Breaking the Science Barrier - Part3
(Classical sound track plays)
Richard Dawkins : This is the University museum in Oxford.It's full of the most wonderful objects, skeletons, rocks and fossils,which tell us something about how we came to be.That's why I love this place,it's a spiritual home for me.
[This is the sense in which I call myself a "spiritual person" - not believing in spirits any more than Richard does.But like him, having a sense of profound awe and wonder at the universe and man's relationship with it. I suspect most theists know what I'm talking about.What might surprise them however,is that an scientifically orientated atheist,can appreciate this aspect of life -LB]
If you let it,science offers the best answer to the deep questions of existence."Who am I ? Where did I come from? What am I for?".It'll illuminate the world you live in and show you where you stand in the universe.
[Contrary to Appleyard's whining,Steven Hawking has a righteous claim to make comments about God,man and his place in the universe.It is testimony to how insignificant Brian Appleyard's relationship is with science,that he thinks it isn't scientists place to speak of such things. I've not read Brian's book "Misunderstanding the Present" or "Speaking through the wrong orifice" or whatever it's called.I have it on good authority that Brian makes some kind of sense and has been wrongly castigated.But Paul Davies's rebuttal at
www.edge.org is enough for me.This won't however stop me from reading his book should I get the opportunity, since everyone's innocent until proven guilty.But I have heard Brian speak,and he made about as much sense as Graham Hancock(-and bull),with the exception of articulating the ethical/moral dilemma component which worries everyone -LB]
We haven't long between the beginning and the end of our personal existence.Science offers us the privilege before we die of understanding why we were ever born in the first place.
[Note that this isn't very useful perhaps,but it certainly is something to be valued.You can't put a price on understanding -LB]
I look for understanding to the study of evolution,to Darwin's astonishingly powerful explanation for all of life.It satisfies my head and my heart.Others find their satisfaction in different areas,but wherever scientists are looking,they are all asking the same kind of question.
David Attenborough : I ,as a boy,lived in Leicestershire,and in that part of Leicestershire you can go into a quarry and you can find a stone,and if you knock that stone open you see a seashell in the middle of it.
[So God hid seashells inside stones for what reason? Or do creationists accept fossilisation? If so then the world is clearly older than 10,000 years and thus the bible is bunk. Or was this another one of "prankster" God's little jests for his puerile amusement? -LB]
And if you're a boy of reasonable curiosity you say "How is there a stone with a sea shell in the middle of it in the middle of a rock?" and you want to know why,and that's how I became interested in the Natural Sciences. Now I may do a programme about birds of paradise,in which you are...your mind is blown because birds of paradise do such extraordinary, wonderful, amazing, beautiful, astonishing, unpredictable things. It becomes science if you then say "Why do they do those things? Why do they do them as a family only in New Guinea? Why is the family only in New Guinea? And why is it that birds of paradise have males,only one out of a population will fertilise all the other females,and what are the consequences of that on the evolution of the species?". Then it becomes science.It is a question which anybody who is...starts off with that excitement about birds of paradise,wants to know the answer,just as I did when I opened a rock and said "Why is there a shell there?".
Richard Dawkins : When we contemplate the colour,variety and complexity of the living world,it's easy to understand the satisfaction a scientist gets from studying it. Equally when we regard space in its lonely majesty,we can appreciate why astronomers devote a lifetime to exploring the stars,and where they came from.
Jocelyn Bell-Burnell : Astronomy certainly has me hooked.I'm talking about the immensities of the universe,not just the distances,but the number of stars,that there are,stars like our Sun,the possibility that there are other stars like our Sun,with planets,some of which might be inhabitable,some of which might be inhabited,so the idea that maybe we're not alone in the universe.The concept that our Sun will not be around forever.That one day it will begin to die and the Earth will become uninhabitable.
[No doubt as that day approaches the apocalyptic nutcases will be trotting out their tired old stories and proclaiming finally that the bible was correct in predicting the downfall of mankind!! Of course scientists know approximately the actual date of the end of the Earth from this scenario and it does not comply at all with bible BS. Jocelyn and Rick set me thinking,if these things are common to all people,then why do so many resent science. One reason might be that of the crop circle hoaxer- that some think ignorance is bliss,whereas as Rick has shown it's actually dangerous and detrimental to both an individual's and society's health. Referring to Whitman's "On hearing the Learn'd Astronomer", the romantic conception fills the world with fantasy notions and poetic comprehension,which is thence destroyed by science.As Rick says,the awe and wonder is not taken away but enlightened. I think the resentment comes from not being able to pursue things to the extent to which scientists do,it's jealousy. I'm sure that most people would like to actually find out about the things that interest them in more depth but are put off by an elitism that pervades the scientific establishment, and it's arcane symbols and complex arguments. As Richard Gregory shows in his "Exploratory" and as I've seen at our own Science and Industry Museum,once lay people are given the chance they do embrace scientific ideas,but perhaps have difficulty in following the thread or seeing how the conclusions are drawn.There may be some truth in the idea that published books for the lay public are shelved as status symbols or as an indication that the person is better read than they are,but at least it indicates that scientists are not remiss in trying to inform the public.I don't buy the idea that scientists are not trying hard enough to overcome scientific illiteracy,I think they've bent over backwards.It's now time for the public to knuckle down and accept responsibility for the society they've created,and become conversant with the language that created it. The only further thing I can see scientists doing is opening up the closed of corridors of academia and allowing the public to get a hands on -first hand account of what scientists are doing and why they are doing it,in order to do that,the public would have to be at least basically informed about fundamental ideas,or as John Durant suggests,basic principles,so that they do not ask inane and stupid or irrelevant questions. Some of the most vexing questions come from theists who have taken the time and trouble to be conversant with science,and make the likes of Fobb James look like a spoilt child having a tantrum because it can't get it's own way.Outright rejection through fear of something you don't understand and have never tried to,is no way to deal with anything,and just because something is difficult doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile doing.Challenges are usually more rewarding. Science sets the human mind the challenge of a lifetime as Rick suggests,to reach into the universe,and witness one's place in it. I don't see how anything else could offer anything greater than that -LB]
So we are transient people here,we are not here permanently,we cannot be here permanently.We will have to climb into space ships and go explore the universe and find another place to live.
( Choir sings)
Richard Dawkins : Science doesn't have to be big to be beautiful,or even beautiful to be rewarding.These tiny apparently unprepossessing insects are a case in point.They are fruit flies,and they are full of secrets. Matthew Freeman has been studying fruit flies day in and day out since he graduated 10 years ago.He'd be the first to admit it can be a slog!
Matthew Freeman : A lot of science is day to day grind and not at all exciting,and sometimes when you get up on a Monday morning,you think "Oh God,I don't want to go into the lab again"
[Don't appeal to him,he won't help you! -LB].But occasionally you get a little spark of insight into something which you know that no-one has done before.You understand some process,however small it is,in a way that you've been trying to battle to understand for a while,and in a way that no-one has done before,and I think that is really the key to the excitement.
Richard Dawkins : But in Dr Freeman's case,the spark of insight was not so little.He's discovered something in fruit flies that may lead to a treatment for human cancer.
[Note here that again there is an inherent idea that fruit flies can be used as "guinea pigs" as it were,for the benefit of human beings.In his "Meet my cousin the chimpanzee" article Rick's speciesism argument suggests we shouldn't automatically think like this.Perhaps the cases represented here come under the heading "one can make a case for human priority". Nevertheless,with the absurd news that dead bodies maybe in future anaesthetised in case brain dead body "feels pain" whilst being an organ donor,it somehow seems incongruous for Matt to glibly decapitate a fruit fly as he does in this programme,in pursuing a potential cure for cancer. No doubt those with cancer would say "I don't care how many flies die in order to cure my cancer",but this is exactly the speciesist argument that Rick presented. If you substitute "human" for "flies" people would think you a Nazi creating a holocaust. Of course their values do not equate human life with that of a fly,but as far as DNA is concerned there is no difference. Our pompous human brain presupposes using our own human values that human life is worth more,says who? We do of course,how arrogant can you get? If an alien being treated us like fruit flies,why should we grumble if we adopt the speciesist view? We wouldn't have a leg to stand on...literally -LB]
And that started with finding a fly on my microscope that didn't have a normal eye.Instead of having a very smooth regular pattern of the facets of the compound eye.It was very disrupted and rough,we called it.
[Question: If an omnipotent super designer made the universe, why did he invent lots of different eyes,some of which are better than others? Surely a perfect designer would make a single design which was the ultimate in seeing power? God isn't very good at this universe making lark is he? Contrary to our eye proving a designer,a fly's eye proves there is no designer.And further the imperfections in the eye that Matt found show that Nature is imperfect and therefore not the product of an omnipotent designer.Evolution and genetics however account for these imperfections,as trials and mutations and variations which may or may not be beneficial. Nature is just trying all the LEGO bricks in combination and seeing which one's work and which don't in a physical universe of laws -LB]
And so immediately I was interested to try and understand why this fly's eye hadn't developed normally.
Richard Dawkins : So Dr Freeman launched himself on the task of solving the problem.First he had to breed a strain of fruit fly which had disrupted eyes.The next challenge was to find out which genes were causing the mutation.
[In order to get a trait to show itself in a population,it may be necessary to back cross populations or individuals rather as one selectively breeds a dog or a plant.Those not carrying the trait then become of no relevance to bringing that trait to the fore. One argument that was put to me about these circumstances,was that scientists were "fudging the results" by selecting only the one's they wanted and throwing the rest away,and that in some way this was "cheating" and being unscrupulous in the way they arrived at the results.Apart from displaying a chronic lack of understanding the genetic process,what this suggests is that somehow the scientist has anything to gain by cheating. Of course if one is after prestige notoriety or fame or money,one can manipulate figures.As is shown in cromsome.html Millikan chose data to fit his preconceptions,and peer pressure can operate to stop people questioning the results of an authoritarian figure.But in this case no one stands to learn anything by cheating,and the unnecessary organisms are discarded. This must seem unusually callous to outside observers,and as above appear as a holocaust and a disrespect for life of Nazi proportions. I sympathise. But plant breeders have been doing this for ages,and one is forced variously to argue the pros and cons of the conscious awareness of various life forms and of their treatment on moral and ethical grounds,and not just squeamishly fall into auto pilot and claim it is just "wrong". Such areas are subject to value judgements and can't easily be seen to be just "right" and "wrong". Of course theists think they know what right and wrong are,and play upon our gut instincts and intuitions to presume that their texts have significance to us all. Not so. Great philosophers have harangued over this and still failed to come to any definitive answers,it is unlikely that some fretting,teary eyed emotional hand clenching wreck is going to outwit them in a single outburst at the loss of life. Don't get me wrong,I value life,perhaps moreso than the next person,and I don't like the casual disregard that people such as Matt have for it,but I.like he,am intrigued by the deformity,and if there was any way to study it without causing death,then I'd prefer that. I don't think Matt is the kind of guy that used to get pleasure out of removing spiders leg's as a boy,but by the same token I don't think the opposition to such uncontrolled curiosity should go unheard either. I am certain we cannot "play God" since there is no God to play.We are under our own recognisance, and this is a heavy responsibility which should not be taken lightly.We cannot and should not stem science's actions,but science should be subject to the scrutiny of an informed public,so that they can decide if something should or should not be done.Having said that would you wish a neurosurgeon to consult a hair stylist as to whether he should perform an operation on you? The experts are best informed,and so should be listened to, and as Rick suggests - questioned, people should not just acquiesce because an "expert" tells them something is so.They should know enough to test the expert,as Kevin Callan did - LB]
Then,when he and his team knew roughly what they were looking for they analysed the actual genetic code,in a process rather like genetic fingerprinting.Three years later they found the answer.The development of eye cells was controlled by a type of protein called a receptor.If this was over active it produced too many eye cells,giving the disrupted eye Dr Freeman had seen under the microscope.
Matthew Freeman : It was a very exciting moment,because as I say for 2-3 years I had built up this idea that that might be what was going on,and so at the moment when I really started to allow myself to believe it was therefore tremendously exciting.
[Contrast this with the "believe it first" mentality of mystics and theists. Matt has "allowed himself" to believe it only after there is reason to do so.This suggests that his tendency to believe is controlled by a higher function,governing what will and won't be believed. This scrutinising of the validity of something before accepting it,appears to be absent in the credulous gullible people that Rick describes.They think they can believe anything they wish with no vetting procedure at all,and that it is up to SOMEONE ELSE to disprove it!! The scientific method maximises truth,by testing against reality,and only accepting after reality and the brain model (theory) comply or are consistent with one another. Contrariwise a theistic or mystic position NEVER tests itself against reality,or bends reality to conform with the brain model. This is a "warped reality" in a very real sense,and in principle cannot be true.Thus Rick is correct in suggesting science is the ONLY way to understand the world -LB]
Richard Dawkins : Of course the health of his fruit flies wasn't what was exciting Dr Freeman. He takes the view that one cell works pretty much the same way as another,in fruit flies chimpanzees or humans.
[In fact Matt maybe guilty of very much the same impoverished view that caused Kevin Callan's problems. Mae Wan Ho in "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" (see trans.html -Miller doc) posits the view that mathematics suggests,that a cell acts differently in a different organism,and that the cell acting the same no matter where it is, is a misguided view. This is one area where perhaps the issues are not clear cut.We know that Thalidomide caused terrible problems in humans whilst tested on rabbits.The problems being due to the "chirality" or handedness of the molecule involved. So there is precedent for supposing that the environment that a cell is in, affects what it does.This is possibly true in growth and development and in the brain,I think it's broadly true to say that (some) cells alter their behaviour depending on what other cells they are near,otherwise differentiation (the formation of brain/spine/organs etc) would never take place (whether under chemical influence or not),and a body would comprise a glob of similar cells. I'm not a cellular biologist,but I have heard Lois Wolpert speak on this which by no means makes me an "expert",but it's suggestive that moving a cell from one place to another and expecting the same result is not necessarily true. Conversely,because cells are made of chemicals whose basic properties are essentially understood,for the most part one cell is much like another,from animal to animal,so that eye tissue in a rabbit presumably is like eye tissue in a human.Note also the potential for rejection of animal organ transplants compared with human ones,as the immune system recognises the difference. I think it rather naive to toy with aeons of evolution and just move cells or organs between species. Either way there are arguments both ways,and this is one of those things where there currently isn't a "right" answer,and thus it is incumbent to actually know some science to take the "experts" to task over it,in case you need a transplant,or have cancer and are put up for fruit fly therapy!! -LB]
And indeed the fruit fly receptor is present in all kinds of human cells too - "Eureka"!
[It's thus necessary to understand the nature of a "receptor" and it's chemical make-up in order to decide whether there is any danger from changing which organism you're inside,or whether in fact there is little or no danger because the receptor has sufficient commonality between organisms. It's too late to wait until your life is in jeopardy or you are threatened with a 99 year sentence to figure out what a receptor is and does,and moreover it is interesting to find out,and that should be reward enough,and nevermind any "uses" that may come from it. The understanding provides the same kind of self satisfaction that one gets from painting a picture or making music.One prides oneself on a job well done,and upon one's own ability to achieve the end product,this has no monetary value -LB]
Matt Freeman : When that receptor is over active in humans that causes cancer.So having started with nothing but looking under my microscope at a fruit fly with a disrupted eye,which doesn't have its normal nice smooth eye pattern,I've come up with this protein,that may in the future be important in understanding and treating human cancer.
[Thus is shown the sense in investing in pure research.It's like an insurance policy,you're not leaving the future to chance,but like a squirrel storing nuts,making provision for when something unexpected happens.This is what renders humans robust in the survival stakes,we plan for the future,perhaps more than most other creatures (Greenfield) -LB]
Richard Dawkins : Most of us couldn't do this,probably wouldn't want to - spend hours and hours in a lab with a lot of flies.But you don't need to be a scientist,in order to appreciate science,any more than you need to be a novelist in order to appreciate novels.I write the books that I do because I want to share my love of the natural world. As Carl Sagan said,"Not explaining science,seems to me perverse,when you're in love,you want to tell the world". And many scientists like me,have tried to tell the world,though even their best selling science books don't grab the headlines like novels.This collection belongs to my friend Douglas Adams,creator of "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy".
[Amongst those books,was John Allen Paulos's "Innumeracy", and if Doug is humble enough to accept he can learn more about numbers,so can everyone else -LB]
Douglas was an English graduate,but these days it's not great novels he turns to first. Douglas Adams I think I read much more science than novels. I think that,you know, the role of the novel has changed a little bit. You know in the 19th century the novel was where you went to,to get you sort of serious reflections and questionings about life,you get Tolstoy and Dostoievsky.
[And that's perhaps why the likes of Brian Appleyard have a foul taste in their mouths.Their "domain" just like the religious arena has been pushed back to a smaller piece of the playing field,and they resent it. The smart cookies,rather than act like a precocious child are accommodating science and thriving on it.Writers like A.S Byatt,Doug Adams and Terry Pratchett seek to work in science into their novels rather than reject it as an unwarranted intrusion. Science IS our culture and not to write about it would mean that our culture wasn't worth writing about,and IT IS. Such writers have a quaint attitude rather like a child facing some new experience in the world or a non swimmer dipping their toe in the shallow end for the first time,wary of what might be the consequence.But I'd rather see the romantic intellectuals come to terms with science,as opposed to resent it for having stolen some perceived hallowed ground -LB]
Nowadays of course,you know,the scientists actually tell us much much more about such issues than you'd ever get from a novelist.
[Unless the novelist happened to be a scientist,or the novelist became versed in science -LB]
So I think,you know, for the real sort of solid red meat of what I read,I'll go to science books,and read sort of novels as light relief.
[It's ironic that Doug describes the major part of his reading as "red meat" considering the scene of the cow/pig animal in Hitchikers,that gets around vegetarian ethical foibles by being happy to be eaten,the account of which he reads aloud in Rick's RI lecture! -LB]
Richard Dawkins : So let me ask you,what is it about science that really gets your blood running?
Douglas Adams : The world is a thing of utter, inordinate, complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean that the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity,but probably absolutely out of nothing,
[Do creationists think that an Oxford Graduaate is so stupid that he accepts this without good reason? Doug like all other smart people has read how it can happen and understands it.It is no more farcical than "God did it",and much less so since there is a line of argument then draws that conclusion -LB]
is the most fabulous, extraordinary idea,and once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened, it's just wonderful,and I feel that,you know,the opportunity to spend 70-80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent,as far as I'm concerned.
Richard Dawkins : I quite agree,which brings me back to my passion - evolution.I never stop being amazed by the immense age of our world and what it means,I've tried to pass this on to others.Today I'm visiting pupils at an Oxford school,I hope they and you share my enthusiasm. Right,does anybody know what evolution is very roughly have you ever heard of it? Yeah? It's why we're all here,it's where we come from,because way,way,way back we all started as bacteria,and then as the generations went by,we got bigger and bigger and cleverer and cleverer,and we went though all sorts of stages gradually until we are like we are now. So first we want somebody to be themselves today,who would like to be themselves today?
[Here Rick is trying to get a student to represent chronologically, modern man,but by the way the question is phrased,one might expect the whole class to answer "Me" by default! It might be worrying if some students would prefer to be somebody else today! -LB]
Okay would you like to stand here? Now I'm going to make one metre
[Note that Rick has switched to metric,perhaps it's all my catcalling!! -LB]
equal one millennium.So one millennium back,that's one metre,do you know who we get back to there? About William the Conqueror.So would you like to be William the Conqueror? Boy : Okay.
Richard Dawkins : Okay.Okay now who wants to be Jesus Christ? I think...let's have a girl for Jesus Christ shall we? What about you?
[Careful Rick,don't upset the bible bashers,they might be the the one's to cast the first stone! -LB]
So you stand another millennium back. And so on until all 5000 years of recorded history back to the earliest Babylonian civilisation were represented by six children a metre apart.
[Those who think the millennium happened on 2000,should try to figure out why 5000 years is represented by 6 children,and not 5 -LB]
But we needed to go back further into evolutionary history.
[Fobb James makes the absurd suggestion that only thousands of years occur between changes from ape to man.He is using his absurd 4,000 - 10,000 year scale.Note that the Babylonians were MEN alive 5000 years ago,and they were not apes.Seemingly Fob fails to comprehend the massive amounts of time that evolution works through,that is why no "new species" has developed recently,and of course what is a "species" exactly is a matter of classification -LB]
First stop Homo Habilis,2 million years ago.Where's he got to stand?
[Homo Habilis then is direct evidence that the Bible's account of the age of the Earth is grossly inaccurate.Carbon 14 radio dating testifies to the age of the fossilised remains.In order for this to be in error,God must have fixed radioactive decay just to fool human beings.He is therefore a prankster and not to be trusted.If he didn't fix it,then the date is accurate and the bible is wrong.Either way,God fails,so he is trashed as an explanation -LB]
....2000 metres away,that'll take you sort of roughly the top of Headington Hill,okay off you go!
[The child proceeds to the door as if the request was not in jest.]
Ramapathecus lived 14 million years ago...... And as we delved further and further back in time,so our scale became more and more ludicrous,
[So much so that I fear it's pertinence became lost on the young schoolchildren.We know that very young minds have difficulties making comparisons with size and confuse the concept with how much room an object takes up.Later though it seems that the scaling factor is not lost on them.Still it is something to aware of when teaching these ideas -LB]
and the children were having to disappear to the four corners of the country. Oligocyphus......Ipswich! To save on the rail fares,I tried another tack to get the message across. So what I want you to do is to hold out you one hand,it doesn't matter which,let's say your right hand,right,and the distance from your middle to the tip of your finger represents all the time since life began,that's 4000 million years.
[Not bad creationists,your only out by a factor of a million! -LB]
Can anybody guess,roughly where say the dinosaurs were on this scale? Yes? Student : On the wrist?
Richard Dawkins : Yeah,that's not bad.It's surprisingly recent,and all of historical time,that's Jesus and King David and the Pyramids and ancient Babylon,the ancient Egyptians,all that time,everything you've ever learned about in history,where do you think that will come? Student : This far away from the tip of your finger?
Richard Dawkins : No,no,no,it's much further than that.Why d'you think I handed out those nail files? You get your nail file and get your middle finger and just do one stroke of the nail file,and look at the dust that falls from your nail,and you might see a few grains of dust that fall from the tip of your nail,and the whole of human history has fallen in the dust from one stroke of the nail file. Girl : I thought it was really interesting.It was sort of not really like some talks I've been to which are just really boring,it was really fun,but it gave us a lot of information as well.
[A straw poll of 2 discovered that our own school talks were considered "boring" as well,and this begs the question of what children find interesting.Rick's talk made used of his stand up models of the various Homo relatives and involved the children in the process of placing them. Richard Gregory at the Exploratory has found that allowing children to experiment for themselves rather than talking engages their interest and allows them to develop their own ideas.This may have the drawback of allowing those false preconceptions to develop that later science has to demolish when it is seen as "counter intuitive". What occurred to me that may help is putting on plays. Children have watched Punch and Judy sideshows with seeming glee and involvement for ages.The factor seem to be social relevance. What inspires an adult maybe unfamiliar to a child,and they may not be turned onto black holes and other abstract ideas.What may engage them however is the reenactment of the story surrounding a scientific discovery utilising stage performances.This would exploit both drama,the arts and science.It seems to work well when the BBC create "Longitude" and the Jeff Goldblum recreation of the Crick/Watson story. Score 2 points to Jeff in the "Jewish conspiracy theory".The other as Chaotician Ian Malcolm. In both cases he did a sterling job of trying to create accurate or trendy representations of scientists.Presumably any faith's theism hopefully doesn't preclude them from all of science ( I do wonder though how they reconcile the two),but the partial accommodation of things like evolution,like the man from Alabama,seems to result from trying to maintain two mutually exclusive scenarios,then you end up with the kind of hybrid that those in the deep south detest.A mishmash,an allotropic chimera,a mixture neither one thing nor the other.Either accept the supernatural or don't,don't try and mix the two together in some kind of hotch potch conglomeration of having to accept science under duress,because it's so obvious and you can't argue with it.If you've accepted some it,it's because the principle works,and so the rest must have credibility also. Thus anyone who is both a theist and a scientist,is either fooling themselves or has some pretty darned clever arguments - God is in a parallel universe isn't one of them -LB]
Boy : I didn't actually realise that my relatives were bacteria.If you just take a nail file and do that
[strokes nail]
,and that's how long the human race has been alive,I was really surprised about that.I thought the human race had been alive for...since the beginning of things had been alive.
[What's notable from this (and Does Science Matter?) is that where no definitive statements are made about a situation,the uninformed brain fills in the gap on the basis of observed evidence.So the boy being given no information about the time humans have been alive, assumes by default that we have always been here.Similarly,those questioned in "Does Science Matter?" say that the Sun goes round the Earth,and that the orbit of Sun/Earth takes 24 hours. In lieu of other information,intuitively it looks like the Sun goes round the Earth.Night and day are seen to be because the Sun goes round us,and everyone knows a day is 24 hrs long.Jane Gregory suggests that a "deficit model" is not true.How else do you explain their brain filling in a deficit? Given the above,the absurd notion that the Earth takes 24 hours to orbit the Sun makes a kind of Willy Wonka kind of sense. Human beings are going of what they observe,rather than what they understand.Similarly the incapacity to understand chance by those believing the paranormal,could be seen as them making up a Willy Wonka topsy turvy observed chance. The idea that the outcome of a tossed coin affects the subsequent one or that it can be influenced perhaps come about through not testing to show the flaw in the initial assumption.This tends to suggest that the initial state is the intuitive or "wrong" state,and that in some way the "unnaturalness" or counter intuitive nature of science is as Rick stated -LB]
Richard Dawkins : Like most scientists I'm a realist,but I'm also a bit of a romantic.It's something I share with my wife Lalla Ward
[Jocelyn could very well have located the TARDIS since Lalla use to be Dr Who -Tom Baker's other half -LB],who now illustrates my books.
I appreciate there are people who think they need something more than science can offer,something frankly undefinable.But I think science does offer all we need,not just to understand the "how" of life,with it's great richness and complexity.For me science goes as far as we meaningfully can go towards answering the "why" as well.
