lie that they have the only themselves to be to blame for not being blown to bits by a pentagon in the nation drone. why? why is this not as it's eric? well, because i'm here. i can quote the graph that the post always used in his novels, you know, only connect that if you are able to connect things together a bit, make better sense of them, your much more likely to make good decisions about what to do. you know there's, there's a wonderful anecdote towed about the great, steven weinberg nobel prize winning physicist who, when ronald reagan was contemplating pushing anti ballistic missiles up in space. you may remember that kind of defense that was installed on satellites. weinberg said it doesn't bother me. the president reagan doesn't know any science, but it doesn't bother me. he doesn't know any philosophy and history. and of course the point was precisely that if you don't have context, don't put scientific development in the context of it. see how science is changing

history. if you didn't do that to a joining up, then you're going to get into trouble. well, little known fact, you know, i was cradled on the enforced his knee. that's how old i am. pretty we're. but i, i do the, with the quote from using which you don't use in the book when he said, i, maybe it's apocryphal, that all he saw himself was finding a smooth pebble or a pretty shell, the great ocean of truth before him. central to this book is what the more we know the less we know. yes, i mean it's really very striking facts about the history of knowledge, if you like, about until the beginning of modern times. that is, in the 16th the 17th century, people fault as an increase of knowledge meant diminishment of ignorance and moving you the last few weeks are involved. in play. one day we will know everything, we will understand everything. we have a complete picture of the universe and we will have a grip on the truth. and of course, this is inspired by the model of knowledge,

truth and certainty, which is provided by the great religions. because the great petition say that they have the final place story about everything. but what's happened since the scientific revolution, many of the 17th century and everything is far from matches. at the more we discover, the more we find out, the more knowledge we accumulate, the more questions are prompted. and it's been like occupy an island which is growing in the ocean. and the big island gets, the longer the shoreline of ignorance becomes. and we realized more and more and more how little we know give you one very striking example of that. if you think of the enormous explosion of scientific knowledge, particle physics, quantum theory at one end of the scale, cosmetology at the other end of the scale, our understanding of the universe just in the last 100 years, huge explosion of knowledge about that. and what is the torture? it's torture. we have access to less than 5 percent of the mass density of the

universe. less than 5 percent. the physical reality is accessible to to be investigation more than 95 percent of it didn't matter. doc, energy. no idea what it is, we can see some of its effects, but we don't know what it is. and so this is a beautiful example of how the more we know the more we realize the last minute. but of course, those who are religious around the world and you've had spectacular debates with their and maybe maybe actual clergymen, i will say, you know, ever since a counselor nicely or whatever. they always said the bible or the koran nature in later centuries. the, these are not the true the, the, they open up questions and then there's a huge amount of ecumenical debate. is it really that needed the 5 percent worse is the 95 percent dog matter? isn't that comparable to the divinity of christ and whether he is 3 people and so on. well, and the easiest thing in the world is to get mad in the controversy here,

but you do have to remember that even though a go on to the boston age 1617 century, the church, the catholic church, the center, it was quite literally putting people to death for love excepting the literal truth of scripture. and you may remember that galileo was put on trial for saying that the move flies around the sun and he had to deny it in order to save his life. so i mean, because that extent, under age, the old idea, that's the truth about things that the complete picture was available to us in our traditions. that was the thing that was revolutionized really by the rise of science and philosophy. and in the early modern period, we different world now, which is the inheritor of that very healthy kind of skepticism inquiry, asking questions, probing not carrying desires to believe, to the world and looking for ways of justifying them,

but taking out curiosity to the world and finding out what tells us about it itself, but of course, someone say that those were catholic elite that were prosecuting galileo catholic elite. they were sending that message out nowadays people say the science funding, obviously, and you do broach the topic is the elite being skewed towards elite again, is there that much of a change that we have it's changing the way science is invested in and of course, over time we've had, i know, class of managers in this book as well. i should say. well, i think there's a huge difference between the people who take leaving roles and scientific work and, and discovery, and people who occupy hierarchies and religious traditions. and the big difference is that in the science hierarchy, if there is such a thing, the idea of critical skepticism, the idea of challenging people's results of demanding that they be replicated,

complicates of different labs, for example, checking on the results of other labs of the great competition, there is to get the answer right and get to get the fact circled. that is very healthy aspect of the way that science develops. it develops to this tremendous dialectic, if you like, of, of, of criticism, investigation of scrutiny of results. and that is something which is very difficult to do if you in their tradition where you have a center received truth and the virtue is to believe them accept them live by them . so very, very different kind of mindset. i mean, i know everyone relies on quantum mechanics for their mobile phones and the positioning and einstein's theories. but i mean, is it really replication no one at school? if they get the experiment, did they come up with a different value for the percentage of oxygen or something in it? some experiment is going to go, we've got, we've disproved

a huge amount and with the higgs both on it, sir. and isn't it? if they hadn't found it, they would have just said, well, we'll keep looking for it. it's not that it doesn't exist. isn't there something on to logical about that? you know, i can tell you and interesting little anecdotes about the space in connection. but you just said that rather good friend of mine is one of the lead scientists on the children colanda. he was on the compact me on some experiment. that's one of the experiments of just looking for the haze itself. and when they announced that they were satisfied, they'd spotted age. this was in 2012 after a number of years of going over and over and over the results and being absolutely sure that they really got it right. i said, you must have a wonderful occasion. you must have felt so exhilarated and indeed the consequences offer for him past when he was great. she was knighted and you know, 100 tremendous metal and so forth. but he said to me, he said, oh yes, yes, yes,

it was great on that day. but you know, wash, if we hadn't found it, it would have been so exciting because it would have meant that there's a whole lot of different physics out there that we need to look for. now dispatch attitude is that we set to see that wonder that that, that 1st, that hunger for finding out more for digging into difficult mysteries of nature and the universe or the cost for that matter or human nature. which is very distinctive of the, a best of our inquiries, not just in natural science, but i think he story and who look at antiquity and try to make sense of how things work for people. then people look at the brain and how it functions and into human psychology. these are exhilarating, exhilarating inquiries. and you know, it's like opening christmas present. you're putting a parcel because you don't know what's inside, but you do know that whatever is inside is going to be part, at least of an answer to

a question that you've got. and i should just say the range in this book, physics, archaeology, neuroscience is. it's all this summarize in summarizing the field actually before we returned to the maybe the, the class elements and the, what it means today. i mean, just give you talk about ogre it in syria. i was, he normally series in the news because we have the british and united states backing against the assad government by give islamist and so on. meanwhile, on the ground in syria, in recent years, we've discovered amazing things about the history of civilization. just tell me a little bit about that. yes, it's a very striking folks for me about my grandfather was an elderly father, so my father was born my grandfathers. i go and i was born at my father's quite old, so i'm able to say that my grandfather was at school and the 181718 eighty's seems sort of her stomach thing. and he would have known nothing of what we now know

about the past, because all the discoveries made about syria and iraq about that date. and so the question is that mr. pertaining the great civilizations that flourished with the invention of writing the origin, patricia and so many technological advances. all that was actually known until the 2nd half of the 19th century. i mean, we had to, roger just we had the books of the hebrew bible testament as christians call it back all wrapped up in legend. we had home ma'am, but factors regardless of 70 legendary as well before about the 8th, the 9th century d. c. the past was, if there was any sense of that at all was just really racked in the midst of unknowing. but just on the origin of the middle east, from around about mid of the 900 century, has revealed to us quite literally thousands of years of civilizational development in music catania. also in reference civilization in this valley. the yellow

river civilization of china, learning much, much more about egypt and around civilization taking back 4000 years before rogers and the old testament. and that's pretty remarkable, is that only got a ball rolling and the ball rolling was a discovery of the whole new period. so you know, a new stone age and be development in sacraments, unsettled agriculture. and then, of course, the discovery of human ancestors taking us by tens of thousands of years, hundreds of thousands, even indeed. now was the discovery of generations. 6000000 years ago when the buried my earliest ancestors of the human 9 die. but be of a chimp and geez, says in this, a sparkling in the way in which time and the past has opened up so dramatically and so tremendously just very by recently transforming our view of ourselves. well,

i mean, we're really in a way, i personally, you can see i binders. so fascinating concerning situation and feel that if people had a sensor which they understood it, i think would make them sense their own place in the universe rather different p. i mean, i'm not sure what they wore plain pilots were thinking when they were bombing these areas. there recently has to be said as of something they're more on the front of knowledge after this. your break the, the news the unexpected upside of the pandemic kenya is experiencing. and the ellison baby boom, 206 with why this kenya have so many cars. and how has the panoramic

impacted people's lives? and a wall is very big along any fact he end up killing himself. ah, i don't believe nearly. and then you got one via, well, and i will make as well before was what i didn't mean to get the idea mad. and i can say lucky to me, mean thing in it because at, and as i don't want anybody who did the they didn't even notice whether they call to do this. but i know they come when it just wasn't going whatever did it

the welcome back. i'm still here with philosopher and public intellectual professor . ac grayling discussing his new work, the frontiers of knowledge. there will be some view as may be in the american south right now watching this and not taking they have access nations against the rule of virus. and so on who be subjected to a different version of history financed by particular interests. would you do? do mentioned the book. what are the dangers of this as this amazing revolution? and thought has been uncovered and discovered and invented sri and the human mind. and human society is like geological, strauser geological structure, permission very apt to take quick, easy answers and superstitious views of the world down in the more or primitive layers of about understanding. and then increasing me psyche more questioning,

psyche more open or skeptical and more rational i think. and the concept of rationality is very important here, because as i say in the book, if you look at the word rational, you see the 1st part of it is ratio, which means proportion. and so a rational belief is one which is proportional to the evidence you have for it, or the strength of the reasons that you then off before it and say that tends to be rather upper level of that you are eligible, stronger people. and societies and groups with in societies find themselves to different levels of this geological lab, which is why we have rocket cigarettes in the moon now. and people used to read the astrological forecasts. hearing 2021. so surprising in a way that there is this kind of mixture and it's a mixture because history is always on the move, the past is always dying and the new is always being born. if i remember correctly

and factor what been i was, i'm thinking a bit about this interview today. i remember that you chose not to go to your dream of the decade novels. i think you read that you chose, you're not from graham. she. i seem to recall and we, she talks about how the old as died and the new is thought get born. and in that middle period that called a new kind of interregnum the complexity and difficulty this, you know, it's problematic. the presence is always problematic. and in that way is recess, this mixture of the old and the new. so it's 1st might want because you know, a traditional belief might use very, very modern means to carry out some act based on that traditional belief. and that's just the mixture that we're in at the moment. can sometimes be a very dangerous mixture. i mean, we don't go through breakfast again and there were complex breakfast here. argument and complex remain a human famously. but how is it that if, as you say,

things become more and more spectral, in terms of our understanding of your questioning of the world and the universe has political, some elements of political theory appeared to get more certain certainly amongst maybe it's just to read your invocation of it, but certainly say rusher isn't bad, china's bad as was biden would say change bits, it's a trump thing x. but why is this questioning in intellectual circles that company the more certainty i, arguably, amidst politicians? there is a very, very good relationship between increasing complexity and increasing simplicity or the propensity to reach for simple quick concepts and more complex things are. the more a lot of people are driven to look for something checkup, simple black and white. and this is, you know,

an example of how much is that creature under mentioned isn't like, you know, christian fundamentalism in the southern states in the us will funder methodism anyone can persist. it's because you can tell a person, anybody the fundamental team, it's doctrines and plans of any of the major religions in less than half an hour. but it takes a bit longer than that to understand physics. and this is a really good example of how if our understanding of the world is increasingly complex, there's a lot to know a lot to understand when people will reach for the simple answers to human beings like a clear story appear like beginning, middle and then, and lots of explanation, that makes sense. they want to have something that they long to. and the simple answer is the one that you, you reach for when you start creating, getting lost in the complex, in politics that happens as well. so, you know, if you think of a system like the one in the u. k,

which like canada and united states, america and india or have the 1st case voting system. this is a terrible, terrible verging system because the car from being made and then the traffic is going to provide for minority based government. it also means that you can get to political conscious and new level get put, arise ation. you get a, you know, 10 kind of position that views, that results and stones and in simplistic arguments, you don't get, didn't get people trying to compromise or share all work together. but you get division b, c. i said it's most dramatic in the united states of america, but the divide between the republican party and the big democratic party is based and so deep as to be frightening. and we've seen it at its way worse than the trunk . yes. that. so in the case of something like, it's not going to be neutral about it and tell you that i think it's disastrous. i'd be a pretty politic 7000 years in the case of branch. and then we'll see

a phenomenon which is in turns in fact, on the idea that if people worried about all sorts of things in their lives, you can find one simple, wouldn't be futures explanation for it or need on the you said back sovereignty. and socrates problems out of the ways of want, if you can do that, and if you can use these incredible new techniques of communication because i think social media, the internet, what's happened and google and facebook and so on have been very, very malign influences on politics they great from the things by the way, they're great for the sort of democratic agra conversation, people sharing news and views and putting people in touch with one another. yes. but they're also reading bad aspects of them because you can micro target people with false messages that other people can see and call out. i'm sure they direct

them for total elections. i'll give you for that. but then it for us johnson or donald trump, maybe in 2024. i mean, maybe he read, they read the book and they would come out with the alarming idea that they're on the right path. because this questioning of knowledge accompanies seeking for simplicity. so you'd be, they're going obviously, i don't agree with it, but johnson get more union. jack's get flags round. you have more simple messages. people are looking for answers, and this is a good political, maggy, valley and strategy well, which evidence has worked in recent years? yes, and i suppose you could trace route what you've just said. i'm telling wrong center wrote out more flags. i'd be telling everybody else to watch that back when johnson spelled out more drags have because he trying to do them. so, you know, that really is the message that what we want to be, what we want to be doing. and this is

a point that i wrote the book for pasting and talking point is we should make ourselves literate across the fields in an inquiry. and in particular so that we can make ourselves better at thinking clearly critically and evaluation. what people claim people change in there because we can make some connections we can see across the landscape of our understanding about doesn't mean that we want to become part of the system will work. we become ancient historian, so anything, but we'll do each of us needs more sense, especially if we need to skill in like the g and i careers. we should also have this general literacy, and i think cation and all of the thrust about education systems. thank you. that's us down in the u. k. we stopped to specialize after the age of 16. after you redo few as subjects of a level, you might be once up that university. and this is not great. and the old model,

the one which is kind of been chips away. asher located in the us is that you provider, general education. and then people as specialize on the basis of their interests and talents afterwards. but if you, if you specialize to early people, new sites of the context of the wider and landscape of things into which what they do, it's a nation i think is in pounds. it's any part of a complicated story of this day. i know you're talking of talk to the past this size culture debate of c p though is alive and well. it hasn't changed. i mean, i was talking about history. you, you talk about christopher hill, who's, i'll give you a marginalized figure of the great marxist historian at oxford. i mean, i was told, there was a civil war here. he talked about the english revolution. is that an example of the kind of way history is skewed? well, it's a very good example of the difference between revisionism and

a bad history where you have like holocaust deniers that say and thinking about the past in much more exact and creative ways to try to make sense of it. looking at it in the future from the point of view of different frames and workers to be hill's dad. i think in a really significant is that he noticed that if you put the english civil war, what happened was that charles the 1st and parliament and the rest into this longer contracts with european history. you see, it is the 1st of one of the great revolutions. so we think of the french revolution, american revolution, we think that they both should match the bolshevik revolution and the revolution. some folks as well represents. and you see this as part very, very significant. and instructive process. so he was able to push it into context,

which makes us see it a fresh and interesting the fresh using this perspective that a marxist interpretation of history office. that's very valuable. nice. thank you. in the book as a, as a way of showing how revisionism in history that is revising our understanding of something is different from historical denial. and can be used to inform us much, much more sensitively about things. another example i use, of course, is feel shalean searching. when the settlers came with, you know, after captain cook, back at the end of 18th century, they were guarded australian as what sometimes called a cara. maria's an empty land. you can just take this there for the, for the taking. and it's only very recently that some historians in australia are said i, on, you know, it was hand with many, many different kinds of people living in it. and in fact, it was an invasion. it was a settlement and it was a vain,

violent one because there was a long drawn out war between the sexes and the aborigines, which only been recently ended. now that is a way of revising our view of history, understanding things different be and trying to do something better now and in future on the basis of that better understand. and in this dichotomy between revisionism and denial, ism is boris johnson. on the denial list side, well, i don't know what johnson's views about history. i have very, very bad, be sinking feeling about his views of the present to say, well, he does, he does. but i think if i may be frank and rude at the same time about it, i think it's bigger see which model himself on church in some way. and so he's, he's the kind of, well the shallow official version of churchill. whereas i run a deeper view of church show who had many characteristics which we entered. my for

example is covered in this during the 2nd war. and prior to it for decade after decade, he was regarded quite rightly bye initiative is contemporaries as an absolutely you know, boss, do it as somebody from say, think he was so on reliable, politically switch sides and etc. so maybe far something has some similarity to him in that respect. plaza greatly. thank you. thank you very much. that's over the show will be back a wednesday for our last episode in the season. 44 years to the day of the detention of imaginary fighter against you gave back to south africa, the african socialist. pico up there is a rest. you'd be beaten, tortured and eventually dine, come to be a killing, emblematic of the horrors of the margaret thatcher armed about a system. and you can reach out to my social media and get to touch. you let us know. you think it is too late to save? humanity? oh, i use

the whole oh oh, you got britain from mr. moses. when you said that you were going to google i want you to do i see you're going to show you. so you didn't know how to put it in the

other molar. that's what you will cover. the 1st bill, i don't know if i use them in order to fall because that's how much is it too much? not a lot. nobody me on there is a sucker and you gotta fill me with your partially hon, which ah ah, the

ah ah, breaking news and the headline says monday the ton of and see whose government buildings on state tv are going to songs. president, fleas and quit leaving the country in chaos. groups already announced the gun war is over. meanwhile, disarray and panic had cobbled at fort worth thousands crumb terminals in desperate search of flights out. the taliban closes in the us lows, its embassy flag, and use a lot q and urgently evacuated his work. and the images of helicopters, swooping in for desperate stall medicines with anxious escape from vietnam less than 5 decades ago. the

welcome.