Something You Should Know - Legendary Actor John Cleese on Creativity & How Random Chance Got Us to Where We Are

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Just as you judge others based on their appearance, other people judge you. This episode begins with what exactly people decide about you when they first meet you based on how you are groomed and dressed. Source: Image consultant Sherry Maysonave author of Casual Power (https://amzn.to/3ffMODA) For many years John Cleese has been entertaining millions of people as a member of Monty Python, as well as a movie actor in a variety of films including Harry Potter and James Bond movies. He has also spent some time examining the creative process and in fact wrote a book about it called Creativity A Short and Cheerful Guide (https://amzn.to/3lKW5G7). Listen as he describes his creative process and his advice for everyone on how to be more creative in anything you do. What is laughter? We’ve all experienced it but how do you describe it? And is it really the best medicine? Listen as I explore some interesting facts about laughing that you probably don’t know. Source: Robert Provine author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation (https://amzn.to/2IRDN7E) Does everything happen for a reason? People like to think so. On the other hand, maybe we are here on this earth doing what we do all as a result of some amazingly random events. Sean B. Carroll is an award-winning scientist, writer, educator, and film producer as well as the author of the book A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You (https://amzn.to/36IesVO). Sean joins me to explain all the things that had to happen to bring us all to where we are today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future.

Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, your appearance really matters to other people, wherever you get your podcasts. You can only be creative, in my opinion, if you can play in that sense of childlike play. And you can't do that much if you're an adult because there's too many responsibilities and interruptions. Then, is laughter really the best medicine? And look at the events that got us all where we are today,

like the asteroid that hit the Earth and wiped out all the dinosaurs. You know, with the Earth turning at a thousand miles an hour, if that asteroid, which had probably been circulating the solar system for four and a half billion years, if it had entered the Earth's atmosphere a half hour sooner, a half hour later, dinosaurs would still be here and you and I wouldn't be having this conversation. All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world,

looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman,

the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel.

The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. In just a moment, I'll be speaking with John Cleese. John Cleese was, as you probably know, a member of Monty Python. He's been in the James Bond movies. He's been in some of the Harry Potter movies.

And he's just one of the funniest people on the face of the earth. And he has a new book out on creativity we're going to talk about. And that's coming up in just a moment. First, your appearance really does matter, according to image consultant Sherry Mazenov. She says people decide three things about you within the first 30 seconds of meeting you, whether they're accurate or not. And all three are based on how well-dressed and how well-groomed you are.

First, education level. The better your appearance, people assume you have a higher level of education. Number two, socioeconomic status. The better dressed you are, the higher socioeconomic level you are perceived to have. And third, desirability. In a professional environment, the more professional you look, the more desirable you will appear. Women who wear tasteful makeup earn 20 to 30 percent more than women who wear too much makeup or none at all. Too much or no makeup sends out a message of low self-esteem. And that is something you should know. Who doesn't love John Cleese?

Ever since I saw him on television in Monty Python sketches and in movies, I have found him to be extremely funny. And of course, he's also a big movie star, having been, in addition to Monty Python films, A Fish Called Wanda, he played nearly headless Nick in the first two Harry Potter films, he's been in two James Bond films, Die Another Day and The World Is Not Enough,

and he's the author of a book about creativity. It's called Creativity, A Short and Cheerful Guide. Hi, John. It's a pleasure to have you on Something You Should Know. Thank you for asking me to be on. So it's interesting. I love this topic of creativity because everybody has their own sense of what it means. What does it mean to you to be creative?

It just means the capacity to have better ideas about how to do just about anything. Oh, I like that definition, because it does seem people have this image of, well, he's a creative type. You're a creative type. And usually that means he's somewhat eccentric and we don't really know what he does. Yeah, I think in a way it's right, because a lot of creative, in quotes, people do behave in a slightly more bohemian way than the rest of us. But I think that's because they have a different value system that comes from the fact they are

creative. I think a lot of people who are creative very much enjoy creating, and there's a slightly obsessional quality to the greatest artists, which is what bothers me about trying to become creative. But I think you can become creative for short periods of time. Let me put it like this. You can only be creative, in my opinion, if you can play in that sense of childlike play. And you can't do that much if you're an adult, because when you're a child, you can do it because your parents are minding the shop. get in that playful state because there's too many responsibilities and interruptions. So the only way you can become creative or playful is to set up a period of time, I would

call maybe an hour and a quarter, an hour and a half, where you just cut yourself off from the world, from all interruptions, and make sure without those interruptions that you then sit down and address whatever problem it is in a playful way, without furrowing your brow, just playing, without trying to control your thoughts or anything like that, just seeing what happens. Can you give me an example? Yes, I can. What I used to give is when Chapman and I began writing for Monty Python, we couldn't get an idea.

So I did what I always do is I pick up the thesaurus and start throwing ideas out. And I read words out. I said, cucumber. We both looked at each other. And I said, plummet. Oh, I like that word. And I said, yeah, it's a good word, isn't it? Plummet. Something dropping vertically onto the concrete.

And then I said, well, what would plummet? And Graham said a sheep would plummet. And I said, well, what were you talking about? And he said, well, if a sheep was trying to fly, it wouldn't be able to, so it would plummet. And we both laughed and wrote a sketch about sheep being taught how to fly. But that's the sort of random way it has to work. But that's, talking about sheep plummeting, which is a wonderful image in my head now, how does that translate if you're trying to come up with a new product for

your business or you're trying to come up with a new... It's exactly the same process, Mike, exactly the same. You just sit there and you play with ideas without trying to control. You know, one of the problems with business people is that they are always trying to control things. I know a lot of body workers, you know, some of the best in the world. I go to the guy who looks after the clippers. And they all say that businessmen are the hardest people to treat because their bodies are so rigid. And why are they rigid? Muscular strain from trying to control everything. And that's what you have to work against. You have to go into a completely different, instead of short, sharp, logical, analytical thinking, you have to go into a much more meditative way of thinking. Because anything that's a real breakthrough comes from the

unconscious. And you can't, and of course it speaks to you in the language of the unconscious. It doesn't give you neatly typed out instructions. It comes up in terms of images or feelings. I mean, Einstein said part of his process of thinking was muscular. He also said that most of the time when he was thinking, he could not express in words what it was that he was thinking about. That only came at a much later stage when things had become clearer to him. And for people for whom clarity is all, and in particular those who are under time pressure all the time, they find it very difficult

to get into this creative mode, which is why it's so important that they know that it's possible, that they may at the beginning, if they are control freaks, they may find it very difficult, because they want to control what's happening instead of just letting it happen. More artistic people can just relax and let go. When you're creating art, though, the creative idea is very often the end product.

So how do you take plummeting sheep and create, how do you get from plummeting sheep to your new widget? The first thing you do is to realize that although if you operate under the vague instructions or suggestions I make in the book, you will get new ideas. So question it. You will. I didn't say you get good new ideas. Some of them may not be any good at all. Some may have something useful in them which you can hang on to and then try and work on, try to develop.

Sometimes you might be lucky enough to have a really good idea straight away. But at some point, you've got to stop being creative and bring your critical faculty in in order to see whether the thing works and whether it stands up. So you really use a different part of your brain. You start using the left hemisphere to assess whether what the right hemisphere has come up with is really useful or not. And you can decide. And as I say, if there's some good stuff, you can build on that. If it's all nonsense, you throw it away and keep going because you don't expect every idea to be good anymore than a good

salesman expects to make a good sale every time. You know, the more attempts a good salesman has, the more sales he gets. Do you think, or is it your experience, that coming up with great ideas is best done alone or with other people? Because when I think of you and some of the great Monty Python sketches and movies, I have this image of all of you working together as an ensemble coming up with these ideas. Well, that oddly enough is not really true, because one of the first things I ever discovered, and nobody ever told me this, this was his experience, was that if you have four people

trying to write a sketch, no matter what idea one of them has, there will be one person who doesn't like it. You make no progress at all. It's possible with three people, but I think it's better with two. I think two people have got a better chance of agreeing on something so that you can begin to explore it. And also, of course, if you're working with someone else, you get to places that you wouldn't get on your own.

So we just found at Python that it was much better if we wrote in pairs and then got together every few working days and read the stuff out and then we had a very simple way of, well, is it any good or not? Did it make us laugh as a group? So you can brainstorm in a group, but when something has got to be put down on paper, it's much better to have just a couple of people do that than trying to involve the whole group in putting down on paper what's been decided. Then, of course, you show it is the legendary John Cleese, movie star, Monty Python member, and author of the book, Creativity, a short and cheerful guide.

Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table,

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to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests,

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it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out the Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, John, how do you know when you're just kicking a dead horse, this isn't going anywhere. Is it like, oh yeah, this isn't going to work?

I mean, how do you come to that? Yes, yes, you just go to feelings. This is not about logic. This is about feeling. And the unconscious is phenomenally powerful. And it contains an enormous amount of experience that you've had in the past which is not necessarily um which hasn't clarified into clear verbal ideas i mean if i go on a film set now to to act i i don't use my logical mind very much. I just

do what instinct tells me to do. Instinct's a bad word, but you know, if you have years and years of experience in something, then you get better at knowing about it, whether that's a good idea or not a good idea. It just comes. It's a matter of judgment

that comes with experience. It doesn't have to be very clear and verbal. I imagine, though, again, using your experience with Monty Python, that there were probably things you came up with and you and your fellow actors and creators thought, this is terrific and it fell flat. More at the beginning of the career, because as you get more experienced, you tend to get better,

particularly if you're always trying to learn and you don't suddenly think you know it all. That's a disaster. Which certainly speaks to the fact that being creative or being good at being creative takes time and effort to develop that ability. It doesn't just come. Well, I think like anything, one of the things I do realize now is that people who do the same thing day after day, year after year, are not necessarily very good at it unless they're trying to improve. You're just repeating the same lot of stuff.

It doesn't necessarily mean that's the best. It's people who are looking all the time, thinking, how can I be better? How can I do that better? If you look to improve yourself the whole time and you don't pretend that you now know it all, then you get better. And then the experience that you have that you can bring to bear through these promptings from the unconscious will be much better.

But if you're not, if you think, well, I'm jolly good at my job and I have nothing more to learn, then you will stay at that level. And this doesn't mean you don't have judgment, but it may not be very fine judgment. There's a great book by Matthew Syed called Bounce. He became the British table tennis champion

for many, many years without, he says, having much ability. But, you know, the very best players, tennis players, for example, they ruthlessly find out what their weaknesses are, and then they practice those weaknesses absolutely regimentally. And then the weaknesses become strengths, and then they move on to the next weakness. That's why they're so good at it. A lot of people don't really think, well, what am I weak at? You know, I play myself at chess every now and again,

not that I'm very good, but I like to give my brain a little bit of a workout. And I've noticed I'm very, very bad defending against attacks by knights. But now that I know that, I've got a bit better because I look particularly hard for how the knights can attack me. You see what I mean? Yeah, and that flies in the face of a lot of advice, which is know your strengths and get better at those. Don't try to get better at something you're not very good at. Yes, that would suggest there was some activity where your prowess were perfect. Right, but in chess, like in tennis,

that's the thing you need to get good at, which means you need to get better at the things you're not good at within that realm. Yes, exactly. You get better at the things, you find your weaknesses, and then as you find your weaknesses and work on them, then that means that you actually get better and you'll get more and more good

suggestions coming up from your unconscious. But the people who are dead in the water, the people who think they know, you know, just are very adamant about what they're doing. I remember a woman at the BBC 30 years ago said no one is interested in history anymore. You kind of think, I don't mind them thinking that, but why do they say it as though they really know? And most people don't really understand that the best of us don't really know what we're talking about. It's just an approximation towards the truth each time, you know, like the pursuit of science.

I like that. We don't know what we're talking about. Well, I think if you don't, you know, it's like Mame. I always found it incredibly comforting that quote Mame when he went out in the morning to paint his hand he used to shake because he wasn't sure if he could do it today. Because if you're relying on something that you can't control, which is your unconscious, it may not work today. And what Chapman and I found, we used to have days where we produced almost nothing,

but the incredible comfort came from the fact that we knew that we could average 15 to 18 minutes of good material each week. And once you've got that sense of, yeah, okay, some days it'll come, some days it won't, then you can not beat yourself up when it isn't coming. You just see it as part of the process. Gregory Bates once said,

you can't have a new idea until you've got rid of an old one. And you sometimes feel that the arid periods when nothing's coming is sort of your mind preparing itself for the next little hop. Well, I think that's really important, what you just said, that you knew you would come up with 18 minutes of material every week, but you had to discipline yourself to work even on those days that it wasn't coming. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, all you have to do a lot of the time if you're looking for an idea is just to bear it in mind.

You can do that if you take a walk, provided you're going to be uninterrupted. I cannot express how damaging interruptions are to the creative period. I was talking to Judd Apatow, and he quoted to me that it took 20 minutes. If you were on a thought, creative thought, and you answered a phone, it took you 20 minutes to get back to where you were

before you answered the phone. I've seen another bit of research that says it's 12 minutes. But that's, you know, you've just got to get somewhere quiet. It doesn't matter where you go. If you're at the top of the hierarchy, you just say to P.A., don't let anyone get through to me in the next hour and a half. Or if you're at the bottom, you go and sit in the park. You know, you've got to get away from it. But then anything may pop in your mind when you're not actually beating your brains out.

You're just playing with the idea and i used to know lovely uh william goldman the screenwriter you know butch cassidy and he used to when he was writing a scene he just put a a very short description of the scene on the top of his typewriter and then he would just sort of dream away and every now and again his eye would come back to this he's oh yeah yeah and he he just kept coming back to an idea because of course when you're thinking creatively you're always going away from the idea in a sense even though everybody couldn't probably be more creative than they are it does seem that there are superstars that creating. I mean, a lot of people write songs, but there's only one Lennon and McCartney. A lot of people write comedy, but Monty Python has truly stood the test of time.

There are real superstars in the creative world. Do you agree with that or not? Oh, yes. I do think Mozart is better than most rock music. Yes, yes. I do agree with that. I think that's exactly right. But you might as well try.

Well, of course. It doesn't mean you can't get better than you are at the moment. You know, there's no choice between being as you are now or being Mozart. There's a lot of intermediary positions. And if you like something or you enjoy something, then getting better is an encouragement. I have this little company for 20 years that used to make management training films and we always said that instead of these kind of pep talks that a lot of those films are called motivational.

And we said the best motivation is to teach someone how to do it better, because that will give him or her a sense of satisfaction, which will motivate them. Rather than just saying, come on, guys, this is a wonderful company, and we've really got to work even a bit harder than we are now. You know, that lasts about 45 minutes. Lastly, why do you think the Monty Python humor has lasted as long as it has? I mean, generation after generation, watch those films and watch those television sketches, and they're still just as hilarious. What is it? it well you see I

think what it is is down it carries a sort of emotional message and that is it's all a lot sillier than you think folks you know you brought up as a kid to respect older people to think though know what they're talking about my favorite quote was from a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, and he'd just seen the first six or eight Monty Pythons. And I said, well, what do you honestly think of it?

He said, what I really like about it is that after I've watched Pythons, I cannot watch the evening news. He said, because I can't take it seriously. And I think that's a wonderfully healthy attitude. Well, I think that's so much of the magic of Monty Python,

because you guys always looked like real adults, but you acted like children. That's good. Yes, well, that's right. I think it was Ogden Nash. He had a nice little rhyme saying something about the fact that growing old is inevitable, but maturing is optional. And I like that. I think that remaining young is dependent on not thinking that you know it all. Well, this has been fun and a real pleasure.

John Cleese has been my guest, best known, I suspect, as a member of Monty Python. And he is author of the book Creativity, A Short and Cheerful Guide. And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, John. Thanks for being here. Thanks, Mike. It's been a pleasure. It was nice to have a giggle with you.

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we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously

honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. We live in a chance-driven world. Think about it. What are the chances you're even here?

What are the chances you're in the? What are the chances you're in the career you're in or you live where you live? Chance is constantly bumping into your life and my life and everybody else's life and changing it all. From the weather to the people you meet, to the illnesses you get, to where you grew up. It's all chance, and it steers your life. It's also pretty interesting to explore. Sean Carroll has taken a serious look at chance. Sean is an award-winning scientist, writer, educator, and film producer. He's vice president for science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute,

and he's author of the book, A Series of Fortunate Events, Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You. Hey, Sean, welcome. Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me. Sure. So explain why you took on this topic, why a science writer would write about odds and chance. Yeah, I think that it's an underappreciated side of life, chance. I think we all play games about what if, what if. But if you take it really far, sort of into our biological lives and into our deepest history, it's pretty remarkable how lucky we are, each of us, to be here. So let's start by picking one of those events that has changed

everything by chance, and let's begin there. Well, I'll pick one that everyone's heard about. It's probably the asteroid that hit the Earth 66 million years ago and caused the extinction of the great dinosaurs. But it's also the case that that was really a reset button for life on Earth. At the time, mammals existed, so the big group of animals to which we belong, furry animals. But they were small and fairly insignificant at the time relative to the big dinosaurs. Well, this asteroid comes along, causes terrible conditions on Earth for several decades that cause really the collapse of life across the planet. And the survivors turn out to be some small burrowing mammals and a few shore birds and crocodiles and turtles.

And for that reset, you know, mammals would not be that prominent and, you know, dinosaurs would most likely still be here. In fact, when you really drill into it and understand that that's the largest asteroid to hit the earth in the last half billion years, and that where it hit matters. So it hit the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. And geologists now estimate that a really small fraction of the surface of the Earth contains sort of the right mixture of rocks that, when vaporized by an asteroid, would cause that kind of deadly stew. So it's a combination of really astronomically low odds

that things turned out the way they did. In fact, with the Earth turning at a thousand miles an hour, if that asteroid, which had probably been circulating the solar system for four and a half billion years, if it had entered the Earth's atmosphere a half hour sooner, half hour later, dinosaurs would still be here and you and I wouldn't be having this conversation. But it did happen when it did happen. And it brings up that question, that thing you hear people say all the time is everything happens for a reason. Does everything happen for a reason or was it just chance? Well, the big thesis is that really we live in a chance-driven world. We wish everything happened for a reason. Obviously, some things are under our control,

but when we're talking about big things in the story of life, including our individual lives, we can play a little pop quiz for everybody. Your mom and dad, how many genetically different kids could any couple have? Now, to unpack that a little bit biologically, know that dad contributes 23 chromosomes. Mom contributes 23 chromosomes to give you your full complement of 23 pairs of chromosomes. So how many different combinations could mom and dad make? You might think, you know, 23, 46, I don't know, maybe 92, but no, the answer is more than 70 trillion. So we are each a one in 70 trillion combination. Now, I think when you kind of wrap your head around that, you think, well, yeah, we are unique.

We're lucky to be here. And there will never, ever be anyone else like us. And maybe that's a source of some joy to some, but this is the role of chance in our lives. Everything doesn't happen for a reason. No one is deciding which chromosomes get put together. It's a random draw with 70 trillion different combinations. So it's unsettling to some people to think that there's so much chance, but I think it's also a source of both sort of awe and joy if you look at it in a certain way. So those are pretty crazy odds, the chances of us being who we are, where we are, when we are, and the parents we have. Give me another example of that.

Well, okay. We've got these really big brains. And thanks to those big brains, we have this conversation. We make rock and roll. We make movies. We write poems. But those big brains were probably first an adaptation to a really weird climatic period that we've been in for 2 million years, which is the ice ages. Over the last couple million years, big sheets of ice have advanced across the northern part of the world and then retreated in cycles.

And in Africa, that's meant cycles of wet and dry, not so much hot and cold, but wet and dry. And clearly, our ancestors have done well to adapt these really changing habitat. We can tell from the record we've left behind in the forms of fossils and tools, but realize that because we're toolmakers, we can make our own habitats. Because we conquered fire probably 800,000 years ago or more, you know, we can warm ourselves. And so this brain, which has grown threefold in size in those 2 million years, is our way of navigating a very volatile cycle of the climate. And now we can use it for all sorts of hobbies. And that ice age itself, if you want to say, well, then what causes the ice age? Well, we can use it for all sorts of hobbies. And that ice age itself, if you want to say, well, then what causes the ice age?

Well, we can get into that too. But the point is just saying that a lot of our capabilities, a lot of our talents that we treasure, they're just pieces of our biology that came along for another reason at first that we're now using in a different way. To which some might say, well, you know, so you're talking about these chance events, the asteroid and then wet and dry in the brain and all this, that maybe there's a bigger force here, that maybe it looks like chance, but maybe it's not chance. Maybe someone's driving the bus. Well, that's the big question, isn't it, Mike? Certainly, that's what we've thought for a long time. Every culture and for millennia of civilization, we've always thought that there were powers in charge of the weather and of life and of crops and et cetera. Certainly, in the last 50 or 60 years or so, we've learned so much more about the history of the earth and these geological, biological accidents that are happening essentially every day.

Now, you say, could it be that maybe some of what we interpret as chance is really just we don't understand? Either there's somebody driving the bus, or maybe things aren't as chancy as they first appeared to us. I think as scientists, we have to be open, certainly to the fact that maybe if we knew more, it wouldn't seem so chancy. In terms of someone driving the bus, well, that's for everybody else to figure out. I think that, you know, this is still part of the story of science for the last 400 years has, you know, forced us to think differently about our world and ourselves and chance is part of that. And that chance plays a role not only in the big picture, like asteroids hitting the earth and

that kind of thing, but really in individual stories. And so tell the Seth MacFarlane story. Yeah, well, I opened with this story,, again, here's the what-if story, and it's a very dramatic one. So Seth, in 2001, he was a 27-year-old executive producer and creator of Family Guy, which at the time was not yet a hit. But because he was doing so well in show business at such a young age, he got invited back to his alma mater, which was the Rhode Island School of Design. And on September 10, 2001, gave a talk there and then went out to drink with some old professors. And that partying made him late for his plane out of Boston the next morning. And he missed that plane by about half an hour, a plane from Boston back to LA. Well, it turns out that was American Flight 11, which wound up hitting one of the

towers in New York. Seth, after he missed the plane, just kind of went to sleep in the lounge waiting for the next flight and woke up to see all the commotion and the horrible pictures on TV. So, you know, there's a close call and, you know, nothing kind of forces that question of, you know, does everything happen for a reason or something's by chance than these kind of close calls or trauma. Seth himself sees it. He doesn't sort of believe in fate. He thinks it's just dumb luck that he missed that flight. He'd explain he misses a lot of flights. But it puts in pretty stark relief what a thin line there can be between life and death, a few minutes one way or another, and life can turn out very differently.

It's true for individuals, and it was true for the dinosaurs. Well, and the fact is that he missed the flight, so someone else got his seat who might not have gotten his seat. It's just bad luck. Exactly. Yeah, there's another twist of the story, which is there was another celebrity who had at one time booked that flight, which was Mark Wahlberg. And you may know that about 11 years later, Mark Wahlberg and Seth MacFarlane teamed up to make the movie Ted, of which I'm a fan. And it was a blockbuster, made about a half a billion dollars. Well, I know that I have, on more than one occasion, laid in bed wondering, you know, what are the chances that I'm here? How did I end up here? I mean, it just seems so amazing.

So tell me another fortunate event. Well, I like to think about things around birth because we often don't take stock in how lucky we are, right? The more you understand about biology, it's almost a little bit scary because not only are we a one in 70 trillion event from our parents, but if we're fortunate enough to be born with good health, that requires a lot of things to go well because every day in our parents, but also in our own lives, every time DNA gets copied, mistakes get made. Now, those mistakes, they cut both ways. So, without those mistakes, there would be no human diversity. So all of the glorious diversity of humanity that we celebrate is a product of mutation. But sometimes those mutations cause us problems. And in our adult lives, that's the basis of cancer. So if you're fortunate to

avoid cancer, if you're fortunate to be born healthy, we can relish that. But I think we can also appreciate that other people don't have such good fortune and that when it comes to things like cancer, most of us will be struck, if not ourselves, somebody very close to us. So this chance-driven world, you know, it both gives and takes. When you talk about the fact that we live in a chance-driven world, chance, though, has laws, the law of odds. The odds are that this will happen and this won't happen, and you can plot that on a graph. So who wrote those laws? Well, one insight I can offer into at least one law. So mutation is a really important process. So mutation is the changing of the letters in DNA.

And it happens. Each of us is born with 20 or 30 changes that weren't there in either one of our parents. It's just something that happens in every new generation. Most of the time, those things don't amount to anything. But we now understand that mutation is really a built-in feature of DNA. It's not a bug. We understand it now. It's really a fundamental part of the chemistry of DNA. So this amazing molecule, which is responsible for, you know, it encodes the information for making the whole living world, the changes in it are inevitable. And so we don't need anybody to introduce those changes. understand they occur really as a fundamental matter of physics and chemistry, sort of a random generator, a random variation generator in each of us. And again, you could see that as either

disappointing or astonishing, because that little random generator generators responsible for all the beauty and diversity and complexity of the living world. I celebrate that. It's an awesome thing to come to understand. So, is this science or philosophy or a little bit of both? I mean, what hat do you have to put on to look at it the way you look at it? Well, I think you start with the science and, you know, seeing chance as a major force is a relatively recent thought. You know, for millennia, we've thought that there was much more intention and design in our world. So, you know, folks have to reach their own sort of conclusions and they have their own, you know, thoughts and backgrounds that they bring

to the table. But the science continues to grow in terms of making us understand that there are specific events that had they happened differently, the world would be different or we would be different or not here. I think those are new truths for us to confront, digest, and use as we see fit, or just disregard, as the case may be. Right. But it also, to me anyway, points out that these chance events happen and change the trajectory of all kinds of things. But there are other things within our control is if we can see how chance works, maybe we can take hold of some of these things that we do have control over and steer our lives the way we want. Absolutely. And if you take something like cancer, you know, we know that if you take the two of the most prevalent forms of cancer, which are lung cancer and skin

cancer, those are due to exposures we control, generally exposure to sunlight, exposure to smoke. What we're doing when we expose ourselves to those things is we're increasing the frequency of mutations. We're increasing the likelihood that something bad will happen to one of our genes, one or more of our genes, and set those cells off on a course that could threaten our lives. So that knowledge is power.

It also, because we've now asked, well, what specifically goes wrong in things like cancer, that has really dramatically changed the treatment landscape. You or listeners may know, people who've been through recent rounds of therapy and the tools that oncologists use are totally different than just 10 or 12 years ago. And that's come from a really intimate knowledge of the mutations that specifically promote cancer. So this knowledge is power both in perhaps preventing us from confronting some things, but also giving us more of a fighting chance when it does happen. It's interesting how people have a very interesting relationship with chance in the sense that we understand the odds, we understand chance,

and yet we try to beat it anyway. I mean, if you really understand the odds, there's no point in going to Las Vegas because you're going to lose over time. You always lose. And there's no point in buying a lottery ticket because the chance of you winning is so remote that it makes no sense.

Still, people buy those tickets. Still, people go to Las Vegas to try to beat the odds. Absolutely, Mike. And I think this is what makes it such a fun topic. We love games of chance, right? We love just having a ticket, right? That maybe we'll get lucky, maybe we'll have a big payday. And we love the thrill. We love the thrill of just the play, you know, win or lose. Of course, losing a lot is a drag, but we love the thrill of possibility, I guess. We're very conflicted about it

because then now bring it into our biological lives and say, okay, you know, you've had, you know, three kids of one gender and you want to have, you know, and you think it wouldn't be nice to have some of the opposite. Well, gee, surely the next child's going to be, you know, opposite. That's the exact same odds it was for each individual kid before. We haven't changed the odds whatsoever. So, we have funny, our brains

kind of fool us because we see a pattern. You know, our brains are kind of like, you know, pattern recognition machines. If we see a pattern that says, you know, red, red, red, we think the next chip could be black. Of course, we could also think the next chip is red for some other reason. Or we think, boy, boy, boy, the next one's got to be a girl. Nope, you have exactly the same probability because these are independent events. So we're easily fooled by chance. We kind of love the thrill of chance, but philosophically, we're uncomfortable with it, generally speaking. Well, after this conversation, anyone listening has to feel grateful to be alive, to be who they are at this particular point in time, listening to this.

I mean, the odds of that happening are so tiny, and yet, here we are. Sean Carroll has been my guest. He is an award-winning scientist, writer, educator, film producer, vice president for science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and he is author of the book, A Series of Fortunate Events, Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You. And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Sean. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate your interest. The scientific definition of laughter is a series of short bursts of vowel-like sounds

that last about a 15th of a second and repeat every 5th of a second. That's the technical description of ha-ha-ha-ha. Laughter is typically done in groups. We actually laugh 30 times more often when we're with people than when we're alone. But what about that statement that laughter is the best medicine? Is it true?

Well, according to psychology professor Robert Provine, there isn't a lot of science to support that. Although we feel better when we laugh, there's no real evidence that there's any positive impact on your physical health. And that is something you should know. You can help us grow our audience by telling just one person. Tell your best friend about this podcast and tell them to give a listen. I'm Mike Carruthers.

Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced.

She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law,

her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer,

a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining,

a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.