Krauss: But also, one of the things I want to say is that, one of-
this is a fascinating...
it's not my idea it's a historian, but what's fascinating to me is one of the reasons
people say "why is this such a big deal
in the United States and not in other countries?
Well first of all, now it is, and when I first
spoke about this in Europe they said
"Ah this is American", but it's getting there
because the United States exports everything
good and bad and it's happening in
England, in Holland, in France, in all sorts of countries,
but one of the things that's
been really remarkable that was
pointed out is that one of the reasons
that religion is so successful here,
it would be better if we didn't have a
separation of church and state, if we had
a state religion, because if you have a
state religion everyone ignores it,
like in England.
And it becomes impotent because capitalism just works,
so if you have-
we've forced religions in this country
to become entrepreneurial, and they've
been incredibly successful because of it.
So if we just had a state religion then that
wouldn't be any fun, then no one would want
to talk about it anymore.
Dawkins: I think there's a lot in that. I mean, you've no idea how
boring The Church of England is.
(laughter)
Audience member: This question is inspired a bit by recently
watching Jesus Camp,
which is all about indoctrination and...
Krauss: Terrifying movie
Audience member: ...child abuse among the Pentecostal faith.
Also something that you discussed, about how
we reach children.
Maybe this is a bad line of reasoning but I want to
ask, what about popularizing
the teaching of evolution even farther than it is,
like Darwin Camp,
or, 'The Pirates of the S.S. Beagle', or 'Heredity' for Wii.
Is there a line where you try and
reach people at their heart when they're kids
in the same way the opposition is?
If Tim LaHaye can sell 60 million
copies of the rapture-end-of-times books,
should there be Darwinian novelists
with Charles as your protagonist?
Krauss: Well I think absolutely. In fact I was a judge
at the Sundance Film Festival specifically
because the Sloan Foundation gives a
prize for trying to introduce-not to have a
science documentary, but trying to introduce
scientific themes in full length feature films with
scientists to humanize them.
And I absolutely think
that we really have to do a much better job,
and I try personally whenever I can
to bridge what is a gap
between science as culture .
Science is not viewed as a part
of our culture and it should be viewed
as that and I really think
we should be working to have science
a much more integrated part of all of our cultures
and celebrate it in schools, and in fact in churches,
and in literature.
But I would hope scientists, on the other hand,
would never stoop to the child abuse that is Jesus Camp.
What we should be encouraging kids to do is to
have fun, to keep their minds open, to want to explore,
to want to ask questions, and then the rest will follow.
I don't think we should ever say "And if you don't
believe in Darwin, you're gonna go to Hell."
(laughter)
Dawkins: Well you laugh, but I mean that's what they do,
and so it just brings out the comparison. I have an ambition,
at some point in my life to write a children's book about evolution.
And I really don't- it comes back to the thing
we were first discussing- it shouldn't be that difficult to explain.
I don't understand, and I think we've talked about this as well,
I don't understand why evolution is left to the end of
scientific education. It should be at the beginning,
because then everything makes sense and
I don't know about camps, I mean why not camps
I don't come from a culture where children
do get sent off to camps, it sounds rather a nice thing to do.
And I would love to try to teach evolution at a children's camp.
Krauss: When I was a kid there were, I mean I essentially
science camps so they weren't like Jesus Camp
but they were places where you could you know,
do science and have fun and explore and
visit some places and that's a good thing but I think that,
actually in that regard I wanted to ask you, it's interesting that evolution is
taught at the end of a biology class because there was a-
I forget which famous biologist
said, "Nothing in biology makes sense…".
Dawkins: That was Dobzhansky, but any biologist would say that.
Krauss: Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to ask,
one of the things that's really scary to me in this country,
and my daughter went to a rather liberal private school,
but her teacher, and this is where they've been really successful
even if they haven't distorted the curriculum they've
instilled enough fear in teachers,
that there are many teachers in this country, biology teachers,
who won't mention the word evolution- not because it's not there but
they are just afraid and even at my daughter's school I remember her biology
teacher basically apologize each time he mentioned the word evolution.
I was just shocked, but it happens.
Dawkins: Well, alright. I mean that's a major evil, what are we going to do about it?
It's terrible, absolutely terrible. The teachers are being intimidated,
um, are there any teachers here who can testify to that by any chance?
Krauss: Yes, there's one in fact, I can see.
Dawkins: Are you being intimidated by children?
By parents? By other teachers? By…what?
Audience member: Parents.
Dawkins: Parents?
Krauss: Well you know about the- it's even more…
you know what happened in Texas?
So the school board official, um, recommended, there was an event, on evolution,
a bunch of interesting speakers,
and the school official and the school board sent out
the notice that this event was happening, and she got fired.
Because she didn't talk about the other side.
Can you believe that?
But that's the kind of intimidation that actually happens,
and it's really scary.
Dawkins: Well, I don't know if there's anything I
can do to help but I kind of feel the need to.
To DO something!
Audience member: Hi my name is Wells,
I'm a physics graduate student. Thank you both very much for coming.
I admire you both very much as evangelists for science.
Krauss: As Steve Weinberg says, "We're doing God's work."
(laughter)
I think one of the problems scientists have in evangelizing for science is that
the field of science is so large and complex, and you can spend a lifetime
studying even a small area and not understand all of it. And I think one of
the things we have to do to sell science
is to present it in a coherent and compact way, and to tell stories about science that
are accessible to people. You both have written a lot of books,
some of which I've read you're both fantastic writers.
I think, though, that books have a limited audience, and I think the medium
that will reach a lot more people is actually film. And so I think of
another great evangelist for science, Al Gore,
who had written books, and given lots of speeches, but came into prominence
and really shifted, raised the consciousness of
our nation about the climate change with his movie.
So my question is- and Professor Dawkins, I watched your 'Virus of Faith' film
aired by the BBC, which I thought was very good-
Dawkins: Which film?
It's called 'The Virus of Faith' [Episode title for Roots of All Evil?]
It may have had a different name here in the U.S.
Wells: -Channel 4 in England?
Krauss: You don't remember doing that?
Dawkins: Well…
Wells: Two hour-long films
Dawkins: The phrase is mine, but I don't remember making a film about it.
Wells: Well it's very good you should look it up.
(laughter and applause)
There's a link on your website.
(laughter)
So my question is, would either of you, in collaboration with other scientists,
consider making a science creation film,
that tells the story of science from the Big Bang
to now, talking about cosmology, galaxies,
the history of life on Earth, the history of hominids,
and putting it into something that's presentable to people and can be watched
in a movie theater in a Saturday night?
Krauss: Well yeah, I agree it'd be great and I'd love to do it and if there's anyone with
20 or 50 million dollars here who'd like to contribute
I think- I mean, both of us do T.V..,
Richard does more film than me in England, I think, and um,
you're absolutely right the books
reach a limited audience and I don't think film I think
television actually reaches the broadest audience.
And it really saddens me,
and I've had it happen. I talk to TV producers a lot I'm in a lot of
TV programs in different ways,
but I really would love to get on a mainstream,
you know, not the Science Channel, not the- because that's a self-selecting group,
or not the Discovery, a lot of those places where I normally appear,
but in a regular program, but you- it's extremely difficult to convince them
because it's all driven by ratings and money
and the perception of network executives
is that science will not draw people in and it is amazingly ridiculous.
It's a ridiculous perception because if done right it could be an incredible draw,
but that's a very difficult thing to overcome,
and I'm hoping that we can slowly overcome it.
And I'm trying to do it but it's a difficult job
I don't know whether you want to...