watching a special christmas day, it is should have going underground team and i will be back for a brand new season on wednesday, the 12th of january. but until then we'll be showing some of your favorite shows from this season merry christmas over the past week. so called mainstream media has been waking up to the potential extinction of humanity. after landmark i p. c. c report issued a warning of hell on earth because of climate change. will this, while the new cold war ratchets up the chances of extinction by another man made existential threat, nuclear annihilation? so is humanities, intelligence, and collective knowledge? also the root of its own destruction of the only beneficiaries, the billionaires looking to escape the planet in private rockets. joining me now is renowned for loss for an ortho. ac grayling whose new book the frontiers of knowledge, explodes, the progress barriers and future of humanity. when it comes to enlightenment, thank you so much, professor railing for coming back on. if anyone thinks that they don't need to read this book, you imply that they have the only themselves to be to blame for being blown to bits

by append to get assassination drone. why, why is this not as it's eric? well, because i'm here. i can create the and to graph that see, enforced always used in his novels, you know, only connect that if you're able to connect things together a bit, make better sense of your much more likely to make good decisions about what to do . you know, there's a wonderful anecdotal about the great physicist the steven why and by nobel prize, many physicists who, when ronald reagan was contemplating putting anti ballistic missile up in space. you may remember a 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 does bother me and he doesn't know any philosophy and history. of course, the point was precisely that if you don't have context, don't put scientific development into context or that see how science is changing history. if you don't do that 2 way, joining up then you're going to get into trouble. well,

little known fact and i was cradled on the enforced as ne, that's how old i am, pretty we're. but i don't know whether the quote from using which you don't use in the book. when he said, i, maybe it's a book or full that all he saw himself was finding a smooth pebble or a prettier 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, it's a striking fact about the history of knowledge, if you like that until the beginning of modern times that he's in the 16th the 17th century, people thought that an increase of knowledge meant a diminishment of ignorance. the more you, the less who wait are involved, and perhaps that implies that monday we wouldn't have everything, we would understand everything. we have a complete picture of the universe and we would 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 religion say that they

have the final closed story about everything. and what's happened since the scientific revolution, many of the 17th century and everything as follows from that is that the more we discover, the more we find out, the more knowledge we accumulate, the more questions or problems it. and it's been like occupy an island which is growing in the ocean and then the big and the i didn't get the longer the shoreline of ignorance becomes. and we realize 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 it taught us? it's taught us that we have access to less than 5 percent of the mass density of the universe. less than 5 percent to physical reality is accessible to

investigation more than 95 percent of that it got matter dark energy. well, 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 it. maybe, maybe actual clergymen, i will say, you know, ever since the counselor nice or whatever, they always said the bible, the koran later in they just entered the, these are not the true the, the, they opened up questions and then there's a huge amount of ecumenical debate is it really that knew the 5 percent was is the 95 percent dog matcher? isn't that comparable to the divinity of christ and whether he is 3 people and so well, and the easiest thing in the world is to get mad in the swanson theological controversy

here. but you do have to remember that even at the bay, dawn of the age 1617th century, the church, the catholic church, says enter, it was quite literally putting people to death for life, excepting the literal truth of scripture. you may remember that galileo was put on trial for saying that the move so flies around the sun, and he had to deny it in order to save his life. so i mean, to that extent and raised 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 in the early modern period. and we live in the world now, which is the inheritor of that very healthy kind of skepticism inquiry asking questions, probing not carrying a desire to believe, to the world and looking for ways of justifying them, but taking out curiosity to the world and finding out more tells us about it itself,

but of course some would say that those are catholic elite that we're prosecuting galileo catholic elite that we're sending the message now. nowadays, people say that science funding, obviously, and you do broach, the topic elite is being skewed towards elite game. 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 managers in this book as well. i should say. i think there is a huge difference between the people who take the leading roles in scientific work 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, that idea of challenging people's results of demanding that they be replicated. company of different labs, for example,

checking on the results of on the lapse of the great competition there is to get the answer right. and you know, to get the fax settled. that is very healthy aspect of the way that just 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 very difficult to do if you're in a tradition where you have a center received truths. and virtue is to believe them, accept them and live by them. so a very, very different kind of mindset. i mean, i know everyone relies on quantum mechanics for mobile phones in the positioning and einstein's theories. but i mean, is it really replication no one at school? if they get the experiment, they come up with a different value for the percentage of oxygen or something in some way experiment is going to go. 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 an interesting little anecdote about the space on in connection with you just said that a good friend of mine is one of the lead scientists on the not children, elijah, he was on the contact me on someone right experiment. that's one of the true experiments of is looking for the he's itself. and when, 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 been a wonderful occasion. you must have felt so exhilarated and indeed the consequences are for him vastly y. gracie was knighted and you know, 100 tremendous metal and so forth. but he said to me, said oh yes, yes, yes, it was great on that day. but you know, what?

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 needed to look for. now is that attitude is that we set to the, to that one that, that 1st, that hunger for finding out more on for digging into difficult mysteries of nature and the universe or of the past for that matter or human nature. which is fe, distinctive of a best of our enquiries, not just in natural science, but i think historians who look at antiquity and try to make sense of how things work for people. then people to 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 presents a 2nd 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 in physics,

archaeology neuroscience is it's all this summarizes summarizing the field actually before we return 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 would say normally series in the news because we have a british in united states backing against the government back in the midst and so on. and 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, you know, it's a very striking folks for me about my grandfather and sell some elderly father said my father was barbara my grandfather's i go and i was born and my father was bye. so i'm able to say that my grandfather was at school in the 1817 and 18 eighty's seem sort of astonishing. and he would have known nothing of what we now know about

the past. because all the discoveries made about syria and iraq, about the presence of mesopotamia, the great civilizations that flourished the invention of writing the origin of the teacher. and so many technological advances, all that was actually on until the 2nd half of the 19th century. i mean, we had to rather just had the books of the hebrew bible, the old testament, as christians call it back, all wrapped up in legend at home. but that is god to send me medicine greer's as well. so before about the 8th and 9th century b, c, the past was if there was any sense of that at all, was just really wrapped in the midst of knowing. but just r e r g of the middle east from around about mid of the 19th century has revealed to us quite literally, thousands of years of civilization was about in mister batavia also in a rep and i'm civilization in this valley. the other,

the civilization of china learning much, much more about egypt and now civilization taking us back. we are 4000 years before a lot of us 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, they add new stone age and the development and sacraments unsettled agriculture. and then of course, the discovery of human ancestry taking us back tens of thousands of years, hundreds of thousands, even indeed. now with the discovery of generations 6000000 years ago, when the very, very earliest ancestors of the human 9 died. but the other eggs, chimpanzees, and this is sparkling in the way in which time and the past has opened up so dramatically and so tremendously. just very, very recently transforming our view of ourselves in our well, i mean,

we're really in, in a way, i personally, as you can see i'm, i find it so fascinating. and so he's in a rating and feel that if people had a sense of it, but they understood it and it would make them sense their own place in the universe . well, the 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 well, stop you there. more in the front end of knowledge after the short break. and i dream shaped printers and those with

things we dare to ask in a welcome back. i'm still here with philosopher in public intellectual professor. ac grayling discussing his new work. the front years of knowledge there will be some view is maybe in the american south right now watching this and not taking their vaccinations against corona virus and so on. will 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? sure, you know the human mind and human society is like geological strauser layers, the geological structure, and they primitive, very,

and act to take quick, easy answers and superstitious views of the world. down in the more primitive layers of our understanding and then increasingly psyche more questioning, slightly more open, 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 can offer for it. and so that tends to be at a rather level of the general structure. people and society is in groups. so then societies find themselves to different levels of this geological lab, which is why we, you know, have rocket figures in the moon now. and people are still with astrology and forecasts here in 2021. so can, it's not 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 has always been born. if i remember correctly . and fact, when i was, i'm thinking a bit about this interview today. i remember that you chose not to go out to your dream of the decade novels i think you chose, or you chose a remark from graham she, i seem to recall. and we, she talks about how the old is died and the new is not that born. i mean, that middle period that you called in a kind of interregnum that there is complexity and difficulty this, this, you know, it's problematic. the present is always problematic in that way because it will recess this at mixture of the old and the new. so a terrorist might want because of, you know, a traditional belief might use very, very modern means to carry out some act based on that traditional belief. and that

is to make sure that we're in at the moment and it can sometimes be very dangerous mixture. i mean, i want to go to breakfast again and there were complex breaks, a tear arguments and complex remain or argument famously. but how is it that if, as you say, things become more and more of spectral, in terms of our understanding of the 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 vacation of it would certainly say russia isn't bad, china's bad as was biting. would say change, which is the trump thing x. but what, why is this questioning in intellectual circles or company? more certainty? i arguably, i mean, it's a petition. you know, there is a very, very direct relationship between increasing complexity and increasing simplicity or

the propensity to reach for simple quick constance. the more complex things are, the more a lot of people are driven to look for something that simple black and white. this is a you know, an example of how it is that good. it's just one dimension isn't like, you know, christian fundamentalism in the southern states and the u. s. funding mechanism anyway can persist. it's because you can tell anybody the fundamental teammates, doctrines, and plans on 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. and people will reach for the simple answers to human beings like a clear story appear in the beginning, middle, and then end martin explanation that what makes sense, they want to have something that they belong to. and the simple answer is the one

that you reach for when you start feeling it, you're getting in the complex in policy 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 voting system because car from being a on democratic is going to provide for minority based government. it also means that you can get to political conscience and you never get her eyes ation. you get a, you know, 10 kind of opposition to views that results in slogans 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, it is most dramatic in the united states of america by the divide between the republican party and the big democratic party is so bitter and so deep as to be

frightening, and we have seen it in spain, worse than the trump. yes. that. so in the case of something like branch, it's now going to be perfectly neutral about press it and tell you that i think it's the most disastrous idea. british politics of another 1000 years have been in the case of branch that they will see a phenomenon, which is turns in fact, on the idea that if people are worried about all sorts of things in their lives, you can find one simple wouldn't be putative explanation. for it, but a mirror on the u. s. take back sovereignty and we saw these problems out of the way that one, 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 and have been very, very malign influences on politics. they great from the things by the way, they great for the sort of democratic anger of compensation, people sharing news and views and couldn't get in touch with one another. yes. but

there are also really bad aspects of them because you, my crew target people with false messages that other people can see and call out a new show of a direct them for the elections. i'll give you for that, but then it forrest johnson or donald trump, maybe in 2024. i mean, maybe if you read that, they read the book, then they would come up with the alarming idea that they're on the right path. because this questioning of knowledge of companies seeking for simplicity. so you be there going obviously, i don't agree with it, but johnson get more union. jack's get flags around, you have more simple messages. people are looking for answers and this is a good political mikey, of alien strategy. it is that it's the rich evidence he has worked in recent years. yes. and i suppose you could switch around what you've just said, just one of them. and i'm telling young center wrote up more flags. i've been

telling everybody else to watch that back when johnson start turning out more flags advocacy trying to do them. so you know that that's the place where it is the message. but what we want to be, what we want to be doing, and this is a point that i read the book for parking important point is we should make ourselves the church across the fields again and then fired, and in particular. so then we can make ourselves better at thinking clearly critically and evaluating what people train people change in there. because we can make some connections. we can see across the landscape of understanding about doesn't mean that we will have to become possible. the sister will likely become ancient historian, so anything but will then each of us needs, of course, on specialism we need to know the skill in life in our careers. we should also have this general literacy. and i think our education or the trust that by education

assistance like it lets us down in the u. k. we start to specialize 16 after g c. i see we do few subjects at a level and you might be one subject to university. and this is not great. and the old model, the one which is kind of been chipped away ash a lot 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 it. and that i think is important. any part of a complicated story. obviously, i know you talk, you talk to the bus or this, this size culture debate from seabreeze, though, is alive and well. it hasn't changed. yeah. i mean, i was talking about history of you, you talk about christopher hill, who's and i'll give you a marginalized figure. the great marxist historian it. ok,

so, i mean, i was taught, there was a civil war here. he talked about it english revolution. is that an example of the kind of way history is skewed? it's a very, very good example of the difference between revisionism, a background in history where like holocaust denial is that say. and i'm thinking about the past in much more exact and creative ways to try to make sense of it, looking at it in from the point of view of different frames. and what christopher hill did, i think, and really a significant is that he noticed that if you put the english civil war, what happened was that charles, the 1st empowerment and the rest into this longer context of your 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 should be mentioned,

bolshevik revolutions. and indeed the revolution. some folks as well that the and like assistance and you see this as a very basic different and instructive process. so he was able to push it into and you know, context which makes a c, h, a fresh and interesting the fresh, using this perspective, that marxist interpretation of history office that's very valuable. i cited in the book as a way of showing how revisionism in history that ish 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 trillion setting. when the settlers came with, you know, after captain cook back at the end of the 18th century, they regarded australia as well, sometimes called a terran, earliest and empty land. you can just take it is that for the,

for the taking. and it's only very recently that some historians and australia are said on, you know, it, and with many, many different kinds of people living in it. 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 very recently ended. and that is a way of revising our view of history understanding things differently 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 morris johnson. on the denial list side. well, i don't know what goes on since views about history. i have a very, very 90 sinking feeling about his views of the present to say, i feel 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 because he would like to model himself on judgment. and so he's, he's a kind of, well the shadow official version of churchill where it's ironic, deeper view of trying to show who had many, you know, characteristics which we entered. my, for example is covered in this, during the 2nd law. but prior to it for decade after decade, he was regarded quite rightly by most of his contemporaries and absolutely you know, boss, do it as, as some people say because he was so unreliable, politically, switch sides and etc. so maybe bars something has some similarities to him in that respect your present really thank you. thank you very much. that's it for one of your favorite shows of the last season. we'll be back on wednesday, the 12th of january, but until then stay safe. and you can watch all our interviews by subscribing to our youtube channel. i'm falling us on all our social media. ah.

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follow these instructions. stick to the spirit of christmas. you decide. oh ah ah ah, the headlines are an anti international, huge q that dwindling us testing centers as armor prawn sweeps across the nation with a daily infection right now increasing 7 fold in certain states. we have a 3rd when we do need more testing centers. i mean, look at these lines that is, are horrible on it for, you know, most of my friends have to wait on line for hours and hours to get their food. i've had to wait on blinds for hours to get the.