Comic novelist David Lodge takes on the old battle between science and the humanities in his latest book, “Thinks.”
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Hip hop artist DJ Spooky brought a crew to Antarctica and created Sinfonia Antarctica. He tells us how his audio portrait documents the effects of climate change on the continent.
Entomologist Deborah Gordon tells Steve Paulson that ant colonies run with no one in charge. She’s spent years figuring out how they do it.
Could the Internet feel happy or depressed? That's a distinct possibility, according to Christof Koch. In this EXTENDED interview, he talks about computer consciousness, God, and just what it means that our brains have a hundred billion neurons and trillions of synapses. Koch wonders whether all matter might have consciousness.
Elizabeth George, author of the Inspector Lynley mysteries, talks about her new novel that tells the life story of the mixed race boy who's arrested for the fatal mugging of the Inspector's wife, which occurred in the previous novel in the series.
Doug here. I thought there was good back-and-forth between Chuck and myself in this conversation. I like how the interview went “meta” at the end, with Chuck speculating that if I’m right about his book being hailed as the “Moby Dick" of non-fiction in 300 years time. This interview belongs in a time capsule. At the very least, a “Best of” show. I also really enjoyed the fact that we heard the musical stylings of John Philip Sousa, Chuck Berry, KISS and Veruca Salt. Of course, if Chuck’s book taught me anything (and it actually taught me many things), I could be wrong.
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