history of a universe but today I would
there is an African proverb that says if
you don’t know where to go look where
you come from maybe we should look up as
well the night sky has always been
contemplated by mankind with fear or
amazement it forces us to think beyond
our basic needs today we are going to go
for the three evolutions the universe
life on earth and the third evolution of
which we are all part more about that
later so let’s start with the first
evolution the universe
you will agree with me that as soon as
you look up in the dark you see the
empty vastness of the universe well it’s
not so empty and it’s not so dark we
live on a planet the earth circling a
very dull star called the Sun and our
Sun is circling inside a very dull
galaxy called the Milky Way and there
are billions of stars in our galaxy and
there are billions of galaxies in the
known universe so what sets our human
condition in a very isolated and dull
place so it has only been in the last
century but we understand the universe
evolves galaxies and stars have not been
always around when we work out the
expansion of a universe in Reverse the
picture was very different 14 billion
with a big bang model we now understand
what happened
the latest flunk satellite image reveals
the universe when it was only 400,000
years old we live in a single universe
that looks the same wherever we look at
it I spent 20 years of my life along
with hundreds of others scientists
studying that matter here ever details
have been exaggerated but this image is
much smoother than the skin of a
grapefruit yet
we are lucky to see some ripples because
they are the signs of what will
eventually collapse to form the galaxies
as we know them today within galaxies
stars can form and then a new range of
possibilities happens to make complex
atoms for example do you know that the
spoon you use to eat your porridge every
morning it’s made of metal produced in a
supernova explosion this image on the
Left shows how the death of a star can
spread iron in the galaxies other stars
can shed carbon oxygen nitrogen elements
we say which are central to the
chemistry of life these elements are
very incorporated into the next
generation of stars this is what
happened to the Sun and our solar system
with the evolution of the universe is
central to producing interesting atoms
the building blocks of the next
evolution life on Earth
[Applause]
how life appeared is still a mystery but
we now understand the basic properties
of life all living bodies on earth share
the same DNA and the same self structure
the evolution of life from simple cells
to complex multicellular organisms like
onions
dolphins scorpions is now understood
Darwin has found the engine for
evolution
natural selection operates on various
attempts made by reproduction with
variations and better adapted species
are selected from the constraints of the
environment there are several methods
for natural selection to operate for
example there is your arms race bigger
taller faster more poisonous and so on
cheetahs can arrest can run faster and
grab the weakest gazelles thus the
gazelle population gets reinforced into
the faster running ones and if gazelles
go fast then in the cheetah population
only the faster one with crime when new
equilibrium will then appear between the
species and Darwin was stunned at how
the adaptation of all the species to the
environment another way selection can
operate is for species to find
ecological niches where no one else is
present for example the bat uses the
night sky to fly around and find food
and then sleeps when all the other
species are active during the day a bit
the peacock illustrates sexual selection
so here the survival of an individual is
increased by its attractiveness to be
over sex for the peacock species the
male as all the beauty for over species
it’s a female in general evolution works
it’s a bit like a bush in which there
are many dead branches
only the top twigs are still alive on
earth and favour favourable changes are
carried over from one generation to the
next the genes which are chunks of DNA
that could increase the population size
have made it in the long run so Homo
sapiens is just an animal at the end of
one twig hope it doesn’t break over homo
species like Homo habilis do not exist
on earth anymore they aren’t dead
branches so this standard picture should
not be a straight line as on the left
but rather a bushy tree as on the right
so what is so special about human beings
not bones not brain not even language
dolphins have language so here is a bold
idea to wake you up my contention is
that almost appellants have several
written languages they are not only
utilitarian languages like English but
there are also music the arts
mathematics and so on opening new worlds
our species converse communicate in
space and time and this is what I call
the third evolution ideas which I
exchanged between one brain and another
can propagate much faster than genetic
inheritance in the past it took four
days for a man
on a horse to travel from Manchester to
London nowadays it takes less than three
hours on the train to do the same
journey well if a train is on time
whereas the genetic evolution is slow
the speed at which the information can
propagate around the globe
makes this very evolution possible okay
so the first evolution is the universe
making the building blocks and this
second evolution is about complex life
so let me tell you more about the third
evolution so we have our own circles
family friends city country sport faith
and we shall loyalties to our social
circles by doing things in common and
exchanging ideas for example I don’t
took football with my wife I have
another circle for that I think that the
further evolution is cognitive in nature
it is all about the link between people
and their social circles and it has
happened in the last in the in the last
10,000 years and these social circles
all these circles are somehow
represented in each of our brain and are
coated with chemicals between neurons
neuroscientists have made a great leap
forward but we are still very far from
understanding this strange object called
the brain we’ve barely scratched the
surface there are hundred billion
neurons in each other in each brain
which is by the way the same number of
stars in our galaxy each neuron is
connected with at least 10,000 over
neurons my brain is only 2% of a human
however it gives 20% of the oxygen
intake and even 25% of a glucose
consumption and despite popular belief
we do use 100% of our brain at all times
so in fact the human body is just a
slave taking care of a central
processing unit the brain but in brain
is nothing on its own
Freud development a brain has to connect
with other brains to synchronize ideas
like a chair food love so the social
side of human beings cannot be
overstated we start as some little
fragile being thrown into the deep end
having only our parents to help us cope
with life and this is the immersion in
our social circles that makes us become
who we are through education and by
having more interaction with others I
think it is fair to say that in a way we
are born at 20 it takes 20 odd years
just to get a float with complexity our
civilization has reached some people at
50 still don’t get it back to ideas
which are central to the third evolution
there are many stupid idea
splash on a bottle children like that or
forbidden ideas score at football with
your hand and there are many there are
ideas fly from one brain to another by
communication and that’s where the
society acts on booths ideas by
filtering them out this is a sort of
natural selection in the Darwinian sense
there are no good or bad ideas just
ideas which are relevant or not that’s
typically how religions can spread or
some food dishes
we are somehow adapted to the society we
live that Wynn was fascinated by evil
way some birds in an island we’re so
well adapted to the available food okay
technically technological advances show
the selection process vividly the arms
race is everywhere more blades on a
razor to get a cleaner shave or flying
higher faster longer more comfortably
and there are also ecological niches say
a drone it has a limited range but it
doesn’t require a pilot on board and
there’s also selection by seduction by
support with a brand by Apple so we find
in the evolution of Technology the same
patterns as in the Darwinian natural
selection so comparing the three
evolutions the universe life on earth
and ideas we can see that one evolution
is embedded in the previous one so let
us now describe some of our common
interesting features for start they are
all digital they are ruled by ground
numbers atoms in the universe of each
got a discrete number of electrons and
that gives rise to the periodic table of
elements and all living bodies on earth
our DNA coded with only four chemical
letters ACGT and the third evolution is
coded by letters of various alphabets
another common feature is diversity many
outputs can be obtained just by
assembling the same building blocks in
different ways there are many genes in
common between giraffes and O copies or
between onions and leeks we are just
combined differently and for the third
evolution
linguists are amazed at the number of
ways we can combine words to make
meaningful sentences okay another
feature which is most paradoxical
feature is unicity we live in a single
universe as far as we can observe the
physical laws we have found on earth
apply everywhere in the universe and
there is a single brand of life the one
which is coated with DNA and there is
only one species that carries a third
evolution Homo sapiens another feature
is inheritance complex life does not
occur spontaneously animals are born
with almost the same genes as their
parents and in the same way strong ideas
other history and they are transmitted
over and over this is what we call
communication of general practice and
knowledge finally we have seen that the
three evolution share similar selection
processes so now is a controversial
issue I claim that a new method has
emerged among Cubans to select ideas in
only a few centuries the experimental
method has led to a growing corpus of
scientific knowledge which is just
staggering so we are constantly
generating new ideas but the ones that
we’ve stand experimental evidence will
spread like wildfire this is it and our
journey through the three evolutions the
universe life on earth and the third
evolution which is how human beings
exchange ideas in space and time the
more you share the more you can advance
and larger circles go out of your
comfort zone and over the edge look
around for inspiring ideas make mistakes
well not to me
making mistakes is part of selecting
ideas put the concept of evolution into
your everyday thinking things don’t pop
out of nowhere where you come from gives
you a big clue as to what lies ahead
thank you very much [Applause]