Episodes

In this episode, Professor Stuart Firestein and I explore ignorance, failure, uncertainty, and how science really progresses. We discuss why science is driven by questions as much as facts, why education often rewards answers over curiosity, and how better questions can lead to deeper understanding. We also discuss why failure is not the opposite of success, but an essential part of discovery. Finally, we explore It Could Be Otherwise, uncertainty, optimism, progress, medicine, biology, and how ...

In this episode, Professor David Veale and I explore OCD, intrusive thoughts, compulsions, avoidance, reassurance seeking, and how OCD is treated. We discuss what OCD is, why intrusive thoughts become powerful, how obsessions often attach to the things people value most, and why OCD is not simply being tidy, clean, or perfectionistic. Professor Veale explains different forms of OCD, including contamination fears, responsibility for harm, unacceptable sexual or violent thoughts, religious fears, ...

In this episode, Professor Nancy Sherman and I explore Stoicism, emotions, virtue, military ethics, moral injury, and what it means to live well. We discuss common misconceptions about Stoicism, especially the idea that being Stoic means suppressing emotion, and explore how Stoicism instead aims to train our emotions, judgments, and responses. We also discuss anger, proto-emotions, joy, distress, practical wisdom, courage, generosity, friendship, and how ancient philosophy can guide everyday lif...

In this episode, Gregory Lopez and I explore Stoicism as a practical philosophy of life. We discuss what Stoicism is, what the Stoics meant by virtue, excellence, and living according to nature, and why human beings are understood as rational and pro-social animals. Gregory explains Stoic psychology, including reason, emotion, impressions, assent, passions, value judgments, and why Stoicism is not about suppressing emotions or becoming unfeeling. We also discuss why “control” can be a misleading...

In this episode, my grappling coach Yousuf Nabi and I discuss Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, coaching, competition, mental health, and building community. Yousuf shares how he started training BJJ after first discovering the Gracie family through early MMA footage, and how that eventually led him to open Elements in Brighton as a way to create more training opportunities locally. We talk about how the gym evolved from a passion project into a proper business and community, why Jiu-Jitsu can build confiden...

In this episode, Professor Graham Priest and I explore logic, paradoxes, metaphysics, and Buddhist philosophy. We discuss what logic is, what makes an argument valid, and how philosophers think about premises, conclusions, reasoning, and theories of logic. Professor Priest explains classical logic, non-classical logic, paraconsistent logic, contradictions, explosion, and why some philosophers think certain contradictions may be true. We also explore the liar paradox, Russell’s paradox, realism, ...

In this episode, Professor Ian Hodder and I explore Çatalhöyük, one of the world’s most important archaeological sites. We discuss what archaeology is, how excavation works, and why Çatalhöyük gives us such a rare insight into the beliefs, myths, art, and daily life of people living around 9,000 years ago. Professor Hodder explains the role of ancestors, vultures, wild animals, domesticating plants and animals, and the transition from hunter-gatherer life to settled farming communities. We also ...

In this episode, Professor Ruth Kinna and I explore anarchism, mutual aid, self-government, and anti-authoritarian political thought. We discuss what anarchism means, its history and major thinkers, including Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin. We also examine property, violence, revolutionary change, community organisation, co-operatives, mutual defence and how anarchist ideas can be practised through everyday grassroots action. Finally, Professor Kinna explains mutual aid, anarchist approaches to...

In this episode, Professor David Geary and I discuss sex differences, mathematical cognition, and the evolution of the human mind. We explore why maths, reading, and writing are evolutionarily recent skills, how they build on older systems like language and number sense, and why children may struggle with maths or reading. We also discuss male and female cognitive similarities and differences, including language, visual-spatial reasoning, mechanical reasoning, and how these may affect education....

In this episode, Professor Geoffrey West and I explore complexity, scaling laws, cities, biology, and the future of humanity. We discuss what makes a system “complex” rather than simple and why physics can describe so much of the universe through elegant equations, yet still struggles to capture the messy world of organisms, cities, companies, politics, poetry, conflict, and human society. We also examine scaling laws in biology and cities: why larger animals use energy differently, why heart ra...

In this episode, Dr. Sophie Scott-Brown and I explore anarchism, democracy, political power, and the history of radical political thought. We discuss what anarchism is, why it is difficult to define, and why anarchist thought is often more pluralistic than people assume. Dr. Scott-Brown explains how anarchism challenges permanent structures of authority and how people already organise parts of everyday life through informal cooperation. We also examine representative democracy, direct democracy,...

In this episode, Dr. Carl Safina and I explore animal minds, sentience, consciousness, and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. We discuss how other animals experience the world, what makes humans similar to and different from other species, and whether animals such as insects, worms, birds, mammals, dolphins, and octopuses may be conscious or sentient. Dr. Safina explains animal culture, learning, awareness, emotion, and the difficulty of knowing where consciousness begins in the liv...

In this episode, Professor Graham Oppy and I explore arguments for and against the existence of God. We discuss cosmological, design, moral, ontological, and other arguments, as well as naturalism, atheism, agnosticism, and how worldviews are formed. Professor Oppy explains what makes a philosophical argument strong, why disagreements about God are so difficult to resolve, and why he thinks there are no successful arguments on either side that force everyone to agree. We also explore the problem...

In this episode, Mr Alfie Kohn and I explore why rewards can backfire just as punishment can. We discuss intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, why grades, praise, bonuses, and incentive systems can undermine genuine interest, and why rewards and punishments are ultimately two forms of control. Mr Alfie explains how parents can move away from conditional acceptance and towards working with children to solve problems, while helping them feel loved regardless of their achievements. We also explore ho...

In this episode, Professor Sugata Mitra and I explore how education could change in a world shaped by the internet and artificial intelligence. We discuss his famous Hole in the Wall experiment, self-organised learning environments, and why groups of children can often teach themselves when they have access to technology, questions, and one another. Professor Mitra explains why the teacher’s role should shift from delivering answers to guiding students through questions and discovery. We also ex...

In this episode, Professor Gill Livingston and I explore dementia: what it is, why it develops, and what can be done to reduce risk and support people living with it. We discuss Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, amyloid plaques, tau tangles, cognitive reserve, and why diagnosis can be complex. Professor Livingston explains the major modifiable risk factors for dementia, including smoking, alcohol, hearing loss, vision loss, physical inactivity, social isolation, depression, air pollution, ...

In this episode, Professor Anthony Pagden and I explore empire, colonialism, nationalism, and the political history of Europe. We discuss what an empire is, why empires expand, and how colonialism and imperialism differ from one another. Professor Pagden explains how nationalism emerged from the decline of larger imperial structures, why political identities remain fragile, and how these questions continue to shape Cyprus today. We also examine whether the United States should be considered an e...

In this episode, Professor Karl Friston and I explore the free energy principle: what it is, why it matters, and how it connects to neuroscience, consciousness, evolution, and artificial intelligence. We discuss Markov blankets, self-organisation, prediction error, active inference, and why living systems can be understood as trying to minimise surprise. Professor Friston explains how action, perception, and prediction work together, using examples from cells, eye movements, reflexes, and roboti...

In this episode, Professor Steven Nadler and I explore the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza: his views on God, nature, free will, religion, and the good life. We discuss why Spinoza identified God with Nature, why this made him such a controversial figure, and whether he should be considered an atheist. Professor Nadler explains why Spinoza denied free will, yet still believed that human beings can become freer through reason and understanding. We also explore Spinoza’s account of happiness, virtue,...

In this episode, Prof. Reza Shadmehr and I discuss how the brain predicts the future and why prediction may be one of its most fundamental functions. We explore the cerebellum, its evolutionary origins, and its role in movement, learning, error correction, and social behaviour. Prof. Shadmehr explains how ideas from engineering, robotics, and optimal control theory have shaped modern neuroscience, and how concepts such as internal models, reinforcement learning, and dopamine help us understand t...

In this episode, Prof. David Poeppel and I discuss the Dual Stream Model of Language and how the brain processes speech. We explore the roles of the dorsal and ventral language pathways, the concept of efference copy, neural oscillations, and brain-stimulation techniques such as TMS. We also discuss neural sampling rates and neuroimaging methods such as EEG and MEG. Prof. Poeppel explains spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution, asymmetric oscillatory sampling, and how language processing may...

In this episode, Dr. Nolen Gertz and I discuss nihilism, technology, meaning, and the modern human condition. We explore the difference between passive and active nihilism, and how technology can make distraction and escapism easier, pushing us away from confronting reality and deeper questions of meaning. We also discuss Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, existentialism, AI, religion, and the search for meaning in an increasingly technological world.

In this episode, Gordon Guyatt & I discuss evidence-based medicine, a term and movement he helped create and develop. We explore what evidence-based medicine actually means, the hierarchy of evidence, randomised controlled trials, bias in research, and how evidence can be systematically summarised to improve clinical decision-making. We also discuss the origins and evolution of evidence-based medicine, communicating risks and benefits effectively to patients, making decisions consistent with pat...

In this episode, Prof. Allan Basbaum and I discuss the neuroscience of pain and humanity’s attempts to discover a drug beyond morphine that is effective but with minimal side effects. We talk about nociceptors, pain pathways, and different types of pain, alongside recent developments in drug design and emerging imaging technologies. We end the podcast with Prof. Allan’s advice for young aspiring scientists, including why research that appears less clinically relevant can still lead to major brea...