Ludovic Benistant

Student

I grew up in the south of France. When I was around 18 years old, one friend introduced me to philosophy. In a few days, I became so interested in reading Sophie's World and listening to France Culture that I couldn't stop. Podcasts suddenly transformed the worse moments of my day (such as commuting or waiting in lines) into the best ones, where I discovered great philosophers’ minds. I particularly admired Peter Singer who helped me to understand how much ethics wasn't "just a matter of expressing our intuitive response of repugnance or approval," but a long, complex and fastidious work. As, to judge whether a decision is right or wrong, we can't simply use our gut feeling; we need to study the short and long-term consequences of that decision seriously, even scientifically. That's why becoming better in data analysis can save lives. For instance, the Bill Gates foundation emphasizes so much the importance of measuring and evaluating their different actions. It is not because they are cold-hearted. Rather, it is because they want to do the most good possible, with the resources they have. Science can improve the quality of our decisions since it is the best tool we have to study the consequences of a given decision and to evaluate the ones we made in the past. But good decisions are never just selected from a set of options. They are created, debated and re-invented constantly. That is why we need more people to join our debates and share their ideas. All scientific fields are interesting. Although I studied data analysis and data science, I also loved to read works by evolutionary biologists and pschologists. I was amazed to see what great scientists they were. How they extracted data from the world outside and inside of them. How they changed their minds dozens and dozens of times, after being exposed to rational arguments. Ultimately, we believe this or that theory only according to the information that our data provides. So we should always be ready to change our minds, again and again.