The Infinite Monkey Cage - A Balanced Programme on Balance

Episode Date: November 28, 2011

The Infinite Monkeys, Brian Cox and Robin Ince, are joined on stage by Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society, and comedian and theology graduate Katy Brand to look at how science is portrayed in the press and whether opinion is ever as valid as evidence. Occasionally accused of lack of balance by lovers of astrology and the supernatural, the unashamedly rational and evidence loving duo tackle the issue of balance head on. Does the media skew scientific debate by giving too much weight to public opinion over the scientific evidence? Do important science messages get lost because scientists don't engage enough with seemingly irrational concerns and beliefs? A witty irreverent look at some of the issues surrounding the public's perception of science and how it's reported in the media. Producer: Alexandra Feachem Presenters: Robin Ince and Brian Cox Guests: Katy Brand and Sir Paul Nurse.

In our new podcast, Nature Answers, rural stories from a changing planet, we are traveling with you to Uganda and Ghana to meet the people on the front lines of climate change. We will share stories of how they are thriving using lessons learned from nature. And good news, it is working. Learn more by listening to Nature Answers wherever you get your podcasts. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long.

Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. This is a download from the BBC. To find out more, visit bbc.co.uk slash radio4. Welcome to the Infinite Monkey Cage. I'm Brian Cox. And in the interest of balance, I'm Robin Ince. And today's show is about balance. So welcome to also the finite non-Symeon large open space. This show will indeed be balanced in the finest Reithian traditions of the BBC. For instance I'm from north. And I am totally different because I'm from the south. I know that evidence shows that the universe began

13.73 plus or minus 0.12 billion years ago and I know the Einsteinian hyperbolic geometry of space-time will emerge intact from the recent neutrino results from the OPERA experiment at CERN. And I have a certificate to say I can swim 10 metres. I know that ghosts violate the second law of thermodynamics. The position of the planets against the fixed stars have no influence at all on the behaviour of human beings and water doesn't memorise nettles. And, in the interest of balance, I believe that particle physics is a fiction created by scientists who make financial gain from the borrower's theory

that the world is made of really small things and that they are all paid by a big farmer, possibly Michael Eavis. Yes, today we'll be discussing balance in scientific reporting. Science, unfortunately, doesn't exist in a vacuum insulated from politics, religion and newspaper columnists. Climate change, vaccination policy and evolution are all areas where critics decry what they see as a lack of balance. But what is balance?

In a discipline based on the importance of evidence, is holding an impassioned belief based on a dream you had after eating too much off gorgonzola enough to mean you should have a platform on the television i'm not going to mention who that is by the way it's jim al-khalili well today we hope to be balanced enough to avoid being hexed by witches this is true we got hexed by witches at the end of the last series yeah Yeah, we did. This is the lovely thing is we received, I think, in the end, three different hexes, and all of them on Twitter, which I think is quite a sweep.

A meeting of the old and the new. What would the woodland folk do? I imagine Twitter, probably. And for any witches, by the way, who are listening, Twitter is quite ineffective for actually hexing because you've only got 140 characters, which limits the nature of the hex. If you really want to do a big hex, then you've got to use Facebook.

And if you want to keep it secret, use MySpace. Shh! To discuss balance, we have a distinguished panel of scientists and non-scientists. Our first guest is Sir Paul Nurse. Or Lady Paul Nurse, in the interest of balance. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2001 for the discovery of the protein molecules that control the division of cells

and is now the president of the Royal Society. Katie Brand won Best Female Newcomer at the 2008 British Comedy Awards, danced to Beyonce's Single Ladies for Let's Dance for Sports Relief and, like many exuberant purveyors of Beyonce choreography, studied theology at Oxford University. Now, again, in the interest of balance, we've ensured our next guest has not publicly danced to or indeed for Beyoncé, as far as we know.

Returning to this show, it's author, geneticist and snail specialist, Professor Steve Jones. And our final guest is a veteran broadcaster who today alone has already been on Radio 5 with Mark Comode, Radio 2's Drive Time, and together with this appearance today on Radio 4, that makes 11. Thank heavens for the many worlds interpretation which allows him

to do such things. Fortunately, Simon has not yet read out my confession that I was fiddling with a particle accelerator when some Italians were testing the speed of neutrinos. I really wasn't expecting that to catch the media the way it did, but never mind. He also, by the way, introduced Brian Cox on Top of the Pops when he

was dressed in tartan. Brian, that is. That's true. Paul, if I can start off with you. In terms of science, what does balance mean? A balanced debate, a balanced argument within the world of science? Well, when you listen to scientists arguing, you know, when they're doing their trade, it wouldn't sound very balanced at all, actually,

because they get pretty passionate. You would have some trouble working out whether they were balanced, but what makes it balanced is that they carry it out, their debate, by certain rules. So they respect data. They don't cherry-pick observations that just support one view or another. They're logical, they're rational.

If they don't use those rules, then, of course, their reputation goes. So there's a restraint to keep like that. But when you get to the media, of course, you don't always have those rules being carried out. You can get two people discussing something. One might keep with the rules and say, I'm boring. You know, well, the data doesn't support this, or we don't quite know what the

data might mean, and we're on the left and we're on the right, then you'll get somebody really passionate, who isn't playing by the rules. And wow, the arguments gone. So I think there's a real issue here, that if you're going to have balance on the media, you've got to keep to the rules. And I think that's a big problem. Simon, you've conducted many interviews in your time, political and just about everything you can think of. How does a broadcast journalist approach this idea of balance in an interview, perhaps with two opposing opinions on a show? When I went to Five Live in 2001, the MMR debate was very much up and running at the time and we were right in the middle of one of these kind of false debates and there was

and still is sometimes that journalistic instinct to say on the one hand this and then on the other hand something else because that is the way you approach every other debate so if it's about you know Europe well we have someone who likes it and someone who doesn't well have someone who's in favor of Scottish independence and someone it's just a natural kind of instinct to do that. And so when you come to an issue which is perceived as controversial, the natural instinct seemed to be, well, let's get someone who says this and then someone else to oppose them. It then becomes very difficult, though quite manageable,

to reflect a situation where everybody was on one side and one person was on the other. Now, how do you reflect that in a debate? It sort of shouldn't be a debate, really. So, therefore, it's not like a political discussion and it's not like an economic discussion. It's a scientific discussion, which sort of feels as though it needs to have different rules.

A kind of a very simple definition of balance would be a 50-50 time split between the two opinions but then the audience come away with the fact that the debate is indeed a 50-50 balanced debate yes particularly if in the course of that they're both claiming that their facts are right i mean i know steve will want to come in on this as he's written the report about it but it comes back to the fact versus opinion you know you can have equal opinions given but when comes back to the fact versus opinion. You know, you can have equal opinions given, but when it comes to the facts, they should presumably, as the Guardian said, C.P. Scott said, you know, the facts are sacred. As Simon said, Steve, you authored the BBC Trust reports on balance in

science programming on the BBC. One quote that I picked up from the summary is, you said, programme makers must make a distinction between well-established fact and opinion in science coverage and ensure the distinction is clear to the audience, which is what Simon alluded to there. Could you expand on that? It's easy to say that, and it's actually rather more difficult to carry it out. But there is a sort of nervous tick within reporting as a whole. In some senses, it's right that it should be so,

and it's probably stronger in the BBC than anywhere else, which is the two sides of the coin report. And I sort of parody it in the BBC Trust report by saying, imagine an interview by a top mathematician who has discovered, finally, after many years of work, that two and two is four. So he gets on to, shall we say, the Today programme. And the format will inevitably be

the top mathematician is interviewed about his groundbreaking work. And then somebody from the duodecimal liberation front is up on the other side. And she is interviewed about her belief that two and two is five. And there's a bit of a back and forth. And in the end, there will be a summary

that two and two is somewhere between four and five. Probably near a four, but the debate goes on. And this really drives many scientists mad because it's a misunderstanding of the way that science works. Science is full of individual loathing, of anger, of hatred, of jealousy. That's biology. It is.

And this is all true, but I often think of it as... And so there's plenty of disagreement, often very vicious, within science itself. But in the end, I often think of it as it being a bit like the tide coming in. The tide comes in, and as it comes in, there are breakers and foam and seaweed and noise and all kinds of stuff.

But beyond it is blue water, where things are more or less settled. That's, I think, what the media doesn't understand. There is controversy within science. Without controversy, there could be no science. But the idea that you must always have only controversy, and often between a scientist and a non-scientist, or even an anti-scientist, which is quite common, seems to me utterly wrong. I should say, by the way, when you were talking about two plus two equals four as being this

great moment, that it did actually take Bertrand Russell and A.M. Whitehead with Principia Mathematica 360 pages and 10 years to go, definitely 1 plus 1 equals 2. So that's, even though, in fact, yeah, Bertrand Russell, one of the men whose teachers would say, please don't show all your working out. We don't have time for this.

But then Godel came along, of course, and showed that the whole programme was without foundation. Oh, let's not get into maths again. Much as that is a humdinger for getting the listeners in. What, Godel's Incompleteness Theorem? Oh, go on, then do the whole song. What is the song? You don't know the Godel's Incompleteness Theorem?

You must know it. No. Oh, never mind. Does anyone know the Godel In incompleteness theorem? You must know it. No. Oh, never mind. Does anyone know the Godel incompleteness song? OK, if you don't know that, does anyone know how easy it is to make a scientist believe an absolute load of rubbish that you've just made up?

There we are. We're trusting you with our facts and evidence. Katie, this thing about balance, I'm interested... You're predominantly a comedian, though you've studied theology, which is not always the direct route to doing comedy, but there is... Can I just say that there are probably several theology professors at Oxford and many, many state school secondary science teachers howling with laughter, derision and a sort of sense of horror

that I am on this programme. I'm on a science programme being billed as an Oxford theology graduate. I was the worst student ever. I mean, I did loads of good stuff at Oxford, but it didn't always include my degree. There we are, that's my... No, no, I didn't mean it like that. She's beginning now to get towards the Simon Mayo's Confessions area.

I'm just saying, I'm just putting the disclaimer out there. You know, I'm full of opinions, but no facts, I'm afraid. That's why we invited you on. Yes, I know. That's what balance is about. That's why I'm here for theology, yeah, I know. Well, that's what I wonder. With comedy, you get this strange sense of balance where, for instance,

when Jerry Springer, the opera, was written, when that was put on, an enormous number of letters going, oh, there's no balance here i notice you've made fun here of the christian church and ideas within the christian church i notice you haven't done something about muslims instead even in the world of comedy it seems as this extra pressure to go every joke must be balanced is that something you experience work on tv yes to a certain extent although i i wanted to do a lot more sort of balanced stuff than I was allowed to, really. I'm not necessarily of the opinion that there needs to be balance in comedy. Comedians should be as chaotic and unbalanced as they feel like being.

I would do sketches about Jesus's girlfriend, was a character that I made up on my sketch show, where Jesus was a kind of first century Russell Brand figure, who was a kind of a bit of a handful and had quite a big ego and was a bit difficult and a bit flighty. And he had this hard-working girlfriend who basically sorted everything out for him and made sure history remembered him properly. And, I mean, that was quite tough to get through the ITV lawyers. But the thing that I wasn't allowed to do, that I wanted to do,

was a load of sketches called The Imam of Dibley. LAUGHTER And... LAUGHTER And... Yeah, I know, right? We were right, weren't we? It's funny. But the ITV lawyers wouldn't even let us start writing them.

It's an interesting point, though, about the idea that you can cause offence. So let's say, for example, you're making a programme about evolution. Now, evolution is probably, by natural selection, it's probably the closest thing you have to a fact in biology. Thank you. It's not exactly physics, but it's a relatively high value. I had to make it relative.

Is there any sense in which, if you're making a radio or television programme or communicating Darwin's theory, you should take any account at all of the fact that there are people, and it could, it isn't at the moment, but it could be a majority who believe the world began 6,000 years ago and everything appeared as is. How do you deal with that? Well, in the United States, actually it could be a majority who believe the world began 6,000 years ago and everything appeared as is. How do you deal with that?

Well, in the United States, actually, it is a majority. It's about 55% disbelief to some degree with the theory of evolution. As I said to my American publisher, I don't mind if those 150 million creationists burn my books as long as they buy them first. But they don't show much sign of doing that. There should be a Sunday Times bestseller list, a special one on books burnt.

It's a strange business. If somebody is determined to disbelieve, you cannot come to a balance. You can, you know, I would say at University College London, where I work, among the first year biology students, my guess is that between 10 and 20% are creationists. And that's biology students. So we have a problem. Paul, what do you think it is that marks out, because some% are creationists. And that's biology students, so we have a problem. Paul, what do you think it is that marks out? Because some science no-one even seems to really bother about outside the scientific world, and certain bits of, for instance, physics, you don't have a great debate with people demanding that steady state

is still taught as the theory of the universe versus Big Bang. And yet then you get on to subjects like, for instance, the obvious ones being climate change, vaccination was mentioned there by Simon, and obviously evolution as well. Now, very different ideas, but all of them seem to be... What is it, you think, that marks out something in science where people become very passionate?

It's when it touches strongly held human beliefs or things that really have an effect on society. I mean, that's when it really matters. So if you've been taught in church that the world was made 4,000 years ago, then we come along and say, no, it's 14 billion years old, you have a real problem. I mean, that's where I'd put it, I have to say. But then what about something like, you know, climate change is an enormous...

I mean, not just debate, it gets, you know, quite nasty. It does indeed, yes. And why... I had to try so hard not to say the word heated, but it's too late now. And something like climate change, again, very... You know, when you see the passion there, what... Because that's not about a strongly held belief. You know, most people who have born into the world go,

this is the way climate is. Do you know, it is due to strongly held beliefs. It's all to do, actually, with politics. If really the temperature is rising and it's due to the effect of humankind, the only way we can deal with that is concerted political effort across the globe. That is a certain way of doing politics,

which is anathema to a whole set of people. Those people are driven more by politics rather than by the science, and that's where the problem goes, in fact, because if you're driven by politics, then you can't do the science. So I think it is actually very heated. Well, I was just going to say, it's interesting you say that, because I was thinking when you were talking earlier

about how there are certain rules in scientific debate, and it's very frustrating when you have somebody on one side of the debate sticking to the rules and somebody on the other side not sticking to the rules. And it just sounds, as a sort of observer almost, of the finer intricacies of science in this conversation, is that it sounds like there's a frustration amongst scientists that when you start entering into the media or going into the political arena or going into any arena that is not science or not purely science,

you come up against a whole new set of rules that that industry has. And it's the two industries bumping up against each other. So media has its own rules. And if, as a scientist, you want to enter the media arena in order to get your message out there, promote a book, whatever it is you want to do, then it may be that you have to play by the media rules. And part of media rules is that people would like an entertainment aspect to an argument, or they would like to see somebody

have a big row on Newsnight, or whatever it is, because part of the rules of media is we need people to watch this programme. Similarly with politics, if you find yourself needing political funding or a political platform to get your scientific ideas out there, is it not a bit self-flagellating to then worry yourselves about the rules of a political arena somehow not playing fair? If you don't find that fair, then perhaps you need to stick within your own scientific world.

I don't mean that as aggressively as it sounds, but I just mean... Could you make it more aggressive? I'm going to flip this table. We think it's very much the entertainment part of the show. So if you could become very violent. Do you know what I mean? I think what I would say in response to that science is that the means by which we, as a civilisation, as a society,

come to the best possible view, given the available data and the understanding of a particular issue or question. Well, it's the best possible scientific view. No, no, no, it's the best possible view, I would say. No, the reason... I don't know. I didn't actually mean to get a laugh then, Paul. I mean, you can't get laughs, actually, can you?

In the sense that if you ask a question such as, does putting CO2 into the atmosphere of the planet raise the temperature, then the best possible view you can come to is based on taking data from satellites and from weather stations, modelling them in a particular way. There's uncertainty in those models. But the answer that you get from that process, the scientific process, is the best you can do. And in that case it's

absolutely essential isn't it that the people know what the best view of the experts is but that is purely you know science has no conscience science has no sociological remit but what is interesting what i think sometimes science misses is people find ways of pragmatically getting through their day and there's nothing wrong with that and science doesn't have to be involved in that for example I have a friend of mine who studied at Yale and his philosophy professor read her horoscope religiously every day and he said to her in the end you're a very eminent philosophy professor I can't believe you read your horoscope every day do you actually believe this and she professor. I can't believe you read your horoscope every day. Do you actually believe this?

And she said, no, I don't believe it. I don't believe any of it. But what I find is if I read my horoscope in the morning, I have a better day because it gives me some sense of control. It gives me things to pinpoint throughout the day. I enjoy seeing if anything happened that was mentioned in my horoscope. And at the end of the day, I feel happier having read it. And that is all that she required of it. So there

are some questions in life that science neither is required to answer or feels it has to answer. It's not a scientist's responsibility to answer every single question that a human might want to ask. Well, I think to a degree it is actually i mean do you think i mean astrology okay we all agree astrology is silly but it is a it is we may not but i don't know if i agree that it's silly but i agree that it's probably not based in fact or truth drop the probably here um however a fact that is great which is based in fact like i don't know the astrological signs, or I can't remember them, so I can't get it right,

but children who are born in July and August, and the figures are really quite striking, are worse at athletics, do less well in school, and have a higher rate of suicide than children born a lot of times of the year. And the statistical evidence for that is very strong. So as a scientist, you think to yourself, what's going on? You might say, oh, it's this star that's having this malign effect. No, it's not. They're younger because they start school just after

their birthdays. They're younger at the age of four, five, and six, and so on, when those differences are very important. They're younger than the people in their class. So they're smaller, they get bullied, they don't catch up as well, and that persists throughout their lives. So there we have a scientific explanation for something which, first sight, you might say it's all due to something in the stars. Yes, but what I'm trying to say is that is the scientific explanation as to why that might happen to somebody born at that time.

It doesn't help that individual person cope with the fact of their birth. It does. But for some people it doesn't help that individual person cope with the fact of their birth it does it may it but for some people it doesn't and they need other things they don't need to be called stupid or fantasists just because they need a different solution to their emotional problem that's all i'm saying the problems though i've addressed this to to paul is that um it's fine a belief in astrology is is completely harmless in many ways um most ways i suppose however if you also are predisposed to believe in absolutely in in the primacy of alternative medicine let's say so you don't go and get the correct medical treatment for a condition or you're prepared to distrust the findings of

science in terms of climate change or childhood vaccinations, then you have a problem. So there's a difference, a key difference, isn't there, between something that's essentially harmless, a belief that's harmless, but there are many beliefs that are anything but harmless. Yeah, let me have a go with astrology because it's exactly as Brian just said.

Astrology is just fun and nobody takes it seriously, or rather most people don't take it seriously because in some societies they of course do, including our own society we used to 500 years ago. But there are some things out here which are really, really important and yet the astrologers of vaccine and the astrologers of climate change and the astrologers of climate change and the astrologers of genetic modification of food and so on and so on hold the sway and that's where we get that's where we have to deal with it

what about when science may well perhaps be ahead of popular opinion we were talking about this before we came on here which was um david nutt who used to be the drugs advisor for the government, and he basically published an editorial in which he stated that, in fact, it appeared that a certain class A drug was, at the very least, less dangerous than horse riding. Now, this created an enormous amount of press coverage and anger, even though he was basically just dealing with statistics and evidence. Yes, OK, well, a lot of this boils down to what you do with people whose arguments are evidentially wrong. And again, we're just sticking within this area,

because if it's about evidence and about balance. If someone... Let's talk about capital punishment. The majority of people still believe in it for some crimes. One of the reasons for that is that they think it would be a deterrent. Now, you could prove, I think, evidentially, that that is an incorrect view. It is not a deterrent. Does that mean that that view, therefore, should not be represented on the broadcast media?

See, I suspect it probably should be because so many people... And it appears to be a rational and coherent argument. The fact that you can prove that it is statistically wrong, does that mean that you shouldn't hear? I mean, this is just something that you would struggle with if you're trying to put a programme together. My argument would be you should probably hear the arguments of people who are wrong and in that programme put the reasons why they might be wrong, but you still need to hear that view in the first place. Can't you just introduce him and go, there we go, that was Professor Steve Jones and now someone who's wrong.

For those of you who'd like to know how wrong he is, please go to this website where you will see the statistics laid out and their source material. Something like that. Paul, to what extent should scientists then be advocates? Because this is where a lot of scientists, particularly in climate science, get into trouble. When the evidence is clear, there's the scientific consensus, and then you move into the political arena

and start to advocate political action. This is a really interesting issue because when you're talking as a scientist, you have to stick to your data, you have to stick to objective argument, and often we're a little reluctant to express a view of where we go from there and what conclusions you would make from that, simply for this very good reason. But we can do so,

but I think what we have to do is sort of change our hats. I mean, in other words, we present our argument based on data, objective facts and the like, and then we say, and because of this, I passionately believe X. And I think we can just switch, but we probably have to change our hat halfway through. But you're much more in the world of opinion at that point. Yes. Aren't you? It's an interesting opinion, though,

isn't it? The computer models and the data in terms of climate science say that if you put this amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, there's a possibility we'll have a 4 degree, 5 degree temperature rise, the civilization will be decimated. There's the data. Now, putting my opinion hat on, therefore, I think we should stop. Get that hat off, you're on the big line.

Unfortunately, we've pretty much run out of time, which means, Steve, we were going to ask you about the nature of the gut instinct and how now we live in a fact-based world. In fact, though we can use evidence, the gut instinct remains, and what evolutionary advantage that might have been in the past, but we don't have time. So, here we go. Here, have a look at some of these. These are the audience questions. We'd like to know from the audience,

what is the most unfounded opinion you hold that you'll be prepared to air on radio? Well, this one I think is Meredith, again, and the Robin Ince is more attractive than Brian Cox. Thank you very much. Calories don't count on special occasions. That's from Lucy.

Can I say that's absolutely true? Also, calories don't count in secret at weddings and if you're with someone who's bigger than you are and also eating. So, have you got any more interests? You're not meant to read them out to yourself. You're meant to do it out loud to them. Oh, it's radio, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Welcome to Brian Cox's thoughts. I can't get away with staring wistfully at the sky. Yeah. I can see you doing that. In the interest of balance, I'd like to know what the opinions are that you discarded, Brian, as not worthy for broadcast. Because you discarded most of them, because clearly they weren't quite mad enough.

Fergus Oakley said that people should pay great attention to me. The mystical Pandora's box is full of infinitely tiny vibrating strings that may or may not be tangled up with Schrodinger's cat. And there's one from Simon Le Bon here. No matter what anyone says, Hungry Like a Wolf by Duran Duran is the best song ever. Good to have Simon back in the audience. So, basically, we're going to get more complaints than anything else.

We've done a show about balloning. It wasn't very balanced, was it? Anyway, right, so there we go. I tried my best. But we did know that, so to save people writing to our email address, which as many of you Unix fans know is slash def slash null at bbc.co.uk

Some last minute balance. Evolution is just a theory and in fact the universe is made from the milk of a giant sky cow. There's no such thing as climate change, it's all propaganda created by a cabal of Hessian-clad cloud surgeons. The moon is a spaceship. Buckingham Palace is a smaller spaceship

which communicates with the moon using superluminal neutrinos. The Large Hadron Collider is a secret black hole machine. Not so secret. Everyone knows about it now. And the cabinet are lizards, predominantly. That's it. So no complaints, please. Next week, we address the much simpler task of exploring the question, how did life begin? And again, for the sake of balance, whether life actually exists at all.

So thanks to our guests, Paul Nurse, Steve Jones, Katie Brandon, Simon Mayo. Goodbye. And for the sake of balance, hello. APPLAUSE Thank you. Visit bbc.co.uk slash radio4. In our new podcast, Nature Answers, rural stories from a changing planet, we are travelling with you to Uganda and Ghana to meet the people on the front lines of climate change. We will share stories of how they are thriving using lessons learned from nature. how they are thriving, using lessons learned from nature. And good news, it is working.

Learn more by listening to Nature Answers wherever you get your podcasts. you