In this episode of The Poetry of Reality, Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker explore the frontiers of science, language, morality, artificial intelligence, evolution, and the future of human civilization. Steven Pinker is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolution ... Show More
Oct 2025
If God designed it, why is it so badly built?
In this episode, Richard Dawkins revisits a 2012 conversation from the Great Minds program, produced by the Educational Broadcasting System in South Korea. He examines why life looks designed yet is full of flaws, showing how imperfections in nature reveal the true workings of ev ... Show More
13m 46s
Sep 2025
Why Ants Tear Off Their Own Wings
In this episode, Richard Dawkins revisits a 2012 conversation from the Great Minds program, produced by the Educational Broadcasting System in South Korea. Drawing on themes from his book Flights of Fancy, Dawkins explores humanity’s ancient dream of flight, the physics that gove ... Show More
15m 47s
Sep 2025
Why Ideas Spread Like Viruses
In this episode of The Poetry of Reality, Richard joins a live audience in Edinburgh to discuss his latest book, The Genetic Book of the Dead. In this wide-ranging conversation, he reflects on how DNA preserves the story of evolution, describing organisms as “living books” that r ... Show More
1h 15m
Mar 2025
Carl Zimmer on the Hidden Life in the Air We Breathe
<p>Carl Zimmer is one of the finest science communicators of our time, having spent decades writing about biology, evolution, and heredity. His latest (and 16<sup>th</sup>) book, <em><span style= "mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;" ... Show More
51m 43s
Jul 2023
Episode 120, The Mystery of Existence (Part II - Further Analysis and Discussion)
<p class=""><strong>Introduction</strong></p> <p class="">This episode features Jack Symes in conversation with four of the biggest names in philosophy: Richard Dawkins (representing science and atheism), Jessica Frazier (on Hinduism), Silvia Jonas (speaking on Jewish philosophy) ... Show More
54m 25s
Sep 2024
Richard Dawkins’ Perspective on Faith, Philosophy, and the Layers of Human Existence
<p>Commonly known as the most famous atheist in the world, Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, and author of <em>The Selfish Gene </em>and <em>The God Delusion. </em>Today, Ryan asks Richard why he describes himself as a "cultural Christian", what the ... Show More
51m 28s
Jul 2024
E106 - Donald Hoffman: The Emerging Science, “We Are ONE Consciousness” - Life, Death & The Simulation
<p>Donald Hoffman is back on Know Thyself today to explore the constraints of time and space, and how they shape our understanding of the world around us. He discusses the "headset analogy" - the idea that our senses act as a kind of cognitive filter, preventing us from ... Show More
2h 20m
Oct 2025
929: Dragon Hatchling: The Missing Link Between Transformers and the Brain, with Adrian Kosowski
Breaking news: Jon Krohn welcomes Adrian Kosowski to the show to talk about the groundbreaking research happening at Pathway. Adrian and his team demonstrate how they have brought attention in AI closer to the way the brain functions, creating, in essence, a “massively parallel s ... Show More
1h 14m
Oct 2025
Michael Rowe, "Researching Street-Level Bureaucracy: Bringing Out the Interpretive Dimensions" (Routledge, 2024)
Researching Street-level Bureaucracy: Bringing Out the Interpretive Dimensions (Routledge, 2024) is the first among a number of new titles in the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods that we’ll be featuring on New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science. In it, Mik ... Show More
40m 9s
Oct 2025
Michael Rowe, "Researching Street-Level Bureaucracy: Bringing Out the Interpretive Dimensions" (Routledge, 2024)
Researching Street-level Bureaucracy: Bringing Out the Interpretive Dimensions (Routledge, 2024) is the first among a number of new titles in the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods that we’ll be featuring on New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science. In it, Mik ... Show More
40m 9s