How does something as wet and gooshy as the brain produce consciousness, which is immaterial? Steve Paulson reports on the debate among scientists and philosophers.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Thomas Hine is the author of “I Want THAT: How We All Became Shoppers.” He tells Anne Strainchamps how our culture grooms men and women to behave differently as shoppers and exploits the traits of both sexes.
Novelist T. Coraghessan Boyle talks with Jim Fleming about his latest. “Drop City” is set in a California commune in the 1970s, and concerns the activities at one of America’s many private little Utopias.
In the run-up to this show, many of you sent in your stories of wonder. Here they are, crafted into an eight-part soundscape with the voices of Michael Arnold, Cynthia Woodland, Caryl Owen, and Peter Sobol. Thanks for sharing your stories!
Rosalind Wiseman and Rachael Simmons say that girls’ popularity with other girls is influenced by the politics of the social pecking order and that the effects of being ostracized can be devastating.
Are political beliefs predetermined at birth? Encoded in our genes? Political scientist John Hibbing does fMRI studies of liberal and conserative brains and says there are significant biological differences. His message: stop yelling at the other party. They can't help what they think.
Journalist and editor Tom Shroder tells Jim Fleming about the remarkable cases he's investigated of children who insist they belong to a family other than the one they were born into.
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