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People

Scientists, philosophers and writers who took part in the documentary series Why Are We Here? Watch their full interview or view the shorter clips.

Peter Atkins

Chemist

‘Religious knowledge is probably the paradigm of unreliability because it’s based on sentiment, on authority and on wish-fulfillment.'

Gregory Chaitin

Mathematician

‘Some of my most creative periods, I was ignoring women. I mean, I was terribly fascinated by them, but I was shy, and I put all this energy into mathematics. This was like a substitute for sex.'

Simon Conway Morris

Paleobiologist

’ Is it actually sufficient merely to get some fantastically clever machine with gigabytes of data, if in the end we don’t actually know the question we wish to ask?’

John Cottingham

Philosopher

‘There’s something about genuine moral truths which exerts a pull on us, which exerts a demand on us whether we like it or not.'

Molly Crockett

Neuroscientist

'It’s interesting to think about whether, one day, there actually might be medications or pills that could actually change people’s moral behaviour.'

George Ellis

Cosmologist

‘I think there’s a moral reality. I believe passionately that apartheid in South Africa was an evil. I believe that the Holocaust was an evil. I think that that’s a fact, a moral fact.’

Jane Goodall

Primatologist

'In 1961 it was still believed by mainstream science that there was a difference of kind between us and the rest of the animals, whereas, of course, it’s a difference of degree.'

Marcelo Gleiser

Physicist

'As the creatures in the universe that understand the importance of life, we are actually incredibly important, because without us the universe wouldn’t have any meaning.'

Sunetra Gupta

Epidemiologist and Novelist

‘There’s a huge synergy between actually arriving at the right narrative structure and the process of science, as I experience it.'

Denis Noble

Physiologist

‘One of my problems with the reductionists is not so much that their method has not been extremely powerful. It is the hubris and certainty that that’s all there is.'

Martin Nowak

Mathematical Biologist

'Science is not making an argument for atheism at all. In my own opinion, that would be a misinterpretation of science. Science is neutral with respect to theism or atheism.'

Ben Okri

Writer

‘Maybe one of the worst things that we can do is to diminish the possibility of the universe in our insistence on our description of it.'

Gwendolyn Patton

Civil Rights Activist

‘Ideas are powerful. That’s why they didn’t want us, the white class, powers that be, didn’t want us to get educated. You know? Don’t you educate them little negroes.'

Roger Penrose

Mathematician

'I am definitely sympathetic to all three of the Platonic ideals. I think beauty is a clear guide to truth. And then the moral, I would see even more so, probably.'

Alex Rosenberg

Philosopher

'Is there a God? Of course not. What is the meaning of the universe? It doesn’t have any. What is the purpose of life? Ditto. Is there free will? Not a chance.'

Frans de Waal

Primatologist

'I always consider empathy the foundation of morality. If I'm not interested in others, and the well-being of others, then I cannot be a moral being.'

Frank Wilczek

Physicist

'It’s a common experience, and almost universal among modern physicists working on fundamental physics that they feel the structure they find is beautiful. So why should that be?’

Semir Zeki

Neuroscientist

'I find this a very, very trite and silly sort of stone to throw at you, and in a way it shows a bankruptcy of ideas: you don’t know what else to throw so you throw that.'