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Hi, I'm Bob Bain.

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I'm here in beautiful Seattle.

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It's a lovely day
and I'm excited

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to be talking with you
about Big History.

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I'm a friend
of David Christian's,

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a longtime colleague.

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We've worked together
on many projects

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and we're going to work
together here

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on the Big History Project.

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Like you,
I'm going to be listening

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to David's talks
and David's lectures.

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Like you, I'm going to be
learning many new things.

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Big History is exciting for me

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because Big History
makes me think.

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It encourages me
to ask new questions.

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It helps me rethink
the Universe and the world

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and my place in it.

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And from time to time,
David has invited me

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to talk with you,
to think with you

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about some of
the important ideas

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that David has done
in the Big History lectures.

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For example,
I loved the last lecture

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where David talked
about origin stories.

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Actually, origin stories
have been important in my life.

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My grandmother used to read me
these origin stories

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and they were beautiful,
they were wonderful.

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And in fact, I'm going to
read them to my grandchildren

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as they get a little bit older.

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But David told us
that origin stories

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do more than
tell a good tale.

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They make claims
about the way the world began

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and the way it works.

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"Claims"--
do you ever use that word?

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We historians and scientists
use the word "claims"

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to answer questions,
to make assertions,

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suggestions about
the way the world works,

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in answer to our own puzzles.

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Now, "claims" may not be a word
that you use every day,

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but you make claims every day.

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You're surrounded
by claims every day,

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you encounter them every day.

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For example, a friend tells you
over the weekend

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that they got the flu
and that's why

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they didn't call you.

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They're making a claim.

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If you read a blog
that tells you

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that your favorite band
is going to break up,

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they're making a claim.

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If you tell your parents
that the reason

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why you came in late
was because your cell phone died

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and you couldn't tell the time,
you're making a claim.

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But here's the question:
How would you know

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which claims to trust,
which ones to ignore

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and which ones
to investigate further?

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For example,
would you automatically trust,

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trust your friend
when they said,

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"I had the flu
over the weekend"?

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Would you trust
that blog enough

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to repost
your favorite band disbanding,

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and what about your parents?

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Would they trust that
your cell phone battery died

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and that was why
you came in late?

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In this course,
in the Big History course,

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we're going to ask you
to raise questions

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about claims,
to understand how it is

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that people make claims

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and by what means
we can trust them.

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The degree of trust in claims is
a very important question

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that we're going to take up
in this course.

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So let's take up this question
of how you learn to trust

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or how you evaluate claims.

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And let's use
an everyday experience,

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something I'll bet
that you've had.

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Let's imagine that we,
you and me, are going to go look

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for a new restaurant,
the Big History Caf￩,

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that we've heard
great things about.

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The food is exotic,
it's coming from

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all over the world,
heck, all over the Universe.

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And we hear
the portions are enormous.

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Unfortunately, we've gotten
lost on our way there.

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But good news.

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There's a person who seems
to know their way around

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approaching us.

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And so you stop them and say,

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"Hey, can you tell me
how to get

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to the Big History Caf￩?"

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And she says, "Of course.

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"You head down to the corner,
make a right,

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"pass the big department store

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"and a little ways
down on the left

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you're going to see
the Big History Caf￩."

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And so we start down our way
following those directions

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but suddenly we stop.

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Do we trust her?

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Does she really know?

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I mean, our intuition,
our gut said,

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"She seemed confident.

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Let's follow it."

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But then we stop and we decide,

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"You know, we should probably
check this out."

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So we turn back and we say,
"Excuse me.

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"Have you ever been
to the Big History Caf￩?

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Do you know where it is?"

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And she tells us, "Of course.

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"It's my favorite restaurant.

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I've been going there
for years and years."

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So we feel good about this.

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She is... seems to be
in authority,

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she's been there before
for the last five years

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and so we head on our way
to the Big History Caf￩.

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But then we stop
and all of a sudden

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you realize,
"Wait a second,

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"the Big History Caf￩
is a new caf￩.

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"It's only a year old.

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"She couldn't have been
going for five years.

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"There's something wrong here.

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"It doesn't make sense.

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"It's illogical for her
to have been saying

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that she's been going
for five years."

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Good news, though.

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You remember that we both have
cell phones

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and our cell phones have
mapping programs on it.

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So you decide, "Let's
map the Big History Caf￩."

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And because we both know
that sometimes mapping programs

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make mistakes, you decide,
"You map one, I'll map one

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and we'll check."

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Good news.

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We map the Big History Caf￩
and our cell phones agree,

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our mapping programs agree.

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By the way, we also discover

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that she had been telling us
the wrong directions

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to the... a different caf￩.

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In fact, we find
on our cell phones

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that the Little History Caf￩
is exactly

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where she said it was
going to be.

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The Big History Caf￩
is five blocks

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to the other direction.

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Confident now
that we have the evidence

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that our directions
are now accurate,

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we checked it out
in two sources,

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we head towards
the Big History Caf￩.

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Okay, that was
a pretty simple story

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and suspenseful
because we did get eventually

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to the restaurant, but I hope
what it did was illuminate

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four different ways
that human beings assess claims,

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we test claims.

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So what were they?

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We look for intuition
to test some claims.

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Intuition, a gut feeling

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like when we just felt
that she was telling us

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the right story.

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We also use authority.

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Now, authority is when we accept
information or data

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from a credible source,
a believable source.

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We also use logic.

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We test claims sometimes

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by using our minds
to think about something

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to see if these things
make sense.

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And then of course
we also test claims

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by using evidence.

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That's when we're gathering up

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available information
about the world.

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By the way, "evidence" is
an interesting word

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because "evidence"
comes from "evident,"

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to be able
to see something.

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It's something that we can see,
and in this story

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both of us could see it
on different sources

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and hence,
we were trusting our evidence.

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Of course, we want you to learn,
and more important,

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we want you to understand
the claims

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that people have been making
about Big History questions.

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The most important claims,
the best claims

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that we as human beings
can make and answer

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to those questions.

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But actually we want you
to do something more.

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We want you to develop
the skills

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to recognize when people
are asking good questions.

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We want you to develop
the skills to begin to assess

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other people's claims,
to use intuition,

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to use authority
and, most importantly,

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logic and evidence
to assess claims,

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to determine whether or not
they're trustworthy,

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to what degree you trust them,
whether or not

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you should ignore a claim
or whether or not

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claims need further
investigation, new questions.

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Why do we want you to do that?

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Because actually
that's how Big History works.

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That's the engine
that drives Big History.

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It's people just like you
that have begun to test

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and ask questions
about people's claims,

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raising new questions,
finding ways to develop

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new evidence and furthering
our collective learning.

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Incidentally,
I'm wondering,

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did you believe all those claims
that I made about myself?

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I didn't tell you
very much actually.

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I told you that I'm Bob Bain,

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I'm a friend and colleague
of David Christian's,

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but I didn't tell you
much more about me.

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Did your intuition tell you?

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"You know, my gut tells me
I can trust that guy."

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Or because I'm on this video,
did that give me the authority

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to make these claims
that I've been making?

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Did your logic tell you,
"You know, the story he told me

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"seemed to make sense

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and therefore it was credible
because it was so logical"?

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Or did you go online
to discover that actually

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I'm a professor
of history and education

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at the University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor

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and that for 26 years
before that

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I was a high school
history teacher?

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I'd like you to believe
those claims that I made

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but I want you
to be the judge.