WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:06.880 This session of the 2013 Adelaide Festival of Ideas was recorded by Radio Adelaide 2 00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:10.500 through the support of the Bar Smith Library, University of Adelaide, 3 00:00:10.600 --> 00:00:14.480 the University of South Australia Library and Flinders University Library. 4 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:21.540 Before we start proceedings, a couple of important matters. 5 00:00:21.580 --> 00:00:25.320 First of all, the acknowledgement that today we're gathered 6 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:29.420 on the traditional country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. 7 00:00:29.420 --> 00:00:36.280 We recognise and we respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationships with the land. 8 00:00:36.400 --> 00:00:41.700 We acknowledge that there are continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today 9 00:00:41.700 --> 00:00:45.340 and we respect their elders past and present. 10 00:00:46.200 --> 00:00:51.840 I have to ask you to please dial your telephones 11 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:56.860 and alert you to the fact that this little get-together 12 00:00:56.860 --> 00:00:59.400 is going out as a late night. 13 00:00:59.420 --> 00:01:02.080 It's going to be a late night live in a few days' time. 14 00:01:03.340 --> 00:01:07.400 And having said all that, I shall now begin. 15 00:01:09.720 --> 00:01:13.140 Welcome to the mock-ecclesiastic Bonython Hall 16 00:01:15.020 --> 00:01:17.700 at Adelaide's Festival of Ideas. 17 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:24.300 I'm here to chair a discussion on the most constraining of all possible topics. 18 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:27.980 Life, the universe and everything. 19 00:01:28.100 --> 00:01:29.400 What the hell could I possibly do? 20 00:01:29.420 --> 00:01:31.360 Get out of that. 21 00:01:32.800 --> 00:01:36.440 I suppose the organisers are confident that I'll be aided and abetted 22 00:01:36.440 --> 00:01:40.360 by the loftiest of personages. 23 00:01:41.340 --> 00:01:44.980 Paul Davies, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, 24 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:53.220 best-selling author and also in whom this grand event honours. 25 00:01:53.800 --> 00:01:55.460 Paul, it's good to see you again. 26 00:01:55.660 --> 00:01:59.400 Professor Brian Schmidt, laureate fellow at the ANU. 27 00:01:59.420 --> 00:02:02.080 He's at the University of New Zealand. 28 00:02:02.080 --> 00:02:02.320 He's at the University of New Zealand. 29 00:02:02.320 --> 00:02:02.680 He's at the University of New Zealand. 30 00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:05.760 And of course, in 2011, he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics 31 00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:10.840 with two Americans for his work on the accelerating universe. 32 00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:11.940 More of that shortly. 33 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:17.800 I'd like to make the point that this gathering dramatises the importance 34 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:21.240 of having very tough border protection policies. 35 00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:26.080 Because we are constantly under threat by refugees. 36 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:30.740 two of them here. 37 00:02:35.380 --> 00:02:38.360 I first met Paul about 25 years ago 38 00:02:38.360 --> 00:02:40.020 when he just snuck under the wire 39 00:02:40.020 --> 00:02:42.960 as a refugee from Margaret Thatcher. 40 00:02:44.180 --> 00:02:46.240 And Brian is, I think, a refugee 41 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:49.340 from George W. Bush's war against science 42 00:02:49.340 --> 00:02:52.500 because he was anticipating the Tea Party. 43 00:02:54.640 --> 00:02:55.920 But you've got to be careful. 44 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:57.940 Some of them are still getting in. 45 00:02:57.940 --> 00:03:02.640 And I'm delighted to say that they will get short shrift 46 00:03:02.640 --> 00:03:04.900 because they'll arrive in a country 47 00:03:04.900 --> 00:03:07.220 which has sacked the science ministry. 48 00:03:07.940 --> 00:03:09.580 There is no minister for science. 49 00:03:09.640 --> 00:03:10.860 Three cheers for that! 50 00:03:12.260 --> 00:03:14.100 There's a minister for sport. 51 00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:21.300 Our bicycling prime minister knows where his priorities lie. 52 00:03:22.160 --> 00:03:24.280 The other night at the grand opening, 53 00:03:24.380 --> 00:03:27.820 after Paul discussed three enormously significant 54 00:03:27.940 --> 00:03:29.820 ideas in science, 55 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:32.860 one of which embraced the work of Brian Schmidt, 56 00:03:33.900 --> 00:03:38.720 I asked him afterwards about his belief in God 57 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:42.940 because Paul, unlike Hawking and others, 58 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:47.540 still dimly sees or requires us to take seriously 59 00:03:47.540 --> 00:03:52.560 the possibility that there is a guiding hand 60 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:55.460 behind these amazing laws of physics. 61 00:03:55.540 --> 00:03:56.780 So I want to start off, Brian, 62 00:03:56.880 --> 00:03:57.920 by asking you to tell us a little bit about the laws of physics. 63 00:03:57.940 --> 00:03:59.600 I'm asking you that question. 64 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:01.940 Do you share Paul's views? 65 00:04:03.240 --> 00:04:04.940 Well, I've talked to Paul, 66 00:04:05.040 --> 00:04:06.800 and there's different ways of looking at things. 67 00:04:06.880 --> 00:04:07.700 And I think in the end, 68 00:04:07.700 --> 00:04:10.400 Paul and I see the universe pretty similarly, 69 00:04:10.540 --> 00:04:12.160 but I'm going to put it in a slightly different way 70 00:04:12.160 --> 00:04:12.840 than you just did, 71 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:16.080 which is that, you know, 72 00:04:16.100 --> 00:04:21.500 when I look at the idea of there being the notion of God, 73 00:04:21.660 --> 00:04:24.020 and that varies tremendously depending on who you talk to, 74 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:27.260 it is not something I personally feel 75 00:04:27.260 --> 00:04:27.920 that I'm not a fan of. 76 00:04:27.940 --> 00:04:28.820 I think that there is a need for, 77 00:04:29.020 --> 00:04:30.320 I have no resonance with it, 78 00:04:30.380 --> 00:04:32.140 I have ultimately no faith 79 00:04:32.140 --> 00:04:35.280 that there is some sort of supreme being out there. 80 00:04:35.580 --> 00:04:36.820 On the other hand, 81 00:04:36.820 --> 00:04:39.640 I feel no need to deny it either. 82 00:04:39.840 --> 00:04:42.920 There are questions that I do not know the answer to. 83 00:04:43.060 --> 00:04:46.520 There is information that I probably cannot know. 84 00:04:47.440 --> 00:04:50.720 And ultimately, I cannot say there is not a God. 85 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:53.340 And if I cannot say there is not a God, 86 00:04:53.520 --> 00:04:54.880 I don't worry too much about it. 87 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:55.940 My view is, 88 00:04:56.680 --> 00:04:57.920 if that is something that I don't know, 89 00:04:57.920 --> 00:04:59.020 if that is something that is important to you, 90 00:04:59.080 --> 00:05:00.480 and you have faith, 91 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:01.600 great. 92 00:05:01.800 --> 00:05:03.700 Just please make sure your faith 93 00:05:03.700 --> 00:05:05.140 doesn't interfere with my beliefs, 94 00:05:05.320 --> 00:05:08.260 but please don't feel threatened by, 95 00:05:08.360 --> 00:05:09.980 you know, the science I do. 96 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:11.380 If my science says 97 00:05:11.880 --> 00:05:13.760 that the things you believe are not right, 98 00:05:13.820 --> 00:05:15.780 if you believe that the universe is 4,000 99 00:05:15.780 --> 00:05:18.040 or 6,000 years old... 100 00:05:18.040 --> 00:05:19.000 That is my belief. 101 00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:19.400 Yes. 102 00:05:20.600 --> 00:05:23.020 Well, then I will try to convince you 103 00:05:23.020 --> 00:05:24.660 that you should alter your faith 104 00:05:25.160 --> 00:05:27.540 to come in line with the facts. 105 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:28.920 But I am not going to yell too hard. 106 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:29.940 I am going to tell you my point of view 107 00:05:29.940 --> 00:05:31.120 and I am going to let you move on 108 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:32.840 and you can have your own world. 109 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:36.820 But my world allows us to do technology 110 00:05:36.820 --> 00:05:39.300 and live in the universe, 111 00:05:39.440 --> 00:05:40.560 in the world we find today, 112 00:05:40.700 --> 00:05:42.360 which is relatively comfortable 113 00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:44.240 compared to the way it was 10,000 years ago. 114 00:05:44.660 --> 00:05:47.540 Paul, our last discussion on this a few days ago 115 00:05:47.540 --> 00:05:48.480 was not broadcast. 116 00:05:48.960 --> 00:05:52.960 So would you please give me the essence of your argument? 117 00:05:53.020 --> 00:05:53.300 Right. 118 00:05:53.320 --> 00:05:56.760 Well, the first thing is I would never use the term guiding hand 119 00:05:56.760 --> 00:05:57.760 because the one thing 120 00:05:57.760 --> 00:05:59.920 that is really repugnant to a scientist 121 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:04.100 is the notion of any sort of divine intervention in the world. 122 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:07.140 Like Brian, I believe that science gives us 123 00:06:07.140 --> 00:06:08.540 a description of the world. 124 00:06:08.640 --> 00:06:10.400 We haven't finished the job yet, 125 00:06:10.440 --> 00:06:15.900 but I think that the universe runs according to certain laws 126 00:06:16.760 --> 00:06:23.180 and that we don't want anything like a god or a being 127 00:06:23.180 --> 00:06:26.200 sort of meddling in the affairs of the universe. 128 00:06:26.340 --> 00:06:26.580 Right. 129 00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:26.820 So now... 130 00:06:26.820 --> 00:06:29.320 I think that we should also take a strong position against that. 131 00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:32.080 I don't even like using the word god. 132 00:06:32.680 --> 00:06:37.200 The way I prefer to explain my point of view 133 00:06:37.200 --> 00:06:41.000 is that you can't be a scientist without believing 134 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:45.220 that the universe is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. 135 00:06:45.560 --> 00:06:48.340 We go about that, we make that assumption, 136 00:06:48.580 --> 00:06:50.400 or sometimes I go as far as to say 137 00:06:50.400 --> 00:06:53.280 we accept on faith that the universe is like that. 138 00:06:53.660 --> 00:06:56.800 And so when we pursue the scientific question, 139 00:06:56.820 --> 00:06:57.520 we're going to find that the universe is like that. 140 00:06:57.520 --> 00:07:01.080 And so what we expect to find is more intelligible order. 141 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:04.880 And the classic example is the Large Hadron Collider. 142 00:07:05.040 --> 00:07:07.720 When this was being designed and the budget was being allocated, 143 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:10.300 no scientists were saying, 144 00:07:10.400 --> 00:07:13.640 well, there's a good chance that when we dig down to that deeper level, 145 00:07:13.740 --> 00:07:15.020 we're just going to find nonsense. 146 00:07:15.420 --> 00:07:18.840 Everybody thought, well, we might find the Higgs boson, 147 00:07:18.900 --> 00:07:19.920 we might find something else. 148 00:07:19.960 --> 00:07:23.240 But whatever it is would fit into a scheme of things. 149 00:07:23.660 --> 00:07:26.500 So science works on the assumption that the universe 150 00:07:26.500 --> 00:07:26.800 is not like that. 151 00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:27.740 It's not arbitrary or absurd, 152 00:07:28.060 --> 00:07:32.120 but there is a scheme of things which we can uncover 153 00:07:32.120 --> 00:07:34.180 using the scientific method and mathematics. 154 00:07:35.340 --> 00:07:40.060 And then I wouldn't say that that really bears very much relation 155 00:07:40.060 --> 00:07:42.720 to the god of any sort of religion that I know about. 156 00:07:43.840 --> 00:07:51.860 But the point to understand is that the universe is not arbitrary or absurd, 157 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.840 that it is ordered and it is at least in part intelligible to us. 158 00:07:55.840 --> 00:08:00.920 So I would go beyond maybe what Brian would feel comfortable with, 159 00:08:01.080 --> 00:08:04.440 which is saying the fact that human beings can come to understand 160 00:08:04.440 --> 00:08:11.200 the universe at least in part indicates that mind or comprehension 161 00:08:11.840 --> 00:08:15.080 is an integral part of this scheme that I'm talking about. 162 00:08:15.200 --> 00:08:18.400 So the scheme is more than just atoms moving around. 163 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:23.800 It also involves life, mind, comprehension as part of that scheme. 164 00:08:23.960 --> 00:08:25.820 I don't think that bears much relation to the universe. 165 00:08:25.820 --> 00:08:29.260 It bears very much relationship to any sort of god of popular religion. 166 00:08:30.380 --> 00:08:32.740 And in particular, what I want to get away from, 167 00:08:32.920 --> 00:08:34.340 because a lot of people make this mistake, 168 00:08:34.580 --> 00:08:41.280 is that if you take the simplest version of Big Bang cosmology, 169 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:42.300 which may be wrong, 170 00:08:42.580 --> 00:08:47.180 but if you take the simplest version that Big Bang was the origin of space and time, 171 00:08:47.340 --> 00:08:48.940 there was no before, 172 00:08:49.060 --> 00:08:55.520 and the notion of some sort of cosmic magician lurking for all eternity, 173 00:08:55.520 --> 00:08:58.000 at some epoch prior to the Big Bang, 174 00:08:58.160 --> 00:09:00.280 and then pushing the button and making the thing go bang, 175 00:09:00.460 --> 00:09:02.840 and then from time to time prodding a few atoms around. 176 00:09:03.060 --> 00:09:04.540 Please be careful with those gestures. 177 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:09.440 That is repugnant, I think, both theologically and scientifically. 178 00:09:09.800 --> 00:09:13.880 So I want to distance myself from all of that sort of pop religion stuff, 179 00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:15.980 because that's absolutely not what I'm getting at. 180 00:09:16.160 --> 00:09:20.100 And I think that what I really am getting at is to say 181 00:09:20.100 --> 00:09:25.220 that we live in a universe that's not just magnificent and enormous, 182 00:09:25.520 --> 00:09:26.680 or inspiring and so on, 183 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:28.140 but it is comprehensible, 184 00:09:28.180 --> 00:09:30.880 and that we human beings have a place in it, 185 00:09:30.940 --> 00:09:31.860 not the central place, 186 00:09:31.940 --> 00:09:34.900 but a place nevertheless as part of the universe 187 00:09:34.900 --> 00:09:39.000 coming to understand itself through the emergence of life and mind. 188 00:09:39.260 --> 00:09:41.220 Now, Brian, you heard that last point, 189 00:09:41.300 --> 00:09:45.360 that humans have not the central place in it, 190 00:09:45.400 --> 00:09:47.500 but a significant place in it. 191 00:09:47.580 --> 00:09:48.500 Do you share that view? 192 00:09:48.920 --> 00:09:51.220 Well, I certainly think it's significant to me, 193 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:53.160 and probably to the people in this audience. 194 00:09:53.660 --> 00:09:55.460 Maybe I'm a little less... 195 00:09:55.460 --> 00:10:01.380 I guess I see us as being part of the universe, 196 00:10:01.660 --> 00:10:04.920 and the fact that we have the ability to comprehend it 197 00:10:04.920 --> 00:10:09.000 and that we have this consciousness is remarkable. 198 00:10:09.420 --> 00:10:11.480 I don't think we understand it very well yet, 199 00:10:11.680 --> 00:10:17.280 but my underlying feeling is that it probably is understandable at some level. 200 00:10:18.300 --> 00:10:22.120 Paul would argue that our human consciousness 201 00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:25.440 limits the amount of information that we have. 202 00:10:25.460 --> 00:10:27.260 The amount of information or the amount of analysis 203 00:10:27.260 --> 00:10:31.560 that we may be finally capable of. 204 00:10:32.220 --> 00:10:37.080 Well, there are limits to what we are able to do, absolutely. 205 00:10:37.580 --> 00:10:40.020 And fortunately, our brain is only that big. 206 00:10:40.420 --> 00:10:43.460 And for people trying to do string theory, 207 00:10:43.660 --> 00:10:46.620 you probably need a brain about like that to do it properly, 208 00:10:46.780 --> 00:10:48.140 and no one has a brain that big, 209 00:10:48.280 --> 00:10:49.840 hence we haven't been able to make progress. 210 00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:51.320 So in that sense, I agree. 211 00:10:51.620 --> 00:10:53.940 I don't know if there's a fundamental limitation, 212 00:10:53.940 --> 00:10:57.520 except for what I would describe as our ability 213 00:10:57.520 --> 00:11:00.420 to actually do hard problems. 214 00:11:01.220 --> 00:11:03.460 If there is a limitation, Paul, 215 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:06.120 is there a way around it, for example, 216 00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:07.620 through artificial intelligence? 217 00:11:08.160 --> 00:11:09.380 Well, I would hope so. 218 00:11:09.460 --> 00:11:12.160 It's very curious that brains which have evolved 219 00:11:12.160 --> 00:11:14.760 to fulfil rather practical functions, 220 00:11:14.900 --> 00:11:18.080 like catching falling apples and jumping streams and things like that, 221 00:11:18.160 --> 00:11:21.660 have taken us so far into the realms of quantum field theory 222 00:11:21.660 --> 00:11:23.020 or general relativity. 223 00:11:24.580 --> 00:11:27.360 Now, we couldn't have done that without the use of mathematics. 224 00:11:27.820 --> 00:11:31.040 So mathematics is already an extension of the human intellect. 225 00:11:31.100 --> 00:11:33.300 In a way, you know, you write the equations down 226 00:11:33.300 --> 00:11:37.120 and the mathematics sort of follows the logic of its own, 227 00:11:37.220 --> 00:11:39.360 and you don't have to think it through at every step. 228 00:11:39.620 --> 00:11:44.780 So that already is going beyond our intuition and our common sense. 229 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:49.780 But I see no reason why in the future we can't have... 230 00:11:49.780 --> 00:11:52.900 Already we use computers to just do really difficult mathematics, 231 00:11:52.900 --> 00:11:57.560 but that we can't use computers to reframe the concepts, 232 00:11:57.820 --> 00:12:00.000 because it seems to me that when we get stuck on things 233 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:03.220 and you get into these arguments about what causes what 234 00:12:03.220 --> 00:12:05.960 and chains of causation and ultimate explanations, 235 00:12:07.220 --> 00:12:11.660 and it seems that the reason that we get stuck 236 00:12:11.660 --> 00:12:16.820 is probably because we lack the appropriate categories 237 00:12:16.820 --> 00:12:20.040 to address the questions that go beyond that. 238 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:22.200 We get stuck because the very concepts, 239 00:12:22.900 --> 00:12:26.120 the very notion of an explanation that would satisfy us 240 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:30.180 is limited by our cognitive architecture, 241 00:12:30.380 --> 00:12:32.940 by the way our minds have been shaped by evolution. 242 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:36.720 But if we could build a super-duper computer, 243 00:12:37.040 --> 00:12:38.320 though it wouldn't really be a computer, 244 00:12:38.540 --> 00:12:40.920 then it could maybe just frame the problem differently. 245 00:12:41.280 --> 00:12:42.780 But we'd better hurry. 246 00:12:42.940 --> 00:12:45.300 Now, the reason this bloke shared the Nobel 247 00:12:45.300 --> 00:12:47.540 is, as you pointed out the other night, 248 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:52.360 because he's come up with what Al Gore might call an uncomfortable truth, 249 00:12:52.900 --> 00:12:56.600 and that is that the universe is not only expanding and expanding, 250 00:12:56.880 --> 00:12:58.560 but it's doing it faster. 251 00:12:58.920 --> 00:13:00.560 Okay, what are you going to do about it? 252 00:13:01.140 --> 00:13:02.640 I'm not going to do anything about it. 253 00:13:02.680 --> 00:13:05.900 My job is just to go out and tell the story, I would say. 254 00:13:06.260 --> 00:13:10.920 I think what I'm really curious to find out is why it is doing that, 255 00:13:11.540 --> 00:13:15.960 because that is a fundamental part of the universe we live in, 256 00:13:16.060 --> 00:13:21.440 and we as humans like to understand the universe that we live in, 257 00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:22.880 partially for aesthetic reasons, 258 00:13:22.880 --> 00:13:25.620 I want to understand what's my place here, 259 00:13:25.720 --> 00:13:27.880 and I just get a lot of utility, 260 00:13:28.200 --> 00:13:30.420 as my wife, who's an economist, would say, out of that. 261 00:13:30.940 --> 00:13:32.900 But we also get a utility, 262 00:13:32.940 --> 00:13:37.260 which is as we understand how the universe is put together, 263 00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:40.280 we're able to do useful things with that information. 264 00:13:40.600 --> 00:13:42.360 And I don't know how we're going to make that useful, 265 00:13:42.540 --> 00:13:46.100 but by learning what goes on and how the universe works, 266 00:13:46.280 --> 00:13:49.260 that has been the basis of modern civilization, 267 00:13:49.540 --> 00:13:52.860 of making the world we live in as nice and beautiful 268 00:13:52.880 --> 00:13:54.740 and as affluent as it is today. 269 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:59.840 Paul Davies mentioned in Dispatches on opening night, 270 00:13:59.960 --> 00:14:02.060 Duncan Steele, a mutual friend of ours, 271 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:06.280 who was watching the southern hemispherical heavens 272 00:14:06.280 --> 00:14:10.000 for the approach of intrusive asteroids. 273 00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:13.040 The first thing that John Howard did in government 274 00:14:13.040 --> 00:14:14.640 was scrap his funding. 275 00:14:14.880 --> 00:14:17.720 The argument being, the Howard argument being, 276 00:14:17.820 --> 00:14:18.740 what's the point? 277 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:20.560 What's the point of knowing? 278 00:14:20.900 --> 00:14:22.860 Now, applying that same argument, 279 00:14:22.880 --> 00:14:24.360 that same rigorous intelligence, 280 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:26.500 Howard could probably... 281 00:14:26.500 --> 00:14:30.760 His successor could probably close down most scientific research, 282 00:14:31.040 --> 00:14:34.140 because finally, it's not going to stop the outcome. 283 00:14:36.340 --> 00:14:39.420 Well, in the case of the asteroid impacts, 284 00:14:39.860 --> 00:14:42.320 the first thing is to find out where they are, 285 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:44.600 and the next thing is to figure out what to do. 286 00:14:45.560 --> 00:14:47.020 The second part's hard. 287 00:14:48.140 --> 00:14:51.680 But it turns out the first part is actually almost complete, 288 00:14:51.680 --> 00:14:54.160 in spite of the Howard government. 289 00:14:55.320 --> 00:14:58.160 But we haven't quite figured out what to do about the second part, 290 00:14:58.280 --> 00:15:01.140 but we probably don't need to worry too much 291 00:15:01.140 --> 00:15:02.400 in the next few centuries. 292 00:15:02.640 --> 00:15:03.980 So what we really wanted to know is, 293 00:15:04.040 --> 00:15:06.720 are we going to be zapped like in three years' time? 294 00:15:06.880 --> 00:15:09.320 Then we would have had a major problem. 295 00:15:09.760 --> 00:15:11.260 This now seems unlikely. 296 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:17.960 But in terms of what's the point of finding out 297 00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:19.780 about threats that you can do nothing about, 298 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:21.220 I think it's a good question. 299 00:15:22.420 --> 00:15:24.600 To some extent, I think that's true. 300 00:15:25.240 --> 00:15:28.860 So with medical diagnostics for conditions you can do nothing about, 301 00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:31.180 I'm not sure that that really fulfils much of a purpose. 302 00:15:32.040 --> 00:15:36.540 I raise that point to be capricious rather than anything else, 303 00:15:36.580 --> 00:15:38.100 but it's interesting, 304 00:15:38.280 --> 00:15:41.980 because amongst conservative governments pretty much everywhere, 305 00:15:42.100 --> 00:15:44.440 there has been a war on science. 306 00:15:44.760 --> 00:15:47.200 Back in the United States of America, 307 00:15:47.280 --> 00:15:50.300 the Bush administration was pretty relentless, 308 00:15:50.300 --> 00:15:55.640 and I'm quite sure that if and when the Tea Party form government, 309 00:15:55.800 --> 00:15:57.320 it'll get tougher again. 310 00:15:57.680 --> 00:16:00.600 Is it harder to get research money 311 00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:03.380 for the sort of work that you've been doing 312 00:16:03.380 --> 00:16:04.680 back in the United States? 313 00:16:05.520 --> 00:16:09.260 Well, the US is going through a very tough fiscal time, 314 00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:14.180 and so I can honestly say that it really isn't a matter 315 00:16:14.180 --> 00:16:19.320 of whether or not governments are conservative or liberal. 316 00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:24.600 It really is more of what they see as being the value of science. 317 00:16:24.820 --> 00:16:26.860 And so for many years in the United States, 318 00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:30.420 the conservative governments were actually much stronger on science, 319 00:16:30.580 --> 00:16:35.080 because they believed in the whole machinery, 320 00:16:35.300 --> 00:16:38.920 technology, and the industrial complex and going forth. 321 00:16:39.520 --> 00:16:44.040 The Tea Party is not what one would call an enlightened conservative party. 322 00:16:44.120 --> 00:16:48.320 They are very much into principles, 323 00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:51.180 that are not, I would call, enlightened. 324 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:52.680 They don't think too much about technology. 325 00:16:52.940 --> 00:16:53.920 They deny it. 326 00:16:54.820 --> 00:16:57.880 And within our own conservative elements here, 327 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:01.660 there is a whole range of people who have different views, 328 00:17:01.920 --> 00:17:03.400 and quite frankly, on both sides. 329 00:17:03.460 --> 00:17:06.980 If you go and talk to people within labor, 330 00:17:07.180 --> 00:17:09.840 there are people who really don't believe in technology there, 331 00:17:09.940 --> 00:17:11.680 because that's just not where they go. 332 00:17:11.840 --> 00:17:15.440 So within the United States, it's a tough time right now, absolutely. 333 00:17:16.120 --> 00:17:17.860 And I think that, 334 00:17:17.860 --> 00:17:23.320 you know, the U.S. will pay a price of the status they have, 335 00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:25.860 which has been powered by their investment in the past. 336 00:17:26.060 --> 00:17:28.240 And if they don't invest, and other people do, 337 00:17:28.360 --> 00:17:29.240 they will fall behind, 338 00:17:29.400 --> 00:17:31.860 and that will leave the world in a very interesting 339 00:17:32.460 --> 00:17:34.120 and precarious place in the future. 340 00:17:34.260 --> 00:17:36.620 Paul, it's good that back in Arizona, 341 00:17:36.740 --> 00:17:38.860 you are still being, as you say, 342 00:17:38.900 --> 00:17:43.060 quite generously supported in your work on the origin of life. 343 00:17:43.480 --> 00:17:45.340 Yeah, but not from the federal government, no. 344 00:17:45.420 --> 00:17:46.420 Not from the federal government. 345 00:17:46.760 --> 00:17:47.020 No, no. 346 00:17:47.180 --> 00:17:47.620 Um... 347 00:17:47.860 --> 00:17:49.140 CIA? No? 348 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:49.480 The... 349 00:17:51.140 --> 00:17:55.060 I have a large cancer research grant from the federal government, 350 00:17:55.240 --> 00:17:57.020 from the National Cancer Institute. 351 00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:00.620 But the one thing that is quarantined, 352 00:18:00.620 --> 00:18:02.140 if you look at American politics, 353 00:18:02.260 --> 00:18:04.220 and quarantined everywhere, I think, is cancer research, 354 00:18:04.360 --> 00:18:07.100 because somehow, however much the budget gets cut, 355 00:18:07.280 --> 00:18:10.960 everybody agrees there are two things that must be protected. 356 00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:14.220 One is the military budget, and the other is the cancer budget. 357 00:18:15.500 --> 00:18:17.840 You were very tough on cancer studies. 358 00:18:17.840 --> 00:18:20.440 You were very tough on cancer science when you were opening the festival. 359 00:18:20.740 --> 00:18:24.080 You seem to think that 90% of cancer science 360 00:18:24.080 --> 00:18:26.880 has got it absolutely and fundamentally wrong. 361 00:18:26.940 --> 00:18:28.700 Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. 362 00:18:29.140 --> 00:18:30.600 You were tougher than that. 363 00:18:30.600 --> 00:18:33.060 The official figure from the NCI is 80%. 364 00:18:33.980 --> 00:18:40.880 80% of published cancer research papers contain irreproducible results. 365 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:44.020 That's the official figure. 366 00:18:44.840 --> 00:18:46.060 There's a million published papers, 367 00:18:46.060 --> 00:18:48.160 so there's still a lot that could have something of value, 368 00:18:48.280 --> 00:18:50.260 but there's a lot that don't. 369 00:18:50.420 --> 00:18:53.460 But in your view, it's fundamentally wrong-footed. 370 00:18:53.460 --> 00:18:53.840 Well, there's a paradigm. 371 00:18:53.840 --> 00:18:54.860 You're looking in the wrong place. 372 00:18:55.180 --> 00:18:57.900 You see, in biology, nothing is black and white. 373 00:18:57.980 --> 00:18:59.060 It's not right and wrong. 374 00:18:59.820 --> 00:19:01.240 Biology is very... Not like physics, 375 00:19:01.960 --> 00:19:03.520 where you can be absolutely clear 376 00:19:03.520 --> 00:19:07.080 that this is the correct answer or the wrong answer. 377 00:19:08.760 --> 00:19:13.920 In biology, people make up stories. 378 00:19:14.100 --> 00:19:14.780 It's not... 379 00:19:14.780 --> 00:19:16.520 If I really want to enrage people, 380 00:19:16.620 --> 00:19:17.860 I'd say biology is not even a science, 381 00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:19.540 because it has no theoretical basis. 382 00:19:20.780 --> 00:19:23.720 So, of course, biologists are scientists. 383 00:19:23.820 --> 00:19:24.940 They use scientific methods. 384 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:26.960 They use the methods of physics and chemistry. 385 00:19:27.260 --> 00:19:29.780 But there is no set of principles, 386 00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:31.140 other than Darwinian evolution, 387 00:19:32.660 --> 00:19:36.040 that makes it a science in the physics sense of the term. 388 00:19:36.180 --> 00:19:40.040 And so what you've got is a lot of facts and a lot of narratives. 389 00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:43.080 And people weave narratives around these facts, 390 00:19:43.260 --> 00:19:44.740 and there'll be a prevailing paradigm. 391 00:19:44.780 --> 00:19:46.020 And there is in cancer research. 392 00:19:46.300 --> 00:19:50.060 And it's the somatic mutation explanation of cancer, 393 00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:53.980 that cells accumulate defects, mutations, 394 00:19:54.340 --> 00:19:55.980 and that a threshold is reached 395 00:19:55.980 --> 00:19:58.520 where they sort of go berserk, and it becomes cancer. 396 00:19:59.040 --> 00:20:01.100 And that's a very easy thing to say. 397 00:20:01.360 --> 00:20:03.180 And when you... 398 00:20:03.780 --> 00:20:05.940 If you're interested in genetic changes, 399 00:20:06.200 --> 00:20:08.500 there's some wonderful technology, sequencing technology, 400 00:20:08.840 --> 00:20:12.000 that can enable you to investigate that, 401 00:20:12.120 --> 00:20:13.880