THINKING CAPS ON!
Prof. Brian Cox has a suggestion or two for anyone who denies science
BBC Earth Canada is now BBC Earth in Canada, adding a tiny word to its name. With the new name comes new programming. August is going to be spaced out.
Every Thursday, the broadcaster is showing back-to-back programs hosted by former pop pianist-turned-presenter and podcaster (The Infinite Monkey Cage) Prof. Brian Cox. The University of Manchester particle physicist’s deep dives into the world of evidence-based wonders includes such award-winning series as Human Universe, Wonders of the Universe and Wonders of the Solar System.
One of those special scientists who can take some of the most complex concepts and make it manageable for most of the us, Cox is a tireless advocate for science in society and also keeping ideas grounded in reality.
It’s earned him both Order of the British Empire and Fellow of the Royal Society honours for his “substantial contributions” to scientific knowledge.
That Cox makes expanding understanding of the world around — and far beyond — us so entertaining is certainly a bonus. On Aug. 19, BBC Earth in Canada will offer an entire day of Cox’s programs to tie in with the arrival of the New Moon.
As he notes in Human Universe, his motivations come from his understanding of the world and humanity: “To me … the idea that a civilization might destroy itself is both ludicrous and likely. We are pathetically inadequate at long-term planning, idiotically primitive in our destructive urges and pathologically incapable of simply getting along.”
Q You appear to be able to explain almost anything using particle physics in your programs. Can you fit the present pandemic into that format?
A Other than at a fundamental level, where you might claim that everything is made up of quarks and electrons, no. Life, as it happens, is more complex than particle physics. But we recently had Nobel Prize-winner and geneticist Paul Nurse on the Monkey Cage talking about his book What is Life? and we debated for a long time about whether viruses are alive or not — because they can’t reproduce, which is one of the basic definitions of life. They need to co-opt a host to reproduce and we are well aware how that is going along.
Q Is there something particularly unique about the New Moon coming this month?
A It’s just one of those beautiful events that come around every now and again and give us a wonderful reason to have a science focus and observe. The point I make in Human Universe, which is my favourite program to date, is that — given what we know — we could very likely be the only intelligent civilization in our galaxy able to observe such occurrences. That’s potentially incredibly valuable when you imagine that across the Milky Way Galaxy with, perhaps, 400 billion star systems, there might be only one place where things think. If there is only one place where atoms can co-operate to allow thought, then it means that there is only one place in the galaxy where meaning exists.
Q But with the launch of the Mars Rover, aren’t we looking to see if life began somewhere else?
A Possibly, because the conditions there were very similar to Earth some 3.5 billion years ago, which could have lead to the development of the chemical reactions that lead to the creation of something as complex as a basic cell. But it took three billion years on Earth before those cells started to co-operate together and you got multicellular life. That’s almost impossible to imagine occurring here or anywhere else.
Q Given your quote from Human Universe about humanity’s destructive urges, might we benefit from adopting more of that cellular co-operation in our daily lives and existence?
A Can you imagine that this is the only place where this has happened and we’ve thrown it away? Not because of a spot of bad luck like a supernova or a giant comet hitting us, but because we can’t find a way of getting along with each other. That’s 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution, four billion years of planetary evolution and we can’t save it. It’s profoundly disturbing.
Q Is science the way to save the planet?
A I think that Carl Sagan’s Cosmos is the greatest science documentary ever made in how he argued that the perspective that science brings is vitally important to everything. Imagine if more world leaders kept that in mind instead of going “we listened to the science but decided to do this instead.” Imagine if you replaced science in that phrase with what it is, our best understanding of the world and nature at this time, and substituted it into the sentence. Because “we looked at our best understanding of the world and nature at this time, but decided to go against it anyways” sounds ridiculous.
If there is only one place where atoms can co-operate to allow thought, then it means that there is only one place in the galaxy where meaning exists.