"Something from Nothing" - Richard Dawkins & LaWReNcE KrAUSs

[00:00:00]Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ian Young and I'm the vice chancellor of the Australian National University. I'd like to begin by acknowledging and celebrating the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and whose cultures are among the oldest continuing cultures in human history. It is a pleasure to welcome you this evening to the Australian National University and to introduce our esteemed guests, Professor Richard Dawkins in conversation with Professor Lawrence Krauss. Tonight's event is sponsored by the A&U Colleges of Science and Cosmos Magazine. This evening we have an opportunity to hear from one of the most influential scientists and public intellectuals of our time. Professor Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simone Professor of Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. He is the author of nine books including The Selfish Gene and the God Delusion and his works have been published in more than 30 languages. A fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature, Richard has honorary doctorates of literature as well as science, including an honorary doctorate from the A&U. In 2006, he established the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science to promote the scientific education, critical thinking, and evidence-based understanding of the natural world. Tonight, Richard Dawkins will talk with Professor Lawrence Krauss. Professor Krauss is foundation professor in the school of earth and space exploration at Arizona State University. He's also authored a number of best-selling books, including a universe from nothing. He is a visiting fellow at A&U and has been a regular visitor over the past few years, and it's a great pleasure to welcome him back here to A&U. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming our speakers, Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss.

[00:01:50][applause] >> [applause] [applause] [applause] >> Thank you very much. Uh it's a it's a great pleasure for both of us to be here. Uh we're actually beginning a an Australian tour here in Canra. Uh we'll be uh here and in Sydney and we'll be closing off actually at the Sydney Opera House on on Monday and in the middle we'll both be attending the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, the largest convention of atheists in the world. Uh I should begin with some housekeeping details. First of all, the way this is going to work is that Richard and I are going to have a conversation and we'll talk about that in a minute. And then after we're finished, uh the floor will be open for questions. And there are microphones at either end of the auditorium and also up uh up in the the second level so you don't have to jump down.

[00:02:56]And uh and we'll go on uh as long as the questions are interesting.

[00:03:02]And um the the format of the conversation is somewhat unusual perhaps, but about five years ago, Richard and I were asked to speak together at Stanford University in the United States. and Richard insisted that we do it without a moderator because, as he pointed out, moderators always stop things just when they're getting interesting. So, we've tried to have some conversations without a moderator and that's what we're going to do tonight. And uh we're never quite certain where they're going to go and and uh and we we will see. We have some ideas of topics we'd like to discuss, but we'll we'll see where they go. I actually want to begin, Richard, speaking of moderators, some of you may have watched TV last night and did you did you see Q&A, a few of you?

[00:03:42]Yes.

[00:03:43]>> Well, it was an interesting Well, I don't know. Interesting is the way to describe it, but um there was an interesting it was a program that I want to spend a little time talking about and and I and maybe you might want to comment on on some of your concerns about that program.

[00:03:57]Well, I suppose my first concern arose when I was announced and the audience went and then Cardinal Pel was announced and it went rah rah and I couldn't help feeling that this was not exactly a representative audience of Australia. Um, and um, I don't know how the studio audience is chosen for Q&A. Um, but I had my suspicions at the time, which I think have rather been confirmed, that there was some fairly smart footwork, um, which I suppose they're rather good at and maybe we're not so good at, and maybe we should, um, >> learn how to stack the audience, >> learn how it's done. You got to be a bit politically savvy. Um, but I think that more importantly, going back to your point, Lawrence, about about moderators, um, I really did think last night the moderator got in the way because we could have had a searching conversation, which I would have enjoyed, but just as it got going and just as the archbishop had dealt himself enough rope to hang himself, [laughter] um, the moderator jumped in with moving on to the next question and and as it rescued him in the nick of time. And so I I thought that that was a fairly good illustration of why we don't want moderators. And the same thing happened, oddly enough, in England a few weeks ago when I had a similar onstage conversation, not televised in this case, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who dare I say by contrast, is a very, very nice man.

[00:05:31]Um and it and once again there was a moderator who kept on getting in the way in in that that case. It wasn't to get the next question from the audience. In that case it was to uh utter some philosophical profoundity uh which didn't actually help help matters along.

[00:05:48]But I've noticed again and again that chairman get in the way uh and it's better if you can do it to uh to have just a plain conversation. He certainly he certainly did save on a number of occasions save the cardinal who I was my first experience uh listening to the man. He seemed entirely devoid of intellect. Um uh true I was I was shocked. I I was shocked. And what what I thought we might do is because of uh he demonstrated a number of misconceptions about science as well as religion as far as I could see and um hadn't thought much about it either. And uh I thought we might want to start talking about some fill in some of the gaps that happened last night. For example, I was I was amazed with his um understanding of evolution or >> Well, yes. Um the chairman asked him did he accept that humans were descended from apes I think >> and he said yes from Neandertols.

[00:06:47]Um we're not descended from Neanderls.

[00:06:50]We're cousins of Neanderls. I told him that. So he said more or less well how can we be cousins if they're extinct?

[00:06:57]You know I actually at that point you know at that point and I think he then asked you have you ever met a Neanderthal? And I must admit I would have just said I'm talking to one right now.

[00:07:10]But but I think you know it is one of the biggest misconceptions about evolution in the sense of of how it works and the idea of speciation is a very it's a very non-intuitive concept which is one of the reasons that I think many people have problems with with with evolution as a concept because it doesn't happen on a human time time scale and you don't I I've testified before school boards in the United States about trying to keep evolution in the schools which which are constantly There's a battle all the time to try and get rid of evolution and I'm always told, you know, why aren't I seeing apes turn into humans right now?

[00:07:42]>> Yeah.

[00:07:42]>> And and it's it's a constant heranging.

[00:07:44]So maybe you want to talk a little bit about that.

[00:07:45]>> Well, that is one of the commonest things. I'll believe in evolution when I see a monkey turning into a human. It's as though they think it happens overnight. And it is true that it's very very hard to grasp the sheer immensity of the time scale that's involved. Uh we as humans are used to a time scale of years, decades, centuries. we can just about cope with even millennia but then millennia start to feel a bit kind of mysterious and you know lost in the midst of time. Um a million years is something we can't really grasp. A 100red million years is something completely beyond our comprehension. And there have been various attempts to dramatize it. Things like you know representing the whole of the span of life by 24-hour clock and and you know humans appear I don't know what it is you know 5 minutes before midnight or whatever it is. And another one is when you hold out your hand, your your arm, and you say the middle of your neck is the origin of life. And then it's all bacteria out to about there. And then back and then dinosaurs come in about there. And uh he fossil humans sort of recognizably homo sapiens come in about the the the tip of your fingernail. And the whole of human history, the whole of recorded history, the the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Hebrews, the Romans, the Greeks, all falls in the dust of one stroke of the nail file. Um, that's not my own. That's that's somebody else's, but I think it's it's um it's rather a good one. And you can't really get to grips with evolution unless you realize uh what an enormous amount of time uh that there is. And it's quite clear, I think, that the that the cardinal didn't really understand um that, you know, we are actually descended not just from from apes, but we're descended from fish. We're descended from from bacteria.

[00:09:27]>> But also this even the the question I thought by the the way it was put by the moderator, we're descended from apes gives the impression that we are descended from creatures that now exist contemporaneously with us, which of course is not the case.

[00:09:39]>> That's one of the commonest misconceptions. And you know, you hear it in the form of, well, if we're descended from chimpanzees, how come there are still chimpanzees? Um, we're not descended from chimpanzees. Even if we were, there's no reason why they shouldn't go on living living with us.

[00:09:52]It doesn't mean they have to go extinct.

[00:09:54]Um, >> although we seem to do a very good job of making things extinct that are going with us.

[00:09:58]>> Well, that's true. Um, I mean, you could say if if um North Americans are descended from Europeans, how come there are still Europeans?

[00:10:09]>> Excellent. or Australians for that matter.

[00:10:12]>> Well, you know, as ignorant I I personally took a front to something the cardinal said.

[00:10:18]>> I bet you did.

[00:10:19]>> Yeah. Um because as ignorant as he was of uh biology um he was what what upset me was he was disingenuously ignorant about and I thought ungracious to you in fact in in that context. Well, that's I I think I mean there was the question that came from the audience where where somebody said, "I'm holding nothing in my fist and you can't make something out of nothing." I mean, which of course was a reference to Lawrence's book, Something from Nothing. Um, the whole point about modern physics is that you can't do it by common sense. That's why you need physicists.

[00:10:57]If you could do it by no common sense, that's really >> If you could do it by common sense, you wouldn't need Lawrence. Um, so >> I'll take that as a compliment.

[00:11:07]>> Um, so it it is very clear from from reading reviews of your book, uh, something from nothing. Um, it's well, first of all, I should say that I was very proud to have written the after word, uh, to this book. Um, I was accused last night by Cardinal Pel of not having read the book because he said, "You read you you wrote the forward and you evidently didn't get to the end." If he'd read the book, he'd have known that I did not write the forward.

[00:11:32]>> In fact, in fact, that's the thing that I objected the most. I don't I don't mind ignorance so much. It's it's it's the illusion of knowledge that upsets me more. And in fact, I he has to be held responsible, and I'm happy we're going to Sydney because I plan to hold him responsible um for for criticizing a book that he clearly hadn't read. and and that was a a clear example of it. He he quoted verbatim from a from a review by a philosopher of my book. Um and uh uh and of course totally bungled it uh totally totally distorted. But the first part said six pages before the end of the book which was how this this review in the New York Times began. But but the key idea which which really is so difficult and and I guess challenging and perhaps threatening to both some philosophers as well as theologians is this question of something from nothing.

[00:12:18]as it happens in the case as as I think we've talked about before in biology. I mean, how do you get life from non-life?

[00:12:24]That was originally sort of the main theological question. How do you get life from non-life? And and and even in the original version of of Darwin's book, he he says at the very end, God breathed life into the first species because >> only in the first edition.

[00:12:39]>> Only in the first edition, >> in second edition, he leaves out God. Um Oh, no. The other other way around. So, you put it back in because in the first edition, there's no mention of God. he says originally breathed and then in the second edition and subsequent editions he says by the by the creator but that's a much easier problem in a way because you're starting with chemistry you start from molecules bumbling around in the in the warm little pond as Darwin called it primeval soup as people later called it and and then you get the first self-replicating molecule but something from nothing from literally nothing and that's what really gets people that's the one that's really counter to common sense they clearly misunderstand what you mean by nothing so >> and and Well, exactly. And and and I'm of And the problem is I'm often accused of not talking about the nothing that classical philosophers 20,000 years ago or theologians talked about. And the answer is I'm not really interested in their nothing. I'm interested in the real nothing. I'm interested in asking the question based on our understanding of the universe. We'll probably get back to this often. Science changes what we mean by words. And it changes that meaning because we learn about the universe. We actually make progress in science unlike theology. And that's because we could be wrong.

[00:13:46]And we can learn and we learn from the universe. So if we ask the question and I think perhaps the most offensive thing I said it was initially at the beginning is that something and nothing are not theological or philosophical quantities.

[00:13:57]They're physical quantities. Most people recognize that something is a physical quantity. But they refuse to accept the idea that nothing might be a physical quantity. Somehow the absence of something. And so what is remarkable and and surprising in some sense how there's been a reaction to it is in this particular book what I tried to do was was c was not attack theological notions but celebrate our changing picture of reality the amazing discoveries that have been made over the last 50 years some by people here by my friend Brian Schmidt here who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery that have changed completely our picture of the universe and made it plausible the most remarkable and unexpected thing you can imagine You could start with absolutely nothing. That means unlike the cardinal said and unlike some people argue, no particles, but not even empty space, no space whatsoever. And maybe even no laws governing that space. And we can plausibly understand how you could arrive without any miracles, without any need for a creator, without any supernatural creation, you could produce everything we see. And I find that the fact that it's plausible remarkable in the same sense that I think people I found it plausible when I first learned about evolution. The amazing fact that the diversity of life on Earth which seems so designed and complex could arise from so simple a beginning. These two things are both extraordinarily exciting uh intriguing enthralling. Um clearly life is clearly the idea that you can start with nothing but chemistry, the ordinary laws of chemistry and end up with us and kangaroos and oak trees and and and wombats. Um I mean that is the most astonishing fact. But you know even more astonishing is that you can get physics.

[00:15:38]You can get matter. You can get everything from nothing.

[00:15:43]>> The because it seems like you should violate some law that and out of you know as classical philosopher said out of nothing comes nothing. that that's the interesting thing is that's based on common sense. But as you pointed out, the world doesn't care about our common sense. Our common sense should be determined by reality, by the evidence of reality. And in the quantum mechanics, for example, which is an area of physics I I am involved in, defies common sense. Everything we think is sensible about the universe at some level is not true. Part you and I appear to be in one place at one time, but electrons can be in many places at one time. It seems impossible. It seems illogical. And you know, I have a t-shirt that my dear partner who lives here in Canberra gave me that says 2 plus two equals 5 in the limit of extremely large values of two. And [laughter] and the point is 2 plus two in the in the limit of large numbers, common sense goes out the window. And what's been once you add gravity to the mix, everything changes. And and one of the things that we've discovered about the universe that's so amazing is that the total energy of the universe could plausibly be precisely zero. even in spite of the fact that it's full of stuff. And once that realization occurs, you realize that maybe there's a way to create it from nothing. And then we've learned that the nothing of the classical Greeks and and and of the Bible, an eternal empty void is certainly not nothing because empty space is a boiling bubbling brew of virtual particles. And in fact, we discovered that nothing can weigh something. That's what the in in essence the Nobel Prize that that was given to Brian and his collaborators were here for nothing actually weighs something. So the whole idea there's not much difference between nothing and something. And for some reason that offends people. The fact that really the answering the question why is there something rather than nothing is really akin to saying why are some flowers blue and some flowers red? Or maybe even the question that used to be important. You know Kepler would have asked why are there five planets and he thought they had something to do with platonic solids being and and of course now we know that there are nine planets and there are nine planets.

[00:17:41]Pluto is a planet. Don't believe it.

[00:17:42]whatever whatever one it says it's uh my daughter studied Pluto in grade four and she's certainly not going to go back uh I promise but but we realize that's not an interesting question anymore because it's there are many different solar systems and the question is how did not why are there nine planets as if there's some profound purpose of nine planets or eight planets but how did it come about that our solar system has nine planets and other solar systems may have six or other ones may have 12 in fact we've discovered when we discovered planets around other stars things we never thought were possible in terms of solar systems. Things we never imagined possible. Solar systems with planets the size of Jupiter right next to their sun.

[00:18:20]All these things that we thought were physically impossible are actually possible because the universe continues to surprise us. And so it doesn't care what we like. It doesn't think what care what we think is sensible. But I suppose things like um planets the size of Jupiter being very close to their sun. I mean that's surprising. But it's not surprising in the same way as the idea that there could be literally nothing which then from which something suddenly springs. And I mean it is very hard to grasp it and and I certainly can't grasp it. The the reason why it's hard to grasp from an evolutionary point of view I suppose is that our brains were I mean our our brains are tools for making sense of the world in which our ancestors had to survive. And they had to survive in a world in which things didn't move very fast, nowhere near the speeds where relativity starts becoming relevant and also were large and so uh quantum mechanics didn't didn't have any have any effect. So we live in a very very our our ancestors brains were naturally selected in an extremely restricted range of phenomena that had to be understood and so common sense uh equipped us to to to be very bad physicists and so you you have to uh emancipate yourself just as I suppose our medieval ancestors had to emancipate themselves from the idea of a flat earth. I mean, they would have thought it incredible that here we all are in Australia upside down. Um, that would that would have been very worrying to to medieval people in in Europe. Now, now it's common place. Do we dare hope that there will come a time when even quantum mechanics is commonplace to um every child? I'm not convinced that it's it's really understood by every physicist.

[00:20:08]when when I ask physicists some of them say well don't even try to understand it just do the mathematics >> well well in fact I mean I wrote a book before this one about Richard Feman who was one of the people who changed our view of quantum mechanics >> and he said he didn't understand quantum mechanics I think at some point our as you point out our brains just like in in when we talk about the universe space is curved Einstein discovered with general relativity that space is curved and we talk about a flat universe or curved universe how can you picture that because we're talking about a curved threedimensional universe iverse but but we can't picture a curved threedimensional universe because we live in a three most of us live in a threedimensional universe the Republican candidates in my country don't live in a few but but the the uh and so we can't we just there just some things that our brain is not equipped to intuitively understand and one of the amazing things about science and I think we'll come back to that is that it forces us to realize that our myopic picture of reality is just that that there's far more to the world than we see and we have to recognize that what we think is natural or normal when it comes to culture mores or physics is not that way and I think that for me that's probably the greatest gift of science is that it is that it teaches us that that we we need to go beyond ourselves >> I think it's something we need to be proud of our species for because our species I mean every species is is designed by natural selection to survive in its in its world and we were never designed by natural selection to to understand modern physics. And yet our brains amazingly through emergent properties are capable of reaching way way outside the bounds that uh that our evolution apparently set for us. I I think it's I'm very proud to be human. [laughter] >> Well, that doesn't mean I understand it, but I'm I'm proud that other members of my species.

[00:22:00]>> It is really amazing and in some sense to me that fact that we have a consciousness. People often say that if you give up God, you give up human dignity, but it's the to me it's the exact opposite. And and Steven Weinberger, a physicist, said that religion is an assault on human dignity because the dignity, the remarkable fact that we're conscious that we're able to ask these questions to me gives meaning to our lives and we don't need imposed meaning from elsewhere. I don't >> Yeah, that's right. Well, while I was debating Cardinal Pel, you Lawrence were debating a an Islamic um scholar they call them, don't they?

[00:22:36]But where I come from, a scholar is somebody who's read more than one book.

[00:22:40][laughter] >> But anyway, how did it go?

[00:22:43]>> Yeah, I was uh right while you were doing the cardinal, I was I was debating here at A&U actually last night. Uh uh it was a very pleasant debate actually to some extent. Well, I got a little upset at a few points. Uh but but a debate with an uh on whether God was prohibitive, a belief in God was prohibitive or liberating. And it was the Muslim debate initiative here that held it. and and uh and they were very respectful, I should say, of of of of me. But but the but the interesting thing was that I thought this questions that came up were were remarkably similar and it was and and and at the same time the unfortunate thing is that we were often talking at cross purposes in the same way that you were talking to the cardinal because there are these notions that somehow the the bas what what amazed me was a statement was made that religion is based on rationality just like science is that somehow and we and I read it in a piece in the Australian today some economist said that um you know the problem with with atheists they don't realize that religion is based on rationality and that and that it should form a key part of public public policy. But in what sense is it rational? In what sense is it rational to the to base to accept that someone says God told me this?

[00:24:00]a woman in in uh the United States drowns her children in a bathtub and says, "Jesus told me to drown them." But we we don't call her rational. But but an illiterate peasant is is who can't write is is is told by an angel uh uh the truth about the universe who then comes down later and and and tells a in upstate New York 18 centuries later tells a a known con man who claims to have discovered golden tablets. She she gets him to translate them from the 19th century into 17th century English. And we say, "Oh, sure.

[00:24:38]I believe that." using using a magic stone in a hat.

[00:24:41]>> Yeah, exactly. And then to claim among other things that that that Jesus will come down and rule in Jerusalem and Missouri. [laughter] >> Well, and so that rationality and and the claim is based that it's based on logic. But once again, it comes down to this question that logic the syllogism that you probably had this applied to you many times. I've told whenever I debate Christian apologists, it's the same as in this case it was the same as a Muslim apologist. They said, 'Well, there's a Tom, all humans are mortal.

[00:25:12]Tom is a human and therefore Tom is mortal. But I said to him, well, what if in this century, as might be the case, we make people immortal? We make cell lines immortal. Well, Henry Adam lacks his cell line is immortal right now.

[00:25:26]Does that mean they won't be human?

[00:25:28]Absolutely not. Because what it means is we change the ground rules because we change our understanding. And classical logic just doesn't apply. And what may seem sensible and rational were based, let's face it, we're all of the major world religions were were based on either oral traditions in the case of Muslim tradition or things that were written hundreds of years after the fact by people who weren't involved before there was video cameras or anything able to record it. And it's and and before people even knew the earth orbited the sun.

[00:25:57]>> Yeah. Well, that of course is right. But let me let me try and and see if I can explore what a sophisticated theologian might say. Um, I think it's a bit like [laughter] >> I think >> there's a sophisticated theologian.

[00:26:10]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:11]>> I think I think it's a bit like um what social anthropologists do where you go and you go and immerse yourself in the culture of a a tribe, a Polynesian tribe or something of that sort. Um, and everything they believe is actually scientifically false. But nevertheless, it hangs together in a sort of coherent internal logic. it all kind of fits together and makes sense within that within that system. And I think that's the the nearest approach I can get to understanding um so-called sophisticated theology that you that within the system you you know God exists. You know he loves you know that he has all sorts of aims and things and this is all known and therefore everything you do has to fit in with that with that that system.

[00:26:54]It has has no bearing on on fact at all, but it is internally consistent in a sort of um anthropological way. Why anybody wants to bother to do it, I don't know.

[00:27:05]>> Well, I think you may have alluded to it earlier and I want to ask you about this because it was another thing that came up during your talk your discussion last night. You indicated that we our brains were selected the the way we think has been selected by survility to survive.

[00:27:17]It was certainly important I think and maybe led to both science and religion at the same time for early hominids to be able to at least suggest that there was some some story that this that that everything wasn't capricious that there was some pattern to things and in fact in many ways they were scientists so you can see early modern humans learned h how to fish in in in very careful ways in in the tip of of of South Africa but but at the same time I think that in order to survive they had to great stories that would lead to some explanation of what of the phenomena we're seeing to to in order to somehow predict some regularity to the universe and those stories must have become religion at some point and must have and as the person questioned you last night about providing soulless you know that whether religion provides happiness and makes people live longer >> but the question is does it work and one of the things that didn't come up last night I want to ask you about we were talking about is you admitted that there may be some studies that suggest that if you find soul sooulless in God that you might be calmer happier or whatever. But what wasn't talked about was the fact of prayer. And I wonder if you want to talk about that a little bit.

[00:28:25]>> Well, what what came up last night was the suggestion that um that that comfort has has some kind of psychosmatic effect that maybe actually even a Darwinian benefit in religion because it actually makes you more healthy. There is a certain amount of rather equivocal evidence to that effect. The important point to make of course is that it has no bearing on whether it's true. I mean the the placebo effect is well known to doctors. Doctors aren't allowed to prescribe placeos anymore. Um only homeopaths are um >> that's all they prescribe >> which is all they prescribe. Um before about 1900 homeopaths did better than real doctors because real doctors mostly caused harm rather than homeopaths did absolutely nothing. Um um you um but you were asking about studies of prayer that there there have been studies of I mean experimental studies quite well controlled double blind studies of whether uh third party prayer praying for in this case victims of um heart disease would get better if they're prayed for. It's quite difficult to design a double blind trial to do this because the patients are not allowed to know they're being prayed for. Um and the people who are doing the praying mustn't be allowed to know who they're praying for. And so, um, they're not allowed to say that you're praying for John Smith. Um, you have to disguise it a bit by saying you're praying for John S. And maybe a little bit of ambiguity about which John S you're praying for and things like that. But anyway, what they did was to was to divide the prayers up into um, you know, there were some patients who who were being prayed for and others who were not. Um you will not be surprised to learn that that prayer had absolutely no effect whatever on um on recovery rate except for one rather curious fact which is they did another trial in which the patients were allowed to know that they were being prayed for >> and then they got worse and the I think the argument was they got worse because if they knew they were being prayed for they felt they should be getting better and anxiety uh hurt them.

[00:30:21]>> Yes. Um, >> and it was funded by the, interestingly enough, by the Template Foundation, which of course was trying to prove exactly the opposite.

[00:30:27]>> Yes, that's right. Yeah.

[00:30:28]>> Now, you know, let me, as long as we're talking about prayer, I want to ask you about about something I think we're both confronted with is people say, well, look, science can't replace religion.

[00:30:44]Science can't replace spirituality.

[00:30:46]Science can't fulfill the needs that are ingrained in humans.

[00:30:52]And you need religion. I wonder why you want to think.

[00:30:55]>> Well, there are various things you could mean by what you by needing religion. I mean, you could say what does religion provide? Well, historically, it attempted to provide explanation for the universe and the world. And and I think it's fairly clear that science has superseded religion there. Um, religion also provided or possibly provides comfort. Um, and that the possibility of health, but comfort in the face of death, comfort in the face of bererement. Uh, and I suppose it's I mean, does science substitute for that?

[00:31:28]Um, well, I suppose it does in the form of drugs and improved medicine and things like that. It does provide a lot of comfort. It doesn't provide you with the promise of life after death. Um, uh, it's not clear to me that religion's view of life after death is necessarily comforting.

[00:31:45]>> Oh, yeah. I brought that up last night.

[00:31:47]The last thing in the world I would ever want to be is stuck for eternity with my >> Yes. I mean, I mean, I I think um um I think uh what what what may be frightening about the idea of dying forever is the idea of eternity itself.

[00:32:01]And it's eternity that's frightening. Uh whether you're there or not. Um, and in I think on the whole eternity is so frightening. I'd rather be under a general anesthetic um for eternity, which is exactly what's going to happen um >> at best. Yeah.

[00:32:16]>> But um but the other thing of course is that it some some religions at least promise an eternity in a lake of fire um with and every time your skin burns off, you grow another skin so as to keep the pain going. There's a kind of inverse relationship between the magnitude of the threatened punishment that a religion offers in its particular hell and the plausibility of the threat. Um, if the threat of punishment after death was the slightest bit plausible, it wouldn't need to be so absolutely horrible in order to carry conviction.

[00:32:50]It's because it's not plausible that it needs to um to be uh so to be so so horrifying. But anyway, that that's the possibility of consolation is another thing that religion is supposed to uh provide. Uh religion is supposed to provide morals.

[00:33:05]Well, I hope to goodness nobody here gets their morals from religion.

[00:33:08]>> Certainly not the Old Testament.

[00:33:09]>> Certainly not the Old Testament and preferably not the New Testament either.

[00:33:11]>> Yeah, exactly. Or the Quran, I would say.

[00:33:14]>> Well, certainly not. Yeah. Yes. Um but I perhaps the the main thing that religion might have been thought to uh provide is what's sort of loosely called spirituality.

[00:33:25]Um, and there I think probably science, depending exactly on how you define spirituality, science probably does have quite a lot to offer. Um, I mean, I'm looking forward to going to visit the observatory tonight and seeing what I hope will be a clear view of the Milky Way, which in the southern hemisphere is a lot more exciting than it is in the northern hemisphere. Um, so I'm looking forward to that and that will be, I confidently expect, something like a spiritual experience.

[00:33:53]>> Well, I I think for many people it is. I whenever I show give a lecture I show pictures from let's say from the Hubble space telescope a picture of a cluster of galaxies I mean the the poetry of it the poet where we've both talked about the poetry of science but the the spiritual inspiration you get from looking at a picture of a cluster of galaxies located 5 billion lighty years away from us where every dot in that picture is a galaxy. The light from those stars left those stars before our sun and earth formed. Which means that now many of the stars in that picture don't exist anymore. And if there were civilizations around those stars, each of those galaxies contains 100 billion stars. Any civilization that existed around those stars no longer may exist. The it just opens your mind to wonder. And so I actually feel very strongly that while science per se may not provide the direct consolation, it can and it should provide a spiritual not only wonder but it should provide a consolation. Look, when we we talked about this last night, we tell our kids fairy tales to console them. We tell to make their life fun. We talk about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, but then we decide that you know what, it's better for them to know how the world really works. And it may be a little less consoling, but in fact, knowing that they're in control of their lives actually is empowering. And many of us, if you're a good parent, you want to teach your kids how to become empowered.

[00:35:18]And yet, so, but religion and and in religion, they're often talked about the flock, the children, it effectively treats you like a child. He says it's better for you to believe a fable than reality. And and often when I when I end a lecture on cosmology, I point out that one the two things modern cosmology has taught us is that first you're much more insignificant than you ever thought and two that the future is miserable.

[00:35:43]But that should make you feel good, not bad because it it further enhances exactly what you were talking about. We are so lucky to be alive today and endowed with a consciousness where we for whatever fortuitous reasons on on a random star in a random galaxy in the middle of nowhere we are able to evolve a consciousness live on a relatively quiescent planet. And so I I actually think science can provide a real consolation by saying look once you accept reality it's liberating just like a child is liberated become [clears throat] an adult. And in fact, I want to ask you what I may the reason I was getting around to here is I know we've talked about your foundation and whether science can provide that consolation and maybe you could relate the story.

[00:36:27]>> Well, I mean my foundation is called the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and my primary motivation is that a a reasoning approach to science is enthralling. It's such a privilege to be alive in the 21st century and to look out at the stars and reflect on exactly the things you've just been saying, Lawrence. to look down a microscope, to look at down an electron microscope, to look into a single cell and see the prodigious, stupifying complexity of a single cell and then realize that there are trillions of those cells in your in your body all conspiring together to produce a working machine which can walk and and run and eat and have sex and think, reflect, understand, understand why we exist, understand where we came from understand where the universe came from.

[00:37:21]Understand the magnificent fact that it could all have come from nothing and built up from nothing into into galaxies into stars into chemistry into primordial life into genes into primitive bacteria protozoa and then right up the evolutionary progression to become in Julian Huxley's words, conscious of itself.

[00:37:54]What a privilege it is for each one of us to have in our heads an organ which is capable of comprehending that of constructing a model of the universe inside our heads.

[00:38:08]It is sad that that model will die when our brain dies. But my goodness, what a privilege it is before we do die to have been able to construct that model in our heads and to understand why we were ever born in the in the first place.

[00:38:23]>> And it's it's and and the perhaps the most exciting part for I'm sure for both you and I and I hope for those of you who are students in the audience is that we don't know all the answers. And that's the other the fundamental other fundamental difference between science and I would say religion if we want is that religion you know assumes the answers and asks the questions and we we the great thing about science is not knowing that's what makes it exciting is that there are mysteries remaining to be discovered we don't understand the mystery of consciousness we can talk about it but but we have no idea how it arises that amazing that you have electrical impulses in your brain which clearly by the way are very different than computers vastly different than computers Because you can you can argue from a physics perspective that if you took a built a digital computer that had the storage capability of the human brain and the and and the processing power it would require 10 terowatts 10 terowatts that's 10 10 * 10 12 watts.

[00:39:21]The human brain uses about 10 watts. So somehow we are a million million 10 million million times more efficient than digital computers. We don't understand that. That's amazing.

[00:39:34]But, you know, I wanted to actually hit the point that you didn't get to, but which I found remarkable. When you tried to make your foundation for reason and science a taxdeductible foundation, a a charitable foundation, you had a problem.

[00:39:47]>> Well, um I wanted to get it taxdeductible and so I applied both in Britain and in America. Uh and um the primary problem was in Britain where in order to you you you have to prove it benefits humanity.

[00:40:01]If you're a church, you don't have to prove anything. That that goes through without without goes through on the on the nod. Um, but I had this foundation for reason and science and I got a letter from the British Charity Commission which said, "Kindly explain how scientific education benefits humanity."

[00:40:21]I I thought we had to tell that story public. I thought I we had to hear that.

[00:40:25]I I before we're getting close to the end, I there are a few things I I thought we might cover. was in fact a big issue in in the United States and to some extent England and I'm not it's an amazing to be visit a country where the prime minister is an atheist. It's it's a it's a remarkable in the United States uh you may not be aware um well that won't happen. Um and in fact >> I think it has happened.

[00:40:51]>> Yeah. Well, it probably has happened.

[00:40:53]Exactly. But but it would be easier to be a Muslim. And of course many people in the United States think we have a Muslim president at this point. But um but there was a recent psych a study by psychologists in the United States that was terrifying that said it was a study of college students and adults and and the the most distrusted group the most distrusted group was atheists. The only group that they were on par with was rapists.

[00:41:18]And it's remarkable because it's you both you and I you perhaps more than me are claimed to be strident maybe. But what I find is that if you just ask the question, is it possible that there's no God? You suddenly become terrifying and you were obviously terrifying I felt last night to the to the cardinal who who was who who felt attacked and it was on on the defensive and and and it seems to me if you ask questions and and people are defensive, there must be a reason.

[00:41:48]We hear stories, don't we, of children going to Sunday school and being thrown out to for having the tmerity to ask questions. I mean, not not to criticize, but just to to ask how dare you ask a question. And I think that does argue a certain defensiveness.

[00:42:03]>> It and it it it seems to me that, you know, we tend we should we encourage the funny thing is we we encourage our children, those of us who try to be good parents, our teachers to ask questions.

[00:42:14][clears throat] That's that's how you learn. And so we encourage people to ask questions unless the questions are about religion and then they're viewed as being impeded or rude or inappropriate.

[00:42:24]And it seems to me that that one of the things that you that that's so valuable about what you've done and we've we've moderated our views over the years as we've had discussions is if you simply treat religion like any other aspect of human activity, which means it should be subject to questioning and ridicule like politicians and politics and and physics and sex and everything else. Then then religion if you just ask that religion be put on that same framework it's it it raises a consciousness that people just somehow don't think it should be it should be here and never subject to any of those things.

[00:42:55]>> That's right. It it it is regarded as having a kind of privileged status. Uh whereas you're allowed to criticize your somebody else's politics or their football team or their taste in clothes or something. Um criticizing their religion is regarded as somehow beyond the pale. Um and I think that really has got to stop. there's there's really no reason at all why religion should be immune to um not not strident in the sense of of shouting obscinities but just simply critical clarifying questions. Um I I got into trouble last week I think it was in the United States they had a thing called the reason rally in Washington DC >> which we were both at.

[00:43:34]>> And which we were both at and and I I spoke poorly. I think I I encourage people to uh ridicule um the doctrine, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the transubstantiation, the idea that the wafer turns into the body of Jesus. Um not symbolically, as an Anglican would say, but literally. And I encourage the audience at the Reason Rally if ever they meet a Roman Catholic who claims to believe that to ridicule it. I mean, it is clearly a ridiculous belief. But I was mistakenly thought to be saying, "What you want to do is ridicule the person." Yeah.

[00:44:10]>> Um I quoted the British journalist Johan Hari who said, "I respect you too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs." And I think I now would want to change that a bit and say, "I respect you too much to believe that you could possibly hold those ridiculous beliefs."

[00:44:29]And I I encourage people to when they meet somebody who who holds a ridiculous belief like that to really say, "Do you really believe that? Are you seriously telling me that that's what you what you believe?" And encourage them either to deny it in which case to deny their uh the religion to which they claim to belong or to defend it and say, "No, it's not ridiculous for the following reason." And talk about um Thomas Aquinas and accidents and and things like that. Um and and if they can convince somebody that it's not ridiculous, then well and good. But don't let them hide behind the screen of saying, "Oh, that's my religion. It's private. You can't criticize it because it's my religion." It should be criticized and it should be defended if it's defensible. And I think that if that were applied to politicians who at present in the United States, it's obviously not true in Australia because you actually have an atheist prime minister. Um that in the United States there are 535 members of Congress of whom 534 claim to be devout religious believers.

[00:45:35]Well, that's a statistical nonsense. Of course, they're not. How could they be?

[00:45:39]And so what I would in what I tried to encourage Americans to do was to challenge your congressman or woman and say I don't think you really do believe that. Come out and actually say so.

[00:45:52]Don't hide behind the screen of secrecy that says religion is a private matter not to be uh not to be questioned. And that doesn't go down well in America because there's this deep-seated view that religion is somehow a a a private matter. But when you're trying to decide whether to vote for somebody, uh you want to know his policy on taxation, his policy on on um foreign policy on on the Iraq war. You want to know his policy on on all all those sorts of things. If you know that quite apart from his policies, he holds some utterly nutty belief like that a wafer turns literally into the body of a first century Jew just because a priest blesses it. I mean, that is barking mad. And do you want to vote for somebody who's capable of holding in his head a nonsensical belief of that sort and you they should not be allowed to get away with saying, "Oh, that's private. It's religion. You can argue about my taxation policy." But you can't argue about my nutty beliefs.

[00:46:54]Well, and and I think but you know, I want to sort of slightly differ with you there. Although I I defended you the next day. I was on TV and they asked me about this ridicule question and and I pointed that well in principle nothing nothing's sacred no idea is sacred and the way and ridicule at least if you turn into satire you know I like to tell jokes and and and I it's a part of of of teaching and I think it's a part it's a key part of life from Jonathan Swift on I mean the idea satire is a way of illuminating the the ridiculous inconsistencies of life in a more in a more non-threatening way than confronting people and And if you if you can make fun of something, it's a way of really pointing things out. So in my country where most people get their news from something called the Daily Show or the Cobear Report because you know the satire there is where is much more informative often than than the nightly news. And so I think ridicule is in that sense not to be vindictive or mean but to hold the ideas up. And in fact, our we are both good friends and we'll both be talking about at at we'll both be attending this global atheist convention and you and I are both giving little talks about our late friend Christopher Hitchens who was a remarkable man. And he he used to point out that that was the key thing is the hardest thing to talk about are the most obvious bits of nonsense. A child can ask it. It's the emperor's new clothes. Why is the emperor not wearing clothes? and to and to do that and and to subject religion and anything else in life to humor and satire I think is a very important way of exposing his problems. The last thing I want to hit before we turn to questions I guess is for me we talked about it one of the most liberating things about science in some sense is forcing your mind to open up. So I want to ask you and and if and I'll be happy to answer the same question if you want is what in your scientific career was the hardest thing for you to accept?

[00:48:42]What changed her? Was the hardest thing to intuitively, you know, you really had to set aside some some pre deep-seated prejudice in your own mind?

[00:48:51]>> Oh, um, well, uh, if we're talking about a big thing, it would be how you can get something from nothing. Um, and we talked about that. If you want to talk about a specific thing, a more a more detailed thing in my own field, it would be the demonstration from molecular biology, comparative molecular genetics, that whales closest cousins are hippopotamuses.

[00:49:20]Hippopotamuses are closer cousins to whales than hippopotamuses are to pigs or cows or sheep. So in my traditional view as a zoologologist, hippopotamuses were firmly within the eventoed unullet, the cloven hoofed animals. And we were taught as undergraduates that they they were bracketed with pigs. So you had hippos and pigs and then you had um the rest of the eventoed unullet, cows and and sheep and things like that. What molecular biology is telling us is that whales spring out in the evolutionary tree from right within the cloven hoofed animals.

[00:50:02]Whales are closer to hippos than hippos are to pigs. Um now that that's a strictly um phlogenetic a strictly cladistic as we say uh way of way of talking. But it is an amazing I mean it's not that surprising when you when you start reflecting on it because whales by going into the sea emancipated themselves from all the pressures of a land animal. So pigs and cows and antelopes and sheep are all land animals constrained to live as land animals which is why they've stayed as cloven hoofed animals. And whales by going into the sea have been able to take off like giant balloons uh and um just turn into something utterly different. But the fact remains that their closest cousins are actually um hippos. They spring from right within the even toaded um hoofed cloven and hoofed animals. And that that's something that that molecular genetics has has turned upside down. my world um the the world of a of a of a of a zoologologist educated just at the start of the molecular biology revolution for me it was um I mean obviously as a physicist you you you get used to a strange world relativity quantum mechanics all these I mean as a student you learn that these basic ideas of space and time that you grew up with are are not the case at all and par paradoxes are possible but I but I but for me it right now it's deeper and it's I wrote about the new book is this possibility that the laws of physics are an accident because it goes against everything that made me want to become a scientist. I became a scientist because I wanted to understand why the universe had to be the way it is. And if it's really true that it's just an accident, it's really disappointing in a sense because it really means that you know and you know Einstein asked the question he he he phrased it poorly. He said, "Did God have any choice in the creation of the universe?" That's one of the last questions book. And and and what he meant was was there only one set of laws of nature where if you change any any fundamental constant by a little bit, will everything fall apart? And of course, most of us who grow up to be physicists felt, yeah, that's probably the case. And we want to understand the unifying field theory, the the fundamental theory that makes the world be the way it is. But everything that we're now learning in physics is suggesting the opposite is more likely. that in fact um it may just be that the universe is the way it is because there may be many universes and if it were any different we wouldn't be here to ask the question. So another answer to the question why is there something rather nothing is if there were nothing you wouldn't be around to answer the question or ask it but that possibility is so disgusting if you grow up as a scientist that to me it's surprising but it also reflects to me what I think is the great the greatest aspect of science is that if it turns out to be the case that even though I believed in my heart of hearts that it couldn't be that way I'll throw that belief out like yesterday's newspaper and and the one thing that I hope that happens to every student here. I've said this before, but I'll say it again because I think it's so important is that at some point in your career as students, that you will have some idea, something that was central to your being, that makes you who you are, that is central to everything that you think makes up what's important about the universe shown to be wrong.

[00:53:31]Because that's the liberating impact of science that will truly open your mind up to the remarkable universe we live in. Well, thank you for listening to us now. And now I'm going to what I'd like to do is open the floor to uh a half an hour of questions. And so if you would come to the microphones, there going to be people maning manning the microphones. And um and we'll be happy to answer your questions. Try and make sure they're questions.

[00:53:55]And if you don't make sure they're questions, you can be sure one of us will will stop you.

[00:54:00]>> Turn the house lights up a bit.

[00:54:01]>> Maybe we could turn the house lights up a bit. I don't know if we can. And I should say while we're while you're getting to ask the questions, the other bit of housekeeping is after the question period is over um we will be signing books out outside so you can you can get them. But you can come ask questions quickly if you even if you don't have a book to sign. I don't think we either of us will agree however to sign tonight any body parts.

[00:54:25]>> Speak for yourself. Okay.

[00:54:31]>> [applause] >> Are we are we ready?

[00:54:36]Okay.

[00:54:38]>> Good evening. Um I just recently reread the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. And in that book he makes a very strong connection between Judeo-Christian religions and the idea that uh the world was put here by for man and not that not that man is of the world. And uh in it he said unless we change this fundamental attitude that comes out of religion or strongly connected with religion we will never really be able to tackle the environmental issues and to face the changes that we're going to need to make to improve the environment.

[00:55:12]And first of all, do you agree with that point of view? And do you think that we can truly make progress in uh changing the way in which humanity uh uses uh the resources of the world if we don't first tackle the fundamental problem of that religious belief?

[00:55:26]>> You you want to start or >> No, you start.

[00:55:28]>> Okay. Um uh it is it is a huge problem. In fact, it it's was explicitly demonstrated again in my country. There's a not running for president called Rick Santorum. and um and um he specifically when it comes to climate change, which by the way in in the United States is is the vast majority of the public believe climate change is a hoax. All all polls suggest that now because and because a tremendous amount of money has been spent on that, >> but using Fox News.

[00:55:57]>> Yeah, exactly. And but but he's that it's a hoax propagated by scientists who who aren't who are who care more about the earth than they do about humans.

[00:56:07]that that humans have been given dominion over the earth and the earth will take care of itself. So that is a problem but at the same time to be fair there are movements in in fact indeed evangelical movements in the United States there's a whole wing of different religious groups that are now saying we have to accept the fact that that that that the earth is a dynamic entity that evol that that changes and we're impacting in a negative way. So somehow that message is getting through.

[00:56:33]But I think you're absolutely right. If you don't recognize that the universe doesn't care about us, that it's not going to always make it right, then you're not will then you're not prepared to address the challenges of the 21st century, which is one of the reasons what getting back to what I said earlier, why I think it's a problem to base your public policy on myths. It may be more comforting, but you'll be comforted all the way to the point where vast parts of the population of the world will lose their land. And so the comfort will lead you right over a cliff.

[00:57:06]>> Yes. I think I think um the the most obvious problem is is that that religious one. E even if we we were to agree on what the best policy was to save the world, it's it's a bigger problem to achieve the political unonymity to actually put into practice what um what the scientists will will will tell us we need to do. Um so it it's a very very there's a very very big political problem.

[00:57:32]>> I actually let me ask you a question to see how whether you're as pessimistic as I am about this. I there I I see no evidence at all that we will we are act all of the challenges of the 21st century are now global challenges.

[00:57:44]They're no longer local from energy to the environment to population.

[00:57:49]All of these things that have to be addressed and I see no likelihood that the political systems of the world will allow those to be d addressed. Instead, they'll have to be we'll have to deal with the consequences rather than than than um addressing them proactively. Do you do you think that's likely?

[00:58:04]colleague Martin Ree is even more pessimistic and thinks that actually we we'll be lucky to survive the 21st century because with uh weapons of mass destruction becoming available not just to major scientific powers like they were in the past but available to any um nutcase who who who actually wants to die a martr's death um then um the outlook is even more >> I don't want you to be depressed about that by the way um I would I will say I was telling Richard a friend of mine McCormick McCarthy, who's a writer and a very bleak writer, um is a very cheerful fellow. And I asked him, "How come you're so cheerful?" He said, "Well, I'm a pessimist, but that's no reason to be gloomy."

[00:58:45]Sorry, >> I'd like to question your religion because it seems to me that you make science a religion itself.

[00:58:54]>> In what way?

[00:58:55]>> Well, it seems like there's kind of a Richard Dawkins cult, Richard Dawkins.

[00:58:58]Like science really nothing is certain in science. It works in statistics. You can't prove anything to 100%. So how can you make how can you say that science is better than religion? Then what you're trying to do is still can't people don't bring order to the world.

[00:59:15]>> You can't prove anything to 100%. But 100% is a hell of a lot better than 0% which is what you can prove by religious uh um re reasoning.

[00:59:30]Um >> I guess you're giving up on >> I mean I I I think it let let me try again on on that. The the idea that that science is is is a religion um when in fact science is interested in evidence and will and is prepared to change its mind if contrary evidence comes in.

[00:59:48]That's very very different from a a religion. As Lawrence said earlier, in science, we constantly open to the possibility of having to change our minds. And science proceeds by progressive refinement and changing minds. And there there are things that I suppose will never be disproved. Things like um that the planets orbit the sun.

[01:00:08]That's never going to change. Um I don't think that the fact of evolution is ever going to be disproved. It's always going to be going to be true that we are cousins of chimpanzees and of monkeys and of kangaroos. Um, so there are certain things that we that we definitely know to be true. The evidence is so overwhelming that to in Steven Gould's words to object would be perverse. Um, but so-called religious truths have absolutely no evidence going for them whatsoever.

[01:00:36]>> My point was that if I challenged you as Richard Dawkins, you'd probably have a problem with that.

[01:00:41]>> Doesn't matter who I am.

[01:00:42]>> No, >> no, we're listening to you now. You're challenging me now and I'm and and I'm accepting the challenge.

[01:00:50]>> Fair enough. Look, I'm a Catholic. I don't agree with what Josh thinks, but I don't think he's a pedophile either.

[01:00:56]Like, >> no, I don't suppose he is. Um, >> just, you know, I I don't know. I've never asked.

[01:01:03]>> My point is that you, as an eminent scientist, if I challenge your scientific doctrine, maybe your theories or opinion, you'll you'll disagree with me.

[01:01:13]>> Well, I I I will. I mean, when you say disagree, I I will say where is your evidence? Here's my counter evidence.

[01:01:18]>> Let's sit down together and look at the evidence. I mean, that's very different from saying that that I'm arguing from authority.

[01:01:25]>> In fact, let me jump in. Authority, that's the key point. Richard is not an authority. I'm not an authority. There are no scientific authorities. That's a key point. There are scientific experts.

[01:01:35]Richard knows a lot about zoology. I know a lot about physics. But there's no one whose views are not subject to question. And that's the key point. And there's no student that should ever be afraid of saying to a professor in a science class, you're wrong and here's why.

[01:01:50]>> Except in Germany.

[01:01:51]>> Except anyway, maybe I think we >> Why are you upset? Why I'm when I'm questioning you now? Like, you know, isn't that the same thing? You know, isn't it like you're a prof you're one of my professors?

[01:02:02]>> Well, >> you know what? Um, >> I think we're we're trying to have a discussion, but maybe I think the point is maybe we should move on.

[01:02:08]I mean, well, you you say you're a a Roman Catholic and >> I'm also I also study physics.

[01:02:14]>> Yes. But I mean, do do you think the wafer turns into the body of Jesus?

[01:02:17]>> No.

[01:02:18]>> Good. I'm delighted.

[01:02:19]>> Then you're not really a Roman Catholic.

[01:02:23]>> And and the other thing that's important about science and and we had this discussion last night in the in the Muslim >> I mean like I might give an example like you know people didn't really buy the whole relativity thing when Albert Einstein first came up with it. You know there were people like you know it was when those former scientists started dying that was when people started accepting relationship.

[01:02:39]>> But the difference is you know it's but there's a fundamental difference and and you you should really appreciate this and I'm surprised in some sense you don't yet but I hope you will is that listen listen listen to me for a second is that there's a difference between a story and something that makes predictions. And the only thing that really makes science really interesting is it works. And so last night I I when when I was debating with this Muslim I challenged him but he said it's rational. I said you're choking. I have two choices. I do the high maneuver or I pray for you. Which do you want me to do? And I think the real point of science is that it works. And if it didn't work, none of us would give a damn about it.

[01:03:14]>> Really?

[01:03:14]>> The point is it works until someone comes up with a better theory.

[01:03:17]>> Right.

[01:03:18]>> What was that?

[01:03:19]>> No, it works. The car works. An airplane works. The lights in this room work.

[01:03:25]>> Until someone came up with a better theory.

[01:03:27]>> Yeah. So that's that that's what happens.

[01:03:30]>> That's what makes Anyway, I I don't Okay, I think we should move on. No, everyone here has been scared away.

[01:03:37]>> You you may have partially answered my question, but I was interested in my question is about truth and it was raised last night but not pursued. It's whether you believe that you can arrive at truth other than through direct observation, logic, rationality and reason. In other words, other other pathways to truth. And a related question is do any of you have any sympathy for the view that in some instances truth is culture bound and what's true for a neo Indian may not be true for a Harvard scientist. Thanks.

[01:04:05]>> Why don't you start? Um, I once was having an argument with a social anthropologist who said that um he was studying a tribe that believed that the moon was only a few feet above the treetops. And uh that he said that that was true for that tribe. And he said that um that the scientific truth that the moon is a large sphere of rock quarter of a million miles away, whatever it is, is only true for western scientific culture and that his um tribal culture, their truth is every bit as valid. Um, I strongly objected to that on the grounds that Lawrence has just said that the that the truth of science works.

[01:04:56]If you build things using what what science what scientists think is true, then they work and you can actually go to the moon. Uh, if you correctly compute the necessary orbits, the necessary escape velocity and so on, it works. uh whereas other culturally bound so-called truths don't work. Uh and I I think that's that's all there is to be said really. And and I I also rather sarcastically said to the anthropologist uh when you go to an international convention of social anthropologists, you get on board a Boeing 747, not a magic cockpit.

[01:05:36]>> Exactly. And I think you're I've said you're a hypocrite if you think the earth is 6,000 years old and you drive a car because the same laws of chemistry and physics that make the car work tell us the earth is is not 6,000 years old.

[01:05:47]But I want I want to sort of add to the point you said a little bit because in fact you got hit on last night for some for reflecting an important aspect of science when you said you can't absolutely prove that there's no God because it's true you can't. But science does is it the another major misconception about science is it's in science invol is involved with the truth. Science cannot prove something to be absolutely true. There are no absolute truths in science. That's also how it differs from religion. Science can prove things to be absolutely false.

[01:06:15]That's how science progresses because thing an idea that disagrees with the evidence of experiment is false. And it's false today and it'll be false tomorrow. I can hold the ball up. I can predict that it will fall up. I check it falls down. That idea I throw out the window. I can say the earth is flat. I go out. It isn't flat. We don't need constructive criticism classes forever to debate whether the earth is flat around. So, but what we do in science is we get rid of all the falsehoods and what remains has an element of truth.

[01:06:43]But even if something satisfies the test of every experiment today and in fact that's what this young lady was referring to. It doesn't mean that we won't discover we have to modify it. Be it Newtonian gravity to general relativity or classical mechanics to quantum mechanics or whatever we're going to learn at the edge of physics or of biology. But so so we progress but we never say we know the absolute truth because that is an incredibly that's a claim that's an anathema to science.

[01:07:09]It's just not the way science works.

[01:07:13]>> Uh in the gay science um nature identifies two forms of nihilism or what he calls nihilism. One of those is the belief in some transcendental meaning and the other is the crude denial of that meaning. Atheism being defined as sort of the opposite to theology. Do you think in that respect in some sense it implicitly carries with it some parts that are theology and in that way still is within a theological sort of framework?

[01:07:40]O um that's a technical term. Um I uh well I I hesitate to enter into a philosophical discussion except I would argue that complete that that the kind of atheism that Richard and I talk about is not a complete denial of anything.

[01:08:01]It's an it's a question of what's likely. And that's what Richard was saying last night. You know, we can't I can't prove that there isn't a teapot orbiting Mars, but it's not likely. And everything we know about the universe, at least for Richard and I, leads us to the conclusion there's no evidence of purpose or of divine intervention. But that doesn't mean we argue definitively that we can prove that that can't be the case. So we're not denying, we're just asserting the evidence of reality. And in fact, I don't describe myself as an atheist. Uh I I have learned from my friend again, Christopher Hitchens, I I describe myself as an anti-theist.

[01:08:34]Namely, I cannot prove that there's no God. I just certainly wouldn't want to live in a universe with one.

[01:08:40]I don't know if you want to add anything.

[01:08:42]>> Uh, no. Okay.

[01:08:47]>> Um, a common claim made by religious people is that you cannot disprove the existence of God. Uh, do you think science will ever advance to a point where it can disprove the existence of God? And if so, would religious people become atheists or would they find something else to believe in?

[01:09:03]>> Actually, some some religious people have have been asked that. I mean specifically with respect to Christianity um there have been Christians who've been asked what if archaeological evidence showed conclusively that Jesus never existed and and many of them said no I would just I would go on believing in him um which is hard to credit uh but um >> but I I think people want I mean it's the exiles got it right people want to believe and I think that people want to believe in belief and and and you pointed out I mean the young lady described herself as a Catholic but what most people who describe themselves as religious don't accept the doctrines lit literally of their religion. They pick and choose the ones they like that they find acceptable and throw out the others and they say and what they really want to believe is is in believing and it's really hard to give up believing.

[01:09:46]There's no doubt about that. But but but I would say to answer your question, it science the the assertion of a existence of God is always not falsifiable and science can only deal with questions that are not falsifiable. I cannot prove that we weren't all created here 35 seconds ago with the memory of a of a remarkable evening. Um and uh I can't prove that.

[01:10:12]It's not a falsifiable question.

[01:10:13]>> Bertrren Russell used that example and he said complete with holes in our socks.

[01:10:18]>> Yeah. Exactly. And so so at some level you can't if it's not falsifiable science can't address it. On the other hand, what you can do is a mass evidence and understanding and and what we now for a small example of that is biology.

[01:10:35]The notion of intelligent design, the notion that we're intelligently designed is clearly been shown to be beyond the pale to be so so much counter evidence that it's so highly unlikely as to as to be thrown out. No sensible person talks about it except the the cardinal and a few other people. But well, I I guess no, it's true. No sense person talks about it. But so but I think that's as far as you can go.

[01:11:01]>> Hello. Um I this is going to be a bit of a change of subject but I'm interested to see what Richard himself and maybe even Lawrence who has a similar experience thinks of people on the internet and even to a lesser extent in real life uh misquing or taking what you say at face value almost raising what you say or who you are to a godlike status. I'm sure there are people here who have browsed websites such as Reddit, seen things on Facebook, uh 4chan of people who just kind of use you or people such as Carl Sean as Neil Degrass Tyson, people who say important things and who are smart obviously, but they just take what they say face value.

[01:11:35]How do you feel about that being used in like an atheistic argument? You know, people kind of almost reversing the tables. They're almost treating you guys on like a godlike status as kind of I don't know how how would you feel about that? Or have you even observed that in the first place?

[01:11:50]>> I I don't think I have observed it, but if I did, I would be very disturbed. I I would be very um upset if anybody treated me the way Roman Catholics are taught to treat the pope, which I mean, I think it's a it's a truly horrible idea that >> You always make me kiss your ring every time I meet you. Whatever.

[01:12:14]>> I think it's a it's a truly horrible idea that that anybody should uh believe something simply because person X uh believes it and tells them that that that's what they've got to believe. It's one of the most disagreeable parts of the Roman Catholic Church that it that it constantly um argues from authority and passes the word down, especially when the word is frankly made up in the first place.

[01:12:39]>> In fact, you know, it it I mean, I'm happy when people quote us, you know, if they like what we say, but again, I found it in debate yesterday.

[01:12:48]It's a really interesting when I I read people and they say this is the case because so and so wrote it because whether it's you or me or Carl Sean or whoever or a philosopher and it's like what does it matter what they say that what they say they could be wrong you know and and so it really is important whenever anyone starts quoting something by saying so and so said this say it doesn't matter what so- and so said you know they could be wrong what's the evidence for that and so yeah absolutely agree it's a it's an awful way of arguing and Fortunately, it's the way of arguing in a number of different fields and certainly theology.

[01:13:21]>> There's a famous story that Galileo was once demonstrating something through his telescope to to somebody and the man looked through through the telescope and said, "Uh, Senor Galileo, your demonstration is so convincing. Were it not that Aristotle positively states the contrary, I would believe you."

[01:13:39]>> I think we have time. We'll take one more question here and one more question there. I'm sorry for the people who are over there and you should have come over here. No, but anyway.

[01:13:46]>> Yes. Um, hi. Um, I'm assuming you guys have both read the Bible properly.

[01:13:53]Um, I'm interested in what your favorite story from the Bible is simply because you can't read a book and not find something good about it. Like, I know the Bible is mostly a load of crap.

[01:14:05]Sorry if people.

[01:14:08]But being involved with someone who has actually read the Bible and being forced to listen to it myself, I do know that there are some good ideas, morals, stories, whatever you want to call it.

[01:14:19]I'm interested on what your favorite one is.

[01:14:22]>> I'm not sure that I have a favorite story. I think I mean my my two favorite books of the Bible are the Song of Songs, uh, which which is not by Solomon, by the way. Um uh it's it's a collection of erotic um poems. Um and at least in the in the in the authorized version, it's extremely beautiful. I suspect it's been completely murdered in in modern versions. Um and the other one is Ecclesiastes. Uh these two books come together in the in in the Old Testament, and they're both lyrically beautiful in these in the 17th century English. Um, and I I read both of them frequently.

[01:15:02]Um, I I wouldn't call them call them stories. Neither of them are are really stories, but they are they're hauntingly beautiful.

[01:15:09]>> Yeah. In fact, I Well, it's not surprising. I agree. It's the lyricism of certain aspects of the Bible that are beautiful. And in fact, because if you think about how the Bible was written, it was written by taking songs, poems, the literature of the time, and sometimes adapting the most beautiful stories of the time. And in fact a friend of ours Anthony Graing who's a philosopher remarkably is it wrote a beautiful book which I highly recommend called the good book which is he tried to do in a secular way what the Bible did. He borrowed the most beautiful poems, songs, stories of the of right through human history and put it in a way in in in a form of the Bible without mentioning God. But it's it's a book about the how we've learned to live well based on the most beautiful things that humans have said. And I think I I suspect that that it's that it's that beautiful lyricism of that part of the Bible that that I that I've enjoyed reading the most as well. I think it's not >> I wouldn't take it in the modern translation. If you think about the most famous lines from Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanity, Seth the preacher, all is vanity. At least one modern translation I've seen says futile, futile. It's all futile.

[01:16:16]It won't do.

[01:16:19]But actually that does relate to something that's often said is that if you if you when you talk about the Bible and one of the thing comments that happened again last night to me is that people say well you know if you don't you don't really understand what the reason you're criticizing is you don't read Aramaic or or Arabic in the case of the Quran and the answer which again was given by Christopher Hitchens is it's it's hard to believe that God is a monog. I mean that that somehow if you don't read Hebrew that you miss the point. Uh anyway, one more last qu one last question.

[01:16:52]>> Oh, good. Yeah, we didn't get I'm sorry.

[01:16:54]Upstairs.

[01:16:54]>> That's okay. Um Mike, uh I just want to say I wholeheartedly agree with everything you believe in and um I'm not >> I I believe in nothing. Let me make that clear. I don't think I don't believe in anything.

[01:17:06]>> Well, yeah. Okay. I'm agnostic, maybe an antithesis.

[01:17:09]>> Belief is not a word I use, >> but I agree. agree with you on everything except perhaps uh uh your approach and uh allow me to politely disagree here. I study political science and in political science um if you look at history uh the church uh the scientific institutions and the state have always been in in constant conflict and turmoil. It's a struggle of power relations between these three sort of societal constructs and um it was it was it was the case in Darwin's time and Darwin was very hesitant to even broach his uh subject of um the origin of species because of you know opposition from the church and and even some of of his fellow scientists um those we don't live in that same world today but in politics power comes not just from conflict power comes from uh collaboration. And I guess my only criticism of the atheist approach as I see it is that this idea of conflicting with religious groups, of uh politely ridiculing uh people with religious beliefs can perhaps have more of negative consequence for furthering the reason and logic uh as as things to uh as the higher purpose of society than it does good. And um so I'm going to pose two questions to you. The first question is what does uh what does success look like for say the atheist movement and is success achievable through polite ridicule of people of religious beliefs?

[01:18:42]I I think that's a very fair question and um uh one of the things that um Edward O Wilson uh he's gone off the rails in his latest book but in an earlier book uh he made the point that we have some really really serious problems for humanity to solve and that the time is running out and we need to get people of goodwill uh whatever their religious beliefs or lack of them to get together and so he wants to compromise for precisely the reasons you're talking about. um and to get decent, reasonable religious people on our side. Um as opposed to the nuts like Santorum um and and I think there is a lot to be said for that. And if your goal is say to um to make the world a better place, then I think there could be something to be said for making a compact with uh the relatively recent I mean people like the Archbishop of Canterbury um decent intelligent religious people. Um, if your if your aim, however, is to understand the universe, if your aim is that of a scientist, then I cannot help feeling I cannot help regarding all religions as somehow um counter to that aim. And so I think I agree with you about about the politics of um making the world a better place, but my ultimate aim would be to to try to understand the world and understand the the universe. and there I can't help finding religion the enemy.

[01:20:13]>> Uh you know it's an interesting question because it's similar to the first question we ever talked we first met.

[01:20:18]>> Um we have somewhat different views on on this although I think again we've we've come together in certain ways but I'm sympathetic to what you're saying in many ways. Uh if the question is what are you trying to achieve?

[01:20:30]I think as a scientist absolutely you cannot compromise. I I agree with Richard Curley. However, as an educator, which I also have a hat on, I firmly believe that my I have no interest in arguing against God or religion. It's not of interest to me.

[01:20:48]All I'm interested in is getting people interested in learning how the universe really works because that's so amazing.

[01:20:55]And if as a consequence they give up a belief in God, that's fine because I think inevitably that'll happen personally. But that doesn't matter to me. What really is more important, I think, is ultimately getting people to take the blinders off one way or another. And if and you're absolutely right, the only way to reach people is to seduce them, is to is to go to where they are and and get them interested.

[01:21:17]And it's to some extent, although the effect has been to some sometimes the opposite as it went last night. The book I just wrote was to use religion as a seduction tool. The question, why is there something rather nothing? Sounds like a religious question. But I get to sneak in all of modern cosmology.

[01:21:33]Anyway, thank you very much.

[01:21:39][applause] [applause] Richard Lawrence, one of the things you can't do without a moderator easily is to thank yourselves. That that's my role here. I'm going to be the moderator. It gives me a chance to have the last word, too.

[01:21:57]Very, very grateful here. One of the things an institution like the A&U is about is about debate and ideas. And what we've heard this evening is a very intimate conversation. And that's really quite a remarkable thing to do in a place like Llewellyn Hall. But it's a conversation and questions and a debate about things that matter to us from two respected scientists in biology and in physics. And it's been interesting and enthralling. So once again, can you join with me to thank Lawrence and Richard?

[01:22:48]I I I did say I I did say I I do want the last word and I was trying think to think hard how to get out of this and so I I want to take a quote and it's a quote from an Irishman because of course the Irishman have the best quotes. Uh but it's a quote from the comedian Dave Allen. And for those of you old enough like me, uh Dave Allen was a comedian that spent much of his life actually challenging religion for various reasons, particularly Catholicism and Anglicism.

[01:23:18]Uh and the way he always used to finish uh was to say good evening, thank you.

[01:23:24]And may your God go with you. Thank you.

[01:23:28][applause] [applause]