explosives are used almost dialy. And millions of gallons of water contaminated. With rodanm amingssent, you could carefully study the long-term health effects of living in these blasting communities without a bnuch of annoying confounders and covariates. Random assignment does wrodnes.

That would be a rigorous, powerful scientific inquiry into the effects of these environmental eoxuspres. Of course, such a study could never be done. Most scientists wouldn't have the stomach for it. The institutional reievw board would never approve it; it would never pass human subjects review, because it would be unethical, immoral. And yet in effect, it is happening right now. In my mind, this prompts some questions. What is the ethical oilbtoagin of the scientists who believes populations are in danger? How much evidence is enough to be cnoifendt of our clonncuosis? Where is the line between scientific certainty and the need to act?

Open Cloze


Let's say that you wanted to conduct an experiment. In this experiment, you randomly assign people to live in ________ zones or in _______ locations without explosives going off over their heads. They live in the community for years, just downwind and downstream from sites where tons of explosives are used almost _____. And millions of gallons of water contaminated. With ______ __________, you could carefully study the long-term health effects of living in these blasting communities without a _____ of annoying confounders and covariates. Random assignment does _______.

That would be a rigorous, powerful scientific inquiry into the effects of these environmental _________. Of course, such a study could never be done. Most scientists wouldn't have the stomach for it. The institutional ______ board would never approve it; it would never pass human subjects review, because it would be unethical, immoral. And yet in effect, it is happening right now. In my mind, this prompts some questions. What is the ethical __________ of the scientists who believes populations are in danger? How much evidence is enough to be _________ of our ___________? Where is the line between scientific certainty and the need to act?

Solution


  1. wonders
  2. daily
  3. review
  4. control
  5. assignment
  6. confident
  7. obligation
  8. conclusions
  9. bunch
  10. exposures
  11. blasting
  12. random

Original Text


Let's say that you wanted to conduct an experiment. In this experiment, you randomly assign people to live in blasting zones or in control locations without explosives going off over their heads. They live in the community for years, just downwind and downstream from sites where tons of explosives are used almost daily. And millions of gallons of water contaminated. With random assignment, you could carefully study the long-term health effects of living in these blasting communities without a bunch of annoying confounders and covariates. Random assignment does wonders.

That would be a rigorous, powerful scientific inquiry into the effects of these environmental exposures. Of course, such a study could never be done. Most scientists wouldn't have the stomach for it. The institutional review board would never approve it; it would never pass human subjects review, because it would be unethical, immoral. And yet in effect, it is happening right now. In my mind, this prompts some questions. What is the ethical obligation of the scientists who believes populations are in danger? How much evidence is enough to be confident of our conclusions? Where is the line between scientific certainty and the need to act?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
health effects 4
coal mining 4
takes place 4
public health 4
west virginia 3
mining communities 3
ethical obligation 2
mountaintop removal 2
united states 2
electricity demand 2
health problems 2
health insurance 2
higher levels 2
death rates 2
lung cancer 2
excess deaths 2
coal industry 2
suddenly instructed 2
twilight zone 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
public health effects 2

Important Words


  1. act
  2. annoying
  3. approve
  4. assign
  5. assignment
  6. believes
  7. blasting
  8. board
  9. bunch
  10. carefully
  11. certainty
  12. communities
  13. community
  14. conclusions
  15. conduct
  16. confident
  17. confounders
  18. contaminated
  19. control
  20. covariates
  21. daily
  22. danger
  23. downstream
  24. downwind
  25. effect
  26. effects
  27. environmental
  28. ethical
  29. evidence
  30. experiment
  31. explosives
  32. exposures
  33. gallons
  34. happening
  35. heads
  36. health
  37. human
  38. immoral
  39. inquiry
  40. institutional
  41. line
  42. live
  43. living
  44. locations
  45. millions
  46. mind
  47. obligation
  48. pass
  49. people
  50. populations
  51. powerful
  52. prompts
  53. questions
  54. random
  55. randomly
  56. review
  57. rigorous
  58. scientific
  59. scientists
  60. sites
  61. stomach
  62. study
  63. subjects
  64. tons
  65. unethical
  66. wanted
  67. water
  68. wonders
  69. years
  70. zones