WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.180 Now we're going to do two things. 2 00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:03.980 I'm going to ask a question of all of the panel, 3 00:00:04.020 --> 00:00:05.500 which they will variously answer, 4 00:00:05.700 --> 00:00:08.960 and then they're going to ask questions of one another, 5 00:00:09.140 --> 00:00:11.640 and then we're going to turn it open to you. 6 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:13.720 Now, as I've been listening, 7 00:00:13.840 --> 00:00:16.000 these are some phrases that sprung out at me. 8 00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:19.540 We might sleepwalk our way into nanotechnology. 9 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:22.120 We don't consult enough. 10 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:25.420 The phrase gather together came in there. 11 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:28.740 The presumption of science. 12 00:00:29.460 --> 00:00:31.960 We're all scientists in the modern West. 13 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:36.840 Those phrases came in, and they made me wonder, 14 00:00:36.980 --> 00:00:39.760 and this is a question to all of the panel, 15 00:00:39.800 --> 00:00:41.560 and they can answer it as they like. 16 00:00:43.140 --> 00:00:45.880 Given the complexity of all that we've heard talked about 17 00:00:45.880 --> 00:00:49.600 and the need for complex understandings, 18 00:00:50.300 --> 00:00:54.560 do the panel think that scientists talk enough to one another 19 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:56.440 across their specialist disciplines 20 00:00:57.520 --> 00:00:58.640 and menaceciate? 21 00:00:58.740 --> 00:00:59.740 That's a very interesting question of all of you. 22 00:01:01.440 --> 00:01:04.060 What obligation is there upon scientists 23 00:01:04.060 --> 00:01:09.360 to communicate their science to the rest of us 24 00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:11.640 so that we understand the complexities 25 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:13.700 so that there are not as many misunderstandings? 26 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:15.000 So, they're the two questions. 27 00:01:15.220 --> 00:01:18.000 Do you talk enough across disciplines, and do you need to, 28 00:01:18.140 --> 00:01:20.080 and who's responsible for communicating? 29 00:01:20.540 --> 00:01:21.660 I don't mind who starts. 30 00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:23.280 Do you want to, Robert? 31 00:01:23.780 --> 00:01:28.380 Yes, I certainly don't think scientists communicate enough 32 00:01:28.740 --> 00:01:29.220 to one another. 33 00:01:29.420 --> 00:01:31.360 I mean, scientists are very fond of sticking the boot 34 00:01:31.360 --> 00:01:35.260 into the ignorance of the public on basic science. 35 00:01:35.480 --> 00:01:38.700 But if you take an astrophysicist and ask him how you get 36 00:01:38.700 --> 00:01:42.440 from a single gene defect to a disease like cystic fibrosis, 37 00:01:42.540 --> 00:01:44.640 they'll be as gormless for an answer 38 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.380 as anybody you grab in a saloon bar. 39 00:01:47.700 --> 00:01:50.840 And equally, if you ask a biologist to explain 40 00:01:50.840 --> 00:01:56.820 how you get from a large star down to a compressed black hole, 41 00:01:57.080 --> 00:01:58.140 they would be... 42 00:01:58.740 --> 00:02:02.000 No better than the barman behind the bar in the saloon. 43 00:02:02.300 --> 00:02:08.820 So, yes, there's enormous need to talk across disciplines. 44 00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:11.020 But there are many barriers. 45 00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:12.580 They're very tribal. 46 00:02:12.920 --> 00:02:14.580 They speak different languages. 47 00:02:14.700 --> 00:02:17.000 It's very difficult to jump across some of these barriers. 48 00:02:17.200 --> 00:02:21.440 One of the reasons being that the biggest barrier 49 00:02:21.440 --> 00:02:23.040 is the mathematical boundary, 50 00:02:23.640 --> 00:02:27.820 where a lot of people who work in the softer sciences, 51 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:31.260 really do just curl up into a little ball 52 00:02:31.260 --> 00:02:33.020 and start moaning quietly to themselves 53 00:02:33.020 --> 00:02:35.140 when faced with differential equations, 54 00:02:35.480 --> 00:02:37.400 which a physicist would just laugh at. 55 00:02:37.620 --> 00:02:41.500 And equally, a physicist wouldn't have the faintest clue 56 00:02:41.500 --> 00:02:46.220 how to set up a really watertight experiment in social psychology 57 00:02:46.220 --> 00:02:49.720 along the lines of the work of people like Stanley Milgram 58 00:02:49.720 --> 00:02:52.640 with the famous experiment on obedience to authority 59 00:02:52.640 --> 00:02:56.380 involving the electrocution, the mock electrocution experiment. 60 00:02:56.380 --> 00:03:01.740 So there is an enormous need for cross-fertilisation. 61 00:03:01.780 --> 00:03:04.340 But the barriers are not to be sniffed at. 62 00:03:04.440 --> 00:03:06.400 They are really very serious indeed. 63 00:03:06.820 --> 00:03:07.180 Peter? 64 00:03:07.460 --> 00:03:10.980 Yeah, a lot of the best books about science now 65 00:03:10.980 --> 00:03:15.420 are written by journalists, not by scientists. 66 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:17.740 They're written by people like Jonathan Gleick, for instance, 67 00:03:17.880 --> 00:03:19.400 who wrote the book about Richard Feynman. 68 00:03:19.620 --> 00:03:23.940 There's a very fine book by John Barry about the great influenza. 69 00:03:24.660 --> 00:03:26.360 Now, if you read those books, 70 00:03:26.360 --> 00:03:28.360 and you're not in the specialty, 71 00:03:28.680 --> 00:03:32.420 they're as accessible to any normally educated person, 72 00:03:32.540 --> 00:03:34.180 even if they don't know very much science, 73 00:03:34.320 --> 00:03:35.580 as they are to many other scientists. 74 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:40.080 I've had people in the humanities tell me about nuclear physics 75 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:44.160 because they've read a good account, and I don't understand it. 76 00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:46.840 Now, that's exactly what Robert was saying, 77 00:03:46.940 --> 00:03:50.120 is that we're no more informed. 78 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:51.460 We're highly specialised. 79 00:03:51.740 --> 00:03:54.100 Some of us are less narrow than others. 80 00:03:54.160 --> 00:03:56.040 I work on a fairly big scope, 81 00:03:56.100 --> 00:03:56.340 because I'm not a scientist. 82 00:03:56.360 --> 00:03:57.460 I work on a fairly big scope, because of infectious disease, 83 00:03:57.640 --> 00:03:59.780 which takes me into all sorts of different areas. 84 00:03:59.980 --> 00:04:02.360 But we're very specialised, and we don't necessarily... 85 00:04:02.980 --> 00:04:06.100 I can understand more or less what the brain scientists are saying, 86 00:04:06.180 --> 00:04:07.820 but I can't really access... 87 00:04:07.820 --> 00:04:07.840 More than I can. 88 00:04:08.100 --> 00:04:08.980 What a... 89 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:12.400 Not in the detail you do. 90 00:04:12.460 --> 00:04:13.260 No, I said more than I can. 91 00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:15.200 But, yes, no, I like... 92 00:04:16.420 --> 00:04:20.080 But the other thing is that scientists are very worried about this, 93 00:04:20.180 --> 00:04:23.700 because when I started in science, which is now many years ago, 94 00:04:23.940 --> 00:04:26.340 I could cover the whole of my field of immunology, 95 00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:29.740 really quite well, and I knew pretty much what was going on. 96 00:04:29.860 --> 00:04:32.120 Now I can only cover a very small field of it. 97 00:04:32.420 --> 00:04:35.320 Now, a little bit of that has got to do with what Susan was talking about, 98 00:04:37.220 --> 00:04:38.000 neurodegenerative disease, 99 00:04:38.440 --> 00:04:41.640 and I think of it as protein folding disease, actually. 100 00:04:42.900 --> 00:04:45.100 But a lot of it is to do with the fact 101 00:04:45.100 --> 00:04:46.720 that there's been an enormous expansion 102 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:49.040 of very, very detailed and specific knowledge 103 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:51.920 that's really come from the molecular biology revolution 104 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:54.180 that Francis Crick and Jim Watson kicked off. 105 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:56.340 And so it's very... 106 00:04:56.360 --> 00:04:56.660 It's very difficult. 107 00:04:56.840 --> 00:04:58.400 We're living in a Tower of Babel. 108 00:04:58.880 --> 00:05:04.160 Not only do we have the Tower of Babel that politicians, lawyers, scientists 109 00:05:05.280 --> 00:05:07.180 don't speak the same language. 110 00:05:07.340 --> 00:05:09.580 For instance, if you use the word evidence, 111 00:05:09.940 --> 00:05:12.000 if a lawyer uses the word evidence, 112 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.440 it's totally different from what an advertising executive may use. 113 00:05:15.940 --> 00:05:19.440 If a politician uses the word evidence, you probably should reach for your gun. 114 00:05:19.700 --> 00:05:23.220 And if a scientist uses the word evidence, 115 00:05:23.280 --> 00:05:24.400 they're probably being very specific. 116 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:25.100 They are talking. 117 00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:26.260 Talking about data. 118 00:05:26.260 --> 00:05:28.900 But there's no mutual understanding of what those words mean. 119 00:05:29.880 --> 00:05:31.840 Semantics, I think, is a very important field. 120 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:33.400 Susan. 121 00:05:33.560 --> 00:05:35.400 Yeah, I feel I have to take a stand here. 122 00:05:35.880 --> 00:05:38.360 Can I have bags, by the way, in advance to ask a question of John? 123 00:05:38.880 --> 00:05:40.300 Because we're all asking questions of each other. 124 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:44.120 I obviously want to go in there in the red corner or the blue corner, 125 00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:45.000 whatever corner I'm going to be in. 126 00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:48.760 But pending that happy moment, just address your two questions. 127 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:51.940 I wonder if there's any historians here, for example. 128 00:05:52.260 --> 00:05:54.640 And if you are, let's say, an ancient historian, 129 00:05:54.700 --> 00:05:55.840 how often do you sit down? 130 00:05:56.260 --> 00:05:58.440 I wonder if you sit down with a 20th century historian, I wonder. 131 00:05:58.900 --> 00:06:00.700 And are you demonized for not doing that? 132 00:06:01.200 --> 00:06:03.060 So why should scientists be demonized? 133 00:06:03.080 --> 00:06:04.440 Because we have our particular disciplines. 134 00:06:04.580 --> 00:06:08.000 Because we don't necessarily, in the normal bump and grind 135 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.960 of our everyday work, sit down and automatically go 136 00:06:10.960 --> 00:06:12.020 across disciplines. 137 00:06:12.620 --> 00:06:14.780 That said, there's now a great emphasis, 138 00:06:14.960 --> 00:06:16.480 and I really feel I have to put a marker down here, 139 00:06:16.500 --> 00:06:19.180 as I feel quite strongly, towards multidisciplinarity. 140 00:06:19.180 --> 00:06:19.840 There has to be. 141 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:21.920 If you take known technology, for example, 142 00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:24.020 that has ramifications in material science 143 00:06:24.020 --> 00:06:26.240 and in biomedical science that is a strong 144 00:06:26.260 --> 00:06:27.120 and astonishing, and increasingly, 145 00:06:27.340 --> 00:06:29.120 we in the neurosciences and biomedical sciences 146 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:30.960 have to work with engineers and computer scientists. 147 00:06:31.200 --> 00:06:33.660 So we're actually seeing, and I really think 148 00:06:33.660 --> 00:06:35.180 this is very important, if I was to say anything 149 00:06:35.180 --> 00:06:36.700 important this evening, perhaps some people do, 150 00:06:36.840 --> 00:06:40.560 it is this, that the old traditional easy slagging off 151 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:42.740 of scientists as thinking inside their box, 152 00:06:42.900 --> 00:06:45.160 being nerdy little people who are just obsessed 153 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:47.920 with the one tiny thing, we are trying to challenge that, 154 00:06:47.960 --> 00:06:49.840 we are changing it, not because we want to, 155 00:06:49.840 --> 00:06:52.500 but because we have to, and because the new technologies 156 00:06:52.500 --> 00:06:54.120 and the new problems are multidisciplinary 157 00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:55.140 questions and problems. 158 00:06:56.260 --> 00:06:57.680 We are talking, we're not doing it well, 159 00:06:58.060 --> 00:06:59.880 but I'd like to see the historians do it. 160 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:01.880 Why should it be the scientists who are demonized? 161 00:07:01.980 --> 00:07:02.340 Please. 162 00:07:08.080 --> 00:07:10.940 Yeah, my Texas evening is we are after all only human. 163 00:07:12.140 --> 00:07:14.700 Then the other issue is the issue of communicating 164 00:07:14.700 --> 00:07:17.640 with the public, and again, I'm very proud to be director 165 00:07:17.640 --> 00:07:19.760 of the Royal Institution, which for 200 odd years 166 00:07:20.420 --> 00:07:21.720 in London has been diffusing science 167 00:07:21.720 --> 00:07:22.960 for the common purposes of life. 168 00:07:23.100 --> 00:07:25.520 I might add, two of the directors of the Royal Institution 169 00:07:25.520 --> 00:07:27.560 were both born here, William and Lawrence Bragg, 170 00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:29.660 who are sons of Adelaide, and that's why I'm here 171 00:07:29.660 --> 00:07:31.420 to initiate something called the Bragg Initiative, 172 00:07:31.660 --> 00:07:33.460 which will, I hope, forge links between the Royal Institution 173 00:07:33.460 --> 00:07:34.020 and Adelaide. 174 00:07:34.280 --> 00:07:37.380 So for 200 years, the Royal Institution, I hope, 175 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:39.780 and others are now following, have been very sensitive 176 00:07:40.360 --> 00:07:42.820 to the Sagan issue, you know, that it is suicide 177 00:07:42.820 --> 00:07:45.520 to live in a society dependent on science and technology 178 00:07:45.520 --> 00:07:48.220 unless we actually share and diffuse that with the public, 179 00:07:48.260 --> 00:07:51.220 and the public have a hand in directing and harnessing 180 00:07:51.220 --> 00:07:54.180 and curbing where that technology is taking us. 181 00:07:54.300 --> 00:07:55.500 Now that ain't easy, and it's not easy, and it's not easy, 182 00:07:55.500 --> 00:07:56.600 and it ain't easy if you're a scientist 183 00:07:56.600 --> 00:07:59.680 who's already over-audited, doing too much teaching, 184 00:07:59.840 --> 00:08:01.500 who is worried about their next grant coming, 185 00:08:01.660 --> 00:08:03.340 who's having whiny post-docs who are leaving, 186 00:08:04.080 --> 00:08:05.360 who's having, why are you people 187 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:07.900 gonna take your lab space away, what committee you're on, 188 00:08:08.020 --> 00:08:08.800 whether you're gonna get promotion. 189 00:08:09.140 --> 00:08:10.280 The last thing on your mind, 190 00:08:10.320 --> 00:08:11.780 because you're not applauded for it, 191 00:08:11.840 --> 00:08:13.400 is to get out in the evening 192 00:08:13.400 --> 00:08:15.020 and to talk to the general public. 193 00:08:15.420 --> 00:08:17.420 And what we have to do is to think about ways 194 00:08:17.420 --> 00:08:19.140 for making that possible rather than sneering 195 00:08:19.140 --> 00:08:21.300 at the scientists and chopping them off at the knees 196 00:08:21.300 --> 00:08:22.620 because they don't do this. 197 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:24.720 So I think it's something we have to work together. 198 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:27.140 Already we're starting, and over the last 10 or 20 years, 199 00:08:27.320 --> 00:08:29.080 there's been a huge change in what used to have 200 00:08:29.080 --> 00:08:30.680 the unfortunate acronym PUS, 201 00:08:31.020 --> 00:08:32.520 the Public Understanding of Science. 202 00:08:32.640 --> 00:08:34.240 That's now changed to things like, 203 00:08:35.100 --> 00:08:37.060 that's now changed to things like science and society 204 00:08:37.060 --> 00:08:39.660 because I think people feel that that is more acceptable, 205 00:08:40.020 --> 00:08:41.640 that it's more kind of PC, you know, 206 00:08:41.680 --> 00:08:42.680 it's more kind of interactive, 207 00:08:42.860 --> 00:08:44.500 and it doesn't suggest that we are coming down 208 00:08:44.500 --> 00:08:46.000 talking to the great unwashed, you know, 209 00:08:46.060 --> 00:08:47.160 with pearls of wisdom, 210 00:08:47.220 --> 00:08:48.500 and that we're all kind of in this together. 211 00:08:49.180 --> 00:08:50.780 All of which, you know, I strongly commend 212 00:08:50.780 --> 00:08:51.740 because I think that is the case. 213 00:08:51.800 --> 00:08:54.660 But you might like to look at our Royal Institute 214 00:08:54.660 --> 00:08:56.540 and website, Google on Royal Institution, 215 00:08:56.660 --> 00:08:58.280 you'll see that the kind of things we do 216 00:08:58.280 --> 00:09:00.020 and the kind of things that are going to start happening here, 217 00:09:00.180 --> 00:09:01.160 again, that's why I'm here, 218 00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:04.080 is to actually get everyone engaged in the big issues 219 00:09:04.080 --> 00:09:05.180 and what we're going to do about it. 220 00:09:05.260 --> 00:09:08.420 The big problem is to help the scientists do this 221 00:09:08.420 --> 00:09:10.400 because your average scientist, you know, 222 00:09:10.400 --> 00:09:12.000 it shouldn't be demonized, but they should be helped 223 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:15.360 because they really are overworked, they're undervalued, 224 00:09:15.400 --> 00:09:17.220 they're stressed out, they're on short-term money. 225 00:09:17.340 --> 00:09:19.860 And rather than add to their worries 226 00:09:19.860 --> 00:09:22.480 by telling them how short-sighted and nerdy they are, 227 00:09:22.560 --> 00:09:23.960 one should think of machinery 228 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:27.200 as rewarding them and helping them help you. 229 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:27.940 Thank you. 230 00:09:36.380 --> 00:09:37.560 John, the phrase, 231 00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:40.220 we're all scientists in the 21st century was yours, 232 00:09:40.400 --> 00:09:44.940 but you obviously don't think that science covers enough. 233 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:47.000 Do you want to speak to that? 234 00:09:47.380 --> 00:09:48.080 Sorry, I... 235 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:49.680 I said yours was the phrase, 236 00:09:49.780 --> 00:09:51.880 we're all scientists in the 21st century, 237 00:09:52.800 --> 00:09:55.240 but that was not enough for you. 238 00:09:55.840 --> 00:09:57.020 Well, let me... 239 00:09:57.020 --> 00:09:57.720 I mean, this... 240 00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:01.060 We haven't introduced any of the moral dilemmas in science, 241 00:10:01.160 --> 00:10:03.040 so perhaps I can use that as a cue to... 242 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:04.480 Yes, of course. 243 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:08.080 ..raise the story that I think we all have difficulty with, 244 00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:09.860 or most people have difficulty with. 245 00:10:09.980 --> 00:10:11.660 There was an experiment in Adelaide, 246 00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:13.940 I think Queen Elizabeth Hospital, could that be right? 247 00:10:14.140 --> 00:10:15.980 I'm not sure, I forget the details. 248 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:20.680 About 20 years ago, in which I think it was rat over, 249 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:21.860 were fertilized with the same chemical, 250 00:10:21.860 --> 00:10:22.500 but with human sperm. 251 00:10:26.820 --> 00:10:28.020 IVF experimentation. 252 00:10:29.840 --> 00:10:34.060 There was a little bit of protest in some Catholic periodicals, 253 00:10:34.060 --> 00:10:38.160 this is about 20 years ago, fertilizing rat over with human sperm. 254 00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:41.940 Now, not much... 255 00:10:41.940 --> 00:10:44.780 Not long ago in the culture of the West, 256 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:46.800 and we don't have to go back to the Middle Ages, 257 00:10:47.460 --> 00:10:51.380 it was the devil who produced hybrid human... 258 00:10:51.860 --> 00:10:53.040 Human monsters. 259 00:10:53.140 --> 00:10:55.620 The paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, some of you may know, 260 00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:00.400 portrayed just simply half human, half beast. 261 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:04.300 Now, 20 years ago, and I'm sure it will be the same today, 262 00:11:04.880 --> 00:11:07.700 it passed with virtually out a question 263 00:11:07.700 --> 00:11:10.480 whether this sort of research is justified. 264 00:11:11.780 --> 00:11:14.440 Crossbreeding humans and rats, just to overdramatize, 265 00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:17.540 to do a media take on this particular experiment. 266 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:21.620 Now, the moment I think any of us start to think about it, 267 00:11:21.640 --> 00:11:21.840 was the moment when the first human beings were born. 268 00:11:21.860 --> 00:11:26.780 Well, you know, this is being done to help infertile couples have children. 269 00:11:27.680 --> 00:11:31.520 In many of those cases, the most important happiness in their lives, 270 00:11:31.560 --> 00:11:34.420 potential happiness in their lives, is being denied them. 271 00:11:34.640 --> 00:11:37.460 If an experiment, even of this sort, 272 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:43.820 contributes to that sort of level of unquestionable happiness 273 00:11:43.820 --> 00:11:46.880 in a significant number of individuals in our society, 274 00:11:47.580 --> 00:11:49.340 then, you know, it doesn't... 275 00:11:49.860 --> 00:11:51.220 We're a bit squeamish about it, 276 00:11:51.220 --> 00:11:57.200 and maybe it does transgress some moral, spiritual, whatever, boundary, 277 00:11:57.400 --> 00:11:59.900 and we really don't like the idea of that. 278 00:12:00.300 --> 00:12:04.220 But, now, this is what I meant, that we're all scientists. 279 00:12:04.620 --> 00:12:06.900 We all are in the... We all think... 280 00:12:06.900 --> 00:12:10.280 Well, most of us now think, and I certainly do too, 281 00:12:10.400 --> 00:12:14.980 in this situation, is it justified? 282 00:12:14.980 --> 00:12:16.500 And probably at the end of the day, 283 00:12:16.540 --> 00:12:19.340 most of us will shrug our shoulders and say, why not? 284 00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:21.200 Now, the problem is, is it justified? 285 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:24.040 Most of us. I didn't say all of us. 286 00:12:24.100 --> 00:12:25.820 Because it's now... 287 00:12:25.820 --> 00:12:27.720 We've now moved into this blurred area 288 00:12:28.180 --> 00:12:30.760 where we're back with the death of death, which I started with. 289 00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:33.580 There's been this great slippage 290 00:12:33.580 --> 00:12:37.800 about the important answers to death that we humans need, 291 00:12:37.940 --> 00:12:41.600 which is a metaphysical one, into that, well, you know, 292 00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:44.120 if we can get five more years of life or ten more years of life, 293 00:12:44.260 --> 00:12:46.240 that really is happiness. 294 00:12:47.580 --> 00:12:51.180 Now, I think most of us in a Western society, you know, 295 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:52.280 in a society like ours today, 296 00:12:52.440 --> 00:12:56.000 are in this difficult position of struggling with these issues, 297 00:12:56.260 --> 00:12:59.240 with the power of the scientific paradigm 298 00:12:59.240 --> 00:13:01.780 and its great successes on the one side, 299 00:13:01.880 --> 00:13:06.540 plus the fact there are these infertile couples 300 00:13:06.540 --> 00:13:10.760 who may be helped by an experiment in Adelaide 20 years ago, 301 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:12.940 fertilising rat over with human sperm. 302 00:13:13.380 --> 00:13:14.400 What do we think? 303 00:13:17.540 --> 00:13:19.320 Does anyone want to say what we think? 304 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:21.240 Susan, do you want to ask your question? 305 00:13:21.460 --> 00:13:23.500 Yeah, as always, it's... 306 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:26.260 To take extreme examples out of context, 307 00:13:26.280 --> 00:13:28.800 and I'd even say the Francis Crick quote, 308 00:13:28.920 --> 00:13:30.060 which I wouldn't endorse whatsoever, 309 00:13:30.820 --> 00:13:33.040 is not necessarily representing all science, 310 00:13:33.140 --> 00:13:36.200 and to pick very isolated or extreme examples 311 00:13:36.200 --> 00:13:39.220 is doing a disservice to the general thesis 312 00:13:39.220 --> 00:13:41.580 and to what science really is. 313 00:13:41.620 --> 00:13:43.760 Science is really about the quest for truth, 314 00:13:44.520 --> 00:13:46.080 to try and understand things more, 315 00:13:46.220 --> 00:13:49.240 both from the academic through to the applied, 316 00:13:49.240 --> 00:13:51.060 and I think it's a disservice, 317 00:13:51.260 --> 00:13:53.820 and it's something, dare I say, that journalists might sometimes do, 318 00:13:53.880 --> 00:13:57.020 which is to take the exotic, the extreme, the outlandish, 319 00:13:57.020 --> 00:13:58.960 the caricature, and build a case on that. 320 00:13:59.180 --> 00:14:00.380 And I'd like to challenge Don, 321 00:14:00.460 --> 00:14:02.000 but I don't want to give away my question 322 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:03.900 because I want to still have bagged my question. 323 00:14:04.700 --> 00:14:07.500 But if I'm allowed, therefore, a subsidiary attack on John... 324 00:14:07.500 --> 00:14:09.160 I don't want to say attack, sorry, but, you know... 325 00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:11.600 Because I don't want to be a bad scientist 326 00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:13.820 looking as though aggressive as well as everything else, you know? 327 00:14:14.420 --> 00:14:14.760 Um... 328 00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:18.060 No, no, I'd like to ask you... 329 00:14:18.060 --> 00:14:19.220 What process of thinking... 330 00:14:19.220 --> 00:14:19.520 Yeah. 331 00:14:19.520 --> 00:14:22.480 ..would you go through an equivalent situation to that, 332 00:14:22.640 --> 00:14:24.300 which would...what would go... 333 00:14:24.300 --> 00:14:27.140 I mean, what is weighed up in the question, 334 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:29.200 should I conduct this experiment or not? 335 00:14:29.900 --> 00:14:31.380 That's really what I'm asking. 336 00:14:31.400 --> 00:14:34.420 OK, well, nowadays, the usual reason for conducting an experiment 337 00:14:34.420 --> 00:14:35.900 is the alleviation of human suffering, 338 00:14:36.040 --> 00:14:38.220 and certainly in the UK, and I'm sure it's the same here, 339 00:14:38.280 --> 00:14:42.020 you have draconian policing by the government, by the Home Office, 340 00:14:42.120 --> 00:14:44.600 to justify every single animal experiment you do, 341 00:14:44.680 --> 00:14:47.000 and the reasons for doing it, and it is not gratuitous, 342 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:48.760 and it would never, ever, ever be 343 00:14:48.760 --> 00:14:51.020 for a soundbite or a media appearance, ever. 344 00:14:51.640 --> 00:14:53.040 And I don't know what gave you that idea. 345 00:14:53.120 --> 00:14:54.360 No scientist would be steered by that. 346 00:14:54.640 --> 00:14:57.020 But my question is, do you give me another example? 347 00:14:57.280 --> 00:14:58.700 Give me another cryptotype example 348 00:14:59.500 --> 00:15:01.600 of these airs and graces that scientists have, 349 00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:04.780 of this trespassing of the magic that you put such a premium upon. 350 00:15:05.760 --> 00:15:08.460 And I want to ask you what is so special about magic, incidentally, 351 00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:10.600 that it has the monopoly on charm, but anyway... 352 00:15:11.140 --> 00:15:11.500 Um... 353 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:14.500 Give me another example, because I think we have to do this. 354 00:15:14.600 --> 00:15:16.640 If you're going to make general statements about science, 355 00:15:16.740 --> 00:15:18.260 you can't base them on one extreme example. 356 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:20.700 Also, I mean, you couldn't... 357 00:15:21.540 --> 00:15:24.640 You could never get through a human ethics committee 358 00:15:24.640 --> 00:15:27.100 an experiment that says you're going to take, 359 00:15:27.120 --> 00:15:29.740 deliberately take sperm from a human... 360 00:15:29.740 --> 00:15:30.700 So that you can be on telly. 361 00:15:30.880 --> 00:15:33.340 Yeah, so that you can be on telly, or so that you can do it. 362 00:15:33.420 --> 00:15:35.640 I mean, you couldn't do it, because we have very strict... 363 00:15:35.640 --> 00:15:37.620 There are very strict ethical controls now 364 00:15:37.620 --> 00:15:39.580 of all human and animal experimentation. 365 00:15:40.760 --> 00:15:43.720 Well, can I just put a counter to that? 366 00:15:43.940 --> 00:15:47.060 If people tomorrow morning go off to the newsagents 367 00:15:47.060 --> 00:15:48.740 and get hold of new scientists, they'll phone down, 368 00:15:48.740 --> 00:15:49.980 and they'll say, 369 00:15:49.980 --> 00:15:52.420 I've got a scandalous article written by somebody called Robert Matthews, 370 00:15:53.520 --> 00:15:54.640 describing how... 371 00:15:55.540 --> 00:15:58.380 There's a paper in the current issue of Clinical Trials Journal 372 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:01.660 where some scientists have been looking back 373 00:16:02.460 --> 00:16:06.200 at a trial of a particular therapy. 374 00:16:06.420 --> 00:16:07.820 I won't go into too many technical details. 375 00:16:08.700 --> 00:16:11.260 But basically, this particular therapy 376 00:16:12.820 --> 00:16:16.520 was tested in the 1980s. 377 00:16:16.760 --> 00:16:17.740 By the early 1990s, 378 00:16:18.640 --> 00:16:18.720 by the early 1990s, 379 00:16:18.740 --> 00:16:21.220 it was clear as the result of randomised controlled trials 380 00:16:21.220 --> 00:16:22.920 that it was a very effective drug. 381 00:16:23.160 --> 00:16:25.680 It was approved by the FDA for general release. 382 00:16:26.820 --> 00:16:27.820 And then it went on wards. 383 00:16:27.820 --> 00:16:28.880 It's widely used now, 384 00:16:28.940 --> 00:16:33.780 routinely saves many lives in major cardiac surgery. 385 00:16:35.020 --> 00:16:40.860 And despite that, for the subsequent 10 years 386 00:16:41.380 --> 00:16:43.280 after it was granted this approval 387 00:16:43.280 --> 00:16:44.480 and everybody was using it, 388 00:16:44.620 --> 00:16:48.160 scientists were still carrying out randomised controlled trials, 389 00:16:48.160 --> 00:16:52.620 and this wasn't to find out more sort of clever things like, 390 00:16:52.640 --> 00:16:54.240 you know, dose levels and things like this. 391 00:16:54.340 --> 00:16:57.540 This was just to find out if the drug was effective. 392 00:16:57.980 --> 00:16:59.700 Now you're thinking, well, hang on a minute, 393 00:16:59.800 --> 00:17:01.020 it's been approved by the FDA. 394 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:02.940 We've got all these randomised controlled trials, 395 00:17:03.640 --> 00:17:05.220 and it's widely used in hospitals. 396 00:17:05.360 --> 00:17:07.060 What more do you need to find out exactly? 397 00:17:08.540 --> 00:17:11.720 And these scientists who carried out this retrospective study 398 00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:16.700 on this particular drug decided to look back to see 399 00:17:16.700 --> 00:17:18.140 why were these people doing this exercise? 400 00:17:18.140 --> 00:17:19.240 And they did this experiment yet again. 401 00:17:19.500 --> 00:17:21.840 Because if you carry out a randomised controlled trial, 402 00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:24.080 you have to get a cohort of patients 403 00:17:24.080 --> 00:17:26.100 who need this particular therapy, 404 00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:27.320 and you split them in half, 405 00:17:27.420 --> 00:17:28.940 and you give half the therapy, 406 00:17:29.120 --> 00:17:33.220 and you give half either the old therapy or a placebo as a control. 407 00:17:33.540 --> 00:17:33.840 OK? 408 00:17:34.140 --> 00:17:36.520 Now, when all the evidence is already showing 409 00:17:36.520 --> 00:17:39.220 that you've got this drug that is completely effective, 410 00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:43.380 it is utterly unethical to then randomise a whole set of people, 411 00:17:43.460 --> 00:17:47.020 denying them access to this particular therapy. 412 00:17:48.140 --> 00:17:49.380 And the scientists were quite interested to see 413 00:17:49.380 --> 00:17:53.160 just how these people justified carrying out randomised controlled trials 414 00:17:53.160 --> 00:17:55.700 of this drug years after it was case closed. 415 00:17:56.080 --> 00:17:59.700 And the answer was lurking in the reference list at the bottom. 416 00:17:59.840 --> 00:18:03.160 It turns out that the researchers who had set up 417 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:04.680 these randomised controlled trials subsequently 418 00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:08.460 just couldn't be fagged to do the research, to read the literature. 419 00:18:08.700 --> 00:18:13.140 The same papers were being quoted in the same papers. 420 00:18:13.260 --> 00:18:16.340 Classic symptom of people just not doing literature searches, 421 00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:18.120 but just cribbing off each other. 422 00:18:18.120 --> 00:18:21.680 And then going to an ethics committee and saying, 423 00:18:21.760 --> 00:18:22.900 we need to test this drug. 424 00:18:22.940 --> 00:18:24.260 And the ethics committee said, do OK. 425 00:18:25.080 --> 00:18:27.620 Allowing them to recruit new patients, randomise, 426 00:18:27.720 --> 00:18:31.200 deny people access to this particular drug, 427 00:18:32.820 --> 00:18:34.380 and put out a paper saying, 428 00:18:34.520 --> 00:18:37.520 oh, we found yet more evidence that this drug works. 429 00:18:37.800 --> 00:18:39.440 And now I know what Susan's going to say. 430 00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:41.300 She's going to say, oh, you've taken another extreme example. 431 00:18:41.320 --> 00:18:42.000 It's just a one-off. 432 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:42.420 I'm not going to say that. 433 00:18:42.460 --> 00:18:43.140 OK, fine, good. 434 00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:44.820 Not now, anyway. 435 00:18:44.840 --> 00:18:46.620 I just thought I'd get my rejection in first. 436 00:18:47.600 --> 00:18:48.100 So, I'm going to say, OK, fine, good. 437 00:18:48.100 --> 00:18:51.140 So, because the fact of the matter 438 00:18:51.140 --> 00:18:53.580 is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. 439 00:18:53.740 --> 00:18:54.860 And if you go back into the literature, 440 00:18:55.040 --> 00:18:57.860 you'll find that scientists have discovered other examples 441 00:18:57.860 --> 00:19:00.300 of this, of randomised controlled trials being done 442 00:19:00.300 --> 00:19:04.460 on drugs where it's case closed decades after it was case 443 00:19:04.460 --> 00:19:06.520 closed, carrying on randomising this up because they can't 444 00:19:06.520 --> 00:19:08.040 be bothered to do a good thing. 445 00:19:08.140 --> 00:19:10.500 The ethics committees have just been asleep on the job. 446 00:19:10.660 --> 00:19:12.600 The journals have accepted the papers. 447 00:19:12.800 --> 00:19:14.620 The referees have been asleep on the job. 448 00:19:14.820 --> 00:19:16.260 Nobody's been checking these things. 449 00:19:16.420 --> 00:19:18.080 And it's a scandal that's denounced. 450 00:19:18.080 --> 00:19:22.460 It's denied tens of thousands of people access to effective drugs. 451 00:19:22.600 --> 00:19:25.560 It also works the other way, where drugs have been rejected as useless. 452 00:19:25.900 --> 00:19:30.120 And the people have been given this drug and as a result, 453 00:19:30.120 --> 00:19:31.100 have had their health impaired. 454 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:34.400 So, the idea that these ethics committees do a wonderful job, 455 00:19:34.440 --> 00:19:37.060 you know, it looks good on paper, but I'm afraid in practice, 456 00:19:37.160 --> 00:19:38.100 it just totally sucks. 457 00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:38.880 Right. 458 00:19:44.600 --> 00:19:46.820 OK, so, point one. 459 00:19:48.140 --> 00:19:51.920 My basic thesis was never that ethics committees do a brilliant job. 460 00:19:52.580 --> 00:19:52.840 So... 461 00:19:52.840 --> 00:19:53.720 No, it wasn't yours. 462 00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:54.260 It was the thesis. 463 00:19:54.260 --> 00:19:55.860 Well, so that's not the issue. 464 00:19:55.940 --> 00:19:59.260 And of course, I go back to my basic text, we're only human, aren't we? 465 00:19:59.280 --> 00:20:03.160 And I'm not using that to justify, but it is not the case that a scientist says, 466 00:20:03.220 --> 00:20:04.420 oh, I can't be fagged to look up. 467 00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:07.020 I know I'm going to put loads of human beings through a load of suffering. 468 00:20:07.100 --> 00:20:08.420 I think that's easier rather than... 469 00:20:08.420 --> 00:20:09.320 They're not like that. 470 00:20:09.360 --> 00:20:09.840 Of course not. 471 00:20:09.880 --> 00:20:10.620 So how else do you... 472 00:20:10.620 --> 00:20:12.180 No, no, it's not that you can't be fagged. 473 00:20:12.200 --> 00:20:14.120 It's thoughts in the system, which is wonderful. 474 00:20:14.260 --> 00:20:17.180 You as a journalist are highlighting and I congratulate you for that because it means 475 00:20:17.180 --> 00:20:19.500 that we can stop such things happening in the future. 476 00:20:19.600 --> 00:20:23.620 But you shouldn't use things like that to sneer or to demonise all science or say all 477 00:20:23.620 --> 00:20:28.140 science is wrong, just because inevitably within a system, any system, anywhere, there 478 00:20:28.140 --> 00:20:33.080 will always be problems, imperfections, human weaknesses, frailties, et cetera, et cetera, 479 00:20:33.120 --> 00:20:33.320 errors. 480 00:20:33.600 --> 00:20:37.840 And what you do, you learn from those errors and you build it better and make it better. 481 00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:42.460 You don't sit back and laugh and sneer and try and, I say, demonise or stop it. 482 00:20:42.520 --> 00:20:46.580 Because for every one of those scientists in their clinical trials that... 483 00:20:46.580 --> 00:20:47.140 You know... 484 00:20:47.180 --> 00:20:51.360 Unfortunately, and I'm sure not by design, caused human suffering. 485 00:20:51.500 --> 00:20:56.640 Look how many more, and I point to every single drug that anyone in this room has taken, every 486 00:20:56.640 --> 00:21:00.660 single drug that's gone through clinical trials, let's look at the vast benefit against these 487 00:21:00.660 --> 00:21:01.360 one or two examples. 488 00:21:01.560 --> 00:21:03.440 So I'm not saying it's a freak example. 489 00:21:03.800 --> 00:21:04.640 It's a very... 490 00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:05.820 Thank God we've got media people. 491 00:21:06.020 --> 00:21:07.560 I've seen the point of having these media. 492 00:21:07.640 --> 00:21:08.720 They actually point out the problems. 493 00:21:08.800 --> 00:21:09.140 That's great. 494 00:21:09.180 --> 00:21:09.980 We can regulate better. 495 00:21:10.080 --> 00:21:11.660 We can start to improve the system. 496 00:21:12.060 --> 00:21:13.380 But the logic is weak. 497 00:21:13.400 --> 00:21:17.160 But the logic is weak if you say because of this, all scientists can't be faggots. 498 00:21:17.180 --> 00:21:18.840 All clinical trials are bad. 499 00:21:18.840 --> 00:21:19.300 Did I say that? 500 00:21:19.360 --> 00:21:20.720 Did anybody hear me say that? 501 00:21:20.940 --> 00:21:22.260 No, but you just said... 502 00:21:22.260 --> 00:21:25.520 Oh, but you just said that I couldn't say it was an extreme example. 503 00:21:25.540 --> 00:21:26.500 You can't have it both ways. 504 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:30.640 I know John's frothing at the mouth, but I just want at this point to bring the philosopher 505 00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:32.240 in because I'm interested, David. 506 00:21:32.780 --> 00:21:38.000 There was a time, I'm sure, in the 20th century when philosophy and science were not talking, 507 00:21:38.080 --> 00:21:38.980 and they certainly are now. 508 00:21:39.060 --> 00:21:40.280 I mean, you work in cognitive science. 509 00:21:40.460 --> 00:21:45.880 And I'm just wondering what you think philosophy brings to science, but also what science... 510 00:21:45.880 --> 00:21:46.980 What's the two-way traffic? 511 00:21:46.980 --> 00:21:49.460 And does it answer any of these ethical questions? 512 00:21:51.240 --> 00:21:55.040 So far, we haven't had to put our philosophical thought experiments before ethics committees. 513 00:21:55.220 --> 00:21:55.640 Thanks, guys. 514 00:21:58.200 --> 00:21:58.680 Indeed. 515 00:21:59.080 --> 00:21:59.460 Yeah. 516 00:22:01.140 --> 00:22:06.820 We mistreat some of those hypothetical people quite badly when we talk about them. 517 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:08.340 No, philosophy used to be... 518 00:22:08.340 --> 00:22:10.760 I mean, philosophy and science have a long history of being interconnected. 519 00:22:11.040 --> 00:22:13.020 They went through a period of being disconnected. 520 00:22:13.080 --> 00:22:14.820 In recent years, it's actually... 521 00:22:14.820 --> 00:22:16.960 The connections have been huge. 522 00:22:16.980 --> 00:22:20.920 I mean, I'm not a scientist myself these days, but my background is in science. 523 00:22:20.980 --> 00:22:25.820 I actually got into philosophy because this was a way of making contact. 524 00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:28.080 I was interested in every area of science, not just one. 525 00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:32.800 Physics, neuroscience, computer science, medicine, mathematics, and so on. 526 00:22:32.800 --> 00:22:36.880 Doing philosophy is a way to stay in touch with each of these fields simultaneously. 527 00:22:37.520 --> 00:22:43.400 The field I've got myself into now is the science of consciousness, which brings in 528 00:22:43.400 --> 00:22:44.080 almost every... 529 00:22:44.080 --> 00:22:46.660 I think the science of the human mind, interestingly enough. 530 00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:46.960 I think it's a very interesting field. 531 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:50.720 It brings in almost every area of science you can think of. 532 00:22:50.920 --> 00:22:54.600 I mean, obviously, the neuroscientists and the psychologists, but the physicists have 533 00:22:54.600 --> 00:22:56.420 got their ideas about the bearing of quantum mechanics. 534 00:22:56.700 --> 00:23:01.100 The medical people have brought in their ideas about the treatment of the mind. 535 00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:02.540 The mathematicians come in. 536 00:23:02.660 --> 00:23:04.320 And, of course, there are going to be... 537 00:23:04.320 --> 00:23:06.660 So I spent a lot of time talking to each of these people. 538 00:23:06.780 --> 00:23:10.360 Of course, there are going to be, at the end of the day, pretty serious ethical issues 539 00:23:10.360 --> 00:23:15.420 arising in the science of the mind in a way that's already arisen in the sciences of medicine, 540 00:23:15.560 --> 00:23:16.940 of life, and so on. 541 00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:17.620 I mean, there's a... 542 00:23:18.500 --> 00:23:24.520 In the science of the mind, there is a history of pretty important experiments with fairly 543 00:23:24.520 --> 00:23:29.380 serious ethical consequences, which were nonetheless extremely informative for our understanding 544 00:23:30.220 --> 00:23:30.720 of the mind. 545 00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:38.200 One famous experiment was the experiments done at Yale by Milgram in the 1960s on the 546 00:23:38.200 --> 00:23:43.760 infliction of pain and the study of cooperation of people under orders. 547 00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:46.940 I mean, I think deliberately designed to highlight things that might be wrong. 548 00:23:46.940 --> 00:23:51.780 It might have been going on in regimes like Nazi Germany, but where people were instructed 549 00:23:51.780 --> 00:23:57.220 to inflict pain, go higher on the meter, go higher on the meter. 550 00:23:57.340 --> 00:23:59.820 They say, oh, but the person's screaming pretty badly. 551 00:24:00.700 --> 00:24:02.040 I'm sorry, you must cooperate. 552 00:24:02.860 --> 00:24:03.700 This is the rules of the experiments. 553 00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:07.960 You know, 60% of the people went up to the point on the scale which was x, x, x, beyond 554 00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:13.460 the point where the noises from the next room just gave out. 555 00:24:13.720 --> 00:24:14.680 That's pretty scary. 556 00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:15.780 You can't... 557 00:24:15.780 --> 00:24:16.420 But it was extreme. 558 00:24:16.580 --> 00:24:16.920 And you can't... 559 00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:19.960 In fact, get that kind of experiment past an ethics committee anymore. 560 00:24:20.140 --> 00:24:24.260 But it was extremely important to our understanding of the human condition. 561 00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:28.500 You know, obviously, you can't get that experiment past an ethics committee anymore because this 562 00:24:28.500 --> 00:24:31.100 is traumatic for the people who did it. 563 00:24:31.920 --> 00:24:37.500 The Zimbardo prison experiments at Stanford in the later 1960s divided into the prisoners 564 00:24:37.500 --> 00:24:38.440 and the guards. 565 00:24:38.580 --> 00:24:40.540 Many of you have probably seen the movie. 566 00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:45.600 We learned an awful lot about the human condition from that, something which has bearing on... 567 00:24:45.600 --> 00:24:46.760 It really ought to have had a bearing. 568 00:25:15.340 --> 00:25:16.740 It'sQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQu 569 00:25:16.740 --> 00:25:21.200 which means we ought to be prepared to take some risks 570 00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:24.800 just because the potential benefits are so large. 571 00:25:24.900 --> 00:25:29.760 But I think it's just obvious that the right balance is somewhere in the middle. 572 00:25:30.180 --> 00:25:34.180 I think it's worth just interjecting there that with those Stanley Milgram experiments, 573 00:25:35.280 --> 00:25:38.960 no humans were harmed during the carrying out of the experiment. 574 00:25:39.060 --> 00:25:41.800 It was just an actor who was pretending to be electrocuted. 575 00:25:42.040 --> 00:25:44.080 Let me just say, no humans were physically harmed. 576 00:25:44.080 --> 00:25:48.760 Yeah, there was debate afterwards about the psychological harm of taking part in the experiment. 577 00:25:49.080 --> 00:25:51.340 Can I just follow on from David in Dorse, 578 00:25:51.340 --> 00:25:56.540 how I think philosophy and neuroscience certainly do go so closely together. 579 00:25:56.620 --> 00:25:58.920 I'm very excited we've just got this money in Oxford. 580 00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:02.300 Those of you who heard us this morning talk, I gave the plug for the website, 581 00:26:02.520 --> 00:26:04.160 which is the Pharmacology Development website, Oxford. 582 00:26:04.340 --> 00:26:06.300 Look up Oxford Centre for the Science of the Mind. 583 00:26:06.440 --> 00:26:08.040 And we are in equal numbers there. 584 00:26:08.740 --> 00:26:12.460 Theologians, I stress theologians, philosophers, neuroscientists, 585 00:26:12.500 --> 00:26:13.500 neurosurgeons and psychologists, 586 00:26:13.500 --> 00:26:16.580 all working together on some of the big issues. 587 00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:17.500 And it's very exciting. 588 00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:19.880 And this is an example of the multidisciplinarity. 589 00:26:20.040 --> 00:26:22.640 Now, can I just ask John my question now before I run out of time? 590 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:27.300 My question to John is why he puts such a premium on magic 591 00:26:27.300 --> 00:26:30.000 and why he thinks magic equals charm. 592 00:26:30.320 --> 00:26:32.720 And does he think it's a monopoly on charm? 593 00:26:35.660 --> 00:26:40.440 One of the most influential sociologists, a Frenchman called Durkheim, 594 00:26:41.180 --> 00:26:43.480 suggested that the distinction between the social and the psychological 595 00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:47.600 and the sacred and the profane is the most important distinction in human thought. 596 00:26:48.740 --> 00:26:56.480 What he was gesturing towards is that the things in life that we regard as profane, 597 00:26:58.320 --> 00:27:04.820 disenchanted, ordinary, everyday things from stuff we turn our nose up to cups 598 00:27:04.820 --> 00:27:11.800 of coffee is quite distinct in its plain from what we regard as sacred. 599 00:27:12.500 --> 00:27:13.480 For some reason, it's not. 600 00:27:13.480 --> 00:27:18.100 For some reason, culture and meaning and the way we make sense of our lives 601 00:27:18.100 --> 00:27:23.220 depends on what he called, or what you can technically call, the sacred. 602 00:27:23.320 --> 00:27:34.540 An enchanted or a metaphysical or a non-material theory explanation of what we're doing. 603 00:27:35.100 --> 00:27:40.300 But let me give another example, which was actually what I wanted to say anyway. 604 00:27:40.520 --> 00:27:42.720 And this is from the humanities and it's from theology. 605 00:27:42.820 --> 00:27:43.220 So, 606 00:27:43.480 --> 00:27:47.200 Susan will appreciate that I'm continuing her remark about theologians. 607 00:27:48.380 --> 00:27:53.820 I've spent a lot of the last three or four years reading biblical scholarship and biblical commentary. 608 00:27:54.900 --> 00:28:00.680 It's to do with the current project of mine on the fundamental Western stories. 609 00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:09.240 And I've been struck amongst many things by the fact that the vast bulk of biblical commentary 610 00:28:09.240 --> 00:28:13.460 and scholarship for the last 150 years has been caught up in the, 611 00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:16.400 in the question of the historical Jesus, as it's usually called. 612 00:28:16.580 --> 00:28:18.580 The quest for the historical Jesus. 613 00:28:18.680 --> 00:28:22.980 The vast majority of the books, and there are, there are hundreds and hundreds, 614 00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:25.700 probably thousands, thousands of them. 615 00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:31.500 Now, some, some of this quest started in the mid-19th century in order to try and show 616 00:28:31.500 --> 00:28:34.940 that Jesus didn't exist and therefore, you know, explode Christianity. 617 00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:38.140 And that would be the end of it and, and, and so forth. 618 00:28:38.360 --> 00:28:43.140 But most biblical commentators and scholars are practicing Christians and they've continued, 619 00:28:43.140 --> 00:28:44.720 continued this, this, this tradition. 620 00:28:45.060 --> 00:28:50.640 Now it is an utterly futile quest for the symptom where it's got nowhere. 621 00:28:50.940 --> 00:28:56.520 Basically there are two contemporary historians or, or there are two docu-, 622 00:28:56.520 --> 00:29:01.260 contemporary documents in the first century that refer to a Jesus Christ. 623 00:29:01.720 --> 00:29:04.440 One's Jewish and one's Roman and all they say 624 00:29:04.440 --> 00:29:06.520 that there was a Jesus Christ and He was crucified. 625 00:29:07.340 --> 00:29:10.960 That's basically all we know from contemporary accounts. 626 00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:17.200 accounts. The Jesus Christ of Christianity and of Western culture basically is a figure produced 627 00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:28.100 in four stories. He's a creation of four stories and the attempt to somehow base this figure or 628 00:29:28.100 --> 00:29:33.320 think that he will be a more successful presence with practicing Christians, obviously this is 629 00:29:34.280 --> 00:29:40.100 the motive. If we can prove that he actually existed and that in the year four and in December 630 00:29:40.100 --> 00:29:46.240 or whenever he did this and that he actually was crucified, that there's been this incredible 631 00:29:46.240 --> 00:29:53.120 impulse to find facts and I'm sure it's because of the charisma of the scientific paradigm 632 00:29:53.120 --> 00:29:59.860 and instead of settling back with what real culture is based on stories, charged, mythic, 633 00:30:01.480 --> 00:30:08.040 magical stories, instead of just accepting that these are four of the most potent stories in 634 00:30:08.040 --> 00:30:10.080 Western culture and accept that that's a very high quality of Christianity, that's a very high 635 00:30:10.080 --> 00:30:12.500 that's the Jesus who is the Jesus. 636 00:30:12.780 --> 00:30:14.860 I think biblical commentary and scholarship 637 00:30:14.860 --> 00:30:19.340 has really been corrupted by this pseudo-scientific impulse. 638 00:30:20.220 --> 00:30:20.740 But... 639 00:30:20.740 --> 00:30:21.760 APPLAUSE 640 00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:25.700 OK, you go first. 641 00:30:25.700 --> 00:30:25.920 Yeah. 642 00:30:26.420 --> 00:30:30.860 But, you know, most scientists who've had any contact with religion 643 00:30:30.860 --> 00:30:33.200 or many of us have brought up in religion one way or another 644 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:35.560 would be perfectly happy with what you've just said, 645 00:30:35.620 --> 00:30:39.780 that basically these are marvellous stories 646 00:30:39.780 --> 00:30:44.520 which define a whole set of beliefs and so forth. 647 00:30:44.620 --> 00:30:47.480 But the problem is with the fundamentalists 648 00:30:47.480 --> 00:30:49.160 who say that the stories are literal truth, 649 00:30:49.460 --> 00:30:54.660 who are trying to convert what is symbol and myth 650 00:30:54.660 --> 00:30:57.760 into some sort of objective reality. 651 00:30:58.060 --> 00:31:00.200 That's not the fault of the scientists, for God's sake. 652 00:31:00.300 --> 00:31:01.740 Most of these biblical commentators and scholars 653 00:31:01.740 --> 00:31:03.480 are not fundamentalists in your sense. 654 00:31:03.580 --> 00:31:05.640 They don't believe in the literal truth of the Bible. 655 00:31:05.840 --> 00:31:07.920 My point is rather it's... 656 00:31:08.460 --> 00:31:09.360 Obviously, except... 657 00:31:09.360 --> 00:31:09.660 No, no. 658 00:31:09.780 --> 00:31:12.880 My point is about the cultural consequences of science. 659 00:31:13.300 --> 00:31:15.780 And if we go outside the areas of science, 660 00:31:16.020 --> 00:31:19.280 we find this very distinguished community 661 00:31:19.280 --> 00:31:21.220 of thousands and thousands of scholars 662 00:31:21.220 --> 00:31:23.460 spending a huge amount of effort 663 00:31:23.460 --> 00:31:26.200 trying to find facts where they can't find facts. 664 00:31:26.380 --> 00:31:28.380 So they're misinterpreting the nature of science. 665 00:31:28.600 --> 00:31:31.200 And, you know, for many scientists, many scientists read poetry. 666 00:31:31.320 --> 00:31:32.500 Some even write poetry. 667 00:31:32.600 --> 00:31:35.120 Some of us even have emotions and, you know, irrational things like that. 668 00:31:35.280 --> 00:31:36.080 Yeah, we do. 669 00:31:36.080 --> 00:31:36.360 Some of us. 670 00:31:37.860 --> 00:31:38.780 We don't... 671 00:31:38.780 --> 00:31:39.760 We don't... 672 00:31:39.760 --> 00:31:42.340 We don't approach our relationships with our significant others 673 00:31:42.340 --> 00:31:44.280 in the way that we would approach an experiment. 674 00:31:44.580 --> 00:31:45.720 I figured this was important. 675 00:31:45.840 --> 00:31:47.180 Can I follow on from that? 676 00:31:47.260 --> 00:31:48.080 Because I think it's really important. 677 00:31:48.300 --> 00:31:48.900 It's so important. 678 00:31:49.080 --> 00:31:49.240 Very quick. 679 00:31:49.660 --> 00:31:50.180 We're here. 680 00:31:50.280 --> 00:31:52.480 We're living in a world currently where in the states, 681 00:31:52.600 --> 00:31:53.400 in the southern states, 682 00:31:54.280 --> 00:31:57.400 people are actually not teaching kids evolution anymore 683 00:31:57.400 --> 00:31:58.880 or telling them that it's just a theory. 684 00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:00.580 And I think we have to be very clear here. 685 00:32:00.600 --> 00:32:04.240 We don't get too misty-eyed about magic and sacred 686 00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:08.120 and, you know, reductionist facts and these cruel facts and so on. 687 00:32:08.780 --> 00:32:09.500 Surely, surely, 688 00:32:09.500 --> 00:32:11.720 while it is better for a human being to try and understand, 689 00:32:11.900 --> 00:32:13.200 to try and find something out, 690 00:32:13.340 --> 00:32:14.720 than to be told what to think, 691 00:32:14.860 --> 00:32:16.580 look what being told what to think, 692 00:32:16.740 --> 00:32:21.340 look what these constraints has imposed on our society today. 693 00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:24.400 Bombs in my own city two days ago arose from people, 694 00:32:24.560 --> 00:32:26.200 perhaps who haven't questioned enough, 695 00:32:26.440 --> 00:32:27.260 who haven't... 696 00:32:27.260 --> 00:32:30.140 who've adopted a magical or mystical or charismatic narrative. 697 00:32:30.400 --> 00:32:31.300 And look where it's got us. 698 00:32:32.160 --> 00:32:32.900 Thank you. 699 00:32:37.300 --> 00:32:38.900 We're going to have to adjourn later. 700 00:32:39.500 --> 00:32:40.980 We've got two questions that have arrived to ask questions of one another 701 00:32:40.980 --> 00:32:42.240 because it's time to turn the... 702 00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:43.700 Open the floor, I think. 703 00:32:43.800 --> 00:32:46.320 So there's a microphone here and there's one... 704 00:32:46.320 --> 00:32:48.040 Am I right that there's one up there? 705 00:32:48.820 --> 00:32:49.260 OK. 706 00:32:49.460 --> 00:32:51.840 If you would like to come to the mic down here. 707 00:32:52.060 --> 00:32:55.640 At this time of night could you make them questions and not statements, please? 708 00:32:57.140 --> 00:33:01.500 Yes, I'd like to put a question to the panel about pus and politicians, 709 00:33:02.180 --> 00:33:06.680 picking up on Susan's last point about emotionality, 710 00:33:06.760 --> 00:33:07.420 because... 711 00:33:08.180 --> 00:33:09.480 You know, we hear it's the same thing that's happening in the world today. 712 00:33:09.480 --> 00:33:10.600 at the Festival of Ideas. 713 00:33:10.620 --> 00:33:13.000 This is a city that has a program of thinkers and residents. 714 00:33:13.220 --> 00:33:14.860 The government sponsors this. 715 00:33:16.160 --> 00:33:20.060 But the problem is when ideas become confounded with emotions, 716 00:33:20.280 --> 00:33:24.300 when rationality becomes eroded by sentiment. 717 00:33:25.660 --> 00:33:30.160 And Morag's comment about Frankenstein is a very good example 718 00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:33.080 because the whole symbol of Frankenstein 719 00:33:33.080 --> 00:33:35.220 is actually about First World War veterans 720 00:33:35.220 --> 00:33:38.980 who had been reconstructed by plastic surgeons 721 00:33:38.980 --> 00:33:43.560 and the plastic surgeons presented a symbol of traumatised people 722 00:33:43.560 --> 00:33:47.120 to our society which people at large couldn't cope with. 723 00:33:47.560 --> 00:33:52.160 Now, Susan said that politicians hate scientists 724 00:33:52.160 --> 00:33:54.100 who come up with the wrong answers. 725 00:33:55.400 --> 00:34:00.100 And the question is how do we deal with that hatred in the politicians 726 00:34:00.100 --> 00:34:01.500 because that is an emotion 727 00:34:01.500 --> 00:34:04.540 and it doesn't matter how many facts we put to them. 728 00:34:06.140 --> 00:34:08.960 Reason and discourse isn't the simple... 729 00:34:08.980 --> 00:34:09.260 It's the simple solution. 730 00:34:09.680 --> 00:34:11.460 And to bring it back to South Australia, 731 00:34:11.540 --> 00:34:13.500 we're in the midst of a Royal Commission at the moment 732 00:34:13.500 --> 00:34:17.140 about the death of a cyclist who was killed by a barrister 733 00:34:18.140 --> 00:34:20.820 who the expert evidence says is dissociated. 734 00:34:20.920 --> 00:34:27.600 Now, the Royal Commission is essentially trying to address... 735 00:34:27.600 --> 00:34:29.180 Perhaps we could focus back on the question. 736 00:34:29.340 --> 00:34:33.540 But the process is how do you deal with the politicians' inability 737 00:34:33.540 --> 00:34:37.540 to deal with the scientists coming up with an answer they didn't like 738 00:34:37.540 --> 00:34:38.840 because it... 739 00:34:38.980 --> 00:34:42.460 It didn't confer with the public sentiment. 740 00:34:43.460 --> 00:34:43.900 Okay. 741 00:34:44.380 --> 00:34:44.820 Okay. 742 00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:48.500 I don't think I said exactly that they hate scientists 743 00:34:48.500 --> 00:34:50.740 because they say things that they don't like. 744 00:34:50.920 --> 00:34:53.400 It'd be more they say things they don't understand 745 00:34:53.400 --> 00:34:56.580 or they say things in a way that they can't understand. 746 00:34:57.800 --> 00:35:02.320 I think it's dangerous to try and separate rational from emotions. 747 00:35:02.460 --> 00:35:04.900 As the great Niels Bohr said, a physicist, he said to a student once, 748 00:35:05.140 --> 00:35:07.500 you're not thinking, you're just being logical. 749 00:35:08.980 --> 00:35:11.600 And we all use, in science all the time, we're using intuition, 750 00:35:11.800 --> 00:35:15.820 we're using a hunch when we try and interpret something or have an idea. 751 00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:20.300 This is not necessarily planned out or mapped out through a series of algorithms. 752 00:35:20.440 --> 00:35:23.440 It's something where we use this curious feature that we human beings have 753 00:35:23.440 --> 00:35:27.680 and robots don't have of intuition, common sense and hunches and so on. 754 00:35:27.760 --> 00:35:30.840 So I don't want to divorce, and I don't think we should divorce, 755 00:35:30.940 --> 00:35:33.680 hard, cold, reductionist facts, either for good or ill, 756 00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:35.980 away from touchy-feely or wishy-washy, 757 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:37.380 according to which side you look at emotions. 758 00:35:37.620 --> 00:35:38.900 They could be called either of that. 759 00:35:38.980 --> 00:35:43.340 I think that all of what we do and think and feel will be charged, 760 00:35:43.480 --> 00:35:47.060 because we're human beings, with some kind of emotional, some kind of bias. 761 00:35:47.340 --> 00:35:51.840 And perhaps the saddest emotion of all is the one of anger or fear. 762 00:35:52.100 --> 00:35:55.260 And anger and fear, which is directed usually at scientists, 763 00:35:55.380 --> 00:35:59.200 by politicians possibly, is always rooted in not understanding. 764 00:35:59.560 --> 00:36:02.140 And I think what we need to tackle is understanding. 765 00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:04.800 As soon as you understand something, you might not go along with it, 766 00:36:04.860 --> 00:36:06.480 but you're not as frightened or as angry. 767 00:36:06.760 --> 00:36:08.780 Once you understand something, you can come, 768 00:36:08.980 --> 00:36:11.220 to terms with how to cope with it, how to deal with it, 769 00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:12.340 how to change it even. 770 00:36:12.680 --> 00:36:14.660 And so what I would like to put a premium on 771 00:36:14.660 --> 00:36:18.660 is not so much, again, demonizing people or compartmentalizing people 772 00:36:18.660 --> 00:36:22.880 into card-hold ruthless people or nasty politicians 773 00:36:22.880 --> 00:36:24.560 or touchy-feely scientists or whatever, 774 00:36:24.740 --> 00:36:27.760 but more that these are examples of discrepancy and understanding. 775 00:36:28.300 --> 00:36:30.420 And it's only by working together, 776 00:36:31.060 --> 00:36:33.280 rather than pointing the finger and pea-shooting at each other, 777 00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:34.540 that we'll get anywhere. 778 00:36:36.900 --> 00:36:37.660 Any word, Nadine? 779 00:36:39.320 --> 00:36:40.340 Thank you. Yes. 780 00:36:41.340 --> 00:36:44.060 A very quick question on Alzheimer's disease. 781 00:36:44.240 --> 00:36:47.300 I was very impressed reading the nun story 782 00:36:47.300 --> 00:36:52.000 and the contributions that Sister Mary gave us. 783 00:36:52.420 --> 00:36:54.680 Can you comment on this research, please? 784 00:36:55.100 --> 00:36:57.420 Yes. I can't remember the paper in great detail, 785 00:36:57.520 --> 00:37:01.200 but the basic idea, I'm sure my friend here from the New Scientist 786 00:37:01.200 --> 00:37:02.460 will be able to give the details, 787 00:37:02.580 --> 00:37:05.680 but the basic conclusion of the so-called nun study, 788 00:37:05.860 --> 00:37:07.240 which in itself sounds very strange, 789 00:37:07.360 --> 00:37:08.960 because it worked with nuns, 790 00:37:08.980 --> 00:37:09.780 who'd entered a convent, 791 00:37:09.900 --> 00:37:11.860 and it was looking, basically, at the relationship 792 00:37:11.860 --> 00:37:14.340 between education, IQ, 793 00:37:14.540 --> 00:37:16.860 and possibility of getting Alzheimer's disease. 794 00:37:17.060 --> 00:37:19.660 And the conclusion, which is a very interesting one, 795 00:37:20.340 --> 00:37:24.180 is not that Alzheimer's disease is negatively correlated, 796 00:37:24.340 --> 00:37:25.860 that's to say you have less chance, 797 00:37:26.020 --> 00:37:28.560 if you are intelligent as such, 798 00:37:28.720 --> 00:37:30.600 and look at Iris Murdoch, a brilliant writer, 799 00:37:30.680 --> 00:37:33.300 and Bernard Levin, another brilliant mind in England, 800 00:37:33.340 --> 00:37:34.680 both of whom were victims of that disease, 801 00:37:34.860 --> 00:37:36.920 but more it correlates negatively with education. 802 00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:38.960 And I think what that tells, 803 00:37:38.960 --> 00:37:42.100 but incidentally, of course you can be educated, 804 00:37:42.280 --> 00:37:44.960 and that's no guarantee that you're not going to get Alzheimer's. 805 00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:47.740 But what it suggests is the critical factor there 806 00:37:47.740 --> 00:37:49.360 is how much you can stimulate your brain 807 00:37:49.360 --> 00:37:51.300 to offset the ravages of the disease. 808 00:37:51.560 --> 00:37:53.800 The brain is like a muscle, you use it all and you lose it, 809 00:37:53.840 --> 00:37:54.780 and the more you stimulate it, 810 00:37:54.900 --> 00:37:56.820 then the stronger you're making the connection. 811 00:37:57.080 --> 00:37:58.340 So if you are having Alzheimer's disease, 812 00:37:58.440 --> 00:38:00.840 you could offset it, possibly by stimulation. 813 00:38:01.040 --> 00:38:02.020 It's something we're working on, 814 00:38:02.060 --> 00:38:04.960 is devising software for people with early cognitive impairment. 815 00:38:05.320 --> 00:38:08.700 So it's not to do with IQ, whatever that is, whatever IQ is. 816 00:38:08.700 --> 00:38:10.660 And we haven't got time now to discuss what IQ is. 817 00:38:10.720 --> 00:38:12.260 I'm sure that would be another whole thinking debate. 818 00:38:12.440 --> 00:38:15.460 But more the issue of how much you've had the privilege of education 819 00:38:16.100 --> 00:38:17.800 that may help you offset the disease. 820 00:38:19.120 --> 00:38:19.560 Yes. 821 00:38:22.500 --> 00:38:25.460 This is my first Festival of Ideas. 822 00:38:25.480 --> 00:38:27.000 I'm no scientist, no intellect, 823 00:38:27.080 --> 00:38:31.700 but I've been just so inspired by what I've heard since Thursday night. 824 00:38:31.940 --> 00:38:34.320 And I was thinking about the topic tonight, 825 00:38:34.440 --> 00:38:35.980 and designing the universe, 826 00:38:36.060 --> 00:38:38.260 and I thought if there was somebody missing, 827 00:38:38.260 --> 00:38:40.100 maybe it was like the Dalai Lama. 828 00:38:41.460 --> 00:38:44.160 Because we haven't, well at least what I've been to so far, 829 00:38:44.240 --> 00:38:48.180 we haven't really touched much on, I don't know, 830 00:38:48.200 --> 00:38:49.840 peace and serenity and meditation 831 00:38:49.840 --> 00:38:51.520 and the power of those sorts of things. 832 00:38:51.760 --> 00:38:54.020 And I went to see a movie recently, 833 00:38:54.120 --> 00:38:55.840 and they talked about a study in Washington 834 00:38:55.840 --> 00:38:58.280 where 400 people came together, 835 00:38:58.340 --> 00:38:59.760 400, 4,000, I don't know, 836 00:38:59.900 --> 00:39:05.340 and it related directly to the crime rate in that area, 837 00:39:05.580 --> 00:39:07.100 that it had dropped dramatically. 838 00:39:07.340 --> 00:39:08.080 So I just wonder, 839 00:39:08.260 --> 00:39:11.280 in designing this universe and talking about all of the sciences 840 00:39:11.280 --> 00:39:13.240 and all of the problems of the world, 841 00:39:13.340 --> 00:39:16.100 and there were many discussed on Thursday night, 842 00:39:16.280 --> 00:39:19.360 you know, inequality, greed, whatever, 843 00:39:19.580 --> 00:39:22.220 you know, what's the role of, you know, 844 00:39:22.220 --> 00:39:23.700 the energy that we have together 845 00:39:24.360 --> 00:39:27.860 in terms of meditation or serenity and peace 846 00:39:27.860 --> 00:39:30.400 and, I don't know, maybe the big one, which is God, 847 00:39:30.440 --> 00:39:31.420 which maybe is love. 848 00:39:32.400 --> 00:39:35.480 You know, where is that in the design of the universe 849 00:39:35.480 --> 00:39:36.480 we've been talking about? 850 00:39:38.260 --> 00:39:40.060 I just happened to... 851 00:39:43.340 --> 00:39:44.760 During a time in the US, 852 00:39:44.800 --> 00:39:47.860 I just happened to pick up a copy of the New York Times 853 00:39:47.860 --> 00:39:50.260 where there was an op-ed piece by the Dalai Lama 854 00:39:50.260 --> 00:39:54.660 which described how he had initiated discussions 855 00:39:55.160 --> 00:39:56.880 with cognitive neuroscientists 856 00:39:56.880 --> 00:40:00.760 to try and interest them in studying meditation 857 00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:03.520 through modern scientific techniques and technology. 858 00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:06.700 And his interest particularly was, could we find... 859 00:40:06.700 --> 00:40:07.000 He was... 860 00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:07.820 It was a very sensible, 861 00:40:07.960 --> 00:40:08.240 very practical question. 862 00:40:08.240 --> 00:40:08.900 It was a very practical article. 863 00:40:09.100 --> 00:40:11.860 And his interest particularly is, could we find solutions, 864 00:40:13.560 --> 00:40:15.940 good, sound, scientifically-based solutions 865 00:40:15.940 --> 00:40:17.580 through meditation that would, for instance, 866 00:40:17.660 --> 00:40:20.380 substitute for drugs and perhaps lead to an extension 867 00:40:20.380 --> 00:40:21.540 of those types of approaches? 868 00:40:21.900 --> 00:40:24.320 So I think, at least from the Buddhist perspective, 869 00:40:24.440 --> 00:40:27.520 as I understand it, there's no hostility towards science 870 00:40:27.520 --> 00:40:28.860 and a desire to work with it. 871 00:40:29.080 --> 00:40:31.660 And indeed, on a more straightforward level, 872 00:40:32.320 --> 00:40:33.860 let's take somewhere like the Middle East 873 00:40:33.860 --> 00:40:35.300 where there's a discrepancy in the GDP 874 00:40:35.300 --> 00:40:37.780 between some countries and others by a factor of three, 875 00:40:37.860 --> 00:40:38.220 or even more so, 876 00:40:38.240 --> 00:40:38.540 and even more. 877 00:40:39.200 --> 00:40:41.220 Surely, if you were able to give people 878 00:40:41.840 --> 00:40:43.500 a good roof over their head, 879 00:40:43.640 --> 00:40:44.620 education for their kids, 880 00:40:44.640 --> 00:40:47.580 a stimulating and secure career or job, 881 00:40:48.240 --> 00:40:51.280 then you might be able to fuse some of the extreme ideologies 882 00:40:51.280 --> 00:40:52.840 that are fomenting such trouble. 883 00:40:53.180 --> 00:40:55.080 And my own view is that if you're to do that, 884 00:40:55.160 --> 00:40:56.420 you have to turn to science and technology 885 00:40:56.420 --> 00:40:57.800 because in the 21st century, 886 00:40:57.880 --> 00:40:59.640 as we're shifting into the information age, 887 00:40:59.800 --> 00:41:02.380 it's science and technology that will provide prosperity 888 00:41:02.380 --> 00:41:04.880 and wealth creation in all regions of the world 889 00:41:04.880 --> 00:41:06.980 and especially in regions such as that. 890 00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:07.700 And science, therefore, 891 00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:08.220 can promote business and technology. 892 00:41:08.240 --> 00:41:08.400 It can promote peace. 893 00:41:08.620 --> 00:41:11.840 Not even as sophisticatedly or elegantly 894 00:41:11.840 --> 00:41:13.680 as looking at brain scans and meditation 895 00:41:13.680 --> 00:41:14.420 or anything like that, 896 00:41:14.480 --> 00:41:17.300 but simply by introducing technologies and knowledge 897 00:41:17.300 --> 00:41:19.620 into an area in the 21st century 898 00:41:19.620 --> 00:41:21.980 where people can actually improve their working lives. 899 00:41:22.260 --> 00:41:24.520 Robert, David, John, any of you want to add? 900 00:41:24.520 --> 00:41:24.760 Yeah. 901 00:41:26.160 --> 00:41:28.080 I'm a Buddhist, as it happens, 902 00:41:28.260 --> 00:41:31.140 and so I have a lot of sympathy with the Dalai Lama's attitude 903 00:41:31.140 --> 00:41:37.940 towards initiating research that looks at what is likely 904 00:41:37.940 --> 00:41:38.220 to be more important than the real world. 905 00:41:38.220 --> 00:41:48.020 I think it'sQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQu 906 00:41:48.120 --> 00:41:49.220 QuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQu 907 00:41:49.320 --> 00:41:50.520 QuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQu 908 00:41:50.620 --> 00:41:51.220 QuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQu 909 00:41:51.320 --> 00:41:52.220 QuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQu 910 00:41:52.320 --> 00:41:55.020 QuQuQuQuQuQuQu 911 00:42:08.220 --> 00:42:13.420 evolutionary reasons, possibly, we are more concerned about making the wrong decision 912 00:42:13.420 --> 00:42:18.280 than we feel joy from having made the correct decision. We get the thing that we actually 913 00:42:18.280 --> 00:42:22.640 want, and then we think, okay, yes, the latest BMW, but it doesn't have quite as good air 914 00:42:22.640 --> 00:42:28.200 conditioning as the Lexus, okay? So the joy of what we think making the correct decision 915 00:42:28.200 --> 00:42:34.860 is more than offset by the concern of having made the wrong decision. And so I'd be very 916 00:42:34.860 --> 00:42:42.500 interested in, and maybe Susan would have some suggestions here, finding avenues that 917 00:42:42.500 --> 00:42:50.560 allow people to say, can we just look at this area of research? Can scientists stop deciding 918 00:42:50.560 --> 00:42:55.940 what ought to be studied and what's likely to bring the biggest sum total to human happiness? 919 00:42:56.480 --> 00:43:04.120 Can science start to address questions that address this issue of increasing the sum total 920 00:43:04.120 --> 00:43:04.820 of human happiness? 921 00:43:04.860 --> 00:43:10.260 Maybe it's meditation or whatever. How can we get that dialogue to get the public to 922 00:43:10.260 --> 00:43:14.420 direct the scientific research agenda on these issues that affect us all? 923 00:43:15.360 --> 00:43:15.800 Okay. 924 00:43:19.140 --> 00:43:23.020 Okay, well, sorry, okay. There's a song called Bernays, who's a nephew to Freud, 925 00:43:23.240 --> 00:43:26.860 and some of you may have heard of, who in the first half of the 20th century worked 926 00:43:27.620 --> 00:43:31.740 out a very devious way of persuading people to buy things they didn't need, but that he 927 00:43:31.740 --> 00:43:34.600 would persuade them they wanted. And he hit on the very good idea of using things to be 928 00:43:34.600 --> 00:43:34.840 symbolic. 929 00:43:34.860 --> 00:43:39.340 So, for example, he persuaded young women who at that time never smoked culturally, 930 00:43:39.480 --> 00:43:43.960 it was against their style, to actually have cigarettes because they were the torches of 931 00:43:43.960 --> 00:43:44.280 freedom. 932 00:43:46.640 --> 00:43:50.280 So, one can then extend this, and you only have to look at adverts even today, which 933 00:43:50.280 --> 00:43:52.800 is the sofa that says something about you. 934 00:43:54.420 --> 00:43:59.480 As unique as you are, that's almost a paradox in terms. Everyone's buying things as unique 935 00:43:59.480 --> 00:44:03.940 as they are. It's the same thing that's as unique as they are. People seem to buy into 936 00:44:03.940 --> 00:44:04.060 this. 937 00:44:04.140 --> 00:44:04.840 And I think, and I think it's a very good point, and I think it's a very good point, 938 00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:08.560 but what's this hitting on very cleverly, and this is the cognitive sciences, if you 939 00:44:08.560 --> 00:44:13.760 like, is people now feel a desire to be individuals, to say something about themselves. Now, of 940 00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:17.120 course they get thwarted, because you then find everyone's got the sofa, everyone's got 941 00:44:17.120 --> 00:44:20.660 the thing, and it's not unique, and it's not saying anything about you at all. Or if it 942 00:44:20.660 --> 00:44:24.380 is, it's saying you're the same as everyone else, which is even more depressing. And I 943 00:44:24.380 --> 00:44:29.540 think we are in a kind of crisis at the moment, and it's something I really like to explore, 944 00:44:29.720 --> 00:44:33.700 which is this notion of how you say something about yourself, and why it's important to 945 00:44:33.700 --> 00:44:34.240 have this status. 946 00:44:34.300 --> 00:44:34.820 And it's something that's really important. 947 00:44:34.840 --> 00:44:39.200 It's something we all want to do. That's, the alternatives are to have the technology 948 00:44:39.200 --> 00:44:43.000 imploding upon us, where we end up just saying yuck and wow, and I'm going to say more about 949 00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:47.420 that tomorrow. That's a plug for tomorrow. So you're either obliterating the ego, if 950 00:44:47.420 --> 00:44:55.040 you like, or it's being inappropriately symbolized by these ubiquitous, unique items. Or it's 951 00:44:55.040 --> 00:44:59.800 being obliterated in a public ego that is a narrative, a collective narrative, as in 952 00:44:59.800 --> 00:45:04.520 fundamentalism, where everyone is acting out the same storyline. So you're like a cohesive 953 00:45:05.420 --> 00:45:09.520 whole personality, of which one component can easily kill themselves, and that narrative 954 00:45:09.520 --> 00:45:13.460 carries on. But the fourth way of doing this, and I think that science can help here, is 955 00:45:13.460 --> 00:45:16.880 to understand more about the creative process, because we've all had those wonderful eureka 956 00:45:16.880 --> 00:45:20.940 moments. And isn't it wonderful when you have that idea or that insight, you don't have 957 00:45:20.940 --> 00:45:26.420 to paint the Mona Lisa or write the Fifth Symphony. You suddenly have an insight or an idea that's 958 00:45:26.420 --> 00:45:29.120 truly creative, that's bringing together two things that haven't come together before. 959 00:45:29.240 --> 00:45:32.900 And then you really feel like a fulfilled person for about a second, of course. And 960 00:45:33.380 --> 00:45:37.040 you want to rush out. And that says something about you that truly is unique. And I think 961 00:45:37.040 --> 00:45:42.040 what we should be doing in sciences, in brain sciences, is exploring ways in which we can 962 00:45:42.040 --> 00:45:46.240 help people, especially in the education system, get to that eureka moment as often as possible, 963 00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:49.360 because then that would be a way of fostering individuality, and then you wouldn't need 964 00:45:49.360 --> 00:45:51.360 to buy the sofa, and you wouldn't need the night care trainers. 965 00:45:52.520 --> 00:45:53.100 Just quick. 966 00:45:55.720 --> 00:46:01.000 Yeah, I think it's a really good question. And in fact, in the area I work in, the science 967 00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:02.880 of consciousness, in just the last year or so, I've been working on a project called, 968 00:46:02.900 --> 00:46:03.160 I think, the 969 00:46:03.160 --> 00:46:07.180 last few years, there's really been an increasing dialogue between the Western scientists and 970 00:46:07.180 --> 00:46:12.560 the eastern, members of the eastern contemplative tradition. It's been actually a dialogue in 971 00:46:12.560 --> 00:46:16.820 both directions. Some people have thought that we could take some ideas from these traditions 972 00:46:17.500 --> 00:46:21.760 as methodology for helping to study the mind. This is a tradition which has studied the 973 00:46:21.760 --> 00:46:27.480 mind from the inside for thousands of years, and has arrived at methods for studying the 974 00:46:27.480 --> 00:46:32.160 mind from the inside, consciousness from the inside that go well beyond any methods, which, 975 00:46:32.160 --> 00:46:32.880 straightforwardly, 976 00:46:32.900 --> 00:46:39.120 the relatively simplistic Western science has come up with. So that's been one direction. 977 00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:42.700 There's been a lot of dialogue. But in the other direction, there's also been the thought 978 00:46:42.700 --> 00:46:50.680 that the scientific study of happiness is something which could actually give us some 979 00:46:50.680 --> 00:46:54.020 ideas about how to set up society. 980 00:46:54.460 --> 00:47:02.420 There's been some really fascinating experiments from the last few years showing investigating 981 00:47:02.420 --> 00:47:02.880 ways in which we can develop a more comprehensive, more comprehensive, more comprehensive, more 982 00:47:21.540 --> 00:47:22.940 QuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQu 983 00:47:22.940 --> 00:47:24.780 your happiness. You win a lottery. 984 00:47:25.200 --> 00:47:26.840 People go up on the happiness scale a few 985 00:47:26.840 --> 00:47:28.960 points for a few months. A year or two, 986 00:47:29.040 --> 00:47:30.260 they come back down. 987 00:47:30.940 --> 00:47:31.940 On the other hand, people 988 00:47:33.820 --> 00:47:34.840 say, lose a limb. 989 00:47:35.200 --> 00:47:36.660 Something really terrible happens to them. 990 00:47:36.720 --> 00:47:38.780 Within a year or two, their level of happiness 991 00:47:38.780 --> 00:47:40.980 comes back up. There's a couple of things you can do 992 00:47:40.980 --> 00:47:42.900 that will make a difference. 993 00:47:43.320 --> 00:47:44.920 It turns out, you know, getting married helps you 994 00:47:44.920 --> 00:47:45.480 for a few years. 995 00:47:47.460 --> 00:47:48.460 Then you come 996 00:47:49.020 --> 00:47:50.940 back down. But given that we're all 997 00:47:50.940 --> 00:47:52.780 in this, we're all in this for happiness, all 998 00:47:52.780 --> 00:47:54.880 of this ought to really make us seriously reflect 999 00:47:54.880 --> 00:47:56.600 about what we're doing in designing society, 1000 00:47:56.800 --> 00:47:58.600 the role of money, the role of 1001 00:47:58.600 --> 00:48:00.800 all of this. I think this is a place where science 1002 00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:02.900 really can make us reflect on how we can 1003 00:48:02.900 --> 00:48:04.900 build a more happy society. I want to make some more questioners 1004 00:48:04.900 --> 00:48:06.820 happy, but thank you, David. Yes, 1005 00:48:06.840 --> 00:48:07.920 please, the gentleman just there. 1006 00:48:08.820 --> 00:48:09.560 Thank you all. 1007 00:48:10.560 --> 00:48:12.580 I have a question arising from 1008 00:48:12.580 --> 00:48:14.400 what I perceive as a tension between 1009 00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:16.560 what John Carroll has 1010 00:48:16.560 --> 00:48:17.160 raised 1011 00:48:18.920 --> 00:48:20.560 with the modern 1012 00:48:21.060 --> 00:48:21.860 scientific paradigm 1013 00:48:21.860 --> 00:48:24.460 and something 1014 00:48:24.460 --> 00:48:26.160 that Susan said about science 1015 00:48:26.160 --> 00:48:27.520 as a quest for truth. 1016 00:48:28.660 --> 00:48:30.300 And I have to 1017 00:48:31.040 --> 00:48:32.500 say something of a 1018 00:48:32.500 --> 00:48:34.080 short statement as a... 1019 00:48:34.080 --> 00:48:35.680 Very short, please. Very short. 1020 00:48:35.740 --> 00:48:38.360 It seems that most of our human life has 1021 00:48:38.360 --> 00:48:40.400 to do with the 1022 00:48:40.400 --> 00:48:42.460 essential aspects of it, non-material 1023 00:48:42.460 --> 00:48:44.420 things. There are material 1024 00:48:44.420 --> 00:48:46.020 things we are surrounded by, 1025 00:48:46.800 --> 00:48:48.280 brought us here, but 1026 00:48:49.860 --> 00:48:50.480 are 1027 00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:51.600 they the essential things? 1028 00:48:51.860 --> 00:48:54.040 Or is it the non-material things that brought us here 1029 00:48:54.040 --> 00:48:56.040 tonight? For me, 1030 00:48:56.040 --> 00:48:58.100 at least, it was the non-material things. 1031 00:48:59.200 --> 00:49:00.340 In the quest, the question 1032 00:49:00.340 --> 00:49:01.920 is, in the quest for truth, 1033 00:49:04.980 --> 00:49:06.100 can that 1034 00:49:06.100 --> 00:49:07.600 quest for truth encompass 1035 00:49:09.800 --> 00:49:10.360 more 1036 00:49:10.360 --> 00:49:11.440 than is normally 1037 00:49:12.720 --> 00:49:14.160 encompassed by the 1038 00:49:14.160 --> 00:49:15.540 scientific endeavour? 1039 00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:18.140 Do you want to start, John? 1040 00:49:19.480 --> 00:49:20.520 Well, I'd 1041 00:49:20.520 --> 00:49:21.840 say quite simply, 1042 00:49:21.860 --> 00:49:23.580 that the metaphysical 1043 00:49:23.580 --> 00:49:25.880 truths, and also 1044 00:49:25.880 --> 00:49:27.480 the moral truths about the 1045 00:49:28.800 --> 00:49:29.680 Socratic truths, 1046 00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:31.820 about what it is to be a good person, what it is to 1047 00:49:31.820 --> 00:49:33.880 be a just person, how to conduct your life 1048 00:49:33.880 --> 00:49:35.840 in those terms, modern Western 1049 00:49:35.840 --> 00:49:37.820 science has no answer. It's not its 1050 00:49:37.820 --> 00:49:39.540 orbit, and it 1051 00:49:40.120 --> 00:49:41.920 simply doesn't... It's not its 1052 00:49:41.920 --> 00:49:44.060 area of strength, it's not its... 1053 00:49:44.060 --> 00:49:45.800 It doesn't belong to its 1054 00:49:46.440 --> 00:49:48.020 universe or its logic. 1055 00:49:48.300 --> 00:49:49.960 And so the very simple 1056 00:49:49.960 --> 00:49:51.620 answer is, science, 1057 00:49:51.860 --> 00:49:53.740 should stick to where 1058 00:49:53.740 --> 00:49:55.280 it's good and where it belongs. 1059 00:49:57.300 --> 00:49:57.900 APPLAUSE 1060 00:49:59.820 --> 00:50:00.420 Yes. 1061 00:50:02.420 --> 00:50:03.420 I'm a scientist, 1062 00:50:03.500 --> 00:50:05.640 and I've greatly appreciated your 1063 00:50:05.640 --> 00:50:07.700 comments tonight, but I 1064 00:50:07.700 --> 00:50:09.780 also work for an organisation that I see 1065 00:50:09.780 --> 00:50:11.520 as a scientific organisation that is 1066 00:50:11.520 --> 00:50:12.920 going through all of those 1067 00:50:13.700 --> 00:50:15.600 aspects that you raised, Susan, of 1068 00:50:15.600 --> 00:50:17.060 chasing the dollars 1069 00:50:17.060 --> 00:50:19.280 in a control mentality, 1070 00:50:19.620 --> 00:50:21.520 and what I call a production line 1071 00:50:21.860 --> 00:50:23.400 in a sense about what science is about. 1072 00:50:23.880 --> 00:50:25.480 And it strikes me that 1073 00:50:25.480 --> 00:50:27.400 one of the consequences of that is 1074 00:50:27.400 --> 00:50:29.760 that we are starting to lose 1075 00:50:29.760 --> 00:50:30.400 the soul 1076 00:50:31.880 --> 00:50:33.420 of people as scientists. 1077 00:50:33.900 --> 00:50:35.220 And I wonder whether 1078 00:50:35.880 --> 00:50:37.460 that's one of the reasons why we're having 1079 00:50:37.460 --> 00:50:38.460 increasing difficulty 1080 00:50:39.400 --> 00:50:41.920 in communicating what science is about 1081 00:50:41.920 --> 00:50:44.060 to those people who are not 1082 00:50:44.060 --> 00:50:46.340 necessarily ambide with 1083 00:50:46.340 --> 00:50:47.320 scientific training. 1084 00:50:47.640 --> 00:50:51.020 Yeah, thank you very much. I think that's a really exciting question. 1085 00:50:51.660 --> 00:50:54.380 I think first though we ought to just make sure 1086 00:50:54.380 --> 00:50:56.220 that you're using soul there metaphorically 1087 00:50:56.220 --> 00:50:58.260 not in the kind of theological sense of it 1088 00:50:58.260 --> 00:51:00.240 so we're using here soul as being 1089 00:51:01.500 --> 00:51:02.380 that spark 1090 00:51:02.380 --> 00:51:04.360 of intuition that 1091 00:51:04.940 --> 00:51:05.880 unique to you 1092 00:51:05.880 --> 00:51:08.080 insight that comes 1093 00:51:08.560 --> 00:51:10.160 when you have a certain result 1094 00:51:10.160 --> 00:51:12.000 or when you have an idea that then you're going to 1095 00:51:12.480 --> 00:51:14.200 test empirically and I think that's very important 1096 00:51:14.200 --> 00:51:16.180 because and I will I hope get very 1097 00:51:16.180 --> 00:51:18.240 political now I think that at the moment 1098 00:51:18.240 --> 00:51:20.140 the way the public sector certainly 1099 00:51:20.140 --> 00:51:22.200 in the UK are funding science is to 1100 00:51:22.200 --> 00:51:23.580 put a premium on what is safe 1101 00:51:23.580 --> 00:51:25.860 what is going to yield easy results 1102 00:51:25.860 --> 00:51:28.300 what is a variation on what's 1103 00:51:28.300 --> 00:51:30.160 been done already which operates in what people call 1104 00:51:30.160 --> 00:51:32.340 an existing paradigm that doesn't 1105 00:51:32.340 --> 00:51:33.660 challenge existing dogma 1106 00:51:33.660 --> 00:51:35.880 the most exciting science and I would certainly 1107 00:51:35.880 --> 00:51:38.040 metaphorically call this 1108 00:51:38.040 --> 00:51:40.060 the soul if you like is 1109 00:51:40.060 --> 00:51:42.140 that which challenges dogma which does 1110 00:51:42.140 --> 00:51:44.200 say something that's different that is 1111 00:51:44.200 --> 00:51:45.920 heretical in every sense 1112 00:51:45.920 --> 00:51:47.800 now the downside of the heretical 1113 00:51:47.800 --> 00:51:49.740 the speculative the paradigm 1114 00:51:49.740 --> 00:51:52.720 shift is that a lot of the time 1115 00:51:52.720 --> 00:51:55.600 you're going to be wrong then people might accuse 1116 00:51:55.600 --> 00:51:58.000 you of wasting taxpayers money you're going to have 1117 00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:00.300 editorials written about you and how scandalous this is and so on 1118 00:52:00.300 --> 00:52:03.140 now you have to live in a society where people understand 1119 00:52:03.800 --> 00:52:06.360 that in order to ask the very bold the very big 1120 00:52:06.360 --> 00:52:10.800 the very dogma challenging questions means that you will often get negative results or 1121 00:52:10.800 --> 00:52:14.600 results that you weren't expecting and that's fine if you're a scientist and you have the 1122 00:52:14.600 --> 00:52:16.980 confidence and the confidence of the society that are paying you 1123 00:52:17.580 --> 00:52:19.520 that you're going to learn from those mistakes 1124 00:52:19.520 --> 00:52:20.580 because they're not mistakes 1125 00:52:20.580 --> 00:52:23.640 they are findings you weren't expecting and the 1126 00:52:23.640 --> 00:52:26.420 exciting thing about science is to actually ride with the the things 1127 00:52:26.420 --> 00:52:28.560 it's one thing or the other and it's a third thing 1128 00:52:28.560 --> 00:52:31.220 but sadly and I agree with you you've sat down 1129 00:52:31.220 --> 00:52:34.560 the questioner that sadly we're living in an audit ridden 1130 00:52:35.840 --> 00:52:39.140 completely risk averse society where people think 1131 00:52:39.140 --> 00:52:40.960 where a good experiment is one 1132 00:52:40.960 --> 00:52:43.780 where it gives you the result where you're expecting and I really fear 1133 00:52:43.780 --> 00:52:46.620 where it might actually be jeopardising public sector funded science 1134 00:52:46.620 --> 00:52:49.500 and indeed increasingly it's favouring research in the private sectors where it'sQuQu 1135 00:52:49.500 --> 00:52:51.360 sector which was previously reviled as being 1136 00:52:51.360 --> 00:52:52.760 kind of techy and dull and applied 1137 00:52:52.760 --> 00:52:55.360 and now you find in the biotech companies who have to 1138 00:52:55.360 --> 00:52:57.340 innovate otherwise they're dead that often you're getting 1139 00:52:57.340 --> 00:52:59.340 very exciting data from them as well 1140 00:52:59.340 --> 00:53:00.720 Thank you 1141 00:53:04.540 --> 00:53:06.240 This will be our last question 1142 00:53:06.240 --> 00:53:08.580 Two or three years ago Roger Scruton 1143 00:53:08.580 --> 00:53:10.600 wrote a book called The West and the Rest 1144 00:53:10.600 --> 00:53:11.780 a very short little book 1145 00:53:11.780 --> 00:53:13.980 in which he made the point 1146 00:53:13.980 --> 00:53:16.740 the great virtue of the Christian 1147 00:53:16.740 --> 00:53:18.240 and post-Christian West 1148 00:53:18.240 --> 00:53:20.660 was render the Caesar 1149 00:53:20.660 --> 00:53:22.380 the things of the Caesar and the God 1150 00:53:22.380 --> 00:53:24.480 the things of the God which enabled the separation 1151 00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:26.240 of science and theology 1152 00:53:26.240 --> 00:53:28.220 and he's using particularly 1153 00:53:28.220 --> 00:53:30.520 the example of Islam where theology 1154 00:53:30.520 --> 00:53:32.660 takes your whole life from top 1155 00:53:32.660 --> 00:53:34.740 to bottom and you cannot separate them 1156 00:53:34.740 --> 00:53:36.460 I spent ten years 1157 00:53:36.460 --> 00:53:37.840 working in Africa and Pakistan 1158 00:53:37.840 --> 00:53:40.740 and I found them pretty revolting 1159 00:53:40.740 --> 00:53:42.280 societies compared to ours 1160 00:53:42.280 --> 00:53:44.360 so I think he was completely right 1161 00:53:44.360 --> 00:53:46.880 Professor Carroll 1162 00:53:46.880 --> 00:53:47.460 please comment 1163 00:53:58.020 --> 00:54:02.360 I think the separation of church and state 1164 00:54:02.360 --> 00:54:06.760 is a different issue than the separation of God from science 1165 00:54:07.480 --> 00:54:08.720 but in both areas 1166 00:54:08.720 --> 00:54:12.020 the West is happier for that separation 1167 00:54:12.020 --> 00:54:17.220 and my worry tonight has been the sort of charisma 1168 00:54:17.220 --> 00:54:20.060 of science is meaning 1169 00:54:20.780 --> 00:54:22.200 that our serious thinking 1170 00:54:22.800 --> 00:54:23.940 in the metaphysical area 1171 00:54:23.940 --> 00:54:27.200 is not as strong as it should be 1172 00:54:28.980 --> 00:54:30.080 Anyone else? 1173 00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:34.480 I think it's no accident 1174 00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:36.360 that science developed in the way it did 1175 00:54:36.360 --> 00:54:37.220 in Christian societies 1176 00:54:38.320 --> 00:54:40.940 that there were elements about Christianity 1177 00:54:40.940 --> 00:54:43.000 that allowed that process to go forward 1178 00:54:43.000 --> 00:54:45.540 and it did flourish for a time under Islam 1179 00:54:45.540 --> 00:54:47.120 but that was over 1180 00:54:47.120 --> 00:54:47.880 by about 1200 1181 00:54:48.520 --> 00:54:49.260 And I'd like to add 1182 00:54:49.260 --> 00:54:50.160 what's wrong with charisma? 1183 00:54:50.240 --> 00:54:51.020 You're just saying it's good 1184 00:54:51.020 --> 00:54:51.920 for other things 1185 00:54:51.920 --> 00:54:53.460 why can't scientists have charisma as well? 1186 00:54:56.560 --> 00:54:58.040 As indeed they have 1187 00:54:58.040 --> 00:54:59.340 could I ask you to thank 1188 00:55:01.700 --> 00:55:05.500 Robert Matthews, David Chalmers, Susan Greenfield, Peter Doughty and John Carroll 1189 00:55:18.320 --> 00:55:21.580 for being soQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQuQu 1190 00:55:21.580 --> 00:55:22.040 Thank you.