[Lawrence Krauss] But let me just say also
to add to that. It's more than that. It's not
only a tragedy, it's criminal. These are among the
most interesting, amoung the most interesting
and fascinating intellectual achievements.
Again, forget the practicality.
The ideas that science has exposed,
and it's just criminal and sad to think
no more would want to have a child to grow up
without having some understanding,
some exposure to them,
than we would want a child to never be
exposed to Shakespeare.
[Richard Dawkins] Exactly. One of the stupidest things
Sherlock Holmes ever said was that
was the first thing he said to Doctor Watson.
He divulged in conversation with Watson that
Holmes didn't know something about the names
of the planets. Jupiter and Saturn and things like that.
Watson was absolutely shocked and rightly so.
And Holmes said "But Watson, I don't need to know
about the planets in order to solve my
criminal cases."
That is such a short sighted view.
Well Conan Doyle as you know,
believed in fairies.
[Laughter}
[Krauss] I think for me that comes back to
what I said before. Before someone will
listen to you, you have to get them to
be interested. And I think the big problem,
maybe it's not a problem, but for many people
they just don't find the questions interesting.
I think if I thought the questions weren't
interesting I wouldn't be doing it.
What I've found is if you find the right way
to seduce someone into being interested
in those things, then the well opens up
and it's just a sea of questions
because they are basic issues.
Where do we come from?
Where are we going?
Are we alone in the universe?
What are we made of?
And so I think one has to find,
one has to just overcome the tragic
de-education that we do in this country.
Here is a scary statistic:
We compare American students to their
counterparts in 20-25 other industrialized nations.
And there was a recent study you may have heard
came out, we look at kids in grade three
and grade 5 and then 15 year olds.
What's amazing is in grade 3 and 5 American
students on the whole do better in science
and mathematics than their counterparts
around the world. But by the time they
are 15 they do substantially worse.
So we have been doing something very
effective to de-educate them or
disinterest them in science.
And one of the reason is another equally
scary fact which is that over 90% of
middle school science teachers in this
country have never taken a science course
outside of high school.
[Dawkins] What percentage was that?
[Krauss] 90%
[Dawkins] (stuttering) Ni-ni-ninety? Not nine?
[Krauss] 90%
And I saw that happen to our daughter
when she was in school.
In grade two I remember going into her school
and, grade two they learn it's light during
the day and dark at night.
Those are the kinds of things you are talking
about, but the teacher was terrified
and that could not help but get across to
the students, that it was scary, it was
terrifying, it was complex.
So it is a problem that we convince our
students partly because we have people
teaching who don't feel comfortable with it
that they should be uncomfortable and uninterested.
You could do very well. I taught at Yale
University for what seemed like an eternity.
I learned that you can be very successful
in this world, not only being scientifically illiterate,
but proudly proclaiming it. It's unfortunate.
It really is.
[Dawkins] They would deny that actually.
[Dawkins] Obviously I am very sympathetic it that.
There was a cartoon to that effect which
was going the rounds on the internet.
How did it go?
It was in a doctor's office and the doctor
was warning him about antibiotic resistance...
I'm not going to remember it. Do you remember it?
[Krauss] Yeah no I'm trying to remember this...
[Dawkins] Anyway forget it. It doesn't matter.
Look it up. It's fun.
I think that if you were to talk to a creationist
of any sophistication but I'm not sure
that sort of thing exists,
they would say something like
"We are quite happy with microevolution.
It's only macroevolution we worry about."
The mutation and selection of a
pathogenic organism in a hospital,
that's all microevolution.
Unfortunately they get a lot of aid and
comfort from some circles in biology
who add fuel to that by pretending that there really
is a distinction between microevolution and
macroevolution instead of realizing that
as we have known since the modern synthesis
macroevolution is just microevolution going
on for a very long time.
That is one of the problems people
have in understanding.
[Krauss] To add to that I think
I've gotten in trouble because I have
written exactly that. Not so much in terms
of evolution but I argued that if you say the
earth is 6,000 years old you shouldn't drive
a car, you shouldn't get in a plane,
because you are being hypocritical
because all these things depend,
the thing is people don't realize the
connectedness of science so it is ok,
they think it is just a bunch of separate
stories and that's often the way we teach it.
It's ok not to believe this part of the story
but you should believe that part of the story.
But at the same time the thing is that at
some basic level,
what always amazes me, no matter what
people say, they ultimately realize that
science is the way to go when it comes to
concerns. For example President Bush said
we should teach both intelligent design and
evolution because we should teach students
what the debate is all about.
Now, that is not an intrinsically stupid
statement, surprisingly. [Laughter]
It's actually quite rational.
What it represents is ignorance.
And not ignorance in a pejorative sense,
ignorance of the fact that there is no debate.
Interesting thing is, when the avian flu
became a big issue in this country
what you heard was the President say
we have to quickly determine how fast it
is mutating from birds to humans.
You never heard on person in his
administration say you know it has been
designed to kill us. Forget about it. [Laughter]
So at some point people understand
that when really it comes to the crisis
no matter what they say to pollsters
it's amazing to me that we are so bi-modal
or whatever that we can just sort of say
"Ok we really need the science 'cause it's
the only thing that's going to save us."