Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2019

The Current Transcript for May 10, 2019

Host: Gillian Findlay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I remember that night I launched Facebook from that little dorm in Kirkland house. My hope was never to build a company. I wanted to have an impact.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: And what impact Facebook has had on our culture our personal lives even our democracy. The company Mark Zuckerberg created has become a force more powerful than even he imagined. While plenty of us have had thoughts about breaking up with Facebook by deleting our profiles one of the company's co-founders is now calling on Uncle Sam to break up the Facebook company itself. An idea worth liking? We'll bring you that debate first thing. And then, sex. Never before has our world seem so saturated with sex. At least that's what the talk would have you believe. But how much sex is really going on.

SOUNDCLIP

People talk about it a lot. So it feels like everyone's doing it but in reality it's pretty like not so frequent.

GF: She's a millennial. And believe it or not. Survey after surveys show that younger people, older people too, are having less sex. Some even talk of a sex recession. What's behind our apparent waning interest in intimacy. We'll unpack that in half an hour. Plus we'll have an interview with the scientists credited with saving countless lives possibly even humanity. He was instrumental in stopping the spread of one of the most terrifying forms of warfare the world has ever known.

SOUNDCLIP

Biological weapons. They could he be responsible for a kind of war, it's truly surreptitious. You don't even know it's happening. It could erase the distinction between war and peace.

I'm Gillian Findlay and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Facebook has become one of world's 'most dangerous monopolies,' says expert

Guests: Sarah Miller, Barak Orbach

SOUNDCLIP

SENATOR: Who's your biggest competitor?

MARK ZUCKERBERG: Senator, we have a lot of competitors.

SENATOR: Who's your biggest?

MARK ZUCKERBERG: The other tech platforms. So, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft. We overlap with them in different ways.

SENATOR: Is there an alternative to Facebook in the private sector?

MARK ZUCKERBERG: Yes Senator. The average American uses eight different apps to communicate with their friends and stay in touch with people, ranging from text, snap to e-mail.

SENATOR: How many services you provide?

MARK ZUCKERBERG: Well we do provide a number of different services.

SENATOR: Is Twitter the same as what you do?

MARK ZUCKERBERG: It overlaps with it.

SENATOR: You don't think you have a monopoly?

MARK ZUCKERBERG: It certainly doesn't feel like that to me.

GF: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may not feel like his company is a monopoly but a growing number of people beg to disagree. And now joining the chorus calling for the social media giant to be split up is none other than one of the social media giants co-founders. Chris Hughes published a lengthy op ed in The New York Times this week arguing the company has simply become too big and too powerful. And he is calling on the U.S. government to step in.

SOUNDCLIP

I think we all want to live in a country where David can take on Goliath. Where it can with a smart idea and a dorm room can start a billion dollar company. We've strayed from that ideal and breaking up and regulating Facebook helped put us back on that path.

GF: That idea of breaking Facebook up has been gaining political traction but is it realistic and will it solve the problem. Joining me are two experts with very different views. Sarah Miller is deputy director of the Open Markets Institute an organization that has been calling for the breakup of Facebook and other tech giants. And she is in our Washington studio. Barak is a law professor at the University of Arizona and a leading authority on antitrust law. And we have reached him in Tucson. Hello to both of you.

SARAH MILLER: Good morning.

BARAK ORBACH: Good morning.

GF: Sarah I want to start with you. In his call for intervention, Chris Hughes said in his op ed that basically Mark Zuckerberg is a nice guy but he has created quote "a leviathan that crowds out entrepreneurship and restricts consumer choice". You agree the U.S. government should break it up. Why?

SARAH MILLER: We do. I think at this point it's become fairly clear that Facebook is really one of the world's most dangerous monopolies and they operate on a business model that's based on deep surveillance of its users, and then taking that personal information and allowing actors to target private advertising towards them to change their opinions, to force them to buy things, to really manipulate their behavior in ways that are far more sophisticated than we've really ever seen before. So as a first step we really need to separate out Facebook from Instagram, WhatsApp, and ensure that there is market-based accountability, so that users have real choice, and don't have to use a social media system that relies on manipulation and exploitation of deeply private information to connect with others online.

GF: GF: So when you say breakup you're talking about breaking apart these other companies that that Facebook has recently purchased Barak, what's wrong with that?

BARAK ORBACH: Well there's nothing much wrong about it. The issue is that the actually they [unintelligible] attention from the important problem to less important problems. We do. I totally agree with Sarah about all the problems that you mentioned but breaking up, separating communication app from social media app that What's app and Facebook that would not solve the problem. I would agree with her that probably the merger between Facebook and Instagram was not that good and I would not have liked it to happen but it did happen and now we I could talk about whether it is good to be reverse it. I'm not quite sure but I agree with her that we have serious problems. And to trust is not a solution.

GF: Well Sarah to that point I mean even if you were to hive off these other acquisitions it would still leave a pretty huge company in the middle of it, wouldn't it? Would be pretty outsized powers. Is antitrust law the right way to go?

SARAH MILLER: That's right. So we think antitrust is an important part of the solution but it is not the only part of the solution. It's quite easy to separate off these companies. The Federal Trade Commission here in the US has an opportunity to do that right now. Facebook is currently under investigation and is facing liability in the trillions of dollars for violating user privacy. So as part of that ongoing negotiation they could absolutely demand that Facebook return Instagram and WhatsApp to independent companies and reverse what I think is broadly seen as a major mistake in their kind of regulatory history. But that is not the only solution. Their business model fundamentally is incompatible with democratic societies. I think we've seen that over and over. We shouldn't have micro targeting in the way that Facebook allows. That's a business model that is simply too dangerous and we don't need to allow it. So antitrust is a critical part of the solution because consumers should have choice and competitors should be able to arise that can compete on privacy and that can innovate on privacy and provide new models for this sort of company. But there are other measures as well that we need to pursue to make sure that these systems are safe for democracy and safe for users.

GF: But let's talk about the potential breakup of this because if what you're saying is what results from that is more competition and that competition puts I guess the argument is more pressure on Facebook and others to behave more ethically perhaps. What's the guarantee of that? What's the evidence to show that that would be the outcome?

SARAH MILLER: Sure. So one thing that you can look back to is WhatsApp when it was an independent company. So WhatsApp was actually founded with a mission of protecting user privacy and being extremely secure. So that was its fundamental sort of goal and that was the vision and value of its founders. They made a very kind of controversial decision to sell to Facebook. And when Mark Zuckerberg essentially did not keep his promises to maintain that level of security and privacy and instead open up WhatsApp to the same sort of manipulative advertising model to monetize user data the founders actually left the company leaving I think two billion dollars on the table right on a statement of principle in some sense. So you have actually not a theoretical case you actually have proof that there was a competitor to Facebook. They saw that competitor as being a risk to their dominance. And so they made a move to purchase it. I think in general though when you kind of look at the history of markets and especially when you look at how deeply so many users have become dissatisfied with Facebook it's hard to imagine that if there were an alternative to Facebook these consumer movements to delete the platform and things like that would not have affected Facebook behavior far more fundamentally.

GF: Barak , this is not unprecedented. This call is not unprecedented. U.S. governments have reined in corporate Leviathans before. AT&T for instance was broken up in the 1980s. How is this different in your mind?

BARAK ORBACH: Well any person actually knows the history knows that the break ups were very few and they were generally unsuccessful. With the exception of AT&T that AT&T was facing a dramatic change in technology. Had AT&T lasted, it would not have been that strong because new technologies came into the market. So it is really different in the sense that [unintelligible] break ups, actually the companies realized that think would be better for them to break up. It was not a victory for the government. It was a victory for the companies. So that's one thing that is important. I think it's still quite exaggerating by perception that breakup is easy or the solution is easy or that in order to break up the company we know what would be the consequence. The government or open market do not design the future break ups, rather than companies and then they can manipulate it even further. So I think that disruption should be very very cautious. We do not have a good examples of successful boycotts.

GF: But what is the purpose then of having anti-trust laws if not for cases such as this where one company controls so much of the market? I mean we're talking a company that reportedly is worth half a trillion dollars, controls 80 percent of the world's social network revenue. How does anybody compete with that?

BARAK ORBACH: This is an excellent question. So first of all it is not about size. The issue is not the size. The issue as much as you said competition. And the reason we have now less competition, there are two reasons why we have less competition. One reason is part of the technological change is utilization of what is called metal externalities. These are all services that the value to the user depends on the number of users that service. So if we break up for example Facebook it would be less value per user as it is. This is the economics of the service. That's one thing. The other thing that we see is I do think that we have the antitrust policies will topple [unintelligible] and probably should have been harsher. A good example is that broadly Facebook and Instagram should not have been allowed to merge. But that doesn't mean that we should go off to sites. Size has many advantages.

GF: Sara what do you respond to that?

SARAH MILLER: Sure a few things in response to that. I think on Barack's first point, there are steps that we can take to make sure that users can still enjoy these technologies to the same extent that they do today, but they do not create the vast societal harms and aren't rooted in these kind of abusive business models. One thing that we do call for which maybe Barak would also agree with are setting interoperability standards. So these social media platforms can communicate with each other and you don't necessarily have to use one or the other to communicate with people that you know and want to communicate with. So an example that we use a lot is if you have an AT&T phone here in the US and you want to text somebody who has a horizon phone you can do that. You can communicate across those platforms. And that technologically is not terribly hard to implement and would allow other start-ups to safely give users the choice to use their network even if their friends or colleagues are using a different platform.

GF: But would you have to break up Facebook in order to accomplish that? Couldn't that be accomplished through regulation for instance?

BARAK ORBACH: It could be accomplished through regulation. But at this point you know Facebook would still maintain its dominance without splitting up these other companies. So there's several different steps that you need to take to recreate really healthy competition in this market which right now is very broken. And that's one of the more technical steps that you'd want to take. Because unlike say a retail company or a brick and mortar monopoly, Facebook also does have these network effects right. They have these lock in effects with all of their billions of users and that creates an additional barrier to competition that a breakup alone would not necessarily address. So it's kind of a two part solution in that regard.

GF: We did invite Facebook to be part of this conversation. Nick Clegg the V.P. of global affairs and communications sent us a statement and that reads in part: "Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability but you don't enforce accountability by calling for the breakup of a successful American company. Accountability of tech companies can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the Internet. That is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has called for. Indeed he is meeting government leaders this week to further that work". Is that a genuine response? Do you think, Sarah Miller? I mean you know he has in fact said that he welcomes regulation, that there ought to be new rules for everyone. Does he believe that? Is that his intention?

SARAH MILLER: I don't know what he believes. I do believe that before he worked for Facebook he had a different view and actually expressed concerns about Facebook size and market powers. So it might be worth checking on that.

GF: What do you mean?

SARAH MILLER: I think prior to his joining Facebook he had publicly expressed concerns about Facebook s market power. So it sounds like he might have changed his tune a bit now that he's working with them. But in general you know we think that Facebook is quite scared of antitrust because that does get at the fundamental reasons why they're able to maintain their dominance. So they're happy to kind of shift the conversation to privacy only or regulation only and to muddy the waters in that regard. But a lot of times those sorts of rules and regulations one can be watered down extensively can also be put in place in ways that entrench their dominance and make it harder, even harder for a start up to meet those standards. So we think that our democratic institutions, policymakers, public advocates should be leading this conversation about how to regulate social media, not necessarily Mark Zuckerberg.

GF: One of Facebook arguments is that its size allows it to be more effective in particularly on the security front that everybody has so much concern about these days. They say if they find a bad actor posting abusive comments on one platform, Instagram for example, they can kick them off What's up and Facebook as well. And that ultimately that reduces potential harm. Is that is that a fair assessment, Barack?

BARAK ORBACH: No I don't think so. And I would like to put it in a general context. We are where we are in antitrust because very simplistic antitrust enforcement ideas were successful. I don't think that thinking others sets of very simplistic ideas would be any better. It would just be one bad placing other. The notion that breaking up companies or letting companies do [unintelligible] things. This is quite simplistic. We shouldn't stay that channel picture [unintelligible] more nuance. So for a long time we had one culture that antitrust [unintelligible] we should not use. And now we were going to replace it with the culture that we should break up companies and we should do high intervensions . I don't think it's good in back specifically to your question. I don't think that the Facebook can be trusted with such things.

GF: So what's the solution then?

BARAK ORBACH: Well I do think it must have serious thinking. As soon as we get a framework for privacy. And actually I think that when we are talking about antitrust we divert attention from the real problem which is piracy to sell to think that is not that significant to our competition or are not as significant in terms of addressing the problem. I think I've said I would agree with that. We all [unintelligible]. We all [unintelligible] of how we deal with privacy. Antitrust is not the framework for regulation of piracy.

GF: I think the issue here in large part though is Mr. Zuckerberg's personal power isn't it? He controls 60 percent of the voting shares of the company. It's a public company with no real institutional check or balance and that has the argument goes that is what has gotten us into the situation that we are today. So how do you rein in somebody like that working in that kind of a framework?

BARAK ORBACH: Well for a century the argument was that in the United States that ownership was dispersed and energy with running the company without checking balances. In a period where we had start-ups or companies going well they founders have a lot of power but it's not that this problem did not exist before. Because shareholders did not have so much power. Does Facebook have a governance problem? Sure. I think most corporate governance experts would say that built still governments structure the principles are not consistent with good practices. Multiple offices I think not for Facebook as a company.

GF: So whose job is it then to fix that?

GILLIAN FINDLAY: We actually do not have a framework that can mandate a governance structure or corporate governance structure on the company. To some extent stock exchanges can do that but only to some extent. It is a serious problem. Good to see that governments regardless of what is the source of the governments is not held accountable. I think one thing that I think should be fair and just is considered to increase the standards for personal liability for corporate misconduct, something that you do not have now. If we do have that things will look very very different. So far Zuckerberg is look like doesn't like that Facebook will pay five billion dollars. It's not a big deal for them. But he doesn't like me. What if Zuckerberg is facing jail time or other sanctions, he would look at things very very differently.

GF: Well that would be a drastic step. Sarah Miller do you think maybe we're having the wrong conversation that breaking up is an option we should be talking about?

SARAH MILLER: I think there are two different problems. You know fundamentally we need markets that are competitive and when we see a market that has obliterated competition and drastically limited choice for consumers we need to address that using antitrust. At the same time we absolutely I completely agree with Barak. We absolutely need to ensure that executives are held accountable for gross misconduct of their companies. And one of the things that we're calling for here in the US - that I mentioned kind of at the top of the segment - is that the Federal Trade Commission now, which is investigating Facebook, has the power and has the authority to impose personal consequences for the executives at the company. I will say something however, that just changing the leadership - while I completely agree that it's absurd that Mark Zuckerberg himself has this much control - that's simply changing the leadership isn't really enough. If we had you know Sheryl Sandberg as a CEO of the company instead it's surveillance data mining business model wouldn't change. Their resistance to making serious concessions to protect user privacy that would in turn hurt profit margins wouldn't change. So that alone is not the solution. We're not asking for a more ethical or competent leader necessarily to take the helm. We are asking our democratic institutions to stand up and use their authority and the laws to accomplish those goals.

GF: All right. We'll have to leave it there. Thank you both for your thoughts this morning.

SARAH MILLER: Thank you so much.

GF: Sarah Miller is deputy director of the Open Market Institute an organization that it's been calling for the breakup of Facebook and other tech giants. She was in Washington and Barak is a law professor at the University of Arizona and a leading authority on antitrust law. And he was in Tucson. So stay with us. The CBC News is next and then, yet another study suggests that people are no longer doing that thing that people have done for all time. But are reports of the so-called sex recession true? I'm Gillian Findlay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Having less sex? Why experts says there's no need to panic

Guests: Shan Boodram, Debby Herbenick, Stephanie Coontz

[clip] [/clip]

GF: I'm Gillian Findlay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

GF: Still to come there are few things more frightening than the specter of biological warfare or biological terror from anthrax to weaponized viruses. Today it's mostly the stuff of science fiction. But that was never a given in half an hour I'll speak with Matthew Meselson who has been recognised for his pioneering work in getting biological weapons back. But first sex going out of fashion.

SOUNDCLIP

TV HOSTESS: Did you all know there's a major recession going on right now?

MAN: Yes.

TV HOSTESS: Young adults and millennials are in the middle of a sex recession. While you think young people would be having sex left and right in the age of Tinder apparently that's not the case. This is the weird thing. I'm not saying that people aren't having relationships. This is saying that they're just not having sex.

MAN: It's both.

WOMAN: I think somebody's lying.

MAN 3: You're too busy for me.

WOMAN: Sometimes I am. Sometimes my day is so full I just want to go to bed asleep.

MAN: Nothing happens.

MAN 1: And even with my wife we're like in a thing or not fully expressed. It’s not going to work.

GF: They save all the best stories for the guest hosts on this show. Okay. So the experts tell us that maybe we're in a sex recession. The latest evidence, a major study in Britain 34000 people questioned about their sex lives over an 11 year period. The conclusion, people, all people, are having less sex old people young people especially it seems cohabiting couples. And more than half of the people in the study said that lack of sex made them unhappy. So today we've gathered a panel to help us understand what's going on. And does it matter. Stephanie Coontz is a marriage historian and an author. She's in Olympia, Washington today. Debby Herbenick teaches human sexuality at the School of Public Health at Indiana University. She's also the former president of the American Association of sexuality educators counselors and therapists. And she joins us from Bloomington, Indiana. And here in Toronto is Shan Boodram. She's a sexologist and the author of the Game of Desire. And in case it isn't perfectly obvious we're going to be talking a little bit frankly today about sex so it may not be suitable for everyone listening. Hello to you all.

DEBBY HERBENICK: Hello.

SHAN BOODRAM: Hi.

GF: Shan I am going to start with you. I want to start by asking about the research that apparently shows yet again people are having less sex. How reliable is that?

SHAN BOODRAM: I mean anytime that you're testing people based on the personal accountability there's always going to be a margin of error because people could lie for various amounts of reason.

GF: 'I guess there's a lot of lying here.

SHAN BOODRAM: Well when you have this many studies across this many different countries this many different researchers pointing to the same thing. And we have a lack of connectivity overall. People are more lonely than ever before. People do feel less connected. People are waiting longer to get married, waiting longer to move out of the House. And so I wouldn't just say that this is just a study that comes out of nowhere I think it's supported by a lot of other information that is vital to understanding how little connection we truly have in the age of connection.

GF: And do you see that reflected in your practice?

SHAN BOODRAM: Yes I mean I exclusively work mostly with younger people and a lot of people well into their 30s have never been in a serious committed relationship.

GF: it doesn't mean they're not having sex.

SHAN BOODRAM: I mean this is a thing. People who are in - although according to the study that's not the case - but people who are in committed relationships do have more sex because they have a frequent reliable sexual partner. Whereas an even if you're in the age of Tinder if you get a hookup once every week or once every two weeks you're probably still statistically having less sex and the person who's living with someone else.

GF: All right. Well Stephanie Coontz are you convinced that there really is a sex recession?

STEPHANIE COONTZ: Well not entirely. I think that I certainly don't dispute these studies that show that sexual intercourse and frequency has gone down but of course sexual frequency doesn't tell us how much people are enjoying it. And if you look at the American Studies, the recession has dropped from an average of 62 to 56 times a year and that's still once a week which is highly correlated with sexual satisfaction. And really more than that doesn't usually include- it doesn't mean that you're getting you're much happier by having more than that. I think it's a very complex study. I'm not denying that there are some people who are lonely and feel pressured. On the other hand, I don't think that that's necessarily just because people are living alone or waiting longer to have marriages. We know that the marriages that have been formed since the supposed sex recession are actually lasting longer than the ones that were formed in the 70s when people were having more sex. So I'm a little skeptical of getting really particularly worried about this, although of course of any couple is dissatisfied with their sex, it's great to have sexologist around who can help give them tips. But I want to say one important thing as a historian and then is that we're comparing this to a time period when women did not feel free to say no to sex as much as they do today. And so there are many indications that sexual activity is more fair and egalitarian when it occurs even if it does occur a little less frequently.

GF: That's an interesting point. Debbie Herbenick, what are your thoughts on this? Do you do you accept that this is happening and does it matter if it is true?

DEBBY HERBENICK: Yes my take on this is very much aligned with Stephanie's certainly around the issues of changes in gender. You know another aspect about this which hasn't been mentioned yet is how the questions are asked. And so in each of the studies that I've been reporting this generally the questions are fairly vague. For example one of the U.S. data sources the General Social Survey just asked people how often they had quote unquote "sex" even the recent natural study sort of focused collectively on sexual activity like vaginal, oral and anal sex combined. And one of the things that we've been careful to do in our own National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior that tracks American sex lives is ask about a very diverse range of sex and not just penetrative kinds of sex. I mean we look at sex why use we look at partner masturbation and if anything I think what we're seeing is a real broadening of sexual repertoire. So people engaging in far more kinds of sex than they used to at least that we have any sense that they used to. There's always been a lot of people who have been exploring and experimenting and trying things. But we see more of that now. We see sex toy use having risen dramatically in recent decades. We see more people understand that there's a broad sexual menu. So it might be that what some of these studies are actually tracking is a slight move away from sort of traditional ideas of sex like penile vaginal intercourse and into a sense that sex can be created in ways that you and your partner or partners want.

GF: Well so if we can't drill down and come to a definitive answer as to whether it's happening more or less frequently and in what form, let's talk a little bit about what I think is the more interesting findings of the survey and others, and that is the reported decline among young people having sex. I mean this is the generation that has grown up in a time when it has never been safer or more socially permissible to be having sex and apparently they're not. Shan, what explains that?

SHAN BOODRAM: I'm not sure if I would say it's safer. CBC reports like a spike in a lot of sexually transmitted infections greater than they've ever been reported. But I do believe that at the end of the day we're seeing a massive shift in all ways that we connect and we couple. And so it's difficult to not see a correlation in our sex lives. In essence sex is the last thing that you can't do on your phone. I can still keep in touch with my mom. I can still pay my bills I can turn my lights off and on the one of the last things that we literally cannot do from our phones is physically engage with another human being.

GF: I think we've seen evidence of people trying.

SHAN BOODRAM: Right. And there's going to be continue to be method to people trying but until we really breach them. In the end of the day you're not getting the same mental and physical benefits that you would from getting human touch and that specific kind of love.

SHAN BOODRAM: Speak to me about young people.

SHAN BOODRAM: In particular why are they not connecting as much? I mean you have a rise of anti-depressants a lot of young younger people are getting on those much younger. I think you have also a rise in people staying at home much longer. People not feeling like they have a place in the world. Like there's a correlation between 2008 they were saying where there was a recession and the lack of sex that's happening. People need to feel good about themselves, happy about their connection. Sex is a by-product of a healthy life. And people who have more sex tend to be healthier. So they work as a ying and yang.

GF: I mean it seems remarkable to me because in the span of my lifetime we've gone from worrying about young people having too much sex. And now we're concerned that perhaps we're not having enough. And I know that all of you are experts in this field. But I do want to bring in a voice of someone who is legendary. On Monday on The Current, we're going to be broadcasting a feature conversation with Dr. Ruth a.k.a. Ruth Westheimer the famous sex therapist. She's 90 now. And when Anna Maria Tremonti asked her what she thought about why she thought young people were having sex. This is what she said.

SOUNDCLIP

What I do see is that we can't fight the Internet and we can't fight the phones and the iPhones, but we have to tell people put that iPhone aside, make sure that you talk to each other because it has an impact on your relationship. And it certainly has an impact on sex. So people who get obsessed that they have to see what's happening every minute they don't have a free thought to get sexually aroused to make time for sex and to enjoy it and to know that this is part of life and not to push it on the back burner.

GF: So Shan bedroom you mentioned the iPhone. Did the Internet Kill sex?

SHAN BOODRAM: There are studies that say people would rather give up their give up sex for a year than give up Amazon for a year. There are studies that people would rather watch Netflix and Bing then have sex. There's actually sites that say that the lack of commercials are a large contributing factor why couples aren't having sex. Because before you're watching one your programs end at 10:00 p.m. which gives you tons of time to do something else, whereas now there's tons of things to do after 10:00 p.m.. Right. People are consumed and they're watching one after the other with no breaks in between, no time to turn to your partner and say hey you look kind of cute today like What's that. Let's get a pop in. So I think that there is a massive correlation between the fact that we are in the easy access culture and there are so many things that are pulling out our attention and we have to really pull back when it comes to intimacy.

GF: Stephanie I want to bring you back in here. I mean surely it can't be as simple as that. Right. I mean what are some of the other factors that you see'

STEPHANIE COONTZ: Well for one thing one of the reasons we've seen a slight decline not a major one in the United States in terms of young people having sex is because fewer of them are married and fewer of them are in partnerships. And that's not a bad thing. A lot of young people in the 50s after knowing each other for six months moved in together got married had sex because the warriors of the time were always that the woman should never say no. When I interviewed women in 1950s and 60s marriages, the undercurrent of anxiety about being able to say I'm not in the mood was just extraordinary. They were under feeling under tremendous pressure to say yes all the time. Now you've got people who feel free to say no, have much more egalitarian relations and who are delaying marriage which it turns out is not a bad thing at all. When they get married, they're less likely to divorce than earlier cohorts. In terms of spending time with other people young, one of the biggest declines in sexual activity is among couples with young children. And that's not because they're on their iPhones. They are spending much more time interacting with their kids. And yes I absolutely agree with you that maybe they need to spend less time interacting with their kids more time socializing with other adults or engaging in the kind of novel behaviors and activities that actually do spark intimacy and sexual attraction. But again I just think that there's a little over emphasis on this and an oversimplification of the issues. I was very glad to know though that contrary to some of the myths that have been put out this is not concentrated among dual earner families working women have not killed sex and concentrated among people who use pornography. In fact some of the sharpest declines are among people who do not use pornography. So it's a complicated issue. And you know I think obsessing about it probably doesn't help people solve the actual practical issues that they need to help you know.

GF: As I was reading the study last night I was wondering, is it possible that when we think of sex and the freedom of sex we think of the 60s and the 70s and the sexual revolution the swinging 60s, that maybe those are in fact an aberration in some way and that what we're really seeing now is a return to perhaps more historical levels of sexual activity. What do you think Stephanie? You've studied this area.

STEPHANIE COONTZ: You know is very hard as Debbie pointed out to get you out what was going on but absolutely I mean if you go back to the 19th century when we had this cult of difference between men and women and the idea that women were sexually pure, there was all of this pressure on men and women not have sex or at least not to have sex with the kind of woman you respected. And so in the 1950s and 60s there was this tremendous emphasis on taking sexuality and attaching it to traditional gender roles and marriage. And we may well have seen a big increase there, not only among the people who were part of the traditional, not quite untraditional actually male breadwinner or family that female homemaker, but also among the people who were rebelling against that. I mean one of the early feminist movements was on the one hand the right to have a sex without being shut shamed for it without the double standard but also the right to say no when you didn't want to have sex. So I think you're you know what you say is plausible. I'm not denying that there are real problems with iPhone lack of connection in our society. But I just don't want to exaggerate and on the sex part. There's one interesting finding from Dan Carlson and his colleagues and that is that the only couples who ever more sex today are the ones who are sharing housework and child care equally. So that's another social turn on.

GF: What's not one that would be obvious to many people--

[Cross talking]

STEPHANIE COONTZ: I have a friend who calls it chorenography.

GF: Chorenography. There you go. Debby, I do want to bring you back in here. Let's accept for the sake of this argument that there is less sex going on, what about that should concern us? What are the implications for health for reproduction for all of the things that that have been studied?

DEBBY HERBENICK: Well mostly none. I mean you know and so one of the things I feel strongly about this is that we shouldn't overreact. You know we shouldn't go into a panic if there is a slight decline in sex that then again it is slight. And each study seems to find maybe different age groups which tells us already that this is probably not as clear cut or simple as some might like it to be. So we know that the declines at least in the U.S. and the UK and Canada don't seem to be, if they're there at all, drastic enough to be affecting the population. So our population is still reproducing. We don't see any reason to be concerned about the frequency in terms of public health. So if we think about public health in terms of pregnancy issues and sexually transmitted infections, the things we should still stay focused on are not only good methods for addressing these kinds of things - which we actually have pretty excellent methods - but getting people to use them in the U.S. we have--

GF: What do you mean by methods Debby?

DEBBY HERBENICK: Some methods of preventing pregnancy, methods of preventing sexually transmitted infections like condom use highly effective contraceptives. Now we have prep which is fantastic in terms of preventing HIV. It's used widely by gay, bisexual men and other people who are at high risk of HIV.

GF: These things are no longer barriers to people.

DEBBY HERBENICK: They're not. So you know so if we're concerned about public health there's other things to focus on. So I think you know what I always come back to with this issue when it bubbles up with a new study around sexual frequency is always ultimately are people having the sex that they want to have? Is it pleasurable? Is it enjoyable? I worry sometimes that if we just focus on the fact that there is a little bit less sex with some groups but not all groups, the question to me as always, well, what's the right amount of sex? You know who's to say that some frequency that we had 10 years ago or 20 years ago was quote unquote the right frequency. What if this frequency is the right frequency and as Stephanie was referencing there was too much pressure earlier. In our research we survey people from as young as 14 to as old as 102 in our big nationally representative studies of sex in America. And what we find is that there still are a number of people especially 60 and above where women, who when we asked them why they had their most recent experience of sex, they're still referencing things like duty and obligation or I don't really like to have sex but my partner and my husband makes me. So we still see some of that generationally and we don't see hardly any of that with the younger people coming up. So I think we can't ignore that shift. And again that some of these changes might actually be really exciting for people. It doesn't mean we don't have problems with intimacy and connection. I think we do. I think we have a lot to go in that regard. And you know that the authors of the recent national study from the U.K. really stressed that point in their paper that for the most part there's no major reason for panic. But to the extent that this might represent some change in an intimacy and connection is something that we should be paying attention to and I agree with that.

GF: Shan I want to share I want to bring you back in here because you see people you have a practice. Does more frequent sex necessarily make for a better relationship?

SHAN BOODRAM: I mean I would say going for the study. A lot of people say they wish they were having more sex. That's one of the rises that we can't ignore that it isn't just that it's being reported as such that people are also reporting a lack of satisfaction with their sex life. I do agree that people are having better quality sex and have more options and a broader basis for what sex truly is; a mutual pleasurable experience that keeps both partners happy and healthy. I do think that there are a lot of young people who don't feel like they qualify underneath that definition, that they aren't having enough of the kind of connective physical activity that makes them feel happy and healthy and connected to someone else. And so to me this study is good news right because at the end of the day if you're somebody who's having satisfactory sex life you're going to look at this and say 'oh other people'. If you're somebody who is like 'hey I feel a little disconnected, I feel like I'm not getting the kind of touch that I want'. This is an affirmation that you're not alone. That this is an issue that others are going through. And this is a call to action for you to say hey you can find other solutions and that there is a problem in place and don't feel like you're just the only person who's not having the quality and quantity of sex that you want.

GF: I think I want to recognize here for a moment that this is an all girls conversation that we have going on here. So as somebody who sees men presumably in your practice, do you hear a different perspective from them?

SHAN BOODRAM: To be honest with you I speak to majority women, but it is a lot more women speaking up about their sexual desires was actually in the end the need for frequent sex and I think that actually comes from having a positive sexual experiences and now saying I want more of that. So I would think it is it's probably equal across the board and I think the studies also point to that that it isn't just particularly men who are saying that which is the traditional sitcom approach to things. And it's both partners regardless of what kind of sexual interactions are having, be that same sex or heterosexual, who are saying in many cases I want more. And if you do there's tons of options for you like was mentioned today.

GF: I don't know if we've debunked this study yet or not but nevertheless it's out there and it's in the headlines and I think that does raise pressure on some people at least. I mean do you worry about this kind of thing making people feel inadequate making them feel more pressure and where does that lead us?

SHAN BOODRAM: I think if you're the person who's having the exact amount of sex that you have right now this might in that case serve as like why don't want to have any more. I feel comfortable with the way things are right now but it might open up a dialogue in either case. I think this is just an opening up a dialogue that we've really never had before to your point where in that should we be having more sex. And perhaps we were having that decades ago but for the past 20 years it's been less less less. Right.

STEPHANIE COONTZ: It's really important for us to understand that having sex isn't the only way to make connections and intimacy. And I am absolutely for all of the things that people have been saying here. But I think that it's very important not to fool people into thinking if you feel a lack of connection to people the only way to get it is to have more sex. There are also very important things that we need to work on in terms of our outreach, our socializing with other adults -- which is one of the most potent predictors of people's happiness -- and it also comes back to your relationship because you bring home novel experiences. So I think that the danger- I think it's very important we're discussing it. The danger in discussing it this way is it emphasizes the idea that sex is the only way you can have intimacy and connection.

GF: All right. We don't have much time left so I want a quick answer from each of you. For anybody listening now who may be seeing feeling you know this this represents their life that they are an unwilling part perhaps of this sex recession, what would you tell them Stephanie?

STEPHANIE COONTZ: Well I would tell them to ignore the idea of date night and make it double date night because there's fascinating research that shows that when you're socializing with other adults or you're going out and doing new adventures like when you wouldn't give people things that are slightly unpleasant but exciting that tends to get the libido going.

GF: But not double date night in the sense that we're double sex.

STEPHANIE COONTZ: Don't go out and just look into each other's eyes and think that will lead to sex, do something exciting.

GF: All right, Shan.

SHAN BOODRAM: I agree. You are doing something novel something new and new for a lot of people might be turning off Netflix.

GF: You really got a [unintelligible] for Netfllix. And Debbie will give the last word to you.

DEBBY HERBENICK: Yes absolutely new, connecting and talk with your partner about it. You know if you've got a partner just open up the conversation and tell them what you miss and tell them how you hope to reconnect with them and hear about how they want to reconnect with you.

GF: All right. Thank you all three of you for a really interesting conversation. That was Debby Herbenick who's a professor of human sexuality at Indiana University. She's also the former president of the American Association of sexuality educators counselors and therapists. And she was in Bloomington, Indiana. We also had Stephanie Coontz the marriage historian and author she was in Olympia Washington and here in Toronto with me was Shan Boodram a sexologist and the author of the game of desire. Coming up I'll speak with the Harvard professor who's been recognized for his role in nothing less than saving humanity for his crusading work against the proliferation of biological weapons. Matthew Meselson and joins me in our next half hour. I'm Gillian Findlay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Harvard scientist fears advancements in genetic manipulation 'much more than war'

Guest: Matthew Meselson

GF: Hello I'm Gillian Findlay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

We are so used to reading articles about terrorist attacks and wars, we hardly to reflect on the fact that we never read articles about bio terrorism or biological warfare. Actually we seem very close to starting a totally out of control arms race and bio weapons and frankly thanks to Matthew Meselson more than anyone else that that never happened. That's why he deserves this award. Thanks for him me entire subject of biology now is something that we think of as a great force for good in the world to help live happier and healthier lives rather than as a new way of showing people. That's why I think it's so important that we honor people like Meselson because without them we wouldn't be enjoying life the way we do today.

GF: The name Matthew Meselson may not be familiar but it seems we all owe him a debt of gratitude. The geneticist and molecular biologist has been honored with the 2019 Future of Life Award. It's given out by the Future of Life Institute and we just heard co-founder Max Tegmark. The award is in recognition of Matthew Mendelssohn's actions at a critical moment in history, actions being recognized for saving countless lives and quote maybe even saving humanity. Because the 88 year old Harvard professor has been a pioneer in the movement to ban biological weapons. Matthew Meselson is in Cambridge Massachusetts. He joins me from there. Hello and congratulations.

MATTHEW MESELSON: Good morning and thank you.

GF: You have said that you got involved in the campaign against bio weapons by accident. Tell me about that accident.

MATTHEW MESELSON: It was as you say an accident. I was asked if I would like to be one of six academics to work just during that summer if the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. They said we want you to work on nuclear theater arms control, something I knew nothing about. And so I felt that there wasn't anything I could contribute. So I went to my boss and said I'm a chemist and a biologist why did you let me think about chemical or biological arms control. And he said sure we're going off to Moscow. You can have the desk of a guy who had had been working on these things but you can have all the classified documents he had accumulated in his safe.

GF: Just so we know what we're talking about, what do we mean when we say biological weapons?

MATTHEW MESELSON: You mean the use of disease as a weapon. So for example you could spread anthrax spores in the air and people who inhale them might contract anthrax which is generally lethal. So I decided I needed to know what are other countries doing. And I went to the CIA and in those days we had some thoughts where we didn't know for sure what any other country was doing. And then I needed to know what we were doing. And so I went to the main place where we were working on biological weapons and that was Fort Detrick in Maryland, and we came to a big building and I asked him what were we doing there. And he is well we have a big fermenter, 10000 gallon fermenter and that's where you make anthrax spores. And I asked him Well what do we do that for. And he said well it's cheaper than nuclear weapons it can kill a lot of people over a large area but it's very cheap and I don't think I realized that instant. But by the time I got back to the State Department building it dawned on me. What if you could make hydrogen bombs for a nickel. Cheap weapons of mass destruction. Definitely a bad thing.

GF: So you had this epiphany. Why was the U.S. military doing this and the people that you met what was their rationale?

MATTHEW MESELSON: What is momentum. We're doing it. Somebody has to tell us to stop. Right. Another reason is that we'd like to know what would be the capability of such weapons so that we could make better defenses against them. And that's not altogether wrong except it doesn't require that you make actual weapons. And the third reason is that you want these weapons because you might use them. Well the United States should not want there to be any very cheap weapons of mass destruction. Ideally it would be nice if war was so expensive that nobody could afford it. That would be very nice.

GF: And what did you decide to do then?

MATTHEW MESELSON: So I decided I had to make a plan. Who could stop it? Only one person, the president of the United States. So how do you get your issue on the desk of the president of the United States. Lots of people want to get their issue on the desk of a president. So fortunately here at Harvard I got to know President Nixon's national security adviser Henry Kissinger. My laboratory building was next door to his office building. So I wrote papers for him and visited him occasionally.

GF: Tell me a little bit about the context because this was back in the 60s. You know there'd been the Cuban missile crisis. The Cold War was raging if that can be said and yet was there not a school of thought that says we absolutely must have these weapons because we don't know what the Soviets are doing.

MATTHEW MESELSON: A very small school of thought mainly the people who were actually doing it plus a few outsiders.

GF: So what did you do? How did you bring pressure?

MATTHEW MESELSON: My friend here said Go see Howard Simons. He had previously been the science journalist at The Post. He knew the science journalists all over the country. So he took out a yellow pad and he wrote down maybe about 30 names. He said these are the science journalists at these major newspapers. Go see each one of these people or at least communicate with him once a week. Their editors need something for the science page and biological weapons is a subject that will interest their readers. So I did that and this generated a lot of newspaper coverage. Also the military helped too because there had been some accidents leaks from chemical weapons and certain other accidents that got into the news. So there was considerable public interest. It was a kind of multipronged campaign. We also circulated a petition amongst professors in the various sciences at American universities.

GF: So let me jump ahead then. Because then in 1969 it is President Nixon who does and the U.S. biological weapons program. And by 1972 he signed onto the Biological Weapons Convention outlawing biological warfare. Let's just take a listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

In terms of the agreement that is being signed today it has very great significance. It means that all the scientists in the world certainly a universal community whatever their language whatever their race whatever their background, instead of working to develop biological weapons, which one nation might use against another nation, now may devote their entire energy toward working against the enemy of all mankind, disease, and for that reason that agreement is one of enormous significance to all of those who have followed its development. It is these great principles which we must eventually implement if we are truly to have a world of peace.

[Applause]

GF: Now do you remember hearing President Nixon that day?

MATTHEW MESELSON: Oh yes yes.

GF: And what did you think as you heard those words?

MATTHEW MESELSON: I thought I should write to him a letter of congratulations and appreciation, which I did.

GF: Which you did and it was in large part because of the work and the lobbying and the pressure that you had done. Was it a moment of pride for you?

MATTHEW MESELSON: Well I was awfully glad. Because I'm a biologist and you could ask why was I interested in this there are two reasons. One it was it was my science biology and that it would be very unwise to start out down that road or to keep on down that road. And the second thing that motivated me was anybody could see the argument for doing this. And except for those rather small number of people who were actually working on it, the services army navy generally service people find the use of disease as a weapon repugnant. It's not akin to the natural method of combat which is a blow. And then we got arrows and guns and bombs and but they're all in a sense an extrapolation from something that you could say has a certain naturalness to it. But the use of disease, mortal enemy of our species, as a weapon of war is repugnant and dishonorable.

GF: Eventually more than a hundred other countries sign on to the weapons convention including the Soviet Union. And yet even within a few years it becomes clear in the case of the Soviet Union at least that despite signing onto this convention that they are actually doing some work in developing anthrax in particular. How did that become known?

MATTHEW MESELSON: Well that became known largely because of an accident in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk which is just east of the Eural mountains. Anthrax spores got into the air. The Russian government said it was by eating bad meat that people died of anthrax. They admitted there had been an epidemic of anthrax. But they claimed it was because of bad meat and that does happen there's a long history of gastrointestinal anthrax caused by eating the meat of sheep or cows which have become infected with anthrax, which is basically a disease of sheep and cows and other bovids. But there was other evidence to the effect that maybe it was airborne, a cloud of anthrax spores. I was part of the CIA working committee on that and we felt that it was probably an airborne release.

GF: You eventually were sent over to take a look weren't you?

MATTHEW MESELSON: I went on my own I nagged the Russian government until finally and - by this time it was no longer the Soviet Union. We were put in contact with a woman named Larissa Mishustina who was at that time a member of their Congress, Duma. And she had written a letter. This letter was answered by Yeltsin saying yes this was a government activity. And here are the names. So there there's this list of 68 names which Larissa Mishustina gave us. But what we did was, what my wife Jeanne Guillemin did, together with two Russian professors from the local university who spoke English went house to house. They were invited in and then the main question we asked was did this person live at home, whether they were retired or were they working and if they were working where were they working. So with this information we could make maps.

GF: So what conclusions were you able to come to then as a result?

MATTHEW MESELSON: Well we put these points on a map. Nearly all of them fall into a very narrow plume or zone which begins at a place which we knew was a military microbiological facility and it's a straight line with a certain bearing. And it was one day and one day only on which the wind didn't change, which it usually does, but instead all day long blue in exactly that direction. Well bad meat does not blow with the wind but anthrax spores in the cloud do. This was absolutely clear. We published in Science magazine also the pathologist in my team examined slides and gross organs that had been kept in formaldehyde or alcohol. And he came with a conclusion to that it was inhalation infecting the lymph nodes around the lungs and not the lymph nodes around the stomach. So it was absolutely clear.

GF: But and that example brings me to another question I want to ask you about because it it's one thing to sign a convention but it's obviously quite another thing to uphold it and to enforce it. And I want you to listen to Daniel Feakes he's the chief of the implementation support-

MATTHEW MESELSON: I know him very well. He is a fine person.

GF: Yes- of the biological weapons convention and he was asked about the challenge of this and this is what he had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

We're quite fortunate in many ways that biological weapons don't have a very extensive history of use. Back in 2001 just after the 9/11 attacks in the US when those were letters sent through the postal service in the US which contained anthrax. So that is more bioterrorism. So yeah we're very fortunate in many ways that we haven't seen that but that doesn't mean that it's not possible it doesn't mean that we won't see it either. It is something that countries in the past have been prepared to do. And given the advances in science and technology it may be that things that in the past were quite difficult to do or are actually becoming easier to do so that we may be facing bigger bigger challenges in preventing this in the future.

GF: So we've jumped ahead in time here but it does raise I think the big question people have when they hear about biological weapons and that is how well equipped or not are we today to prevent the use and their development in the future?

MATTHEW MESELSON: Preventing development it's just a question of what the president orders preventing their use once they've been used. If you're asking what can one do to defend against them unless you know what the agent is or unless you provide everyone with warning and gas masks or air filters there's not much you can do. But to be on the lookout but also for the big countries which are the would be the most dangerous if they wanted to do this since the big countries have nuclear weapons that this is exactly what they don't want to see spread. The same argument that persuaded President Nixon.

GF: What do we know about how much of this is being developed today?

MATTHEW MESELSON: So far as I know nothing. We do know that more than 15 years since those anthrax letters. There hasn't been a single copy cat. So this is very encouraging of course we could read in the newspapers tomorrow morning. But what that showed was that it can be done. It does kill people. And although at the end we think we identified who had done it he committed suicide. So we could never actually get him into a court of law and prove that he was the one. He was a government worker inside a lab at Fort Detrick that was working on these things. But my main point is that you have to take some lessons from history. In the case of the Soviet Union, they were under the impression, I believe, that we were cheating because we had a deliberate and foolish very small scale FBI effort to persuade them that we were developing chemical and biological weapons to make them waste their time. And the second point is that I know - from the person who was a very high level Soviet diplomat but now lives in the United States - that because of our repeated efforts to get in and take a look they scaled down that began to scale down their whole effort when otherwise they might have scaled it up. Yes something is always possible. Well it's very different from the world we would have without the convention and without the United States renunciation by President Nixon.

GF: I want you to listen to somebody else here for a moment. This is Michael Imperioli who is a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan and he was part of a committee that looked at some potential scenarios that were detailed in a report last year for the U.S. Department of Defense. Here's what he said about fears for the future.

SOUNDCLIP

There are three things that we thought were the most important. The first is the ability to recreate a virus from scratch. The second is to modify existing bacteria to make them more dangerous. Third is a little bit of an unusual one which is to engineer a bacterium to produce a chemical or a toxin that then would be used to basically deliver that toxin into a person's body. So I know you're probably familiar with the microbiome and so what we imagined was someone might want to engineer a bacterium that's normally found in the microbiome to now deliver some sort of chemical weapon in effect if there was some way to actually deliver that to a broad population then that could potentially be a pump because we would we might not know how to recognize that.

GF: Can you. Can you explain what he's talking about there? Do you understand the fears that he has raised?

MATTHEW MESELSON: I wouldn't call them exactly fears. These are all things you could imagine. They exist in the mines who have people who have the responsibility of being on the alert of any indication that anything like that is going on to figure out if possible countermeasures. The lesson of history is really important here it's been many years since this was last done, the anthrax letter attacks here in the United States. And why hasn't it happened again? There's been lots of terrorism. I think the reason is partly that we train literally millions of people worldwide in the use of explosives because if you become a member of your country's military you get trained in how to use bullets and bombs and mines et cetera. And the terrorism that we've seen is explosives. And also sadly even a truck to drive into people. So there's a vastly larger number of people who, if they are terrorists, know how to use explosives or something like that or maybe even cyber-attacks to use computers in the evil way. But there are very very few people who know anything about how to do what Michael was just talking about. It doesn't seem to from the lesson of history that it could happen tomorrow morning. But we should certainly hope that our government has people who are thinking about these things from the point of view of remedies and defenses.

GF: I want to go back to Max Tegmark where we started our day, the man who credited you perhaps with having saved humanity itself. He's the president of the future of life Institute a professor of physics and artificial intelligence research at M.I.T. Let's just take a listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

Any science can be used for helping your man of your harming humanity. Sometimes you can see that if people don't get it right in the beginning it's very hard to fix the plane. That's why we're still struggling with nuclear weapons. And just this year artificial intelligence researchers are grappling with exactly this kind of mess Wilsonian question that was lethal economists weapons the weaponization of their fields. What we learned from Matthew Mendelsohn is that every scientist has to not only think about making powerful tech but also think about how this tech is going to be used in effect society. We tend to say I'm going to build all this great stuff know how it's going to be used at someone else's apartment. That's not the Meselson way.

GF: The Meselson way. But what is the Meselson way?

MATTHEW MESELSON: Well to look at ourselves- I'm a geneticist so naturally it's reasonable that I should ask questions about the whole species. And in my mind much more than war or deliberate hostile acts are those things which over long periods of time might change what we value most in our humanity, for example changing the human genome. We're just beginning to be able to do that. I don't mean in the individual but I mean in the individual's posterity. We know of this one gentleman professor doctor He in China who removed a gene from a pair of twin babies so their offspring will not have that gene. Sooner or later I think it's inevitable that mankind will be directing our own evolution where it will be possible to intervene by methods I don't know, but I do know that given time that biology will advance to the point where things can be done that cannot be defined right now, such as changing the way people think. Changing their allegiance. Diseases which cannot be cured or treated or prevented. A Pandora's box. We are only a snapshot in the evolution of our species. So you have to ask well what is it we really value in what we are. Empathy, the feeling that most people get if they feel that they are doing something nice for someone else. Curiosity. Feeling of awe. Many of these feelings that we call human not today. We know those things are conditioned by our genes somehow, but we have only the vaguest idea. We have a little idea of what makes female mice take care of their babies. That is what genes are important. We have no idea really or very slight idea what it is in the brain of those mice. What I'm trying to say is that as time goes on what we should value the most of all is our humanity and that's where we need to try to persuade some of the best young scientists and some of the best young humanists to think together about how to define, first, what it is we want most to treasure to keep in our humanity. What is virtue. What is the good life. What is it that's essentially human. Just like a ship. If a ship is just sort of sailing wherever the wind blows, goodness knows where you're going to end up. You have to have some idea to tell the navigator or head this way. This is the way we want to go. And so even though we're very early stages. He doesn't know about what kinds of storms or icebergs might lie. But you should begin, 'Dear Mr. Navigator, start thinking about these things'. So all of this huge technology which is coming along changing the human genome, fantastic computers, things like that.

GF: Professor Meselson it has been a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you so much for joining us today.

MATTHEW MESELSON: I enjoyed talking to you.

GF: Matthew Meselson is a professor of molecular biology at Harvard and the 2019 Future of Life Award recipient. He was in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

CINAR KIPER: Hi, I'm Cinar Kiper - the intern here at the Current. This week the show was produced by: Idella Sturino, Alison Masemann, Howard Goldenthal, Samira Mohyeddin, John Chipman, Karin Marley, Julie Crysler, Ines Colabrese, Danielle Carr, Jessica Linzey, Sarah-Joyce Battersby, Julianne Hazlewood and Cameron Perrier. Special thanks to Kieran Oodshorn at CBC Iqaluit. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producers are Padraig Moran, Emilie Quesnel and Kirsten Fenn. Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata and Shamhan Bhuiyan [SHAM-han BOO-yan]. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our documentary editor is Joan Webber, and our presentation producer is Liz Hoath. Our senior producers are Pacinthe Mattar in Toronto, and Cathy Simon and Geoff Turner in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Willow Smith. And of course, the host of the Current - Anna Maria Tremonti.

GF: That is our program for today. Stay tuned now for Radio One for Q. East Coast singer songwriter Jen Grant will be in the studio to perform from her latest album. And finally after our conversation about the so-called sex recession let's end the show today with some comedy from the folks at CBC TV's Baroness von Sketch. This sketch is entitled Chore Porn and it features an appearance by Jeff Douglas the actor and co-host of As It Happens. I'm Gillian Findlay. Thanks for listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

HUSBAND: I just filled the Britta.

WIFE: What?

HUSBAND: The Britta. I filled it.

WIFE: I don't understand.

HUSBAND: I was in the kitchen and saw the Britta. I noticed it was empty and then. I don't know. It's like the Britta and me shared a moment. And then before I knew it I was just filling it.

WIFE: Babe! This is huge.

HUSBAND: I know I saw what needed to be done and then I did it.

WIFE: I am so attracted to you right now.

HUSBAND: What are you doing? Are you trying to sexually reward me for doing chores?

WIFE: No. Am I? No. No. No. You feeling the Britta without being asked is sexually exciting to me. I'm turned on right now is that a thing? [To Siri] Siri. Is chore porn a thing?

SIRI: There are 12 million results for chore porn.

WIFE: Oooh okay. What are they?

SIRI: Okay. Would you like hard-core chore, chore whore, daddy's duties...

SIRI: Yes. All right. Just hang on a second. [To husband] Babe I'm going to go upstairs for a second. Oh yeah. You wipe that counter. Uh.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

Friday May 10, 2019 Full Transcript

More Stories Like This