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.
U toku je Drugi svetski rat, u nemačkom koncentracionom logoru i ovaj čovek, Arči Kokran, je ratni zarobljenik i lekar, i on ima problem. Njegov problem je što ljudi o kojima on brine pate od nepodnošljive i iscrpljujuće bolesti koju Arči ne razume. Simptomi su užasno nagomilavanje tečnosti ispod kože. On ne zna da li je u pitanju neka infekcija ili je to usled neuhranjenosti. Ne zna kako da je izleči. A radi u neprijateljskom okruženju. Ljudi u ratu čine strahovite stvari. Nemačkim stražarima postalo je dosadno. Počeli su nasumično da pucaju po logoru iz zabave. Jednom prilikom, jedan od stražara ubacio je granatu u zatvorenički toalet koji je bio pun zatvorenika. Kaže da je čuo sumnjiv smeh. Arči Kokran, kao logorski lekar, našao se među prvima da počisti nered. I još jedna stvar -- Arči je i sam patio od iste 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 je izgledala prilično beznadežno. Ali Arči Kokran je bio dosetljiv. Već je bio prokrijumčario vitamin C u logor, a sada je uspeo i da se dokopa zaliha marmajta sa crnog tržišta. Neki od vas će se pitati šta je to marmajt. Marmajt je hlebni namaz voljen u Britaniji. Izgleda kao sirova nafta. Ukus mu je... pikantan. I najvažnije, bogat je izvor vitamina B12. Arči je ljude pod svojim okriljem podelio najbolje što je umeo u dve jednake grupe. Polovini je dao vitamin C, a polovini vitamin B12. Detaljno i s velikom pažnjom je beležio rezultate u svojoj svesci. I nakon samo par dana, bilo mu je jasno da ma koji bio uzrok bolesti, marmajt joj je lek.
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.
Kokran tada odlazi Nemcima koji su upravljali logorom. Sada morate zamisliti taj trenutak -- zaboravite ovu sliku, zamislite ovog čoveka sa tom dugom riđom bradom i gustom crvenom kosom. Nije mogao da se brije -- figura nalik Bilu Konoliju. Kokran počinje da viče tim Nemcima svojim škotskim naglaskom -- na tečnom nemačkom, inače, ali sa škotskim naglaskom -- i objašnjava kako je Nemačka bila kultura koja je svetu podarila Šilera i Getea. I on ne shvata kako se ovakvo varvarstvo može tolerisati. Dao je oduška svojim frustracijama. Onda se vratio u svoje prostorije, podlegao emocijama i zaplakao, jer je bio ubeđen da je situacija beznadežna. Međutim, jedan mladi nemački lekar pronašao je svesku Arčija Kokrana i rekao svojim kolegama: "Dokazi su neosporni. Ako ne obezbedimo vitamine zatvorenicima, to će biti ratni zločin." Sledećeg jutra, zalihe vitamina B12 isporučene su u logor, i zatvorenici su počeli da se oporavljaju.
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.
Ne pričam vam ovo zato što mislim da je Arči Kokran likčina, iako Arči Kokran jeste likčina. Ne pričam vam ni zato što mislim da bi trebalo sprovoditi pažljivije kontrolisana slučajna ispitivanja u svim aspektima javne politike, iako mislim da bi i to bilo fenomenalno. Ovo vam govorim zato što se Arči Kokran celog života borio protiv užasne bolesti. Uvideo je da oslabljujuće deluje na pojedince i nagrizajuće na društva. Dao joj je ime. Nazvao ju je kompleks Boga. Simptomi kompleksa Boga mogu se opisati veoma, veoma lako. Dakle, simptomi ovog kompleksa su da, koliko god bio komplikovan problem, vi ćete biti apsolutno nepokolebljivog uverenja da je vaše rešenje nepogrešivo tačno.
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.
Arči je bio lekar. I prilično se družio sa ostalim lekarima. A lekari često pate od kompleksa Boga. Ja sam ekonomista, nisam lekar, ali često nailazim na kompleks Boga kod svojih kolega ekonomista. Vidim ga u našim poslovnim liderima. Vidim ga u političarima za koje glasamo -- ljudima koji su, suočeni sa neverovatno komplikovanim svetom, i dalje potpuno ubeđeni da savršeno razumeju kako taj svet funkcioniše. I znate, pored budućih milijardi o kojima već dugo slušamo, svet je jednostavno suviše kompleksan da bi se shvatao na takav 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.
Evo, daću vam primer. Zamislite na trenutak da umesto Tima Hartforda pred vama ovde stoji Hans Rozling prezentujući svoje dijagrame. Znate Hansa -- Mik Džegera TED-a. (Smeh) Pokazivao bi vam neku zapanjujuću statistiku, neke zapanjujuće animacije. A zaista jesu briljantne; to je izuzetan rad. Jedan tipičan dijagram Hansa Rozlinga -- zamislite na trenutak, ne šta vam pokazuje, već ono što je u njemu izostavljeno. Pokazaće vam BDP po glavi, populaciju, životni vek, i to je to. Dakle, tri različita podatka za svaku državu -- tri podatka. Tri podatka nisu ništa. Evo, pogledajte ovaj dijagram.
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.
Ovaj je napravio fizičar Sesar Hidalgo. On radi u Institutu tehnologije u Masačusetsu. Nećete razumeti ni reč ovoga, ali ovako to izgleda. Sesar je prikupio bazu podataka od preko 5.000 različitih proizvoda, i iskoristio tehnike analize mreže da testira tu bazu i skicira veze između različitih proizvoda. To je divan, zaista divan rad. Da pokažeš sve te povezanosti, sve odnose. Mislim da bi bilo neizmerno korisno za razumevanje razvoja ekonomija. Briljantan rad. Sesar i ja smo pokušali da napišemo članak za Njujork Tajms da bi objasnili kako funkcioniše. I došli smo do zaključka da je Sesarov rad previše dobar da bi se mogao objasniti u Njujork Tajmsu.
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.
5.000 proizvoda -- to još uvek ne znači ništa. 5.000 proizvoda -- zamislite prebrojavanje svake kategorije iz baze podataka Sesara Hidalga. Zamislite da svake sekunde čujete po jednu kategoriju proizvoda. Otprilike za ovo jedno izlaganje, izbrojali biste svih 5.000. Sada zamislite da radite istu stvar za svaki različiti proizvod u prodaji u Volmartu. Tamo ih je 100.000. Trebao bi vam ceo dan. Sada zamislite da prebrojavate svaki različiti proizvod i uslugu u ponudi u nekoj od vodećih ekonomija, kao što su Tokio, London ili Njujork. U Edinburgu je još teže, jer morate uračunati i sav viski i tartan. Ako biste hteli da prebrojite svaki proizvod i uslugu u ponudi u Njujorku -- ima ih 10 milijardi -- trebalo bi vam 317 godina. Toliko je složena ekonomija koju smo stvorili. A ja ovde samo brojim tostere. Ne pokušavam da rešim krizu na Bliskom Istoku. Složenost je ovde neverovatna. Samo jedan delić konteksta -- društva u kojima su naši mozgovi evoluirali imala su oko 300 priozvoda i usluga. Mogli biste ih prebrojati za 5 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.
To je složenost sveta koji nas okružuje. To je možda razlog zašto nam kompleks Boga izgleda tako primamljivo. Često se povučemo i kažemo: "Možemo nacrtati sliku, ubaciti nekoliko grafikona, dakle znamo šta je, razumemo kako funkcioniše." A zapravo ne razumemo. Nikad ne razumemo. Ne pokušavam da vam ovde prenesem nihilističku poruku. Ne želim da kažem da nismo u stanju da rešimo komplikovane probleme u komplikovanom svetu. Očito je da možemo. Ali, način na koji ih rešavamo treba biti ponizan -- bez kompleksa Boga koristeći tehniku koja zapravo funkcioniše. A mi imamo tehniku koja funkcioniše. Pokažite mi uspešan kompleksni sistem, a ja ću vam pokazati sistem koji se razvio putem pokušaja i greške.
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 primera. Ova beba nastala je putem pokušaja i greške. Shvatam da je ovo dvosmislena izjava. Možda treba da pojasnim. Ova beba je ljudsko telo: evoluirala je. A šta je evolucija? Tokom miliona godina, varijacija i selekcija, varijacija i selekcija -- pokušaj i greška, pokušaj i greška. I nisu samo biološki sistemi ti koji čine čuda putem pokušaja i greške. Mogu se primeniti i u industrijskom kontekstu.
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 da napravite deterdžent. Recimo da radite za Juniliver i želite da napravite deterdžent u fabrici nadomak Liverpula. Kako ćete to izvesti? Pa, imate neki ogroman rezervoar pun tečnog deterdženta. Ispumpate ga pod velikim pritiskom kroz štrcaljku. I napravili ste deterdžent u spreju. Onda se sprej osuši. I pretvori se u prah. Padne na pod. Vi ga podignete, upakujete u kartonske kutije, i prodate u supermarketu. Zaradite puno novca. A kako ćete dizajnirati tu štrcaljku? I ona je vrlo bitna. Ako se držite ovog kompleksa, naći ćete sebi malog Boga. Naći ćete sebi matematičara; naći fizičara -- nekoga ko se razume u dinamiku ove tečnosti. I on, ili ona, će vam izračunati optimalni dizajn štrcaljke. Juniliver je to pokušao i nije im uspelo -- previše komplikovano. Čak je i ovaj problem previše komplikovan.
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.
Ali genetičar profesor Stiv Džons opisao je kako je Juniliver ipak uspeo da reši problem -- pokušajem i greškom, varijacijom i selekcijom. Uzmete štrcaljku i napravite 10 nasumičnih varijanti te štrcaljke. Isprobate svih 10, zadržite onu koja najbolje radi. I napravite 10 varijanti nje. Isprobate svih 10. Zadržite onu koja najbolje radi. Onda isprobate 10 varijanti te. Shvatate kako ovo funkcioniše, zar ne? I nakon 45 generacija, dobićete tu neverovatno dobru štrcaljku. Liči pomalo na šahovsku figuru -- funkcioniše apsolutno savršeno. Mi nemamo pojma zašto funkcioniše, nemamo nikakvu predstavu. Onog trenutka kad se udaljite od kompleksa Boga -- stavom: "Pokušajmo da napravimo gomilu stvari; hajde da na sistematski način utvrdimo šta funkcioniše, a šta ne" -- možete rešiti 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.
Ovaj proces pokušaja i greške je zapravo mnogo prisutniji u uspešnim institucijama nego što mi to sebi želimo da priznamo. Čuli smo dosta o tome kako ekonomije funkcionišu. Američka ekonomija je još uvek najveća u svetu. A kako je postala najveća ekonomija? Mogao bih vam dati razne činjenice i cifre o američkoj ekonomiji, ali mislim da je ova najupadljivija: 10 procenata američkih firmi nestane svake godine. To je velika stopa neuspeha. Dosta veća od stope neuspeha, recimo, Amerikanaca. 10 procenata Amerikanaca ne nestaje svake godine. Što nas dovodi do zaključka da američke firme propadaju brže nego Amerikanci, iz čega sledi da američke firme evoluiraju brže od Amerikanaca. I jednog dana, dostići će takav stepen savršenosti da će nas sve pretvotiti u svoje kućne ljubimce -- (Smeh) ukoliko, naravno, to već nisu i učinile. Ponekad se zapitam. Ovaj proces pokušaja i greške objašnjava ovu ogromnu razliku, ovaj neverovatan uspeh zapadnjačkih ekonomija. On nije rezultat postavljanja nekog izuzetno pametnog rukovodioca. On je rezultat pokušaja i greške.
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?"
Možda sam malo preterao sa tom pričom poslednjih par meseci, jer mi ljudi ponekad kažu: "Dobro, Time, to je očigledno. Pokušaj i greška su očigledno vrlo bitni. Eksperimentisanje je očigledno vrlo bitno. Zašto juriš okolo i svima pričaš nešto tako očigledno?"
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.
I ja onda kažem, okej, u redu. Mislite da je očigledno? Priznaću da je očigledno kada škole budu počele da uče decu da postoje zadaci koji nemaju ispravno rešenje. Neka prestanu da im daju liste pitanja od kojih svako ima odgovor. U ćošku stoji osoba od autoriteta koja zna sve odgovore. Ukoliko ne možeš pronaći odgovore, mora da si lenj ili glup. Kada škole prestanu to da rade svakodnevno, ja ću priznati da jeste očigledno da su pokušaj i greška dobri. Kada političar ustane prilikom izborne kampanje i kaže: "Želim da popravim naš sistem zdravstveni sistem. Želim da popravim naš obrazovni sistem. Nemam pojma kako to da uradim. Ali, imam gomilu ideja. Testiraćemo ih. I verovatno će sve biti neuspešne. Onda ćemo testitirati neke druge ideje. Naći ćemo neke koje funkcionišu. Nadogradićemo njih. Otarasićemo se onih koje ne funkcionišu." Kada političar bude vodio takvu kampanju, i još važnije, kada birači kao vi i ja budu voljni da glasaju za njega, onda ću priznati da je očigledno da pokušaj i greška funkcionišu, i da -- hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
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.
Za to vreme, za to vreme ću nastaviti da pričam o pokušaju i greški i o tome zašto se treba ostaviti kompleksa Boga. Zato što je jako teško priznati sopstvenu pogrešivost. Tako je neprijatno. A Arči Kokran je znao to kao i svako drugi. Postojalo je jedno ispitivanje koji je on sproveo mnogo godina nakon Drugog svetskog rata. Hteo je da utvrdi na kom bi se mestu pacijenti najbolje oporavili od srčanog napada. Da li bi trebalo da se oporavljaju na specijalizovanom odeljenju za kardiologiju ili kod kuće? Svi kardiolozi su pokušali da ga zaustave. Imali su pozamašno veliki kompleks Boga. Znali su da su njihove bolnice pravo mesto za pacijente. I znali su da je vrlo neetički vršiti bilo kakva ispitivanja i eksperimente.
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.
Uprkos tome, Arči je dobio dozvolu da to uradi. Sproveo je svoje ispitivanje. I dok je ispitivanje bilo u toku, sakupio je sve svoje kolege oko svog stola, i rekao: "Pa, gospodo, dobili smo neke preliminarne rezultate. Statistički nisu značajni. Ali ipak imamo nešto. I ispostavilo se da ste vi bili u pravu, a ja nisam. Jeste opasno po pacijente da se od srčanih udara oporavljaju kući. Treba da budu u bolnici." I onda počinje galama, lekari udaraju u sto i govore: "Uvek smo govorili da to nije etički, Arči. Ubijaš pacijente svojim kliničkim ispitivanjima. Moraš prestati time da se baviš. Prestani odmah." Nastaje ogroman metež. Arči sačeka dok se ne utiša. I onda kaže: "Dobro, sve je to jako zanimljivo, gospodo, jer kad sam vam pokazao tabelu sa rezultatima, ja sam zamenio mesta dvema kolonama. Ispostavilo se da vaše bolnice ubijaju ljude, i da treba da budu kući. Da li odmah želite da prekinemo ispitivanje, ili želite da sačekamo još jače rezultate? Vetrovalj prokotrlja kroz kancelariju 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.
Kokran je zaista bio spreman da uradi tako nešto. A bio je spreman zbog toga što je shvatio da se mnogo bolje oseća dok stoji tu i govori: "Ovde u svom malom svetu, ja sam bog, ja razumem sve. I ne želim da se moja mišljenja dovode u pitanje. Ne želim da se moji zaključci osporavaju." Mnogo je ugodniji osećaj da jednostavno naredite ljudima šta da rade. Kokran je svhatio da nesigurnost, pogrešivost, i osporavanje bole. I ponekad je potrebno protresti nas iz toga. Neću se pretvarati da je to lako. Nije lako. Veoma je 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."
I otkad sam počeo da govorim o tome i da istražujem tu temu, strašno me je proganjalo nešto što je jedan japanski matematičar izjavio o tome. Ubrzo nakon rata, jedan mladi čovek, Jutaka Tanijama, razvio je jednu zadivljujuću pretpostavku zvanu: Pretpostavka Tanijama-Šimura. Pokazala se vrlo korisnom, mnogo decenija kasnije, za dokazivanje Fermatove poslednje teoreme. Zapravo, pokazala se kao ekvivalent dokazivanju Fermatove poslednje teoreme. Dokažete jednu, dokazali ste i drugu. Ali, oduvek je bila samo pretpostavka. Tanijama je pokušavao i pokušavao i nikad nije mogao da dokaže da je tačna. A onda je, malo pre svog 30. rođendana 1958. Jutaka Tanijama izvršio samoubistvo. Njegov prijatelj, Goro Šimura -- koji je radio na matematici s njim -- decenijama kasnije, govorio je o Tanijaminom životu. Rekao je: "Nije bio naročito pažljiv kao matematičar. Dosta je grešio. Ali, greške je činio u dobrom smeru. Pokušao sam da ga kopiram, ali sam shvatio da je vrlo teško činiti dobre greške."
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)