THE ANIMAL WITHIN
How do we decide what's good and bad? Can science help us decide? In this third film of the series, David Malone and Ard Louis try to reconcile claims that science makes about our moral choices with what we feel we know about ourselves. This is the introduction to episode 3 of the documentary.
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You can find more information about the documentary series along with extended interviews, transcripts and further resources at www.whyarewehere.tv/
TRANSCRIPT TO INTRODUCTION
NARRATOR: What kind of creatures are we? In every culture in every age we have always felt we were moral, but do our animal instincts and desires make that an illusion?
FRANS DE WAAL: There was this obsession with competition and aggression and selfishness. So our genes were selfish, we were selfish and co-operation was a special case that we needed to explain and we had a lot of trouble explaining it.
NARRATOR: And yet every culture, from the dawn of civilization has had a strong sense they knew what was right and what was wrong.
JOHN COTTINGHAM: 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.
NARRATOR: How do we explain such feelings? Is it possible that science can tell us what is and isn’t moral or do moral truths lie outside of science?
GEORGE ELLIS: There are many attempts nowadays to derive morality from science, some are from evolutionary grounds, some are from neuro science. They always introduce by the back door some concept of the good life which they take for granted without discussing and they assume that’s the right thing.
ARD LOUIS: There’s a fear of religion so some of the arguments for reductionism are the …
NARRATOR: Professor Ard Louis is a physicist at Oxford and also believes in God.
ARD LOUIS I am a scientist, I’m a physicist. And science is amazing. It would be wonderful if it could explain what is right and what is wrong but it just can’t. I think it’s, it’s really important to get away from this genes this blueprints metaphor… And if somebody wraps themselves in the mantle of science and tries to tell you what is right and what is wrong then I think this is really dangerous for science and for society.
That picture of the selfish gene is a very useful way of understanding something about the way nature works, but if you extrapolate it to all of biology then you’re missing the point.
NARRATOR: David Malone has spent 20 years making science documentaries. He does not believe in God.
DAVID MALONE: I think science does have insights about the roots of morality but not the traditional selfish gene theory. I think science can begin to help us understand our better nature.
It gets away from the ‘we are determined by our genes’ notion doesn’t it …
NARRATOR: In this third film of our series, David and Ard are trying to reconcile claims that science makes about our moral choices with what we feel we know about ourselves.