Bend Don’t Break: David Bermudez, Executive Director of Bend Science Station

In this episode of Bend Don’t Break, Aaron Switzer sits down with David Bermudez, executive director and founder of Bend Science Station, to talk about curiosity, critical thinking, and what it really means to learn science. David shares his journey from teaching at Sunriver Prep to launching a nonprofit that has spent more than two decades expanding access to hands‑on STEM education for students across Central Oregon.

David and Aaron explore how Bend Science Station grew from a borrowed lab space into a Net Zero facility on the OSU‑Cascades campus, serving more than 5,000 students and 200 educators each year. The conversation dives into why science education often falls short in elementary schools, how experiential learning builds lifelong skills, and why being “wrong” is one of the most important parts of the scientific process. Tune in for a thoughtful discussion about education, democracy, and helping kids (and adults) learn how to question, test, and think critically.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Ben Don't Break Podcast. We are powered by the Source, Ben's locally owned media company and weekly newspaper. This podcast is our eddy in the rushing waters of local journalism. We are glad that you're taking some of your time to listen to us chat with the people who shape our local community. Support us through our member program at BenSource.com.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Remax Key Properties, a family-owned full-service real estate brokerage specializing in residential, luxury, commercial, new construction, and ranch and land properties. Their new state-of-the-art facility at 42 Greenwood Avenue is a modern collaborative space and the new home of the Bin Don't Break Podcast Recording Studio.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

I'm Aaron Sweitzer, publisher of The Source and producer with Megan Burton behind the camera of this fine podcast. Thank you for joining us today. We have David Bermudez, aka Burmy, executive director of the Benn Science Station. David Bermudez is the founder where he has spent more than two decades expanding access to hands-on curiosity-driven STEM education across Central Oregon. Since launching the organization in 2002, he has grown the Science Station to a thriving nonprofit that serves over 5,000 students and 200 educators every year. In addition to leaving programming, David played a key role in building the Science Station's net zero lab facility on the OSU campus, designed to expand access to high-quality lab experiences, especially for students who might otherwise have them. Lifelong educator with a degree in aquatic biology from Brown, David is known for making science unforgettable, like jumping into an ice bath to demonstrate vasoconstriction, or letting students hoist them up a building tower using a pulley system. Also mentor to fellow educators and community builders who have cultivated a passionate team of instructors, volunteers, and supported supporters committed to making STEM accessible, engaging, and fun.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Did we capture it? You got it.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Nailed it.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

You nailed it. I don't even need to be here.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

David, uh before we jump into all the stuff that uh Ben Science um for listeners, when did you move to Ben? I don't when did you get here?

SPEAKER_02 2:21

I arrived in 1993.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

Oh well.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Yeah. And was teaching at Sun River Prep School. Okay. So way back when it was in Sun River.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

I lived on Huntington Road, which is like two miles, like right by La Pine State Park Road.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Way out down south.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

In the middle of nowhere. In the middle of nowhere. When it was still LA Pine. Yeah, exactly. So did um well, what what brought you here? I mean, was it that job?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

It was. Yeah. Like I was uh teaching at or um at the Marine Science Camp. Okay. And it just happened that the principal's wife from Sunder Prep at the time was uh came out to the camp Guanalong and I was working with that group because I had a strong back on marine science and they happened to let me know that they were losing their science teacher. And yeah I applied and ended up here.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

You um you you're from back east or Midwest. And uh how why Oregon? Why Omsey?

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Why um why Oregon? Why Umsy? I you know, like every story, I was following a girl.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Those are the best stories.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Yeah, exactly. Kind of made my way west after college, out east. I was done with my time out east, too many people and you know, not enough snow, and taught skiing in Colorado for two years, and that ended up with uh my girlfriend at the time got an internship at Captain Gable School. So that brought us out to Oregon. I was like, yeah, I mean, first jobs trying to help pay for tuition. I think I was uh pruning trees in Lake Oswego, delivering pizzas for dominoes, and then that led into you know teaching marine science camps at Camp Kwan along for Omse.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

I mean, Sun River Prep for uh telling some ancient history here, I mean, it was a pretty good hotbed of intelligent people. Am I I mean correct?

SPEAKER_02 4:17

I mean, a lot of the people who went on to do great things in Central were there at Sun River Prep. What's interesting about that whole scenario is you know, they had that academy system set up. That was kind of predates me, but they had the ski academy prior to MBSEF and the enrollment at Sun River Prep was huge. They were drawing kids from all over the West to the Ski Academy, and then Trish King had the theater academy going. So, you know, they had morning classes and then afternoon they were off doing their specialties, and right. And I think that that, you know, I arrived when that was all sort of phasing out. Yeah. Um, but you know, still a really interesting place of smart people, you know, yeah, educators and in interesting scenarios.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

Yeah, Tanya Ignacio, who was our first editor, uh, she came out of Flynn Prep at the time. And and uh so I was regaled with all of the brainiacs and we had a lot of them writing for us, and we were hiring some of them as it was, you know, falling apart and uh people were moving on to other endeavors.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

I won't ever forget when you know my first paycheck bounced though.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Right. Yeah, it was that kind of place, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Exactly. But I also some of the best in relationship I have with instructors. I mean, I met Tim Green and Bill Herman and Becky Erickson there, and like they're still some of my closest friends.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Some of the people in the lots of mayhem.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

So um from Sun River Prep, how do you get from there to starting a science station? And then you could have just been a scientist, was it a girl? Again, it was a girl.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Those are the Portland. It's the same girl actually, but I went to Portland and taught at OES for four five years and got really invested in kind of at OES, there's a primary focus on independent research and getting kids to be able to actually conduct scientists to but learn it. Yeah. And uh when I looked at moving back to the central Oregon area, the idea of setting up a space that focused on that for a whole community, yeah, as opposed to just for the people who can pay for it.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Um, that's sort of where I sort of the birthplace of that idea. And I kind of ran that by Jay Barman, who's been my mentor forever. And he was like, yo, let's make it happen. And that's like that's how that transition happened.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

Did you know Jay from your time down in Sun River?

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yeah, he would show up randomly with, you know, a bat that had been you know caught in a snowstorm. And that's one of my particular favorite stories. It had the bat, you brought it in, we thought it was dead. It was in the lab, the kids were looking at it, and it came out of hibernation and was like flying through the room in these figure eights, and all the kids were on the floor, you know. And actually, like the Kerr girls were in that class, Donald Kerr and the High Desert Museum. Yeah, and we ended up crawling over, Commando crawled over to get a net and caught the bat as it was flying through. And you know, so yeah, that was always, you know, Jay was always dropping in with different ideas.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

So when you were in Portland, you reached out to Jay to tell him you were coming back and this is what you wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Yeah, I had to do that.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

He gave you the you guys crafted the business plan together.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Pretty much. Like I think it it I I registered the name, um, benscient station.org and com. And then I was like, we're doing this, we're coming home. I mean, literally it was right after 9-11, and you know, yeah, it's kind of interesting. I didn't think about it at the time, but I quit my job within three months of that, or gave my notice at OES and knew I was coming back here, sort of registered the domain names and called Jay and said, Do we think we can make this happen? And he was like, When you get down here next, I want you to meet this guy, John Leahy, and they were running the um, they were running out of the Chandler building, U of O was running their extension services programs there. And so we met up with him and they weren't using the lab space. Yeah, we cleaned it up, and that's sort of the origin story of the science station.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

That that Chandler space, um, that is a funky space. It's like that's what I mean. I don't know the official name for it. I just know the weird science space stuff on Aubrey Butte. Yeah, but nobody it's in with all the housing. Do you know the whole story? No, well, I'd like to know more. I mean, I full disclosure, my kids participated in the science station the whole time they were growing up, and it was always in that building. And uh I was like, how did one get connected? How did because you weren't part of the school, you were just using the facility.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah, and they were at the time we were leasing it from the U of O, so we were subleasing from them.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

But um it's COC, and then U of O had kind of had to leave when there was reorganization at the higher ed level, and then we were directly leasing from COCC, and yeah, they were awesome for us. But like the whole building was owned by the Forest Service originally and the park next to it, that Hillside Park, and that was all gifted when when timber sales went down. This is my understanding of it, and in the 70s and 80s, then those buildings were gifted to COCC for a dollar. I think there's something it I think it took an act of Congress to actually make it happen. Like and then um, but I think the reason it's still there is that it was it's required to maintain educational.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Yeah. Who uses it now?

SPEAKER_02 9:41

It's uh extension, I believe if it's still the case, it's extension classes for C O C non-credited classes.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

Yeah. So you went on, I mean, I know it was a big at a certain point you couldn't stay.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Right. There was uh well, there was always uh it was the gorilla, the 600-pound gorilla in the in in any organization's corner when you're leasing. Uh it was sometimes they wanted us to take more space, sometimes it was less space. And back in the uh at 2008, with the whole economic implosion um or the recession, lots of registrations at the community college, they used space, and and so at that point they were like, You guys need to go, and we're like, you need some time, we gotta figure this out. And they were great. Matt McCoy and the crew over there worked with us, and yeah, at least and I set to the task of raising three million dollars and being able to build our building on the OSC Cascades cancel.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Yeah. I mean, if it's kind of nice to s to look and put two pictures up of what the facilities were to what the facility is today.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

You need to thank for that. I mean, everybody stepped to the plate. Yeah. As a nonprofit, we see feel pretty fortunate that we're sitting in a situation where we have no rent, we have a giant solar array, we have no utilities. I mean, when COVID hit, we were like we're a brick and mortar place that's not really a brick and mortar place. And then we are able to still change what we're doing without students coming and not have to worry about what um you know our police, our utilities, right? How we're gonna make it all work. So we feel fortunate.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Well, maybe we should back up a little bit and just um talk about science itself. I mean, what are the talk about the programs as they exist today? What what do you do?

SPEAKER_02 11:30

All right. So like you mentioned a little bit, but like with a staff of five, two of which are sort of in the admin and development direction, which includes my wife and Kevin, um, we teach um 5,000 kids a year and two 200 teachers. And that's from across central Oregon, that's far as far out as Paisley, you name it, like, you know, we get folks from coming from French Glen to predominantly in Deschutes County, though. And our goal is just to help the community raise the bar on science education and not in and I guess I with a primary focus on not just science content, but science process. Yeah. Um, how to like actually ask and answer your own questions. I mean, we're kind of uh under the primary belief or fundamental belief that every kid should have the ability to kind of question and discover, yeah, um, and have the skills to do it. And so that's our primary focus.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

Yeah, and I know the you know, given and it's maybe it's your omzi background, but you know, the the classes are always very hands-on for being, you know, young kids, they're they're experimenting. It's not they're not textbook, that's this isn't a textbook flip the pages kind of science education.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

And actually, I mean you think about it like this is comes from someone who kind of went through that process of I was a kid who was great at memorizing things and learning content.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Um lucky and being able to go. And so science wasn't like horror to me, it is for many people, because that's you know, if you look back at your own science education, it was a horror. It was yeah, I'm just saying like and so that with that in mind, like the reality is when I got to college and they actually and the the game shifts a little bit if you want to stay in science, because it's not just about all the content that's out there, it's about how do you conduct your own experiments. You really want to do science. And so um, I kind of found that the skills that I had that I used when it got to that point where you shifted from I'm learning about science that to I'm doing science.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Most of the skills I was using I learned when I was going to the art institute and taking classes in the like the Young Artist Institute, yeah, and like doing sculpture and dealing with creative problems and how do you stick these things to the wall? Because and because I need to hook all these grand rocks with these barnacles on them now that I'm a junior in college and I'm in Narragansett Bay. Like those skill sets and the ability to solve those problems, they weren't taught to me in any science class. They were in a book. No, exactly. And so that's our goal is like, I mean, the reality is this. I mean, if you want to have a great soccer player, you don't wait until high school to put a soccer ball on their floor, right? And if you want someone to speak a second like language, you don't wait until high school to do that, right? And so like waiting until high school to get a kid in a lab and have them run some experiments, even if they're cookbook experiments, is just waiting way too long.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

I know there's probably people who are listening who are like, well, don't they get this in school? I mean, let let's say that their science education, even if they're not getting hands-on, they're supposed to be getting science education. But the trend has been fewer and fewer people taking science classes.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Yeah, and so it that that is true. And I think that the the big piece to that is, I mean, when you look at our elementary schools, I mean, in in general, and that's where we kind of need provide the most assistance um in my at the science station itself. I mean, we assist at every level in terms of trying to.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

But you assist most at the elementary level?

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Most, because that I mean, the reality is um let's just the math alone. Like if you wanted to have science labs and specialist science teachers at elementary schools in Ben Lapine, I mean, there's 18 different elementary schools. So now you got to find 18 qualified teachers, you got to build 18 labs, and you have to have them be interested in actually teaching that science. And the reality is we don't get tested on science until fifth grade. Um, so there's not a lot of incentives there, and most elementary teachers um are incredible at what they do, but they don't have a lot of training in science, they don't have a lot of equipment and they don't have budgets. And so all those factors, those hurdles like really get in the way of that happening. So um That's where you guys come in. That's where we come in. I mean, I think we're our goal is to knock down all those hurdles. And so whether it's our lending library or the teacher training that they do or the field trips that come to the science station, they're all focused on getting more science happening at an elementary level and getting people comfortable enough that they're willing to sign the gear out and take it home with them to their classrooms and do it there, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:09

And so I mean, all you really got to do is drop mentos in a coke bottle for elementary kids when they're excited about science, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:17

And do that. And but then you could actually do an experiment and put them on an angle and see, like, hey, if I drill holes in the lids and they're different sizes, is does the Coke go out different distances? And that's actually what we try and get the kids doing, right? Yeah, right. Like we'll give them the hand grip heart rate monitors and say, hey, here they here's how they work. What are some factors that affect heart rate? Yeah. Okay, well, you get 16 kids in a room coming up with factors, and then you vote them all down. The last group of kids that we had at the science station doing that, we cut off one of those uh wheels on a stool because they wanted to look at startling and its effect on heart rate. So they blindfolded each other. There was one leg off of the stool, and they got to drop that chair backwards, you know, three times was the maximum in the minute. And then they were measuring their heart rate when they got to sit normally for a minute, or whether they were getting rattled, you know, in terms of the their drop reflex. I mean, but that's them, you know, kids take a lot of more ownership in in it in science and they get more engaged with it when they get to choose like what are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

I mean, we set the parameters to a degree, right? You're gonna be measuring heart rate today. Right. But now you go. They're dictating it. Like, and so the other ones wanted to put see what happened when you were combined in a small space. So we cleared out one of the cabinets and had the heart rate monitor thing going in, and then we they locked each other in of the cabinets and they're measuring their heart rate. I mean, like that's real science.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

Like, you know, and so well, you get a really you you get to see exactly what happens when you're pushed in the closet. I mean, and it happens.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Right, exactly. So so so yeah, and I mean I think you know, you asked a little question from you know, how the science station helps. I mean, when we started this thing, my assumption was when I called Jay and I'd registered those those domain names and stuff like that. My assumption was we were gonna be weekend after school in summer.

unknown 18:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

I had no That is exactly what I would expect the science station to do if I didn't know any better. Like I had because it's a it's a it's not a it's not core. You're not core. You're ancillary for those kids who are truly, you know, motivated to learn more about science. But now you become core.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Yeah. And so what's the interesting about that is what we found is that A, there's so much going on on the weekends here, and this town is so sports motivated that nothing we we offered classes in the weekend, barely got registrations. And so the reality is we had no idea everybody was going to come to the lab during the day. Yeah. Um, and thanks to folks like Lonza and Basics, like they fund every fourth grader in the county coming to the lab uh each year as a class of 30 and then dividing and being in the lab and conducting experiments and getting a taste of what it looks like. And then obviously they can sign up for summer camps and they can sign up for after school classes if they're interested.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

So when you when you look at the landscape of education in Central Oregon and and maybe further, where what is the trend right now? Are your services I mean, there's always a need, but is there uh more of a need as time is passing? Is there less? Because I don't see, even though, you know, it's like you were saying with the elementary schools, well, we'd have to get 18 teachers and we'd have to get them in 18 schools. And I'm like, well, yeah, get busy. Start raising the tax base, start charging people, get that science back in there. But that's not the trend.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

That that's not the trend. I mean, you look at the funding schemes for education, and it just it's the opposite direction. Um, you know, whether it's dollars for teacher training or whether in in any of those. And so I think that the part that no, the science station sort of happily fell upon is if you take expensive science teaching resources and talent and you put them in one space and rotate a county through, yeah, all of a sudden something that become with it is economically unattainable becomes attainable, right? Like you you all of a sudden it it's got an economy of scale. And so that's like this happy sort of business place that we didn't set out to find, yeah, but we located.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Um but don't I need like 18 science stations totally?

SPEAKER_02 20:29

I mean, you could get more of it, but I think that the reality is not every kid, like I mean, yeah, kids love what we're doing, but not every kid's going there.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Right. Right. I mean, we want, I mean, we see two things, right? Like we want our entire populace to be critical thinkers. And we think that that the science process technique, like and the way you approach asking questions, that's a skill that everybody should have, irrespective of what direction they go. But like when I look at our like the the way that we approach things, we hit every kid in the county at fourth grade. And those kids that want to do more, they access us. And we've got the Stuart and the C Malone scholarship fund to make sure that those that can't afford it still participate. And ultimately, like we end up with about 10 kids a year at the high school level who are proposing and conducting their own independent research projects that are like insane projects. We may grow like that is like working with methogenic bacteria and growing them to see like what copper me in their medium is gonna make it so that when the permafrost unpermafrosts, that we have some way of sucking up all that methane. So we're not cooking down here.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Right. So um you're talking about things nobody really's comprehending. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

But it's still cool. Like in that but the reality is I think that you know, I'm not sure that you need, you know, 18 of them. Yeah. I mean, maybe more of them. Yeah. Like, but not that.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

So broadening the lens a little bit, um, you know, science as a discipline, you know, we hear all the time through social media, politics. So it gets devalued. I mean, is that a fair term, devalued, or it just it's being put in a place where it's like, yeah, it's science, but science is just theory.

unknown 22:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:12

And we don't need to follow that. I mean, carbon dioxide, what?

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

Methane. I mean, you were going to methane. I can't, we can't even go scratch that.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Exactly. But I guess what I'd say is this. Like, in general, I think that our um that the way that social media works or antisocial media, whatever you want to call it, like the reality is, you know, it puts us in our silos and it makes us harder to agree on a set of facts. Um and um the reality is that's problematic, right?

SPEAKER_03 22:42

And it seems like the Well, you're in the business of facts of Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

If you're exactly that's problematic for me, and just problematic is for us as a whole. Um and in general, like that ability for us to actually as a group agree on, even if it's just 80% of those facts, yeah. Like, and use that to govern like how we decide to invest kind of a limited set of money, right, is important. Right. And so those skills, and I actually think I I'll bring it back to Science Station again, is that like, you know, there's a lot of people who have big issues with being wrong. And I think wrong gets like a bad name. I mean, like, we like to get kids to put down on record like what their hypothesis is. Right. And then when we come back to it and the data actually asks them to wreck the look at the data and go, like, hey, actually what I thought was gonna happen didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

I mean, like, really wrong is surprised or wrong is I learned something.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

And like that skill set of like being able to attain some information, look at it, and then go back and think and look back at what your previous preconception was, and then like Yeah, I'd say that's getting increasingly difficult. That's increasingly difficult, and it gets even more difficult when we don't even agree on the same set of facts.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Right. And so that wedge that you know, that's a problem. And you know, a lot of people would like to keep it, you know, in my opinion, would like that wedge to be there. Um, because, you know, solutions to problems are they're challenging, they're expensive, but like, and then and they're we're not even gonna go to try and approach them if we can't agree on what the problem is.

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Do you find that I mean you've gotta have had some freakouts where people are confronted with the fact that they were wrong? Yeah, I mean So where where they have never actually been told, no, that's not right.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Oh, well, a good example would be like even at a young age, and I think we're programmed to this, because I I see at the third grade level when we used to have them make predictions about what the pH of different household chemicals is gonna be. Yeah. And we had a little challenge and at you know at the end to see who was closest. Um, I had to start having them write in different colored pencils because they'd go back to try and change them. And this is at third grade, so like because they didn't want to be they didn't want to be wrong.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

I like I actually wrote that that that was the true.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

I know I they go back and they like they're just adjusting the facts post hoc. Like, and this isn't training, right? I mean, this is just human nature, human nature. And like, and so the reality is uh our ability to get to a place where we can, you know, I mean, it affects all aspects of our life, right? But like, wouldn't we all be in a better place if we could all go to a certain, you know, situation where I thought this was the way it was. I look at this information, and you know what? I'm comfortable with being like, dude, actually, I am actually good with the fact that what I thought was gonna happen wasn't. Right. I tell the kids all the time, I'm like, my favorite experiments, the ones that the research kids do, where I literally have no idea what's gonna happen because if you're letting them ask the questions at the high school level, you're learning alongside them. I love the ones where I'm like, I think this is gonna happen. That's my best guess. And then because I know that I've learned something, I'm surprised. It's like I I'm I'm in a better space. Like, you know, that's like right. That's yeah, that's real growth, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Yeah. I love the bumper specter. Don't believe everything you think.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Right. It's exactly it. Like that's all it is. Like, you know, and so yeah. So um it it I think that, you know, the reality is you can take any one of the alphabet soups um that we presently have in our nation, whether it's the NIH, the NS, you know, NOAA, NASA, all of them, you know, we're proposing to cut funding by significant amounts, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Well, it's the goal right now. The federal administration's goal is to like reduce those the number of those anachronyms that exist.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Right. And and you one has to wonder. I mean, I think one of the ones that struck me the most was, you know, partly because I have a son that's it's at the University of Miami, but um, when it's proposed to cut the flyovers of the hurricane hunters, like fly times over, it was originally supposed to be fly about 500 hours a year in hurricanes and drop the sensors that allow us to predict where they're gonna go. The reality is they're talking about cutting that by 50 percent. Now Congress did step up and stop that, but like think about that. Like a hurricane, if you don't predict where it's gonna go, I promise you it doesn't gather whether the people that live in the houses are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Green Party, or whatever, they're all hosed.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Right. If the if the prediction is right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

And so, like, you know, that's a perfect example of where we invest our dollars and you know, is well we were taught we were chatting right before we jumped on this podcast about the 16-year experiment over in Hungary. And along these these similar lines of just like, hey, if I just get rid of the people who are telling me things what I gotta do or things I don't want to know, it'll get better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

I mean, the organization of Hungary, if you want to look at it that way, you're you've got a 16-year experiment, which just came to an end by like significant margins, right? It's a two-thirds majority of the new party that can they came in. But you know, that the Hungarian Institute of Science was pretty much dismantled um during the time period of that 16 years colleges funding was.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

Yeah, but and that and that you know that um that entity was world-renowned. I mean, it's not like they cut just like the University of Pennsylvania or something.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

No, that was exactly. And so, and and the ultimate results, and you can see it, are you know, you had an a brain drain from Hungary. Um, you had innovation stagnated, they have the worst economy in the European Union. And the reality is that it all comes from not wanting to hear inconvenient truths, right? At least even look at inconvenient facts.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Right. So how long do you think it's gonna take them to revitalize their science programs? I mean, 16 years to dismantle, how long to re to fix that?

SPEAKER_02 28:49

I I my god, longer than that. That's a good tell you. Longer than 16, I would guess. Right. Because it just, you know, there's so much that has to get put back into place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

It's incredible. Because before we were talking, I mean, obviously, I think about Hungary in terms of what it did to the media and the nationalization of the media and and uh and that playbook. So my focus was there. I hadn't even thought about the eradication of their science infrastructure, which m uh never makes any sense to me when I see these wars, even here with trying to defund blue chip institutions like Harvard and Yale and and those guys. It it it boggles my mind that there's some kind of like program behind it that we're all going to be better served by.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

Right. It's it's it's pretty insane. Yeah. Right. When it all comes down to it. Is that you know, you look at I mean the playbook that you know is you know presently being used in this country is is taken right from Hungary and like on on on the media level, on the science level, right, on the collegiate university level as well.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

So I mean Well, it's the it's nice when the science experiments close because now you have a record. You can see it from the start to the conclusion, and being a good scientist like you, you can draw conclusions from that.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

And no party has uh has a uh sort of uh I would just say like a monopoly on stupid.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

I mean uh uh yeah, sorry, but you know, look it up in Portland. I mean, that some of the choices that were made in uh and and actually in the state, we did it statewide. We voted for legalization of drugs, right? Right. And the reality is that experiment was run in Amsterdam in the 70s, and it took them 50 years to dig out of that hole.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

Yeah. Um yeah, thankfully we have uh my editor is right now over in Spain, right? And writing a book on that very, very process. Um in a way, she's a scientist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Well, I mean, like the reality is like all of us, I actually it's Jay Barman who I first heard this from, is like, you know, I can't remember when he would ask this of students that come to the Sun Red Red Nation Center. It was like, when did you stop becoming a scientist? Like, when did you stop observing the world, yeah, testing, thinking critically, and adjusting? Because we're born that way.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Right? We come out the shoot and you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right at it all the time. Right. And at some point, you stopped, right? Like, or the education system you're working in didn't promote it or whatever. And so, like, the reality is from my perspective, it's like the science station, we're trying to like develop those skills and and and push kids towards, you know, that have that, you know, inclination, but not just the ones that are gonna go into science, but whatever you're gonna do, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:43

Like ability to be a critical thinker is like I've got a new thing to think about during my therapy session is when did I stop becoming a scientist and start believing everything I was thinking? Like, that's just wrong. And I haven't run any real experiments, I just know it to be true. And then you stopped when you saw that bumper stick. That's right. And I was like, that's it. Don't believe everything I do believe. I'm not a scientist. So well, David, we are at the end of our uh podcast time. I uh I appreciate you coming in. Is there anything you want to say to listeners, viewers, peeps who are tuning in that we we might have missed?

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Oh, just don't believe everything you think you know.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

I like that. And and go and uh read up more on Hungry. I'm gonna, I certainly am now that the experiment is over. So, well, this has been the Ben Don't Break podcast. Uh appreciate you tuning in. If you like what you heard, go to Bensource.com, click on the donate button, become a member, do a one-time donation, give something so that we can continue to uh disbelieve things we already were believing before with people like Bermi at the science station. And if your kids are not participating in science station classes, you're really missing out. It was a it was a really incredible part of my kids' uh development here in Bend, and I appreciate it. Thanks, sir. You've been listening to the Ben Don't Break podcast, powered by the Source Weekly. To read, hear, and see more of what we do, go to BensOurce.com.