>> rose: welcome to the broadcast. night, science. talk to nobelaureate harold vaus on his book "e art and polics of science." >>here have been a sies of articlesver the last 10 years that the goals of the war cancer have t been achieved, and i-- i ree with that, that we hav not made the degree of progress many of us would have like but nevertheless, r concept of cancer a a disease has radically changed. our abilitto treat some of the many kinds ofcancers h radilly altered. rose: we continue with freen dyson onis views on most everything. i enjoy life and i don't particular care whether what i'm doing at tt moment i important. >> ros it's whether it interests u, is thathe test? >> yes. >> rose: is it chalnging and interesting you? >> yes, an science to me is justome, and it's just like--

ke painting pictures or anything ee. >> rose: two men of science,s can varm and freeman dys coming up. captioning sponsored by rose communicatis caioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new rk ty, this is charlie rose. >>ose: harold varmus is here. in 1989, he was awarded t the nobel prize in medice along

withis collaborator jay michael bishop. since 2,000 heeb presidt of the morial sloan cancer center here in new york. he was recently appointed co-chair of president barack obama's cncil vaser on sciee and tecology. his new book is call"the art and politics of science." heeb is a frienof this broadcast and has been othis program many times and i am ways pleased toave him back the thisable. >>hank you. >> ros i say that becauseere is the interesting thing, of all the times you ha been on here byeading this book, i found owl all of these tngs that i didn't know about you. you're not a guy tt went to college and id, ious i want to be a doctor." >> i started wanting to be a doctor but i quicy learned there were more intesting things in the world. >> rose: heres what is also intesting, "formy parents buy anfrank who ssed so much of it." >> they were socially acve ople. father was a general

practitier who at one me, for many years, the start park commissioner at jones state beach park,somebody committed to family values and a family doc o loved his patients. my mother was psychiatric socialorker. they lived the american dream in a sense. they were children of immigrants who took it almt as something that was a bit of a birth right to be able to grow in immigrant families and go off it ivy league schools bece memrs of the middle class, and enjoy fe at a prettyigh level. and, unftunately, my mother died of breast cancer in the-- whenhe was 61. my father died of heart attack in his mid-60s. they had a lot invested in their children, and when th died, i was my early 30s. they-- they knew i had gotten educated and married, but the- they neveraw the other parts of my career tha they would

haveound interesting and, you know, having seen me as a ung person who wasn't alwao easy to get along wit, think ty probably would have enyed seeing my more mature years and so successes and-- parents like seeingheir kids go to ockholm. >> rose:xactly. ( laughter >> or workg in governmt. >> rose: that's my poi, make a nobel speech. or running cancer cents or other things they uld have thought useful. rose: the point is they would have been proud. >> exactly. they believed and try t teh refcted in the career you havehich has spann healthnd public issues as well. there is also this this book is the extension of a series of lekt-- lectures you gave, lectur on one? >> jean straussho runs the mmon center for the humanities the new york public libraries asked me to dohree lecres

called the norton lectures. i naely accepted and when i read the fine print irealized i had signed on tourn the the lectures into a bo. initialli was interest in-- actually at her instiitatio- of talking abo the two cultures,he concept snow intruced just over 50 yrs ago, in which hepointed out there was a gulf betwe the culture of the humanities an the culture of sence that these culres should be called upon to solve some of the problems in the world, and h argued that the culture o science was muchore likely to solvthe world's problems and the culture of th humanies, d one of the things tt gave him pain was a novelistho was in government ana respectable scientist was that the two ltures talked to each other rather poorly. as we tried to bld that io a series theectures, i realized it was simplistic. it was exciting athe time because ople hadn't tught

about it. i decided to give e lecture on the ciuitous route i took to become a scientist. going off college and being influenced by myreat thesis achers and going to gduate school in engli andinally making my way bac throughn interest in fre and psychiatry to internal medicine and finally serving in tvietnam war at the n.h. where learned to love science. then the second lecture s about some of th central thes in the scice i did tt proved to be important-- studying cancer genes. and theidea was to show how eas develop in science and how-- t so much to tell them abouthe specifics of expements but to describe for the audience how a scientist gets, in a sense, influenced by the companionship you kp, by the ideas yo hear, by the times that you live in, and how some thin work out andome don't, for reasonthat i tried to generaze. and then i was fortunatin part

because the nobel prize gives u opportunits. i was priviled to beble to work for for the government,and i want to talk about the relationship between sciencend politics, government. >> rose: and it continues i your prent role as an aisor tohe obama administration on science. >>ight. but the third lture concerned the issues that you face-- how yo allocate mey when you're in chae of big budgets,ow you try to ste the ship of science in the righthannels. >> ros at the risk of political interference. >> at the risk of political interference, how other things like a newform of scnce that addrses embryos and stem cells and hocience publisng is affected by a kinds of financial considerations how do the right thing by t world in trying toddress problems o glol health. so a lot of really deep iues that our society fate faces. >> rose: whos interesting

about it, you say i here all of ts gave you pause to think, gave you opportunity, gave you mandate tthink about a life in science,hich is wha this is. >> thinking about it and writing it up are two diffent things. >> rose: someone sai let m see what i wrote so can knowhat think. but there is thi-ou describe it as a kind of meandering. there was n someone-- and this was what i alluded to earlier-- things infenced decisions you made. talk a bit about that, this notion of this lif you have lived. >> yeah, well i think-- i wodn't characterize it as mply a life in which i ha been buffeted byxternal forces. there are-- i would contend, some internal principl and goal b there's no doubt that my ability to achof in certain domains has en affected by rcumstances, peopl for example, inhe last 10

years, i'veeen work incdibly hard, asyou've heard on this show before, to try to make th scientific literaturmuch more accessibleo all scientists in the world,octors and soorth. that was something i hadn't really thought much about unt one of my colleagues, a brilliant sentist namedpat brown, to me whate had learned justy chance that finding out the physicists in the world ar putting theirork up on the web at a very early stage. anhe started to think about how we in the biomecal search could use the inrnet in similar ways. these conversations leto other conversations with people the n.i.h. who hadbig, electronic systems for storin informaon and for puttg it on-- and for puttingnformationbout publations on to the web. and one thing led to t next and we built a public digital liary, now called pu med central, in which all n.i.h.

supported work mus be depos th was the result of a politicabattle woe won-- a a wholnew set of journals called open access jourls. i thinthe principlewithin me thatdesired th the scientific community workore effectively gether, share their knowlge were therebut i needed the stimulation of some ideas fr the outside. to mount this campai which has been quite successful. >> rose: how did the academic experience in english lirature info and influence your abilities in science? >> well, i don't think there is a simple way to plain that. but i do think that many people underappreciate the le of reading, wting, a speaking in a life in science. it's oft adisappointment to people to learn that you may get intocience because you likto do eeriments, and as soon as

you he your first faculty position, you know that your life is going to beevoted to a veryreat extent to writing grants and pers, toiving talks to udents and colleagues to trying to think things tlou in a logical fashion, and the experien of working wit words understanding what onhe page taking pride in a piece of writg. i mean, i still have to say that i am somewhat obseive about-- about the use of lguage. and sometimes become consumed with dails aboutwriting. but,ou know, as you >> rose: what you say is imrtant. the abilitto eress yourself hances the argument you want make. >> certain. >> rose: whichwilson and others amply demonstrate >> if you wa to make your

scntific work clear toeople and teresting it does help to ha some sense of the narrative, and the-- >>ose: let me take you to cancer resrch. when you gothere epidemiology was more prevant than what y began to dyourself. >> well, ihink one way thk about ts is that,ou know, people had known for a ng time that cancer w a major use of mortality. we knew that normal cells were having in an odd way when they became cancerous. but the nature of the transformation, e way in which a normal cell would convert into aancer cell, was pretty myerious. the only reallypottent handle, from my point of view, knowing that there was epideological data saying smoking was a use of cancer and certain indusial pollutants were causes of cancer and knowing something about t keendz of abnormal chromosomes one could see in cancers. still, the only really powful

experimental tol thawas available was-- were the t of viruses found in animals that could make a cance indeed, someone o would have-- my nghbor, if he were living now instead of worng 100 years ag pton rouse discovere the virus that made my career powerful, a virus of chickens whh you think, well, you know, y would anybody want twork on a ccken virus when we're tryi to cure human disease? i think it very important to remember how much workith experimental anils has meant to moder medicine. >> rose: just one reference in termsf people who influenced your life. jamichael bishop. >> y. >> rose: what did he do? >> i went out shopping in california for a place to post-doctoral work after spding a couple of years at the n.i.h. i loved the n.i.h. as a place to

ain, ira pastons who was a rerkable person, married the poet laureate in maryland that washe only reason got a place h lab. i was an engsh major and clinicn but he took me in becaus he thought i might be able to talko his wife and enjoy lab parties a little more than she had in the pt. but we worked on a problem that actually taughme a lot, the prlem of understanding gene control and bactia. using moleculethat are importanin human gene regulation, taht me that models were cruci r, you know, making sothing that was complex seem simple and able to yield insight. but i wanted to d something that wasore medically rtinent, and havingearned at the n.i.h. about the estence of cancer viruses wanted to find some placeo do it. but iwas also attracted to

califoia for purely sentimenta rantic reason, havinged to with landscape and mountain and seashore, sdpi went out there shopping for a l to work in. i didn't know who mik bishop was when i wt out shopping pii talked to a lot of senior famous people, some of of whom didand some who did not particularly want me to com to their lab. ansomebody mentioned this young guy mike bisp was doing work in n francisco and i went over the and met h at the university ofalifornia san francisco and therwas an ininstantanes recognition that we were two gs different in our deep background bu we trained inimilar ways and had similar outlook on how to approachancer throughirus and how use the new ols of mocular biology to dothat. >> ros you have characterized that research as more wagner than mart? >> well,he research i characterized that wayecause there were theme attic qualies. it wasn't our single discovery of the factthat e sarcoma

virus that could make a ccken cell into a cance cell, didn't have big reverbetions until a lot of other folks-- us an,s, many other- discovered this theemps a iversal theme and the light motif of showing at environmental cancer geneswere derived from normal cells and then as shown by others that those nes were often mutated in human cancers and that the preins made by those genes were oen bad acting enzymes that could be countered by drugs. all of thos things that came together or the years it make this part of canceresearch important for thinkg about how woe approa the disease. and many people complained-- there ha been a series of articles over the last 1

years-- the goals of the wa on cancerave not been achieved. and i-- i aee with tha that we have t made the degree of progress manof us would have liked. but nevertheless, our conceptf canc as a disease has radically chged. our ability to treat me of the many kin of cancer as radically altered. i think many ofs have reason-- have good reason tbe optimistic what has be put in place over theast 20 or 30 yes of trying to underand cancert its fundamenl level auge well for theuture. >> ros you have said on this program and others, and other people havsaid on thi program that there are man cancers and many causesof cancer,ot just one cae of cancer. >> sure but there's a common pathway. >> rose:nd a common pathway is... >> mations that change the behavior of genes that are important in normal life so they distort the abities of our cells to grow and to e, to do the thin they normally do. >> rose: forhe record, what is

it that you did with protooncaegeans-- am i saying that right >> it's the form a gen befo it undergoes a mutation that mes it cancerous. >> rose: telle what you think this country nds in terms of heal care reform. >> there are seval things. there's doubt the-- the social reformener me says we have to cover everyone mean, we are the mosadvanced ecomy. we're a democracy. it is painful toe to know that near 50 million people in this country don't have aay to cove their heah care costs, except to goo anmergency room, ich is a terrible way to be taken ce of. and yet, in this process of creating access to heal care for everyone-- which i thi is fundamentally important-- at mome has to be seized now because the's no one-- eve the most right wi of

republicanis saying something's goto be done about our health carsystem, that the costs e running aw, that there are ineities that everybody recogniz, and we have a predent who is committed to this, andhis is a moment which we must pass a reform bill at makes health care available to everyone. but the frzy to do this-- d i think, you know, the frenzy is justified-- bu we n't want to lose sight of se of the things aut american medicine tt are truly extraordinary. u know, it's easy to say american health careosts too much. it's true. hospitals wastmoney, we have poor incentives wehouldn't be doing e for service we ought to find other ways to rewardalue, not just acisition of procedus. t we don't want to forget that one of the things that's really extraordinary aut american

medicine has made america e leer a not in heal care prision but in the science of medicine haso do with our academicealth centers, ere we train doctors from all over the wod,here weo some of the most outstanding research, where we generate new fiings that influence the way medicine's practiced everywhere. those values arevery hard to ma because they gout into the-- throhout the globe and the progress that'seing made in medicine-- which is very rl and,ou know, our successes in cancer care may be sewhat limited, but our successes in controllinlots of her diseases, infectis diseases an cardiovasculariseases and many others, i equally extraordinary. we need to be careful as we legislate health care form that we don't e u shortcnging academicealth centers. i run acadec health center, the sloan memorial ketti

health center, ande want to trt everyone w has encotered cancer as a disease. we are not making money. on the contrary, we lose hundreds of millions everyear. mecare does not reiurse us for the cost of taking care of cancer patients. we have a special rate, still doesn't cover it complety. there has to be some way to ensu that the academic alth centers, while ctributing to cost control like everybody, also are adeqtely coensated continue to dohe research and traini and provide the coined of intense,pecialized care that isnique to many of the interests tt attract patients fm all over the world. i don't know yet quite how to do th. we have do that by having rates for specialized center that are determined by a health advisory board, whether we provide special kds of compention for these centers.

but there's got to be some way to preserve what is try extrrdinary in erican medicine. >> re: do you have ideas for what oug to be in the healt care legislation? >> i definitely wanto see a public pair syem. i thk we have to have that. it one way to genera competition for the insunce industry. and i think itan be done from many, many aspts of medicine, a medicarelus syste is going to work. the extension of medicare is the logical tng to do, extending it to allranches of our soety. but we he to figu out a way to mak the-- at i anticipate will be a tremendo movement into a public pair system compatible with the existee of academiccenters like ourselves. >> rose:inally,our role on th science advisory cmittee. what is it tt you guys are going to do-and i mean by that not gender-specific?

>> well, we have guys and gals on this commite. the president has been vy clear with me and myo-chair, eric lander and john holden, th ficial-- and works full time in washington. he saidto us since december, en he appoind usefore he was inaugurated, he said,"i want scienceo be the centerpiecof my administrati. i accept the idea that th advisory cncil, which h had its ups and downs nixon dissolved it, me people igred it, some pple filled it with political pointees-- i want this to be full of eiting interestin people from lotf fields. >> rose: what is it at he wants advicen? >> wha the president see that has attracted l of us to this council, he sees the connectn between doing basic and technology-reled science and everaspect of his major programs-- educati,

manufacturing, the ecomy, alth car improving-- trying to control ourlimate, energy-- all of thesehings he se as closely linked to scientific actity. so we he onthis council people who representvirtually every scipline in science and technology and people from many different states and pple of fferent genders and corsand were going to take on, we hope, with his blessing, a large number of iortant topic we'rcurrently working on port on influenza, but virtually every aspt of modern society that's influenced by science and techlogy will be subjted to our scrutiny wn we feel th we can give advic to the preside that will help m develop a sensible picy fotheountry. >> ros harold varmus, nobel laureatean interesting story of one man's discovery as he pursues his life in science, but

also cominout of a classical education. thank you. >>harlie, thanks veuch for havi me on. >> rose:n our next crlie rose we're in cairoith an executivtelevision interview with the president of ejipz, sni mubarak. join us. >> do you think isra wl allow ir to have nuclear weap? >> befor nettenyahu and before and the minier of defense in israel-- nuclear weapons in iran buour understandi is the wholregion should be free all formsor types of mass destructive weapons.

>> rose: it islso said are you urging president obama to urge rael not to engage intrike against iran. look, i wou like to say someing. the nuclear capability iran, if it goes on like this, and it happened that military force is used, this-- agn, this the whole reon. again misus of milita power. that is why i say this should be solved amically, peacefuy. ani call on iran to have this flexibility to negotiate with

representatives of the uted states of amica to resolve this iss in order that no military actions would be brought about. want to stop all military activity. >> rose: freeman dyson is he. he has spent a lifetime grappling th some of the toughest pblems in expeen beyond. as a young physicist he received worldwide regnition. he has become a besselling authoron topic from biotechnogy to extraterrestrial televion. he has emergeed as a critic of climate change in march, the "neyork times" priled him in anrticle called, "the globing wming her tech". howid freeman dyson, libal intellectual, probm solver wind up iuriating the enronmentalists? we'll ask that and more. i'pleased to have freema

dyson backt thisable. welcome. >> tnk you. >>ose: i'llet to this in a moment but you really stirred them uwhen you talk abo glal warming, don't you. >> so, th article, of cose, is totally misleadin glal warmg is a very smaller part of my concern. the auor is a very fine writer. >> rose: he is, indeed. but it isostly fiction rather than ft. >> rose:ow can a very fine writer write fiction rather than fact. >> he had his agenda which sn't mine. >> rose: what was his agenda? >> his agenda was to write a piece about globa warming. >> rose: right. >> he told me he was going to a profile of m, and it was-- he isted it into a story about global warming, which is really-- i don claim to be an expert on that subject. i'm not activis and i certainly am not an appropriate persono be a political

acvist. so it gave, i think oth a very misleading view. however, i mean theictures arbeautiful, and so i can compin. ( laughter ) rose: it like your tie. you have a beautiful tie. >> which my wife chose for me this morning. >> rose: this morning. she cks out your clotheshen you leave in morning >> no usually. >> rose: the tie or for televisn. >> f television, yes. >> ros well, she has good tae. >> thank you. >> rose: so what i your view on glob warming? >> well, ivery skeptal-- >> rose: howevermall large it is in contextof all the thgs yotalk about? >> i am very skeical about the all thepronouncements made by the exrts. i know h completely uncertain the subject is, s i would say just don't believe the experts, bu i don't claimo be an expe myself so won't argue with anydy about details. and i'm certainly not a spokesn r the opponents of the prevailing dogs. i havet given much te to it

and i don't pretend to know wh the real answers a. what'm-- what i kno forure is that st of the peoe who make pronouncements don't know, either. >> rose: all right, mayb you dot know, so let mow ju ask some questions and you can say, "i don't know." do you deny theorld is getting warmer? >> no. >>ose: you don't deny that clearly the rld is getting rmer. >> i went to greenland, myself, where th warming is most extrem and it's quite spectacular of course what you see in grnland. what islso true is the people there love it. the people tre hope it continues. it maukz their lives a lot more pleasant. >> rose: do you believe there continues toe global warng those regions at we will eliminate the ice a, therefore there will be aising of the water level, and, therefe, at some point it ll thrten us all? >> no. i don't believe that. mean, the point is that t sea level has been rising for 12,000 years. and it has nothing to do with

global warming >> re: nothing? >> it's a separate problem. i mean-- >> ros: does global rming ntribute to? >> probably. but we don't know w much. and it'sertainly not-- the main problem wn you're dealing th ridesin ocean-- i mn, we know it's been goi on for 12,0 years. wean it has ry little to do with human actities. so it will be a great-- it will be a terriblemistake to think you soed the problem of the rising ocean when you' only dealing th climate. >> re: what elseeed you do? well, we don't know. it's-- weon't know the cses. it's absur to imagine that you can treat a disease whout doing a diagnosis. if you're a scientist you don't jump to, conclusion >> rose: right. t here's what someeople say they say if climate warms a, say, the curre rate for the next 100 years, the differee inlimate will be as dramatic

as the differee at the end of the ice age. >> i think that'sxtremely unlily, but of course i n't know. certainlthere's no that he was that that's ue. >> rose: w are th so exced abouyou saying all these things i you simpl are sing, i don't know?" at is it you are saying that rely gets under their skin? >> i don't know whethert gets der their skin. tt again, was exaggerated in the "n york times". >>ose: the "new york mes"? i. >> i never gotnder ybody's skin as far as i know. jim hencen, for example-- >> rose: a revered-- or a reupon maybe a better word-- he is my friend. and 're portyed in that article as enemies. thathat he was a manipulator just as i was. >> rose: do you andim hanson have the me view abou climate change? >> no, but we are friendly-- we have divergeant vows but we are quite good friends.

so-- society of us, ihink, felt aggrieved becausee were-- >>ose:hat you were somehowan tagganist othethan different opinions about central issue. >> y,e happen agree about a loof things. >> rose: i'm going to ask you about ese fact. the average temperare has climbe1.4 degrees fahrenheit since 1880, much of this in recent decades. is tha true? >> yes. >>ose: the 20th nturiy last two decadeswere t hottestn 400 years. >> that's probly true, but the last-- aually the la decade s been cooler. and-- >> rose: cooler than th prious decade? >> y. and it's not at all clear whether the rise isontinuing or n. >> rose: you ao believe at certain biotechnologies will in the end serve to reduce the impact of global warming.

>> yes, i think-- o course, first of all i don't bieve glob warming is bad. think that's first question to be settled. >> rose: anotherso is global warming d? >> no, i would say warming is certainly real, but it's mostly happening cold places a high latitudes, and it'also happening re in winter than in summer, and it's also hapning more at ght than in dti. >> rose:s the emission of much c.o.2 into t atmosphere a good thing? >> yes. rose: even though it breaks whater it does uphere. >> yes, i woul say it's a very good thing. it makes plants growbetter. but ants cannot consumall the c.o.2ut there. >> no, but they're doing better because of t co2. it's true o crop plants and for all of forforest. against that, you have psible harmful effects of warmg.

but i think it is important that warming is happing in place, that are cold, in place whe's it's winter raer than smer, and it's summer reasoner nighime. >> rose: what's interesti is that are you not arguing with the facts. you are arguingiththe collusions >> rht. >> rose: for emple there's lting at ntan's tural pa. is that a good thing? >> it's a goo thing and a bad thg. >> rose: you d't think that human contributiono global warmg is as significant ashe critics, ose who very vehemently oppos global warming and want to do something about it argue. >> tt i would sa we don't know. wh we do know is glaciersere

swinging in switzerland and my other places long before hun actity became ropt. >> rose: let me talk about-- in theontext of freemanyson's remarkable life, here ar you in your 80s? what concernsyou today? at do you worry abo? >> iorry about nuclear weapons. >> ros i have writteabout nucleaweapons. >> tt is the number one problem, for me, and all the discsion of global warming distracts people from more important ings. we, they can hd two things in their head. >> lt night we hadn prince son a commemoration o hebroc ma, and two svivors spoke about their exporn that's what we should b talking about.

>> it's becoming a more visible issue. >>ose: including the predent of thenited states and henry kissinger, and sam nunn. >> especially the gg around reagan >> that's i think the auty of it that it is something that the right wi rublicans generly believin. so it's something we may have a chance to do. >> re: mutlly assured destction is not a good idea. >> i don think it's a good idea. it works up to a pnt. it's not something we suld ly on. >> rose: a do you think the united states, to lead theay, ould reduce s stockpile of weapons by how much? i would say total. i mean i'd lik- >> rose: jt goright out a t rid of all of them andhow the world the right direction. >> that's wt nixonid with

biological weapons and iwas a wonderful move. he did it youn lateral beusey so he didn't have to havet ratified by the senate. he didn't have to negoate with anybody. said if we get rid of our weapons we will destroy the stockpiles, d it happened one afternoon. >> rose: would wo be less of a tion? >> i don't think so pu but that's a maer ofpinion. the public believes nuear weapons give them security. i don't ink so. it's auestion of balance, of urse. >> ros: spose we gave up all our nuclear weapons. do the thinkheyould give up theirs? >> no. th real danger is somebody steals a w of them, and gettinrid of ours wor certainly he. they're more likely.

>> on walked into room in this cntry, wherthere were 41 hydrogen bombs just lying aroundn theloor. >> ros i've been on submine where they had 18. >> they're all over the place i don't think they'r particular low safe. you thin if people using toy today's strategies might very well steal auclear weapon from the united states repitory. >> yes. i mean, it's of course-- you depend on the ct that people are carelessnd w are as rol asther poem. but it'sore likely to pakistan and other places like that where there is under stabili. so, anyy, i don't say it's

necessary. that wore anyworse than the her people who are taking re of them. oim sayinge're not perfect. yoconsider that the greatt proble of man and humanmind? >> at the moment, s. >> rose: dog away with-- tting riof property on the same level. >>nd how are we doingon that very well, china and iia are becoming rich. that'she center of gravity to the world, cna and india. ifhey becomeich countries the majority of meykind is rush marine tour sglts inhe remainedf your life, whether 10 years, o 20 yes or what you-- what would you like to

achieve? >> i don't havany illusions th i will kks chief these great things. i like to help push people and push this in a sensible way. >> as you know most people think your more interting ideas in physs came a long time ago >> that' true. >> rose: i know. i enjoy life and don't partularly care what i'm doing at that moment tt is interested. is ichallenging and inresting to youyou? >> science, of course, to me is sun and just like paintg pictures oanything else. >> rose: it's a puzzle. >>ell, i would say it's a technical skill, which is f to ercise. >> rose: yeah. the is this ia that physics has had its sentry, and the. >> i think that's quite likely to be true. it certain that physics has

slowed dowduring my lifetime. largely ju because the experiments have beco so slow. but biology, at thsame time, s been speeding up. so i think it'srobably true thathis century is the century of biology. >> rose: because of the discovery of dna a the mapping the han genome. >> i thinkll these scientists are driven b tools rather than eas sglool. >> tools for the biologists,and gene synthesizers, now we can read and write >> rose: we are understanding more about disee than we he in the whole history of human kind. that's going sw. the heing part of biology is really tough. >> rose: it's not easy to understand how these work.

>> cerinly, we're not doing woman with the war against cancer. >> rose: why do you think that is >> it's a lot more complicated than we hoped. >> that's true >> i have tremendousrespect for nature, thatature is almost always smarter tha we a, and that's what make biology so exciting. why is nature much smarter than we are? >> it's had auch longerime to work out the details. and it will take care of itself. this is not to name drop but i've done one interview wit him stevein hawking. good, and other who worked withhim and studied underhim. >> that's one person i have enormous respect for som he's great in both respes as a human being and as scientist.

think he's one of the few people i would say cleay deservise nobel prize and hasn'tot one. i don't know why. >> ishe considered e of the top 10 physicistn theworld today? by me, yes. ( laughter ) >> rose: and tt's allhat matters, isn't it? not all that matters, but-- anyway,e's terrific and he wears--. he's amazingly tough. >> rose: you know him though. >> the last time i m him he was in aar in tokyo. >> rose: at a bar >> drirchgsing whiskey and having good time. what we you dog there. i was the just to do that, too. i think hewas hang more fun than i was >> rose: what hpened to the super collider? >> the sur collider-- rose:explain to ushat it was just so wenow that.

>> it's a big machine in geneva onthe border between switzerld and franc >> rose:orch there rather than hereecause they paid for it. >> yes, the europeans built and paid for it. i think it will do a lot of interesting science. like what? >> it wl discovethings that ren't expected. at's what the science is all about. if you knew in advance wt you were going to discover, it not interesting. so we hope i will discove lots things that nobody imagined, but it has technical problems. big machis very often do. there'snothing unusual in that. ey switched it on and someing broke. >> rose: to their great disappointment. >> ts is disappointg, but soonerr later they'll it working. >> ros but when? >>e don't know. but we haveo think on a long-term scale.

that's why physics is slowing down. >> rose: because they're doing hugeathematical computatio and re. so they took10 years build it, and 10 yearses to-- >> re get it right. >> to get it actlly to work. that is st of the of a lifetime, ich is a sha. >> rose: wt is the great question you would like to see answers? >> to me mind the most exciting questions are really in biin on. that question i've--. even got so concerned i wro book about it-- "the origin o li." it is a good problem because everybody is equally ignorant, even i could write a book about it a it's a comete mysty. >> rose: wt did you determine about the origins of life? >> well, i'm simy spelating at it hullly had tworanges. >> re: adam and eve.

>> that we have at our-- living cre urdz made of tw components, which is sort o hardware and software, like computers. >> rose: lifgsreteures are made of rdware d software. >> the hardware is the chemistry of things, what ty call metabolism. eating and drinking and procsing all the materials. all of active things like nerves and muscleso far are made of harl hdware, preins. and then theres the stware that isenome, just the instructio for how to build it. so weave those two components which are very separate in life as fay wenow it. i'm making the hypothesis but really i was unlikely that they were both there fm the beginng. it's muc more lightly that they

rerded separaly. you had life evolving without genes for a longime. genes were then an indendent creatu, which originally were parasites and tn took over the rection so to bottom then a symbsis, a collarative system,which both ofhem worked togher. that seems to me a rsonable point view but don't cla it's true. >> rose: what doyou think about the technogies of nanotechlogy? >> there ain it's been hype too much. but, clely, 's very real. we've got a lot of interesting materials that are a deepstancy in the wam w as getics.

>> rose: stevin hawking talks abt the search for the they of everything. are you interted in ray theory of everything? >> i pe it doesn't est. it would show that g had been lock with imagination. >> wt a minute, god woulde-- >>ose: how do you get your mind arod religion and scienc >> well, i think they both ar realnd they both say sething about the iverse. but they're qoit different. i think them as two wdows through-- youan't look at both at the same time. >> rose: an so for sciensts who say to tse peopl of fakt, i appreciate your faith t i can't believe anhing that n't see and tt i can't prove. >> wl, that's, of course, a

correct stateme if mean by "belief" "scientif belief." but i think a religion not just about belief. >> rose: it'sbout? >> it's about a way of le, a mmunity. it's big pol rtureand music and architecture. it's a big part of yo human. which is really noto muc dependent on belief. >> rose: are you a rigious m by that denition. but i certainly d't believe any particar theology. >> rose: what do y think of richard dawkins? >> i like richard dawkin as a human beg but i think he's done a lot of harm by telling young people that you have to be an eightist it in order to become a scienst. that's a stupid thingo say. it actually pushe away a lot of

young people from scice who don't want to give relion. >> rose: a you optimistic out all of us? >> yes. >> rose: in the e? >> oh, very optimistic. it's quite amazing we've been able to do in the ort tewe have bee here. we have tales which to me are quite extraordinary because the don't have any oious survival value. for example, calculati numbers i need to calculate numbe in orr to survive. it'sot at all leer. why ould we be abe to compose ring quarts or paint paintings. >>ose: so you are optimistic about our future becauseou ok at where we've come from, anwe'veevolved not badly. >> i would say we're doi-- >> rose: even though we've built

these bombs that cou destroy us. >> we've been doing acingly well. >> rose: have youeen kind to thelanet? >> yes. >> ros a lot of people don't have thaview. e you in a stink minority that includin our friend evan hooker of december. no,he fact is of coue we've done a lot of damage to t planet, buwe also repair e dage. i gr up in england, and england was far more filthy tn than tre wasow. gland is much more-- is comparatively green. you ca goo london and your collar doesn't get black each day, and the tham sing haened in los angeles.

the smo in no, sir. >> rose: have you be to beijing? >> yes. >> rose: and you're not bothere by that? and you wanthem to buildevery al-burning plant they cou build? >> global warming people don't make a stinction between carbon dioxi which is essentially, in my view, harmless, and the other things which are tolds horrible, certn smog, a nitrogen oxide and all thattuff. there's a lot of very ugly stuff coal ich you can get rid of by scrubbing the hole and th gases that ce out ofhe fire stion. so the chinese certainly can do a t more of tt and they a dog a lot more than that. >>ose: you are member of caisson. what is that? it's a gupof consult antz at work for gernment. wove been just in existence 50

ars. >> rose: 50? >> yes. we're justellur separate birthdays. we're doing a sdy about nuclear weaps, whichs one of the things we've always be interested in. we've goneb bee asked boy congressto assess the state of e stockpile and how you can taken a thought pile that is reliable without doing tests >> rose: suppose they come t u and jason said, he's the prect. we want you to help us decide a weap. >> i would looat the details. jason isnot in the biness of inventg weapons, anyy. advisinghe government about all kinds of chnical problems mostly min. what we a get y is cleing

stupid ias. >> rose: tha seems to me like a worthy function. >> that's what i think is most useful about what we're doing. somebody tls us they have a wonderful scheme for detecng submarines, and you on need $100 million to get arted. and then weemonstrate that the thing is no good. >> rose: it's a pasure to have you here. >> thank you. >>ose: freeman son, an interesting man. and you've had a remarkabllife and you ctinue to live with great spit and great fun and i adre you forhis spiritnd ssion you bring conversatis. >> thank you. captning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media accessroup at wgbh cess.wgbh.org