Joe Rogan & Lawrence Krauss on why Flat-earthers exist

hello freak one of the biggest issues I think that people are having with religion in the 21st century is these areas where you're not allowed to question and explore that things hit these walls where this is God's will and this is the way it is and in my mind what we say that is just cold word for I don't want to think about it right it's so confusing too complicated terrifying - terrifying and and that and or people say and this amazes me I get people whose creams like you will never understand the origin yours you'll never understand what love is science will never ever explain love science will never ever explain x4 what will and then I say to them well that's incredibly pompous statement because if you say that science will never explain this you must understand it because how do you know that we'll never explain it we never know what we won't be able to explain until we try and maybe there are things about our universe that we'll never understand but we don't know until we try you can never say upfront that science will never explain this or that because you haven't tried and in my experience as a scientist I've been you know I there could be have been brick walls but I've watched progressively those brick walls crumble as we move around them or we break them and it is so exhilarating and that's why it's the greatest story we're told it's so exhilarating to see them knocked down and things you thought we'd never understand remember one of the forces nature a very prominent physicist in 1960s early 1916 69 M it will be a hundred years before we discover understand this interaction next year the theory came out and it's so wonderful to see how the story surmounts the biases and the anticipation of individual scientists that's the greatest story ever to over told so far well what's ridiculous about saying no one will ever figure anything out is that what we figured out over the last 200 years is monumental and then human language has only been around for forty thousand absolutely live another fifty thousand years a hundred thousand years as long as we don't as long as we keep open inquiry you could imagine movie I mean look we went through a few hundred years of the Middle Ages where the incredible in query-based civil culture of the Greeks was just forgotten I mean you know that Greeks had determined the circumference of the earth not only that it was round but what its circumference was by simple measurements that were then not accepted because of dogma so we have to if we want to progress we have to beware of dogma how did they figure out the circumference of the arrow it's really neat I think it was a Aristarchus I figure which of the quiz the Greek down it's amazing well what he said was look so in a certain time of day in a certain time of the year the Sun is directly overhead at 12:00 noon okay and in my it so I look and I can tell that by looking down a deep well and I see the reflection of the Sun exactly in that deep well ok so the Rays of the Sun which are coming down in the same direction towards the earth everywhere it comes down to the ball but a hundred miles away the well because the surface is curved the well is pointing in a little bit different direction so the sun's rays come at a slightly different angle so on this on this day I will measure that the Sun is directly overhead for me but I'll get my friend 100 miles away to measure the angle of the Sun relative to the well and if you that tells you that the earth is curved and if you do the geometry you can work out if the hundred miles of the Earth's surface causes the sun's rays to suddenly be at that angle how curved the earth is and what the circumference of the earth is it's plane geometry that in principle any high school student could do but when you say a hundred miles away first of all how are they communicating with this guy 30 miles away not immediately but the guy writes it down and there's a horse and they come and compare notes lay and they use a sundial to determine the time the sundial to determine a time and and the 100 miles in a Wade would there be a deviation at all in the time a minute or two well that yep but so to some accuracy you right you get it wrong to some accuracy right but they did pretty damn well they came up with the circumference nearest was darn close to the circumference of the earth and so uh it's amazing that they use these techniques so they were just so confused and so curious about it all they just tried to figure out what it has got to be a way to figure this out well and they didn't and they weren't they weren't forced with the dogma that the earth is flat right as you I've told today you were dealing with some people who were still forced with that dog it's very strange how do you feel about that you know in 2017 it amazed but you know nothing surprised not only that gravity's not real and dinosaurs aren't real and you know the people say gravity are real I have a great solution but it's a table building walk out the window at 13th floor and test your ideas and the great thing is do it before you reproduce but it's a magnetism thing they believe it's electromagnetism or something like that so I'll ad people down to the yeah that is we're going to think so marinating here a magnet and look at it as what happens as you're falling to the earth well it's even more hilarious is that they well we talked about this before the podcast started the Japanese weather satellite that makes an image a full image of the earth what is the name of that satellite again Jamie it takes a full image of the earth from 22,000 miles ago away people keep saying in this Flat Earth theory thing that there's no images of the earth in full but they're all composite it's not true it's not true there are images of the earth that are taken every 10 minutes by this one satellite and they're high-resolution you can you can access them online anytime you want but people see those and they want to think they're fake but yet they believe there's an ice wall around Antarctica that you cross over and you fall to the abyss where's this photo of the ice wall when where is it or have they never well how does someone fly from Japan you know they don't believe that people can fly around the world I've done it I've done that they're all lying here's another one have they ever taught time zones why their time zones of the earth is flat why are the time zones the only reason they're time they should go from New York to LA and see you know what the time is different that because I think it's they don't know but they probably think it's a human invention yeah but you know the Sun is still shining in LA when it's gone down in New York and they can call their friends and check if the earth was flat that wouldn't be the case it's only the case because the earth is curved I mean so those simple things should should convince you but people are willing to throw out evidence if they have a belief that's really firm and what I said before is we have to realize the easiest perfect person to fool is yourself so if you're not willing to question your beliefs especially those that you hold particularly cherished beliefs in if you're not willing to question those you're not going to you're not going to ever grow yeah well that's a good way to put a particularly cherish because I think a lot of people do cherish these ideas things like the earth being flat because it gives them some sort of information leg up on everybody I was something that people don't know or makes them feel better about themselves they may hate gays because it makes them feel better about not being gay or maybe they they're gay yeah yeah yeah yeah you know I mean we always worry about that yeah so I I think we all that's what I mean by being believing 10 impossible things for breakfast we I don't want to make fun of people because we all do think of things to make us feel better about ourselves it's part of being human the psychological pit yeah yeah and so we should be aware of those and I have them and you have them and I don't pretend I don't what I do try and do is question them yeah we can all do that and I don't I don't I understand why people are believe certain things it's not it and you can be you know what again Richard Dawkins tells me about a an astrophysicist he knows who during the day you know studies objects in the sky and and and looks at galaxies or stars and measures that they're that they're 12 billion years old or whatever and then but yet he goes home at night and and it's and and is convinced that the earth is 6,000 years old so somehow we can really do both yeah he knows a guy I thought yeah and people can and we're all capable of believing in two mutually contradictory things at the same time it's just the way we're built and so how does this guy measure the glue of these planets somehow it doesn't affect his fundamental beliefs and it's amazing it's true because we can all believe things that are wrong and so it doesn't mean they're stupid it doesn't mean because this guy is apparently a fairly accomplished astrophysicist it's a psychological pizza but we all have trap sorry so many people you know when I talk about this I don't want to seem pompous in the sense of saying all I'm better or scientists a better science is better because science helps us overcome those pitfalls why do those pitfalls exist though cuz because they obviously evolution I would argue that they have eleven evolutionary purpose that somehow they allow if they didn't have an evolutionary purpose then they wouldn't been selected for right right there just seemed to be some weird inclination or some desire to expose secrets finds entrance and know them yeah it's nice well but on the other end that's great let's exploit that right discovering secrets is about is discovering mysteries rights covering mysteries is what motivates it is to do sign so let's put it in positive light we all want to solve puzzles we all want to understand something and maybe be the first one to understand it we all want to access information maybe and make us feel special for doing it well that's the reason I do science right it's not right save the world it's because I really want to know understand I mean and it's nice to be the first person to maybe understand stuff it's gratifying for your ego it's and we are driven you know I'm by ego and and let's not pretend otherwise right but you I think you're talking about measurable things and elements and things you could sort of expose and explain but what these people seem to be really obsessed with is people lying about stuff and covering up secrets about like the earth being flat or chemtrail yeah they like to believe there's a conspiracy yeah and then Canaries are very very attractive yeah because it because and I you know I don't I'm not a psychologist so to what I say here is just a speculation but the world doesn't care what you believe and it doesn't treat you fairly right right and that's it's just a fact the world doesn't treat me fairly doesn't really it doesn't give a damn about my well-being or okay so hey I'm being treated unfairly isn't it better for me to think that someone is actively being unfair to me then just assume it's just the way it is because then I can blame it and so I tend to think conspiracy theorists tend to say you know the things I don't like there's a real reason for it it's not an accident it's not just haphazard it's not anything and it you know it's I've lost my job because there's got to be a reason there's got to be a villain there's got to be someone making it happen just like the reason we burn witches right because there were storms or there wasn't you know there wasn't crops that year and a lot of people say it's an interesting historical theory which i think is seems quite plausible to me that when Newton discovered the laws of gravity universal law of gravity it contributed to the ending of birth the burning of witches why not said that was immense the burning of witches I thought they drowned the most well had they hung a lot of them too they drown them whether I don't care whether it's burning they killer understand okay they blamed crops they blame the bad things and then when Newton discovered that even the planets are affected by the same laws that an apple is there's a universal laws it meant that physical effects had physical causes and when bad things happen there's a physical reason there's not someone you can blame mmm and and witches or whatever and so there's a lot of arguments that suggest that that kind of development in physics led to the end of blaming people for those for bad crops or or for bad things happening but I think that's the kind of thing when we want to find someone to blame rather than just saying the universe doesn't give a about me and anybody interested in this is a really fascinating subject but the whole Salem witch trial thing and there there's a lot of really convincing evidence it seems to point towards her got poisoning that there was some a late freeze and that this particular type of fungus grew on some of their wheat that makes her got which is a very very LSD like properties and I think these people thought they were being bewitched because they're being contaminated it's a great idea you know again I don't know the evidence for it but it's interesting now it is fast and we always I think behind that is is I know we've all had I mean I think what we're seeing are extremes of characteristics that we all have I think many of us assign blame when we shouldn't when I lose my keys sometimes I see them out where do you put my wife where did you put the keys right and then I learned very quickly that I should have said that and and so I think it's it's just an a it's a characteristic of being human and accepting it as a characteristic of being human doesn't diminish us and but what's really great is we can understand that and try and work and and try and figure out ways to avoid those pitfalls [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: JRE Clips

Views: 1,901,941

Keywords: Joe Rogan Experience, podcast, MMA, UFC, comedy, comedian, stand up, funny, JRE, clip, favorite, best of, Joe Rogan, Lawrence Krauss

Id: L5sHm04nWMg

Length: 13min 14sec (794 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 28 2017