The Survival Curve: A 220 Year Story of Scientific Wonder | Bertha Vasquez
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# The Survival Curve: A 220-Year Story of Scientific Wonder | Bertha Vazquez
### Featuring: Bertha Vazquez
##### January 22, 2026 - 7:00 pm EST
Before 1800, half of all humans born died before their fifth birthday. Then came a revolution in survival—spurred by breakthroughs such as vaccination, clean water, antiseptics, and antibiotics—that turned medicine from “bleeding and purging” into an evidence-based system of care that actually saves (and vastly improves) human lives.
Today, it’s easy to forget how recent and hard-won these advances are.
Join us on Thursday, January 22, at 7:00 p.m. ET for a Skeptical Inquirer Presents livestream with CFI Education Director Bertha Vazquez. Learn more about scientists and innovators such as John Snow, Ignaz Semmelweis, Joseph Lister, Louis Pasteur, Norman Borlaug, and Nils Bohlin who gave humanity an extraordinary gift: longer, healthier lives. This talk is both a celebration of science and a reminder to be grateful for the discoveries—and the people—that laid the foundation making modern life possible.
### – Where To Watch –
Skeptical Inquirer Presents is FREE to watch live on these platforms:
Facebook (SI)
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YouTube (CFI)
If you miss the live presentation, you can watch every episode on-demand on the CFI YouTube channel
Bertha Vazquez taught middle school science in Miami-Dade County Public Schools for thirty-four years. As a teacher, she was named Miami-Dade County’s Science Teacher of the Year three times and was the recipient of several national and local honors, including the Charles C. Bartlett National Excellence in Environmental Award, the NABT‘s 2017 Evolution Education Award, and NCSE’s 2023 Friend of Darwin award. Vazquez is now the education director at the Center for Inquiry. Her books include On Teaching Evolution (2021) and What Teachers Want to Know About Teaching Climate Change (2025).