I no longer want to hear science and religious debates. I would rather here the beautiful story of science be told by itself. Thank you Lawrence and Richard.
When Lawrence or Richard talk, they move me so much, i feel like crying. Their passion and the way they communicate their knowledge is so heartfelt and honest that there is no option but to listen. Hope they continue doing this for many years to come. Thank you so much for allowing us to see this videos.
Well said max koweindi...Don’t worry about rxp56 he is either a spoilsport or just is older like me and has heard it all before and fact defeating fiction no longer boils the blood! Dawkins admirable knowledge of Kelvin who was a great scientist but evidently made some mistaken assertions away from where his maths could provide proofs ! Great story how biology defeated physics for once.
Maximiliano Koweindl i was just going to write my own comment and then i saw yours and you already said everything I was going to say. I love that the audience gave him such a great and long applause at the end. I feel the same way as you.
How could some of the scientists permit themselves to make a claim that would necessitate knowledge as extensive as the scheme of the universe, when their knowledge of the total scheme of being is *close* to zero, when confronted with a whole mass of unknowns concerning this very earth and tangible, lifeless matter, let alone the whole universe? Do scientific discoveries and knowledge cause such a scientist to conclude that matter, *unknowing and unperceiving*, is his creator and that of all beings?
@@godisjust591 Not entirely sure what you are driving at, but one observation remains fundamental: Science WORKS. Religion is just creative writing by countless unknown authors?
Wow. Krauss always nails it , but this is one for the books. I definitely understood some stuff better the way it was explained here even though I have heard them explained before. But I only had an idea. I would hope even Jr High Science teachers expose their kids to this.
Well, that's my vacuum well and truly spanked! Enlightening and erudite; bravo! Science and humanities teachers must share this and challenge their students with the inspiration and lineage within.
This is most likely Laurence’s best lecture...uses the punch lines in so many other lectures, but unifies them so perfectly with evolution and modern science...and executed flawlessly. Just Like the topic of the lecture in many ways...we’ll done!
I like this guy. he not only gets his point across, but he's funny, too. A little humor is good. I Used to teach at an adult education school. Humor kept the students engaged and they were able to learn in a more relaxed way. The humorous anecdotes were also relevant, so while laughing, they were learning. It drove the points home at the expense of others (in the comic form of "Never do what this guy did!") The humor relaxed them, kept them engaged and made the classes interesting, not boring. My boss couldn't understand why the humor was an important part of my teaching style, but the results were obvious and spoke for themselves. All was well, right up until he fired me because he thought I was sleeping with his wife (I wasn't and she had already left him and filed for a divorce because he was an a-hole and she was tired of dealing with the jackass). Then, after firing me for a reason that wasn't a legal reason (some irony(?) there,) he tried to file a cease and desist to prevent me from working for a competitor. Tried represent his own corporation, which is a crime (practicing law without a license) which resulted in his lawsuit for damages and the injunction against my having a job, all getting thrown out for failing to appear. He was sentenced for his crime and my counter suit was granted on grounds of no contest. His lawsuit and attempted injunction were both baseless, so no attorney would take the case. I represented myself, because I knew that his filings were baseless and in violation of all relevant laws and statutes. Even if the judge disliked me and liked him, the judge would have no choice but find in my favor, or have it go to the appellate court on grounds of failing to follow the law. But when he arrived on his own, with his brown nosing friend in tow, I knew I had him right I wanted him. I got money from the counter suit for the filing of frivolous lawsuits and harassment, he got no money, jail time and a fine. I guess, in the end, I was a bad employee.......... I only included the last paragraph, because it's funny. Karma can be a bitch! Not that I believe Karma is a real force, anymore than I believe God is real, but Karma can be sort of real when A-holes that are idiots set themselves up for a fall. Those are really the only times karma comes back around. My former boss was one of those people. Former cop, fired for incompetence and misconduct. Went on to become a PI. No one would hire him, because his first client wound up embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pension funds of a large new car dealership and used my former boss, the ex-cop, as the fall guy. He was an idiot, an a-hole, paranoid, controlling, narcissistic (after all of his obvious failure, he still believed he was better than everyone else at every thing and that he knew more than anyone about anything) and he was incapable of understanding that his failures were his own fault. When he was being taken from the court room for booking, by the bailiff, it was revealed that he was stupid enough to be wearing his sidearm in the court room, like he was still a cop. That earned him even more charges. The whole time he was yelling about how he was going to prove that there was collusion between the judge and I. That I had bribed the judge for this outcome. Didn't matter that everything he did and was trying to do was in violation of the law. By the way, he was also a "Christian." This is the mentality of some of the religious nut jobs. Too stupid to see or understand reality, so in their own minds, reality twists and bends to suit their fantastical ideas of how the world is.This mentality seems to apply to more than just creationism. My ex-boss is a perfect example of how they can be dangerous beyond just false beliefs and trying to destroy education. I think it was his intent to use firearm on me after we left the courtroom. I wound having to seize corporate assets and auction them off at his expense, to get my money. Be cause he "followed a higher law," he felt he didn't need to honor the judgments against him. He wound up losing everything, because his God wasn't as powerful as my god (I don't have one.) LOL I find these experiences funny. I seem to derive great satisfaction when the religious nut jobs find out that their God can't protect them from the consequences of their actions. They may not believe gravity is real, but it will still kill them if they jump off a roof that is 20 floors up. Immoral behavior because it is their divine right victimize those they feel deserve it.
"gods-believers". AKA sad children using desperately weak and outdated excuses to argue their personally preferred imaginary friend into existence because they cannot handle not being special.
Excellent as always. I love Richard Dawkins and Lawerence Krauss. Always think after a lecture they couldn’t have fulfilled my mind and more and then other lecture comes and again I am a better person inside for hearing it. I love that the audience gave him such a great and long applause at the end. I don’t know if its because they loved it so much (which I’m sure they did) or if its a normal way the british people clap at the end of something. In America our claps are quieter, a little slower, and end much, much sooner even if we loved it. Although we do stand up for things we loved. This is why I love this present time, i am 50yrs old and it was until I was 27 that I got a computer. Young people don’t realize that if you eer had a question about something the only resources you had was your parents who generally didn’t know the answer, wait until you got to school and asked your teacher if you remembered, or wait until the next time you went to the library and look it up in the encyclopedia and hope the answer is there. So you really didn’t expand you brain very much or continue to learn as an adult. If you were especially lucky you might have a set of encyclopedias at you house but generally people didn’t because they were very expensive and the ones you bought because of price weren’t as big as the ones in the library. However let me say that the encyclopedias at the library were pretty big books but there was only about 20, give or take, books to the set in alphabetic order. That’s all there was to generally know to know pretty much everything. That’s terrible right? So my point is, thank you internet but my world has changed since RUclips has grown. All the wonderful lectures, documentaries and everything else the is expanding my mind. I am in awe, every time i say to my self “what is that” or “i want to know more about that” and I don’t have to wait for an answer. I can look it up immediately. Young people have no idea or appreciation for what they have being born when they were. I will look up something in wikipedia and then end up clicking a link on something I don’t understand and before I now it I am 20 pages into where I started. RUclips is the best.
One of the best hour you can spend on RUclips. So many questions are answered and Lawrence Krauss is superb as usual. However, I don't think that you'll hear him talk about spanking much in the future.
The two confirms whst I had concluded early in my 75 years of life that life, due to laws of physics and chemistry; is actually force-produced by nature in our corner of the universe.
I have not seen any such nonsense except from aged under 10 and also Krauss and Dorkins shill anteater dogs their rhetoric is boring and very very shallow for low brows. punctuation or no punctuation my point stand very nicely on its own merits. irrelevant to the complete disgusting idiocy of these shill hamster dogs sold their souls ..bought and paid for a long time ago. their arrogance is repulsive. interesting how God has also made them physically ugly as well. Berlinski and many other honest scholars have COMPLETELY DEBUNKED THESE FILTHY PIGS A LONG LONG TIME ago.... they are so old fashioned in they thinking and presentation
So glad this is finally uploaded. Will you be including the Q&A section? My 13 year old son was lucky enough to get to ask a question of Lawrence Krauss, and we want to see it!
I agree Krauss at his best. However that is not saying much. William Lane Craig pissed all over Krauss and Krauss was so bum-hurt he had to edit an e-mail from Vilenkin to save face. Sad.
His best means nothing. He's just a word-salad-guru, earning a side-income to his book about nothing. But maybe I'm wrong, and he does these gigs just for nothing and his book for free. I don't buy into his fairytales, but maybe I'll buying him lunch...
Good stuff, Primus 777. Here in dumbed-down Australia we have 'Neighbours'. I'm pretty sure that repeatedly bashing my head into a wall would be more entertaining and less harmful to the brain than watching Australian commercial television.
@Culpepper Defenestrator Not really. I was referencing the lowest, least inspiring and most dumbed-down series on British TV. Sarcastic response...not big or clever, Sorry!
Regarding the idea of swimming through molasses, practical tests have actually demonstrated that people swimming in molasses posted times that were very similar to their times in water. This is because...whether water, molasses, or any other fluid...the resistance the swimmer meets will moving forward is equal to the resistance the swimmer uses _to_ move forward.
Great shame that the screen was not level with Lawrence Krauss, and he had to look up to it all the time. Also we should have been able to see the slides alongside listening to what he was saying at the same time. Great fan of Dr. Krauss and of Dr. Dawkins, both of whom I regard as the two greatest exponents of knowledge on the world platform. Life would be so much poorer if we had not had them to beam a light for our understanding.
Not sure what audience Prof Krauss has...but I think without a little fundemental physics knowledge, it may be hard for the audience to comprehend this marvelous presentation..🤔
Im watching so much of LK's stuff that Ive realised that this is more or less similar to his talk two weeks earlier at Seattle Town Hall (LK Why are We Here) but he has a roomier stage to walk about on, I was waiting for him to fall off this one. Bit of a H&S heart stopper and in the UK of all places! but whilst this is for a general audience, I must recommend Lawrence Krauss - The Secret Life of Physicists at NECSS (on YT too)..It is for a more "sciency" audience so gets a tad difficult if you're not from that background but it is great to see him show off his skills and it is damned useful too. Stick with it, let it wash over you and you will forever wish you had not done that arts degree...
There is something admirable in the ideal of pursuing the truth even if its revelation is against one's deepest wishes. And what Krauss stresses here is that our scientific picture of the universe does not accord with out deepest aspirations. His mastery of the worlds of astrophysics and particle physics is manifest throughout the talk. He also speaks with a great deal of ironical intelligence and humor. Unfortunately however he is not shy about repeatedly insulting those who disagree with him politically or religiously. His cheap and repeated shots show his very narrow understanding of what religious devotion and observance is all about. His irrelevant political comments are a pandering to the crowd and letting off steam which have no place in a lecture of this kind. But the weight and heart of the presentation are a very learned presentation of current scientific understanding of the development of the cosmos. This is so even though I am not sure it all makes sense to use the Darwinian idea of natural selection as principle here. There is so much not understood in our current understanding of the physical universe that it would have been wiser to focus on dark energy, dark matter, the unification of the four forces as part of their own story rather than fit everything on one principle from a very small albeit special part of the whole story.
I checked the always correct Wikipedia (that was sarcasm) and it says Lawrence was born in New York. So, I am totally writing his name in on thr presidential ballot :)
Once I left the cave, I tried to tell my friends and family about the wonders I had seen, but they bocked at my experience and insisted on their own. The only way to share the truth is to drag them kicking and screaming into the light.
Some may recall the auto manufacturers' resistance to Ralph Nader's recommendations for safety features be built into cars by auto manufacturers, GM specifically complained about it raising the costs to build, etc, but with way more drastic sounding terms. But when insurers discovered how much less was the claims paid out for deaths and other more serious results of injuries in accidents, decades later there's a law to Buckle up, but do you suppose it was for the safety of people or the money made by less claims amounts paid to victims, so the insurers pushed lawmakers to make it almost mandatory to wear them, saving lives, yeah sure. Think back to finally removing lead from gasoline, and then you can read TheNation mag article Worse Than Lead tghat was out a few months ago to do with flame retardants. www.thenation.com/authors/jamie-lincoln-kitman/ But if lead is so bad for people why then do they sell it in 3rd world countries anyway? Sorry, hope I didn't put a damper on one of Dr Krauss great talks.
BTW I should mention that lead doesn't break down further, circulates around the atmosphere and they removed it only because it destroyed the catalytic converters that met Clean Air Act regulations, plus continued use of autos meant the pollution caused would be so much worse Listen to the interview of the author of 'Worse Than Lead' it's chilling, this whole story. awfradio.com/tag/worse-than-lead/ AND BIG SURPRISE IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FUCKING MONEY, KILLING US WAS SECONDARY TO THE PROFITS TO BE MADE...BOOM FLAME RETARDANTS ENTER THE PICTURE AND THEY'RE GETTING RICH WHILE WE DIE. I don't know how any citizen can vote GOP who'd rather there be no regulations to curb these greedy bastards who run these companies. Ah, then there's Purdue Pharmaceuticals that downplayed the addictive properties of narcotics and Drs began giving them out like candy but cut back due to the danger, but Purdue, they got rich.
People who refuse to believe in God just don't want to let go of their sin! PERIOD! My right side and left side of my body have the same digits ....IF YOU DON'T SEE DESIGN YOU PEOPLE ARE SORRY HUMAN BEINGS. YEAH I JUST EVOLVED FROM NOTHING. THERE HAS TO BE AN INTERNAL DESIGNER! WHO HAS NO BEGINNING AND NO END.
I'm an engineer. I took 5 years of physics. I must say that I did not grasp a lot of what Krauss said. I suspect it's a combination of me, Krauss, and the difficulty of understanding quantum effects. The difficulty for me started with relativity and quantum mechanics from about 1905 to 1930. The discoveries involved more complex math than ever before. Even Einstein needed his math friend to do the math for him, so I don't feel so bad lol. I suspect I will never fully understand things like physicists do. I am glad we are understanding our universe more and more via experiments and space probes. The world of tomorrow will be interesting. I wish I could peek in at 2200. I suspect it will seem miraculous to me, but because I'm trained in science, I will attribute nothing to the supernatural. I believe that Arthur C. Clarke summed it up best when he wrote: Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from magic. I'd love to see the magic that lies in our future if we don't do something stupid on the way.
Operationally (in the here and now), we kinda understand how things work. Cosmologically (far far away, and billions upon billions year ago) we just don't. It's speculation upon speculation. But that is politically incorrect to say, as a scientist in this age of scientifical marxism.
Thank you for the cave analogy Professor Krauss. I often think about our current state of physics, as a lay person, and think that our most talented and esteemed thinkers have simply gotten stuck down a thought cul-de-sac. I think about three blind men describing an elephant they can touch. Each has a different explanation, but they are really just seeing varying aspects. As you point out, our minds can’t really understand quantum dynamics directly, so we never actually see the real world. I wonder what the real world looks like.
It perhaps, at some point, should be addressed that human design - that which nature is erroneously compared to - isn't all that either. What I mean is, an engineer doesn't just pull out paper and pencil then - magically, spontaneously, instantly - draws the design of, say, a plane. Oh, no. There are wind tunnels to test designs. There's all the mathematics of stresses and loads - to calculate that the thing won't, you know, tear itself asunder in actual operation. There's aerodynamics and fluid dynamics, which has to be just right. There are prototypes. There are test flights. And, in some sense, you can see that human design - intelligent design - is, in fact, no more than a guided, accelerated natural selection. If you've actually read Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", this is actually exactly how he tackles the subject - a method so well-thought-out, I felt, over those 20 years that he sat on the idea, I'm confused as to why Darwin's method of explanation is not used far more often in the modern classroom. Anyway, Darwin starts with artificial selection. Pigeon fancying. Dog breeding. That sort of thing. How an intelligent guiding agent - the breeder - can, through careful selection, reinforce the variations they want and avoid the variations they don't want. And with this established - which is perfectly non-controversial, as humans have been breeding things for thousands of years - his point was that you could remove "the breeder" and see that this stuff still occurs. If the breeder is not there to choose the pairings, then the pair themselves make that choice - sexual selection. The female preferring a strong, non-diseased, resourceful partner because, you know, such an individual will pragmatically prove most useful in any future child-rearing (quite understandably, as the lyrics of the song would have it, she "don't want no scrubs"). Her - and his - preferences take the place of "the breeder". But, no, actually more correctly - the point I'm driving at - it's really that "the breeder" takes the place of their natural sexual selection. By forcing certain pairings and prohibiting others. Intelligent design is still selection. That's the thing that's always there. The plane engineer creates prototypes and constantly revises. They make one design. Ah, that bit works, but that bit doesn't. So they "breed" a new meme that's got the good bits of their first draft and drops the bad bits that didn't really work. Then they do it again. And again. Repeatedly testing it against wind tunnels, stress testing, test flights, etc. to ensure that it all actually works - that it is, indeed, "fit" for its environment. Gradually evolving a working design that does all the things that they need it to do. Engineering is not supernatural magic either. Indeed, human design is just a guided, accelerated version of selection - it's artificial selection, not natural selection, but it's still selection. It's still the same underlying mechanism that results in all these things. An intelligence just has this extra little "cheat". Where evolution is blind and has no end goal, the designer has eyes and has a goal in mind. They can greatly speed things up by using more focused and broad selection criteria - whittling it down to the "best" design far faster than letting it just slowly happen naturally. And, you know, sometimes the designer can do this fairly quickly. Largely because they are, of course, "standing on the shoulders of Giants" and have this whole canon of science, engineering and mathematics to guide them. Humans have done this sort of thing before, so we do broadly know the process to go about doing it again for a new design. But, also, many times the designer-led selection process is not that accelerated. The thing is, we overlook this. We quickly forget that, for example, Apple's first go at the iPad - the Apple Newton - was a bit shit. "Generation one" of that meme didn't really work and faded into obscurity. Because, you know, nice idea but it's not really remotely good enough yet to pull it off. But then, eventually, the technology progressed and their understanding progressed, and Apple could drop the iPad and the iPhone on the world, transforming it. And, yeah, everyone remembers the wins. But they quickly forget the losses. Human design is not magic either. Indeed, as I'm arguing, it really is EXACTLY THE SAME PROCESS but a modicum of intelligence here and there can just greatly accelerate the process. Thomas Edison can accelerate the process of making a useful light bulb by, you know, taking the basic idea and then just rapidly iterating over every combination of materials to find the best one. Let's try copper. Let's try zinc. Let's try aluminium. Et cetera. He just focused the selection process. Accelerated it. What intelligence brought to the table was an understanding that, actually, this basic idea could surely work, if only we could find out what combination of materials will do the job. But it was just evolution by another name. Try "generation #1". Okay, that didn't work. Next! Better, but not quite there. Next! Okay, we're getting there. So maybe if we mix this with this. No, not quite. Next! Engineers and scientists are not pulling magic out of their arse either. Human design might look like spontaneous magic to those who don't realise the process that goes on behind-the-scenes to invent these things, but it absolutely isn't. Musicians write plenty of shit songs. But when they hit on a good one, we all take it to heart and remember it - rapidly ignoring all the not-so-good stuff they did before and often do in-between (you know, the "album tracks" that aren't good enough to be singles, but they have some promise and a musician has to have the space to practice and learn their craft, right?). It reminds me of an interview that the lead singer of Pulp, Jarvis Cocker, once had and likes to remark on. When they stormed the charts with "Common People", an interviewer referred to it as "an overnight success". And his response was that, yeah, it was an "overnight success"... that was 30 years in the making. He was a little understandably miffed that this interviewer was only looking at the successful end result, and was overlooking that, you know, he'd been in other bands. He'd learnt his craft. The band had all learnt, over time, to get that good. All those earlier songs they'd written that weren't as good - but which taught them the craft of song-writing to know how to eventually get it exactly right for that success. Now, as a consumer going shopping, it might feel like these various trinkets of human design - the architecture of that building, the artistry of the painting, the sophistication of the engine - just magically spontaneously appeared before you. But human architects created an awful lot of things that just fell down and looked shit beforehand. The painter developed their skill - there was very probably a "stick man in front of a house, with curly smoke coming from a chimney, with a yellow Sun in the sky" style of kids' drawing stuck on the proverbial fridge door by their parents at some point. And the "sophistication" of an internal combustion engine was no instant technological "magic" either. It's still selection. It's still a process of repeated revision over "generations" of prototypes. Intelligent design is not a different beast at all. It's just a more focused and accelerated version of natural design. So the argument of "intelligent design" falls over, because human "intelligent design" is no waving of a magic wand either. It's the exact same mechanism underlying it all. You're looking at the whole thing backwards. ALL design evolves. All of it. Every last bit of it. If some designs go further than others, then it's only because they're standing on the shoulders of the design Giants before them. The mechanism is the same. The difference is that "intelligent design" has eyes - it can think ahead. So the human - or other intelligent agent - can focus and accelerate the process to a particular end result, by using a bit of smarts to concentrate and condense the overall process. So, yes, look at that painting and think that it's marvellous that a human created that. But remember that that human themselves had looked at other paintings. They'd painted many things. They benefited from the science and technology of those who developed canvasses and paints and brushes before them - they were standing on the shoulders of Giants. Many artists are, of course, riding the "meme train" of whatever contemporary "art movement" is going on around them. That painting might well be magical to behold, perhaps, but it was not created by any "the painter said, 'let there be painting' and there was a painting, and the painter saw that it was good" pulled-out-of-my-arse instant magic either. That has never happened anywhere at any time. Because - newsflash! - magic is not actually a thing that exists.
Smolin's idea is lent a little credence by James Gate's discovery that error correcting codes can be found in the supersymmetric equations associated with string theory. Error correcting 'codes' are found in DNA to prevent too much mutation from happening. Maybe error correcting codes are part of the fabric of the universe to control the mutations during reproduction of universes. You would not need error correcting codes if mutations were not happening at all. Error correcting codes control the rate and manner of mutations - too much and too little mutation is not good. Error correcting codes in DNA are also subject to evolution, meaning that the proper amount of error correction is selected for.
funny info about cosmic rays, time dilation is the only thing that allow us detect them. Or they would have decayed long time before our instruments could detect them.
The complexity problem, the finetuning problem? You appreciate just how large of a challenge these represent for our current cosmological model. Most are sleepwalking past these issues. I don't advocate for a designer, but by the same token it is unacceptable that the nature of the material of this universe, "atoms and the bodies they form" that their intricate and systematic structures and processes can have been generated purely by random chance creation processes. In this circumstance realizing a natural organizational principle would be more than useful in redeeming the complexity problem. I have a lot to say about this, and had thought, or hoped that what I say above would be enough to justify a hypothetical conversation, that others might choose to entertain such a conversation. What would it take to remedy universal complexity and finetuning? Dark Energy, a universal regenerative field. A physical energy field that exploits some physics of vacuum to regenerate itself. What that physics could be, I have not a clue, however we have our observations. And a hypothesis that assumes such an energy field possesses a physical existence is far from being an unreasonable one. So run with me here please? Now make an assumption with me. That any form of natural energy that comes to exist in the world raises the possibility that a something else might emerge on the basis of exploiting that energy resource. That encapsulates lifes existence, nature given a natural energy potential can lead to a circumstance of Darwinian emergence, such that plants came to exploit the sun's natural available energy potential. Then plants come to be exploited by animals as a natural available energy potential. This is how nature generates complex systems, on the basis of exploiting energy potentials and accumulating small changes over large expanses of time. In the case of this novel cosmology I propose, imagine that Baryon force fields exploit or consume the Dark Energy that propagates space, and converts it to atomic forces that are responsible for generating matters structures and processes. That Baryons evolved optimized forms and processes to efficiently exploit DE , for the same general circumstance that life evolves forms and processes to exploit energy potentials that enables it to exist. Think about it please? The interaction between space and matter that is expressed by General Relativity is Guv = Tuv. Which can be stated as the curvature of space being equal to sum of atomic forces. A gravitational field can represent an energy gradient, an energy density contour in the Dark Energy field, that Baryons are in the business of exploiting to generate atomic forces. So fundamental forces would not be fundamental, because they have a prior cause, a prior origin that is DE converted to atomic forces. Conventional science takes the highly ordered and systematic complexity of the universe entirely for granted. Because Big Bang cosmology can only credit the form and processes of Baryons to chance happenstance, as that is the only prospect an instantaneous creation theory can advocate for. However the types of nested complexitys and finetuning that this universe exhibits is the same types that biology examples. But for some reason it is beyond human imagination to entertain the possibility that the universe is Darwinian of nature, even while Darwinian process is the only method by which we know about that is capable of generating highly ordered complex systems. Its the only natural organizational principle we have at our disposal and yet people won't even consider it. Will anybody comment on this please?
Very good lecture! As usual, like any presentation featuring Lawrence Krauss. That said, I'm nit-picking over a term which I find odd and inadequate, the term "Selection". Nature doesn't "select" anything as it has no intention, as opposed to a "God" some people need so as to compensate for their human fears, ambitions or even savagery (for too many, it's essentially a subconscious justification for their Evil deeds like prejudices, trials of intentions if not mere power leverage over people given some pathologically deranged and megalomaniac individuals at the helm and such, while evoking "God's will"). IMHO, the term "selection" by itself is preposterous, while in fact these are *natural **_mechanisms_* (i.e. if you don't eat then you die), or "accidents" as Krauss puts it well. The same thing happens with money: we talk about "economic laws" or "money laws" ; while in fact these are not "laws", but rather abstract mechanisms that Humans have invented for themselves and which they exclusively control, not "Nature": a _tool_ (and as for any tool, it should be subject to modification and adaptation, but always in order to comply with a human intention, philosophy, etc., and more fundamentally to "Natural requirements" - as abusive compliance to these pseudo "laws" can jeopardize our natural habitat - if not imposing Evil contexts forcing humans into them -, thus go against Nature which is a plan for our own doom). The problem arises when the tool becomes the sole goal, hence reversing (and corrupting) all interests when considering human beings and human endeavor - which can even put our Evolutionary pathways to a stall... In fact, such usurpation of term is well exposed when we see economical crashes or even natural disasters that these pseudo "laws" can provoke. Social Neodarwinism is of the same type of usurpation. In short, the term "selection" was "selected" by some humans so as to comply with an impression, with a trendy belief in eugenics - especially from aristocratic "patreons" funding research.
Just because something is natural doesn't mean it is "an accident". In fact all of the known laws of physics are unitary, feature conservation of information and therefore deterministic. You are creating an imaginary semantic issue with the word selection by inventing that the word inherently implies an intelligent agent is doing the selection. That is not actually a part of the word's meaning, explicitly so in discussions of evolution or physics. If you need to insist on such to make your point against religion or about us being too attached to the form of cultural constructs like our economic or social systems then you should make it some other way because redefining common use words and attacking how they are used given your new definition is not sound reasoning. Furthermore the dividing line between natural and unnatural is also an arbitrary construct of questionable value. Humans are found in nature and so are the things they do. We are animals and many of the ways we think and behave make little to no logical sense as they were built into what we are before we were even capable of the high level hierarchical symbolic thought processes required to even figure out the things we do, think and feel often make little sense and are remnants of natural selection processes now obsolete or even detrimental in context of our modern technological civilization, and not necessarily a consciously controllable aspect of ourselves. To sum up the things you complain about are in fact a result of the natural selection processes you argue aren't even worthy of the word. You would be better off accepting and being cognizant of the natural selection processes that led to the psychology behind things such as widespread religious beliefs throught history, faith in general including in things like the prevailing economic and social constructs. Things that are bad are not necessarily "unnatural" and things that are "natural" are not necessarily good and the
Evolution did take place from prototypes both on earth and in the heavens. Saturn and Jupiter were the bosses of the heavens and its evolution, their interactions deciding what stayed and what got kicked out, according to an interesting book I read whose name I don’t recall. There was a pattern or a prototype to evolve to, that is the point missed in this lecture.
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I no longer want to hear science and religious debates. I would rather here the beautiful story of science be told by itself. Thank you Lawrence and Richard.
Indeed. We popped out of nothing is a very interesting story.
@@SalmanMoyeenAh William Lane Craig pissed all over the rather pathetic Lawrence Krauss.
Well said 🤔
@@SalmanMoyeen Hey you Religious Goon. You were created from the Butt of an Ass.
@@SalmanMoyeen being interesting or not is irrelevant to weather something is true or not. That's the real question, is it true?
When Lawrence or Richard talk, they move me so much, i feel like crying. Their passion and the way they communicate their knowledge is so heartfelt and honest that there is no option but to listen. Hope they continue doing this for many years to come. Thank you so much for allowing us to see this videos.
Well said max koweindi...Don’t worry about rxp56 he is either a spoilsport or just is older like me and has heard it all before and fact defeating fiction no longer boils the blood! Dawkins admirable knowledge of Kelvin who was a great scientist but evidently made some mistaken assertions away from where his maths could provide proofs ! Great story how biology defeated physics for once.
Amen! (so to speak)
Maximiliano Koweindl i was just going to write my own comment and then i saw yours and you already said everything I was going to say. I love that the audience gave him such a great and long applause at the end. I feel the same way as you.
How could some of the scientists permit themselves to make a claim that would necessitate knowledge as extensive as the scheme of the universe, when their knowledge of the total scheme of being is *close* to zero, when confronted with a whole mass of unknowns concerning this very earth and tangible, lifeless matter, let alone the whole universe?
Do scientific discoveries and knowledge cause such a scientist to conclude that matter, *unknowing and unperceiving*, is his creator and that of all beings?
@@godisjust591 Not entirely sure what you are driving at, but one observation remains fundamental:
Science WORKS. Religion is just creative writing by countless unknown authors?
Richard Dawkins and Laurence Krauss - two wonders of science. Wonderful !!
There Is much better
More like freaks of nature I would say...
franitafranita turkey
Wow. Krauss always nails it , but this is one for the books. I definitely understood some stuff better the way it was explained here even though I have heard them explained before. But I only had an idea.
I would hope even Jr High Science teachers expose their kids to this.
Hi....I am from Indonesia, thank you for uploaded this video, so I can learn it from the other side of the world
Where talks like this will get you killed
It's great to see everyone from around the world learning. The internet is an awesome thing.
@@whodunnit3717 don't exaggerate so much!...
...or do you agree with Who Dunnit, Muhammad Abdullah?
...or did you already get killed maybe?
Well, that's my vacuum well and truly spanked! Enlightening and erudite; bravo! Science and humanities teachers must share this and challenge their students with the inspiration and lineage within.
Joseph Quinn 😂😁😂
Have now watched it 3 times. It's brilliant. Cram full of knowledge and ideas. And he does not play the clown.
This is most likely Laurence’s best lecture...uses the punch lines in so many other lectures, but unifies them so perfectly with evolution and modern science...and executed flawlessly. Just Like the topic of the lecture in many ways...we’ll done!
Greatest scientists of our time, well done Dr Dawkins and Dr Krauss
ZuluVegans equivalent to evangelizing bad religion, in this case it’s bad science!
@@cymoonrbacpro9426 I am not sure you understand what science is......
I like this guy. he not only gets his point across, but he's funny, too. A little humor is good. I Used to teach at an adult education school. Humor kept the students engaged and they were able to learn in a more relaxed way. The humorous anecdotes were also relevant, so while laughing, they were learning. It drove the points home at the expense of others (in the comic form of "Never do what this guy did!") The humor relaxed them, kept them engaged and made the classes interesting, not boring. My boss couldn't understand why the humor was an important part of my teaching style, but the results were obvious and spoke for themselves.
All was well, right up until he fired me because he thought I was sleeping with his wife (I wasn't and she had already left him and filed for a divorce because he was an a-hole and she was tired of dealing with the jackass). Then, after firing me for a reason that wasn't a legal reason (some irony(?) there,) he tried to file a cease and desist to prevent me from working for a competitor. Tried represent his own corporation, which is a crime (practicing law without a license) which resulted in his lawsuit for damages and the injunction against my having a job, all getting thrown out for failing to appear. He was sentenced for his crime and my counter suit was granted on grounds of no contest. His lawsuit and attempted injunction were both baseless, so no attorney would take the case. I represented myself, because I knew that his filings were baseless and in violation of all relevant laws and statutes. Even if the judge disliked me and liked him, the judge would have no choice but find in my favor, or have it go to the appellate court on grounds of failing to follow the law. But when he arrived on his own, with his brown nosing friend in tow, I knew I had him right I wanted him. I got money from the counter suit for the filing of frivolous lawsuits and harassment, he got no money, jail time and a fine. I guess, in the end, I was a bad employee..........
I only included the last paragraph, because it's funny. Karma can be a bitch! Not that I believe Karma is a real force, anymore than I believe God is real, but Karma can be sort of real when A-holes that are idiots set themselves up for a fall. Those are really the only times karma comes back around. My former boss was one of those people. Former cop, fired for incompetence and misconduct. Went on to become a PI. No one would hire him, because his first client wound up embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pension funds of a large new car dealership and used my former boss, the ex-cop, as the fall guy. He was an idiot, an a-hole, paranoid, controlling, narcissistic (after all of his obvious failure, he still believed he was better than everyone else at every thing and that he knew more than anyone about anything) and he was incapable of understanding that his failures were his own fault. When he was being taken from the court room for booking, by the bailiff, it was revealed that he was stupid enough to be wearing his sidearm in the court room, like he was still a cop. That earned him even more charges. The whole time he was yelling about how he was going to prove that there was collusion between the judge and I. That I had bribed the judge for this outcome. Didn't matter that everything he did and was trying to do was in violation of the law. By the way, he was also a "Christian." This is the mentality of some of the religious nut jobs. Too stupid to see or understand reality, so in their own minds, reality twists and bends to suit their fantastical ideas of how the world is.This mentality seems to apply to more than just creationism. My ex-boss is a perfect example of how they can be dangerous beyond just false beliefs and trying to destroy education. I think it was his intent to use firearm on me after we left the courtroom. I wound having to seize corporate assets and auction them off at his expense, to get my money. Be cause he "followed a higher law," he felt he didn't need to honor the judgments against him. He wound up losing everything, because his God wasn't as powerful as my god (I don't have one.) LOL
I find these experiences funny. I seem to derive great satisfaction when the religious nut jobs find out that their God can't protect them from the consequences of their actions. They may not believe gravity is real, but it will still kill them if they jump off a roof that is 20 floors up. Immoral behavior because it is their divine right victimize those they feel deserve it.
How appropriate watching with my 2 sons Richard and Charles...really 😃 and me Lawrence 😆 I love this stuff...thanks for the video.
I was wondering who are those people who dislike this great minds, science itself. Absolutely lost people.
"gods-believers".
AKA sad children using desperately weak and outdated excuses to argue their personally preferred imaginary friend into existence because they cannot handle not being special.
Excellent as always. I love Richard Dawkins and Lawerence Krauss. Always think after a lecture they couldn’t have fulfilled my mind and more and then other lecture comes and again I am a better person inside for hearing it. I love that the audience gave him such a great and long applause at the end. I don’t know if its because they loved it so much (which I’m sure they did) or if its a normal way the british people clap at the end of something. In America our claps are quieter, a little slower, and end much, much sooner even if we loved it. Although we do stand up for things we loved.
This is why I love this present time, i am 50yrs old and it was until I was 27 that I got a computer. Young people don’t realize that if you eer had a question about something the only resources you had was your parents who generally didn’t know the answer, wait until you got to school and asked your teacher if you remembered, or wait until the next time you went to the library and look it up in the encyclopedia and hope the answer is there. So you really didn’t expand you brain very much or continue to learn as an adult. If you were especially lucky you might have a set of encyclopedias at you house but generally people didn’t because they were very expensive and the ones you bought because of price weren’t as big as the ones in the library. However let me say that the encyclopedias at the library were pretty big books but there was only about 20, give or take, books to the set in alphabetic order. That’s all there was to generally know to know pretty much everything. That’s terrible right? So my point is, thank you internet but my world has changed since RUclips has grown. All the wonderful lectures, documentaries and everything else the is expanding my mind. I am in awe, every time i say to my self “what is that” or “i want to know more about that” and I don’t have to wait for an answer. I can look it up immediately. Young people have no idea or appreciation for what they have being born when they were. I will look up something in wikipedia and then end up clicking a link on something I don’t understand and before I now it I am 20 pages into where I started. RUclips is the best.
Thank you for uploading. Lawrence is as informative and entertaining as ever. Thank you BHA!
This was an amazing talk. I understand some things now in a much clearer way than I ever have before.
One of the best hour you can spend on RUclips. So many questions are answered and Lawrence Krauss is superb as usual. However, I don't think that you'll hear him talk about spanking much in the future.
Lmao,
Thanks for the new title to my chapter about Super Colliders.
Chapter 5.
Spank the Vacuum
;)
Subtitle : AND SPANK IT HARD
😁😂🤣🤣😃
so, in conclusion: the vacuum is not nothing.
Thank you for the wonderful lecture Lawrence Krauss
Wow! Just wow. I am impressed by so many aspects of this lecture ....
I have heard Lawrence speak before, but I must agree with Dawkins; this was perhaps the best lecture I have ever heard.
you imagine, if we had i million like prof Kraus?
Thanks for the upload!
Absolutely brilliant discussion of basic Physics and some Physical Chemistry.
The two confirms whst I had concluded early in my 75 years of life that life, due to laws of physics and chemistry; is actually force-produced by nature in our corner of the universe.
Only in our corner?
Although I got the main point, this presentation was over my head. Thank you anyway!
What a pleasure it is to be able to experience the power of light and micro organisms through the words of this presentation.
Lawrence "fucking genius" Krauss
Lawrence "Like a Bauss" Krauss
Round Krauss kick
Serengeti Lion Pfft!
I have not seen any such nonsense except from aged under 10 and also Krauss and Dorkins shill anteater dogs
their rhetoric is boring and very very shallow for low brows. punctuation or no punctuation my point stand very nicely on its own merits.
irrelevant to the complete disgusting idiocy of these shill hamster dogs
sold their souls ..bought and paid for a long time ago. their arrogance is repulsive. interesting how God has also made them physically ugly as well.
Berlinski and many other honest scholars have COMPLETELY DEBUNKED THESE FILTHY PIGS A LONG LONG TIME ago....
they are so old fashioned in they thinking and presentation
Lawrence "Gay Nerd" Krauss
So glad this is finally uploaded. Will you be including the Q&A section? My 13 year old son was lucky enough to get to ask a question of Lawrence Krauss, and we want to see it!
Oh I remember him. You were sitting up at the back, right? What was his question?
His question was about the nature of nothing - I can't remember exactly how he phrased it.
lol thanks
Great to see you expose your son to people like Lawrence Krauss. The world needs more parents like you.
Beautiful. Thanks Lawrence.
Excellent! Thank you for the download! Very informative and enjoyable.
Thanks so much for this.
I can listen to smart, enthusiastic scientists all day long.
Loved it. Funny, too.
Stellar! Come back Lawrence!
Everytime an artist make something social and intelligent it has artistic integrity. That only possible in a created universe.
Amazing lecture, watched all of it
This the funniest I've heard Lawrence Krauss. The humour is great as is the content of course
What a great narrator.
This is the first time that the laws of physic have been explained in a way that actually gave meaning!
Krauss for president of the world government!
the world coming to nothing....
I enjoyed this lecture by Lawrence Krauss. Hope to see the Q&A (if there was one) pop up somewhere on youtube as well.
it should pop up out of nothing anytime now...lol
Thank you very much for the upload.
WOW!! That really was something. Lawrence Krauss at his best I guess.
I agree Krauss at his best. However that is not saying much. William Lane Craig pissed all over Krauss and Krauss was so bum-hurt he had to edit an e-mail from Vilenkin to save face. Sad.
he is always at his best, hard to argue with such logic
His best means nothing.
He's just a word-salad-guru, earning a side-income to his book about nothing.
But maybe I'm wrong, and he does these gigs just for nothing and his book for free. I don't buy into his fairytales, but maybe I'll buying him lunch...
Thanks for this.
I was tempted by "EastEnders" here in dumbed-down U.K as a viewing alternative.
This is.....better.
Good stuff, Primus 777. Here in dumbed-down Australia we have 'Neighbours'. I'm pretty sure that repeatedly bashing my head into a wall would be more entertaining and less harmful to the brain than watching Australian commercial television.
@Culpepper Defenestrator Not really. I was referencing the lowest, least inspiring and most dumbed-down series on British TV. Sarcastic response...not big or clever, Sorry!
This is the best way to get amazed and entertained. I might cancel my Netflix subscription.
Thank YOU
I think this is spot on I think the universe is select for the most efficient universes they can otherwise everything would just run out
Thanks for the post, great stuff.
What kind of "cameraman" focuses on the speaker and never the slides?
{:-:-:}
That must be the best introduction ever given
Regarding the idea of swimming through molasses, practical tests have actually demonstrated that people swimming in molasses posted times that were very similar to their times in water. This is because...whether water, molasses, or any other fluid...the resistance the swimmer meets will moving forward is equal to the resistance the swimmer uses _to_ move forward.
2 of my favorite people together
This event took place in London on 10th February 2017
Fascinating lecture as usual, to the best of my knowledge James Clarke Maxwell did not hold or attend at Glasgow Uni.
Always a pleasure to hear L.K.
WONDERFUL! Thanks for sharing!
I am so thankful for RUclips now that I can re educate myself and even fix my car😆
I'm new to all this but I liked it.
Great shame that the screen was not level with Lawrence Krauss, and he had to look up to it all the time. Also we should have been able to see the slides alongside listening to what he was saying at the same time. Great fan of Dr. Krauss and of Dr. Dawkins, both of whom I regard as the two greatest exponents of knowledge on the world platform. Life would be so much poorer if we had not had them to beam a light for our understanding.
This was beautiful.
42:00 length doesn't care about time. The lengths are not different at the same TIME, they just are different for different observers.
god I wish I actually attended this lecture :(
Awesome. My brain hurts now, But it is a good hurt. Thanks.
Not sure what audience Prof Krauss has...but I think without a little fundemental physics knowledge, it may be hard for the audience to comprehend this marvelous presentation..🤔
Wow! What a ride! Thank you!!!
Im watching so much of LK's stuff that Ive realised that this is more or less similar to his talk two weeks earlier at Seattle Town Hall (LK Why are We Here) but he has a roomier stage to walk about on, I was waiting for him to fall off this one. Bit of a H&S heart stopper and in the UK of all places! but whilst this is for a general audience, I must recommend Lawrence Krauss - The Secret Life of Physicists at NECSS (on YT too)..It is for a more "sciency" audience so gets a tad difficult if you're not from that background but it is great to see him show off his skills and it is damned useful too. Stick with it, let it wash over you and you will forever wish you had not done that arts degree...
There is something admirable in the ideal of pursuing the truth even if its revelation is against one's deepest wishes. And what Krauss stresses here is that our scientific picture of the universe does not accord with out deepest aspirations.
His mastery of the worlds of astrophysics and particle physics is manifest throughout the talk.
He also speaks with a great deal of ironical intelligence and humor. Unfortunately however he is not shy about repeatedly insulting those who disagree with him politically or religiously. His cheap and repeated shots show his very narrow understanding of what religious devotion and observance is all about. His irrelevant political comments are a pandering to the crowd and letting off steam which have no place in a lecture of this kind.
But the weight and heart of the presentation are a very learned presentation of current scientific understanding of the development of the cosmos. This is so even though I am not sure it all makes sense to use the Darwinian idea of natural selection as principle here. There is so much not understood in our current understanding of the physical universe that it would have been wiser to focus on dark energy, dark matter, the unification of the four forces as part of their own story rather than fit everything on one principle from a very small albeit special part of the whole story.
Closing words from Richard Dawkins, might be like this:
"Spanking of the vacuum at HardOn collider (like he has said at once of the time back then).
I absolutely love these guys
These Men are true legends x
I checked the always correct Wikipedia (that was sarcasm) and it says Lawrence was born in New York. So, I am totally writing his name in on thr presidential ballot :)
First! ... (law of thermodynamics)
Looks like you can reverse entropy!
second entropy.. jeez don't have to try so hard
gold!
Good one!!!
Super speech
where are the next parts of other lectures? please upload :)
amazing, inspiring, thank you
Once I left the cave, I tried to tell my friends and family about the wonders I had seen, but they bocked at my experience and insisted on their own.
The only way to share the truth is to drag them kicking and screaming into the light.
Drag them, but only if they are voting age; otherwise, they might be happier dying with their phantasies intact. Sad but true on a case by case basis.
What exactly do you get out of it?
Some may recall the auto manufacturers' resistance to Ralph Nader's recommendations for safety features be built into cars by auto manufacturers, GM specifically complained about it raising the costs to build, etc, but with way more drastic sounding terms. But when insurers discovered how much less was the claims paid out for deaths and other more serious results of injuries in accidents, decades later there's a law to Buckle up, but do you suppose it was for the safety of people or the money made by less claims amounts paid to victims, so the insurers pushed lawmakers to make it almost mandatory to wear them, saving lives, yeah sure.
Think back to finally removing lead from gasoline, and then you can read TheNation mag article Worse Than Lead tghat was out a few months ago to do with flame retardants. www.thenation.com/authors/jamie-lincoln-kitman/
But if lead is so bad for people why then do they sell it in 3rd world countries anyway?
Sorry, hope I didn't put a damper on one of Dr Krauss great talks.
BTW I should mention that lead doesn't break down further, circulates around the atmosphere and they removed it only because it destroyed the catalytic converters that met Clean Air Act regulations, plus continued use of autos meant the pollution caused would be so much worse
Listen to the interview of the author of 'Worse Than Lead' it's chilling, this whole story.
awfradio.com/tag/worse-than-lead/
AND BIG SURPRISE IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FUCKING MONEY, KILLING US WAS SECONDARY TO THE PROFITS TO BE MADE...BOOM FLAME RETARDANTS ENTER THE PICTURE AND THEY'RE GETTING RICH WHILE WE DIE.
I don't know how any citizen can vote GOP who'd rather there be no regulations to curb these greedy bastards who run these companies.
Ah, then there's Purdue Pharmaceuticals that downplayed the addictive properties of narcotics and Drs began giving them out like candy but cut back due to the danger, but Purdue, they got rich.
"bocked" ?? balked
A tremendously entertaining lecture.
an accident we should enjoy, but an accident. Perfectly put.
Everytime he said Plato, I understood Play-Doh, lol
Your brain has been captivated by cheap commercials. Sad.
@@astat1 No, his pronunciation has problems. I havent watched a commercial for years let alone I am not watching tv for at least 10 years.
Great joke 21:07 that the audience didn't appreciate enough
What's the joke here?
The great joke is on you all?
@ابو ليث الخطيب This video response means ... just 1 thing, you understood nothing of LK said
They were too nervous.
This is a real good lecture if you want to learn, "how to recognize a gatekeeper"... Lawrence is one of the best...
finally a new video!😊
People who refuse to believe in God just don't want to let go of their sin! PERIOD! My right side and left side of my body have the same digits ....IF YOU DON'T SEE DESIGN YOU PEOPLE ARE SORRY HUMAN BEINGS. YEAH I JUST EVOLVED FROM NOTHING. THERE HAS TO BE AN INTERNAL DESIGNER! WHO HAS NO BEGINNING AND NO END.
Your keyboard is broken and you don't even know where the bible defines sin.
Another sad child of a special people fairy tale fan club.
About time I've been waiting since early february
Great lecture. Great scientist.
I'm an engineer. I took 5 years of physics. I must say that I did not grasp a lot of what Krauss said. I suspect it's a combination of me, Krauss, and the difficulty of understanding quantum effects.
The difficulty for me started with relativity and quantum mechanics from about 1905 to 1930. The discoveries involved more complex math than ever before. Even Einstein needed his math friend to do the math for him, so I don't feel so bad lol. I suspect I will never fully understand things like physicists do.
I am glad we are understanding our universe more and more via experiments and space probes. The world of tomorrow will be interesting. I wish I could peek in at 2200. I suspect it will seem miraculous to me, but because I'm trained in science, I will attribute nothing to the supernatural. I believe that Arthur C. Clarke summed it up best when he wrote: Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from magic. I'd love to see the magic that lies in our future if we don't do something stupid on the way.
Operationally (in the here and now), we kinda understand how things work.
Cosmologically (far far away, and billions upon billions year ago) we just don't.
It's speculation upon speculation. But that is politically incorrect to say, as a scientist in this age of scientifical marxism.
@@mk71b ⬅️ ignore this sad child
superb
Thank you for the cave analogy Professor Krauss. I often think about our current state of physics, as a lay person, and think that our most talented and esteemed thinkers have simply gotten stuck down a thought cul-de-sac. I think about three blind men describing an elephant they can touch. Each has a different explanation, but they are really just seeing varying aspects. As you point out, our minds can’t really understand quantum dynamics directly, so we never actually see the real world. I wonder what the real world looks like.
No.
Don't open your mind so far that your brain falls out.
@@WilbertLek Hey wilbur, if you ever feel like doing something useful, go ahead and delete your comment.
Juuuust .... Brilliant !!!
The greatest bromance ever told?
It perhaps, at some point, should be addressed that human design - that which nature is erroneously compared to - isn't all that either.
What I mean is, an engineer doesn't just pull out paper and pencil then - magically, spontaneously, instantly - draws the design of, say, a plane.
Oh, no. There are wind tunnels to test designs. There's all the mathematics of stresses and loads - to calculate that the thing won't, you know, tear itself asunder in actual operation. There's aerodynamics and fluid dynamics, which has to be just right. There are prototypes. There are test flights.
And, in some sense, you can see that human design - intelligent design - is, in fact, no more than a guided, accelerated natural selection.
If you've actually read Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", this is actually exactly how he tackles the subject - a method so well-thought-out, I felt, over those 20 years that he sat on the idea, I'm confused as to why Darwin's method of explanation is not used far more often in the modern classroom.
Anyway, Darwin starts with artificial selection. Pigeon fancying. Dog breeding. That sort of thing.
How an intelligent guiding agent - the breeder - can, through careful selection, reinforce the variations they want and avoid the variations they don't want.
And with this established - which is perfectly non-controversial, as humans have been breeding things for thousands of years - his point was that you could remove "the breeder" and see that this stuff still occurs.
If the breeder is not there to choose the pairings, then the pair themselves make that choice - sexual selection. The female preferring a strong, non-diseased, resourceful partner because, you know, such an individual will pragmatically prove most useful in any future child-rearing (quite understandably, as the lyrics of the song would have it, she "don't want no scrubs").
Her - and his - preferences take the place of "the breeder".
But, no, actually more correctly - the point I'm driving at - it's really that "the breeder" takes the place of their natural sexual selection. By forcing certain pairings and prohibiting others.
Intelligent design is still selection. That's the thing that's always there.
The plane engineer creates prototypes and constantly revises. They make one design. Ah, that bit works, but that bit doesn't. So they "breed" a new meme that's got the good bits of their first draft and drops the bad bits that didn't really work. Then they do it again. And again.
Repeatedly testing it against wind tunnels, stress testing, test flights, etc. to ensure that it all actually works - that it is, indeed, "fit" for its environment.
Gradually evolving a working design that does all the things that they need it to do.
Engineering is not supernatural magic either. Indeed, human design is just a guided, accelerated version of selection - it's artificial selection, not natural selection, but it's still selection. It's still the same underlying mechanism that results in all these things.
An intelligence just has this extra little "cheat". Where evolution is blind and has no end goal, the designer has eyes and has a goal in mind. They can greatly speed things up by using more focused and broad selection criteria - whittling it down to the "best" design far faster than letting it just slowly happen naturally.
And, you know, sometimes the designer can do this fairly quickly. Largely because they are, of course, "standing on the shoulders of Giants" and have this whole canon of science, engineering and mathematics to guide them. Humans have done this sort of thing before, so we do broadly know the process to go about doing it again for a new design.
But, also, many times the designer-led selection process is not that accelerated. The thing is, we overlook this.
We quickly forget that, for example, Apple's first go at the iPad - the Apple Newton - was a bit shit. "Generation one" of that meme didn't really work and faded into obscurity. Because, you know, nice idea but it's not really remotely good enough yet to pull it off.
But then, eventually, the technology progressed and their understanding progressed, and Apple could drop the iPad and the iPhone on the world, transforming it. And, yeah, everyone remembers the wins. But they quickly forget the losses.
Human design is not magic either. Indeed, as I'm arguing, it really is EXACTLY THE SAME PROCESS but a modicum of intelligence here and there can just greatly accelerate the process.
Thomas Edison can accelerate the process of making a useful light bulb by, you know, taking the basic idea and then just rapidly iterating over every combination of materials to find the best one.
Let's try copper. Let's try zinc. Let's try aluminium. Et cetera.
He just focused the selection process. Accelerated it. What intelligence brought to the table was an understanding that, actually, this basic idea could surely work, if only we could find out what combination of materials will do the job.
But it was just evolution by another name. Try "generation #1". Okay, that didn't work. Next! Better, but not quite there. Next! Okay, we're getting there. So maybe if we mix this with this. No, not quite. Next!
Engineers and scientists are not pulling magic out of their arse either.
Human design might look like spontaneous magic to those who don't realise the process that goes on behind-the-scenes to invent these things, but it absolutely isn't.
Musicians write plenty of shit songs. But when they hit on a good one, we all take it to heart and remember it - rapidly ignoring all the not-so-good stuff they did before and often do in-between (you know, the "album tracks" that aren't good enough to be singles, but they have some promise and a musician has to have the space to practice and learn their craft, right?).
It reminds me of an interview that the lead singer of Pulp, Jarvis Cocker, once had and likes to remark on. When they stormed the charts with "Common People", an interviewer referred to it as "an overnight success".
And his response was that, yeah, it was an "overnight success"... that was 30 years in the making.
He was a little understandably miffed that this interviewer was only looking at the successful end result, and was overlooking that, you know, he'd been in other bands. He'd learnt his craft. The band had all learnt, over time, to get that good. All those earlier songs they'd written that weren't as good - but which taught them the craft of song-writing to know how to eventually get it exactly right for that success.
Now, as a consumer going shopping, it might feel like these various trinkets of human design - the architecture of that building, the artistry of the painting, the sophistication of the engine - just magically spontaneously appeared before you.
But human architects created an awful lot of things that just fell down and looked shit beforehand.
The painter developed their skill - there was very probably a "stick man in front of a house, with curly smoke coming from a chimney, with a yellow Sun in the sky" style of kids' drawing stuck on the proverbial fridge door by their parents at some point.
And the "sophistication" of an internal combustion engine was no instant technological "magic" either.
It's still selection. It's still a process of repeated revision over "generations" of prototypes.
Intelligent design is not a different beast at all. It's just a more focused and accelerated version of natural design.
So the argument of "intelligent design" falls over, because human "intelligent design" is no waving of a magic wand either. It's the exact same mechanism underlying it all.
You're looking at the whole thing backwards.
ALL design evolves. All of it. Every last bit of it.
If some designs go further than others, then it's only because they're standing on the shoulders of the design Giants before them.
The mechanism is the same. The difference is that "intelligent design" has eyes - it can think ahead. So the human - or other intelligent agent - can focus and accelerate the process to a particular end result, by using a bit of smarts to concentrate and condense the overall process.
So, yes, look at that painting and think that it's marvellous that a human created that. But remember that that human themselves had looked at other paintings. They'd painted many things. They benefited from the science and technology of those who developed canvasses and paints and brushes before them - they were standing on the shoulders of Giants. Many artists are, of course, riding the "meme train" of whatever contemporary "art movement" is going on around them.
That painting might well be magical to behold, perhaps, but it was not created by any "the painter said, 'let there be painting' and there was a painting, and the painter saw that it was good" pulled-out-of-my-arse instant magic either.
That has never happened anywhere at any time.
Because - newsflash! - magic is not actually a thing that exists.
You are a f****** moron
@@astrobleme7099 very intelligent comment...
Smolin's idea is lent a little credence by James Gate's discovery that error correcting codes can be found in the supersymmetric equations associated with string theory. Error correcting 'codes' are found in DNA to prevent too much mutation from happening. Maybe error correcting codes are part of the fabric of the universe to control the mutations during reproduction of universes. You would not need error correcting codes if mutations were not happening at all. Error correcting codes control the rate and manner of mutations - too much and too little mutation is not good. Error correcting codes in DNA are also subject to evolution, meaning that the proper amount of error correction is selected for.
More faith is required to believe God didn't do it than to believe he did.
Thank you for admitting that your dumb GULLIBILITY is dumb, like it seems is your life mission....
"an intelligent mind can entertain the idea not fully believe it"-Frued.
Dr. Dawkins looks great! 😁
Agreed. Really happy to see him doing well. He's a treasure.
Marvellous.
A remarkable idea that lee smolin also defended
could you please fix the damn sound!!!!
funny info about cosmic rays, time dilation is the only thing that allow us detect them.
Or they would have decayed long time before our instruments could detect them.
The complexity problem, the finetuning problem? You appreciate just how large of a challenge these represent for our current cosmological model. Most are sleepwalking past these issues. I don't advocate for a designer, but by the same token it is unacceptable that the nature of the material of this universe, "atoms and the bodies they form" that their intricate and systematic structures and processes can have been generated purely by random chance creation processes. In this circumstance realizing a natural organizational principle would be more than useful in redeeming the complexity problem.
I have a lot to say about this, and had thought, or hoped that what I say above would be enough to justify a hypothetical conversation, that others might choose to entertain such a conversation. What would it take to remedy universal complexity and finetuning?
Dark Energy, a universal regenerative field. A physical energy field that exploits some physics of vacuum to regenerate itself. What that physics could be, I have not a clue, however we have our observations. And a hypothesis that assumes such an energy field possesses a physical existence is far from being an unreasonable one. So run with me here please?
Now make an assumption with me. That any form of natural energy that comes to exist in the world raises the possibility that a something else might emerge on the basis of exploiting that energy resource. That encapsulates lifes existence, nature given a natural energy potential can lead to a circumstance of Darwinian emergence, such that plants came to exploit the sun's natural available energy potential. Then plants come to be exploited by animals as a natural available energy potential. This is how nature generates complex systems, on the basis of exploiting energy potentials and accumulating small changes over large expanses of time.
In the case of this novel cosmology I propose, imagine that Baryon force fields exploit or consume the Dark Energy that propagates space, and converts it to atomic forces that are responsible for generating matters structures and processes. That Baryons evolved optimized forms and processes to efficiently exploit DE , for the same general circumstance that life evolves forms and processes to exploit energy potentials that enables it to exist.
Think about it please? The interaction between space and matter that is expressed by General Relativity is Guv = Tuv. Which can be stated as the curvature of space being equal to sum of atomic forces. A gravitational field can represent an energy gradient, an energy density contour in the Dark Energy field, that Baryons are in the business of exploiting to generate atomic forces. So fundamental forces would not be fundamental, because they have a prior cause, a prior origin that is DE converted to atomic forces.
Conventional science takes the highly ordered and systematic complexity of the universe entirely for granted. Because Big Bang cosmology can only credit the form and processes of Baryons to chance happenstance, as that is the only prospect an instantaneous creation theory can advocate for. However the types of nested complexitys and finetuning that this universe exhibits is the same types that biology examples. But for some reason it is beyond human imagination to entertain the possibility that the universe is Darwinian of nature, even while Darwinian process is the only method by which we know about that is capable of generating highly ordered complex systems. Its the only natural organizational principle we have at our disposal and yet people won't even consider it.
Will anybody comment on this please?
Very good lecture! As usual, like any presentation featuring Lawrence Krauss.
That said, I'm nit-picking over a term which I find odd and inadequate, the term "Selection". Nature doesn't "select" anything as it has no intention, as opposed to a "God" some people need so as to compensate for their human fears, ambitions or even savagery (for too many, it's essentially a subconscious justification for their Evil deeds like prejudices, trials of intentions if not mere power leverage over people given some pathologically deranged and megalomaniac individuals at the helm and such, while evoking "God's will"). IMHO, the term "selection" by itself is preposterous, while in fact these are *natural **_mechanisms_* (i.e. if you don't eat then you die), or "accidents" as Krauss puts it well.
The same thing happens with money: we talk about "economic laws" or "money laws" ; while in fact these are not "laws", but rather abstract mechanisms that Humans have invented for themselves and which they exclusively control, not "Nature": a _tool_ (and as for any tool, it should be subject to modification and adaptation, but always in order to comply with a human intention, philosophy, etc., and more fundamentally to "Natural requirements" - as abusive compliance to these pseudo "laws" can jeopardize our natural habitat - if not imposing Evil contexts forcing humans into them -, thus go against Nature which is a plan for our own doom). The problem arises when the tool becomes the sole goal, hence reversing (and corrupting) all interests when considering human beings and human endeavor - which can even put our Evolutionary pathways to a stall... In fact, such usurpation of term is well exposed when we see economical crashes or even natural disasters that these pseudo "laws" can provoke. Social Neodarwinism is of the same type of usurpation. In short, the term "selection" was "selected" by some humans so as to comply with an impression, with a trendy belief in eugenics - especially from aristocratic "patreons" funding research.
Just because something is natural doesn't mean it is "an accident". In fact all of the known laws of physics are unitary, feature conservation of information and therefore deterministic. You are creating an imaginary semantic issue with the word selection by inventing that the word inherently implies an intelligent agent is doing the selection. That is not actually a part of the word's meaning, explicitly so in discussions of evolution or physics. If you need to insist on such to make your point against religion or about us being too attached to the form of cultural constructs like our economic or social systems then you should make it some other way because redefining common use words and attacking how they are used given your new definition is not sound reasoning.
Furthermore the dividing line between natural and unnatural is also an arbitrary construct of questionable value. Humans are found in nature and so are the things they do. We are animals and many of the ways we think and behave make little to no logical sense as they were built into what we are before we were even capable of the high level hierarchical symbolic thought processes required to even figure out the things we do, think and feel often make little sense and are remnants of natural selection processes now obsolete or even detrimental in context of our modern technological civilization, and not necessarily a consciously controllable aspect of ourselves. To sum up the things you complain about are in fact a result of the natural selection processes you argue aren't even worthy of the word. You would be better off accepting and being cognizant of the natural selection processes that led to the psychology behind things such as widespread religious beliefs throught history, faith in general including in things like the prevailing economic and social constructs. Things that are bad are not necessarily "unnatural" and things that are "natural" are not necessarily good and the
I still think demons ,angels and magic are a more accurate description of reality.
Evolution did take place from prototypes both on earth and in the heavens. Saturn and Jupiter were the bosses of the heavens and its evolution, their interactions deciding what stayed and what got kicked out, according to an interesting book I read whose name I don’t recall. There was a pattern or a prototype to evolve to, that is the point missed in this lecture.