RICHARD DAWKINS | SEX, DEATH AND THE MEANING OF LIFE - Episode 2
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Part 1:
• Richard Dawkins — Sex, Death and the ...
Part 3:
• Richard Dawkins — Sex, Death and the ...
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins asks if science can provide answers to the big questions we used to entrust to religion.
It's a journey that takes him from Hindu funeral pyres in India to genetics labs in New York.
Dawkins brings together the latest neuroscience, evolutionary and genetic theory to examine why we crave life after death, why we evolved to age and how the human genome is something like real immortality - traits inherited from our distant ancestors that we pass on to future generations.
He meets a Christian dying of motor neurone disease, reminisces about the Wall Street Crash with a 105-year-old stockbroker, and interviews James Watson, the geneticist who co-discovered the structure of DNA.
Dawkins admits to sentimentality in imagining his own church funeral, but he argues we must embrace the truth, however hard that is.
In a television first, he has his entire genome sequenced to reveal the genetic indicators of how he himself may die.
Shot in UK, India and USA
Production Company: Clear Story
Director: Molly Milton
Cinematography: Harvey Glen
Transcript
Follow along using the transcript.
Show transcript
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Transcript
0:12
The novelist Aldous Huxley once wrote that... ..."Most human beings behave as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor".
0:25
But, what happens when you realize the rumor is true?
0:31
Let's face it. None of us, until it hits us in the face, think we're going to die.
0:36
I can still sort of picture the consultant's room. He said "well, I've got some bad news for you"
0:42
"We think you've got within your disease" As we filmed this, Richard Chell has only months to live.
0:50
His comfort lies in his religious faith. For him, death is not the end.
0:57
Death to me, the actual process of dying, is not something I'm scared of. For me, it's going through a door into another room.
1:04
What do you mean by that? I'm a christian, therefore I do believe in a life after death. I do believe that this life is just part of a process...
1:12
...and there's another part of that process to complete. I know very well your feelings about religion and the rest of it...
1:18
...but I would say having a view that is finite is a bit like having half a meal.
1:25
It will leave you hungry at the end of the day. But, of course, the existence of hunger doesn't mean that there's food.
1:32
No, but it means there's a need. And I would argue that there is a food. If you'd face the situation where, like myself, say...
1:39
...you were certainly said well death is very close. And you're going to die.
1:45
Do you think you would feel any differently? Or, are you clear in your own mind, if that was the situation...
1:51
...I'd know exactly how I'd respond and exactly how I'd feel.
1:59
It is a fair question. I follow reason and I don't believe in God.
2:06
But this series is not about whether God exists or not. It's about a more difficult problem.
2:13
What, if anything, can take God's place? Religion has shaped our understanding of life for thousands of years.
2:24
Ideas of the soul, sin and the afterlife...
2:32
are hard to shake off even for non-religious people like me.
2:38
As more and more of us realize there is no God, ... ...what happens as we leave religion behind?
2:45
I have to believe there's a plan... and that God is going to accomplish something through this.
2:51
I suppose Jesus is an unpaid babysitter It's like if I'm not watching you Jesus is.
2:57
So, do you think that we in the West are too materialistic? I think so.
3:03
In this film, to death. Religion has traditionally been thought to bring comfort at the end of life.
3:12
But, does it really? What can science and reason tell us?
3:21
How does someone like me, who has no religion, face death?
3:50
Varanasi, India, one of the oldest cities in the world.
3:58
It has a macabre speciality. It's main business is the industry of death.
4:13
Every year a million Hindu pilgrims visit Varanasi dragging with them some 40,000 corpses...
4:19
to be cremated on the banks of the Ganges.
4:29
This is the holiest place in whole Hinduism. This is the place where Indians aspire to come to die..
4:37
to escape from the cycle of death and rebirth.
4:42
It is the most amazing scene. It's probably been going on like this for centuries, even millennia.
4:48
It looks that there are ashes down here, in the river swirling around.
5:04
As an atheist for whom death is a full stop... I suppose I shouldn't feel sentimental about the carcases.
5:11
They are X people who've ceased to be.
5:24
Yet, I find something a little bit shocking here... The partially burned corpses,
5:33
the locals casually searching for precious metals in the burned remains
5:41
and the rejected dead.
5:48
Although this is clearly steeped in religion, there's a surprising lack of evident reverence or solemnity.
5:57
The people standing around the funeral pyres are doing a job of work and a pretty matter-of-fact way.
6:06
But there is a kind of logic behind the apparent lack of reverence.
6:12
In this religious tradition, the flesh is no longer important. What matters here is releasing the spirit, or soul.
6:25
This is where religion plays its strongest card, the body may not live forever, but the soul does.
6:35
On the face of it, it's a comforting idea and a challenge for an atheist like me.
6:52
If you want to hear the challenge starkly expressed, you can go to a place like this in Kansas City.
7:06
This Catholic hospice, Alexander's house, ... ...is for babies who die within hours of birth.
7:14
These are clearly fatal disorders. Babies perhaps with anencephaly, Potter syndrome, ...
7:19
...or they have no kiddies, severe genetic heart disease, etc. So they're all going to die, ...
7:25
...and so the normal recommendation by the medical profession would probably be an abortion.
7:33
This may, you know, be hard for some people to see. These are many of our babies for whom we've cared.
7:38
Some who have lived here. But all of them that we've cared for. So this is leading us up to where the families stay.
7:50
Over the last 11 years, ... ...Patty Lewis has helped the families of over 500 babies...
7:56
...who've died within these walls. Do you think that mothers are ever going to meet their babies again?
8:02
Yes, I think the mothers believe that too, ... ...and the fathers and the siblings.
8:13
I do sympathize with the desire to meet again somebody... ...whom you've known and loved, ...
8:18
...but newborn baby... I feel very sorry for these parents, but still...
8:25
Reality may be raw, but we have to face it. The baby was born on Saturday 7, 9:11, ...
8:39
...and she came into the world at 6pm and she lived 30 minutes, ... ...and those 30 minutes seemed so short and so precious.
8:48
We hold her, and loved her, ... ...and got to give her a little bath, and put her in a christening outfit, ...
8:55
...and we baptized her, ... ...and the family was there with us, ...
9:00
...and it was a very precious time. Can you talk us through when you first found out that...
9:07
...there was a problem with the baby? We found out in January that we were expecting and...
9:13
...it would be our third. We were overjoyed and we go in for ultrasound... ...to find out if it was born a girl.
9:20
She did the scan and told us there were no kidneys. That was the first time that we had heard that diagnosis...
9:28
...and she called it a lethal pregnancy. So that's when you, sort of, went into shock? More so, yes.
9:34
Did it occur to you that the total sum... ...of suffering would be much less if you'd...
9:40
...drawn a line under it then and restarted your life? You've got to restart your life now and...
9:46
why did you decide to go on for the remaining months?
9:51
Well, there's hope and... ...God can do great things. So, you were hoping for a miracle?
9:57
Hoping for a miracle, but if it wasn't it was still... ...going to be precious and it's a baby and... ...it's a life and it's not my decision to...
10:04
...terminate that. It's not my choice and... ...I carried it and loved it and...
10:09
...could feel it move every single day. And also the 30 minutes or so that we've...
10:14
...got to spend with her was was worth. I didn't have any of the pain, ... ...but I would say it was worth all of the trial...
10:22
...of getting to where we were. No, we didn't get to spend 30 minutes with her, ... ...we got to be with her for like 12 hours.
10:30
You know she wasn't with us spiritually, ... ...but we got to hold her. And you took photographs?
10:36
Oh, yes. They have a form that we printed off.
10:41
She was beautiful, she was perfect. Looks just like her mom right down to her fingernails. Yes, beautiful.
10:49
Wouldn't have changed her for anything. Do you think you'll ever meet the baby?
10:54
Oh, of course, there's great hope in that. We will meet the baby. It's in heaven with God.
11:08
I feel for Renee and Lee. They sincerely think they're gaining reassurance from their faith.
11:21
So now i need to understand how this... ...relationship between death and religion... ...has evolved to be so strong.
11:44
Religion denies death is real. It sets up instead the forbidding prospect of eternity, ...
11:50
...either in heaven, or worse, in hell. For me what's frightening is not death itself, but eternity, ...
11:58
...whether you're there or not. Yet, people still reach instinctively for religion...
12:03
...and its rituals when it comes to the end. Why?
12:10
It's a very very artificial situation. We see the person lying down.
12:16
Unless you're intimately acquainted with... ...someone, you don't really see them lying down. And they may well be dressed in...
12:22
...their own clothes lying down with their... ...eyes closed in an artificial situation. They're inside a wooden box, no?
12:29
All of these things bring us to realism, ... ...but despite that, people are very very...
12:35
...focused on the fact that the last... ...physical connection that they have that... ...person is lying in that coffin and...
12:42
...that's what they're saying farewell to. So, why do people go on with these strange rituals?
12:53
It's the business of walking away from... ...the funeral and feeling that was well done.
13:00
We liked what they've done for us... ...and we feel that we live someone who... ...we cared about very deeply to rest...
13:06
...in a very dignified and meaningful way. Even if the beautiful oak coffin is then...
13:12
...burned or buried, somehow you feel you've... ...given the person a good send-off. Very much so.
13:25
More and more of us have no faith in God, ... ...but be cling to the rituals.
13:32
Even in secular woodland burial sites, ... ...we find death brings illogical superstition.
13:41
It is fascinating to see people thinking... ...of themselves as part of this place.
13:46
They're anticipating their post-mortem identity, ... ...so that when people talk about, ... ...as they can in this pretty face in any...
13:54
...direction. So someone to look up the hill, ... ...someone to look down the hill, ... ...someone to look towards the Sun.
14:00
They are buried in different spatial directions. Douglas Davis is an anthropologist...
14:06
...fascinated by the fasts and trappings... ...surrounding death. You think part of what's going on is a reluctance to believe that...
14:14
...the dead person is really dead? Yes, one baby, the father used to farm around here.
14:20
And so he's been buried looking at towards the hill.
14:26
And to her this is dreadfully important, ... ...because the relatives too are... thinking about their dead after they've died.
14:33
Yes. I find I'm not immune to these notions.
14:39
There's a place in Cornwall where my mother's family come from and...
14:44
...where we used to spend childhood holidays, ... ...called Dollar cove. I think I'm right in saying that's the place where... ...the little tiny Church, mores are on the...
14:52
...beach, more is built in the sand and I've... ...sometimes fantasized about being burried there. With someone the sea crashing in, ...
14:59
...and the tide coming in and out. What is the earlier that would be there for you...
15:04
...in a location for your body? It's totally illogical. It's pure sentimentality.
15:09
I suppose there's no rational defense for it whatever. I mean, one should say just stick stick me in a dustbin bag and turn me away.
15:17
But you don't want to be in a dustbin bag. No, that's right and it is pure sentiment. I mean, we are sentimental animals, ...
15:22
...as well as social animals.
15:28
So, why do even atheists like me carry around this sentimental baggage?
15:38
When did these illogical thoughts first develop?
15:47
As a child, I don't think I worried about God looking down at me... ...and seeing what I was doing.
15:52
I worried about ancestors. I worried about my great-uncles and great aunts... ...looking down from heaven and seeing everything that I did.
16:01
Childish perhaps, but don't let's be too quick to dismiss it.
16:13
From an early age we start to believe that... ...there's more to us than just our physical bodies.
16:19
As this experiment reveals. Should give him a little tickle.
16:25
He's very sweet, isn't he? This is a fake machine to fool children into thinking live beings can be duplicated.
16:36
It's Icky. And there's Icky.
16:44
As scientists, we seem to be committed to... ...the view that if you could take a person... ...and make an exact copy, ...
16:49
...molecule by molecule, that copy would have exactly... ...the same thoughts and memories.
16:55
Would be the same person. But intuition revels. We seem to want to believe that there's...
17:02
...some essence of ourselves, something that... ...would not go across with all those... molecules, something that a religious...
17:09
...person might want to call a soul.
17:16
This is an attempt to look at an old philosophical problem, ... ...which is imagine if you could copy anything, ...
17:23
...and what we've done in these experiments, rather than... ...getting children to imagine that we... ...reproduce a machine which looks as if it...
17:29
...can duplicate and copy anything. A bit like a photocopier for objects.
17:36
Now there's two! We've shown in previous studies that they believe it can copy toys very easily, ...
17:45
...but the question is: ... Would they really extend that to something like a living thing, like a hamster?
17:50
Should we tell him your name? You want to wishper? And so, what copies over is the body of the hamster, ...
17:57
...the ideas of the hamster, ... ....the memories of the hamster? We believe that the intuition is that the physical...
18:03
...object can be copied and therefore the... ...physical body can be copied, ... ...but we're not so sure that children think that the...
18:08
...mind can be copied, just like adults. They have this sense that maybe the mind is... ...different to the physical body.
18:14
Now, the reason this is really interesting is... ...because if you believe that the mind is... ...separate to the physical body, ...
18:19
...then it means that the body goes, but maybe the... ...mind can stay on and exist. And, of course, this allows for all sorts of notions of...
18:27
...spirits and the soul as being something... ...entirely untethered to the fisical world. Disembodied ghosts after death or
18:34
surviving death in other ways. The soul goes on.
18:39
So, these young children believe bodies... ...can be copied, but not minds. Should we have a look?
18:46
One! Two!
18:51
They're already thinking there's... ...something in charge of each being that... ...is unique.
18:56
Something like a soul. Did this hamster see your picture?
19:01
Yes. Does this hamster know what your picture is? No. Does this hamster know your name?
19:07
[Nodding] Does this hamster know your name? No.
19:14
Evolutionary psychology suggest that we have evolved... ...a sense of separate mind or soul, ...
19:20
...because it's useful to us. Because the experience of being in control your body is so pervasive.
19:27
You just feel that you've you've made a decision. You're gonna have a cup of coffee. These things, you feel like you're driving this very complex machine.
19:34
And if you didn't feel like that, ... ...you wouldn't really be very well adapted. To be a fully functional animal, ...
19:40
...which is what are ancestors were, ... ...hunting and feeding and running and escaping from predators, ...
19:47
...you need to feel it like a soul that's in control of the body.
20:02
This is one reason why it's so hard... ...to shake off the religious way of death.
20:08
We are programmed to believe in something like a soul.
20:15
Now, of course, I don't believe in a soul But I, too, have the feeling that there is...
20:20
...some sort of essence of Richard Dawkins, ... ...that makes me who I am. That gives me my unique personal identity.
20:31
To understand more about this, ... ...I need to look at the role our memories play.
20:37
With the person who's known me longest, my mother.
20:43
So, what do we got here? We've got... your first birthday party.
20:49
I have no memory of this at all. That's presumably me, is it? Yes, that's you, in a little dress that your granny sent out.
20:59
Our memories are hugely important to our sense of who we are.
21:06
That's Kilimanjaro. Oh, yes. You used to like saying words like Kilimanjaro.
21:13
Alright! But our memories drives us into a false sense of certainty.
21:19
They are fallible, riddled with errors. Another early memory was being stung by a scorpion.
21:28
- ...and you suddenly jumped off your chair without your shoes on, ...
21:36
...which you weren't allowed to do, ... ...and set on a Scorpion.
21:42
And Ally, our African boy, rushed in and got your foot, ...
21:51
...squeezed it and sucked it for hours.
21:56
And you were screaming. We had to hold you while he sucked your foot.
22:02
My memory is slightly different. My memory's that I was walking along the floor, ... ...and I saw this creature walking across.
22:10
And I thought it was a lizard. I didn't step on it, ... ...I put my foot in the way of it to let it crawl over my foot.
22:18
You jumped off your chair. I don't remember the pain. Don't you? That's interesting because that was a terrible bit.
22:29
We think back to our first memory, ... ...our first big adventure, ... ...and it's almost as though there was a movie camera in our head recording every detail.
22:38
But that's not the way it is, that's an illusion. What we're remembering is a memory of a memory of a memory...
22:44
...of perhaps the real thing. A man may wear a wristwatch when he's 20, ...
22:50
...and the same watch when he's 50. It's the same watch, but is not the same man inside.
22:55
Every atom in his body has changed, has turned over. I'm not the child I once was.
23:02
The child I once was is dead.
23:10
So, the physical cells that once made me are long gone. And my memories are more tenuous than I would wish.
23:19
The connection between younger Richard Dawkins and older Richard Dawkins... ...isn't as strong as I might like it to be.
23:28
And I think this is why the religious idea of something permanent, the soul, is so plausible.
23:37
Now, I want to explore the reality of why we die.
23:56
Religion still dominates our thinking about death. If we get rid of God, what's left?
24:06
I'm on a voyage to tell you the extraordinary truth that science reveals about death.
24:18
According to evolutionary science, ... ...death is not something to be overcome at all. It's a necessary part of the picture.
24:29
I'm joining the scientists on board, ... ...Banger University's Research Vessel, ... ...on the Irish Sea.
24:38
They're studying the lifespan of a species of clam, ... ...called Arctica islandica.
24:43
They may look rather ordinary, ... ...but they have one attribute that is really quite amazing.
24:50
These clams are among the longest living animals on earth.
24:58
Save that one along. The reason why we're so interested in this, ...
25:04
..is that this is a very long live species. We can pull it from the wild, ... ...and we can assign a year almost, you know, to within one year...
25:11
...and how old it is. Basically, the shell grows incremental steps. Each ring is an anual ring, so the growth is very much like a tree.
25:20
Can you guess from this one how old it is? The size growth curve and this is probably 80 to 150 years old.
25:27
The oldest of them, reach what sort of age? Umm, around the UK it's around 220 years.
25:34
In iceland, in the far north, the paint 50, 54 hundred, maybe 500 years.
25:45
Only recently this research team found a clam that... ...had lived for more than half a millennium.
25:55
It's amazing to think that... ...some of these clams that we're dredging up... ...were born before Darwin, ...
26:00
...even before Elizabeth I. So, why do they live so long?
26:09
Any evolutionary explanation of why aging happens has to do two things.
26:14
It has to be able to explain why you see aging in many species.
26:19
It also has to be able to explain... ...why you see enormously long lifespans, ...
26:24
...or possibly, no aging, in a very few species. And, the clams, I think, may be an example of this, ...
26:32
...because you've seen them and handled them yourself. They have enormously thick shells. I don't think there are very many things down there...
26:39
...that can actually fight through them. And so, they can sit around.
26:45
And they can just carry on producing offspring once they reach a certain size.
26:52
These clams are continuing to pass on their genes to the next generation, ...
26:57
...even a 200 and 300 years old. So, from the evolutionary point of view...
27:04
...it's not just that the individuals are well-protected against being eaten. Because there are well protected against being eaten, ...
27:11
...it's a good gamble to stay alive along a long time, ... ...because you've got a good chance of reproducing later.
27:18
Whereas something like a salmon, ... ...has a very poor chance of reproducing again.
27:23
So, it might as well throw everything it's got into one big gamble now. Yeah, there is no point in spending resources to make a body that will last 400 years, ...
27:35
...if your chance of making it through the night is pretty slim.
27:47
So, evolutionary science tells us a lot about aging and death.
27:54
The clams are able to reproduce when there are hundreds of years old. And so, as long as they are able to reproduce, ...
28:00
...their genes keep them alive. We need to see death from a gene's eye point of view.
28:12
Our bodies are survival machines for our genes. Once our genes have got us to reproductive age...
28:19
...and copy themselves into a new generation, ... ...our bodies have less purpose.
28:24
Time bombs inside us go off. We age, we die.
28:33
So, rather than looking upon aging as a wearing out of the body, ... ...perhaps we should see it as a side effect of how genes work.
28:46
Even extraordinary exceptions throw light on this truth.
28:53
This is Irving Kahn, ... ...a financial trader on New York's Madison Avenue, ...
28:59
who's come to work every day since 1927. Irving is a 105 years old.
29:08
Do you remember the wall street crash? Oh yeah, they came just in about...
29:14
...three or four months before the main peak with summer of 1928-29.
29:22
And that was one reason I didn't like the business.
29:27
Because I came here, went to the exchange on Wall Street... ...and found after we got on the floor...
29:34
...that it was like working in a casino.
29:39
I understand that, not just you, ... ...but many members of your family, ... ...are extremly long live.
29:45
Yes, my brother Peter is 103. I'm a 105.
29:51
I have limited regular weight... ...and limited here side... ...and I hope the right number of models.
30:00
Yes, you've got a lot of models, I think. What about your sister, how old is she? She's a 108.
30:06
Mr. Khan, is it possible to give us an idea what ot what it feels like to be your age?
30:12
It's much better and it's much worse.
30:20
So, why do some people's genes keep their bodies going for so much longer?
30:27
The curious case of Irving Kahn and his family... ...has intrigued scientists, ... ...who are trying to answer this very question.
30:36
When we aske our people, ... ...you know, why do you think you'll live to be so old?
30:42
One of the things they're saying... ..."hey it's in my family, my mother was 102, my grandfather was 108".
30:48
Irving can show that... ...he has four other siblings that live to be 100.
30:57
The study looked at 500 aged Ashkenazi Jews, ... ...like Irving Kahn, ...
31:03
...from the same geographical area, ... ...whose environment and genes can be easily compared.
31:13
For Irving and, especially, for for his sister Helen, ... ...she's been smoking for 95 years.
31:20
Two packs for 95 years, ... ...which shows you that if you smoke for 95 years, you life a long life.
31:27
I you can assure that it's true. And Irving have smoked for about 30 years in his life, ...
31:34
...so the point here is that... ...our centenarians, as a group, did not interact...
31:40
...with the environment the way... ...the doctors tell their patients.
31:46
That you have to watch your weight, ... ...you have to exercise, ... ...you shouldn't smoke... ...and you should drink one cup of alcohol a day...
31:54
...and all the things that we know to tell them, ... ...it doesn't matter for them.
31:59
So, for some, lifestyle and environment don't play as... ...larger role as we've been told.
32:06
But, if Irving's genes hold the secret to long life, ... ...why hasn't evolution given us all genes like his?
32:15
If there are genes... ...that increase longevity out into the hundreds, ... ...why didn't actual selection favor those genes...
32:22
...in our ancestral past? Well, I'll tell you there's something very upsetting... ...in this sense in our group.
32:30
First of all, third of the centenarians... ...in the world don't have children. Ok? So, I don't know, is it to having children?
32:37
Raising them? Rearing them? I don't know what. But the point is that... ...there is some exchange between reproduction and aging.
32:45
But also, in my study, ... ...the centenarians had less kids on a much later age...
32:51
...than my control population. So, if the control population has...
32:56
...three to five kids on average, ... ...our centenarians have 1.7 kids on average.
33:01
So, if you're thinking that way, ... ...we're losing longevity genes, right?
33:08
Because in every generation... ...we populate more with kids of the people who...
33:13
...don't have longevity genes... ...that have longevity genes.
33:20
Our genes appear to trade long life for reproduction.
33:25
Longevity seems to be connected... ...to later reproduction, ... ...or no children at all.
33:33
So, how long we live and why we died are dependent on our genes. And i'm about to look my own genetic code...
33:40
...straight in the face.
33:47
Advances in genetic science mean... ...it is now possible for me... ...to get my entire genome decoded.
33:58
There's something very personal and intimate about it as well. And this is something that is absolutely unique to me.
34:04
There's never ever been, ... ...in the history of the world, nor ever will there be again, ... ...a genome which is the same as mine, ...
34:11
...or the same as yours, ... ...or the same as anybody else's.
34:22
This new science is still in its infancy. I'm going to be one of just a dozen people in the world...
34:28
...and the first person in Britain publicly, ... ...to have their whole genome secuenced.
34:39
What we're doing here is very new for us actually, ... ...and it's actually very exciting for us. We're taking the genome of a healthy person...
34:47
...and we're asking what can we learn about that person. The most important bit of information about you...
34:54
...is your genome sequence. But, on a serious note, of course we may find information in your genome...
34:59
...that has clinical or health implications. Yes, I have thought about that.
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And let's go, let's go and do it.
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Having my blood taken... ...is only the first stage in a complex process.
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The most painless blood test I've ever had. Having my genome decoded is, in effect, ...
35:25
...a way of narrowing down how when i'm going to die. My journey to understand death has become personal.
35:33
You have a few hundred mutations... ...which have been reported... ...as being associated with a disease.
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I maybe one of a handful of individuals... ...in the world to have their genome sequenced.
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But, before I find out my results, ... ...I'm off to meet the man who was first.
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And he isn't just anyone. He's one of the two men who made this new science possible.
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James Watson. Well, it's certainly a very beautiful thing.
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Together with Francis Crick, James Watson... ...discovered that genes are digital codes...
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...written on DNA molecules. Watson and Crick's names will live forever.
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And Watson isn't shy about it. So now, I realize how, you know, except for Hawking, ...
36:37
...in the most famous scientists alife.
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I've turned out to be helped by people... ...looking at my DNA. In what way? It revealed that I have a genetic polymorphism...
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...which metabolizes drugs, ... ... and I have one which acts very slowly, ... ...so if I take a beta blocker...
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...it stays in my system for a week, ... ...instead of going away for a day. And so, they have been given them for, you know, ...
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...to help control my blood pressure. And i went to sleep.
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Watson took a personal risk... ...in making his genome available for study.
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Exposing all its imperfections to public scrutiny... ...for the sake of advancing genetic research.
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You get great pleasure from ideas? No, I get pleasure from understanding.
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So, understanding... everything falls into... ...place when you understand. Yes, so you move from... its understanding...
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...er- ....it gives you happiness. And I think it's one of the unique human features, ...
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...because it's not limited to me, ... ...but, it clearly, you know, when you're able to do something.
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This, for me, is what it says thrilling about science. Understanding things, ... ...such as how the DNA molecule underlies all life on earth.
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It's because Watson... ...discovered the structure of DNA... ...over half a century ago, ... ...that today I'm able to have my own genome analyzed.
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And understand what makes me live... ...and how and when I might die.
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Today is a very special day for me. In 50 years lots of people will be able to say this, ...
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...but today I'm one of very few people... ...who's had their entire genome sequenced.
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And today is the big day, ... ...when I get to see the results.
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So Richard, it's a long time... ...since you were in Oxford and... ...we took an armful of your blood. We've had a team busy working since then, ...
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...trying to extract the DNA and... ...reconstruct your genome. To understand my genes, ...
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...Gil McVean matches them... ...against the human reference genome. A composite of anonymous donors,...
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...that took 10 years to decode and construct. And what we're really interested in is not saying where
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you agree with this reference but finding places where you differ in that we find over 4 million differences
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between your genome and that reference we have about 50,000 variants we've seen
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you for the very first time completely new to science it is extraordinary that
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this enormous quantity of data reveals incredibly precise details about me
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elements of my private world that I've never shared with anyone before or known
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myself we have a classic European mutation that means you got bunny ear wax you've got
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another one which means that you can smell asparagus in your own urine you've gotta another one that means you
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can taste broccoli they sound frivolous but at the same time they probably point
40:00
to an evolutionary process and that's probably to do with your ability to detect toxins know you there are certain
40:08
plants have different toxins across the world there's local adaptation to the toxins that you would you need to be
40:14
able to recognize to survive that buried in my genome is the story of my
40:19
own survival but also clues about how i made i do I have ticking time bombs in
40:27
my genetic code you have roughly hundred mutations which had been seen before and
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in clinical settings and have been reported as being associated with the disease having these mutations doesn't
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mean you definitely going to get the disease it just alters your chance of getting that these are the variance that
40:47
you carry which had been associated with a whole range of common disorders
40:53
everything from cancer to type 2 diabetes and to schizophrenia let's just take an example of this zoom
41:01
in on chromosome 11 you've got a mutation which the literature tells you is associated or causes porphyria which
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is at the disease that people hypothesize for a while cause the madness of King George it's a nasty
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disease you would know if you had it you should have like a seventy percent chance of getting for so I've dodged
41:22
that bullet but there are other threats it's so impressively precise my genome
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reveals that if i smoked I would have been in the most high-risk group for developing lung cancer like here of
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changes your genotype doubles your risk of getting lung cancer but actually the way it does it is from doubling your
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risk of smoking in a particular way so this this variant influences your risk
41:48
of getting lung cancer because it changes the way people smoke the smoke deeper breaths they smoke closer to the
41:54
end of the cigarette what it actually does is change or smoking
41:59
how fascinating it so it so it picked up as a gene for lung cancer but the method
42:05
of transmission to the method of effect is bio smoking behavior exactly
42:11
this raises an obvious question of whether you've ever smoke do you do like the smell of wood I've never smoked that's good so but
42:17
don't take up smoking is my advice it seems to me to be utterly astonishing that it's possible for scientists to
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taken an individual and to detect apt these millions of digital pieces of
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information to actually read it out as though it was a computer disk
42:38
well here it is then here is your genome look after it thank you very much I'm have delighted
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to have it and thank you so much for all the amount of work that you and your colleagues of have put in and when I
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look at this this little box here in what it contains is all the information necessary to make not quite me to make
42:59
an identical twin me and I think that sir and an astonishing thought and thank
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you very very much for this in a pleasure
43:18
as we come to learn more about DNA our relationship with death is bound to
43:23
change and as more of us have our
43:29
genomes analyzed will be able to avoid those ticking time bombs contained in
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our codes that killed our ancestors after they reproduced
43:47
this is my genome my whole Jima and strangely enough portions of my genome
43:54
behind that door behind there is the Dawkins family vault
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this has been the Dawkins church since the 17 twenties and in there are 20 of
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my relations many of them my ancestors and they have contributed some of the genes that are inside this little silver
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box at the top next to the top there Henry Dawkins and then three down his
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wife lady Juliana Dawkins they are my four grades my great-great great-great
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grandparents 164th of the genes inside this little silver box come from Henry
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the bottom of this column here the middle column is another Henry his some he has contributed 132nd part of the
44:45
genes inside this hard disk unfortunately the door can't be opened it hasn't been opened since I think 1919
44:52
they've lost the key nobody knows how to open it there are some slots in there but I should never
44:58
occupy one unless they can get the door open what would be rather nice would be if we could somehow post this disc in there to
45:06
rest alongside my ancestors but the jeans the set of instructions inside us
45:13
don't rest just as they have come from our ancestors before us so 22 they march
45:20
on into our children and their children's children our genes are a kind of archive of the
45:30
remote past and they go through us to the remote future Henry Dawkins maybe my
45:37
for grades grandfather and he's put some jeans in here but my 200 million greats
45:43
grandfather was a fish and by the way the same fish was your 200 million greats grandfather to amazingly even he
45:52
has put some jeans in here and they too have a chance of going on to the remote
45:58
future our genes are in a sense immortal
46:03
that's not comforting in the way the soul is supposed to be but it is a
46:08
wonderful thought and it is true we may
46:13
argue about whether we have an immortal soul that survives our death but one
46:19
thing science tells us for sure is that if there's anything that's immortal in our bodies
46:24
it is our genes
46:30
take your own existential journey
46:37
starting with our reading list discover more views on sex death and the meaning of life by visiting channel 4.com / the
46:44
meaning of life and you can see the next and final episode of the series here and more for next monday from ten next
46:50
tonight embarrassing bodies
