In this episode I chat with psychologist, skeptic and author Sue Blackmore, who was at the Edinbrugh Book Festival to talk about her new book Ten Zen Questions.
The two of us chatted about parapsychology, her new theory about the evolution of technology and how to meditate in 20 seconds.
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/episode-4-afternoon-tea-with-sue-blackmore/
Speaker: Joshua Foer
Chair: Professor Helena Cronin
This event was recorded on 5 April 2011 in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Once upon a time remembering was everything. Today, we have endless mountains of documents, the Internet and ever-present smart phones to store our memories. As our culture has transformed from one that was fundamentally based on internal memories to one that is fundamentally based on memories stored outside the brain, what are the implications for ourselves and for our society? What does it mean that we’ve lost our memory? Joshua Foer studied evolutionary biology at Yale University and is now a freelance science journalist, writing for the National Geographic and New York Times among others.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/podcasts/publicLecturesAndEvents.htm
Scientists can now explain virtually every stage of the evolutionary process. But there’s a basic question that still mystifies even the best scientists: How did life first begin on Earth? Or to put in another way, how did non-life somehow turn into life? And can we say the Earth itself is alive? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll talk with James Lovelock about his Gaia theory, and explore the question, What is Life?
SEGMENT 1:
This hour explores some of the fundamental mysteries of life - from how it first started on Earth to the possibility of supremely intelligent life on other planets and why technology is evolving like life itself. We begin with a rare recording of Nobel Prize winning physicist Edwin Schrodinger and comments on his book "What Is Life?" from Nobel Prize winning biologists James Watson and Harold Varmus. We also hear from Ken Miller, co-author of the most widely used biology textbook in American high schools, and Craig Venter, widely regarded as one of science’s leading innovators. Venter, who’s come as close as anyone has to creating life in a test tube, tells Steve Paulson what drives him. And we hear from some ordinary people about what they think life is.
SEGMENT 2:
University of Wisconsin geochemist Nita Sahai talks with Anne Strainchamps about how life might have begun on Earth. On the other hand, maybe the Earth itself is alive. That’s the remarkable idea behind the Gaia hypothesis. James Lovelock came up with it in the 1960s and at first no one would take him seriously. Lovelock, now in his nineties and one of our most celebrated scientists, tells Steve Paulson where the Gaia theory came from and how it’s evolved.
SEGMENT 3:
Kevin Kelly is one of the founders of Wired magazine. He’s also the author of a provocative book called "What Technology Wants." Kelly tells Jim Fleming that the sum total of our technology - what he calls "the technicum" - is taking on the properties of life itself. And anthropologist Tom Boellstorff takes us on a tour through the virtual world of Second Life. Astro-biologist Paul Davies chairs the SETI Post-Detection Task Group and is the author of "The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence." He tells Steve Paulson that alien intelligence might be stranger than anything Hollywood has dreamt up.
Humans evolved a brain with an extraordinary knack for language, but just how and when we began using language is still largely a mystery. Early human communication may have been in sign language or song, and scientists are studying other animals to learn how human language evolved.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129155123
Tagged with language evolution communication science linguistics culture
Brain science podcast and interview with Maryanne Wolf - how the brain processes language.
Tagged with linguistics language brain cognition reading development science
The very first episode of Strange Quarks is out! Simon Singh talks to us about libel reform, skepticism, alternative medicine, and his appearance in Robin Ince’s "Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People" this year; while Simon Perry explains how he’s been using regulation to make life difficult for quacks. This week’s guest report is by Dr*T.
Tagged with science skepticism simon singh robin ince libel reform
May 27, 2010 on ABC Late Night Live All his life, Christopher Hitchens has written about war and conflict and politics, topics relevant to both his private and public life. In his new memoir, Hitch 22, he outlines how his obsessions shaped him as a writer and as a public intellectual.
Tagged with atheist atheism christopher hitchens science
How refreshing. Richard Dawkins talking to some one as smart as he is. This is SO much more interesting than belittling people’s views. A lovely dialogue.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/audio/2010/sep/11/evolution-dawkins
Tagged with dawkins attenborough science naturalism
How are the discovery of oxygen, the founding of the Unitarian Church and ecosystem science linked? Author Steven Johnson tells the story of scientist and theologian Joseph Priestley, a protege of Benjamin Franklin and friend of Thomas Jefferson, in The Invention of Air.
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