Intelligence Squared

The pioneering work done by the scientists at the Oxford Martin School promises to transform our world – to prolong our life-spans, enhance our brains, conquer food scarcity and solve the climate change problem. How do they propose to take us to this Brave New World and what nasty surprises might they unleash as they prise open Pandora’s box?

In this conference, organised jointly by the Oxford Martin School and Intelligence Squared, four of the school’s most brilliant experts will be showcasing their vision of the future before addressing challenges from you, the audience, about the potential perils that such visions may bring with them.

After a scene-setting presentation by Dr Ian Goldin, in which he will lay out a vision for the world in 2020, the evening will be divided in to two halves:

TRANSFORMING HUMANS

Why accept frailty as part of the human condition when science is poised to keep us healthy and sane? Dr Bennett Foddy will present the case for biological enhancement of the human body. Should we embrace therapeutic cloning and genetic manipulation so that we can live longer and healthier lives, or is this eugenics by another name? As for the human brain, Professor Gero Miesenböck will tell us how his cutting-edge work in the new science of optogenetics – developing genetic strategies for observing and controlling the function of brain circuits with light – can help us understand our brains and potentially manipulate them. What are the ethical problems we’ll be facing if these visions of ‘mind control’ are fulfilled?

TRANSFORMING THE ENVIRONMENT

No less revolutionary are the ideas being put forward to transform the world in which we live. Professor Liam Dolan will be arguing that new techniques for manipulating crop genes hold the key to increasing yields and alleviating concerns about global food security. Professor Gideon Henderson will explain how the global warming problem could be solved by manipulating the natural system of the oceans to make them take up more carbon. GM crops. Altering the patterns of nature. Are these our route to survival or will we be unleashing unstoppable changes in the environment that we – or future generations – may live to regret?

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The Artangel Longplayer Conversation 2011 introduces two of the world’s foremost modern thinkers: climate-scientist and ‘futurologist’ James Lovelock and political philosopher and author John Gray, who will embark on a discussion inspired by the philosophical implications of long time.

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Where do our ideas about morality and meaning come from? Most people – from religious extremists to secular scientists – would agree on one point: that science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, science's failure to explain meaning and morality has become the primary justification for religious faith and the reason why even many non-believers feel obliged to accord respect to the beliefs of the devout.

Sam Harris, the American philosopher and neuroscientist, comes to the Intelligence² stage to argue that these views are mistaken – that amidst all the competing arguments about how we should lead our lives, science can show us that there are right and wrong answers. This means that moral relativism is mistaken and that there can be neither a Christian nor a Muslim morality – and that ultimately science can and should determine how best to live our lives.

Sam Harris will be discussing his latest book The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values with Revd Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral.

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Are we alone in the universe? How will we ever find out?

How did the universe begin?

Will we ever find the mysterious "God particle"? What would it mean if we did?

How soon will we all become space tourists?

These are some of the big questions surrounding man's existence....and Intelligence² are bringing together some of the world's leading scientists, astronomers and space pioneers to attempt to answer them.

Particle physicist and BBC presenter Brian Cox will talk about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, and specifically about what the world's largest scientific experiment might tell us about some of the great questions in cosmology. What is dark matter? Why is gravity so weak? What happens in the heart of neutron stars?

Charles Simonyi, the former Microsoft technology architect and space tourist, will tell us what it's like to be aboard the International Space Station, focusing in particular on weightlessness: What does it mean? What would Newton have said about it? And how does it actually feel? He'll illustrate his talk with images from Newton’s books and video taken aboard the space station.

Royal astronomer Martin Rees will outline how a mysterious 'big bang' gave rise to atoms, galaxies, stars, planets – and at least one biosphere. Having introduced us to the exciting discoveries that suggest there are billions of planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy, and that there are billions of other galaxies, he will speculate on whether our 'big bang' is just one of many, on the probabilities of life on other planets, and on the long-range future for life, here on earth and far beyond.

Biographer Richard Holmes will lead us back in time for an historical overview of space – from Ptolemy to Galileo to Herschel. How did astronomers of the past understand the cosmos? What impact did they have on poets and writers such as Shakespeare and Keats?

And planetary scientist Colin Pillinger will talk about space exploration past, present and future using manned and robotic spacecraft. As the man who led the Beagle 2 project to send a spacecraft to look for evidence of life on Mars, he will be asking the big question: Is there life elsewhere in the universe?

The event will be chaired by Rick Stroud, film-maker and author of The Book of the Moon.

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On February 28th 1953, James Watson and his collaborator Francis Crick made a momentous discovery at the Cambridge laboratory where they were working. They had determined the double-helix structure of the molecule DNA, of which all living matter is made. Watson and Crick became world famous, sharing the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Maurice Wilkins. Their discovery revolutionised the study of biology and genetics, making possible the DNA techniques used by today's biotechnology industry.

Watson is known as the enfant terrible of molecular biology. In 1968 he published his account of the DNA discovery, The Double Helix. The book became an international best-seller, but some in the scientific community were scandalised by Watson's portrayal of the faults and foibles of his colleagues and the snipings and rivalries of the scientific world. Since then he has frequently been embroiled in controversy for his views on genetic screening and genetic engineering. But Watson insists that devotion to the truth as he sees it is as essential in dealing with the general public as it is in scientific research.

James Watson will be in conversation with Brenda Maddox, biographer of Rosalind Franklin, the scientist who made a significant contribution to learning about the structure of DNA but whose role was largely unacknowledged in her lifetime.

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Niall Ferguson is the most brilliant British historian of his generation. In his latest book, Civilisation: The West and the Rest, he asks how Western civilisation, from inauspicious roots in the 15th century, came to dominate the rest of the world. His answer is that the West developed six “killer applications” that the Rest lacked: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the Protestant work ethic. The key question today is whether or not the West has lost its monopoly on these six things. If it has and the Rest of the world can successfully download these apps, we may be living through the end of Western ascendancy.

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John Gray and Adam Phillips will be discussing themes raised in Gray's forthcoming book The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death. In the late 19th century the implication of Darwin's theories was that humans were animals like any other, alone in an uncaring universe. The refusal to accept this and to insist instead on our immortality resulted in a series of experiments. Gray examines two major examples: the belief that the science-backed Communism of the new USSR could reshape the planet, remaking humanity and freeing us from death (and in the process return Lenin back to life), and the belief among a group of Edwardian intellectuals that there was a form of life after death accessed through mediums and automatic writing. These attempts may seem deluded to us in the 21st century but can we claim to be no longer gripped by the hope that somehow science can make us invincible?

http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/immortality

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Interview with John Gray

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Is science the only path to truth? Does it have all the answers? Join actor and writer Jack Klaff of Intelligence Squared for an evening of informal, intelligent and exciting chat.

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This weeks quick debate.

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