Transcript

Next, Jeffery Schwartz and Michael Shermer debate the limits of science in addressing spiritual questions. This event, part of the Veritas Forum at UCLA is an hour and a half. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. And I've been looking forward to this discussion. This is the Veritas Forum. And as you know, the word stands for truth. It's Latin for truth. The first standard in the wash accreditation handbook. That's the group that accredits UCLA and all the schools in this area is that the function of the university is to find and disseminate truth. Well, what is truth? Truth is, where what you are thinking of, is, as you think it is, it's a rather simple concept. Children master it easily.

And Jeffrey Swartz is faculty on this campus. He is a research professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine. He's written many books, the one I'm most familiar with is the mind and the brain. And he has, especially in relationship to obsessive compulsive disorders really shaken the area of research he's in by discovering empirically how the focusing of attention actually leads to modification of the brain. Michael Shermer, who will speak first Dr. Michael Shermer is founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, well known voice in this area, you may have heard him on various programs.