3QD Interviews Richard Dawkins

As I've mentioned many times (for example, here) at 3QD, Richard Dawkins has been one of my greatest intellectual heroes since I first read The Selfish Gene and then The Extended Phenotype in college. I was recently fortunate enough to spend some time with Richard in New York City. When about to meet someone whom one holds in as high esteem as I do Richard, one is often a bit apprehensive that the flesh-and-blood person behind the works that one has so admired might not live up to the inflated demigod of one's imagination, and so I was a bit nervous as I walked over to Richard's hotel to pick him up.

I needn't have been. From the moment I said hello to him in the lobby of his hotel, Richard was warm, thoughtful, considerate, polite, and needless-to-say, exceedingly sharp as well as knowledgeable about, well... everything. As we were walking back from his hotel (to my sister's, where I was going to interview him and then have dinner) we spoke about genetic linguistics and some of the work of Cavalli-Sforza, and I was telling Richard about how learning German has recently made obvious to me many common Indo-European roots of words in English and my own language Urdu. For example, I never made any connection between the English word "bread" and the Urdu word for the same thing, "roti," until I saw the German word for bread, which is "brot." Now "roti" is just a dimunitive of "rot" (which still exists in Urdu as the word for a very large bread) and it is easy to see how "brot" could easily have become "bread" on the one hand, and by losing the initial "b," also become "rot" on the other. I also told Richard about the odd dialect of German that is spoken in the South Tyrol where I live at the moment, and then he suddenly pointed at something excitedly: there was a man walking by us on Broadway with a cat balanced very comfortably on top of his head (I kid you not), calmly surveying the mad NYC rush about her! But he then immediately switched back to our conversation to ask about the third language (after German and Italian) spoken by a small minority in the South Tyrol, Ladin. And he knew more about it than I. This is how I found Richard: attuned to the environment, but also possessing immense reserves of knowledge, easily deployed, about whatever one happens to mention to him. [Photo shows John Allen Paulos, Richard, and me.]

To his credit, Richard was not too taken aback by the low-tech setup of a camera-mounted-on-my-suitcase, manned by my nephew Asad, in my bedroom at my sister's, the site of our interview. (There was a last minute confusion and we couldn't get the right equipment, like mics and a tripod, and so there are a few distracting sounds like phones ringing, etc. Sorry about that.) But I think we still managed to have an interesting conversation. Judge for yourself by seeing the video below. But before I leave you to watch the video, I cannot resist telling you about something that (really!) happened at dinner after our talk: on my way to add some more Bihari Kebab to my plate, I walked by Richard speaking to a very good-looking young woman, and this is what she was saying to him: "Wait, so you really don't believe in God?" :-)

Comments

[Felix E F Larocca MD]

Thanks Abbas for this opportunity. Perhaps after the brief encounter with the comely female, the atheist will accept that "God created woman".

Cheers

[George D]

Abbas, would you mind providing a downloadable link for those who cannot play embedded .wmv files. Currently, the video simply fails to appear, which could leave people somewhat confused.

By the way, thanks for doing this interview!

[Logicel]

Came here from the Dawkins site. Have been hearing about your site for some time, and I like what I have read so far--I will subscribe via my newsreader.

Especially enjoyed this bit-- This is how I found Richard: attuned to the environment, but also possessing immense reserves of knowledge, easily deployed, about whatever one happens to mention to him.

Dawkins certainly sounds like an enjoyable person with whom to spend some time!

[Azra Raza]

Abbas, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you and Professor Dawkins in this brilliant exchange. Thank you for doing such as fabulous job as an interviewer. Your extraordinary questions were clearly what brought out such thoughtful responses from Professor Dawkins. I was reminded of the famous Leonard Bernstein quote, “In my personal experience, the few really good interviewers have either breadth of knowledge or depth of insight.” You showed us both. Congratulations. I think you may finally see a potential career ahead?
And as for Professor Dawkins, I completely agree with you that he really was good in person despite all the great things we have heard and read about him. His answers will provide food for thought for a long time to come. And I so enjoyed Professor Dawkins’s inimitable sense of humor (does God really love condoms?) and his ability to see through and unabashedly state the absurdities which so many of us seem to accept out of intellectual lethargy.
And for 3QD readers: as Professor Dawkins emerged from the interview, I asked him how it went and his response was something to the effect that he has been interviewed countless times, but this was the most unusual and interesting one he had ever done. And he wanted a copy of the DVD. I think that says it all.
Asad, thank you for the excellent job of video-taping the interview. I look forward to seeing this fascinating dialogue broadcast through many sites.
Aps.

[Reza]

Dear Abbas,

This is my first time visiting your site. Thank you very much for your thoughtful and engaging interview with Prof. Dawkins. It is perhaps one of the best interviews I have seen of him. Please also upload this video to YouTube so others not familiar with your site can view it.

Best regards,
Reza

[Tasnim]

Dear Abbas:
The video link does not show up on the posting and from the link it downloaded on my Desktop but will not play. Any suggestions?

[Babrock]

Thanks Mr. Abbas. I came here from t Dawkins site, where I have heard quite a few interviews of him. Yours stacked right up there at t top. For me, t low tech aspects were not at all a problem. n fact I would not have noticed if you had not brought it up.

[Stephen]

I got the file to work by copying the URL and pasting into the address box for "Open URL..." on Windows Media Player.

Try this if you're having trouble.

[Adip]

Abbas,

I've never been to this 3QD before, but I'm very impressed with your interview. Your questions were really interesting and Prof. Dawkins looked very stimulated.

However, it appears like a lot of people are having trouble downloading the video. I had some trouble as well. I think many people would appreciate it if you could upload it to YouTube or some other easily accessible website.

[clay]

Great stuff Abbas, one of the best Dawkins interviews i've seen. Thanks.

[Mike]

Hi Mr. Abbas,

I'd have to concur with the others here, it was a truly engaging interview.

Thanks!

[Ollie]

Is anyone else having trouble playing this on Windows Media Player 10? It plays but I can't rewind or fast forward. If I try to click on the progress bar to another spot it just resets to the beginning.

[Ollie]

I'm sorry. My mistake. The download was interrupted for some reason so the file was corrupted. I now have a working copy.

Great interview by the way. Thanks for making it available!

[Raj]

Dear Mr. Abbas,

I am someone of Indian origin who lives in the UK. I have to say that it is wonderful that there are rational thinkers coming out of India.

Recently, I have been dismayed by the obfuscations (a polite way of saying "lies") of someone like Dinesh D'Souza.

I'm glad there are people like yourself out there! Perhaps there is hope for humanity yet?

Sincerely,

Raj

[Abbas Raza]

Thanks to all the people who have left appreciative comments. It really was a lot of fun for me to speak to Richard. Some people have complained that the video doesn't work properly. I am not sure how to fix it, but will soon add a link to a Quicktime version of the interview, which may work better on Apple machines. I'll also try to get it up on Youtube.

I am adding a link above (at the end of my post) to the post of the video at richarddawkins.net where there are many more comments, some quite amusing such as the one saying "the interviewer didn't know what to do with his hands." It's true, I am no professional Charlie Rose-type, and it's shocking for me to see how much I fidget (and hem and haw!). Another person was very excited to see a Muslim (especially a Syed--a descendent of Mohammad) interview Dawkins! And then there was this: "Some excellent questions....although the interviewer loves the sound of his own voice." :-)

Thanks again.

[Ram Manikkalingam]

Dear Abbas,
Thank you for a fabulous new addition to 3QD. It was a double treat to see you and Richard Dawkins. I was enthralled by the interview (yes it is true) and the range of the conversation. Your unusual background combining hard science and philosophy of the mind came through in the unique interview. And I think made it more exciting for all of us. I am a huge fan of Dawkins, especially in how he pushes the argument of science to the very edge, that helps me sometimes appreciate its limits, as well. Your questions both brought out, but also smoothened those edges.

Thank you.

Ram

ps. Raj, I do not know if you will be disappointed, or even more pleased to know that Abbas comse from Pakistan, not India. Though he might say that like all subcontinentals we all come from India - just at different times.

[jonathan]

Abbas,

Thanks for the very interesting interview (and for asking my questions!). I especially liked the discussion of the relative probability of life. I was a bit surprised that he didn't have more to say about the Boye/Haidt/Bloom type argument about the evolution of religious feeling. My sense is that they represent a different kind of argument. Perhaps Dawkins was too polite to say so.

JK

[Pete Chapman]

Abbas;
Good work, you actually got him riffing, the bit about non-DNA/RNA based life was very good. The temptation to just keeping going on some of those tangents would be enormous. As for Charlie Rose; after that "Beckett" piece, what could you do? Scowl meaningfully into the camera, bracketing every phrase with more dead air than King Tut's tomb and intone, "...proteins...Yes, proteins..."? Rose is a Rose and Raza is a Raza; don't even think about it, you did just fine. It's hard to meet your heroes let alone interview them...interviewing is a skill and it takes practice. You got some fresh content there and very few "set" pieces out of him. In short, you got him talking.
The only problem with the interview is wanting to ask him more questions. I've always wondered what he thought of Jacques Monod's work (Chance and Necessity) which always struck me as one of the strongest statements about the improbability of the occurrence of recursion in organic chemistry.
Anyway, thanks for the interview/posting, it was well worth allowing Windows Media Player 11 on to my system.
Pete
P.S. Tech Question; Did all of the sound come from just the camera mic? Unusually clear, "roomy" but clear, if that was the case; also very good work for a guerrilla set-up.

[Sha]

An absorbing interview in a laid-back and relaxed atmosphere. You covered a lot of ground in this, perhaps more collective material then any other Dawkins interview I've seen. Good job and congratulations on meeting a hero, it must have been quite a thrill.

[chuckgoecke]

Abbas,
I heartily enjoyed your interview of Richard. It was brilliant! The questions were wonderful, provocative and refreshing different, as many have noted. The dialog was just great, and the excitement I saw in Richard, especially in some of the questions, how he shifted in his seat, and leaned forward, he was almost giddy to answer. This is a sign of someone really engaged, and really enjoying himself. Of course we all know Richard is great, but you brought out even more. I loved the setting, the production, and every thing about it. It goes to show that its all about the people doing the interview, the dialog, and not about the technology, or the production or the polish. Thank you so much!

[Adam Kirkland]

Abbas,
Excellent interview! I've seen plenty of interviews with Richard, and this was by far the most interesting and gave plenty of food for thought. The low tech was actually kind of nice, as it made the "interview" feel much more like a regular conversation of the type you would have in your own home (or your sister's...).

I was actually led to your site by the link from Richard's site, and I've become hooked!

On a more content-related note, the discussion about phenotypes was really interesting and made me remember something I'd read once, which illustrated the subject dramatically for me. It turns out that yeast (or a certain strain of it) doesn't have everything needed for its lifecycle and survival specified in its DNA. It also uses prions, which are protein molecules that can bully other similar molecules into becoming like themselves, and the creation of these prions aren't described in their DNA at all - they simply share them when they reproduce and the prions top themselves off by using some of the yeast's own proteins. This is all of the top of my head, but I thought it might be interesting to bring up, since it certainly fascinated me.

[Chris Schoen]

Abbas, I was pleased to see you stick to your guns on the question of whether some scientific advances have caused more problems than they have solved (man-made pollutants in the water supply, for example). I thought Dawkins' response was somewhat tepid, and not entirely rational. It may not be "obvious" that new technological innovations would be worse than the old ones, but why should our default position rest on the faith that we can rescue ourselves from yesterday's innovations with today's or tomorrow's? Wouldn't our growing awareness of the complexity of life instruct us to be more humble about what we can accomplish technologically?

Also, there is an important inaccuracy in Dawkins discussion of the possibility of non-RNA/DNA life forms. He states that proteins are specified by the DNA. This is not always--or even usually--the case, as protein folding is often modified by "posttranslational" factors, such as enzymes which add or subtract amino acids from polypeptide chains. Alternative splicing is another means by which a single gene can "specify" multiple proteins.

This is fairly important, given the genetics and genomics have been moving away from the sort of genetic determinism that selfish gene theory relies on to be sensible.

[windy]

Also, there is an important inaccuracy in Dawkins discussion of the possibility of non-RNA/DNA life forms. He states that proteins are specified by the DNA. This is not always--or even usually--the case, as protein folding is often modified by "posttranslational" factors, such as enzymes which add or subtract amino acids from polypeptide chains. Alternative splicing is another means by which a single gene can "specify" multiple proteins.

Do you seriously think that would have been relevant in the context?

This is fairly important, given the genetics and genomics have been moving away from the sort of genetic determinism that selfish gene theory relies on to be sensible.

Your apparent desire to one-up Dawkins is making you see things that aren't there. Just reading chapter 2 of the Extended Phenotype makes it clear that no sort of naive "one gene one protein" genetic determinism is required or implied by Dawkins.

[Chris Schoen]

Windy,

Dawkins states that genes specify proteins. They don't. Seems relevant to me.

The point is that non-heritable factors play an important role in protein formation, not to mention the way new proteins are ordered and arranged in the cell. I don't think History has any "one-upping" of Dawkins in store for me, but it seems reasonable to me to point out in these lowly comment threads when the Oxford Professor for the Public Understanding of Science is wrong.

[windy]

"The point is that non-heritable factors play an important role in protein formation"

What are these "non-heritable factors"? Are the enzymes that modify proteins not produced by inherited DNA?

"it seems reasonable to me to point out in these lowly comment threads when the Oxford Professor for the Public Understanding of Science is wrong"

It's not "wrong" but incomplete to say that genes specify proteins. And it's perfectly all right not to veer into a biochemistry lecture about all the caveats when talking about other possible coding systems. (And he didn't say "genes" specify proteins, either.) In the interview "specify" is used by both men approximately equivalently for "codes for", would you object to that too? Sheesh.

[Chris Schoen]

Windy, I'm aware it seems like a quibble. My point is just to address the genecentrism. When we say things like "DNA specifies proteins" the implication is that DNA is a causal determinant of form. This is at odds with our contemporary understanding of microbiology. I would like our more prominent popularizers of science to convey that fact.

[windy]

Of course it's a causal determinant of form, just not the only determinant! If DNA does not causally determine form (of a protein or whatever), how do you think forms get selected and evolve?

[Chris Schoen]

Windy, we've had this conversation before. I don't think words like "determine" or "control" are helpful ways to understand biological phenomena.

When there are multiple factors influencing an event, it becomes very fraught to select out one cause as being more determinate than the others, and so it is with genes and environments. 35 years ago Paul Weiss wrote on this topic:

This is about as unscientific as if one were to express the volume of a gas, which is proportional to the ratio of temperature over pressure, by crediting a given number of cubic centimeters to temperature, and what is left, to pressure. Genes never lack environment right from the moment at which we arbitrarily choose to start our dating of the development of an individual--the fertilized egg; and since every subsequent developmental step is contingent upon the conditions created by the preceding steps of interactions between genes and their environment, the artificiality of looking for their respective contributions ... is plainly evident.

[windy]

I don't think words like "determine" or "control" are helpful ways to understand biological phenomena.

But you are not just objecting to those words but to "specify" and "cause" as well. It is nuts to try to exorcise any hint of causation from genetics, if one accepts "smoking causes lung cancer" and other statements of statistical causation.

The Paul Weiss quote is almost completely irrelevant to whether nucleic acids can be said to "specify" proteins, but:

This is about as unscientific as if one were to express the volume of a gas, which is proportional to the ratio of temperature over pressure, by crediting a given number of cubic centimeters to temperature, and what is left, to pressure

Keep temperature constant, and vary the pressure. How much of the change in volume is due to change in pressure?

Seriously, read what Dawkins has written on this in addition to taking a few soundbites out of context.

[windy]

PS: It's not an uncommon phrase in scientific literature either: "Stretch of DNA so-and-so specifies a protein of n amino acids..." Watch out! the genetic determinists are out to get ya!

[Chris Schoen]

The reason the Weiss quote is (I believe) relevant, is that gene effects (including protein synthesis) are contingent. It makes no sense to talk about a gene specifying a protein, if that gene is not being expressed in the first place. And gene expression is a function of environmental influences. So it is not at all clear to me what is the actual "specifier" of a protein, regardless of what is customary in the literature.

Keep temperature constant, and vary the pressure. How much of the change in volume is due to change in pressure?

Fair enough. And this is reflected in the plant clone studies we discussed at Mixing Memory, where differences in phenotypes were entirely environmental.

What I take to be Weiss's point is that a gas always has certain measures of temperature and pressurization. Neither is subservient to the other.