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53:10
Neil deGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins Discuss Science, Religion & Evolution
StarTalk
·
May 10, 2026
Open on YouTube
Transcript
0:00
We have an appendix that can burst. You
0:02
have a pinky toe. When was the last time
0:04
you made good use of that?
0:05
you'd be surprised.
0:07
Natural selection is not completely
0:09
random.
0:10
And all these stages, one by one, they
0:12
step by step, they incrementally
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0:14
improve.
0:15
And every improvement is the new
0:17
starting place for the variations at
0:19
that generation.
0:20
And they come about not through any
0:22
design process, not through any
0:23
deliberate design. Natural selection is
0:25
the blind watchmaker.
0:30
This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson
0:33
here, your personal astrophysicist. And
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0:36
today,
0:37
I'm in conversation
0:40
with
0:41
the one, the only
0:45
Richard Dawkins. Richard, welcome back
0:47
to my office.
0:48
Thank you very much.
0:48
This is like your fourth time here or
0:50
something. I've lost count.
0:50
think it's something like that. It's
0:51
always
0:52
always a pleasure, Neil.
0:55
Oh, welcome. I mean, we we we we have a
0:57
lot of catching up to do, I think. Um
0:59
so, recently, or at least this year, we
1:02
lost Daniel Dennett, philosopher Daniel
1:05
Dennett. I recently learned I didn't
1:07
read all of his books, I read some of
1:08
them.
1:09
Uh he declared that Darwin's evolution
1:13
by natural selection was the greatest
1:16
idea anybody ever had. He's coming to it
1:19
not as a biologist, but as a
1:20
philosopher. So, how do you reflect on
1:23
that declaration?
1:24
He said that at the beginning of his
1:25
book, uh Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
1:29
And his point was that uh before Darwin
1:32
came along, it seemed obvious to
1:34
everyone that big, complicated things
1:37
like humans and oak trees and things had
1:39
to have a
1:41
an an explanation in terms of design.
1:44
And it was a huge
1:46
stroke of insight for Darwin to see that
1:48
it didn't that the laws of physics alone
1:51
could produce this prodigious amount of
1:54
complexity filtered through this odd
1:57
process of natural selection. To me,
2:00
it's always been strange that it took so
2:01
long, that it took until the middle of
2:03
the 19th century for Darwin and Wallace
2:06
and even a maybe one or two other
2:08
people. This is thousands of years of
2:10
thought. But brilliant people have come
2:12
before.
2:13
Aristotle could have could have had it
2:14
and didn't. I mean, when you think how
2:16
much cleverer you had to be to do what
2:18
Newton did
2:20
uh
2:20
or or Leibniz. Um inventing calculus, um
2:25
working out about the laws of how how
2:29
how gravity
2:30
have a I have a Newton finger puppet
2:31
here.
2:33
Um you'd think that somebody would have
2:35
tr- tumbled to evolution by natural
2:37
selection before the middle of the 19th
2:40
century, yet they didn't.
2:42
And so, that's an astonishing thing, and
2:43
it needs an explanation. Did Daniel
2:45
Dennett explain why it took that long?
2:48
Or and if he didn't, what would be your
2:50
explanation?
2:50
don't remember whether he did. Um well,
2:52
first of all, Ernst Mayr, the great I
2:55
mean, he was here, I think, in Here at
2:56
the American Museum of Natural History.
2:57
Yeah. Uh he thought it was because of
3:00
essentialism. He thought that that
3:01
because of Aristotle and Plato, who
3:04
thought that
3:06
just cuz they thought like geometers. I
3:07
mean, a a a right angle triangle is a
3:09
kind of perfect form sort of hanging out
3:11
there.
3:12
And they thought that the perfect
3:14
rabbit, the perfect rhinoceros was
3:17
hanging out there just just like a right
3:18
angle triangle. So, you couldn't imagine
3:20
how a rabbit could turn into anything
3:22
different. That that was his
3:23
explanation. That wouldn't be mine. I
3:25
mean, I I I think I think it's just that
3:27
That's an interesting one, though,
3:28
because it speaks to the bias that we
3:30
have observing nature. I mean, even in
3:33
my field, so my people, including
3:36
Copernicus,
3:37
could not shake the idea of orbits that
3:40
were per-
3:41
perfect circles. They couldn't shake
3:42
that. Why would God design a universe
3:45
with a shape that wasn't geometrically
3:48
perfect? So, even Copernicus, putting
3:50
the sun back in the middle of the known
3:52
universe, had circular orbits. And since
3:56
the orbits are not circles, they
3:58
actually differed from predictions on
4:01
the night sky. So,
4:04
that was a problem at the time. It's
4:06
like, Copernicus, this might work, but
4:08
it still doesn't fit. The epicycles are
4:10
doing much better. And so so, it wasn't
4:14
instantly
4:15
taken up. It's including the resistance,
4:18
the church resistance, of course, cuz
4:20
course, yes. Earth wasn't in the middle
4:21
anymore. Our counterpart to what I think
4:24
you're describing is the urge to try to
4:27
presume nature was perfect and then
4:29
account for it with everything we know
4:31
that is. Going back to uh
4:34
why it took so long and the idea of the
4:36
perfect rabbit, the perfect rhinoceros,
4:38
the perfect horse. Um in a way, that's a
4:41
bit silly, because if you were to look
4:42
at them in
4:43
a population of rabbits is is pretty
4:45
variable.
4:46
And um
4:48
anyway, that that was uh Ernst Mayr's
4:51
explanation for why it took so long. Um
4:54
Darwin did it by going via
4:57
artificial selection. Um everybody knew,
5:00
farmers knew, horticulturalists knew,
5:02
gardeners knew that you could change a
5:04
rose, you could change a cabbage uh by
5:07
just breeding. And really, Darwin's
5:09
insight was say, "You don't actually
5:11
need a breeder. You don't need need a
5:13
human to do the breeding. Nature does it
5:15
for you. Survival does it for you." It's
5:18
not that difficult. I mean, it doesn't
5:19
require any sort of higher mathematics
5:21
or anything. And yet, nobody got it
5:23
until Darwin and Wallace. And this is
5:25
why I'm intrigued that Daniel Dennett, a
5:28
philosopher, who in principle, any
5:31
philosopher could have come up with
5:33
this, because unlike relativity and
5:35
unlike quantum physics, which are realms
5:38
of
5:39
behavior of the universe
5:41
large and small that you can't just
5:43
deduce from your armchair.
5:46
But
5:47
evolution by natural selection could
5:49
have been deduced in an armchair. It
5:51
just wasn't.
5:51
it could. It It's It's surprising that
5:53
it didn't. Um it's interesting that both
5:56
Darwin and Wallace were traveling
5:58
naturalists, and they both were
5:59
collectors uh in South America. Both
6:02
were in South America. Wallace lost his
6:04
entire South American collection in a
6:05
fire. Ooh.
6:07
Um and then he went to the Far East. But
6:09
but they were both collectors of natural
6:11
history specimens.
6:13
And um the other person who might have
6:15
thought of it is Patrick Matthew, who
6:18
who was a gardener and an orchard
6:20
keeper.
6:21
Um but philosophers know they didn't do
6:24
it.
6:24
They didn't it, and they could have.
6:25
They could have, yes. So, you've
6:28
written and I have a list here of like
6:31
all your books.
6:32
You've been out of control over
6:35
Not as much as some people.
6:37
Was The Selfish Gene your first book?
6:39
Yes.
6:39
Back in 1976.
6:41
Yes. Um I was that was the year I
6:44
graduated high school.
6:49
No, I remember cuz it was like the
6:50
bicentennial year. Everybody made a big
6:51
deal of this. It was my first
6:54
presidential election that I could vote
6:56
in. And I voted for Jimmy Carter. And I
6:59
got to tell him this so clichéd line,
7:03
but I when I met him, I said, "You were
7:05
my first president that I voted for."
7:07
And it was 1 month after my birthday, I
7:10
got to vote for him.
7:12
So, I thought I'd have short exercise
7:14
here. I'm going to mention your books.
7:17
Could you just tell me
7:19
what your favorite bit of that book was
7:22
that you were communicating with the
7:23
reader, if I may. So, start off The
7:25
Selfish Gene. Natural selection chooses
7:28
between genes. Genes are the only thing
7:30
the information contained in genes.
7:31
Digital information is the only thing
7:33
that goes from generation to generation.
7:35
That which survives is information,
7:38
digital information. Some genes survive
7:41
better than others. We, the bodies, we,
7:43
the animals, we, the plants, are just
7:45
the machines that are there to preserve
7:47
the genes that ride in the that ride
7:50
inside us.
7:52
Whoa. Okay, so
7:55
that reminds me of how I describe your
7:58
gut bacteria. I I say
8:00
Yes. People want to think they're like
8:02
top of the world, and I say, "All you
8:03
are to those bacteria is a darkened
8:06
vessel of anaerobic fecal matter."
8:09
That's right.
8:10
And and it's pretty much the same with
8:11
your with your genes. I mean, it's not
8:13
it's not fecal matter, it's testicular
8:15
matter or ovarian matter, but
8:17
Yes. Okay, so they're the ones and
8:19
they're the ones carrying themselves
8:20
forward.
8:21
Yes. So, if it's just information, can
8:23
you imagine a day where the biology is
8:25
no longer necessary and you just have
8:27
the digital information stored or or
8:30
duplicated in some way?
8:31
Yes, certainly. Uh you could have I
8:33
mean, already, you could preserve your
8:34
entire genome. Um I mean, I've got my
8:37
entire genome on on one disk. Uh and I I
8:40
once
8:40
you have a backup?
8:42
Just checking. Um Is it on the cloud? Is
8:45
it The The idea was I don't have a
8:47
backup. The idea was it was a television
8:49
program, and the conceit of the program
8:50
was it was going to be posted into the
8:52
family vault The Dawkins family vault in
8:54
the church at Chipping Norton.
8:56
Oh my gosh. To be dug up in a thousand
8:58
years.
8:58
Uh-huh. And they were and Like a like a
9:00
time capsule.
9:01
Yes, yes, exactly. And the idea was that
9:03
in a thousand years, they dig it up and
9:05
make a duplicate of me. And of course,
9:07
then we talk about why it wouldn't
9:08
actually be me, because it would just be
9:10
an identical twin of me. Um but that
9:12
that was the idea. Was Was it you? Yes,
9:14
it must have been you, cuz who else
9:15
would do this? Posted on social media.
9:18
It was No, if you had a a book of the a
9:21
picture of your mother, I think you're
9:22
thinking of
9:23
of your mother's mother, Yeah, you you
9:25
you pile them up. It's just one one of
9:27
many ways of of dramatizing the the
9:30
enormity of of geological time. I forget
9:33
exactly how it goes. There are lots of
9:34
ways of doing it. I mean, No, but you do
9:36
this, and if you keep doing it, one of
9:40
those pictures is
9:41
a fish.
9:42
is a fish.
9:43
And yet and yet, every single generation
9:46
looks like the the the previous one and
9:48
and the next one. There's no sudden
9:49
There's no sudden It's not sudden.
9:51
And many people can't grasp this. They
9:53
think, "Well, there must have been a
9:54
time when it stopped being a fish, and
9:56
you know, it must But there wasn't. It
9:57
just gradually, gradually, gradually,
9:59
gradually changed. Okay, will you allow
10:01
me, given this, which I completely
10:03
understand,
10:04
you have to allow me my explanation for
10:09
the chicken and the egg. Okay.
10:11
Okay. So, I tell people, but I've never
10:13
gotten your blessings on this. Can I use
10:17
that word with you?
10:18
Yeah, of course. I'm all for blessings.
10:21
So,
10:22
so, I simply tell people, they say what
10:25
came first, chicken or egg? I said, the
10:27
egg.
10:28
It was just laid by a bird that was not
10:31
a chicken. Yes.
10:33
That's a fair statement. I mean, it's
10:35
I'm I'm compressing Yes. a billion, you
10:38
know, the 100 million years of time
10:39
there, but at some point you're going to
10:41
say what comes out of the egg is a
10:43
chicken.
10:44
And but that's a that's a genetic
10:48
um
10:49
alteration from the previous generation.
10:52
But there never was a moment when
10:54
a bird that was not a chicken gave rise
10:56
to a chicken. It was never was it never
10:58
course. So, this is a very compressed
11:00
uh it's a shorthand
11:01
Yes. for what you just said with the
11:03
book of your ancestors
11:05
going back to the fish.
11:06
Yes. I I mean, I I once had a letter
11:07
from a a lawyer who said um roughly
11:10
speaking, you evolution can't be true
11:12
because it's because a
11:14
a species is defined as
11:16
members can always interbreed with each
11:18
other and you can't imagine that there
11:19
was a time when child generation was
11:22
incapable of breeding with the previous
11:23
generation. Of course, couldn't. But he
11:26
thought that meant that
11:28
somehow evolution was invalid. He
11:29
couldn't grasp that
11:30
that everything was specially created.
11:32
Yeah. Ev- everything is it it's a
11:34
gradual process all the way through and
11:36
and and as you step back through your
11:39
ancestors, they become slightly less
11:42
like a human, slightly less like a
11:43
human, but you never notice it as as you
11:45
walk past them if you imagine I want to
11:48
see a fish.
11:49
It's just funny. So, you skip ahead and
11:52
there's a fish. You say that's my
11:53
parent. Yes. That's Yes.
11:56
It's a little freaky for people. You got
11:58
to You got to appreciate
11:59
you walk along the generations, you'd
12:01
never see you'd never see them them
12:02
getting more fish-like. It'd just be
12:05
so so gradual, you'd never notice it.
12:07
Cuz generations are only 30, 40 years
12:08
and we're talking billions.
12:09
Yes, that's right. You needed deep time
12:13
for evolution to do what it needed to
12:15
do. Even in the 19th century, my people,
12:17
the most we were going to give you as a
12:19
biologist or even the geologist was 10
12:22
million years, 20 million at tops. We
12:25
didn't know about energy contained
12:28
inside the nucleus of the atom yet,
12:30
nuclear energy, which is how the sun
12:32
makes fuel. We didn't know that at the
12:33
time. So, the best we could do was say
12:35
it was a lump of coal. Darwin's son
12:37
George was Darwin's son George was one
12:40
of the people who pointed out eventually
12:42
that nuclear energy um could do the
12:44
trick. Oh. My little p- Okay, thank
12:47
thank him for him.
12:49
Which of the Darwins explained tides for
12:51
the first time? Probably George. I I'm
12:53
not sure.
12:53
I think it was a Darwin and Newton and
12:56
Galileo did not understand tide. It was
12:59
even though they had all the gravity
13:00
necessary
13:01
Is that right?
13:02
account for it. It's there's a subtle
13:03
point with tides where if you look at
13:07
any textbook,
13:09
any textbook,
13:10
it'll have like the moon
13:12
and Earth and it'll have a tidal bulge
13:14
pointing towards the moon.
13:16
Yes, that's wrong.
13:17
It's wrong. It doesn't It the moon would
13:19
want that to happen, Yeah. But that's
13:20
not how it is. Yes. The tidal bulge is
13:22
in advance of the moon in its orbit.
13:25
Yes.
13:25
Okay. And that's Earth's rotation
13:28
pushing the tides ahead of the moon. And
13:30
it's that interaction that has
13:32
remarkable consequences. The moon is
13:34
slowing down Earth's rotation.
13:36
And Earth already slowed down the moon's
13:38
rotation. So, it's tidally locked to us.
13:40
They'll one day be tidally locked.
13:41
We'll be double tidally locked. And when
13:43
that happens, then the tides will line
13:45
up cuz we're not be pushing it ahead of
13:47
the moon. So, that had to somebody had
13:48
to figure all that out. So, that's
13:50
another Darwin. Thank Thank you for your
13:51
Darwins.
13:54
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all their features. All right. Let's get
15:57
back to the show. You came up with the
15:59
word meme. I know it was you. That was
16:01
in the Selfish Gene.
16:02
That was in the Selfish Gene. Yes. You
16:04
invented the word and people long
16:06
forgot. Tell me the authentic definition
16:09
of meme cuz that's not how anybody's
16:10
using it today.
16:11
Units of cultural inheritance and the
16:13
analog of the gene in in cultural
16:15
inheritance. Okay, so this is this is
16:18
communicated from one person to another
16:20
Yes. and certain memes have higher
16:24
communicability.
16:25
I I really wanted to to say that because
16:28
the whole book had been about the gene
16:29
as the unit of selection. That's how I I
16:31
described it to you when you asked me
16:32
earlier.
16:33
Um it didn't have to be genes. It could
16:35
be anything that is self-replicating.
16:38
And nowadays, I would have used a
16:39
computer virus as as my Mm. analogy
16:43
probably for the gene. Mhm. But in those
16:45
days, computer viruses, well,
16:48
maybe they'd been invented. I didn't
16:49
know about them anyway.
16:50
Um so, I used the units of cultural
16:52
inheritance. It's something like a
16:55
um So, M is M is for memory, so a memory
16:58
gene. It's a portmanteau.
16:59
it's it's
17:00
it's it's that's right. It's it comes
17:01
from the same root as as memory. Okay.
17:05
So, if I say something, we have
17:07
alligators in the New York City subway.
17:09
Yes. If that spreads, if that if that
17:12
spreads because it's a a repeatable lie
17:15
or or or even might be true. Whatever it
17:17
is. If if it spreads,
17:18
Whatever it is, doesn't matter what it
17:19
is.
17:19
doesn't matter. If it spreads, then it's
17:21
a successful meme.
17:22
Because it's so interesting to me, I
17:25
Yeah. have to tell someone else.
17:26
Exactly. Exactly. We love to tell
17:28
stories which surprise people or amuse
17:31
people, whether or not they're true.
17:34
So, nowadays, it's just an image of
17:36
something kind of cool, you know.
17:37
I'm really sorry about that.
17:39
Yeah. No, no, no, that's not your fault.
17:41
No. But it it's you've contributed to
17:43
our culture. So, the best of the memes
17:45
are the ones that are spread around the
17:47
most. That's
17:48
Yes. It's a meme of me doing this.
17:50
Okay. Yes. Like I think what is it
17:53
called?
17:54
Watch out, you got a badass over here. I
17:57
never said that. Okay. And there is a
17:59
picture of me doing this.
18:01
Uh
18:02
But but it spreads.
18:03
It spread and there are people in South
18:07
America who saw me in the street. They
18:10
were they were tourists. They said, "We
18:12
know you from the meme." This is like 10
18:14
years ago or something. I said,
18:16
"The meme? Really? That's not even me.
18:18
Why did that So, somehow that spread. I
18:21
don't have any understanding of it. I'll
18:23
tell you mine. John Cleese told me about
18:25
that. He was What is that?
18:26
Well, you you you do you remember the
18:28
Fawlty Towers and and Yes.
18:30
Yes. Okay. Well, there's there's an
18:31
episode where the where some Germans
18:33
visit visit the hotel.
18:34
And and um
18:36
Ba- Basil Fawlty is going, "Don't
18:38
mention the war. Don't don't mention the
18:40
war." And of course, he doesn't does
18:41
mention it. Anyway, he was in I think it
18:43
was Munich Airport
18:45
and he was going up the escalator and
18:46
there was a man way over there and going
18:48
down the escalator
18:49
ri- right across the hall and he
18:51
recognized him and he shouted, "Don't
18:53
mention the war!"
18:56
Okay.
18:57
So, that meme is spreading in Germany.
19:00
So, that's the Selfish Gene. So, let's
19:01
move ahead here. The Blind Watchmaker.
19:04
Oh, that's that's my favorite book of
19:07
yours, if I may.
19:08
okay. Um well, the watchmaker comes from
19:11
William Paley, who the theologian
19:13
said that there must be a god because if
19:15
you find a watch,
19:17
you pick out you pick up the watch. He's
19:19
crossing a heath, he said. You open it
19:21
up.
19:22
Great big pocket watch in those days.
19:24
Pocket watches were watches in those
19:25
days.
19:26
And um
19:27
uh and you see all the cogwheels and
19:29
springs and things. It had to have a
19:31
designer, of course it did. And so, how
19:33
much more would you say that of an eye
19:36
or a a knee joint or anything living.
19:39
So, that that's the Paley watchmaker
19:41
argument. Natural selection is the blind
19:43
watchmaker.
19:44
It produces results that are like
19:46
watches. They're beautifully designed.
19:48
Eyes are beautifully designed.
19:50
Certain flaws, but they're are obviously
19:52
designed.
19:53
And they come about not through any
19:54
design process, not through any
19:56
deliberate design, but through the blind
19:58
watchmaker, which is natural selection.
20:00
So, it's a So, that's hard for people to
20:02
accept, especially if they're deeply
20:04
religious. Yes.
20:05
Because they have they already have an
20:06
account.
20:06
Yes.
20:07
Now, you're saying one of the acts of
20:08
their God is some random force operating
20:12
He didn't have to be there at all. He
20:13
didn't have to be there at all.
20:14
Yes. And I think where people get
20:16
confused, and even some of our people
20:19
have made this mistake. Uh Fred Hoyle,
20:22
who was the architect of the steady
20:24
state universe, who pejoratively
20:29
invented the name Big Bang to describe
20:32
the universe beginning in one point. He
20:33
said that in a pejorative way. He wanted
20:36
the universe to be a steady state. Um he
20:39
did a calculation
20:41
for how you would get an eye,
20:44
a fully functioning eye, and how long
20:46
that would take. And it was some
20:47
impossibly,
20:49
you know, 10 to the some very high power
20:51
number of years, given the rate at which
20:54
you have
20:55
um a defects in a in a in a in a genome.
20:59
And what Correct me if I'm wrong.
21:02
The rebuttal to that is
21:04
natural selection is not completely
21:06
random.
21:07
Well, no. That's right. It Actually, it
21:09
wasn't an eye. It was a it was a
21:10
hemoglobin molecule, but it's the it's
21:12
the same argument anyways. What he
21:14
overlooked was that it doesn't happen
21:16
all in one go. He he imagined all the
21:19
bits
21:20
coming together
21:21
at random. Um every
21:23
And that's one case that doesn't work,
21:25
and it has another random thing that
21:26
doesn't work, and you do that forever.
21:28
If you do that forever, of course you
21:29
won't but what what you need is Let's
21:32
Let's use the eye, even though he
21:33
didn't. Um you need a slightly less good
21:36
eye, and then a slightly less good eye,
21:38
and a slightly less good eye. And you
21:39
start with just a
21:41
uh a sheet of
21:43
light-sensitive cells, which just detect
21:46
whether it's light or dark. That's
21:48
useful. It's not like
21:49
better than nothing. It's better than
21:50
not having it. You can tell when when
21:52
it's night or day, you can tell whether
21:53
there's a predator flying overhead. And
21:55
then, if you have a um
21:58
a slightly cup-shaped If you if you if
22:00
you bend that retina from a flat thing
22:02
into a slight cup,
22:04
then if it's coming from that direction,
22:06
it hits that side of of the We are on
22:08
video, aren't we? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:09
Uh-huh.
22:10
Uh and so, you got It's not an image,
22:12
but it but it gives a slight
22:14
directionality.
22:15
And then and you close up, and you start
22:18
to get a pinhole camera.
22:20
Um it's a very crude and out of focus,
22:22
but it's sort of an image. And then, you
22:24
need a little bit of
22:26
transparent gunk in there. It's not a
22:28
proper lens, but it does something like
22:30
a lens. And all these stages,
22:33
one by one, they step by step, they
22:35
incrementally improve.
22:37
And every improvement is the new
22:39
starting place for the variations at
22:41
that generation.
22:42
right. And then and then you get
22:43
improvement.
22:43
Cuz every generation is not starting
22:44
from zero.
22:45
That's right. Yes.
22:46
So, the blind watchmaker I I just
22:47
thought that was brilliantly written,
22:48
and
22:50
it was my benchmark for
22:53
if I were to ever write a book for the
22:54
public, I want to be this articulate.
22:57
Oh, wow. That's highly complimentary.
22:59
Thank you for that.
22:59
just want you to know I just want you to
23:02
know that.
23:03
Thank you for that.
23:03
Okay. Let Let the record show.
23:07
Climbing Mount Improbable. Well, that's
23:08
what we've just been talking about. Um
23:10
uh
23:11
Mount Improbable is Just that metaphor.
23:13
Describe it.
23:13
a It's a metaphor where you've got a a
23:15
mountain with a sheer cliff, a
23:18
vertical cliff.
23:19
And on the top of the cliff is an eye.
23:22
And to produce the eye in the Fred Hoyle
23:24
manner would be to leap from the bottom
23:27
of the cliff to the top in one go.
23:28
one go.
23:29
You cannot do do it, but you go around
23:31
the other side of the mountain, and you
23:32
find a nice gentle slope. And so, you
23:35
just climb.
23:37
Step by step, and you and you get reach
23:39
the summit. Okay. So, so if you think it
23:43
got there in one fell swoop, there's no
23:45
Of course, you're going to invent a God,
23:47
cuz what what
23:48
But not imagining that there's another
23:50
way,
23:51
Yes. you're stuck in one
23:54
religious philosophy versus any other
23:56
philosophy.
23:57
Yes.
23:57
Okay.
23:58
All right. Got that. And uh this one
24:02
much was written about Unweaving the
24:03
Rainbow. So, tell me about that. Okay.
24:06
Um That was what to 1998 now. That That
24:08
comes from Keats.
24:11
Uh I did not know that.
24:12
Keats complained about Newton spoiling
24:14
all the poetry of the rainbow by
24:15
explaining it. And so, my my point was
24:18
the point which you've made often enough
24:19
that actually, there's far more poetry
24:21
in really understanding the spectrum.
24:24
So, I I Did I tell you this? Do you
24:26
remember there was this It was on
24:27
YouTube. There was this called Double
24:29
Rainbow Guy. Have you ever seen this?
24:31
No. Double rainbow. You got You should
24:33
check it out. Okay, this is now back
24:35
when social media was just people
24:37
posting things. It wasn't the cesspool
24:39
that it is today. So, he was hiking
24:41
somewhere, there's some guy back when
24:43
you had you needed a camcorder to take
24:45
videos, not a cell phone. He's hiking in
24:47
the What is it? Sierra Madre? I don't
24:48
remember where.
24:50
And he's You hear him sort of narrating
24:53
his Oh, that's a nice cliff, huh? Then
24:55
he turns a corner, and he says,
24:58
Oh!
24:59
A rainbow!
25:01
Oh my gosh! What What could it mean? Oh,
25:04
a double rainbow! Oh my gosh! And he's
25:07
tearing You don't see him, but you can
25:10
easily interpret just his emotions, his
25:12
breath. And then he goes prostrate to
25:14
the ground. Yes. And and he he can't
25:17
contain himself.
25:19
What does it mean? This is a sign. And
25:22
so, I I felt bad doing this.
25:25
You might be proud of me, but I felt bad
25:27
doing this. I
25:28
I tweeted. I put a link to this
25:31
to this video, and I said, This is how
25:35
you behave
25:37
if you've never studied physics.
25:39
Yes.
25:41
But I thought that was kind of mean.
25:43
He's having his moment. Well, in a way,
25:45
that's what Keats was doing.
25:47
To Newton. Yes, that's right. But
25:49
anyway, I can capital story in the
25:51
opposite direction. I read a story about
25:52
a woman in California.
25:55
She had a a lawn sprinkler,
25:57
and she saw a rainbow in the lawn
25:59
sprinkler, and she said, "What are they
26:01
doing to our water supply?"
26:06
That's funny.
26:08
Oh my gosh! So, I did not know that that
26:11
that Keats had that to say about Newton,
26:13
cuz Newton
26:14
yeah, he decoded the rainbow. And that
26:16
was what That was his thing. One of his
26:18
things. Uh by the way, you mentioned
26:21
beautiful the eye is, even with some
26:23
flaws. As an astrophysicist,
26:26
when I would learn this very early, when
26:27
I took classes here, actually, when I
26:30
was in middle school at the Hayden
26:32
Planetarium, uh that's when I learned
26:34
about the entire electromagnetic
26:36
spectrum.
26:37
And
26:38
that the visible part of the spectrum is
26:40
tiny. It's not even a full octave That's
26:44
right.
26:44
of the of what's out there. And then, I
26:48
was just disappointed with my sight. I
26:50
said, "Is this the best nature can get?
26:53
Is this You know, you know, let me go
26:56
back in line and see what else is
26:57
there." And later on in Star Trek: The
26:59
Next Generation, there'd be a character
27:01
called Geordi. He had a VISOR,
27:04
V I S O R, which was an acronym, Visual
27:07
Instrument
27:09
Sight Organ Replacement. And so, early
27:14
acronym days.
27:15
[Music]
27:16
So, yeah, I'd be intrigued by what the
27:20
world would look like that way. For
27:22
example, if you're Someone's calling you
27:24
on your on your cell phone,
27:26
that would be like radiant microwaves
27:29
while that's happening. That'd be just
27:30
kind of cool. You know, or if you go by
27:32
the the countryside, and you see uh
27:34
radio towers, they would be the
27:36
brightest things on the horizon. And now
27:38
they're just hunks of metal. And so,
27:40
they get him to look at scenes that
27:41
they're coming upon. What's high in
27:43
x-rays, it's high in this, it's high in
27:44
that. And then I worried that if you
27:47
could see all bands of light, that would
27:49
be very visually noisy, wouldn't it?
27:51
Yes. I mean, if you see right through to
27:54
radio waves, you wouldn't I mean, Well,
27:56
then everything becomes transparent.
27:57
wavelengths. Yes.
27:58
Then then this There are no walls in
28:00
this office.
28:00
won't see things. That's right. You have
28:03
coined this term, and we've even
28:05
appeared on stage together under this
28:07
title, The Poetry of Reality.
28:09
And I'm all in.
28:12
But if you're actually a poet, surely
28:14
there are parts of reality that are best
28:17
expressed by a poet. Would you agree? I
28:19
suppose so. I've never quite understood
28:21
I mean, I I I don't write verse.
28:24
Um but
28:25
I suppose, like you, I try to
28:29
evoke emotion at the same time as
28:32
science.
28:33
Otherwise, it's just a Wiki page.
28:34
Yes, that's right.
28:35
And um I'm not not entirely clear what
28:37
what what you mean by poetic. I sort of
28:39
feel intuitively I know what it means,
28:41
but I can't
28:42
quite put it into words. Maybe that's no
28:44
accident. Um but um
28:47
Yes, I I
28:50
defend in my own mind the idea that
28:52
science is the poetry
28:54
of of reality. It makes me feel poetic.
28:57
And I think it makes you feel poetic.
28:59
So, it might be self-serving on that
29:00
level. The what would matter if others
29:02
can be convinced of the same.
29:05
Cuz otherwise, it's just a self-licking
29:07
ice cream cone, That's right. And if But
29:09
if you're if you're skilled in writing,
29:11
I think you can bring others with you.
29:14
For me,
29:15
poetry, art more broadly,
29:17
best serves us
29:20
when it highlights something you might
29:22
have otherwise missed, or never noticed.
29:24
It's a good way to put it. My best
29:26
example of that was July 21st, 22nd, was
29:29
it? After we landed on the moon in 1969,
29:32
The New York Times had a special
29:34
section.
29:35
People reacting to the fact that we
29:37
walked on the moon. And there were these
29:39
all these famous poets of the day.
29:42
There was Archibald MacLeish, and you
29:44
know, people who who who carried the
29:47
soul of creative expression
29:50
in the day.
29:51
And I read these poems. They were awful.
29:55
They're We have pierced the sky and
29:57
touched the sky. And I'm thinking
30:00
none of this
30:01
is greater
30:03
than the act of walking on the moon
30:04
itself.
30:06
So, maybe I don't need artists to
30:08
interpret that for me. Maybe I need them
30:10
to interpret the tree that I'm walking
30:12
by. Then you get Joyce Kilmer's poem The
30:16
Tree.
30:17
I will never see something as lovely as
30:19
a tree.
30:20
It arms pressed to the sky. It There's
30:23
that
30:24
in American poetry, Henry Wadsworth
30:27
Longfellow,
30:28
uh who wrote The Midnight Ride of Paul
30:30
Revere. That might not be heralded as
30:32
great poetry, but we all know it here in
30:34
America. And that's a poem about a guy
30:38
who told other people that the enemy was
30:41
coming.
30:42
Is that an important person?
30:45
No. Yet, we all know that person's name
30:47
because it's a poem about him. You do
30:49
not know that corresponding person for
30:52
any other war that has ever been fought
30:53
in the history of the world.
30:55
The person who told other people that
30:57
the enemy was coming. That is not a
30:59
person, but for us it is cuz it was a
31:00
poem about him.
31:02
It was somebody who would otherwise go
31:04
forgotten. So, for me, art is best when
31:07
it captures that. I don't need I don't
31:09
need artists saying, "Oh, I saw this
31:10
Hubble photo. Here's my painting of that
31:13
Hubble photo."
31:15
I don't need that cuz I got the Hubble
31:16
photo.
31:17
Give me a point of view that science
31:19
does not give me. Then we can hang out
31:21
together in the sandbox. That's how I
31:23
feel about it. The tree poem you
31:25
mentioned, that was a religious poem. I
31:27
I mean,
31:28
only God could make a tree.
31:28
at the end, but no, that come come The
31:29
God
31:31
was just in the culture. So, is it
31:33
religious when you say goodbye when that
31:36
draws from God be with you? It's just a
31:37
cultural expression.
31:39
Carl Sagan's chapter headings. They They
31:42
inspire me. Just just every single one
31:43
of his chapter headings.
31:44
Yes. Um His widow, Yes.
31:47
Adrienne,
31:48
who is highly literate unto herself and
31:50
co-author of all three Cosmoses, even
31:53
the two that I Yes.
31:55
have had the privilege of hosting. Um
31:57
she was a major force in that poetic
31:59
voice. I just want to give credit where
32:01
that's due there. Across the backbone of
32:03
night, I mean, that that is a poetic
32:04
phrase. Um it immediately speaks to me.
32:09
Um
32:10
I see the Milky Way. I'm not sure I'm
32:11
meant to. Um and and
32:15
I guess I try to do something similar.
32:17
Mhm. List in some of my books. Hey,
32:19
StarTalk fans. I don't know if you know
32:21
this, but the audio version of the
32:25
podcast actually posts a week in advance
32:28
of the video version. And you can get
32:31
that in Spotify and Apple Podcast and
32:34
most other podcast outlets that are out
32:37
there. Multiple ways to ingest
32:41
all that is cosmic on StarTalk.
32:43
All right, I'm up to 2004. The
32:45
Ancestor's Tale.
32:47
That is a title that reminds me of the
32:49
Sagan book Shadows of Forgotten
32:51
Ancestors.
32:52
Yes. It It kind of feels the same to me.
32:55
So, in what happened in Ancestor's Tale?
32:57
it's it's it's a reference to Chaucer.
32:59
Um and the Canterbury Tales.
33:02
Um And
33:03
But one of his tales was not the
33:04
ancestor.
33:05
No, no, no.
33:05
Oh, you just There's the Miller's Tale
33:07
and now there's the Ancestor's Tale.
33:08
It's a history of life.
33:10
Um but it's going backwards. So, it's in
33:12
it's the form of a pilgrimage,
33:14
Chaucerian pilgrimage going backwards in
33:15
time. We human pilgrims set off into the
33:18
past and we're joined by the chimpanzee
33:21
pilgrims and then the orangutan and then
33:22
the gorilla pilgrims
33:25
finally get back to the origin of life.
33:27
Um so,
33:28
it's a way of doing history of life, but
33:30
do it backwards because if you do it
33:31
forwards,
33:33
then you end up with the idea that
33:36
humans are kind of the the climax, which
33:38
you don't want. I mean, that's that's
33:40
not a good way of looking at it. So, if
33:42
you go backwards,
33:43
um then you start
33:45
Okay, that's I'm
33:46
I was getting on your case, but that's
33:47
brilliant. Brilliant. Thanks for deliver
33:49
I'm going to now read that, okay? Cuz
33:52
that I missed that one. Uh here's one we
33:54
all saw and know about whether or not we
33:57
read it, The God Delusion. That put you
34:00
on a plateau to be identified as one of
34:03
the four horsemen. All right.
34:05
Okay. Not not a phrase that that
34:08
any of us actually
34:09
It was bestowed upon you? Yes.
34:11
Yeah, so it was Daniel Dennett,
34:13
Christopher Hitchens Hitchens, Sam
34:14
Harris. Um and both of them are past.
34:17
Sam Harris and you. Yes. Okay. The four
34:19
horsemen who have each been quite vocal
34:22
about
34:23
their atheism. Yes. And The God
34:25
Delusion, if that's not atheist, I don't
34:26
know what is.
34:27
It is, yes.
34:28
In the title. Yes. Right. So, we spoke
34:30
about this book before. Didn't you say
34:33
there were religious groups that wanted
34:35
people to read it so that they know the
34:38
face of their enemy? Was that I forget.
34:41
It's quite possible. Um
34:43
There are some people who say they were
34:45
converted to religion by it.
34:47
Really? I'm not quite sure how they
34:49
managed to get that, but
34:51
doesn't say much for my rhetorical
34:52
skills.
34:55
So, is this your single biggest selling
34:57
book, The God Delusion?
34:58
Uh yes, just about, yes. It was equal
35:01
with The Selfish Gene, maybe. I've taken
35:03
you to task on the very first day I met
35:05
you, and it I think it's worth repeating
35:07
here. The first day I ever knew you,
35:09
again, I like I said, I'd read your
35:11
books and yeah yeah I aspired to have
35:13
the vocabulary the command of vocabulary
35:15
that you that spills off your plate.
35:18
I took you to task in the front of a
35:20
group It was It was one of the uh what's
35:23
the name of that conference? A Beyond
35:24
Belief conference.
35:25
Oh, yes. Which gathered Oh, yes. That's
35:27
right. Which gathered scientists,
35:28
biologists, theologians, philosophers.
35:30
Yes. And it was to discuss are we in an
35:32
era beyond where belief matters? Yes.
35:35
Does belief still matter? So, it was
35:37
quite the juxtaposition of points of
35:39
view. You and I are up up on front in a
35:42
panel. Two other people are there.
35:45
And
35:46
I heard you speak.
35:48
I'd only ever read what you wrote. Then
35:50
I heard you speak.
35:52
It was more articulate and more barbed
35:56
than anything I'd ever read that you had
35:58
written. And I said, "Oh my gosh, I'm
36:01
glad we're on the same side because
36:04
because if you had spoke to me, I'd feel
36:07
like a complete idiot. I would feel not
36:11
worthy of life." And then I thought,
36:14
"You are so potent.
36:16
Is this
36:18
turning people off because they reject
36:20
it? Because you are not investing in how
36:23
they think. Everybody has little
36:25
receptors for receiving information. And
36:27
if you're just going to say, 'I'm right
36:29
and I know I'm right and you all are
36:31
just wrong and you're idiots,'
36:33
maybe that's not as effective as you can
36:35
be. So, I
36:37
challenged you to be a little more
36:39
sensitive to people who are just trying
36:42
to explore the world and that you could
36:44
be more effective than you are. Do you
36:46
remember your reply to me? I said,
36:49
"I gratefully accept the rebuke." Yeah.
36:51
By the way, in that moment, there was
36:53
like 5 seconds of silence cuz I'm just
36:55
some young whippersnapper and you're
36:57
like storied, famous guy on stage.
37:01
Nobody made a sound. In London, there
37:03
was No no no no no no no. Just in that
37:06
moment of silence, it's
37:07
how is he going to react? It was one of
37:09
these what's he going to say? In that
37:11
moment, it was total silence. And then
37:14
you broke the silence with "I gratefully
37:16
accept the rebuke." And then people were
37:19
people got were calmed after that. Yes,
37:21
and you gave a worse example. What was
37:23
it? Do you remember?
37:25
The editor of
37:25
yeah. The editor of New Scientist who
37:27
who was asked,
37:29
uh
37:30
"What is your policy at New Scientist
37:32
magazine?" And he said, "Our policy at
37:34
New Scientist magazine is science is
37:36
interesting. If you don't agree, you can
37:38
off."
37:40
So, so that was So, that's so we can
37:42
feel better about you.
37:45
The Greatest Show on Earth, 2009,
37:48
subtitled The Evidence for Evolution.
37:50
Was that motivated because around that
37:52
time there was the rise of uh what they
37:56
called intelligent design.
37:57
Well, that had come before. I mean, this
37:59
was um in a way, The Blind Watchmaker
38:02
was a response to that.
38:03
Yes, of course.
38:04
Um but um now this was ready to set out
38:06
the evidence for evolution, which which
38:09
I hadn't really done before. Mhm. I just
38:12
sort of assumed it. So, You assumed that
38:14
everyone knew it. Well, not Well, not
38:17
really. Well, yes, maybe. Yes, maybe.
38:19
Okay.
38:19
Yeah. There's a lot of misunderstanding
38:21
I have found. People think that an
38:22
organism adapts to its environment. And
38:25
I say, "No, it either survives or dies."
38:29
Yes, that's right. Right. I mean,
38:31
there's And there's a great quote at the
38:33
end of War of the Worlds, where as you
38:36
remember, H. G. Wells, at the end,
38:39
there's a recitation,
38:41
and he says, I'm paraphrasing, he says,
38:44
"These These creatures from another
38:46
planet, they they were doomed, undone by
38:49
the smallest creatures on Earth
38:52
uh where for to whom to which we had
38:56
developed immunity." Yes. And it ends
38:58
with a very poetic phrase, "No man lives
39:01
nor dies in vain."
39:04
That
39:05
through through the toll of a billion
39:07
deaths, man has bought his birthright on
39:10
this Earth, and it is his against all
39:12
comers, and it would have still been his
39:14
had the Martians been 10 times as mighty
39:16
as they are, because no no no man lives
39:20
nor dies in vain. And I And that I
39:22
thought that was potent. He was, of
39:24
course, scientifically literate, and he
39:27
he's saying there generations that die
39:30
because they didn't have they can't make
39:31
it through this next stress to the
39:34
environment.
39:35
It's
39:36
rather horrifying when you think that
39:38
actually that's what happened to the
39:40
native South Americans when the Spanish
39:42
arrived, Um I mean that they were killed
39:45
by by epidemics of things like measles
39:47
which they had no no
39:50
immunity.
39:51
And in Europe built up an immunity to
39:54
the to these diseases and But the better
39:56
analogy would have been had the South
39:58
Americans wanted to invade Europe. Yes.
40:00
They would have then died by the
40:01
European diseases. But that's not how
40:04
Yes. European colonialism works.
40:08
Just a couple more books here. I'm
40:09
skipping over like a half a dozen with
40:11
your permission.
40:13
One that I delighted cuz not only cuz I
40:15
received a book a copy of it in the mail
40:17
from your publisher. It was just
40:19
delightfully done. Flights of Fancy
40:21
Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution.
40:24
That was 2021. Beautiful book,
40:26
illustrated. And who's the illustrator
40:29
of that book?
40:29
Yana Solova. She's Slovak.
40:32
Just something that I think is under
40:34
appreciated
40:35
in in this world cuz we can't fly. So
40:37
especially in the idea that we're at the
40:39
top of the evolutionary scale and
40:41
everything else is less than us. What
40:42
does the condor say about that?
40:46
Who flaps its wings once every 10
40:48
minutes because it coasts the rest of
40:49
the time. So just just a celebration of
40:52
flight in the
40:54
in evolution. I I was delighted by that.
40:56
Thank you. That was sort of designed for
40:58
young people. Started as a children's
41:00
Well, that's why I liked it.
41:03
That that accounted for its its
41:04
accessibility. I mean it was just very
41:06
fun to to see the illustrations and
41:09
and and the like. And right now there's
41:10
a book coming out called
41:13
The Genetic Book of the Dead.
41:14
Yes. A publisher actually let you use
41:17
that title. Why wouldn't they?
41:18
Cuz it's so it's like what? A Book of
41:21
the Dead?
41:21
worries me. Well, I don't know. I think
41:23
it's rather an uplifting title. It it
41:25
Genetic Book of the Dead.
41:27
Yes. It doesn't mean human dead. What's
41:29
it does it have a subtitle? What's the
41:30
subtitle of it? It does have a subtitle.
41:32
A Darwinian Reverie. So tell me about
41:34
this book. I haven't read it yet. If you
41:37
if you look at a
41:39
highly camouflaged animal,
41:41
a a desert lizard is one that I use.
41:43
It's got pebbles and sand all over its
41:45
back. It's
41:46
just a a dummy
41:48
painting of a desert on its back. Okay?
41:51
So
41:53
that is a description of the worlds in
41:55
which its ancestors lived. You can read
41:58
that animal as a book describing the
42:01
desert world in which its ancestors
42:03
lived. Now that's an easy example
42:05
because it's got it painted on its back.
42:08
But it must be true right the way
42:11
through every bit of the every cell of
42:12
the animal. Every molecule of the animal
42:14
has got the same
42:16
uh
42:17
description written
42:19
And some of it is baggage. Baggage as in
42:22
burdensome rather than
42:23
Yes, but We have an appendix that can
42:26
burst.
42:27
That's true.
42:28
have a pinky toe. When's the last time
42:29
you made good use of that?
42:31
You'd be surprised.
42:33
The the point is that natural selection
42:37
is very very fussy. It's very very
42:41
intricate in its in its choice.
42:44
Far more than we we we even know about.
42:47
We are poor judges of what's important
42:49
for survival. And you think that
42:52
the genes that survive going back to the
42:54
selfish gene. The genes that survive
42:56
have to survive through lots and lots of
42:58
different individuals and through a huge
43:00
amount of geological time. And so any
43:03
statistical estimate that you and I make
43:06
about the likelihood that your pinky
43:09
will be of any use to you is a
43:12
statistical mistake. Natural selection
43:15
is a much better statistician than than
43:17
we are. So I need to think harder about
43:20
my pinky toe. Well, natural selection
43:23
has
43:24
millions of years in which to choose
43:26
between successful toes and unsuccessful
43:30
toes. Um
43:32
JBS Haldane did a calculation.
43:35
Uh JBS Haldane the great geneticist did
43:37
great did did a calculation. He imagined
43:41
a a feature like a toe. Some something
43:44
that seems trivial to to to you. And he
43:47
said let's allow that it's
43:50
so trivial that for every thousand
43:52
individuals who have it and survive, 999
43:56
die. This feature toe whatever it is has
44:00
been repeated
44:03
thousands of times in lots of different
44:04
individuals and through lots of
44:06
different millions of of years.
44:09
And it's got to survive through all
44:10
those times. I'm explaining this very
44:12
badly. The the the main point is that we
44:15
are very bad estimators of what's
44:18
important
44:19
in natural selection is a is a much
44:22
better estimator of that. Okay, how
44:23
about male pattern baldness?
44:26
Well,
44:27
got that one. Well, that's that's a
44:30
variable. I mean some people have it and
44:32
some people don't. You you might take
44:34
another example um
44:37
maybe fingerprints. Um
44:40
Why why do we have fingerprints? Well,
44:42
the fact that they're different doesn't
44:43
matter. But
44:44
are they important for clinging onto the
44:46
trees when we were
44:47
you know had our boreal ancestors? That
44:49
kind of thing.
44:50
Um
44:52
Oh, I see. So even if they're not useful
44:54
now, they were useful to get us to where
44:56
they are we are now.
44:57
Hence the Genetic Book of the Dead. I
44:58
mean we're talking about the talking
45:00
about the past.
45:01
Yeah, you're right. There it is.
45:03
The Genetic Book of the Dead.
45:05
Yes. Enabling us to get to where we are
45:07
at all. Yes. We are we are a description
45:10
of the worlds in which our dead
45:12
ancestors survived until they until they
45:14
died.
45:16
Survived it long enough to reproduce.
45:17
Because if we didn't survive, we'd go
45:18
we'd be extinct and we wouldn't be here
45:20
to talk about it in modern times. We
45:22
well, I'm only here because our
45:24
ancestors survived long enough to
45:25
reproduce.
45:26
Yes. And they survived because of the
45:29
highly detailed features that that they
45:30
had which their rivals didn't.
45:31
think differently about my pinky toe.
45:33
Because without the pinky toe, there
45:34
might have been some
45:36
dead ancestor that would have ended that
45:40
branch of the tree of life. And we would
45:42
have never been here.
45:42
That's right. Yes. Yeah. Do you have
45:44
hope for a civilization
45:46
as it's currently manifested in the
45:47
world? I think we have to have hope to
45:53
to live our lives at all. It doesn't
45:54
mean that at an intellectual level I
45:56
necessarily have have but I I I I I live
46:00
my life as though I have hope. Yes.
46:02
I've come I I've become
46:06
cynical's not the right word. I've
46:08
become a practical cynic. It's
46:11
There are people who think this way or
46:13
feel that way or behave this other way.
46:17
And I I've stopped trying to change
46:21
them.
46:22
What I try to do is
46:23
offer a way of looking at the world that
46:25
maybe they'll take, maybe they won't.
46:28
Maybe as an educator it's my job to make
46:31
this as tasty as possible so that hey,
46:33
that's a good idea. I never thought
46:35
about it that way.
46:36
But otherwise, you know, I just gave a
46:38
presentation to a Christian school.
46:42
K through 12.
46:44
I talked about
46:46
optics.
46:47
And at the end there was open Q&A and
46:50
they were 11th graders.
46:52
And they started grilling me on
46:56
science versus the Bible.
46:58
And
46:59
I said I'm not here to stop you from
47:01
being religious
47:03
at all. Okay, we live in a country that
47:05
protects your freedom
47:07
to be religious. And you're in a private
47:09
school. So the government is not going
47:11
to come after you and say you have to
47:13
get this out of the public coffers.
47:16
I made that clear, but I didn't have the
47:18
urge to try to
47:20
convert them.
47:22
And I get the sense that you you've had
47:24
this urge your entire life
47:27
to convert people
47:29
with no less zeal than a religious
47:33
person a religious
47:35
um
47:37
evangelical a religious person would
47:39
have trying to convert people who are
47:41
not that. Did I tell you I didn't tell
47:43
you this? We have a Big Bang Theater
47:44
here. Yes.
47:45
back when we first opened here at the
47:47
Hayden Planetarium, um there's a
47:50
separate theater space where we just
47:51
talk about the Big Bang. Someone came
47:53
out of the Big Bang, saw me and said uh
47:55
how come you didn't mention God in
47:57
there?
47:58
And
47:59
then I realized okay, what am I going to
48:00
do? I say, how about this? Why don't you
48:02
go to our Hall of Human Evolution
48:05
and then come back here.
48:07
And when I tell them to do that, they
48:08
never come back because that's way more
48:11
offensive to them having you know
48:13
monkeys and humans hold hands in the
48:15
dioramas than anything we could ever say
48:18
in the Big Bang here.
48:19
thought they'd rather like Big Bang. I
48:20
mean the Big Bang sounds pretty much
48:21
like Genesis.
48:22
Well, it's creation event. Yeah. Maybe
48:24
that's why they thought we should have
48:25
mentioned God and didn't. But I I just I
48:28
don't I don't even have the
48:29
conversation. I just send them over to
48:31
your part of the museum.
48:32
Yes. But I think you're being too
48:33
pusillanimous. You you shouldn't duck
48:35
those questions. And um
48:37
Well, I don't duck it so much as
48:39
sometimes I don't have the energy.
48:41
Oh, that's different.
48:43
I I I get that too. You feel that. I
48:45
understand that.
48:46
Um but in the in my field, there really
48:49
is an absolute opposition.
48:51
It's not something you Complete.
48:52
Although the Catholic Church, they've
48:54
met you in the middle. Yeah, yeah, they
48:56
have.
48:56
They said we have this branch of
48:58
primates and then God breathed the soul
49:01
into them and and they're humans.
49:03
Allowing evolution all up to that point.
49:05
yeah. That's You got You got to give
49:07
give them some You got to knock.
49:10
Not a step. Not a step.
49:13
But the world is not that binary.
49:15
It's not that binary.
49:17
I don't see it that way.
49:17
it is. There are religious people who
49:19
are who where Jesus is their savior, but
49:22
they're perfectly fine with a four and a
49:25
half billion year old Earth.
49:26
Yes, they are. Okay. They're not at the
49:29
extreme. They don't don't see the
49:30
contradiction. But but yes. So maybe the
49:34
plurality of the world is a feature
49:36
rather than a bug of the programming of
49:38
what it is to be human.
49:39
The truth is so much more grand and so
49:42
much more elegant and so much more
49:43
poetic and so much
49:45
uh
49:46
more beautiful. Why drag
49:49
Jesus in
49:50
And I would still claim you could get
49:51
more of that across if people didn't
49:54
feel stupid talking to you.
49:55
yeah, that that's true. Uh so you're a
49:57
professor at Oxford? Are you retired
49:59
yet? Did you
49:59
retired. You retired, okay. And you were
50:01
professor of Public understanding of
50:03
science.
50:03
Yes, I remembered that. That was a a a a
50:06
a post created by Charles Simonyi.
50:10
To Charles Simonyi, yes.
50:12
Uh and he he created multiples of those
50:16
around the world. That wasn't the only
50:17
one.
50:18
he he he he wasn't it wasn't at the
50:20
Princeton advanced Yeah, the Institute
50:23
for Advanced Study, maybe? Okay.
50:24
that's right. Yes. I think that was in a
50:25
different field. I think that was Oh,
50:27
okay. Okay, but I it's interesting He's
50:29
a very generous Yeah, if you're wealthy
50:31
and you want to make a change in the
50:32
world, that's a way to sort of keep that
50:34
going.
50:34
Absolutely, yeah. And there's another
50:36
professorship somewhere in the UK, a
50:38
professorship of the public
50:39
understanding of risk. That is That is a
50:43
that's a professorship.
50:45
And forgive me, I don't remember where,
50:46
but I know that exists. And people have
50:49
no way to judge or to think about that
50:52
as a challenge in their lives.
50:54
So
50:54
is a fascinating subject. People get get
50:57
so wrong.
50:58
Yes, yes. Even smart people get that
51:00
wrong. People who would otherwise think
51:02
should be smart don't get it.
51:04
Well, Richard has been a delight As
51:07
always, thank you so much.
51:07
have you here. Let me just end this with
51:09
some brief reflections. Those among us
51:12
who are educated
51:15
on a level where you can't just hold it
51:17
in,
51:18
you have to sort of share the knowledge,
51:20
wisdom, insights
51:23
one gleans
51:24
from having committed your life
51:26
to studying a subject and its related
51:29
components.
51:30
And Richard Dawkins is an example of
51:33
that.
51:35
Carl Sagan used to say when you're in
51:36
love,
51:37
you want to tell the world.
51:40
And
51:42
whether the two dozen books on this list
51:45
that I just read,
51:47
uh this is Professor Dawkins
51:50
can't can't contain his love.
51:53
He's got to share it
51:55
for all those
51:57
who seek a deeper understanding
52:00
of life,
52:02
not only
52:03
their own lives,
52:05
the lives of everyone around them, and
52:06
the lives
52:08
of all that came before us, and the
52:10
lives of all those
52:12
yet to be born.
52:14
But in there are messages of protecting
52:16
our civilization
52:18
because without it, there will be no
52:20
future lives to be born.
52:23
And then what of our branch in the tree
52:25
of life?
52:26
We can't let the roaches and the rats
52:27
take over after us.
52:29
Help us.
52:32
That is a cosmic perspective.
52:36
Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal
52:37
astrophysicist. As always, I bid you
52:40
to keep looking up.
52:44
[Music]
— end of transcript —
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