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your first year at lifelock.com. Hello

1:42

everyone and welcome to Talk

1:44

Nerdy. Today is Monday, March

1:47

11, 2024 and

1:49

I'm the host of the show, Cara Santa

1:51

Maria. And as always before we dive into

1:53

this week's episode, I do want to thank

1:55

those of you who make Talk Nerdy possible.

1:58

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Thank you all so much.

2:33

All right, let's get into

2:35

it. So today I had

2:38

the opportunity to chat with

2:40

science journalist Rebecca Boyle. She

2:43

is currently a columnist at

2:45

Atlas Obscura and she contributes

2:47

to Scientific American, Quanta, The

2:50

Atlantic, The New York Times,

2:52

PopSci, Smithsonian, and a whole bunch of other

2:55

publications that I'm sure you know and love

2:57

as the science enthusiasts you all are. She

3:00

also was a

3:02

night science journalism fellow at MIT

3:04

and she's won a bunch of

3:06

science writing awards and she's had

3:09

her work anthologized three different

3:11

times in the best American

3:14

science and nature writing. But

3:16

this is her first book

3:18

which is very exciting. It's

3:20

called Our Moon, How Earth's

3:22

Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet,

3:24

Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who

3:27

We Are. So without any

3:29

further ado, here she is Rebecca

3:31

Boyle. Well

3:34

Rebecca, thank you so much for joining me

3:36

today. Thanks so much

3:38

for having me. Yeah, so I'm excited.

3:40

We're going to be talking about your

3:42

new book, Our Moon, How Earth's Celestial

3:45

Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and

3:47

Made Us Who We Are. But as

3:49

I always do on the show, before

3:51

we get into the kind of meet

3:53

the content of your new book, I'd

3:55

love to talk a little bit about

3:57

you. I know that you've been writing for

4:00

quite some time across like a

4:02

lot of different kind of classic

4:04

science publications. And you

4:07

also had your

4:09

work in different anthologies, like the best

4:11

American science and nature writing. But is

4:13

this your first book? Yes.

4:16

Yeah, that's my first. Exciting. My

4:19

first giant leap. Yay. So

4:22

that's a big difference between writing

4:24

like features to jumping into writing like a

4:26

full length book. Yes, it

4:28

is nothing like it. I think like

4:31

I spent the first few months drafting, thinking that

4:33

like, oh, I can just write like 12

4:36

magazine features and it'll be fine. And

4:38

it's not at all like that. It's

4:41

a very different like brain space for

4:43

sure. And so how like

4:45

all in, I mean, I'm sure there was

4:47

a lot of time just thinking about it and marinating on it,

4:49

but all in how much time would you say

4:52

it took from like, Oh my God. A

4:56

long time. I mean, I

4:58

will say in my defense, partly

5:00

it was because the pen I had a cross country

5:02

move a month before the

5:04

pandemic. And I had a

5:06

preschooler at the time who then like

5:08

had no preschool. And then

5:11

I got pregnant. And then

5:13

I had a newborn. And then I had no childcare

5:15

for her either. So it was there

5:18

was a little bit of a gap year or

5:20

two in the writing

5:22

of this book. But it took

5:24

me about five years. Well, I

5:26

mean, but that's what's so great about the

5:28

freelance lifestyle, right? Is that that those kinds

5:30

of things can happen. And it's sometimes very

5:33

feast and famine and very difficult. But it

5:36

can also be I think, in some ways,

5:38

really, really freeing. So and then since then,

5:40

like, you have become a

5:42

columnist at Atlas Obscura. So

5:44

that's like a more regular gig for you.

5:48

Yeah, so I have a regular column there.

5:50

It was weekly in the summer.

5:52

Now we're biweekly, it'll probably increase

5:54

again. Now that the book

5:56

is out and done. And I'm actually doing

5:58

a few other things with them. have a course that

6:01

I'm teaching that's on the moon and our

6:03

history with the moon. And then

6:05

I'm also part of their eclipse festival that's

6:07

happening in Hot Springs, Arkansas for the

6:09

total eclipse here in April. And yeah,

6:13

it's been nice to have kind of like a home

6:16

again. I started out writing for newspapers and that's

6:18

kind of my background before I went

6:20

freelance. And I've always changed.

6:22

It was a big change, you know, from being

6:24

part of an institution that was like 150 years

6:26

old to being like, just

6:29

me. And so it's been nice

6:31

to have like a sort of home and Atlas

6:34

of Sierra. Yeah, for sure.

6:36

And so you, obviously you're a

6:38

science writer, you did you enter

6:40

into this world having studied science

6:42

or were you kind of the

6:44

classic J school path? And then

6:46

you discovered your love for science. I

6:49

sort of, it was kind of both like I have a

6:51

lifelong love of science. And I mean, I went, I wanted

6:54

to be an astronaut when I was a kid, I went

6:56

to space camp, you know, I thought

6:58

about applying to the Air Force Academy. And

7:01

then I decided I didn't want to be in the

7:03

military. And I learned that that's how a lot of people

7:05

become astronauts. And I was like, Oh, I don't know

7:07

about that. And then

7:09

I studied history in college, actually, cause

7:12

that's just also my other lifelong interest.

7:14

And then I got a job at the

7:16

school newspaper and then went that route and

7:18

got a job at a daily newspaper after

7:21

that covered politics for a while. And

7:23

then, um, but never stopped being

7:25

interested in science. Like I'd kind of like convinced

7:28

my editor to let me write a science story

7:30

where it was like, Oh, there's going to be

7:32

this like bill in the state legislature about like,

7:35

you know, electric car batteries

7:38

or some, some like tax rebate, which is like, Oh,

7:40

that's a policy story, but no, I'm going to go

7:42

visit the national renewable energy lab and write about battery

7:44

science, you know? So I kind of like

7:46

snuck it in. I love that. And then

7:49

I, when I started freelancing, I just, that's

7:51

what I gravitated to. And I just kind

7:53

of never looked back. Well, and

7:56

it's interesting too, to think about the

7:58

crossover with your interest. and love

8:00

of history as well, because I think

8:03

obviously some of my favorite science writing

8:05

is history of science. And also that's

8:07

how we understand science is to understand

8:10

how we got to know what we know now.

8:13

Yeah. And that was the most fun

8:15

part of writing this book to me

8:17

was like, I got this deep dive

8:19

and sort of the history of thought

8:21

and how people have figured out how

8:24

to figure things out, if that makes

8:26

sense. Like the way that we learn how to

8:28

learn and the way we learn how to study

8:31

and make sense of the universe. I just

8:33

love that kind of process. And

8:36

the book really kind of walks the same path.

8:38

It's pretty chronological in that way, where

8:41

like you come to see

8:43

how humans understand things and how we come

8:45

to know things. I

8:47

love that because I feel like sometimes

8:50

what we grapple with as

8:54

thinking animals,

8:56

right, as individuals who have a psychology

8:59

to contend

9:02

with is that we

9:04

know what we know now and we're deeply

9:07

biased by hindsight. And so it's very easy

9:09

to sort of look back and be like, I can't

9:12

believe we thought that like the earth was the

9:14

center of the universe. Or like, you know,

9:16

or that the sun was the center of the universe.

9:18

And really, it's

9:20

difficult to put ourselves in the

9:22

mindset of who we were hundreds

9:24

or thousands of years ago. And

9:26

so I love that that is

9:28

something that is so important for

9:31

you to paint a picture of, for us

9:33

to understand our relationship with the moon. Yeah,

9:36

I think one analogy I use for this in the

9:38

book was like, I thought about this a lot was,

9:41

I always defend the importance

9:43

and the transformative power of

9:45

the Beatles. Okay.

9:49

Because like, people think about the Beatles as being

9:51

like, well, they're cool, you know, some of

9:53

their songs were catchy and stuff. But like now,

9:55

like a long time after their sort of heyday,

9:57

the Beatles are like old and you know, I

10:01

think younger people might feel more this way, but like the

10:03

Beatles are kind of tired, you know, it's your grandpa's

10:05

music. So how sad. But I'm like,

10:07

Lee, that's what young people think. Yes,

10:10

I hear this from like, not me, but

10:12

like people younger than me. But I'm always

10:14

like, but you have to remember how important

10:17

they were in the context of the time.

10:19

Like you only have ever heard music that

10:21

was influenced by the Beatles. And

10:24

to go back in time to really understand

10:26

the change that happened when they came on

10:28

the scene is like, it's hard to do because

10:30

you only know what you know. And

10:32

what you know is, has been influenced by

10:34

their presence over music for the last 60 years, you

10:37

know. And I think if

10:39

science is the same thing where it's like, yeah, it's

10:41

easy to laugh now at people like,

10:43

you know, Copernicus and Ptolemy

10:45

and those people not understanding the

10:47

reality of the universe, because

10:49

all you've ever learned if you live right now

10:51

is more accurate, is

10:54

more truthful. And so it's,

10:57

you know, it's hard to step out of

10:59

your own shoes and really understand what

11:01

happened before the knowledge that we all have. And

11:04

yeah, I use the Beatles as like my

11:06

example of that. It's also I

11:08

think such an inordinate privilege

11:10

that we take for granted

11:12

because we are living in

11:15

kind of contentious times. We're seeing a

11:17

lot of anti-science rhetoric. There are, you

11:19

know, public figures that are avowed flat

11:21

earthers. And so we sort of, I

11:23

think take for granted that like people,

11:26

oh, people just don't know anymore or they're like,

11:28

you know, so anti-authoritative opinion.

11:30

But the truth of the

11:33

matter is the vast majority

11:35

of individuals on this planet

11:37

have just the privilege of

11:39

having been exposed to deeply

11:43

researched knowledge. And

11:45

they just kind of know in

11:48

passing, he never would have known before.

11:51

Yeah, I think that's right. And the other

11:53

thing we take for granted, you know, we

11:55

have all the world's knowledge on like an

11:58

eight inch rectangle and like you'd taken

12:00

for granted anymore, you know, but yeah,

12:02

we are very lucky to live at the time

12:05

we live now where you have access to all

12:07

of the knowledge and all the foibles of

12:09

the people who have come before us. And so

12:11

I don't, I think it's sad when people squander

12:14

that in favor of, you know, other

12:17

ideas. Yeah. And

12:19

so I'm curious when you when you kind

12:21

of sat down and granted, like you mentioned,

12:23

this is a very sort of long and

12:25

meandering process, but when you sat down to

12:27

really tell the story of our

12:29

relationship with the moon

12:31

and how the moon affected us and how we affected

12:34

our future knowledge and, you know, our

12:36

discoveries, where do you even

12:38

start? Like, how did you decide kind

12:41

of what the bounds would be of

12:43

what you would talk about? I

12:46

think it just kept expanding as I kept

12:48

doing research and it became much more

12:51

all encompassing than I think I

12:53

intended. And initially, when I wrote the

12:55

proposal for this, it was like, oh, I think we should

12:57

write. I want to write an appreciation of the moon. And

12:59

like, I think people take it for granted, you know, and

13:01

it doesn't get its like fair share, doesn't get it to

13:03

do in astronomy and

13:06

planetary science, but just in like the public consciousness.

13:09

Like if people think about the moon at all,

13:11

they think about like Apollo, and

13:13

now Artemis missions are up there,

13:15

or maybe like, oh, super moon, like it

13:17

looks good on Instagram, you know.

13:20

And I really wanted to be more like, no, the

13:23

moon is really special. And then

13:25

I started doing this research and became

13:27

more convinced that like the moon is

13:29

actually super vital to everything that's

13:31

ever happened here. And the book

13:33

became more like an argument that's like

13:36

trying to convince you that you're

13:38

here because of the moon, you know, and all

13:40

of these things that have happened have happened because

13:43

of the moon's influence over this planet, over evolution,

13:45

over us, human culture.

13:48

And that's kind of how it came

13:50

together. I think

13:53

just in terms of how the structure

13:55

arose, there was a lot of

13:57

back and forth with my editor

13:59

who's amazing. on just like how

14:01

to present all this information that I

14:03

have. The book is like pretty full

14:05

of information, but

14:07

I also really wanted it to be a story. And

14:10

so I thought about it from, I

14:12

tried to think about it as a reader, like I like

14:14

reading fiction, I read a lot of fiction. And

14:17

I think fiction authors are really great at

14:20

storytelling, at setting up things to

14:22

come later, at hinting at things,

14:24

foreshadowing, at metaphor, at dialogue,

14:26

all these things that we enjoy

14:29

as consumers of fiction and

14:31

stories, like any movie or show. I

14:33

try to think like that and present

14:36

the stuff that I'm trying to argue in

14:38

a more like storytelling kind of

14:41

structure or framework. And

14:44

I think that really helped as a writer, just like

14:47

I want people to sort of go on a journey

14:49

with the moon as the main character and the

14:51

moon has these experiences and it's transformed.

14:54

It follows the Joseph Campbell hero's

14:56

journey. And that was like

14:58

my goal was like, if you, this

15:00

is like the kind of classic literature structure,

15:03

it's in the Odyssey, it's in

15:05

Star Wars, where it's

15:07

this like classic quest tale where

15:09

there's a main character, a hero,

15:12

who goes on a quest for knowledge or for

15:14

a treasure, he's

15:16

looking for the one and only ring or the

15:18

force and

15:21

goes on this journey,

15:23

encounters people who help

15:25

him along the way or who hinder his experience, then

15:28

something bad happens, you know, you

15:30

find out Darth Vader's your dad or

15:33

something and there's this like sort

15:36

of fall, I guess,

15:38

if there's an abyss that the

15:40

character encounters and then you have to come

15:42

back from that and then, you know, become triumphant.

15:44

And so the moon follows that journey in the

15:46

book. And I think that

15:48

helps like as a reader, hopefully, but also as

15:51

a writer, just to have this sort of framework

15:53

for you're going on

15:55

an adventure. Absolutely, and it keeps

15:57

you wanting to like turn the next page and turn

15:59

the next. page, which is so important.

16:01

And I don't want to

16:03

say sometimes lacking because I think some

16:05

of the best nonfiction writers do exactly

16:08

what you said. But there is sometimes

16:10

a quite jarring difference between fiction and

16:12

nonfiction. And in the best nonfiction

16:14

books, I do think that

16:16

gap is closed for that very reason, you want

16:18

to turn the page, you want to know what's

16:21

next, because you are on a journey and you're

16:23

being taken along on

16:25

this story. And so, you know, what

16:28

you ended up doing is sort of breaking

16:30

the book up into three sections. And I

16:32

think it's so important to start where

16:34

you started this idea of how the

16:36

moon was made before we get into

16:38

our relationship with the moon, especially because

16:40

I think when we think about the

16:42

moon, we think about how we we

16:45

just sprung forth, right? Like, we

16:47

can argue all we want about

16:50

how life was first formed on the

16:52

planet. But by the time we were

16:54

conscious beings and could look up and

16:56

could recognize this thing in the sky,

16:58

it had been there for like, billions

17:01

of years. So yeah, so that's

17:03

like a really interesting just concept

17:06

to even think about before we

17:08

were even aware of this

17:10

thing that was sort of always looming and that we

17:12

were grappling with and saying, What the hell is that?

17:15

And why is it there? And what does it mean?

17:17

It was it what

17:19

it formed around the same

17:21

time that our home form. So why don't you

17:23

give us a little background on on

17:26

that? Like, how did the moon come to be? The

17:29

fact that we don't totally know, I think

17:32

is amazing. Like, I love this question

17:34

that like, how did the moon get

17:36

here? And the answer is like, well, we have a few

17:38

ideas, but we don't really know. And I

17:40

think that's amazing in part because like, it's the moon

17:42

we should like, we should know we should understand that.

17:45

But it just says a lot about how unique

17:47

this system is and how important

17:49

the moon has been that like, it's sort

17:51

of, well, it's always

17:53

been there. It's like, we don't really don't really

17:56

know where to begin because it's, you

17:58

can't begin at the beginning. because the

18:01

moon has always been a part of Earth, always

18:03

existed. It's always been a part of who we

18:05

are. And we've learned a lot about

18:07

how this probably went down, mostly

18:09

through Apollo rocks, and now really

18:12

sophisticated computer modeling. So we think

18:14

that there was some Titanic collision

18:16

between early Earth and another

18:18

protoplanet, which we named Theia, which is

18:21

the mother of the moon in Greek

18:23

mythology. And they would have

18:25

combined completely is the

18:27

most likely story that like, somehow

18:29

Theia came in, you know,

18:32

smacked into Earth, both planets are totally

18:34

obliterated. There's no crater of this at

18:36

all. It's like they're both vaporized, essentially.

18:39

And somehow in the following,

18:41

like century, like 100 years,

18:43

like a century, the result is these

18:45

two worlds, the Earth and the moon

18:48

that we have now. But

18:50

there's still a lot of debate. It's

18:52

incredibly short, like the most recent supercomputer

18:55

simulations of this event, suggests

18:58

that it was like, on the order of like

19:00

100, like maybe 1000 years,

19:03

which in cosmic time is like less than

19:05

an eye blink. Like that's amazing to me,

19:08

this happened so quickly. And but

19:11

we don't really understand, you know, we don't totally

19:13

know how planets themselves are formed, we have some

19:16

good theories, but we don't really

19:18

understand the process in its entirety. And I

19:20

think that's the case for the moon too, we

19:23

don't really know exactly how it happened. There's still

19:25

a lot of really interesting and competing ideas about

19:27

what that looked like and how long it took,

19:30

which I think is just fun. And

19:32

it's interesting, because I feel like

19:34

we cannot help but be

19:36

the sort of anthropocentric beings,

19:38

right? Like by definition, we are humans, so we

19:41

are human centered. And I don't

19:43

know if this is a classic example of

19:45

anthropomorphism. But when we think of the moon,

19:47

it's like, well, Earth is home and Earth

19:50

is dynamic and Earth has oceans and Earth

19:52

has an atmosphere. And then it's like, but

19:54

the moon is this like cold rock

19:56

that just satellites us and it's sort

19:58

of like the moon. was made to

20:00

be surrounding us as opposed to the fact

20:03

that these were two, or these

20:05

are sort of two worlds that

20:08

are enmeshed really deeply. And, you

20:11

know, it's like we can't kind of separate that

20:13

centrism from the story. Yeah,

20:16

we always think about it from our point of

20:18

view, you know, and I think that's

20:20

one thing I wanted to do with this book

20:22

is like, center the moon point of view. And

20:26

like, what would it be like to be up there? And

20:28

what would it be like to be it and,

20:30

you know, have born witness to

20:32

the whole history of Earth and all

20:34

the things that have happened on this planet, which

20:37

is the only planet we know has life, you

20:39

know, that's kind of incredible. And

20:42

yeah, I think, you know, there's it does

20:44

raise questions about the whole

20:46

anthropic principle like we are here,

20:49

because this planet

20:51

is hospitable to life because all these

20:53

conditions exist and therefore these conditions

20:55

must be important for life to exist because we

20:57

are here to observe it like it's this kind

20:59

of recursive logic. And

21:02

I think the moon is

21:04

probably a big player in

21:06

that and I don't think it gets enough

21:08

credit sometimes for shepherding

21:11

all of human existence. Yeah,

21:14

so then that takes us to sort of the

21:17

next section of the book, how the

21:19

moon made us so I would love maybe if

21:21

you could share with us some examples, especially things

21:23

that we might not know. I think a lot

21:25

of people, you know, as opposed to God, who

21:27

was it? The tides come in, the tides come

21:29

out, you can't explain that. Who said that on

21:31

Fox News? I can't remember. Oh my

21:33

God, I know. I know I'm blanking.

21:36

But it was idiotic. Like we I think

21:38

a lot of people kind of do know,

21:40

okay, there's a relationship between the tides and

21:42

the moon is responsible for this. But they

21:45

don't and then there's sort of the pseudoscientific

21:47

stuff that comes out from like, ooh, the

21:49

moon and like my menstrual cycle or like

21:51

the moon and my and my psychology

21:53

and you know, these cycles of like

21:56

howling at the moon. But the real

21:58

relationship between the moon and the earth

22:00

is one that is incredibly dynamic and

22:03

as you said, essential. So maybe you

22:05

can shed light for us on some

22:07

of the things we might not know

22:09

or maybe even debunk some of the

22:12

things we think we know. Yeah. Well,

22:14

the thing I was, I think, most surprised by

22:17

when I first started researching this was just

22:19

that the tide is like so much

22:21

more complicated than you think. It's basically

22:23

all a lie what you've been told.

22:26

Like, oh, the tide is like, oh, you're on

22:28

the beach and you have a beach towel and I have to

22:30

move it because the tide is coming in. That's like how most

22:32

people experience the tide, if we experience it at all. It's

22:35

so much more profound than that.

22:38

It's almost this like violent thrashing.

22:40

Like the whole planet is like sloshing

22:43

around every day and the

22:45

moon is too and it

22:47

has an effect on the length of

22:49

our day. Like earth's rotation is slowing

22:51

down over time because of the tide

22:53

and it's just so much more profound

22:55

than the movement of water. And

22:58

I don't think people really fully appreciate the

23:00

role that has played in everything from

23:02

geology to the evolution of life. Like

23:05

I, so I wanted to write about how

23:07

the moon would have influenced tides in the

23:10

past and what that kind of means. And

23:14

I kind of came to understand that

23:16

it's really played a

23:18

fundamental role in probably, if

23:21

not the origin of life itself, but like

23:23

fostering the complexity of early life and its

23:25

evolution in the oceans and

23:27

even bringing our backbone

23:29

ancestors onto land for the first

23:31

time. So we don't

23:33

really know how... That's because of the energy. Like

23:35

it literally, like we needed that energy to be

23:37

able to... So

23:40

it's twofold. So yeah, probably it's the

23:42

energy. So like half of, more than

23:44

half of the energy of ocean mixing.

23:46

So like imagine the entire ocean like

23:48

stirring around throughout the day. It's more

23:51

than half of the energy required to

23:53

do that is from the tide, the

23:55

lunar tide. And so if you

23:57

don't have that influence, all these nutrients in

23:59

the... the sea column, the

24:02

water columns in the ocean just sink to the

24:04

floor where they can't be used

24:06

by the chain of marine life. And wherever

24:09

life first originated, we don't know where exactly

24:12

that happened. It could have been in warm

24:14

little pools, which is what Darwin called them,

24:16

tidal pools at the water's edge. Or

24:18

it could have been in these mid-ocean ridges where

24:21

there's this interesting mixture of chemistry

24:23

and minerals and heat coming from these

24:25

rifts in the sea floor into the

24:27

water. The moon would have dragged those

24:29

things up and exposed them to the

24:32

sun for the first time and created

24:35

the possibility for them to evolve

24:37

and to flourish. And then a

24:39

few billion years after

24:41

that first happened, the moon

24:44

is probably what drags vertebrates

24:46

onto shore. And this

24:49

is actually super recent research that is really

24:51

intuitive if you think about it. Of course,

24:53

the tide is going to play a role in fish

24:55

moving in and out of water. They're going to get

24:57

stranded. But it's only in

25:00

the last few years that people have made

25:02

this connection through the paleontological record. And

25:05

people have looked at ancient bassimetry, like looking

25:07

at modeling the ancient sea floor and ancient

25:09

coastlines to see what land masses would have

25:11

looked like when the moon was closer. And

25:14

it turns out that the tidal

25:16

cycles that were happening in the

25:19

Devonian period, so the age of

25:21

fishes when vertebrates first emerge onto

25:23

land, the

25:26

moon is a lot closer then because it's

25:28

350 million years ago. So the

25:30

tide is more powerful. The day is

25:33

actually shorter than it is now by a

25:35

couple hours. And if

25:38

you look in the land masses where

25:40

we know there were really extreme tidal

25:42

cycles, there are

25:44

fossil records of vertebrates coming

25:46

onto land for the first time. And

25:49

so the moon plays a role in

25:51

this. And it makes sense. Think about

25:53

if you're a bony fish,

25:56

you have beefy limbs and bony arms

25:58

that become arms and like later animals,

26:02

or four legs, you have to,

26:04

and you're in a shallow habitat where

26:06

you have evolved. And this

26:09

is a time where the tide is coming in

26:11

and out at like 80 feet

26:14

of water between high and low tide is

26:17

the differential. So it's a really extreme, like

26:19

water is rushing in and rushing out. And

26:21

if you're a fish, you better either get out

26:23

of there or learn to breathe the

26:25

air and move your body across

26:27

the sand instead of just through the water. And

26:30

that's what happened. And I think we

26:33

have not fully understood or appreciated the role

26:35

the mood itself plays in that. It wasn't

26:37

like fish decided to just hang out on

26:40

land. I think it's

26:42

probably, you know, there may be

26:44

some like, yeah, it's an environmental

26:46

pressure, which is the most powerful evolutionary

26:48

pressure. It's surely that there were probably

26:50

some that were like, oh, there's more food over there. I'm

26:52

gonna go in that area and forage, and like, oh

26:55

look, plants have come onto land too and

26:57

they're going to go eat those. That's possible for

26:59

sure. But like, I also think

27:01

it's very possible that they wouldn't have

27:03

ended up beach on land if

27:06

the tide didn't put them there. Oh,

27:08

that's fascinating. So like, you

27:10

know, obviously there were no people around.

27:12

So there was no surfing yet, but

27:14

surfing would have been insane. Back then,

27:18

so would have been terrifying. Yeah,

27:20

that's kind of interesting to think, because again, we

27:22

come back to this like, anthropic

27:24

kind of thing where like

27:27

everything that is, is

27:29

because it's how we engage with it, which

27:32

is just not true. But the way that

27:34

things are feels

27:36

so permanent, but

27:38

it's not, it's very static. We

27:40

are just looking at a very

27:42

specific slice of geologic or cosmic

27:44

time. So the way that things are now

27:47

is not how they used to be and it's

27:49

not potentially how they will be in the future.

27:51

I'm curious, I know this is jumping around a

27:53

little bit, but given that sort

27:55

of evolution where the moon was closer,

27:57

where we're seeing sort of like Tiktolik.

28:00

who's coming, you know, and starting

28:02

the journey to become these

28:05

like land-dwelling walking animals. Where

28:08

are we going? Like obviously, if things

28:10

were different before, they're going to be

28:13

different in the future. And you know,

28:16

you can't sort of be

28:18

tasked with telling how where the human,

28:20

you know, species is going to be. But like,

28:22

where's the moon going to be? And how will

28:24

things change on Earth? Well,

28:27

there's a couple of different ways

28:29

to answer that. One is that the moon is

28:31

like leaving, the moon is receding from us. So

28:34

at some point in the distant future, it

28:36

will no longer have as powerful

28:39

an effect on our

28:42

planet. Its gravity will be weaker. And

28:44

so it will have a, you know, weakened

28:46

effect on the tide. And even

28:49

on things like the stability of the axial

28:51

tilt of Earth over

28:54

millennia, you know, so the Earth's axis

28:56

might wobble a lot more than it

28:58

does already, which would

29:00

be really interesting in terms of climate,

29:02

you know, how would our, if

29:04

our planet is suddenly tilted at 40 degrees

29:07

to the, you know, the

29:09

sun as opposed to 23.5 degrees, then

29:11

what would that do to the seasons? What would that do

29:14

to the ice caps and the poles, you know,

29:16

and there would be huge effects on Earth's

29:18

climate as a result of the recession of

29:21

the moon. And that's, but that's

29:23

like a long way away. That's, we don't have to worry

29:25

about that. But then, in terms

29:28

of the future of the moon itself, I

29:31

think that's a really pressing question right now. I mean,

29:33

we're going back up there, we just had the

29:35

first ever commercial lunar lander make

29:37

it up there, it tipped over. So it

29:39

wasn't like a total complete success. But

29:41

it's a big success in many ways.

29:43

And that like a privately funded, you

29:45

know, commercially funded spacecraft

29:49

landed on the moon for the first time. Japan

29:51

just landed up there a month or

29:53

so ago becoming the fifth country to do so.

29:56

And China's going back probably this year

29:58

with another rover. the US

30:01

wants to send astronauts back, you know,

30:03

by the end of this decade. We'll

30:05

see how well that goes, how

30:07

quickly that actually happens. But there's a lot

30:09

of interest on the moon right now and

30:11

a lot of people with their sights on it.

30:14

So I think it's an interesting time to think about how

30:16

we use it and what it means to us. And I want

30:19

people to reflect on that. I hope if

30:21

there's one like upshot of the book, it's

30:24

like, what do we owe the moon? You

30:26

know, after this whole history, after

30:28

this this shepherding of our entire

30:31

culture and every civilization

30:33

on this planet has used it in some

30:35

way, and to profound

30:37

effect, are we really just gonna

30:39

like go and strip mine it like, you know, I want

30:42

people to be a little more thoughtful about

30:45

how we use it in the future. And I

30:47

think that's the time for that is like right

30:49

now. I think that's such an

30:51

important point. And it's something I grapple with

30:53

an awful lot because the other show that

30:55

I work on the Skeptic Guide to the

30:58

Universe, it's like me and these four guys

31:00

who are a little bit

31:02

older, they're all Connecticut, education, educated,

31:05

white, and they

31:08

have a very sort of techno

31:11

optimistic, they're from a certain era,

31:13

right, where space exploration where the first time that

31:15

we landed on the moon, was

31:18

this, and it still is, but I

31:20

mean, like this huge accomplishment. But one of the

31:22

things I often grapple with are

31:24

the ethics. And I

31:27

think sometimes my use

31:29

of terminology like extraction

31:31

or colonialism doesn't quite land

31:33

because the argument is always

31:35

like, well, but there's no

31:37

people there. So it's different

31:40

than like, you know, a

31:42

lot of people are like, I get it,

31:44

you know, this like explorer mentality, this colonial

31:46

mentality, but like, that has to

31:48

do with, you know, going into places

31:51

where there's indigenous people and like, fucking

31:53

it up. But no, I think the

31:55

same principle applies. And I

31:57

struggle sometimes to communicate those things. How do

31:59

you feel? about that. I'm hearing a lot of yeses.

32:02

I think no, I totally agree. And I mean, I think

32:04

it's like super, I

32:06

don't know, problematic is its own

32:08

problematic word. It's kind of loaded words anymore. But

32:11

like, I have a lot of issues with how

32:13

people talk about lunar exploration right now.

32:15

And it's always like glazed in this

32:17

sort of capitalist, you

32:20

know, colonialist Western expansion

32:22

mythos that I find

32:24

to be really troubling in a lot

32:26

of ways. I

32:29

think, you know, we really should be learning more

32:31

lessons about the past on this planet and how

32:33

we've treated one another, but also how we've treated

32:35

our natural resources. One thing that does

32:38

seem to get through to people for me anyway, is

32:40

like, I point out, I

32:42

think people are shocked to hear this

32:44

sometimes that like, anything we do to

32:46

the moon, we'll be doing it permanently.

32:48

There's no cycle of

32:50

erosion or, you know, there are no

32:52

plate tectonics, there's no wind, there's no

32:55

rain, there's no tide coming ashore to

32:57

wash away anything we do up there,

32:59

which I think is a big responsibility to

33:02

future generations of people who want to go to

33:04

the moon too, or just live here beside it.

33:07

And I think that's surprising to people because

33:09

you know, Earth is going

33:11

to be okay. Like

33:13

I hesitate to say that there's somebody who cares

33:15

about climate change and the way that we treat

33:17

this planet, but like, Earth

33:20

as a system is going to be fine, we might

33:22

not be, you know, other animals that

33:24

evolved here with us might not be, but

33:26

like, Earth will be so resilient. Yeah,

33:29

this planet has been through a lot. Yeah,

33:32

the life on this planet has been through a

33:34

lot and has withstood these mass extinction events that

33:36

happened because of mostly because of the

33:38

carbon cycle, actually, not just rocks from

33:40

space. That's the most famous extinction event,

33:42

the KT event, where the dinosaurs were

33:44

wiped out by a meteor. But like,

33:46

the other mass extinctions that have happened on

33:48

this planet have happened because of carbon dioxide. And

33:51

the carbon cycle, changing the atmosphere

33:53

and choking things to death or freezing it

33:55

completely. So, system

34:00

will be fine despite us. But

34:03

the moon doesn't have any

34:05

way to recover. That's a

34:07

natural recovery, the way that Earth has.

34:10

And I mean, I hear a lot about in

34:12

the climate movement right now about the idea of being a

34:14

good ancestor and stewarding

34:16

what we have on Earth for future

34:19

generations of people and other forms of

34:21

life. But I think we need to

34:23

think about that in terms of the moon as

34:25

well. Like we need to be a good ancestor

34:27

for future generations of lunar explorers or

34:29

people who just care about it, who live here next to

34:31

it and want it to be protected

34:34

in some way or have to continue

34:36

the meeting it has had over us into

34:39

the future. I think we need to be thoughtful about how we

34:41

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of PennFed. Yeah, and

35:44

also I think we don't

35:47

often think about the geopolitics involved.

35:50

Like we as a global society

35:52

are so factioned. Like we

35:55

don't have a global government. We don't

35:57

have a global global

36:00

society. And so the moon is yet

36:02

sort of sadly another quote unquote frontier

36:04

for conflict as well. And I think

36:06

we're already starting to see that. Usually

36:08

the first of something right, the first

36:11

lunar land or the first footsteps

36:13

on the moon, these are like huge

36:15

accomplishments and the entire globe kind of

36:17

celebrates them. But soon when people are

36:19

competing for those resources or

36:21

those statuses or those like

36:24

sadly resources I mentioned, if we are

36:27

talking about these extractive practices, now

36:29

all of a sudden it's just like sort of another

36:32

front, another you know front

36:34

in the war, in the

36:36

capitalist war. Yeah, that's really worrisome

36:38

to me because I think that's very possible.

36:40

And that's sort of what's just unfolding. I

36:42

don't think there's any intent for it to

36:45

be that way. Like I hope that people

36:47

are not sitting there being like, ah it's

36:49

mine, you know, come and come and get

36:51

me, whatever. But like that's gonna just be

36:53

how it unfolds if we

36:55

don't act more softly and more deliberately

36:57

in the very near future, the

37:00

next couple of years. In part

37:02

because of like I said, the moon doesn't

37:04

have any way to safeguard itself or to

37:06

recycle itself. And so if you have a

37:08

mission that's gonna be putting up a telescope

37:11

or something, you know, there's a really interesting

37:13

group of scientists on Earth who really

37:15

want to put a telescope on

37:17

the far side of the moon, a radio observatory,

37:20

because it would be a really great place to

37:22

do certain types of astronomy, which

37:24

include looking at the time when the first star is

37:26

ignited, the cosmic dawn. There's a

37:28

really interesting field of science that could

37:30

use the moon for really great

37:32

research. And yet,

37:35

you know, if China is up there with

37:37

a rover again on the far side, if

37:39

the US lands astronauts on the far side

37:41

for the first time, which is a goal

37:43

of Artemis, then that

37:45

radio quiet zone is no longer radio

37:48

quiet. And so you've inherently like messed

37:51

up someone else's plans just by being

37:53

there. And that's more

37:55

the case on the moon than anywhere

37:57

on Earth, just like human presence itself.

38:00

is so disruptive to the natural state of

38:02

things that you're having

38:04

an effect on other people inherently

38:07

just by being there. Yeah,

38:09

like we think it's bad here with like,

38:11

let's say light pollution is a good example

38:13

or like satellite, you know, to kind of

38:15

like destroy, quote unquote, our astronomy, but like,

38:17

yeah, you think it's bad here, but that

38:19

would be so much worse. It

38:22

would be it would be really destructive and

38:24

in fundamental ways, like certain things would not

38:26

be able to happen, you know, and,

38:29

and the same is true for just

38:31

a small science station, like so imagine,

38:33

or just the artifacts that are already

38:35

up there, if you want to think

38:37

about protecting the Apollo landing sites as

38:40

like part of human heritage, like the

38:42

way the UN, you know, notes,

38:44

the, you know, heritage

38:46

sites of ancient humanity, then

38:50

you can't land anything else in the sea of

38:52

tranquility, you know, because

38:54

any landing on the moon requires retro

38:56

rocket breaking, because there's no atmosphere to

38:58

slow you down. So you have to

39:00

like fire these rockets that kick

39:03

up enormous amounts of dust, which

39:05

goes into orbit, essentially, because there's

39:07

less gravity on the moon, and

39:09

again, no atmosphere to slow things

39:11

down. So you're scouring other spacecraft

39:13

like a Brillo pad,

39:15

because lunar dust is sharp and

39:18

jagged and, you know, very actually

39:20

dangerous. And so if you're

39:23

going to the moon back and forth, any,

39:26

any location on the moon is going to be

39:28

disrupted by that, which is also something I don't

39:30

think people think about very much, you

39:32

know, in terms of

39:35

the global effect that we could have on

39:37

the moon just by being on it. And

39:39

I don't think, I don't want people to think that I

39:41

don't want to do that. I think being on the moon

39:43

is really important, actually, I think it's super valuable. But

39:45

I don't think people are thinking about some of these,

39:48

you know, after effects of our exploration

39:50

efforts. And I hope people do

39:52

start talking about them. Because like you said, there's

39:55

no, there's no international body

39:57

in charge, there's really nobody in charge. It's

40:00

just like the space faring countries have to figure

40:02

out how to do this in a peaceable way

40:04

and I hope that we can. And

40:07

do it sort of like you said, preemptively. I

40:09

keep coming back to space junk, right? Like this

40:11

idea that for years and years and years we've

40:13

just been putting satellites up around the earth being

40:15

like, okay, this has a cool purpose and then

40:18

once it doesn't work anymore, whoops, whoops,

40:20

it ends. We haven't really. But now

40:22

we're starting to think, okay, can this

40:24

be something that once its lifespan is

40:26

over, it falls back down. Is it

40:28

something that can be decommissioned so that

40:30

we're not adding to the junk problem, which

40:32

as we know, junk hits junk and makes more

40:34

junk. And

40:37

so there are ways to go about

40:39

these things with like a little bit

40:41

of forethought and just thinking about all

40:43

of the intended and the unintended consequences.

40:45

Obviously, we're never going to know

40:47

the unknown unknowns, but we can be,

40:49

I think, a little more thoughtful and

40:51

have a little more foresight than we've

40:53

kind of historically had. Yeah,

40:56

I mean, certainly more than we've had on this planet

40:58

and I hope more than we have had so far

41:00

with respect to the moon. And

41:02

I think there are ways to do it. The

41:05

Artemis Accords are one kind of avenue for

41:07

this, at least as a start.

41:10

This is a NASA program that's kind

41:12

of like a pseudo treaty. So there's

41:15

the Outer Space Treaty, which dates to the Cold

41:17

War and it's from 1967 and it's pretty

41:20

vague and it just says things like nobody

41:22

can militarize space or use it to

41:24

launch nukes. But

41:28

there's not a lot of other really good guidelines

41:31

embedded in this treaty. And so

41:33

the Artemis Accords is a NASA effort that

41:35

asks all the other spacefaring

41:37

countries or the

41:40

ones that hope to be spacefaring countries to

41:42

agree to a certain set of parameters

41:44

where it's like, okay, we agree that

41:46

we'll help each other out and emergencies

41:49

if your spacecraft breaks and you need a ride

41:51

home, somebody who can give you a ride home

41:53

should do that. Or no

41:56

one is allowed to mess up someone else's

41:58

stuff on the moon. But,

42:01

you know, just because again, of the nature

42:03

of the moon itself, like, that's going to be

42:05

hard to do. And

42:07

so who knows how this will be

42:09

actually enforced or like there is no

42:11

real, you know, authority

42:15

that can enact any regulations

42:18

or any punitive, you

42:20

know, changes like things if you do something bad,

42:22

who's going to get you in trouble, you know,

42:25

like, it's going to be kind of a free for

42:27

all until people step back

42:29

a little bit. And I do think that

42:31

like the first couple launches that we had

42:33

in the early part of this year, these two

42:35

first commercial lunar attempt, one of them didn't make

42:37

it there at all because of a fuel issue after

42:39

launch, one of them did make it

42:42

there, but tipped over and didn't land the way that it

42:44

was hoping to. I think it reflects

42:46

that like this is still really hard. And

42:48

it's going to be difficult to get it right. It's

42:51

still going to be really expensive. It's very dangerous. I'm

42:54

kind of hopeful that that is a reminder.

42:57

And it gives us some time. It allows

43:00

us to kind of take a breath and

43:02

be like, okay, this is happening. People

43:05

are going up there. There's private companies are

43:07

bringing up all kinds of random things and

43:09

also science experiments on behalf of NASA, you

43:12

know, Japan's up there, India, China, Russia,

43:14

the US, like, now is

43:17

a good time to like think about what

43:19

is happening up there and maybe

43:21

come together in some way. I don't even really

43:23

know how that would work, but it would be probably through

43:25

the UN, which we all know how slow

43:27

and difficult that can be. But

43:30

it's better than nothing. You know, we need to at

43:33

least have this conversation. Yeah,

43:35

because I think what

43:37

our own history of quote

43:39

unquote exploration here on earth

43:42

has taught us is that early

43:44

on when not many people or

43:47

not many nations have the

43:49

financial security or the scientific

43:51

know how to do stuff,

43:53

we have these sort of

43:55

independent individual experiences.

44:00

and those can be dramatic,

44:02

right? Like we think about,

44:04

you know, early explorers going

44:06

to individuals who

44:08

hadn't been reached by the West before

44:10

and sort of the really dramatic consequences

44:13

of that kind of contact or that kind

44:15

of colonialism.

44:18

But then eventually more and

44:20

more players get involved in the game.

44:23

And now there's a whole new level of

44:25

conflict. And I think we forget that, you

44:27

know, we act as though our

44:30

relationship with space right now is how it's always

44:32

going to be. But it's not just, again, I

44:34

keep going back to Spose Jog, look at the

44:36

satellite, look at how many there are now because

44:38

we all kind of figured it out, you

44:41

know, once everybody figured it out, then it

44:43

was a free-for-all. And that's when it becomes

44:45

super overwhelming. That's not to say that the

44:47

early contact doesn't

44:49

have dramatic downstream consequences,

44:52

but they're sort of isolated and

44:55

singular. Once it becomes, you

44:57

know, an everyday thing, once it becomes

44:59

sort of normative, then all of a sudden

45:01

you're going from a little bit

45:03

of trash to a giant landfill. And

45:05

that's, I think, concerning.

45:09

I think it's, yeah, it's at least something we need to be

45:11

thoughtful about. And, you know, I

45:13

mean, I think one way I think about

45:15

the moon in this context is to compare

45:17

it to Antarctica, where it's like

45:19

we've all kind of agreed as a planet

45:22

that it's different, it's special, the government has

45:24

owned it. There are some countries that have

45:26

claimed, you know, territorial ownership

45:28

of it based on proximity, but

45:30

that's not recognized by anybody

45:32

else. There are Antarctic Treaty agreements that the

45:34

countries of the world have signed on to.

45:37

There are international collaborations

45:39

happening there. There are science stations

45:42

that are permanently occupied and people

45:44

come and go. There's tourism, but

45:46

there's not a huge Los Angeles-sized city. There

45:52

are like little settlement areas

45:54

where people are and services

45:56

that, you know, feed the people in the

45:58

industries that are there. And

46:01

it's a different place

46:03

than anywhere else on Earth. And

46:06

I think that's a useful analog for how

46:08

we can imagine the moon, where it's, again,

46:10

it's austere. It's hard to get there.

46:12

It's difficult to be there. You better have

46:15

a lot of preparation and training and equipment

46:17

and probably money or like

46:20

the backing of an agency that's

46:22

funded well by some government

46:24

somewhere and be ready for what

46:28

comes. The moon is the

46:30

same as Antarctica in that regard. So

46:33

that might be a way to think about it going forward.

46:35

That is a good, and there's sort of

46:37

like a built in reverence that comes with

46:39

the fact that it's not easy, you know?

46:42

And I think it's not like Antarctica

46:44

is on our own planet and it's

46:47

not easy. And I think sometimes hard,

46:50

like people with that colonial mindset forget

46:52

that sort of like, we can't even

46:54

terraform our own planet that well to

46:56

make it habitable. Like,

46:59

can you imagine, like, we might have a couple little

47:01

colonies or something, but we're not going to be living

47:03

on the moon the way we live here. It's just

47:05

not possible. No, no way. It's not possible.

47:08

And we weren't, we weren't, we didn't evolve for that. We weren't built

47:10

for that. And the moon wasn't built for us, you know? It's

47:13

not that simple. And I think,

47:15

yeah, having respect for that

47:17

fact does kind of build in

47:19

some reverence for the experience and

47:21

for the austerity and difficulty of

47:24

that, of those attempts. You know,

47:26

people think, I hear sometimes just talking about

47:28

this book in the last couple of months, people are

47:30

like, oh, well, we went to the moon like half

47:32

century ago. Like, it's why are we not back already?

47:35

And my answer is often, well, it's still hard. Right.

47:38

The physics hasn't changed. Like, sure,

47:41

we have more advanced rockets now and better

47:43

spacecraft guidance systems. But like, we literally

47:45

just crashed up there, you know, a

47:47

week ago. Like, it's still difficult because

47:49

it's just physically hard to do. It's

47:52

hard to get enough energy to leave

47:54

Earth's gravity well, go

47:56

across this incredible distance. The moon's really far

47:58

away. I think people... don't realize it's like

48:00

you could fit 30 Earths between

48:03

Earth and the moon. It's very, very far. So

48:05

it takes a long time to get there, even rocket

48:08

speeds, like incredibly high speeds. And

48:12

then you need to slow down to a complete

48:14

stop, like a couple of days later, and bring

48:16

an entire house with you to

48:19

survive. Like, it's just hard. And

48:21

it's gonna be hard forever. And I think

48:24

people take that. We take

48:27

the ease of it for granted. And we've, I don't know,

48:29

we all read too much science fiction, I guess.

48:31

Well, we're also just living in

48:33

a culture and a society where

48:36

technology becomes like, again, like

48:38

you said, we take it for granted,

48:40

like, our iPhones are still hard, like,

48:42

just because they're user friendly, doesn't mean

48:44

that the technology that went into making

48:46

them and updating them isn't really hard.

48:49

And I think just because we can

48:51

use it doesn't mean that most people

48:53

would be able to fix it or

48:55

would understand how to make it work.

48:58

And it's the same thing when we think about

49:00

getting to the moon, just because we did it a long

49:03

time ago. First of all, we were lucky.

49:05

Like, that's not to say that the work

49:07

that went into it wasn't incredible. But like,

49:09

the fact that lots of people didn't die

49:11

in that process is kind of like amazing.

49:14

We were very lucky. And

49:17

we were also prioritizing it from a militaristic

49:19

viewpoint. Like, this was the thing that

49:21

mattered to Americans, you know, more

49:23

than anything else at the time. But

49:26

like, it's still like you said, it's

49:28

still and will always be really

49:31

hard. And just because it's doable, it's like

49:33

once we've done something, I remember there was

49:35

an old Louis CK, and I hate to

49:37

even bring his name up, but there was an old Louis

49:40

CK stand up about like the Wi Fi going out on

49:42

the plane. The first time it

49:44

was ever available. And the guy be like,

49:46

Oh, I know you're Yeah, you know what

49:48

I'm talking about. Yeah. How can you take

49:50

for like, you literally just experienced this for

49:52

the first time five minutes ago, and you're

49:54

already annoyed. And I think we

49:59

do that it's such a It's such a,

50:01

maybe it's not a human thing, but it's definitely an

50:03

American thing to like, just be

50:05

like, I deserve this technology. Where's

50:08

my flying car? Like, yeah. Exactly.

50:12

Yeah. So, you know, I'll take

50:14

it for granted, seriously. And I think that

50:16

that's such an important, it's an important

50:18

message in your book amongst so many others.

50:21

And so I know I'm keeping this super

50:23

short and sweet today because, well,

50:26

because of a lot of things, but I'm super

50:28

grateful for you to spend time with us today,

50:30

Rebecca. And I'm curious just right here

50:32

before we end, is there, obviously there's

50:34

a million things in here that we didn't talk about,

50:36

but is there any like big takeaway or something that

50:38

you would be remiss if we didn't mention

50:41

it before we close out the interview? I

50:44

think my favorite thing that I

50:46

was surprised by myself is the

50:48

sort of deeper connection that I

50:51

ever realized between religion and science.

50:54

And I think the moon is really

50:56

the bridge between them in a

50:58

way that I never appreciated until this, where

51:01

I feel like people use the moon for

51:04

timekeeping initially. That's like the way we first kind

51:06

of discovered how to make use of it. And

51:09

that transforms fairly soon into

51:11

this devotion, like people are

51:13

worshiping the moon. And

51:15

because of these devotional practices,

51:18

which arise in the first literate

51:20

societies and Mesopotamia, like now, it

51:22

was now Iraq and parts

51:24

of Syria and Iran and the whole of land, the

51:27

cradle of civilization, people

51:30

create these really detailed records of

51:33

where the moon is and where the planets

51:35

are and the rising and setting times

51:37

for all these like astrological purposes and

51:40

spiritual and even like superstitious

51:43

purposes, but they create this

51:46

record of data that is

51:48

used by the Greeks and the

51:50

Romans and even into the enlightenment

51:53

for people to figure out the nature of

51:55

reality and to invent what we think of

51:58

as modern Western science. And

52:00

I never really knew that before I wrote

52:02

this book. And I

52:04

think that's just super compelling to me that like

52:07

this, this connection between things that people are

52:09

taught are very disparate and, you know,

52:12

and very distinct from each other, actually

52:14

have more in common than

52:17

we might think they do.

52:19

Yeah, it's interesting. And it's

52:21

this universal, very humanistic drive

52:24

to find answers. And I

52:26

think, yes, whether it's

52:28

through religion or science, or even I see

52:30

it within the sciences, right? I come from

52:33

psychology, and I'm very existentially oriented in, in

52:35

the clinical psychology work that I do,

52:37

but I have friends, like Sean Carroll

52:40

comes to mind, who's a theoretical physicist,

52:42

but we're both talking about the nature

52:44

of reality and why are we here and

52:46

what does it mean for us and what's

52:49

our relationship to, to existence

52:51

and I and religion does

52:53

the same thing, right? It does. And

52:56

even now it's trying to explain our

52:58

place in all of this. I

53:00

mean, Carl Sagan said that they're

53:02

both just different ways of trying to

53:05

understand the universe. And

53:07

I don't think that one is necessarily

53:09

superior to the other. And I,

53:11

but I more think now that, like, they're

53:13

actually more related than I ever realized. And

53:16

I just find that to be

53:18

really interesting. And conflict that we always

53:21

have among them is maybe not really

53:23

as true as I thought. And

53:26

I love that too, because it shows

53:28

this sort of other side of the

53:30

coin, like your kind of investigative, his,

53:33

like historical work, it's so easy for

53:35

us to say, well, as scientists, mer,

53:37

mer, and that explains this religious view.

53:39

But you're sort of showing the other

53:42

side of that. No, those religious experiences

53:44

or those religious investigations actually helped

53:46

forge the science, like they are

53:48

explaining what we now know, which

53:51

is really cool. Yeah.

53:53

And they may not have been intending to

53:55

do that. Like that wasn't why they like set

53:57

out to write these, like, you know, clay

54:00

tablets full of data. But

54:02

that's still what, that was the result, you know, and

54:04

I think that's interesting. I think we should be more,

54:06

I don't know, more

54:09

grateful to that legacy. Yeah,

54:11

absolutely. Well, gosh, everybody, the book

54:13

is Our Moon, How Earth's

54:15

Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution,

54:17

and Made Us Who We Are by

54:19

Rebecca Boyle. Rebecca, thank you so much

54:21

for spending some time with us today

54:23

and enlightening us to these kind of

54:25

things that I don't think we often

54:27

think about. It's been an absolute pleasure.

54:30

Thanks so much for having me. This was fun. Absolutely.

54:33

And everybody listening, thank you for coming back

54:35

week after week. I'm really looking forward

54:37

to the next time we all get together. Thank

54:39

you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Waiting

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