Caltech physicist Sean Carroll thinks big...really big. And not just about quantum physics, the multiverse and the other weird ideas in his field. He also loves philosophy and wonders whether there's any underlying meaning to our lives. In this wide-ranging conversation, Carroll talks with Steve Paulson about science, the universe and what he calls "poetic naturalism."
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Philosopher Susan Brison faced a personal and professional crisis after she was attacked and raped in France. She tells Anne Strainchamps how traditional philosophy failed to comfort her.
People who like baseball call it "the thinking person’s game," but for the first 100 years, baseball was governed by a surprisingly limited range of critical thinking. Decisions were made by insiders, the current and former players who spent a lifetime around the diamond, and did things mostly one way: the way they've always been done. But in the last 3 or 4 years, that storehouse of common knowledge—much of which was kept guarded in a true "old boy's club"—has been cracked wide open. Now the game isn't driven by intuition, it's driven by data. And the math nerds who rode the bench in Little League—if they played at all—are now telling pro ballplayers what to do. Journalist Travis Sawchik tells Steve Paulson the story.
Simon Winchester talks with Jim Fleming about the short-sightedness of placing cities where the planet doesn't think they should be.
In the late 1970s, the men's liberation movement split into two camps. A pro-feminist faction, and the anti-feminist Men’s Rights Movement, which sees men as an oppressed group. Critics have accused them of creating a breeding ground for misogyny, internet trolling and violence against women. The father of the Men’s Rights Movement is Warren Farrell, author of the core text of the movement, “The Myth of Male Power.”
Sara Nelson tells Anne Strainchamps what publishers can do to make a book a best-seller and why the actual number of copies sold is a state secret.
Producer Cynthia Woodland invited Anthony Cooper and his sons (Akheem and Anthony Junior) into our studio, to talk about what it’s like, raising black teenagers in America.
Filmmaker Werner Herzog is obsessive about many things, including walking. Listen to find out why Werner walks.
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