And that one cspan2s booktv more television for serious readers. Great evening. My name is steven woolfolk, director of programming and marketing at the kansas city public library. Before we get started i should mention if you have questions that you can leave those in the comments or the checkbox on the youtube page and we would get to as many as we can. If youre interested in persecuting trend that is available at most major retailers but we like to point people to shop. Org where your purchases for independent booksellers at a a time when ty need your support most. If you are a longtime follower of programming either in person or online you know that weve been heavily on the humanities. Tonight we turn our attention to the sciences obvious with every dose of the humanities on the side. Our guest is dr. Michael strevens, born and raised in new zealand he moved to the United States in 1991 earning his phd at rutgers university. Now a professor at New York University his book the knowledge machine how irrationality created modern science is i think critically important at a time when distrust of science is on the rise. The book begins with a simple question with a not at all simple answer. Why did it take 2000 years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics for Human Society using science to learn the secrets of the universe . The answer as it turns out might also help us better understand why we should have more faith in the Scientific Community. Doctor strengthens, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks very much. It great to see you. I will talk a little bit about this book, and about what im setting out to do with it. So i wrote this book to answer to back the questions have had about science. One of those questions is simply, how is it that science is so successful . It reveals to us the secrets of the universe, it tells us how strings and molecules can create life. Taken some of us to the moon [inaudible] much better. What is it that science what is sciences lifeline to the truth to all of this knowledge . A typical answer to this question and i think one that is on the right track is that the story has something to do with evidence. Theres something that looking out into the world and gathering evidence that makes sites very powerful. You might summarize it like this. We give a theory only if it actually agrees with what we see out there in the world. We give it could only if it agrees with what we see out in the world. But i think the story about evidence cant be the entire explanation. And heres why. These words were first written in fact, by aristotle, a greek philosopher first writing about 2000 years ago. Aristotle thought it was important. Yet aristotle did not invent science. For all of those marvelous discoveries and technologies we had to wait another two millennia. So something is going on in modern science. Certainly looking at the evidence perhaps that wasnt around in aristotle time. Thats what motivated me to post these questions. One is a more specific question about the success of signs. What is it modern science is doing with the evidence that makes it so successful and so much more successful than ancient greek philosophy . And why did it take so long to figure how to do it that way . My inspiration for this comes as a philosopher of science, from an idea which i think is beautiful and deep and also a little bit wrong. And in my book i take that idea to give it a week, i change it into something that i think really does turn out to answer both of these questions. The idea i begin with is due to probably the most famous philosopher of science, thomas kuhn who wrote in the middle of the last century his most famous book is called the structure of scientific revolutions, publish in 1962. Its in this book that kuhn laid out his view of scientific progress as the three of what he called paradigm shift. His idea was that any particular time of Certain Branch say astronomy or some part of physics or biology is right according to a kind of a plan, really worldview to which attached his paradigm. And when that are great changes in our scientific thinking about the world, what is happening is one of these paradigm shifts, so, for example, in the 17th century astronomical verdun in which the replaced by by the orbit the earth in which the climate the sun or at the beginning of 20th century newtons paradigm in which gravity is a force exerted by mass directly on of the masses which was replaced by einstein spare diet in which math actually twist the structure of spacetime. It was important to kuhn that they paradigm is not just big and exciting, that in a certain more profound and almost totalitarian sense, it rules the scientists mind so the scientists as it were in some sense stuck in the paradigm. They cant think outside it. Thats a good thing, according to kuhn. How could that be . How could it be that a certain kind of narrowness, the refusal to counter or an inability to imagine the possibilities could be a good thing, could promote scientific progress . Well here is how kuhn answered. Paradigm is full of promise, full of promises. Its a recipe for finding the answer to any question within the parent and scope come question mark astronomy or an astronomical paradigm come in question mark gravity with the right kind of paradigm in physics. Most of the time normally what is called normal size come sitespecific applying this recipe. But because the scientists convinced that the current paradigm is correct, they think this is the recipe, the only recipe and its the one and only recipe that if they follow it will give them a full and satisfying picture of the world. So far though that sounds a a little more dangerous than it does promising. Why should this be a good thing . Heres what kuhn said in his book. What the paradigm does is by focusing the scientists on just a few things of the paradigms says are critically important. The few problems the paradigm says lets investigate very carefully, very extensively. I just couldnt read his words. Forces scientist to this get some part of nature and a detail and depth would otherwise be unimaginable. Certainly it is not unimaginable or unattainable. What is he thinking . I will take you on a very brief tour of a few scientific experiments which would give you a sense of kind of detail and depth that kuhn thinks is essential to science and that without the scientists can admit to a paradigm would never be built, carried out. Heres one that was in the news come has been in the news recently, was successful just a few years ago and one its creators the nobel prize. It detects Gravitational Waves. This is one small part rather one large part of the experiment which consist now at several different complexes like this. Those long, straight structures you can see have to detect, ty can be so straight so that they can detect tiny movements created by Gravitational Waves that are a fraction of the size of a proton. It took 50 years to build these things in a way that would vitally fix many reverses along the way, the threat of losing funding, long runs of experiments that produced no results. But the scientists stuck with it for those 50 years and finally got their result. This is the focus that kuhn thinks is necessary to make enormous scientific progress to turn up the details that really matter. But take a very different much more personal but still incredibly gruelingcientific enterprise. This is the iand is a tiny islet in t class because ivins pickets about half a mile across. Two biologists have been going this island eve summer for the last 40 years. Its about as they been tracking populations of cinches, the fams cinches in the Galapago Darwin used and in his thinng about evolution. Thve been following this populations tracking every single bird. At requires quite some commitmentne of their many interesting discories, perhaps the most exciting of all is observing the creation o entirely new species tough hybridization. The paper that estlish from this was a news piece published not to be years ago probably about 40 years after they first arted going there. Again, focused on detail and depth, producing aeally beautiful and exciting piece of evidence that i spect neither you nor i could really imagine doing the work to carry out. One more. This is a molecular structure of a releasing hormone, a hormone in the brain whose structure was finally discovered in 1969 as a result of a race actually between two next scientists to discover the structure, the greatest obstacle was not some complicated figure room question or difficult calculations, but simply producing enough of the substance to actually do the appropriate experiments. Really the most imptant factor in this project was spending as he says, anntire year question of, in this case, takes brains and distilling iome just to oduce a few millimeters of the substance for analysis. That is the kind of fus that science requires. Thats the kd of detail that allows us to really make progress in ience. Its something that human beings in their normal happy state are normally unlikely to think. Kuhn thinks plaintiff the progress is possible because nevertheless, they do do it. The reason they do is because they are incorrectly as it usually turns out utterly convinced that their paradigm is correct, the recipes cant fail. They pushed that recipe so hard, they apply to everything. They try to squeeze out every last drop of truth, and i doing that they discover its soue. They crushed the life out of it and thatsow i paradigm is destroyed, creating the need for a new paradigm and, therere, ultimately triggering a paradigm shift. Thats a mvelous story. Its a story where the real secret of science is that something intellectual or logil. Its not some kind of a high moral tenet. Its the kind of institution, and institution of successive paradigms whose most important effect is simply to provide the kind of motivatio motivation is all. I said its a beautiful story, and so we have to ask, was kuhn right . Its eential to kuhn picture that scientist are convinced come really convinced that is correct or the wouldnt wouldnt have confidence in it to bck out all the alteatives and just chase this one way of doi things. Many historians and sociologist and since kuhn although theyre been hugely influenced by him have ended up being very skeptical that scientists really are so linked. Changing the conditions of what counts as scess in order to outfox. So theres a paradigm that everyone accepts as though its holy scripture, these scientists are rather rewriting thescripture to suit themselves, to promote their own ambitions. But heret looks like its the scientist who changed, not the paradigm. It seems the team does not have what most needed just kind of an unthinking commitment to the paradigm. Love this story so much i wanted to point somethinout about it and i think whats right about it is the idea that science is a very the kill yr institution devoted to making scientists. To perform experimts, to dig up facts, to conduct measurements that have are so expensive, so timeconsuming, that they simply wouldot do these things in any other circumstances in the conte of any other institution. Its a motivational techlogy and its what drives scientists to discover these facts that are ultimately responsible for progress so let me tell y a littlebit about how we think that works. I think we should think of the rules of science not as something that scientists unblinkingly believe, not Something Like a religious dogma but rather like rules to the game. Scientists want toplay the game so they agree to abide by the rules. The most important rule is this rule. Its the evidence rule. It says that evidence will be critical and only empirical evidence counts. That is the absolute kernel of science. So in so far there is such a thing as a Scientific Method, what counts as an empirical standard or proposing what empirical evidence is and it says all scientific arguments must be conducted in terms of the results ofempirical tests so it prohibits any other kind of arment. In particular it prohibs for example philosophical arguments, arguments based on dubious theories, ill say a bit more aboutthis. Those like that is actually a very wide open, its not the only paradigm. It allowfor a lot of disagreement. It doesnt tell scientists how to interpret t evidence they produce, and in fact they disagree a lot on how to interpret the evidence. But it does create a certain kind of access, everyone agrees, all scientists agree that every argument they have is to be resolved by conducting some experiments or making some correlation and they agree which claims of experiments. So this means they have kind of consensus on what counts as moves in the game and how to go along. And the reason that this rule is so important even though it doesnt say much is that it has these functions. First of all, it simply binds scientists together in a single argument they agree on how to go to it. Secondly, it fits them against one another, their theories against their rivals theories to find out the truth in a way that means evidence is continually generated and in fact because evidence is the only way to win an argument, to win an argument you have to find me small fact that your theory accommodates better than your rivals. So it gives you this motivation to invest into detail and depth. So its not the scientists are addicted to one kind of recipe, remaining recipe is out there. Are all to certain recipes that have that puppet of putting scientists together deep into the details. Deeper than any normal person might care to go. And the result is the progress of science and ultimately the convergence on truth that we see around us. Many scientists think a great pile of evidence, not just a very detailed thorough deep evidence. Okay. While i have a few minutes left, thats just asell because i promised to swer not just the question of what science is relation to the evidence is such that it should be a successful, little to the question of why it was so late, why was it that aristotle clearly saw the importance of positive observation and forming observations and evaluating various biology and thoughts and Everything Else you write about. The answer is that he thought empirical evidence cannot, he didnt think that only empirical evidence counts. He thoughtphilosophy to was extremely important. Ip forward to take out, writing 2000 years later wring as a philosopher, not a scientist even though he wrote extensively about physics. Why is he not a ientist, because he sensed that empiricalevidence is not the onlything that counts. For figuring out the truth. In his great philosophical system in fact he acknowledg ultimately depending on the knowledge of god. Hes a great rationalist and he mixed together his theology and his philosophy and his physics into one beautiful unified package. Anits too beautiful and its too unified, it distracts them as aristotle was distracted byhis philosophy , from the empirical evidence so he doesnt go to sleep. Let me look at one more thinker, this figure is undeniably a modern scientist. Mary go mad whose one of the inventors of the ock and here is the young man telling us that empirical evidence isnt the only thing that counts. Here he saying that duty and simplicity and elegance are also very important in deciding on the correct argument. Wait a minute, i might be contradicting myself at only empirical evidence counts yet heres a physict who like aristotle or descartes is saying athletic thinking counts as well. Why wasnt your man distracted looking the empirical evence. The answer is that gilman however much the may have personally beauty was important and as many think is impornt but nevertheless playing the science game and another process, in his book the egant theater, [inaudible] ill just read his words, aehetic judgments not arbitrate discourse, aesthetic judgments ly count, a man can prai beauty, use duty as inspiratn but when he goes to publish papers putting forward foexample. , he is literally forbidden from in both invoking beauty as a reason to his theory, all hes allowed to do is cite empirical evidence to for example pointing new productions or at ast show that they conform to what we already know about the particles of which the universe is made. So the game forces n however he thinks his private life , forces every modern science ton the end make their case with empirical evidence and at means they or the experimenters. [inaudible] has to do with what he rightly thought was so essential to modern thought which is getting out the details. An upshot of this and this gets me to my explanation of why science is so right is that the rules of scientific argument say only empirical evidence counts are thickly being irrational. What they see as suddenly should look that way are practicing scientists and indeed. Heres a basic principle of rational armaments at every location will agree on. At we reading about something important you should take into account all relevant consideration. All relevant considerations are not so extenve thatthey can count. Someone like gilman thin that the beauty of the theory is something that is highly relevant. Furthermore, its easily available and its judgments come easily. Anyet, by anticipating in a me of bread argument, that is not allowed in his arment for his arguments to invoke beauty. So in other words the game and joins him public argument to violate this rationality. And in fact as i said, theres an inclusiveness to this rational narrative artists may not appeal to the other factors no matter how important theythink they are because the most focus on the evidence. So for modern science to be creative, for this crucial feature of science to be discovered, or to the written down and acted upon, the human must somehow stumble on the fact that irrationally narrow rule works very well that took a long time. I have much more to say about this in my book the knowledge machine. I have many more illustrations of the things i said about science. Many more historical stories about the way in which the what i call and irrationally narrow rule was finally hit upon. I hope ive interested you enough that youll go andread the book, thank you very much. Thank you very much. If anybody wants to ask questions they can put those in the chat box orthe comments. If you have time for maybe five or six , but i want to start with this. If ive done a lot of things interesting in the book but one of the things early on that surprised me and for whatever reason i thought our great is that he have. You can disprove any number of scientific theories but of the ones that remain it is not possible to assign likelihood to one orthe other. Can you talk a little bit about where that came from and where its gone . What i think in the views that you mentioned is the view that the philosopher carl, i dont think his view is entirely correct. Its something thats an important part of the texture of science. Mainly views about the likelihood that theories that have yet been disproven but they have wildly different views. So theres a huge amount of disagreement about these. I think opera would run rather h