Elevating the Discourse with Elizabeth Fernandez (Podcaster and Science Writer)

Down the Wormhole

Episode 79

In part 12 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Dr Elizabeth Fernandez. She is an astrophysicist, science communicator, and host of the SparkDialog podcast. Her podcast is on science and society, and tells the story of science in our lives, and the connection of science with things like religion, philosophy, history, culture, ethics, art, and the future. If you enjoy Down the Wormhole, you will definitely love SparkDialog. Check it out at www.sparkdialog.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast

More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/

produced by Zack Jackson
music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis

Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors.

Zack Jackson 00:05

You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week we are exploring how that relationship gets worked out in real life with one of the current Sinai and Synapses, fellows, Sinai and Synapses is a two year fellowship committed to elevating the discourse surrounding religion and science and where the five of us first met. So without further ado, our guest today is an astrophysicist, science communicator and host of The Spark dialogue podcast. Her podcast is on science and society and tells the story of science in our lives and the connection of science with things like religion, philosophy, history, culture, ethics, art in the future, if you enjoy down the wormhole, and if you're listening, I hope you do. You will definitely love spark dialogue. So welcome to the podcast. Elizabeth Fernandez. Thank you very much. It's wonderful to have you here. We've been talking about both having you here for an interview and also doing crossover episodes for what feels like yours. So it's good to finally get to chat with you. It's also good to have a fellow science podcaster on the podcast. So maybe we could start out by telling the good folks at home a little bit about what spark dialogue is all about, like what made you want to start it? What keeps you going? What sorts of things are you doing on there?

Elizabeth Fernandez 01:30

Yeah, sure. So I started spark dialogue about I guess, six years ago now. And so I have almost 100 episodes, I'm getting there quickly. And we talk about all different things in science and technology. But the thing that kind of sets us apart from a lot of the science podcasts is to see the connections of science with our everyday life. So a lot of times we talk about ethics or philosophy, talk about a religion a lot that we talk about history, art, culture, and all how all those things relate to science. And so basically, the idea is to, to show that science isn't just, you know, something that's being done in the lab somewhere. And it's something that is like it's affecting our lives every day, and affecting our lives in really interesting ways. And sort of making people think about those interesting connections between science and other different areas of their life that

Zack Jackson 02:28

might engage new people into the science conversation. And congratulations on almost being at 100 episodes. That is not easy. I thought it was a lot easier until I started a podcast and my goodness. Thank you just launched 93 was the last one which was

Elizabeth Fernandez 02:48

Yeah, that sounds right.

Zack Jackson 02:49

It's very interesting talk with john van sloten. about gratitude and COVID tide, which he was on our podcast as well. Those of you who may remember this somewhat scientific mistake patent Canadian pastor perpetual optimist, it's a it's a wonderful episode that you should listen to the most latest one, you've covered so many different types of topics in these 93 episodes. It's, it's pretty, it's pretty impressive how much of a generalist you're able to be for someone who is also a very much a specialist in in the world of astronomy, but you kind of have to be right if you're a science communicator in the public sphere.

Elizabeth Fernandez 03:35

So and that's what's that's what's fun about it, that's, I love, you know, waking up in the morning and not knowing what I'm going to learn today, learning about new things every day, it's a lot of fun, as also allows me to make a lot of different connections between different fields, which like, you know, if you're, if you're a specialist really deep into your and that's what I used to be really deep into my own field, you don't really know what's going on a lot in other fields. And it's nice to be able to see the connections between different fields and and see what you can extrapolations you can make How do you kind of plan out what's next? There are tons of people doing really interesting research out there. And so I kind of just, I kind of look for the people and I look for what they're doing. Because they know, they know what's the interesting questions in their own field are. And so you know, I go to conferences, I read a lot a lot, and kind of seeking out the people who would be interesting to talk to, and then I talked to them and see what they're working on and see what excites them. And you know, most of these topics I went to been able to come up with on my own because I don't know everything. And these, these are the people that they're really smart in their field and, and there's a lot of people working on interdisciplinary work in their own way. And so that's I look for look for the people.

Zack Jackson 05:02

What do you think that we should be talking about in the public sphere that we're not really focusing on right now?

Elizabeth Fernandez 05:11

That's a good question. I think a lot of things we are talking about to some extent, but we're not necessarily talking about it in a really broad sense. One of those that comes to mind is, of course, climate change. Everyone's talking about climate change. But a lot of times, it's a science question, or it's a policy question, which of course it is. But I think people don't realize how much of a moral question it is, how much of a spiritual or religious question it is. Climate change is really one of those areas that touches everything, every aspect of our life. And especially for people who are living on the other side of the world, who are in you know, places like Sub Saharan Africa, or Bangladesh, or the South Pacific, they're living with these issues. And for them, it's like, it's a cultural issue. It's a, it's an issue they live with every single day. And, you know, we as privileged people in the West don't necessarily always see that. Another one is just like, ethics and technology, like a lot of people are very excited, who work in the tech fields, they're very excited to develop the next up and coming tech, but there's not necessarily a lot of talk of the ethics behind it. And so there are a lot of people who do go and they say, Okay, what, what do we have to look with what we have to be concerned with, and they're trying to engage with the people who are developing tech to make sure that the tech that is developed is, is, to some degree, you know, safe is where we're thinking about issues that we should be thinking of, and how it, how it affects people culturally, how it affects, like, development of children, all sorts of things, like all things we should be

Zack Jackson 07:05

thinking, didn't Google just fire its ethics team for questioning Google's ethics?

Elizabeth Fernandez 07:12

It is, it is a thorny issue, because a lot of people are afraid to bring up what the ethics may be if it's threatens making money. And you know, a lot of these companies, that's what their goal is, is to make money. And luckily, for us, there are people who are concerned with other things besides just how much is on their on their budget. But yeah, I mean, a lot of times these questions definitely come into conflict with with the bottom line.

Zack Jackson 07:42

So you've done a lot of interfaith work, as well as interdisciplinary work and international work. You're kind of an inter specialist. And when it comes to issues of technology, and of ethics, one of the questions that comes up sometimes is whose ethics who kind of gets to be the gatekeeper in determining what is and is not good in terms of the technology that we create the society we're making? Do you have any, any thoughts, any insights into that power dynamic moving forward? And

Elizabeth Fernandez 08:21

yeah, that definitely is one of the things that people think about because, you know, every world religion has a different set of ethics. But at the same time, there's a lot of overlap between religions. But that is a question that people have to take into account, especially like, let's say you're marketing a product in very different places, you're marketing a product in the Middle East, or in Europe, or the United States, or wherever. A lot of that will have to do with the local area that you're dealing with. So if you're planning on marketing, something in the Middle East, you should get people who are experts of what people actually think in the Middle East. But it is tricky, and that's, that's why it's important to have a lot of dialogue with people because it is it is one of those things that there are multiple opinions and it's not fact it's not like science and which which is a fact you have to you have to talk to people and that's why dialogue is important in instances like this, yeah.

Zack Jackson 09:31

So before you were masterful science communicator, you were an astrophysicist astronomer. I'm I'm I'm still not great with the the titles, but you did.

Elizabeth Fernandez 09:47

As long as you don't call me. Don't call me an astrologer.

Zack Jackson 09:53

You were one of the match. I you looked at pretty stars in This guy with big telescopes, that's I'll go there. I know that much. Can you can you tell us a little bit about what that work looked like? What you were studying what you've you've worked on?

Elizabeth Fernandez 10:14

Sure. I'm just gonna go back and say that one last sentence cuz I called myself in this or as long as you don't call me an astrologist, which isn't a word. Yeah, so I'll say it again. As long as you don't call me an astrologer. There you go. Yeah, so I've done, I've done a lot of different things. In astronomy, most of my work on telescopes have actually been telescopes in space. So like, for example, the Herschel Space Telescope is, is a lot like Hubble, except it looks in the infrared. And so I did a lot of my work with that. I've also been observing several places, some small, some small telescopes around the world. Also, I went to Mauna Kea in Hawaii and observed there, the Vla in New Mexico, that's a big array of radio dishes. For if you've seen the movie contact, that's that's where I was at. But actually, most of my work was actually theoretical. So I didn't always go out to the telescope at night, I was doing a lot of my work on computers making models and simulations of what the universe might be like. So my work is talking about our was my work was talking about what the first few generations of stars and galaxies in the universe would look like. And the thing is, when you're looking at stars that are forming many, many, many, billions of years ago, there's a big difference between what stars look like then and what stars look like now. And the main difference is because stars that are forming now, they have all different types of things in them. They have, of course, hydrogen, helium, but they also have elements like carbon, iron, silicon, all these types of things that we see around us. But all of those heavier elements beyond helium, and a little bit of lithium, were formed actually, in stars and in supernova explosions. So if you go back in time to before there were any stars, that means that first generation of stars would only have hydrogen and helium. So the question is, what were the stars? Like? How did that affect the first few generations of stars. And so I worked with a lot of different people to look at. I worked with a lot of different people to develop models of what we should expect these stars to look like. And I worked in the infrared. I also worked with people who are working with a large Radio Telescope Array in Europe, which is called low far, and that looks at the radio emission from the areas around the stars, and just sort of kind of piecing together the puzzle of what the stars might be like. And it's tricky, because they're really, really far away. You know, as, as your listeners probably know, the farther away you look, the farther back in time you're looking. So in order to see the first stars that are forming, of course, you have to look very, very, very far away. And the problem with this is that there's a lot of stuff in the way there's, there's stuff in our own solar system, there's foreground stars, there's foreground galaxies, there's lots of stuff in space, it doesn't, it's not just empty. And so you have to figure out, you have to model all of those different things, to subtract that to find this very, very, very faint signal that's coming from the first stars, many, many, many light years away.

Zack Jackson 13:47

So you're basically finding the signals that are finding empty spaces between stars and galaxies and whatnot that have traveled all the way from the beginning to us.

Elizabeth Fernandez 14:01

So I was looking at the signal from the stars themselves, the signal from the galaxies themselves, and also the signal from the gas around the galaxies. And then and then is that answer your question? I'm not exactly sure if

Zack Jackson 14:18

the gap now you've got me in the way that, like, there are things in the way you can't look there or can't look through the sun to get to what's Far, far back. So like, if you're trying to look for, say, the cosmic microwave background radiation, I get that in the right order.

Elizabeth Fernandez 14:43

Yes.

Zack Jackson 14:46

You basically have to look for the signals that are not being interrupted by the stars and planets and things that are in the way are there's radiation that's going through some of those things. To us, or like how do we how do we cancel out the things that are in the way to see that far back in time?

Elizabeth Fernandez 15:08

Yeah, so that's very good question. And actually bringing up the cosmic microwave background is a really good analogy, because a lot of people are more familiar with that. So that's essentially exactly what we're looking at, except we're looking at the sky in the infrared. And this would. And so in order to see the stars that are forming, at the very beginning of the epic of stars, you do have to take into account everything in the way. And so it is, this light is going through dust, it's going through gas, it's going through galaxies that are too faint to see individually. So we have to figure out how many of these galaxies are out there. It's going through all sorts of stuff that we might not even know yet. And so that's part of the tricky part is trying to figure out well, is this light from the first stars? Or is it from something else that's closer to us that we just don't know, that we just don't see. And that's where the modeling comes in, is, that's why I was doing so much intensive modeling, to figure out, Okay, if these stars had these properties, what would this light look like? If it had this property? What would this light look like? And when you begin to combine a lot of different types of properties, a lot of different types of models with multiple types of observations, then you begin to narrow down what could potentially be from early stars and what could be potentially from something else? That's in the way. Wow.

Zack Jackson 16:38

feels a lot like archaeology. Scaring away all the dust and looking for the dinosaur bones underneath. That's this is exciting. What what what did the early universe look like? What did those early stars look like?

Elizabeth Fernandez 16:57

So, in this area, there's still a lot of unknowns. And that's sort of what we're trying to piece together is like, how big the stars were? How they ended their lives. So you know, in our local universe, we see stars explode in supernovas. Did this this happen? If like, let's say these first stars were really, really huge. Then there are all sorts of questions like, Where did the supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies come from? That's a really good question. Where, how did how do galaxies form in the first place? Like did did? Did we form galaxies first? And then these clumps of gas form stars? Or did the stars kind of congregate together? First, and then form galaxies? What kind of over the galaxies? like are they? Are they really small? Or were they were they bigger? Like all of these different types of questions we can ask? And yeah, that's, that's what's what's so tricky. There's, there's so many different things that we you can look at so many variables you can change. And it's a, it's like a laboratory that's, we can't see today we can we can look at our universe today and kind of make some guesses. But there are so many things that are different about the early universe that we just don't know.

Zack Jackson 18:23

Yeah, and I mean, like you said, this is evolving so quickly and changing so quickly. And there's so many new, I imagine that things like advances in computing power, is helping to advance this and new new telescopes on Earth and in space. Is there a particular telescope that is in the works that you're super excited about?

Elizabeth Fernandez 18:48

There's a lot of them. Of course, a lot of people probably heard JW st, which is sort of the successor to Hubble. And that should be able to see quite, it'll make it'll make the pictures from Hubble look, dated. And we should be able to see quite far back in time as well with this JW S T. And then there's lots of things being done. Probably people haven't heard as much about what's being done in the radio or in the submillimetre range. And there's lots of great telescopes all around the world, all different types of arrays, that can also look back in time. And then if you really want to go out there, you could look at the gravitational wave telescopes and gravitational telescopes, they can see even farther back then, than lights. And is this technology that still has a long way to go, but when we be we could be able to see even farther back than the cosmic microwave background, then we could figure out what our really infinite universe was like

Zack Jackson 19:49

we could see further back than that.

Elizabeth Fernandez 19:53

With a gravitation Oh my goodness. You can you can look even farther back. Yeah, that that is technology that is still alive. Anyway, but you know, within nano within 100 years, maybe Wow.

Zack Jackson 20:07

Wow. Okay. So you think within a couple of generations, we could get frighteningly close to being able to see the beginning of the universe. Now, not like the actual beginning, beginning, but like very close to the beginning, because we're already able to see pretty close to the beginning, right?

Elizabeth Fernandez 20:27

So yeah, the as far back, as we can see, with the cosmic microwave background, that's as far back we can see with light, that's when the universe was a baby, but it was still 400,000 years old, around 400,000 years old. So that's a lot of time that we don't have information from as far as observations, we have a lot of theoretical ideas. But as far as observations, we don't have any direct observations from before then. And so that's where gravitational waves might come in.

Zack Jackson 20:57

Wow, I guess you're right, that the ones the the telescopes, and all that are dealing in wavelengths and, and whatnot that are not visual are not as appealing to the general public, because they don't end up on the astronomy picture of the day website, like the way that the Hubble ones do?

Elizabeth Fernandez 21:17

Well, the, the issue with the cosmic microwave background is, before the cosmic microwave background, the universe was actually opaque. It was so dense that photons couldn't travel freely to us. There, it's like a, it's like a big photon soup, where photons are just bouncing off each other. And so light that's coming from before then can't reach us, because there are so many photons in the way that it will bounce off another photon before it gets to us. And it's only the only reason we can see the cosmic microwave background is that's the instant when the universe became less dense enough that photons were able to stream to us directly from that surface. Wow. So that's why we can't see before then, because the universe is so dense that not even light could really get anywhere. Without bouncing.

Zack Jackson 22:20

You're blowing my mind. Thanks a lot. It's just amazing to think about being able to look that far in the past. And like when you're saying that light couldn't reach us back then I think to myself, well weren't, weren't we in it back then. But now we're out. But we are seeing the back and the end when it was in the

Elizabeth Fernandez 22:53

Yeah, that's that's the that's the thing, when you come this to astronomy is you you can't think of of you have to think of time is another dimension, essentially, where we're far into the future, which is far away timewise. From what we're seeing, so time is, is you could think of it as a dimension. When you when you think about these problems. Yeah.

Zack Jackson 23:16

As many times as I've read about and heard explained, the expansion of the universe, it all still sounds like magic. So in your studying of the stars, the earliest stars, the beginnings of the universe, has your particular faith, spirituality, religion, whatever it may be for you. Has has, have you found any insights from from the work that you've done scientifically?

Elizabeth Fernandez 23:51

Yeah, I have quite a bit. So it's, I think the biggest one for me, is looking at the sheer size of the universe. And when you really get to learning about how big the universe is, and how detailed it is, and how long it was around before humans even existed, it, it The scale is literally something we just can't comprehend. Our little brains just can't comprehend it. And that's also true when you look at the complexity of physics, like when you see how complex physics is. You see how complex sciences, it's just amazing. And the universe didn't have to be that complex. For us to exist, the universe science doesn't have to be that complex for us to exist. As far as as far as from the point of view of God, let's say. So the fact that it is what does that tell us about God tells us maybe he has a lot of time on his hands. But it also is kind of neat because for me, it's like It, it's it's a way that I kind of look at it for people like me, God is giving a big puzzle to, like, how does it all work? How does it all fit together? And I think that part of it is, he just likes to give us something amazingly complex to ponder and to view. And of course, when you create something that's complex, that means the person who is creating it has to be even more complex than the person, the thing that's being created. And so that tells you how complex God is. So for me, that's sort of the insight I get from it. That's at least one.

Zack Jackson 25:41

If you don't mind, what what is your religious background?

Elizabeth Fernandez 25:46

Yeah, so I'm a Catholic. And growing up, right, being raised as a Catholic, we were very pro science. I don't know how many people know this. But the the person who came up with the idea of the Big Bang, George lamotta, he was a Jesuit priest. And so there's a lot of very pro science sentiments in the Catholic Church, and this is one of the one of the areas that it shows up. I mean, we have the Vatican Observatory in Rome, that's doing a lot of great science work. And there's a lot of a lot of priests who are astronomers, there's a lot of astronomers who work with priests and the other way around. So it's, there's a lot of conversation between the astronomy field and religious field.

Zack Jackson 26:37

We've gotten multiple messages from people on the podcast, saying, we really appreciate your, your thoughts and your insights, but you need more Catholics. There's no Catholic perspective on your podcast. And I'll always say the same thing. Like, yeah, I know. Right. And the Catholics have done such good work, how many bodies heavenly bodies are named after Jesuits. We often just think like, at least we in the Protestant world will be like, well, Catholics. Galileo, they hate science.

Elizabeth Fernandez 27:16

Yeah, it's, it's, that was a long time ago. It's, it's, it's a, it's a misunderstanding, you know. But for I mean, in general, like growing up as a Catholic, we're very pro science. So, you know, I've been very encouraged in my love of science. And that's great.

Zack Jackson 27:36

You said a little bit about how your scientific work has helped to illuminate your spirituality a little bit? Are there are the ways where you see it going the other way where your faith or religion or spirituality affects the way that you do science?

Elizabeth Fernandez 27:55

I've never been asked that question before. I think one of the biggest ways is, like we talked a bit before about the ethics. Now, astronomy and ethics, there's not a lot necessarily of overlap. But in the other areas that I've looked at, as far as like, looking at AI, looking at, like I mentioned before climate change, looking at to science in our everyday lives, medicine, that, that I think there's a lot more crossover there. As far as my, my faith affecting that. And as far as, as far as just doing science in general, particularly astronomy, I think that my philosophy and my faith sort of shows me that to be humble, in what I know. And this is a big thing, when you're looking when you're making models of the early universe, where, you know, you could have your favorite model, but chances are, it's wrong. And and sort of to be humble in that and to see okay, where could I have gone wrong? Where could I What can I change? How am I not seeing the whole picture? How am I? What kind of things could I think of, so it sort of brings a sense of humbleness, it's brings a sense of more maybe creativity in a way that that if I just was doing the science by itself and not thinking of, you know, just trying to get an answer. You know, I might not be having open of a mind to particular particularly different ideas or ways to approach the problem.

Zack Jackson 29:46

That is a very good insight. So, on a completely different note. You are a fellow lover of unusual musical instruments, correct? Yes, yes. Tell me about your favorites.

Elizabeth Fernandez 30:02

The one I'm learning now, since the pandemic has started, I have acquired a hammer dulcimer. Oh, hammer dulcimer. Yes. It's something I've wanted to learn for about a decade. And so I am very slowly learning it. I wish it was a little bit faster. But unfortunately, I thought it would have a lot of time with a pandemic started. But having small children at home, you don't really have a lot of time during a pandemic. But at least I have one now, and and I get to play it. And I do know a couple songs. And that's been a lot of fun. But yeah, I like lots of I like collecting lots of different musical instruments. One of my favorite memories from my college days was going to somebody's house for Thanksgiving. And they had just a big basket of musical instruments, all sorts of things like thumb organs and, and Morocco's and, you know, things that are easy to play, but she just passed it out of one take an instrument and everyone just made music together. And so a lot of times I collect little things like that. I have, like a steel drum. I have the Morgans, I have a Irish pennywhistle things that are easy to play, and, you know, just just to have that love of music around, just to have people playing. That's great.

Zack Jackson 31:25

Yeah, I love it. I got a I'm a mountain dulcimer. That was okay. It's made by a company called seagull and it's built like a guitar so you can play it standing up. And I I needed a slide guitar for a song that I was working on. But I don't have a like a dough bro. Like a slide guitar. So I discovered that if I use my mountain dulcimer, and socket from a socket wrench on my finger, that I can turn that into a pretty convincing sounding slide guitar. It is always useful for random instruments around your house. I love it. Yes.

Elizabeth Fernandez 32:07

Yes. Also, I also play guitar and I play piano as well. Those are a little bit less than less exotic instruments.

Zack Jackson 32:15

A little bit more versatile.

Elizabeth Fernandez 32:18

Yes, yes. People don't ask you what is that strange thing that you're playing?

Zack Jackson 32:22

What do you have a an instrument that you just want you love you just want to get one day if you are given some large amount of money.

Elizabeth Fernandez 32:33

Well, that's my hammer dulcimer. I've been wanting to play that for about a decade. And now I have a I have a small one. But I have one on my wish list that is multiple 1000s of dollars in one day, one day, hopefully I will own that one too. Once I'm a little bit better. I mean, you can justify it and have a little bit more spare money. podcasting doesn't make a lot of money, unfortunately. So

Zack Jackson 32:56

no.

Elizabeth Fernandez 32:59

No, it's a bummer.

Zack Jackson 33:00

This is my retirement plan. I reconsider. Well, if you ever come across as a hurdy gurdy, let me know if you've seen these old medieval instruments with a crank.

Elizabeth Fernandez 33:16

I I've seen them in Europe before fabulous. Yeah.

Zack Jackson 33:22

So what what made you want to apply for the for the Sinai and Synapses fellowship? What what drew drew you to it? How'd you find out about it?

Elizabeth Fernandez 33:33

Rabbi Jeff was actually on my podcast. A while ago, I talked to him about the Jewish perspective of evolution. Believe I was right. And, and so I, you know, one of the areas I look at is the area of overlap between science and religion, and a lot of different ways, different different religions to not just Catholic or not just Christianity, but also all different religions approach science and what that overlap is. And so when I found out about that fellowship, it just seemed like a natural fits, but also a really good opportunity to meet other people who are working on this. Because, you know, unless unless you really look, it's kind of hard to find people sometimes, you know, we're not, we're not a very vocal crowd, or I mean, I'm hoping to change that. But and many people are hoping to change that. But you know, people, they, they hear a lot about the conflict between science and religion, and they miss the fact that there are so many people who are working in science and religion, but not necessarily on the fact that are they compatible, which is which is an important question. But there's so much more to the dialogue than that. There's, there's a lot of really rich discussion we can have if we begin to step away from you know, just the sheer fact are they compatible to you know, what we can actually learn what we can actually Come up with together when we just have discussions.

Zack Jackson 35:02

Yeah. It's why the work that you're doing is so important. This is the reason why we started this podcast was because we were like, this is such important work. And all of us in this fellowship, the first day that we met together, we realized, we all feel alone in our context, but we're not. We're just, we just don't have a common group to rally around. Uh, I don't know what what it is. So we thought podcasting is a good way to get the word out there. It's accessible. It's easy. And we found that to be true with so many people who have joined the community as well, that actually the last review that we got on iTunes said, I'm not the only one. And it was like, Yeah, no, you're not. There's a, there's a whole lot of us out here, despite the fact that there's only like three podcasts on Apple that are about this. There are so many of us. And I think the work of translating the work coming from the ivory tower into like, applicable practical and practical conversations is so important. Yes, and you do have a knack for, for doing that for communicating all of these really complicated topics that are so vastly diverse, in in really easy to understand ways. I do enjoy your podcast a lot. Thank you. So at the end of our conversation here, then I want to ask you the question that I've asked everyone so far, which is, what is one thing that you wish everyone knew about the world? Yes, I've

Elizabeth Fernandez 36:45

been, I've been thinking about this preparing myself.

Zack Jackson 36:50

I love that you did your homework.

Elizabeth Fernandez 36:56

You know, you can look at this in a scientific way. And you could look at this in a non scientific way. But for me, I think that it's important. That's when we look at each other. We look at people around the world, we look at people in our community, who on the surface look very different from us, or who seemed very different than us. We're actually not that different. When you look at evolution, you see how, how much work we have in common, how much debt different communities of people are basically the same. When you're going through something that you just feel like I'm the only person in the world that is suffering through this. And then you're not, you're just there are so many people who know exactly what you're feeling, or who have been there before. Even with cultures that are different, like when I did a lot of interfaith work, and people have these, these still very pervasive biases against people of different religions. And when you really look at it, we're there are some differences. But a lot of those differences are on the surface, when it comes down to it deep down. We're all real, pretty the same. We all we're all we all go through the same problems, we all feel the same things. And if people realize that, I think you know, there wouldn't be any problems in the world.

Zack Jackson 38:19

Love it. Thank you for that. Thank you for spending this time to come on here and and talk with us. For all of you at home. Her podcast is spark dialogue. It's one word, SP a rk DIAL l o g. And that's available wherever you get your podcasts as well as spark dialogue, calm if you'd like to learn more about what she does and what she has done and what she cares about and all of the good things that she's doing.

Elizabeth Fernandez 38:52

Well, thank you very much for inviting me.

Zack Jackson 38:53

Absolutely. My pleasure.