I'm in Favor of Robots for Exploring the Solar System

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

JPL builds these robot spacecraft and sends them all over the solar system that's different right. It's not much more difficult for them to get out to Jupiter or Saturn than to get to Mars. No one is serious to talk about humans going to the outer solar system so I'm extremely in favor of robots for exploring the solar system with big telescopes, medication equipment and all that in space.

Shermer and Rees discuss: existential threats • overpopulation • biodiversity loss • climate change • AI and self-driving cars, robots, and unemployment • his bet with Steven Pinker • his disagreement with Richard Dawkins • how science works as a communal activity • scientific creativity • science communication • science education • why there aren’t more women and people of color in STEM fields • verification vs. falsification • Bayesian reasoning and scientific progress • Model Dependent Realism and the nature of reality Fermi’s Paradox • why he’s an atheist but wants to be buried in the Presbyterian church in which he was raised • mysterian mysteries.

Martin Rees is Astronomer Royal, former President of the Royal Society, Fellow (and former Master) of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. He sits as a member of the UK House of Lords. He is the author of many bestselling popular science books, including: On the Future; Just Six Numbers; Before the Beginning; and Our Final Hour. His newest book is If Science is to Save Us.