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.
35:05
And let's go, let's go and do it.
35:12
Having my blood taken... ...is only the first stage in a complex process.
35:18
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.
35:52
I maybe one of a handful of individuals... ...in the world to have their genome sequenced.
35:58
But, before I find out my results, ... ...I'm off to meet the man who was first.
36:04
And he isn't just anyone. He's one of the two men who made this new science possible.
36:10
James Watson. Well, it's certainly a very beautiful thing.
36:16
Together with Francis Crick, James Watson... ...discovered that genes are digital codes...
36:21
...written on DNA molecules. Watson and Crick's names will live forever.
36:29
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.
36:42
I've turned out to be helped by people... ...looking at my DNA. In what way? It revealed that I have a genetic polymorphism...
36:51
...which metabolizes drugs, ... ... and I have one which acts very slowly, ... ...so if I take a beta blocker...
37:00
...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, ...
37:08
...to help control my blood pressure. And i went to sleep.
37:14
Watson took a personal risk... ...in making his genome available for study.
37:20
Exposing all its imperfections to public scrutiny... ...for the sake of advancing genetic research.
37:27
You get great pleasure from ideas? No, I get pleasure from understanding.
37:33
So, understanding... everything falls into... ...place when you understand. Yes, so you move from... its understanding...
37:39
...er- ....it gives you happiness. And I think it's one of the unique human features, ...
37:48
...because it's not limited to me, ... ...but, it clearly, you know, when you're able to do something.
38:03
This, for me, is what it says thrilling about science. Understanding things, ... ...such as how the DNA molecule underlies all life on earth.
38:15
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.
38:23
And understand what makes me live... ...and how and when I might die.
38:32
Today is a very special day for me. In 50 years lots of people will be able to say this, ...
38:37
...but today I'm one of very few people... ...who's had their entire genome sequenced.
38:43
And today is the big day, ... ...when I get to see the results.
38:50
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, ...
38:57
...trying to extract the DNA and... ...reconstruct your genome. To understand my genes, ...
39:03
...Gil McVean matches them... ...against the human reference genome. A composite of anonymous donors,...
39:09
...that took 10 years to decode and construct. And what we're really interested in is not saying where
39:17
you agree with this reference but finding places where you differ in that we find over 4 million differences
39:23
between your genome and that reference we have about 50,000 variants we've seen
39:28
you for the very first time completely new to science it is extraordinary that
39:33
this enormous quantity of data reveals incredibly precise details about me
39:39
elements of my private world that I've never shared with anyone before or known
39:44
myself we have a classic European mutation that means you got bunny ear wax you've got
39:50
another one which means that you can smell asparagus in your own urine you've gotta another one that means you
39:55
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
40:34
in clinical settings and have been reported as being associated with the disease having these mutations doesn't
40:41
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
41:08
is at the disease that people hypothesize for a while cause the madness of King George it's a nasty
41:15
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
41:29
reveals that if i smoked I would have been in the most high-risk group for developing lung cancer like here of
41:36
changes your genotype doubles your risk of getting lung cancer but actually the way it does it is from doubling your
41:43
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
42:25
taken an individual and to detect apt these millions of digital pieces of
42:33
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
42:45
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
42:51
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
43:06
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
43:34
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
44:00
this has been the Dawkins church since the 17 twenties and in there are 20 of
44:06
my relations many of them my ancestors and they have contributed some of the genes that are inside this little silver
44:14
box at the top next to the top there Henry Dawkins and then three down his
44:22
wife lady Juliana Dawkins they are my four grades my great-great great-great
44:28
grandparents 164th of the genes inside this little silver box come from Henry
44:35
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