WEBVTT - Special Episode: Adam Kucharski & Proof 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.760 Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is This Podcast will 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.000 Kill You. You're tuning in to the latest episode of 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.000 the tp w K Y Book Club, where I chat 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.120 with authors of popular science and medicine books about their 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.520 latest work. Since starting this series a few years ago, 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:04.520 I've gotten to cover some amazing books and I appreciate 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.200 so many of you reaching out with your suggestions for 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.240 books to feature. Keep those recommendations coming, please, and if 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:12.960 you'd like to take a look at the full list 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.240 of books that we've covered in this series, as well 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.240 as get a sneak peek at ones that are coming 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.400 up in future episodes, head on over to our bookshop 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.080 dot org affiliate page, which you can find on our 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.720 website This Podcast will Kill You dot com. Under the 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.680 extras tab on the bookshop page, you'll find several podcast 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.399 related lists, including one for this book Club and the 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.320 TPWKY Kids book Club, which if you're not following us 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:40.679 on social media you absolutely should be because Aaron Epdyke 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.160 has been putting together videos reviewing children's books. It is 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.000 such a great resource for sciencey kids books for all 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.760 ages and if you want to share your thoughts on 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.600 these episodes, make topic suggestions submit a first hand account. 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:55.720 You can get in touch with us using the contact 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.360 us form on our website. Two last things before moving 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:01.200 on to the Book of the Week, and that is 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.360 to please rate, review and subscribe. It really does help 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.559 us out. And second, you can now find full video 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.600 versions of most of our newest episodes on YouTube. Make 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.600 sure you're subscribed to the exactly Right Media YouTube channel 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.600 so you never miss a new episode drop. Belief is 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:22.040 a powerful force. It shapes every facet of our lives 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:26.760 and transforms perception into reality. What we believe to be 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:30.480 true is not always what is actually true, something I'm 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:33.080 sure we can all relate to. Maybe you've debated with 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.840 a friend over the answer to a trivia question, like 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.359 you both know the right answer, but your answers are 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.320 somehow different. Or maybe you've had a heated exchange with 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.000 a relative who firmly believes that the moon landing was faked. 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.280 How do we decide what we believe? How can we 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.079 know that what we believe is the truth, and how 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.960 can we convince others of that? These are precisely the 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:01.160 questions that Adam Kucharski, who is professor at the London 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:05.520 School of hygiene and tropical medicine asks. In his latest book, Proof, 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.200 The Art and Science of Certainty, Kucharski, who is a 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.600 mathematician that works on infectious disease outbreaks, explores how we 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:18.880 are inundated with information and increasingly misinformation, that we have 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.040 to evaluate to determine whether or not we should incorporate 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:26.560 it into our decision making. This extends beyond personal decisions 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.000 which root is best to take to work, what to 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.160 make for dinner. Our world is built upon structures of 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.880 proof with varying degrees of support. That car that you 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.520 drive to work is manufactured under rigorous safety testing, meaning 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.360 there are established guidelines for what is considered safe and 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.400 how to test that same thing. With the food we eat, 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.160 the medicines we take, the buildings we spend time in. 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.280 We don't question so many of our beliefs. To do 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:58.840 so would leave you frozen, uncertain of which direction to 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.720 move in, what to trust. You'd have no time to 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.880 actually live your life. But when we do scrutinize our certainty, 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:10.160 we might find a gulf between our beliefs and someone else's, 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:15.320 and those beliefs and the objective truth. Where does that 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:20.240 incongruity originate. Why are we skeptical about some things and 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.280 not others? What does it take to make up our 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.479 mind and what does it take to change it? That 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:30.680 answer might not be the same for everyone. An enlightening 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:37.040 blend of philosophical musings, political commentary, statistical exploration, and personal reflection. 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:42.560 Proof is a fascinating read, particularly as this unceasing flood 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:47.040 of information, both good and bad, shows no sign of stopping. 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.799 Let's take a quick break and then get into things. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.920 Professor Kochowski, thank you so much for joining me today. 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:19.000 Thanks for having me. 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.480 I am thrilled to talk with you about your latest book, Proof, 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.800 The Art and Science of Certainty. And before we dig 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.800 into the various forms of proof and how we determine 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.760 a threshold for proof or what different types of proof 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.000 exists for certain situations, I want to start at the 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:39.599 very beginning. What is proof? Is there a standard definition? 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:40.680 Yes? 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:42.960 I think that's a great question, and that I think. 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.520 My background's in math, so I think a lot of 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.120 MICA training was around this idea that you can have 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:54.000 this definitive knowledge that something is true, and I think 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.640 it's something that people grappled with across fields I mean, 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.240 more of the stories that really struck me was Abraham Lincoln, 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:03.200 when he was training to be a lawyer, came across 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.119 this word demonstrate and yeah, this kind of beyond reasonable doubt, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.400 this certainty, and he's like, I don't really understand what 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.240 this is as a concept, and he actually went back 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.600 to all of these ancient Greek mathematical texts to understand 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.679 how can we take what the knowledge we have, build 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.560 on that prove new theorems, use that to prove subsequent knowledge. 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:25.760 But I think one of the things that was really 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.360 the motivation for the book, and something that I think 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.839 anyone who works with information and decision making and evidence 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:35.880 happens across very often is it can become quite a 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.359 shifting concepts. I mean, even in mathematics, things that people 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:44.120 thought were proven turned out had some hidden assumptions or 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:48.320 human judgments that were kind of lurking there and caused 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:50.000 a lot of that to collapse. So I think it's 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.880 it's a kind of fascinating concept because it's something that's 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.440 so important in life, not just having knowledge that we 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:58.720 gradually accrue, but from many of the things we care about, 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.960 whether it's dealing with them, emergency, whether it's a legal case, 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.239 whether it's even just a kind of minor business decision 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.080 in our day, we have to work out where we 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.520 set the bar and how we evaluate what we've got. 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.360 And I think for me that was really the launching 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.120 off point to explore this. You know, how do we 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.120 converge on certainty and what happens when it goes wrong? 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.640 Thinking about the difference between proof and certainty and truth, like, 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.280 what is the relationship between those concepts? 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.480 Yeah, I think that's a great question, and without going 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.040 down the kind of philosophical rabbit or it could have 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:33.800 been a book. 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:34.720 On you what is reality? 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.080 Yeah, But I think the way that I approached it 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.640 is just to look at how people thought about this 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:44.880 in different fields. And again even going back to Lincoln 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:49.480 and much earlier, there was this this appeal of this certainty, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:51.640 this idea that there could be this universe truth, and 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.320 it's why a lot of fields ended up borrowing for mathematics. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.320 You see it in the US Declaration of Independence. Yeah, 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.480 we hold these truths to be self evident. The visional 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.080 draft was we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable. 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.520 But Benjamin Franklin didn't like that, because it sounded like 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:07.000 they were kind of appealing to some divine authority and 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.560 self evidence is just borrowed directly for maths, it's just 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.360 a given truth. And unfortunately it turned out a lot 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.480 of these things about equality weren't self evident. But I 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.560 think that that story of how you think about these things, 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:21.680 and even when we see in the legal world, a 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.520 lot of it was originally derived from concepts around matter, 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:26.840 around probability. If you talk about, you know, some of 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.200 these thresholds preponderance of evidence, you're saying it's more likely 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:31.760 than not, and you're kind of borrowing a lot of 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.560 these kind of probability based ideas, and even in the 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:39.120 world kind of more experimental design as that kind of developed, 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:41.800 a lot of it was about I mean, actually some 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.920 of these early studies were almost trying to discount some 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.200 of the influences of religion. You're wanting to understand cause 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.440 of effect in the world, rather than just appealing to 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:51.800 some other influence. 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.040 And then it for a lot of people it became a. 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:57.920 Discussion of how do you take the evidence you have 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.720 and how do you link that to a conclusion that 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:02.440 you want to make, and where do you set the 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.120 bar for that do you try and get ever closer 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.360 to certainty? And there's actually a lot of statistical tension 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.559 about one hundred years ago, no statistical debates. Kind of 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.720 sounds a bit boring, but it was actually this real. Yeah, 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.360 people just almost I wouldn't talk to each other because 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.200 there was this tension between do you just try and 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.600 get ever closer to the truth or do you have 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.120 a framework that allows you to make decisions? And I 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:27.240 think a lot of times in life we don't get 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.040 to do the academic I'm just going to sit on 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.360 the fence yet I just I don't know, and I'm 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.079 just not going to do anything with life or actions 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.520 that often we have to decide we do something or 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.600 we don't do something, or you know, we say someone's 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:41.360 guilty or we let them go three or there's these 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.040 decisions we have to make. And so that process of 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.120 interacting with evidence is much more pressure and I think 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:50.080 that that was one of the real big tensions that 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:51.640 never fully got resolved. 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:52.760 Actually, even how. 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.760 We teach statistics at school, we kind of smushed together 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.319 these two very different philosophies, one of this ever higher 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.280 bar for evidence and one where we're sort of outlining 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.920 a framework to make a decision based on the knowledge 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:05.200 we have. 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.840 When it comes to public health and medicine, there's a 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.320 lot more pressing, you know, need to make decisions, and 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.439 yet this decision is often dragged out for long periods 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:21.600 of time, and sometimes that is at the urging of, 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.640 you know, someone who has incentive to drag out a decision. 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.120 So one of the examples that you talk about is 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:32.480 Austin Bradford Hill, who is talking about this relationship between 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:34.720 cigarettes and lung cancer and saying, oh, we have the 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.120 we have some evidence, and there's still a lot of skepticism, 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:40.440 but we have enough to make a decision. We cannot 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:44.679 use uncertainty as an excuse for inaction. Do you feel 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.920 like that, like we've ever truly learned that as a society, 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.040 or has it been you know, players like the tobacco 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:56.199 industry saying oh, no, this uncertainty, you know, we need 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.200 to push for more and more and more evidence. 0:10:59.160 --> 0:10:59.360 Yeah. 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.720 I think that's so, that's a really good question. 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.080 I think that's a really good example of almost kind 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:09.160 of weaponized certainty, that you can always set the bar higher, 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:11.000 and any aspects of life, you can set the bar 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.160 high and higher and higher to the point where you 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.480 just won't do anything. And in action, of course, is 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.439 in itself a decision. And I think Bradford Hill's work, 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.679 you know, he was extremely thoughtful in how we approached 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.920 this because something like smoking, you can't really design it 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:27.800 like a try. You can't get people to randomly take 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.160 up smoking and see if they get cancer. There's obviously 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.719 ethical reasons about there's also just timeline reasons. You know, 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.400 if you look at the timescale of the intervention versus 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:36.880 what happened, you might have to wait decades to have 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:39.480 that clear signal. And so he did a lot of 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:44.040 poning work with others, linking together the various sort of 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.920 non random data sets you had available. Because one of 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.160 the criticisms, of course, as any days, is yes, smoke 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:50.840 is more like to get cancer, but maybe there's a 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:52.839 genetic reason that makes them all like to smoke and 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.800 get this. And he outlined a lot of the ways 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:57.760 we can think about cause and effect, and I think 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.280 that's a very useful set of concept and some of 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.599 it the obvious ones of the cause that needs to 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:04.840 come before the effect, or that you know, if you 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.360 have the strength of association more of cigarettes makes you 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.240 more likely to get cancer, if you see that across 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:12.480 multiple countries, or if you can start to think about, 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.600 you know, the biological plausibility. We see carstinogens in other 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.360 kind of situations as well. None of those things on 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.800 their own is conclusive. You can start to build this 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.079 evidence space. And he made this really good point that 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.679 any knowledge we have, even if it's very confident knowledge, 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:33.400 is always subject to further refinement. But we still have 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:35.920 that knowledge at that point in time, and we can 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.120 seek further information. There's been lots more studies of smoking 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:44.040 since they're early ones, but also that's information that we 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:45.640 have to do something with. And I think we often 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.400 particularly in the situations with emerging threats or kind of 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.800 early concerns about things, whether it's a health intervention we 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:54.920 think might be harmful. I mean, what of the examples 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.000 are given the book is the work at the FDA 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:03.000 around flidamide, which was this for sickness in pregnancy, and 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:06.960 there was actually a lot of concerns about safety for babies, 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.760 and the FDA blocked it as a result. But on 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:12.640 the other hand, you get things where there might be 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.400 a lot of value. For example, in reducing smoking for 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.559 health outcomes, and even if there's an uncertainty, And Bradford 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.079 Hill made this nice point of actually the standard you 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.040 should apply for taking action kind of depends a bit 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:27.920 on the situation you're dealing with, if it's a fairly 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.520 cheap action to take, if it's not too disruptive for people. 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.160 But actually, in his argument he said, smoking is something 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:36.679 people really enjoy, so we need a kind of. 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:38.160 Higher barrier if you're get it. 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:40.080 And I think it's a reasonable point if you're going 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:41.600 to tell a lot of people to change how they 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.920 live their lives, that the evidence you need is perhaps 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.760 different for something where you can take some action and 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:51.800 you can unwind that. So it is those kind of 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.559 trade offs that you have available that obviously need to 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:55.240 play in as well. 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:58.640 Let's take a short break and when we get back, 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:19.640 there's still so much to discuss. Welcome back everyone. I've 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.760 been chatting with doctor Adam Kucharski about his book Proof, 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.800 The Art and Science of Certainty. Let's get back into 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:31.720 things right. The thresholds for certainty is it can be 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.120 different depending on the situation, and then there's also these 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.240 personal thresholds for certainty or evidence, you know, how much 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.920 information do we need? And one of the things that 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:43.000 you discuss in your book as well is sort of 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.440 what happens when evidence flies in the face of our 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:51.760 personal beliefs, and how sometimes even despite a mountain of evidence, 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.560 we can just still feel like that's not possible. We 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.680 can't reject it. It's not an intuitive truth, you know, 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:01.240 what happens, Like what is show us about sort of 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.240 the personal nature of proof and certainty. 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.160 Yeah, I think that's one of the things that really 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.760 kind of struck me in researching that. I mean, even 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.640 in some of these kind of mathematical puzzles examples, it's 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.360 things that you know, I'd come across as a kid 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:17.920 and convince myself, Oh, that's just that's the answer to 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:18.400 the puzzle. 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.280 And it was only years later when I was explaining it. 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.080 To someone else or someone else had asked me about it, 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.240 and I sort of went through the thing that convinced me, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.000 and it just didn't convince them at all. And I 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.960 think that's really interesting. I think we focus a lot on, 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.680 you know, how science works, how methods work, what convinces us, 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:38.400 and you see this in even a lot of studies 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.880 around political beliefs that people will often try and convince 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:43.640 others with arguments that convince them, and then you get 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:45.800 this gap and it's almost like that just fails. And 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.920 I think that's a really interesting step to explore, well 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.280 why does that film. One of the things that I 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.280 find even just kind of in some of the modern 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:54.720 tools we have in the modern there we are quite 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:59.280 striking is where we have this desire to explain things. So, yeah, 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:00.760 few years ago to talk to a bunch of people 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.040 working on AI, and there's a lot of concern about 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:05.680 I think things that self driving cars that we don't 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.240 understand why they make mistakes. We need that explainability. We 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:10.760 can't have things we don't trust. And actually, in medicine, 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.440 we have all sorts of things that we know work. 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.120 We now often they work, we don't fully understand the 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.280 physics and biology something like anesthesia, for example. We can 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.520 control the effect it's going to have, but actually all 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.080 the underlying biology and kind physics mechanisms is still more 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.760 work to be done. Things like defibrillation. You know, if 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:29.080 you give a heart a shock, you can kind of 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.360 reset it against Some of that's understood, but there's still 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:34.160 those kind of gaps in knowledge, but we know that 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:35.920 these are useful tools. And even yet, if you run 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.520 a clinical trial, you can assess how effective a treatment is, 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.360 but that on its own will just tell you the effect. 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.800 It won't tell you necessarily all the mechanisms that are 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.480 going on to explain it. But there's these tools that 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.080 we've got, and we've got the evidence to take action 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:50.720 and use these things. 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:51.400 We're very happy with. 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.480 And there's other areas of life where actually that inability 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.040 to explain something kind of really bothers us. You know, 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.600 even if self driving cars were much safer other than humans, 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:02.720 as humans we are start looking to a book, humans 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.600 are not good at driving. You know, it's not a 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.520 massively high bar, but I think it would still make 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.879 people uncomfortable. Even if they would say twice as safe 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:12.439 in cities were as well very well defined, I think 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.439 it still bother people if every now and again there 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:16.879 was just an accident that we had no real idea 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.720 of what was happening. And I think that's really important 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.480 to bridge because I think that particularly when you get 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:27.760 that gap in understanding, that's room for other explanations to 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:29.760 kind of creep in. And I think that's where we 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.960 start see emergence where things like conspiracy theories, whether it's 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.639 things with kind of incorrect logic, Often it is that 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.680 gap between what we're seeing and the understanding of why 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:39.400 that's happening. 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:41.240 I think humans have this. 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.199 Very in many ways, very powerful desire to explain what 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:48.040 they're seeing. But in some cases where the explanation is 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.240 very hard to untangle, it can lead us astray. 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.920 That's fascinating to think of that, the gap between understanding 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.320 and what is happening. We don't understand how anesthesia works, 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.560 or how Thailand are a menif it truly works. But 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.960 we do understand how vaccines work, for instance, and yet 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.080 there's so many conspiracy theories and misinformation surrounding this thing 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.520 that we do know how it works. I guess what 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.520 good does evidence do if we do not take it 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:17.399 into account and are not open to it. 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:19.640 Yeah, And I think for me, a lot of it 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.399 is just understanding at what point that breaks down. I mean, 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.119 even if you if you look at some of the 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:28.879 COVID vaccines for example, you know, or or even some 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.679 of the kind of other debates around climate interventions. I 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:36.960 think often it gets very into debating some element of 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.479 the technology, and I think often it's actually just people 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.960 disliked some of the control that was exerted over them 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.040 through mandates or for other things. And actually, you know, 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.360 if you've got an intervention you're unhappy with, you can 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.440 disagree with the intervention of saying look, yeah, for example, 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.399 we know that intervention works, but I disagree with how 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.320 you're implementing it, or you can disagree that the intervention 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.600 actually has an effect, even one step down and just 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:03.919 say you know, actually, I think there's there's sort of 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.359 deeper problems, or maybe the disease isn't a threat. And 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.399 I think often those kind of levels get get tangled up, 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:13.040 and I think in a lot of conversations I've had 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:17.199 with people, often they're sort of deep down concern or 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.720 the thing that they're approaching it with isn't necessarily that 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.760 they've just out of nowhere decided that this isn't a threat, 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.040 or that that technology doesn't work. It's actually in some 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.520 of these instances things are a bit more marginal, and 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.720 you could say, you know, you can make an argument 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:36.760 either way even if the underlying intervention is effective or 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:38.080 is going to have this You know, you can make 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.280 there's moral and this it's not just about an sort 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.720 of epilogical question, as I think, kind of understanding where 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.040 those drivers are and also just in our own arguments. 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.399 I think sometimes, you know, I have the conversation with 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.040 people and I think I'm just arguing about the kind 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:53.880 of the nuances of whether intervention is a good idea 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.080 or not, and they're actually arguing whether it's a problem 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.520 in the first place. We see it vaccines, I guess 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.760 examples more polarized, but even something in climate You know, 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.240 you can have a lot of people who just agree 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.040 on the nature of the effect of climate change. They 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.840 agree on the different levers that we probably have available 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.240 a society, but they might strongly disagree about actually how 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.160 we prioritize those and all of the trade offs. And 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.359 I think it's just understanding what level we're on and 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:21.400 where the evidence might stop and where it might then 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.800 just be other things that are filtering in on a 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:24.520 personal level. 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.720 This idea of proof and certainty and truth. It seems 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.880 very intuitive in a lot of ways today, but this 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.360 maybe wasn't always the case, Like when did the concepts 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:40.040 of truth and the need for these self evident truths 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.199 or certainty or proof when did these come to be? 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:45.840 And then you know in what fields or what areas 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:47.520 where they initially applied. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:50.520 Yeah, I think that's a great It's easier just to 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:53.240 think of like the world and sort of science and 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.960 evidences always was as it is. I mean even in mathematics, 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:58.600 it's idea that we had a universal truth wasn't the 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.400 same throughout history. If you go back to the ancient Egyptians, 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.840 ancient Babylonians, they were much more focused on problems solving. 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.280 A lot of their texts are kind of these these 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.320 kind of puzzles and very much things around kind of 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.440 practical everyday problems. And even if you look at their 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.000 formulas for an area of a circle, they're quite approximate, 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:17.680 and if you're building something that needs quite a large circle, 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.360 you're probably going to be okay using those, but it's 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.080