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 Quelle: The Poetry of Reality via Youtube  |  veröffentlicht 31.08.2023

A moral philosopher and an evolutionary biologist in conversation

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hello everyone it's great to see you on this warm Melbourne day
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with a cooler evening as the change came through that was welcome I'm Peter Singer I'm going to be in
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conversation with Richard Dawkins glad some of you know me um this is my city this is where I was
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born grew up spent most of my life I am now a professor of bioethics at
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Princeton University but I've switched to doing that only half time which is why I'm here at this time of year
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um and as many of you will know I'm the author of a book called animal liberation
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thank you and those of you who cheered there's a completely updated edition coming out in
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in June so don't forget to get it but I'm you're not here to see me I know you're you're here to see and hear
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Richard Dawkins um I think you probably already know the basic facts about Richard that's why
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you're here but just to run through them Richard was born in Nairobi Kenya in
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1941 and his parents moved to England when he was eight years old so he had
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some years in Africa um when he went to England he studied at
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Oxford University not at eight but 18. um did zoology did his PhD under a
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famous ethologist called Nicholas tinbergen whose book on the Herring
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gulls or seagulls I read when I started to become interested in animals was a
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very enlightening study that really treated animals as beings living their own lives not just running
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rats through mazes and giving them electric shocks and seeing what happens um so he studied zoology he became a
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professor briefly at the University of California Berkeley and then went back to Oxford where he was a fellow at new
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College and became internationally known in 1976 with the publication of The Selfish Gene
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a wonderful book that we'll be talking about and went on to have a really illustrious
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career writing a whole string of books um I'm particularly fond of the blind
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watchmaker which came out 10 years later in 1986
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um and uh other books we're going to be talking about the devil's chaplain
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mostly about Evolution the river out of Eden climbing man improbable uh really
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spreading information about Evolution and its significance um and its significance in developing a
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view of the world without God and that led to the writing of The God Delusion which uh perhaps is books that
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um caused the most public controversy particularly in the United States uh and
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he also founded with procedure that the Richard Dawkins foundation for reason
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and Science and was appointed in uh Oxford as the Charles Simone professor
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of for the public understanding of Science and he's been a tremendous promoter of understanding science and
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the importance of science he's also written uh two books of uh
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um essentially autobiography about his life in science uh the second of those
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called a brief candle um a life of science so I want you to
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join me in welcoming Richard Dawkins [Applause]
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[Music] wonderful to see you here Richard and
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welcome to Melbourne um let's get straight into it as I just said in introducing you uh I first came
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across your work with the selfish Gene um so it's so I think is a really
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wonderful book and got me thinking about evolution in a way that I hadn't before because I had
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perhaps somewhat naively thought for example that things develop because they help our species to survive right
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um yes a terrible mistake I know but you know I was a naive young person then um so maybe you could briefly say
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where the level of evolution is I mean I guess the title The Selfish Gene gives it away to some extent but where and and
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why that matters why it's important to understand that it really matters because if you think about it and
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natural selection is the survival of something and uh this thing that's special about
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the gene is that if it survives it survives for a very very long time in the form of copies of itself
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so a gene in the form of copies of itself can potentially survive for millions and millions of years
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and so the difference between a successful Gene and an unsuccessful Gene
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really matters the difference between a successful individual or a successful group or a successful species doesn't
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matter in the same sense because it's going to die anyway uh the the thing about a gene is that
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you come back a million years later and some of them have made it through and some of them haven't so that's the
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significance of why the the gene is the unit of selection
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and and so you know you gasp when I said I thought that selection was for the
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benefit of species maybe you can briefly say why that's why that's wrong and we know that it's wrong I understand why
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it's wrong now but well because um it's a very tempting error because of
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course you talk about um uh reproduction can we have the lights a little bit more because it's nice to see the audience and
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yes um it's it's tempting to think that um
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reproduction is often called perpetuation of the species and so and so you think of it but natural selection
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doesn't choose between species species is not the kind of thing that work to
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preserve themselves if you look at a at an animal and you say what's wing for
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what's its teeth for what's its tail for you can give a kind of teleological answer to that you can say it's about
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survival of something or other it's not about the survival of the species nobody would ever say uh the tail of a squirrel
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is there to preserve the species of squirrels it's it's it's it's about the
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it's about the preserving the individuals of the individual can pass on its genes right I think yes but it is tempting to
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say you know I say cheaters were good because they stuck around because they could run fast that's uh of course and
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that's correct and that's correct they they they run fast and they pass on
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their genes because they because they run fast but you don't want to say the
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species cheetah survive because it because it runs fast because that's not the level at which
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with natural selection acts right okay so um
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soon after the book appeared there was some criticism and some of it that I saw
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perhaps because it was by a philosopher Mary Midgley uh focused on the title
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and claimed that the title was misleading because although we can be selfish
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humans can be selfish maybe some non-human animals can be selfish but you have to be an agent you have to have
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intentions in some way you have to prefer your own interests you know so
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your your child eats all the ice cream that was meant for the your child and the friends and you say don't be selfish
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your your friend should get some ice cream too um but genes don't have intentions like
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that and they can't choose between eating all the ice cream or not eating all the ice cream or whatever the equivalent is for a gene so
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um what's your response to the idea that um it's misleading to say that genes are
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selfish or or not selfish well Mary images they've focused on the title because that's all she read
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she she confessed that letter to ulica segastrala who wrote a book about the um
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and it's very clear because the the very opening words of her critique were
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dawkins's main thesis is that humans are selfish there's nothing to do with humans I
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didn't write about humans at all she assumed I must be writing about humans and I wasn't I wasn't interested I'm not
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interested in humans actually um um so um yes and and as for the thing
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she says something like um jeans can no more be selfish than biscuits and meteorological it was you
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know a bit of sort of rhetoric like like that a philosopher of all people should know
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that you use language in a special way and and I was using language the language of selfishness in a special way
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when I said just now that the the gene is the unit of selection as opposed to
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the species the selfish Gene was about that saying if you want to talk about the level at
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which selection acts let's use the word selfish for the entity in the hierarchy of Life which works to preserve itself
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the selfish entity it could be the selfish elephant it could be the selfish
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oak tree it could be the selfish species it could be the selfish individual none
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of those were the one level at which it works is the selfish Gene and so that was the point about the selfish Gene if
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she had read beyond the title to the book itself the rather extensive footnote to the title which is the book
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itself she would have got the point
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okay well um I'm not proud of anyone in in my field who criticizes books for
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that reading them carefully so I'll certainly reading them at all okay
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um so I'll certainly Grant you grant you that point um still um
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is there no implication there you said a moment ago you were not really interested in humans but is is there no
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implication that uh altruism is either as I know some people have said
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maybe not you that that altruism is something that really doesn't evolve I I
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can't remember who it was no no there isn't um the book is actually largely about altruism it's largely explaining
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altruism and and several other chapters in in the book are explaining how you
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get altruism from selfish genes so the the selfish Gene programs the individual
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organism to be altruistic that's the point because that helps the selfish Gene to
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survive exactly it helps the selfish Gene to survive if it programs the individual to be altruistic for example
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towards kin towards those that from whom it can expect to get reciprocation say
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um uh you written book about that um so uh yes the the the cell the
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selfish Gene is precisely not about the selfish individual it's about the altruistic individual
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and does it allow for altruism Beyond altruism towards kin which is fairly easy to see why that would help genes to
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survive and reciprocal altruism if you're in a Cooperative partnership
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uh then yes that would help the genes to survive but suppose that I believe that
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we should be donating some of our spare money that we spend on luxuries to
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people in developing countries far away to complete strangers you'll never see yes um piece has written a wonderful
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book um called the expanding Circle um which which deals with this and starts with the idea that
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um you have altruism towards kin and towards potential reciprocators and then the idea is it expands outwards towards
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members of her own species and then even to members of other species and this expanding circle is a very uh Noble idea
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um it does not follow from Darwinism directly
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nevertheless because humans undoubtedly do have this altruistic impulse the
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impulse to give to charity uh to donate blood for example way or not hate to do
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so um to feel empathy to feel sympathy towards individuals who are not only not
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kin but having the slightest chance of ever being in position to reciprocate towards you you feel pity for somebody
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who's bereft and weeping and and in in great pain and great distress we all
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have this well most of us have this feeling of empathy towards people and that doesn't need ex that does need
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explaining and it doesn't have a simple naive darwinian explanation in order to
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get the circle to expand we have to be a bit more sophisticated in our Darwinism and I try to do this by
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suggesting that the altruism towards kin and potential
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reciprocators evolved at a time when our ancestors lived in small groups
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Villages small bands like baboons and at
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that time everybody you ever met or had any
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strong acquaintance with would probably be your kin I'll probably be in a position to
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reciprocate you you knew everybody in the village you knew that if you did a good turn to anybody in the village
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there'd be a good chance that they would reciprocate later in life because they're going to be with the same people again and again throughout your life
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mostly they're cousins anyway or their uncles and nephews and nieces and things anyway so
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um natural selection does not build into us a kind of cognitive awareness of
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Hamilton's Inclusive fitness equations that we don't we don't actually um we're not programmed by natural
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selection to calculate coefficients of relationship where program with rules of
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thumb and in our ancestral past our original ancestral past living in
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villages the rule of thumb would have been something like be nice to everyone because everyone is tends to be kin be
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nice to everyone that's the rule of thumb now when you live in a big city like Melbourne
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um everyone is of course not kin but nevertheless the rule of thumb is still there I liken it to the rule of thumb of
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sexual lust where obviously the darwinian function of sexual lust is
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procreation and in the state of nature where there's no contraception copulation tends to
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lead to reproduction and so the rule of thumb is enjoy sex and that works in in
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the state of nature it no longer works because we all use contraception but nevertheless the rule of thumb is
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still there we still have sexual lust in the same way we still have a lust to be nice
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uh dating from the Primitive past when the rule of thumb worked from a darwinian point of view so that's how I
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explain the expanding Circle and I have no difficulty in generalizing from that to
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other species um because once again the rule of thumb builds into our brains a tendency to
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feel empathetic towards um creatures who are evidently in distress
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are suffering that kind of sin yes I can understand that explanation
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and I'm sure that it is a part of the truth but
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and again perhaps this is because I'm approaching it from philosophy more than uh
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evolutionary science um but I'm I I think that our reason plays a role as well I think clearly we
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evolved a capacity to reason and no doubt that conferred advantages on those who could reason better or the genes
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that produce reasoning therefore survived but I think that once we can reason then
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we can understand certain things so we can understand that um
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I would be miserable if I were not getting enough to eat or I would be miserable if I was watching my child die
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from malaria and then I understand that there are people elsewhere in the world complete
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strangers to me who are also hungry and unhappy because of that oh
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whose children die from malaria and they're unhappy with that and
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I feel that that matters it's not just that I have happened to have this desire
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but that I would somehow be wrong if I ignored that and overlooked it
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um and if I didn't give some weight to the fact that their interests are like my interests
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there's no really relevant difference I'm taking out imagining myself as taking a larger point of view and I
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think that that's helps us to develop an ethic that is um
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to a degree obviously not perfectly by any means but to a degree impartial in recognizing
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concerns for others and particularly of course we talk about Universal human rights and equal equality of all humans you
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mentioned animals a moment ago and I'm going to come back to that later on but at least at that level
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I do think that our reasoning is playing a role I agree with that and and I I mean it's it's not for nothing Peter
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I've described you as the most moral man in the world and and I mean not only moral but understand why you're moral
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and this is what moral philosophers do and I'm very glad that that's what moral philosophers do I'm very glad we've got
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moral philosophers and uh when I think like a moral philosopher I agree with you it's not a darwinian explanation
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though it's a it's a it's a rational explanation um it's when we apply our reason to
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moral questions and we have things like the Golden Rule which you then generalize uh and um I'm all for that
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and and applaud that kind of application of reason to
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moral questions but I thought I was being asked for a darwinian explanation and and it in a if I was for a dominant
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explanation then I have to produce one sure so but it's interesting then that the dominating explanation doesn't have
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to be all comprehensive that it can leave room for an explanation in terms of reasons
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uh and reasoning process so so it's it it what you just said counts against the
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idea that we're somehow genetically programmed machines um yes
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um I think I put it it's all of a piece with the question like um what said
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they'll win an explanation for doing mathematics doing philosophy doing doing art doing music these are all
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things which don't have any obvious darwinian survival value and they're part of the product of what you get when
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a big brain is produced by natural selection for No Doubt mundane purposes
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of of survival during survival and then lo and behold it turns out to be big
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enough to have emergent properties uh like the ability to do mathematics and the ability to do moral philosophy yes I
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think mathematics is a really interesting example because no doubt there are survival reasons why you want
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to be able to count the number of tigers who went into the bush and the number of tigers who came out and work out if
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there's still a tiger there um but just from that capacity then to get to higher mathematics seems quite
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extraordinary and you you just sort of wonder what's going on how is it we we stumble into this kind of Realm of
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numbers and then we start having all of these complicated
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theories yeah it's quite clear that there are there's massive emergence in the human brain which it just does
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things which in no easy unders easily understood since contribute to survival
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but nevertheless having a big brain contributes to survival and then it turned out to be big enough to do
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relativity and quantum theory as as well as just counting Tigers right
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okay so let's um talk a little bit about uh religion and some of your your views on that
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um I understand that you you said that you had a fairly conventional Christian upbringing that you uh were a Christian
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until sometime in your teens and one of the reasons why you're a Christian was
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that you thought that there needed to be an explanation of
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what appeared to be at the way everything fitted together in in nature the design in other words of
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nature um until you encountered a darwinian explanation which you thought actually
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then was Superior and that led to your belief in Christianity falling away is that
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roughly yeah so I mean I suppose before that I I would have been a Christian because I was a child and
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um as support said when I was a child I thought the child I spoke as a child
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and so on um when I became a man I put away childish things
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um not in the sense that's unfolded well no no okay
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um but but it's true that that by the time I reached the age of about 15 I had a residue not so much of Christianity as
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of a sort of deistic belief in some kind of the need for some sort of a Creator
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um and um no more than theistic actually I mean a Creator who put together who
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designed living things and you're you're right that then when I discovered Darwinism and understood it uh I I that
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that pulled away the last vestiges of religious belief
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and when you wrote the the blind watchmaker which I think is another marvelous book that I I greatly enjoyed
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reading um was that a way to sort of get that realization across to a wider public
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that we didn't need to think that the watchmaker designer was was actually I
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suppose I suppose it was I mean I was I was and I'm fascinated by the problem of
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design it it it is a a stunning fact about living creatures that they are are
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both complex and uh and designed I mean they really really look designed and
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they're beautifully designed uh and so it's easy to see um how
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anybody would the four Darwin came along would have been tempted to think that they were designed
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um I had I tell an anecdote at the beginning of the blind watchmaker about how I had was having dinner in my college in Oxford
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new college with a very distinguished philosopher um I didn't mention him in the book but it was in fact AJ air
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and um he said uh
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I think I said something like I I found it um hard to imagine being an atheist
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before Darwin and he said why uh Hume managed it all right so I said well how
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did Hume explain uh the evident design apparent design of
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living things and he said why does it need excellent explaining so I I sort of
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almost wrote the book as a reply to to Freddie air um and actually much later
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um about 20 years later he said we again met at dinner and he said um just read
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your book The Blind watchmaker glad to have inspired it he said all right okay yes I knew air as well I attended some
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of his classes when I was I didn't mention him by name but he recognized the anecdote oh I see right even the
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book yes yes very good okay so what was your encounter with him do you uh so he he was teaching classes
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when I went to Oxford as a graduate student from after studying here at the University of Melbourne for my
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undergraduate and my Master's Degree so I went to Oxford to do graduate work in 1969 and I think I was pretty close to
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retirement um then but I did go to some of his some of his classes in Oxford
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um he was most famous in the area that I was working in in ethics he was most famous for having developed
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um so yeah let me go back a little bit um air was part of this group of logical
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positivists a movement in philosophy that started in in Vienna in the 20s
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um and essentially the The View was the only things that um are really worth
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saying are things that can be verified so it's like you know verified through observation
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through science or they're just uh logical truths truths of logic um and where did that leave ethics was
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the question um and his view was well if I want to say
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um that it's wrong to torture people really what I'm saying is Boo to torture
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and if I want to say it's good to help people who are hungry and give them food then I'm saying hooray for helping
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people who are sorry hooray for helping people and giving them food when they're hungry um so I was called the buharray theory
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of Ethics I think by the time I got to Oxford and here sorry air uh published
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that in a book called language truths and logic in the 1930s by the time I got to Oxford it was it was a somewhat more
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sophisticated view but it was still basically along those lines and my problem was that it didn't leave again
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much role for reasoning in ethics I wanted to say look you can make arguments in ethics um you can argue
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that some things are right and some things are wrong and it's not just a matter of saying you know like you do
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for well we're famous for doing this for our football teams in Melbourne of course you know hooray for Hawthorne Boo for Collingwood
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um which will evoke positive reactions in some people in this audience and negative reactions for others I guess but I I wanted to think that ethics was
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more than that um so let me just go back a little bit to the
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questions about uh about God and religion um
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you have another book called The Devil's chaplain and the title of that book is a quote
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from it is taken from a a quote from Darwin who said something like I'm not
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quoting it word for word um a devil's chaplain could tell a
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terrible story of the cruelties and horrors of nature
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um and in other words you know if you were trying to make an argument for the fact that there isn't an all-powerful
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God but there's a devil or something like that or there's a powerful devil you would just have to point to Nature and all the suffering that occurs in
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nature so I take it so that was the inspiration for that book um but I find that really interesting
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because it relates to the argument which which I for me is the most powerful argument
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against the existence of God um in a way the the what you did in the blind watchmaker was to knock down a
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very powerful argument for the existence of God but to me the most powerful argument against the existence of God is
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the argument from Evil now if you just make that to a Christian
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um and say look there's a lot of evil in the world look at what Putin is doing in Ukraine right now for example
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um then the reply will come yes but God gave us Free Will and Free Will is such a great good that it's worth it even
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though some evil people will do terrible things when you give them free will but uh the argument that Darwin imagines
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the devil's chaplain making is immune to that because it's not talking about the evil that humans using their Free Will
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are actually creating but it's talking about what happens in nature the the suffering in nature we've
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seen it here I'm sure many people here will have seen the images when there were huge floods in um uh north of
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Western Australia and there was a dramatic photo of a group of kangaroos marooned on a tiny Island no bit smaller
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than this stage and obviously about to be swept away by Rushing Waters um so there was no human evil agent
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causing those uh kangaroos to drown and of course this is something that is just
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going on all the time another I think rather horrible kind of response to the
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argument from Evil is to say well yes but Adam sinned and we all bear his original
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sin and that's why they're suffering in the world I think that's just an appalling moral view even not only
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appalling moral let me suggest you believe Adam ever existed well that's true too of course that's right
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um but but when you talk about the suffering in nature then you know these these animals that are suffering are not
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descending from Adam so yes darling said uh something like um I find it
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impossible to believe in a benevolent deity who would knowingly have created
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the igneumonidi the igneumonia a group of wasps which um
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lay their eggs in the bodies of other insects and then they eat them alive from within it's very very common and
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parasitoid insects do do that a lot and it's not just that that there is Horror
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in nature is that natural selection is actually produces horror I mean it natural
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selection is a horrific process it's it's it's about
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violent death it's about disease from parasitism it's about um
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natural selection is a cruel horrible process which produces the wonderful
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Elegance of a leopard or a cheetah but it is a cruel horrible process that does it it's about
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um dying violent horrible deaths either because
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of predators or because of starvation or because of Paris parasitism and it has to be that
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way natural natural selection wouldn't work if it wasn't horrible so that's an even more powerful argument
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against a benevolent deity right um yes I think it is very powerful but
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that that leads me to want to ask you another question um so I mentioned my my
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book animal Liberation and uh I'll ask you something else about that in a moment but just on this topic in animal
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Liberation I focused on what we humans are doing to animals both in in factory
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farms in particular but also for example in the fur industry or um in uh
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some use of animals in in experimentation um but more recently there's a group of
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people in the animal movement who think that we ought to think about the suffering of wild animals as well and
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whether there are ways in which we can alleviate that and that's depending on
31:53
on what exactly we do I mean that may be a somewhat more controversial area now
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you know I think there are some things that we should do to relieve the suffering of wild animals again that that we perhaps this time inadvertently
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cause so if we put out windows that birds are frequently flying into and killing themselves we might try to
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change that but those stickers of decals of birds of prey that so they don't fly into it or
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something like that but but what about trying to intervene intervene in nature um to reduce animal suffering is
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you have a view about that well good luck without him you do you
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have the Hope um it's it's no I mean um I don't think you're gonna get any
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anywhere with that Lions hunch and kill in horrible ways
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and parasitoid wasps nature is a horrible place it's it's it's it's
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violent and it and it's vicious and um you can't get away from that it's it's
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part of natural selection it's horrible but it's true and would that press be a reason for
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saying that it's not such a terrible thing to replace a forest with a housing estate
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well no I mean I I don't think so I I think
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if you really wanted to you you could shoot all the lands in the world and and then the antelopes
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wouldn't get wouldn't get you know we'd have to distribute birth control for the antelopes I suppose yeah
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I I think you're on onto a loser that Peter uh well I'm I'm
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I do raise this question in the in the new edition of animal erosion coming out as I mentioned
33:38
um I do raise the question but I think we I I'm trying to agree with you that there would have to be
33:44
limits to what we can do in that in that area certainly I would like to see
33:50
very loud fireworks banned because they they actually cause enormous amounts
33:55
amount of stress right I mean that's an easy thing to do you don't they don't need Great Big Bangs
34:00
um okay yeah I think there are some easy things and we can we can put tunnels on the freeways so that yes animals don't
34:05
cross them and get hit but in in general um you go to the
34:10
South American jungle and everything is eating everything else and and um
34:16
that's what natural selection is about Darwin was right about that right he
34:21
tried to mitigate it by saying the end is is Swift and merciful but it's not it's not always okay
34:30
um right I want to come back to to the The God Delusion briefly um I haven't really
34:36
mentioned that um and I'm curious as to what you thought of the reaction in the
34:42
United States I know the book sold hugely there and you spoke there
34:48
um and as I've lived quite a lot now both in Australia and United States and I was
34:54
four years in England when I was in Oxford um did you find a very different reaction
35:00
in the United States to what you had in England or um what you would say in in
35:06
the sort of obvious way I suppose so um it's true that the United States is a much more religious country
35:12
um I found um oddly enough I found that when I toured with The God Delusion in the Deep
35:20
South which is much more biblically fundamentalist there I got very large
35:26
enthusiastic audiences and you could imagine why because there there are the beleaguered non-believers in this in the
35:33
South who turn out in their thousands when somebody like me turns up
35:38
um but if you go to a sophisticated place like San Francisco or New York on their own big deal yeah
35:45
um yeah one of my first experiences of giving a talk in the South I was in um Charleston South Carolina and I gave a
35:52
talk about animals of the time that I usually do and afterwards there were groups of people you know there was an
35:58
animal organization involved and we were mingling and a woman came up to me and asked without any sort of preliminary it
36:03
said Professor singer I want to know whether you think that the animals are going to be joining us in heaven yes yes yes yes
36:10
yes no you know no preliminaries do are you atheist do you believe in heaven you
36:15
know just the Assumption yes and she was someone taken aback where I when I said no because we're not going to be there
36:21
either yeah um
36:27
good uh so just a couple more more questions um
36:33
you have also been um I think accused of taking a a sort of a scientistic Viewpoint if you
36:41
like now I know that you have for 13 years you hold a chair for the public understanding of Science and
36:47
you set up this foundation for reason and science but um some people have pushed back and said well it's all very
36:55
well for science to explain the material world uh out there but there are things that science
37:00
can't explain it isn't able to explain and depending on how philosophically sophisticated they are or whether they
37:07
what they want to talk about you know they may talk about things that I think we would dismiss Maybe
37:13
ghosts or phenomena like that um but they may be talking about the
37:18
phenomenon of Consciousness for instance we've already talked a little bit about values they may come into it too do you
37:24
think is there any area that is science is not going to be able to fully explain well that's a very interesting question
37:32
I I think first thing I would say is if science can't explain it nothing can but
37:40
maybe nothing can um I certainly don't think that any kind of uh if to take Consciousness for example
37:47
which is which admittedly that's very difficult and I don't think science has really made much inroads into
37:53
explaining Consciousness and that's profoundly important interesting question but
38:00
vitalism is not going to explain it either so I think I I stick my neck out
38:06
far enough to say um consciousness does must have a physical explanation of
38:14
some kind it may be that the human intellect is not big enough to solve that problem although it's done
38:22
pretty well on very profoundly difficult problems like quantum theory I I think that um that there may well be
38:31
problems that are so difficult that the human intellect cannot solve them and in a way it's
38:37
remarkable what the human intellect can do since it was as we were talking about
38:43
earlier since the the brain evolved as an organ for survival for Gene Survival
38:49
on the African Savannah one that should we expect to solve difficult mathematical physical
38:56
philosophical problems it's a one that we managed to solve as many as we have and there may be
39:02
deep problems like unconsciousness may be one that are beyond the human
39:07
capacity to understand maybe elsewhere in the universe there are superhuman not Supernatural but
39:13
superhuman beings which must have evolved by some sort of if darwinian process I
39:20
think stick my neck out and say maybe they can understand them but maybe we can't maybe that we will never
39:26
understand them but if we can't understand them if science can't understand them there's certainly theologians can't and certainly
39:33
um say philosophers can't yeah I wasn't pushing for the theologians but I was wondering about the philosophers
39:39
hey do you think that we will um ever get artificial intelligence that is
39:45
conscious well again I I think I would have to commit myself to saying that since I'm I'm a physicalist I I believe
39:52
there's nothing Beyond physical stuff in the brain and we're conscious at least I
39:57
am and I presume you are too and everyone else is too um yeah not solid solipsistic you know
40:03
the Russell's story about about solipsism he got a he got a letter from a woman
40:08
who said dear Lord Russell I'm so pleased to hear you're you're a solid sister are so few of us around these
40:14
days um so so um how do I get into that um
40:20
uh we're talking about oh artificial intelligence yes um I I'm I'm a
40:26
physicalist I I believe that um there has to be a physical explanation for how the brain does it
40:33
and therefore um in principle it should be possible to simulate that in silica
40:39
uh and um it's very hard to get your mind around that it's very hard to imagine
40:45
feeling pity for a computer when you pull the plug on it or
40:51
something of that sort it's it's it's something that's foreign to our nature but I think I'm committed to the belief
40:57
that it must be possible to simulate everything that we know as Consciousness
41:03
everything that we know as emotions Etc yes right and I guess the other question
41:09
then is will we be able to tell given that we have chat Bots uh now
41:14
um that can simulate this but um you know we have no reason to believe that they can't just because when we
41:19
understand how they're programmed that doesn't seem to involve so I know yes but I still think I'm sure you do too
41:27
actually that that ultimately it must be possible I agree I think ultimately it must be possible I as I say I wonder how
41:34
we will know how we'll get there how we'll ever know yeah yes but that is because the simulation could be so
41:39
perfect yeah I think that's the point about solipsism as well that you the
41:45
only person you really know is conscious is yourself yes and so if you argue by analogy and
41:51
you say well you've come into being in the same kind of process as everybody else and so they must be conscious and that doesn't
41:57
bother us as a general you know living the world in the world we assume that all the people we're talking to are conscious but but with
42:04
artificial intelligence we will get to the point where it should bother us yes how are we treating this being yes
42:10
appropriately or not because if it is conscious I think then it ought to be treated in a way that as with animals
42:15
has concern for its interests and if it's not there's no interest to be concerned right yes yeah
42:23
and I would then like to move on to some of these questions about animals and just by way of preliminary
42:29
um I think we first came into contact in the early 1990s when I was working with
42:36
an Italian um thinker about animals called Paula Cavalieri on what we initially thought
42:43
we were going to call the chimpanzee project and the idea of the chimpanzee project was something like this you know I had
42:49
written animal Liberation at this point 15 to 20 years earlier it had got some
42:54
attention but essentially it hadn't achieved what it what I wanted it to that is to awaken people at the very
43:01
least to the terrible things we do to animals in factory farms and get them to stop eating them
43:07
so um so Paula calderi came up with the idea
43:13
that said look let's focus on those animals who are closest to us and who we're not actually
43:18
eating but who you know we can most closely relate to and she suggested
43:23
initially chimpanzees and maybe in that way we can bridge this huge Gulf between humans and animals you
43:30
know all humans are equal we say animals are not equal all humans have human rights animals don't have rights
43:38
um that kind of enormous divide that people saw as separating humans from animals we wanted to bridge so we had
43:46
this idea of collecting essays from people who might be sympathetic to that for a book called the chimpanzee project
43:51
and we wrote to you um and you firstly um we're sympathetic and was willing to
43:58
write and secondly you suggested why stop a chimpanzees I don't know if you remember this correspondence but um you
44:04
said well for example there are uh bonobos uh they're gorillas there are orangutans
44:11
um they also you know whatever you want to talk about about capacities um the way the cognitive capacity is the
44:19
the close relationships they form with their kin and their group would apply uh
44:25
to those well perhaps not so much to orangutans who are more solitary so anyway we ended up calling it The grade
44:30
8 project and you contributed a an essay called gaps in the mind which was
44:36
against the discontinuous way of thinking about humans and animals that I just mentioned that this is great Gulf
44:42
between them and you Illustrated this was something that I've always remembered and it went like this you imagined
44:50
uh a human a girl standing on the coast
44:55
of uh Africa I think you said in Somalia um holding her mother in her right hand
45:02
let's say facing This Way South and holding her mother's hand and her mother
45:07
was holding her mother so the first one's grandmother and on and on and on through or back through the generations
45:14
until you got to the point at which you had got to the common ancestor of humans
45:20
and chimpanzees the great ape that we are most closely related to and you estimated allowing about a yard per
45:27
person that that might take about 300 miles you would get into Kenya but
45:33
not as far as Mount Kenya I think you wrote and then you imagine this ancestors anstresses and great great
45:41
whatever grandmother of us in her other hand she had the sister of
45:48
the girl who from whom were humans were descended and so these siblings were facing each
45:54
other but then that one had her her daughter and her daughter and so on so you had first cousins second cousins all
46:01
the way down until the line stretched back to the modern chimpanzee
46:07
um and when you think about that and all of those gradual differences going on
46:13
then I think it does become very hard to think that uh humans have rights you know there's some point in this
46:20
series of gradual differences that humans have rights and uh animals don't
46:26
have rights so that was uh I really still appreciate that you supported that that project
46:32
then we didn't have much contact for quite a while but in 2009 you were
46:38
making a program where the BBC was making a program with you called the Genius of Darwin and I was in Princeton in the time and
46:45
you were going to be in New York and they asked if we could um if they could film an interview a
46:52
discussion that we had so we had this discussion which you can still see although the the BBC Genius of
46:58
Darwin only took uh shortcuts of it as you'd expect but the full 40 odd Minutes interview is still on on YouTube it's
47:05
filmed somewhere near the world uh World Trade Center which at that time had not been fully rebuilt but so we're in this
47:11
big Skyscraper with a distant view of New York I watched it this afternoon
47:16
it's good actually yeah it's good so um we talked about uh
47:22
the differences between humans and animals and I think we agreed that um ethically even though we have
47:29
obviously Superior cognitive capacities and no non-human animal could understand
47:35
what we're talking about now that that wasn't really important for how we ought to treat non-human animals
47:42
and um that question that you know Bentham asked
47:47
this question back at the end of the 18th century he said the question is not can they reason nor can they talk but
47:53
can they suffer I think you you agreed with that view that that's what's really important
47:59
and I then ask you um if you were eating meat and or if you felt you could defend
48:06
eating meat and um you said well I could if animals had good lives again
48:13
I'm paraphrasing you may not have said exactly this and you're if you watch it this afternoon you may have seen it more recently than I did you have but you
48:19
said if animals had good lives and were painlessly killed perhaps I could defend eating meat but um
48:26
I expect that that's not the case no what really goes on is unconscionable
48:32
um and I push a little harder and said yes but I think if you're eating meat you have a responsibility to inform
48:39
yourself about what it's like and so now I want to come back and
48:44
ask you have you informed yourself and if you have are you still eating me I am not well I
48:51
I believe there's been little Improvement I mean I think I think it's it's it's it's I think it's probably true that that animals are very badly
48:58
treated in farms and slaughterhouses and being transported to to
49:04
um to slaughterhouses um we do not eat meat at home with not a
49:10
drop of meat ever enters the home and we don't make a fuss when we go out to dinner if somebody asks us out to dinner
49:16
but we don't say vegetarian so we
49:21
it's a it's a compromise and and uh moved a fairly long way in being purely
49:26
vegetarian at home um I have something I mean at that that same conversation I suggested what about
49:33
eating human roadkills um because if they if they've been not
49:38
deliberately killed but killed by accident and if you had any reason to suppose that they didn't mind
49:44
um before they were killed if they perhaps carried of like one carries one right I carry a kidney card that says
49:50
that says you never mind my kidneys I could carry a car and say I don't mind being eaten if I if if I'm
49:59
um and um and I think we we realized then that what what remains is a is a kind of yuck
50:06
factor uh and a sort of um taboo against cannibalism which which
50:11
is very deeply ingrained in in us and I I think I pay more
50:17
respect to this slippery slope argument than you do perhaps I I think that there
50:22
really is a strong case for um avoiding
50:28
slippery slopes and so something like even if if it's very hard to think of an actual
50:35
moral objection to eating humans um I wouldn't do it on on partly for
50:41
yuck reasons and partly for slippery slope uh reasons um I do have
50:48
[Music] um an interesting but I think it's an interesting one I'd like to put to you
50:54
um firstly on the Bentham quotation the the
50:59
question is not can they reason can they think but can they suffer it's also are
51:04
they related to us that's also irrelevant it doesn't matter if they're closely related to us
51:10
um if if octopuses are um capable of feeling pain
51:17
um then that's what matters can they suffer that's what matters it doesn't matter that they are exceedingly
51:22
unrelated to us and so it's it's not um the thing that's important about great
51:29
apes should not be just that they're close to us in terms of kinship to us which they are but also
51:36
um whether they can suffer now the additional argument which I want to put to you is this
51:42
if you ask yourself that darwinian question what is pain for why why has natural selection built into
51:50
our nervous system built into our brains the capacity to feel pain the answer is
51:55
of course it's a warning to the animal don't do that again
52:01
if you've if you have just done something which causes bodily injury to
52:07
you um physical trauma to your body
52:12
then that causes pain that also increases your probability of dying
52:18
and so it's a warning to the animal do not repeat whatever you've just done do not repeat it if it causes pain that's
52:25
what pain is for now um that's uncontroversial I suggest
52:31
um in fact I I believe you could probably buy artificial selection breed a race of
52:37
animals that enjoyed pain but that's a separate issue um now here's the here's the argument I
52:45
want to put I want to put to you if pain is a warning
52:52
don't do that again you might ask the question well why did it have to be so damn painful why couldn't it why
52:58
couldn't the brain just have a little red flag that pops up it says right like your self-driving car doesn't it yes
53:04
exactly fully self-driving yes deviation don't do that again yeah and the and
53:09
well possibly the answer to that is that the
53:15
the brain might Rebel there might be a conflict between needing between wanting
53:20
sex and wanting food and wanting to avoid danger and so on so that's why it has to be painful but now it comes the
53:26
interesting point an animal Which is less intelligent
53:32
less capable of reason than things that Bentham mentions actually might need
53:39
more pain in order to be deterred from doing whatever is endure is to itself a very
53:46
intelligent animal it's like a human might well require less pain
53:56
and therefore it could be that so-called lower animals animals that are
54:01
less capable of reason and thought might actually be more capable of
54:07
feeling pain in other words the equation which we have unconsciously
54:14
taken up which is that it's okay to be unkind to animals
54:20
because after all they can't really think they don't really probably don't really feel pain they probably feel more pain
54:26
because they need to feel more pain in order to be to to
54:31
uh be deterred from doing whatever it is that they're just doing the the equivalent of the little red flag that
54:38
that pops up it might actually need to be more painful you see animal is less capable of uh ratiosa Nation
54:46
so that's a very interesting point um I'm sorry that the new edition of animal Liberation has already gone to
54:52
press I'm not going to be able to change it anymore and add that interesting possibility
54:58
um because yes I I mean it it it certainly does seem to be uh something
55:04
that might have worked that way uh of course you know this gets back to Consciousness and it's inaccessibility
55:09
in a way to science and the is is there a way that we can tell whether that hypothesis is correct uh I
55:17
think that probably is not um it's it's a plausibility argument but it's a pretty plausible one yeah it it
55:24
does seem so to me um and certainly you know I think it has already been said that animals rely on their senses very
55:31
much um you know Acuity of vision or smell or whatever it is so at the very least we should give them the benefit of
55:36
the doubt and anyway I think that's a very a very good point yes thank you very much for that
55:43
um I think we are at about the point where we should be moving to questions so there is a microphone up there in the
55:51
back of this Central block um so if you would like to ask a
55:57
question um you would make your way up there and we will have about half an hour for
56:03
questions please do not make statements this is not an occasion for giving us a speech about your point of view it's uh
56:11
for asking a short sharp question please so um I would suggest questions to Peter
56:17
as well as me if I may uh thank you that's if you wish to ask a question to me I'm I think it's primarily your
56:23
evening so I'm expecting the questions to be mainly for you but somebody has one for me I'll I'll take it
56:30
thank you
56:39
see the people at the marketplace at the moment here yeah it's a good time to see the microphone it was easier when we were just looking people down the front
56:45
but there's a number of people there um okay
56:51
so that's where the microphone is I pointed too high I'm sorry thank you
56:56
okay we have quite a few it's probably already more people than um we will have time for
57:05
but I'm going to do a little bit of sorting um I've noticed that it often happens in events like this
57:11
when you ask for questions the men in the audience raise their hands first or get to the microphone
57:18
first so I'm going to ask if there are the
57:23
first couple of women I can't really see people there if there are a couple of women in that line if they could
57:29
boldly assert themselves somewhere closer to the front thank you
57:37
you could getting actually I don't know I can't see it is there only one woman
57:43
there that's yes thank you okay we've got a couple so why don't we um why don't we just mix it up a little
57:49
bit okay um I don't mind who asked the first question go ahead if you want whoever's at the microphone now and uh
57:55
then we'll we'll go on please Richard I have a question for you
58:00
how would you define consciousness in your own words
58:06
that's a question for a philosopher we have one on the stage um uh I find an extremely hard question
58:14
to answer it's it's something that I think we all subjectively know we have
58:19
um and uh I feeling of self-awareness the feeling
58:25
that um uh self personal identity the the feeling
58:31
that that it's me that's uniquely me that goes back from when I first became
58:36
capable of remembering anything um I don't have a philosophically
58:44
sophisticated answer to that question I think each of us know inside ourselves what it means to be conscious but I
58:52
can't offer you an actual verbal definition I think
58:57
so if I will just jump in a little bit firstly um I agree with what you said but I
59:02
think that's really self-awareness rather than simply
59:07
Consciousness um because going back to what you just said about
59:13
simpler beings without our cognitive abilities they're not going to be thinking back to themselves and saying
59:18
I'm the same bird that was in the nest and now I can fly and I couldn't fly then I don't
59:24
think they're going to be thinking that but they are going to be capable of feeling pain so I think there's a level of Consciousness that doesn't require
59:29
self-awareness but it is very difficult to Define because you tend to Define it with other terms that you then you know
59:36
need to go around in circles they can say Well it's having subjective experiences but what does that mean the
59:42
philosopher Tom Nagel wrote an article called what is it like to be a bat in which he tried to ask what it might be
59:48
like to be a creature using Sono rather than vision and he said there
59:54
that further for being to be conscious there has to be something that it is like to be that being
1:00:01
and I think that gives us a reasonable Common Sense explanation so
1:00:07
I think in an example I've I've used um if there's a stone in your path as you're
1:00:14
walking and you think just for fun you kick the stone along the road a few times it's not a problem because there's
1:00:20
nothing that it's like to be a stone being kicked but if it was a let's say an injured
1:00:26
animal that was in the path they are a mass and you kicked it along the the
1:00:32
path for a while just for the amusement of it that would be wrong because there is something that it's like to be to be a
1:00:38
mass being being kicked now I don't know that we can say more than that but I'd say that's the difference between saying
1:00:43
the mass is conscious and the stone is not yes next question please thank you
1:00:51
I'll jump in now at the risk of not being a woman um it's fine
1:00:57
I'm not against uh you know I'm egalitarian on this
1:01:03
Consciousness they've been to I'm speaking sort of as a last physicist so
1:01:08
I'm coming from a scientific point of view not philosophical but I've got a question
1:01:14
um there have been two recent relatively recent
1:01:20
um I think major findings on Consciousness um one was sort of Penrose hammeroff
1:01:26
work that suggested microtubules in the neurons give rise to Consciousness and
1:01:33
there's been some very recent work that suggests there's possibly a truth to
1:01:38
that but it's still a work in progress the other one is there was a paper in
1:01:43
nature recently that suggested about a half a billion years ago
1:01:48
there was a common ancestor which has given rise to a number of conscious
1:01:54
borders I guess of animals including primates
1:01:59
I think Birds such as Ravens and blackbirds octopus
1:02:06
uh squared Etc um
1:02:11
I guess the question is should the focus of
1:02:18
um does this support animal Liberation and is it at odds with humanism which
1:02:25
sort of puts Humanity above other creatures when there's seven billion of us who
1:02:32
by almost by necessity then push animals to the background or other conscious
1:02:39
organisms to the background I think it's impossible to know what other organisms are conscious and I
1:02:46
think the only reason we're we're confident that each other are conscious is because we we are can we come from
1:02:54
the same sort of place we look like each other I I have no idea whether octopus is a conscious I've got a strong
1:03:00
emotional suspicion that they are um uh I don't know what you're talking
1:03:05
about this half a billion years ago um a conscious being gave rise to primates and octopuses I mean half a
1:03:12
billion years ago is long before um that could possibly be be correct I
1:03:20
think um but it but if octopuses are conscious then they will have evolved it
1:03:25
independently and they would very well may have I don't know how we're ever going to know that
1:03:31
um as for the Penrose Theory I am not qualified to judge that but it's still a
1:03:36
physical Theory it's not a it's not there's nothing mystical about it yeah exactly yeah yeah and maybe it was 50
1:03:43
million not 500 million but uh but if it was if it was a common
1:03:48
ancestor of the octopus and the vertebrates it's going to have to be a lot more than a lot more than that it's going to be more than more than a
1:03:54
billion but I think the interesting thing about the octopus and I do think that octopus I mean it's very hard to
1:03:59
explain their behavior without assuming Consciousness I think uh but you could say the same about the computer couldn't
1:04:05
use it well it's possible um I suppose yes uh
1:04:12
I think octopuses are conscious but but I I couldn't defend that I see yeah
1:04:18
um okay I I mean they went created with a with an
1:04:23
intention to make beings to do things in the way the computers are um so I think that they they probably
1:04:30
are um you did ask a question about whether this pushes animals into the background
1:04:36
um I don't think so yeah I mean it's true that there's a lot of us and and in fact we've pushed them into the
1:04:42
background and we've also of course greatly affected the kinds of non-human animals that
1:04:48
exist because um the number of of chickens in the world now I think is you know vastly in
1:04:55
excess of the other birds of any individual species and even I think close to equaling uh the number of birds
1:05:03
in total because we we're something like 60 or 70 billion of them each year so we
1:05:09
are pushing um we are changing things through uh uh dominance of the planet
1:05:14
there's no question that we we dominated and change it in that way but ethically I don't see that there's a justification
1:05:21
for us ignoring uh the interests of of the others given that they that at least
1:05:27
it's highly probable that they do feel pain thank you let's have the next question
1:05:33
hello when did Humanity Peak
1:05:39
when does Humanity what when did Humanity Peak I think is that is that right yes
1:05:45
be nice to think we haven't peaked yet wouldn't it um I I
1:05:52
don't think that there ever is a peak in evolution it just it just goes on as as
1:05:58
that was selectioning favors different different things it's a it's an interesting question whether uh humans
1:06:04
are going to go on evolving and and there are reasons I think that we're a bit different and that we've rather
1:06:10
feather bedded ourselves and no longer a subject to The Cutting Edge of natural selection
1:06:16
um so it may be that um we're not going to evolve any bigger brains for example if you
1:06:23
look at our fossil history for the last three million years the most dominant feature is the increase in brain size
1:06:28
very dramatic and there's no reason to think that's going to go on in in order for that to go on it would be necessary
1:06:34
that bigger brained individuals have the most children it's this idea that we picked uh this
1:06:40
this is kind of irrelevant but I can't refrain from telling you um I published
1:06:46
animal Liberation when I was 29 and I was appointed a professor at Monash at 31 and a year or two after that
1:06:53
um an acquaintance said to me it must be difficult for you having peaked so early
1:07:01
okay let's take the next question uh this is a question for both of you I
1:07:08
I'm assuming both of you are vegetarian but not as far as vegan uh I just wanted to know what you
1:07:14
thought of hunting and fishing for the purposes of both survival and for sport
1:07:20
right Richard you can go first and then I'll say something about my views you may have both you may have both answered
1:07:26
this later and I'm not a big reader so I'd answer for my sake but I I have no respect for anybody who hunts and fishes
1:07:33
for sport Fitness
1:07:43
um and and I think Richard explained that he's a vegetarian at home but not uh always when eating out and
1:07:49
um I think that's you know a big step to take and I appreciate that you have taken that step I think that that's
1:07:55
important because that's a great amount of your support for um uh what we do to
1:08:01
animals in intensive farms and slaughterhouses is taken away when you don't buy them to consume at home
1:08:08
um I describe myself as a flexible vegan um I request vegan food when I can get
1:08:14
it we just had something to eat before this event and I'd ask the organizer to provide vegan food and it was provided
1:08:22
um so mostly what I eat is vegan but I'm not absolutely strict about that and
1:08:27
particularly I think the the the Animal product that is most readily accessible
1:08:33
that I think could best be justified is eggs from truly free-ranging hens
1:08:39
because I think they do have reasonable lives it's true that the males of the laying breeds will get sorted and killed
1:08:47
within the first day of hatching and it's also true that the laying hens once
1:08:52
their rate of lay drops off or even after a year or so will also get sent out to slaughter but still you could say
1:08:58
well you know they get to run around us they have a good life they're protected and fed and that's not too bad and here
1:09:05
in in Victoria I know we do actually have pretty good labeling systems and we
1:09:11
have free range eggs and some of the boxes will even tell you how many hens per hectare they're running and basically
1:09:16
I've actually been a chicken catcher before for a free range Farm it's not as glamorous as you might think okay
1:09:24
well I'll have to watch that then myself um but I think you know you'd probably agree that some are better than others
1:09:30
or they're all heinous as far as I'm concerned okay all right um so anyway
1:09:36
um I you know I do think that um it's better to avoid animal products to be
1:09:41
confident that you're not supporting suffering and and you've just given another reason why it's difficult to be
1:09:47
confident about that with that being fully vegan um but I also you know respect people
1:09:54
who've taken serious steps along the way because I would rather have you know I would rather let's say that
1:10:00
half the population did what Richard is doing um than have
1:10:05
10 of the population being completely vegan because I think that would you know there would be more animal suffering continuing if 10 of the
1:10:12
population were vegan but everybody else was eating meat all the time
1:10:18
yes let's take the next question um I've just got a two-part Evolution
1:10:25
question um the first you may have already answered so perhaps ignore but um given that contraception is largely
1:10:32
taken up uh more commonly and highly educated and less perhaps less available
1:10:38
to less educated people and perhaps um also not taken on by more religious
1:10:44
people do you think we are evolutionary moving towards being less scientific and secondly
1:10:50
um how do you feel that artificial intelligence will impact Evolution ongoing
1:10:57
I think the first question is is about um um contraception being uh more prevalent
1:11:05
among Highly Educated people um and um if there were a a strong
1:11:11
genetic component to that then there would be a an evolutionary Trend
1:11:17
um it's controversial uh how much of um a genetic component there is you see
1:11:23
it seems certain there's a strong genetic component in IQ as measured
1:11:29
um that that's been shown in twin studies for example where um if you if you compare
1:11:35
monozygotic twins identical twins how much they resemble each other compared to fraternal twins who are less closely
1:11:43
related and you say what is the uh the extra correlation between
1:11:49
um identical twins to fraternal twins then IQ does come out fairly high so
1:11:54
there is there is a strong genetic component in IQ but you said educated
1:12:01
and um plenty of people who have high IQ are not well educated because of
1:12:06
economic circumstances and so um I I thought perhaps less scientific rather
1:12:11
than less intelligent well no not I don't I don't know I mean I I think that that
1:12:17
um uh it it it's probably hard to say that there's an evolutionary Trend
1:12:22
towards uh towards less scientific education something of that sort I
1:12:28
wouldn't wish to say that um you're treading political politically Dangerous Ground too when you get into
1:12:34
that kind of thing um uh the other question was about um
1:12:40
artificial intelligence was it yeah how do you think artificial intelligence might impact Evolution well
1:12:47
humans it could be that if if say in in a thousand years we look our descendants
1:12:53
look back it could be that that there will be a a strong tendency for humans
1:12:58
to be to have um electronic components built into their bodies you know instead
1:13:04
of carrying your iPhone around it'll be built into your head um and and you control it with thought
1:13:09
rather than with your fingers um so there could be a sort of merging of of um technology with but with
1:13:18
Biology I'm not sure I would want to call that Evolution because it's no longer no longer genetic Evolution it
1:13:24
would be a a cultural Evolution and this is getting into science fiction which I love by the
1:13:31
way and and but it is it is it is a fictional speculation but it may not be fictional all that
1:13:37
long right I mean there are people working on this Elon Musk was working on one of these programs that got in the
1:13:42
news recently because he was using monkeys and rather experiments that they were not being well looked after
1:13:49
um but uh but it's possible and I have to say you know I wouldn't mind having uh some of my memory implanted in a chip
1:13:55
that I had ready access to as long as nobody else has access to it
1:14:00
that is an interesting question it could be hacked into good thank you next question
1:14:07
good evening Richard it's an honor to be in this room with you um I'm Iranian I was born a Muslim
1:14:14
thanks to you and Christopher Hitchens I'm an atheist now and um
1:14:23
and um I embraced uh secular values um I believe in secular values and I believe
1:14:30
that the western civilization has made tremendous uh improvements and advancements however
1:14:37
unfortunately listening to people like Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson they
1:14:42
believe that we should go back to the way things were to traditional um Christian values because of the new
1:14:49
forms of religions uh in forms of identity politics and tribalism that's
1:14:54
been formed today and um that we should go back to Catholic
1:14:59
values and Christian values and and embrace where we came from you know these are the words of Douglas Murray I
1:15:06
don't agree with that I believe that we should move Beyond uh what we are doing
1:15:11
at the moment um but we really wanted to get your perspective on this and I highly value your judgment yes I think it would be a
1:15:18
great pity if we if we thought that in order to um improve things we had to go back to
1:15:24
Christian values as you say there are much better ways of doing things than that and we should govern Our Lives by
1:15:33
um well moral philosophy actually rather than traditional religious
1:15:38
values I even suggested we should in intelligently design uh uh morals and
1:15:48
our ethics rather than to derive them from some traditional
1:15:53
holy book um well goodness heavens above and businessman let's not do that
1:16:00
um to think about the Holy books that are on offer the Old Testament and the Quran
1:16:05
um would be an appalling idea to base things on on that
1:16:11
um I I'm delighted to hear you your your story from Iran and I hear other stories
1:16:17
similarly from from other is Islamic countries uh Peter mentioned that The
1:16:23
God Delusion had sold very well in America that's true but
1:16:28
um I can also say that um it an illicit Arabic translation of
1:16:34
The God Delusion has sold 13 million not sold has been downloaded 13 million
1:16:39
times as a PDF in Arabic um
1:16:45
and this is this is um this is uh um not paid for this this is a free pdf
1:16:52
um my my uh Foundation the Richard Dawkins foundation for reason and science is now
1:16:58
um actually um translating my books The God Delusion and others into Arabic Farsi uh Urdu and
1:17:07
Indonesian um to try to and and again for for free download as as PDFs and that that
1:17:14
project is flourishing at the moment with we're having large numbers of of PDFs downloaded in those Islamic
1:17:22
countries very good
1:17:27
thank you next question uh hello uh I am a woman and it's not
1:17:32
because I have a magical inner feeling it tells me that I am uh but my question today would be uh um following on I
1:17:40
guess in the previous questions uh you've talked a lot about I guess religion and we know it has a bit of a tension between religion and Science and
1:17:47
um scientific uh reason I was wondering whether you felt that there was some didway attention between scientific
1:17:55
reason and political ideologies on both the left and the right I know from my experience people have been very
1:18:01
resistant um when I tried to explain for example the role of genetics in personality and
1:18:07
aggression because of obviously the political tension associated with that idea I was wondering whether you
1:18:13
recognized that that was a phenomenon and how we might get past that in
1:18:19
explaining science to people so tension between scientific and political beliefs
1:18:25
sorry about starting my bad um they're my defense too I'm assurity yeah um yeah
1:18:30
so tension between uh I guess like the scientific what the science tells us
1:18:36
which is for example that our genes have a strong influence on our personalities and our tendency to be aggressive and
1:18:43
that is I think poetically and convenient particularly uh for people on the left which might explain why there
1:18:50
was such a strong response to a book titled the selfish Gene that this philosopher didn't even bother yes well
1:18:57
I am aware that there has been a political there was a political uh pushback against the selfish Gene again
1:19:03
I think because it was misunderstood as being an advocacy of of uh selfishness
1:19:10
um if there were some scientific reason for pessimisms there were some scientific
1:19:17
reason for um believing that humans were innately selfish which I don't think necessarily
1:19:25
um then I would my feeling would be that it
1:19:31
would be all the more reason to educate people to rebel against
1:19:37
their genetic Heritage if there was a genetic tendency to be uh selfish to be violent
1:19:46
to be aggressive then I would wish to see that overcome
1:19:52
by education and it would be a political decision to implement such an
1:19:59
educational program I have often said that Darwinism is such a horrible idea
1:20:07
although it's true um and we mustn't shy away from the fact that it's true insofar as we
1:20:14
studied Darwinism it should be as a lesson in how not to organize Society rather than in how to organize society
1:20:21
and societies which have aspired to be organized on darwinistic lines have been
1:20:27
appalling Societies in which to live uh yeah I absolutely agree I guess the
1:20:33
other part of my question is given that people on the left don't like these ideas
1:20:39
um how would we go about communicating them despite I think there's a confusion
1:20:44
among some people on the on the Left End of thinking that if you could if there's a scientific reason for believing something is true
1:20:50
um then you should oppose the truth of it rather than rather than um try to educate people out of it so
1:20:58
that I've been attacked on the left in Britain for example
1:21:03
um and by people who to try to make out that it might it must not be allowed to be true that certain scientific Things
1:21:10
Are that because it would be so nasty if it were I prefer to say maybe they are
1:21:15
nasty so that so then let's try to change things um by education
1:21:21
but uh let me just add I I think there's also a kind of a Heritage of uh Marxist ideology here because Marx thought that
1:21:29
um there is no such thing as human nature that if you transform the economic basis of society you will
1:21:35
transform human nature so if we all own the means of production in common then
1:21:40
instead of having the egoistic selfish individuals of capitalism we'll have the Cooperative uh socially
1:21:47
benevolent individuals of the Communist Society um obviously that didn't happen when the
1:21:53
Soviet Union was established um but um I think there is still a lingering of that tradition which is an
1:22:00
anti- idea that there is a genetic basis to Human Nature let's have the next question please
1:22:09
firstly just thank you for the common sense and reason that you have both brought to our world in our lives my
1:22:15
question is quite simple if Charles Darwin was sitting on the stage with you right now what would you ask him and
1:22:22
what would you say to him I did something a little bit like that
1:22:28
happened to me a Japanese television Company um dressed up an actor as Charles died
1:22:34
and um he he came to my door and knocked on
1:22:40
the door and I opened the door to him and I I knew it was going to happen I
1:22:46
mean what wasn't it wasn't impromptu and I so I sort of said you know I was
1:22:52
delighted to meet you sir and and come upstairs and and we'll talk um there it was more a question of what
1:22:59
of what he could learn about what had happened since since he was around and
1:23:04
um so I was supposed to bring him up to date and I told him about Mendel I told him about
1:23:10
DNA and and he played his part well um and was duly enlightened by what I
1:23:17
had to say um um I um well I I would be awestruck obviously
1:23:25
I I would be delighted to make his acquaintance he was
1:23:30
um well Dan then it said if I had to give a prize for the for the greatest idea any anyone ever had I'd give it to
1:23:37
Darwin ahead of everybody else um so uh yes I I would be awestruck I I I'm
1:23:44
not sure what I would ask him um I I think I would just sort of vanish into
1:23:52
quietness really okay all right when you have time maybe for two more questions you want to answer
1:23:58
that one quickly sorry did anything come to your mind Peter did anything come to my mind about what I would ask Darwin
1:24:04
yes um so as you know I'm more interested in
1:24:10
ethics um I down said a lot of positive things about um animals
1:24:15
um uh he wrote one of perhaps his one of his less well-known works is called the expression of the emotions in humans in
1:24:23
in animals um and uh he says things like you know it is only a matter of degree it's not a
1:24:30
it's not that there's a wholly different kind of humans and non-humans so I
1:24:35
suppose I would invite him to look at what we're doing to animals today and
1:24:40
again I would especially focus on on factory farming which because of its scale you know that's dwarfs all of the
1:24:46
other things harms that we inflict on animals um something like 80 billion animals in
1:24:53
raised and slaughtered in factory farms each year worldwide and I would ask him to comment on that
1:24:59
and this would be you know I guess I would hope that he would say something that could be used to try to reduce this
1:25:05
so this would be a rather more pragmatic question than uh than an inquiry but I
1:25:11
would I would like to know what he would think of this world that we've created thank you
1:25:17
next question hi Richard hi guys um this question is
1:25:23
for my dad um yeah so my family and I are ex-muslim
1:25:28
and just living in the age of social media it's common for people to share verses of the Quran
1:25:34
and like the Holy Bible I guess however these are the posts that often
1:25:40
get banned in accounts suspended so what would you like what what's your opinion
1:25:45
on that and is there something that you didn't quite sure something about the account suspended oh so just when people
1:25:52
Express themselves especially through verses on like the Quran
1:25:58
it often leads to account suspensions and like if they criticize the Quran
1:26:05
no just like General expression and just so you can't quote the Quran on Twitter
1:26:10
you're saying without getting your your account is it a particular verses that they're being quite
1:26:16
um yeah like certain verses and certain ideas that are expressed are often so
1:26:23
they're verses that would be regarded as offensive to non-people who are not
1:26:28
Pious Muslims is that I think yeah just in regards to like life and I know your
1:26:34
opinion on like the Quran and stuff but I I've never heard of people having
1:26:41
their accounts suspended for quoting the Quran I thought rather the reverse that you've got your account suspended if you
1:26:47
criticize the Quran no it's that's not my information especially
1:26:53
with like Islamic countries can you tell us what verses are you able to quote a
1:26:59
verse so that we have I want to know it's from my dad oh in in Islamic countries yeah oh well that's different
1:27:05
you you mean um in in Islamic countries your account gets suspended yes oh I believe that yes
1:27:13
um okay uh yes um well uh I uh my response to that I I
1:27:20
don't approve of um y'all can't be being suspended
1:27:30
I believe in freedom of speech thank you thanks a lot okay
1:27:36
um I think we have to make this to the last question thanks sorry about the other Super Why thanks so much for coming to Melbourne it's funny how you
1:27:43
reconcile the philosophical and ethical understandable drive to be vegetarianism
1:27:49
with the selfish Gene that's got us to this point eating meat
1:27:54
[Music] is that a question yes how do I reconcile
1:28:01
well the drive to be vegetarianism with the fact that we've arrived at this point over many years as essentially
1:28:07
your omnivores but eating meat uh yes we have arrived as omnivores and
1:28:14
there's no doubt about that that we are we are biologically omnivores it doesn't mean we have to be omnivores we can have
1:28:20
ethical reasons for uh being vegetarian um and um so we might have to take
1:28:27
special dietary steps I don't know whether Peter takes extra vitamin pills or anything like that I take B12 that's
1:28:33
the only supplement that I take um so so but we are we're omnivores we're not if
1:28:39
if we were if we were intelligent Lions then I think it would be probably impossible
1:28:44
um and um uh it wouldn't the the the the ethical considerations would be
1:28:49
overruled by dietary ones but but we're omnivores and so we can we can cope with it
1:28:55
but I I touched back a little bit if you don't mind about the Assumption there that because we've evolved in this way
1:29:01
therefore in some way it's it's all right to continue to do it um and I think that's not true because
1:29:07
we've also evolved through a lot of violence and conflict um and uh you know those humans are around today probably
1:29:14
our ancestors got rid of some other people um certainly you know we're here in Australia we know that if we're if we're
1:29:21
not of indigenous descent then we know that our ancestors um or or well not all of us depends when
1:29:27
our ancestors came I suppose but that a lot of them did push indigenous people off the lands but that's no
1:29:33
justification for continuing to do so or saying therefore because we got here by that reason that way it's okay to keep
1:29:39
doing it we're involved to walk around naked yeah
1:29:45
good I think we have to bring this to an end
1:29:50
um yeah uh thanks very much Richard um but before we before uh I do thank
1:29:57
this and and uh ended so let me say uh it's been a great pleasure having you
1:30:03
here and and talking to you and having this conversation I've greatly enjoyed that um some of you have bought VIP tickets I
1:30:10
want to remind you that we will you get a chance to mingle or have books signed or something like that
1:30:16
um uh after the event closes so you will be shown where to go
1:30:22
um and for the rest of you thanks a lot for coming making this event uh such a
1:30:28
successful one thanks for all of those who got to ask questions apologies for those who didn't and have a good rest of
1:30:34
the evening thank you
1:30:40
thank you
1:30:45
if you enjoyed this episode you can show some support by subscribing to the podcast sharing it with your friends and
1:30:52
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Link zur deutschen Übersetzung ...hier

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