Checkbox on the youtube page. Well get to as any as we can. If youre interested in purchasing the knowledge machine is available at most major retailers but we like to point people to bookshop. Org. And it will support independent booksellers at the time when they need the most quite a long time all of our, either in person or online, you know we lean heavily on this. But tonight we turn our attention but the heavy dose of humanities. Our guest is doctor michael. Born and raised he moved to the United States 91. Now a professor at new york university, his book the knowledge machine however irrationality created modern bias i thank you so critically important in a time when just trust in defiance is on the rise. The book begins with a simple question with an audit also blizzard. What its a 2000 years after the invention of philosophy mathematics for humans to start even size to learn the secrets of the universe. And the answer as it turns out might also help us to better understand why we should have more faith in the scientific community. Thank you very much for joining us doctor. Thank you. This great to be here. And i will talk to a little bit about this stuff. About what i am sitting out to do. I wrote this book to answer two Big Questions that i had about science. One of those questions wasnt simply how did the scientist be so successful. And reveal to us the secrets of the universe and the telescope the molecules can create life. And taken some of us to the moon. And then back here on earth, vibes can be much better. What is it that the science lifeline to the truth and to all of this knowledge. Theres an answer to this question one certainly in the right track is that story has something to do with evidence. Together evidence. It might make it very possible. There is a theory only if it actually agrees with what we see out there in the world. We do have that credit only if it agrees with what we see the world. But i think the story but evidence cant be the entire explanation. And heres why. His words were first written by aristotle. Greek philosopher. He first wrote about 2000 years ago. He thought it was very important. Yet he did not invent science. For all those Incredible Technologies in science. We have to wait another two millennia. So something is going on in science. And certainly a look at the evidence that was not around at his time. This what motivated me to poses questions. In one is more specific question about the success of science. What is it about Water Sciences making and so much more successful than ancient weeks philosophy really. And what does it take so long to figure out how to do with that way. My inspiration for this comes as a philosopher of science. From an idea which i think is beautiful and also a little bit wrong in my book i think that i dear and i give it a twist bring to change it a little bit into something that i think there really does turn out to answer this question. The idea that a begin with this probably the most famous philosophers of science, toms consumers in the middle of the last century, and is famous book of the structure of the science revolution published in 1962. And in this book, he laid out his view of scientific progress is a series of what he calls paradigm shift. His idea was any particular time and science say economy or some kind of physics or analogy read its run according to a kind of a plan. Relate to worldview. To initiate hatches is to this paradigm. There are great changes in our scientific thinking about the world. What is happened is one of these paradigm shifts. For example, the 17th century. The economical or nine, it was replaced by competitive paradigms. Im sorry, or at the beginning of the 20th century nuisance paradigm which gravity is a force exerted by mass directly on other masses. A nice size paradigm in which mass actually twists structures. Its very important that the paradigm, not just big and exciting. And its certainly more profound than almost totalitarian. It rules the scientists minded. So as it were in some sense, stuck in the paradigm. They can pick it up. That is a good thing according to him. So how could that be. How can it be that a certain kind of narrative that the refusal or inability to imagine other possibilities to be a good thing. It promotes scientific progress. Well the paradigm is full of promise. The promises. The opposite is the recipe to pose the answer to any question within the paradigm. It were astronomy or an astronomical paradigm work gravity. And so forth. And most of the time, normally in normal science, applying this recipe. And because the scientists are convinced that the current paradigm is correct, they think that this is the only recipe. As the one and only recipe if they follow it, will give them a full and satisfying picture of the world. And so far it sounds a little bit more dangerous. And why should this be a good thing. Heres a quote. When the paradigm does is by focusing the science on just a few things that the paradigm said is the truth. A few problems that it says it lifts the investigator, very carefully and extensively. Im just going to read his words. To investigate some kind of nature into detail and depth thats the unimaginable far it is certainly not at a manageable. But and unattainable party and a legend a very brief tour. A few scientific experiences that will give you a sense of the kind of detail and depth than he thinks is essential to science. In that without the scientist limits from the paradigms, would never be built or carried out. Heres one that has been in the news recently greeted the successful a few years ago and it won the nobel prize. To detect gravitational waves. It consists now several different complexes like this. And those long straight structures that you can see have to detect. They can be so straight that they can detect tiny movements created by gravitational waves. There are a fraction size of a proton. And it took 50 years to build these things in a way that would finally with any reversals along the way they could use something long runs of experiments that produce no results. But the scientists stuck with it for more than 50 years and finally got the results. This the kind of focus that they thank you so necessary to make enormous progress to turn out the details that really matter. The doesnt get much more personal the so incredibly grueling scientific enterprises. This is a tiny island, about half a mile across. Two people have been going to this island every summer for the last 40 years. Theyve been tracking populations, he was thinking about evolution. Literally tracking every single birth. That requires quite some commitment. One of their any interesting discoveries, is observing the creation of an entirely new species through hybridization. The, it was established, it is published on too any years ago. It probably about 40 years after restarting going therapeutic and a focus on the details and depth. Producing a really beautiful and exciting piece of evidence. Neither you nor i could really imagine doing the work to carry it out. One more. His structure of releasing hormone in the brain. And finally discovered in 1969. As a result between two scientists, to discover that the greatest obstacle was not some complicated series of questions or difficult calculation. The simply producing enough substance to actually do the appropriate experiment. Then sally said, there really that the most important thing was as he says here, entire year crushing up in this case, the brains just to produce a few little substances for analysis. That is the kind of focus that science requires. The kind of detail that allows us to make progress. It didnt is something that normal happy state. Very unlikely think of doing. Now they think that scientific progress is possible because nevertheless, they do it because they are incorrectly as it usually turns out, utterly convinced that the paradigm was correct with the present pretty of science cannot. In the percent recipe so hard. They applied to everything. They try to squeeze out every last drop of truth and doing that, they discover its flaws in the crush the life out of it. Then sally paradigm is creating and need for a new paradigm and ultimately triggering a paradigm shift. This is the noblest story. The story where the real secret of science is not something intellectual or logical. It is not sign kind of a high moral care. It is a kind of institution of paradigms is most important effects is simply to provide a kind of motivation read and send it was a beautiful story. But the paradigm changes. Nc sensual to pick sure that scientists are not convinced really convinced thats correct so they wouldnt have the confidence to walk or pluck out all of the alternatives and just cases one way of thinking. Any scientists and sociologists are working, they choose to be influence and ended up being very skeptical the scientists really are here is a bunch of those very extensive very complicated stories. We want to break this and find evidence against the current wisdom the current paradigm. These scientists are not convinced by the recipe. Rather than modify the way how goes wrong. This certainly not what he predicted. Or in the much smaller scale target in the thing that this ideology of science too much they tell us, he was one of the discoveries of the brain that i was talking about moments ago, the wide extraction. You dont need to look at this too closely but he finds a place with the scientists in effect, off changing the conditions of the recipe, broadcast with the success in order to outsource their competitors. So instead of the paradigm that everybody accepts, the scientists are rather rewriting the script themselves to promote their own ambition. So here it looks like its the scientist in charge of the paradigm. And it seems then the truth does not have what he most needed which is the kind of unthinking commitment to the paradigm. I love the story so much. I think what is right about it is the idea that science is a very peculiar motivation to perform the experiences to dig up to conduct the measurements. So time consuming. That they simply would not do these things in any other circumstances in the context of any other institution. It is a motivational technology. And its what drives scientists to encumber these faxes ultimately responsible for progress. So let me tell you about how that works. Thank you so you think about the rules of science, that is it something that scientists unthinkingly do. Or Something Like but rather like the rules of the game. They want to play the game. Thats what agreed to and abide by the rules. The most important roles in this role. The evidence role. Only empirical evidence counts. And that is at the absolute core. It is so theres such a thing as this method, what it does is the least town extended an empirical test that tells you what the text is and then it says that all scientific arguments must be conducted in terms of the results. So prohibits anything else. In particular prohibits for example philosophical arguments. Based on the beauty series. Ill take a little bit more about this. Okay. A rule like that is actually very wide open. It allows for a lot of disagreements. It does not tell scientists how to interpret the evidence that it produced. In fact they disagree a lot on how to interpret the evidence. But it does create a consensus, everybody agrees that every argument they have can be resolved by conducting some kind of experimented making some observation. And they agree which kind of been observations and experiments to do. So this means that kind of have a consensus on what counts to move the game and how to go on. And the reason that this role is so important even though it doesnt say much is that it has a function. And first of all, simply it lines them up in a single argument because they agree and second, some against each other. Or simply playing to find out the truth. In a way that means evidence to continually generate and in fact, the evidence is the only way to win an argument. You have to find some small fact that accommodates better than your rivals. Its really getting this motivation motivation to investigate and make sure it includes detail and depth. So some of the scientists who are addicted to 100 recipe. There are any recipes out there. They are all recipes that have that property pushing scientists to go deep into the detail. Deeper than any normal person might go. The result is progress in science. No ultimately the conclusion of truth that we see around that