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The Current Transcript for May 22, 2017

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Introducing Tim Hortons’ new croissant breakfast sandwich.

VOICE 2: Freshly baked croissants coming through.

VOICE 1: Our breakfast sandwich you love served on a freshly baked butter croissant.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: While it may sound like a benign message playing in the background but the statistics are loud. From Timmies to Starbucks and fast foods in between, we gobbled down more than a half a billion breakfast sandwiches last year in Canada and it seems the lure of a breakfast you can munch on the move signals changes in our wider eating habits. On a long weekend known more for beer and gardens, we're looking at who is in the kitchen and who is scrambling for takeout. Also today, writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie isn't the only prominent feminist to question the female experiences of trans women.

SOUNDCLIP

So when people talk about trans women women, my feeling is trans women are trans women. I don’t think it's a good thing to talk about women's issues being exactly the same as the issues of trans women.

AMT: As Ottawa prepares to legislate against discrimination and hate speech related to gender identity, some women's groups say it could undermine the rights of women born as women. Hear the arguments in half an hour. And—

SOUNDCLIP

There are known knowns. There are things we know we know and we also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know.

AMT: Then-US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was on to more than any of us gave him credit for when he ordered that enigmatic phrase. It seems most of us don't know that we don't know what we don't know. You'll get to know what I'm talking about in an hour. But on this Victoria Day, we are starting with the Trump tour because we want to know. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Donald Trump acting like a "businessman President" on Middle East trip, says reporter

Guests: Callum Borchers

SOUNDCLIP

The nations of the Middle East will have to decide what kind of future they want for themselves. A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and drive out the extremists. Drive them out. Drive them out of your places of worship. Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your Holy Land and drive them out of this earth.

AMT: US President Donald Trump speaking to about 50 leaders from Muslim majority countries in Riyadh yesterday. He toned down the blanket anti-Muslim rhetoric of his election campaign and made a distinction between the religion and those who use it for terrorism. He received a lavish welcome from the Saudi royal family on the first leg of this trip, one that Israeli pundits pointed out and said they couldn't match with the camels. But as he arrived in Israel this morning, they offered what one called a Western perspective. To talk about how President Trump's first foreign trip is being received by Americans at home and whether it's changing the focus from ongoing questions about scandals related to Russia and intelligence, I'm joined by Callum Borchers. He covers the intersection of politics and media for the Washington Post. He is in Washington. Hello.

CALLUM BORCHERS: Good morning.

AMT: Well, what's the verdict so far on the president's first trip abroad?

CALLUM BORCHERS: Well, it has at the very least divided Americans’ attention which I think is the best case scenario for the president. The last week and a half was devoted almost entirely to first the firing of James Comey and then all the fallout that we had after that. I mean last week, it seemed like it was a scoop a minute with major news outlets trading bits of information and what the president was talking about with the Russians behind closed doors. What was the real motivation for pushing Comey out the door? And now at the very least, you have to pay close attention to the president's first foreign trip which is a big deal. And this is sort of where the president thrives. We saw this during the campaign. You know there was a lot of negative coverage of him during that run. However, it was often split among two, three and four different subjects making it difficult for people to focus on any single one. I think that's where he is right now and it is probably a positive turn for him.

AMT: He has changed his language a bit on the issue of Muslim nations.

CALLUM BORCHERS: He certainly has. He struck a very hard-line tone against extremism in that clip that you just heard and that was sort of the central message of that speech that he delivered over the weekend. And of course he was opening a centre for combating Islamic extremism in Riyadh. And that is a message that aligns very closely of course with the leadership of many of those Muslim nations as well. They don't want extremism number one, to hurt their own societies and number two, to hinder their ability to make deals on the global stage. And deal making was a big theme of the president's visit to Saudi Arabia. It was a very sort of economic focused event and he really stuck to sort of talking about shared interests. He did not bring up human rights for one thing which was something that he did somewhat during the campaign, at least on Twitter. I can remember a tweet from I think it was in June of last year where he was extremely critical of Hillary Clinton for her interactions and her foundation's willingness to take money from countries like Saudi Arabia given the way that they limit women's rights for instance in that country. He didn't bring that stuff up at all.

AMT: He took a real swipe at Iran which of course Saudi Arabia sees as a competitor for prominence and dominance in the Middle East. Was that for the Saudis or was that for the Americans back home?

CALLUM BORCHERS: I think it was largely for the Saudis quite frankly. I think that he wants to give sort of a common villain and so Iran is an easy target. The regime is viewed very negatively here in the US obviously and of course in Saudi Arabia as well. I think this was part of striking that note of focusing on shared interests and of course Iran was not happy that he did not mention the election that they held last week, which went about as one could hope. But I think they were hoping for a little bit of nuance in the president's remarks, perhaps be critical of their pursuit of a nuclear weapon, but give them credit for a democratic election and he didn't even go down that road. And so I think what he's looking for there is to strike a hard line on one country and it sort of assures a Saudi audience that he is not focusing as harshly on them perhaps.

AMT: He also talks about Iran as the exporter of terrorism of course with its support of Hezbollah. But interestingly enough, he kind of glossed over the fact that ISIS actually practices a form of Islam that is from Saudi Arabia—Wahhabism.

CALLUM BORCHERS: Absolutely.

AMT: That went by everybody.

CALLUM BORCHERS: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. He was not going to bring that up. You know it seems very clear that—and I thought that our dispatch from Saudi Arabia in this morning's paper was pretty good at sort of capturing the sentiment on the ground there which seemed to be a real sense that look, this is a business man president. Right? He is there. He's all about making deals and he is not going to do the things that his predecessor did. Right? So when President Obama took his first Middle Eastern trip in 2009 and delivered a big speech, he's talked a lot about more democratic societies. He talked about expanding human rights and rights for women. And those were things at the time that tended to irritate the foreign audience more than anything that the president said over this weekend. In other words, he wasn't criticizing their society and the way that they operate. He was there to just say what can we do to help each other? And of course part of that involves chipping in—as we found out yesterday—a hundred million dollars to Ivanka Trump's foundation, which doesn’t hurt.

AMT: Before I let you go, he's now in Israel. How much is the issue of the sharing of intelligence with Russia that Israel gave to the US going to play, do you think?

CALLUM BORCHERS: Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall for that dinner tonight, at dinner with the prime minister? Yeah, you have to suspect it will be a major topic. The greeting certainly on the tarmac this morning between the president and Benjamin Netanyahu was a very warm one. And supposedly the two did not discuss intelligence sharing when they spoke by phone last week shortly after our report. And perhaps that was just kicking the ball down the road because you know kicking the can around it because you knew that they were going to see each other face to face in the near future. I can't imagine that it wouldn't come up and you have to believe that there is a strong enough rapport there that this isn't sort of a deal breaker altogether. But if you're Israel you have to be concerned, right? I mean one of the biggest issues in any intelligence sharing operation is trust and the Israelis need to believe that when they are offering information to the United States that it is going to be held closely with the regard that they expect. They did not want that to be shared with the Russians and they don't want it to happen again, I'm sure.

AMT: Okay. Well, there's lots to watch as he continues on with this meeting in Israel and also in the West Bank, but we have to leave it there. Callum Borchers, thank you.

CALLUM BORCHERS: Glad to be with you.

AMT: Callum Borchers covers the intersection of politics and media for the Washington Post. He's in Washington, DC.

[Music: Bridge]

What are the costs of Canada's spike in breakfast sandwich sales?

Guests: Leslie Beck, Sylvain Charlebois

AMT: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Happy Victoria Day. Quick to grab, easy to hold. Breakfast sandwiches are selling like hotcakes across the country. The allure of eggs, bacon and processed cheese stacked between a toasted croissant, an English muffin, a bagel, something like that, has proven irresistible to most of us. Last year we gobbled up 552 million of those breakfasts to go. That's a 12 per cent spike since 2013. Fast food giants such as McDonald's and A&W have noticed the insatiable hunger for breakfast sandwiches. They've started to provide them all day long. They're especially popular among morning commuters who race the clock to make it to work on time. Producer Samira Mohyeddin caught up with a few of them Friday.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Are you getting a breakfast sandwich this morning?

VOICE 2: I am, yes.

VOICE 1: And is that something you do often?

VOICE 2: Yeah, probably once or twice a week.

VOICE 1: What is it exactly the sort of pulls you in here once or twice every morning?

VOICE 2: It's convenient. Get something on the go. You can eat it on the subway, on the way to work and it tastes pretty good too.

VOICE 1: Is taste a big factor in it?

VOICE 2: Yeah, definitely. I know it's not good for me so I try not to do it too often, but it does taste really good.

VOICE 1: Are you worried at all about—I know you said that it's not good for you—but are you worried at all about the health risks involved?

VOICE 2: It's something that I keep in mind so I try not to do it too much. But once or twice I think is okay.

VOICE 1: Okay, thanks very much. Enjoy your sandwich.

VOICE 2: Thank you.

AMT: Well, breakfast sandwiches may help shave a few minutes off a frantic morning routine, but some are questioning if our bodies are paying the price. Leslie Beck is a Toronto-based registered dietitian. She's a columnist with the Globe and Mail. She joins us from Minden, Ontario today. Hello.

LESLIE BECK: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: So what is it doing to our health?

LESLIE BECK: Well, you know I mean first of all let's look at what's in these things. I mean they're high in fat. They're high in saturated fat, the kind that raises your LDL blood cholesterol, and they've got a lot of sodium. For instance, Tim Hortons’ sausage breakfast sandwich has 500 calories, 16 grams of saturated fat—which is three quarters of a day's worth—and 1030 milligrams of sodium, two-thirds of a day's worth. But even the lower-calorie breakfast sandwiches can still deliver a lot of sodium. So Starbucks has a spinach and feta wrap with egg whites—that’s very popular—and that delivers 830 milligrams of sodium. That's a little more than half of your daily requirements. And I think we also have to think about what you're not eating if this is your go-to breakfast. You’re missing out on foods like fruit, whole grains, yogurt, which means that your overall diet might be shy in fibre, calcium, vitamins and antioxidants. And certainly research shows that we don't tend to make up for those nutrients that we miss out in the morning. So that's one thing. The other thing, what's happening in your body when you eat these foods?

AMT: What is happening?

LESLIE BECK: So eating a fatty breakfast sandwich, first of all, it can raise your after meal or postprandial blood triglyceride and cholesterol levels. And there's certainly evidence that these after meal blood fats which are different than what you get taken at the doctor's office fasting. So these after meal blood fats can damage your blood vessels and promote hardening and narrowing of the arteries. And studies show that eating a meal with 30 to 50 grams of fat—and many breakfast sandwiches have a good 30 grams. Some even have 43 grams of fat. That can increase these harmful blood fats for up to eight hours after eating. And I heard in your intro, the young woman that was eating them, she said they taste so good and she likes them. And that's something else that can happen. People can come to crave these types of foods.

AMT: Well, it's that mix of salt, sugar, fat in every takeout food that we all crave in the end, right?

LESLIE BECK: Yeah. These highly palatable foods, right, because they're high in fat, sugar and salt can trigger the release of feel-good brain chemicals like dopamine. And once people experience the pleasure associated with increased dopamine transmission in the brain's reward pathway we call it, from eating these foods, they quickly feel the need to eat again.

AMT: Well, let me ask you. She said she limits her consumption to once or twice a week. Is that okay?

LESLIE BECK: Well, I mean I think we have to look at somebody’s overall diet, you know what else they're doing on the mornings and the lunches and dinners when they're not having a breakfast sandwich. So certainly that matters—who you are and the rest of your diet. But I would certainly say that I would keep something like this to a minimum for sure. And I think when you are grabbing a breakfast sandwich whether it's for breakfast or for lunch these days, grab a piece of fruit too. It really takes no time to throw an apple or banana into your bag before you head out the door in the morning. You're going to get fibre, vitamins, antioxidants and it's also possible that consuming antioxidant-rich foods like fruit with your fatty breakfast sandwich actually could mitigate the harmful post-prandial or after meal blood fat effects. I tell people too you can also look for—if you really don't have time to eat in the morning and time is the issue, then look for healthy items on the menu that you can take to go to work, whether that's a yogurt parfait, oatmeal, even a latte. So there are other solutions if you’re time crunched as well.

AMT: Okay. Leslie Beck, thanks for your thoughts.

LESLIE BECK: You're welcome.

AMT: Leslie Beck, registered dietitian based in Toronto, Globe and Mail columnist. She's in Minden, Ontario today. Well, a study out of Dalhousie University may explain why we crave salty fat deliciousness of breakfast sandwiches. It points to some startling generational and geographic differences in our eating habits. Sylvain Charlebois is the study lead author. He's a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University. He's the dean of the faculty of management and he's in Halifax. Hi. Good morning.

SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS: Good morning.

AMT: So based on the research you've done, how do you explain the sudden popularity of breakfast sandwiches?

SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS: Well, one surprising finding in our study is that low-income earners tend to actually go out to restaurants more often than higher-income earners in general and that actually speaks to the quality of food being craved by certain demographics. And that's probably why some of the major food chains have decided to offer these or go after these all day breakfast formula.

AMT: So what is that? Tell me a little bit more about what you mean by low income earners going for this. What's the reasoning?

SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS: So according to our results, basically income earners, people would earn $40,000 or less—which is not a whole lot—would tend to go out to restaurants more often than higher income earners and that probably indicates that that demographic, that specific group is looking for quick fixes, they may eat on the go. And also of course in our study, we actually realize that millennials, more than other generations are actually more likely to eat breakfast outside the household. They'll just buy something on the go. And again there's this huge trend towards the disintegration of a breakfast in general at home.

AMT: And it's funny because we've done stories on the fact that the cereal market is getting softer too and that was sort of millennials eating differently. How do millennials and Gen-Xers differ in their approach to eating?

SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS: So in our study we actually looked at several aspects of the social economics of food. We looked at breakfast, lunch and dinner. We looked at snacking. We looked at cooking. There are differences between generations but where there are major differences is around cooking. So boomers love to cook. They want to cook and they are cooking, whereas the people from Generation X feel guilty they can't cook. They try to cook mostly on weekends. Millennials really want it all. They actually go out to restaurants. They cook at home as well. They want to cook. And the generation Z, the Z-ers—those are Canadians at the age of 21 or less or younger—they actually think they have no time to cook, which again may indicate that most of these people may be attracted to this on-the-go formula. And when you look at even in food retailing, more and more retailers are actually offering ready-to-eat products. I'm sure most of your listeners have noticed that you can not only buy ready-to-eat products at the grocery store, but there actually are tables and chairs you can actually sit down and eat there and then. So there's this blurring the line between food service and food retailing that is really confusing things a little bit.

AMT: I mean you make the point that people 21 or less aren't cooking as much. Is that really a big surprise? Could a lot of them have somebody cook with them or they could still be living at home. People don't cook the same way immediately out of their teens as they might when they're 40, do they?

SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS: Exactly. It's not overly surprising. Probably most of them are actually relying on their parents for the cooking. And we've all been 21 years old and our priority is not necessarily food or good food. We tend to focus more on entertainment more than anything. So it wasn't overly surprising. What was really surprising in my mind is results coming from the generation X, which I would consider the lost food generation. They went through the eighties and nineties when food was technically really boring and unsurprising. And probably it affected their ability to learn how to cook, to get interested in cooking or in food in general where millennials are really trying to save us a little bit in a sense because they have this energy around food. They are trying to engage with food systems much more so than the Gen-Xers and the Zs, the younger generation is trying to follow millennials here.

AMT: And so what do you expect to see as eating habits change again?

SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS: Essentially it's that division between food service and food retailing. Right now every dollar we spend on food, 30 cents goes to restaurant eating out of household consumption. But that's growing and we expect by 2035, we may reach the 50-50 mark. And in America right now, in the US, in 2016 they actually reached that milestone.

AMT: Sylvain Charlebois, we have to leave it there. We're out of time. But thank you for your perspective. Sylvain Charlebois, professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University, dean of the faculty of management. He's in Halifax. Stay with us. The news is next. Then we're back. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Does the government's transgender rights bill threaten female-only spaces?

Guests: Hilla Kerner, Marni Panas

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, most of us think we have a pretty good handle on how the world works. But when it comes down to it, it turns out we know very little about a lot. We're talking about the knowledge illusion in half an hour. But first, why a bill aimed at preventing discrimination against trans people is being criticized for being discriminatory.

SOUNDCLIP

With this bill, Parliament has the opportunity to affirm in clear language that trans and gender-diverse persons are entitled to equal protection from discrimination, hate propaganda and hate crime, and that all Canadians are entitled to manifest their gender identity and gender expression without fear for their safety.

AMT: Well, that is the Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould speaking before a committee of the Senate earlier this month. The bill to which she is referring is C-16. It would update the Canadian Human Rights Act and the criminal code to include the words “gender identity” and “gender expression”, enshrining the rights of transgender people and prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression. Last week that committee endorsed the bill without amendments. It goes back to the Senate for a final vote. It's expected to become law before Parliament rises at the end of June. The House of Commons voted overwhelmingly in favor of these protections last fall but some Conservative senators and other commentators remain opposed to it. Last week University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson appeared before the Senate committee to object to the bill for being “ideologically motivated”, arguing it poses a threat to freedom of expression. My next guest also appeared before the committee, appealing to senators to reconsider the bill for different reasons. Hilla Kerner is a member of the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter. She joins us from our Vancouver studio. Hello.

HILLA KERNER: Hello. Good morning.

AMT: What concerns do you have about the transgender rights bill?

HILLA KERNER: That unlike what the minister of justice said, the bill actually does not have a clear language at all. The terminology that the bill uses has no social consensus. Gender identity and gender expression have different meaning to different political groups and different communities. So that's our main objection. We do think that it's important to state clearly and explicitly the protection needed for transgender people.

AMT: Why? What are you concerned about? What are you afraid will happen with this bill?

HILLA KERNER: Well, the bill is not about immediate legal protection but it's supposed to create a world view to set some vision of what society we want to have. The terms gender and gender expression, the ways they are used here are completely contradicting to the feminist analysis that we have about gender. We understand gender as a socially imposed construction of the differences between the sexes. The construction of womanhood is false and it's to sustain our subordination. I'm sure you're familiar with Simone de Beauvoir’s quote: “One is not born, rather becomes a woman.” And that's exactly how we understand gender—as a confining set of mind, expectation, teaching that has been rewarded or sanctioned based on women's behaviour and we don't have a choice about that.

AMT: So you're saying you have ideological issues with this.

HILLA KERNER: Yes. The concept of gender is completely different to how feminists have been using gender and gender analysis to explain women's oppression, similar to the concept of gender expression. We understand gender expression to talk about how women are being oppressed by male and we do not believe that males are born violent or inherently violent. Men are taught to be violent. It's a socialization of masculinity and manhood. And in that context, male violence against women is gender expression. Including what I said in the Senate, rape in that context is gender expression. So we are appreciative of the intention of the bill, but we urge the Senate to reconsider the language and to think about implications that has to do with female-born women and how—

AMT: Okay.

HILLA KERNER: Sorry, yes.

AMT: How what? Go ahead.

HILLA KERNER: How to articulate the language in a way is to protect and explain the oppression of female-born women because even though we do agree, sex should not matter at the moment as long as we live under a patriarchy, sex matters a lot. Once we are born female, we are born to the oppressed class so we wanted a bill that articulates the rights of transgender people, protects those rights without undermining the understanding of women's oppression and female-born women's oppression.

AMT: Okay. So why does that get in your way? What is the practical concern? How does that threaten female-born women?

HILLA KERNER: It's a conceptual concern. And for the same reasons that transgender people want the bill, we understand their need of protection. It's not just about say immediate application of the law. This is a federal bill so far. In the provinces, before there was a similar legislation and the human rights the federal human rights bill already heard transgender cases of discrimination for decades now. The bill does not advance that concrete legal protection. It advance the centering of the concept. And from that angle, we would like to have a concept that does not undermine our analysis of women's oppression. I don’t know if you know about Vancouver Rape Relief, but there was there was a pressure against Vancouver Rape Relief and other women's group to ignore the fact that sex matters and to treat people who were born female and raised as girl into womanhood and people who were born male and self identify as women to treat the same. But we are arguing it’s not the same. There are particular concrete differences.

AMT: So you're saying there's pressure on you. In fact, there is a change in society where that is what this bill is talking about. Let me ask you though. Your organization actually dealt with a case of a trans woman who wanted to volunteer. You fought it.

HILLA KERNER: Yes. Twelve years of litigation that I don't think many other women's groups will weather. It was a very, very hard fight and although the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the court of appeal confirmed the right for self-organizing, a right for deciding who our membership is and the fact that we are female-born women mean particular repression, we are still paying the price for that. There is also backlash.

AMT: Let's just go back to what they actually argued. There was a transgender woman who wanted to work at your shelter and she was refused on the fact that she was not born a woman.

HILLA KERNER: Well, this person was presenting themself as a male until the age of 33, until they had gone through a sex reassignment surgery. And then they wanted to volunteer with Rape Relief and they were told by our member that because they did not live their whole life as a female from birth to their current situation, they do not share the same life experience as women who were born female and raised as girls into womanhood.

AMT: Okay. And the court upheld in the end. You appealed and the court upheld. So are you saying that a transgender woman should not be considered a woman?

HILLA KERNER: I'm saying that for some purposes it doesn't really matter and some purposes it matters a lot.

AMT: But who gets to decide?

HILLA KERNER: Well, what we want is for every women's groups, the autonomy to decide how they operate because we are fighting oppression. Other women's groups brought other argument to when sex matters like in competitive sport, medical research and treatment and they could speak to that. But for our purposes, when we do the work, when we respond to our callers and we assist probably 1,200 women every year and another 100 women and their children leaving our transition house, we offer them peer counseling based on the concept of consciousness raising in a shared experience in the world. As people who were born female, we did not choose or we did not have an option to live in any other way. We were born females and we were born to the oppressed class.

AMT: Okay. But let's just stay with the focus here. So you're saying they can't work with you because they're a threat or you don't like their experience?

HILLA KERNER: I'm saying it's a different experience. And for an organization like ours, they used our life experience to build their analysis, to make a political personal connection based on a shared experience. This is a different experience that does not conform to how we operate.

AMT: So you're saying you want the right to turn them away. And in other areas, they should not be turned away. But isn't that the essence of discrimination?

HILLA KERNER: We definitely think that transgender people do need services. They need shelters and other support. And like everybody else, they deserve and must live in safety, dignity and liberty. We're saying for women who are organized based on their sex-based oppression, we need to have the autonomy and the rights to define their own membership and how we operate.

AMT: So does that mean because they were born biologically as men and transitioned, or is that because you don't like their personal history of oppression?

HILLA KERNER: It has nothing to do with likeness. It has a lot to do with—

AMT: Well, it's got to do with judging then.

HILLA KERNER: Not even. It’s the fact that people who were born male and transitioned, I'm not disregarding the personal feelings or personal internal experience. But in terms of the material condition of the lives, they have been treated differently in the world than people who were born female and I'm saying it's a different experience. And we are organizing and responding to women based on their experience of being born female and raised as girl into womanhood. It has nothing to do with likeness or the fact that transgender people deserve services and support.

AMT: Are you saying they're not real women?

HILLA KERNER: It's not for me to say. I would never use as concept of the term “real woman”. It's a sexist concept that is used to instruct women how to behave. And I would never use this terminology.

AMT: But what concept are you using? If they identify as women, if they are recognized as women under the law, a trans person, what are you saying?

HILLA KERNER: I think the places that they'll recognize under the law as women, they should treat it the same and I'm saying when we talk about feminist, sex-based oppression, the right to organize, there are different experiences. There is a person who is a trans woman who has one experience and there are women who are female-born women who have different experience.

AMT: Okay. So let me ask you. Many other feminists and organizations that work with women have come out in favour of the bill. Last week five groups including the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres put out a statement contradicting the claims you make. They say and I'm quoting: “C-16 will enable unnecessary shift in service provision, removing some of the barriers trans, two-spirit and gender-diverse people face when accessing supports. In Ontario, there are sexual assaults centres and shelters beginning this work by developing trans-inclusion policies. Bill C-16 will bolster efforts to ensure sexual violence support services are available to all survivors of violence across Canada.” What do you think of that?

HILLA KERNER: I think that each women's groups should have the rights to define how they operate and how they work and if they do not offer peer counseling based on full life experience, that's totally appropriate. I also have to tell you that we know we got a lot a lot of messages since they testified in the Senate from women and women who are part of women's groups who do not dare to say publicly that they agree with us. There is no social permission to have a debate. And it's a bit ironic because we are talking in this context about freedom of thoughts and freedom of expression and protection from discrimination. And there is no legitimacy for a legitimate feminist ideology.

AMT: Okay. Well, Hilla Kerner, we're leaving it there and we've got somebody waiting in the wings to respond to you. Thank you.

HILLA KERNER: Thank you. Have a good day.

AMT: Hilla Kerner, member of the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter. She's in our Vancouver studio. Marni Panas has a very different view on this. She is a trans woman. She consults with governments and other organizations on how to make their environments inclusive. She joins us from Edmonton. Hello.

MARNI PANAS: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: So how do you respond to what Hilla Kerner has just said?

MARNI PANAS: Well, I found her last statement quite interesting, saying that there is an opportunity for debate. But when I had asked if she would be willing to have this conversation with me on your program together, she refused. So I find that quite interesting.

AMT: She seems to be making the case that women who are born as women are uniquely oppressed. What is your take on that?

MARNI PANAS: Well, my take is number one, she has this clear bias and belief that transgender women are not women. I can tell you I may have been assigned male at birth because I may have been born with a penis. But I was born a woman, always a woman and I can assure you that the oppression that transgender women and transgender people in general face is quite profound. And I think we all have a different road to womanhood. I will never understand the experience that Hilla faces. She will never understand mine. I will never understand the experience of an Indigenous woman who was wondering where her sisters are, if they are among the murdered and missing. I'll never understand the journey of a Muslim woman. But that doesn't make us any less a woman or any more a woman. It just makes our own experiences unique.

AMT: Her organization has raised concerns about predatory men gaining access to women's spaces and as people who identify now as female. How do you respond to that concern?

MARNI PANAS: That act, that behaviour has always been criminal. This doesn't change that. Do you think a predatory man is waiting for a law to change or a sign to change above a washroom door to act on those issues? Absolutely not. This changes nothing. And when we think about her comments about the human rights commission in Ontario already confirming the rights that we've already had, absolutely. The Human Rights Act’s amendments really just recognizes rights that we've always had. And she herself admits that. So why is there a problem? Why is there a problem acknowledging these rights in the human rights act when she already says that we've been recognized with those rights in case law? What's different is we don't have to go through so many steps to prove that.

AMT: And part of the argument is her wanting to protect spaces for women only, especially women who may have been the victim of assault. Do you have any understanding of where she might be coming from?

MARNI PANAS: Again that goes to the underlying bias that she does not see transgender women as women. And you know we all have our own lived experiences. What if somebody transitioned at six years of age? How would she even know? There's an oppression of transgender people who are hiding their sense of gender because of that oppression that she speaks of very well. What she's doing is really invalidating our own experiences to prove hers.

AMT: Talk to me a little bit more about the vulnerability of trans people when it comes to experiencing assault.

MARNI PANAS: Well, transgender people are more likely to be raped, assaulted, murdered than basically any human in North America and around the world. The rates are quite clear. One in five transgender people will have been physically or sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Thirty to 40 per cent will be harassed verbally in their lifetime. I mean that's a profound number. If we said that many women were being sexually assaulted in total, that's a scary number. And that's just with the physical assaults.

AMT: Now she says that her group feels this way and that there has not been enough debate about this. How representative do you think her view is of other women's groups and feminist groups?

MARNI PANAS: Not at all. And I think that's the point that we have to think here, that this is becoming a bit of a false balance when we have to try and look to find people of an opposing view just to show some sort of balance when there isn't one. Recent survey or polls in Canada show that 84 or 86 per cent of Canadians support protecting transgender people in our Human Rights Act, which is clearly she is in the minority—a very loud minority but in a minority. She does not speak for feminists. She does not speak for rape crisis workers. She speaks for her own opinion.

AMT: We have seen this tension between feminists and trans rights activists. We started our show with a clip from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who has also raised some of these issues about female-born women versus women who transition. Where is that tension coming from? What's your understanding?

MARNI PANAS: Again, the tension isn't between transgender people and feminists because almost every feminist that I've ever talked to is incredibly supportive of equality. What Hilla is speaking to is protecting my rights but just some of them. So she doesn't really define equal rights as something that that she can have but I can't. I think to compare her to feminist is an unfair comparison because most feminists are actually quite supportive of equality, of diversity of women and look at all different types of women who make up the umbrella of femininity.

AMT: Why do you think the transgender rights bill needs to become a law?

MARNI PANAS: Well, number one, so that we don't have to fight over and over again to prove who we are. Again, the protections already are protected in case law, but for most of us trying to prove discrimination based on the other grounds is very onerous and very difficult. It changes the conversation about who we are. It starts to have this conversation to normalize the existence of transgender people in the Canadian fabric to recognize that we are humans too that are deserving of the same rights. Human rights and equal rights isn't a pie that we're divvying up amongst each other. It is an expansion of rights that that we all should have in this country and removing some of the barriers and so many significant barriers that transgender people face in just basically living in a typical day to day life with the same opportunities to thrive and survive in this country that every other Canadian has.

AMT: How hard is it as a trans woman to have to prove your womanhood and deal with the idea that you are somehow pretending or coming from a place that isn't as deep?

MARNI PANAS: How hard is it? Well, I can say that when you have 40 per cent of transgender people attempting suicide, it is almost impossible for many. Ten per cent of transgender people in the last year alone tried to take their life because it is sometimes incredibly difficult, if not impossible to get over that fear, that fear of walking out of a washroom and being told that you don't belong here and you get beat up for it. Fear of losing your job. Fear of losing your family. Fear of being raped. Fear of living in a society that would rather you not exist at all. Those are very real fears. And so for anybody to say that we are denying somebody else's oppression because we haven't felt it on our own is absolutely actually quite disturbing.

AMT: So who should get to decide who qualifies as a woman?

MARNI PANAS: Let me ask you. When did you decide that you're a woman?

AMT: I was going to ask you.

MARNI PANAS: And the answer is the same and so you know we've all had our experiences. And so I am a woman and I shouldn't have to prove it any more than my partner, than you in your studio. But for some of us we need to prove it every day.

AMT: How old are you?

MARNI PANAS: I am 45 years old.

AMT: And when were you able to identify as a woman?

MARNI PANAS: I've always identified as a woman.

AMT: Sorry. I mean when did you transition?

MARNI PANAS: Right. Great. I transitioned at 42 officially. So three years ago. But that internal sense took most of my life to get over that fear that I spoke about earlier, that I could actually live in society as me. And at some point all those things that you fear losing if you do transition pale in comparison to what you will lose if you don't transition.

AMT: And I'm asking because this is a conversation that we weren't having on the air 10 years ago and wondering how this will change those people who like you, felt like a woman very early in life, but waited whatever reason until much later in life.

MARNI PANAS: It's lifesaving. You’re right. We haven't had this conversation 10 years ago. When you asked about what the Human Rights Act will mean, the fact that you and I are having this conversation in the way that we are, in informed, respectful, normalizing ways is profoundly impactful on a community. We see a lot more children at younger ages presenting with gender fluidity or gender identity that is different than what we expected from them. And I think that's a great sign because what's happening is when I was six years old feeling these things, I didn't have the words to articulate how I felt. I felt so alone in this world. And now we have trans children seeing this, they feel that they can have the language to articulate who they are and feel a little bit safer in doing so. Not everybody, but that's probably the biggest shift.

AMT: Marni Panas, thanks for talking to me today.

MARNI PANAS: It's been a real pleasure. Thanks so much.

AMT: Marni Panas, diversity and inclusion professional and a trans woman. She joined us from Edmonton. Well, the debate playing out in Canada about feminism and trans rights is emerging elsewhere as well, including in pop culture. The Amazon show Transparent has drawn rave reviews for its portrayal of an aging father of three transitioning from their papa Mort to their mapa, Mora. The show uses humour to delve into the murkier conversations about gender identity, family and feminism. In one episode, Mora—the trans woman played by actor Jeffrey Tambor—attends a women only music festival. There are a tampon making workshops, drumming circles and bare breasts, but only minutes after she arrived, she's told the festival is for women-born women only.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Hey, Leslie. What is the festival policy?

VOICE 2: Very simple. Women-born women.

VOICE 1: I don't mean to be rude, but what does that mean when you say women-born women?

VOICE 3: It means people who were born with a vagina and uterus.

VOICE 4: First of all, does that mean if you have a hysterectomy, you’re not a woman?

VOICE 2: Bingo. Here we go with the hysterectomies.

VOICE 3: Come on. She brought up utereuses. I’m just saying having a uterus doesn’t grant you entry into this place.

VOICE 2: Look, I drove the plow, I cleared these woods and we did it with one thing in mind: that we women could have one safe space in the world.

VOICE 1: No one is trying to take your woods away from you. I just feel that I have a right to be here too, as a transgender woman.

VOICE 3: I think that this is more about like the nudity and the showers.

VOICE 1: This is about nudity?

VOICE 3: A lot of people here are triggered by penises.

VOICE 1: Why? Why?

VOICE 3: Penises are triggering to many women because we've all been raped.

VOICE 1: Everybody?

VOICE 4: Well, no.

VOICE 3: I was raped.

VOICE 1: I didn’t rape you.

VOICE 4: [Expletive]’s true. She stopped raping long ago.

VOICE 2: See, this is where it gets really weird because suddenly the conversation is all around you and all of us are trying to make you comfortable.

VOICE 1: You're trying to make me comfortable?

VOICE 2: Yeah.

VOICE 1: Right now? You’re trying to make me comfortable?

VOICE 2: Yeah. We’re trying to welcome you in.

VOICE 3: We’re trying to explain it to you.

VOICE 2: I don’t give a [expletive] about your penis. It’s about the privilege.

VOICE 1: What privilege are you talking about? I was in way too much pain to experience what you're calling privilege.

VOICE 2: Your pain and your privilege are separate.

AMT: That is a scene from the Amazon show, Transparent. Let us know what you think about the discussion we just had. You can reach us @thecurrentCBC on Twitter or find us on Facebook. Go to our website, www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with us. Coming up in our next half hour, no matter how much you think you know, you're only as smart as everyone else. That is the theory of a book called The Knowledge Illusion. I will speak to co-author Steven Sloman who says there's a great deal of value in knowing what you know but also knowing what you don't know because someone else might know it. Confused? Stay with us. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on www.cbc.ca/thecurrent and on your radio app.

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

[Music: The Disruptors theme]

AMT: From entrepreneurs to social movements, from politicians to philanthropists, events to inventions, people and their beliefs are upsetting the orthodoxy for better or worse. Changing how we live, changing our sense of ourselves, changing our society—those disruptions are the focus of our project this season on The Current. As part of that, we’re also hearing from some of you about your own personal moments of disruption when a thing or an event or a person completely changed the course of your life. In January, we first met this high school student in New Westminster, BC whose love for a particular contact sport set him on a whole new path.

NOLAN BELLEROSE: My name is Nolan Bellerose. When I was three-years-old, just when I turned three, my mother passed away due to illness sadly. And a couple of months later, my dad walked out and I never saw him again. Growing up, my childhood was really kind of rough and shaky, because I was grown up around alcohol and drugs a lot, with a couple of my uncles. And I was living with my grandparents at the time. That was also kind of rough moments too because they were getting older and they were getting sicker. And it was kind of shaky because I grew up without a mother, so it was kind of rough at times. Because I asked where my mom is at times and they’d just look at me and say she's in a better place, but then I didn't understand what they're talking about until I was like about 11 years old, and I figured out that I was never going to see my mom again, because it took a long time to figure that out. So it was a rough journey growing up.

SOUNDCLIP

COACH 1: Single file, get on that white line. Go.

COACH 2: Hustle up, hustle up.

COACH 3: Front line left to right, Noley, Stark, Gonzales, Zebow, one.

COACH 4: Get on the sidelines, sidelines, Matthew, Shane.

NOLAN BELLEROSE: Well, I've always wanted play football growing up, but my family could never afford it sadly, because it was just way out of our price range, because we were sort of a poverty kind of family. Trouble to get food and all that for the family members. And finally when I moved, when I went and met a new father who took me in and called me his own son, he introduced me to football and that's something I've always wanted to play, so he got me into it. And then next thing you know, I've been playing football for three years and I'm loving every moment of it, because it’s just changed me so much, it made me into the man that I am today and I'm loving it.

SOUNDCLIP

COACH 1: Rotate, go go go. Run, run, run, why are you walking?

NOLAN BELLEROSE: I'm loving the brotherhood that you get from playing with the teammates here, like you got people who always have your back and especially the hitting.

SOUNDCLIP

COACH 1: Tackler. Perfect tackle, let’s go, on you.

VOICE 1: Let’s go.

[Sound: helmets clashing]

VOICE 1: Let’s go.

NOLAN BELLEROSE: You know, it's like the best part is the hitting, because like you hit someone, you give them a high five, get them back up. The best part of football is the hitting and I'm probably saying the brotherhood that you get from it. It's a family experience in football.

SOUNDCLIP

COACH 1: You got everybody? Five, alright Hyacks ready.

[Sound: clapping in unison]

COACH 1: Hyacks ready.

[Sound: clapping in unison]

COACH 1: Alright, kick off.

COACH 2: Hey, everyone stop right now, stop. OK, you guys need to dial in right now. We’re not dialed in right now. OK, and that right there is going to be a poor start on Saturday. So everyone dial in mentally.

VOICE 1: Yes sir.

COACH 2: We’re asking nothing out of you physical. It’s right here, our biggest weakness. Alright, Hyacks ready.

[Sound: clapping in unison]

COACH 2: Hyacks ready.

[Sound: clapping in unison]

COACH 2: OK, out.

NOLAN BELLEROSE: It's intense. It's intense because, you know, you watch NFL players all the time then you're on the field, you feel like you're an NFL player doing certain jobs on there, you know, you're hitting someone, you’re tackling someone or you’re blocking someone. It's a really cool experience.

SOUNDCLIP

COACH 1: OK, keep your feet moving forward, face up. OK, chest to chest, grab cloth, move your feet.

NOLAN BELLEROSE: It saved my life, saved my life, because it kept me away from the gang life and the drug abuse that I was eager and towards to get rid of the pain. But football kind of took away the pain by introducing me to a new family that loved me for who I was and my size.

SOUNDCLIP

COACH 1: You’re tackling like always.

[Sound: tackling drill]

COACH 1: Face up, grab cloth.

[Sound: helmets banging]

NOLAN BELLEROSE: Well, I’m six foot two, 225 offensive lineman, so--

[Sound: helmets banging]

NOLAN BELLEROSE: I was heading down a rough lifestyle at the time because I was hanging out with the wrong crowd and the wrong people, and I was like getting into like the wrong kind of trouble at times or I was doing bad things with the wrong people. And if I was still going down that path without football right now, I probably wouldn't be here at the moment. I would probably be either dead or probably in jail by now. I believe that 100 per cent. Football has changed that tremendously through the entire three years here. It has changed that tremendously because it's gotten rid of my depression, my anger and all that other stuff in there. It's gotten rid of my pain and like I said before, moulded me into the man that I am today.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: clapping in unison]

VOICE 1: Who are we?

FOOTBALL TEAM: Hyacks.

NOLAN BELLEROSE: I've seen it change a lot of people's lives. A lot of my buddies now play football and they came from kind of the same life that I kind of came from, and it’s changed their life tremendously too. So it’s pretty cool.

SOUNDCLIP

COACH 1: When we go down, I’m going to put to a direction, you roll to that direction. Down. Let’s go up. Backpedal.

[Sound: feet shuffling]

COACH 1: Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, through.

NOLAN BELLEROSE: I'm hoping to continue playing football after I’m graduated high school if I can get into college to play football. But other than that, I'm probably just going to go to college and try to become a social worker so I can change the outlook on youth around Canada and try to motivate other kids around Canada to start playing sports that they want to do and see that it can change their lives too.

SOUNDCLIP

COACH 1: Hyacks ready.

[Sound: clapping in unison]

FOOTBALL TEAM: H-Y-A-C-K-S, Hyacks.

MANY VOICES: [yelling] Let’s go.

AMT: Well, that was Nolan Bellerose. He was an offensive tackle on the New Westminster senior Hyacks’ football team last season. We first heard his moment of disruption in January. If your life has been disrupted in some way, big or small, for good or ill and you want to share it with us, we'd like to hear about it. Send us an email about your story. Go to our website, www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. And put “moment of disruption” in the subject line. Again, www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. And once you are there, you can check out the other stories that we are doing this season, including Moments of Disruption—tracking a jaguar, becoming a YouTube star, surviving a brain tumour. It’s all there: www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

ENCORE: Why we think we know everything, a cognitive scientist explains

Guests: Steven Sloman

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don't know.

VOICE 2: Excuse me. But is this an unknown unknown? There are several unknowns and I’m just wondering if this is an unknown unknown.

[Crosstalk]

VOICE 1: I am not going to say which it is.

AMT: Well, that was then-US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's now famous answer to questions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2002. As bamboozling as that answer was, my next guest says he was on to something unique about the nature of human knowledge. Steven Sloman is a professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University. He is the co-author of a book called The Knowledge Illusion. We spoke with him when he was in Toronto in April and here again is that conversation.

AMT: You know my mind reels when I hear that clip. But it turns out we actually don't know that much.

STEVEN SLOMAN: We don't know that much. And in particular, we think we know a lot more than we in fact do.

AMT: Can you give me some examples that show how little we know about how the world works?

STEVEN SLOMAN: Absolutely. I can ask you how well you understand how a toilet works. So let's say on a one to seven scale, how well do you think you know how a toilet works?

AMT: Okay, I'll say six.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Wow. Okay, great. So you really know how a toilet works.

AMT: I think I do. Do you want me to explain it?

STEVEN SLOMAN: So tell me. How does a toilet work?

AMT: Okay. Well, the water goes in the tank. So you have a pipe of water going in the tank and when you flush it, the pressure of the water in the tank flushes the debris in the toilet out. It goes down a pipe and into the sewage system. Am I right?

STEVEN SLOMAN: Not quite. In fact, a toilet works by what's called a siphon effect. There's this inverted U-shape tube that comes out of the bowl. The tank puts water in the bowl which raises the level to that above the U-shaped tube and that causes this effect—the siphon effect—that actually physicists don't fully understand—

[Crosstalk]

AMT: Oh, now I don’t have to feel so bad.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Which sucks the water out of the bowl.

AMT: Okay. So it's not the pressure of the water.

STEVEN SLOMAN: It’s not the pressure of the water. Right.

AMT: I stand deeply corrected.

STEVEN SLOMAN: But actually the point of the example is most people are not as confident as you and as creative and most people don't actually come up with as elegant an explanation as you did. Most people when asked that question say you know what? I have no idea how a toilet works.

AMT: I thought I knew because I actually fixed one recently and I thought I really knew.

STEVEN SLOMAN: So most people think they know. But after trying to explain, they discover that they don't. So the act of explanation bursts their bubble of understanding.

AMT: So I am your perfect guinea pig. [laughs]

STEVEN SLOMAN: You're my perfect guinea pig. Absolutely.

AMT: So I have a drawing of a bicycle. What do you do with this?

STEVEN SLOMAN: Fill it out. So you have a partial drawing of a bicycle. It's missing some parts. It's missing pedal, chain, part of the frame. Where did they go?

AMT: Okay. And I do have the filled out ones too so I’m not even going to pretend.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Okay. Well, those are filled out by other people. Those aren’t necessarily correct.

AMT: Right. So what are you looking for with the bicycle?

STEVEN SLOMAN: So if you look at those other images you have, you'll see that people have put the chain in the oddest of places. In one case or in more than one case, the chain goes not only around the back wheel but also around the front wheel. And I'm not sure exactly what you're looking at there, but in some cases the pedal in one case is at the top frame.

AMT: You’d have to pedal with your hands.

[Crosstalk]

STEVEN SLOMAN: You’d have to have very short legs or pedal with your hands.

AMT: Mhm.

STEVEN SLOMAN: That's right.

AMT: We will put these on our site: www.cbc.ca/thecurrent just to show what you've got as an example. That’s like the toilet example. We think we know.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Exactly. So this is a study that was done by Rebecca Lawson at the University of Liverpool and what she found is that people draw diagrams that are just bizarre. And even expert cyclists draw diagrams that are relatively bizarre. So even people who fix bicycles have trouble reproducing the shape of a bicycle when asked.

AMT: Why do you think that is then?

STEVEN SLOMAN: I think it's because we think we know more than we do because we depend on others for our knowledge. So we're foragers for information. We use our bodies to think. We use the world to think. But more than anything, we use other people to think and the fact that other people understand how bicycles work give us the impression that we think we know how bicycles work.

AMT: And when it comes to a mechanical device, we get a little spoiled because we don't have to know eventually. We just have to hop on the bicycle.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Exactly. We live in a community of knowledge. There's a division of cognitive labour, such that we have our own tiny little area of expertise, but other people have their areas of expertise. And in order to accomplish things, we work together.

AMT: So we can go back to the toilet example. As long as I know how to flush the thing, if it doesn't work I call the plumber.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Exactly.

AMT: Okay. What about history? Because you look at history as well, iconic figures of history. How much do we really know and understand about history?

STEVEN SLOMAN: Well, the same thing is true of history, that is we think we understand things like World War I and World War II and the invasion of Pearl Harbor much better than we do. And one way to find out is to try to explain say, the causes of World War I. Turns out it's incredibly complicated. Right? The world in general is incredibly complicated and so we depend on others for our understanding.

AMT: And so when you talk about depending on others, where is our knowledge stored?

STEVEN SLOMAN: Our knowledge is stored in our bodies, in the world itself. Here I am in Toronto and I'm navigating Toronto in part by using cues that are embedded in the city. But more than anything—and this is the focus of our book—the knowledge is stored in other people's heads. So thought is a process that operates between and across people. It's not something that goes on just inside the skull.

AMT: So what does that tell us about how we do our best work?

STEVEN SLOMAN: What it tells us is that to do our best work we have to rely on our communities. We have to take advantage of what other people know. And what that entails—you know I like the Rumsfeld piece that you did at the beginning because I think despite himself, he actually said something quite profound which is that the secret of knowledge is often knowing what you don't know. It's often obvious to us what we do know. After all, we know it. We're thinking about it. What's not so clear is what we don't know and so the secret of success is accessing the information that we really need.

AMT: And can you give some examples of where groups have produced work that couldn't have been achieved with just one person?

STEVEN SLOMAN: I think anything any human being ever does is an example of that. I mean we're doing that right now. We couldn't do what we're doing alone. When we cross the street, we depend on the thought process of the drivers who are who are coming at us. That's why we like making contact with drivers when we cross the street. If you think about major scientific discoveries—the discovery of the Higgs boson recently—involved literally thousands of physicists. And it wasn't just physicists. It was also engineers and custodians and telephone operators. I mean there were all kinds of people who were necessary for that sort of major scientific discovery. If you think about producing music, not only is music produced often by multiple people working together, but the instruments that they use depend on the skills of instrument makers and the music they create depends on the skills of composers and traditions of music that have been embedded in communities for eons.

AMT: So someone like Mozart, we might think he worked alone but of course he was working on an instrument.

STEVEN SLOMAN: He was working on an instrument. And not only that, but his musical ideas were ideas that were around during the time. He was surely a great creative genius, but he didn't pick his tunes out of thin air, so to speak. There was a kind of music around at the time that he plugged into and made use of.

AMT: Even at the age of four.

STEVEN SLOMAN: [laughs] Especially at the age of four.

[Crosstalk]

AMT: Because he was young right? But our brains are constantly pulling things in and processing but always needing other people. Let's talk about why we need to recognize this at this point in time.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Great question. Yeah. So as far as you know fixing our toilet is concerned, it's not that important because we manage with our toilets pretty successfully most of the time.

AMT: You know I'm never going to live that down. But keep going.

STEVEN SLOMAN: [laughs] I thought you did very well actually. I thought you did very well.

[Crosstalk]

AMT: Just the hubris. The hubris.

STEVEN SLOMAN: No. Toilet hubris is forgivable. Where hubris is not forgivable is in the political domain. When we have not only political leaders but voters who think they know things that they don't, then there's a problem. So here's the most serious problem: understanding is contagious. That's what I said earlier. And in fact we have very direct evidence that understanding is contagious. So with a student at Brown, a guy named [unintelligible] I ran a series of experiments in which we did the following. We told people about novel scientific phenomena, stuff that we had made up in fact, like a system of helium rain. Okay? So we said scientists have discovered this system of helium rain and in one case we said, “and they don't understand it. They have not explained it yet. How well do you understand it?” And under those conditions most people say “I don't understand it at all”, as they should because it's new to them. In another condition we said “Scientists have discovered the system of helium rain and they fully understand it. They fully explained it. How well do you understand it?” So we gave them no information about the system. Just asked them how well they understand it, knowing that the scientists understand it. And under those conditions, their ratings of understanding went up a little bit. They didn't go really high, but they went up just a little bit as if the scientists’ understanding was contagious. They inherited a sense of understanding from the fact that the scientists understood. So we've also shown this with policies, with political policies. Knowing that experts understand the policy gives people a slightly higher sense that they understand the policy.

AMT: And we see this in politics all the time.

STEVEN SLOMAN: So imagine that everyone around you is telling you that the UK should leave the EU. They understand why the UK should leave the EU. So you're eventually going to have a sense of understanding why the UK should leave the EU and the people around you might have a sense of understanding because the people around them feel that they understand why the UK should leave the EU. So everybody's understanding depends on everybody else's sense of understanding which sometimes is built on a house of cards.

AMT: And we don't have to go across the pond for an example right now in politics. We can go over the border in the US. Did we not see in this last election—and you can see this in Canada—but we'll use the US as an example.

STEVEN SLOMAN: That’s safer.

AMT: I was just going to say it is safer. But the idea that a politician says it's this way, trust me, I'll take care of it—that becomes contagious.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Yes, absolutely. That becomes contagious. The politician’s own sense of understanding may be an effect of the sense of understanding of people around him which is essentially vacuous, which may be based on nothing.

AMT: So trade’s a mess is a good example. Donald Trump. Trade’s a mess, it's a terrible thing. It’s a disaster.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Donald Trump rarely demonstrates real understanding of things. That's absolutely true. Despite his great sense of confidence in his understanding, he is the primary example of the knowledge illusion.

AMT: We can also look at other areas of policy. We were talking science a moment ago. Things like climate change, the whole debate around vaccinations.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Yes.

AMT: It goes to this knowledge illusion as well, does it not?

STEVEN SLOMAN: Well, I think it does in the sense that you have people who have very strong beliefs about whether vaccinations cause autism or whether or not there will be climate change, despite not understanding anything.

AMT: And despite science that's actually quite specific and actually does give us something to think about.

STEVEN SLOMAN: So in the case of vaccinations, it's absolutely clear that vaccinations do not cause autism. Most scientists believe that climate change is caused by humans. And the question is where do our attitudes about these things come from and if it's the case that those attitudes are simply reflections of what our community believes, then the question becomes what's our community? And so the essential argument we're making is that most of our beliefs are really just a reflection of our tendency to channel our community as opposed to reflecting a rational process of thought. And so the real issue is what is it that generates our community’s beliefs? Is it real hard science or is it some kind of self-interested expertise or claimed expertise that really has no foundation in fact?

AMT: So how do we work with this? How do we recognize in ourselves what our unknown unknowns are so that we can know some knowns?

STEVEN SLOMAN: Interesting question. Look, that's a critical question and I don't pretend to have a silver bullet and the book does not offer a silver bullet. But there are certain principles that I think we have to follow. One is to reach outside our bubbles. One is to try to get outside our echo chambers that that we normally sit in. But the other and perhaps more useful idea is to try to explain things to ourselves. Rather than just relying on the words we hear and rather than simply channeling what it is that we hear, try to really explain things to ourselves before we express strong views about things. So explanation is special because explanation involves getting outside yourself, thinking about the policy at hand, thinking about what its actual consequences are. Not what your reasons are for believing it, not what your values are, but rather what the actual effect of a policy or a politician is going to be.

AMT: You make the point that sometimes people get emotional and defensive about their beliefs, about their assumed knowledge as opposed to being open.

STEVEN SLOMAN: I think the main reason for that is that when we're challenged, we feel the need to defend our communities because we're not just speaking for ourselves. We're speaking for the people around us. We become representatives of our communities and we're emotionally tied to our communities.

AMT: So the idea, the point you make that we are natural collaborators, that we work together, can sometimes work against us.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Yes. When there is no real foundation to what it is that we're doing, I think it can work against us. But look, for the most part it works for us. We do live in communities. We create amazing things. We have fantastic recording studios and iPhones and laptops and humanity has gone to the moon and you know we're empowered. And that's something that we should revel in, I think.

AMT: How do we move forward? You know you're making us think about what we know, what we don't know, how we need to fill these gaps in. So what do you want us to think about in terms of absorbing information so that we can be better collaborators with more facts and knowledge?

STEVEN SLOMAN: Well, so I want, I think step one is to admit our lack of knowledge and to reduce our hubris, to accept the fact that we don't know everything and that to accomplish things, we have to make use of the people around us. I think that that's great leadership, to appreciate that we have to take advantage of the skills around us and not expect ourselves to be expert in everything. But I think it's also great followership, to appreciate that you're one cog and other people are other cogs and we all have to work together. We can't expect ourselves to do it alone. It's not easy. I don't know if it's our culture or if it's our psychology, but we have a tendency to want to be experts in everything, to demonstrate knowledge whenever we're tested. And we have to accept that we can’t. It's great to learn. It's great to try. But we're limited creatures and life is easier because of it.

AMT: It makes us more human.

STEVEN SLOMAN: It makes us more human.

AMT: You know we talk about this with some issues of leadership right because leadership becomes this word that bosses must show, that politicians must show. And we look to one person and what we should be doing is looking to many people, I guess.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Absolutely. Whether we're talking the political domain, the musical domain, any artistic domain, the scientific domain, everything is accomplished by groups, by teams. And we’d probably be a little better off if we recognized that.

AMT: It also speaks to the whole issue of heroes, does it not?

STEVEN SLOMAN: Yes, it does.

AMT: Talk to me about that.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Well, we have a tendency to lionize individuals, right? In the book we talk about Martin Luther King Jr.—who was an amazing man, a fantastic man no doubt—but he didn't do it all alone. You know there were great political changes in the sixties in the States. There was a strong civil rights movement. But it was just that. It was a movement. And if we really want to understand civil rights, if we want to understand history, if we want to use it to our advantage, we have to appreciate that there was a whole movement led by a great man, but he wasn't the movement himself. And today, Trump is not the administration. We call it the Trump administration but in fact, we're talking tens of thousands of people in Washington who are our government. And we're talking about tens of millions of people who support Trump. When we think about politics in the states, rather than thinking about this individual and the costs and benefits of this individual, we should think about what's really going on—the real political dynamics and that's one that involves tens of millions of people.

AMT: So it's not solely about understanding our knowledge. It's also taking responsibility for our role in feeding in our knowledge or our lack of knowledge into our community. We have individual responsibility to try to get things right.

STEVEN SLOMAN: That's a great point. Absolutely.

AMT: Thanks for coming in.

STEVEN SLOMAN: Oh, thanks so much for having me. This was a great pleasure.

AMT: Steven Sloman. His book is called The Knowledge Illusion. He’s a professor at Brown University. Test your own knowledge of how a bicycle works. Go to our website, www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with us for q. It’s next with Ali Hassan sitting in as the guest host. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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May 22, 2017 full episode transcript

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