0:08

Hi,

0:08

welcome to the Origins podcast.

0:10

I'm your host, Lawrence Krauss. I was lucky

0:13

enough to have a conversation with my friend, the distinguished

0:15

astrophysicist, Lord Martin Rees, a

0:18

few years ago on our podcast, but

0:20

he more recently came out with a very interesting book

0:22

about saving the world with science. And

0:25

I thought it was a great opportunity to have him back to

0:28

talk about the subjects in the book and to have a wide-ranging

0:30

conversation, far beyond astrophysics and

0:33

its own background, about the

0:36

areas where science

0:38

can impact on our lives and our future.

0:42

And it was, as always, a very informative

0:44

and lively discussion. He's a remarkable

0:47

scholar, human being, and a real

0:49

pleasure to talk to. And I

0:51

hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And

0:53

you can watch it ad-free on

0:55

our Substack site if you're a Substack

0:58

subscriber to Critical Mass, and I hope you'll consider

1:00

doing that because those funds

1:02

support the Origins Project Foundation. If

1:05

you're not a subscriber, you can

1:08

watch it on YouTube eventually, if you're

1:10

a subscriber to our YouTube channel, or of course,

1:13

listen to it on any podcast listening

1:15

site. No matter how you watch it or listen

1:17

to it, I really hope you'll be informed

1:19

and educated as much as I

1:21

am every time I talk to Martin Rees. So

1:24

enjoy this Origins podcast with Martin

1:26

Rees.

1:35

Let me just say first, thank you for coming

1:37

back, Martin. This has been a fascinating

1:39

conversation. I really think it's worth delving into

1:42

for the most part of the second half of your book, which is about

1:44

sort of the operation of science

1:46

itself. But

1:49

I do want to touch on a few issues just before we do

1:51

that on AI that you mentioned that I think are

1:54

intriguing.

1:59

You know, you do

2:02

demonstrate as we have discussed that

2:05

we both, you and I think that AI

2:08

is actually extremely

2:10

useful and not so much of it, in

2:12

principle, not immediately a terror.

2:15

And like many people suggest or an existential

2:18

risk in the near term, as long

2:20

as one is careful. The

2:25

one thing that, let me hit,

2:28

there's a few statements you make that

2:30

got me thinking again, and or at least maybe

2:32

I disagree with some. We've already talked

2:35

about the win-win versus win-lose possibility.

2:38

And in principle,

2:40

AI will allow a win-win world, but I think

2:42

in practice, it'll probably too often involve

2:44

a win-lose world.

2:47

Being

2:49

pessimistic in that regard of

2:51

just about economic behavior and foresight.

2:54

But when you talk about one of the limitations

2:56

of AI, you say something interesting to me. You said learning, first

2:59

of all, let's actually step back.

3:03

When people think of AI, much of what AI

3:05

does is not intelligence in any sense.

3:08

It's sorting, it can sort

3:12

and much more efficiently than human beings.

3:15

And that gives it a great deal of power in certain

3:17

areas, but it's not

3:20

cognition in the same sense that we think

3:22

of that. Do you agree with me there?

3:25

Yes, well, it is calculation of the kind, isn't

3:27

it? Yeah. But

3:29

the main advantage is it can do these things

3:31

about a million times faster than human.

3:35

But of course, there are some things it can't do at all.

3:38

Yeah, exactly. There's some things

3:40

it can't do at all. There's certainly some things it doesn't do yet.

3:42

Even when it appears to be

3:44

very thoughtful, it's really just

3:47

doing a very fast

3:49

sorting of information that it's gotten.

3:51

And I guess one

3:53

can have a debate. And as you know, in my new book, I talk about

3:55

consciousness about whether that's really thinking.

3:58

But I think it's just data.

3:59

that's very, very fast and that's great. And

4:03

it's very useful for humans to have such things and they can

4:06

do it much better. For example, you did talk about AI taking over mind

4:11

numbing jobs, but as far as I can see,

4:13

it would do a much better job and many other things,

4:17

including a lot of medicine, diagnostic

4:19

medicine. And the question is, and let me ask you,

4:23

because the problem

4:24

with AI is that

4:30

it often learns the most effective route

4:32

to something, but unlike you

4:36

and I solving an astrophysics problem, we

4:38

don't know how it did it. It's not as if there's some

4:40

logical clear way that it can tell

4:42

you why this is the best route.

4:46

So the question is, if AI

4:48

became diagnostic doctors and I

4:50

think they do a better job than doctors on the average at

4:52

some point in the future,

4:55

in terms of being clinical diagnosis

4:57

of treatment, would people

5:00

be willing to take a diagnosis

5:04

and particularly a post treatment from

5:06

a black box without knowing why?

5:09

Well, I think they should be

5:11

cautious about that because although

5:14

on average it may do a good job,

5:17

there could be some hidden

5:20

bugs in the program.

5:23

So sometimes show

5:25

some bias or does something wrong. So I

5:28

think it's very dangerous

5:30

to

5:31

leave an AI to make

5:34

decisions that affect us as humans, even

5:37

in minor ways, and whether it's in

5:40

assessing job applicants, whether

5:42

it's deciding if you're fit

5:44

for parole, if you're in prison, or

5:47

whether you're credit worthy or things of that

5:49

kind, or indeed whether you

5:51

need surgery, or some operation. It's

5:53

true that in the case

5:57

of radiology, the machine could

5:59

look at 30,000.

5:59

thousand lungs and in

6:02

a sense could do a better job there but one

6:04

hopes there's some real doctor there to

6:06

verify. Well it's

6:09

interesting you have more faith in real doctors. I

6:11

mean the point is that doctors can also have biases

6:13

and agendas. Wouldn't the recommendation

6:16

be simply to do what you tell people

6:18

to do now which is get a second opinion?

6:20

Don't get one IAI's opinion but get another

6:22

one, get a second one. It's

6:25

also independent as long as you're not programmed the same.

6:27

No that's a good idea yes.

6:29

Okay okay. Now

6:32

you did say learning about human behavior will be difficult

6:34

because acquiring quote common sense won't

6:37

be so easy for them. It involves observing

6:39

actual people in real homes or workplaces.

6:42

I'm wondering if that's also maybe not

6:44

true in the sense that an AI who reads enough

6:46

history or learns enough or looks

6:48

at the newspapers

6:50

will will inevitably sort of learn

6:52

about how real people work in real places. And

6:55

so wouldn't

6:58

it be no more difficult to learn about

7:00

sort of how humans tend to respond

7:03

to things

7:04

by looking at millions and millions of human responses

7:06

in literature and newspapers

7:09

as it is to learn how whether a stoplight

7:11

or whether a bicycle is a bicycle

7:13

or a hydrant if you're a self-driving car?

7:16

Yes.

7:19

I think it would but of course the

7:23

problem really is do you

7:26

have enough data and also I

7:29

think the fundamental question of whether

7:34

it's got any sort of concept of

7:36

things or people because this has come

7:38

up recently in this new one that

7:41

can write connected prose and all that. What

7:45

it has done is looked at

7:47

billions of pages of text and

7:51

knows the correlation between words and phrases etc

7:53

and can package them together but there's

7:56

no sense in which it really understands the things

7:59

that those words were for.

7:59

Yeah, I think that's an

8:02

impediment. So although

8:04

the machines can, can

8:07

do a lot, and they can, as you

8:09

say, they can help

8:11

with diagnosis, and they

8:14

can deal with something which is all

8:16

numbers, like the stock market,

8:19

or deal with the economy.

8:23

And I say in my book that they could give

8:25

a planned economy and China of a

8:28

kind that Marx would only be

8:30

of, because

8:31

they can analyze all the data which they

8:33

have in China. And so they can do that.

8:35

But the

8:37

question is, does it really have a

8:40

sense of real people? Yeah,

8:43

I know. In fact, as you

8:45

probably, I know since you wrote a blurb from my book,

8:47

my new book, and I'm thinking about

8:49

consciousness and learning a lot about it, one

8:52

of the remarks that was made by neuroscientists,

8:54

which I think is probably quite important is that wouldn't

8:57

expect

8:58

AI or something you might call AI to

9:01

really be at the point to know about

9:03

this if they didn't have sensory input. It would, part

9:05

of essential part of our consciousness is being able

9:07

to sense the world around us, not

9:10

just read about it. And that's probably,

9:12

I think, a true statement that that's

9:15

probably an essential part. That's right. That's why

9:18

Kurzweil and his ilk imagining

9:20

us being downloaded into a machine. It

9:23

wouldn't really be us in any important

9:25

sense. Exactly. I

9:27

think

9:28

we're certainly in agreement there. And I think that

9:31

we are in agreement, however. We're

9:34

also in agreement of something that you've

9:36

written about, and

9:39

I have too, which is that whatever

9:42

it is, it's the best way, it's the best stuff

9:45

to send into space, much better than human beings.

9:47

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

9:49

And it's, yeah, and it's all

9:51

been fair, but it can do. And but

9:54

also it can help

9:56

us in science. I mean, we know it can

9:58

play games.

9:59

Jess and go, but it could do protein

10:02

folding as we know already. And

10:04

I don't know if you agree, but I think it's

10:06

quite on the cards that

10:09

it may tell us whether some versus

10:11

string theory is correct because the- Oh, I'm not sure.

10:13

Yeah, sure. Not maybe string theory, but certainly Feynman's

10:16

goal of understanding the quantum

10:19

world by using quantum computers when

10:21

he proposed them is, I

10:23

think, absolute. In fact, I'm gonna have a long conversation

10:26

with

10:27

another podcast next, that I'm recording with

10:29

my colleague, my former colleague when

10:31

I was at Harvard and friend John Presco,

10:34

who- Oh, yes, yeah. And we'll talk

10:36

about that. But I think, I think, I'm

10:38

not sure string theory so much, maybe,

10:42

but understanding how

10:44

to literally understand quantum

10:47

systems, which is something we'll literally

10:50

never be able to do without them at some level

10:52

is a definite

10:54

potential use of quantum computers, absolutely. I

10:57

wasn't thinking of the quantum computer, I was just thinking

10:59

that the manipulation

11:02

of geometry and ten dimensions- Oh, yeah, sure.

11:04

Maybe it's not a good thing to do with the basis. Yeah, but I guess

11:06

I'm a- Maybe just, we can do it

11:08

much faster. And then if it

11:10

spews out at the end the right mass for the electron

11:13

and all that, then we know this is something in

11:15

what it's done. Of course. And we don't have

11:17

an understanding of it. Yeah, that's

11:19

right. That was always the goal of string theory. I still think

11:21

that's not even gonna happen with a computer.

11:24

What it may be able to tell us is the math, whether it's

11:26

mathematically consistent, but I

11:28

guess I'm old-fashioned enough to think that at some

11:29

point there need to be more physical input before,

11:33

it won't be pure mathematics in my opinion, but we'll

11:36

see. Maybe. I think, and if

11:38

anything's, this isn't a side, but I

11:40

think you would probably agree with me. If anything,

11:42

the more we learn about string theory, the more we

11:44

learn that it doesn't pick out a universe

11:46

that necess- Even if

11:49

we understand it, which is limited, that

11:52

the direction seems to be that there's enough that

11:56

it won't pick out a universe that looks like ours

11:58

in general, even if it could. that yeah

12:00

yeah any case um

12:03

one of the things that you say actually when

12:05

you talk about risks in general before i leave ai

12:08

is the statement um

12:12

uh let's see

12:14

um uh oh

12:20

here we go um that cyber

12:22

experts furthering the beneficial beneficent

12:25

use of ai should avoid scenarios where

12:27

there seems even a minuscule chance of a machine

12:30

quote-unquote taking over

12:32

i guess again

12:34

i'm not even as worried about that

12:37

i'm not worried about that we we

12:39

give ourselves over to machines all the time it's or

12:41

it's just we're not used to it and we'll get more used

12:44

to it and more comfortable i i was in a in

12:47

phoenix where they have a company that where you can call it

12:49

like uber where you call a self driving

12:51

car and it took me from one place to another and

12:53

i let it i i just gave myself

12:55

into that but moreover there's

12:58

a long history i think we just have to get used to it and i

13:00

think the old earliest example is an elevator

13:03

right i

13:03

mean you get an elevator and you have no control

13:06

over where you're going you're assumed that that that

13:09

tiny computer i remember when i was a kid i built

13:11

a little computer set and showed me how an elevator was

13:13

a tiny computer it knows

13:15

that it's going to take you to floor number three when you ask for

13:17

it but you don't have any control over it doesn't bother

13:19

you though does it

13:21

and i think we'll just get used to it

13:23

letting computers take over more and more and

13:25

and certain tasks and so

13:27

i don't see it's always a danger um

13:29

in that regard i guess

13:32

well i mean let

13:34

me say i'm not an expert at all on this subject

13:36

but it's it's not crazy

13:39

is it to imagine that um

13:42

it could um

13:44

have an interest on the on the world stock markets

13:47

uh-huh yeah uh

13:50

and then and cause some some catastrophe

13:53

to the financial system yeah but i but

13:55

i but i think as your as that quote

13:58

said i'm just i guess i'm i'm at least

14:00

as worried about natural stupidity

14:02

as about artificial intelligence. Because humans

14:04

have done a pretty good job of producing

14:07

stock market disasters and housing bubbles

14:09

and other things. Yeah,

14:12

it could happen just like a self-driving

14:14

car could have an accident. But

14:18

that's a risk we take. I don't

14:20

think that's a unique risk necessarily of AI,

14:23

in my opinion. Anyway, I guess I'm more blase about it than

14:25

some people. The

14:28

example I used at the end of my last book, which

14:31

still resonates with me, is

14:33

the example of Plato

14:35

and others who when written language

14:39

became available, were

14:41

worried that storytelling would end with the

14:43

invention of writing. And

14:47

it's just a different world. And

14:49

that doesn't necessarily have to be worse. But

14:52

you talk about how science, the

14:54

bulk of the rest of your book is talking about

14:56

how science can indeed

14:59

try and ensure that at least the world is

15:01

as good as it is now, if not better, and how

15:04

science can help us. And we both agree. We're

15:06

both on a bash, evangelist

15:08

for science and technology. Science has made the world

15:11

a better place.

15:12

And one

15:15

of the things you emphasize in this

15:17

regard, which I think is important,

15:20

is

15:21

science is valued often most

15:23

because of technology.

15:25

But in fact, the

15:27

scientific ideas themselves are a

15:33

fundamental triumph of being

15:35

human. And

15:36

as you say, quite apart from the impact

15:39

on our lives, it's also surely a cultural

15:41

deprivation, not to appreciate

15:43

the panorama offered by modern cosmology

15:45

or Darwinian evolution. And

15:48

I tend to think that it's the cultural impact

15:50

of science on the way we think of ourselves

15:53

as human beings.

15:54

That is at least as important, if not more important

15:57

than the technology that science creates. And

15:59

people often... just forget

16:01

that aspect of science. And so science is only useful

16:03

if it produces something. Well,

16:07

I mean, I agree with you

16:09

that

16:10

speaking as intellectuals, we would think

16:12

that way. But if you take

16:15

the average person, they

16:19

may not

16:21

appreciate very much about the

16:23

concepts of science, but they certainly

16:26

know what aspects of their

16:28

present lives are a consequence

16:30

of the application of self-hounds.

16:32

Oh, yeah, well, I'm not even sure that's

16:34

true. I think people don't realize that it's science,

16:36

that's quantum mechanics that's operating my

16:39

iPhone

16:40

and wish they did in some

16:42

sense. But I don't know about

16:45

that appreciation. It seems to me

16:47

that

16:49

at its heart, science is an

16:52

intellectual activity that's like music and literature

16:55

that should be celebrated.

16:58

It happens to have that amazing spinoff

17:00

of having made our lives better by creating technology.

17:04

But if you think about

17:07

what it means to be human, sure, it's nicer to have

17:09

a modern, more comfortable life and being

17:12

able to talk to you across the ocean and all the things.

17:15

But thinking of my own humanity,

17:17

I think it's been impacted as much by

17:20

the scientific revolutions

17:22

the last 500 years as it has by the greatest

17:24

music and literature.

17:26

I don't know. Yes. Well,

17:29

I think to realize that the

17:32

world is understandable and

17:35

it's not mysterious spirits

17:37

and all that. So we

17:39

don't need to

17:41

worry in the way that people

17:43

in the pre-scientific era worried about

17:47

disasters happening. So we understand

17:49

the some rationality and repeatability in

17:52

nature, a feature

17:54

of science, obviously.

17:55

Which has changed the world. Yeah, is that people, you know, the

17:57

famous historians saying that Newton. cause

18:00

the end of the burning of witches, but I don't know if it's really

18:02

true, but. No,

18:04

no, no, it reduces irrational

18:07

dread.

18:07

Yeah, it reduces irrational dread.

18:10

And the other benefit that you point

18:12

out, which is a technological one

18:14

is, the more we understand the world, the

18:16

less bewildering it is, but more amazing

18:18

it becomes, which is one aspect. And

18:21

the second part is the more we're able to change

18:23

it, which is the other impact of science. Those are really the two

18:26

huge benefits of science, I guess. And

18:29

although somewhere I was looking in where it is, I

18:31

don't know if I skipped it or if it's later on,

18:35

you do point out that someone said there's

18:40

applied science and there's science

18:42

that's gonna become applied or something like that. And

18:45

I'm not sure, I don't buy that

18:47

dichotomy. I mean, I don't apologize

18:49

for, nor

18:54

do I think it's, what

18:57

I fully expect that virtually everything I've ever

18:59

worked on will never have an application.

19:03

And that's okay. I mean,

19:05

I don't think understanding dark matter and galaxies is likely ever

19:07

to have an application.

19:10

And of course, the technologies we use to develop experiments

19:15

to look for it is a different thing, but the concept, we're not gonna make

19:17

dark matter bombs,

19:19

we're not gonna make dark matter

19:21

cars. And that's okay. And I think

19:24

there's parts of it that will

19:26

never be applied and that's okay.

19:28

Do you agree? Yeah, no, I agree.

19:30

I mean, I quote George Porter was a chemist saying this.

19:33

And I think he wouldn't disagree on what you're

19:35

saying. He would just say that as

19:37

we know very well, it's

19:40

a long time before there's an application.

19:43

I mean, I give the example of a laser, which

19:46

was developed in

19:47

the 60s using Einstein's ideas from

19:50

the 1920s. And

19:54

many applications of the laser weren't

19:57

envisaged by

19:58

the people who invented it.

20:00

They came a must later. So I just meant

20:02

something like that. You

20:05

can never be sure of how science is going

20:07

to be applied. Absolutely. And moreover,

20:10

choosing to, as

20:13

you talk about later in the book, and we'll get to, something

20:16

I strongly agree with and have been advocating for a long time, is

20:18

that choosing how to fund science by looking

20:20

at its applications is often misdirected

20:23

as well. And you

20:25

use one or two examples. The example I always use

20:27

is computers. If you'd put a lot of money into building

20:30

a fast computer before the transistor, you'd have

20:32

computers with flywheels and other things. The transistor was

20:34

invented and not to make

20:37

better computers necessarily, but change the world. And

20:40

so, yeah, you never know. That's why it's

20:42

important to fund curiosity during research. We'll

20:44

get there. One of the things you say,

20:46

which is a beautiful sentence, and I don't

20:49

know if it's yours, but I don't really care,

20:51

science is organized skepticism. I don't know if you got that right.

20:54

It's

20:56

a wonderful description of the scientific

20:58

process because of

21:01

the way science works as a dialectic. It

21:04

works as a, you say, because the greatest esteem goes to those who

21:06

could do something unexpected and original,

21:08

especially

21:11

those who could overturn a consensus. And

21:14

therefore, we need to be skeptical of not just existing

21:16

ideas, but ideas

21:17

that

21:19

are proposed. But I wonder if you've talked, do you have you read anything by

21:21

Jonathan Rauch? He's,

21:24

I had a podcast with him. He's a journalist

21:26

and a writer. He's

21:30

written several

21:31

books about science that have enlightened

21:35

me about science. And what he makes a point

21:37

of is that science is inherently a social activity. It's

21:40

not, he's not one of these different things. He's

21:42

a scientist. He's a scientist. He's a scientist.

21:46

He's a scientist. And he's not one of the things

21:48

that you can do about science. I mean, he's not one

21:50

of these things that you can do about science. Now, it's not one of the things

21:53

that that he does. And in fact, his own theory is inherently

21:55

a social activity. It's not, he's not

21:57

one of

21:57

these new age, you know, one of these deconstructures that science

21:59

is socially derived. without a community,

22:03

because it's required that all ideas

22:05

are immediately open

22:07

to attack, if

22:09

you want to call it, or skepticism

22:12

and discussion. And that's the only way

22:15

science can progress as a social

22:17

activity.

22:18

I see what you

22:20

bought. I agree with that, yes, yes. Sometimes

22:25

you want to

22:26

think in a solitary way for quite a long time,

22:29

that the validation comes from interaction

22:31

with your peers. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Exactly.

22:36

There is time for thinking, and it's important thing

22:38

to do.

22:40

But it could not proceed by a group

22:43

of people thinking,

22:46

and we've seen the dangers of people

22:49

thinking on their own. What you talked

22:51

about, even the great science like Hoyle and others being

22:54

to come obsessed with an idea,

22:56

and the

22:58

community moves on, because the community sort

23:00

of, so it's science

23:03

as the enterprise moves on only because of the

23:05

community of people who are constantly questioning

23:08

and testing and speaking out about other people's

23:11

ideas.

23:14

Anyway, he's

23:16

an interesting, it seems to you read, when

23:19

I, after this is over, I'll send you the

23:21

book, the name of the book, because

23:25

I thought, I was surprised

23:27

that I learned something about,

23:33

the nature of science by a non-scientist,

23:35

he's definitely a non-scientist, it's very interesting.

23:40

You talk about the goals

23:42

of science being modest, and I think that's another

23:44

important thing that very, you say, if you ask

23:46

scientists themselves what they're working on, you'll

23:49

seldom get an inspirational reply like, seeking

23:51

to cure cancer or understanding the

23:53

universe. Rather, they will focus on a tiny

23:56

piece of the puzzle and tackle something

23:58

that seems tractable. And I think

24:00

that's a really important aspect of science that people

24:03

don't realize, that they think

24:05

it's always aimed at all scientists

24:07

are doing grand things

24:09

when it works by baby steps.

24:12

And

24:13

again, I think that's probably once again, one

24:15

of the hardest things, I don't know if you found it in your graduate

24:17

students,

24:18

I found it myself as a graduate student, I

24:20

have found in training graduate students is to say,

24:23

you know, you're biting off more than you can chew, just

24:26

try and pick a problem you can actually solve. Yes,

24:30

yes. But of course, you've

24:32

got to find a problem which

24:35

is going to be relevant to a big picture.

24:38

Yeah,

24:39

that's right. Lots of small problems

24:42

are not worth doing. Yes, they don't

24:44

have any impact, but the judgment

24:46

comes in when you decide

24:49

to pick a bite-sized problem

24:51

which you can make progress and don't bang your

24:54

head against the wall because it's too hard, but

24:56

a problem which is going to be part of

24:58

the big picture. And I also say

25:00

in my book that one of the reasons

25:02

it's important to interact

25:05

with the wider public

25:07

is that otherwise we get blinkered

25:10

and we forget that what

25:12

we're doing is only worthwhile in the long

25:14

run

25:15

if it does help to illuminate a big picture.

25:19

Yeah, absolutely. And

25:22

it's important to get that feedback and to understand

25:24

at

25:25

the same time that

25:28

what you and I do is both a luxury

25:31

and it's supported by the public

25:34

and therefore we

25:36

shouldn't be surprised. It's our own

25:38

fault if they're not interested in what in some sense

25:41

it's their own fault or at least

25:43

if they're right, but also their own fault. If

25:45

we think something's important but the public doesn't,

25:48

it's probably our fault for not

25:51

communicating why very effectively. Nor

25:54

should we expect to be funded just

25:56

because we think it's interesting or we like it.

25:59

Right. Yeah, and it

26:01

is the familiar story of Penderson Wilson,

26:06

when Wilson, he

26:09

was so focused on carrying out the pigeon ships

26:11

and equipment and all that stuff

26:13

that he didn't realize how

26:16

important his discovery was until he

26:18

read Walter Sullivan in the New York Times. Yeah,

26:21

that's right, exactly. You talk about that in your book,

26:23

absolutely. Going to the afterglow of creation,

26:26

yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

26:29

And I found the same thing. Well,

26:32

I've written a lot of books and so have you. And I've found when

26:34

writing books, especially about subjects that

26:36

I think I understand very well, sometimes

26:39

I try and tackle a broader area

26:41

so I can learn it. Well, that's why I write books often.

26:44

But in

26:47

trying to communicate it, I

26:50

suddenly have a totally different perspective of

26:53

both its importance and what the

26:55

key ideas are. In the effort of popularization,

26:57

I learn a lot. You two?

26:59

Yes, yes. I know you

27:01

say that you personally

27:05

would feel very

27:09

unfulfilled if you didn't have the opportunity

27:11

to explain what you were working on to a

27:14

wider public. I don't think that's,

27:17

I feel the same way. I don't think it's required though.

27:19

I mean, there

27:21

are plenty of scientists who are quite happy not.

27:25

And- They're not supposed to be colleagues, as

27:27

you say. Yeah. Yeah, they're not.

27:29

And one of the things that worried me, and

27:31

we talk about public funding, which is an aside,

27:34

I hadn't thought about before mentioning here, but certainly

27:36

it's something that used to worry me

27:38

was when various funding

27:40

agencies would require

27:43

young scientists who were applying

27:47

for these very prestigious fellowships

27:50

or grants like the Outstanding

27:53

Junior Investigator Grant. And I was a chairman of

27:55

the department and these kids would come up to me and I'd

27:57

say kids because they were young.

27:59

And they had, what was required

28:02

was they had to have a public outreach component of their

28:05

research. Most of

28:07

them had never had,

28:09

even postdocs working actively

28:11

or graduate students, never even taught

28:14

much less had, and they had to invent some

28:16

public outreach based on no experience and

28:18

often no interest. And

28:21

I thought how sad that was because most

28:23

of them never, even when they got those awards, most

28:25

of the public outreach never went anywhere. But I

28:27

think the point is that we should encourage those scientists

28:30

who have an interest

28:31

to do it, but not require all scientists

28:33

to do it.

28:34

No, absolutely. Some don't like

28:36

it and no good at it, but I think on

28:39

the other hand, I think those scientists

28:42

in academia who do this

28:44

sort of thing ought to get

28:46

some credit. I mean, it

28:49

shouldn't be that the only thing that comes

28:51

with promotion is publication in

28:53

referee journals, writing

28:55

good blogs and interacting

28:58

with the public in other ways is

29:01

very important in keeping

29:03

the scientific community healthy.

29:04

It's certainly a public service and

29:07

often service to the community is one of the things that leads

29:09

to tenure. And I agree with you, I'm obviously

29:11

a son who one person who spent a lot of

29:13

time doing it, and

29:16

you know, but just not everyone. And as I

29:18

often like to say, not only do I think all scientists

29:20

should communicate with the public, there's some of my colleagues who

29:22

I definitely don't want to interact with the public. But

29:29

the ultimate point is that when

29:31

it comes to the importance of communicating

29:33

with the public and also the importance

29:36

of sort of pure versus applied science,

29:38

you say, this is why much of science

29:40

is best funded as a public good. Ultimately,

29:43

we think the process

29:45

of science is a public good and

29:47

therefore should be funded.

29:49

And that's independent of necessarily

29:51

the technical applications, the consequences,

29:54

but the whole process of trying to ask

29:56

questions about the world is a

29:58

good thing.

29:58

Yes, yes. because

30:01

you can't predict

30:02

what will be applied and when. And

30:05

if you look back at the

30:08

antecedents of some important discovery or

30:10

some important invention, then of course,

30:13

it's lots of different people who have contributed different

30:16

ways. So it's very hard to

30:18

isolate the credit. But I

30:21

think all we can say is that

30:22

overall,

30:24

in a broad-brow sense, the

30:26

amount spent on

30:27

pure research has more than justified

30:30

itself. Yeah, no, I remember

30:32

at the time, it was during, I guess, the Bush administration

30:35

when I was arguing that,

30:37

and

30:39

there was a group that produced a very important

30:42

report on pointing out that

30:44

you could argue that half of the US gross

30:46

domestic product was due to funding

30:50

curiosity-driven research 25 to 50

30:52

years beforehand, rather

30:55

than applied research. And

30:57

there is a great motivation to focus

30:59

in funding agencies on purely applied, but you

31:01

just don't know. And if you stop

31:04

the curiosity-driven research, you're

31:06

ultimately hiring, even if you're interested primarily

31:09

in economic benefits.

31:11

Yes, yes, but you do have

31:13

to consider

31:14

trying to optimize economic benefits.

31:17

And certainly in my

31:19

country, there's a problem getting

31:21

the first stage to commercialization,

31:24

to get it to

31:26

a prototype. You need to venture

31:29

capital, and that's hard to come by. So one

31:31

needs to ease that path, but that's not

31:33

the reason for downgrading the importance

31:35

of funding the basic science. And of course, the

31:37

other point I would make is that insofar

31:41

as the basic science is done in universities,

31:44

then

31:44

it's done by the same people who are

31:47

going to have another important output,

31:49

namely bright and well-trained students. Yeah.

31:52

And all these things are together.

31:54

Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, training the students is maybe,

31:58

it's understanding the...

31:59

fact that the students were training both

32:02

as undergraduates and graduations, we're

32:04

not trying to create clones of ourselves, that

32:07

it is right and fair that most of our students

32:09

don't become academics. It

32:11

would almost be a shame if they did,

32:14

because the training we give

32:16

them

32:16

will then go out and they'll maybe, you know, they'll

32:19

create Google or something like that, which

32:21

will, you know, whether for better or worse, will

32:24

change the economic perspective of the world.

32:26

And so,

32:27

we, I remember

32:29

in thinking about how teaching, how

32:32

to teach physics,

32:33

one of the problems of the way we taught it, it was a

32:35

revelation for me when a colleague of mine, a former

32:38

colleague at Harvard, pointed out to me that

32:40

we shouldn't, when we're teaching students,

32:42

we shouldn't, they don't need to have all the set of skills

32:45

that a functioning

32:48

physicist does,

32:49

and therefore it's okay to

32:52

recognize that we're not trying to create clones

32:54

of ourselves and to change the way we

32:56

teach a little bit so that they may not have all the technical

32:59

expertise to calculate everything about

33:02

a

33:02

brick sliding down an

33:04

inclined plane, but maybe they don't need to. No,

33:06

no, no, but I

33:08

think we do need to ensure

33:12

that academia attracts

33:15

enough people to keep it going into

33:17

state, because one

33:20

point which I mentioned in my book is that I

33:22

think academic careers,

33:24

certainly in your country and mine, are

33:26

becoming less attractive than they were. Yes,

33:29

yeah, absolutely, and trying to make sure

33:31

that, and there are a bunch of reasons and one that you

33:33

don't talk about, I do want to get to this area which

33:36

you don't talk much about because I think maybe you don't have an

33:38

experience so much, is one of the reasons, there are a

33:40

number of reasons why I think academia is becoming less

33:42

attractive to people, and I am concerned

33:44

about, as you know, I've written

33:46

about this,

33:48

you talk about the pressures and difficulty

33:50

of academia and not

33:53

just publishing, but... But you order it,

33:56

not generally.

34:01

But one of the things that

34:03

caused the problem, I'll just bring it up, because I want

34:05

to focus on again later when it's

34:08

irrelevant, is you say one of the,

34:11

what's

34:14

crucial in sifting air and validating scientific

34:16

claims is open discussion. And

34:18

I

34:19

do think, and I'll make

34:21

this statement now, you can comment on it if you want, but

34:24

I want to discuss it more with you, that one of the

34:26

things that is making an academic career less

34:29

attractive to a lot of people is the fact

34:31

that open discussion is becoming

34:33

more difficult in academic institutions.

34:36

And people are afraid of that. And that's making the environment

34:39

less pleasant

34:40

for a lot of people. And I

34:42

don't know if you've experienced it in the wonderful

34:44

places you work, but

34:47

it's happening around the world.

34:53

The

34:54

imperative to foster, you say the imperative

34:57

to foster openness and debate is a common

34:59

thread through all the examples I've discussed.

35:02

And

35:04

that imperative

35:06

to foster openness

35:09

and debate,

35:13

how do you, you talk about the importance

35:16

of communicating to the public through social media, but

35:18

how do you think, what do you think about social

35:20

media and its fostering of openness

35:22

and debate?

35:25

Well, I mean, I think it's

35:28

got very severe downsides, but

35:31

more broadly in politics, because I think

35:33

it's not just Trump, it's

35:36

the advent of social media, follows

35:39

out the moderate center and

35:43

gives voice to the extremes. In

35:45

contrast to when we had our news

35:48

mainly through regular newspapers,

35:50

et cetera, when responsible journalists

35:52

would sort of muffle the crazy extremes. Yeah.

35:55

They got muffled and you click on them

35:58

and get something to do more extreme.

35:59

And this, I think, is a structural

36:02

problem which is going to affect democracy

36:04

in general. And it

36:07

happens,

36:08

obviously, within

36:10

more

36:13

specialized social groups, including academia

36:15

as well. Yeah, yeah. Well done. But although I

36:17

don't think in academia, we

36:20

know the cranks of all kinds, and we

36:23

just learn to discount them.

36:25

Well, it'd be great. Yeah, it would be great. I

36:27

don't think we're, yeah. Well, I think, unfortunately,

36:29

the cranks are being,

36:30

sometimes the cranks are really fascinating and interesting

36:33

people that push the field forward. And

36:35

we deal with that when they're making

36:37

a valuable contribution. And unfortunately, I think we're

36:40

finding that the interesting cranks, I

36:42

mean, I'm virtually certain that Newton would not

36:44

be allowed to have an academic position today if

36:47

he were living in the modern world. And it would be a

36:49

loss for humanity in that case. Well,

36:51

I mean, I think one

36:54

point I make is that because

36:57

academia is getting less attractive

36:59

and much slower promotion

37:00

for these demographic

37:03

reasons, there's no longer an expansion

37:05

of higher education in the way the

37:07

world when we were young. And people

37:09

don't recall, so they

37:11

occupy positions for even longer.

37:13

And so this therefore means that

37:16

it takes longer to establish yourself. And

37:19

I quote the NIH,

37:20

where the average age where you get your first grant,

37:23

there's no reason just like 43. Yes,

37:25

amazing. And

37:28

we want to have in academia not just

37:31

the people who can't do anything else, but

37:33

people of versatile, transient ambition,

37:36

who want to feel they've done something distinctive

37:39

and original in their 30s.

37:41

And if that doesn't

37:43

remain possible in academia, then

37:46

we lose many of the people we want to keep.

37:48

Because we want a lot of them to go in and start companies,

37:52

et cetera. And so we want to have a lot of people

37:55

in some places in academia. Yeah, and

37:57

I need to point out again to jump ahead,

37:59

who have done two years of university,

38:02

but then find that they can

38:04

go on not to feel like failures, but to say, I

38:08

took two good years of, I got two good years

38:10

of education and we should celebrate that. And I

38:12

think it's, yeah, there's a, I mean, the

38:15

situation in academia is becoming

38:17

more and more difficult for a lot of reasons.

38:20

But before we get there, I really want to

38:22

talk about, you do point, you say something

38:25

that I think is really relevant. I want to talk

38:27

about this relationship between science and government that

38:30

you've spent a lot of time on and that you focus

38:32

on in the book, in part of the book.

38:35

Is a wonderful sentence that said, there's no reason

38:38

to expect scientific issues to be straightforward,

38:41

even if they refer to something every day

38:43

and familiar.

38:44

And I think,

38:47

I learned, I guess

38:49

this first became

38:52

clearer to me with my

38:55

wife, my wife worked

38:57

for the government of Australia as sort of science

38:59

management for the government. And what she

39:02

made me realize, and I thought I understood this

39:04

already, but

39:05

quite clearly is that what scientists

39:08

don't understand what's important often, don't

39:11

understand what's important, what the questions

39:13

that are important to politicians and politicians

39:16

don't understand the questions that are important to scientists.

39:19

And that if we worked harder so that the one,

39:21

each group could understand

39:23

what the others, priorities

39:26

were involved in and why they were, it

39:28

would be really a great assistance

39:30

to the way science can

39:32

do what you want to do, which is help us save the world.

39:35

And

39:36

go on, you were gonna say

39:38

that. Of course, one point I make is

39:40

that a bigger fraction of

39:42

the kinds of decisions which politicians have to take

39:45

do have a scientific element to them.

39:47

Yeah, more and more. In fact, science is, yeah.

39:50

Health, environment, energy.

39:53

It's hard to imagine actually almost any, I've

39:55

argued it's hard to imagine any significant political.

39:59

question, especially a national

40:02

level that doesn't have a scientific component

40:04

at this point. And the

40:07

stakes are getting larger in many ways.

40:09

And so the need for that

40:12

sound,

40:13

making public policy based

40:18

in the first sense on empirical evidence, on

40:20

the one hand, and the need for scientists to

40:22

be able to communicate to

40:23

politicians, recognizing

40:26

the limitations

40:27

of their own knowledge and abilities, that

40:30

combination is more urgent than ever.

40:32

And I think you give an example,

40:35

even when scientific facts are agreed upon, the

40:37

planned response depends on balancing the ethics,

40:40

economics, and politics. That's what scientists

40:42

understand. They say, scientists, and the example you give is a

40:44

good one. Consensus isn't easy

40:46

to reach among experts. For example, shutting

40:49

schools down may reduce the spread

40:51

of infection. So scientists say, we want to

40:53

solve the pandemic, shut schools down. It's

40:55

obvious. But of course, as you then

40:58

say, but might not this benefit be outweighed by

41:00

the harm done by disrupting children's education,

41:03

which is, of course, a big issue on

41:05

the right

41:05

right now in the US, and

41:07

especially those disadvantaged children

41:09

whose parents couldn't offer effective homeschooling. But

41:12

that's an issue. So often the scientists

41:14

will say, well, it's obvious what the right thing to do is.

41:17

Or look, take climate change. It's

41:19

obvious we need to do this. But then the politician

41:21

will say, first of all, I have a public I have to deal

41:23

with that

41:24

may not accept not

41:26

eating

41:26

as much meat or whatever you want to

41:29

pick.

41:29

And I have economic questions. And

41:32

so while the scientific

41:34

risk is clear, the way to mediate it is not

41:36

so clear, because

41:41

those ethics, economics,

41:44

and politics are not

41:45

illusory. They're real. Scientists may

41:48

think of they're illusory, but they're real in the real world.

41:51

No, I mean, I

41:53

think most scientists, unless they're really

41:56

very blinker, they're aware of issues.

41:59

They're aware that.

41:59

ethics and economics.

42:01

The point is that they

42:04

only deserve special attention.

42:07

Scientific parts of the decision. Obviously

42:10

they're citizens and they should

42:12

care about all the

42:13

other aspects in the same way, but in

42:16

those respects they are just citizens

42:19

and they can offer advice,

42:21

but not with the

42:24

expectation of any special weight. That's

42:26

right. Well they should offer advice. Scientific

42:29

expertise, right,

42:31

but not policy advice without

42:34

understanding. I think the problem

42:36

is that scientists tend to dismiss that, oh, your concerns

42:39

of politicians are irrelevant. Of course then they lose,

42:41

if you're interested in communication, then you never...

42:44

I hope they're not so like that.

42:46

But at the same time unfortunately

42:49

it goes the other way. There are politicians who are saying, you

42:51

scientists are pie-in-the-sky people that don't understand

42:53

how the real world works.

42:55

Those two things are the biggest obstacles

42:58

to having science do what you and I

43:00

would like it to do. Now there's

43:02

another aspect

43:05

that you talk about which is interesting, which is science

43:07

advisors. And you do point

43:09

out a difference between Britain

43:12

and I know Australia.

43:14

I'm not sure of Canada actually. The

43:18

science advisors are public servants,

43:20

are civil servants in some sense,

43:22

and they're not political appointees

43:25

in the UK. And

43:28

I know in Australia, whereas

43:31

the United States always has... well

43:33

not always, but in the last 60 years has had,

43:36

with a few exceptions, has had presidents

43:38

choose science

43:40

advisors and in the most recent case had a cabinet

43:43

appointment and therefore were political advisors. In

43:45

this case we're subject to the vicissitudes

43:48

of politics

43:49

like Eric Lander.

43:52

And you argue that it's probably

43:54

better to have a system where scientists

43:56

who are giving advice are not political

43:58

appointees.

44:01

Yes, well, of course, it's

44:03

not quite a clear distinction because

44:05

certainly in Britain, each

44:08

minister has his political advisors, etc.

44:12

And there's some permanent people working

44:15

in the government, NSF and places like that. But

44:19

there is a tendency for more

44:21

of a revolving door in the US than in

44:23

the UK. And

44:27

this means that you don't have such

44:30

high chance of getting long-term continuity.

44:33

But on the other hand, as

44:36

I discussed in the context of defence,

44:40

your system means that there are

44:43

some people with real expertise

44:45

who are outside the system in

44:48

the UK working

44:50

for the administrative defence is a rather closed world.

44:53

That therefore means that there aren't people

44:56

outside that system who

44:59

criticize it

45:00

with a level of expertise that's

45:02

needed. Yeah.

45:05

It seems to me the best,

45:08

I was thinking about what you said, the best compromise

45:11

is to have

45:12

scientists appointed

45:15

to advise the government, but with fixed

45:17

terms. So that you

45:20

have a five-year term and you have it no matter what, I

45:23

mean, unless you know, barring major

45:25

problems. And then

45:27

there are new people, because you want constantly,

45:29

you want to have new scientists involved.

45:33

But you're not subject to the

45:35

election cycle or whatever. And

45:38

you can give advice and then move on.

45:41

And then move back in academia, as you say, or

45:43

elsewhere, and then have that expertise based on that

45:46

five-year term or ten-year term,

45:48

which is then valued by the academic

45:50

environment as well. That's right. In

45:53

the UK system, there are some people who are civil

45:56

servants for their lifetime, whereas the senior

45:59

ones, there's a

45:59

the Chief Scientific Advisor in

46:02

every department

46:03

of the government

46:04

who is seconded from the university.

46:07

Okay, and so they do have a term appointment, basically,

46:10

and the university guarantees them

46:12

a job when they come back, and that's

46:14

really, that seems to me, I agree. I

46:16

mean, that's what happens in presidential science advisor

46:18

in principle. I've

46:21

had several departments have been in where the person's

46:23

become the presidential science advisor. Usually, you're

46:25

not allowed to leave, they used to not allowed

46:28

to take a leave more than two years of the

46:30

university, but they tend to say if you're advising

46:33

the president, you're allowed longer term.

46:35

And you

46:37

can get excellent people, and

46:41

when they are excellent and not political, like

46:43

Ernie Moniz and Steve Chu,

46:45

they have a significant

46:48

role, and it's kind of, but

46:51

I guess I just wanna ask you the question. Eric

46:54

Lander, you point out, is a brilliant scientist,

46:56

and brought great expertise and utility.

47:00

Do you think the fact that he, some people think he

47:02

was a bully should have been a reason to remove him? I don't,

47:05

myself.

47:07

Well, I

47:10

just don't know. I mean, if

47:13

it was very bad, yes, if it wasn't

47:16

too bad, no. So I just don't

47:18

know the facts. Well, he'd been fairly successful

47:20

in working with people most of his career and

47:22

producing results, and so I

47:25

understood, I understand, I guess he didn't suffer

47:28

fools, gladly, but that's not

47:30

a reason it's, in academia

47:32

you're allowed to do that more effectively than in

47:34

politics, I think. Well,

47:37

there is a difference, because the junior

47:39

people can't answer back in government,

47:42

whereas in academia it's more sort

47:44

of democratic. Well, one

47:46

would hope, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay,

47:50

now let me,

47:53

I just, you spend time,

47:55

I know that personally you and I have talked about Joseph Rupp,

47:57

like you're the first person actually who,

48:00

I think I really learned about Joseph Ratpat

48:02

from years ago. So you admire

48:04

him. He's one of your idols, I think, scientific

48:07

idols. Is that a true statement?

48:10

Well, I think I do

48:12

admire his lifelong commitments. And

48:14

he was lucky to live to be 95 and still to

48:16

be an inspiring

48:19

speaker, even to students in his 90s. So

48:21

he had a long-term influence. But

48:24

I think the reason

48:26

I got involved,

48:27

to some extent, with Pugwash in the

48:29

1980s was that I admired

48:32

him. And also, I got

48:34

to know Rudy Piles,

48:36

for instance, an idea

48:38

for the bomb. And in the US,

48:41

people like John Simpson and Hans

48:43

Bethe, I got to know academically.

48:46

And I just felt that

48:48

when that great generation

48:50

were no longer around, it

48:52

would be a pity if there weren't committed people

48:54

who

48:55

couldn't match their expertise or credibility,

48:58

but who were trying to campaign

49:00

along the lines that they would have appreciated. And

49:03

so Ratpat was

49:05

the prime example of this, given his

49:08

entire life history. But I

49:11

would say similar things about Piles

49:13

and Hans Bethe.

49:15

Yeah. Dick Garwin

49:17

or no? Dick

49:20

Garwin was trying to. He was too young to do that.

49:22

Yeah. Dick

49:25

Garwin, I think his career is wonderful. He's

49:27

still going strong in his 90s. But

49:31

he was too young to actually

49:33

be in World War II, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

49:36

Now, but the one

49:38

thing that you pointed out about particularly unique

49:41

and something you admired about Ratpat, which I

49:43

think is worth mentioning, is that he was the

49:45

only

49:46

person to leave the Manhattan Project once.

49:49

He felt that the moral imperative

49:54

was the concern that Adolf Hitler would develop

49:56

a nuclear weapon. And

49:59

then when it was close, I think

49:59

that wasn't the case, he

50:01

left.

50:02

And he left, he heard that someone,

50:05

and apparently he left what he heard that

50:08

I think General Groves probably

50:09

say, well, we can use it against Russia.

50:12

And he was

50:14

the only one that, everyone else, as Feynman often

50:16

talks about, the technical, the

50:18

seduction of the advance, it became so-

50:21

Free technology, yes. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it

50:23

became that, oh, we can do it,

50:25

we can do it. That overrode the moral

50:27

issue, the ethical issue.

50:29

No, I think that's true. I mean, it was

50:31

obviously more complicated in regards

50:34

to motivation, because his wife,

50:37

who he'd never seen since he left

50:39

Poland, the outbreak of war went to

50:41

England, and he

50:43

was desperate to find out why she's still alive,

50:46

et cetera. So he had other reasons for perhaps

50:48

trying to get back to Europe, but there's

50:51

no doubt that he

50:52

was only doing this nuclear

50:55

research at all because he wanted to

50:58

beat the Nazis. Okay, but now

51:00

I wanna say once again how the best intentions

51:02

can go awry. I think you suggested

51:05

he was the one that suggested that scientists should

51:07

take a kind of Hippocratic oath, not

51:09

to cause harm.

51:12

I think that

51:14

has the greatest potential for disaster

51:16

of anything. And the example

51:19

I'm gonna give you, and I wanna see what you

51:21

think about, is it ultimately

51:23

stifles

51:25

research. And the example I know of now that I just

51:27

wrote about was I think one of the nature journals that

51:30

said that they will not publish material

51:33

that might possibly,

51:36

not physically harm, but

51:39

emotionally harm marginalized groups.

51:47

So they wouldn't, nature behavior, I think, was the journal

51:49

that said that basically if

51:52

some group could take the results of that research

51:54

and find it offensive or hurt them,

51:58

that they would not publish that.

51:59

And so it seems to me if

52:02

you take a, if we start

52:04

requiring scientists to do no harm, the question

52:06

is what who decides what the harm is.

52:08

And that's my real concern. And so I

52:10

want to ask you to comment on that. First of all,

52:13

I mean,

52:15

I don't think that

52:17

issue you've raised would come under Hippocratic

52:20

oath at all really. But I

52:23

share your skepticism because the

52:25

main point is one can't predict

52:28

what the implications of

52:30

one's work are going to be. And

52:32

therefore, unless you're really

52:34

sure it'll have no benefits, then

52:36

it's best to

52:39

proceed cautiously. So I'm not sure it

52:41

must be had it. Well,

52:43

that's true. We don't

52:45

know what the benefits are. We've already discussed that, you

52:48

know, and that's a great question. But it seems

52:50

to me if we start saying scientists do no harm,

52:53

then we got we automatically give

52:56

someone else the right to decide what harm is. And

52:59

that is, as equally

53:01

I would argue subjective in some

53:03

ways, as the ethical, political

53:05

and economic issues you talked about earlier. And

53:08

I've seen now, we see people

53:10

saying, when it comes to physics that

53:13

it's harmful

53:14

to have whiteboards, you know, I mean, there's an

53:17

article just came out of physical review. I mean,

53:19

because it that that that's racist.

53:22

And and and it's obviously ridiculous.

53:25

But when we start, you know,

53:27

immediately, once you once you start

53:29

giving these requirements or

53:31

ornate, I think it was nature, you

53:34

cannot was no

53:36

was Royal Society of Chemistry gave

53:39

a admonition to its editors

53:41

not to not to allow

53:43

any anything that could be offensive to anyone

53:45

on the basis of almost

53:49

anything they gave a list of 25 different requirements.

53:52

And there's, if there's

53:54

almost nothing you can say at some level that doesn't

53:56

offend someone and if you minute you

53:58

use that as a constraint, then you can do it. you

54:01

stifle that whole thing that we talked about earlier, which

54:03

is that science thrives and actually

54:05

only succeeds with free and open debate.

54:08

Yes. Well, I mean, first of all,

54:10

I don't think those who supported Joe

54:13

and Hippocratic Oath would have

54:15

disagreed with you particularly on this, because

54:18

they were thinking of substantial harm like bioweapons

54:20

and such and such.

54:22

But on

54:24

the issue you're raising,

54:26

which is a problem, this is really the

54:31

view that people don't have a right to

54:33

be offended.

54:35

Yeah.

54:37

Yeah. And people have

54:39

no such right.

54:40

You agree? Yes. That

54:42

is pernicious. And in fact,

54:45

in my university, there was

54:47

a proposed document

54:49

that said that one should respect

54:52

alternative views.

54:54

And there was an amendment

54:56

proposed to replace the word respect by

54:58

tolerate. Okay. Yes.

55:01

One by 90% to 10%.

55:02

Yeah,

55:04

I think the point is, and I've said this many times,

55:06

one can respect individuals, but one doesn't have to

55:08

respect ideas. I think

55:11

that's a fundamental difference. The

55:13

right thing is that you should

55:18

tolerate other opinions, but you don't need to

55:20

respect other opinions. Yeah. In

55:22

fact, ridiculing them is sometimes the best thing

55:24

you can do sometimes. I know you never do,

55:27

but sometimes it's

55:29

worth ridiculing.

55:31

And having said that about the

55:33

Hippocratic Oath, he reminded me that when

55:35

I taught at Yale, I was involved at the time

55:37

getting my faculty colleagues to agree not

55:40

to write a sign of statements saying they wouldn't work on

55:42

Star Wars research, for example,

55:44

the Reagan Star Wars thing. They would not

55:46

take federal money to work on that program,

55:49

which was a clearly harmful thing. So

55:52

I guess there's certain instances I think it's okay to

55:54

make those kind

55:55

of take those kind of oaths.

56:00

You praise Jason,

56:03

this group that was founded of scientists

56:05

that advised the Pentagon

56:07

on, and I know we both know a number of colleagues

56:10

who we admire tremendously, including Freeman Dyson

56:12

and even Steve Weinberg and others. Steve

56:14

left after a while.

56:16

But the one thing that I'm

56:20

not sure it's as universally good as you suggest,

56:22

namely, it seemed to me that the difference

56:25

was that the people who chose

56:27

the questions they were going to work on,

56:29

was that we're often directed

56:31

by the military. And therefore,

56:34

the key ethical questions never got asked.

56:36

I think, for example, during the Vietnam War, they investigate

56:39

whether there should be an electronic fence across Vietnam.

56:42

That's a technical issue. But clearly

56:44

the ethical question

56:46

was begged. And therefore, it

56:48

is worrisome when there are groups

56:50

that do advise military, but the questions

56:52

are provided by the military rather than by the scientists

56:55

themselves. So that's why I've always had problems with

56:57

Jason. So I wanted to get your sense of that.

57:00

Well, I mean, I share your concerns.

57:02

I mean, I think the reason I mentioned Jason

57:04

was it

57:06

has the characteristics that it involves

57:09

top rate scientists.

57:11

More than just

57:14

sitting around a table for a day and

57:16

minutes being taken, but in getting

57:18

together and

57:20

coming up

57:22

with new ideas, tossing ideas off

57:24

each other. And that's because they

57:27

know and respect each other and

57:29

they choose their own membership, etc. And

57:32

they know they're listened to.

57:33

I think that

57:36

those are prerequisites for working.

57:39

And I've several

57:42

times talked to people over here

57:44

about whether we could replicate that

57:47

sociology, as it were,

57:50

in the UK. And I

57:52

certainly think we never could in

57:54

the defence area. Part of

57:56

it was people are slightly less

57:59

robust in the UK.

57:59

their views, but

58:02

more important, we

58:04

in the UK can't make any very important

58:06

independence decisions. So they

58:09

wouldn't think they work on important problems. But on

58:11

the other hand, I think it is worth

58:14

trying to replicate the

58:16

sociology in something like

58:19

an integrated transport system for cities or

58:21

something of that kind, where

58:24

social benefits and it has

58:27

a lot of technology involved and

58:29

cross-disciplinarity. So I

58:31

do think it would be worthwhile in

58:33

the

58:34

UK trying

58:37

this system. I mean, there are

58:39

a lot of commissions of all kinds.

58:41

Yeah, but where people subsequently spend

58:44

time working. People together for six

58:46

weeks to think through a problem

58:48

and try to be original. That's something

58:50

which hasn't been tried. And I just thought

58:53

it would be worth trying,

58:54

but it would not be worth trying in the

58:57

defence area.

58:58

Yeah, but the problem, I agree.

59:01

It's a wonderful opportunity for

59:03

fruitful

59:04

discovery and interaction. But

59:07

I guess I'd say the reason it only works

59:10

in the defence area, at least the

59:12

reason Jason functioned is that General Dynamics

59:14

or the military contractors

59:16

who paid for it make so much money

59:18

that

59:19

they could afford to make it financially

59:22

and intellectually

59:23

attractive to those people working on

59:25

Jason. I suspect in other areas, unless you found

59:27

a government that was willing

59:29

or a private company that was willing to fund

59:32

that kind of activity, it'd be hard to make it happen.

59:34

It's easier defence. There's a lot of money involved.

59:37

Yeah, so I'm saying this. If

59:39

it is in England, we should get the Ministry

59:42

of Transport or something to do with it. Well, maybe

59:44

a private company, maybe Tesla.

59:47

Steve Coonan

59:49

was,

59:51

I think, deputy head of the Jason Group.

59:54

And then he went to work as Chief Science for BP. In

59:56

that latter capacity, he did organise a small group of people.

59:59

sort of mini Jason type

1:00:02

activity on energy. It took

1:00:04

place at the barber, I think. So he

1:00:06

made a, I don't know how successful it was, but

1:00:09

he tried to do something in that sort

1:00:11

of spirit.

1:00:12

Yeah, no, in Aspen, in the Aspen Center for

1:00:14

Physics, one Steve and other people, and Steve

1:00:16

too, yeah, I was there for that. And

1:00:18

yeah, no, that's good. And the question,

1:00:20

of course, and this leads naturally to the next question.

1:00:23

You point out that in the US, because of

1:00:26

this sort of revolving door

1:00:28

in defense, we have a lot of

1:00:30

experts, people who know what they're talking about, who

1:00:33

aren't required

1:00:36

by secrecy arguments to not talk

1:00:38

about it.

1:00:39

And that's a good thing. But let me ask

1:00:41

a devil's advocate kind of question. Again,

1:00:43

because both you and I were involved in the Bolt and the

1:00:45

Atomic Scientists, what got

1:00:47

me, many of the people I admired

1:00:49

when I was in graduate school were deeply involved

1:00:52

in the Bolt and the Atomic Scientists. And that's why one

1:00:54

of the reasons I got involved, the notion that scientists

1:00:56

would speak out and try and inform the

1:00:58

public about the dangers of something that

1:01:00

was very dangerous,

1:01:02

seemed to me incredibly

1:01:04

important. And as I say, in my case, the people I admired

1:01:07

were involved. And then

1:01:09

I was immensely honored to become

1:01:12

not only on the board of sponsors, but the chair of the board

1:01:14

of sponsors. And I was very active for

1:01:16

a decade in that. But,

1:01:19

and it reminded me of how

1:01:22

I would have felt, how happy

1:01:24

I was to be in a position that I guess I would have admired

1:01:26

a lot when I was younger. But then to

1:01:28

put,

1:01:30

to be fairer, I'd have

1:01:32

to ask as a devil's advocate, did

1:01:34

it really ever have any impact? And

1:01:37

I'm not sure, you know,

1:01:39

you gave one example,

1:01:41

I think from your own experience of, in

1:01:44

a defense case when you're on the, I think

1:01:46

in the House of Lords or in a, where

1:01:50

you made a suggestion, but eventually

1:01:52

the government never took up on it. And I'm

1:01:54

not sure the,

1:01:55

I mean, I think the Bolton is a good thing. I always

1:01:58

think information is a good thing, but I don't, really

1:02:00

know if it ever has an impact. I'm not sure

1:02:02

you argue that Rob Blatt's Pugwash

1:02:05

conferences did allow a back channel of

1:02:07

discussion, but it's great to have

1:02:09

it, but I'm sad to

1:02:11

say, I'm not sure any of this is that as much of an impact

1:02:13

that we'd like.

1:02:15

Well, I mean, I think choosing first, in

1:02:19

the Cold War when there was very

1:02:21

little other contacts

1:02:23

between East and West, then

1:02:27

there was a back channel via the Pugwash conferences.

1:02:30

And similarly, the National

1:02:33

Academy and the Russian Academy,

1:02:35

the National Academy being chaired, committee

1:02:37

being chaired by Panofsky, and

1:02:41

people like that, they, and

1:02:44

Darwin was involved, they had an

1:02:46

effect, but of course, when things opened up,

1:02:49

then there are far more activities

1:02:52

like that. And it's

1:02:54

hard for any single one to

1:02:56

have an effect when there are

1:02:58

officials hours. And I think one

1:03:01

thing I mentioned I was involved in was something

1:03:03

run by Think Tank on whether the UK

1:03:05

should keep the Trident Missiles. Yes,

1:03:08

that's it.

1:03:09

This, well,

1:03:11

this was only a UK venture

1:03:14

and it was simply on the policy question

1:03:17

and it wrote a report which, it

1:03:19

had

1:03:20

no effects. But

1:03:23

on the other hand, it's a sort

1:03:25

of thing

1:03:26

that might've had an effect if this was an open

1:03:29

issue. In fact, there was a decision that had been

1:03:31

made a few years ago and they won't go to other countries without

1:03:33

a very strong reason. And

1:03:36

so it didn't have very much

1:03:38

effect. But I think

1:03:40

the main point is that now there are far more

1:03:43

ways in which this debate takes place in

1:03:46

the media, et cetera, and op-eds

1:03:48

in the major newspapers have an effect and

1:03:53

what individuals have an effect. So

1:03:56

that's why

1:03:57

no single small group.

1:04:00

can have as much effects as it did

1:04:02

during the Cold War when there

1:04:04

was only one such group. And

1:04:07

it was the only way you could actually exchange

1:04:09

information. So I think Cobwos

1:04:11

did have an effect in the 1960s, but

1:04:15

much less since then. Much less since

1:04:17

then. Now, I guess to me,

1:04:19

it seemed, let me, you had this experience

1:04:21

and I'm gonna

1:04:22

make,

1:04:23

when I look at

1:04:25

everything from the National Academies to

1:04:28

Bolton, it seems

1:04:30

to me, and the example you gave is

1:04:32

just reinforces my,

1:04:34

maybe prejudice, but I think it's based on

1:04:36

observation. That what happens

1:04:39

is when groups of scientists

1:04:41

advise the government in these regards, if

1:04:44

the advice agrees with what the government

1:04:46

thinks is politically expedient, they take

1:04:48

it

1:04:49

and they completely ignore it otherwise. And

1:04:53

so all it does is, all of these

1:04:56

studies and reports

1:04:57

end up not changing policy. They

1:04:59

just, if they happen to

1:05:01

support, if they happen to agree with the policy the

1:05:03

government is intending to do, they're enacted and

1:05:05

it looks like they have an impact.

1:05:07

But if they're politically expedient,

1:05:09

they're just ignored. And I tend to think that's the way

1:05:11

it works, but please show me, tell

1:05:13

me I'm wrong.

1:05:15

Well, two things. First,

1:05:17

in defense, the sort of issues

1:05:20

like whether the UK should keep trident, that's

1:05:24

not a scientific issue primarily.

1:05:26

It is a political issue. So I'd

1:05:28

expect a scientific committee

1:05:30

to have much say, and in fact, the

1:05:32

committee on trident, it wasn't a scientific

1:05:34

committee. It was a

1:05:36

committee of politicians, et cetera.

1:05:38

You were one of the few scientists. So,

1:05:43

but I think that there are different

1:05:45

issues where international

1:05:48

meetings of scientists are important. To

1:05:51

take one example, after

1:05:53

the

1:05:54

gain of function experiments in microbiology,

1:05:57

then there was a genuine issue

1:05:59

should fund that sort of experiments

1:06:01

and whether journals should publish the papers.

1:06:04

And there was a meeting

1:06:07

convened by the National Academy

1:06:09

and some other foreign academies, including ours,

1:06:12

to where they got an international group of scientists

1:06:15

and

1:06:15

the

1:06:16

editors' nature wrote to other journals to

1:06:19

discuss policy on this question. And

1:06:21

I think that's a case when the

1:06:23

views of that group would have been taken seriously

1:06:25

because it's a matter where science

1:06:28

is important and the scientific

1:06:30

community's views are important.

1:06:32

Well, you know, interesting. I

1:06:34

think, look, any time there's good international

1:06:37

discussions, it's a good thing, but

1:06:39

I'm going to push back a little bit because I think you argued

1:06:41

that,

1:06:42

I mean, I would argue when it comes to gain-of-function

1:06:45

issues, the chief thing

1:06:47

that caused at least

1:06:49

movement in that regard was when

1:06:51

journalists or other people wrote about

1:06:54

that, not so much scientists discussing it, but

1:06:56

when books were written and there were stories

1:06:59

and the public got interested and concerned.

1:07:02

And

1:07:02

I think that

1:07:04

moved things towards having such a meeting

1:07:07

rather than the other way around. No,

1:07:09

I agree it did, but I think the views expressed

1:07:13

at a meeting which was international

1:07:15

contained

1:07:17

most of the experts, those views

1:07:19

would be given right by government. Oh yeah,

1:07:21

I think so. But I agree.

1:07:24

But I think that's probably because

1:07:26

the government doesn't

1:07:29

have a dog in that fight. I mean,

1:07:31

in the sense that, you know, yeah, if there

1:07:34

were some overriding reason why the government

1:07:37

thought a gain-of-function would work, then it wouldn't,

1:07:39

then they wouldn't, I mean, it was useful

1:07:41

for

1:07:42

political or defense reasons or some

1:07:45

other things. And my suspicion is that they go ahead

1:07:47

anyway. But maybe. Yes, but

1:07:49

precisely, I understand it. My

1:07:51

whole point is that scientists only

1:07:53

have

1:07:54

the right to be heard, especially on scientific

1:07:57

issues, and they may well be overridden

1:07:59

by political.

1:07:59

consider this. Yeah, well, okay, and

1:08:02

yeah, and well, and in general they should, but they

1:08:04

often are. I guess

1:08:06

I was going to ask you, well, let me ask you

1:08:08

now, I mean, you've talked about the difference in the Royal Society,

1:08:11

which you have an intimate knowledge of, because

1:08:14

you're the president of it,

1:08:15

and many years as a fellow, and

1:08:18

many committees before, during, and after,

1:08:21

and the National Academies, when I think you're probably,

1:08:23

I suspect you're probably a foreign

1:08:26

member of the National Academy, I

1:08:28

figured you were, but the

1:08:32

difference, you know, I guess, again,

1:08:35

with a jaded view, I don't see the National Academy

1:08:37

as being particularly important or useful. It

1:08:40

primarily, most of its purpose

1:08:42

is spent on choosing members, and most

1:08:44

of its energy is spent on choosing members, and

1:08:47

while it convenes useful

1:08:49

groups that do produce documents, sometimes

1:08:51

I've utilized, that they,

1:08:53

again, they're ignored if, unless they're expedient,

1:08:56

and for the most part,

1:08:58

I suspect if the National Academy didn't exist,

1:09:00

you could create, as you argue, could you create groups?

1:09:03

The question you ask in your book is, could

1:09:05

one create groups

1:09:07

that weren't,

1:09:08

that weren't that, that would

1:09:10

effectively do the same thing,

1:09:13

and you've argued that in your opinion the Royal Society

1:09:17

does deserve to exist because it

1:09:19

does have added value, but I'm just

1:09:21

wondering about the National Academy, because I think the National Academy

1:09:23

is increasingly irrelevant.

1:09:26

Two separate things, I mean, I think the Royal

1:09:29

Society and the National Academy are similar,

1:09:32

the slight difference is that formally

1:09:34

the National Academy can't

1:09:36

be instructed to give advice to the government, it's less

1:09:39

independent of the government than

1:09:41

the Royal Society is, and that actually

1:09:44

was quite a sharp issue when

1:09:46

there was a report on climate change produced

1:09:48

in about 2003, when Bruce Alberts

1:09:50

wouldn't

1:09:54

agree to what they

1:09:56

wanted at the time, so that was

1:09:58

when there was a difference.

1:09:59

which meant that the

1:10:02

NASA Academy had to be more cautious. But

1:10:04

again, there's not very much difference. And

1:10:09

I agree, I don't think these academies have a huge

1:10:11

influence, but I think

1:10:14

in the example I quoted, like,

1:10:17

are there some kind of

1:10:19

biomedical experiments which

1:10:22

are so dangerous that it hasn't been done at all or

1:10:24

should be published? I think it's very

1:10:27

good to have a body which is

1:10:29

accepted to be representative of

1:10:32

top scientists and which can express

1:10:34

a few.

1:10:35

And I think it has done some good things in

1:10:37

that area. And even in

1:10:40

climate change and the first

1:10:42

serious report on geoengineering was

1:10:45

done by the European society in 2009.

1:10:48

And the guy came and gave evidence to a congressional

1:10:50

committee over here over in the US

1:10:53

and et cetera. So it

1:10:56

does some things, but I agree with you. But

1:10:58

the other thing you quoted is that there

1:11:02

is

1:11:03

too much emphasis on getting

1:11:05

people elected and all that. And

1:11:08

the fact is honorific does

1:11:11

lead to this. And I

1:11:13

did say that the minimum

1:11:15

criterion

1:11:17

for an academy to be credible

1:11:19

is that it's not possible to construct

1:11:22

a better virtual academy

1:11:24

from non-members who are eligible.

1:11:27

Yes, exactly, it was brilliant. And I guess

1:11:29

my answer for the national academy is it's not clear

1:11:31

to me. I can't speak, I'm sure the

1:11:34

Royal Academy, so I decided it's better, but-

1:11:36

Well, no, it's

1:11:39

again, not completely clear. And

1:11:41

that's why I think if

1:11:44

one has these things, one does not

1:11:46

attach too much weight to honorific membership.

1:11:49

Yeah, it's the honorific thing to

1:11:51

turn people off like Feynman, another

1:11:54

scientist I know, Yorkan who was

1:11:57

a member but never agreed to go because, yeah.

1:11:59

And then what do you think, I wasn't

1:12:02

gonna ask, but what the heck, because I've written about it. I've

1:12:04

written about the National Academy recently, which has become

1:12:07

more and more

1:12:09

politically correct in the last bunch

1:12:11

of years, as they become more, like many

1:12:14

scientific institutions, more susceptible or

1:12:17

more alert to social

1:12:20

media concerns

1:12:22

and possible negative publicity. And

1:12:25

the National Academy is just last year, there

1:12:29

was an article in science about how that

1:12:31

was 50% female because they

1:12:33

specifically stopped

1:12:35

giving

1:12:37

people a point of their ability to make appointments

1:12:40

if they were appointing males and

1:12:43

more or less. I mean, and

1:12:47

what do you think of that? Well,

1:12:52

I mean, up to a point, I think it's sensible

1:12:54

because clearly women have had a tough

1:12:56

time in the past. Yeah, in the past. Six-year-old

1:13:00

woman will have had a difficult

1:13:02

early career. Absolutely. But

1:13:06

what do you think, but when it comes to making

1:13:08

an appointments like basing it on that,

1:13:12

don't you think that ultimately demeans

1:13:14

the credibility

1:13:17

of a body that's looking to make more diverse

1:13:19

appointments as

1:13:22

one thing, but having a rule that there has to

1:13:24

be, that ultimately committees

1:13:27

will get appointments that

1:13:32

the number of people that'll be able to appoint will

1:13:35

be based

1:13:36

on their past behavior

1:13:38

in appointing people that

1:13:41

are acceptable to the directors

1:13:43

of the Academy? Yes, yes. Well,

1:13:46

I mean,

1:13:49

if it goes too far, I agree it would be a mistake but

1:13:52

on the other hand, what they're doing,

1:13:54

I think is fair. I guess you've

1:13:56

been a head of the department in university. And

1:13:59

I would have thought

1:13:59

in considering appointments

1:14:04

of the senior positions, then it's

1:14:07

appropriate in the case of a woman

1:14:09

to

1:14:12

allow for the

1:14:13

likelihood that she will have had more time

1:14:15

out. Oh yeah, oh yeah. All that

1:14:17

sort of thing. And not

1:14:20

just

1:14:22

take account of publications. Oh yeah,

1:14:24

sure. I mean, looking at all the factors. So I

1:14:27

would say that- Looking at the individual cases

1:14:29

is an important thing when you're appointing someone and as

1:14:32

chair of the department. Moreover, looking to try and

1:14:34

make sure that you're not having, that you are

1:14:37

exploring the broadest possible pool

1:14:39

of candidates, but requiring

1:14:41

the appointment process to ultimately match

1:14:44

the demographics of the underlying society

1:14:46

seems to me to be a danger.

1:14:49

Well, that would be the target,

1:14:51

but they shouldn't. But I think that

1:14:55

it's, I mean, in academia,

1:14:58

in fact, and I include academies

1:15:00

in this, but the shift towards

1:15:03

gender balance has been much slower

1:15:06

than in other walks of life. And the

1:15:08

reason for that is that in academia,

1:15:11

decisions are made on the basis of cumulative

1:15:13

achievement.

1:15:14

And if that's the case, then someone

1:15:17

who's had a career gap

1:15:19

has a lifelong handicap. Oh yeah, I

1:15:22

agree with that. That's not true in most other jobs. If

1:15:24

you're appointing people in many other

1:15:26

careers, you want to know what's they going to do in the next

1:15:28

five years?

1:15:29

You don't care in

1:15:31

detail about that. But do you think that, do you

1:15:33

really think that, I mean, in the modern, I'm not

1:15:36

talking 30, 40 years ago, do you think in the modern world

1:15:38

that has any impact? I mean, right now, right

1:15:42

now it's true that the dominant number of

1:15:44

people getting,

1:15:45

first of all, in the US,

1:15:47

the gender ratio is 60%

1:15:51

women, 40% men in universities as undergraduates.

1:15:57

And in terms of PhDs

1:15:59

in all.

1:15:59

science by far more in

1:16:02

almost every field when you, I

1:16:05

mean in all of science there's some fields where

1:16:07

there were men it's more women

1:16:09

and the appointments are and so

1:16:12

I think you're absolutely right

1:16:14

that

1:16:16

there have been inequities in

1:16:18

the past but do you think that they still exist?

1:16:22

Well I think they still exist

1:16:24

at the senior level

1:16:26

because there were tremendous

1:16:28

inequities when

1:16:33

we were students. I mean I think that didn't

1:16:35

take graduate students until the late

1:16:37

1960s. Yeah so a little

1:16:39

younger but yeah okay. So

1:16:42

if you're electing people for an academy

1:16:44

when they they tend to be at least middle-aged.

1:16:47

Yeah the average age is deceased

1:16:49

I think and some of my colleague and mine told

1:16:51

me. So

1:16:54

they will have had a handicap

1:16:56

as their gender and

1:16:58

of course I think even

1:17:03

when there is a full balance then

1:17:06

I think one's going to have to allow for the fact that

1:17:08

career breaks are going to be more

1:17:10

for women than for men

1:17:12

and therefore it's

1:17:14

never going to be fair to women if you

1:17:16

simply look at total citations

1:17:18

or total number

1:17:20

of papers. Well yes although I think you're making

1:17:22

the assumption that the career breaks at some point

1:17:25

won't be more equitably distributed

1:17:27

between males and females in terms of child

1:17:29

ring. I think it never happened. You don't think it'll

1:17:31

ever happen that mental because I happen I'm

1:17:34

talking about a case where I fought to have

1:17:37

a guy

1:17:38

who had been denied tenure and it turned

1:17:40

out that he had taken a year to take

1:17:42

care of his the family situation

1:17:45

and argued in his case he should

1:17:47

be considered like anyone else and happily he was

1:17:49

reconsidered but that does happen.

1:17:52

Yes yeah. I've worked on both sides

1:17:54

but in any case the bottom

1:17:57

line is that the point

1:17:59

is that

1:17:59

that it's not getting

1:18:02

back the more important issue. This membership

1:18:04

issue, which is such a vital concern

1:18:06

to the national academies that they're worrying

1:18:08

about it is not so important because they spend all

1:18:10

the, that's one of the problems of the national academies

1:18:13

is the honorific level is that, is they spend

1:18:15

most of their time. And I remember when I was at Yale,

1:18:18

most of the time of my colleagues who were in the national

1:18:20

academies was spent making sure their friends got

1:18:23

in and their enemies didn't. Well,

1:18:25

I have to say that I think the Royal Society

1:18:27

does the elections better in

1:18:30

a Royal Society, the decisions

1:18:33

on who to elect from the shortlist is

1:18:36

made by a committee, which

1:18:39

is

1:18:39

all of whose members have read six

1:18:42

reference letters about each of the candidates they're

1:18:44

talking about. Whereas in the national

1:18:46

academy, all the members of the academy

1:18:49

in the particular field of study

1:18:51

have a vote.

1:18:53

And many of them only know the

1:18:55

universities people are at, they don't know their

1:18:57

work. So I do think that there are some deficiencies

1:19:00

in the way the election

1:19:03

process goes. But I think I've disagreed with you

1:19:05

in that I think it's appropriate

1:19:08

to make some special provisions for

1:19:10

women.

1:19:11

Well, I don't agree. I don't disagree. I

1:19:13

just always worry about requiring

1:19:15

demographic

1:19:17

quotas. I think individual

1:19:19

cases need to be, everyone should be examined

1:19:21

individually and

1:19:22

reviewed on merit based on

1:19:25

their own life experience. And I think that's the

1:19:27

appropriate way to. And it's all

1:19:29

right if the experience includes not just published

1:19:31

papers. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1:19:33

yeah. No, I think we're in a complete agreement. I think if

1:19:36

you, but if you do that and you look at each candidate,

1:19:38

rather than ask for some identity

1:19:41

that may be not relevant to their case, then,

1:19:45

and that's my problem

1:19:46

of having, of requiring general,

1:19:50

of requiring an abstract general

1:19:53

set of guidelines when each case

1:19:55

is an individual one.

1:19:56

I viewed that when I was hiring and

1:19:59

I took it.

1:19:59

I think the most important thing, especially in any

1:20:02

field, but in academia, we have the luxury.

1:20:04

We need to look at each person individually and assess

1:20:08

their strength in

1:20:10

a way that's honest and fair.

1:20:12

Yes,

1:20:13

but you're really assessing people who will perform

1:20:15

well when they get the job. And the

1:20:18

past record is only an indicator. And

1:20:20

I'm saying it's a biased indicator. Oh yeah,

1:20:23

sure. And in

1:20:25

fact, actually, a colleague of

1:20:28

ours, an astronomer,

1:20:31

Cormandy, recently got in trouble because

1:20:34

his argument was, and I

1:20:36

think a fair one, that we are inevitably

1:20:39

biased when we make appointments.

1:20:40

And I know that

1:20:43

when as a chair of department, I've wanted to hire people

1:20:46

sometimes who we could not hire because they

1:20:48

just weren't likable. And

1:20:50

they basically turned off, they were great at

1:20:52

what they did, but they turned off, they'd come

1:20:54

visit, they'd have a faculty visit, and they turned off

1:20:56

most of the people. And

1:20:58

it's a social endeavor, and you can't expect that

1:21:01

not to happen.

1:21:02

I mean, it's just the property

1:21:04

of human interactions

1:21:08

that some people who would be excellent

1:21:11

scientist researchers

1:21:14

and maybe even okay teachers

1:21:16

turn off their colleagues, and

1:21:18

that is gonna impact on their,

1:21:22

both their employment opportunities and

1:21:24

their promotion opportunities. But

1:21:27

that's difficult whether that's right or not.

1:21:29

What's difficult? What do you mean whether it's right that?

1:21:32

Whether that should be a factor.

1:21:34

Oh, it shouldn't be, I agree. I say

1:21:37

I happen to like

1:21:38

Pentacris people, so for me, it doesn't bother

1:21:40

me so much. But in any case,

1:21:43

okay, let's, I wanna, you've

1:21:45

been

1:21:46

very generous to your time, and I wanna try

1:21:48

and wrap this up a little bit, but I do wanna get to

1:21:50

the last part of your, which

1:21:52

is attracting

1:21:54

talent, both at

1:21:56

the professional level and education,

1:21:58

which is something far more. are broader, trying

1:22:00

to make sure we educate the public. We've

1:22:04

talked about some of the things that get in the way

1:22:07

of a tracking town. You've made the point that I remember

1:22:09

in the United States, you make the

1:22:11

point of, you said in my Cambridge college, I

1:22:13

asked a group of finally year engineering students

1:22:16

what their career plans were, all but one were headed

1:22:18

for finance or management consultancy, which

1:22:21

was a problem.

1:22:22

And I remember my daughter was in high school that

1:22:25

she, her

1:22:27

brightest peers were all interested

1:22:30

in finance because there were huge amounts of money

1:22:32

to be made in finance. And

1:22:34

they would have been exceptional. And some of them were very

1:22:36

talented technically.

1:22:41

But on the other hand, it's

1:22:43

okay. One year when I taught at Yale, our entire

1:22:46

class of theoretical physics PhDs

1:22:48

and particle physics went to Wall Street. But

1:22:50

that was okay, because there weren't jobs in academia

1:22:53

anyway.

1:22:54

But we need

1:22:56

to think of ways to make it more attractive. And

1:23:00

you've talked about some of the ways that young people

1:23:02

need to be validated

1:23:05

and encouraged

1:23:09

early on in their careers to

1:23:11

have a sense of value. Other

1:23:14

things that you think are important

1:23:15

and also understanding

1:23:18

that different aspects of their activities

1:23:20

are valuable and not just publishing papers.

1:23:23

Anything else?

1:23:25

Yeah, well, I mean, I think

1:23:27

you mentioned salaries and

1:23:29

I think there are these grotesque

1:23:31

inequalities. And that's why

1:23:34

I said early on that we

1:23:36

should learn more from Scandinavia and less from the

1:23:38

United States and Britain because we

1:23:40

now have these huge

1:23:42

inequalities between

1:23:44

the finance sector

1:23:46

salaries and those in academia,

1:23:49

indeed salaries in the entire public sector,

1:23:51

which are on the whole far more socially

1:23:54

useful

1:23:55

than working for a hedge

1:23:57

fund, which is socially useless.

1:23:59

damaging and crypto is certainly damaging.

1:24:02

So the

1:24:05

fact is that the distribution of wealth

1:24:08

is grotesquely

1:24:10

unequal and that's having

1:24:15

downsize not simply in terms of being

1:24:18

unjust and unethical but it's not

1:24:20

optimally deploying the talents of people

1:24:23

because if people

1:24:25

go into professions or into government on

1:24:28

the whole they will do some good if

1:24:30

they're bright whereas if they go into

1:24:33

crypto or hedge fund it's not

1:24:36

they are getting 10

1:24:38

or even 100 times as much money

1:24:40

but it's not clear to me to what

1:24:43

extent they are benefiting the rest of us and

1:24:45

they are leading to a society with

1:24:47

distorted values production

1:24:51

slanted towards producing luxury

1:24:53

goods and it's rather interesting that luxury

1:24:56

goods shares have

1:24:58

held up better than

1:25:00

others during the pandemic

1:25:03

and the richest man in the world is now the french guy

1:25:05

who sells expensive handbags

1:25:08

etc. What do you in that context though

1:25:10

what do you think about

1:25:12

the way in the United States that people

1:25:14

retain

1:25:16

or encourage talented people is there

1:25:18

are at the

1:25:22

highest level academic salaries can be extremely

1:25:25

large. I think in England they aren't that

1:25:27

way I think they're more regimented

1:25:29

and people justify

1:25:32

that as a way of retaining people and

1:25:34

encouraging some people to go into academia

1:25:36

because and it's a way different

1:25:39

universities steal people from other people because

1:25:43

it becomes that kind of free market

1:25:45

and

1:25:47

it's not that way in England how do you view

1:25:50

that in academia?

1:25:53

Well it's going a bit that way in Britain

1:25:56

but at a lower level but I think it's

1:25:58

unfortunate really.

1:25:59

And the only reason it's the case

1:26:02

is that these jobs

1:26:04

in finance are

1:26:07

being paid so much more

1:26:10

that it is distorting the

1:26:12

market. It's not

1:26:14

just academia that's being harmed.

1:26:17

The civil service, I mean, in the UK

1:26:20

Treasury,

1:26:21

the mean

1:26:23

age of the staff is very young,

1:26:25

most of those age 35 can

1:26:29

probably get five or ten times the salary

1:26:31

by moving into banks or

1:26:33

something like that. And so we're

1:26:35

all losing

1:26:37

through

1:26:38

this massive inequality.

1:26:41

It's not just academia. It's

1:26:45

public service generally.

1:26:48

Okay. And what about

1:26:51

what about the you talk

1:26:53

about you say a further put off putting trend

1:26:56

in many countries is the pervasive audit

1:26:58

culture and the deployment of ever more detailed

1:27:00

performance indicators to quantify

1:27:02

our outputs. That's certainly that's

1:27:04

certainly a put off the amount of

1:27:09

paper that needs to be done to do

1:27:12

anything

1:27:13

instead of just being left alone to do your work,

1:27:16

which is what most faculty would like in your country.

1:27:20

You don't have quite the same system as we

1:27:22

do, but it's certainly true that

1:27:25

in academia, certainly in the economics,

1:27:28

you've got to have published papers in a

1:27:30

particular set of journals in

1:27:32

order to be taken seriously. And that

1:27:36

I think is not optimal really. And

1:27:39

it's going to encourage lots of right young

1:27:41

economists to go and be journalists or such

1:27:43

like. So that's

1:27:45

one point I'd make. And

1:27:49

in the UK, we have

1:27:52

the work series means that

1:27:55

even if you're in one of these sort of elite

1:27:57

departments, then the amount

1:27:59

of time. you get for research

1:28:02

is less than it used to be. And also

1:28:04

there are so-called

1:28:07

research assessment exercises which

1:28:10

means that you've got to produce a certain

1:28:12

amount of stuff within any three-year period.

1:28:15

And so this incentivizes very long-term

1:28:17

projects. So one thing which I have

1:28:20

written

1:28:21

articles about recently, although it's only briefly

1:28:23

mentioned in the book, is whether

1:28:27

it's perhaps

1:28:28

no longer as true as it was that

1:28:31

the

1:28:32

research university which was invented by

1:28:34

Humpel to Germany in about 1820 is the

1:28:36

best way. I mean traditionally

1:28:40

that's what we've got in the best UK

1:28:42

universities and the best American universities

1:28:45

where people can do research in

1:28:47

a fairly freewheeling way. They can get resources

1:28:51

and they can

1:28:53

do long-term projects. That's less easy

1:28:56

now they're more constrained. And

1:28:58

I think we're moving to a stage when many

1:29:02

of the

1:29:03

best researchers are

1:29:05

going to want to be in full-time

1:29:08

research institutions. I mean

1:29:11

some in the US and in the UK

1:29:13

we have some very strong ones. In medical

1:29:15

research we have the famous military biology

1:29:17

lab in Cambridge and

1:29:19

others like that which provide better

1:29:22

conditions for long-term blue skies research

1:29:24

than any university does now. Yeah

1:29:27

no I mean they're much more attractive and universities

1:29:29

become more and more onerous because

1:29:31

of the regulations. And I don't want

1:29:33

to dwell on this but I do want to ask because I don't know if it's

1:29:36

the case in the UK. I want to

1:29:38

move to the teaching at the very end here.

1:29:40

One

1:29:43

of the things that's becoming more and more difficult for

1:29:46

scientific young scientists is these

1:29:48

requirements now to get

1:29:52

a job, to get a faculty position or a grant.

1:29:55

You have to demonstrate that you've been actively

1:29:58

involved in

1:29:59

encouraging inclusivity, diversity,

1:30:02

and equity. And you have to actually write

1:30:04

a long statement.

1:30:06

And regardless of the fact, to some

1:30:09

string theorist who's been a graduate

1:30:11

student working on

1:30:14

equations in 11 dimensions, and

1:30:17

then does exceptional mathematical work as a

1:30:19

postdoc, in order to be applied,

1:30:21

has to show how the work they're doing, they've

1:30:24

actively been contributing to

1:30:26

that.

1:30:27

And that's a farce. I mean, and

1:30:33

it will dissuade, not

1:30:35

that these aren't important issues,

1:30:38

but it's not a central facet of the training,

1:30:41

or should it necessarily be

1:30:43

the academic trading of someone in

1:30:46

certain scientific disciplines. And that's turning

1:30:48

people off in the United States anyway. Is it

1:30:50

just in post by the university or by the

1:30:52

NSF?

1:30:53

It's both. The NSF

1:30:56

is now doing it, but the university is doing it more.

1:30:58

I did a study of last year

1:31:01

of 25 job announcements

1:31:03

in physics, and 24 of them required a

1:31:05

detailed statement showing

1:31:07

how one, in a wide variety

1:31:09

of areas, showing how one's work

1:31:12

and one's activities have contributed

1:31:16

explicitly to that.

1:31:18

Yes. No, as you said earlier, I mean, the

1:31:21

department as a whole should be doing some

1:31:23

individual about it, some good at it. Yeah,

1:31:26

exactly. Nor can we expect a junior faculty member

1:31:28

or junior postdoc to

1:31:30

have the experience or expertise

1:31:33

to necessarily

1:31:35

know enough to be able to have done

1:31:37

significant work in that area. Yeah, a

1:31:40

young scientist, it's what like, you know,

1:31:42

as a communicator, I had a young scientist, many of

1:31:44

them say, how can I do what you've done, you

1:31:46

know, in your life or whatever. And

1:31:48

I always tell them the same. If you're a good young scientist,

1:31:50

do science.

1:31:51

That's what you should be doing. And then if there are opportunities

1:31:54

will arise for you to write or communicate,

1:31:56

if that's your interest, but if you have a

1:31:58

talent, you should

1:31:59

And then you'll have the opportunities later on

1:32:02

to make the world a better place in different ways, whether

1:32:06

it's increasing diversity or

1:32:09

increasing communication.

1:32:11

Yeah, yeah. Your agreement, okay. But

1:32:13

now let me ask you about teaching, which is the last

1:32:15

part of the book and one that's

1:32:17

probably

1:32:19

teaching and education in general. And I think the

1:32:21

statement you make about research institutions

1:32:23

could be made more generally. It was

1:32:25

a revelation to me when I spent time in Switzerland

1:32:29

to realize that in Switzerland, they encourage

1:32:31

only 15% of the students in high school to

1:32:33

go on to university.

1:32:35

I used to think of university as something we should encourage

1:32:38

everyone to go to, but I've now come around

1:32:40

and I think for most people,

1:32:42

university is not necessarily that, even

1:32:46

if the best intellectual

1:32:49

course that for many people, most

1:32:51

of the students I see go into universities have no idea

1:32:53

why they're there. It's four years of more

1:32:55

or less

1:32:57

country club living and

1:32:59

before they go out in the real world. And

1:33:02

that

1:33:02

targeted institutions, that targeted

1:33:05

skills

1:33:06

and interests like

1:33:08

they do in Switzerland might be a better solution

1:33:10

for many people. What do you think of that?

1:33:13

Well, I think that's true, but I also

1:33:15

think that everyone in

1:33:17

the universities should have a somewhat

1:33:19

broader curriculum.

1:33:21

Ah, yes. Well, in America,

1:33:24

you do have majors and minors and all that. Yeah.

1:33:27

In the UK, we have a more

1:33:29

serious problem of narrow curriculum. We have fairly

1:33:32

narrow universities in

1:33:35

most cases, but worse than

1:33:38

that, in high schools,

1:33:40

we have specialization at the age of 16,

1:33:43

where you can drop science completely.

1:33:46

Yeah, no, I mean, in England, that was the thing.

1:33:49

You could have a physics degree and just take

1:33:51

physics classes or something and

1:33:53

you could never do that in the States. And by the way, that

1:33:55

was, we used to have this, that was

1:33:57

one of the reasons why I was excited once in working.

1:33:59

in a university in England or

1:34:02

lecturing in it,

1:34:03

which you didn't like because it was a private university,

1:34:07

but the attraction to me at the time was it was the first

1:34:10

UK university that looked like a liberal arts college to

1:34:12

me. It was a private university, it's no longer that. And

1:34:17

students of all types, for example, had to take some science

1:34:19

literacy, which is what I taught.

1:34:22

But I think it's certainly, we're

1:34:24

seeing it more and more

1:34:27

that need to specialize

1:34:30

early on. And that does turn off some

1:34:32

people and also gives you an impediment

1:34:34

because it means if you haven't specialized

1:34:36

early on, you're at a disadvantage

1:34:39

compared to some people who have. And

1:34:41

so you may not have gone to a high school that allowed

1:34:43

them to,

1:34:44

sorry, go on. Yeah, well, certainly

1:34:46

in England, the specialization

1:34:49

at the age of 16 last two years. And

1:34:53

one downside of this is that if

1:34:55

you're badly taught science before the age of 16

1:34:58

and you drop it,

1:35:00

then that forecloses the option of

1:35:02

moving on at 18 to a university

1:35:05

where you could specialize in science. And so

1:35:07

that's obviously bad, but far better

1:35:10

to have something more like the International

1:35:12

Baccalaureate, where you have a wide

1:35:14

menu

1:35:15

as a curriculum all the way up to 18.

1:35:18

But then of course the universities have to play

1:35:21

ball to the extent of lowering

1:35:23

their requirements

1:35:24

of how much you know in your,

1:35:26

what's going to be your major area. And

1:35:29

so- Yeah, and I think- And so both

1:35:31

of these things are needed in Britain.

1:35:34

And also the other point is that we

1:35:37

shouldn't fetishize the level reached

1:35:39

after a three or four year bachelor's degree

1:35:42

and allow

1:35:45

people to drop out with dignity after two years and

1:35:48

come back in and move around. And

1:35:50

I've got to say in Britain, there is a move towards this

1:35:52

now to give people a grant

1:35:54

for

1:35:55

a total of three years at any stage in their life.

1:35:57

So that would be-

1:35:59

That was a suggestion in your book, which I found

1:36:02

amazing. The idea, I think the whole

1:36:04

thing that we want to encourage is lifelong learning,

1:36:06

this notion that somehow, you

1:36:08

know, you stop learning in university or in high school

1:36:10

is just the worst thing,

1:36:12

because most of us, and I've said it, I'll

1:36:14

say it to you. I don't know if it's the same

1:36:16

for you, but I certainly learned much more

1:36:18

physics after my PhD than before.

1:36:21

Oh yeah, me too. And in my case,

1:36:23

I've been a professor of astronomy as

1:36:25

well as physics, but while it may be apparent

1:36:27

to you, it won't be apparent to many others, I never took

1:36:29

an astronomy course in my life as an undergrad,

1:36:33

I learned it all after the fact, but

1:36:36

what little I know. And a lot of it I learned from you of course,

1:36:38

but anyway. But

1:36:41

what about this?

1:36:43

So lifelong

1:36:45

learning is important and offering

1:36:48

people the opportunities. One of the reasons

1:36:50

I chose the university I did, a personal

1:36:52

case is that I liked physics

1:36:54

and I liked science, but I liked to like history.

1:36:57

And that university offered

1:36:59

what was called a general science course, where

1:37:01

you could do equal numbers of courses

1:37:04

and it attracted me. Ultimately I discovered that

1:37:07

I had to specialize eventually and I moved

1:37:10

after a couple of years, I went into math and

1:37:12

physics, but that attractiveness

1:37:14

to people who don't know what they wanna do

1:37:16

is particularly important because not everyone knows what they wanna

1:37:18

do when they're 18.

1:37:20

And of course, many

1:37:22

are going to be generalists

1:37:24

in their career, they're going to go to business or government

1:37:27

service, then they're

1:37:29

not going to be specialists and therefore the

1:37:31

broader the

1:37:32

background they've acquired

1:37:34

at university, the better. Now

1:37:36

in terms of improving, as

1:37:39

you point out, we need to have better

1:37:41

teachers. The real problem,

1:37:43

as you say, ultimately in education

1:37:45

is at lower levels, is trying to get, educate

1:37:48

young people

1:37:50

and we need to do that more effectively,

1:37:52

as well as convincing, as well as providing

1:37:55

people the opportunity, as you point out, for lifelong

1:37:57

learning. And I think the idea of giving people

1:37:59

grants.

1:37:59

they can spend three years at a later time in education

1:38:02

is unbelievably interesting, especially as people live

1:38:04

longer and we

1:38:07

don't necessarily want everyone in the workforce at the same

1:38:09

time.

1:38:12

But what do you think about in terms of

1:38:14

getting back to this question of salaries? In science,

1:38:17

frankly, one

1:38:20

of the problems of having, I know

1:38:22

in the public education system, of getting

1:38:24

good science teachers is that most of

1:38:26

the people who are trained in science have better

1:38:29

opportunities with more money to work somewhere

1:38:31

else. And therefore, I've

1:38:34

argued that while science may

1:38:37

not be more intrinsically useful than art

1:38:39

history, or

1:38:41

maybe English, I certainly don't

1:38:46

think it is,

1:38:47

you probably have to pay in

1:38:50

the public education system science

1:38:52

teachers more in order to make it attractive

1:38:55

because simply they have other options that

1:38:57

an English major might not have. What

1:38:59

do you think of that?

1:39:01

Well, I think it's a pity if you have to have differential

1:39:03

salaries. But from what I know,

1:39:06

in many states, American teacher salaries

1:39:08

are extremely low. Yeah,

1:39:11

it's hard to attract people. So

1:39:13

I think an overall

1:39:16

raise in the level is going to be. Absolutely.

1:39:19

And then you point out that the real thing is not just

1:39:22

teaching in schools, but teaching outside of schools

1:39:24

and the need for scientists to reach out broader.

1:39:26

I think that's one of the main messages

1:39:29

of your book from beginning to end is that

1:39:31

scientists not only should take an interest in

1:39:33

policy at government level. But

1:39:36

again, not every scientist, but the scientific

1:39:38

community

1:39:39

should be working hard to reach out

1:39:41

beyond the traditional realm

1:39:43

of education, but to the public at

1:39:46

large, because they're the ones who ultimately need

1:39:48

to make the decisions in electing politicians

1:39:52

or

1:39:53

creating advocacy groups.

1:39:56

As I say, 3% of the population

1:39:58

gets interested in something.

1:39:59

And I think you've argued very strongly

1:40:02

for that, that

1:40:04

we need that holistic approach and

1:40:06

we need scientists to speak out. And we also

1:40:08

need

1:40:09

to have information more accessible.

1:40:12

I think one of the things that you point out, which is really interesting

1:40:14

is that the, you know, in physics, in science, we

1:40:16

have this thing called the archive, which

1:40:19

makes all information that's happening in science.

1:40:21

Anyone can go on, and I often recommend

1:40:23

even on Twitter that people go to the archive to see

1:40:26

something, whether they'll understand or not, at least

1:40:28

they have the opportunity to go to it. But

1:40:30

such things don't exist in the humanities.

1:40:33

And what can we do?

1:40:36

Yes, but I think more generally, the

1:40:39

role of online versus live

1:40:42

teaching in universities is

1:40:45

an open question. I mean, I know the

1:40:48

other university

1:40:49

in Arizona, ASU

1:40:51

of course, and

1:40:53

I admire hugely what they do. And

1:40:57

I think these so-called MOOCs,

1:41:00

Massive Online Learning, I

1:41:02

think as standalone activities,

1:41:06

they only work for mature

1:41:08

part-time

1:41:09

vocational courses. You know, people

1:41:12

want to learn some special techniques. But

1:41:15

on the other hand, I think they can be a

1:41:17

feature of

1:41:19

a university course. I mean,

1:41:21

and I would say that if you think of

1:41:24

a typical university course, I don't

1:41:26

think much would be lost if the basic

1:41:28

big lectures

1:41:30

that may be

1:41:31

given to a class of two or 300 are online, because

1:41:35

there is no real feedback during the lecture. And

1:41:38

I think if they're well-prepared

1:41:42

and online, and then of course, if

1:41:45

they're especially good, then they can't be made available publicly.

1:41:47

And certainly in Cambridge, I

1:41:50

think we should do that. We

1:41:53

don't want to set up satellite campuses in

1:41:55

the Middle East or like that, but to

1:41:57

make available for the future.

1:41:59

freely, especially good lecture

1:42:02

courses.

1:42:03

Well, just like MIT made

1:42:06

Walter Lewin's physics course.

1:42:09

Then that's a good thing. And it's good for the

1:42:11

university, just like if a professor

1:42:13

writes a good textbook, which is widely used, that's

1:42:16

a positive thing for the university. And so in the same way,

1:42:18

I think if the

1:42:20

big lectures were more carefully prepared and

1:42:23

widely used in the universities

1:42:26

around the world where they don't have such a strong

1:42:28