Q&A - Brief Candle in the Dark - with Richard Dawkins

[Music] okay so British universities seem to be carrying themselves safe places these days where one is expected not to events any opinion that might upset anyone on campus a what do you think about it and B do you feel there's anything we can usefully do to expose young people to ideas they don't have already what on earth of the University for other than to be challenged and to be made to think and made to argue and if necessary made to face up to things that you find distasteful I am actually appalled by this tendency to infantilism that is infecting not just our universities but those in America as well a rash of cases where people have been invited by student societies to go and speak and have then been disinvited at the behest of the Student Union on the grounds that what they say might upset some of the students or offend some of the students well if you're offended or upset tough that's what you come to University for may I quote Stephen Fry Stephen Fry said you're offended well so fucking what [Laughter] it does seem incredible could I just ask you are you speaking from as a position of the inside University no I just pay for them like I think that certainly many of us inside universities of many of us academics inside universities feel very strongly attached to our academic freedom I think it is one of the rights that we will fight for lectures not just invited speakers lectures now being sent yes they might offence yes you have to you have to issue a trigger warning whoever it should a trigger warning Alice now I haven't issued a trigger warning I don't let anybody know what are going to be talking about before and say that the next question please is this on yeah first of all I just wanted to say your tie is absolutely gorgeous and my question was do you think that epigenetic inheritance could give rise to what we could call a form of marking evolution here's where Alice and I don't have a mutual tutorial I'm going to learn from her I as far as I can Emma we're epigenetics is all about embryology the embryo starts as a single fertilized egg using a single cell and as it develops the different cell types differentiate and that's and so liver cells different from kidney cells different from muscle cells different from bone cells etc because different genes are turned on in these different tissues and that's epigenetics now lately the word epigenetics has come to be used for a particular example of genes being turned on and then the turning on being in some mysterious way inherited by the next generation that may happen and that's why you've asked the question because that looks like a kind of Lamarckism it's unfortunate that the word epigenetics has been usurped for that particular kind of inheritance but given that it has what you what you want to know if it was too big hum the basis for a form of Lamarckian inheritance is does it go on for many generations or does it die away and as far as I know it dies away if not in the next generation in the next but one generation if it happens at all so that that rules it out as as a vehicle for evolution in the same way as mutation is a vehicle for for evolution it also no I think I'd probably I probably said enough it might be interesting the phenomena might be there but if they are we've got a very long way to go before we use this as an example of possible Lamarckian evolution as far as I can tell it is not that and I think the word is being misused anyway I think it's a it adds another layer of complexity which is which is very interesting it what we're basically talking about is not changes to the genetic code itself but changes to the proteins that attach to it and in fact not even changes the proteins but the subtle modifications to them which will then affect actually how that the N exactly those hassles in embryology anyway absolutely absolutely that you know the whole key to to making up making a body with lots of different cells you're having nerve cells and liver cells and pancreatic cells and all of those are the things every single one of your cells has the same DNA how do you do that then why aren't they all the same while they all just clones of each other doing exactly the same thing you have to be able to turn particular genes on and off and this is what epigenetics is so it's modification of those histone proteins which when I was at medical school I did we did we didn't learn this it was oh it was out there in the published literature but as far as I was concerned histones were just packaging and so it's got a lot more interesting and obviously it's out there and people people know about it out in the public domain as well so is that it that is the major ramifications of epigenetics that you know we're now understanding how you you get differentiation in the embryo of all of all these different cells there does seem to be an effect which spans generations there are some studies some longitudinal studies and humans which suggest it it hasn't been proven in humans yet we don't know whether the process by which the gametes are made the eggs and the sperm actually involves stripping all of those epigenetic modifications so that you start from scratch and that may be the case it may be that in some simpler animals you the modifications stick around for maybe a few generations but that in humans they don't we still don't really know but there is the possibility for them to slightly just slightly change the game a little bit but it doesn't it doesn't change the fact that you the the fundamental process is still going to be natural selection very good example of neutral tutorial thank you what where's the next oh there's a gentleman there and you past that might find him one of the very best things I've seen on YouTube is the hilarious love letters to Richard Dawkins oh it's just brilliant fine fibers and the way the cameraman cracks up is um I was just going to ask if you are thinking of filming another installment soon first I saw Richard can you explain what they are yes a few years ago I filmed I some somebody fill me reading the hate mail that I get I think I was probably dressed in a dressing gown and and with my feet in slippers before long fire I don't think I was smoking a pipe in that I know I wasn't you get I think I had a cat on my lap and was it was that something and reading out these extraordinarily obscene vitriolic um you know I hope you get painful cancer and die of painful death I hope you I hope you get run over by a church van and then by popular request I did I did another lot but about three years later my original plan for that was suggested me by young woman who was a student of making films and she had a plan to film me doing it this time not by afar but this time with a beautiful young woman cellist playing beautiful sweet music while I am read these are these awful awful hate mail that unfortunately that never got edited and so that the second one was in fact done in front of a fish tank with the with the fish swimming blissfully peaceful era there's been another one that I received quite recently which didn't get into either of those two performances which I really rather like it's I hope you lose your watch and a late for an important appointment [Laughter] are you gonna publish a book of them all matches that's not a bad idea I think that's a great idea right another question from somewhere over here there's a there's a lady right at the back there I'm going to make you run Martin right up to the back the lady in the orange orange top looks orange from here apologies if it's not and so maybe a question of science fiction or evolutionary biology I'm not sure but do you ever speculate about what adaptation might come next for humans and what that might look like would you not enter into that well if we're talking about biological evolution in the future of humans remember that this can only come about through differential reproduction some types of humans would have to be either survive better or be more likely to reproduce than others so if you think about the kind of thing it might be if you think about say what's happened in the past two million years or three million years one of the more dramatic things that's happened to us over that period is that our brains have got bigger dramatically bigger much much bigger and so you might well think well is that going to continue will we in the future have brains like the Mekong with with your engine and to repeat in order for that to happen it would be necessary that consistently over a large number of generations over perhaps a million years the brainiest individuals have the most children which must in some sense have been true over the past three million years because otherwise our brains wouldn't have got bigger it got slightly smaller since the Paleolithic they have they yeah right yeah okay nothing we're on a downward trend here everybody oh that's yes well I'd believe it so I often get asked this question I refuse to answer it but I say I'll make some predictions about what won't happen because there are we have our bodies are really tightly constrained or development is really tightly constrained and there are some things which happened very early on during embryologically pant that if you were to flip them or change them you would just derail the whole of the process and there's absolutely no way it would work say I will make a prediction that humans are never going to grow another pair of arms humans are never going to grow extra fingers I don't think that's going to happen you're never going to have eyes in the back of your head all of these leaders that's very very difficult actually to work out biologically how to do that without D railing it was very interesting and it's a point we often forget when we're thinking about adaptation we think only about what is good for sort of out there in the world and forget that every single change has to come about by a change in embryology and then may well be things which embryology just doesn't allow it's too difficult to do yes if it's an interesting point um gentleman in the middle of this block over here have you paid any attention to physicist Lise Marlins comments on the evolution of the laws of physics yes this is an interesting idea the quite a lot of physicists favor for reasons of quantum theory the idea of a multiverse the idea that the universe that we know the universe in which we find ourselves is not the only one that there are there is a population of universes and it's a part of the idea is that these different universes in the multiverse different laws of physics and there may even be billions of them and the great majority of them have laws of physics which are not compatible with for example us the anthropic principle states we have to be in the kind of universe which is capable of giving rise to us so there's a kind of already there you can see a kind of Darwinism going on the fact that we are here and aware of our existence automatically selects for the fact that we have to be in the kind of universe that can give rise to us which has physical laws which are capable of giving rise to galaxies and stars and chemistry and so on now Smolin has taken that idea a bit further and made it more strongly Darwinian by suggesting that it is not just a vast population of universes a small minority of which are compatible with us but by suggesting that there's a kind of biological reproduction of universes universes give birth in Smolin's view to baby universes to daughter universes in black holes so it's possible to say of a universe this is its parent and that's its grandparent and that's its great grandparent you're going to have a descent a pedigree of universes and as in biology each generation they have the opportunity for a mutation to occur in this case a mutation in the laws of physics and so a daughter universe has almost the same laws of physics as its mother but not quite so there we have the idea of a kind of genetics of universes that at a reddit account of physics Darwinism comes into it now because since black holes are the birth event for a universe some universes because of their laws of physics are better at giving birth better at making that holes that give birth than others and so universes evolve to become better at giving birth to baby universes and coincidentally the characteristics which make a universe good at giving birth to baby universes also happen to be the same characteristics that give rise to galaxies and stars and chemistry and lambda and and life so that the multiverse has evolved to become more and more likely to give birth to the kind of universe that can give birth to us that's that's the that's my biologists account of the smullin theory I hope I've done it justice so there is selection there on his view yes there is a kind of selection it's not selection for life it's its selection for those properties of physics there's the laws and constants of physics which incidentally produce life as a by-product so it's kind of reproducibility but it's not it's still not strictly Darwinian if there's not any selection beyond those no it is it is Darwinian because it because there is selection to become better at making baby universes natures which is like biological selection I don't think actually many physicists buy it to be fair having a look up there uh even over there okay we can't see we're dazzled oh yes there's a hole next to two of you up there oh my goodness have you got a microphone up there excellent you said regarding religion people who study the Trinity whatever what or any belief about a deity is based on an assumption which which are which is true seems true but is the fundamentals of science not all based on an assumption the assumption that there are things and called matter well I think the difference is that in science those fundamental assumptions are testable I mean the the the most basic part of physics is is quantum theory which is deeply mysterious and deeply difficult to understand but it does make stunningly accurate predictions so it may be every bit as missed actually a lot more mysterious than anything theologians have ever dreamed up but when you derive mathematically predictions from from quantum theory those predictions are verified to the umpteenth significant figure it's been calculated that it's equivalent to predicting the width of North America to the accuracy of the width of one human hair that's the accuracy with which quantum theories predictions have been verified and the predictions of the Trinity or transubstantiation are zero they're just made up they're just invented they no more valid than predictions of fairy ology or leprechaun allergy or anything like that so prediction but what about the initial assumption which there is an initial assumption in both but it works I mean it at the whole of science is is based upon initial assumptions and science actually makes predictions which which work so to that extent those assumptions are validated you do actually mention in your book one of the particularly testing questions that was asked of prospective students at Oxford whether they were sure they were in a dream or not and I think this kind of plays into the same kind of idea yes I mean I think that question was perhaps first asked by Descartes how do you know you're not dreaming it's an interesting question and it's one of the questions which that there is as Alice says there's a chapter as a section on the sorts of questions that we vote that we ask prospective students coming in to Oxford and and that's one of the ones that a philosopher colleague of mine yeah let's have another question there's another one up in my in the gallery up there I think a gentleman I'm very sorry if you're not a gentleman okay I hope you are professor Dawkins I had a conversation with my father-in-law who is very religious and he claimed he'd seen you on YouTube I know it's social media and everything saying that if you were provided with empirical evidence for the existence of God you would still not believe it and I said no I don't think you said that so I said I'm going to see him saying so well so I'm really glad I got the opportunity well this is I think this is a very interesting and difficult question for years I said of course if I'm provided with empirical evidence I would believe instantly and the kind of thing I had in mind was the clouds pass hot part asunder and great chariot appears and that a deep booming sort of paul robeson voice says i exist and and i would of course instantly be be converted but your father-in-law is is right that i have hesitated a bit about that because really comes back to the question Alice just raised how do I know I'm not dreaming how do I know I haven't gone insane how do I know I'm not the victim of a of a conjuring trick by some very clever alien Penn & Teller or Darren brown and III now I'm actually verging on departing from scientific orthodoxy and saying I can't it's I find it very hard to imagine anything that would actually convince me not just about God but anything supernatural because what is supernatural what what would you even need my supernatural other than something that we don't yet understand with existing science no I'm not even that we don't understand by the way unable to detect presumably well um I mean I think if some if some miracle were performed and one are asked to say because of this miracle I now believe in the supernatural have you seen Darren brown doing a trick have you seen Penn & Teller have you seen the amazing Randi I mean these these what these people do is supernatural except that we know it isn't because we know they are our professional con jurors but it's I find it very hard to convince myself that it's that it's not supernatural it's only the fact that they that they tell me in the time I sort of and understand that how clever con jurors are you know Humes criterion for for miracle you should only accept a miracle if it would be even more of them of a miracle that it it would it should prove to be a fake a hoax a trick hallucination or something like that isn't it always going to be a more plausible explanation that it's a hoax a fake a mistake a trick a hallucination then that the laws of physics have been broken and and seeing how clever can jurors are I like that shakes my confidence in my ability to say okay now I'm convinced I believe it I I'm kind of backtracking from that scientific orthodoxy it sounds like a challenge to me it sounds like you're throwing down the gauntlet actually Richard yes out there to try and sort of open virtue yes yeah I think we've got time for one final question and I think it's that gentleman there I just hand up very quickly so I'd like to ask about like creativity and I guess like the Eureka moment so can you apply Darwinism to essentially like the birth of the intangible so like that Eureka moment you say oh I live a great life etc am I going to produce better idea is that kind of thing because we don't really understand where that spark comes home yeah yes it compared it to magical but well yes I mean I think it's true that that science does depend on Eureka moments on brilliant ideas flashes of insight and nobody quite knows where they come from and then of course you have to test them and that's what distinguishes science is that you then test them exhaustively and rigorously but the actual Eureka moment itself I suppose as a naturalist as a materialist I would say that some random event in the nervous system juxtaposes something - perhaps - to ideas in the in the brain that come together to form the new insight and I don't think we need to get mystical about it I mean I think it is it's perfectly ultimately explicable by brain science but it is a very important part of science the the imaginative hypothesis which then has to be tested and on the idea testing imaginative hypotheses we came to bring this evening to a Claes I'd like to thank very much the Royal Institution and for hosting us here tonight in this wonderful lecture theatre that Richard is so familiar with and I'd like to thank you all for coming tonight and last but not least thank you very much Richard Dawkins you

Channel: The Royal Institution

Views: 268,881

Rating: 4.8008909 out of 5

Keywords: Ri, Royal Institution, dawkins, richard dawkins, Q&A, hate mail, alice roberts, evolution, creationism, lecture

Id: bPf96192PRM

Length: 25min 23sec (1523 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2016