Ziauddin Sardar, a London based scholar and cultural critic, tells Steve what’s needed now is “an Islamic science” and explains what that is.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
According to self-described "space dork" Andy Weir, he was just sitting around at home one day imagining a manned Mars mission — not with any goal in mind, but just as a thought experiment. Soon, he realized this would be a pretty good premise for a story. And boy was he right. His novel "The Martian" started as a series of blog posts and has become a blockbuster motion picture. In this interview, he reads excerpts from the novel and discusses the balance between pure fantasty and scientific accuracy in science fiction.
Seymour Martin Lipset tells Judith Strasser that Americans never became revolutionaries because from the beginning, working people here were far better off than those in other countries.
The most popular baby names in the US last year were Noah and Emma. We know that because 20 years ago, Michael Shackleford wrote a computer program to track the annual popularity of baby names. Expectant parents everywhere should thank him.
TTBOOK producer Charles Monroe-Kane is a great storyteller who's led an adventurous life. Here's a wild story from his memoir "Lithium Jesus" about smuggling mob money when he lived in Prague in the '90s.
Peter Edelman says government policies can either help or hinder people on the road to economic stability. Edelman’s the longtime policy advisor who quit Bill Clinton’s administration when the President signed new welfare laws that – in Edelman’s opinion – destroyed the social safety net.
Steven Okazaki is a third generation Japanese-American and an Academy Award winning film-maker. He tells Jim Fleming that Japanese-Americans face racism both at home and in Japan.
Terry Jones, formerly of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, has written a book called “Who Murdered Chaucer?”
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