The Unbelievers Page #3

It is amazing

and fascinating to me

and worth celebrating

that the laws of physics

as we now understand them

have given us

a plausible story

to answer questions.

That's amazing. Which is,

how could something

arise from nothing?

How could a complex

universe arise

from a universe

in which there

was nothing?

No particles,

and maybe not even

any space?

And it's amazing to me

in cosmology now

that we are beginning

to get back and realize

that even something

as complex as

a whole universe

could plausibly be created.

But that's all we ever claim.

And yet whenever

we claim that,

we are called strident.

Do you notice that?

Yes, I do.

It came up in

the q and a debate,

and I tried to

very briefly expound

Lawrence's thesis

that you could get something

from literally nothing.

The audience just laughed.

It was obviously

to them absurd.

How could you possibly

get something from nothing?

It does violate common sense.

But as I said earlier

this evening, you can't

go by common sense.

If we could do things

by common sense,

we wouldn't need physicists.

Common sense,

of course, comes from

what was necessary

for our brains to survive

in the pleistocene of Africa.

So they had to know

how to catch a buffalo

and how to find a water hole

and how to climb a tree

when being pursued

by a lion or something.

So our brains were never

shaped by natural selection

to understand

either quantum mechanics...

The theory of the very small...

Or relativity, the theory

of the very fast.

And it's actually

an astonishing compliment

to the human brain

that at least some humans

are capable of understanding.

No, it is really remarkable

that we've been able to get

as far as we can.

But you hit on another point.

Our brains not only

didn't evolve to understand

those aspects of the universe

that it couldn't experience

directly,

but another aspect of the

universe it can't experience

directly is long time.

Absolutely.

And I think that's

another reason

why evolution is

such a hard concept.

Because we can just see...

we have a slice

of 100 years or less.

We can do seconds,

minutes, hours, days,

years, centuries...

Even millennia

we have trouble with.

You cannot grasp

the immensity of time

that is 100 million years.

Exactly.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very, very much.

the walls abandon shape

they got a cheshire cat grin

all blurring into one

this place is on a mission

A lot of people think

that just because there's a lot

we don't understand

at the edge of science,

that everything we know is going

to go out the window,

and that's not true.

Evolution happened.

The big bang happened.

If I take a ball and drop it,

it's going to fall.

There are lots

of things we do know.

For me, the only

solution I can see

is to try and educate people.

Because if you don't

have an informed public,

that's the greatest

threat to democracy.

So it's incumbent on scientists

to do a much better job,

and then it's up to the public

to make the decision.

They can decide that they

don't want to do anything

about global warming.

But they should at least

be presented with the evidence

and understand the facts.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the dynamic duo of science!

Before you run away from me

before you're lost

between the notes

the beat goes

round and round

the beat

goes round and round

It's such a privilege

to be alive in the 21st century

and to look out at the stars,

to look down a microscope,

to look down an electron

microscope,

to look into a single cell

and see the prodigious,

stupefying complexity

of a single cell

and then realize

that there are

trillions of those cells

in your body,

all conspiring together

to produce a working machine

which can walk and run

and eat and have sex and think.

What a privilege it is

for each of us

to have in our heads

an organ which is capable of

constructing a model

of the universe.

It is sad that that model

will die when our brain dies,

but my goodness,

what a privilege it is

before we do die.

Jigsaw's falling into place

there is nothing to explain

you eye each other

as you pass

she looks back,

you look back

not just once

not just twice

wish away the nightmare

wish away the nightmare

you got a light

you can feel it on your back

Welcome back,

everybody. My guest tonight,

please welcome Lawrence krauss.

Hey, Dr. krauss.

Thank you so much

for coming on.

All right, sir.

Why does what you're saying

have to be an attack on my God?

It doesn't have

to be an attack...

but that's all you've done.

You've attacked my God

for the last six minutes.

No, you have.

All I've said is,

you don't need him.

That's an attack.

We've changed our minds

about the universe.

We've learned that the universe

is more remarkable than anything

we ever thought before,

and in fact,

changing your mind

and in fact being wrong

is wonderful.

You should try it sometime.

It's really amazing.

Hmm-mm.

It means that...

it means that...

If there is no God, okay,

if there is

no thing called "God,"

if he is nothing,

can't something

come from him?

Lawrence krauss,

thank you so much.

You can feel it on your back

you can feel it on your back

Jigsaw's falling

into place

This makes my day.

Miley Cyrus just tweeted

a picture of me

along with my quote

about stars where I say,

"forget Jesus. Stars died

so you could be born."

And underneath,

she put the word, "beautiful."

And she seems to have gotten

a lot of hate mail for that.

I actually think they don't

understand this too, because,

you know, they think

she's saying the quote

is beautiful,

but clearly what she's saying

is that the picture

of me is beautiful.

I think we both agree

that what people want to do

is they want to believe,

to take that line

from the x-files...

They want to believe

in believing,

and so most people

of faith, I think,

in our society,

naturally

pick and choose

from the doctrine

those things they find

absolutely ridiculous

and throw out.

Yeah.

And the pope would say

that's not palatable.

And I would tend

to agree with the pope.

I think if you can't

believe some of this stuff

and need to throw it out,

just forget the whole thing.

Yeah.

That would be my view,

and I suspect that, um,

well, there are,

what, 535 members of

the U.S. congress,

and one has said

that he doesn't believe

in a supreme being?

That's statistically

not possible.

I mean,

a fair number of those members

of congress presumably have

had some sort of education.

There have got to be

a very substantial number

of atheistic members

of the United States congress,

probably more than

a couple of hundred

would be my guess.

And yet they cannot admit it,

and so in order to get elected,

you have got to lie

about your beliefs.

I think that's right,

and I think it's good

to call them on it.

I disagree with you

slightly, maybe because

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