Episode 19 The Big Questions

Today on The Big Questions, privatisation and the NHS, racism

against whites, and did religion or evolution give us morals?

Good morning. I'm Nicky Campbell, welcome to the big question is, we

are live from the Harris Academy, Peckham, south London. Welcome

everybody to The Big Questions. This week we have seen the National

Health Service at its best, tackling the dreadful aftermath of the

Manchester bombing. Politicians and voters from every party heaped

praise on the ambulance workers, paramedics, doctors and nurses for

their unstinting response to the tragedy. But with the election

campaign resuming, the growing demands of the NHS of an ageing

population and how to pay for it, once again political football. While

all sides broadly agreed the NHS should remain free to users, there

is a divide over whether using the private sector to run hospitals, GP

surgeries, provides that all services like Lena Ring, catering,

physiotherapy, helps or undermines the health care system. Is the

health care system helping the NHS? It is like sacrilege to a lot of

people, any private involvement seems to decry and abuse the very

principle of something we hold so dear. The bond between the British

people and the NHS is as strong as ever, as events in the last few days

have shown. What NHS staff did over the last few days is genuinely

moving to people... Both efficiently and compassionately they have

responded. But the broad issue about why people are so fond of the NHS is

its founding principle, free at the point of delivery. If we can put

that aside, everybody is agreed that is the right thing, that is the view

overwhelmingly of the British people, there is then a discussion

about, do you have to have everything publicly provided as part

of that deal? The answer is that since the NHS was founded in 1948,

from GPs, who have been independent contractors to the NHS since that

start point, through all the years that we have been, the NHS has used

the independent sector and charitable sector significantly in

hospice care and so on, and if you ask people who use those services,

do you mind who runs the service as long as it is good care and good

value for money, both of those are very important, then overwhelmingly

they don't mind whether it is publicly provided or privately

provided service. People worry about the direction of travel when they

see what has happened to other industries, utilities, telecoms,

railways, there are those people who think, there are strong arguments on

both sides, but there are those people who think it has been a

downhill trend and are worried we might move to an American system,

which most people dread. I think most people would dread the American

system but the key point there is care is not free at the point of

delivery so people can find themselves losing all their income,

if they have any income. There is a system for the very poor but it is

regarded as a second-rate service. The founding principles of the NHS

established in 48 is we should all be treated the same, free at the

point of need. I don't see that being undermined by the fact that

you have to use an independent sector hospital. There was an

article in the Telegraph saying that one GP surgery, you can wait a long

time perhaps to see your GP, but in the same surgery there is a private

practitioner, a range of them, and you can see them now for ?39. People

are worried that it is creeping. But, if it works, Owen Jones, if it

provides some flexibility to the NHS, to what some people see as a

great, immobile monolith, isn't it a good thing? The NHS should be run on

the basis of patient need, not on the basis of profit for profiteering

company. But if it works? It doesn't, the direction of travel has

been privatisation but because we have this public model, as one

study, the Commonwealth fund, showed in 2014, we come top of the health

system is the analysed, the US system at the bottom. What has

privatisation meant in practice? The health service has become more

inefficient because you need extra layers of bureaucracy and management

for all of the complex Private contract. The amount we spend on

management of bureaucracy since we started this has gone from 5% to

15%, double that in America where they have that system. Second thing,

the NHS making money... It is people making a living? But should they do

it for the health service, a basic service we provide on to look after

our help? To make money they cut costs by cutting salaries and

undermining terms and conditions of the courageous workers that you talk

about. I will come back to you because there are a couple of points

in there and it would be good for Niall to take them one at a time.

The bureaucracy? Bar too much bureaucracy in the private sector?

He is not talking about bureaucracy in the private sector... For

overseeing the Private contract. With any form of contracting system

you do need to have people doing contracts and all the rest of it.

You also need to have people held to account at local level for how well

they are doing, which applies to public sector and private sector

organisations, or indeed if you have charities who are running these

particular services, so something at local level holds people to account

for how well they are doing I think is a cost you have to pay but

actually our administrative costs as a health care system are amongst the

lowest in the world, it is one of the reason the Commonwealth study

found as it did. I'm not saying public sector bad, private sector

good. Neither should you say it the other way round. There are

first-class private sector services that are serving the NHS at this

moment. But the idea all staff are utterly obsessed with profits,

providing bad care, trying to mess with the cost all the time, there is

no evidence to support that. Look at hip replacements, eight out of the

top ten providers are private sector, there are also fabulous

public sector providers. Let's not get hung up. Clive Peedell, has the

private sector, by means of competition and concentrating the

mind, improved in any way the efficiency of the public sector NHS?

Unfortunately not, we have got a fixed pot of money and the whole

argument about bringing the private sector in, the only way it would be

more efficient is to have a market system, that is the ideology of how

the private sector works. Markets don't work well enough, the

transaction costs are huge, multiple billions of pounds per year. You

need to have choice, excess capacity in the system, so you have all of

these independent sector treatment centres poaching NHS staff from NHS

hospitals. We already have a shortage of staff, a ?3 billion

agency Bill, that is making it worse, and with Brexit coming up

along with EU workers leaving, it is a huge problem and destabilises

local help economies. Money follows the patient so those NHS hospitals

that are already massively in debt, 50% of NHS trusts are in the red,

they are losing income and when you lose income you lose staff, and I

called it dominoes, departments start to close and it is an utter

disaster. APPLAUSE.

An utter disaster, Kate Andrews? One of the biggest tricks the NHS

campaigners have pulled over the eyes of the British people is the

idea that there are only two systems in the world, the NHS system and the

US system. The idea that market access to health care does not work

around the world is completely debunked. The US is the only system

that does not offer universal access to health care but contrary to being

the envy of the world, no other developed country has adopted the

NHS. Look at Germany, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand... We have

the gold standard in this country. You don't, you tend to rank in the

bottom third. I would mention the Commonwealth fund report, I love the

Guardian's summing up of it, it looks that input, how active is the

system at kicking boxes. It does not look at outcomes. On the one

question where the Commonwealth Fund and other outcomes, the NHS was ten

out of 11. The Guardian said without irony that the only black mark

against the NHS was its poor record of keeping people alive. This is not

a system built with 2017. My encouragement to the British people

would not be to be frightened by the word privatisation but to look at

countries we would not consider tap private systems, Switzerland,

Germany, universal access to health care... How much further would you

go down this road? I am a fan of the insurance Systems proliferated

throughout Europe. The Government make sure everybody has access

universally to health care, all of the bills are paid for through a

voucher system or charities but the Government funds completely your

access to health care. But the private sector runs it so it tends

to be more efficient, gets much better outcomes. Thousands upon

thousands of lives are saved every year in the Netherlands, Germany,

Belgium, especially when it comes to serious things like cancer and heart

attacks. This is where we need to be focusing. On cancer, this always

comes up as a stick to beat the NHS but they are not comparing like and

like. In the US, for example... Again, the US. OK, other countries.

We have a five-year survival rate, that is how we define how many

people survive cancer. In other countries they look at pre-cancers

which don't turn out to be cancers. If you lump those into the

statistics, it looks like you have a better survival rate, so it is not

comparing like the like. A lot of the comparisons are comparing

like-for-like. It has looked at how quickly you can get things like

access to surgery to remove tumours. All we hear from the NHS campaigners

is, USA, USA, fear mongering. We need to talk about the rest of

Europe where they are doing better. Clive, you are an oncologist? I

would not argue that cancer outcomes are not better in some of the

countries you mentioned but Germany and France spend more in the same

GDP per year, and that is cumulative. One report said the NHS

was underfunded by 257 billion over a 25 year period. We just about

Cordoba that when Labour increased spending and then there was the

financial crash so we have fall back below, so you can compare models all

you like but they are more expensive. The public wants a

single-payer system so you cannot have a private sector deliberate NHS

care. By all means a separate private sector but not competing

against the NHS, it is a disaster. The comparing of different health

care systems is very complex but the answer is the NHS has been

underfunded. APPLAUSE.

It isn't fair to compare it. Again, I go to this thing off, Private

good, public bad. There is no evidence to support either of those.

If something is properly funded and has good leadership and the right

values within that, and the idea that all private sector health care

organisations don't have those things is nonsense, so the answer is

we have a very good health care system. It would be a lot better if

it was better funded, and it needs that. If it were to be better funded

and have enough money, would private sector involvement be in any way,

shape or form necessary? Yes, and you could demonstrate flat looking

at the 2000 when getting access was an issue and independent treatment

centres shook up the NHS and made it more... And got people care that

they would not have got otherwise. If it was spent on the NHS, we would

not have needed them. It is a dangerous road to go down. I was in

a private hospital when I was younger that was funded by the NHS

and they spent thousands of thousands of pounds every week

keeping me in there and what was the motivation for this hospital getting

the better? We had to get the MP involved because my father felt they

were drugging me to keep me in the hospital. When the MP got involved

to get me a good care plan, funnily enough a few weeks later I was

released, so I think privatisation is massively risky. There is bad

practice everywhere, surely? Privatisation has an efficiency role

to play in the NHS but the NHS as it stands means in principle private

organisations coexist with public owned bodies to allow private

organisations to run the NHS would bring about trickle-down economics.

What it will do, it will drip down and just make a mess of the whole

thing. Specifically, it will allow the roses that grew from the

concrete with damaged petals, it would allow them to wear out, we do

not want, at the centre of market and Public organisations looked at

the link between competition and improvement in health care and what

they found was a negative relationship between competition and

quality of health care. Who thinks there is a positive relationship

between competition and positive health care? I know you do, Kate! I

just wonder if anyone in the audience, because I did see some

people nodding when you were making your point.

I have strong thoughts, I agreed with our women that the NHS needs to

be publicly owned and publicly delivered. And if you follow the

money trail, you say, where does the profit goes, who gives the money to

shareholders? We are all shareholders in the NHS and it

should stay within the NHS. And it is a unique organisation, its

mission is unique. Its mission is pure and that actually excellent

service delivery and clinical outcomes. It is not about making a

profit. The important thing is service delivery. A private company

inevitably has to have a profit, so service delivery because profit and

is measured on the money it makes. And we saw in the other government

privatisation issues such as welfare to work, telecoms, the Royal Mail,

we have seen cherry picking. Private organisations will say there are

happy to have this contract because it is measurable and profitable, am

not keen on this bit. Is that not inevitable that some reason --

treatments will be more profitable than others? We already have a

terrible system of rationing on the NHS and Russians more than almost

any country throughout Europe. It is not the private sector holding back

access to treatment, it is the NHS. The NHS is not rationing treatment,

the Government is rationing money. By completely take your point about

the goal of the NHS to be to provide immaculate health care, what happens

when that goal is not achieved? The NHS is in a state of perpetual

crisis and people are waking up to the idea that people in France and

Germany and Switzerland get better treatment and it does not seem like

a scary privatised system. And there might be an area of compromise. I

opened the idea of putting 1%, to present a more GDP towards health

care is but that is secondary to the fact the system is failing. It is in

the bottom third of these areas and it needs reform. Daniel has got the

finances swelling through this desperate to head. You know the

finances inside out -- Daniel has got the finances of this in his

head. Will there ever be enough money for our ever expanding needs

and ageing society? Yes, I believe it is possible to do it with a

publicly funded system, but I do think there has to be a wake-up call

among all the political parties. Where'd you get the money from? That

is a matter for society to decide but if you believe in a free at the

point of delivery service, it has to come from taxation. All our taxes or

just those at the top? That is up to the Government to decide. No, it is

up to you! No, it is not, thankfully! The system is

underfunded, we are going to face over the next 20 years a doubling in

the number of elderly people over 85, that means the demand that will

hit the system, however it is organised, is going to be very

substantial and will involve changing the way that we pay

organisations and changing the way we organise services and that in a

way is the big question we are not really dealing with. Owen. Given the

NHS has gone through the longer squeezing since it was founded and

we spend less on the NHS than almost any industrialised country and given

this costs of social care, the outcomes are miraculous. The issue

is dogma. The people who do not like the NHS do not like it because it is

an embarrassment to an ideology dominating the Society of the last

generation which has put profits, people who want to privatise it. NHS

puts people's needs before profit in a society where increasingly it is

the other way round. And if it works in the NHS and you see the

privatisation around railways and utilities and the financial

collapse, this idea the private sector is good and the public sector

is bad, has been increasingly left in ruins and the NHS shows but

people's needs before profit, people are proud of it and it delivers

first-class. Adam Bland indeed the last word on this. We have had some

very interesting contributions -- I'm giving you the last word on

this. You have to acknowledge across the political spectrum, the majority

people support the NHS and the majority just wanted to work. In

good faith. Do you think your colleagues should just work in the

NHS and ditch their private work? The key thing to address the problem

is to understand health care problem can stimulate economic growth

because it keeps people healthy and at work and I work in Middlesbrough,

half ?8 billion, a lot of that recirculate around the economy and

stimulate the local private businesses so that is a positive

this effect on health care and education. Public investment

stimulate economic growth and we need to get this in the mystical

debate. Get it on the discussion for the next couple of weeks and talk

about fiscal multipliers. That encourages economic growth. A

thought I had, do you think your colleagues who do private and public

work, should they ditch the private work and work in the NHS? I do not

have a problem with a separate private sector. Separate is the

keyword. Otherwise, you have to have a market within the NHS which is a

disaster. People are wealthy enough and they want to take out health

insurance and they have employment insurance, there should be a

separate private health sector. That takes the pressure of the system. We

should not have NHS consultants abusing their private practice which

has been happening in the past. It should never be allowed to happen.

Fascinating debate! The next is amazing. If you have something to

say, log onto... Joining the discussion online and contribute on

Twitter. We also debating this morning in pack... -- in Peckham.

Some other ideas of what she may have about the programme. There has

been an ongoing row in the papers and social media about a new net

books series based on an earlier comedy film which satirised the

experience of black students at a predominantly white Ivy League

college. A scene which shows blacking students blacking up has

been called racist to white people. But can white people be the victims

of racism? Many people will say of course they can, but there are

interesting arguments as to why they cannot. We are about to explore

them. Esther, it is great to see you back. I do not know if you saw tHREE

gIRLS, a powerful drama. One comment was that a Pakistani gang saw these

white girls as third class citizens. Is that racism? No, it is not. That

situation was very complex. There were Rachel Di mentions, but the

basis of the oppression of those young girls was based on bow ball

mobility in terms of their sex and gender and in particular their

social class. If we are linking back to racism, it denies the fact of

what racism really is, racism is a global system of oppression and

exploitation that is meted out to people who historically have not

been racialised as white. That is what racism is and it is not helpful

Netflix to just focus on individual cases. What happens in Rotherham was

awful, it was terrible and it was abuse. But it was not based on race.

A individual cases not... Scientists say that pigmentation is a colour

spectrum, there are no definite boundaries. So some will ask where

on the spectrum do you stop being a potential victim of racism? In terms

of not being a victim of racism, it is those who at any time can benefit

from that global system. So if we just reduce it to what is happening

in a so-called white working-class population in Britain and we do not

look at the fact of if somebody from that community moves, their status

and their sense of power and privilege will also change. So that

is what we need to focus on. So we are talking about a system of racism

and inequality, what is called white supremacy, that is about defending

this system of power, race and privilege. In particular, well. That

determines how we relate as individuals. So the interpersonal

aspects and individualised aspects of racism, you cannot divorce it

from the global systems of who is classified as black and white. And

black people be racist towards Polish people? No. Racism and racial

discrimination are two different things and it is about who has the

power to define and white people have redefined racism. What has

happened to Polish people is based on their national identity, not

their race. Betty King of Jeremy Corbyn, do you think white people

can be victims of racism? Yes, everybody can white people had been

and they are still victims of racism. It is revenge. Black people

are discriminated against, Pakistani people are discriminated against. It

is almost like they need revenge on what was done to them. I think in

this time we are in all over the world, people are calling for

equality. When the opportunity arises, white people can be

discriminated against, I do believe that. What about Irish people?

First, but I find that statement is... I think that statement is

peculiar because you are conflating and confusing discriminatory

practices based on how people are presented in the world with systemic

purchases. Racism is prejudiced. It works in the sense that if you are

black, black or rough African ancestry like I am, you know that

the system is set against you. If you ask me whether the Irish could

beat racially discriminated against, I teach that and the viewers can

look at how the Irish became a white. It is called how the Irish

became white. I was born in the UK growing up and the Irish, if you put

them in another framework, they were a lesser race like the Germans with

the master race against the Jews. I teach the Holocaust as a racist

incident because of the context, you have a right group pressings and

other white group and publicly stating they are an inferior race.

But Schindler escaped Nazi Germany by pretending to be a Jewish. It can

only work in that context. If the oppressors were white people and

they oppressed that black and that person freed some of those people,

could he had escaped with them? We should be very careful when we talk

about racism versus discriminatory practices because as Esther said,

this is systemic. If you have a white person who believes they are

racially discriminated against and let's say because they are Polish

and they have an accident, if they keep their mouths shut and they

different arenas, they will not be discriminated against, they have to

speak. We do not, it is the skimmed we are and that legislates against

it. -- it is the skin. Huge argument as to whether is a phobia is racism

or not. Supposing could be one aside that it is, it is the Pakistani

attitude towards Christians, is that racism? Christian Pakistanis

suffering from racism if criticism of those who are dear to believe

systems, surely that is comparable? It is comparable if you look at it

as discriminatory practices and how people feel as human beings if they

are discriminated against, but the framework is religion, that is what

that is about. Like what is happening in Nigeria... But it is

othering? That is sociology 101, anybody who doesn't really

appreciate that isn't going to understand how it is set up and

structured systemically. Of course you could look at people, let's say

for instant in Nigeria where you have Christians and Muslims killing

each other every day, but that cannot be racist, that is premised

on religion. This is interesting, isn't it? It's all right, people

usually get stunned when I start... ! Some people at home will be

saying, well, racism is racism, I've had rate is against me. You have

explained your point. Gentleman in the white shirt? You cannot be

racist against Jews in Britain, for example. As a white man, if a person

is racist to me, and they never have been, if they are, it cannot be

taken nearly as seriously as if a white person is racist to a black

person. But Jews in Britain, for all sorts of reasons, are

disproportionately millionaires as a proportion of the population in the

UK. Are they? I think that is true. Does that make them holders of

power? Uncomfortable with that. More audience, please. At the back,

gentleman with the beard? I think the question in itself is racism,

the reason being when you start dividing people on colours, someone

is white or black, you start dividing people on religious basis,

you start dividing people on their background, that is racism in

itself, so the question being whether white people can become

victims of racism is racism in itself, because human beings are

equal and everyone should be treated equally whether white or black. We

need to get beyond race? I think this is the point where we need to

look at racism from an intersection or perspective. You cannot reduce

racism to ethnicity alone, you have to look at gender, as Esther was

saying, nationality, and the other point is, what do we mean by white?

Are we talking about the group that is in power? Are we talking about

gypsies, travellers, Roma, white women who have converted to Islam?

Take the example of Muslim women who are white, who converted to Islam.

What has happened with them is that they have been reason racialised,

moved from a position of being in power, white, to being seen as not

really white, fake white, because they are now being perceived as the

other person. Position of power depends on where they live in the

Globe, they can be in power, of the powerful elite, can't they? Being

white and moving to a religious minority, we're talking about Muslim

women and whether she is visibly Muslim, not just about gender at but

his ability of religion, that have an impact on has shown that these

women face similar racial abuse to women from other minorities... So IS

are racist against your CDs because they are a different religious

groups? I think you have to distinguish between religious and

racism, they are two different things. They do come together... You

just conflated them and now you are trying to distance yourself from

them. At the end of the day, and estimate this pretty clear, I

thought, if you are saying a white woman and braces is lamb and dresses

in a particular way and she is on the street and faces abuse, if she

puts on her jeans and trainers and a T-shirt... I agree with that. How

can it be the same as people who are born with a different hue? If you

take the example of minority ethnic women who are Muslim, whether they

adopt Islam or a doctor headscarf or not, they cannot get away from that.

Can a black person, let me give you an example, before you say what you

think is a key point, I cannot wait for that, India may expel Ugandan

Asians in that particular period of time, many people would say it was

pure and simple racism, was it? Burst of all, it is complicated. The

starting point is that we have one term, racism, essentially a crude

term for a kaleidoscope of prejudices that go from A to Z, the

violent racist, the abuses to racist, but the big monster is

institutional racist. Let me after about India mean, was he racist,

discriminatory against Ugandan Asians? Discriminatory, yes. He got

rid of them because of their race. The key point is the edifice that

favours one race above another. We have to zoom out a little bit, we

have do understand we have had 200 years of slavery, 200 years of

colonialism, 50 years of extreme racism, no docs, no Irish, no

Blacks, that is a big edifice that is thought to favour one race above

the other, and what cascades from that is what we see on a daily

basis, disproportionality in stop and search, disproportionality of

black people being poor, suffering from mental health. We need on this

discussion, first of all we need acknowledgement, this is good, we

like this! We need acknowledgement that there is this bias, there is

this race penalty. Then we have to have a discussion about what the

solution is, how do we own picked this edifice, how do we make it more

fair, how do we judge people like you and me, not by, as that great

man said, not by the colour of our skin by the content of our

character? You cannot even begin to start on this unless you acknowledge

this edifice that works against some people. Absolutely. So, Kevin, have

you been a victim of racism? I haven't personally but I've worked

with some people who have. On a personal basis, I accept the

argument about the difference between the institutional, systemic

and individual, but if you take a small example of the personal

experience, a person can be discriminated against on the basis

of the colour of their skin in promotion at work, for instance, so

we have little micro-communities who feel and experience racism based on

the colour of their skin because in that small system there is a power

system within employment, there is a boss and a business owner, somebody

can feel that, but I agree it is not the same as institutional racism.

But I want to make another point because the original question is,

can whites be victims of racism, and I would say on a global scale they

are, because we are all victims, wherever you have got a system that

includes racism, we all lose out, we are all victims. I went to

Washington, DC a few years ago and stood at the Lincoln Monument and

read some of Lincoln's words, his famous quote about, let's not

quibble about this man and that man, this race and that race, some

inferior, we are all born equal and should be treated as equal. If we

are not doing that 150 years later, we are all, we are doing all of us a

disservice. Owain, I don't know if you are a great follower or fan of

Karl Marx but he would have called this full squad is, he would have

said it is all about socioeconomics -- false consciousness. You wrote

the book Chavs, didn't you? Firstly, another white man talking about

racism, just what we need. The point I made out in the books, when we

talk about the white working class, which I don't, personally, it is

misleading because the working class tends to be the most ethnically

diverse section of population. Go to a middle-class suburb, then you will

find the white middle class, a term for some reason we never use. Go to

inner cities, working-class communities, they tend to be the

most ethnically diverse. The problem is about how things intersect, that

is critical. Class and race collide so if you look, for example...

Class, race and gender. And sexuality, absolutely. It is the

systemic point which is critical. I am not someone, I have never been

stopped and searched randomly in my entire life, if you are black you

are six times more likely to be stopped and searched in London, if

you have drugs argue you are six times more likely to be charged,

unemployment, you are more likely to be unemployed even if you have a

degree if you from certain ethnic backgrounds, you are more likely to

live in poverty. At one point in this crisis over half of young black

men were unemployed. For it is the point about how things intersect

because if you look at working-class, within the working

class, those from minority backgrounds are the ones who are

giving of the most -- living off the most insecure, low-paid jobs. OK, I

will give way. As ever, that was brilliant. Don't get me wrong.

Esther, a final port from you, how much of this is about class? There

is an interrelationship, however class is also racialised because no

matter how much people of African heritage or Asian heritage may

elevate themselves in a particular system, they can still be redefined

and reduced to a subject class, that is the point. Absolutely. So we

cannot use class to get rid of racism, racism is a global system,

the reason it exists is because not enough people who benefit from it

are doing enough to counter it and we must also recognise there are

different forms of racism that affect different groups, and it is

linked to this historical system that is actually also bolstered by

state power, so we cannot exclude the role of the state in actually

enforcing that power. APPLAUSE.

I bet social media is pretty busy right now! You can join in all the

debates by logging on to the website, follow the link to the

online discussion. You can tweet using the hashtag #bbctbq. And what

about the last question, does morality come from religion or

evolution? We are not on next week because it

is Pentecost but will we -- but we will be back at the slightly later

time on June the 11th of 11:15am, asking whether it interfering with

genes is ethical, so join us for the last programme of the series.

Now, when it is around 4.5 billion years old. We know that forms of

life emerged around 3 billion years ago. Fast forward to just 6 million

years ago to encounter the first to walk upright, 200,000 years forward

the emergence of our species, Homo sapiens. The world's oldest living

religion emerged about 5000 years ago. Judy is and didn't emerge until

the second century BC, said they were beings like us, thousands of

years ago, did they care about their neighbours, did they help each other

out, did they shared their food when in need? Were they moral beings?

Does morality come from religion or evolution? Dr Michael Price,

evolutionary psychologist, good morning. Some amazing research going

on at the moment into our closest genetic cousins, primates, about

empathy, reciprocity, peacemaking, social laws, group cohesion, and a

recent paper on corpse cleaning, other cleaning the corpse of the

junk one, very particularly cleaning them out. That is significant, isn't

it? Absolutely, we see evidence for the real basis of morality in our

closest primate relatives and in other more distant relatives, and

this idea that evolution, there is this prejudice that it only explains

the nasty bits of human nature and we need culture or especially in the

form of religion to sort of intercede and protect us from our

animal cells, it is an obsolete view. Ever since Darwin but

especially since the 1960s, series of old truism, Corporation and

morality have been prolific. The problem now is, you have an

abundance of theories to choose from and sometimes there are very subtle

differences so you have to choose between this embarrassment of

riches, really, there is no lack of explanation for morality. Because

clearly you have to have group cohesion, social laws, peacemaking,

empathy, all the group falls apart? Absolutely, it plays a big role is

certainly group cohesion and group cooperative nurse and also in the

individual level, to be a successful individual you have to be regarded

as a moral individual, good cooperator, good reputation so it is

important as an individual level as well. Many biologists would say now

that we know that many animals have a sense of self-awareness, but then

we, we develop reason, so quibbling could blink without? Not

necessarily. -- Ayew quibbling with that? Those developments of social

cohesion into something more subtle? I don't think it is primarily about

reason, I think it is primarily about cooperation and acting in

groups in a cohesive way. There are species of social insects that are

extraordinarily cooperative, social creatures, reproductive division of

Labour, they sacrifice themselves for the group, it goes back 150

million years and predates the evolution of human beings by almost

that much, so it is an extremely ancient evolutionary phenomenon. It

is a fascinating and beautiful area, so inspiring. Betty, I know you

don't agree with what this scientific consensus that every

reputable scientist in the world does believe, but you are entitled

to that. But where did we get our morality from, and how?

Christians. How do you come to be as a human being? Do you ask the

question, why am I hear? Have you asked yourself that? Every day!

How'd you answer that? You could ask that of everything. Where'd you get

your senses and Joe Westerman from? Have you asked that question of

yourself? I have developed a really sophisticated frontal lobe over the

last 6 million years, not me personally, but that is how. How'd

you make choices in life in terms of knowing what is good and bad? Where

did you get the idea from of what is good and what is bad? Where did we

get the idea of what is good and bad? I think we have moral instinct

is that tell us what is right and wrong and how to cooperate and be a

good person. We also have, at the risk of oversimplifying, we also

have evil instincts. Evolution has enabled us to be good or bad and big

choices between how we want to behave. And I think religion and

culture and sometimes in the form of religion has a role to play them in

terms of codifying our moral norms and articulating nose and

formalising them. And providing them with moral communities. It is easier

to beat their moral individual. -- it is easier to beat a moral

individual when you have a community who will not exploit you for that.

Religious communities and groups have provided those communities for

people, the more successful than a lot of secular groups. And religion

plays a good part. I think it can and it can go the other way. Acting

relatively can be progressive and regressive. It can lead to people

being nice to each other and also people being thrown off the

rooftops. Why would you make a choice of being good or bad, what

would you choose? If we have a healthy society, it is better for

ourselves to be nice and have a good reputation for being nice and

cooperative. Betty, we have seen that primates make that choice.

Otherwise, everything would fall apart. Without God, would we be

morally lost? A lot of atheists would say and a lot of Christians

most of whom believe in science in this country, they would say that

they are good because they think that is instinctively the right

thing to do. It is not good to sleep with my neighbour's wife. It is not

going to be a good outcome. When you sleep with your neighbour's wife,

what happens, anger? I am not talking from experience! But these

are the things, they came to your mind straightaway to say what is

bad, to sleep with a neighbour's wife. When you do that, the man will

go after you either to kill you to attack you, that is the wrong

attitude. And what will happen after that? Will call something dreadful

to happen. And so God comes in. When you know God and God is in your

heart, you will truly know what is right and what is wrong. I am going

to speak to Megan, a quick word. However much explanatory power you

give to evolution as this gentleman who does this work in the area, you

are left with when humans act this way, this is what happens and when

humans act this way, they do not survive. That is not a binding

object in relative, that is just a description of how people behave and

what happens. The man in the white shirt. You have to look at Moses, 13

BC, if you have got the element of the ten Commandments and that gives

most people the moral framework I would suggest of today. We had the

Mayan civilisation before that. I am just using Moses as an example with

those Commandments. Kevin Friery, Michael says that codified what is

already there. Codification is a good thing and morale it comes

partly from codification. Freud right or wrong says that we take our

pleasure wherever we can get it. Original sin. Exactly. We socialised

by different groups. Original sin is interesting because it is a

fundamental tenant of Christianity. It is a file concept and a wicked

ferry tale, it is more wicked than anything the brothers Grimm came up

with. I was born and raised as a Catholic and I have a Ph.D. In

Catholic guilt! I was raised with the concept I am fundamentally bad.

I am working in death all the time and I have the stain of original

sin. This so-called God there's a grudge from something somebody did

eating an Apple in the forest. And because of that, I have got to sing

on my soul. There cannot be -- I have got a stain on my soul that

cannot be extinguished. But within Christianity, that is a major

tenant. And it tells you you are not responsible for things you did

because you fundamentally a bad person. I have done bad things in my

life I should not have done that I regret doing, but I did them because

I made choices and not because original sin. That is a beautiful

concept, you were born in perfection and it goes downhill from there.

Megan Loumagne, you are able Christian but not a science denier.

Research into our origins is so inspiring and so wonderful and many

Christians in this country think that as well the majority. For those

who think, how does it into the core beliefs, with Adam and Eve and the

fall and development of our morals, how do I square that circle? The

first thing I would say is that does not need to be this dichotomy

between relative came from evolution religion, they can be in mutual

discourse. The hostility between them is overblown and they can fit

together. It is an unnecessary war? Yes, they do not need to be at war

with each other and original sin, although it has been used in

horrible ways to make people feel bad about themselves, it can be an

example of the way in which science and religion can work together to

speak a truth about humanity and that relates to the topic we were

previously discussing racism. You cannot greater than that and what we

would say from a theological perspective about original sin, we

have made individual choices that are sinful or racist and this

becomes embedded in a system and we get a racist system. And this can be

supported by science as well. Much of what Michael was saying is very

helpful and theologians can learn from the origins of our species. Do

you find it more beautiful as an allegory than something little? Yes,

I find it to be more rich in terms of meaning. In terms of original

sin, it is not necessary to the doctrine that you hold to a literal

interpretation, many Christians do but it is not necessary to the

meaning of the doctrine which says something about God and the way

humanity relates to God. We like stories, we respond to stories. We

love stories and there does not need to be a war between volitional

theory and religion but it is easy not to be aware of how deeply rooted

moral instincts can be. You have to study it and do the research and do

the biology. Reciprocal old truism for example is a cornerstone of

moral systems throughout the world and incest avoidance, a Freudian

inbreeding. They have deep evolutionary roots. I completely

agree and I have no problem with that. Since I believe God created

the world, it makes sense that deep in the structures of the world,

there are these patterns that demonstrate something true about

human nature. God created a world in a broader and greater San of the

band just, there you go? They rabbi said God is a gardener and not an

engineer. We do not need to think about God as a magician, but it is a

process to function with a certain amount of autonomy. So it makes

perfect sense this would be deeply with rooted in biology. You have had

your hand up, what would you like to say? I think the danger with some of

the mainstream religions is their bases is in God, following the God

said humans can get to heaven. Sometimes, that can involve killing

life on Earth or other life because that is what they think God wants to

get to heaven. The beauty of science, it uses evidence to

understand how all life can thrive on Earth, that is why science and

evolution can create a religion based on that understanding so all

life can fully evolved on Earth. The holistic message is good. Some of

the world's greatest evolutionary biologists are very devout

Christians as well. Betty, if Hinduism is the first religion we

recognise and understand and can trace back 5,000 years ago, why did

God wait so long,, sorry, you do not think you did, but just go with the

fact that human beings emerged 200,000 years ago, why would he wait

so long until relatively recently? It is something I do not believe in.

Take a flight of fancy! It is a flight of fancy, the reality is

this, I believe in God and Jesus Christ. And his way is love. It is

love and reconciliation. He gives us the grace and the understanding, the

tools that we need to forgive. But even when horrible things happen.

And in this world that we live in, with all that is going on, we need

to find something that is real to hold onto. In my reality, it is

Jesus Christ. For many other people, it is different. That is Megan's as

well. Yes, I think the original sin says something about Jesus and the

human need for redemption, there is an illness at the core of who we

are. Archbishop lane macro wants to come in! I like that, do I get a hat

as well? What is missing is human struggle, our understanding of right

and wrong but is granted by human beings organising against injustice,

and I respect faith, rationalised by extreme forms and interpretations of

religion. The position of women, what we regard as right and wrong,

has dramatically in changed. The LGBT people organised and struggles

at great cost, and we stand on that shoulders of giants, at great cost

and great sacrifice. Our attitudes have changed because people had to

fight very hard against change. LGBT, Betty? You are a father, Nikki

and you love your children. Extravagantly. If one of your

children, choices have to be made, would you still love them? God loves

the gay community, he loves every single one and he gave every human

being a free choice. It is not a choice, Betty! Am not going to argue

with you. That was series six, programmed 12! We only have 30

seconds! I respect who you are, God loves you. We need to accept that.

Thank you, Betty, we are out of time. Betty says, God loves you,

Owen! The debates continue online and on Twitter, we're not back next

week but the final edition is about meddling with with genes on BBC One.

For now, it is goodbye and from Peckham and Owen loves you!