the--the--you don't have the close supervision that you would if the--if the shows were being produced in your company. mo--many of them are, particularly on a&e. but because of that, i think--i think the grade could be higher and will get higher as we begin to produce our own. i--i think it would be a good strong b right now. c-span: and what do you get the most response out of when you do a program? >> guest: oh, i think the most response comes from world war ii because the audience--the audience for the history channel, mostly men--or a lot of men between the ages of 45 and 70, and the--the great experience of their life was world war ii. c-span: our guest has been roger mudd, and this is what the book looks like. it's a series of five interviews with stephen ambrose, david mccullough, james mcpherson,

richard white and gordon wood put out by american heritage called "great minds of history." thank you very much. >> guest: it's a pleasure, brian. ..

at 10:00 eastern "after words." an interview. he taunts "in the balance" we wrap up the prime time programming at 1eb p.m. eastern with "rocket girl." america's first female rocket scientist. this is booktv.org for more of the television schedule. next curtis white argues authors are misguided in their faith and science will vently provide all the answers we have regarding the nature of human beings and the physical world. he says that the religion versus sentence debate left out the role that philosophy, art, and culture have historically played in shaping the way we understand the world. mr. white is in conversation with former editor of harpers'

magazine. is an hour. >> i'm going turn it over to kurt ties. i'm a long time admirer. now an editorial advisory board. and i turn to him for wisdom in the darkness when often comes over me. i'm going to let him begin by explaining -- i want him to talk as much as possible this evening. you can set up the premise of the book. then i have a few stray questionses that i'll ask you if the silence falls. >> well, from whey can tell so far, one of the things that people out there, readers, journalists, want to know is why i decided to write this book. even though i'm a novelist and

not a scientist or a science writer. and the answer to the question is curious for everybody else. ♪ [laughter] >> i just had to turn it off. i'm sorry. has happened more than once in my writing lifetime, i was driving in a car, listening to npr, and i just happened to hear -- i think fresh air for those of you know my book "the middle mind" know i have a certain attitude toward fresh air. and they were interviewed by joan. the book came out, "imagine how creativity works "as i drove along i was doing --

jim explained how creativity was basically a mechanical function or even a chemical function of the brain. a drop of ox sincerity -- whatever it was saying here. i have come to an idea. the other thing i was surprised at was that how little resistance he seemed to get from the interview. i don't think it was harry. it was somebody. how basically the interviewers' attitude was how interesting. how interesting. for me it was a big moment where i was saying this aggression will not stand, man. that famous line. and so as, i mean, usually i'm very poor as writer at sort of being told given ideas for what to write. and i i'm very dpenl end on it.

i started -- i got the book and started thinking about what it amounted to and how -- sort of grew over time to become a broader kind of critique of scientific and technical rationality in the united. and it's important social implications. this book and so i thought that it would be good for all of us but especially good for me if i -- rather than trying to explain if due to my past but read some of the introduction, which is very short. we'll -- it will give us u some common ground as we proceed.

if you'll bear with me. one of the astonishing spect call of intellectual culture in the first decade of the 21st century has been the confused alarm of struggle insight rising from the clash between christian evangelical and the scientists. at the very moment that the neocon -- christian right the defining ideology of the republican party, scientific liberalism produced -- proclaiming the science and reason over religion. the commercial success of the work cry for hitchens the guide to reality. dan harris the moral landscape. and bill march lethal dose. the movie is a phenomena as the book world likes to say. in any case it's clear that these writers have to tell is one that a very powerful part of

our culture once told emphatically so. some articles have appeared concerning the advancement about the how many brain. the mystifying capacity until now we caused consciousness and creativity. i will be focusing on three science writers the work is a sliver between the neuro scientists and the allies along the art official intelligence. the literature explaining the brain's wiring is vast and technically intim candidate -- intimidating. unlike scientists and critics at war with religion. it's less clear that the writers have an antic nist or part of the cultured war.

it is obvious that neuro scientists are trying to explain phenomena until a few decades ago thought to be in the domain of philosophy, the art, and humanitarians. the surprising thing is how much interest and enthusiasm neuroscientists and thed advocates center generated in the media and among readers. until his fall they imagined how creativity works was the best seller. and the lecture on the connect tone had over a half million views. there have been a few critique from the work from thomas and alfred. but there has been nothing remotely like payson -- popular response to neuroscience encroachment on the humanitarian. shouldn't there be voices as prominent asking different questions? are we really just --

as policy for of science believes? are we matter obeying laws that in our emotional lives have we been for all the time nothing better than the humiliated of the sandman? who falls in love. a seductive piece of clock work? for the centuries have our soul mates as notre dame called electronically simulated girlfriend. than mere congress i coming i ae are our ideas best understood as the important consideration is not truth but adapt of finance. is the best way to understand our social behavior by tagging it to genes? the sell fish gene, the violence gene, the compassion gene, the

romance gene, these are real things, by the way. google them. or real claims. most importantly whether the neuro scientists are correct about this or not. one of the social and political consequences of believing they are correct or nearly so. i would like that ask who is interest do these and what end? they would like us think they are interested in the establishment of knowledge. ly suggest their claims are based upon assumption which of which are dubious and the kind of political culture the delusion support. i say lamentable because it's too late to say dangerous. it's already here. one thing that can be safely said they are not entirely new. cutting edge of scientific

knowledge. the fundamental scientific culture are part of the ideological baggage. in his famous lecture on the root of are romanticism. the view is there is a nature of things such that if you know the nature and know yourself in a relationship to this nature, and understand the relationship between everything that composes these, then your goal as well as the fact about yourself must become clear to you. about all of these things disagreement may occur. but if there is such knowledge that is the foundation of the entire western conditions. the view is that of a jigsaw puzzle we must fit in the fragment of a secret treasure which we must seek. the e sense of the view is that there is a body of fact to which we must submit. sign is submission. science is being guided by the nature of things.

scrop louse regard. understanding knowledge adaptation. my claim in the book that the message of neuroscience advocate is much the same as of that a so-called and they the two should be considered together. the new atheist speak on behalf of the science as the neuro scientists do. the message of both camp is submit. it is also sent to another hi call adversary. art, philosophy, and the humidities. it goes something more like this. the human mind and human creation are not the conflict when something called the will or inspiration or communion or -- [inaudible] are the result of -- [inaudible] all that is a inevitable. it's the weak-minded religion of the poet.

the human mind is a machine of flesh, nuron, and chemicals. danielle called this moist robots. sometimes i think that scientists don't see their own sen of humor. [laughter] i don't think he's kidding. with enough money and computing power the jigsaw puzzle of the brain will be completed and we'll know what we are and how we should act. the problem is to know who it is that continues to belief and retell the enlightenment story. is just what popular science thinks? or is it simply an abusive science by people with social and political agendas? i think the varying and unknowable degree it's all three. it's certainly historically what most scientists in their heart of hearts have thought.

it's usually the fundamental of popular science and science journalism. it's certainly a abuse of the real value of science as one of the great ongoing human endeavor. it's in the essence science is ideology or science as it is often called. unfortunately it takes too comfortable place in the broader ideology of social regimentation. economic exploitation, environmental construction, and industrial militarism that, for a lack of a better word, we call capitalism. how the ideology of science meshes with the broader ideology of capitalism will be a consistent interest of my investigations here. the only remaining question to what degree western culture or meaningful part of the culture can free itself from the delusion which the ideology of science is based and find the resource to compose an alternative narrative about what

it mean to be human. i hope to show that many of those resources are to be found in the un-- it was that nebraska los movement that challenged sciences jigsaw view of the world. and yet on what grounds it did so in the name of what contrary idea of nature and humanity. the romantic tradition certainly has none of the public paren that science and rationism presently enjoy. it cannot enjoy the equivalent reason rally of 20,000 atheists in front of the washington monument. my more modest hope begin a process of remembering the worthy movement of artists, policy fors, and social revolutionaries in order to see what they might have to say to us now. i hope you will find they can still people very powerfully.

>> well, that should be clear enough. [laughter] you can begin. let take down, you know, -- take down some of this. take down what you call the disgraceful book by hitchens. and -- >> intellectually shameful book. >> it's true. it's true. but one of the way you proich the delusion of science of the consensus of physics may be written in the language of mathematic. it's a different thing to say that nature is written in the language of mathematic. >> right. >> physics is dependent upon mathematic. but mathematics is not a sign. if -- it cannot be tested. it has no relation to

experience. e may equal mc2. but that didn't mean we know what it is. it seems to be your central to my mind extremely pertinent and correct take down of the talk i can't bear. so go on about that. explain why. >> i think this is you're touching on the hart of science as an ideology. than goes back to what it essentially the gal lay began perspective on things. which is close to berlin called jigsaw puzzle approach. he felt two things. one, that ultimately everything was explicable, and two, that reality was mathematics was adequate to all of realty.

so that is sort of the starting point for a description of the ideology of science. beyond that, question also say that the fundamental -- it's a simple dwhrad there are objects. there are objects on jets related to each other mechanically. that is what makes it possible for a complete and math call description of the world. of course what is left out of the account what is underst mated by the point of view is the idea -- is the fact that in order to have these on jets, one must have an on observer. we're very familiar with einstein's theory of realivity,

which argues that, you know, time can vary depending upon where the observers is. whether if the observer is traveling something close to the speed of light. time will slow down; right? but what the sign tine tradition seems curiously interested in what is an observer? and in other words, sign presupposes the existence of an observing subject in order do it. and it's not curious about just exactly what we mean by it. of course, a lot of 19th seizely philosophies was including the romantic is interested in what it meant to be a subject, what it meant you know what it meant to be in relationship a world. and one of the primary discoveries of that tradition in 19th century philosophy, was, of course you never seem to be

to be give back. you never get back to a peer eye. there's always something con tom nateing it. that for them, it used the word in a for them was language. or symbolic. so from the point of view of many of the artist and policy fors i talk about in the book, it's critical to understand that our relationship to the real is mediated in one way or another. no matter how thin that distance between the self and its world is. it's always there. and that need to be explained. that needs to be taken in to account. that is something that most

scientists especially the ideological are -- they don't want to talk about how the eye is instituted. what it means to be an observer. they want to be able to say, like, dr. samuel johnson did, does the world exist? i say it does. so that, you know, that sort of gesture for them cuts through the malarkey of having to think through the function of language and the subject. but to me, when science behaves in that way or thinks in that way it's guilty. it's because it's object immediately is that it's important to be able to account for what it means to be an observer and what the role of language and observation is. what the role of symbolic system and observations is. because we have no --

it goes back to the policy for. he calls -- unknowable. right? so what we have is experience. the only way we know how to make sense of experience is through the what he felt are language and mathematic. experience itself mean nothing without language. i go so far in the book as to say that, you know, this use verse, the scientists are so legitimately interested in. is a creation. it's not present at all without the presence of language barers or symbol barriers. the universe exists because of

language. that's what the policy for said. it's the house of being. i've always been persuaded by something like that. the point is that the it is and the im is a joint venture. >> exactly. it's something we find and invent. >> exactly. >> and the mathematics is poor language really it's not as rich of a language as poetry. you talk about we're faced -- between faith in one hand and reason on the other hand. then you suggested third note motive which is the making of met for. the making of symbol.

and man is the maker of symbol and the maker of language. the reality in which we live is each and every one of us is, again, a joint project of what is there. >> right. >> the the thing so wonderful about your book is that not only you show the delusion of the scientists who think that somehow mathematics is a science, but then people like -- how the ideology. they don't know anything about religion. they assume that human decency is innate. they assume it's devine. they offer no proof of that. they cannot say what reason is.

so talk about that too. then, you know, apart the scientific delusion. take apart the -- and then get to german are romanticism and where you're finding the -- i was not familiar when -- i love this book. okay. because i'm a romantic. the -- [laughter] it's get us back. go a little bit of -- get book the german romantics. >> right. i think one of the saddest things that i discovered in writing this book was just how

willfully ignorant the new at -- at yises are of the history of religion. i'm an atheist myself. to be an atheist means to the believe in a ceo god, you know, that sort of sits out there beyond things. playing with his hands. two thumbs. [laughter] we hope. but i have been a student a -- a student of theologies and religion. i find it very fascinating. it's -- it's fascinating as a human document is. metaphor call document. there's no evidence that hitchen, who has no knowing the history know anything about it.

they do not speak from one voice. they come from different intellectual world. one is jewish, one is mostic, the book of john ises -- and paul is its own -- of course he wasn't one of the gospel writers. paul is his own creature. nor is he interested in the history of development of either of them. interested in the history of the development of the church and the counsel essentially was a declaration of war on christianity by christianity. made the first. we know the area is actually.

they seem to have no interest in the romantic or external secularizing of christian tradition and christian theologies and work, for example, of some of the german idealists. or of people like martin. that just seem to be -- what seems to be me being sad about that is they were not willing to be so intent you'llly dishonest about they be were doing.

are willing to take essentially what is propaganda, you know, ideology in a raw sort of sense to hardin their own condition. gather with richard in front of the washington monument. they're so late in arriving. the ideas were dangerous in the 17th and 18th century. they are clip jobs on voluntary and -- and mark twain. it's pathetic. and hitchens in particular, i just other than to say you utterly dishonest person. i can't understand how he didn't know that stuff. why he didn't feel responsible

for, you know, providing in his work. >> he was a -- i knew he liked him. >> you probably -- [inaudible] >> i did. [laughter] he could drink more than i could. he was the washington correspondent for harpers magazine for awhile. and a brilliant person. he's very good about making the argument where the money was. as you say, that retrading of the discovery of god is not great which is -- [inaudible] but that it was? >> all right. talk about the -- no. you have a wonderful message in the book where you talk about metaphor, and you talk about

your parents. you say that parent don't do metaphor. explain that and explain why human beings do metaphor. and so that the human being is the only creature can say what it's like to be -- >> right. >> you see. >> it's a brief side in the book which i take issue with the policy for thomas. enhe argues essentially there must be something that is like to be a bat. and the problem with philosophy and the problem with sign is to find out what it's like to be a bat. and my response was that

nothing is like being a parent. there's simply a -- and they're good at being it. she said good girl. i replied that made me think that, you know, they didn't have any idea what they were like. we call her one too many. >> all right. nowlet take the other idea one of the other ideas. this book, by the way, is

magnificently rich with ideas. you can go in all kind of directions. but in the introduction you read, you talked about scientist as the servant of capitalism, and the language of numbers. the human being as product as code. and the strength of your romanticism is in language and poetry. let me read you something and ask you to comment on it along the same lines. all right this is the essay of george schneider. who was saying that the -- he's talking about the loss language that happened over the last, you know, fifty odd years with the incoming of the television media and internet. the true cat fee of babble is not scattering of tongue. it's the reduction of human speech to a handful of

planetary, multinational tongues. an glow americans -- shaped by military tech karattic and the commercial read. which is the voice of money talking to money. in the voice that tony morrison when she accepted the nobel prize in 1993 denominated the language that drinks blood. happy to admire its own paralysis, possessed of no desire or purpose other than maintaining the free range of narcotic and are in cysts. predatory sentimental. exciting in school children providing a shelter for language designed to sanction ignorance and preserve. that's the language of scientists. and talk about the barbaric art

in another one of your book and connect the ideology of signtism with the capitalists devouring of the earth. >> right. one of the constant means, if you will, of sign signtism we're machine. like computers. if we want to talk about the brain, we have to talk about it wiring. and this is not only, you know, on the face of it, will is actually no evidence that the brain is like this, they are using a metaphor the brain is far more dynamic, and changeable than, you know, wiring will allow. that this is assumption than one of the -- the things that most of the books on neuroscience have been

most consistent about. and the ideological function of that idea -- i think is pretty clear. for example, in relation to the sort of creativity there's a idea that if the same part of the brain lights up when bob dylan writes a song, and when somebody comes up with a low go for a tennis shoe, which is essentially what he argues, believe it or not. it if the same part of the brain lights up when the activities go on. they must be the same. because wouldn't it be elitist for us to say that no, that dylan -- that part of dylan's brain lights up it must be in some sense better than the part of the brain than i heart new york

the live you must live with every day. so what that allows that sort of light of hand. what it allows it to do is move creativity without denying our -- allow them to move creativity some seamlessly to the workplace. so, for example, i cite the ge metro. imagination at work. i point out is identical to -- but it also makes you create. free creativity chevre. that's seems to be a really powerful and trubilitying -- troubling ideological consequence of thinking you're a machine. a so the more. they can convince you you are

like a machine the tendency would be that you will be more likely to accept the idea you should accept the position and we have limited role and we are obliginged to came as we own. these are not things that are new. but they are sort of out of the way. >> no, they have been suppressed. and you're here to revive them. >> i'm trying. >> yeah. >> my own little way. [laughter] >> talk about art. i mean, the --

the end of the 18th century and 19th century are manhattan tickism is in art. that the particularly in music. that, you know, the wonderful people. what do you mean by the human being reaching the height of philosophy through art rather than through mathematics? >> right. >> i talk a lot about are manhattan schism. now it's a dirty word; right? >> he's just a romantic. [laughter] and most people associate the idea of roman -- and just read a poem while you're out there. and give inspired by a water

fall. that is actually a really lazy way of think abouting romanticism and a gross stereo type. the root of romanticism are in german philosophy with -- and i the philosophy of -- in particular is the touch stone for romantismful in general, as i understand it. the primary thing is not nature -- it's anything but that. you can see a flower. fine. it's alienation. that's how we should think about. it's a philosophy that starts with the idea of alien nation. feeling you're not part of your

own world. shiller claimed alienation what he call misery of culture. i would say in the present the ideology of science is [inaudible] his idea that the romantics as artists their primary responsibility and chore as artists is to refuse the world as it was. and the role in the world provided for them they would

invent their own rule. the idea of the poet are really new roles for people to inhabit. just as bo bohemian. all the new kinds of role for human beings to inhabit as a way of leading the role that the dominant culture had provided for them. that's dpircht way and allowing us to think romantic schism is not something that existed

something that never stopped functioning. we always had artists who have -- there's always been art in the west, in which primarily identified with a certain kind of disdense through the creation of -- one of my favorite policy fors said that all art is rule governor deformation. it's not deforming, t not art. the reason for the deformation is not a joy in the ugly or something like that. it's a desire to be free of a dominant culture. >> let me read one of your sense on precisely the point. for the romantic -- is not one organized for the benefit the nobility or church or capitalism or science in reason.

but one that maximizes the -- for play. are tyes play. the spirit is played. >> right. and the -- i'm totally in agreement with the statement. you can go on about it. in brie pairing to write the book, i read a lot of primary text in german philosophy nature was dynamic and rolling the dice as, you know, einstein famously says. god doesn't roll the case. nature does. it certainly does. and it became a kind of ethic for the romantic and the most

desirable human society is one where people were freest to create their own world and create their own role. that was the sort of ethical principle that moved the romantics most. and i was really surprised and how often i found that word play in their text. it's taken up by the -- because he was the one who brought german eye -- idealism to england and by the in understanding media he has a long riff on the object of life being plagued.

[inaudible] everything before the point of the overturned by the work that gal lay did and similar things happen with einstein. i was wondering for you had -- on the idea.

>> i talk about that at some point. in other words, the randomness that functions within science. this is not an antiscience. i like science. i love reading science books, you know, one of the great pleasure of retirement. i finally got to from my university gave -- gig was able to read it. books about psychs that the history of science who knows if the theory is true. it's an antiempire call kind of theory. it's for me a delightful story. and i think one of the things that sort of -- that science as a community but certainly the science aidologist don't understand they are

telling a story too. certainly the idea that everything is -- that there is no such thing as nature there is an ecosystem. everything is systematized. that's a story. and the problem i think becomes when a culture begins to believe that story. but science is such it has been the presence of mind what -- what is his name? somebody. [laughter] >> i'm the happiest when it's overturning. >> right. >> and that's much the science's credit. science gets most excited when it turns over what it already established in new. that's much to science's credit. i think that's a form of play. the thing that is disturbing how much science aidologists want to dismiss the art and philosophy

from the room. they want to say it's dead or you can't learn anything from it. i have extensive quote from the book about this. it's for entertainment only. they don't really believe that art thinks. but that is a fundamental function of art to think. >> george has a repeat book -- [inaudible] he analyzes the pro of the materialist thinkers. do you think part of the problem with people like that is the possibility of the language. do you think if they were writing more complex my they would have more room for allowance for met for in there? >> i think they would need a brain transplant. [laughter] frankly, or a different drug

than the one they're taking. it's hard to imagine. there are -- they're doing what they want to do, which is push a certain point of view. because for some reason they think it's in their breast to do that. scientists like that are jealous of the idea as is the coz meteorologist. very jowl louse of the idea that science has a privileged perspective on what will count as fact or truth. in the phrase, for me, they are per vaiers of truth. truth pimps.

you've been reduced to an awed silence. everyone agrees. one of my favorite passage in the book you taunt the poor crazy -- [inaudible] is the language you use. or that -- [inaudible] these people who are -- having their labor alienated but sort of be the outsider within the company. can you elaborate on that a little bit, maybe? it's a form of -- [inaudible] skill con valley is most famous. by claiming a certain kind of hippy genology and bringing everybody in with their skate boards and tattoos and nose piercings or whatever. but the i cull that a bohemian geek culture.

part of the romantic tradition, and by putting it to is very, you know, commodified capitalism purpose. and there's a quote, there's a long quote in there that uses words we can't have on c-span and all likelihood. employing what he call call thes weird dudes. in the madison avenue company makes no bones about it. we can't have the straight guy and dot advertising. we need creative types. we bring in the weird dude. after a couple of years we bring in more weird dudes. it's, you know, it's -- there's no real respect for that

appearance of the counter culture. it's a very fraudulent appearance. the invention of the media. [laughter] if you look at us a you see it's the way it works. we talk about -- i respect really any of the scientific -- we can -- only the ideology behind it. i was curious what you think of some of the more mathematic -- i was a little upset by the math bashing going on. math is quite a beautiful language. to quantify the improsuggestion of the mathematical language and

any language you can think of. i was wondering for you think it's germane to your point or a different thing. my problem with mathematics is not to do with mathematics per se. the claim that it is adequate. which is false. [inaudible] so -- i forgot what i was going to say. so -- math. yeah. i like it. [laughter] i have nothing against math. [laughter]

[inaudible] you see that a lot. sure. >> that's the next thing of my retirement. was to learn calculus. so jonah, he was a best seller. when it came apart there was a great zeal and almost joy in taking him down. does that speak well of the society. you have journalists getting in trouble all the time. the zeal as you say. he can never have a job again. cut him some slack. but i think a lot of that comes from the fact not that just he committed journalistic sin i was

a spokesperson for a point of view. he was carrying a load he was carrying the load and he screwed it up. really the mainstream after him the hardest. in recognition of that, which is -- they never say that you made the position and sort of -- no one has to be to be say it. shall we call it there? i know i'm tired. you're obviously in good shape. [laughter] thank you for coming out. it was great. i had fun. >> for the last fifteen years,

booktv has covered the annual national book awards ceremony. in 1999, john was awarded the national book award in non-fiction for embracing defeat. japan and the wake of world war ii. >> what i was doing in embracing defeat was trying to capture in japanese cometting together fop to capture the voice i have to go back of every nature of books and magazines. letter to the editors, songs, so many forms of print to historian such as myself this is a treasure house. >> you can watch all of the national book awards ceremonies from the past fifteen years online in our video library. also in 1999, the pulitzer prize recipient for history were edwin and mike wallace.

authors. >> when you say that you're attempting to take on the new york city is new what is your stitch. how can you get a handle on the magnitude? there isn't one particular stick. there's a variety of them a variety of tracks that run through the manuscript organized chronology until the day after tomorrow. but things do run through it, at the largest highest level of analysis we're interested in tracking the city's changing position on the planet.

.. .. on "fox news" just around the corner there and we got to know each other then and have been pretty close ever since. so this is great for me to do. meredith way back then was also a star analyst. people know