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Join us on our quest for the extraordinary!
Sam McKee (@polymath_sam) has 9 university qualifications across 4 subjects including doctorates in history and philosophy of science and molecular biology. He researches both at two British universities and contributes to both space science and cancer research. Meet fellow polymaths and discipline leaders working on the frontiers of research from all over the world. Be inspired to pursue knowledge and drive the world forwards.
Watch and share interviews with professors, lecturers, researchers, engineers, scientists and astronauts, right here! We talk to the most extraordinary people working on the frontiers for humanity, driving research forwards and changing the world that we live in. We dive deep with thinkers, academics and true icons - many of whom you won't yet have heard of.
Listen to us here and on podcast whilst you drive, exercise, do chores, and be inspired to pursue extraordinary in your own life.
www.sam-mckee.co.uk
Polymath World (00:00.996)
Hello and welcome to the Polymath World Channel and I'm so delighted to bring to you today someone I've had the pleasure of getting to know last year and she's a really really remarkable person with an amazing story and I'm so excited to get into it. We love polymaths on the show and I've got another one for you today in Dr. Gillian Strain. Gillian it's so great to see you again and to talk to you about your amazing story.
Gillian (00:23.022)
thank you, Sam. It's lovely to be able to spend time with you in conversation.
Polymath World (00:27.202)
Yeah and there's so many places we could go but as usual we'll start from the beginning. Tell us about the first part of your academic journey and how you got into physics.
Gillian (00:40.118)
Thank you. So I studied physics straight from school. went to Imperial College and then went on, I say I just went upstairs in the same physics department and my PhD was on atmospheric physics. Always been obsessed with the weather. I'm a hill walker. My first job, first love was being a sailing instructor. And if you want to survive in the wilds of Scotland.
or on any water, even in the summer in Scotland, you need to know a lot about the weather and wind direction, what generates our systems. So atmospheric physics, so basically the study from earth up to about 12 or 14 kilometres, depending on your latitude, is a study of atmospheric physics. So I did an experimental PhD, because I'm quite a practical person, studying a bit of the electromagnetic spectrum using high altitude aircrafts as well. So I had a lot of fun.
and got to hang out in the Atmospheric and Space Department for four years.
Polymath World (01:40.408)
Gosh, I've got so many questions already. People will pick up your accent. Where are you from and what was the area like where you grew up that helped feed this passion?
Gillian (01:51.824)
thank you. I've got a weird accent. with apologies to the city of Aberdeen. I'm from Aberdeen. This is not an Aberdonian accent. I just have a funny way of speaking, I think. So Aberdeen is on the northeast coast of Scotland. It's industrial heart of the oil industry and right on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park, which is one of the UK's last wildernesses as well. So you can literally get lost for days.
up there in the hills. And I learned to sail in the summer holidays. I had a boat, I used to race it in the North Sea. Wasn't that great if I'm honest, Sam, spent quite a lot of time swimming when I went wrong. And then taught sailing for a bit in a couple of glorious summers before I went to university. So I love being on the water. I'm just a water baby. I like being near the water. And so that fueled a real passion in my heart and my body for being in the outdoors.
Polymath World (02:29.165)
Wow.
Gillian (02:48.715)
and found a way to make that a bit of an academic pursuit for a while.
Polymath World (02:53.571)
Amazing, beautiful. Were you a real mathsy, sciency kid? Were there other influences on you growing up that pointed you in the direction?
Gillian (03:03.245)
You know what, I was a bit of a annoying, was quite good at most things at school. School suited me, passing exams suited me. I know we're doing the whole story, but later on I really found I was naturally more attuned to theological study and writing essays as well. and I always, always read novels and I've got particular love for poetry as well. So yeah, I was into, I enjoyed the...
framework of science. I enjoyed it as a satisfying way to study the world or raise my eyes to the questions we have about the world, I guess, first. But I'm in no way a mathematical whiz. I say that quite a lot at home and my husband's like, you've got a PhD in physics, you're quite good at math. But you know what, when you've been to these departments and you know what it's like, Sam, you meet people who are really good at math and you realize I'm just average.
So it was part of who I was. wasn't like my main thing, I don't think, but it part of a way to discover the world, I think, that I enjoyed for a bit.
Polymath World (04:09.135)
You mentioned such a breadth of interests and influences. These things normally converge to drive people to be very ambitious academically. So where the sort of intersection of where the humanities and the sciences meet, were you interested as a child in sort of big questions? Was it the big questions about the weather and the atmosphere or the world or nature that sort of helped drive you in that direction?
Gillian (04:41.101)
I think Sam, I'm honest, I mean, if I was sitting in a PhD vibe, I would answer this differently. honestly, I think my study of science tied more into my, the way my, my body felt in nature or my experience of being out in a storm or the experience of as a child, the world being really confusing.
and difficult to grow up in actually for me at times. So science gave me away an escape almost in the same way as poetry gave me an escape into a different emotional world where I could find a bit of security and stability in a world that otherwise was quite confusing to grow up in. So it was less about I've got this burning desire to know, but actually when I...
spent time in poetry or the study of nature or the being in nature, I found there peace or more fully who I am. So I think that's what drove me really, rather than I want to be super clever and answer all these, I have these questions. It was about finding a way to be in the world.
Polymath World (05:59.01)
I that, I absolutely love that and I'm sure we'll be dipping back into that later on. You go all the way from Aberdeen down to Imperial, what made you choose that in particular? It's a long story.
Gillian (06:11.697)
It is a long trek. My school had never got anyone into Cambridge and Oxford and that seemed a bit complicated with the collegiate system. So it was the next best place to go. You know what, I'd never been to England before. I'd been to other places in the world but as a Scot we'd never considered visiting England. So that's whole thing.
So I literally got on a plane, my parents gave me an A to Z and a tube map and I flew to Heathrow and had to my way to South Cairn. But I went to Imperial because it said it was the best place to go, there wasn't Cambridge and Oxford. And that was all the thought I put into that really big decision. Sometimes I think those are the big decisions are best you go with your guts right. So that's how it worked out.
Polymath World (07:00.075)
Well, yeah, I mean, Imperial is an amazing place. It's a really, really terrific university. I don't want anyone listening to think it's sort some second rate place. Oxford and Cambridge are Oxford and Cambridge, but that's not for everyone.
Gillian (07:13.069)
No, I think they vie for the top place now. So yeah, it's a great place. Yeah.
Polymath World (07:19.967)
Did you enjoy studying in London?
Gillian (07:24.399)
I loved it. You know what, I landed into a group of halls of residence, a group of friends. And I think it's all about the relationships you make when you get there. We all lived together and I had eight physicist friends. We all lived in the same house. It was properly geeky. And Imperial just because it's got a high focus on experimental sciences as well. was a really
exciting place to feel a part of. You didn't think, didn't feel like you were going to get a degree. It felt like you were going to be part of the field of scientific research, the scientific world for a while. Yeah, so I had a wonderful time and very much enjoyed all the other things that London can offer.
Polymath World (08:07.787)
Terrific and you stayed there through Masters and PhD
Gillian (08:12.65)
I skipped the Masters, I just did the Bachelors, had a year off and then came back and did my PhD.
Polymath World (08:14.285)
lucky you.
Polymath World (08:20.077)
So tell us about what your PhD research was on. And atmospheric physics is not something we've covered here before. When people think about physics, it might not be the first branch of physics they think of. So can you open that up a bit for us?
Gillian (08:31.394)
Yeah, Yeah, of course. So atmospheric physics is a study of from the ground up to about to the top of stratosphere, which is between 10, 12 and 14 kilometers above the surface of the Earth, depending on where you are in the world. So it's the study of all the heat exchange, the the if you imagine the Earth with atmosphere and the sun is based on the sun comes in, gives all the Earth all its energy.
And then that light is either scattered and absorbed by the atmosphere or scattered and absorbed by the earth, which then pumps out infrared radiation, heat radiation, which goes back up. So it's a study of all those processes in between. That sounds, well, that's quite easy. It's amazingly complex. There's so many, there's all these different gases and cycles of movement, cycles of energy that go from, know, sub-particle, tiny little movements of
of atoms, how they absorb light, right to the long scale movement of heat through the oceans. So you've got all these multiple scales and systems going on and they all interact together. It's related, of course, to the weather, but where our study was, where my focus was, was how that relates to climate in the long term. So it involved everything from studying the ice age and past ice ages.
past interactions in order to understand what was going on right into the present so that we can predict the future. So basically, in a lot of ways, the study of atmospheric physics feeds into climate science, climate change, modeling, the large scale modeling that goes on as well. I was with the department there was with space physics, which is not unrelated. You know, if we have solar flares that can affect us here on Earth in loads of different ways and all that. So I got to hang out with who studying interesting things going on mostly within our galaxy.
My PhD was studying for infrared radiation in the troposphere, which is one of the higher levels in the atmosphere. So it's a very particular bit of the electromagnetic spectrum at a very particular altitude. So here we're getting a definer and final detail. And then what we did was took some measurements and compared them to the Met Office models for climate change. So we measured something that had never been measured before. And then that knowledge was used
Gillian (10:58.146)
to feed into ultimately Met Office climate change models. So it had real world impact as well. And it was lots of fun. We had an instrument that breaks the light into its spectrum. And that's how you look for the heat energy. But because we're dealing with tiny, tiny levels of heat, everything had to be super cool. So we've got to play with liquid helium, which is at four degrees above absolute zero.
Polymath World (11:04.995)
Yes.
Gillian (11:27.394)
liquid hydrogen, it all in an instrument and stuck it in a high level aircraft. was an ex Russian spy plane we stuck it in. And then we took it, we flew in Australia. So it had like adventure and travel, instruments breaking down and we had to do a of engineering to fix it. So it was really experimental. So drew on engineering, but drew on laser physics and all sorts of different things. Mathematically,
It is looking at Fourier transforms and radiative flow. So lots of different fields it pulls in, pulls in many classic fields into ultimately a very experimental project with real world impacts.
Polymath World (12:12.255)
Amazing. did want to dig into the tools of your trade a bit more. So did you yourself do a lot of flying at very, high altitudes?
Gillian (12:22.094)
No, so I did some flying. So our instrument was fitted on this high altitude aircraft and the pilot and the pilots are specially trained. They're almost like, this is your area Sam, space people. have to wear those altitudes, a pressurized suit and you'd have a special training to go on that aircraft. But we flew it in tandem with another aircraft. So we're out in Australia actually flying around a storm system.
which was really exciting for me to see, but we needed clear skies. So, but anyway, we had high altitude plane and below it through another plane, Cessna. And the top plane had our instruments and like cloud particle physics instruments, lots of different instruments. And this one had other instruments here, but we shot a laser, a LIDAR between the two. So they sort of flew around like this, mapping this air. And at the same time we had satellites giving us what they could in terms of what was in the atmosphere.
and radios on, so balloons that we launched from the earth up to give sort of information about what was going on in the atmosphere while we were flying around. And I got to fly on the lower one as well, not to do anything useful, but just to have the experience. I didn't need to be on the aircraft to make it work.
Polymath World (13:34.03)
Yeah, that's great. I love flying in little planes. I've only done it a few times, but it's just a wonderful experience. Before we get into the career change, the hard left direction that your life takes, what are the big questions of atmospheric physics for students who are listening or people who are interested in this field? What are the big problems to solve and the big questions on the table?
Gillian (13:37.742)
Yeah.
Gillian (14:00.302)
Yeah. So Sam, it's a few years since I've been in the field, but I think it continues to be the seeking of data to feed into these big models. As you know, if you've seen the climate change models, their outputs can have huge variability. European models compared to the American models. And these are some of the biggest computers in the world.
which I find fascinating that, you know, that our atmosphere, you look at, I'm looking at my window into the atmosphere for ever since there's been mankind, we've looked at the atmosphere yet we still can't fully map the complexity of what's going on. And that's a critical question. That's even a political question now to get that right. So as far as my understanding goes, I'm not in the field still actively working. That's still, we still need that really basic stuff.
How on earth do clouds work entirely? How do we model the complexity of the world? I nearly said God's world, but we're not there yet. We still need the data to make further strides in that area.
Polymath World (15:12.959)
And you said you were studying the troposphere. What is it particularly about the troposphere that is interesting?
Gillian (15:25.134)
it's a bit we live in, so we needed to be so finely balanced.
What's particularly interesting? I don't, I'm not sure. It's just really complicated. I think it's still really complex. It's where all our clouds live. It's so, and subject to such big changes can be produced from really small variations. It's a butterfly effect, chaos mathematics and stuff like that. So that's probably the draw, the human draw is how do you understand something so mundane?
as the weather, news at six o'clock, but we still don't really understand it enough to able to predict even the weather well the next day. So I think that's a human draw towards studying it still, I would say.
Polymath World (16:21.179)
I love that. Thank you. It's a fascinating area of physics and yet not something you really hear a great deal about. Your life takes a hard left turn while you're doing your PhD when you discovered you had cancer and then it triggers a massive change in your journey and your story and I really want to make sure we were able to commit a lot of time to talking about this. So can you just tell us about that process?
being so young and how that changed your life and the effect that's ultimately had on your career. I mean we're really grateful you're still here but if you can if the table is yours to to map this out for us.
Gillian (16:51.31)
Mm.
Gillian (16:58.574)
Thank you.
Gillian (17:06.858)
thank you, Sam. Yes, so I'm very happy to talk about all of that. But just also to say if anyone's listening today and they are currently going through cancer diagnosis or living with somebody or worried about somebody they love, then just to look after themselves as they're listening to my story. I don't want to be triggering anyone as they're listening as well. So I think I think I was ill with cancer during my finals of university as an undergrad.
I was having a lot of the symptoms as well. I was ultimately diagnosed with advanced Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is a cancer of the lymphatic system. And it gives, it can give symptoms of symptoms like night sweats and itching. And I was certainly feeling that during my finals. I had been accepted onto the PhD program after my finals. went home to earn some money back home to Aberdeen.
so I could have fun that summer before returning to London. And it's weird, I did have a big lump on my neck, but I hadn't noticed. But what I did notice was I was unable to sleep. I felt really restless. And actually, it was when I was climbing one of my favorite mountains, Loch Nagar, some Munro, which means a big mountain in Scotland by myself, something I'd done before one day.
And I nearly didn't make it back to the car. I'd had a doctor's appointment in the direct, I had some inkling something was wrong. But I really remember that experience of being in the hills, children overtaking me, families walking by thinking, I can't make it back to the car. And knowing what, not consciously, I don't think, but knowing something was really wrong with my body. I went to the doctor's the next day and straight away.
It was like the textbook case had walked in. I think from the doctor's perspective, I had all the symptoms and then went through a staging process where they do lots of different tests to work out how far it's gone through your body. And within two or three weeks, I had the diagnosis. And then I went through six months of chemotherapy. It's one of the toughest chemotherapies to give as an outpatient. So I was pretty sick with it, lost all my hair, lost my eyebrows.
Gillian (19:30.466)
had to move back home with my parents, having had three years of freedom in London. that didn't cut, that was a thing as well. When you lose your freedom and have to become reliant on others to care for you. I was one of the first to be treated without radiotherapy. So I had a large lump in my neck and in my chest as well. Because the thing with cancer treatment, the tools and thank God we have them to
deal with cancer are pretty violent. mean chemotherapy is chemical warfare. Surgery is with sharp knives and radiotherapy is radiation. as a trial I didn't have radiotherapy because the radiotherapy itself came with risks of breast cancer and other types of cancer. So I didn't have that. And the thanks be to God went into remission at the 27th of February 2001.
And as far as I thought was going to happen, everybody wanted me to go into remission. course, everybody, particularly me, wanted to survive this and get through it. And I thought that when the doctor said, you know, you're in remission, it's worked. Get on with your life. I thought that would be it, That would be life back to normal. I can get over this thing. Go back and see all my mates. Get on my PhD. But my experience was
that although the doctor said I was in remission and a few years later they would say I was cured, I didn't feel like anything had changed. And I didn't feel better. I didn't feel like it was over. And when I went back to London, I had a really tough time with my mental health. I was partying too much. I was not looking after my body.
looking back and it was really not well at all because what had happened was I went back to my old life and I didn't fit anymore. You know like you get these children's toys and you've got to put this square through the square hole and the round thing through the round hole. It was like I didn't fit in the hole that was my life before and the more I kept trying to shove myself back into my old life the more I was hurting myself.
Gillian (21:52.994)
because what I think cancer had done, I think what all serious illness does and say other serious experiences, they change us. Simone Weil, who's a French philosopher, she says this kind of suffering, suffering that's not just physical, but also emotional, also spiritual, also psychological, which is what cancer is and other stuff. It leaves a trace upon your soul, right? It changes who you are. So sometimes people say, you know,
I'm more wise as a result or you know I see life differently as a result. That's not a quick thing for many people and it certainly wasn't for me. I had to figure out who I was now as a result of what I'd been through. As a person of faith I believe God had created me, loved me, made me in my mother's womb. Right? So why on earth had this happened? That's the existential question, right? Why on earth?
So I had to work hard to reconcile what I believed with what I'd been through. And that wasn't just kind of sitting on a church and a sun. This was a whole body thing, right? I no longer fitted in my own life. So that was what was going on for me spiritually and psychologically, emotionally and in an embodied way while I was doing my PhD as well, doing all these big thinking about.
Polymath World (23:08.117)
I ask you, were you particularly religious before this happened or was it an incidental part of your life or was it a big part of your life before you had cancer?
Gillian (23:21.616)
no, that's a really good question. I would say it was an inherited and social part of my life. I was, my parents made me go to Sunday school probably to get rid of me I think on a Sunday morning. Like it's just, and I went to church in London because that's what one did and I made friends there. But in no sense, I don't think was I, I think I,
I think for me, God had always been part of my life, but religion wasn't a huge part of what was going on for me. I think I had religious and spiritual experience during my cancer treatment, but it was only part of the way, I think the most important way, but it was part of the way I then sought healing from the experience once I'd found the medical cure. I needed to go on a deeper healing journey.
part of which was religious for me or spiritual at the time. And then through that found that for me the religious or spiritual healing aspects or the religious and spiritual way of being in the world, of seeking knowledge in the world was the primary one. And one that I now work to bring back into science and bring back into my life.
Polymath World (24:37.495)
some
Polymath World (24:43.107)
That's very interesting because I imagine a lot of people and perhaps a lot of people would expect this that when you go through acute suffering that would certainly challenge your faith but probably for a lot of people destroy it completely. But you went the other way and I have met plenty of people who've gone the other way. It's going through suffering that has either moved them to faith in the first place or deepened their faith, been the source of comfort. So why for you in particular do you think it went...
Gillian (25:07.096)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Polymath World (25:12.877)
went in the positive direction.
Gillian (25:16.878)
because God's God. I think what you're naming there's...
Polymath World (25:22.539)
You're a good person, you're a warm person, you're not a vindictive person or a bitter person at all in any way.
Gillian (25:30.958)
I think that human cry, I will answer your question actually in a second, but what you've named there is really important, Sam, that human cry, why me? Why? Is archetype, right? It goes through all cultures and through all time. And it's the right question to ask, I think, as well. And so often you're right, people do then abandon faith or abandon God because
in some ways of faith said, know, God loves me and they'll make it better. And it didn't appear to happen for them. And that move is nuanced. It doesn't make God any less real, I don't think as well. But I think it's the question and the question to be handled so carefully and with such compassion as well. But for me, I think I had that experience of doctor saying, you're fine. Get back to your old life. And me going, OK, well, it doesn't feel any it doesn't feel good anymore. I went on a journey, I think, and it was an
This sounds really geeky. It was an epistemological journey. Like I went on a journey, Sam, to work out what on earth happened. that journey, I think, had three parts, three clear parts. The first was I went and looked at my experience of cancer as a scientist. So I spent time looking at the cleverness. Well, I didn't start there. I would look at what is cancer? Why does it happen in the body?
What is it about this way of cellular division that somehow goes out of control and ends up taking over? Because cellular division is the thing that gives life. And cancer is a disease where the cellular division just goes out of control. And all the little ways cancer worked out how to counteract all the other clever ways the body tries to stop it working. So actually one author talks about it as cancer as the Wiley Fox.
So in some ways I spent time as a scientist getting to know what had happened to me. I read all the papers on Hodgkin's lymphoma and I found that for me as a person in remission, I found that empowering. I was quite impressed at the science of cancer, gosh isn't it clever. But also I'd been subject to a medical system that saw me as a disease. I had a blue folder with my name on it, but as far as the doctors were concerned and the nurses and all sorts of people, I was the diagnosis.
Gillian (27:55.17)
So I'd been stripped of my, the nuances that make a human being a human for good reasons as well. So there's something about seeking some knowledge around the disease, but also seeking power to go back. And that was for me, part of the healing journey. The second part of healing journey was relational, because human beings were built to be in relationship with each other. And I was treated for cancer in the Northeast of Scotland, very, not a...
a part of the world that takes emotions too seriously. know, smile, don't cry, it's fine, do what you're told, don't make fuss. But you know what, I was a human being in that chemotherapy room with other human beings. So what I actually did, Sam, was I got back in contact with my chemotherapy nurse, Jeff. We didn't have much in common. Otherwise, he was gay, a Jew, very different from me. But I said, look, I just want to hang out for a bit. And I want to talk about
what chemotherapy was like for you from your end of the needle. Because with my chemotherapy, Jeff had to sit next to me for hours because I had to go into my body really slowly in case I had a reaction. So we went and talked about it. And for me, that was really healing. I met the human being that was part of it. And then I went on the spiritual journey with it as well. I was a person of faith. I believe that God loved me and helped me through this. So what did I need to learn about God?
What did I need to learn about God's revelation on earth in order to be able to put together my experience with my belief? And for me that was particularly drew me to the Paschal narrative where Jesus was told he was going to suffer, fought against it, suffered the deepest pain of a human body can go through, was abandoned by his friends and lost to death.
and yet rose again. So if my God could have gone through the suffering of the chemotherapy suite of a doctor looking at his boots and saying, I'm sorry, but the God was with me through what I've gone through and continues to be with me and that flourishing and healing is possible and deeper things are there. And what I found in the epistemological and hermeneutical understanding of illness.
Gillian (30:21.902)
different kinds of knowledge of the world could be found. Knowledge you can't find via equations or lasers or high altitude aircrafts. There was a whole other set of knowledge about the world that is useful for helping us learn how to live in the world. So for me, that became the healing journey. one that brought me ultimately deeper into a relationship with God, but not in a kind of sticky plaster. Oh, well, that's fine that way, you know, in a deeply challenging way as well. And it's then shaped probably
well, has shaped what I've done with my life from then onwards.
Polymath World (30:56.74)
It's not, I...
I'm amazed listening to... I always love hearing religious people actually talk about wrestling with suffering and theodicies. I always find that really, really interesting. How personal your journey is and the way you navigated it. And you were so young as well, you're early mid-20s when this is going through. It's an amazing story. And I think maybe a lot of physicists will be listening with amazement, but not...
any disdain when you talk about knowledge outside of physics, knowledge outside of science. It's a very personal knowledge, of in a Michael Polanyi sense maybe in terms of philosophy. But it changes the course of your life and this really sort of becomes the focus of your life in terms of
how you've committed yourself to the healing, the well-being, the holistic, I love the way you framed it, the whole person side of suffering.
And there is a fantastic lineage of physicist theologians, I think John Polkinghorne and a lot of scientists who've ended up going into the priesthood or the other way around. So you're continuing a fantastic tradition there, aren't you?
Gillian (32:17.218)
Yeah.
Gillian (32:21.166)
I am, sorry, I am, that sounds very grand. think...
Gillian (32:31.598)
The physicist I'm really drawn to, or I have been drawn to for long time, is Marcelo Gleiser. He won the Templeton Prize a few years ago and through another organization I've been involved in, Christian Evidence Society, it's an interesting group of folk, we got him over from America to deliver a lecture in St Paul's Cathedral just before he won the Templeton Prize. And I was just, actually, don't know if you can see, it's a photo that's sitting behind me on my shelf because it was one of the highlights.
Polymath World (32:38.129)
wow.
Polymath World (32:41.337)
Yes.
Gillian (33:01.75)
of my life, really, meeting him because his concept of science is quite different from Polkin, Horne's and other other other philosophers and theologians and science people. And he writes of science is like an island and the shores of the island, the beach where the sea hits are the limits of our knowledge. But as we moat.
know more and more about the world, the physical rational world around us and study it, which is fascinating, particularly all this fuzzy edges, quantum mechanics and human consciousness and all the rest of it. We study the island just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. as it gets bigger, that shoreline just gets longer. Because as far as glyphosate is concerned, science is an endeavor that just take us deeper and deeper into mystery.
And he argues and people disagree with him on this, that there will never be an end point to science where we know everything. Because particularly quantum mechanics, the study of human consciousness, causal joints questions, they're just taking us deeper and deeper into mystery, where more and more theologians of all religions are pulling up a chair at the table and being welcomed into this because we're studying, we're studying uncertainty, we're studying into the, into the dark. So having and
He, Gleiser, is an agnostic, not an atheist. But I think his approach speaks to me because the human experience of life on Earth, the human experience of suffering, of joy, of beauty, of science is a very embodied experience as well. And I run a health and healing charity and so on. But what we do, we raise up in that is that the experience of
ill health is a place of knowledge seeking, not about how to feel better or not about how to cope. It's a place of knowledge seeking. It's a hermeneutical opportunity to get a deep knowledge about being a human on this planet and about how to live well. And it should be as valued as rational knowledge and scientific study. It should be up there as
Gillian (35:24.104)
as ways to seek knowledge as a Christian, I would say seek knowledge of God, but actually seek it is within a larger epistemological framework that the human experience needs to be raised. I mean, just the simple fact that our guts are lined with brain cells and we have in our common parlance, you know, I just had a feeling about him or I just did. And you've mentioned Pollyani already, you know, I know we know more than we can tell. There's this gut embodied effective way to come at.
come out the world and combining them all from my experience of cancer and ill health can be transformational.
Polymath World (36:02.456)
It's amazing, this thing of finding beauty in suffering, finding truth, finding life in places of pain, finding yourself in that. It's not something we're here talked about enough. I don't think enough people are doing the kind of work that you're doing. So carry on your journey. You end up studying theology and entering the priesthood, don't you?
Gillian (36:28.366)
Yeah, yeah. So, yes, OK, let's remember what happened. my PhD. Felt a call to the church. That's a very weird phrase, right? I just felt that it's very hard to put into words. I felt that I would be happier. We must never underrate the possibility being happy. Working within church and community, particularly drawn probably to people who are suffering.
And so on. I had a year working at two parishes in London. I worked at a very well-heeled parish in Knightsbridge there and then worked a really tough parish where all the social housing for Westminster was. Just north of Marlborough. know, drugs, gangs, murders, a lot of mental health, a lot of poverty, a difficult community worked there and I found lots of...
actual similarities between the two parishes. Lots of human need in one parish. In Nyshpils, the human need was covered with pearls and fur coats, but it was there nonetheless. I still had those two experiences of working in parishes, seeing the transformational power of communities, of human beings coming together, of compassion, of honesty, of worship, and the power of prayer. The power of prayer, despite it all, is some of the most difficult circumstances.
I've never met an atheist who's told me their sad story or suffering. And when I've said, can I pray for you? No one's ever said no. Right. Anyway, I two years. I did one year in the parish and then I did three years at the theological college in Oxford. got the opportunity, which I'm really grateful to study at Oxford University. I did what's called schools, which is our classic way to come with theology, which I just loved. I just loved.
and I found I was much better at it than science. It's just my brain worked better in that way. Studied the philosophy of science during my degree in theology and realized at that point I would have been a better scientist had I studied the philosophy of science earlier. People should do that much earlier. Yeah, quiet, I know. It's all epistemology, isn't it? So I some greats at Oxford, had the experience of studying with Peter Harrison, who's a great man around science and religion.
Polymath World (38:36.01)
mental
Gillian (38:47.49)
lots of top theologians as well, which is very intimidating, but also exciting. got taught how to think, I think. Then did a three-year curacy, so worked as a priest in a beautiful parish in Oxford, down to our parishes, did absolutely heaps of funerals, lots of baptisms and a few weddings, and got to be part of a community for a few years then. So that was sort of my transition from science into church and community ministry.
Polymath World (39:16.164)
There's two other things I want to make sure that we can talk about in the time that we've got. One is your role in academic science and religion because you sit in, you've got plenty of fellowships and involvements and just the academic world of what talking about and studying science and religion looks like is something we haven't really done here. But also your charity and the wellbeing work. So whichever one you'd like to go to first.
Gillian (39:44.558)
So let's talk about the charity. It's called the Guild of Health in St. Raphael. It's got long titles. We shorten it to Go Health. It's not my charity. It's been around for 120 years. I work with the board and a super creative team. And our mission is very broad. It is to talk about the healing ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus, when he was around, he told his disciples to do two things, make more disciples and heal.
The church has always been involved in healing. The church was at the very beginning of the hospital system and the university system in Europe. So it's always been part of it academically to begin with now. And so we work, we sit between churches, individuals and the academy in thinking what does that look like today? So when you can go to the doctor, if you can get an appointment.
you go with certain expectation of the healing that you hope to get. You might want to go to Holland and Barrett, which is a health food chain in the UK. You can buy some things that can help with health. What health do you expect when you go to church? And the most interesting bits, think, Sam, is the vast study of the spiritual aspects of being human in the academy and how that relates to healing.
So for example, the study of the relief of pain within medicine and within the academy is fascinating. So if you put, if you've got three people, one with a broken leg, one with in an existential crisis and one in grief, you stick them in an MRI scanner or whatever and do a brain scan, 80 % of the same bits of the brain will light up.
for physical, spiritual and existential pain. Pain is pain is pain. And what science has been studying for many years is that the type of thing we do in churches and mosques and synagogues, right, relieve pain and they can measure it. So things like having a conversation with somebody in pain and really listening to the answer, right. They can measure a brain response in the person in pain and a reduction in pain perception.
Gillian (42:04.962)
things like singing together, doing things together. The way that our body interacts with our spiritual life in prayer can be measured. your spiritual wisdom and affect your spirituality, your spiritual intelligence is massively affected by what you do with your body.
So things like kneeling or bowing creates a certain sense within your body and it can deepen your spiritual experience of God if you believe in God, but can deepen your ability to sense, to slow down and sense wisdom in nature, right? So I think what's really interesting, we do lots of stuff with church, we do lots of stuff with mental health and suffering. We help a lot of people answer that question, why me? But.
But what we do is work with the academy who are really studying in lots of different ways, all the different ways that spirituality can improve human health and improve human flourishing. And what I try to do with my brilliant team is translate that stuff in the academy to the folk on the ground who are in pain and who are suffering as well. So we try to be that bridge between the academy and people on the ground because we've got large networks. We work with lots of different churches in the UK, Methodist, Salvation Army, Church of England, Church of Scotland.
So we've got the networks to get the good stuff in the academy to the people who are in pain. So that's the kind of the day job and the day vision. It's an interesting moment to be working in it Sam, because particularly after the pandemic, the NHS knows it cannot possibly deal with all the suffering in our communities. And there's so much suffering.
from mental health problems, from loneliness, from lack of, from dislocation in our communities. These are all spiritual problems. And the churches and the people of faith and other faiths can be there to support people at this time. We probably come with different theological frameworks for that, but we're there for them. The way I try to work and my team try to work is from that place of good theology and deep epistemology around what we're doing and taking very seriously our human stories.
Gillian (44:21.759)
as well as a route in for people to find a bit of healing and transformation in their life.
Polymath World (44:28.18)
very powerful, deeply meaningful and very successful work that you do. I I kind of sneer at alternative health stuff generally if I see alternative medicines things like that. I'm like no can I actually have like real science medicine please but there's absolutely no denying the success and the very powerful life-changing work that you do, the charity does in contact with people who
Gillian (44:44.322)
Yeah.
Polymath World (44:58.124)
suffering whether it's through mental health or physical health or both.
Gillian (44:59.822)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, just as I mean, thank God for medicine. So we never say don't take your medicines. Don't go, you know, if you break your leg, go to hospital, don't come to church. You know, it is valuing God's gifts through NHS. But there's different levels of healing, there's physical healing, there's mental healing. But there's also the healing that faith in Jesus Christ brings, right? Because we deal in death, you know, and that's partly in my own journey.
the life, death, suffering of Jesus Christ and the resurrection means that as an organization, when we talk about healing, we can deal with death and suffering and disability, right? So it's never about perfectionism, but it's finding out how to flourish at every age and stage of our life and to how not to be scared, how not to be, how fear, and that's impossible. we're human, I had a cancer scare a couple of years ago and I was scared. I was really scared.
But we've got a place that you can come to seek the highest level of healing, which is connection with God and peace, irrespective, deep peace, irrespective of what you're going through.
Polymath World (46:06.788)
piece, gosh there's something so many need right now, something we need every day, but sort of a deep lasting piece. I know what you mean, you're not just talking about a moment's stillness but a deep piece, a contentment. It feels like what you're doing on so many levels is plugging people into real life where people have lost it for a lot of different reasons and I love it.
Gillian (46:10.604)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Gillian (46:23.992)
Hmm.
Gillian (46:29.582)
Hmm. Yeah.
Polymath World (46:34.4)
Let's, I want to make sure we can point people, by the way, in the links to your charity and your work for people who want to find out a lot more about all this. But actually a little anecdote before we move on. I had the opportunity to go hear the astronaut Chris Hadfield speak.
Gillian (46:42.466)
No.
Polymath World (46:53.096)
and again thank you to my wife, got me a Father's Day gift to go and hear him present and I love Chris. Chris is one of more famous astronauts, brilliant communicator and he was asked about sort of things he's learned in life now that he had retired as an astronaut and
I was expecting to hear some incredible scientific thing about the cosmos or some practical scientific discovery he'd been involved with or what it was like living on the International Space Station for so long.
And what he said blew me away, he said, what I've learned is that everyone you meet is suffering. Everyone you meet is suffering and you won't be able to tell it on the surface and people put on a face, but always when you're dealing with people, be mindful of the fact that they're probably suffering. I was like, wow, Chris, that wasn't what I was expecting to hear this evening, but it's what made its mark on me the most.
Gillian (47:25.23)
Mm.
Gillian (47:36.174)
Hmm.
Gillian (47:43.406)
Mm.
Gillian (47:48.364)
Yeah.
Polymath World (47:51.509)
But anyway, that's my my anecdote. We could talk about these things for so long. Yes, it really is. Astronauts tend to be pretty wise. Maybe it's their experience. When people think about academic science and religion,
Gillian (47:57.28)
Yeah, that's so beautiful.
Gillian (48:03.725)
Yeah.
Polymath World (48:10.71)
you're going to get two camps. You're going to get the people who are interested in the nuance, probably people who have a foot in the humanities and the sciences, or a deep appreciation for both. It's amazing the number of young people I meet who are thinking about university and are torn between the two because they love both.
Or you'll get, maybe that we've already mentioned Richard Dawkins here, that when it's time for like science and religion, that's a fake subject. It's just a sort of a made up academic discipline for people who think these two, these square pegs can't go in these round holes. So if you want to sort of clear some myths and explain what academic science and religion looks like.
Gillian (48:51.998)
wow, thank you for the question. I'm work on my face when we talk about Richard Dawkins. Yeah, so.
Polymath World (48:53.468)
Hahaha
Gillian (49:04.918)
In the academy, so there's four classic ways to think about how science and religion are in the world. There is the conflict model, which Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and so on, they are at war. And only stupid people believe in science because they can't deal with the world. They need myths and stuff to make themselves feel better. And everybody else is sensibles here. So that's a conflict model. And there's three other basic models. This is after the work of Ian Barber.
You either put them, you keep them separate, so the non-overlapping magisteria, know, religion for how to live, religion for the whys, the science for the hows, keep them apart. That's, you know, that's a good way to come at it. You put them into dialogue and they talk about their approaches to the world and epistemology, probably keep the distance over the questions, or you go to a convergence model.
that maybe would involve your process theologians, you see God is emergent in our system, or Teilhard de Chardin, who's a kind of convergent person. So there's basically four models, right? No one serious in the academy does conflict. No one. Not the historians, not the theologians, not the philosophers, and so on. Maybe he'll get mentioned at the start, because it's inaccurate historically.
It's inactive philosophically, it's inactive theologically. It's not that there's not points of conflict between science and religion, are. But as magisteria, when you're talking about them being in conflict, that's a political stance and one that sells lots of books because people like black and white thinking. It's very attractive to think, I don't need to bother with that bit of life.
I can be in this club over here. And that's human. understand the desire for clarity as well. It helps to get up in the morning and know exactly how to negotiate the world. Unfortunately, the entire Academy of Philosophy, Theology and all the rest of how to be human in the world, most importantly, disagrees. And I think that's the most important point. How you choose, I mean, it's a bit more complicated than three other choices.
Gillian (51:20.162)
But how you choose to live is worthy of spending time and thought about because it rubs up against moral questions and ethical questions and it rubs up against how to be in the world. I don't mean just be in the world, how to flourish and live your fullest possible life. It's worth spending time looking at philosophy and theology and the spiritual aspects of life and science in order to do that. But I think there's choice. I wrote a book, Science, Religion, The Path Through Polemic, right?
I think there's choices and that's because we're each, I would say, wonderfully and beautifully made. We've all had different experiences and this experience is important. So you could interview somebody else who was also 21 when they got Hodgkin's lymphoma and they would have an entirely different experience from me. We had the same disease, the same cells multiplying not only in the wrong place, but we had different experiences of it. That's because we're humans. So taking our experience seriously.
as a place of knowledge seeking is part of this. And then for me, it becomes hugely invitational. What do you think? How have you lived? What's happened to you? How do you seek to live your best life and flourish? That then becomes the thing, which is a lot less dry than science and religion dialogue. it's about how to live.
Polymath World (52:37.892)
Yeah, terrific. I'm impressed by Ian Barber's four models. it's, I suppose if I had to pick one, I find the dialogue model very attractive. But there are places where I find actually the non-overlapping magisteria makes sense. There are, as you said, like points of conflict. They always are more than meets the eye. So yeah, I think of Galileo, for example, or...
or the debate between Huxley and Wilberforce in 1860 in Oxford, or it's a hundred years since the Scopes Monkey Trial. There are points in history where you go, well, certainly science and religion have clashed here. I mean, I get told I'm going to hell by creationists quite a lot. I don't have any time or patience for creationists more intelligent design, so...
Gillian (53:11.971)
Mm.
Gillian (53:18.274)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gillian (53:24.621)
Yeah.
Yeah, and me too, so that's good.
Gillian (53:33.378)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Polymath World (53:35.662)
There are places where there are people who do seem to want to put them at war. What have they got wrong? The religious who are saying that science is wrong and, you know, a power of evil in the world, and the scientists who saying religion is just medieval studies and mythos.
Gillian (53:40.77)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gillian (53:49.795)
Yeah.
Gillian (53:54.702)
What do they, what they got along, they probably stopped listening to each other. I think all those examples, Galileo, Wilberforce, and even intelligent design. mean, at the heart of those, those moments in history, what was really going on was an insecure institution, the church, anxious about losing power. That's Galileo thing. It was never about heliocentricity because Copernicus had talked about it a hundred years ago and you know, that caused no bother whatsoever.
Galileo was by people who studied him more than me, an arrogant man, a brilliant man, arrogant man, who thought he could do a bit of interpretation for the Pope. When we've got the Reformation, I mean, honestly, talk about sensitive, I know that was not a good move. So these are human beings being human beings. And the church has been defensive and has hung on to power and it's been scared.
Polymath World (54:29.828)
He's not the sweetest guy in the world.
Gillian (54:53.71)
as well. So I think there's also the ecclesiastical dynamic to some of this as well that's going on. And I think it still goes on today. Abuse of power in our institutions. People finding their source of power through the institution, through their position in the institution. But these are also human beings who are scared, who have seen science as a threat and have acted as scared human beings.
to defend what they know is true. there's a tragic love story here. know, God made all of us, I would say, atheists and bishops, right? But we're all subject to sin, to ego, to fear. And that produces these swirling human dynamics on top of these debates. And intelligent design and creationism is same. These are clubs.
that have got a bit of science, they think of science to back them up and intelligent design and creationism, they are the entry topic on the door to these buildings. You've got to believe this before you can come in, Jesus, none love, none forget this. And what is that about as well? That's fear. That's fear of being open to some of the uncertainty in science and what it might say and how it matches up to what the big book says.
It's all driven by fear. In the time of the very early church theologians, in the first few hundred years, we have Augustine saying, yeah, no, if it doesn't match what you see, maybe God's big enough to cope with that. We've had our way of interpreting this stuff for hundreds of years, but we are humans who get scared and lack power. And that's, think, a swirly dynamic in a lot of these conversations.
Polymath World (56:27.652)
Yeah.
Polymath World (56:41.176)
that's terrific summation of it there. If people want to find out more about you, find out more about your work, your research, whether it's academic or to do with health, where should they go?
Gillian (56:54.222)
So I've got quite an unusual name so you can just Google my name. So we I run a podcast Go Health podcast. That's geo, it's been the Go Health podcast. So that's completely free and I get into conversations just like we have today with interesting folk with interesting suffering stories, interesting views on the world. We tackle lots of different topics like addiction, racism, mental health, lots of things. The podcast, our website, gohealth.org.uk. There's lots going on in there. We've just about to launch a beautiful new
holistic health tool, holistic health tools called the lift program. So you can experiment with your, your ways to keep well. So your sleep, nutrition, movement, mental health, connection and community through the faith lens. So that's going on as well. So there's lots on the website and do be in contact if you want to know more. I'm really open. I'm always open. It's my downfall to chatting to people about this stuff. So that's why we launched a wellbeing course so I can stay well.
Polymath World (57:48.046)
Classic.
Polymath World (57:51.656)
I'm so grateful you've been able to join us today and that there's so much more we could have unpacked so maybe we should do this again sometime. Thank you so much for joining us today. Amazing story, amazing work, amazing person. I'm so glad I got to meet you.
Gillian (57:58.51)
That'd be cool.
Gillian (58:06.338)
thank you, Sam. Me too. I'm so glad I got to meet you.
Polymath World (58:09.038)
Thanks very much.