Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss - An Evening With The Unbelievers

[Applause] hi there it's great to be here I don't know maybe we need to introduce ourselves you might we often get confused so I thought maybe I'm you should know who we are if you could you stand beside the table so this is Richard Dawkins you can tell because he's wearing converse ok ok so we're very happy that we hope you enjoyed the movie and and we're happy to to do this QA and so I buy traditional I guess I'll moderate which means I will just choose questions and then we'll we'll go at it as long as we're loud so I think there are microphones there they're people with microphones on the side and so I'll just choose one and since you're near him why don't you begin hello that enjoy the film factor being here thanks thank you for bringing down this fear question for you Lawrence religious people like to pick and choose the bits they agree with in the Bible and disregard the bits they don't agree with the majority of the what do you think of the majority of the justices of the Supreme Court of the USA who do the say with the Constitution am i nervous a lot oh I'm feeling over I'm thinking of the separation of church and state where they say they can pray before council meetings well you know uh well it's not really related to I'll give you my opinion um it often amazes me that there are judges on the Supreme Court who treat the Constitution as if it were like the Bible that you have to um that's a document that's unchanging and not doesn't doesn't reflect the times and you have to somehow interpret the meaning of the document and I think those inevitable is aim thing they pick and choose those aspects that they will that they will argue are important for in this particular court people have decided that what that what their decision is in advance and they find an excuse to to justify it certainly at least in general for members of the Supreme Court in the United States who two of whom are devout Catholics at least one of whom is an idiot and the other one is sort of waffling so it I have a hard time accepting the wisdom of that court at this particular time it's obviously political it's obvious is for the most part are justified after the fact just as people try and seek in religion and explanation for something that they believe in and in the beginning and anyway I don't know if that relates to anything to you I don't know if it's different here we should know okay well I mean we don't have a written constitution it helps a lot if you don't have one yeah yeah why don't why we did it this in the front here this D D at you yeah um hi um well I enjoyed the film mostly but it seemed at times that it especially in comparison to some of your earlier publications and earlier documentaries at times that it was a sort of comical straw man how would you react to that comical what with the with a straw man as Anna straw in the straw man fallacy uh I think I'd react to that by saying I don't agree yeah what but I mean you what you might need to explain well let me let me jump in and say because I know this has come I've heard a version of this a number times people some people are concerned that you know there wasn't more balance or or a variety things but you have to understand that this is documentary that these young men who made the film who are two very talented young filmmakers and I I personally think they did a great job they were wonderful filmmakers but they they followed us around they didn't pick and choose what was going to happen and they took 120 hours of footage over about six months in different countries and and they use the footage they had and and there's it also interests me I'm amazed at that people there's a lot of scientific discussions there that first clip for example of our discussion in Sydney operas are one of the first clips is like eight minutes long which in a movie is about as long as you could have for a single scene but the bottom line is they as they put it and I'll use their words it sounds self-aggrandizing but it's their words they said if you're making a film about the Beatles you don't follow the Rolling Stone and so they just took the footage they had and and and I think the the actually if you look at it the the footage they used and and obviously we've seen it I think is is tends to get people discussing and in fact for me at least the intent of the film is was was hopefully to reach people who haven't thought much about these issues and so far the reaction has been that its provoked a lot of discussion after the fact so I'm very happy with it but but is that what you meant I mean what did you mean when when you thought it was destroy Batman I think you can shout it out it's okay it seems like a lot of the things in there were basically just put in there just to make people laugh I mean obviously you've already answered the preaching to the choir question before but it just seemed a lot of the things and they were just sort of to sort of say this is religion make people laugh at it rather than making people actually think about it okay but well it wasn't scripted so that would all be in spontaneous anyway yeah okay well would need to think about that okay let's let's try near the back oh I did this side so as you go to this side why don't we take way over there that gentleman the back yeah you now make so that's great thank you for turning on the lights now we can actually see hi um as an atheist I was hoping you might be able to help with one a paradox that I haven't in my thinking I think you'd agree that overall religion has a negative effect on the world overall although it does have some positive positive effects I like many of my thoughts to be based on evidence or empirical it's something that's empirically verifiable some of the positive things and negative things are empirically verifiable such as you could say you know 300 deaths last year caused by extremists or whatever but some of these things like like hope that religion gives to people aren't quantifiable and given that it's not quantifiable how can you believe something so strongly without empirical evidence is that not the antithesis of what we try to what we try to do you want to say it sounds as though all your thinking is based upon whether it has a good effect or a bad effect I don't care if it has a good effect or a bad effect I care if it's true agree and because I mean as scientists that's what we care about I didn't actually hear the examples you gave of the good effects I can think of very very few good effects indeed but even if I could even if everything was good if there's no evidence that it's true then I would not accept it evidence seems to me to be the right approach when you're looking for what's true but if you're looking for what's good then a lot of value judgment comes into it and I think I'll let go in one sense the main thing is that ah the key thing that I think both Richard and I want to do is excite people about the wonders of reality about the real universe and how amazing it is and instead of and and realize that they don't need this fake universe of myth and superstition for me that's what drives me is I think Anna and as an aside I think people ultimately lose religion but personally I'm driven more by getting people excited about the really you know and you might say and I've had this discussion with least one or two of the people who were in the beginning and end of the film one in particular that I know whether you know if people find solace in something is it you know is it reasonable or justifiable to argue that what they're finding solace in is is not right well I don't think either Richard or I would go to someone's death bed who's who's clinging on that and say oh you know forget it but but what depends who they are actually but but but the but the problem is that it's not a knock you Asst that though that that other that beliefs as I think I said in the film that beliefs in things that aren't true inevitably produce actions which which are often harmful and so if it was just innocuous I think I'd feel a lot less worried about but it's not an oculus and therefore I think it's really important to try and convince people to base their actions on reality and on the whole while that may hurt its some people I think on the whole it leads to a better society oh we have there's people up there is your microphone up there that will be you will be okay we'll get to you in a second okay you're the next one yet you you the woman who's hit God's hand is up her hand on but but let me let me go on this side first I get to play um this gentleman here with the yes you yes bald and a beard or semi bald and a beer I don't know can't see from here hi I think good trying to complete his kiss question I see that you guys are scientist getting into the realm of politics and I completely apply that standing up Laos but my question is don't you think that perhaps you you Lawrence are the scientist of the cosmos then you you you you reach our other scientist of the biology then again you are also that the scientist of the author of the very little of the of them of the atoms then then I don't know if Sam Harris will be the scientist of the of the brain but don't you think that there's something missing there something between which is a social layer that we should we should be applying that kind of science into helping change the society the way you guys want to do it and there should be I don't know I'm not asking you guys to do it but there there are there are social scientists Richards biologist I'm a cosmologist a theoretical physicist and we talk about we try at least to talk about things we we know and we and you're absolutely right with there are other people who have expertise and other things but that's for them to talk about I don't know if you wanna know I'm just saying that the perhaps he's his question was how to use empirical knowledge and evidence to show for instance when it's better to be kind of a little bit more aggressive on the discourse or when it's better to be a little bit more politically correct and not just to do it on the spur of I think it would be very valuable to have research of the kind you you suggest which would be which would inform our political tactical decisions on how to influence people I mean we could take go take a course in public relations and advertising things like that will neither of us I think I've ever done that maybe we should that is my original in my way you shouldn't Richard I don't think you should but but I think the point is that we it takes you know it's like a thousand points of light as they used to say in my country I think it takes many different approaches there isn't one approach that resonates with everyone and Richard and I have different approaches and we've as we talk about the movie we started out when he first met we had I think much much different approaches and and and and I think it takes all different arguments different approaches work with different people but ultimately the point that that that you should base your actions on empirical evidence and rational thinking is something that doesn't matter what kind of scientist you are doesn't matter what kind of person you are you don't have to be a scientist to argue for that and that's the key point it's not as if it to require scientists everyone should be utilizing those things and the public should be utilizing those things when they choose in a democracy apparently who they elect the and they should require the people they elect to you to use empirical evidence and rational thinking so I think that's all at least that's what we're primarily advocating I I once attended a talk by somebody who who was trying to persuade us not to be as he put it don't be a dick and um and he took a vote in his talk he said how many of you here would be persuaded that you were wrong if the speaker said you're an idiot and not entirely surprisingly nobody put their hand up nobody said that they would be persuaded if they would if they were told that you're an idiot I think I would actually I mean I think that there's a scene in the movie where you say you were America train yeah that's right yes that's true but but there is another point which is that sometimes when you're talking to an idiot it's not the idiot you're trying to persuade it it's the rest of the audience who are listening to you and so it isn't necessarily obvious that just because people are not persuaded when you say you're an idiot that that you shouldn't do that there's I think there's a small minority of which I believe I'm one who might be persuaded if you told me I was an idiot yeah we and in fact there are a few debates in the movie not that many both of us have taken part in discussions neither of us like debates we've been talking about that last few days but but but generally indeed often the reason I agree to do them I'm pretty sure Richard too is is you know that you don't expect the person you're on the stage with to have any impact on them but it's the vast majority of people who really again haven't thought about these issues very much and and and there are the people I think you're trying to appeal to in one way or another and as I say sometimes it's humor sometimes it's kicking people in the head I believe there's a statute in common law in England which states that no idiot shall be allowed to stand for Parliament really how come there are so many people in Parliament okay I think I think the woman up there do you have a microphone now did yeah this this woman there there she is I think that's it yeah yeah I think my question is pretty much answered by the last it was this I I suppose just to add to that I don't I don't think it's useful for our calls if we have one to say that there's rational people here and idiots there and there's a lot of people in the middle in the bill that fancy thinking and perhaps the point is that we should be a bit more pragmatic in how we I don't have a question because it's basically answered by the previous point but just to throw that but let me point out that it doesn't even divide that way I mean rational people are also idiots we all are we all are irrational and that's one of the things why we have to sort of be sceptical of ourselves we all as I've often said I don't think it's in the movie we all have to believe 10 impossible things before breakfast just to get up in the morning you have to believe you love your spouse or you like your work or whatever it is and and and and so we're not you we are all human beings including scientists and so one of the things that science I think usefully teaches you if you practice it is to second-guess yourself and ask what why are you making that decision why do you believe this result is it because you want to believe it or because there's evidence etc well scientific method is is tailored for that the thing is like the double-blind controlled trial that's so much used in medical research is specifically a at not fooling yourself because with the best will in the world scientists are influenced by the result that they want to get sometimes in the opposite direction actually if they're very very conscientious so the best thing is simply not to know for example in a medical truck trial which bottle contains the control which bottle contains the experimental nobody is allowed to know that so that you cannot be fooled by your own preconceptions and a good example of working the other direction that you probably know that study but there was a study done of Prayer the efficacy of Prayer and the study was interesting because there were people who were prayed for people who weren't and there people who told they were prayed for and the people who were told they were paid for did worse and and the idea is that they put a lot of pressure on them to get better and and they didn't anyway now let's let's just go here but keep a microphone up there because we'll go back well when we take this gentleman here yeah if you could keep the mic lights up on the audience it really helps so we could see I would like to ask a question that piggish picks up on what you were just talking about I wouldn't dare to call any of you idiots but it's one of the things you mentioned in the movie Laurence is that there are no authorities in science it should be never if yes your penis there are militias oh yeah Max Planck famously claimed that the science progresses funeral by funeral which by which meant that you know most new things come into prominence in science not when people become convinced but when the old guard dialysis were and like many people would say that the current state of affairs in science in general is is quite a sad one with like a large number of cases of scientific fraud somewhere mock how so it was still suspended at Harvard in social psychology you have lots of scandals in the field of priming where a lot of if there was a case in Holland with this a guy that has produced his own data a disturbingly large number of results can't be replicated because people feel I think it's a publicly owned don't you think that you are often so this is my question don't you think that you often painting a too rosy picture of science well that sometimes that might backfire because then your opponents might look it might discover cases in scientific fall and be like oh you know I but Lawrence Krauss claims his claims with everything is fine this is now it looks like well you know look I even think the bad cases are good cases I guess maybe I am too optimistic in that sense but III think first of all I think it's way overblown I mean it there are areas in the pharmaceutical industry in particular I think we have to worry there's huge amounts of money and and I think you have to worry a little bit about the results in my area physics it's working very well thank you and moreover it is true that and it's remarkable that that you know we assume honesty and if you're dishonest in science it's remarkable how you can get through a variety of barriers but what almost always happens as far as I know is it is you get found out is that the community reaper tries to reproduce your experiments and it doesn't work and it's discovered that that result is wrong so even wrong look getting in a journal it doesn't mean anything it means you got published but but it's the it's when people reproduce your results and find them useful that it's important so there's lots of garbage I don't read most stuff that's in journals because most of its garbage literally I mean or at least or it it isn't pretty good relevant or important but there are but it's obvious when there's something it's useful and then people pick up on that and find out when things are wrong so even those cases of scientific fraud that I know of in physics the fact that they get found out is an example of the of the self-policing the importance of peer review but scientists do and they're easily fooled by people lied the James Randi who's a who's a friend of art well you know as well as a wonderful magician who tries to seek out fraud and there was a study being done on ESP at Princeton and he trained two of his people to do tricks and go into the study and and then he he said if anyone asks you are you are you lying or tricking us say yes okay and of course the study was done in there only there were two candidates who who were demonstrated of ESP and it was the two because scientists never think people are lying so unfortunately at you a certain stage but I think on the whole the scientific enterprise is doing very very well I don't know if you were well the scientific ideal is that fiddling your figures cheating is the worst thing you can possibly do I mean it's it's true that there are individual bad apples who do it and as Lawrence says they're usually found out but science is the one profession where everybody knows that if people fiddle their figures the whole of science were simply crumble there's no point in doing science if you fiddle your figures other professions like being a lawyer for example you're paid to repeat it - you're paid to deceive you're you're paid to mislead a jury I mean even if you believe somebody is actually guilty you're paid to to argue for therefore their innocence that's inconceivable to it to a scientist but but even better the point is what's great is that what determines what's right is not people so when you lie and fiddle your figures what happens is someone tries to reproduce the experiment its nature and so when the experiment is reproducible it gets thrown out and that's what's wonderful that's what I mean by the lack of authority it's true that an individual can lead cheat and lie and and and get ahead at a certain point but ultimately it's a science not the scientists and the end of the science goes by tonight by Nature and if the experiments of later people can't reproduce it then people throw it out that's what's so great is not based on someone's word or or or or or how many Nobel Prizes they've won unfortunately that rings true or for physics where you expect experiments to be perfectly reproducible in biology where it's all so complicated and messy if an experiment is repeated and doesn't give the same result that it it doesn't automatically assume that the the first one was cheating it's assumed that there's some complication that was overlooked so it is more difficult in biology and it may be it's probably true in fact that there is more fraud I suspect in medical research and and it's harder and social science that's why it's I mean physics is the I say it all the time people think I'm joking I do physics because it's easy it's the easiest and and all these other things are much harder and that's why we just hit the low-hanging fruit but we haven't any women recently down here it's all men there's one okay here we go we'll take this side its star stock and thank you and I think that use both amis and and we've really inspired me to want to study science okay and evidence suggests that and the more educated you are the less religious you've become so I was wondering would you be doing anything more like the lectures in 1991 you know they're growing up in the universe's is to Richard Meyers lecture yeah they were brilliant um well yes um I don't think you get invited to give the Christmas lectures more than once unless you're Michael Faraday he got to choose again he cheated them laughing and I think nineteen times so I don't think that's gonna happen but the idea of giving lectures to what Faraday called a juvenile auditory is certainly very appealing i I have written a book for for young people the magic of reality and I certainly and I would like to think that I might do another one rather rather similar that that book has twelve chapters each of which is one question which is answered first in myths and then in science and I could imagine doing another book with another ten questions because there are so many more questions to ask I just found that the the videos you can watch on YouTube a brilliant for adults not just you you prefer videos to boxed you easy easy to watch but also 4m people in states and like you draw blogs next door just to get it more accessible - yes yeah well I do think that videos are immensely powerful and certain it's one of the things that my foundation especially in America is is working towards is producing lots of videos including quite short ones here which can be possibly a resource for teachers to to splice into a lesson just sort of five minute or three minute vignette on some particular scientific question perhaps recording somebody like Lawrence talking about a particular thing and that's by the way when the reasons why we want to do the film is that is it you reach people there's a whole much broader audience and of course both of us are on YouTube a lot but but but I also find by the way speaking of these things useful adults that if you direct a lecture towards children it's likely that some adults will understand it and and so I think and I am always been saddened that I think I'm not certain about this that I think you have to be British to give the Christmas lectures I've always wanted no not true well then I want to give them some time anyway Carrie Wow let's go way in the back right that man right there and then I don't know yeah then we'll go up upstairs again I'm guessing I'm a bit of a minority here and probably the only rabbi in the room but I'm a liberal rabbi which may help a little bit I was interested in the statement that you made in the film a crime at what point where that if you don't buy some of the stuff then you should get rid of it all and I'm curious to know how that works because part of the problem I think that you're encountering and that is the polarization of what has seemed to be very opposite views where in fact there is a lot of common ground clearly there is Orthodox religion which has fundamental beliefs which are basically nonsense and there are but there are plenty of religious beliefs I think that can be justified in the context that you're speaking and in fact that I think that bringing a liberal religious voice into the conversation would actually help make it a more a less polarized situation and a more hopefully more profitable one I was resolved with the statements made to the to the person up there too we should value out you should value your life and seek to appreciate that you that's a religious statement sparse well I said no it's not a really a statement I'm not a religious tape no I disagree with you completely okay completely but that's Doug but that comes down to a definition of what religion is there yeah well aren't you it which i think is the point I mean it just as one more thing I would but I have in my synagogue as in a sermon I quoted the 37 adjectives think it was with which Richard describes the Old Testament God in The God Delusion well because I agree with that well as the old of course you do I cut you're you're a decent man of course you hope you agree with it but but you you have to have some criterion for deciding which bits of your scripture you believe in which you don't well interested in just one I'm sorry I don't to table dominators but the one of the basis of liberal Judaism was a instituted organization an institution that was established in Berlin in the 1870s called the Bisson cha a whole shelf Olivos and shaft is using tools that the Institute for the scientific study of Judaism so yeah well you don't know what it's a point I'm from a Jewish back so I'm going to jump in here because I know some whore say well you know I'm an atheist but I'm Jewish and and and and because you're allowed to be an atheist if you're Jewish apparently and and I think the point is that what would it that book that that that people read from is one book and so there are valuable things in many books but treating it as if it's special okay just like just like treating Aristotle as if he were special there's some things that aerosol got right a heck of a lot of things you got wrong but doesn't and so it's not surprising so monkeys on a typewriter will prevent early produce Shakespeare it's not surprising there's some things in the Bible that are that are very reasonable but that's it but that but isn't at the point that you if there is some of it that you find unreasonable not unreasonably because most of it isn't because it's 3,000 rationality should determine what what you think is that well I think that but then I think there's an inconsistency there which is why I take exception statement if you don't buy all of it well you should throw it on if you don't buy in it some of it yeah and throw it all the way to see my point um um you you you are saying that there are parts of the Bible which you find reasonable and other parts I also there are parts of of religious traditions whatever their traditions the hand and text okay they're advanced that you find reasonable and parts that you don't and sure that that's right why bother to bring it back to religion if you've got an independent criterion for deciding which bits of religion you find reasonable in which you don't just decide don't bother to go a cricket cut out the middleman of rid of religion and just go straight to your modern decent liberal understanding of what's right and wrong and that doesn't come from the Bible or if it does it's a pure incidental accident well the but if the Bible if the Bible is perceived sorry I'm sorry just if somebody else was to talk just shut me up okay I should be the last coming again like but the point is that I my belief is that the Bible and all those religious ideas of thousands of years ago were the science of their day they were the questions that were being asked and about her nature of the universe and some of the answers they came up with were complete rubbish but they made sense in the time and some of them were not some of them have lasting value and I'm not saying that that gives that ink that therefore presumes some divine beam that in that wrote those things all I'm saying is that it's a testament to human ingenuity which is the forerunner of science and I think to dismiss all religion is just being lighter polka so you don't have to dismiss it you can say that it's historically interesting you can say that it that you couldn't you can trace from some of the great religious traditions some of the ideas that we have today but you don't say that are therefore I need to be a rabbi or I need to be a bucket my last comment is accepting it you know you read it critically like any other dog that's line it's look like any other book reading critically and encourage people to read it critically like any other book and it's not in my mind there are a lot of better books but but it's not yeah but just one but this is it I promise what rabbi means teacher and all thank you okay thank you for listening thank you thank you for having the courage to bring it up here over there that woman over there in the in the film um you said you believed religion was in its death throes do you actually genuinely think we will see a world where religion is totally eradicated and we're all reasonable rational human beings and if so will it be in my lifetime are we talking decades centuries millennia there's a difference between hope and expectation I think religion is in its death throes in Western Europe at least the Christian and Jewish religions maybe I only wish I could say the same of Islam which seems to me - one of the great evils of the world and shows no sign of diminishing at present and the great hope would be that we can that that education can do for the world of Islam today what it did for what was already done for for Christendom and and the there is the empirical evidence that it's on the decline so that that's a that's undisputed at least in the Western world and so I think that that's that's clear in it it's a function of both science and education and so what we need to do and I think the only I've written about this and in the Islamic world's gonna be very hard but education and particularly education of women yeah that's the most important thing in the Islamic world it seems to me to be able to try and conquer the women are the ones who are going to bring up children and in that world and and so the suppression of the education of women is them is is that is the biggest obstacle I think to change in that part of the world and that's why they do it I'll get you in a second I see you're jumping okay yeah exactly that's why they do it okay you yeah oh yeah here thank your Karl Thanks and then we'll go up there again and we'll come back professor Dawkins professor Krauss as a 15 year old I just got to say that you're a massive inspiration and I wish that you are my respective biology and physics teachers as well it was it would be quite good of you and my RS teacher the world so I've got a question that as a bit Carl Sagan inspired because I know it's something that he was interested in especially in his contact film and because it is the fact that actually word processed it it's alright yeah consider the fact that despite our best efforts 84 percent of the world's population roughly associate itself with a religion if we're ever to make contact or visit an intelligent intelligent civilization in the cosmos do you think that religion should play a role in that science would allow us to communicate but do you think that divinity has a right to get involved with complex scientific issues that would affect all of us as the human species and well after absolutely not no no why why why it's like you know asking a baseball coach to be I mean what it's I mean it the point is that science you know me if we really contacted extraterrestrials which by the way I'm it's probably not not going to happen but uh I think the greatest aspect of that one hopes and and this is common in science fiction but one of things I like about Star Trek is they move beyond religion and and these primitive societies all have mythological beliefs but so when one expects that if one were to contact civilization the most likely civilization here from would be the most advanced one and one would hope in fact that the great thing is that it would in fact serve to help help destroy mythology and so you wouldn't want to blur that in my opinion if we were to look at the human species as a whole that you have to recognize religion as a short as 84% of the radius but do you do so ideally I would say not but no no I think you know you want to represent the human species as if you want to communicate a lot by Fenske Hawking says you should just shut up you shouldn't communicate because they're probably destroyed but but but no I think you want to give an accurate representation of our civilization civilization is history and they're zeroed out that religion not just today but throughout all of human history has played a role and maybe you could ask them to help out Carl Sagan was very much interested in what we should broadcast universes as um and so he Pathak include his music in his in his um which was well noises yeah um Louis Thomas said what we should do to advertise the human species is send BA all of bar nothing but knocked I think we should send science because that's something to be proud of I sometimes think we should even now actually be sending out what you could call a cosmic tombstone because eventually the human species is going to go extinct and it would be nice to think that Shakespeare and bar and Darwin and Einstein that the achievements of the great humans of history would not die with us and so sending out a cosmic tombstone in the vague faint infinitesimal hope that it might one day be picked up it really is infinitesimal by the way that I think that that might well be a the good news is were doing it yes yeah because every time we send out radio signals we're and TV signals were doing it and so there's some likelihood of course they'll get well they'll gain the bad as well as the good yes indeed I mean in in Carl Sagan's contact the very first human signal that was received from me in outer space was Hitler speech opening the Olympic Games I mean wherever it was 1980 the first broadcast yeah so exactly okay let's see all the way back are you have a microphone yeah all the way back there long no no not you don't unless you want to jump it's no yeah okay hi guys and thanks for coming tonight it's really really exciting and I just wanted to go back to your books that you mentioned earlier about with children and take it a little bit younger because your your magic of reality book richard is fantastic and i've given it to many a parent who's approached me about how to talk to their kids about religion because they're not quite sure how to have it if their kids go to see these schools or catholic schools but they don't necessarily believe in God and I wondered if there are any plans to go a little bit younger because although that books fantastic for you know atheist or agnostic parents you want to have that discussion and a lot of kids are already indoctrinated by that point because they're in a society that is predominant really religious and when there are so many toys and books and things about Noah's Ark and all the sort of crap that you get in the Bible all that type of stuff is there any plans for example from the Richard Dawkins foundation or anything like that to go a little bit younger so that it's in the mainstream earlier well I think that's a very good idea by the way the magic of reality is not an anti religious book it's a it's a really scientific book um I once went into WH Smith and did a survey I counted the number of children's books which are really religious propaganda and they're huge numbers I mean gigantic numbers of them and so yes I wouldn't mind producing a more overtly atheistic book for for children there's a problem it might not sell very well if if it was called atheism for tiny tots it's gone along with it it would be a good thing but I think probably the better approaches is to do it as a science book and to to discuss science in a very skeptical way and and so that I I think that is a very good thing to do and and I would like to do it yes but we do need I mean as you point out that there there are a bunch of books for teens and young adults and and and but but we we do and I've off I've thought about it too and I've talked to some people about doing some books for for very young kids with an artist and I think we need to do that more because kid but because kids are extremely receptive to that kind of thing and but it requires it's true it's a very different kind of writing and publishing experience and it requires some expertise and and and working with right people yeah they're also really really heavily indoctrinated by that point I remember a program you did Richard a few years ago I can't know what it was called but where you did some man you were looking for fossils on a beach with some kids and and at the end of it almost all of them reverted back to despite the fact you talked through some really sensible science with them most of them sort of said oh yeah but my god you know my mum and my parents still said that God exists and blah blah blah so they're so heavily indoctrinated by that point that it's it's you know we need to self almost flood the market with with them some really young kids stuff because they're really heavily into opportunity by that point especially in this country and it and even more so in the States but although that's the problem with the indoctrination is it's often done by parents and they're the ones who buy the kids the books that's why we need really good education I mean really the I've just written a piece which I hope will appear in The Times in The New York Times but that we the purpose of Education in school in the school should be to get kids to not believe what their parents tell them I think and and that's a what they hear from their anyone else but they get them to skeptical and so we really need to be we that is why it's discourages me so much that people can take in some sense can take their kids out of school and because of course schools a lot of schools are bad but but really we need to be able to provide those kids an opportunity to get away from the in many cases I wonder how many parents who teach children there are children's things like the Adam and Eve story don't really believe it themselves but just think it's a charming sweet story and part of you know what one does tell children perhaps a a consciousness-raising exercise for parents saying think twice before you simply automatically pass on to your children the charming stories of Adam and Eve Noah of course is not a charming story but it still gets passed on because it's the animals going in two by two is sort of nice picture but perhaps parents who actually don't for a moment believe in the stories that they tell children just sort of tell them the same way they tell them about Little Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf and children it eventually grow out of those stories but then they'd find they don't grow up grow out of the of the Bible stories to get present there because if the parents act like they're Truman where they in fact in that regard and this is really interesting a result another thing in the article I was written is maybe we could tell parents how bad it is because there's now studies there's a bunch of studies that show and one that I found very compelling in the United States recent show the kids who have a religious education have a much harder time distinguishing fact from fiction when their children and in and this is a really rigorous study and it's kind of amazing and I think if we in some sense explain to parents that they were really abusing their children then maybe a lot of parents wouldn't do it okay well I promised you didn't I yep okay hope it's a good question cousin come um I just wanted to ask you a question but then I've sort of like got other thoughts now but one thing is that in the east and the west where you say Islam is now sort of increasing in its power and being from Pakistan I think it's because education is very tailored and there's their blasphemy law so you can't question it and people will shoot you and they've banned YouTube in Pakistan you know for example so these are the things so I think you know there needs to be a drive to stop I had no funding in the in the East if they have these laws like a blasphemy law needs to be eradicated and that's what stops debate in the East in all of these countries that's one point that was just a point the other thing I just want to say I thought that you know as you become more educated and intellectual and you would move away from religion but then I've seen your other debates and I've seen scientists debate with you and they believe in you know they are God believers and it just doesn't make sense and is it some sort of an instinct so I'd like your views on that and there's a third thing and that's what we're just picked you just Richard just nothing why aren't faith-based schools banned in this country why do we have faith-based schools in the advanced nation the official excuse of faith-based schools is that they get good results and the reason they get good results is that there is that there they are known to get good results for historical reasons and so parents fight to get their children in and even lie about religious persuasion in order to get their their children in the situation in places like Pakistan is dire as you say and it's it's how it's not in a way not up to up to to us here but but you you people from Pakistan have a very very difficult difficult time of it because of that what was the second one of them I think there I can you know that was about the scientists and and that that you know it's unfortunate you see and journalists do it all the time and because they always think there's two sides to every issue so you get you know you have people talk about evolution of the Big Bang or climate change and they can always find any one of the PhD to say anything about anything and then they present one person they say what you don't see there's a controversy and that's they don't understand that often tell the journalists in journals think there's two sides to every story but in science one side is usually wrong and the problem but but the fact is and what people have to realize that scientists are people first of all it's very difficult to overcome religious education it's for many people it's interest when their children before they can think rationally and deeply and it's very hard to get rid of it so a lot of scientists who are who are religious probably because they're brought up religious but they're but the point is that as I often say there are scientists who are Republican there's no there's no accounting for taste there's no or intelligence so scientists are our people as well as scientists and that means they're irrational as well as rational and so you got it you can expect a spectrum when it comes outside the science you can expect a spectrum of views some of which are reasonable and some of which are aren't ah there are lots of scientists who say that they are religious if you actually cross questioned them and say what do you in fact believe which religion are you do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God do you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and rose from the dead almost certainly the answer is no they are spiritual so am I once we may not use the word spiritual but we get a kind of uplifted feeling when we look up at the Stars when we contemplate the great distances of space when we contemplate the complexity of life there are people who will say oh well that's religion well you're playing with words there and it's very misleading if people take from that okay here's a scientist who's religious if they then assume that the scientist believes in something supernatural when all he really believes in is what Einstein believed it regardez Panozzo order in the universe um so so really religious artists are actually quite rare and we know how rare they are because surveys have been done of both the National Academy of Sciences in America and the Royal Society here and in both cases it's somewhat somewhere under 10% who actually do believe in or in a religion in the true sense of the word and as Neil deGrasse Tyson that said we really need to worry about that 10% you know what's going on in their in their minds but they still are only 10% and so when journalists as Lawrence says say that I would in order to have balance we must have this side on on on the other side sometimes the balance is is artificial I forget or was it said when two opposite points of view are put with equal vigor the truth doesn't lie halfway between one of them is probably actually wrong okay I was at that but we only have time for one more question I think so I've been told so who is the best question um now see oh the young oh yes absolutely there we go I didn't see her there you go hello hi when I'm older I want to be a scientist but the thing I'm wondering is what's better to be a biologist what is it's clearly better to be a physicist because you really if if you're a physicist you can do biology anyway well the world is full of physicists who think they can do biology you know but you know what you should do you should do what you like to do that's right and that's what you should do thank you thank you very much thank you both very much and thank you also to all the volunteers there's been a lot of people scurrying around behind the scenes tonight who've helped make this evening for you so thank you very much to them Florence Richard will have a signing table outside so they're happy to sign stuff for you you might have noticed there's a lot of you so please would like to restrict this to one DVD in one book each if you brought your whole back catalog and your whole library here I'm sorry the lumbago has been for nothing just one DVD in one book please and also just in in the in the way of getting people home in a timely fashion please no photographs or selfies another very important fact about this is that this evening we have actually raised a little bit of extra money to help keep the skeptic man going Lawrence and Richard haven't received any money for this they've been happy for the unbelievers message to get out there in addition with the extra money we have made they have nominated charitable groups of their own 250 pounds will be going to medicine San Fran Tierra on behalf of Lawrence and 250 pounds will be going to the Richard Dawkins foundation on behalf of Richard and that's because you've given your money so Frankie

Channel: Conway Hall

Views: 96,353

Rating: 4.8048782 out of 5

Keywords: Richard Dawkins (Academic), Scientific Skepticism (Religion), The Unbelievers (Film), Lawrence M. Krauss (Academic), Skeptic (Magazine)

Id: xtyfJ-ik-zA

Length: 52min 29sec (3149 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 22 2014