--- title: Five Best Ideas: Why You Should Meet a Scientist description: Why Americans should get to know scientists, how great broadband can help America and more. canonical: https://time.com/4664013/why-you-should-meet-a-scientist/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-08T17:15:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:05.508Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why You Should Meet a Scientist og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4664013/why-you-should-meet-a-scientist/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why You Should Meet a Scientist twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Why You Should Meet a Scientist by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 8, 2017 5:15 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 8, 2017 5:15 PM UTC **1\.** [**A lot of Americans don’t know a single scientist. We need to fix that**](https://www.statnews.com/2017/02/07/scientist-march-trump/) By Sara Whitlock in _STAT News_ **2\.** [**To make America great again, start with great broadband everywhere.**](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/02/07/make-america-great-with-great-broadband/) By Blair Levin at the _Brookings Institution_ **3\.** [**Who’s still fighting climate change? The U.S. military.**](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/pentagon-fights-climate-change-sea-level-rise-defense-department-military/) By Laura Parker at _National Geographic_ **4\.** [**Willpower is a dangerous and outdated idea. It should be scrapped.**](http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/against-willpower) By Carl Erik Fisher in _Nautilus_ **5\.** [**You can print on this paper with light instead of ink, and erase and reuse it dozens of times.**](https://www.fastcodesign.com/3067832/you-can-reprint-this-paper-80-times-without-a-drop-of-ink) By Mark Wilson in _Fast Co.Exist_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4664013/why-you-should-meet-a-scientist/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4664013/why-you-should-meet-a-scientist/"},"headline":"Why You Should Meet a Scientist","datePublished":"2017-02-08T17:15:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:05.508Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4664013/why-you-should-meet-a-scientist/","keywords":["Innovation","climate change","Paper","scientists","broadband","willpower"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4664013/why-you-should-meet-a-scientist/","name":"Why You Should Meet a Scientist"}}]}] ```