Hello and welcome to the Origins podcast. I'm your host, Lawrence Krause. I have been a fan of Ricky Jervais for a long time. He not only makes me laugh, he makes me think, which is why I was so delighted when he agreed to appear in our film The Unbelievers five years ago.

He's famous, of course, for his work as a comedian, writer of hit series and movies,

and he had the most popular podcast in the world.

His most recent Netflix series, Afterlife, is one of the most brilliant television series I've ever seen.

I've enjoyed communicating with him about issues of science,

politics, and society for a long time, so I was really happy to have the chance to have an

in-depth conversation with him for this podcast. The result was brilliant and hilarious,

but he also provided deeply personal and illuminating reflections on modern life and about

key influences on his career

and on his comedy. And halfway through, he turned the tables on me and quizzed me on

quantum physics and cosmology. Patreon subscribers can find the full video of this program and all

our programs upon their release at patreon.com slash origins podcast.

I hope my discussion with Ricky will cause you to laugh and think about the world in a

slightly different way than you did before, which after all is the purpose of both art and

science.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Thank you. It's been a long since you'd filmed the Unbelievers, but it's just, I'm just so happy to be able to have a chat with you. It's been a long time. We communicate by

direct message on Twitter a lot, but it's nice to have a face of us. Yeah, this is more nerve-wracking. Yeah, absolutely. It's like being back at school or college or something. Well, good, good. I fear academics. I admire you, but I fear you.

Yeah, good. Well, that's exact. Keep that. Hold that thought.

It's nice, though, because it makes me feel... I admire you, but I fear you. Yeah, good. Well, that's exact. Keep that. Hold that thought.

It's nice, though, because it makes me feel stupid again. Because I get a false sense of security on Twitter. I feel really smart.

Oh, compared to most people. This would bring me down a peg or two. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. I mean, you may be surprised. The first question I want to ask you is, why aren't you a scientist? Because it seems to me, I'm serious about that. It's not facetious. It seems to me you have the sensibilities of a scientist. And you started in biology, right? Yeah, I do. I've sort of got two answers.

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