It's the Second World War. A German prison camp. And this man, Archie Cochrane, is a prisoner of war and a doctor, and he has a problem. The problem is that the men under his care are suffering from an excruciating and debilitating condition that Archie doesn't really understand. The symptoms are this horrible swelling up of fluids under the skin. But he doesn't know whether it's an infection, whether it's to do with malnutrition. He doesn't know how to cure it. And he's operating in a hostile environment. And people do terrible things in wars. The German camp guards, they've got bored. They've taken to just firing into the prison camp at random for fun. On one particular occasion, one of the guards threw a grenade into the prisoners' lavatory while it was full of prisoners. He said he heard suspicious laughter. And Archie Cochrane, as the camp doctor, was one of the first men in to clear up the mess. And one more thing: Archie was suffering from this illness himself.
Drugi je svjetski rat, njemački zarobljenički kamp, a ovaj čovjek, Archie Cochrane, ratni je zarobljenik i liječnik, i ima problem. Problem je u tome što ljudi o kojima brine pate u iznimno bolnom stanju koje ih je znatno oslabilo, a koje Archie baš i ne razumije. Simptomi su strašno nakupljanje tekućine ispod kože. No, on ne zna radi li se o infekciji, ima li to veze s pothranjenošću... Ne zna kako to liječiti. A radi u neprijateljskom okruženju. Ljudi u ratu rade grozne stvari. Čuvarima njemačkih kampova postalo je dosadno. Počeli su nasumce pucati po zatvoreničkom kampu, iz zabave. U jednom konkretnom slučaju, jedan od čuvara bacio je granatu u kupaonicu koju su koristili zatvorenici i to dok je bila puna zatvorenika. Rekao je da je čuo sumnjiv smijeh. Archie Cochrane, kao liječnik u kampu, bio je jedan od prvih koji su došli unutra kako bi počistili nered. I još jedna stvar: Archie je i sam patio od spomenute bolesti.
So the situation seemed pretty desperate. But Archie Cochrane was a resourceful person. He'd already smuggled vitamin C into the camp, and now he managed to get hold of supplies of marmite on the black market. Now some of you will be wondering what marmite is. Marmite is a breakfast spread beloved of the British. It looks like crude oil. It tastes ... zesty. And importantly, it's a rich source of vitamin B12. So Archie splits the men under his care as best he can into two equal groups. He gives half of them vitamin C. He gives half of them vitamin B12. He very carefully and meticulously notes his results in an exercise book. And after just a few days, it becomes clear that whatever is causing this illness, marmite is the cure.
Situacija se činila prilično očajnom. No, Archie Cochrane se znao snaći. Već je prokrijumčario vitamin C u kamp, a sad je uspio doći do zalihe Marmitea na crnom tržištu. Neki od vas pitat će se što je Marmite. Marmite je namaz za doručak koji Britanci obožavaju. Izgleda poput sirovog ulja. Okus mu je... žestok. Ono što je bitno jest da je bogat vitaminom B12. Archie je podijelio ljude za koje se brinuo u dvije jednake grupe, kako god je najbolje mogao. Polovici je dao vitamin C, a polovici vitamin B12. Pažljivo je i detaljno bilježio rezultate u bilježnicu. Nakon samo nekoliko dana, postalo je jasno kako ono što uzrokuje tu bolest Marmite može izliječiti.
So Cochrane then goes to the Germans who are running the prison camp. Now you've got to imagine at the moment -- forget this photo, imagine this guy with this long ginger beard and this shock of red hair. He hasn't been able to shave -- a sort of Billy Connolly figure. Cochrane, he starts ranting at these Germans in this Scottish accent -- in fluent German, by the way, but in a Scottish accent -- and explains to them how German culture was the culture that gave Schiller and Goethe to the world. And he can't understand how this barbarism can be tolerated, and he vents his frustrations. And then he goes back to his quarters, breaks down and weeps because he's convinced that the situation is hopeless. But a young German doctor picks up Archie Cochrane's exercise book and says to his colleagues, "This evidence is incontrovertible. If we don't supply vitamins to the prisoners, it's a war crime." And the next morning, supplies of vitamin B12 are delivered to the camp, and the prisoners begin to recover.
Zatim je Cochrane otišao Nijemcima koji su vodili zatvorenički kamp. Morate zamisliti, u tom trenutku -- zaboravite ovu fotografiju, zamislite tog čovjeka s dugom crvenom bradom i čupavom crvenom kosom. Nije se mogao obrijati -- nalikovao je na komičara Billyja Connolyja. Cochrane počinje govoriti tim Nijemcima sa škotskim naglaskom -- na tečnom njemačkom, ali sa škotskim naglaskom -- i objašnjava im kako je njemačka kultura svijetu dala Schillera i Goethea. I ne shvaća kako se ovakav barbarizam može tolerirati. Izbacio je svoje frustracije. Zatim se vratio u svoje prostorije, slomio se i zaplakao jer je bio uvjeren kako je situacija beznadna. No, mladi njemački liječnik pronašao je Archiejevu bilježnicu i rekao svojim kolegama: "Ovo su nepobitni dokazi. Ako zatvorenike ne opskrbimo vitaminina, činimo ratni zločin." Sljedećeg su jutra zalihe vitamina B12 dostavljene u kamp i zatvorenici su se počeli oporavljati.
Now I'm not telling you this story because I think Archie Cochrane is a dude, although Archie Cochrane is a dude. I'm not even telling you the story because I think we should be running more carefully controlled randomized trials in all aspects of public policy, although I think that would also be completely awesome. I'm telling you this story because Archie Cochrane, all his life, fought against a terrible affliction, and he realized it was debilitating to individuals and it was corrosive to societies. And he had a name for it. He called it the God complex. Now I can describe the symptoms of the God complex very, very easily. So the symptoms of the complex are, no matter how complicated the problem, you have an absolutely overwhelming belief that you are infallibly right in your solution.
Nisam vam ovu priču ispričao jer mislim da je Archie Cochrane frajer, iako Archie Cochrane jest frajer. Ovo vam ne pričam čak ni zato što mislim da bismo trebali vršiti pažljivije kontrolirane nasumične pokuse u svim aspektima javne politike, iako mislim da bi i to bilo super. Ovo vam pričam jer se Archie Cochrane cijelog života borio protiv strašne boli. Shvatio je da to oslabljuje pojedinca i uništava društva. Imao je i ime za to. Nazvao je to kompleksom boga. Simptome kompleksa boga mogu vrlo jednostavno opisati. Simptomi ovog kompleksa jesu da, bez obzira na složenost problema, vi ste apsolutno uvjereni da je vaše rješenje savršeno ispravno.
Now Archie was a doctor, so he hung around with doctors a lot. And doctors suffer from the God complex a lot. Now I'm an economist, I'm not a doctor, but I see the God complex around me all the time in my fellow economists. I see it in our business leaders. I see it in the politicians we vote for -- people who, in the face of an incredibly complicated world, are nevertheless absolutely convinced that they understand the way that the world works. And you know, with the future billions that we've been hearing about, the world is simply far too complex to understand in that way.
Archie je bio liječnik, tako da se mnogo družio s drugim liječnicima. A liječnici često pate od kompleksa boga. Ja sam ekonomist, a ne liječnik, ali stalno primjećujem kompleks boga kod svojih kolega ekonomista. Vidim ga kod vodećih poslovnih ljudi. Vidim ga kod političara za koje glasamo -- kod ljudi koji su, suočeni s nevjerojatno složenim situacijama, ipak apsolutno uvjereni da razumiju način na koji svijet funkcionira. A znate, sa svim budućim milijardama o kojima slušamo, svijet je jednostavno presložen da bi ga se moglo razumjeti na taj način.
Well let me give you an example. Imagine for a moment that, instead of Tim Harford in front of you, there was Hans Rosling presenting his graphs. You know Hans: the Mick Jagger of TED. (Laughter) And he'd be showing you these amazing statistics, these amazing animations. And they are brilliant; it's wonderful work. But a typical Hans Rosling graph: think for a moment, not what it shows, but think instead about what it leaves out. So it'll show you GDP per capita, population, longevity, that's about it. So three pieces of data for each country -- three pieces of data. Three pieces of data is nothing. I mean, have a look at this graph.
Dat ću vam primjer. Zamislite na trenutak da, umjesto Tima Harforda, pred vama stoji Hans Rosling i predstavlja svoje grafove. Znate Hansa, on je Mick Jagger TED-a. (Smijeh) On bi vam pokazivao zadivljujuće statistike, fantastične animacije. Sjajne su, to je zaista divan rad. No, tipični graf Hansa Roslinga, razmislite na trenutak, ne o onome što prikazuje, već o onome što izostavlja. Prikazat će vam BDP po glavi stanovnika, populaciju, životni vijek i to je više-manje to. Tri podatka za svaku državu -- tri podatka. Tri podatka je ništa. Mislim, pogledajte ovaj graf.
This is produced by the physicist Cesar Hidalgo. He's at MIT. Now you won't be able to understand a word of it, but this is what it looks like. Cesar has trolled the database of over 5,000 different products, and he's used techniques of network analysis to interrogate this database and to graph relationships between the different products. And it's wonderful, wonderful work. You show all these interconnections, all these interrelations. And I think it'll be profoundly useful in understanding how it is that economies grow. Brilliant work. Cesar and I tried to write a piece for The New York Times Magazine explaining how this works. And what we learned is Cesar's work is far too good to explain in The New York Times Magazine.
Izradio ga je fizičar Cesar Hidalgo. On radi na MIT-u. Nećete razumjeti baš ništa, ali tako izgleda. Cesar je pretražio bazu podataka s oko 5000 različitih proizvoda i koristio je tehnike analize mreža kako bi ispitao tu bazu i na grafu prikazao veze između različitih proizvoda. To je zaista prekrasan rad. Prikazujete sve ove međusobne veze, sve ove međusobne odnose. Mislim da će biti zaista koristan za razumijevanje načina na koji se gospodarstva razvijaju. Sjajan rad. Cesar i ja pokušali smo napisati članak za časopis New York Times u kojem bismo objasnili kako to funkcionira. Ono što smo naučili jest da je Cesarov rad predobar da bi se objasnio u časopisu New York Times.
Five thousand products -- that's still nothing. Five thousand products -- imagine counting every product category in Cesar Hidalgo's data. Imagine you had one second per product category. In about the length of this session, you would have counted all 5,000. Now imagine doing the same thing for every different type of product on sale in Walmart. There are 100,000 there. It would take you all day. Now imagine trying to count every different specific product and service on sale in a major economy such as Tokyo, London or New York. It's even more difficult in Edinburgh because you have to count all the whisky and the tartan. If you wanted to count every product and service on offer in New York -- there are 10 billion of them -- it would take you 317 years. This is how complex the economy we've created is. And I'm just counting toasters here. I'm not trying to solve the Middle East problem. The complexity here is unbelievable. And just a piece of context -- the societies in which our brains evolved had about 300 products and services. You could count them in five minutes.
5000 proizvoda -- to je još uvijek ništa. 5000 proizvoda -- zamislite da uključite sve kategorije proizvoda u podatke Cesara Hidalga. Zamislite da imate po jednu sekundu za svaku kategoriju proizvoda. Otprilike za vrijeme trajanja ovog govora izbrojili biste svih 5000. A sada zamislite da učinite isto to za svaki pojedini proizvod na rasprodaji u supermarketu. Ima ih više od 100.000. Trebao vi vam cijeli dan. A sad zamislite da pokušate izbrojiti svaki pojedini proizvod i uslugu na rasprodaji u nekom velikom gospodarstvu, primjerice u Tokiju, Londonu ili New Yorku. Još je i teže u Edinburghu jer morate izbrojiti sav viski i tartan. Kad biste željeli izbrojiti svaki proizvod i uslugu koji se nude u New Yorku -- ima ih 10 milijardi -- trebalo bi vam 317 godina. Toliko je složeno gospodarstvo koje smo stvorili. A sada samo brojim tostere. Ne pokušavam riješiti problem Bliskog istoka. Složenost je nevjerojatna. Samo djelić konteksta -- društva u kojima su naši mozgovi evoluirali imala su oko 300 proizvoda i usluga. Možete ih nabrojiti u pet minuta.
So this is the complexity of the world that surrounds us. This perhaps is why we find the God complex so tempting. We tend to retreat and say, "We can draw a picture, we can post some graphs, we get it, we understand how this works." And we don't. We never do. Now I'm not trying to deliver a nihilistic message here. I'm not trying to say we can't solve complicated problems in a complicated world. We clearly can. But the way we solve them is with humility -- to abandon the God complex and to actually use a problem-solving technique that works. And we have a problem-solving technique that works. Now you show me a successful complex system, and I will show you a system that has evolved through trial and error.
Takva je složenost svijeta koji nas okružuje. Možda nam je zbog toga komples boga toliko privlačan. Skloni smo se povući i reći: "Možemo nacrtati sliku, možemo objaviti nekoliko grafova, shvaćamo, razumijemo kako ovo funkcionira." A nije tako. Nikad ne razumijemo. Ne pokušam poslati nihilističku poruku. Ne želim reći da ne možemo riješiti složene probleme u složenom svijetu. Očito možemo. Ali na koji ćemo ih riješiti jest poniznošću -- napuštanjem kompleksa boga primjenjivanjem tehnike rješavanja problema koja zaista funkcionira. A imamo tehniku rješavanja problema koja funkcionira. Pokažite mi uspješan složen sustav, a ja ću vam pokazati sustav koji je nastao kroz pokušaje i pogreške.
Here's an example. This baby was produced through trial and error. I realize that's an ambiguous statement. Maybe I should clarify it. This baby is a human body: it evolved. What is evolution? Over millions of years, variation and selection, variation and selection -- trial and error, trial and error. And it's not just biological systems that produce miracles through trial and error. You could use it in an industrial context.
Evo primjera. Ovo dijete nastalo je metodom pokušaja i pogreške. Shvaćam da je to dvosmislena izjava. Možda bih je trebao pojasniti. Ovo je dijete ljudsko tijelo: evoluiralo je. Što je evolucija? Milijunima godina, varijacija i selekcija, varijacija i selekcija -- pokušaji i pogreške, pokušaji i pogreške. Nije tako samo s biološkim sustavima koji rade čuda kroz pokušaje i pogreške. Možete to primijeniti i u kontekstu industrije.
So let's say you wanted to make detergent. Let's say you're Unilever and you want to make detergent in a factory near Liverpool. How do you do it? Well you have this great big tank full of liquid detergent. You pump it at a high pressure through a nozzle. You create a spray of detergent. Then the spray dries. It turns into powder. It falls to the floor. You scoop it up. You put it in cardboard boxes. You sell it at a supermarket. You make lots of money. How do you design that nozzle? It turns out to be very important. Now if you ascribe to the God complex, what you do is you find yourself a little God. You find yourself a mathematician; you find yourself a physicist -- somebody who understands the dynamics of this fluid. And he will, or she will, calculate the optimal design of the nozzle. Now Unilever did this and it didn't work -- too complicated. Even this problem, too complicated.
Recimo da želite proizvesti deterdžent. Recimo da ste vi Unilever i želite proizvesti deterdžent u tvornici pokraj Liverpoola. Kako ćete to učiniti? Imate veliki spremnik pun tekućeg deterdženta. Pumpate ga pod visokim pritiskom kroz štrcaljku. Nastaje deterdžent u spreju. Zatim se sprej osuši i pretvara se u prah. Pada na pod. Pokupite ga i stavite u kartonske kutije. Prodajete ga u supermarketima. Zaradite mnogo novca. Kako dizajnirati tu štrcaljku? Ispada da je to vrlo bitno. Ako to pripišete kompleksu boga, morate pronaći "malog Boga" Pronađete matematičara ili fizičara -- nekoga tko razumije dinamiku te tekućine. I tada će on, ili ona, odrediti optimalni dizajn štrcaljke. Unilever je to učinio i nije funkcioniralo -- bilo je previše komplicirano. Čak je i taj problem previše kompliciran.
But the geneticist Professor Steve Jones describes how Unilever actually did solve this problem -- trial and error, variation and selection. You take a nozzle and you create 10 random variations on the nozzle. You try out all 10; you keep the one that works best. You create 10 variations on that one. You try out all 10. You keep the one that works best. You try out 10 variations on that one. You see how this works, right? And after 45 generations, you have this incredible nozzle. It looks a bit like a chess piece -- functions absolutely brilliantly. We have no idea why it works, no idea at all. And the moment you step back from the God complex -- let's just try to have a bunch of stuff; let's have a systematic way of determining what's working and what's not -- you can solve your problem.
No, profesor genetike Steve Jones opisuje kako je Unilever zapravo riješio ovaj problem -- metodom pokušaja i pogreške, varijacijom i selekcijom. Uzmete štrcaljku i izradite 10 nasumičnih varijanti štrcaljke. Isprobate svih 10 i zadržite onu koja radi najbolje. Napravite 10 varijanti te jedne. Isprobate svih 10 i zadržite onu koja radi najbolje. Isprobate 10 varijanti te... Vidite kako to ide, zar ne? Nakon 45 generacija, dobijete ovu nevjerojatnu štrcaljku. Pomalo naliči šahovskoj figuri -- funkcionira apsolutno fantastično. Nemamo pojma zašto radi, uopće nemamo pojma. Onog trenutka kad se odmaknemo od kompleksa boga -- pokušajmo samo skupiti hrpu stvari, odredimo na sustavan način što radi, a što ne -- možete riješiti svoj problem.
Now this process of trial and error is actually far more common in successful institutions than we care to recognize. And we've heard a lot about how economies function. The U.S. economy is still the world's greatest economy. How did it become the world's greatest economy? I could give you all kinds of facts and figures about the U.S. economy, but I think the most salient one is this: ten percent of American businesses disappear every year. That is a huge failure rate. It's far higher than the failure rate of, say, Americans. Ten percent of Americans don't disappear every year. Which leads us to conclude American businesses fail faster than Americans, and therefore American businesses are evolving faster than Americans. And eventually, they'll have evolved to such a high peak of perfection that they will make us all their pets -- (Laughter) if, of course, they haven't already done so. I sometimes wonder. But it's this process of trial and error that explains this great divergence, this incredible performance of Western economies. It didn't come because you put some incredibly smart person in charge. It's come through trial and error.
Taj proces pokušaja i pogreške zapravo je mnogo češći u uspješnim institucijama nego što smo mi to voljni primijetiti. Čuli smo mnogo toga o načinu na koji gospodarstva funkcioniraju. Američko gospodarstvo još je uvijek najveće na svijetu. Kako je postalo najveće gospodarstvo na svijetu? Mogao bih vam prestaviti razne podatke o američkom gospodarstvu, ali mislim da je ovaj najbitniji: deset posto američkih tvrtki nestaje svake godine. To je velik postotak neuspjeha. Mnogo je veći nego, recimo, postotak neuspjeha kod Amerikanaca. Svake godine ne nestaje deset posto Amerikanaca. Iz toga možemo zaključiti da američke tvrtke propadaju brže nego Amerikanci, dakle američke se tvrtke razvijaju brže nego Amerikanci. Na kraju će se razviti do takvog stupnja savršenstva da će nas sve učiniti svojim kućnim ljubimcima -- (Smijeh) ako, naravno, to već nisu učinile. Ponekad se pitam. Ali upravo taj proces pokušaja i pogrešaka objašnjava tu veliku razliku, tu nevjerojatno uspješnost zapadnjačkih gospodarstava. Nije do toga došlo jer je netko strašno pametan bio šef. Do toga je došlo pokušajima i pogreškama.
Now I've been sort of banging on about this for the last couple of months, and people sometimes say to me, "Well Tim, it's kind of obvious. Obviously trial and error is very important. Obviously experimentation is very important. Now why are you just wandering around saying this obvious thing?"
O ovome trubim posljednjih nekoliko mjeseci i ljudi mi ponekad kažu: "Pa, Time, to je prilično očito. Očito je da su pokušaji i pogreške vrlo bitni. Očito je da su eksperimenti vrlo bitni. Zašto lunjaš uokolo i govoriš očite stvari?"
So I say, okay, fine. You think it's obvious? I will admit it's obvious when schools start teaching children that there are some problems that don't have a correct answer. Stop giving them lists of questions every single one of which has an answer. And there's an authority figure in the corner behind the teacher's desk who knows all the answers. And if you can't find the answers, you must be lazy or stupid. When schools stop doing that all the time, I will admit that, yes, it's obvious that trial and error is a good thing. When a politician stands up campaigning for elected office and says, "I want to fix our health system. I want to fix our education system. I have no idea how to do it. I have half a dozen ideas. We're going to test them out. They'll probably all fail. Then we'll test some other ideas out. We'll find some that work. We'll build on those. We'll get rid of the ones that don't." -- when a politician campaigns on that platform, and more importantly, when voters like you and me are willing to vote for that kind of politician, then I will admit that it is obvious that trial and error works, and that -- thank you.
Na to kažem, OK, u redu. Mislite da je to očito? Priznat ću da je očito kad škole počnu učiti djecu da postoje problemi za koje ne postoji točn odgovor. Prestanite im davati popise pitanja od kojih svako ima odgovor. A osoba s pozicijom autoriteta stoji u kutu ili za učiteljskim stolom i zna sve odgovore. A ako ne možete pronaći odgovore, mora da ste lijeni ili glupi. Kd škole to prestanu stalno raditi, priznat ću da, da, očito je da su pokušaji i pogreške dobra stvar. Kad političar istupi u kampanji za izbore i kaže: "Želim popraviti naš zdravsteni sustav. Želim popraviti naš obrazovni sustav. Nemam pojma kako da to učinim. Imam 5-6 ideja. Isprobat ćemo ih. Ni jedna vjerojatno neće uspjeti. Zatim ćemo isprobati neke druge ideje. Pronaći ćemo neke koje funkcioniraju. Njih ćemo razvijati. Riješit ćemo se loših." Kad političar bude imao takvu kampanju, i, još bitnije, kad će glasači poput vas i mene biti voljni glasati za takvog političara, tada ću priznati da je očito da pokušaji i pogreške funkcioniraju i da -- hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
Until then, until then I'm going to keep banging on about trial and error and why we should abandon the God complex. Because it's so hard to admit our own fallibility. It's so uncomfortable. And Archie Cochrane understood this as well as anybody. There's this one trial he ran many years after World War II. He wanted to test out the question of, where is it that patients should recover from heart attacks? Should they recover in a specialized cardiac unit in hospital, or should they recover at home? All the cardiac doctors tried to shut him down. They had the God complex in spades. They knew that their hospitals were the right place for patients, and they knew it was very unethical to run any kind of trial or experiment.
Do tada, do tada ću i dalje trubiti o pokušajima i pogreškama i o tome zašto bismo se trebali riješiti kompleksa boga. Jer tako je teško priznati vlastitu pogrešivost. To je tako neugodno. Archie Cochrane je to razumio jednako dobro kao i svi. Provodio je jedan pokus mnogo godina nakon Drugog svetskog rata. Želio je istražiti gdje bi se pacijenti trebali oporavljati od srčanih udara? Bi li se trebali oporavljati na specijaliziranom odjelu u bolnici ili bi se trebali oporavljati kod kuće? Svi kardiolozi htjeli su ga ušutkati. Bili su naoružani kompleksom boga. Znali su da su njihove bolnice pravo mjesto za pacijente i znali su da je vrlo neetički bilo što pokušavati ili provoditi pokuse.
Nevertheless, Archie managed to get permission to do this. He ran his trial. And after the trial had been running for a little while, he gathered together all his colleagues around his table, and he said, "Well, gentlemen, we have some preliminary results. They're not statistically significant. But we have something. And it turns out that you're right and I'm wrong. It is dangerous for patients to recover from heart attacks at home. They should be in hospital." And there's this uproar, and all the doctors start pounding the table and saying, "We always said you were unethical, Archie. You're killing people with your clinical trials. You need to shut it down now. Shut it down at once." And there's this huge hubbub. Archie lets it die down. And then he says, "Well that's very interesting, gentlemen, because when I gave you the table of results, I swapped the two columns around. It turns out your hospitals are killing people, and they should be at home. Would you like to close down the trial now, or should we wait until we have robust results?" Tumbleweed rolls through the meeting room.
Unatoč tome, Archie je uspio dobiti dopuštenje da to učini. Krenuo je s tim pokusom. Nakon što je pokus trajao neko vrijeme, okupio je sve svoje kolege oko svojeg stola i rekao: "Pa, gospodo, dobili smo preliminarne rezultate. Nisu statistički značajni. Ali imamo nešto. Ispada da ste vi u pravu, a ja u krivu. Opasno je da se pacijenti od srčanog udara oporavljaju kod kuće. Trebali bi biti u bolnici." Počeo je negodovanje, svi su liječnici udarali o stol i govorili: "Oduvijek smo znali da si neetičan, Archie. Ubijš ljude svojim kliničkim pokusima. Moraš prekinuti s time. Prestani odmah." Nastala je velika galama. Archie ih je pustio da utihnu. Zatim je rekao: "To je vrlo zanimljivo, gospodo, jer kad sam vam pokazao tablicu s rezultatima, zamijenio sam stupce. Pokazalo se da vaše bolnice ubijaju ljude i da bi trebali biti kod kuće. Biste li željeli da sad prekinemo s pokusom ili da pričekamo konkretnije rezultate?) Ni muha se nije čula u toj sobi za sastanke.
But Cochrane would do that kind of thing. And the reason he would do that kind of thing is because he understood it feels so much better to stand there and say, "Here in my own little world, I am a god, I understand everything. I do not want to have my opinions challenged. I do not want to have my conclusions tested." It feels so much more comfortable simply to lay down the law. Cochrane understood that uncertainty, that fallibility, that being challenged, they hurt. And you sometimes need to be shocked out of that. Now I'm not going to pretend that this is easy. It isn't easy. It's incredibly painful.
Ali Cochraneu je i slično da učini nešto takvo. A razlog zašto je to učinio jest taj da je razumio da je mnogo bolji osjećaj stajati ondje i reći: "Ovdje, u mojem malom svijetu, ja sam bog, ja razumijem sve. Ne želim da se moje mišljenje dovodi u pitanje. Ne želim da se moji zaključci preispituju." Osjećam se mnogo ugodnije kad jednostavno odredim pravila. Cochrane je razumio da nesigurnost, pogrešivost, dovođenje u pitanje -- to boli. Ponekad je potreban šok da se toga riješite. Neću vam reći da je to lako. Nije lako. To je nevjerojatno bolno.
And since I started talking about this subject and researching this subject, I've been really haunted by something a Japanese mathematician said on the subject. So shortly after the war, this young man, Yutaka Taniyama, developed this amazing conjecture called the Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture. It turned out to be absolutely instrumental many decades later in proving Fermat's Last Theorem. In fact, it turns out it's equivalent to proving Fermat's Last Theorem. You prove one, you prove the other. But it was always a conjecture. Taniyama tried and tried and tried and he could never prove that it was true. And shortly before his 30th birthday in 1958, Yutaka Taniyama killed himself. His friend, Goro Shimura -- who worked on the mathematics with him -- many decades later, reflected on Taniyama's life. He said, "He was not a very careful person as a mathematician. He made a lot of mistakes. But he made mistakes in a good direction. I tried to emulate him, but I realized it is very difficult to make good mistakes."
Otkad sam počeo govoriti o ovoj temi i istraživati je, progoni me nešto što je jedan japanski matematičar rekao o tome. Ubrzo nakon rata, taj mladi čovjek, Yutaka Taniyama, razvio je izvanrednu pretpostavku, Taniyama-Shimurinu pretpostavku. Ispalo je da je apsolutno nužna mnogo desetljeća kasnije za dokazivanje Fermatovog Posljednjeg teorema. Zapravo, pokazalo se da je ekvivalentan dokazivanju Fermatovog posljednjeg teorema. Ako dokažete jedno, dokazali ste i drugo. Ali to je uvijek bila pretpostavka. Taniyama je pokušavao i pokušavao i nikad nije mogao dokazati da je istinita. Ubrzo nkon njegovog 30. rođendana 1958. godine, Yutaka Taniyama počinio je samoubojstvo. Njegov prijatelj, Goro Shimura -- koji je s njim radio na toj matematici -- mnogo desetljeća kasnije, razmišljao je o Taniyaminom životu. Rekao je: "Nije bio baš oprezna osoba kao matematičar. Činio je mnogo pogrešaka. Ali činio je pogreške u dobrom smjeru. Pokušavao sam ga kopirati, ali shvatio sam da je vrlo teško činiti dobre pogreške."
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)