"The Magic of Reality" - Richard Dawkins

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[00:00:14]Welcome everybody. I would like to especially welcome our families and friends and our young guests today who are here joining us to celebrate science. We have uh lined up some exciting events in an in about an hour from now. you will have the brilliant punk science team from the London Science Museum and they will be doing in their own words old science show. Please stay with us and uh enjoy that show. And in the meantime um you will find the desks for the science fair. Um the science fair team are organizing a science competition in association with National Geographic and Lego and the scientific American. And if you if you like to join that competition, you can go talk to their desk and find out more about that. And what more privileged way to celebrate science than to have Professor Richard Dawkins here with us to talk about his latest book.

[00:01:10]Professor Richard Dawkins was the first holder of the Charles Simony Chair in public understanding of science at the University of Oxford.

[00:01:19]He's a fellow member of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature and he's a prominent scientist and evolutionary biologist and perhaps one of world's most outspoken atheists.

[00:01:34]He's of course the author of numerous books including his landmark text the selfish gene his sensational take on religion the god delusion and the greatest show on earth in which he makes a stirring defense of Charles Darin's theory of evolution and today he is here with us to talk about his book which most of you have uh among the audience at your hands his latest book the magic of reality how we know what's really true. And at the end of his speech, Professor Dawkins will be taking questions. Uh please use the microphone um on the floor to to ask questions if you do have any. And then uh he is also offered to uh stay with us to sign his books. It will be on this stage right after his um his speech and Q&A session.

[00:02:22]Without further ado and with great pleasure, I would like to give you Professor Richard Dawkins.

[00:02:38]Well, thank you, Bar.

[00:02:41]Um, I'm delighted, of course, that so many copies of my book are to be seen in the room. Um, slightly disconcerted as well. Um, my uncle Bill told me that when he was an undergraduate at Oxford many years ago in the 1930s, it was the custom for Oxford undergraduates to read out their essays to their tutor. And he one week had been caught a bit short.

[00:03:06]And so he had actually just copied out his essay from a book. and uh his tutor listened to his essay for a while and then silently got up and walked across to the bookshelf, pulled a volume off the shelf, opened it and then started following with his finger and then at the end my uncle valiantly solded on reading out his essay and then at the end the tutor snapped the book shut and said, "I see you agree with Mr. So ando."

[00:03:41]So I I'm a little bit worried that people may be following what I say in the book. Um so I'll try not to make it too uh word for word. Um the magic of reality, it's a book for young people.

[00:03:53]The sort of optimal target age I was aiming it at was about 12, but I hope and I think believe that it can be read by adults as well. They can understand it. um and also uh younger children as well. Um but it's a little bit difficult to pitch a talk to the full range of ages that I see in the audience today.

[00:04:20]Um so I hope I won't be be boring some age groups. Um there are 12 chapters in the book and those show the 12 chapters. They are nearly all a scientific question like who was the first person? What is the sun? What is a rainbow? What is an earthquake? And every chapter begins with myths from around the world in answer to the question and then uh goes on to the meat of the chapter which is the scientific answer. What really is the sun? What really is a rainbow? What really is an earthquake? And so on.

[00:04:59]The title, the magic of reality. I need to clarify the word magic. I think the word magic is used in three different senses. The first kind of magic is fairy tale spells. Uh fairy godmothers waving a wand and turning a pumpkin into a coach or a frog turning into a prince.

[00:05:21]That kind of thing. Nobody believes in that kind of magic. The second kind of magic is stage magic. Conjuring. In America, conjurers are called magicians.

[00:05:32]But everybody knows of course that what conjurer do is only a trick although it looks like real magic. It looks like something supernatural.

[00:05:41]And the third kind of magic is the one that I'm really most keen on in the title of my book which is the magic of reality where we're moved to tears by a beautiful piece of music. We describe it as magical or we look up at the stars, look up at the Milky Way and we say what a magical sight. Um, the whole of science, the whole of what science reveals, it seems to me, is magical in that sense, not supernatural, but fills one with a sense of wonder, uh, a sort of swelling of the chest, which one can describe as magical. And the purpose of my book is to show that reality, the facts of reality as understood through science is magical in this third sense, the poetic sense, the good to be alive sense.

[00:06:34]Now, I said that nobody believes in supernatural magic. Nobody believes in fairies turning pumpkins into into coaches um and frogs into princes. And I I want to make the point one of a really rather important point that it's not just that nobody has ever actually seen a frog turn into a prince. There are very good reasons for saying that it will never happen. It's impossible. And it is important to understand that in order to understand how it is that frogs and princes and kangaroos and tigers came into existence at all because they did not come into existence by magic. Of course, they came into existence by evolution. So, why is it that things can't magically turn into into other things in one sudden blow?

[00:07:24]Why can't frogs turn into princes? Why can't pumpkins turn into coaches? Well, the reason is that frogs and princes and pumpkins and coaches are all very complicated things. And complicated means statistically improbable. And statistically improbable means that it isn't going to happen just by luck. So if you imagine making the task for our fairy godmother making a coach by magic a little bit easier, we'll imagine that instead of giving her a pumpkin to start with, we give her uh a sort of IKEA kit for making a coach. It comes in a box and she takes all the bits in the box, puts them in a great big sack and shakes them and shakes them and shakes them for a billion years and every time she shakes she she looks to see whether a coach has tumbled out and of course it won't. Not in a trillion years it won't.

[00:08:25]coaches and princes and frogs and us and and arvarks and dinosaurs are all much too complicated to happen by chance.

[00:08:38]So, how did they happen?

[00:08:41]Oh, first of all, I should say that we can in some cases calculate the odds against happening by chance. If we're playing cards and um we deal 13 cards to each of four players as you would in bridge and imagine that uh I pick up my cards my I pick up my 13 cards and I gasp in astonishment because I've got a perfect hand of all spades.

[00:09:08]So I lay down my cards on the table and say, "Okay, no good going on with the game. I've obviously won this game because I've got a perfect hand." And then to my amazement, one by one, the other three players lay down their hands. And somebody's got all the diamonds, somebody's got all the clubs, somebody's got all the hearts. Well, that could happen. What are the odds against it? Well, you all have worked out in your head that the odds against that are 536 octilian, 447 septilian, 737 sectilian, 765 quintilion, 488 quadrillion, 792 trillion, 839 billion, 237,42,000 against.

[00:09:57]However, that particular deal is no less likely than any other particular deal.

[00:10:04]It's just that we notice we notice it because there's something special about it. You could arbitrarily designate any particular deal and say the odds against that happening are also all that number of oct octilians etc. Um, by the way, once I I was reading that out, I was giving a lecture in America and they had they have a rule there that you have to have somebody standing at the side of the stage doing sign language. So, I couldn't help stealing a look at her while I was doing all this.

[00:10:36]Um and then I also this is a wholly a an aside now but um I also during the same lecture had occasion to refer to the the the large hadron collider in Geneva and um I was talking about how moved I was when I went to visit the Large Hadron Collider and I told as an aside the story that um in the first edition of one of my books um this was misprinted as the Large Hardon Collider And I again had to look at this woman to see how she was.

[00:11:13]Anyway, as I was saying, um, we in in the case of of a perfect as a perfect bridge in in a perfect deal in bridge, you can calculate the odds against it.

[00:11:24]You can't calculate the odds against shaking up the bits of a prince or shaking up the bits of a frog and getting a prince. Um, but it's going to be just as high, just as just as unlikely as getting probably even more so as getting a a perfect hand in bridge. So, um, how do we get tigers and kangaroos and frogs and princes? And the answer is that it certainly does not come about by chance. It comes about by the non-random process of evolution by natural selection. And the key to understanding that is that although there is chance involved, there is luck involved, it's a very small amount of luck in each step of the way. The point is that there are millions of steps of the way, one after the other through an immense amount of geological time. And each one of those tiny steps means that a frog, for example, turns into a slightly different kind of frog. and then a slightly different kind of frog again. Then a slightly different kind of frog again.

[00:12:32]Each of those tiny steps is not improbable, is not um a wildly improbable thing like shaking the bits of a frog and getting a prince. Um it's because there are so many steps. It's because the luck is smeared out into gradual steps that it works. And that's why we've been able to go from some kind of bacterial ancestor uh 3 billion years ago to all the different kinds of animal and plant that we see today.

[00:13:04]Now I'm now going to take the first take the next chapter chapter two which is the first of the chapters which follows the the plan of having a question followed by myths followed by the true scientific answer and the question of this chapter is who was the first person and as you know this has been the subject of many myths And a particularly familiar myth is the Hebrew myth of Adam and Eve. The Jewish myth of Adam and Eve which has been adopted by Christians and by Muslims as you know. Um and um just to give you another myth um the the myth of um Odin uh the Norse myth uh which is just a quite separate myth and there are thousands of origin myths which account for um the who was the the the the first person and they're all colorful they're all nice stories but they're of course not true and uh we're now going to come on to the true answer to the question who was the first person the scientific answer.

[00:14:13]Well, this may surprise you, but there never was a first person because every person had to have parents and they had to have parents and they had to have parents and so on. And and the same is true of rabbits and crocodiles and and and lizards and everything. Um, every animal ever born, every creature ever born belonged to the same species as its parents and its children.

[00:14:41]and his grandparents and his great-grandparents.

[00:14:46]How far back can we take that? Can we take it back forever? No. Obviously, we can't. Um, and this is the main lesson I want to reach in this part of my talk.

[00:14:59]Even though every creature ever born is the same species as its parents and its children, nevertheless, if you go back a sufficiently large number of generations, then you come to something very different.

[00:15:15]So let's do a thought experiment.

[00:15:19]Imagine that you take a thought experiment is an experiment that you don't actually do, but you just imagine.

[00:15:24]Imagine that you take a picture of yourself and uh you put on top of it a picture of your father and then on top of that his father and then his father and then his father and then his father and you build a gigantic skyscraper of pictures going backwards in time.

[00:15:44]How far back shall we go? Well, I think we should go back 185 million great. So, I'm going to go back to your 185 million greatgrandfather.

[00:15:57]How high would that skyscraper be?

[00:16:01]It would be more than 180 New York skyscrapers piled on top of each other. So, we're going back quite a long way. Obviously, that skyscraper would simply fall over. It's much too high. So, let's tip it on its side and put the pictures all the way along a great big long bookshelf.

[00:16:22]How long would the bookshelf be? About 40 miles.

[00:16:28]To the near end of the bookshelf has the picture of you. And the far end of the bookshelf has the picture of your 185 million greatgrandfather.

[00:16:41]What did he look like?

[00:16:44]Was he an old man with wispy hair and side whiskers? Was he a caveman in a leopard skin? No. Forget any such thought. Your 185 million greatgrandfather looked something like that.

[00:17:04]Your 185 million greatgrandfather was a fish.

[00:17:10]So was your 185 million great grandmother, which is just as well.

[00:17:21]If we now walk along our great big 40m long bookshelf, we can pull off pictures every now and again to see how we're going. Every picture shows a creature belonging to the same species as its immediate neighbors on the shelf.

[00:17:38]Yet, if you go back sufficiently far, for example, um well, your 4,000 greatgrandfather, uh you see there looks pretty much like us. Your 50,000 greatgrandfather looks just a bit different. He would have been perhaps a member of the species Homo erectus. Uh not the same species as us, uh but pretty similar nevertheless.

[00:18:01]Imagine that we take a time machine and we ride backwards in time and we go back in steps of 10,000 years. And at every step of 10,000 years, we get out of our time machine and we look around and we see which which of our great great great great grandparents we can see. And um we take on board one of them and then we hop another 10,000 years. And then we open the door and look again at who's out there. We take on board a passenger from that time and we hop back another 10,000 years. Well, what we'll notice is that every 10,000 years stop, the new people that we see or the new animals that we see are going to be pretty similar to the last lot that we that we saw the previous 10,000 year hop. And indeed they can interbreed if they feel like it.

[00:19:02]And they can probably interbreed with several more 10,000year hawks as well.

[00:19:07]But there will come a time when they can no longer interbreed with us.

[00:19:13]Uh so if we go back a million years, then we'll probably find that we can just about not interbreed with the people that we discover. Yet all the intermediates could interbreed with their neighbors with the with the most recently joined party on the time machine.

[00:19:34]Let's now pick out some more distant ones. Um, your 250,000 greatgrandfather who lived about 6 million years ago would have probably looked a bit like a chimpanzee. However, he wasn't a chimpanzeee. He was the common ancestor of ourselves and chimpanzees.

[00:19:54]He was no more a chimpanzeee than we are except that perhaps he looked a bit more like a chimpanzeee than he looked like us. Your hund sorry your 1 million and a half your one and a half million greatgrandfather 25 million years ago would have looked rather like a monkey and would have been the ancestor that we share with modern monkeys.

[00:20:18]Your 7 million greatgrandfather would have lived 63 million years ago and would have been the common ancestor of us and modern lemurs. Once again, it would not have been a lemur. It would perhaps have looked a bit more like a lemur than it looks like us, but it would be the common ancestor of ourselves and lemurs.

[00:20:41]Your 45 million greatgrandfather who lived 105 million years ago would have been sort of like a shrew and would have been the common ancestor of actually probably most of the mammals all the mammals perhaps. Your 170 million greatgrandfather would have looked sort of a bit like a kind of lizard and would have been the common ancestor of us. That's to say all mammals and all the reptiles including birds, including dinosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs actually.

[00:21:13]Your 175 million greatgrandfather would have looked a bit like a salamander.

[00:21:17]It's the one on the right there. and would have been the common ancestor of modern salamanders and frogs and of all the other um reptiles and mammals and birds. And then finally, we come back to your 185 million great-grandfather and the fish that you've already seen. And we can carry on uh this process. I won't do it, but you can carry on. Uh the line of pictures ws its way off into the distance and eventually comes back to something like a bacterium.

[00:21:50]I'm now just going to whiz through the chapter titles of some of the other chapters just to give you a feel for what other questions we tackle. Tackle first by giving mythical answers and then by giving the true scientific answer. Why are there so many different kinds of animals?

[00:22:09]What are things made of? If you if you take stuff matter and cut it into smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller pieces, you eventually come to a piece that no longer is that stuff at all. It's about the atomic theory. It's about chemistry. It's about atoms. It's about molecules.

[00:22:27]Why do we have night and day?

[00:22:30]Why do we have winter and summer? Most people have a pretty good idea why we have night and day. It's because the earth is spinning on its axis and uh therefore a different side of the earth is turned towards the sun at different times. And I think most people know why we have winter and summer. But actually you'd be surprised how many people think that winter is when the earth is furthest from the sun in its orbit and that summer is when the earth is nearest to the sun in its orbit.

[00:23:00]Nobody in Australia thinks that.

[00:23:06]Um, and in in the course of that chapter, I try to explain what being in orbit means. And this is a good opportunity for me to mention that there is an app that goes with the book because the app, in addition to being uh a the complete book, including illustrations, so you can read it like a Kindle book. Um, it also has simulations and games. And can we turn on this one now? Is that is that who's going who's in charge of that?

[00:23:37]Good. Okay. Um, so here here's the book um on the app. There are all the chapters you see swinging along at the top and then you can choose a particular chapter. We happen to have got to why do we have night and day? So I choose that and then you see all the pages of why do we have night and day. Um, and I want to stop at the game which is in the middle, which is this one. Um, Isaac Newton illustrated the principle of things being in orbit by imagining a cannon.

[00:24:13]And you see the cannon there sitting on top of the world. And um, Newton imagined firing a cannonball. And if you fire a cannonball um, rather slowly, it'll splash into the sea there.

[00:24:28]If you fire it a bit stronger, it'll go there. A bit stronger still, it'll go there. What it's doing is trying to go in a straight line, but being pulled down by gravity. And um if you fire it yet stronger still, it'll go on and it finally go around the world altogether.

[00:24:46]And I'm going to show that here, I hope.

[00:24:50]Um so you fire the cannon by pulling back this peashooter affair.

[00:24:58]And that one went into orbit.

[00:25:02]If you fire it a bit less strong, splashes into the sea.

[00:25:07]If you fire it very strongly, it goes into outer space. So that one reached escape velocity. Um the principle is that the the ball is actually falling all the time, but it's falling around the world because the world is curving away from it. And if it if it's given sufficient horizontal velocity, then it'll go on falling forever, which is what the moon does and it's what artificial satellites do. So each chapter in the app has has a game of that sort which illustrates some sort of principle. But the the app does have the complete um book in it as well. So if we could go back to the back to the Mac and and um I'll switch off the app.

[00:25:50]Thank you.

[00:25:52]Uh so the next chapter is um what is the sun? Uh and I think there's another simulation here. Oh yes. Um uh there we are. We're zooming away from the sun and you see how small the sun is compared to the universe. We're going away and away and away. We're seeing lots of other stars. The sun is now invisible. Um and um we're moving away from the sun, away from the sun. And now we're coming to our galaxy. That's the Milky Way galaxy. We're zooming away and away and away from the Milky Way galaxy.

[00:26:26]Now there's another galaxy. And now all those things there are now galaxies comparable to ours, similar to ours. And the that that that yeah that doesn't really belong that that um um that's because there is another chapter which is on are we alone and I'll come to that in a moment. Next chapter is what is a rainbow? Um, next chapter is when and how did everything begin? Um, which is a very difficult question, a very profound question, a question that we still don't know the answer to, but it's worth talking about because we we're getting a long way towards understanding the answer to it. And the next chapter is the chapter on are we alone? And that's a very speculative chapter because we don't know if we're alone. We don't know whether there's life elsewhere in the universe. And um uh one can argue the case either way. Some people think we are literally alone in the universe. Um and other people think that the life is that the universe is teeming with with life. Um and you can argue it both ways and I do that in in the book. So it's good to learn. It's good to realize that we don't know everything in science and and we can actually speculate um in an informed way using our knowledge about the various possibilities.

[00:27:46]Next chapter, what is an earthquake? And you know that that that's all about plate tectonics, about the movements of the of the continents.

[00:27:57]Why do bad things happen? Um, not much different from why does anything happen, but some people rather superstitiously think that the world is out to get them.

[00:28:07]Um, and so why do bad things happen? And other people might say, why do bad things happen to good people? as though there was some rule that says that bad things should only happen to bad people.

[00:28:19]And the final chapter is what is a miracle, which is sort of back to magic, but miracles are magic, supernatural magic that people believe in as opposed to supernatural magic that they don't believe in. And there's no reason to believe in any kind of supernatural magic at all.

[00:28:37]So, I'm going to read the sort of final um bit of the book. Now, there are things that not even the best scientists of today can explain. But that doesn't mean we should block off all investigation by resorting to phony explanations involving magic or the supernatural, which don't explain anything at all. Just imagine how a medieval man, even the most educated man of his era, would have reacted if he'd seen a jet plane or a laptop computer, a mobile telephone, or a satnav device. he would probably have called them supernatural, miraculous.

[00:29:16]But we don't have to go back that far.

[00:29:18]Um, if you even go back to Victorian times, uh, a a Victorian detective like Sherlock Holmes would have thought that, for example, if somebody if a murder had been committed in London and the accused could prove that he was in New York the same day, then he couldn't have done the murder because in Victorian times it was literally impossible to be in London and New York on the same day. Now, of course, it's common place. Um, the eminent science fiction writer Arthur C.

[00:29:50]Clark summed the point up as Clark's third law. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

[00:30:01]The more you think about it, the more you realize that the very idea of a supernatural miracle is nonsense. If something happens that appears to be inexplicable by science, you can safely conclude one of two things. Either it didn't really happen, the observer was mistaken or was lying or was tricked, or we've exposed a shortcoming in present day science. If present- day science encounters an observation or an experimental result that it can't explain, then we should not rest until we've improved our science so that it can provide an explanation.

[00:30:39]If it requires a radically new kind of science, a revolutionary science so strange that it sorry so strange that old scientists scarcely recognize it as science at all.

[00:30:52]That's fine too. It's happened before.

[00:30:55]But don't ever be lazy enough, defeist enough, cowardly enough to say it must be supernatural because I don't understand it or it must be a miracle.

[00:31:07]Say instead that it's a puzzle. It's strange. It's a challenge that we should rise to. Whether we rise to the challenge by questioning the truth of the observation or by expanding our science in new and exciting directions, the proper and brave response to any such challenge is to tackle it head on. And until we found a proper answer to the mystery, it's perfectly okay simply to say, "This is something we don't yet understand, but we're working on it. It's the only honest thing to do.

[00:31:44]Miracles, magic, and myths. They can be fun, and I have fun with them throughout the book. Everybody likes a good story, and if you read the book, I hope you'll enjoy the myths with which I begin most of my chapters. But even more, I hope that you will enjoy the science that comes after the myths. I hope you'll agree that the truth has a magic of its own. The truth is more magical in the best and most exciting sense of the word than any myth or madeup mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic, the magic of reality.

[00:32:22]Thank you very much.

[00:32:33]I'm now I'm I'm very happy to to take to take questions.

[00:32:48]>> There is a microphone there. I see. Is that meant for >> There is a microphone in the >> If anybody would like to ask a question, do please come up to the to the microphone. Um here >> actually I can I start with the first question.

[00:33:00]uh in your book you um often times refer to online material and you at some point also ask your readers to Google one of the phenomenons you're talking about and this this um this means that many people have access to sometimes random information on the internet and how do you find the impact of internet on the new media on teaching of science is it good or bad >> well I'm delighted that that the word Google has has become a verb and I I presume it's got its way into the Oxford dictionary by now, hasn't it? Does it?

[00:33:31]Do people know? I imagine you know that.

[00:33:33]Um, anybody know that? I mean, it ought to the the the the criterion for getting into the Oxford dictionary is that it has to be used um without explanation.

[00:33:44]So, it it you so it as it were um I Googled something. I Googled so and so.

[00:33:50]Um and it doesn't count if you say footnote Google means. Um but provided you can use the word without explanation, without definition, without um attribution, then it gets into the dictionary. And I'm sure it it it it must have done. Um the the the web is a superb resource for uh factual information and also a superb resource for utter rubbish. Um and um so we we we can't just switch off our critical faculties. But I think the the overall impression that I get is overwhelmingly positive. Um before the web came along, if you were having an argument with somebody, um you so often it might turn on a factual point and you couldn't actually establish the uh correct answer without going into a library. Um, rather absurdly, I remember in um after dinner one one evening with a group of people um there was a dispute about whether New Mexico has a coastline and um somebody bet somebody else, I don't know, a bottle of wine or or something that that New Mexico has a coastline. Um you couldn't do that now because everybody would whip out their iPhones and simply simply um look it up. So, um, disputes can now be resolved very much more quickly than ever before, uh, because you can instantly Google something and discover, um, the true answer. And if you need to look it up three or four times just to make sure, that's fine because you may hit on a creationist website or or something, but the first time um, and get a lot of nonsense. Um but but but you you do you do have the the the world is at your fingertips literally. Um so I think I think it's overwhelmingly positive. And by the way, I'd like to put in a good word for Wikipedia because that often gets a lot of bad press. Um if somebody had said to me before Wikipedia was launched what their plan was. They were going to have an encyclopedia that the users could edit and was going to be done from from thousands of of users. I'd have said, "Don't be so silly. Couldn't possibly work." And yet, my impression is overwhelmingly that it does. And whenever I've looked up something that I happen to know a bit about, I've been immensely surprised at how at how accurate it it it usually is. Um, so I I think I I think my view of the worldwide web is is is overwhelmingly positive.

[00:36:22]>> Yes, >> Professor Dawkins, thank you very much for coming in. Um I am great admirer of your work and uh as yourself a proud atheist. Um when I was reading the God delusion um I thought you of course he can say all these things because in the end he's a professor his job is to spread knowledge and I was thinking how can I when I discuss with friends or family how can I justify to try to change their minds about religion and about what they believe if they themselves are not active in trying to prophesize or to to convert others. Why?

[00:37:01]What is my justification in trying to explain to them with mostly with the help of your arguments I must admit that there is no God?

[00:37:10]>> Well um your your your question implies that that somehow they should be allowed to to sort of retain their illusions without um without dist disturbing them.

[00:37:20]You know why why go out of your way to shatter somebody's illusions? Um, if it were just that then I think I I would say don't do it because um, you know what why why make somebody less happy?

[00:37:33]But you're actually making them more happy because you're you're showing them the wonder of truth. I mean the to to go through your life laboring under a bronze age delusion when you could be exposing your mind to the glories of the universe as modern science understands it is a terrible shame and it's actually positively wicked if you bring up children um if you indoctrinate children with Bronze Age myths as though they were true instead of exposing children to the wonders of uh of the truth. Um so um I I wouldn't have any compunction in in arguing and what I would suggest that you you say to them is why do you believe what you do? And the answer almost always if they're religious the answer almost always will be because that's what was handed down to me through my family tradition. Our family have always believed so and so. our our family is a part of the of the Christian tradition or the Jewish tradition or the Muslim tradition. That's why we believe it. What a terrible reason for believing anything. For a start, your tradition is different from his tradition than her tradition. Um and so and they can't all be right. So that would be one point uh you could make. You should say evidence is the only good reason to believe anything. Bad reasons for believing are tradition, authority, I believe it because the priest or the pope or the Imam or the rabbi told me to believe it. That's a terrible reason to believe anything, too. Or I believe it because of private revelation.

[00:39:24]Somebody said, "Oh, I just felt it inside me. I just feel this inner revelation that something must be true."

[00:39:31]That's probably the worst reason of all for believing anything. The only reason to believe anything is evidence. And nowadays we have enormous amounts of evidence. It's not as though we're living in the Middle Ages when evidence was a bit a bit scarce on the ground.

[00:39:47]Nowadays we have we're overflowing with evidence, not least in the worldwide web as I've just been saying. And it's such a privilege to be living now when there is so much evidence and it's such fun to understand it. It's such a glorious experience to understand the answers to questions like how big is the universe?

[00:40:04]How old is the universe? Um when did life start? How did life give rise to us? Why are we here? These are all fascinating questions, exhilarating questions. And it's our privilege living in the 21st century to be able to answer those questions. And it's really a disreputable thing to bring children up with Bronze Age falsehoods when they could be being exposed to this wonderful truth.

[00:40:32]>> Hi, Professor Dawkins. Um, I was particularly interested in the the question aspect of your of your latest book. Uh, we at Google are running a competition called the science fair.

[00:40:40]We're encouraging encouraging teenagers to come up with questions and sort of use those questions to drive scientific inquiry. What's your advice to the the the child or the teenager who is looking for inspiration for their question? How do they find questions in their world?

[00:40:54]>> Well, I suppose um read up some science, look at look at videos, look at um look at some scientific findings and then questions will automatically occur to you. Um I mean there are lots of questions. I I have lots of questions that I would like answered and I whenever I meet a physicist or a chemist or something I usually do um answer them. So I mean it there's a very very rich field of of questions many of which have answers some of which we don't have there are no answers and that's intriguing too because it may be that your competition will expose some questions which as yet don't have an answer and that might actually stimulate scientists to examine what possible answers there might be.

[00:41:42]>> But sparking curiosity where curiosity doesn't already exist in a child. How how do we go about doing that?

[00:41:49]>> Show them films by David Atenburgh. Um um that I mean I I honestly think that's not a problem. I mean I' I'd be surprised if that if that was a problem.

[00:42:00]Um if if that really is a problem, we're doing something wrong because because um you know, give them my book.

[00:42:13]>> Any more questions?

[00:42:21]Thank you again, Professor Dawkins. Um, question about the actual writing of the book. How did you find the process of writing a book targeted, as you say, at the 12-year-olds versus pretty much the rest of your previous writings, which have been much more adult focused, >> right? Um, pretty much the same actually. It it the only thing I found was that I I some I sort of had to modify my vocabulary a bit. I had to um uh just use I suppose a bit of a more restricted vocabulary. Um I I've always liked the idea of of of extending both my and my reader vocabulary. And I I've I've always felt that the dictionary is your friend and and and it shouldn't be a bad thing if the if you have to if you're driven to the dictionary to to look up a word, but there are limits to that and and so a a child should not be expected to go to the dictionary too often. Um, and but it it is a problem and and I I mean there are people in the audience today who who are obviously too young and um and I I sort of didn't didn't I mean maybe another time I might try to write a book for for very young children. Um but 12 is is actually not that different from from adult in in in comprehension.

[00:43:33]>> Did you find it easier or harder in general?

[00:43:35]>> I I found it a little bit harder. Um yes. And I don't know how well I succeeded. I did try it out on various uh young people and the trouble is I got quite a variety of answers. Some of them said this is too easy. Um uh but but perhaps they were rather unusually bright. Um and and and others um others didn't. There were some rather curious things. Um one I was I needed to refer to a soccer ball. I needed to I was using the the soccer ball as an analogy for the sun and then um uh if if you if you the idea was to get an idea of the scale of the of the universe. you you get a football and you put it in the middle of a field and then you walk I forget how many it is sort of 20 paces and you then you put down a um um I think it's a pepperc corn for earth and so that gives you an idea of the scale peppercorn versus football and uh 20 paces away and then to the same scale oh the the moon I think is is about an inch away from the from the peppercorn and is a pin head and then the nearest other star, which is still pretty near Proxima Centuri, is 2,000 mi away. Um, okay. So, in order to do that analogy, I I I referred to a soccer ball. And I got complaints, what's um I had to say soccer because in America, if you say football, it means something like a rugby ball. Um, so I got rather silly complaints like that.

[00:45:10]Um but okay ne next question if there is one.

[00:45:16]>> Hi I just wondered about your opinion about school science and teaching falsehoods. I wondered how you think like um I mean a particular example would be the teaching of shells where you teach a model that explains the evidence that that child is going to encounter but we know it's false. It's an oversimplification that will help a child to make predictions.

[00:45:35]>> Did you did you say shells?

[00:45:36]>> Yeah. You know you teach shells and then you teach them orbit. Okay. What >> how do you feel about >> you're you're a teacher >> have been? Yeah.

[00:45:43]>> Yes. And what do you teach about shells?

[00:45:46]>> Well, I always say this is you know this is an oversimplification of what we currently know to be true but it will help you at this stage. Next year we'll give you a model which will help you make better predictions. But some teachers will just say this is how it is.

[00:45:58]>> But when by shells you mean you mean snail shells?

[00:46:01]>> No. Well, you know you know the the groups of orbitals are in >> Oh, I got it. Okay. Sorry. I just hated having to teach it when you know that next year you have to tell them to forget.

[00:46:12]>> But on the one, you know, I wondered your opinion if you think it's okay to teach an oversimplification.

[00:46:18]>> Yes.

[00:46:18]>> To to children with that limited understanding.

[00:46:20]>> No, I I was confused by your use of the word shells. I'm sorry. Um uh because actually snail shells are very interesting as well. Um um it is a very useful lesson about the way science proceeds because science does proceed by successive approximations and it is in a in in a real sense true that earlier models need to be superseded and in some sense are false. So the atomic theory model of um uh say Neil's bore um- which is the sort of solar system model with a with a nucleus and then the electrons as particles whizzing around the the outside um that works up to a point but is then superseded. And so the lesson that what you learned in last year's class was actually getting on for wrong um that is a valuable lesson in itself about the way science proceeds. So I wouldn't shrink from that >> as long as it's pointed out.

[00:47:17]>> Yes, as long as it's pointed out. Yeah.

[00:47:20]>> Sorry. Um hello. My question is also related to education. Um I worked with a science teacher who was also a creationist which I found a bit of a contradiction. I just wondered what you thought about the teaching of evolution in schools currently because I know there's been quite a lot of stuff that you've been working on recently.

[00:47:36]>> Yes. Um, what was your creationist colleague what you might call a young earth creationist who believed the world is only 6,000 years old?

[00:47:44]>> I don't know the details.

[00:47:45]>> That's an important that's an important question to ask actually because um that really sorts them out. Ju just to say a creationist could could mean was it a he or a she?

[00:47:57]>> A he.

[00:47:58]>> A he could mean that he um believes that the pretty much the whole of scientific story is true. um including the age of the universe, the age of the earth, but that God just started it off, which is a very different matter from those young earth creationists who think that the book of Genesis is literally true and that on the first day God created this and the second day God created that and it only process took six days and it all happened 6,000 years ago. Um if if if the teacher was teaching them that then in my opinion he should be fired instantly.

[00:48:32]He wasn't he wasn't teaching that but that was his belief. So it was a contradiction in terms of the way that he taught evolution in schools even though that he didn't actually >> so he he taught he taught what he didn't believe.

[00:48:43]>> Yes. So he obviously would have had a bias when he was teaching. So >> yes um actually I've I've got into a bit of an argument about this because um in America it's very the the idea that your beliefs are private is very sacred. it it's part of the sort of it's built into the American constitution and and rightly so which means that I mean I I was trying to get my American colleagues to accept that if a teacher privately believes something which is different from what he publicly um teaches then there at least could be an extreme example where where you would not wish to employ him as a teacher. So I tried to think of the most extreme example I could and the example I thought of was a doctor teaching medical students who doesn't believe in the sex theory of reproduction but believes in the stalk theory of reproduction. And I said surely even you Americans will accept that such a doctor should not be employed teaching medical students. I was kicked all around the room because his private beliefs are not important so long as what he teaches is um is the truth. Oh, sorry, I wouldn't have said that. Is is is the is the scientific orthodoxy um which is that that that babies come because of sex. Um, and that was where I parted company from my American colleagues because it seemed to me that somebody who's capable of holding two such contradictory beliefs in his head is not somebody I would wish to have teaching any child of mine. I then tried to push for an even more extreme example which is a teacher of geography who believes that the earth is flat but nevertheless teaches that the earth is is is round.

[00:50:36]Once again, a very substantial number of people who wrote into this American website were scandalized that I thought this teacher of geography should be fat should be sat. Um uh so I mean I I'm left bewildered by by this because it seems to me um that um somehow he has damned himself as a teacher by this contradiction. Another example which is actually a real one not not a hypothetical one is the a the professor of astronomy at Oxford told me of a colleague of his who is a professional astronomer writes learned papers in astronomical journals mathematical papers which tacitly assume that the universe is 13.72 billion years old and he writes these papers and gets them published but he privately believes the universe is only 6,000 years old and um I can't get my head around this um this absolutely flat contradiction. I don't see how you can say that this person is a proper astronomer if he holds these um these contradictions in his head. Um that's all I've got to say. I mean, I'm just baffled.

[00:51:49]>> I was just going to say if I I'm a geography teacher and if I taught that the world was flat, I would have been sacked by Offstead. So, >> well, yeah. No, no, that that's right.

[00:51:56]But the but the hypothetical case is that you teach that the world is round but privately believe it's flat.

[00:52:01]>> Okay. Thank you.

[00:52:02]>> Okay.

[00:52:04]>> Hi. Hi. My name is Medi. Um just have a quick question. Considering that uh the extremely small is more or less equal to the extremely big. Do you consider the the solar system as just a molecule?

[00:52:20]>> No. Well, I'm I'm not sure it's true that the extreme extremely small I mean, in a way that that came up earlier because the um the uh the bore model of the of of the atom was indeed sort of inspired by the solar system, but it's actually rather wrong. And so, one can make a a kind of maybe that's what you're doing, a kind of science fiction fantasy that actually our solar system is just an atom in some gigantic universe.

[00:52:48]>> It's a nice science fiction idea. Um um but um I I don't I don't think it's very realistic.

[00:52:55]>> Okay.

[00:52:58]>> Hi. I like the uh way you presented the evolution by the pictures and stuff.

[00:53:02]However, obviously you had to stop at some point. Um and maybe the more inquisitive children here would be still wondering if they had an answer to the question or not. Who is the first man?

[00:53:14]So my question is um in the book do you attempt to tackle and explain like Avioenesis and like the chemical origins of life?

[00:53:22]>> Oh okay. So you're going back much much further than just the the the first person. Yes, of course. Um it is true that the whole process of evolution couldn't get started until a rather singular chemical event happened which was the origin of let's call it the first gene. It wouldn't have been DNA, but it would have been uh some kind of molecule which had the property of self-replication, had the property of making copies of itself. Once you've got that um and it the copies have to be very accurate. Once you've got that, then um you're well on your way to evolution and then the rest of evolution will follow. But we do have to have that first step uh which is the the origin of the first self-replicating molecule.

[00:54:08]That would have been a phenomenon of chemistry which would have been a chance a stroke of luck uh which had to come about um probably in the primeval sea. Um and it only had to happen once. So that really could have been a massive stroke of luck and we don't know whether it was a massive stroke of luck. So far, no chemist, as far as I know, has come up with a plausible um theory for exactly what happened. It is actually rather an interesting thought that if you are one of those people who believes that we are alone in the universe, if you're one of those people who thinks that this is the only life in the entire universe, and there are people who think that, then that automatically commits you to a very strange view. Since there are probably at least 10 to the 22 planets in the universe, that's 10. That's a one with 22 knots after it. Then in order for you to believe that we are alone in the universe, you would have to believe that the origin of life on a planet is a quite staggeringly rare improbable event because it only happened once in 10 the 22 opportunities for it to happen. Um well when you put it like that uh then you realize that um it it's actually very very improbable that we are the only planet in the universe that has life. But we could be we could be because if the origin of life really was that improbable that there is only one planet in in 10 to the 22 that has life then we would have to be that planet because here we are talking about it and so it's actually not impossible. Um I don't believe it. I think that the origin of life was a much more probable event than that. Which again sort of the flip side of the argument is that that means that I automatically have to believe that there's lots of life all around the universe. The universe is teeming with life. But because the universe is so big, um even if there are a billion examples of life dotted around the universe, they will still be so spread out, so far apart from one another that none of them will ever meet any of the others, which is rather sad. A sort of celestial Polynesia without the canoes to um to bridge the to bridge the gaps.

[00:56:49]Um but um maybe chemists will soon come up with a a thoroughly with a with a theory of the origin of life so plausible that everybody will say yes of course that's the way it had to happen.

[00:57:00]And once we've done that then um then we can be pretty sure that there's lots and lots of life all around the universe.

[00:57:08]>> Thanks.

[00:57:13]>> This will be the our last three questions for tonight. Um so go on.

[00:57:18]>> Hi there. um you you gave a a little tidbit of wisdom around how you should generate your beliefs uh or how you shouldn't generate them from uh a number of factor with people in authority and I was interested in understanding from you how you generated your very strong beliefs uh when you were young and how you actually grew up to be in a position where you are now where you are you have very strong um beliefs based on facts and a vocal with that. But you didn't always have that. And so taking yourself to maybe the the target age of your book, 12 or to age of of children here, um how you actually as you grew up from a child um developed these these beliefs and learning.

[00:58:08]>> I mean, I I prefer not to talk about very strong beliefs because it seems to me that nobody's beliefs should be so strong that they're not open to change if new evidence comes in. And so, um, I I think I'd prefer to say that, um, if if the if the evidence for something is is very strong, then then there comes a point when you you might actually use the word use the word belief. But you ask about my own childhood and um I I I was brought up in in well, I was sent to Anglican school. So, so I I was brought up um to believe, which I did, uh Bronze Age myths and um shed them when I became old enough to understand the true scientific um explanation for our own existence because I was very impressed by the complexity and elegance of living things and uh very impressed by the argument that that must have had a designer because it looks like as though it's got a designer. And it was only when I learned the Darwinian explanation, which we now know to be true in at least broadly true um that I was able to shed that belief. Other people they based their religious belief on something else and so they would shed it for a different reason. But in in my case, it was really disreing Darwin.

[00:59:36]Were you sort of a minority amongst your peers at that time and age?

[00:59:42]>> No, I wouldn't say so. No.

[00:59:45]>> Thanks.

[00:59:48]>> Uh, excellent. The guy in front of me always takes the question I was going to ask. Um, anyway, uh, firstly, I'd like to say, uh, thank you very much. Really excellent explanation of my 185th millionth great grandfather. My son actually turned to me and said, "Daddy, there is a family resemblance."

[01:00:05]Uh so thank you for that. Um I guess my my question would be because there's a lot of uh children in the audience which I'd count myself amongst. Um what apart from your own book, what else would you be recommending for children of you know 8 10 12 to be reading uh or what experiences would you suggest them to have to to drive that inspiration about science?

[01:00:27]>> Gosh, I'm not the best person to ask. I haven't actually looked into that question very much and maybe there are others here who can make suggestions. I bet there are some some very good books and probably films probably things on YouTube. Um there's some very inspiring things on on YouTube actually. I've already mentioned David Atenburgh's films. I think they're very very inspiring. Um Carl Sean's Cosmos. It's a bit old now, but it's available on on DVD and is superb. Um there are some good things on the Discovery Channel.

[01:00:59]Um, I think we live in a in an extraordinarily rich time for resources to explain the wonders of science.

[01:01:08]>> And do you think technology is going to play an increasing part in that? You know, a 10-year-old, you know, you showed your app on on hopefully a Galaxy uh tab as opposed to an iPad. But um um do do you think technology will increasingly play a part in that?

[01:01:22]>> Yes, I do. And in a way, today's children are kind of spoiled. I mean, it's it's it's if you could imagine going back to to my to my childhood when when um I mean, some the sort of thing you can see on everybody's laptop computer now would have just dazzled the socks off me as a as a as a child. And um I mean, I was desperately covetous of um of a little toy where you could project um uh little little film strips on onto the wall. And I desperately wanted one of these things, the idea of having my own little projector and could project on onto the wall. And I um I I tried to even make my own by um getting a a roll of sort of transparent semi-transparent blue paper um and drawing on each sheet um and then shining a light through and and of course it didn't work. And I prayed and I prayed and prayed and prayed to be given one of these little projectors for Christmas. And lo and behold, I was. And and um but I mean that was the height of ambition of a child uh in when I was a child. Um and of course nowadays such a projector would would a big deal you know just think what you can do on your own on your own laptop. Um, so yes, I mean I think the internet is a magnificent resource and and children should appreciate what a what what wonderful opportunities they they have and no doubt it's going to get better if if Moore's law persists as it looks as though it will for a while.

[01:02:59]>> Great. And I I would just like to say one final comment about people you discussed in terms of teaching something that they don't necessarily believe in.

[01:03:06]Uh in our world we call those salesmen.

[01:03:09]Okay.

[01:03:09]>> Yes.

[01:03:12]Um my question is did you consider a a a psychology or scientific psychology approach to the question of why does religion exist? Um >> yes-c because I'm I live in Ireland and my kids go to a state school which of course is a Catholic school.

[01:03:30]>> Yes.

[01:03:30]>> Um and I think I mean they must look around them and think well nearly everybody else is is Catholic. everybody else believes. Why wh why why do why do why do people believe? And and when you when you think of it and when they look at it, I I've introduced them to lots of different religions. I took them to Greece two years ago and I think that's that's a interesting question. Why why does religion exist?

[01:03:54]>> Yes. Well, you pose it as a psychological question and I think as a question in psychology, you've almost answered it because if children are sent to a school, in the case of Ireland, it would be a Catholic school as you say, where they're indoctrinated and everybody around them is indoctrinated in the same way, then it requires a great deal of independence of mind to break away from that. Fortunately, a large number of people actually do, but many of them unfortunately don't. uh and so childhood indoctrination which then of course persists to the next generation and the next and the next because those people who don't break away then end up um teaching in Irish Catholic schools because obviously that the ones who do break away would not be employed in in in teaching. So um it does persist from generation to generation to generation. Um, and so that's the psychological answer.

[01:04:48]>> But that there's there's hooks that must that religion must fit into in our brains. I mean, there's >> there are hooks. I I agree with you. And and um what one of one of those hooks is that people tend to want to go on believing what what what what feels good. And so, for example, if you if you want to um survive your own death and religion tells you you will survive your own death, then you find that an agreeable thought. Um, I don't I never quite got why it's that agreeable when they're also threatening you with going to burn forever in hell if you do if you do if you commit some fooling offense.

[01:05:26]Um uh I say futling because um in a way um there's a sort of law that says that if you're trying to persuade people of something by threat, then the more implausible the threat is, the more horrible and nasty it has to be in order to counteract its intrinsic implausibility. So if the threat is um if you do something wrong then um you'll be given some punishment like I you know write out a 100 lines or so or or something. Um the threat is very real because you you know it's highly plausible that you will have to write a 100 lines. In my youth it would have been being beaten. Um also that was plausible because it really did happen.

[01:06:17]But because the threat of hell is so ludicrously implausible, it has to be made very, very nasty indeed so that you take it seriously because it just might be true. And if it is true, then you're going to burn in a lake of fire forever and ever and ever and ever. And every time a layer of skin is burned off you, a new layer grows so it can be burned off you again. I mean, they pile it on.

[01:06:41]They pile on the agony um because it's so intrinsically um implausible. Now, that's another of the psychological hooks. Ultimately, as a Darwinian, I would need to explain where those psychological hooks come from um from an evolutionary point of view. And I think we can do that, too. Uh but that perhaps is is another story which perhaps we've gone on long enough.

[01:07:03]>> Yes.

[01:07:06]>> Professor Dawkins, thank you for joining us today and providing us with such a powerful book to teach science to our young ones. And um thank you for coming today and joining us. And all of the Googlers watching us live uh through the web stream around Europe. Thanks for dialing in. And don't worry if you didn't get a chance to ask a question to Professor Dawkins because after the after the signing session, he will um he told me he he'd like to stay around and uh chat to us for a bit more while. Uh let's hear one more time for Professor Richard Dawkins.