What are you reading interviews at book tv. Org using the search bar at the top of the page. That evening, im the director of programming and marketing at the city library and before we get started i should mention if you have questions tonight you can leave those in the comments or in the chat box and we will get to as many as we can. And if youre interested in person purchasing the knowledge machine its available at retailers for your support, independent booksellers and we need you to support the most. If youre a long time follower of ourprogramming either in person or online , you know that we deal heavily in the humanities. Tonight we turn our attention to the sciences, albeit with a heavy dose of time. Our guest is michael strevens, he moved tothe United States in 1991. Professor at New York University he wrote the book the knowledge machine how irrationality created modern science and it is i think critically important at the time when distrust of science is on the rise read 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 humans to start 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. Michaelstrevens, thank you for joining us. Its great toe here and talk a little bit about this book. And what im setting out to do, i wrote this book to answer two Big Questions i had about life. One of those questions is simply how is it that science is so successful at revealing to us the secrets of the universe, strings and molecules cancreate life , they can take us to the moon. [inaudible] what is it that, whats sciences lifeline to the truth to all of this knowledge . A typical answer to this question and i think one that certainly on the right track is that the story has something to do with evidence, something about looking out into the worldand gathering evidence. You might summarize it like this. We give a theory only if it agrees with what we see out there in the world. We give a theory only if it agrees with what we see out there in the world but i think the story of that evidence comes the entire explanation. Heres why, these were just written in fact by aristotle, a greek philosopher writing about 2000 years ago. It was important that he should agree with the facts yet aristotle did not present science for all those marvelous discoveries and incredible technologies, we had to wait another two millennia. But something is going on in modern science. Looking at the evidence perhaps that wasnt around in aristotles time. And thats what motivated me to post these questions, one is a more specific question about what is it modern science is doing with the evidence that makes it so successful and so much more successful then philosophy . And why does it take so long to figure out how to doit . My inspiration for this comes as a philosopher of science from an idea which i think is beautiful and the and also a little bit wrong. And in my book i take that idea and i twist, i changed a little bit into something that i think really does answer these questions. The idea i begin with is probably the most famous philosopher of science, student who writes in the middle of last century the most famous book is called the structure of scientific revolution. Published in 1962. And its in this book that humans laid out his views of scientific progress as a very what he called paragon shift. His idea was that if an any particular time science, say astronomy or some kind of physics or technology is run according to a kind of a plan , really a total walpole which he catches us to a paradigm and when great changes in our thinking about the world, what happens is one of the paradigm shifts for example in the 17th century, colonies after two paradigm is replaced by zeros paradigm, [inaudible] or at the beginning of the 20th century newtons paradigm in which gravity is a force exerted by mass directly on other masses and langstons paradigm in which mass twists the structure of spacetime. It was very important to, that the paradigm was not as big and exciting but that in a certain more profound and almost totalitarian sense, it moves the scientists mind. But the practice as it were, they cant think outside. Thats a good thing. How could that be . How could it be that a certain kind of narrowness in science, that refusal to countenance or even the inability to imagine other possibilities could be a good thing. Could solidify scientific progress . The paradigm is full of promise, full of promises. What ultimately is for scientists is a recipe for finding the answer to any questions within the paradigms scope, any question about astronomy, any question about gravity. And most of the time normally in normal scientists scientists follow this recipe but because scientists are convinced that the current paradigm is correct this is the only recipe and its the one and only recipe that if they follow it will give them a bold and satisfying picture of the world. It sounds a little bit more dangerous, why should this be a disconnect . [inaudible] what the paradigm does is focusing the science on just a few things that the paradigm does terrifically, a few problems that the paradigm says must be investigated very carefully and very extensively. It forces scientists to investigate some part of nature in a detailed indepth , imagining the imaginable. But its not actually unimaginable, what is he thinking here . Ill take you on a brief tour a few scientific experiments to give you a sense of the kind of detail and depth that convinces essential to science and that without the scientists commitment to a paradigm would nevere carried out. Heres one that was in the news recently. It was successful just a few ars ago and when it was created the nobelize , and experiment to detect gravitationawaves. This was thlast part of the light go experiment which insist now several different contexts. And those long straight structures you can see have to detect tiny movements by Gravitational Waves that are a fraction of the size of a proton. And it took 50 years to build these things in a way that would proceed withmany along the way. The reat of losing something long runs of experiments with no results buthey had a Great Respect for those 50 years. This is the kind of focus that brings us to an enormous scientific progress to turn out the details that matter. The book is much more personal but stl incredibly grueling scntific enterprise, this is the island of jax the major which is tiny island in the galacticgalapagos islands. Two ologists have been going through th island every summer for the last 40 years. So what theyve en doing there is a been tracking populations of finches at the galapagos. And theyve been following those populations literally tracking that requires commitment. One of their many interesting discoveries, perhaps the most exciting of all is the in creation of a new hybridization that esblished this really was a new species which not too many years ago probably about 40 years started going there. Agn, a focus on detail and death. Producing a really beautiful and exciting piece of evidence tt i suspect may be i can imagine doing the work to carry out. One more. This is the molecular structure of a protein releasing hormone in the brain and the structure was discovered in 1969 as a result of a race actually between two scientists, andrew shelley. And the greatest obstacle was not some obligated theory or question or difficult calculation, but actually producing enough of the substance to actually do the appropriate experiments. As shell says, really the most important factor in this project was bending ase says here an tire year crashing out brains and distilling it just to produce a few millimeters leaders of sutance. Thats the kind of focus that science reques. Thats the kind of detail at allows us to really imove science. Its sething that normal happy states are unlikely to think of doing. And in a sense scientific progress is possible because nevertheless they do it because they are incorrectly as it usually turns out utterly convinced that paradigm is correct and that science cannot fail. They push that recipe sohard , ey apply it to everything. They tried to squeeze out every last drop of truth and in doing that, they discover or ty crush the life out of it. And thatsow the paradigm is destroye, creating the need for a new paradigm an ultimately triggering a paradigm shift. Thats another little story. Its a story where the real secret of science is not to think intellectual or scope, its not some kind of i moral tenor. Its a kind of institution, and institution of paradigm whose most important effect is still to provide a kind of motivation is all. Thats a beautiful story thats changed to the theories of science. Essentl because theyve really convinced the paragm is correct so that they have the coidence to block out all the alternatives and adjust chased this one way of doingthings. Many historians d sociologists usually are influenced by him and it ended up being very skeptical of scientists wh really are. As when e example is theres a bunch of scientists at the large cage on collider saying weant to write th, we want to find evidence against whats called the current paradigm. These scientists are not convinced. Rather they want to find a way that its wrong. Thats certainly not ue and certnly honest much smaller scale on a book on sociogy and science in which bruno went into the lab, will one ofis discoveries of that talking about en he required the extraction of brains, he dont need to look at this too clely but he finds a place where scientists in effect are fully around with the recipe, changing what counts for success in order to outfox their competitors. And the paradigm everyone cepts as though its se kind of holy scripture. These scientists are raer rewriting e scripture to suit themselves, to promote their own edition. So here it looks like its science but its not the paradigm. It seems that than the crew does not have what he writes which is a kind oan unthinking commitment to the paradigm. I love this story souch. I want to plain something out it. I thinyou once you write about it its the idea that science is a very fuel your institution of motivating scientists to perform experiments, to dig up facts, conduct measurements that are so expensive, so timeonsuming, that they simp could not do these things in any other circumstances. In the context of any other institution. Its amotivational technology. And its what drives science toncover these factors that are reonsible for progress. So let me tell you h i think that wks. Wehould think of the rules of sence not as something thatcientists unthinkingly believe. Not anything like a religious dogma rather like the rules of the game scientists want to play thegame so they agree to abide by the rules. The most important rule is the rule, this rule is the evidence rule that evidence would be critical only empirical evidence counts. That that is the absolute core. And so the there such a thing as the Scientific Method, what it says is that what counts as an imperative tells you at empirical evidence is. And then it says that all scientific arguments must be conducted in terms of the results of empirical tests. Prohibits the other kind of tests. In particular prohibits for example arguments based on the beauty of theory, ill save a little bit more about this later. Those like that is actually very wide open, its not only one of the paradigms but why also like is it doesnt tell scientistshow to interpret the evidence. And in fact, it tells you a lot on how to interpret the evidence but it does make a certrtain consensus, everyone agrees that every argument they have is to be resolved by investing some experiments or making some observation. And they agree which kinds of experimentsand observations are relevant. So this seems to have kind of consensus on what counts in the game and how to goalong. The reason that this role is so important even though theres so much is that it has this function. First of all, it binds scientists together in a single argument because they agree. Second, it hit them against one another i believe against their rivals theory. Simply to find out thetruth. In a way that means evidence is continually generated and in fact if evidence is the only way to win an argument, you have to find some small fact that your theory accommodates better then your rivals theory so it gives you motivation to investigate nature into detail and depth. So its not the scientists are addicted to cut one kind of recipe, there are many recipes out there but theyre all of a certain sort. They are all recipes that have that same goal of pushing scientists to go deep into the details. Deeper than any normal person might care to go and the result is the progress of science and ultimately the coergence of truth. So heres science, a great pile of evidence, of not just any evidence but very detailed, evidence. Okay, i have a few minute , its just as well because i promised not just the question of what science relations what the evidence is also the question of why does this relate, why was it that aristotle saw the importance of forming observations with biology, and Everything Else you wrote about. Why was he not a modern scientist . The answer is although empirical evidence, he didnt think that was it was only empirical evidence. People philosophy to what extremely important. So skip forward to writing 2000 years later, as you know was a philosopher, not a scientist even though he wrote extensively about physics. Why is he not a scientist . Cause he believed empirica evidence is not the only thing that counts andfiguring out the truth. That in his great philosophical system he had knowlee ultimately depending on the knowledge of , hes a great rationalist but people met the evidence, his theology and his philosophy and his physics into one beautifully wrapped up package but its too beautiful and it distracts him as aristotle was distracted by his philosophy. Of empirical evidence so he plans to go deep. Let me look at one more thinker this thinker is undeniably amodern scientist. Hes a Nobel Prize Winner in civics, and the theory of clocks and heres gilman, telling us that empirical evidence isnt the only thing that counts. Here is a simplicity and elegance are also very important in deciding on the correct hythesis. So wait a minute you may be thinking, im thinking only empirical evidence counts and t heres a model who like aristotle or descartes is saying other things as well, why wasnt the old man distracted looking at t empirical evidence. The answer ishat gilman, however much he made, may have personally thought it was important, as many modern this assistant was nevertheless playing the science game. [inaudible] and the science game is aesthetic judgments do not outrank scientific discourse or aesthetic judgments dontcount you can use beauty and inspiration but when he goes to disparity and publishes papers, he is literally forbidden from invoking bety, all hes allowed to do is point to empirical evidenc. Is gotten for example poin to new indications that his theories may or at least show th they can conform to what we already know aut the articles of which the universe is made. So the game forces gilman however he tnks is his kd of life. Yet all the science, ery modern scientist who in the end make their case with empirical idence, that means they or the experimenters just like those experiments with that large a john collider had to do with what we thought was essential for modern science which is big dig out the details. An upside of this which is when i get to my is that the rules of scientific arguments only evidence counts are strictly irrational. When it suddenly looks that way or should look that way, indeed everyone who came before practicing. [inaudible] heres the basic principle of rational arguments that every clinician will agree on. When you argue about something important youshould take into account all relevant considerations. All relevant considerations that are not too expensive to take into account. Someone like lamb things that express stically the beauty of the theory is something that is highly relevant. Its easilavailable as judgments ofeauty and yet s participating in a game of scitific avenues that does not spell out his arguments for his theory, he invokes beauty so inther words the game. [inaudible] violates a principle of rationality and in fact as i said, [inaudible] because scientists may not appeal to these otherfactors no matter how important they think they are, they must focus on the evidence. They want science to be creative but this official feature of science to be discovered or to be written down and actedon , we can somehow stumble on the fact that this irrationally narrow rule works very well. I have much more to say about this in my book the knowledge machine. I have many more illustrations and many more historical stories about the way in which the, what i called and irrationally narrow rule we finally hit upon. You announced will go andread the book, thank you very much. Thank you very much doctor evans, if anybody in the audience has questions they can load those from the chat boxfor the comments. We have time for early shift but another shift with this is i found a lot of things interesting in the book but one of the things early on that surprised me for whatever reason i thought this theory that you can disprove any number of scientific theories but on the ones that remain it is not possible to assign likelihood to one or the other. Can you talk a little bit about where that came fromand where its gone . I think in the view that you just mentioned is the view that the philosopher, i dont think his view is entirely correct but something close to it is an important kind of the text of science. Mainly, views about the likelihood that the theory that jurisprudence, i have wildly different theories. Theres a huge amount of disagreementabout these different theories. I think they would really rather have like three minutes away from and had science been only on something that was a peculiar suggestion which is the possibility that a recalcitrant fact is highly discriminatory in the end you could make that stick. The problem is there was so much disagreement because the recalcitrant facts, the tiny details that ultimately undermined him are produced in extremely coveted ways that the apparatus involved. And its always possible and in fact its often the case that the apparatus is not really workingentirely correctly. In my book i told the story of a famous exhibition to the eclipse of the sun in 1919. This proved theory and established einsteins theory of relativity and has three different accusations and they all gave rather different results and one of them was better than einstein. And i view that something went wrong with that area he had some reasons for thinking that certainly but he didnt have anything like it. Thats the way it isgenerally. Theres a certainly it serves a disagreement about whos evidence is can be trusted and its a great disagreement about what theories to believe. And it doesnt matter as long as scientists are producing the right kind of evidence. Eventuallyenough piles up. As with the relativity theory that einstein has shown to be a more effective user and eventually evidence piles up that we find results in consensus. I like to go to an audience question you did you think about early discoveries and early thought process, how might the application of modern science have affected some of those discoveries and i think about parts of the book where you talk about the idea of the water was the presence of everything and no, its a, its fire. How mit modern scientific theory have affected those early scientific arguments. Those early arguments were in many ways wonderful. Calls was an admirer of those great greek philosophers and he was another character in my book writing in the very early 60s at the beginning of the scientific revolution. These are i think generally scientific ideas and of course the world is not entirely made of water, but the world is less complicated than it looks but there is some constituent responsible for all the many different kinds of things wesee around us. That idea is exactly right. The idea of the atom, thats the idea. [inaudible] thats some wonderful stuff. Around 2 and a half thousand years ago when those areas were being debated and turned around. The philosophers or if you like protoscientists formulating this did not know how to understand it. Its not theydidnt understand their connection to the evidence. They thought that everything was made ofwater , but the theory was a rather nice explanation of certain features of the world, for example. Its just that they each had their own stories and looking back now 2 and a half thousand years later we can see that the quality of those explanations was not enough to decide between them. What was needed was that kind of small detail. Its really only by developing instruments that can discern the structure of what can be an incredibly tiny particles that make up mass that we can begin to get some of these questions so in fact, even in the recent days we didnt know what the world was made of area it a discovery of the last 200 yeararea. So we have to audience quesons that are kind of related and ill start with this one red on a historical parallel, the public emphasis and in some cases rejection of science that we see today. I think that science is always been controversial. Its probably one of the most striking historical cases with a development of evolutionary. In the 19th century, the idea that all life kind of has a common origin not determined separately by god rather by natural selection. Galileos argument was a more conventional view by the catholic church. I keep getting this wrong. The earth is the center of the universe, there have always been powerful forces that for reasons of their own, they have to do with preventing religious arguments and has not wanted to listen to scientists. And its been possible for them not to listen to science because good science is full of disagreements and dissent. It wasnt just their religious authority to look down on values, it was other biologists with empirical evidence who just had their backs intelligence wrong. So theres plenty of, if you expect science to the seeking religiously, proclaiming what the evidence shows, then we look at what science is really like, theres plenty of material innately disillusioned, theres plenty of material for any kind of motive to disagree with what ultimately turns out to be the right way of looking at things. I think one way to be controversial throughout modern science. Related to that question, another audience question here. The elements of irrationality mean how scientists divide intothe claims of pseudoscience. I think that the disagreements im talking about is more important area so that the irrationality is a subtle thing which i think most, many scientists would recognize that the elements that i point to in and juxtapose when i say science is actual, on the one hand or saying its beauty is important and on the other hand agreeing to play by rules that completely ignore it but i think the idea that thats irrational is not really been pointed out very importantly before and i see that as an achievement in the book. The idea that Science Scientists can disagree with one another and that one science can be right and another canbe wrong is something thats wellknown. Anyone who looks into the actual history of scienceor the actual physiology. Someone committed for whatever reason to pseudoscience, its easy to disparage conventional opinion and im using the same techniques albeit with past knowledge or justice but exactly the same techniques, they say so and so is measuringinstruments dont work properly. They their populations are often wrong is one of these wonderfulstudies of scientists. They have got tons of writing them down so they talk to on another all the time. So its really not soasy to fight bacagainst this when you find witn the process itself equally large amounts of good science attacking one another. I wonder if you can speak to this idea that there are so many big theoriesut there in science. Today and im thinking spifically right now of the string very popular mechics d the idea that there isnt really a foreseeable path to grouping these theories. Whats the long term effect of the ideas that you dont see a way toprove them . I write a little bit about that at the end of the book. One said the only way to test string theory would involve amounts of energy that amass entire galaxies. [inaudible] its not clear that thats correct but it might be correct so it would be for all practical purposes impossibleo we can say yes, isnt it great that sciee is commied to using empirical evidence to solve the productionof this evidence involves something on that scale, then its a giant obstacle so some have suggested we need to change the rules of science or the rules of t game that i was talking about before or we should move to whats sometimes called a empirical physics, one that pays me attention to the elegant explanations. I think thats a bad idea. Precisely because i think if it can fd itself only to those capabilities, its absolutely certain that we found, that we cant use empirical evidence to this resolve the dispute. But we dont know that for sure. And by channing scientists energy away from taking out possibly could we improve these theories using things that people might beableo build, channeling energy away from that , ere its very much relevant to the argument that philosophers had about what the universe was made of. We removed tt laserlike focus onthe empirical that is critical of science as success. We have two more questions here, does limiting the Scientific Community mainstream oppose and dangerous publicdiscourse . It says mainstream light area. Maybe thats a typo. Can you just talk a little bit about how the limitations that the Scientific Method puts on research, out of that impact discourse . So theyre in a position sometimes where scientist disagree with one another about important things but we as a society, we perhaps, we need some kind of, we need to in this case of uncertainty make some kind of plan area what we get rather than a kind of, rather than a communal what the evidence is showingwe get a lot of scientist disagreeing with one another. What do we do that and mark. We need some kind of body language to stand outside of science. To examine the range of opinions to find whats going to be in the end something that looks more like the middleoftheroad than a consensus. So in the case of Climate Change for example, you have the un iron pc its called, togetherby the un. Mainly consisting of scientists but its proposed not to doscience , but not fully understanding and technology what a great deal of disagreement about the details of Climate Change. About how fossils deteriorate, and the important changes. We will take that information and turn it into a kind of numbers that however much they are our sometimes just really educated guesses. The outcome of numbers tomake a big decision about how high should we build a seawall. Because we cant rely on science to just give us the facts, we need to go with a deliberative body when these facts are important and as it were interpret science. Instead ill ask you this. When we talk about that body that is going to interpret the science and help us to find likelihood which goes back to what you said earlier that you cant do that. That necessarily have to exist kind of outsidthe scientic community, doesnt it . I think if itmade up outside the Scientific Community and its doing something its not one of the functions of science of which ere are no rules inside scienc some people have suggested that we canwe dont even needscientists for these kinds of values. For example to create a kind of civilian ju to assess the evidence. And whether that actually helpful or not it ges you a sense of what the job really is. Mainly not doing science, finding some kind of convergence of opini where possible where were taking kind of an average temperature of opinion, finding a middleoftheroad estimate or the kind of numbers that we really tin many cas to avoid disaster. We are saying at the same thing close to koband were sang these things its really important to know about and yetwhich often is veryifficult to determine in the early stages when theres just not all the evidence we like to have. Theres actually one more question here. I find it quite interesting we talk a lot about mistrust of science in modern society but its not really exclusive to science area youee people questioning humanities as well and history in particular whether its rethinking of hitler or rewriting the confederacy. Theres is there something in society thats causingthis distrust not just of science established academia . The truth is that academics, scientists, everybody else, were all human. We all have interiormotives. The old terrier motive to some extent affects what we do. Where not terrible people on the whole , but a certain amount of distrust is healthy area and a certain amount of understanding that the process of science, the process of Human Interest of history, that the process is consisting in the contributions of individuals whose opinions about things that really matter are followed by prejudices and commissions. That is a very realistic way to understand whats going on in any kind of intellectual discourse, any kind of human endeavor at all. On the other hand i think its also important to see what kind of structure and safeguards, literally are in place to deal with these interior motives. So in science we have a great amount of disagreement. Some of that is coming of science, its pure difference of intellectual disagreement, self interest but also of course, i think that my instruments are beautifully built, [inaudible] but when an institution works well, it can find ways to a certain extent neutralize those kind ofagreements. And often even to harness them. And weve got a lot of good to be found by making ambitions science and scientists pour this energy into the science game into the creation of more detailed evidence. And there are certain kinds of, there are really two kinds of ways of diminishing the negative effects, longterm and in the shortterm, shortterm is a bit shaky but its is the fact that manydifferent opinions, many different voices. As long as science is not entirely captured by a scientific figure which is very unlikely in the way its structure, youd have these many voices to look at which is to be rightly suspicious of one voice but we shouldnt at the same time shouldnt entirely throw in our lot with another voice, we should step back and look at the whole picture but our questions before us. Thats in the short term and in the longer term what we have is a simple accumulation of evidence that begins to more and more. The way to these theories that really are capable of. [inaudible] i think thats a goodplace to end things. The book again is the knowledge machine how irrationality created modern science. Give it a look. Its a fascinating history. Well done doctor michael strevens, thank you for joining us. Weeknights this month we are featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight i look at business and economics. Starting at eight Eastern University of virginia business professor ed sweeney discusses responsibility and ethics that he says unites influential businesses and then history professor Jeanette Scott explores a period of black financial innovation between 1888 and 1930 and its effect on us capitalism the story of the st. Louis bank in Richmond Virginia first and only bank run by black women and mit professor Thomas Levinson looks at how the leaders of the 15th century right of revolution apply their new ideas to people, money and markets and as a result invented modern finance. Enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan2. Book tv has nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 9 pm eastern, former president barack obama reflect on his life and political career and his newly released memoir Promised Land area sunday at 9 pm eastern on after words, Sally Hubbard and her book monopoly sucks, seven ways that corporations ruin your life and how to take back controlshes interviewed by Bloomberg News reporter David Mclachlan and ken, former appellate judge and George Mason University law professor Douglas Ginsburg and his book voices of our public examines the constitution through the eyes of judges, legal scholars and historians. Watch book tv on cspan2 this weekend and be sure to watch in that line sunday, december 5 at noon eastern. When our guest author and a chair africanamerican studies at princeton university