Richard Dawkins Conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson at Hayden Planetarium

so I've got here live in the flesh the one the only the inimitable Richard Dawkins Richard thanks for coming Thank You Lena thanks for coming to what we think of here's the center of the universe I understand about you know you you've come to a green I think this first time Richard's visited me in my office and so thanks for coming thank you I want to just talk about the human minds capacity to know and to think and to believe you know I look at how much trouble people have with mathematics typically if there's any one subject that the most number of people say I was never good at let's insert a topic it's going to be math and so I say to myself if our brain were wired for logical thinking then math would be and was easiest to subject and everything else would be harder so I'm kind of forced to conclude that our brain is not wired for logic today good point it's more than just that I think there's also a kind of unwarranted pride in being bad at mathematics you will never hear anybody saying how proud that they are of being ignorant of Shakespeare right or Dryden but people were plenty people will say they're they're proud of being ignorant of mathematics or if they don't use the word proud they'll say I was never good at math hahahahaha you know chuckle about a stroke there was a thing in one of the British newspapers where a succubus a science writer I think a science journalist was lamenting the fact that many people in Britain think it takes one month for the earth to orbit the Sun and the editor then inserted there doesn't it head so he was as it were saying you know I'm the editor of a national newspaper and of course I don't really think it takes but nevertheless it's okay to make a joke about being ignorant of this very elementary part of astronomy which he will never ever do about being eunuch and confusing confusing barring that birds something like that right or ever be proud of such a thing so then you must admit or confess that we as a human organism must have a great challenge before us to think rationally logically scientifically yeah I mean you make the very interesting point that maybe we're not wired to be good at logic well you generalize from mathematics logic I did but added but for this conversation like yeah um claim that certainly many many people are extremely illogical but um and they by the way they can think it along just fine in life they live long walk long by and but I think it's an interesting point that out as our wild ancestors needing to survive in the in the presence of lands and drought and famine and things you think logic would be pretty important for survival if not mathematically well it could be maybe early people who said oh there's a creature there with big teeth let me investigate it further shoving it away that's right they sort of some little scientific is a bad thing curiosity doesn't always work um I I had a cousin as it was a little boy put his finger in the million domains and got a shock so he did it again just to make sure you're a real scientist but not very good for survival right right so perhaps the the gut reaction to run or to be scared or to to chant or I mean I guess what I'm getting at is there's so much of human civilization that derives not from logical thinking but from what we might simply simply call illogical thinking illogical thinking and I mean art you know I've got van Gogh on the wall no one's going to quiz him and say how logical were you when you painted the starry night and so what does it mean to object then to people who feel this way because I'm more I detach myself more from that battle than you do your you are in the front lines and I'm way in the back line watching you do this and I'm saying sometimes people just want to feel rather than yes I'm I keep pushing back to the evolutionary origins of this and and when you have to survive in up in a hostile environment it may be that you do need a certain amount of illogical girl yes it may be that you need to fear things which logic tells you what makes matter of a bit of the odds that were that something is actually dangerous um well the cost to your first you if you see if you see a sort of rustling in the trees um it could be a leopard about to jump on you but it's much more likely to be the wind and and the logical rational explanation is probably it's the wind but when your survival depends upon the deep remote possibility one thought rather than through either low probability that it might be a leopard the prudent thing is to be more risk-averse than them then a statistics justifies exactly yes yeah so okay so now we have a world where we're kind of we're prisoners of this sort of genetic molding that has occurred and now but so I guess my point is I don't Chuck object as much to that as you do yes okay and and it did like it what's the phrase it tickles your claw croc gets on your bride whatever that phrase it yeah yeah and so well get on this let me this can try let me try to get in your craw go bring a pretty large the former professor of astronomy Oxford told me a story of an American astrophysicist who now I am one of these folks so I would know these names if you mention unless there's a breast he didn't tell me the nation okay and this man writes learning articles in astronomical learning journals mathematical papers and the mathematics is premised on the belief that the world is weather that the universe is between thirteen and fourteen billion years old and this man writes his papers he does his mathematics and everything he privately believes the world is only six thousand years old well you may be tolerant of that because you may say well as long as he gets his sons right as long as you do paper his research great burger of mine I would say that man should be fired um he should not be a professor of astrophysics in in an American University and that we might differ about that because you might say his private beliefs are private they're nothing to do with me if he does his astronomy right then that's okay yeah yeah I agree with you that that's how I would react yeah yeah what he does at home on Sunday that's his only but if if it doesn't enter the science classroom then I don't care how he thinks okay then yes let me take an even more extreme example oh there's fictitious in this in this case so imagine that you were going to consult a doctor and I mean on a human eye doctor because they're sort of you know about the waist but you happen to know that he privately doesn't believe in the sex theory of reproduction he believes that babies come from storms okay um I wouldn't go that but I'm guessing you would not go to that yeah but I've met plenty of people especially in America who say it's none of your business what he believes below the waist um he's an eye doctor is he a competent can he can he repair your cataracts um and and I I don't think he should be employed in a hospital because because what you're saying about that man is that he he's got the kind of mind which is so adrift from reality that even if he's a competent eye surgeon um I don't think he should could be trusted okay so you're you you interestingly you're reacting in the way our ancestors hearing the rustle in the bushes are reacting because yes most of the time is wind yes some of the time it's a leopard and that's a fear fact that creates a fear factor that overrides everything else he's a good eye surgeon he or she is a good eye surgeon right but there's that lingering risk that the stork theory of reproduction might somehow affect the scalpel I so your fear that you know it needs to affect the scalpel eyes that I think it's okay so then then your object on principle I think so yeah not on practice it's a principle what a professor of geography who believes in the flat earth but but but but otherwise making perfect law yeah okay so you're so you're you're a principal person that's all that means you haven't you think this should be a certain way and everything surrounding it even if in practice it doesn't manifest you you kind of want the whole package to send to be consistent yeah I think so okay so now given that what do you do about it cuz I don't really do anything you you want to change that and we just admitted together that we are prisoners of this mystical magical ways of thinking and board biological ways of thinking and now you want it so you want to change the biological directive of the human mind and how do you do that i I like to use the phrase consciousness-raising Akershus which is a feminist phrase mm-hmm and mean it started in the everything that's what I forgot I did anyway and consciousness-raising is so when I don't want to be dictatorial say there should be a law against your logical thinking not just but um you know what happen if you do kept pass well if let's imagine a future where all illogical people had to move to one particular state how about death that would be the state we're like all the music and art would come from right all the truly creating people are some of the least logical people I've ever met yet they create and they to make the world a little more interesting but that's my day if that were true why would I go no video that's a different issue whether or not that's true that's a true fact okay well yeah all right so so what do you do do you want to consciousness-raising do you have tactics cuz I want a consciousness race too so I've got I want let's compare okay I suspect your tactics may be better than mine not because your your tactics I think are to lead by example yes um to to practice logic practices expose the wondrous odds I like to do all that as well in fact your book as the word wonder in it you're you're you know your memoir yes but to remind me the name of an appetite for an appetite for wonder which any scientist has and which most people have I think yes and it's the edge is the subtitle another of my books are weaving the rainbow and the subtitle is something about about an appetite for one day and that book by the way I'm reading the rainbow is my attempt to join poetry to just desire cooker and the afraid that the title comes from Keats's attack on Newton for unweaving the rainbow Keats thought that Newton was destroying the poetry of the rainbow by explaining the speck will completely destroying the mystery of it destroy the mystery of it and the message of my book is that you don't by destroying the mystery you increase the poetry again you don't decrease and I try to go there and all of my work whether or not I succeed that's my intent exact so where do you differ from this one where else do you where Elena I mean I suddenly want to get all the way with it with that I'm I'm with this am richard fineman who said when i when i arose I see the same beauty as as a poet or or a painter season their rose but I also get poetic inspiration from the fact that I know that the color is to attract incense and that this is covered by natural selection I feel the same way about beautiful sunsets I think there's no more reproduced image when people want you to think of God than a sunset with beams of light coming out a little Kylie impurities in the atmosphere so I - I deeply appreciate the splendor of a magnificent sunset with a curtain of Twilight colors going from you know deep deep blue to sky blue and the red Sun but I also know that the surface of the Sun is 6000 degrees and is Rayleigh scattering the atmosphere you have water droplets condensing to make clouds and and so so I agree with the Fineman approach to that but it's not where else do you go we are all sigh like this maybe I go a little bit further in the direction of good-natured ridicule of absurd ideas like astrology like homeopathy but so you're defining you're saying it's good-natured but clearly the people who are who are the on the other side of your wit and intelligence would are they saying you're being good-natured possibly not oh I don't care about that um possibly yeah I feel stupid next to you I'm better and I know all this stuff all right so come on um I I haven't I - not just the astrologer that I'm talking to but the figs ample the radio audience whatever it is that I miss me in yes the larger cuz right you have you have visible platforms where you share this we both do and and it's the first often being made to me if you call somebody indict an idiot you're not going to change his mind and that's possibly true but you may change the minds of a thousand people listening in and so I'm less inhibited about calling you man I I recall my own youth as an undergraduate being seduced by tired Ishod on that old French theologian who wrote about the evolution of world these are Metro describes that tipsy you for istic prose poetry which is one of the more tiresome manifestations of the French spirit typical piece of Medawar arrogant wit patrician lip you could call it so this man mean prose poetry hadith drips off the page and and and I was totally seduced by this as an undergraduate until I read Peter Medawar review of the book which contained things like what I just I just put it and he said another thing he said was um how people come to be taken in by client ashada we have to remember that higher education has created a large body of people of cultivated tastes educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought um and I was the in effect meda meda wasn't talking to me also saying I'm an idiot but as a as an undergraduate who had been fooled by this man I took it as being a been an idiot I think fool I've been taken in I'd been seduced by this persuasive [ __ ] okay so but it means you had something else more persuasive than that original that's all i didn't mind being told I'm ideas okay but you didn't have to agree with that next level of analysis you could have said you're this person doesn't know what they're talking about this writing is beautiful and for example let's go back to when was it 17 when was William Paley's book 1882 1802 uh was it natural the oldest Leon hath you it's natural theology this is I own that book and I've read it and most of it and he's making strong arguments for design in nature and I guess this is the first example of the watch yeah ended the watch in the while if you in the forest and you find a watch it has a function of purpose and and and my my favorite rebuttal to that was I first heard from Carl Sagan who had said sure if you find a watch people had thought about a watch long before that so there's a whole trend there watches that were not so good as this one there's actually the evolution of watches before you get to the pocket watch and people saying if you look at a Boeing 747 someone designed it well look at the history of airplanes and look at the ones that crashed look at ones were not that big they couldn't hold people of it and so in fact there were a lot of fits and starts in even things humans design as well as the fits and starts and evolution but my point is if I don't know who to believe yet and I see these these reasoned arguments you know William Paley is not a you know he's not a thumping the Bible at you he's trying to think this through and then I read you and and I have leanings Paley anyway why what would guarantee do you have it you're gonna be more effective in years okay I mean I I dealt with Paley mostly in blind watchmaker and if you if you read what I actually said I said Haley makes boy and watchmaker one of your books yes this is Peter makes an excellent argue argument it's easy well well argued well put and or articulated and well articulated I have every sympathy with Paley's argument because he lived before Darwin and I said it's an excellent argument what is gloriously and utterly wrong now that's not ridiculing that's actually dealing Paley a great deal of respect cuz it in the day yeah yes and and saying it's not paid his fault that he was born before before Darwin died and and Paley but they they understood the problem and would probably have been very impressed if he'd read the Origin of Species okay so who is Paley today is it you or is it someone who would still be thinking but Paley one wants to think uh I think somebody who still it wants to say what PT tried to say is is United now because because now he alternate better okay um given how he posed his arguments you have confidence that in modern times he woulda said hey that was flawed I would I would like to think so but I can't be sure what Paley himself would would have said but certainly I did I never denigrated the strength of Paley's argument in a way he was just putting he was posing the problem and you'd be surprised how many people today many scientists today underrate Darwinism because they don't understand what Haley understood very well which is the wonderful illusion of design I mean there there are plenty of scientists who don't understand how elegant and beautiful the living world actually is they sort of think well what's the problem only just happen by chance of course it bloody didn't happen by chance he could not happen by chance it had to happen by a very very special process a Paley understood that he got them not right mm-hmm-hmm in fact even in my field Fred Hoyle who is famous for criticizing the art of the singularity origin of the universe and derisively call it the Big Bang yeah which makes the leader still yes he did some calculation about how you might arrive at an eyeball from random combinations of atoms and is some stupendously unlikely probability but he didn't factor in that any variation on not being able to see is better than not being able to say yeah it's cumulative so the statistics are not start with atoms come out with an eyeball it start with atoms and you're slightly sensitive and then you're more sensitive and you make an image and so it it accumulates in a direction that is a value to the organism and I use the metaphor of Mount improbable for that where I have a mountain which on one side is absolutely sheer precipice and on the other side is a gradual slope and the eyeball is sitting on top of the map of the mountain getting it by random chance is equivalent to in the bottom of the margin and leaping to the top in one leap which you can't do and that's equivalent to a theological explanation by the way as well but if you go around the outside of the margin we've got this nice gentle gradient and you just walk step by step by step by step where we get to increasingly complex and increasingly beautiful eyes and TuneIn yet that vertebrate i interesting which still has revealing flaws right but it's nothing like jumping from the bottom to the top of the precipice in one week and so many people think that evolution is about jumping from the bottom to the top in one leap yes okay so you're when you have the conversation with the individual knowing you have a platform even if the individual is insulted or feels bad or feel stupid you're relying on the fact that there's some other people that were perhaps on a fence who could be consuella argument so for me I'm more the one-on-one I guess I I want to have the one-on-one conversation and the eavesdroppers are imagining perhaps themself there yeah and that's that's if I want to call it a tactic that's I'm feeling the one-on-one yes okay more than a feeling we all have a you have an even larger I'm even a very huge audience and and I know you got some stick for some of the things in cosmos yeah yeah we were blunt about some very basic facts they're more blunt in that context than I ever am one-on-one I mean that was a collaboration the script was written by Andrew Ian and Steve Souter colleague of mine he had two offices down and so that was a collaboration so I went places tactically that I wouldn't normally go just as an individual I think Euler up to do but I endorsed or I mean I did it because I agree but but inter tactically it did rub people in ways that I wouldn't normally have rubbed them I do you mind that I mean I think thinking well then I did I needed to spend time dealing with the fallout from it so that was doing some effort responding yeah uh and but you've got I mean if this was on Fox rather than people yes it was on Fox yes it was a big guy there's no bigger place to put science and then science on Fox yeah in primetime on a Sunday night yes so but so but you noted correctly that that tactic got some people angry and not people you need to respect no but I respect what everyone can be I mean I I I'd like hearing why people I can't give an example I'll give an example and I how would you have handle this case all right I have a relative right who whose father died okay so he's my cousin she's the nephew once removed all right she's the niece once removed she's alone in the room with her father the father is dead in half open casket she reports to me this is weeks later but she she's a real estate agent all right and majored in accounting so this is all right all right she said her father sat up and she had a conversation with him and I said what what transpired and she saw well she's saying he said don't worry I'm in a better place and she said I'm glad we're sad you're gone but I'm glad to hear and so that was a conversation she said this flat footed conveyed this conversation so I said okay how am I gonna deal with this this is family well how am I gonna handle this I see here's what I did I said next time this happens ask him questions that could be really useful on this side of that barrier like where are you yes are you wearing clothes where did you get the clothes that's not good is there money where you are is there what's the weather like who else is there yes how old are you there yes in your mind's eye are you young are you old is grandma there how old is she if grandma is where she is would she make herself old or she be young again ask questions that's a terrific huh where you get where you get information and so so now she's on notice that's actor she said every time I see or she said I got it we're gonna go there and so now she's got her own little experiment that she's gonna suck that's mix up dead people sit up and talking to her it's like Carl Sagan when he was talking about people who claim to be abducted by aliens alien with normos leave or pass Teresa did you ask them about Goldbach's conjecture give us thumbs up the proof Fermat's Last Theorem yeah launched any problems in our own culture but what we advanced some things take exploit this fact yes I think so what would you talk and I get asked what would you have done I wouldn't have thought of that I wish I had I I mean I I'm genuinely curious as to me do you think she was lying doesn't she had a hallucination oh um I don't know I mean I'm trained astrophysicist so my first explanation is that it was a hallucination because everything we know about dead people they don't sit up and have a conversation and of course there are no witnesses or video so would you make a better witness than a human witness but I I didn't care whether how real she thought it was what I cared was that I gave her tools I think I gave her tools so the next time this happens she can separate an objective reality from what might have been in her mind yes and then she arrives at that conclusion herself not by me telling her she's listening exciting that's terrific I mean if she was still if she was still grieving I'm still mourning then I would have been inhibited in saying you but he was loosen a ting out of sensitivity yes identity and and so there's a soft side too oh the showed Angus let the record show pitch hit he can't be a puppy again but but once but setting that aside I think I would say someone perhaps I wouldn't use the word hallucination which sounds a bit aloof negative I say something like um I think you probably drifted off to sleep and had a dream something like that because these are song moments right as you came I mean everybody we all dream every night and me and we have experiences in that in our dreams which are utterly unrealistic is surreal and most of us don't know we're dreaming and turned but I mean it it gives you an insight into what it would be like to be insane actually and then every single night I go insane because the dreams that I have any rational person could he need it to say this is not real it's not this is and so I think that would be another lovely recently sympathetic way of saying but I like your you're way better yeah so I thought I'm just saying that's kind of my mo if you will just my methods of intersection and so if I found it broaden this to a more culturally present as you might call it delusion the The God Delusion um I again I don't really care how people think or feel about deity about it and I value the concept of a free country and in the United States I think unlike England in the United States of course there's no mention of God in the Constitution the very document that established the country and that protects people's rights to worship whoever they want without the government asserting this because there's no place the government can draw from to tell them who they're constantly under threat perhaps right but it is at this moment our us okay so so so what really solves that one is someone says we want to Christianize the Constitution or whatever but you can say the value of this is it suppose you get outnumbered by this other religious group and then they want to Muslim eyes the Constitution or do defy the Constitution or or Bou defy the Constitution would you want that and they take no no no well this is the way we protect everybody so I value freedom of thought action provided it doesn't infringe on others so I start there and from there I move forward and I say where do we wit what do you do in modern society when we know science works and we know how it works and it establishes objective truths but in a world where people won't have freedom of thought we do you would you come down on that the United States Constitution is unrivaled in the world and it's and it's as you say total separation of church and state that the practice is that not a single member of the United States Congress admits to being alone a non-believer and that's a statistical nonsense and it's not conceivable that's right was it 500 and whatever 935 year for every single one of them he claims to believe is in a supernatural higher power a very substantial sum of our gonna be lying is what you're saying some of them have got to be lying so that a substantial number of our elected representatives in this country and you're a British citizen visiting America yes I'm speaking from outside but but it's it's very sad that you are represented in this country by people who are manifestly lying in a force tonight I don't blame them they're forced to lie because otherwise they won't get reelected but you're also sound surprised that a politician hi no I mean but in reality showcased in it okay of all the things they lie by just one of them in the West it's just right just one of them but it's very sad that they have to lie about their innermost beliefs and they have to put on a mock sincerity they have to say God bless america with not sincerity um it is tragic that people who don't want to lie about that people people like you and me who are absolutely sincere about believes could not get elected and that's I think you're painting a too rosy view when you say well the Constitution protects the Constitution they protect but the new practice abducted in practice the Supreme Court doesn't always so what you're saying is the line that says there shall be no religious test for office of the president that may be true legally but in practice there is a religious test exactly yeah there vemma certainly is and it approaches you impose that it's there it's their democratic right to do so but don't you feel the urge to get up and persuade the voters look you're you're you're in you're imposing a religious test which is unconstitutional you don't know you don't realize that the atheists the agnostics the secularists who seek office are excellent people in many cases they're people like you they're people that you would enjoy having a drink with them they're they're your friends but they don't admit to their beliefs because they know they won't get elected if they do don't you feel the urged not just to persuade the legal system but to persuade orden ordinary voters that they're barking up the wrong tree they misunderstood so let's help me define this so we have a theist which i think is the work generally understood what that would mean in its simplest terms it's a theus you have no no belief in yes you don't you don't necessarily positively deny you don't say I know there is no God you say there is no evidence what and so how and secularism as a movement how would you sort of care how I understand right now the definition may be a bit different across the membership on um to me secularism means exactly a separation of church and state she can have a deeply religious secular scheme yet in in Britain or in India you could but maybe it was in America the word secularist is understood differently and that's fine I mean words do she their meaning of it so I don't know about meaning of secularist I think the word atheist has problems of sheer association I don't know if you probably know the story of Julia Sweeney the comedian who did why not the comedian but what's his for okay yeah she did up oh she's from Saturday Night Live but decades ago yes she did a wonderful than one woman monologue on stage called letting go of God which was the story her own story of how she escaped from her I think I heard of this but I never saw okay okay well there there are some lovely moments in it like when she first took first heard a still small voice in her head saying there is no God there is no God my god there is no God um well maybe I made that noted um but then but then what well how how does the earth keep going round the Sun and oh yeah oh yes as Newton's laws of them and then the towards the end she has a wonderful story about how it got into a newspaper the cheek become an atheist and her mother read this and I mother ran up in in a panic and said well I don't mind you not believing in God but an atheist so that's one of the problems we're up against but with her that becomes from McCarthy another that means that's because atheist was in the 50s cinema was associated with communism yeah but anyway which is why we ended up putting God on our currency in the 1950s and it's in the halls of Congress in god we trust' yes and and in the Pledge of Allegiance so it may be that the very word atheist needs to be on public relations ground a casualty and you can substitute non believer or unbeliever or for your secular state yeah I can tell you that there in just in my life there's been sort of a land grab of me by atheists to claim me yeah as an atheist and and I've spoken on this Oh in some various videos my great objection is not simply whatever the definition of atheist is I just don't want a title I don't want to be labeled on the grounds that if someone comes to me expecting that I fulfill a title there's some label is what I should say then they will presuppose they already know my arguments in advance and I'd rather they hear me from scratch and hear me build build a common argument in a conversation and then we build it together a very subtle point I'll just insert here when I taught in college I taught at a transition between when you had sort of transparencies that you could write on or you can pre prepare them and some professors would just slap on a fully laid out transparency and there were all the notes and they would speak to the notes and I decided this was a bill you know and I said no if you do that you'll just kill just it's like they'll just copy yeah whereas if you draw the first part of the diagram here is an axis of temperature and here's time and here's and then you assemble the ideas together and it's way deeper understanding of what's going on that's a very good adapting point for actually teaching I'm not sure it applies to what you were saying before about being labeled I mean you wouldn't know it doesn't a conversation if you don't know anything about me you have to learn it never didn't scratch if you would learn to be a rationalist for example I mean you if you if you if you were known to be a realist if you were known to be somebody who bases his conclusions on evidence right would you feel the need to hide that label um on the same grounds on this in the sense that someone coming into the conversation may be defensive in advance they may have a posture in advance they might try to line up some arguments be in advance and it denies the purity of a conversation that could have happened the the sincerity of a conversation that I value in a one-on-one encounter that presupposes you've got time to develop hmm yes I am yes it does well I think I would be the same I mean if I if I were if I were going to have dinner somebody and but I wanted to persuade her that my part of you I don't think I would say right I'm an atheist okay I think I would develop the thing step by step develop the transparency one step at a time you know anything but when I'm in it well if I were living in a country where it was impossible to get elected if you if you have that label I think a little bit like gay pride and I think I think it's like it's like standing out and saying I'm gay or I'm not gay but I but I believe in gay marriage or something I think part of the difference there is I think I've got this right in the secular movement there is an urge to get more people to think that way or to be that way on the grounds that you have a better society for having done so or more rational lead deciding such a society I don't know a single gay person who hasn't it who has an objective to turn everybody gay they just want themselves to be respected for what they are but they're not trying to make everybody else gay that and that's different from such as in the book The God Delusion there's no book you know the straight delusion you all wear the right way to be so so to me there's a difference in objective between the gay movement and the secular movement if you will I think you're exaggerating the design of the secular movement to convert everybody to our point of view we're not like missionaries knocking on the door and sort of said saying have you have you found Jesus or nothing um or have you not found Jesus yeah yeah have you lost Jesus yet it isn't really like that it's wrong it's rather more we want to convert you not to atheism up to the view that atheists should Bishop should not be discriminated against there should not be but a mirror message there it's a pure message and and it's it's a very important one in the in the United States where we're a theist can't get elected to come rescue you don't have to say yes I'm converted I'm now a born-again atheist but you have to take um I I find that I no longer will discriminate it against somebody because of his lack of religion when I when I vote I will look at the look of the record and vote on other grounds there's a there are real problems with young people coming out just not let the mores coming out as gay with their parents having a good you know teenagers thrown out of the house because they've come out as an atheist well we're on stage last night for our star talk live and there's a question that I deferred to but I wanted to be honest with thee we want stage last night and during the Q&A someone came up and had a very long sounding question I deferred my answer your answer to his question for this interview and he said he he early on in his life he became an atheist but then when he notified his parents they were they were shocked yes damn near ready to reject him disown him what do you have suggestions for a situation of the things I mean we got this campaign going called open secular very secular and one of the things we're trying to do is to give us a give sort of them a pack of hints for that for that sort of thing but there's a resonant an amazing like how do you know if you're secular I mean how do how you break it to your parents if they're if they're it is very similar to the problem of breaking to your parents your you're gay there's a a really rather tragicomic YouTube film of a boy of about 16 breaking it to his mother that he's an atheist and the conversation takes place in the kitchen and he saw his ready it's not very articulate young man mom I gotta tell you I'm Nathan and she said you're an atheist right no Christmas presents for you oh you're funny tomorrow you're going to see the bishop and and so she's kind of hysterical and the boys kind of hanging his head and nothing and his father's kinda I'm still laughing at the no Christmas present I say and the father is kind of sitting slumped in his chair sort of you know not really what it'd be part of this Lily I mean I worry a little bit about why somebody was filming it I mean it doesn't seem to be plausible that certainly would have actually has a camera running so it may it may be a fake but if it is it's not a very well active you know so it has it but even if it is a fake it's not an unimaginable scenario it's so therefore that's what we should be extremely responding to you know it's common I get letters my foundation the Richard Dawkins foundation your science and reason for reason is the reason inside okay um gets letters all the time from is especially young people talking about their hair sometimes people worry about losing this I was so of course every time in marriage if you announced your spouse you're gay you lose your spouse 100% if you talk of course not um no no if you're gay well how do you play that yeah yeah that's a mighty special problems there may be a spouse but Victor we live my foundation a little bit earlier sponsored a thing called the clergy project which was an attempt to help to rescue really clergy people who have lost their faith and the clergy project we set up a website a confidential website where clergy people who have become atheists were able to converse with each other commiserate commiserate cry on each other's shoulders and often under assumed names I mean they're really afraid of being detected it's it's rather like a sort of them secret society where they use false names for fear of being outed for fear of spies getting in and recognizing them and they're now up to I think more than 500 of these clergy men and women from all denominations who have become atheists and they're going that carrying on living the lie they're going on preaching sermons and conducting so there's a trainer so it's not but I have their training then they're not trained to do much else and some of them one by one they're beginning to come out and they get jobs as counselors or the board oh yeah of course there would be ideal yes all carpenters may be infected just like Jesus the carpenter yes uh but um but it's only a trickle coming out of the moment but you know I felt it was it I mean originally my original plan was to try to raise enough money to give them scholarships for retraining for other professions that of course we couldn't raise enough money for that but we did we had enough money to set up this website and that they do get a feeling of bonding as a feeling of fellowship they could talk to me the Internet at its best you find yes and that they can't talk to their spouse very often they can't talk to them to their children they can't talk to them these would be denominations where you can marriage soon would not be Catholic it would be nothing that time so that they fear being outed because they are respected pillars of the local community well they're going to lose all that they're going to be ostracized in many cases so is this are we looking at different times from a century ago what did Darwin create a deeper divide that was there a community of religious people who dug their heels and stronger after Darwin because I don't remember this level of conflict I mean well maybe I just was unaware I don't claim perfect knowledge of total social cultural mores around the world but I remember day where religious people went to church or synagogue or mosque on the weekend and during the week you went to school and learn science yes and that was kind of a happy line in the sand yes and that line of the sand is being sort of rubbed away I think that is that's a real change yes my perception well I don't live in America I think it probably is a real change yes from the 1800's to the 1900 oh oh well no I thought it went that's might be different man and you're talking about with in Arlen oh you're sorry yeah well I asked me both question but yes Linda in Darwin's time um there was quite a good already uptake of Darwinism among educated clergy people even like Charles Kingsley um I'm not sure these names idea of course I'm Charles Kings today we're Americans here I don't know if and Charles Kings need you I just like them you've got all these names and they must be basic knowledge to all I did I don't wall Brit educated people right all right Charles king we don't Kim Kardashian then you know okay go ahead look and I didn't write in it can't we known what buttocks when we got here Charles Kingsley wrote a book called the water babies was it another famous children's book and and he was a clergyman I think and he was a friend of Darwin and he immediately adopted evolution when the Origin of Species came out as did a lot of other clergymen other clergymen didn't and famously the Bishop of Oxford so P sound labor force and they were dropped they would draw him as a as an eight you know here yes yeah so they focused on the on the a bassinet rather than on the more general total of the evolution of life and I think you're probably right that when you were a boy at school it was in a church was something you did so yeah and that was respected and sacred and the rest of life was the rest of life it does appear to be a real phenomenon that people who are not religious in America today are in danger of being ostracized and this is not true in places like Silicon Valley where I just beamed I mean I kept meeting people in Silicon Valley who said what's the problem I'm an atheist everybody knows I'm an atheist but they live in Silicon Valley yeah oh no they don't live in the how about the UK or Europe in general let's get very atheistic isn't that correct yes and paradoxically many European countries have understand this church and that none that may be no accident it may be that the established church makes religion kind of boring it's sort of but whereas in America religion when you have a choice every Enterprise choice yeah you advertise your mega church and I can follow the preachers I like mmm and then you get you you go to this Jesus church rather than that judgin um many people did go to church except to be married and buried but and went might the the brief time I spent there while we were filming cop cosmos that's when I learned you know there's this thing called the Anglican Church yes but it's an administrative entity practically and beyond that nobody yes your it crowns the moment and that's it and then it's the heck yeah and the rest of Europe is I think Europe is very variable at Poland for example it's almost exclusively Catholic and rather morally so Scandinavia maximum are so much not that Scandinavian Aurora's totally drop religion except for Islam isn't ugly mmm-hmm just want in Scandinavia in Scandinavia and I think France and sort of the traditionally Catholic countries and France Italy Spain there's a very strong County clericalism but I don't know very much about about Europe but I do get the impression that it's more than an impression that America the United States stands out like a sore thumb before its religiosity you have to get more it's right over Europe to the Middle East before you before you start getting the similar preoccupation if now the if we go back in time essentially every famous scientist pre-twentieth century his religious Galileo's religion Caesar visa devout Catholic Newton was Anglican but but he objected to the Trinity I guess he had some issues so it's not uncommon to have religious strongly religious people in modern times cite the religiosity of scientists of the past and if you look at the numbers today I haven't checked the very latest ones but when I last did check in the United States it's as many as a third of practicing publishing scientists would claim to be religious in the unambiguous way where you ask do you pray yeah to have a all-powerful being intercede in your daily affairs so so you can't then say being religious is in and of itself the problem they would have to you'd have to modify that argument to say it's when you want to do this with your religion that it's a problem but otherwise for all these other people it's just fine ok let me take that I think we want to make a big distinction between the historical point and the present day sure I completed them I'm sorry idea um Newton Galileo predate free Darwin you couldn't not be religious preacher at least I'm you could but it would have to be very very storm watch in your in your skepticism brother because it's um I look around the world it kind of looks almost obvious this is gonna get misquoted um it looks almost obvious that there had to be a digital designer until Darwin came along who can blame Newton and Galileo son I'm deeply unimpressed ok can you grab that argument argument um the one-third of scientists in America that's approximately correct by the Pope that I've seen if you move off from scientist generally to members fellows of the National Academy be awake sorry to meet scientists at war in the Royal Society studies have been done with both the American lab National Academy and the British Commonwealth Royal Society almost like their corresponding the corresponding elite bodies of de lys academies of science about 10% so that number drops the number drops dramatically now I've seen you make the point that we still have to worry about the 10% well I don't think I used the word worrying because that was how people wanted to characterize me but my actual point was we have people such as yourself out there making the case to the public but I don't see you making the case to the 3rd of scientist our professional brethren who what hope do you have of converting the public guiding them away from their their leading them to more rational ways when our own scientific community is representing in just that way to the level of a third ok and even in the elite group that 10% is not 0% so clearly there's something you're never going to get to I think that's right you have to put a little bit of caution on that if you ask them what they actually believe the the this scientist yes the softest not that you believe they may say they're religious they may say I'm Jewish Sean Christian if you actually ask these is just one surely the mental the 1/3 and press more particularly the the 10% what they believe they will talk about history of the universe and of a reverent attitude which I have as well and I think you have um but then if you say do you actually believe anything supernatural or you call yourself Christian would you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin or rose from the dead of course they don't um and so you've got to kind of subtract them off I suspect you subtract off the einsteinium so the Einsteinian is that what is Spinoza's God well if there's a god of the universe that that is responsible for laws and things and responsible for the universe that science observes I just kind of contestable yes I think would even be response I think was just God is the universe which is a bit different from from thinking that there's an intelligence than the term that started it all so I think you want to subtract them off okay Einstein unfortunately mudded the issue by using the word god no rather for everybody wants to claim claim then believe therefore want to claim is rather like you're afraid of being the big being claimed well I just want to make my own arguments I don't want to use somebody else's argument I Stein use God as a metaphor and he said things like what I really want to know is did God have a choice in creating universe he simply met is there only one way for a universe to be well when he said God doesn't play dice he doesn't play dice but he doesn't play does he was expected expressing skepticism Murphy high more the phrase I want to know the mind of God yeah yes that's right um so subtract them off and then you are left with with a few who actually do believe in the virgin birth and I don't know what to make of them I mean I think that they're as it were traitors to some but they still do science again but we many like these new objects for sake as the physicist that I told you about yes that Who am I think he's a traitor to science and maybe no been there already oh good um but but uh I prepped I tell you I mean my British foundation I have a British Foundation as well as an American one these are the same foundation but it separately incorporated got the got not the same names have been incorporated um we did a survey but we commissioned a public opinion poll and we chose the very weak of the census which took place in 2011 and the census in Britain actually asked what your religion is and if you have to take a box that says Christian Jewish Muslim etc or or none um so we sampled you we commissioned a professional bullying organization to sample those who take the Christian box to find out what they really believe obviously was only a son it was a couple of thousand but it was done professionally and so we asked them questions like okay you take the Christian box do you believe Jesus is your Lord and Savior do you believe Jesus was born of a virgin no do you believe Jesus rose from the dead no then why do you call yourself a Christian oh because I like to think of myself as a good person so that's the kind of level that that's the kind of level that people will sink to in agreeing to tick the Christian box to get the label to accept the label of Christian we then said well um you like to think of myself as a good person it wasn't sequential they're all separate questions but you might think ourselves a good person when you're faced with a moral dilemma when you're faced with a moral decision in your own life do you turn to your religion or do you turn to your friends you do turn to your cultural background etc that's an excellent question I want to comment on that metaphor going and an approach was only only about 9 percent said that other people who take the Christian box who said they turn to their to their religion although majority said that they take the Christian box because they like to think of themselves as a good person so all this is showing really is be skeptical when people tell you that they're religious be skeptical when people tell you I am a Christian or I am a Jew especially if they say I'm a Jew that probably means that a loyal to Jewish traditions in America generally the ends that that there's a unless they're full-out Hasidic yes a practicing day Judaism is a culture more than it is a religion here and here in the United States which is five um I was interviewed for The New Yorker magazine and at some point the interviewer asked how was ivory raised in any religion I said yes I was raised Catholic and that was actually the first time I'd ever said that publicly I never try to hide it does no one ever asked and and I said but it was kind of like we used to go to church weekly and then it kind of faded to once a month then we became ashes and palms look you just go on the holidays and of course we celebrated Christmas and but I what I the real point I wanted to make in this article was that it did not influence in any obvious way any decisions we made any my mother never came through if you shouldn't do this because Jesus is watching there was no such interaction in the household but the urge to say in an article on neil degrasse tyson he was catholic but now he's a scientist and lost his catholic ways as though there was some big transition what happened there was Nick there was no chance there was no it's not and so I see the urge of people to want to make these associations but in in our household there was never what would Jesus do it's what was or what would a rational thinking person do in this situation and that's how my whole life unfold I think there is also a kind of cultural royalty which is not so strong as the Jewish case which you mentioned that I especially perhaps in a place like Northern Ireland which is which is politically riven between Catholics and Protestants means they did the joke about yes you're an atheist but I have a Catholic atheist or approximately well I said if it's almost a cliche maybe not another um but there is a sort of thing with us well I sure as hell not a Catholic you never saw a better sound Protestant the program and and and well this is a problem that labels again you know it's it's it's what that is it's all very well to say that in America there's a constitutional separation between church and state but how do you deal with the fact that a non-believer cannot get elected to high office yeah I the closest I've come to addressing that was on Bill Maher we at that time Congress was at some kind of voting impasse and everyone was complaining that they can't agree and I just thought about it I reflected on a time when I was younger when I had the World Book Encyclopedia and I remember opening up to the section on the president is a picture of every single president and a little mini bio and I was just intrigued I said I wonder what professions these presidents were and there they were attorney attorney intern farmer attorney attorney businessman attorney attorney and I said well first what is an attorney because I didn't know there was the same lawyer at the time I discovered this but I said why are they all lawyers but aren't there other things in the world I want to be an astrophysicist and maybe can other people be present if it and I thought that's just odd and it just sat in my head for decades and because I'm that old then and then I realized read it in pass and I think well what the lawyers do that they're trained arguers and a lawyer who is paid to take a position will take that position whether or not that position is true that because they're paid to do so and I thought that is the recipe for disaster in a Congress that has to come to agreement so I lamented the absence of professions that specialized in having to make hard decisions on time and on budget so I thought maybe a congress that had more scientist engineers we're objective truth matter businesspeople who make decisions every day that are based on objective truth because money is at stake I just felt the mixture wasn't serving a nation where decisions had to be made and in that context I didn't care how religious people are how they I didn't care whether that I wasn't thinking is it a religious scientist or not a religious engineer or not I'm care about the decision the decisions people have to make and how they make them and so I I care less whether someone is religious then whether they have the capacity to think logically but more broadly what I object to is Dogma being the foundation of governance and yes Dogma is a big part of the religion but Dogma there's a there's other dogma there's there's anything where you think something is true but have no evidence for it and you want everyone else to think that way that's dogma so you're objecting to religion I'm objecting objecting to Dogma under which you find many express you think I'm objecting to discrimination I mean if you if you heard that nobody would ever vote for a farmer and because they've had a complete misconception about what farmers are unlike wouldn't you okay so you want to educate people you're gonna declare people I mean okay if a gay person could not get a left all right okay so so let me so I guess I discovered two variables there so one of them is I I want people who know how to make decisions in Congress and I'm sorry but I don't count lawyers among those over life who can when you have two scientists if we disagree it's because one of us is wrong the other is wrong we're both wrong and we both agree with that fact that those three possibilities exist and that we both are waiting for more or better data to resolve it so that we will one day agree and then go out and have a beter lawyers don't it doesn't happen that way any time I've seen wars in conflict all right so now with regard to can anybody become president if most of an electorate what's the number in United States 90% claims religiosity you're not as high as that actually but more than two-thirds maybe 1770 okay so maybe because the fraction of people who dis associate from organized religion is growing so if you fold them in you get 30% of them all right but if most districts voting districts in the country have a majority of people who are religious why should you not expect that they elect religious people to represent them now I'm not surprised at that what you should be surprised is if you go to Silicon Valley where everybody is devoutly atheist and they elect a religious person then you say this is your district it's time to vote someone in who isn't I don't think I do have the power we don't have to say that the person elected should have the same beliefs as their electorate but the electorate should not that's kind of what representative government they should not be prejudiced they should not they should not say I will under no circumstances vote for a gay person well I will underneath no secondses vote for somebody did River okay so that was true until you had gay communities that then elected representatives who could speak their case the earliest good examples of that the mayor of San Francisco okay so then you say okay the city didn't didn't collapse you know then there it's it's it's by example rather than but so now so what you need is go back to Silicon Valley if it's as atheistic as you say I am never hung out there time for them to elect a representative who's who's atheist or secular or any combination of that person that goes to Congress and leads in ways people say hey that's I like that that's a good idea and realizing that idea could not have come from other people because the brain isn't gonna figure that special I would love that to happen and I'd like to - to help you can't go - you can't go to Utah and say elect someone who's not Mormon they all went there so that they could have Mormon representation the black female who just got I'm told is Mormon yeah but from from Newtok you can fight prejudice without you it doesn't I mean it'd be nice to do it that way and have somebody somebody elected and I like to see that happen but that there is rampant prejudice which is based upon missile misconception and what we're trying to do is to remove that misconception by showing people he's living video to do things with when we're doing showing that the atheist non-believer secularists these are the ads of people outing themselves yes I love themselves and that then they're nice people there have been nurses and adopters there their bus drivers um they don't have two holes in a tail I mean that you'd be amazed of the you'd be amazed or check the readership at around um the the equation of atheism was caught with communism for example and she would take through the 1950s and the the story of Julia Sweeney's mother I mean these are um these are worrying things which should worry any decent citizen so again I was thinking I don't if you don't believe in God but you're an ASIC yes yeah but I mean there's a lot of that about yeah and even not believing in God it's um something people think you need morality SAR you meet God in order to be to be moral and a ridiculous idea like that and um consciousness-raising get standing up and sit and saying I'm I'm up okay since I know alright and so that's an interesting distinction that I'm happy to embrace all right there is the religious community where they can be responsible for heinous acts of violence or warfare or prejudice then there are people who are just religious because they're religious and they're okay with anybody else with whatever else and they are all right I'd like to think that's the majority I don't know if it is then there are people who are religious their religion is right every other religion is wrong and you're worse than even the wrong religions because you're atheist they're the ones who don't really understand where morality comes from or or and so these people need to be educated no doubt about it and if they're educated by example where they learn that their best friend comes out as secular that's interesting that's how we learn that was made what went far in getting society to understand and recognize and accept the gay population in fact you've seen the statistics but the percentage of D you've seen the statistics if you look in the age spread of who is who endorses gay marriage and who doesn't so the younger is the demographic the more open they are to to this because they all have friends who totally are open yeah about it and the people sixty and over none of their friends ever admitted to them that they were gay because you know they're there we got the numbers are real and they show up in every generation so maybe it's just slower than you want it to be it's great to have friends doing that and that's very important of course but any advertising person knows that are that a role model I mean you're a role model big-time in America and for somebody like you who has an enormous following not just as a scientist but as the desert obviously nice guy I'm a scientist that's it everybody everybody I thank you like David Attenborough in Brittany we just had him on Startalk it's a nicest guy ever absolutely yeah advert yes ever um so when somebody like that stands up and says I'm gay or I'm an I'm a non-believer that's worth millions of ordinary friends stealing and decide man I think it's some is something that that needs to be done and these little little YouTube videos are great when they are whenever good you know man next door something will woman next door but um the sort of person who could who could sell soap flakes I mean you can do much better than selling soap flakes you can you can sell anti bigotry well I mean I'm out there I'm out there I guess it's just it's not a big issue to me yeah that's what it is and I'd rather get people to take discover the beauty and grandeur and splendour of the universe and whatever comes out of that if you for having study Darwin became an atheist why tell them to be an atheist just tell them to study darling no I agree with that but yeah but with that we shifted from that to say to saying that don't be prejudiced don't be did yeah yeah well I'm you know I'm all for not being friendship yes big fan I'm not being prejudiced uh about anything but I death 30% number that was a smaller number before it's growing necessary to 30% uh who are I think that 30% maybe of the younger demographic I think it might be 30 percent so it's even so it's even higher oh I say not yet is cued by the younger generation even deny 20% is a high percentage with if I could back and shift elections quickly but and and in a way that the Jewish vote can shape-shift elections many ways that the number that must look much more their ways for the fraction of the American population who is Jewish and here at the fresh America vision who is uh not believe don't believe this is there and yet the non-believers are manifestly failing shifting elections I mean we can't even get a single member of Congress right all right well I still would rather just have no label at all the only issue I am as I said it's a scientist yes and beyond that have a conversation with me as we just did until the last thing just to get the current events value of this um the Pope came out Pope Francis came out and good just a little while the Pope came out just a few news cycles ago saying what I thought were quite forward-thinking things about the role of science and discovery and the role of Catholicism relative to it I think a lot of that had already existed in some way in Catholic doctrine but the press made a very big deal of this and yeah if you ever reaction at the time well I think they made a bigger deal than necessary I mean Pope John Paul the second said exactly the same thing yeah and Benedict was not quite so vocal about it but it but but he didn't didn't know so they're there in some way in some way um they they have no problem with evolution and he made dr. bypass the twelfth actually didn't didn't either um but because what we did I was on a panel for the National Center for I was on a panel for the National Academy of Sciences to create a document a committee to create a document titled evolution versus creationism and it was a document for educators resources here's how you teach it here's how you can show where one where creationism religious creationism fails and how biological evolution succeeds we made great efforts to create a an appendix in the back that listed every single religious organization that was just fine with evolution and there's like a Council of Bishops oh there's some you have organizations out there so I want to pose a question back to you that exercise of making this document is not telling people to not be religious it's saying here's evolution and it is objectively true fold it into your religion or not but this is all we're trying to tell you to do whereas other things you've done professionally God Delusion and others are true or arguing against religion entirely whereas our document just said your religious organizations they're with us on this that's a very important thing to do because an enormous number of people actually live influential and yes a lot lots of people think that that in order to believe in evolution you've got to give up the origin your religion and their pastors their priests there are responsibility for that as Vicar and so it is a very important message to get out there I want sometimes I feel a little bit unsatisfied by that um I think that there is something deeply unscientific about religion mm-hmm and this deeply UNT's something deeply uh scientific about Van Gogh's Starry Night ya know but I don't that's yes that's different doesn't that that's why that sentence doesn't come out of my mouth yeah the the thing that's deeply unscientific about religion is that it's no right let's not say unscientific it is a scientific theory that there is a designer of the universe it's not something outside science is affects your scientific view of the universe and if you think if you think that there is and having said that it is important to disabuse people of the of the illusion that you've got to give up your religion if you're if you're if you take up evolution that however has a paradoxical upside for me if people have been told by their pastors that if you accept evolution you've got to give up your religion we can definitely prove evolution is true I'm not known to give up their religion and so if I can if I can use evolution to get in there as a wedge and say all your life you've been told that the moment you accept evolution your religion is down the drain I won't have to have fun um so you see they're almost diabolical idiot yes but I know I'm in a minority yeah sure because that's very extra that's an extreme its social posture to take it sounds yeah but I think it's entirely reasonable what happened to you yeah you you converted if we can call it that after you learned Darwin so you see the paradox I'm raising they said that if if people like you and Eugenie Scott managed to convince people that that's absolutely no compatibility between then I've lost my secret weapon so to speak okay I didn't say there wasn't that okay let me just clarify anything that I would have ever said I never said religion in science are compatible and that's a very common question that I'm sure you get I get all the time are they compatible all I ever say is if your religion is testable claims about the physical world be ready for the physic for the methods and tools of science to show that it's false if you're not ready for that then pick another religion or you know move to an island but if you're going to make testable claims we're going to be all up in those claims and the history of that exercise is one where science wins every single time every single time and so what has happened over the years is the Bible like the Jeffersonian Bible where he cuts away all of the miracles and and leaves the Sermon on the Mount and leaves they the statements that actually have some strong redeeming cultural social value and if that's how you construct your religion I'm not going to get in your way of that I would like to broaden out the testability criterion for there because you it may be that you can never ever do find it a falsifiable claim you can actually do an experiment to test however as a scientist you also accept rose ability arguments oh I do that all the time I don't treat it pure logically right there's I start that again um I think the often repeated comment that you can't prove a negative yes I think that is a very misleading yes concept in science we show negatives all the time I don't use the word proof because that's mathematic who fixed in math here so for example if you have a hypothesis that a bear exists in a certain zone a certain geographic zone and you know that the bear would have to be heavy and if it rains a bear would leave footprints and bears poop yeah large poop all right and there's there's there would be evidence of a bear even if you never found the bear yes and if you do not see the poop you do not see the footprints even if you drop dust uh-uh-uh-uh-uh white dust around ought to be in it okay and No and you put it in front of a cave and and you wait for a full cycle of seasons and there no footprints scientifically you have demonstrated the absence of a bear yes conclusively enough said you can walk up and down there and send your kids out there not worried good it's not totally conclusive but for all intents and purposes scientifically we're good with that we move on to the next think that's a good parallel thoughtful for God thank you so I perhaps the difference between us is I don't care if they want to keep believing that I just cared that they stay out of the science classroom yeah because then it's not in science it's really not science and there was no tradition of scientists knocking down the sunday-school door trying to tell the theologians and the preachers what to teach there's no treated atheists don't even do that and so I cry foul when they want to come over and part of it I think as they know that science has a certain cachet and they want to sort of attach to do this that's what the Templeton Foundation it's it's founded by Sir Elmer - Sir John Templeton the financier who got fabulously wealthy and he felt pretty sure that there was some connection between the physical universe and and spirituality and God and religion and so he just wants to explore these intersections all right ah I was asked to write to answer the question does the universe have a purpose and I was paid for that and that's on line and I have to read it to to script so that there's there's like a YouTube video of what I wrote Illustrated but I did take money because I felt this was an occasion for me to tell that audience how a scientist and imagine so that the nest there is for them to get cheap so Richard thanks for coming through town this is a long overdue conversation yes I think every time I see you I say you know I want to tell him this and I want to think about that and get his take on this so but it was great to have you here and maybe we can do this again or over dinner yeah over babo on yeah yeah and then more will come out due to different quick practice so thanks [Music]

Channel: Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science

Views: 1,975,859

Rating: 4.8961315 out of 5

Keywords: Neil DeGrasse Tyson (Organization Leader), Hayden Planetarium (Building), Richard Dawkins (Academic), Science (Journal), Scientist (Profession), Biology (Media Genre), Physics (Field Of Study), Astrophysics (Field Of Study), Reason (Quotation Subject), Atheism (Religion), Humanism (Belief), Secular Humanism (Literature Subject), Secularism (Political Ideology)

Id: 4z4gISBuDVU

Length: 82min 19sec (4939 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/judgewooden]

These guys obviously do not know that we are decedent from hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives and management consultants who colonized our planet years ago.

[u/_Lowd]

Tremendous

[u/savoysuit]

great, thanks!