1 00:00:33,941 --> 00:00:36,601 Oldest known cliché that, isn't it? 2 00:00:37,163 --> 00:00:40,796 Light dawns and the darkness is swept away. 3 00:00:41,119 --> 00:00:46,502 Maybe that is why all great scientific discoveries are always described as a kind of mystical, 4 00:00:46,740 --> 00:00:48,621 light-dawning experience. 5 00:00:49,071 --> 00:00:54,762 Einstein is supposed to have thought of relativity in a dream he had about riding on a beam of light. 6 00:00:55,350 --> 00:01:01,023 When Darwin's theory of evolution hit him, he said, “the scales fell from my eyes”. 7 00:01:01,265 --> 00:01:06,558 Gutenberg described the idea of the printing press as “coming like a beam of light” 8 00:01:06,835 --> 00:01:12,612 Kekulé was daydreaming on a London bus when he “saw” atoms forming into molecules, 9 00:01:12,698 --> 00:01:19,270 and Newton said he got the idea of gravitational theory from a falling apple. And so on. 10 00:01:19,599 --> 00:01:25,324 All flashes of insight, so to speak. Great moments of discovery. 11 00:01:30,184 --> 00:01:36,273 That is what is supposed to separate the geniuses from the rest of us slobs, that mystical experience, isn't it? 12 00:01:37,033 --> 00:01:43,259 And throughout history, each time it has happened, the condition of mankind has changed for the better in some way, 13 00:01:43,260 --> 00:01:46,321 as we took one more step on the road to understanding. 14 00:01:46,892 --> 00:01:52,617 And, with each of those steps, each addition to the body of knowledge, as you have seen in this series, 15 00:01:52,686 --> 00:01:57,650 our view of everything, of the universe and our place in it, has also changed. 16 00:01:58,307 --> 00:02:01,888 As the knowledge changed, we did. 17 00:02:02,700 --> 00:02:05,329 And if you look back, as we have, to the world of the past, 18 00:02:05,433 --> 00:02:10,639 we have come a tremendous way to our extraordinary high-tech world, full of innovation, 19 00:02:10,829 --> 00:02:15,707 of computers and laser beams and genetic engineering and artificial hearts, 20 00:02:16,156 --> 00:02:17,592 and, above all, 21 00:02:18,768 --> 00:02:20,913 of fantastic power. 22 00:02:29,456 --> 00:02:33,936 A thousand years ago, life was ruled by the mysterious and magical powers of nature, 23 00:02:34,316 --> 00:02:38,899 then, with the fall of Spain to the Crusaders and the new knowledge they discovered there, 24 00:02:39,211 --> 00:02:45,437 the first, hesitant steps were taken that would bring us to science and the exploration of the universe. 25 00:02:48,706 --> 00:02:53,376 In 1400, the Earth lay uncharted, some even said it was flat. 26 00:02:54,275 --> 00:02:59,464 To the south lay regions of fire and to the west an endless ocean from which nobody ever returned. 27 00:03:00,069 --> 00:03:06,728 And then, in Florence, perspective geometry was rediscovered and the world changed shape. 28 00:03:07,144 --> 00:03:11,814 Scale drawing gave people the ability to control objects at a distance, 29 00:03:11,815 --> 00:03:13,578 because now they could measure them accurately. 30 00:03:13,854 --> 00:03:19,562 And that new ability laid down a scale for the universe that freed us to explore the unknown. 31 00:03:20,149 --> 00:03:24,543 Now we could give any spot, anywhere a set of coordinates, it was no longer unknown. 32 00:03:25,303 --> 00:03:30,717 This spacecraft can only go into Earth orbit and return safely because of those coordinates, 33 00:03:30,890 --> 00:03:35,456 because we can now grid the planets and the sky. 34 00:03:42,599 --> 00:03:48,255 In the 15th century, the invention of printing took our memories away and gave us all standardised knowledge. 35 00:03:48,428 --> 00:03:51,195 Thanks to print, we have the know-how to fashion any thing we want 36 00:03:51,507 --> 00:03:54,222 and we live in a world of specialisation and expertise 37 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:58,857 where technology can make spaceships from a million interchangeable parts. 38 00:04:01,763 --> 00:04:05,482 Before the 16th century, we thought the sky was made of crystal spheres, 39 00:04:05,603 --> 00:04:08,630 that things moved up there because they somehow wanted to. 40 00:04:09,010 --> 00:04:12,469 Now, we write the equations that make the heavens work. 41 00:04:13,767 --> 00:04:20,512 Where, once we spoke of celestial beings and heavenly movers, we now talk about dynamics and trajectories. 42 00:04:21,169 --> 00:04:24,888 With those abilities, we can turn every aspect of nature into numbers. 43 00:04:25,234 --> 00:04:29,091 And then use those numbers to predict what will happen next, with great precision. 44 00:04:29,627 --> 00:04:32,740 Here, in this Mission Control operations room for instance, 45 00:04:32,947 --> 00:04:39,485 they can send a 75 ton space shuttle into a 200 mile high orbit, accurate to within inches. 46 00:04:48,167 --> 00:04:52,993 Until 250 years ago, we relied on the forces of nature as a source of power. 47 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:54,584 Then, with the steam engine, 48 00:04:54,601 --> 00:04:58,355 came the ability to build and operate the most powerful machines in history 49 00:04:58,510 --> 00:05:02,333 that, today, take us off the planet, out into space. 50 00:05:05,930 --> 00:05:10,548 Two hundred years ago, modern medicine began. Today, we can monitor life 51 00:05:10,549 --> 00:05:14,301 even as it circles the Earth at 17,000 miles an hour. 52 00:05:20,009 --> 00:05:23,312 And, at the beginning of this century, we found the tools to investigate 53 00:05:23,313 --> 00:05:28,380 the fundamental structure of the universe. Sub-atomic physics brought nuclear energy, 54 00:05:28,449 --> 00:05:34,399 it unravelled the secret of life. And, through electronics, it has made knowledge more accessible 55 00:05:34,519 --> 00:05:37,754 than it has ever been before, by putting it on a microchip. 56 00:05:38,169 --> 00:05:44,015 Thanks to science, it would appear, the way ahead lies only one way. Onward and upward. 57 00:06:35,402 --> 00:06:41,023 And yet, at any time in the past, people somehow managed without the benefit of spacecraft. 58 00:06:41,093 --> 00:06:47,025 With a knowledge of everything that was, to us, incomplete, wrong. But it was, to them, true. 59 00:06:49,411 --> 00:06:53,701 They lived in worlds that were as certain of their facts as we are of ours. 60 00:06:53,770 --> 00:06:57,298 And that led them to do things that we would regard as totally alien. 61 00:06:57,471 --> 00:06:59,270 Like the event you are about to witness. 62 00:06:59,271 --> 00:07:04,372 You will understand every word about to be spoken by the people who lived only 300 years ago. 63 00:07:05,359 --> 00:07:11,205 But their truth was so different from ours that, although you will understand the words, 64 00:07:11,412 --> 00:07:15,096 they won't make sense. Woman, stand up. 65 00:07:17,103 --> 00:07:22,603 Beginning with the fact that decent, God-fearing people, have spent days torturing this woman. 66 00:07:24,904 --> 00:07:29,505 Now tell me Agnes. Do you know John Bell of Newtown? 67 00:07:31,131 --> 00:07:32,273 Aye, Sir. 68 00:07:33,310 --> 00:07:38,292 Are you friendly to him? Nay, Sir. Why are you not friendly to John Bell? 69 00:07:41,335 --> 00:07:44,967 I do not recall just why now, we fell out. 70 00:07:45,071 --> 00:07:49,481 And Janet Clark, did you have hot words with her? 71 00:07:50,277 --> 00:07:51,730 Aye, Sir. I did. 72 00:07:52,598 --> 00:07:57,077 Does John Bell have many cattle, Agnes? 73 00:07:58,288 --> 00:08:03,442 He does, Sir. A good many. But not as many as before? 74 00:08:03,615 --> 00:08:04,774 They took sick. 75 00:08:06,365 --> 00:08:12,367 That be after your falling out, Agnes? Seven years ago. 76 00:08:14,494 --> 00:08:19,735 Maybe, Sir, may I sit down? And Janet Clark's horse, 77 00:08:21,914 --> 00:08:25,858 did that also die of a sickness? Aye, Sir. 78 00:08:27,109 --> 00:08:31,398 That be four years ago, soon after you had the hot words with her 79 00:08:35,230 --> 00:08:41,387 Did you not refuse to see the horse? But, Sir, I do not have cures for horses. 80 00:08:41,525 --> 00:08:46,229 But you did not cure John Bell's cattle? He is a thief. Oh, so it's true then, you threatened him? 81 00:08:46,368 --> 00:08:50,726 No. You threatened Janet Clark. I did not threaten. But the animals took sick, woman. 82 00:08:51,777 --> 00:08:54,087 Did they not take sick and die? 83 00:08:54,378 --> 00:09:00,825 Aye, aye. They did. Aye. 84 00:09:09,695 --> 00:09:12,683 Woman, I hear you spin well. 85 00:09:14,095 --> 00:09:16,821 Did the neighbours take thatch from your roof? 86 00:09:16,945 --> 00:09:21,428 It was Janet Clark took my thatch. And was not clay found in your hearth? 87 00:09:21,567 --> 00:09:23,379 So they say. 88 00:09:25,109 --> 00:09:34,103 Why is it that you spin so well? How do you explain your skill? I cannot say, I cannot say. 89 00:09:36,468 --> 00:09:40,079 Did you once meet a man at the lower bridge? 90 00:09:41,576 --> 00:09:46,515 WOMAN ! I said, did you once meet a man near the lower bridge? 91 00:09:46,612 --> 00:09:53,350 Sir, I do not remember. But you were seen! Annie Cuthbertson saw you with a man in grey. 92 00:09:54,776 --> 00:09:58,802 Did you go with him? It was a long time ago. I said “did you go with him?” 93 00:10:04,240 --> 00:10:05,139 Aye, maybe. 94 00:10:10,466 --> 00:10:12,486 And you met him many times? 95 00:10:13,248 --> 00:10:15,309 Also by the round barn? 96 00:10:15,310 --> 00:10:20,595 Oh, it was but a few times I went with him. I know who he was, woman. Annie Cuthbertson saw him. 97 00:10:27,015 --> 00:10:27,624 So, 98 00:10:30,225 --> 00:10:32,079 we must find the mark. 99 00:10:32,990 --> 00:10:38,801 Aye, we must find the mark. 100 00:10:46,715 --> 00:10:49,565 The witnesses to this burning of a woman alive 101 00:10:49,689 --> 00:10:55,168 are not going to see what you will see. For them, the witch is grateful for what they do. 102 00:11:15,174 --> 00:11:17,747 In the reality of 17th century Scotland, 103 00:11:17,748 --> 00:11:23,198 this was an entirely logical and rational thing to do, to torture and burn a witch, 104 00:11:23,291 --> 00:11:28,237 in order to save her soul. This, for them, was an act of mercy. 105 00:11:33,997 --> 00:11:39,012 But if you are feeling good about the fact that we in the modern scientific world have a more objective, 106 00:11:39,081 --> 00:11:44,339 clear-sighted view of things than people who believed in witches or any other weird version of 107 00:11:44,442 --> 00:11:49,700 what the universe was all about people had the past, that they were in the dark compared with us, 108 00:11:50,097 --> 00:11:53,435 well if that is being in the dark, so are we. 109 00:11:53,747 --> 00:11:59,523 Let me show you how everybody sees their own witches, has their own structure for what reality is, 110 00:11:59,782 --> 00:12:05,265 and whatever you come up against, you make it fit that structure. Let me show you the simple stuff first. 111 00:12:05,749 --> 00:12:06,579 Look: 112 00:12:07,175 --> 00:12:12,456 See these two white bars, this one longer than the other? Well, it's not, they are the same. 113 00:12:13,781 --> 00:12:19,592 You made it longer, because your brain decided it was further away. And look at this. 114 00:12:20,025 --> 00:12:26,995 It's a face, except it isn't. It is hollow. But hollow faces don't exist in your brain, 115 00:12:27,306 --> 00:12:31,906 so you can't see it hollow. You make it fit your theory of what it should be. 116 00:12:33,014 --> 00:12:39,585 Same here. Two triangles, three white dots. But you take away the dots 117 00:12:41,333 --> 00:12:45,795 and the top triangle disappears. Your brain made that triangle. 118 00:12:46,461 --> 00:12:50,888 You alter reality to make it fit what you have decided it should be. 119 00:12:51,181 --> 00:12:55,609 And, once you have made that decision, it is impossible to compromise with. 120 00:12:56,871 --> 00:13:01,368 Is this a duck? Or a rabbit? You see how it can't be both? 121 00:13:03,460 --> 00:13:10,586 Is this a young lady or an old hag? Here is the young lady’s neck, chin, cheek and eye looking away from you. 122 00:13:10,881 --> 00:13:16,570 Or, here is the two eyes of the old hag and her great big nose and nostrils and a gash of a mouth. 123 00:13:17,781 --> 00:13:25,062 Now try seeing them both together. You can't, can you? There can only be one hypothesis that fits. 124 00:13:26,567 --> 00:13:30,458 Sometimes that hypothesis is so strong, you will see something that is not there. 125 00:13:31,150 --> 00:13:34,004 What, for instance, do you make of this? 126 00:13:49,086 --> 00:13:54,084 Are you seeing moving people with lights on them? Because what is on the screen is just a lot of dots. 127 00:13:55,174 --> 00:14:00,068 Or this, you only see the dog because you already know the shape. 128 00:14:01,711 --> 00:14:06,692 Without a structure, a theory for what is there, you don't see anything. 129 00:14:06,778 --> 00:14:13,540 Take this meaningless pattern. Or, a cow. See it? 130 00:14:15,961 --> 00:14:20,959 You have to have some version of reality, whether it contains spotted dogs or cows, 131 00:14:21,201 --> 00:14:25,836 or women that should be burnt. And science is the same. 132 00:14:25,940 --> 00:14:30,593 Without hypotheses, preconceptions about the world, how could you begin to research? 133 00:14:30,921 --> 00:14:35,366 Without theories about things, nature is just chaos. 134 00:14:38,150 --> 00:14:41,644 For things to make sense you have to make up your mind about them in advance, 135 00:14:41,764 --> 00:14:47,731 otherwise you don't know where you are. Know what this is? It is a river delta from the air. 136 00:14:49,028 --> 00:14:55,081 And this? It's the next place we are going to in the programme. 137 00:14:59,162 --> 00:15:01,272 The mental structure I was talking about, 138 00:15:01,273 --> 00:15:04,385 that has already made your mind up about what you are looking at now, 139 00:15:04,592 --> 00:15:06,806 and without which you wouldn't recognise anything, 140 00:15:07,083 --> 00:15:13,205 works at a far deeper level than just seeing. It provides a framework everything fits into. 141 00:15:18,099 --> 00:15:23,080 The structure evaluates, explains, organises 142 00:15:23,443 --> 00:15:28,994 every experience you have, intellectual or physical. It says what the whole of reality is. 143 00:15:29,651 --> 00:15:35,238 It provides your beliefs, judgements, morals, ethics, values. 144 00:15:35,670 --> 00:15:40,011 And it also provides a rulebook for the kind of questions you ask about the world, 145 00:15:40,236 --> 00:15:43,903 because it gives you the theory about how things are supposed to work. 146 00:15:44,837 --> 00:15:49,679 I want to show you what I mean by that, by showing you how the structure controls 147 00:15:49,851 --> 00:15:54,694 how science, in particular, progresses, because science is supposed to be, in some way, 148 00:15:54,745 --> 00:16:00,522 independent of these things, isn't it ? Objective, seeking and discovering the truth. 149 00:16:00,972 --> 00:16:06,593 But, as you will see, the truth is what the structure says it is. There is progress, change, 150 00:16:06,921 --> 00:16:11,400 but that is because the rules of the structure control investigation at every level 151 00:16:11,695 --> 00:16:14,756 until you get down to a bit of detail the structure can't handle. 152 00:16:15,171 --> 00:16:19,339 The bit of detail I am going to get to the end of all this, that bit. 153 00:16:19,736 --> 00:16:20,964 Remember that. 154 00:16:23,231 --> 00:16:27,485 In particular, remember those lines running parallel to each other. 155 00:16:29,681 --> 00:16:33,417 So, the mental structure operates at every stage to control what you do. 156 00:16:33,642 --> 00:16:37,274 At the overall level, for instance, it tells you what the universe is. 157 00:16:39,020 --> 00:16:43,672 A good example of that originated here in Greece. Aristotle thought it up. 158 00:16:44,070 --> 00:16:49,241 And it seemed such commonsense that it ruled all questioning for 2000 years. 159 00:16:49,794 --> 00:16:54,827 His structure of the universe was like this. A series of concentric spheres carrying the Sun, 160 00:16:54,828 --> 00:16:59,271 the Moon, the planets, and the stars, all circling round the Earth at the centre. 161 00:16:59,876 --> 00:17:02,955 You remember that mediaeval idea of the Sun going around the Earth? 162 00:17:03,197 --> 00:17:06,621 Well, the Church that promoted that idea lived in this. 163 00:17:07,486 --> 00:17:13,211 Now, you will note that this structure is complete, closed, unchanging. 164 00:17:13,781 --> 00:17:19,453 In a universe like that, astronomers only watched the sky in order to refine this model 165 00:17:19,868 --> 00:17:23,604 as accurately as possible. And nothing else. 166 00:17:30,850 --> 00:17:37,388 Sometimes, when the universe isn't static like this one was, but changing, you can investigate it. 167 00:17:39,982 --> 00:17:45,724 But the investigation is still controlled by the way you think the universe you are living in, changes. 168 00:17:46,416 --> 00:17:49,235 And the kind of thing you question in your investigation, 169 00:17:49,373 --> 00:17:53,714 depends on what you think the mechanism of change, actually does. 170 00:17:54,509 --> 00:18:00,355 Take the case of the 18th century financial idea that the economic market found a natural balance 171 00:18:00,356 --> 00:18:05,319 between supply and demand and therefore the whole universe should be in balance. 172 00:18:05,737 --> 00:18:11,445 Gave us this stuff. Because when a German called Liebig went looking for balance in plant growth 173 00:18:11,670 --> 00:18:15,821 and found that plants get their carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere, 174 00:18:16,962 --> 00:18:19,643 he burnt all the vegetation he could find. 175 00:18:20,974 --> 00:18:25,851 Then, he looked at the ash to see what it was the plants needed they weren't getting from the air, 176 00:18:26,301 --> 00:18:29,380 which was minerals, to balance their natural acidity. 177 00:18:30,123 --> 00:18:36,297 “Put the right minerals in the ground”, he said, “and you will boost crop yield without exhausting the soil. 178 00:18:36,833 --> 00:18:40,846 And because of the stuff in the air, you will never upset the balance”. 179 00:18:41,088 --> 00:18:45,861 Saved the 18th century from starvation. With artificial fertiliser. 180 00:18:46,570 --> 00:18:49,804 Thanks to a structure that said “everything balanced”. 181 00:19:01,063 --> 00:19:06,822 Whole areas of investigation can be off-limits when it looks as if the results might contradict the accepted view. 182 00:19:07,290 --> 00:19:09,676 Science can't rock any boats. 183 00:19:10,748 --> 00:19:15,747 I used the boat-rocking image deliberately, because, when Galileo's troubles started 184 00:19:15,816 --> 00:19:21,004 down south, with the Vatican, was when he was playing around with ‘why things floated’. 185 00:19:21,644 --> 00:19:26,071 It all began, with ice floating in ponds, or in bowls, 186 00:19:26,278 --> 00:19:28,613 and after various experiments, 187 00:19:28,855 --> 00:19:33,559 Galileo came up with the not exactly earth-shattering idea that floating had to do with things being 188 00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:36,188 lighter than water, or not. 189 00:19:37,036 --> 00:19:39,544 Lighter, the object would float. 190 00:19:41,342 --> 00:19:43,262 Not, it wouldn't. 191 00:19:45,372 --> 00:19:48,485 Harmless enough remark, you would think. Uh huh. 192 00:19:49,038 --> 00:19:53,552 Aristotle had said that floating depended on whether or not the shape of the object 193 00:19:53,553 --> 00:19:56,630 penetrated the surface of the water. Like this. 194 00:19:57,773 --> 00:20:03,255 Same material, two different shapes: Round, penetrating the surface, 195 00:20:04,344 --> 00:20:08,633 goes to the bottom. Flat, not penetrating, 196 00:20:10,016 --> 00:20:12,783 stays afloat just like flat ice. 197 00:20:14,028 --> 00:20:17,764 Well, Galileo sank that idea as easily as I can, like this. 198 00:20:18,438 --> 00:20:20,479 You can't do that to ice. 199 00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:29,645 Okay, so Aristotle was wrong. What was so terrible about that? 200 00:20:30,285 --> 00:20:36,183 Well, you will recall that the accepted view at the time was the way Aristotle’s cosmic structure 201 00:20:36,460 --> 00:20:43,136 included the idea that everything in the universe had a proper place in the grand scheme of things. 202 00:20:43,171 --> 00:20:48,290 So, if you doubted one bit of Aristotle, like what he said about floating, 203 00:20:48,531 --> 00:20:51,973 and you doubted all of him, because his was a package deal. 204 00:20:52,821 --> 00:20:57,023 Now, the proper place in the grand scheme of things for the powers that be, 205 00:20:57,214 --> 00:21:02,454 was, for the powers that were, at the top of the heap and there could be no doubt about that. 206 00:21:02,747 --> 00:21:08,316 Well you get the point. Science came north for safety. Galileo's ideas were, so to speak, 207 00:21:08,472 --> 00:21:12,502 put on ice, and he, himself, under house arrest. 208 00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:22,359 Experimentation, itself, depends on what is official and what is not. 209 00:21:24,676 --> 00:21:27,668 Take, for instance, this example of nothing. 210 00:21:29,449 --> 00:21:31,629 The vacuum, in a barometer. 211 00:21:32,562 --> 00:21:37,024 In 1660, somebody had claimed to have discovered it. 212 00:21:37,232 --> 00:21:42,472 A “hole in reality” they would have called it. Aristotle, of course, said that it didn't exist, 213 00:21:42,662 --> 00:21:45,498 that he universe didn't have holes. 214 00:21:45,827 --> 00:21:50,410 So, when an aristocrat English scientist called Robert Boyle started going through hoops 215 00:21:50,411 --> 00:21:53,852 to prove that the vacuum did exist, as advertised, 216 00:21:54,181 --> 00:21:58,193 you would think, like Galileo, that the inevitable trouble with you-know-who, 217 00:21:58,418 --> 00:22:01,012 would have turned out to be quite a shattering experience. 218 00:22:06,650 --> 00:22:10,922 But, the English Church supported a monarchy and it needed a vacuum. 219 00:22:11,396 --> 00:22:14,939 A hole in reality was a place for angels and souls to go to. 220 00:22:15,165 --> 00:22:22,599 If it existed, they did. If they did, so did God, and his authority, which was represented on Earth 221 00:22:22,746 --> 00:22:24,403 by the Church and the King. 222 00:22:26,251 --> 00:22:31,955 So it was a case of ‘long live the vacuum’. Not surprising that the first barometer was English, hmm? 223 00:22:34,550 --> 00:22:39,814 So, your view of the world dictates what to do down through every level of investigation, 224 00:22:39,902 --> 00:22:46,808 even down to the point where, during your research, it controls what you take to be reliable evidence. 225 00:22:47,481 --> 00:22:53,273 Around 1912, in England, fossil fragments were found, the brown bits, 226 00:22:53,684 --> 00:22:59,373 that went together in a reconstruction like this. Stained from ages in the ground, 227 00:22:59,579 --> 00:23:06,221 a human skull in an ape face. Several bits were missing, the jaw joints, and the chin, among them. 228 00:23:06,822 --> 00:23:11,895 The teeth were worn the way human teeth get worn, and nearby, were found flint tools 229 00:23:12,159 --> 00:23:13,963 and prehistoric animal bones. 230 00:23:15,340 --> 00:23:17,730 ‘Dawn Man’, they called this. 231 00:23:18,727 --> 00:23:24,006 Now I'll do it again: Around 1912 somebody faked this lot, the stain was chemicals, 232 00:23:24,285 --> 00:23:26,367 the teeth were filed down, so were the flint tools, 233 00:23:26,543 --> 00:23:29,358 and the prehistoric animal bones had been collected from all over Africa. 234 00:23:29,694 --> 00:23:35,809 And the missing bits, the jaw joint, and chin would have revealed that the skull 235 00:23:36,146 --> 00:23:39,401 and the jaw didn't belong together. 236 00:23:40,076 --> 00:23:41,073 A con. 237 00:23:42,642 --> 00:23:46,543 But for 40 years, Piltdown Man was a scientific fact, 238 00:23:46,967 --> 00:23:53,023 because science was expecting to find the missing link between ape and man, with a developed brain. 239 00:23:54,753 --> 00:23:58,154 This was such a clincher, the evidence wasn't questioned. 240 00:23:58,829 --> 00:24:04,827 But in 18th century pre-revolutionary France, the evidence for this was. 241 00:24:06,425 --> 00:24:11,337 See, peasants would tell scientists about “these here stones falling from the sky”. 242 00:24:11,762 --> 00:24:14,020 And the scientists would make this French sign. 243 00:24:15,296 --> 00:24:19,372 Science hadn't seen them, they didn't exist. As for the evidence of peasants. 244 00:24:21,190 --> 00:24:26,336 Came the revolution with the peasants in charge, suddenly their rustic references became 245 00:24:26,439 --> 00:24:33,419 vital astrophysical data. By 1803, there was a book on meteorites, by a scientist of course. 246 00:24:34,065 --> 00:24:36,205 Just as well for science, otherwise 247 00:24:36,484 --> 00:24:40,897 what would they have made of this big hole I at the bottom of, here in the Arizona desert? 248 00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,548 It's called “Meteor Crater”. 249 00:24:53,652 --> 00:24:59,723 So, you see how the structure, the view of things at the time, controls what science does at every level. 250 00:24:59,914 --> 00:25:05,588 From the cosmic questions about the whole universe, to what bits of that universe are worth investigating, 251 00:25:05,939 --> 00:25:12,450 to how far you let the questions take you, what experiments to do, what evidence you can and can't accept. 252 00:25:12,758 --> 00:25:16,702 And, down at that detailed level, the control still operates, 253 00:25:16,937 --> 00:25:21,057 because it even tells you what instruments you should use. 254 00:25:28,095 --> 00:25:31,966 And, of course, at this stage, you are looking for data to prove your theory, 255 00:25:32,127 --> 00:25:37,596 so you design the kind of instruments to find the kind of data you reckon you are going to find. 256 00:25:40,381 --> 00:25:43,988 The whole argument comes full circle when you get the raw data itself. 257 00:25:45,411 --> 00:25:49,385 Because it isn't raw data, it is what you planned to find from the start. 258 00:25:50,162 --> 00:25:54,825 This instrument, for instance, will find only one thing, how many inches across my forehead, 259 00:25:55,015 --> 00:25:59,341 between my ears, and so on. It's a 19th century craniological calliper. 260 00:25:59,620 --> 00:26:05,250 And it was built because they already decided that skull size and intelligence were related. 261 00:26:05,500 --> 00:26:10,045 For them, inches, the raw data, were brain power. 262 00:26:10,456 --> 00:26:13,492 That's when the myth of clever people having big heads started. 263 00:26:13,946 --> 00:26:20,237 Now, there is only one fly in all this ointment, and you have already guessed it. “What about bigheads that are stupid?” 264 00:26:20,838 --> 00:26:26,762 That's where the whole system can lead to its own destruction, when some detail doesn't fit. 265 00:26:28,536 --> 00:26:31,557 That's when you see science hanging on like grim death 266 00:26:31,558 --> 00:26:35,897 to stop the rug being pulled out from under years of happy status quo. 267 00:26:39,108 --> 00:26:42,378 That's why I am on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. 268 00:26:42,657 --> 00:26:47,613 You see, back in 1912, the accepted view of the planet was, that while 269 00:26:47,759 --> 00:26:50,736 geological ups and downs were okay throughout history, 270 00:26:50,985 --> 00:26:54,592 everything on Earth was in the same basic position as it had always been. 271 00:26:55,105 --> 00:26:59,094 And then a weatherman called Wegener said “I've been thinking, 272 00:26:59,372 --> 00:27:02,422 umm, look how well South America and Africa fit. 273 00:27:03,052 --> 00:27:08,096 And isn't it funny how they have the same fossil animals up to a certain date, and then different animals? 274 00:27:08,581 --> 00:27:14,886 And these Scandinavian mountains, they are the same as the ones in Scotland and in North America. 275 00:27:16,528 --> 00:27:20,751 Maybe everything was all joined up once and then drifted apart. Hmm?” 276 00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:26,059 Well, by the time the geologists finished with Wegener there was nothing left but the feathers. 277 00:27:26,264 --> 00:27:31,322 The continents don't fit exactly. The animals could have crossed over on temporary land bridges, 278 00:27:31,527 --> 00:27:37,949 and anyway, continents drifting in solid rock? Do us a favour! So, for 40 years, 279 00:27:38,178 --> 00:27:43,692 Wegener was a dirty word. Then in the 1950s the magnetometer was invented. 280 00:27:44,147 --> 00:27:49,220 It identifies magnetic fields. Now, the Earth has got one, in fact it is like a giant magnet, 281 00:27:49,308 --> 00:27:53,590 and rocks have traces of the Earth's magnetic field in them. 282 00:27:57,035 --> 00:28:03,751 As the magnetic field in the rock turns with it, you can see the needle reacting to the north/south variations in the field. 283 00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:11,098 Only, if you looked at a rock sample drilled from the Earth, 284 00:28:11,377 --> 00:28:14,602 with the oldest rocks at the bottom and the youngest rocks at the top, 285 00:28:14,940 --> 00:28:19,706 about every 200,000 years, the rock’s magnetic field would reverse. 286 00:28:19,838 --> 00:28:23,181 First this way, then this way, then this way, then this way, and so. 287 00:28:23,606 --> 00:28:27,595 Now, since the rocks got their magnetism from the Earth's magnetic field 288 00:28:27,596 --> 00:28:32,581 when they cooled and formed in the first place, that meant that the Earth's magnetic field was reversing, 289 00:28:32,582 --> 00:28:36,701 about five times every million years. Now, remember that for a minute. 290 00:28:37,346 --> 00:28:43,681 In the 1960s, oceanographers discovered these: 10,000 ft. high ridges running down the seabed like that. 291 00:28:44,018 --> 00:28:51,174 Volcanic. Hot. And to everybody's surprise, the ocean floor around them was very young, as rocks go. 292 00:28:51,262 --> 00:28:56,921 It looked as if molten rock was coming up at these ridges and spreading out on either side and hardening all the time. 293 00:28:57,859 --> 00:29:03,959 Now, one way to check was the magnetic state: if new rock was being made all the time parallel to those ridges, 294 00:29:03,987 --> 00:29:08,797 it should pick up those reversing magnetic fields I have just mentioned, in strips. 295 00:29:13,562 --> 00:29:18,239 Trouble was, as they moved around the ocean, all the magnetic mapping they were doing 296 00:29:18,547 --> 00:29:19,705 looked like this. 297 00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:25,439 Here is the average seabed magnetically, just a jumble. And then, right in mid-ocean, 298 00:29:25,850 --> 00:29:30,601 they found these, giant strips of ocean floor on either side of the ridge. 299 00:29:30,733 --> 00:29:34,208 Each strip magnetically opposite to the one before. 300 00:29:35,924 --> 00:29:40,396 You remember those mysterious lines I showed you in Greece? This was the survey area 301 00:29:42,272 --> 00:29:44,047 that revealed the mid-ocean strips. 302 00:29:44,502 --> 00:29:47,933 The second they saw these, they knew that Wegener had been right. 303 00:29:48,064 --> 00:29:53,035 The ridge volcanoes were making new ocean floor, and as that spread, it pushed the continents apart. 304 00:29:53,225 --> 00:29:56,466 Gradually, they arrived at where they are today, like this. 305 00:30:04,163 --> 00:30:07,638 As the ocean floor came up and pushed out and hit against the continents, 306 00:30:07,843 --> 00:30:12,081 it would be forced back down again and the pressure where that happened would cause earthquakes. 307 00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:18,122 That's why this is an earthquake zone, for instance. And that is why I am on an oil rig. 308 00:30:18,518 --> 00:30:24,354 As the continents drift, and the seabed moves, formations buckle and form cavities that fill with oil. 309 00:30:24,765 --> 00:30:28,240 A detailed continental drift map will tell us where to look for more oil, 310 00:30:28,577 --> 00:30:32,903 in a planet that is totally not what science said it was before Wegener. 311 00:30:33,182 --> 00:30:38,490 Today's version of the truth about the world: irreconcilable with the previous version. 312 00:30:41,700 --> 00:30:46,847 So, you see how the only structure in the shifting, changing face of nature 313 00:30:47,140 --> 00:30:54,134 is the one we impose on it with our theories. Each one, the latest version of what we call the truth. 314 00:30:58,870 --> 00:31:02,345 New structures, new versions of how the world works, 315 00:31:02,404 --> 00:31:06,803 only appear because of some bit of detail the old version couldn't accommodate, 316 00:31:07,008 --> 00:31:08,885 that causes everything to change. 317 00:31:11,363 --> 00:31:17,037 In spite of what science would have us believe, that kind of switch doesn't happen because of science 318 00:31:17,110 --> 00:31:20,160 steadily and purposefully heading towards the truth, 319 00:31:20,526 --> 00:31:25,908 with one discovery somehow following another along the way, as part of some grand plan. 320 00:31:26,509 --> 00:31:30,204 As you have seen, each structure in the past worked perfectly well. 321 00:31:30,409 --> 00:31:32,564 That's what the truth was, for a while. 322 00:31:32,975 --> 00:31:38,268 And as for ‘one discovery following another along the way’, what way? Going where? 323 00:31:42,550 --> 00:31:49,309 The so-called ‘voyage of discovery’ has, as often as not, made landfall for reasons little to do with the search for knowledge. 324 00:31:49,852 --> 00:31:52,697 Science, like all other human activities, 325 00:31:52,917 --> 00:31:56,377 is a product of what society at the time thinks is important. 326 00:31:56,787 --> 00:32:01,200 What science has done in the last few hundred years has been directed by the fact. 327 00:32:03,283 --> 00:32:08,752 Earlier on, in the Middle Ages, the whole structure of western experimental science happened 328 00:32:08,884 --> 00:32:13,811 almost unintentionally. At the time, science would have had no purpose, 329 00:32:13,885 --> 00:32:19,046 the Church said ‘the world around wasn't worth studying’. So, the new logic from Arab Spain 330 00:32:19,252 --> 00:32:24,120 was used to check holy writing for errors of faith, to strengthen belief. 331 00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:30,292 And it was looking at light with that end in mind that led one monk to discover how the Sun 332 00:32:30,454 --> 00:32:36,583 made rainbows. Experimentally. Using glass balls and logic 333 00:32:53,945 --> 00:32:56,657 There are other ways of looking at the universe. 334 00:32:56,818 --> 00:33:02,155 Take just one that started at the same time as our Greek way did, 2500 years ago. 335 00:33:02,390 --> 00:33:05,997 But that, unlike our way, doesn't change the world. 336 00:33:09,839 --> 00:33:13,328 And yet in some ways, Buddhism does just what science does. 337 00:33:13,461 --> 00:33:17,523 It explains how the universe works, and comforts you when it seems to fail, 338 00:33:17,684 --> 00:33:20,411 and is an integral part of everyday life. 339 00:33:29,428 --> 00:33:34,545 Buddhism gives the Nepalese a set of values and rules of conduct for every aspect of their life. 340 00:33:35,044 --> 00:33:39,692 The images and temples are constant reminders of their explanation of the universe, 341 00:33:39,839 --> 00:33:42,552 and where you fit in the overall scheme. 342 00:33:47,728 --> 00:33:52,581 The explanation doesn't change because it is built around a view of life as a recurring cycle, 343 00:33:52,904 --> 00:33:57,024 like the cycle of the seasons bringing birth and rebirth every year. 344 00:33:57,405 --> 00:34:03,343 As in nature, there is no end because, at the moment of death, the life force returns to the universe 345 00:34:03,344 --> 00:34:05,733 to be used again in a different form. 346 00:34:07,068 --> 00:34:10,235 A kind of ‘conservation of energy’, we would say. 347 00:34:17,816 --> 00:34:23,373 And, as the returning seasons remind the believers of the continuity of the universe as they see it, 348 00:34:23,769 --> 00:34:28,755 so too do all the instruments that keep them in daily contact with that universe. 349 00:34:29,078 --> 00:34:32,392 The opportunity to be in touch with the cosmos through prayer, 350 00:34:32,656 --> 00:34:37,422 driven upwards from the prayer wheels that are found in every corner of their lives, 351 00:34:37,685 --> 00:34:43,125 to be turned at every opportunity. A source of comfort, giving a sense of purpose to existence. 352 00:34:43,462 --> 00:34:46,410 As science aims to do for us. 353 00:35:04,416 --> 00:35:10,208 Buddhism, like science, explains the universe to its believers through the use of symbols. 354 00:35:20,457 --> 00:35:24,108 Where we invent laws of pressure and thermodynamics and gravity 355 00:35:24,109 --> 00:35:27,862 to account for the different ways in which the universe shows itself in action, 356 00:35:28,492 --> 00:35:35,061 Buddhism puts it all in the care of gods and subgods, each responsible for a different aspect of existence, 357 00:35:35,193 --> 00:35:40,530 each explaining to the believer why that bit of existence does what it does. 358 00:35:58,082 --> 00:36:02,349 And, in every community, like an encyclopaedia of knowledge available to all, 359 00:36:02,656 --> 00:36:06,659 the Stupa monument, a complete summary of the view, 360 00:36:06,908 --> 00:36:09,767 as well as a guide to its ultimate aim of understanding. 361 00:36:11,044 --> 00:36:15,237 Each of these levels represents one of the thirteen stages of knowledge 362 00:36:15,457 --> 00:36:20,222 that lead to comprehension and enlightenment. To nirvana. 363 00:36:30,121 --> 00:36:35,047 In the monastery schools every community has, the basics are taught by repetition. 364 00:36:35,311 --> 00:36:40,883 Nature is subdivided, classified, named. As Einstein taught us, 365 00:36:41,147 --> 00:36:45,355 these monks teach their pupils, that everything in life is relative, 366 00:36:45,459 --> 00:36:52,336 that there is no absolute reality in anything you observe because it changes as you observe it, and so to you. 367 00:36:52,980 --> 00:36:57,584 As with us, some students who remember enough of the 84,000 sayings of Buddha, 368 00:36:57,790 --> 00:37:03,405 pass tough exams and graduate to advanced study. They become monks. 369 00:37:09,257 --> 00:37:13,611 At this level, Buddhism takes on some of the same aspects as western science. 370 00:37:13,831 --> 00:37:18,362 Progress depends on expressing yourself in the specialist vocabulary of the discipline. 371 00:37:19,227 --> 00:37:23,450 The ceremonies act as exercises in recalling an explanation of the universe that, 372 00:37:23,626 --> 00:37:27,306 in its own way, is as complete as that of science. 373 00:37:34,387 --> 00:37:40,604 Ultimately, this view of the universe is different from ours, because it turns away from the world. 374 00:37:40,853 --> 00:37:44,944 Believing that to investigate the constantly changing forms of everyday existence 375 00:37:45,002 --> 00:37:46,586 can only bring confusion. 376 00:37:47,290 --> 00:37:52,612 High in the Himalayas, the Buddhist view leads you to the understanding of the temporary nature of life, 377 00:37:52,863 --> 00:37:56,455 and that enlightenment can only come by leaving it behind. 378 00:38:22,481 --> 00:38:27,510 The final step in the expression of this view of the world, lies in the practice of meditation. 379 00:38:27,628 --> 00:38:31,367 Used to put the believer into direct contact with the universe itself, 380 00:38:31,528 --> 00:38:37,379 and to bring understanding that the only permanent reality is to be found not in the parts of existence, 381 00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:39,255 but in the whole. 382 00:38:56,294 --> 00:39:01,572 To become a true priest, meditation lasts three years, three months, and three days, 383 00:39:01,792 --> 00:39:06,323 16 hours a day, and leads to total denial of self. 384 00:39:24,548 --> 00:39:29,724 This view of the universe then, is no view. That is, there is nothing to see. 385 00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:34,035 There is no truth, only emptiness. 386 00:39:55,970 --> 00:40:01,923 I'm not saying that we should all give-up the life support science and technology that our rationalist way 387 00:40:01,924 --> 00:40:05,721 of doing things has given us, and come here to the foot of Everest, 388 00:40:06,278 --> 00:40:13,756 reject the world and meditate. Just that, non-scientific views of the world, like this, 389 00:40:14,019 --> 00:40:15,779 aren’t necessarily ignorant. 390 00:40:16,498 --> 00:40:20,955 In their own way, they explain the universe as completely as science does. 391 00:40:21,308 --> 00:40:26,733 And as you have seen from this series, all that science gives us, is what their belief gives them: 392 00:40:27,187 --> 00:40:31,835 certainty. Only ours changes all the time, theirs doesn't. 393 00:40:33,639 --> 00:40:39,416 As for the permanent values that are supposed to remain unchanged in spite of our changing knowledge, 394 00:40:39,812 --> 00:40:45,809 well they change too. Once it was good to burn women, wrong to claim the Earth went round the Sun, 395 00:40:46,308 --> 00:40:52,965 logical to argue about angels on the head of a pin. The values change every time the universe changes. 396 00:40:53,434 --> 00:40:56,249 And that is every time we redefine a big enough bit of it, 397 00:40:56,762 --> 00:41:02,510 which we do all the time through the process of discovery that isn't discovery, just the invention 398 00:41:02,935 --> 00:41:05,120 of another version of how things are. 399 00:41:07,130 --> 00:41:14,417 And yet, in spite of that, we still go on believing that today's version of things is the only right one. 400 00:41:15,370 --> 00:41:20,092 Because, as you have learned from this series, we can only handle one way of seeing things at a time. 401 00:41:20,429 --> 00:41:23,025 We have never had systems that would let us do more than that. 402 00:41:23,406 --> 00:41:26,866 So we have always had to have conformity with the current view. 403 00:41:27,424 --> 00:41:32,468 Disagree with the Church and you were punished as a heretic, with the political system; 404 00:41:32,615 --> 00:41:39,639 as a revolutionary, with the scientific establishment; as a charlatan, with the educational system; as a failure. 405 00:41:40,108 --> 00:41:43,113 If you didn't fit the mould, you were rejected. 406 00:41:48,349 --> 00:41:55,417 But, ironically, the latest product of that way of doing things is a new instrument, 407 00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:58,965 a new system that, while it could make conformity more 408 00:41:59,214 --> 00:42:02,455 rigid, more totalitarian than ever before in history, 409 00:42:04,229 --> 00:42:06,179 could also blow everything wide open. 410 00:42:06,501 --> 00:42:13,862 Because, with it, we could operate on the basis that values and standards and ethics and facts and truth 411 00:42:14,184 --> 00:42:20,431 all depend on what your view of the world is and that there may be as many views of that as there are people. 412 00:42:21,515 --> 00:42:27,190 And with this capable of keeping a tally on those millions of opinions voiced electronically, 413 00:42:28,553 --> 00:42:33,011 we might be able to lift the limitations of conforming to any centralised, 414 00:42:33,143 --> 00:42:34,726 representational form of government, 415 00:42:34,961 --> 00:42:38,509 originally invented because there was no way for everybody's voice to be heard. 416 00:42:39,345 --> 00:42:44,506 You might be able to give everybody unhindered, untested access to knowledge, 417 00:42:44,784 --> 00:42:49,799 because a computer would do the day-to-day work for which we once qualified the select few 418 00:42:50,195 --> 00:42:55,033 in an educational system originally designed for a world where only the few could be taught. 419 00:42:55,708 --> 00:43:01,323 You might end the regimentation of people living and working in vast, unmanageable cities, 420 00:43:01,645 --> 00:43:07,686 uniting them, instead, in an electronic community, where the Himalayas and Manhattan 421 00:43:08,214 --> 00:43:09,945 were only a split second apart. 422 00:43:11,498 --> 00:43:17,334 You might, with that, and much more, break the mould that has held us back since the beginning, 423 00:43:17,964 --> 00:43:21,366 in a future world that we would describe as “balanced anarchy” 424 00:43:22,173 --> 00:43:31,278 and they will describe as an open society, tolerant of every view, aware that there is no single, privileged way of doing things. 425 00:43:31,601 --> 00:43:36,058 Above all, able to do away with the greatest tragedy of our era, 426 00:43:36,132 --> 00:43:40,868 the centuries old waste of human talent that we couldn't or wouldn't use. 427 00:43:41,704 --> 00:43:43,581 Utopia? Why? 428 00:43:44,329 --> 00:43:49,123 If, as I have said all along, the universe is at any time, what you say it is, 429 00:43:49,725 --> 00:43:51,191 then say.