Fighting the normal
In May, American-Canadian cosmologist and author Lawrence Krauss will appear in Auckland alongside UK biologist Richard Dawkins in a science-plus-atheism double-act. He spoke with Adam Dudding.
Q: Your accomplishments are many – world-leading research into particle physics and cosmology, major prizes for science and science communication, campaigns to defend the teaching of evolution in US schools, bestselling books including 1995’s The Physics of Star Trek – but my favourite is your Grammy award for best liner notes for a CD of music from Star Trek. Did you even know there was such an award before you won it?
LK: No, I had no idea. I love quoting that, and the fact that I have soloed with the Cleveland Orchestra, because people then think I have some musical ability, which I don’t. [The performance was of Holst’s Planets, with narration by Krauss.]
Q: You and Richard Dawkins are both celebrated critics of religion, but he’s a Twitter warrior and fight-picker while you seem rather more courteous in your approach. When you appear on stage, are the two of you good cop/bad cop?
LK: It originated as ‘‘good cop, bad cop’’; but over time we’ve converged, because I’ve come to appreciate how important it really is to confront religion in an open, but also satirical or ridiculing way. Richard says he feels bad that people think he’s mean, because he’s actually a really nice man. The difference I guess is that because he’s lived in Oxford he’s more intolerant of irrationality than I am. Because I live in the United States, I’m used to seeing it every day.
Q: This is a curious sideline for a working scientist, isn’t it – travelling the world and chatting on-stage with a friend while hundreds of people watch. Do you know what you and Dawkins will talk about in Auckland next May?
LK: Not yet. A few days beforehand we sketch out a few things we might want to touch on, then let it go. It’ll depend on the current events and the science that’s been interesting. It
always goes off in different directions, because the world is changing. Also we’re writing new things all the time. I’ve got a new book out [The Greatest Story Ever Told – So Far] and Richard has a book out [Science
of the Soul].
Richard and I were saying the other day how much more fun it is to talk about science than either religion or politics. But the importance of understanding science to deal with public policy and to combat religious extremism and fundamentalism is nevertheless important.
Q: You’re not a fan of Trump. Has he changed the focus of your public activism as a science educator and an atheism cheerleader?
LK: Almost all major policy questions – from healthcare to the environment, from energy to national security – depend on a knowledge of science, and this is the most anti-science administration I’ve seen in the 40 years I’ve been a scientist. So I’m doing what I do: speaking and writing and organising. In 2008 I organised a group called Science Debate to get science and technology issues discussed by presidential candidates, and last week opened that up to all US political candidates, asking them to answer 10 questions about their science and technology policies (see sciencedebate.org). We have to not give up. We can’t pretend it’s normal.
* Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss: Science in the Soul, Aotea Centre Auckland, May 10 2018. www.ticketmaster.co.nz.