The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - Martin Rees: If Science is to Save Us, Part 2

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

This is part two of the second podcast dialogue we are airing with renowned astrophysicist, Astronomer Royal, and former President of the Royal Society, Lord Martin Rees. The first time I sat down with Martin for the Podcast we discussed his life in science, and topics ranging from the state of modern cosmology to the potential conflicts between science and religion (which he views as minimal, and I don’t). Martin’s thinking, and his expertise, go far beyond these topics however. Based on his experience at the Royal Society, as an elected member of the House of Lords, and working with the Center for Existential Risk at Cambridge, Martin has thought carefully about the challenges we face as a society in the 21st century, and how science can be marshaled to help us address these challenges. He has written a new book on the subject called If Science is to Save Us. I thought it would be useful and interesting to sit down with Martin to discuss the ideas he raises there, and our conversation turned out to be so wide-ranging that we are presenting it in two separate episodes of the podcast. I am sure you will find his thoughtful and incisive comments both provocative and inspiring. As always, I benefitted greatly from my conversation with him, and I hope you do as well.As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project Youtube channel as well. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

Hi and welcome to the Origins Podcast. I'm your host Lawrence Krause. I was lucky enough to have a conversation with my friend, the distinguished astrophysicist Lord Martin Rees, a few years ago on our podcast, but he more recently came out with a very interesting book about saving the world with science and I thought it was a great opportunity to have him back to talk about the subjects in the book and to have a wide-ranging conversation far beyond astrophysics and its own background about the areas where science can impact on our lives and our future. And it was, as always, a very informative and lively discussion. He's a remarkable scholar, human being, and a real pleasure to talk to.

And I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And you can watch it ad-free on our Substak site if you're a sub-stack subscriber to Critical Mass, and I hope you'll consider doing that because those funds support the Origins Project Foundation. If you're not a subscriber, you can watch it on YouTube eventually. If you're a subscriber to our YouTube channel, or of course, listen to it on any podcast listening site. No matter how you watch it or listen to it, I really hope you'll be informed and educated as much as I am every time I talk to Martin Rees. So enjoy this Origins podcast with Martin Reese. Let me just say first, thank you for coming back, Martin.

This has been a fascinating conversation. I really think it's worth delving in to for the most. part of the second half of your book. It's about sort of the operation of science itself. But I do, but, but, but I do want to touch on a few issues just before we do that on AI that you mentioned that I think are intriguing. Um, the, you know, you, you do demonstrate as, as, as we have discussed that we both, you and I think that, that, um, AI is actually extremely useful and not so much of it. So, in principle, not immediately. a terror and like many people suggest or an existential risk in the near term as long as one is

careful. The one thing that let me hit, there's a few statements you make that that got me thinking again and or at least maybe I disagree with some. We've already talked about the win-win versus win-lose possibility and in principle AI will allow win-win world but I think in practice it'll probably too often involve a win-lose world. Being pessimistic in that regard of just about economic behavior and foresight. But when you talk about one of the limitations of AI, you say something interesting to me. He said learning, first of all, let's actually step back.

When people think of AI, much of what AI does is not intelligence in any sense. It's sorting. It can sort and much more. efficiently than human beings. And that gives it a great deal of power in certain areas. But it's not, it's not cognition in the same sense that we think of that. Do you agree with me there? Yes. Well, it is calculation of a kind, isn't it? Yeah. But the main advantage is it can do these things about a million times faster. Yeah. But of course, there are some things it can't do at all. Yeah. And exactly. There's some things you can't do at all.

There's certainly some things it doesn't do yet. Even when it appears to be very thoughtful, it's really just doing a very fast sorting of information that it's gotten. And I guess one can have a debate. And as you know, my new book, I talk about consciousness about whether that's really thinking. But I think it's really just data analysis.

That's very, very fast. And that's great. And it's very useful for humans to have such things, and they can do it much better. For example, you did talk about AI, taking over mind-numbing jobs. But as far as I can see, it would do a much better job and many other things, including a lot of medicine, diagnostic medicine. And the question is, and let me ask you, because I've, well people, the problem with AI is that it often learns the most effective root to

something, but unlike you and I solving an astrophysics problem, we don't know how it did it. It's not as if there's some logical clear way that it can tell you why this is the best best route so the question is if if a i became diagnostic doctors and i think they do a better job than doctors on the average at some point in the future um in terms of giving clinical diagnosis of treatment would people be willing to take uh a diagnosis and in particularly a proposed treatment from a black box without knowing why? Well, I think they should be cautious about that, because although on average it may do a good job,

there could be some hidden bugs in the program, so it sometimes shows some bias or does something wrong. So I think it's very dangerous to leave an AI to make decisions that affect us as humans. Even in minor ways, whether it's assessing job applicants, whether it's deciding if you're fit for parole, if you're in prison, whether you're credit worthy or things of that kind, or indeed whether you need surgery for some operation. It's true that in a case of radiology, the machine could look at 30,000 lungs and, in the

sense, can do a better job there. but one hopes there some real doctor there to verify. Well, it's interesting, you have more faith in real doctors. I mean, the point is that doctors can also have biases and agendas. Wouldn't the recommendation be simply to do what you tell people to do now, which is get a second opinion? Don't get one AI's opinion, but get another, get a second one. As long as you're independent, as long as you're not programmed the same.

No, that's a good idea, yes. Okay, okay. Now, you did say learning about human, behavior will be difficult because acquiring quote common sense won't be so easy for them. It involves observing actual people in real homes or workplaces. I'm wondering if that's also maybe not true in the sense that an AI who reads enough history or learns enough or looks at the newspapers will inevitably sort of learn about how real people work in real places. And so wouldn't it be no more difficult to learn about sort of how humans tend to respond to things.

by looking at millions and millions of human responses in literature and newspapers as it is to learn how, whether a stoplight or whether a bicycle is a bicycle or a hydrant if you're a self-driving car? Yes. I think it would, but of course the problem really is do have enough data. And also, I think the fundamental question of whether it's got any sort of concept of things or people because this has come up recently in this new one that can write connected pros and all that. What it has done has looked at billions of pages of text and knows the correlation between words and phrases

etc and can package them together but there's no sense in which it really understands the things that those words refer to. I think that's an imperative So although the machines can do a lot, and they can, as you say, they can help with diagnosis and they can deal with something which is all numbers, like the stock markets, or deal with the economy. And I say in my book that they could give a planned economy and China of a kind that Marx would only be of because they can analyze all their data. which they have in China. So they can do that. But the question is, does it really have a sense of real people? Yeah, no. In fact, I know since you wrote a blurb from my book, my new book,

and I'm thinking about consciousness and learning a lot about it, one of the remarks that was made by a neuroscientist, which I think is probably quite important, is that wouldn't expect AI or something you might call AI to really be at the point know about this if they didn't have sensory input. Part of a central part of our consciousness is being able to sense the world around us, not just read about it. And that's probably, I think, a true statement that that's probably an essential part. That's right. That's why Kurzweil and his ilk imagining us being downloaded into a machine.

It wouldn't really be us in any important sense. Yeah, exactly. I think we're certainly in agreement there. And I think that we are in agreement, however, we're also an agreement of something that you've written about and I have too, which is that whatever it is, it's the best way, it's the best stuff to send into space, much better than human beings. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's, yeah. And I... It's always there, but it can do. And, but also it can help us in science. I mean, we know

it can play games, chess and go, but it could do protein folding as we know already. And I don't if you agree, but I think it's quite on the cards that it may tell us whether some version of string theory is correct. Oh, I'm not sure. Yeah, sure, not maybe string theory, but certainly Feynman's

goal of having, of understanding the quantum world by using quantum computers when he proposes them is I think, I think absolute. In fact, I'm going to have a long conversation with another podcast next, that I'm recording with my colleague, my former colleague when I was at Harvard and friend

John Presco, who, and we'll talk about that. But I think, I think, I'm not sure, string theory so much, maybe. But understanding how to literally understand quantum systems, which is something we'll literally never be able to do without them at some level, is a definite potential use of quantum computers, absolutely. I wasn't thinking of the quantum computer. I was just thinking that the manipulation of geometry, in 10 dimensions.

Oh, yeah, sure. Maybe for the group of places. Yeah, but I guess I'm a... The big of task of things can do it much faster. And then if it spues out at the end, the right mass for the electron and all that, then we know there's something in what it's done. Of course. Even though we've never have an understanding of it.

Yeah, that's right. That was always the goal of strength here. I still think that's not even going to happen with a computer. What it may be able to tell us is a mathematics, whether it's mathematically consistent, but I guess I'm old-fashioned enough to think that at some point that need to be more physical input before. It won't be pure mathematics in my opinion, but we'll see. Maybe.

I think, and if anything's, you know, this is an aside, but I think you would probably agree with me. If anything, the more we learn about string theory, the more we learn that it doesn't pick out a universe that necess, even if we understand it, which is limited, that the direction seems to be that there's nothing, that it won't pick out a universe that looks like ours in general, even if it could. Yeah. Yeah. Any case, one of the things that you say, actually, when you talk about risks in general, before I leave AI, is the statement that, let's see. Oh, here we go. That cyber experts furthering the beneficent use of AI should avoid scenarios where there seems even a minuscule chance of a machine, quote, unquote, taking over. I guess again, I'm not even as worried about that. I'm not worried about that. We give ourselves over to machines all the time.

It's just we're not used to it and we'll get more used to it and more comfortable. I was in Phoenix where they have a company that where you can call it like Uber, where you call a self-driving car and it took me from one place to another. And I let it, I just gave myself into that. But moreover, there's a long history, I think we just have to get used to it. And I think the earliest example is an elevator, right? I mean, you get an elevator and you have no control over where you're going. You're assumed that that tiny computer, I remember when I was a kid,

I built a little computer set and showed me how an elevator was a tiny computer. It knows that it's going to take you to floor number three when you ask for it, but you don't have any control over it. It doesn't bother you, though, does it? And I think we'll just get used to it, letting computers take over more and more and certain tasks. And so I don't see it's always a danger in the, that regard, I guess.

Well, I mean, let me say, I'm not an expert at all on this subject. But it's not crazy, is it, to imagine that it could have an influence on the world stock markets. Uh-huh. Yeah. And cause some catastrophe to the financial system. Yeah, but I think as your, as that quote, I'm just, I guess I'm at least, is worried about natural stupidity as they have about artificial television because humans have had a pretty good job done a pretty good job of producing stock market disasters and housing bubbles and other things

so yeah yeah it could happen just like a self-driving car could have an accident but but um you know that's a risk we take i i don't think that's a unique risk necessarily of a i in my opinion anyway i guess i'm more blasé about it to some people the you know the example i used at the end of my last book which still resonates with me is the example of Plato and others who when written language became available, were worried that storytelling would end with the invention of writing. And, you know, it's just a different world. And that doesn't necessarily have to be worse. But you will talk about how science, the bulk of the rest of your book is talking about

how science can indeed try and ensure that at least the world is as good it is now, if not better, and how science can help us. And we both agree. We're both unabashed evangelists for science and technology. Science has made the world a better place. And one of the things you emphasize in this regard, which I think is important, is science is valued often most because of technology. But in fact, the scientific ideas themselves are are a fundamental triumph of being human. And as you say, quite apart from the impact on our lives, it's also surely a cultural deprivation,

not to appreciate the panorama offered by modern cosmology or Darwinian evolution. And I tend to think that it's the cultural impact of science on the way we think of ourselves as human beings that is at least as important, if not more important than the technology that science creates. And people often just forget that aspect of science. So science is only useful if it produces something.

Well, I mean, I agree with you that speaking as intellectuals, we would think that way. But if you take the average person, they may not appreciate very much about the concepts of science, but they certainly know what aspects of their present lives are a consequence of the application of science. Oh, yeah, well, I'm not even sure that's true. I think people don't realize that it's science, that's quantum mechanics that's operating my iPhone and wish they did in some sense. But I don't know about that appreciation. It seems to me that, you know, that at its heart, science is an intellectual activity that's like music and literature. that should be celebrated. It happens to have that amazing spin-off of having made our lives better by creating technology.

But if you think about what it means to be human, sure, it's nicer to have a modern, more comfortable life and being able to talk to you across the ocean and all the things. But thinking of my own humanity, I think it's been impacted as much by the scientific revolutions the last 500 years as it has by the greatest music, and literature. I don't know.

Well, I think to realize that the world is understandable and it's not mysterious spirits and all that, so we don't need to worry in the way that people in a pre-scientific area are worried about disasters happening. So we understand there's some rationality and repeatability in nature with a feature of science, obviously. Which changed the world.

Yeah. You know the famous story in saying that Newton caused the end of the burning of witches, but I don't know if it's really true, but. No, no. But it doesn't. It reduces irrational dread. Yeah. It reduces irrational dread.

And the other benefit that you point out, which is a technological one, is the more we understand the world, the less bewildering it is, but more amazing it becomes, which is one aspect. And the second part is the more we're able to change it, which is the other impact. and those are really the two huge benefits of science i guess and although somewhere i was looking in where it is i i don't know if i skipped it or if it's later on you do point out that someone said there's there's there's there's applied science and there's science that's going to become applied or something like that and i'm not sure i i don't buy that dichotomy i mean i i don't I don't apologize for, nor do I think it's, I think it's what I fully expect that virtually everything I've ever worked on will never have an application.

And that's okay. I mean, I don't think understanding dark matter galaxies is likely ever to have an application. NGO, of course, you know, the technologies we used to develop experiments to look for it is a different thing. but the concept, we're not going to make dark matter bombs, we're not going to make dark matter cars, and that's okay. And I think there's parts of science that will never be applied, and that's not, and that's okay. Do you agree?

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I quote this, George Porter, who was a chemist saying this, and I think he wouldn't disagree with what you're saying. He would just say that, as we know very well, it's a long time before there's an application. I mean, I give the example of the laser. Yeah.

Which was developed in the 60s using Einstein's ideas from the 1920s and many applications of the laser weren't envisaged by the people who were invented this. They came on us later. So I just meant something like that. That's a you can never be sure of how science is going to be applied. Absolutely. And moreover, moreover, as you talk about later in the book, and we'll get to, and something I strongly agree with,

advocating for long time. Is it choosing how to fund science by looking at its applications is often misdirected as well. And you use one or two examples. The example I always use as computers. If you'd put a lot of money into building a fast computer before the transistor, you'd have computers with flywheels and other things. The transistor was invented and not to make better computers necessarily, but change the world. And so, yeah, you never know. That's why it's important to fund curiosity to research. We'll get there. One of the things you say, which is a beautiful sentence, and I don't know if it's yours, but I don't really care. Science is organized skepticism. I don't know if you got that from someone, but it's a wonderful description of the scientific process

because of the way science, it works as a dialectic. It works as a, you say because the greatest esteem goes to those who contribute to something unexpected and original, especially those who could overturn a consensus and therefore um you know therefore we need to be skeptical of not just existing ideas but ideas that are proposed um but i wonder if you've talked do have you read anything by jonasson roush um uh he's i had a podcast with him he's a journalist and a writer um he's written several books about science um that have enlightened me about science and what he makes a point of is that science is inherently a social activity it's not he's not one of these new age you know one of these deconstructures that science is socially derived i mean the electron masses with the electron masses

but he argues that it cannot be done without this uh without a community because it's required that all ideas are immediately open to attack if you want to call it or or or skepticism and discussion and that's the only way science can progress as a community. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you, I see, would you buy? I agree with that, yes, yes. I mean, so sometimes you want to think in a solitary way for a quite long time,

but the validation comes from interaction with your peers. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You, exactly. We all, we want to, there is time for thinking, and it's important thing to do, but without, but it would, it could not proceed by a group of people thinking, and not and that and we've seen the dangers of people thinking on their own with what you talked about even the great sides like Hoyle and others being become obsessed with an idea and not not and and and the community moves on because the community sort of it's so it's not so it's science as the enterprise moves on only because of the community of people who are constantly questioning and

testing and speaking out about other people's view ideas Anyway, he's an interesting, it's interesting, it's interesting when I, when I, when I, when I, after this is over, I'll send you the book. The name of the book because I thought, you know, I'm, I was surprised that I learned something about, um, uh, um, you know, the nature of science by a non-science. He's definitely a non-scientist. It's very interesting. Um, you talk about the goals of science being modest. And I think that's another important. thing that very you say if you ask scientists themselves what they're working on you'll seldom get an inspirational reply like seeking to cure cancer or understanding the universe rather they will focus on a tiny piece of the puzzle and tackle something that seems tractable and i think that's a really important aspect of science that people don't realize that they think it's always aimed and all scientists are doing grand things when when it works by baby baby steps and again i think that's probably once again Again, one of the hardest things, I don't know if you found it in your graduate students, I found it myself as a graduate student, I have found in training graduate students,

is to say, you know, you're biting off more than you can chew. Just try and pick a problem you can actually solve. Yes, yes, yes. But, of course, you've got to find a problem which is going to be relevant to a big picture. Yeah, that's right. Lots of small problems are not worth doing. Yes. they don't have any impact, but the judgment comes in when you decide to pick a bite-sized

problem which you can make progress and don't bang your head against the wall because it's too hard, but a problem which is going to be part of the big picture. And I also say in my book that one of the reasons it's important to interact with the wider public is that otherwise we get blinkered and we forget that what we're doing is only worthwhile in the long run if it does help to illuminate a big picture. Yeah, absolutely. It's important to get that feedback and to understand at the same time that what you and I do is a luck, both a luxury,

and it's supported by the public. And therefore, we shouldn't be surprised. It's our own fault if they're not interested in what, in some sense, it's their own fault if it's, or at least, if they're right but also their own fault if we think something's important but the public doesn't it's probably our fault for not for not communicating why as very effectively nor should we expect to be funded just because we think it's interesting or we like it right yeah and uh it also the the familiar story of um pangerson wilson when uh wilson uh he was so focused on clearing out the

pitch and shifts and the equipment and all that all that all that stuff that he didn't realize how important his discovery was until he read Walter Sullivan in the New York Times. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. You talk about that in your book, absolutely. Going to the afterglow of creation. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I found the same thing. Well, you've written, I've written a lot of books and so have you. And I found in writing books about, especially about subjects that I think I understand very well, you know, sometimes try and tackle a broader area so I can learn it. well, that's why I write books often. But in trying to communicate it,

I suddenly have a totally different perspective of both its importance and what the key ideas are. In the effort of popularization, I learn a lot. You too? Yes, yes. I know you say that you personally would be very, feel very unfulfilled if you didn't have the opportunity to explain what you were working on to a wider public.

I don't think that's, I feel the same way. I don't think it's required though. I mean, there are plenty of scientists who are quite happy, not, you know. They're not as you say, but yeah. Yeah, they're not. And one of the things that worried me when we talk about public funding,

which is an aside, I hadn't thought about before, mentioning here, but certainly something that used to worry me was when it, when various funding agencies, would require young scientists who were applying for these very prestigious fellowships or grants like the outstanding junior investigator grant. And I was a chairman of the department and these kids would come up to me and I'd say kids because they were young. And they had, what was required was they had to have a public outreach component of their research. Most of them had never had either been postdocs working actively or graduate students, never even taught, much less had it.

And they had to invent some public outreach based on no experience and often no interest. And I thought how sad that was because most of them never, even when they got those awards, most of the public outreach never went anywhere. But I think the point is that we should encourage those scientists who have an interest to do it, but not require all scientists to do it. No, absolutely. Some don't like it and no good at it. But I think on the other hand, I think those scientists in academia who do this sort of thing ought to get some credit.

I mean, it shouldn't be that the only thing that counts for promotion is publication in refereed journals. Writing good blogs and interacting with the public in other ways is very important in keeping the scientific community healthy. It certainly is public service and often service to the community. is one of the things that leads to tenure. And I agree with you. I'm obviously a son who one person who spent a lot of time doing it. And you know, but just not everyone. And as I often like to say, not only do I think all scientists should communicate with the public,

there's some of my colleagues who I definitely don't want to interact with the public. And but but you, but the ultimate point is that when it comes to the importance of communicating with the public and also the importance of sort of pure versus applied science, you say this is why much of science is best funded as a public good. Ultimately, we think the process of science is a public good and therefore should be funded. And that's independent of necessarily the technical applications, the consequences, but the whole process of trying to ask questions about the world is a good thing. Yes, because you can't predict what will be applied and when. and if you look back at the antecedents of some important discovery or some important invention,

then of course it's lots of different people who have contributed to different ways. So it's very hard to isolate the credit. But I think all we can say is that overall, in a broad sense, the amount spent on pure research has more than justified itself. Yeah, no, I remember at the time it was during, I guess, the Bush administration when I was arguing that, and there was a group that produced a very important report on pointing out that you could argue that half of the U.S. gross domestic product was due to funding curiosity-driven research 25 to 50 years beforehand rather than applied research. And there is a

great motivation to focus in funding agencies on purely applied, but you just don't know. And if you stop the curiosity-driven research, you're ultimately hiring, even if you're interested primarily in economic benefits. Yes, yes. But you do have to consider trying to optimize economic benefits, and certainly in my country, there's a problem getting the first stage to commercialization, you know, to get to a prototype. You need to venture capital, and that's hard to come by. So one needs to ease that path, but that's not a real. reason for downgrading the importance of funding the basic science. And of course, the other point I would make is that insofar as the basic science is done in universities, then it's done

by the same people who are going to have another important output, namely bright and well-trained students. Yeah. And all these things are together. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, training the students is maybe understanding the fact that the students were training both as undergraduates and graduate students, we're not trying to create clones of ourselves, that it is right and fair that most of our students don't become academics. It would almost be a shame if they did because the training we give them will then go out and they'll maybe, you know, they'll create Google or something like that, which will, you know, whether for better or worse, will change the economic perspective of the world. And so we, I remember in thinking about how teaching, how to teach physics,

one of the problems of the way we taught it. It was a revelation for me when a colleague at Harvard pointed out to me that we shouldn't, when we're teaching students, we shouldn't, they don't need to have all the set of skills that a functioning physicist does. And therefore, it's okay to recognize that we're not trying to create clones of ourselves and to change the way we teach a little bit so that they may not have all the technical expertise to calculate everything about a bricks. sliding down a inclined plane, but maybe they don't need to.

No, no, no. But I think we do need to ensure that academia attracts enough people to keep it going into state. Because one point which I mentioned in my book is that I think academic careers, certainly in your country and mine, are becoming less attractive than they were. Yes, yeah, absolutely. And trying to make sure that. And there are a bunch of reasons that are. one that you don't talk about. I do want to get to this area which which you don't talk much

about because I think maybe you don't have an experience so much is one of the reasons. There are a number of reasons why I think academia is becoming less attractive to people. And I am concerned about, as you know, because I've written about this. You know, you talk about the pressures and difficulty of academia and, you know, not just publishing, but, you know, uh, uh, uh, you order to generally. Yeah, yeah, but, um, but one of, but, but one of the, but, but one of the, but, but, but one of the things that cause a problem i'll just bring it up and because i want to focus on again later when you what's been relevant is you say one of the um uh what's crucial in sifting error and validating

scientific claims is open discussion and i i do think and i'll make this statement now you can comment on if you want but i i want to discuss it more with you that one of the things that is making an academic career less attractive to a lot of people is the fact that open discussion is becoming more difficult in academic institutions. And people are afraid of that. And that's making the environment less pleasant for a lot of people. And I don't know if you've experienced it in the wonderful places you work, but it's happening around the world.

The imperative to foster, you say the imperative to foster openness and debate is a common thread through all the examples I've discussed. And that imperative to foster openness and debate, how do you talk about the importance of communicating to the public through social media, but how do you think, what do you think about social media and its fostering of openness and debate? Well, I mean, I think it's got very severe downsides, but more broadly in politics, because I, I think it's not just Trump, it's the advent of social media. Yeah. Follows out the moderate center and gives voice to the extremes. In contrast to when we had our news mainly through regular newspapers, et cetera,

when responsible journalists would sort of muffle the crazy extremes. Yeah. The news are muffled and you click on them against something to more extreme. And this, I think, is a structural problem. which is going to affect democracy in general. And it happens obviously within more specialized social groups, including academia as well. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think in academia, you know, we know there are cranks of all kinds and we just learn to discount them.

Well, it would be great. Yeah, it would be great. I don't think we're, yeah. Well, I think unfortunately the cranks are being, sometimes the cracks are really fascinating. and interesting people that push the field forward. And we deal with that when they're making a valuable contribution. And unfortunately, I think we're finding that the interesting cranks, I mean, I'm virtually certain that Newton would not be allowed to have an academic position today

if he were living in the modern world. And it would be a loss for humanity in that case. Well, I mean, I think one point I make is that because academia is getting less attractive, It's a slower promotion for these demographic reasons. There's no longer an expansion of higher education in the way the world when we were young. And people don't retire, so they occupy positions for even longer. And so this therefore means it takes longer to establish yourself. And I quote the NIH, where the average age, where you get your first grant, there's no reason to like 43.

Yeah, it's amazing. And we want to have in academia, not just the people who can't do anything else, but people of versatile talent and ambition who want to feel they've done something distinctive and original in their 30s. And if that doesn't remain possible in academia, then we lose many of the people we want to keep. Because we want a lot of them to go in and start companies, etc., which want some to stay in academia. Yeah, and I need you point out again to jump ahead. The true, not just for academics, you want people who have done two years of university, but then find that they can't go on not to feel like failures, but to say, I, you know, I took two good years of, I got two good years of education and we should celebrate that. And I think it's, yeah, there's, I mean, the situation in academia is becoming more and more difficult for a lot of reasons.

But before we get there, I really want to talk about, you do point, you say, you say, something that I think is really relevant. I want to talk about this relationship between science and government that you've spent a lot of time on and that you focus on in the book, in part of the book. It's a wonderful sentence. It said, there's no reason to expect scientific issues to be straightforward, even if they refer to something every day and familiar. And I think I learned, I guess this first became clearer to me, with my wife who my my wife worked for the government of Australia as sort of science management for the government and what she made me realize and I thought I understood this already but quite clearly is that what scientists scientists don't understand what's important often don't understand what the questions that are important to politicians and politicians don't understand the questions that are important to scientists and that if we worked harder so that the one each group could understand what what the other priorities were involved in and why they were,

it would be really a great assistance to the way science can do what you want to do, which is help us save the world. And go on. You were going to say that. Of course, one point I make is that a bigger fraction of the kinds of decisions which politicians have to take do have a scientific element to them. Yeah, more and more. In fact, science has become, yeah.

Health, environment, energy. It's hard to imagine actually almost. any I've argued it's hard to imagine any significant political question, especially a national level that doesn't have a scientific component at this point. And the stakes are getting larger in many ways. And so the need for that sound making public policy based in the first sense on empirical evidence, on the one hand, and the need for scientists to be able to communicate to politicians recognizing the limitations of their own knowledge and abilities is that combination is more urgent than ever and i think you give an example even when scientific facts are agreed upon

the planned response depends on balancing the ethics economics and politics that's what scientists understand they say scientists look and the example you give is a good one consensus isn't easy to reach among experts for example shutting schools down may reduce the spread of infection so scientists to to say, we want to solve the pandemic, we shut schools down. It's obvious. But of course, as you as you then say, but might not this benefit be outweighed by the harm done by disrupting children's education, which is, of course, a big issue on the right right now in the U.S., and especially those disadvantaged children whose parents couldn't offer effective homeschooling. But that's an issue. So often the scientist was obvious what's the right thing to do is.

Or look, take climate change. It's obvious we need to do this. But then the politician will say, well, first of, first of, all I have a public I have to deal with. It may not accept not eating as much meat or whatever you want to pick. And I have economic questions. And so while the scientific risk is clear that the way to mediate it is not so clear because there are there those ethical ethics, economics, and politics are not illusory. They're real. Scientists may think of their illusory, but they're real and the real world.

No, I mean, I think most scientists, unless they're really very blinkered, they're aware of issues. They're aware that there's ethics and economics. The point is that they only deserve special attention. Yeah. The scientific part of the decision. Obviously, they're citizens, and they should care about all the other aspects in the same way. But in those respects, they are just citizens.

and they can offer advice, but not with the expectation of any special weight. That's right. Well, they should offer advice. Scientific expertise, you're right, but not policy advice without understanding. And I think the problem is that scientists tend to dismiss that. Oh, your concerns the politician are irrelevant. And, of course, then they lose, if you're interested in communication, then you... They're not all like that.

Well, but at the same time, unfortunately, it goes the other way. There are politicians who are saying, you scientists are pious guy, people that don't understand how the real world works. And those two things are the biggest obstacles to having science do what you and I would like it to do. Now, there's another aspect that you talk about, which is interesting, which is science advisors. And you do point out a difference between Britain and I know Australia. I'm not sure of Canada, actually. The science advisors are public servants, our civil servants in some sense,

and they're not political appointees in the UK. And I know in Australia, whereas the United States always has, well, not always, been in the last 60 years, with a few exceptions, has had presidents choose science advisors, and in the most recent case, had a cabinet appointment and therefore we're political advises.

In this case, we're subject to the vicissitudes of politics like Eric Lander. And you argue that it's probably better to have a system where scientists who are giving advice are not political appointees. Yes. Well, of course, it's not quite a clear cut distinction because certainly in Britain, each minister has his political advisors, etc. Yeah, yeah. and there are some permanent people in the working in the government in NSF and places like that. But there is a tendency for more of a revolving door in the US than in the UK.

And this means that you don't have such high chance of getting long-term continuity. But on the other hand, as I discuss in the context of defence, your system means that there are. some people with real expertise who are outside the system in the UK working for the Ministry of Defense is a rather closed world and that therefore means that there aren't people outside that system and criticize it with a level of expectations as needed yeah what it seems to me the best I was thinking about what you said the best compromise is to have scientists appointment appointed to advise the government but

with fixed terms so that so that you know you have a five-year term and you have it no matter what I mean unless you know barring major problems but and and and then there are new people because you want constantly you don't you you want to have new scientists involved and that but you're not subject to the the election cycle or whatever and and and and you can give advice and then and then move on and then move back in academia, as you say, or elsewhere, and then have that expertise based on that five-year term or 10-year term, which is then valued by the academic environment as well.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, in the UK system, there are some people who are civil servants for their lifetime, whereas the senior ones, there's a chief scientific advisor and every department of the government who is seconded from the university. Okay, and so they do have a term appointment, basically, university guarantees them a job when they come back and they and that's really that that seems to me I agree the I mean that's what happens in presidential science advisor and principal I've had several departments I've been in where the person's become the presidential science advisor usually you're not

allowed to leave they used to not allowed to take a leave more than two years with the university but they tend to they tend to say if you're advising the president you're allowed more longer term and and and you get and you can get you know excellent people And when they are excellent and not political, like Ernie Monies and Steve Chu, they have a significant role. And it's kind of, but I guess I just want to ask this question. Eric Lander, you point out as a brilliant scientist and brought great expertise in utility. Do you think the fact that he, some people think he was a bully should have been a reason to remove him? I don't, myself.

I just don't know. I mean, if it was very bad, yes, if it wasn't too bad, no. So I just don't know the fact. Well, he'd been fairly successful in working with people most of his career and producing results. And so I understood, I guess he didn't suffer fools gladly, but that's not a reason. In academia, you're allowed to do that more effectively than in politics, I think. But there is a difference because the junior people can't answer back in government, whereas in academia it's more sort of democratic.

Well, one would hope. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, let me, I just, you spend time, I know that personally you and I have talked about Joseph Rodb. Like you're the first person actually who I think I really learned about Joseph Rotbatt but from years ago. You admire him.

He's one of your idols. I think it was scientific idols. Is that a true statement? Well, I think I do admire his lifelong commitments, and he was lucky to live to be 95 and still to be an inspiring speaker, even to be students in his 90s. So he had a long-term influence.

But I think the reason I got involved, to some extent, with Pugwash in 1980s, was that I admired him, and also I got to know, the Rudy Piles, for instance, the idea for the bomb, and in the US, people like John Simpson and Hans Beto,

who I got to know academically. And I just felt that when that great generation were no longer around, it would be a pity if there weren't committed people who couldn't match their expertise or credibility, but who were trying to campaign along the lines that they would have appreciated. And so, Rockblatt was the prime example of this, given his entire life history,

but I would say similar things about Piles and Hans Beta. Yeah, and Dick Garwin or no? Dick Garwin was slightly, he was too young. Dick Garwin, I think his career is wonderful. He's still going strong in his 90s. But he was too young to actually be in, World War II, I think. Yeah, yeah. Now, but well, so the one thing that you pointed out about particularly unique and something you admired about Roplat, which I think is worth

mentioning, is that he was the only person to leave the Manhattan Project once, he felt that there was the moral imperative was the concern that Adolf Hitler would develop a nuclear weapon. And then when it was clear that that wasn't the case, he left. Because, And he left, he heard that someone, and apparently he heard it, he left when he heard that, I think, General Groves probably say, well, we can use it against Russia. And he was the only one that everyone else, as Feynman often talks about, the technical, the seduction of the advanced, became so. Free technology, yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it became, that's quite, oh, we can do it.

We can do it. That overrode the moral issue, the ethical issue. No, I think that's true. I mean, it was obviously more complicated in regards to motivation. Because his wife, who he's never seen since he left Poland, the outbreak of war, went to England, and he was desperate to find out while she's still alive, etc. So he had other reasons for perhaps trying to get back to Europe. But there's no doubt that he was only doing this nuclear research at all because he wanted to beat the Nazis.

Okay, but now I want to say once again how the best intentions can go awry. I think you suggest that he was the one that suggested that scientists should take a kind of Hippocratic oath not to do not to cause harm. I think that has the greatest potential for disaster of anything. And the example I'm going to give you and I want to see what you think about is it is it ultimately stifles research. And the example I know of now that I just wrote about was I think one of the next. nature journals that said that they will not publish material that might possibly not physically harm but emotionally harm marginalized groups so they wouldn't nature behavior i think was a journal that said that basically if if some group could be take the results of that research and find

it offensive or or or hurt them that they would not publish that the results. And so it seems to me if you take a hypocrite, if we start requiring scientists do no harm, the question is who decides what the harm is? And that's my real concern. And so I want to ask you to come in that. First of all, I mean, I don't think that issue you've raised would come under a hypocritical oath at all, really. But I share your skepticism because the main point is one can't predict what the implications of one's work are going to be. And therefore, unless you're really sure it'll have no benefits, then it's best to proceed cautiously. So I'm not sure must be added by the HOPCA.

Well, that's true that we don't know what the benefits are. We've already discussed that, you know, and that's a great person. But it seems to me if we start saying scientists do no harm, then we automatically, give someone else the right to decide what harm is and that is as equally I would argue subjective in some ways as the ethical political and economic issues you talked about earlier and I've seen now we see people saying when it comes to physics that it's harmful to have whiteboards you know I mean there's an article just came out of physical review I mean because it that that's racist and and and it's obviously

ridiculous but when we start you know immediately once you once you start giving these requirements or or nate i think it was nature you you cannot the uh was no was a royal society of chemistry gave a admonition to its editors not to not to allow any um anything that could be offensive to anyone on the basis of almost anything they gave a list of 25 different requirements and there's if you is there almost nothing you can say at some level that doesn't offend someone. And if you, a minute, you use that as a constraint, then you get, it seems to me you stifle that whole thing that we talked about earlier, which is that science thrives and actually only succeeds with free and open debate.

Yes, well, I mean, first of all, I don't think those who supported Joe and the Hippocratic Oath would have disagreed with you, particularly on this, because they were thinking of substantial harm, like bio-weapons and things of that. But on the issue you're raising, which is a problem, this is really the view that people don't have a right to be a, people have a right not to be offended. Yeah, yeah. And people have no such right. You agree? Yes. That is pernicious.

And in fact, in my university, there was a proposed document that said that one should, respect alternative views. And there was an amendment proposed to replace the word respect by tolerates. Okay. One by 90% to 10%. Yeah, I think the point is, and I've said this may as one can respect individuals, but one doesn't have to respect ideas. And I think that's a fundamental difference.

It's the right thing, that you should and you should tolerate other opinions, but you don't be respect to the other opinion. And it's all, yeah, in fact, ridiculing them is sometimes the best thing you can do. Sometimes. I know you never do, but sometimes they, sometimes it's worth ridiculing. And, and, you know, and having said that about the apricad of health,

you reminded me that when I taught at Yale, I did, I was involved at a time getting to my faculty, colleagues to agree not to write a sign a statement saying they wouldn't work on Star Wars research, for example, the Reagan Star Wars thing. They would not take federal money to work on that program. which was a clearly harmful thing. So I guess in certain instances,

I think it's okay to make those kind of take those kind of those. You praise Jason, this group that was founded of scientists that advised the Pentagon. And I know, and we both know a number of colleagues who we admire tremendously, including Freeman Dyson and even Steve Weinberg and others. So he, Steve left after a while. But the one thing that I'm not sure it's as universally good as you suggest, namely, it seemed to me that the difference was that the people who chose the questions they were going to work on was they were often directed by the military.

And therefore, the key ethical questions never got asked. I think, for example, during the Vietnam War, they investigated whether there should be an electronic fence across Vietnam. That's a technical issue. but clearly the ethical question was begged and therefore it is worrisome when there are groups that do advise military but the questions are provided by the military rather than by the scientists themselves so that's why I've always had problems with Jason so I wanted to get your sense of that well I mean I share your concerns I mean I think the reason I mentioned Jason was it has it has the characteristics that it involves top rate scientists yeah in more than just

operate. More than just sitting around a table for a day and minutes being taken, but in getting together and coming up with new ideas, tossing ideas off each other, and that's because they know and respect each other and they choose their own membership, et cetera, and they know they're listened to. I think that those are prerequisites for it working. And I've several times talk to people over here about whether we could replicate that sociology as it were in the UK. And I certainly think we never could in the defence area. Part of whose people are slightly less robust in their views, but more important, we and the UK can't make any very important independence of decisions.

So they wouldn't think they were an important problem. But on the other hand, I think it is worth trying to replicate the sociology in something like an integrated transport system for cities or something of that kind, where social benefits and it has a lot of technology involved and cross-disciplinarity. So I do think it will be worthwhile in the UK trying this system. I mean, there are lots of committees. of all kinds. Yeah, but where people substantially spend time working. People together for six weeks to think through a problem and try to be original.

That's something which hasn't been tried. And I just thought it would be worth trying, but it would not be worth trying in the defense area. Yeah, but the problem, I agree. It's a wonderful opportunity for fruitful discovery and interaction. But I guess I'd say the reason it only works in the defense area, in at least the reason Jason function is that general dynamics or the military contractors who paid for it make so much money that they could afford to make it financially and intellectually attractive to those people working on Jason I suspect in other areas unless you found a government

that was willing or a private company that was willing to fund that kind of activity be hard to make it happen it's easier defense there's a lot of money involved yeah yeah so I'm saying this if it is in England, we should get the Ministry of Transport or something to do it. Well, or maybe a private company. Maybe Tesla. I think I'm going to think that Steve Coonin was, I think, deputy head of the Jason Group. And then he went to work as Chief Science for BP. Yeah, yeah, he did.

In that latter capacity, he did organize a sort of mini-jason-type activity on energy. Yeah. He took place to Barbara, I think. So he made a, I don't know how successful it was, but he tried to do something. in that sort of spirit. Yeah, no, in Aspen, and the Aspen Center of Physics one, Steve and other people, and Steve Chu, yeah, I was there for that.

And yeah, no, that's good. And the question, of course, and this leads naturally the next question. You point out that in the U.S., because of this sort of revolving door, in defense, we have a lot of experts of people who know what they're talking about, who aren't required by secrecy arguments to not talk about it.

And that's a good thing. But let me ask a devil's advocate kind of question. Again, because both you and I were involved in the bulletly atomic scientists. What got me, all my, the people, many of the people I admired when I was in graduate school were deeply involved in the boldly atomic scientists. And that's why one of the reasons I got involved, the notion that scientists would speak out and try and inform the public about the dangers of something that was very dangerous seemed to me incredibly important. And as I say, in my case, the people admired were involved. And then I was immensely honored to become not only on the board of sponsors, but the chair of the board of sponsors. And I was very active for a decade in that.

But and reminded me of how I would have felt how happy I was to be in a position that I guess I would have admired a lot when I was younger. But then to put, to be fairer, I'd have to ask as a devil's advocate, did it really ever have any impact? And I'm not sure. You know, you gave one example, I think from your own experience of in a defense case, when you're in the, I think in the House of Lords or in a, where you made a suggestion. But eventually the government never took up on it. And I'm not sure the, I mean, I think the Bolton is a good thing. I always think information is a good thing.

But I don't really know if it ever has an impact. I'm not sure you argue that Rothblatt's Pugwash conferences did allow. a back channel of discussion. But it's great to have it, but I'm not, I'm sad to say, I'm not sure any of this has had as much of them impacted we'd like. Well, I mean, I think two things. First, in the Cold War, when there was very little other contact between East and West, then there was a back channel via the Pogwos conferences.

And similarly, the National Academy and the Russian Academy, the National Academy, the National Cadbury being chaired, committee being chaired by Panoski. And people like that, they, and Darwin was involved, they had an effect. But of course, when things opened up, then there are far more activities like that. And it's harder for any single one to have an effect when there are bishops owls. And I think one thing I mentioned I was involved in was something run by think tank on whether the UK should keep the Trident Missile System. Yes, that's it. This, well, this was only a UK venture, and it was simply on the policy question, and it wrote a report which, it had no effect. But on the

other hand, it's a sort of thing that might have had an effect if this was an open issue. In fact, there was a decision that had been made a few years ago, and they weren't had to over it without a very strong reason and so it didn't have very much effect. But I think the main point is that now there are far more ways in which this debate takes place in the media, etc., and op-edged in the major newspapers have an effect and what individual politicians say have an effect. So that's why no single small group can have as much effect as it did during the Commonwealth. when there was only one such group. And it was the only way you could actually exchange information.

So I think Pogwos did have an effect in the 1960s, but much less since then. Much less since then. Now, I guess to me, it seemed, let me, you had this experience, and I'm going to make, when I look at everything for the National Academies to bulletin, it seems to me, and the example you gave just reinforces my. may be prejudice, but I think it's based on observation. What happens is when groups of a scientist advise the government in these regards, if the advice agrees with what the government thinks is politically expedient, they take it,

and they completely ignore it otherwise. And so all it does is, you know, all of these studies and reports end up not changing policy. They just, if they happen to support, if they happen to agree with the policy, the government was intending to do, they're enacted. It looks like they have an impact. But if they're politically inexpedient, they're just ignored. And I tend to think that's the way it works. But please tell me I'm wrong.

Well, two things. First, in defense, the sort of issues like whether the UK should keep Trident, that's not a scientific issue primarily. It is a political issue. So I might expect a scientific committee to have much, and in fact, the committee on Triendant. it wasn't a scientific committee, it was a committee of politicians, etc. Yeah, you were one of the few scientists.

But I think there are different issues where international meetings of scientists are important. And to take one example, after the gain of functioned experiments in microbiology, then there was a genuine issue about whether the government should fund that sort of experiments and where the journals should publish the papers. And there was a meeting convened by the National Academy and some other foreign academies, including ours, to where they got an international group of scientists and the editors, Nature, and other journals,

to discuss policy on this question. And I think that's a case when the views of that group would have been taken seriously, because it's a matter where science is important and the scientific community's views are important. Well, you know, interesting. I think, look, anytime there's good international discussions, it's a good thing. But I'm going to push back a little bit because I think you argued that, I mean, I would argue when it comes to gain of function issues, the chief thing that caused at least movement in that regard was when journalists or other people wrote about that, not so much scientists discussing it.

But when books were written and there were stories and the public got interested and concerned. And I think that moved things towards having such a meeting rather than the other way around. No, I agree it did, but I think the views expressed at a meeting, which was international and contained most of the experts, those views would be given weight by government. Oh, yeah, I think so. But I agree. But I think that's probably because the government doesn't have a dog in that fight. I mean, in the sense that, you know, yeah, if there were some overriding reason why the government thought a gain of function would work, then it wouldn't, then they wouldn't, I mean, it was useful for political or defense reasons or some other things. And my suspicion is that they go ahead anyway, but maybe.

Yes, precisely, an understanding. My whole point is that the scientists only have the right to be heard specially on the scientific issues, and they may well be overridden by political concerns. Yeah. Okay. And yeah. And well, in general, they should, but they often are. I guess I was going to ask you, let me, let me ask you now. I mean, you've talked about the difference in the Royal Society, which you have an intimate knowledge of, because you're the president of it and many years as a fellow and many committees before, during and after. And the National Academies. I think you're probably, I suspect you're probably a foreign member of the National Academy. I figured you were. But, um, But the difference, you know, I guess, again, with a jaded view, I don't see the National Academy as being particularly important or useful. It primarily, most of its purpose is spent on choosing members. And most of its energy is sent on choosing members. And while it convenes useful groups that do produce documents sometimes I've utilized, that they, again, they're ignored if unless they're expedient. And for the most part, I suspect if the National Academy didn't exist, you could,

create, as you argue, could you create groups? The question you ask in your book is, could one create groups that weren't, that were that would effectively do the same thing? And you've argued that in your opinion, the Royal Society does deserve to exist because it does, it does have added value. But I'm just wondering about the National Academy, because I think National Academy is increasingly irrelevant. Two separate things. I mean, I think the Royal Society and National Academy, are similar. The slight difference is that formally the National Academy can be instructed to give advice to the government. It's less independent of the government than the war society is. And that actually was quite a sharp issue when there was a report on climate change produced in about 2003

when Bruce Alberts wouldn't agree to what Rob May wanted at the time. So that was when there was a difference which meant that the National Academy had to be more cautious. But again, there's not very much difference. And I agree, I don't think these academies have a huge influence. But I think in the example I quoted, like, are there some kind of biomedical experiments which are so dangerous they shouldn't be done at all or shouldn't be published? I think it's very good to have a body which is, accepted to be representative of top scientists and which can express a view. And I think it

has done some good things in that area. And even in climate change and the first serious report on geoengineering was done by the U.S. Society in 2009. And the guy came and gave evidence to a congressional committee over here, over in the US, etc. So it does some things, but I agree with you. But the other thing you quoted is that there is too much emphasis on getting people elected and all that. And the fact it's honorific does lead to this. And I did say that the minimum criterion for an academy to be credible is that it's not possible to construct a better virtual academy from non-members who are eligible.

Yes, exactly. It was brilliant. And I guess my answer for the National Academy is it's not clear to me. I can't speak. I'm sure the Royal Academy is better. But it's again not completely clear. And that's why I think if one has these things, one does not attach too much weight to honorific membership.

Yeah. It's the honorific thing that turned people off like Feynman, another scientist I know York and who was a member but never read to go because yeah and and then what do you think I wasn't going to ask but what the heck because I've written about it what I've written about the National Academy recently which has become more and more politically correct in the last bunch of years as they become more like many in scientific institutions more susceptible or more more alert to social media concerns and and and possible negative publicity. And the National Academy's just last year, there was an article in science about how there was 50% female because they specifically stopped giving people the ability to make appointments if they were appointing males. And more or less. I mean, and what do you think of that? Well, I mean, Up to a point, I think it's sensible, because clearly women have had a tough time in the past.

Yeah, in the past. The 60-year-old woman will have had a difficult early career. Absolutely. But what do you think? But when it comes to making an appointment, it's like basing it on that, don't you think that ultimately demeans the credibility of a body that's, looking to make more diverse appointments, is one thing, but having a rule that there has to be that, that, that, that, that, um, ultimately, uh, committees will get appointments that will, the number of people that'll be able to appoint will be based on their past, um, behavior in appointing people that are acceptable to the, to the, to the,

to the directors of the academy. Yes, yes. Um, well, I mean, I, I, if it goes too far, I agree, it would be a mistake. But on the other hand, what they're doing, I think is fair. I mean, I guess you've been a head of the department in university. And I would have thought that in considering appointments of senior positions, then it's appropriate, in the case of a woman, to allow for the likelihood that she will have had more time out, all that sort of thing. And not just, take account of publications. Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, looking at all the factors.

Looking at the individual cases is an important thing when you're appointing someone and as a chair of the department. Moreover, looking to try and make sure that you're not having, that you are exploring the broadest possible pool of candidates, but requiring the appointment process to ultimately match the demographics of the underlying society seems to me to be a danger. Well, that would be the target, but they shouldn't. But I think that in academia, in fact, and I include the academies in this,

the shift towards gender balance has been much slower than in other walks of life. And the reason for that is that in academia, decisions are made on the base of cumulative achievement. and if that's the case, then someone who's had a career gap has a lifelong handicap. Oh, yeah, I agree with that. That's not true in most other jobs. If you're appointing people in many other careers, you want to know what are they going to do in the next five years. You don't care in detail about that. But do you really think that, I mean, in the modern, I'm not talking 30, 40 years ago,

do you think in the modern world that has any impact? I mean, right now, right now it's true that the dominant, number of people getting, first of all, in the U.S., the gender ratio is 60% women, 40% men in universities as undergraduates. And in terms of PhDs, in all of science, by far more in almost every field when you, I mean, in all of science, there's some fields when there were men, it's more women. And the appointments are, and so I think you're absolutely right that, that that there have been inequities in the past, but do you think that they still exist? Well, I think they still exist at the senior level, because for the reason, I said,

there were tremendous inequities when we were students. I mean, I think that didn't take graduate students until the late 1960s. Yeah, so it's a little younger, but yeah. So if you're electing people to an academy when they turn to be at least middle-aged. Yeah. The average age is deceased, I think, and some one front colleague of mine told me. Yes. Yeah.

So they will have had a handicap as their gender. And, of course, I think even when there is a full balance, then I think one's going to have to allow for the fact that career breaks are going to be more for women and for men. And therefore, it's never going to be fair to women if you simply look at total citations or total number of papers. Well, yes, although I think you're making the assumption that the career breaks at some point won't be more equitably distributed between males and females in terms of childering. You don't think it'll ever happen that men will. Because I happen, I'm talking about a case

where I have fought to have a guy who was, who had denied tenure. And it turns out of, turned out that he had taken a year to take care of the family situation and argued in his case, he should be considered like anyone else. And happily, he was reconsidered. But that does happen. Yes. Yeah. I've worked on both sides. But in any case, the bottom line is that it, the point is that it's not getting back to the more important issue. This membership issue, which is such a vital concern to the National Academies that they're worrying about it, is not so important because they spend all the, that's one of the problems of the National Academies is the honorific level, is that, is they spend most of their time. And I remember when I was at Yale, most of the time of my colleagues who were in the National Academies was spent making sure their friends got in and their enemies didn't.

Well, I have to say that I think the Royal Society does the elections better. Yeah. Because in the Royal Society, the decisions on who to elect from the shortlist is made by a committee, which has, all of whose members have read six reference letters about each of the candidates they're talking about. Whereas in the National Academy, all the members of the Academy in the particular field of study have a vote. And many of them only know the universities people are at. They don't know their work. So I do think that there are some deficiencies in the way the election process goes.

But I think I'm disagreeing with you in that I think it's appropriate to make some special. provisions for women? I don't agree. I don't disagree. I just always worry about requiring democratic quotas. I think individual cases need to be, everyone should be examined individually and reviewed

on merit based on their own life experience. And I think that's the appropriate way to... And it's all right. If the experience includes not just published papers, but all the other... Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I think we're in a complete agreement. I think if you, but if you do that and you look at each candidate, rather than

ask for some identity that may be not relevant to their case. Then, then, and that's, that's my problem of having, of requiring general, of requiring an abstract general set of guidelines when each case is an individual one. And I viewed that when I was hiring and I think, I think the most important thing, especially in any field, but in academia where we have the luxury, we need to look at each person individually and assess their strength.

in a way that's honest and fair. Yes. But you're really assessing people who will perform well when they get the job. And the past record is only an indicator. And I'm saying it's a biased indicator. Oh, yeah, sure. And, you know, in fact, actually,

we, a colleague of ours, an astronomer, Kormandie recently got in trouble because he proposed, his argument was, and I think a fair one, that we are inevitably biased when we make appointments. And I know that I, that when as a chair of department, I've wanted to hire people sometimes who we could not hire because they just weren't likable. And they basically turned off. They were great at what they did, but they turned off the, you know,

they'd come visit. They'd have a faculty visit and they turned off most of the people. And that's just, and it's a social endeavor. And you can't expect that not to happen. I mean, it's just the property of human interactions that some, that some people who would be excellent scientist researchers, and maybe even okay teachers, turn off their colleagues.

And that is going to impact on both their employment opportunities and their promotion opportunities. Yes, but that's difficult, whether that's right or not. What's difficult? What do you mean whether it's right? Whether that should be a factor. Oh, it shouldn't be? I agree.

I see, I happen to like, like Pentacris people. So for me, it doesn't bother me so much. But in any case, okay, let's, I want to, I want to, you've been very generous to your time and I want to try and wrap this up a little bit, but I do want to get to the last part of your,

which is attracting talent, both at the professional level and education, which is something far broader, trying to make sure we educate the public. We've talked about some of the things that get in the way, of a tracking talent. You've made the point that I remember in the United States, you make the point of you said in my Cambridge College,

I asked a group of finally or engineering students what their career plans were. All but one were headed for finance or management consultancy, which was a problem. And I remember my daughter was in high school, that her brightest peers were all interested in finance because there were huge amounts of money to be made in finance. And they would have been exceptional. And some of them were, were, you know, very talented technically. And, and, but, you know, but on the other hand, it's okay.

One year when I taught Yale, our entire class of theoretical physics PhDs and particle physics went to Wall Street. But that was okay because there weren't jobs in academia anyway. But we need to, we need to think of ways to make it more attractive. And you've, and you've talked about some of the ways that young people need to be, need to be, need to be, need to be, validated and encouraged early on in their careers to have a sense of value. Other things that you think are important to and also understanding that different aspects of their activities are valuable and not just publishing papers.

Anything else? Well, I mean, I think you mentioned salaries and I think there are these grotesque inequalities. and that's why I said early on that we should learn more from Scandinavia and less than the United States in Britain because we now have these huge inequalities between the finance sector salaries and those in academia,

indeed salaries in the entire public sector, which are on the whole far more socially useful than working for a hedge fund which is socially useless or even damaging and crypto is certainly damaging. So the fact is that the distribution of wealth is grotesquely unequal, and that's having downsides, not simply in terms of being unjust and unethical, but it's not optimally deploying the talents of people,

because if people go into professions or into government, on the whole they will do some good, if they're bright, whereas if they go into crypto or hedge fund, they are getting 10 or even 100 times as much money, but it's not clear to me to what extent they are benefiting the rest of us, and they are leading to a society with distorted values and production slanted towards producing luxury goods. And it's rather interesting that luxury goods shares

have held up better than others during the... pandemic and the richest man in the world is now the French guy who sells expensive handbags, etc. What do you, in that context, though, what do you think about the way in the United States that people retain or encourage talented people is there are, at the highest level, academic salaries that can be extremely large. I think in England they aren't that way. I think they're more regimented. And people justify that as a way of retaining people and encouraging some people to go in academia because, and it's a way different universities steal people from other people, because it becomes that kind of free market. And it's not that way, England. How do you view that in academia?

Well, it's going a bit that way in Britain, but at a lower level. but I think it's unfortunate really and the only reason it's the case is that these jobs in finance are being paid so much more that it is distorting the market it's not just academia that's being harmed the civil service

I mean in the UK Treasury the mean age of the staff is very young which most of those age 35 five can probably get five or ten times a salary by moving into banks or something like that. And so we're all losing through this massive inequality. It's not just academia. It's public service generally. Okay.

And what about what about the, you talk about, you say a further off-putting trend in it in many countries is the pervasive audit culture and the deployment of ever more detailed performance indicators to quantify our outputs that's certainly that's certainly a put-off the amount of paper that needs to be done to do anything instead of just being left alone to do your work which is what most faculty would like in your country um you don't have quite the same system as we do but but it's certainly true that's in academia certainly in the economic You've got to have published papers in a particular set of journals in order to be taken seriously. And that I think is not optimal really.

And it's going to encourage lots of writers economists to go and be journalists or such like. So that's one point I'd make. And in the UK we have bureaucracy which means that even if you're in one of these sort of elite departments then the amount of time you get for research is less than it used to be. And also there are, as they're called, research assessment exercises, which means that you've got to produce a certain amount of stuff within any three-year period. And so this disincentivises very long-term projects. So one thing which I've written articles about recently, although it's only briefly mentioned

in the book is whether it's perhaps no longer as true as it was that the research university, which was invented by Humboldt in about 1820, is the best way. I mean, traditionally, that's what we've got in the best UK universities and the best American universities, where people can do research in a fairly freewheeling way, they can get resources, and they can do do long-term projects. That's less easy now. They're more constrained. And I think we're moving to a stage when many of the best researchers are going to want to be in full-time research institutions. I mean, some in the US and in the UK we have some very strong ones. In medical research, we have the famous molecular biology lab in Cambridge and others like that, which provide better

conditions for long-term blue skies research than any university does now. Yeah, no, I mean, they're much more attractive and universities become more and more onerous because of the regulations. And I don't want to dwell on this, but I do want to ask because I don't know if it's the case in the UK. I want to move to the teaching at the very end here, but the one of the things that's becoming more and more difficult for scientific young scientists is these requirements now most to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, get a job to get a faculty position or a grant, you have to demonstrate that you've been actively involved in encouraging inclusivity, diversity, and equity. And you have to actually write a long

statement. And regardless of the fact to some string theorist who's been, you know, who's been a graduate student working on equations in 11 dimensions and then does exceptional mathematical work as a postdoc, in order to be applied has to show how the work they're doing has they've actively been contributing to that and that's a farce i mean and and and it's it's it it will dissuade not that these aren't important issues but people but but it's not a central facet of the training or or should it necessarily be the the academic trading of someone in certain scientific disciplines and that's turning people off in the united states and Anyway, it's imposed by the university or by the NSF. It's both. The NSF is now doing it, but the university is doing it more. I did a study of last year of 25 job announcements in physics, and 24 of them required a detailed statement showing how one, in a wide variety of areas showing how one's work and one's activities have contributed explicitly to that. Yes.

No, as we said earlier, I mean, the department as a whole should be doing that. But some individuals are bad or it and some of good as it. Yeah, exactly. Nor can we expect a junior faculty member or junior, a postdoc, to have the experience or expertise to necessarily know enough to be able to have done significant work in that area. Yeah. Yeah. A young scientist, it's what like, you know, as a communicator, I had a young scientist, many of them say, how can I do what you've done, you know, in your life or whatever. and I always tell them the same, if you're a good young scientist, do science.

That's what you should be doing. And then there are opportunities will arise for you to write or communicate if that's your interest. But if you have a talent, you should be doing that. And then you'll have the opportunities later on to make the world a better place in different ways, whether it's, you know, whether it's increasing diversity or increasing communication. Yeah, yeah. Your agreement? Okay.

But now let me ask you about teaching, which is the last part of your book and one that's probably teaching and education in general. And I think the statement you make about research institutions could be made more generally. It was a revelation to me when I spent time in Switzerland to realize that in Switzerland, they encourage only 15% of the students in high school to go on to university. You know, I used to think of university is something we should encourage everyone to go to. But I've now come around, and I think for most people, the university is not necessarily that, even if, you know, the best,

intellectual course that for many people, most of the students I see go into universities, have no idea why they're there. It's four years of more or less, you know, country club living and before they go out in the real world. And that targeted institutions that targeted skills and interests like they do in Switzerland might be a better solution for many people. What do you think of that? Well, I think that's true. But I also think that everyone in the, universities should have a somewhat broader curriculum. Ah, yes. Well, in America, you do have majors and minors and all that.

In the UK, we have a more serious problem of a narrow curriculum. We have fairly narrow in universities, in most cases. But worse than that, in high schools, we have specialization at the age of 16, where you can drop science completely. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, in England, that was the thing. You could, you could have a physics degree and just take physics classes or something. And you could never do that in the States.

And by the way, that was, we used to have this. That was one of the reasons why I was excited once in working in a university in England or lecturing in it, which you didn't like those as a private university. But the attraction to me at the time was it was the first UK university that looked like a liberal arts college to me. It was a private university. It's no longer that. but but but and and and students of all types for example had to take some science literacy which is what i taught um but i think it's it's certainly we're seeing it more and more um that need to specialize early on and that does turn off some people and also gives you an impediment because it means

if you haven't specialized early on you're at a disadvantage compared to some people who have and so you may not have gone to a high school that allowed them to Sorry, go on. Well, I mean, it's certainly in England, the specialisation at the age of 16 last two years. And one downside of this is that if you're badly taught science before the age of 16 and you drop it, then that forecloses the option of moving on at 18 to a university where you could specialize in science. And so that's obviously bad. But far better to have something more like an international baccalaureate,

where you have a wide menu as a curriculum all the way up to 18. But then, of course, the universities have to play ball to the extent of lowering their requirements of how much you know in what's going to be your major area. Yeah, and I think both are needed in Britain. And also the other point is that we shouldn't fetishize the level reached after a few or four-year bachelor's degree and allow people to drop out with dignity after two years and come back in and move around. And I'm glad to say in Britain there is a move towards this now and to give people a grant for a total of three years at any stage in their life. That would be that. I mean,

that was a suggestion in your book, which I found amazing. The idea, I think the whole thing that we want to encourage is lifelong learning, this notion that somehow, you know, you stop learning in university or in high school is just the worst thing, because most of us, and I've said it, I'll say it to you, I don't know if it's the same for you, but I certainly learned much more physics after my PhD than before. Oh yeah, me too. And in my case, I've been a professor of astronomy as well as physics, but while it may be apparent to you, it won't be apparent to many others. I never took an astronomy course in my life as an undergrad, you know, learned it all after the fact. What little I know. And a lot of it I learned from you, of course. But anyway,

But what about this? So lifelong learning is important and offering people the opportunities. One of the reasons I chose the university I did, a personal case, is that I liked physics and I liked science, but I liked history. And my, that university offered what was called a general science course where you could do equal numbers of courses and it attracted me. Ultimately, I discovered that I had to specialize eventually, and I moved after a couple of years, I went into math and physics. But that attractiveness to people who don't know what they want to do is particularly important, because not everyone knows what they want to do when they're 18. And, of course, many are they going to be generalists in their career.

They're going to go into business or government service. Then they're not going to be specialists, and therefore, the broader the background they've acquired at university, the better. Now, in terms of improving, as you point out, we need to have better teachers. The real problem, as you say, ultimately in education is at lower levels, is trying to get, educate young people. And we need to do that more effectively, as well as convincing, as well as providing people the opportunity, as you point out for lifelong learning. And I think the idea of giving people grants so they can spend three years at a later time in education is unbelievably interesting, especially as people live longer. and we don't necessarily want everyone in the workforce at the same time. But what do you think about in terms of getting back to this question of salaries?

In science, frankly, one of the problems of having, I know in the public education system, of getting good science teachers is that most of the people who are trained in science have better opportunities with more money to work somewhere else. And therefore, I've argued that while science may not be more intrinsically useful than art history, or maybe, or English, you know, I certainly don't think it is, you probably have to pay in the public education system science teachers more in order to make it attractive because simply they have other options that an English major might not have. What do you think of that?

Well, I think it's a pity if you have to have differential salaries. But from what I know, in many states, American teacher salaries are extremely low. So I'm not quite a difficult to attract people. So I think an overall raise in the level is going to be. Absolutely. And then you point out that the real thing is not just teaching in schools, but teaching outside of schools and the need for scientists to reach out broader. I think that's one of the main messages of your book from beginning. to end is that scientists not only should take an interest in policy at government level,

but again, not every scientist, but the scientific community should be working hard to reach out beyond the traditional realm of education, but to the public at large, because they're the ones who ultimately need to make the decisions in electing politicians or creating advocacy groups. As I say, 3% of the population gets interested in something. And I think you've argued very strongly for that, that we need that holistic approach, and we need scientists to speak out. And we also need to have information more accessible.

I think one of the things that you point out, which is really interesting, is that in physics, in science, we have this thing called the archive, which makes all for information that's happening in science. Anyone can go on, and I often recommend even on Twitter that people go to the archive,

to see something, whether they'll understand or not. At least they have an opportunity to go to it. But such things don't exist in the humanities. And what can we do? Yes. But I think more generally, the role of online versus live teaching in universities is an open question. I mean, I know the other university in Arizona, ASU, of course, and I admire hugely what.

they do. And I think these so-called MOOCs, massive online learning, I think as standalone activities, they only work for mature part-time vocational courses. You know, people who want to learn some special techniques. But on the other hand, I think they can be a feature of a university course. I mean, and I would say that if you think of a typically university course, I don't think much would be lost if the basic big lectures that may be given to a class of two or three hundred or online because there is no real feedback during the lecture and I think if they're well prepared and online. And then, of course, if they're especially good, then they can be made available publicly. And certainly, Cambridge, I think we should do that. We don't want to set up satellite

campuses in the Middle East or like that, but to make available freely, especially good lecture courses. Well, just like MIT made Walter Lewin's physics course. Then that's a good thing. And it's good for the university, just like if a professor writes a good textbook, which is widely used, that's a positive thing for the university. And so in the same way, I think if the big lectures were more carefully prepared and are widely used in universities around the world where they don't have such a strong faculty, that would be great. That would be great.

And the problem with the universities, they want to get some financial, you know, it's always finances and they want to charge people. Yes, but they don't if you have to tell them, if you have to take them, textbook. No, I know. I know. I agree. I'm just saying the reality, having been involved in this very issue at that university, I will tell you that online courses were viewed as much as a money-making activity as a pedagogical, as much as a pedagogical tool. And that's the unfortunate thing. But I think you're absolutely right. But then, of course, I think where we both agree is that the human, that a purely online education is not a good, can't compete. And that's true at all

levels. That's sad as part of the pandemic with so many young kids missed that experience of direct interaction. The school level, of course, you need the real interaction. And I think at undergraduate level, you have the flip classroom and the tutorials of things. That's fine. But I think it's the big lecture where there's no feedback really. And then the biggest lecture being, the biggest audience being the world and that scientists need to communicate and reach out and get people excited. And I think one of the things that I admire about you so much, besides your distinction in a scientist, and I told you earlier on that I used to, I'll tell it publicly now, that, you know, when I was first learning about astronomy for the use in physics,

I learned that there were certain people whose writings I could go to and I could trust, and you were one of them. And I think that's a, that, that was incredibly valuable to me. But, but let me end with the last quote from your book, which is the quote from my, Margaret Mead, which is never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, is the only thing that ever has. I'm not sure if I agree with the second part, but I think the first part is very important. And I think we're all very lucky that you're one of that small group of thoughtful, committed citizens who are trying to change the world. I think you've got to actually be more charismatic and interact with the wide public by other media.

And that's why one has to admire people like David Attenborough, etc. Absolutely. And Carl Sagan. And I think it's what I know it's what motivates a number of us. And anyway, thank you for taking the time. I tried to, you know, there's so many interesting ideas there. I wanted to do justice to them. And I think it'll be, the conversation will be very useful for many people. And it's always a pleasure. And I know it's very late for you right now. And thank you for even focusing for so long on this. It's always a pleasure. Okay, well, good to be in touch. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation.

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