china's tom milnes party comes to an end. the president is expected to consolidate his position for another five—year term and is set to become the most powerful leader of the country in decade. new york prosecutors are investigating the company co—founded by harvey weinstein following multiple allegations of sexual assault against a hollywood producer. and this story is popular on our website. the portuguese footballer, cristiano ronaldo has won the fifa meant‘s player of the year award. that's it from me, more to come from the team on bbc world news. i will be back, but first, here is hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. my guest today is one of the biggest

selling fiction writers of all time. dan brown. his 2003 novel the da vinci code sparked outrage in the vatican, he's just published another epic tale, this time about man's quest for the origins of life. is there still a public appetite for dan brown's high—fibre blockbusters? dan brown, welcome to hardtalk. usually the phrase which follows your name is "best author" but in reviews of your latest novel, origin, the new phrase for you, and novelist of ideas.

i like that. i have heard many things, but i like that. i would did it and thought i had not heard about it but it is sort of what you are about. i love to write about the grey area between right and wrong, big ethical questions, will god survive science is what i tackled in origin. in some ways it would seem hard to package that into a genre that maybe you don't like this word but people would regard as thriller. i love the word. i write books i want to read. thrillers are fun to read but i also like to learn so what i try to do

and it's an intentional thing is create a book which is fun to read but that you also learn something along the way. what's more important. they go hand—in—hand, they had to be intertwined or else the style does not work. it either reads like a travel journal or a empty thriller and i want to create something that tastes like ice cream but you're getting vegetables. laughter. most kids would say that their mum and dad forced them to eat too many vegetables. do you ever think you are putting too much into it, you arejust trying to be too didactic, making it too dense? all the time and that is where editing comes in. for every page in origin i wrote there were ten which fell to the floor. let's think of the substance the balance, when it comes to human beings trying to explain where we have come from and what life is, the balance between religious explanation and the scientific explanation. you are struggling with this central idea that maybe science has replaced god.

historically science has. if you look at the ancients they had a whole pantheon of gods to explain everything they did not understand from rising tides to love. when the tides would rise it used to be per side and then science came along and said it was more to do with the moon and gravity and poseidon fell. are we naive enough to think history will not repeat itself? that the gods of today will survive? historically they will not. am i right thinking this is personal? your background is interesting in that your family life involved a mother who was quite religious. involved with her church. and a father who was a rationalist maths teacher. i grew up with one foot in each world. i was very comfortable in this existence up until i was about nine years old, i learned about adam

and eve and genesis and i went to the boston museum of science and found out about evolution. i went to my priest and said which story is true? this man said nice boys don't ask that question and that was the moment from the that i realised i was going to be asking a lot of questions. is that the moment you say to yourself now, that that began yourjourney away from religion? absolutely. i moved toward the solid foundations of science. the ground started to get in terms of concrete science. his becomes metaphysics, numbers become imaginary, it makes and bury a circle into philosophy. are you anti—religious? no, it does a lot of good in the world. that moment with the priest, he made you feel uncomfortable, he said nice boys don't ask that

question, surely the extension of that is that religion became something that made you feel uncomfortable? that is absolutely true, what i became uncomfortable with is not religion but the banner of religion being waved as some kind of immunity from having to endure rational scrutiny. don't tell me i cannot ask a question, religion is not doing any favours to the young people today by saying to participate you need to turn off the rational part of your brain. i willjust add the story of adam and eve i can now read as a beautiful morality tale, as a fable, an important part of understanding where we came from. but it's amazing to me than in year 2017 we in my country have congressmen who will stand up

and say the earth is 6000 years old. that the fossil record was put there to test our faith. this is where the danger lies. it's inevitable that people when they listen to this conversation we are having our mindful we are having are mindful that you are dan brown of the da vinci code, a period after you wrote it in 2003 when the catholic church in particular piled onto you, accusing you of egregious falsehoods, of undermining the key tenants of the faith in a way they said was purely falls. they said was purely false. has that encouraged you to want to take on religion more? perhaps, it's interesting, but when the da vinci code came out i had no idea it was going to be so controversial. i was asking a hypothetical question. for those who have not read it of whom there are not many, let's remind them, you posited, a complex story that other

hard that the notion that there was and is a conspiracy at heart of christianity to hide the true story ofjesus christ. that he was a mortal prophet not literally the son of god. yes, a hypothetical... and you didn't realise it was going to be controversial? because it's a thriller. if your faith is shaken to the core by a thriller you have to look at your faith. the reason the book was so controversial i guess is the only word is that because for a lot of people the story i told made more rational sense than the story they heard in sunday school and certainly for me the story i told makes more logical sense. that is what was so dangerous. it sold hundreds of millions of copies in the end and that it's been translated all around the world but one of the problems those defending the christian story had with the book was they felt you molded fact and fiction in a way

which was completely unreasonable and led many breeders to be deeply confused about where the lines between fact and fiction wearer. that's what i do, i do something intentional with these books which is blend that line. what i try to do is take real documents, real art and history and interweave fictional characters discussing them and they have their own ideas and they debate these topics. you voice is telling us, i think, correct me if you think i am wrong, telling us that you believe in certain things like this secretive movement, the priory of sion in france which in the book becomes a movement that is trying to deliver into power descendants ofjesus christ in a secretive way. the feeling one gets is that you believe that was true.

and i personally do believe it's true, i spent a long time researching this book. but you know it has been thoroughly debunked. any time you write a book, if you read about challenging religion, the premise of the book is that we know it is it is not like it is of course historians will say it is not accurate. but this is so germane to the times we live in today, you are suggesting is what is true and what is not is not always truly decipherable, if ever. but it's beyond doubt is it not that this idea of the secretive priory of sion was a hoax developed by a french bloke in the 1950s, the research is in and it was a hoax and you may be hoaxed by it but was it not time for you to say you got it wrong? i'm talking about my beliefs of the story ofjesus christ. how i tell the story, it's a creative art, i can take some of what i want

from history, some of its real and some of it not, i do not know enough about the priory of sion to say for a fact that is true or a hoax, i have no idea. at the time i wrote the book i believed it was true. has your ideas and further research change your mind in any way? gonna that hasn't, i have moved on from that story and left it behind. it is important, i am not trying to convince anyone of an idea, i am trying to write an enjoyable book which gets people talking. if people decide to believe the story then great, if they decide to say it's just a thriller and crazy talk that is fine too. it's just intended to get people thinking about why they believe what they believe. the idea fake news now is absolutely germane to the conversation,

how do you know what is true and what is false? but do you or do you not believe there is truth that in falsehoods and we as human beings has a duty to differentiate? i believe we do as historians. as creative novelists we have the duty to get people to go and ask questions about their own sources. that brings me back the latest work, 0rigin. at its heart is this figure who is perhaps an analgist of the great kick gurus of our time, elon musk or whoever, he believes he has unlocked the secret to how life began. the essence of what we are. in the end, if i am reading the book correctly your conclusion seems to be there is a truly scientific explanation for life, it is out there, somebody has got the secret.

so science wins in your view. it is funny, every religion has a creation story that involves a supernatural power of some sort. to basically say what if life just happens, that is enormous implications for religion. if we don't need god, if we do not need a creator... that is what i am driving at and that is why i lead you through this question, what do you believe, are you able to tell me what you believe about for example where life began? sure, coming through the process of writing this book and talking to physicists and microbiologists and reading about what is happening right now literally in the last two years, i personally believe the laws of physics are enough to create life. there is no god? i said i did not say that. if you ask me what i specifically

believe, i no longer believe in the god of my childhood, who sent his son down to be crucified for my sins. but if i lie out under a starlit sky i feel there is something a lot bigger than us. i don't know what it is, i don't have a word for it. i would not presume to try to describe it. it's hard to take that step into atheism. i am moving in that direction but for me in my life it is still hard to say there is nothing. is it partly hard because you live in a society in the united states where it is quite difficult to be a public figure who says i am an atheist? you are right but it's getting easier to step out and say you know what. .. is it, in america today? 0k, today we have some strange things going on in america, i considered writing the trump code but it was too unbelievable even for me.

it's easy to smile but perhaps also easy to be alarmed, are you? of course i am. one of the challenges with that religion is reading metaphor as fact, that's one of the big dangers of religion, to take metaphors like the story of adam and eve and see it as fact, not only can you not ridicule it and we will debate if we will teach our children and that is where it a problem. other aspects of the public debate where people increasingly have questions about expert opinion and its validity, climate change for example. at the top of the government are people deeply sceptical about what appears to be the consensus science on climate change. do you see that as a trend which could take us human beings into dangerous place?

i do and it has less to do with science and more to do with politics. i think if the politics favoured global warming taking place then global warming would be taking place. i entirely believe global warming is a major issue for all of humanity and it's astonishing to me that it remains, that there are questions at the upper levels of government, it is amazing to me. another theme in this book and i suspect something you are personally interested in is artificial intelligence. in some ways you appear to be close to believing the next phase of evolution will involve human beings somehow transforming with the help of machines. i am not close to believing it, i believe it. explaine it.

if you look at how we live now, we carry little computers, they will be part of us, they already are, we cannot function without our little machines. hearing aids will be implanted. scientists disagree if this is good bad, some believe the power of artificial intelligence will save us and solve global issues of scarcity and overpopulation. 0thers believe it will kill us, that we as a species have never created a weapon, never created a technology we have not weaponised. fire, cooked food but went on and burned down in neighbouring villages, nuclear power turned into weapons. we would be naive to think there will not be a dark side to artificial intelligence but i am an optimist and tend to think there is more love than hate in the world and we will learn how to use artificial intelligence brigade. let me ask you about how you write,

because you unlike some extraordinary successful thriller writers do not churn out novel after novel after novel. we know of some writers who almost have writing factories where they have assistance to help them with plotlines and to develop the novel and then the master craftsman comes and polishes it up, you're not like that at all. i have looked at the record, 4—6 years pause between the release of the next epic tale. there is no pause, i am working the whole time. to research 0rigin took about a year and a half, read everything i could about artificial intelligence, modern art, enough to go to these locations and have intelligent conversations, i educated myself to the point i knew what to ask. these books are intricate

and i want to make sure they are done right and it takes me forever. i'm a slow writer, i do not get it right the first time. i write scenes from many points of view to figure out how the scene is affecting each character. it's a pretty lonely life. it is, it's funny, we were joking that i spend four years all alone in the dark and then suddenly you are out in public, a light in yourface saying be fascinating. this is your moment in the daylight! exactly! but in a funny sort of way that makes you public property and a public figure but somebody who is hardly ever around. don't you ever have, even in this conversation you have said fascinating things

about science and your concerns and your own country about your concerns about where humanity is taking itself and yet three years on end you are entirely silent. that is true i am putting all that into a novel to share with the world. i find it's the only way i can write because i don't like being influenced enormously by having to formulate my ideas in public before they are formed. writing these books is how i figure out what i believe. i am not assuming anything about your politics but given what we see in american politics today don't you ever feel like playing perhaps a more prominent role in being a public voice, maybe some sort of conscience, using a platform to talk openly about what you see in front of you? ifeel like i do that through these books. they reach an enormous portion of the population. i don't like to presume i have the answers. i like people to raise the questions under five created even dinner time conversation is about important topics i've done ourjob.

to get people to start venting. the real danger is when we just sort of think we believe something without really asking ourselves why we believe it. the second, for many of us, the second we ask why do i believe this we have to start to quantify and codify and articulate what it is you believe and you realise you do not believe it at all. that's a process which is most gratifying. do you have a lot of strong core beliefs yourself? i do. i try to be fair and argue both sides of the question and the one thing which was fun about writing 0rigin is it felt like land had thrown off the shackles of bit and through the character of edmund was able to say we are in a dangerous time into revolution and religion is bling a dangerous role. the positive role also but a dangerous role and the idea of having to shut down rational thought in order to be religious is extremely dangerous

and i was able to come out and articulate that. interesting that you are so fascinated by the role of religion and can see its dangers yet you are always, one has to say in the books from da vinci code to 0rigin, you focus on christianity. why are you not, given the way the world works today and some of the other dangers we see arising out of some forms of religious belief why are you not addressing other religions? this book does address, islam, judaism and christianity share the gospel and there are characters from all faiths. ijust wonder if you led the same critical eye that you have led to christianity to islam for example, if you are fearful, mindful of what has happened to other writers like salman rushdie. it's not occurred because it's not something i would do, christianity, i write these books to ask myself these questions and christianity is my experience. it's the world that affect me most because it's how i grew up.

these are my core values. i write these books in many ways for myself, to explore these ideas. that's why i continually choose christianity. you just mentioned robert langdon and how he is cutting loose, would it be right to say that professor roberts langdon with his travel and code breaking and of thing else is the guy you'd love to be? that is the best way to say it, he's the man i wish i could be, he is more daring and intelligent. somebody once joked that how could he be more intelligent because he says everything you think. but then i pointed out when he says something off the top of his head about a painting, it took me three days to research that. how long can langdon go on? he has tough luck and ends up in some pretty bad

situation so i don't know! if i was him i might go home for a while. i think langdon need a vacation and he might take one. you're now so well known for the series, could you see yourself as, still a young writer, just going into a different genre, writing something left field, that your stable audience would be completely be surprised by. i have some ideas i cannot possibly put out but sure. it is just between you, me and millions of years. i have some ideas for a book which would shock everyone, it's so far outside the realm of what i am known for. but it would be a lot of fun to write. fiction? nonfiction. you will come back when... i will, hopefully in a room as spectacular as this. dan brown we have to end it

there but thank you very much for being on hardtalk. it isa it is a messy weather story, but if you are a fan of mild weather, you will be glad of this week because we have a run of south—westerly winds. that will feed in moisture of the sea. you can see this trail of cloud heading into our shores. sunshine will be at a premium throughout the week and we will see whether fronts waxing and waning which will bring outbreaks of rain. as we start tuesday see whether from pushing into southern and western areas to bring rain at times. tuesday, and western areas to bring rain at times. tuesday, another mild day, cloudy with further outbreaks of

rain in places. that western areas to begin the day. for the south—west, it will be very mild and a lot of light rain and drizzle. temperatures 15, 16 degrees. further north we'll have this weather front bringing outbreaks of rain—soaked and wet commute across wales and into the midlands into north—west england. it will be wet for parts of northern ireland and scotland, some of the rain will be heavy and breezy. particularly across western areas. then through the day the rain moves northwards and eastwards and it remains breezy across northern ireland and scotland. conditions make improved and there will be sunshine to northern ireland and some of that sunshine in scotland as well. it is dumped through the central slice of the uk. to the south of the weather front it should be dry and mild, 18 or 19 degrees, closer to the mid to upper teens. the weather front is waxing and waning across the uk. it will be

lying across central and southern parts of the country on wednesday so he will see the most of the damp weather but further north, brighter with good spells of sunshine. breezy across northern ireland and scotland and there will be showers across western scotland. temperatures in the teens. but very mild, 17 or 18 celsius. 0n the teens. but very mild, 17 or 18 celsius. on thursday, the weather front shifts northwards. mild across the south. 18 degrees in the cloud, we could see 21 celsius. but we see a change into friday. this area of high—pressure nudges in and also brings in some cooler air which come in and push the weather front southwards, introducing brighter conditions but it will also introduce some cool and fresh air particularly across northern areas. the change at the weekend and it will be brighter for many with sunshine but it will turn noticeably cooler, particularly in the north. i'm rico hizon in singapore.

the headlines: xijinping is confirmed as china's most powerful leader in decades, as delegates sit in on the final day of congress. rebuilding marawi — the philippines government say the the battle with rebels from the so—called islamic state group is over. i'm babita sharma in london. also in the programme: a un appeal to help rohingya children raises over $300 million, but aid workers say they need more. drivers of older, dirtier cars in london face increase travel costs, and singapore plans to ban the sale of new cars. we investigate if we're stepping into a world without cars.