Richard Dawkins and Peter Boghossian- June 5, 2015 @ Portland 5 Center for the Arts

welcome to a wonderful evening of science and blasphemy my name is Robin Blumenauer on the CEO of the Richard Dawkins foundation for reason in science and I don't know this for sure but my guess is this is the smartest gathering in Portland tonight so just quick housekeeping I'm gonna tell you how the evening is going to progress we will have a very interesting conversation between our two principals for about 45 minutes maybe an hour then it's your turn and we will have Roman roving microphones usually we do standing mics but because of fire code we couldn't do that here so we will have roving microphones there will be two in the auditorium I will be holding one there will be one in the first balcony and there will be one in the second balcony so make your make your hand clear that you want to ask a question and we'll try to be egalitarian about where where they come from so it that'll be about a half hour then after that for those of you who have brought books or who would like to purchase a book the orchestra let level lobby has a bookstore set up for you to get a book and then we will have a table where both Richard and Peter will be sitting and signing books well into the evening so that's how tonight will go and now on to the main event I'd like to introduce Professor Peter Bogosian a professor at Portland State University who wrote the wonderful book a manual for creating atheists and a man yes and a man who of course for everyone here needs no introduction the amazing Richard Dawkins [Applause] Richard Dawkins thank you everyone thank you so much for coming thanks for your support of reason and rationality and making our communities more sane it's it's wonderful to see so many people here in a packed house it's just absolutely fantastic it's thrilling to me so thank you everyone and we have some luminaries in the audience dr. Lawrence Krauss is here somewhere before thank you for coming so let's get right into it given the vastest of the universe I've often wondered why we've uncovered no evidence of alien life nothing no signals no crafts no probes I think it was Fermi who said where are they he said where is everybody and his colleagues being very bright and knowing his mind knew exactly what he meant he didn't need to tell him what he meant which is why haven't they got in touch with us the reason why one is inclined to believe that there is life elsewhere in the universe is statistical reason the number of stars and presumably planets more than presumably planets is very very large indeed 10 to the 22 on current estimates but the other side of that estimate is that because the numbers are so large and that's why we believe there's life elsewhere it's likely to be very very spaced out when it could be that there are as few as a billion other life forms elsewhere in the universe that's very very very few indeed compared to 10 to the 22 and if that were the case then we would expect that they would be so spaced out these islands of life celestial Polynesia with no possibility of canoes between them that it's not at all surprising that we've never been visited if we ever are visited it certainly will not be visited in the form of physical bodies it will be visited in the form of radio waves because radio waves travel outwards in all directions of the speed of light whereas physical bodies travel in only one direction but okay so but why haven't we seen I mean we've seen nothing we've seen no probes like von Neumann probes we've seen we've seen no no shouldn't we have seen something I mean not not if there's only a billion of them okay so if there are a billion of them and if they colonized but have been now that I think about why why would they colonize maybe calling it a colonization is like a human idea I wouldn't expect them to colonize I mean as I say aboard what I might expect I mean at any time we might pick up a radio signal and I think it's a worthwhile Enterprise SETI that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence run by Joel Tata is a worthwhile enterprise it might pick up something at any at any time so far it hasn't there are all sorts of possible reasons why that might not be it takes it takes a lot it's taken us four billion years to reach the point of radio technology where we'd be capable of sending a radio signal out there some people have suggested that the interval between developing radio technology and developing the technology to destroy oneself is very short so there may be civilizations winking into existence all over the place and then promptly going out again the south or they've had a chance to send their signals if we ever do get a signal we weren't it there'll be not much point in replying because our reply would take millions of years probably to reach or South thousands of years anyway so two ideas that have kind of struck me as interesting I don't know how much weight I'd give them one is that our model of the universe is just not correct maybe we're alone there's something that we haven't a friend of mine said to me we've had a Darwin of biology but we've had no Darwin of cosmology in other words we've had nobody to give us a kind of Copernican revolution or a thought to show us that the model of the universe we have is not correct and were alone now that could be that obviously is a wild speculation but it's I think was Carl Sagan who said someone's got to be the first so we could be the first we could be the first give given that we've had we've taken four billion years and the universe is 13.7 billion years not all of that's been available for the development of life but it is possible that there's been another complete cycle before we even started but so I don't know I mean I think it's rather unlikely that we're the first but but but we could be the first I rather treasure Carl Sagan's answer to the question do you believe that there is life elsewhere he said I don't know so his question oppressed him and said yes but what's your gut feeling he said I try not to think with my gut a life lesson a life lesson so this is a related question I've divided these up into biology and religion and a few other categories is evolution so integral to biology that the presence of life must imply an evolutionary process in other words are there any conditions under which life could have original universe absent evolution my literary agent Jon Brockman who is a great proselytizer for science has an annual question every Christmas he asks his address book which is the finest address book in America for an answer to a question and one year the question was what do you believe but cannot prove and lots of people gave different answers my answer was precisely I believe but cannot prove that were ever there's life in the universe it is Darwinian life I am glad well that makes you happy in the broad sense it would be something some kind of natural selection I think it probably needs to have a digital genetics such as we've got here because digital is necessary I think for that for the high fidelity which Darwinism requires it might not be a linear one-dimensional digital stream like we've got it could be a two-dimensional matrix or something of that sort there could be major differences and obviously there could be very major differences in the form that the life takes but I would put my shirt on I would stick my neck out for the view that it will be some kind of Darwinian life I've looked at all the alternatives that have ever been suggested and there's really only one which is Lamarckism and that was what I miss them which is what LaMarcus all the markers look Lamarckism did this was a view of the French biologist Lamarck who proceeded after 30 40 years the combination of the principle of use and disuse the more you use a bit of your body the bigger it gets or the stronger it gets and inheritance of acquired characteristics so the classic example is the blacksmith's arms the more the blacksmith uses his arms the bigger the muscles get and the Lamarckian ideas that then he passes on his big muscular arms to his children and it has been said by various biologists that there's nothing wrong with the Lamarckian theory except it isn't true III think there's a lot wrong with it I think that even if it were true even if it were true that inherit that acquired characteristics were inherited I don't believe it's a big enough theory to account for the complexity of life it's all very well for the blacksmith's arms but that's just it's just one of very few things that it'll work for it won't work for eyes it won't work for ears eyes don't get better the more you use them there's no reason why they should wear as natural selection picks up in even the slightest improvements it doesn't matter how deeply buried they are within the body within the internal biochemistry of the cell any slight improvement as Darwin said nature is daily and hourly scrutinizing because anything that changes the probability of survival however slightly how in however small away will be picked up by natural selection because the numbers are so vast and we the large numbers population and the genes that are being selected get the opportunity to be favoured again and again through many generations so so that would not be a property of carbon-based life I mean if it were possible that there are non carbon-based life it would be subject to the same yeah I mean it's a separate question whether you could imagine life that's not carbon-based I asked Harry kroto the Nobel prize-winning chemist whether he thought that there was any possibility of non carbon-based life and he absolutely ruled it out is it totally common but but even if it was even if there was non cob his life my shirt is on it being Darwinian no nevertheless what what possible reason given that he has no evident what is his reason for the knowledge of chemistry but carbon has properties which enable it to form these great big molecules of huge complexity I think the nearest possible competitor would be silicon but but he was he didn't think silicon could do it I actually like the idea of commissioning chemists to think about alternative lives I mean that and I don't think they do enough of that yeah I've often wondered if so if you take kind of the ghost out of the Machine and you look at something just in terms of a biological process and a cultural process then you have which this one of the big topics now free will but I am NOT a chemist and it would seem that sentience could certainly be I don't see maybe I don't know enough about chemistry but it would seem that the sentience could be a property of non carbon-based life-forms oh yes sentience could be a property of silicon based life forms man-made ones I mean it will be I believe but there has to be a carpenter I think Harry kroto would say there would have to be a carbon-based life form to manufacture and see the the silicon based would you call it life yes you probably would call it life but I mean it would be it it would need to have evolved by natural selection in the first place and then maybe designed by intelligent design by intelligent carbon-based life-forms mm-hmm which kind of relates in a sense to aren't really a question because there could be some great filter or something but a civilization could have created artificially intelligent entities and again we still haven't seen any evidence of those I'm hoping I'm hoping that it's on my bucket list I mean I my bet would be on that too I think I think that that computer life will achieve sentience and maybe a great improvement on us we have technologies now that enable people to live to the age of reproduction where they otherwise might not have does this have any effect on human evolution for example have medical advancements slowed down the evolutionary process of natural selection or what is the best way to conceptualize the the intervention of culture and technological advances on the process of evolution historically before technology and culture arose natural selection favored the ability to survive and the ability to reproduce survival being a prerequisite to reproduction so Fitness which has become a biological technical term once upon a time meant pretty much what it means in ordinary language ability to run fast keen sense organs ability to survive and the natural selection arose because a lot of individuals fail to reproduce because they died nowadays if you fail to reproduce it probably not because you've died it's probably because you don't want to reproduce or yes I mean that's pretty much so if there is I mean there still some people do still die at young and some people do some people might have reproduced if they haven't already already died that that does happen but the main cutting edge of natural selection of that kind has been blunted at very least nowadays the great variation in whether you reproduce the knot is whether you want to and so if there is or or if you're incompetent in the use of contraception I suppose so if there is any ver any genetic variants in desire to reproduce or competence in reproducing then by definition we have natural selection so it's a separate question on a very big question whether there actually is a genetic component if you actually divide any a set of people like the people in this room into those who have lots of children those who have none and then try to see whether there's any genetic correlation with with those who have a lot of children and those who don't if there is then by definition we have natural selection whether that will give rise to an evolutionary change depends upon how long that difference is sustained so is the difference between those who have lots of children and those who don't what was due to say their religion then it'll only have evolutionary consequences if the religion goes on for tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of years and we all obviously hope it won't and similarly if there's any genetic variants in fumbling incompetence at the use of contraception then by definition we have natural selection in favor of fumbling incompetence but again it's unlikely to give rise to any evolutionary change unless what it takes to be incompetent in 10,000 years is genetically the same as it is now and again that's unlikely that was a great answer all right so we've that was biology we've exhausted the categories now on to one of our favorite topics religion this is a good audience I'm frequently asked what's the harm with moderate religious belief if people aren't hurting anyone who cares if they believe in a talking snake my answer to this question in brief has been that it's important to see reality for what it is because then we could make better decisions if our starting assumptions about the world are incorrect then we make choices that we think leads to our well being but does not yet no matter how many times I've answered this question it keeps popping up how have you addressed it and what might be a better answer of course I agree with that with you with your answer I mean that's that I'm sure it is right but it doesn't really strike home to me okay in in a way that I just love truth I mean I'd it to me if somebody believes in a talking snake it's all very well saying they're not doing any harm and but they're doing themselves harm they're doing their children harm because they're missing so much I mean the the truth that we now know in the well I don't gotta say the 21st century but I you could go back to the 19th century the truth that we now know about life why we exist why we're here why all life is here the truth and physicists and are telling us about why the cosmos is here why why well everything is here it's so astoundingly marvelous but for anybody to go to their grave believing in talking snakes and adamant even pettifogging little things like that it's just a tragedy and as a lifelong professional educator I can't bear the thought of it and so um I think I sort of just go further I think I think it's a type of injustice towards oneself yes and and I think and you've written about this extensively when you teach that to children it's basically a form of child abuse well III think that some people find that too strong a statement and so I could say that what well I'm glad to hit I'm glad to hear that what what it what what's not too strong is to say that teaching children their roast in hell if they sin or if they don't believe in God I mean that really is child abuse I don't have anybody like that but I mean it's it's I think it's a mild form of cutting of child abuse to deprive a child of the fullest education that the century in which the child is born can offer on what basis do we look at human history and think would be better off without religion I'm thinking of the Soviet Union my friend Chris Matheson was here gave me this question tonight I'm thinking of the Soviet Union do we have any reason to think that societies would be better off without religion yes the Soviet Union was without religion of the kind that people think of as religion it had a different religion the religion of Stalinism I mean Stalin was worshipped as a demigod in the same kind of way Roman emperors were worshiped as gods both Stalin and Hitler had what a more or less indistinguishable from prayers offered to them I think people actually used to kneel down to say their prayers to Stalin in Hitler's Germany before meals a grace was said when he was sort of you know we thank the adult Hitler for for this food that's on our table kind of thing so it I don't think it's an accurate use of language to say that the Soviet Union was free of religion it was a new religion you know of its own I think that it's absolutely beyond question that society would be better in all ways without without religion I longed for the day I think I think it relates back to the previous question in that if this if your starting premise is incorrect somebody rose from a tomb I don't know I'm thinking about the talking snake thing again but if your if your starting premise is correct then your belief structure will be populated with you kind of run down a rabbit hole you'll be populated with all these things for which you have no evidence because the root belief that you have is out of alignment with reality and so I've often wondered you know how do we help people bring their beliefs back in alignment with reality and and I think of course teaching evolution is important but how do we help people to trust the sciences how do we we take the value of belief revision and how do we take certain again it's it's the not just the public understanding of science I think but it's that we have to help people to value the right things truth yes among them every chief among every day absolute evidence is the only reason to believe anything and and I mean I I don't know what where you go beyond just simply asserting that it seems to me obvious but but um not everybody takes it so it hasn't worked too well but I like I liked your your rabbit hole thing because um and you actually mentioned Jesus rising from the dead because I have been quite startled talking to so-called sophisticated theologians and if your equines term I'm used to the I'm used to the idea that that fundamentalist believed all sorts of nonsense but then people were they but that they're just fundamentalist you need to talk to a bishop or two and so on and and I've been quite surprised when I have talked to bishops not all of them of course but but some including at least one Archbishop to find that they actually do believe Jesus turned water into wine they actually do believe Jesus walked on water and when I say how can you they say well for me the resurrection of Jesus is beyond question that that I absolutely accept and if Jesus could rise from the dead then there's no limit to what he could do and that's their reason for believing that he turned water into wine despite the fact that the the evidence for where the scripture comes from is so utterly a tenuous it's kind of a lame party trick - well I I must say Jamy Ian Swiss can do a lot better there so so it's a saying that that idea of a sophisticated theologian that and that was what you were accused people accused you when you wrote The God Delusion that oh if you only read some absolutely obscure theologian who's nobody who's ever heard of not even in deepest of graduate school if you've only read this then you would come to a different question or if you've only read somebody who spouts off whatever then you would come to a different conclusion but that's that's well fatuous Thanks yes I mean you just mentioned Jerry Coyne and I can I recommend his book that just Excel out I'm fat glasses faith where he does actually he'd actually took the trouble and goodness me that what at what a noble effort that was to actually go and read so-called sophisticated theologians with all their deputies I think he's kind of recovery he took two years of his life yes it was a very very noble effort I think that actually in The God Delusion I discussed all the arguments for the existence of God what sophisticated theology mostly does is to assume the existence of God and then derive all sorts of other things from that but the actual arguments that they have for the existence of God are not at all sophisticated and extremely easy to knock down yes sir - a friend of mine all theology is just a complicated form of confirmation bias he said no it's not it's a very simple form of confirmation bias yes I mean I would like to qualify that by saying that plenty of professors of theology are doing very interesting work but it's not theology when there are in departments of theology but they're doing interesting work deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls comparing manuscripts of Isaiah with each other and and so on and I'm studying biblical history archaeology just discovering with it it's really true that the Israelites were in captivity in in Egypt which they weren't by the way I mean that I think is a very good thing to be done and if the mass of it is done in departments of theology but those theologians who spend their time arguing about the transubstantiation and the Trinity I mean I don't mean to be rude to them but they'd be better off looking at a wall and it would have profound waste of your intellectual horsepower you know you would be better off literally attempting to think about nothing than to dig yourself into a cognitive sinkhole and then they become right and then they become convinced that these bizarre speculations are somehow true I think it was our friend Dan Barker said theology is the only is the only subject without an object yeah in the form of reasoning it assumes what what we would think is that which has to be proved it assumes and then the kind of reasoning is well there's a Catholic bit of theology that says something like this there must be a purgatory because when because we pray for the souls of people in purgatory and hoping that they will go to heaven if there wasn't a purgatory there would be no point in our praying and we do pray therefore there's a purgatory in its that kind of which actually leads us into the next section of the RDF RS and ok so some people feel a sense of hopelessness they think there's nothing they can do to stem the tide of irrationality for example around 45% of Americans are young earth creationists in the u.s. that's in the US the majority of Republicans deny the facts of evolution and refuse to seriously entertain the idea that global warming is anthropogenic caused by humans but but that's absolutely not true it's not hopeless your foundation the Richard Dawkins foundation for reason in science has made and continues to make remarkable achievements in the advancement of reason and the public understanding of science so can you please tell us about some of the RDF uh RS s recent accomplishments and going forward what are the plans and well and and so one more thing and so we can consider this the public service announcement for the evening how can how can people here watching or listening get to be more directly involved with the foundation the main thing we're trying to do at the moment is the campaign called openly secular and we're doing this in collaboration with other secular organizations this is an attempt in a way to take a leaf out of the gay community's book because it's darling how quickly the gay community has managed to transform itself from being pariahs to being accepted respected actually getting married now and that gives us hope that gives us encouragement because it's been so swift and it's been an exercise in consciousness-raising and a good deal of it has been simply coming out and saying I'm gay and I'm a useful member of society in whatever I happen to be a taxi driver or a waiter or a doctor or a lawyer whatever it is and you liked me before you knew I was gay now that I've come out I'm the same person I'm just as likeable as I ever was so all your prejudice all your bigotry was for nothing now the prejudice and bigotry against atheists in America is even greater I dare say than the prejudice against gay people was certainly more than it is now and I think we're down there somewhere with with with rapists don't really something something like that and this is a most astonishing fact because all that we are is people who held a different view of the nature of the universe and such things and this is philosophical difference is no basis for banishing a child from from the parental home which we get constant stories of we get constant stories of people's marriages breaking up of people being disowned by their parents disowned by their children disowned by their community ostracized saat from their work all because they just have a different view of what the universe is all about and this is sheer bigotry its sheer prejudice and if it's based upon I suppose misunderstanding it's based upon a knee-jerk reaction to a word atheist and it just cannot be allowed to continue and so what we're trying to do were not he calling our campaign openly atheist we've chickened out of that in a way we are calling it openly secular secular is an easier thing I mean actually some religious people and many religious people are secular in the sense that they don't believe that that religion should be allowed to encroach into politics all over the way they run our lives so we are trying to get and succeeding in getting lots and lots of ordinary nice decent people people next door to do a YouTube video just a 1 minute half a minute YouTube video saying I am a nurse and I care for people and I do it because I'm altruistic and I'm an and I'm an atheist or and I'm openly secular and so we get lots of ordinary people doing that we're posting them on the open a secular website also getting celebrities because for one reason or another people listen to celebrities and so we get comedians and film stars and footballers whom I've never heard of but other people have and it's going extremely well that the campaign is going very very well and I encourage everybody here to to stand up and be counted come out of the closet proclaim yourself to be openly secular and get a movement going so we hit a tipping point where flood gates are opened and it no longer becomes impossible to get elected to the United States Congress unless you lie if it has to be statistical nonsense that 535 members of Congress some of them quite intelligent some of them well-educated it has to be a nonsense that all 535 of them believe in supernatural magic they're lying they've got to be lying I don't think we can blame them for lying they believe possibly rightly that they have to lie in order to get elected so but rather than blame them let's change the culture so that they no longer have to lie that they can proudly say that they're secularists or atheist and if they're more cynically going after votes they will not only chase after the traditional things they do like chase after the Irish vote and the Catholic vote and the polish vote on things they will chase after the no religion vote which is very very substantial much more substantial than many people realize as a recent Pew poll has shown and there's when we do the book signing at the end there's more information that people can get if they want to be more active and already being here and promoting reason we packed the house you've packed the house so we you can be counted and you can have your voice heard all right so I'm going to throw some curveball questions at you I read this over this question over and I'm not really sure I understand my own question but we'll see but if you don't understand if a supernatural answer to a question was actually the best answer what would that entail for science I think that's a very difficult question I've only just started realizing that I don't even know what a supernatural arm look like I don't understand what it would possibly mean supernatural could very well mean beyond what we at present understand about the natural but if you look at the history of science almost just about all the major advances both in science and engineering actually would have seemed supernatural to people of a previous century Clarke's third law anything in any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic so I don't think that that a supernatural explanation for anything is actually even coherent yeah that's why I think it's a terrible question because how would you know there just be no way to know that that it was actually supernatural there'd be no well riots I mean what I when you see a really good conjuror mean not just the ordinary children's party kind but like Penn & Teller or Darren brown or Jamy Ian Swiss I mean to all intents and purposes it is supernatural right it's it's it you couldn't really imagine a better demonstration of something supernatural yet me know it isn't because the honest ones like the ones I've just mentioned tell you that is that it's only a trick so I don't know if you if I mean suppose that the that we look through a telescope and we saw a constellation which was where the stars were not just vaguely looking like a hunter or or a water carrier or something but were were actually spelled out the name of God in ancient Hebrew or something what would that tell you I mean I'd be inclined to think that some some not supernatural but superhuman alien there's aunt Ella work or perhaps more probably that I was hallucinating yeah right so so because you couldn't rule out alternative explanations a trickster alien culture somebody dosed your water with LSD because you couldn't rule out those things you couldn't the default wouldn't be supernatural that's right I'm travelling yes I mean I think Humes criterion would be would be the right the right one all right so let's put that question to rest the second one is somewhat related but it's more coherent certain theories like string theory have virtually no hard evidence to substantiate their claims supernatural claims have no hard evidence to substantiate them either what's the difference between these claims I'm not a physicist and I don't I'm not really qualified to answer about the string theory I just pause it right there yes that well that that was an awesome answer it was it was somebody who said you know I'm not a physicist I don't know really ultimately the answer maybe actually we do have someone here who knows the answer to that question but that was a great answer and that's the I think that gets back to the value that we were speaking about like how do you help people to value saying I don't know how do we create a culture where that's not only acceptable but where that's almost relished I I strongly agree with that yes so so although I mean I don't know about string theory and I don't know but I mean I believe you're right when you say that there's no hard evidence for it is it possible to say something like that it and other things like it have a kind of ring of plausibility which although there's no actual evidence for them they help physicists to understand other things something like that I mean I don't know whether that that's a realistic way to way to put the appeal of string theory yeah I think ultimately and again I'm also not a particle physicist or physicist I think ultimately that those are testable claims I think it was Brian Greene or someone who said that if it turns out to be false it's a real bummer because it's a waste of a lot of good math yeah I get that yes all right so now the fun fun type questions if you had a time machine where and when would you go and what would you do I think I would go to the origin of language because I'm fascinated by the sophistication of language linguists tell us that all human languages that have ever been looked at are equally sophisticated unlike the scientific cultures that we look around anthropologically around the world where some like the American scientific culture are hugely more sophisticated than the scientific culture of say the New Guinea Highlanders I'm told that is not true of languages that some of the most complicated languages are associated with tribes who have no scientific culture to speak of at all so language is an astounding phenomenon it lies behind I think much of what separates humans from other animals and what would you do would you do I would I would want to know I would want to see the intermediate stages I would want to see what language looked like before it developed sophisticated recursive self-interest retreat to develop mutually embedded prepositional relative clauses that kind of thing the capacity to talk about events that are not in the immediate present the capacity to speculate about the future the capacity to talk philosophy the this is something that totally separates the human species from all other Apes all other animals but surely there must have been an intermediate stage when language consisted say only of nouns or something of that sort you you wouldn't understand that a few well obviously not I mean now you've got to have a Babel fish in your ear or some are thinking if I see it if you had well since the whole questions make believe anyway if you had a tortoise the thymus well okay I mean I could have said I'd like to go back to the time of Jesus but I don't speak Aramaic right so so I mean that would have to be a certain license in this thought experiment my point is very well taken who wrote these questions clearly a lot of people love you but no questions just two comments next one clearly a lot of people love you but a lot of people don't how do you deal with people hating you how do you deal with people loving you well how I deal with people hating me as I read out the hate mail on from I think I think actually humors one of the best ways of dealing with anything and so just simply reading out the hate mail in a humorous way just as ridicule is one of the best ways of dealing with nonsense and is it stressful to you no no no it is stressful to me to be hated by people that I don't want to be hated by but but fundamentalist Christians no identify that how do I deal with people loving me I mean like I don't know I don't know try me yeah it's I'm always struck by when when people approach you the sincerity that they have you know the heart the genuine totally authentic sincere thank you like you know you started my life and science you started me down you know thinking about things reflecting and it just it's amazing to me when Peter you want one who actually alerted me to that in a way because we you you shared a table where I was signing books last time I was here yeah and I I had become sort of in a way used to these very delightful comments it like The Selfish Gene was what turned me into a biologist and that kind of thing but you actually wrote them down and and I think broadcast them in some some way and that was a very nice thing to do and and we do collect them on Richard Dawkins dotnet our web website we have a section is it still called the good the bad and the ugly used to be called that and and the the good are very very good indeed and they and they often say they they're nearly always thanks for books and what was so striking to me about that is that one person can make a difference all right yeah I mean one person can make a very significant difference in someone's life there's a young man here who was wrote an introduction to a book all right oh yeah I loved your last book I love drawing a biography for part one but you have a new one part 2 coming about could you please tell us a little bit of yes part one is called an appetite for wonder and it covers my childhood up to the age of 35 when I wrote the self machine part two covers the second half of my life it's called brief candle in the dark you will no doubt take the reference to Shakespeare out out brief candle and the reference to Carl Sagan science as a candle in the dark so it's a it's a joining up of Shakespeare and Carl Sagan which i think is a very happy union it's not chronological unlike Volume one its thematic so there's a chapter on television there's a chapter on my life as an Oxford professor there's a chapter on travel there's there's other chapters which cut across chronology and that's about it ready have you have you written it yet yes it's finished who's that who's publishing it's being published in September in America it's being published by HarperCollins and in Britain by Random House and in quite a lot of other countries as well in various different languages well I'm looking forward to reading that who are you thinking of another book after that if so what might that be about or perhaps we'll get some suggestions in the audience for the Q&A but that's a good idea yeah I I never think very far ahead I live for the moment and I'd say so I don't have any immediate plans but I'm maybe I'll summon up the energy okay what we'll do now is we will we'd like to take as many questions as possible so we'll I'll say the first verse again the Opera Orchestra the orchestra the opera in the waiting room the orchestra level 1 and level 2 so it's very important that everybody we will pass around a mic but here is the this is the most important thing we would like to get as many questions in as possible so that means please ask your question and just a question so we can fit everybody in try to do that within 10 or 15 seconds so we can go on understand also that maybe the question just can be answered with yes or no so right now the orchestra thank you very much for being here by the way I had a question for you regarding basing your life or whatever you're doing on faith and you briefly touched on the importance of not basing your life on a talking snake and how that can do danger I've been sober now for five years and my job is to help people get sober and about 99 percent of the recovery world is based on 12 steps which if you know is heavily dominated by God I based my sobriety on science it's a rational recovery I try to spread that to people to attack it rationally and I get many many people that come in from 12 steps and we'll say well what's the problem with me incorporating my God Delusion into this and if you could touch a little bit more on the importance of the solid foundation of not basing that on God in faith but reason and science I prefer in a way I suppose I partly answered that in response to Peters question of what's actually wrong with with with religion I sort of said something about that I think faith is deeply pernicious because faith is defined as belief without evidence and it has mean I don't particularly want to talk about the problem of beings being sober and because I don't know anything about that [Applause] but more generally I think faith is deeply pernicious because it not only is belief without evidence but it glorifies lack of evidence it actually says there's something virtuous about lack of evidence and that way not only madness madness lies but violence lies because if your faith is sufficiently strong then you will believe that you're justified in using any means at your disposal in order to propagate your faith and we see that in the world all the time it's not a majority but it doesn't take a majority it takes a minority there's a very significant minority whose faith is so strong that they think they're justified in killing and dying for it and that is deeply pernicious let's see if we can get some someone from level one up there hello Dawkins love you man you're great so I was thinking and I was thinking about the Soviet Union and how they kind of work you know outlawing religion to a certain extent like how you were saying you remember your question go to yes yes yes okay do you think maybe there will be a future where where the United States might outlaw religion maybe I don't think I'd ever be in favor of outlawing any system of thought I thought thought should be free in speech should be free and a fortiori I thought it should be free so no I hope not I hope there'll never be any outlawing what I hope is that people will simply come to their senses thank you let's see if we can get someone from level three up there I'm having a little difficulty seeing but level three high high level three professor Dawkins thank you for coming to the most godless city in America according to a recent poll so thank you a slight twist in the previous question could you predict in the same way that let's say Ray Kurzweil is a futurist can you predict in let's say a thousand years what religion will be in America in the same way that we would walk through Giza and say look at those people they thought Horus brought the Sun across in a canoe is when we walk through a relic of a church downtown here would we find something very similar in general I feel that prediction is a mug's game but in this case you've given me a thousand years what could I predict that there wouldn't be any more religion yes a thousand years isn't is a decent thing interval time but let's take another one from level three up there how you doing up there level three this is exciting I was just wondering what advice you have for young atheists like me who live in a community where you're just kind of blind to the news because you're so busy lol and yoloing I don't know who heard that I didn't understand a single word of that okay I mean we just didn't didn't hear it clearly so what's the what was the quest I'm sorry I didn't lose that English I know I'm not making funny I really just so slow it the cadence down a little bit sorry I was just wondering what advice you have for young atheists like me who live in a community that's kind of blind to problems because we're too busy on our phones ah excellent we've had that but they're too busy on their phones oh right yes and what advice for young atheists well when the openly secular campaign is trying to encourage you to come out so come out on your phone let's let's go to level level one here level one who has the mic on level one hi there what do we do about the we're I yeah oh ok hi hi level 1 go for it what do we do about the fascinating paradox practically speaking that the religious impulse is itself actually a product of evolution well everything is in one sense but I would translate that as saying that what is a product of evolution is a psychologic world perhaps several psychological predispositions which manifest themselves as religion under the right cultural conditions so I although I think it's pretty clear that in some sense natural selection has favored religion it probably hasn't favored religion per se it's probably favored psychological predispositions such as a tendency to obey Authority a tendency to believe your parents and grandparents and tribal elders and once you put it that way once you rephrase it that way you then realize that there are perfectly good Darwinian reasons why it might be beneficial to believe what your parents and grandparents and tribal elders tell you especially if you're a child because children are vulnerable children are in danger in the wild from being eaten by leopards and things like that and so rather than cultivate a skeptical critical frame of mind testing everything by evidence simply believing what your parents tell you could very well be a good survival strategy the problem with that is that that by very definition the rule of thumb that's built into the brain by natural selection says believe what your parents and grandparents tell you cannot distinguish between good advice like beware of leopards and nonsense like religion and so what you what you would predict from that is that in every part of the world children were being brought up with good sound advice by their parents and tribal elders but at the same time there would be filtering down through the generations a whole lot of nonsense which simply passes on because it passes on because it passes on once it gets into the cycle of passing from generation to generation each new generation feels an obligation to pass it on to the next generation and that's why you get religions all over the world they all believe something different but they all believe what their grandparents told them what the parents tell them and so it's sort of like a computer virus it's like a it's a religion is a kind of computer virus which is parasitic on the good impulse like computers are built to do good things like word processing and spreadsheets and things so then in order to do that they have to be built to obey what the programmer tells them to do but they can't distinguish good advice like how to do a word processor from bad advice like computer viruses and that's what I think religion is it's a it's a it's equivalent of a computer virus it's a virus of the mind let's see if we can get someone out front communities like Portland we have a lot of atheist people but we also have a lot of people who have non scientific beliefs such as anti vaccination anti GMO inside water fluoridation what do you guys do to combat that because there's plenty of combating the religious right and climate change well once again evidence and and the sorry you you you you have to look at that you have to look at the evidence and the evidence whether it's evolution or vaccination whatever it is and if the evidence is overwhelming then that's what you should believe if the evidence is not overwhelming then you should suspend judgment and look for more evidence yeah and you have to teach people to vow you evidence and that's Sam Harris's question if someone doesn't value evidence what evidence can you give them to help them value evidence well they they don't value evidence in the first place so in a sense I think it teaching people to value the right things as important let's get somebody down in the front one more time someone down in the front we do that maybe we got someone do we have someone with the microphone then we'll bring it up here later hi I just wanted to say that I appreciate the approach that you're taking now based on the movement of gay rights in the last 30 years do you have a question I do I want to know what your opinion is on the role of a more militant approach to atheism based on the fact that the gay rights movement was started by war million what are you Mormon I never know what people mean by that I'm innocent what do you mean by militant atheism I mean more than just coming out I mean being in your face that the the idea that ignorant used to be a source of shame and now it's something that is spattered off in the US Supreme War I don't think that the gay movement ever used violence I mean they they always just used you know I don't mean violence I mean militancy I mean being in your face not just coming out yes I mean this possibly might be a place where Peter and I might slightly disagree because he's an expert persuader actually written a book about persuasion of how to how to turn people to be to be atheist and I'm not very good at that I mean I I I just been I've just been trying out Peters app and I got the wrong answer to just about everything I kept on being the rebuked as for being too confrontational but I hope I'm confrontational in a polite way never using obscene or violent language and I think there may be room for both ways of doing it I don't feel particularly inclined to be to bend too far over backwards to accommodate the person that I'm talking to quite often I suppose what I'm doing is talking to them with an audience sometimes if say I'm honor I don't know a radio chatter or something and I'm talking to some ignorant fool and I probably will give up the opportunity to actually convert him but I'm mindful of the fact that there are a couple of thousand people listening in on the radio and so I might not actually shrink from confronting him because I might hope that I would do some good for the people listening in who maybe haven't actually thought about it very much maybe sitting on the fence maybe scarcely aware there was a fence to sit on so I think there's something to be said for being a little bit confrontational confrontational and wet but I think there's also something to be said for Peters approach as well thanks let's see if we get someone right up in the front here so and then we're gonna go up to level three who's got the mic we in the front can you turn the mic go up front that's right now yeah okay the two of your books The Selfish Gene and the greatest show on earth inspired me to think about life in a new and different way given that being I talk a bit more slowly absolutely sorry given that we have so much in common but other species are cousins primates chickens pigs cows do you think your ethical justified in using them for our own personal pleasure and benefit like animal testing for food for clothing for entertainment and if you think that you're not do you think that this is an important statement to make as skeptics as free thinkers as humanists and we talked about this Peter Singer a bit in your interview with them so please that between I'm not sure that there's actually closeness of cousinship to us is the only thing that matters Jeremy Bentham said something like the question is not can they think can they reason but can they suffer and I don't think there's any particular reason to think that the capacity to suffer is related to how closely related they are to us some of the most distantly related animals from us might we'll be able to suffer nor is there any reason to think that we're and and by the way some of the most distantly related people I mean animals might also be very good at thinking and reasoning like dolphins say I don't think there's any reason to suppose that the capacity to suffer is correlated positively with the capacity to think and reason so we are apt to feel the greatest moral compunction we're species that can not only a close cousins of ours but also can think and reason but when you when you think about what pain is about what people what's paying for why did not for a selection build into animals the to feel pain what pain is is a warning it's a statement made by the nervous system don't do that again if you do something which causes you pain then the feeling of pain tells you not to do it again it's always been a bit of a mystery to me why it has to be so damn painful you might think that's the equivalent of sort of raising a little red flag in the brain would be enough but it looks as though it's not enough it looks as though it really does have to be painful and if you are a species that isn't very good at thinking and reasoning and you need a lesson in not doing that again maitain you need actually more pain in order to avoid doing it again could it be that there's even a negative correlation between the capacity to think and the capacity to feel pain could it even be that animals that are species that are not very bright actually could feel more pain than those animals that are well we need that then than us probably what we do have which other species don't have is things like the ability to mourn our dead to fear the future because we can imagine the future better but strictly when where pain is concerned I think we may need to rethink our moral philosophy rather in the light of Darwinian evolution let's go up to level three thank you so what advice will you have for the for those that are still in school whether it be college or high school for the non-believers in high school have to deal with the teachings that it's our sorry what advice do you have for the non-believers that still attend a school even though that school does not foster the ability to think freely I hate the advice question I don't know I mean what Who am I to tell you what advice I've got no great store of wisdom or anything like that I think just just value value evidence as Peter said earlier it's it's actually not that that easy to persuade some people that evidence is even worth valuing but try to persuade people that that evidence is important try to persuade people that the truth is not only useful but wonderful glorious and how they did it that and that that's one of the things that religion takes away as that sense of wonder yeah well they would deny that but but but but yes I think they do alright let's go to level two a low level to the concept of beauty is often attributed to being unfathomable with a scientific mindset how do you define beauty beauty is something which may be very very difficult to define scientifically and it may be that we're not ready to even attempt to define it scientifically but having admitted that it's very different from admitting that it has no scientific explanation so I think there's a big difference between what you can actually in practice explain scientifically and what you believe in principle is explicable scientifically so I think it's it's right and proper that universities should have people teaching studying poetry and music and art in a non scientific way while at the same time never denying that there is ultimately a scientific explanation for our perception of beauty but it's a it's it's it's it's a waste of time trying to explain why Beethoven is beautiful in purely scientific terms you won't you won't succeed but you couldn't believe passionately that it's ultimately explicable let's see if we can go down level to high a longtime listener first-time caller I was curious if you think that there's a biological correlation to men virtually across all cultures committing suicide more than women to be well more than women do to men is it is there a demand commit is that an impure are you stating that as an empirical fact is that a fact about reality that men are more likely to commit suicide independent of culture now it seems to be over most cultures that's what happened from what I've read I've never heard of that no I'm like if that's true it's interesting I would I would like to look into it yeah yeah I'd like to know what evidence one has for that all right let's go to let's let's let's go to where haven't we gone yet let's go let's see look let's let's see hi these people up there on level three let's go to some very eager enthusiastic people on level three in to the side up there hello and it this is you've been great about stating your question so thank you I'm over here I don't know peak pagoda actually took your class you many years ago and it was very very enlightening um I worked I work in developing countries affiliate in Rwanda and I've encountered many many religious Africans I myself an atheist but they asked me time and time again how can I forsake my religion when hope was the only thing it gave me the hope to keep going while I have convinced or talked to plenty of religious people here that note struck so difficult for me how do you how do you can you please comment on the idea of hope with respect to religion and why they're so nested together well yes it I'm quite often accused in the following sort of terms it's all very well for you who live in a nice house in Oxford and they're reasonably well educated to be to be an atheist but there are people in the world who are starving and poverty-stricken and they're sort of hope that they have perhaps for the next life is the only thing that keeps them going good now you have to sympathize with that it doesn't make it any more true of course and I'm afraid my commitment to truth is is too passionate to let that kind of consideration outweigh the love of truth but I but I like must let say I do sympathise is it there I think there's another problem with that too though to have hope in something there has to be a possibility realistic possibility that that the object of your hope is manifest apparently not and because but I mean but I mean if the if the if the hope that's offered is a promise of something after death that's unverifiable and so yeah I don't saw maybe it's a semantic game but I wouldn't use the word hope for that I would say it's something else it's some kind of delusion or sighs what's delusional but but but it's still hope I mean you couldn't you can hope for something unreal but you can't I went and we can't hope for a round square I would specify that the people in question we're not talking about hope of the afterlife they were talking about the hope of a meal or the hope of Education well and in this case ironic yeah that's just really is a mystic in that case because because religion is is know but not do you like to get your meal I mean the sound of agricultural practice is more likely yeah do you you can't hope me I suppose you could hope to find a job and you could pray about finding a job but it would be like the governor of Texas who now wants to run for president as a Republican goes out when there's a drought and he brings people and they pray for rain yes well you know General Patton in the Second World War is said to have one of his cap one of his battles it was vitally necessary that the weather should be just so he called in the chaps in that said chaplain we need help can you pray for rain or what of all the opposite let me get another one was Chuck the chaplain very correctly refused right let's go somewhere down here up down here then microphone on I got a question on maybe science has a face faith-based aspect we have science as far as we can visualize in the universe we have faith that this laws of science are all in the universe are the same we can't prove that and also the faith is that is that what's so what's the question the question is is there do we use faith in science also in the term of eternity we have faith there's something out there but we can't physically prove it the same as in religion they have faith in something which is not I think it's I think it's false to say that we to use I mean people do use the word faith for surface science but I think it's a very different thing you faith means belief without evidence the faith in science is and Polly verified amply supported by history science works over and over again just about everything the indeed everything we know about the real world has come about through science and it works and you view if you follow the precepts of science you've you've you couldn't fly you can get to the moon you can cure smallpox or you compacted it against against smallpox science works and so faith based upon evidence is not faith at all it's just it's just sound common-sense I've always had a problem with that usage of the word faith even if you say that faith has a wider or broader semantic range I think that people use that term primarily with the religious impetus to make look I have faith in whatever I have faith in you have faith in science as if there's some kind of a parity there there is no parity there I think it's a misapplication of the word that's meant to extend beyond you know a belief beyond the warrant of the evidence and there's overwhelming warrant if things fall down you don't need faith in that that's that's called gravity all right let's get somebody on the second floor up here last last last question it's quick I promise it's quick back here in his seemingly infinite wisdom the the Honorable Deepak Chopra has recently come out describing you as and this pains me to say this in front of so many of our loved ones here intellectually challenged and I'm wondering if there is any way I could persuade you to honor us with a response a deeper tea and deeply you've defeated no I don't I'm not going to give publicity to Deepak Chopra but I also can I take since that was was the last question we're going to have a book signing and I wonder if I could ask your indulgence maybe even forgiveness we've got a rather large audience here and we're hoping to sell rather a lot of books and so it it experience shows that the the signing line can be very long and so out of consideration for the people who end up at the end of the line I wonder whether you'd mind if I decline to personalize my signature and also declined to to pose for selfies thank you everyone Richard Dawkins [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science

Views: 115,224

Keywords: Richard Dawkins (Academic), Richard Dawkins Foundation For Reason And Science (Nonprofit Organization), Peter Boghossian, Portland (City/Town/Village), Portland 5, science, Reason (Quotation Subject), Philosophy (Field Of Study), Atheism (Religion), Skepticism (Quotation Subject), Skeptic (Magazine), Religion (TV Genre), Christianity (Religion), Islam (Religion), Judaism (Religion)

Id: S_d-Ejj0y3o

Length: 81min 21sec (4881 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2015