Listen to this interview of Joshua Schimel, Professor of soil ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded (Oxford UP, 2011). We talk about how writing is research, and about how the Vietnam War was really just one big fat rejected manuscript.
Joshua Sch ... Show More
Yesterday
Nick Spencer, "The Landscapes of Science and Religion: What Are We Disagreeing About?" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The relationship between science and religion has long been a heated debate and is becoming an ever more popular topic. The scientific capacity to manipulate and change humans and their environment through genetic engineering, life extension, and AI is going to take a huge leap f ... Show More
38m 48s
Yesterday
Christopher Kemp, "Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation" (Norton, 2022)
Inside our heads we carry around an infinite and endlessly unfolding map of the world. Navigation is one of the most ancient neural abilities we have―older than language. In Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation (Norton, 2022), Christopher Kemp embarks on a jour ... Show More
50m 51s
Aug 23
Eugene Rosenberg and Ilana Zilber-Rosenberg, "Where Did We Come From?: The Origin and Evolution of Life" (Austin Macauley, 2025)
In this intimate interview, Mel Rosenberg speaks with Prof. Eugene Rosenberg and his partner in life and in science, Dr. Ilana Zilber-Rosenberg on their new book for the general public on how life started and developed on earth, titled Where Did We Come From? The Origin and Evolu ... Show More
34m 56s
Aug 2023
Gary Smith, "Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science" (Oxford UP, 2023)
There is no doubt science is currently suffering from a credibility crisis. Gary Smith's book Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science (Oxford UP, 2023) argues that, ironically, science's credibility is being undermined by tools created by scientists themsel ... Show More
36m 48s
Nov 2020
436: Stuart Ritchie | The Science Fictions Undermining Facts
Stuart Ritchie (@StuartJRitchie) is a lecturer in the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at King’s College London and author of Intelligence: All That Matters and Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth. What We Disc ... Show More
1h 10m
Sep 2021
The psychology of science denial, doubt and disbelief, with Gale Sinatra, PhD, and Barbara Hofer, PhD
On hot-button topics such as climate change, vaccines and genetically modified foods, science denial is rampant – and it crosses party and ideological lines. What are the psychological forces that lead people to disbelieve scientific consensus? Is science denial worse than it’s e ... Show More
36m 52s
May 2021
Combatting Anti-Science with Richard Dawkins
How do we stop anti-science? In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to talk about religion, the importance of science communication, and Dawkins’ new book, Books Do Furnish a Life.
NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to ... Show More
53m 48s
Sep 2023
Break the Science Barrier: Why science matters
Break the Science Barrier is a TV documentary that I presented on Channel 4 in 1996. It argues for the importance, for society, of scientific ways of thinking. In it, I interviewed David Attenborough, Alec Jeffreys, who discovered DNA fingerprinting, and Douglas Adams, who gave a ... Show More
44m 27s
Jul 2023
Babbage: Summer science lessons
How much science do you remember from school? Do you know how a simple electric motor works, or what the Doppler effect is? Basic physics is taught early in schools, but is easily forgotten.
To learn some basic science, we travel this week to the Royal Institution (RI) in Londo ... Show More
37m 31s