me now we have cigarettes, i just heard that it was a healthy alternative to figure out how do we trust tobacco companies with their message that these new products are actually going to reduce? are these, these are making the tobacco, and course the the with i'm action or attention you're watching going underground over the past week. so go mainstream media is being waking up to the potential extinction of humanity. after

landmark, i dcc report issued a warning of hell on earth because of climate change. while this, while the new cold war ratchets up the chances of extinction, but another man made existential threat nuclear annihilation. so is humanity's intelligence and collective knowledge. also the root of its own destruction and the only beneficiaries of billionaires looking to escape the planet in private rockets . joining me now is renown philosopher, author ac grayling. his new book the frontiers of knowledge explores the progress, barriers, and future of humanity. when it comes to enlightenment, thank you so much, professor grayling for coming back gone. if anyone thinks that they don't need to read this book, you imply that 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 enforced always used in his novels 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 a wonderful anecdote about the great for the 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 if he doesn't know any philosophy and history. and of course, the point was precisely that if you don't have context, then put scientific development into context or then see how science is changing history. if you don't do that to way joining up, then you're going to get into trouble. well, little known fact, you know, i was cradled on enforced his ne, 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 a 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 in the island gets the longer the shore line 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 shorter it's taught us that 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 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. these are not the truly the they open up questions and then there's a huge amount of ecumenical debate. is it really that me the 5 percent was, 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 swamps of controversy here . but you do have to remember that even at the bay go on the bottom age 1617 century, the church, the catholic church, this area was quite literally putting people to death for life 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 after extent, under age, the old idea that 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 up curiosity to the world and finding out what tells us about it itself. but of course, someone say that those are catholic elite that were prosecuting galileo catholic elite. they were sending their message out nowadays people say the science funding, obviously. and you do broach the topic is the elite is 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 is a huge difference between the people who take the leading 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 all the lapse of the great competition there is to get the answer right and get to get the fact settled 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 a 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? some experiment is going to go. we've got, we've disproved a huge amount and with the higgs both on its own. 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 anecdotes about a 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 2 experiments of just looking for the haze itself. and when they announced that they were satisfied, they spotted it. this is 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 to him, it must have a wonderful occasion. you must have felt so exhilarated and indeed the consequences offer for him personally. what grade 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's that 1st, that hunger for finding out more for digging into difficult mysteries of nature

and the universe or of the cost for that matter or human nature, which is very distinctive of the very best of our inquiries, not just in natural science, but i think he story ends 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 into human psychology. these are exhilarating, exhilarating inquiries, and you know, it's like opening christmas presents the 2nd. i'm putting a puzzle 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 return to the maybe the, the class elements and the, what it means today, i'll 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 islamists and so on. meanwhile, on the ground in syria, in recent years, we discovered amazing things about the history of civilization. just tell me a little bit about that. yes, you know, it's a very striking folks for me about my grandfather and sell some elderly father said 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 in 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. the 1st question of mr. pertaining the great civilizations that flourished the invention of writing the origin, patricia and so many technological advances, all that was actually known until the 2nd half of the 900 century. we had to

rochester, we had the books of the hebrew bible estimates, as christians call it back or wrapped up in legend, we had whole ma'am, but factors regardless of 70 legendary, as as well. so 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 knowing. 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 miss batavia also in reference civilization in this valley. the yellow river civilization at china, learning much, much more about egypt and 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 a new stone age and be development and sacraments and settled agriculture. and then of course, the discovery of human ancestors chasing 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 and our well, i mean we are 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 would make them sense their own place in the universe rather different thing. i mean,

i'm not sure what they wore plain pilots were thinking when they were bombing these areas. the reason it has to be said as something more on the front, you have knowledge after this, your break ah so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy. even plantation, let it be an arms race is on often very dramatic development. only personally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, a very critical time. time to sit down and talk long when i would chose the wrong. why don't i just don't get to see out the thing because the after

an engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves, well the part we choose to look for common ground in 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. it may be in the american south right now watching this and not taking they have ex nations against corona 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 in thought has been uncovered and discovered and invented? you know, the human mind and human society is like geological strauser.

there's a geological structure, they have permission, very apt to take quick, easy answers and superstitious views of the world down in the more primitive layers of about understanding. and then increasingly psyche more questioning, slightly 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 so that tends to be rather upper level of that you are eligible, stronger people. and societies and groups of in societies find themselves to different levels of this geological laugh,

which is why we have rockets figures 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 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 has died and the new is born and in that middle period called a new kind of interregnum. the complexity and difficulty this is problematic . the presence is always problematic. and in that way, because the recess is admixture of the old and the new. so it's chris 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. it can sometimes be a very dangerous mixture. i mean, we don't go through breakfast again and there are 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 read your invocation of it, but certainly say rusher isn't bad, china's bad as was biden would say change it's, 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 direct 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 the critic just one dimension isn't like, you know, christian fundamentalism in the southern states and the u. s. fund methodism anyone can persist. it's because you can tell 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 an 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 beginning, middle, and then, and lots of explanation, that makes sense and want to have something that they belong to. and the simple answer is the one that you, you reach for when you start creating and you're 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 of america and india or have the 1st 13 system . this is a terrible, terrible verging system because the car from being made and the traffic is going to provide for minority based government. it also means that you can get to political conscious and new level get could arise ation. you get a, you know, 10 kind of position to use that results in spoken. and in simplistic arguments. you don't get didn't get people trying to compromise or cheryl work together. but you get division b, c, s, at its most dramatic in the united states. where the divide between the republican

party and the big democratic party, so bitter and so deep as to be frightening. and we have seen it at its way worse than the trunk. yes. that. so in the case of something like it's now going to be neutral about press it and tell you that i think it's the most disastrous. i've been pretty politics. 7000 years have been in the case of branch, they will see a phenomenon, which is turns impact on the idea. but if people worried about all sorts of things in their lives, you can find one simple wouldn't be putative explanation for it. blame it on if you take back sovereignty and socrates problems out of the ways of one, if you can do that. and if you can use these incredible new techniques of communication because i think social media, the internet was up and google, facebook and so on. have been very, very malign,

influences on politics. they great from the things by the way, the rates are the sort of democratic agra conversation, people sharing news and views and putting people in touch with one another. yes, there are also really bad aspects of them because you can micro target people with false messages that people can't see and call out. sure they direct them for total elections. i'll give you for that. but then it, forrest johnson, or donald trump, maybe in 2024. i mean, maybe the rent, 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, it's matthew mandy, which evidently has worked in recent years. yes. you can trace rounds,

but you've just said i'm telling you wrong center road flags. i'll be telling everybody else to watch that back when johnson spelled out more flags because he trying to do them. so, you know, that really is a message that what we want to be, what we want to be doing. and this is a point that i wrote the book for parking important point is we should make ourselves literate across the fields in an inquiry. and in particular, so then we can make ourselves better at thinking clearly critically and evaluation . what people claim people change in their business. we can make some connections. we can see across the landscape of understanding about doesn't mean that we have to become part of the system. we work with become ancient historians or anything, but will they, each of us needs, of course, and especially that we need to know the skill in life. definitely,

and our careers we should also have this general literacy, and i think cation and all of the thrust about education assistance. thank you. let's us down in the u. k. we start to specialize after the age of 16, after you redo few subjects available and you might be one subject to university. and this is not great. and the old model, the one which is kind of been chips away as are locked in the us is that you provider, general education. and then people specialize on the basis of that interests and talents afterwards. but if you, if you specialize to early people, new sites of the context of the wider landscape of things into which what they do and nash, i think is in pounds. it's any part of a complicated story of this day. i know you talk, you talk to the pastor, this, 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 is,

i'll give you a marginalized figure of the great marxist historian at oxford. i mean, i was taught, there was a civil war here. he talked about the english revolution. is that an example of the kind of way history is skewed? it's a very good example of the difference between revisionism and a bad time in history. where like, holocaust deniers, fact that say, and thinking about the power in much more exact and creative ways to try to make sense of it looking at you can you know, from the point of view, different frameworks 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 charles the fast and parliament and the rest into this longer

contracts with european history. you see it is the 1st one of the great revolutions . so we think of the french revolution, american revolution, we think that they both match the bolshevik revolution and indeed the revolution. some folks as well that be enlightened, represents, and you see this as part, very, very significant and instructive process. so he was able to put 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. i thank you in the book as a, as a way of showing how revisionism in history, that issue 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 setting. when the 2nd list came was, you know, after captain cook,

back at the end of 18th century, they were guarded australian as well, sometimes called and tara, and maria's an empty land. you can just take it a step of the, for the taking and it's only very recently, some historians and australia said i on, you know, it was with many, many different kinds of people living image. and in fact, it was an invasion that wasn't a settlement. and it was of a violent one because there was a long drawn out war between the sexes and the aborigines, which only been recently ended. and 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 course, johnson's views about history. i have a very, very, 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 a kind of of a shallow official version of churchill. whereas i run a deeper view of church show who have many characteristics which we can do. my, for example, is covered in this during the 2nd war, and prior to it for decade after decade, he was regarded quite rightly financially contemporaries as an absolutely boss to it is some different say because he was so unreliable, politically, switch sides and etc. so maybe bar something has some similarity to him in that perspective for us. the great, thank you. thank you very much. that's over the show will be like a wednesday for our last episode in the season. 44 years of a day of the detention of an engine re fighter against you get back to south africa . the african socialist team up is arrested. he'll be beaten,

tortured and eventually dine, comes to be a killing, emblematic of the horrors of the margaret thatcher armed about a system. until then keep my social media and get in touch. you let us know. you think it is too late to save humanity. the rather driven by adrian shaped by those in me dares thing. we dare to ask in

the breaking news on the international this morning. several people that are quarterly being killed a couple airport enough. gotten us on the news coming shortly after unverified video and most online showing us soldiers using what they called preventative fire at the airport. and some report suggest the news. the victims may have actually been killed, however, possible in a stampede. people were rushing to get out of the country. auto situation at the airport comes that the taliban is back in total control canister on following the capture of the country's capital on sunday. it follows a week of rapid territorial gains by the surgeon. meantime, did russia to evacuate every american citizen from the country? us put the brave face.