Dawkins:... Natural selection is the only theory that's ever been proposed and I think that
will be proposed
that's capable and accounting for the illusion of design
which we see around us. So I'm not quite sure whether...
... Darwin thought the both natural selection and evolution itself
were theories in the tentative, hypothetical sense.
He spent most of his life gathering evidence for it. I think now we've reached the point where
the fact of evolution is a fact, and
nobody could seriously doubt it. There is still controversy over the theory
that natural selection is the dominant driving force.
I think nobody would doubt that it is the dominant driving force in adaptive evolution,
but many people, including me, doubt that it is the dominant
driving force of all evolution as measured
at the molecular level.
Krauss: Maybe we'll get to that too, because I wanted to ask you (inaudible)
... in this country there's this...
these fake controversies that have been invented in a lot different areas, but the
the people at places like the Discovery Institute and
elsewhere have I have tried to put forth, its this beautiful --
I got into probably publicly talking about this in this country when in
Ohio they were about to introduce requirements, in some sense,
that intelligent design be taught alongside evolution,
and there was a debate
that the board of education set up
down in Columbus before the public and the board, and I was asked,
because I'd written something about this in the paper,
asked to be on this along with another scientist, who happens
to be a religious biologist, Ken Miller,
and then, two members the Discovery Institute.
And, uh, we all thought that -- I mean I agree with you by the way,
not only do I don't like the debate format, but in science it's
actually very
disingenuous... Dawkins: Yeah.
Krauss: ...because first of all it doesn't happen that way most the time, but secondly,
it gives the impression, and I'm sure you've had this,
a lot of people want to be on stage
to debate me about evolution or about alien abduction or
whatever it is,
because if you're reasonably presentable
and your arguments are interesting, someone who is out there in
the audience who doesn't necessarily
know what's happening, will come away from it in the end saying 'well no, he said, she
said, you know, it sounded reasonable
on both sides...' And so at that debate
I made it quite clear at the beginning that this was not representative,
that if it had been representative there would've been
10,000 scientists on one side of the table, and two
representatives of a wacky fringe group on the other side of the table. [audience applause]
But -- it's very important -- but we thought that they were going to get up and say
you know, all the reasons why intelligent design should be taught. But,
they're really brilliant and they have
much better marketing than scientists do, for the most part, and
one of the slimiest of them, who happens to be a philosopher,
he got up -- a rather intelligent man, and he said, 'You know what,
we don't want to force that, we are open-minded, we don't want to
require you to teach intelligent design, we just want you to teach the controversy'.
Now what a brilliant statement. That was the first time it was used in this country,
and it's brilliant because, of course it's like asking, you know, 'when did you
stop beating your wife?'
The minute you say it it presumes there's a controversy and it's
brilliant because
most people in this country believe that evolution is incredibly
controversial, and in fact...
I don't know if you know one of these statistics that's really scary:
if you ask Americans, and this was done in a poll last year,
forget that most Americans don't believe in evolution, at least when asked about it,
that's true, by far the majority don't believe it -- but they were asked:
'Independent of what you believe, what should be taught in schools?'
Okay?
12 percent said evolution. Only.
24 percent said creationism, only.
And the rest Americans were you know, like, 'Why don't we teach everything.'
So it's much scarier in fact than you might think otherwise.
Dawkins: Yeah, well, it sounds so reasonable doesn't it?
I mean... But, by the way, there are all sorts of creation myths that you could teach,
we have hundreds of different ones. I think maybe one way to retaliate is to say, 'Well,
let's teach the controversy about
reproduction, and let's have equal time for
the sex theory of reproduction, and the stork theory of reproduction.
[audience laughter, applause]
Krauss: In fact that's perfect. I think that's an example of what,
when we talk about science education, which is, what you try to do. Let's bring
this to an example that people can internalize and respond to, and in fact,
I use the same example in this country...
it's really resonated because people think we should be open-minded, but when
I point out, 'well, look in that National Science Foundation
survey that I talked about, 50 percent of the American public does not know
the Earth goes around the Sun and takes a year to do it'.
So therefore, in physics class, if we are worried about being open minded,
and half the American public does believe that,
in physics classes, should we spend equal amount of time on the Earth-centered
cosmology? Dawkins: Yeah, sure.
Krauss: And when you put it that way to people, people realize that's
clearly nonsense, and it brings home the key point, which is that
the purpose of education is actually not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
[Audience Applause] Dawkins: Yeah. Krauss: and so,
..and that's the onus on scientists.
If people don't understand these things
it means we're doing a bad job, and we have to do a better job.
It doesn't mean we should do a worse job.
And I think all of these things do reflect the fact that we as scientists,
obviously we spend a lot of our time, in one way or another, trying to counteract that,
but, we as scientists are not doing
a good job at explaining what we're doing or why we're doing it.
Let me ask a question, because one thing
you know when we've compared our different techniques
of trying to reach people, and,
you know, I've argued that I had some problems sometimes with
the approach you've taken because...
well, I've had frustrations.. We can talk about that.
Maybe we will.
The point is that we,
if we continue to
alienate as scientists seem to do with the public, then we should not
be surprised
if they don't support science. And so, the question is
how to overcome that, and I wanted to ask you the following question:
Which is more important to you, um, disabusing people
of false notions, or convincing them
to try and learn about the real things?
Dawkins: I'm always getting this problem -- Krauss: I know, that's why I brought it up. [audience laughter]
Dawkins: Yeah. It's this matter of seduction,
and -- Krauss: which word I've used -- Dawkins: It's your word --
Krauss: -- and I've gotten in a bit of trouble...
Dawkins: And, and I had a little exchange with Neil deGrasse Tyson,
at the Beyond Belief conference.
And he took me to task in very much the same terms
as you have...
I suppose in the particular case of the evolution/creation
controversy, where I have been accused of
rocking the boat, and of spoiling the case
for our side in the
education debate. It was put to me most starkly
by Rothschild, who is the lead lawyer
for our side in the in the Dover Pennsylvania case.
We had lunch together, we got on very well,
and we talked a lot, and then at the end he said 'well, thank goodness
we didn't call you as an expert witness' and... [Krauss: laughter]
he was absolutely right. I would have been
a disaster as an expert witness because
the lawyer for the other side would simply have said
'Mr. Dawkins, is it true that you came to your
atheism through evolution?', and I would have had to say yes,
and then he would simply have said: 'my case rests',
because that's enough to damn it.
The seduction technique there would be to
go out to people and say 'Look I, I appreciate... I respect your religion,
I think your religion is
great but... your religion is perfectly compatible with the evolution
and you can believe if you like that god
set evolution going, maybe god helps evolution over some of the difficult
jumps...' [audience laughter]
Krauss: I don't think... Obviously I've been accused of the seduction side
which I'm proud of. But uh,
I think the point is that you have to, you don't have to go bend over
backwards that much,
but I think that the largest impact I've ever had is going to
fundamentals colleges and saying, just simply, the simple statement,
that 'you don't have to be an atheist believe in evolution'. Dawkins: Yeah.
And that is so remarka -- I've had kids come up to me and say
'I've never heard anyone say that' -- Dawkins: How could the possibly have never heard anyone say that?!
Did they ever talk to a clergyman, a bishop, an archbishop?
Krauss: No, you see, this isn't the Church of England.
[audience laughs]
No it's true. These kids,
every Sunday from the time they're
too young to think -- and that's why both you and I absolutely agree that
that I think it is sort of child abuse,
to subject children to that. But...
[audience clapping]