Intelligence Squared

Citizens of Britain, be afraid. Be very afraid. On May 5th we risk committing a grave crime against our democracy. We are being asked in a referendum, to ditch the system of voting – First Past the Post – that has served us so well as a democratic nation, and to adopt the system known as the Alternative Vote, that will allow MPs to be elected to parliament even if they are not the first choice of the majority of their constituents. Instead it will be the second and third preferences of those who vote for no-hope or extremist parties – “the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates", as Winston Churchill put it – which will in many constituencies determine whether or not an MP gets in. By thus giving an outlying group of voters what is essentially a second chance to vote, AV will kill the hallowed principle that each person’s vote is of equal weight. That at any rate is the view of 26 eminent historians (Professors Niall Ferguson and Antony Beevor included) expressed in a recent letter to The Times. But in a subsequent letter, their view was given a good kicking by 20 eminent lawyers (including Baroness Kennedy QC and Michael Mansfield QC) who argue that it is precisely because your vote is so seldom given equal weight in practice, that we need AV. Look at all those MPs who, under First Past the Post, regularly get well below 50% of the local vote, yet still get returned to Westminster even though a majority of their constituents don’t want them there. AV will create genuine contests for seats that sitting MPs at present take for granted as “theirs” – a situation that empowers a few thousand voters in "marginals" to decide elections. Is that the hallowed system you really want to keep? So are the academics right? Or the lawyers? Or – whisper it quietly – is it all a lot of fuss about very little

The Artangel Longplayer Conversation 2011 introduces two of the world’s foremost modern thinkers: climate-scientist and ‘futurologist’ James Lovelock and political philosopher and author John Gray, who will embark on a discussion inspired by the philosophical implications of long time

Where do our ideas about morality and meaning come from? Most people – from religious extremists to secular scientists – would agree on one point: that science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, science's failure to explain meaning and morality has become the primary justification for religious faith and the reason why even many non-believers feel obliged to accord respect to the beliefs of the devout. Sam Harris, the American philosopher and neuroscientist, comes to the Intelligence² stage to argue that these views are mistaken – that amidst all the competing arguments about how we should lead our lives, science can show us that there are right and wrong answers. This means that moral relativism is mistaken and that there can be neither a Christian nor a Muslim morality – and that ultimately science can and should determine how best to live our lives. Sam Harris will be discussing his latest book The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values with Revd Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral

Conventional wisdom tells us that a new star will rise in the East and over the past decade all eyes have been looking towards China or India to witness the emergence of the 21st century’s new superpower. But on 22 March 2011, the IQ2 debate challenged this assumption and suggested that we look to the West. Quietly, the economies of South America have also been transforming themselves, only in their case unburdened by the dead weight of caste politics or communism. It is they, the motion suggested, that will emerge as the Superpowers of the 21st Century. Parag Khanna asked why it was that South America has been so perennially excluded from the conversation of geopolitics? This came down, he suggested, to the naïve assumption that hegemonic power moves in cycles from East to West to East again. To the view of South America as predominantly a resource provider rather than a resource deplorer and to the continent’s historic subservience to the United States. The US has realised that South America is ‘its turn-key solution to it’s two greatest challenges: energy security and economic competitiveness’. What is more, Asia – the world’s crowded arms bazaar – is turbulent and wracked with divisions along national and ethnic fault lines. The advantage of South America, explained Roberto Jaguaribe (Brazil’s Ambassador to the UK), was that we are ‘living in the most extensive, cohesive, and homogenous region of the world’. The region is prospering, much like the US was in early 20th century, in a context of splendid, (safe and stable) isolation. Alright, conceded the other side of the panel, progress in South America has been spectacular, but we must recognise the weaknesses that plague the continent. After all, explained Bill Emmott, ‘Argentina is usually one president away from its next default. It is the world’s champion sovereign debt defaulter. Anyone looking for worries about the Euro and future models for how you do a sovereign debt default always reaches for the file marked “Argentina” in their file.’ What is more, suggested Gideon Rachman, while we might regard Brazil as the ‘cuddly BRIC – the one that everybody likes and they give all the tournaments to,’ we mustn’t ignore the drug wars raging in Mexico and the questionable Human Rights record in Venezuela. Take no comfort from the fact that Hugo Chavez was the 2009 winner of the Muammar Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. ‘That’s not one that you want to keep on your mantelpiece.’ Rana Mitter and Oscar Guardiola-Rivera took the debate to the question of culture. Mitter, against the motion, pointed to the permeating influence of Mandarin and the ‘universalising cultural phenomenons’ of Bollywood and Japanese Manga anime. He suggested there simply wasn’t a South American equivalent. What about Shakira? shot back Guardiola-Rivera

Are we alone in the universe? How will we ever find out? How did the universe begin? Will we ever find the mysterious "God particle"? What would it mean if we did? How soon will we all become space tourists? These are some of the big questions surrounding man's existence....and Intelligence² are bringing together some of the world's leading scientists, astronomers and space pioneers to attempt to answer them. Particle physicist and BBC presenter Brian Cox will talk about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, and specifically about what the world's largest scientific experiment might tell us about some of the great questions in cosmology. What is dark matter? Why is gravity so weak? What happens in the heart of neutron stars? Charles Simonyi, the former Microsoft technology architect and space tourist, will tell us what it's like to be aboard the International Space Station, focusing in particular on weightlessness: What does it mean? What would Newton have said about it? And how does it actually feel? He'll illustrate his talk with images from Newton’s books and video taken aboard the space station. Royal astronomer Martin Rees will outline how a mysterious 'big bang' gave rise to atoms, galaxies, stars, planets – and at least one biosphere. Having introduced us to the exciting discoveries that suggest there are billions of planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy, and that there are billions of other galaxies, he will speculate on whether our 'big bang' is just one of many, on the probabilities of life on other planets, and on the long-range future for life, here on earth and far beyond. Biographer Richard Holmes will lead us back in time for an historical overview of space – from Ptolemy to Galileo to Herschel. How did astronomers of the past understand the cosmos? What impact did they have on poets and writers such as Shakespeare and Keats? And planetary scientist Colin Pillinger will talk about space exploration past, present and future using manned and robotic spacecraft. As the man who led the Beagle 2 project to send a spacecraft to look for evidence of life on Mars, he will be asking the big question: Is there life elsewhere in the universe? The event will be chaired by Rick Stroud, film-maker and author of The Book of the Moon

On February 28th 1953, James Watson and his collaborator Francis Crick made a momentous discovery at the Cambridge laboratory where they were working. They had determined the double-helix structure of the molecule DNA, of which all living matter is made. Watson and Crick became world famous, sharing the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Maurice Wilkins. Their discovery revolutionised the study of biology and genetics, making possible the DNA techniques used by today's biotechnology industry. Watson is known as the enfant terrible of molecular biology. In 1968 he published his account of the DNA discovery, The Double Helix. The book became an international best-seller, but some in the scientific community were scandalised by Watson's portrayal of the faults and foibles of his colleagues and the snipings and rivalries of the scientific world. Since then he has frequently been embroiled in controversy for his views on genetic screening and genetic engineering. But Watson insists that devotion to the truth as he sees it is as essential in dealing with the general public as it is in scientific research. James Watson will be in conversation with Brenda Maddox, biographer of Rosalind Franklin, the scientist who made a significant contribution to learning about the structure of DNA but whose role was largely unacknowledged in her lifetime.

Taking on the Arab tyrants: Is it any of our business? The democratic convulsions now rocking the Arab world have forced us to confront anew the key question driving western foreign policy: how far should the West be involved in the democracy promotion business? Perhaps the lesson of the Arab Spring is that toppling oppressors is better left to the oppressed. Maybe Iraq would have had its own Arab Spring if we’d just let Saddam be? But then what about Saudi Arabia? Little sign of an end to autocracy there. Do we just keep cosy with the Saudi king, or do we take steps to push him to democratise? And once the dictator is falling or has fallen… what then? Do we just stand back and hope that democracy will flourish in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere? If not, how should we intervene to promote the spread of democratic ideals and institutions? These are some of the questions that two of the sharpest debaters on the subject – Rory Stewart and David Aaronovitch – will be crossing swords over this Thursday. Why not come and join the fray

Niall Ferguson is the most brilliant British historian of his generation. In his latest book, Civilisation: The West and the Rest, he asks how Western civilisation, from inauspicious roots in the 15th century, came to dominate the rest of the world. His answer is that the West developed six “killer applications” that the Rest lacked: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the Protestant work ethic. The key question today is whether or not the West has lost its monopoly on these six things. If it has and the Rest of the world can successfully download these apps, we may be living through the end of Western ascendancy

Listen to what President Ahmedinejad of Iran says about Israel: “The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime.” Here he is on the West: “We thank God that our enemies are idiots.” Does this man sound like a serious threat? The Islamic regime in Iran loves to bare its claws and snarl, but isn’t this all just am dram posturing? It may suit Israel to portray Iran’s sabre-rattling as an existential threat and it may suit the US to play up that threat. But even if Iran does acquire a nuclear strike capability won’t it be primarily for exhibitionist reasons? And won’t that threat be dwarfed by the far more sophisticated weaponry that Israel and the US could muster in response? That’s the argument of those happy to dismiss Iran as a paper tiger. But have they got it horribly wrong? Would Arab governments really have beseeched the US to bomb Iran – as revealed by Wikileaks – if its regime were no more than a duff joke? Could it be that a nuclear-armed Iran is every bit as bad as the scaremongers say it is? http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/ira

John Gray and Adam Phillips will be discussing themes raised in Gray's forthcoming book The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death. In the late 19th century the implication of Darwin's theories was that humans were animals like any other, alone in an uncaring universe. The refusal to accept this and to insist instead on our immortality resulted in a series of experiments. Gray examines two major examples: the belief that the science-backed Communism of the new USSR could reshape the planet, remaking humanity and freeing us from death (and in the process return Lenin back to life), and the belief among a group of Edwardian intellectuals that there was a form of life after death accessed through mediums and automatic writing. These attempts may seem deluded to us in the 21st century but can we claim to be no longer gripped by the hope that somehow science can make us invincible? http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/immortality

Tony Curzon Price interviews Eugene Rogan, Director of the Middle East Centre at Oxford University and author of The Arabs.

Is democracy dawning in the Arab world? Or does the fall of Mubarak signal the start of military rule? Do the uprisings in North Africa mark the end of Arab authoritarianism? Or are they merely revolving doors for the next autocracy? Could…. or should… Western governments intervene to help push the democratic agenda

Tony Curzon Price interviews Nabila Ramdani ahead of the event at the Royal Geographical Society on the 15th February - Turmoil in the Arab world: is the genie of democracy out of the bottle? Nabila is a well-established commentator for the BBC's Woman's Hour and Today programme, Al Jazeera, France Inter, France Télévisions, Canal +, and the Sky News press preview.

How badly wounded is modern capitalism by the financial crisis? Is it mortal or just a flesh wound? Will the state have to expand its powers and take on new responsibilities for jobs, investment, financial regulation and redistribution as we limp out of recession? And was the success of laissez-faire of the last 30 years just illusion built on unstable mounds of borrowing? Or was real wealth-creation unleashed? Does the crisis just point to the work that still needs to be done to make the capitalist-democratic state more nimble, smaller, less bureaucratic? Will that finally demonstrate the superior values of freedom and decentralisation over authoritarian economic models to the East? Crossing swords on these pivotal issues are Anatole Kaletsky, principal economic commentator for The Times and Will Hutton, Observer columnist and author of The State We’re In.... and of course you, the Intelligence Squared audience

Economist Anatole Kaletsky interviewed by Tony Curzon Price