Lee Cronin
speaker
545 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2023
last heard Jun 2024
Lee Cronin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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is that no one has attacked the actual physical content. Like you can measure the assembly index, you can measure selection now. So either that's right or it's, well, either that's helpful or unhelpful. If it's unhelpful, this paper will sink down and no one will use it again. If it's helpful, it'll help people scaffold on it and we'll start to converge to a new paradigm.
So I think that that's the thing that I wanted to see
you know my colleagues authors collaborators and people were like you've just published this paper you're a chemist why have you done this like who are you to be doing evolutionary theory like well i don't know i mean sorry did i need to who's anyone to do anything well i'm glad you did let me just before coming back to origin of life and these kinds of questions uh you mentioned learning difficulties i didn't know about this so what was it like
I wasn't very good at school, right?
Yeah, yeah. But in primary school, my handwriting was really poor and apparently I couldn't read and my mathematics was very poor. So they just said, this is a problem. They identified it. My parents kind of at the time were confused because I was busy taking things apart, buying electronic junk from the shop, trying to build computers and things.
And then once I got out of, when I was, I think about the major transition in my stupidity, like, you know, everyone thought I wasn't that stupid when I was, basically everyone thought I was faking, I like stuff and I was faking wanting to be it. So I always wanted to be a scientist. Mm-hmm. So five, six, seven years, I'll be a scientist, take things apart.
And everyone's like, yeah, this guy wants to be a scientist, but he's an idiot. And so, and so, so everyone was really confused. I think at first that I wasn't smarter than I, you know, was claiming to be. And then I just basically didn't do well in the test. I went down and down and down and down. And then, and I was kind of like, huh, this is really embarrassing. I really like science.
and everyone says I can't do it. I really like physics and chemistry and science and people say you can't read and write. And so I found myself in a learning difficulties class at the end of primary school and the beginning of secondary school in the UK. Secondary school is like 11, 12 years old. And I remember being put in the remedial class and the remedial class was basically full of
um were two types three types of people there were um people that had quite violent right you know and there were people can speak english and there were people that really had learning difficulties so um The one thing I can objectively remember was, I mean, I could read. I like reading. I read a lot. But something in me, I'm a bit of a rebel. I refuse to read what I was told to read.
And I found it difficult to read individual words in the way they were told. But anyway, I got caught one day teaching someone else to read. And they said, okay, we don't understand this.
i i always knew what to be a scientist but didn't really know what that meant and i realized you had to go to university and i thought i can just go to university it's like curious people like no no no you need to have these you have to be able to enter these exams to get this grade point average and the fact is the exams you've been entered into you're not you you're just going to get c d or e you can't even get a b or c right this is the uk gcses i was like oh shit
And I said, can you just put me into the high exam? They said, no, no, you're going to fail. There's no chance. So my father kind of intervened and said, you know, just let him go in the exams. And they said, he's definitely going to fail. It's a waste of time, waste of money. And he said, well, what if we paid? So they said, well, okay. So you didn't actually have to pay.
You had to pay if I failed. So I took the exams and passed them, fortunately. I didn't get the top grades, but I got into A-levels. But then that also kind of limited what I could do at A-levels. I wasn't allowed to do A-level maths.
Because I had such a bad math grade from my GCSE. I only had a C. But they wouldn't let me go into the ABC for math because of some kind of coursework requirement back then. So the top grade I could have got was a C. So C, D, or E. So I got a C. And they let me do kind of AS level math, which is this half intermediate and go to university. But in the end, I liked chemistry.
I had a good chemistry teacher. So in the end, I got to university to do chemistry.
I have no idea other than I was really – I really like not understanding stuff. For me, when I not understand something, I didn't understand – I feel like I don't understand anything now. But back then, I was so – I remember when I was like – I don't know. I tried to build a laser when I was like eight. And I thought, how hard could it be? Like – And I basically, I was going to build a CO2 laser.
And I was like, right, I think I need some partially coated mirrors. I need some carbon dioxide. And I need a high voltage. So I kind of, and I was like, I didn't have, and I was so stupid, right? I was kind of so embarrassed. To make enough CO2, I actually set a fire and try to filter the flame out. Oh, nice. To crap enough CO2. And I was like, it completely failed.
And I burnt half the garage down. So my parents were not very happy about that. So that was one thing. I was like, I really like first principle thinking. And so, you know... So I remember being super curious and being determined to find answers. And so when people do give advice about this, well, I ask for advice about this. I don't really have that much advice other than don't give up.
And one of the things I try to do as a chemistry professor in my group is I hire people that I think that, you know, I'm kind of home. If they're persistent enough... Um, who am I to deny them the chance because, you know, people gave me a chance and I was able to do stuff.
I'm, I like, so I love being around smart people and I love confusing smart people. And when I'm confusing smart people and, you know, not by stealing their wallets and hiding it somewhere, but if I can confuse smart people, that is the one piece of hope that I might be doing something interesting.
Showing 281–300 of 545 · page 15 of 28
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