Brian Cox - Wonders of Life - Expanding Universe

Our knowledge of the world comes from our experience of the world. And our experience is based on our sensory apparatus, but how do our senses work? What is it about the physical laws of the universe that make it possible for creatures like us to perceive anything at all?

In the following documentary, Brian Cox visits some interesting animals in the US (giant catfish, glowing scorpions, mantis shrimp and octopi, among others) to explore and understand how they, and we, are able to create mental representations of our environment through taste (chemicals), sound (air waves) and vision (light), and how it is that the gradual process of evolution through natural selection has slowly sculpted the amazing machinery of perception, by taking fish jaws, for instance, and slowly turned them into the ear bones that make hearing possible for you and me...

To catch that catfish, he didn't have to enlist the help of a scientist... he could have just told a redneck to go noodling :)

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Open Access Explained, PhD Comics Style

As biological creatures, we are very adaptable. If we notice that some background condition remains relatively stable, we tend to ignore it after a while. On the one hand, this makes perfect sense, since we can't afford to devote all of our energy and attention resources to things that are unlikely to affect us in sudden ways. On the other hand, this makes us very susceptible to the status quo bias (failing to recognize better alternatives; failing to even acknowledge that there could be potentially better methods; perpetuating the current system as the solution to a problem that we often don't realize is the result of the very same system we use to 'fix' it; and even actively working against new possibilities, even while being fully cognizant of the problems and negative consequences associated with the systems currently implemented).

This problem is ubiquitous, and there are entire industries built upon the simple and great idea that for any given situation, there are probably better solutions than those that are currently being implemented. Unfortunately, some of these same industries, once they acquire a certain level of success and financial power, tend to re-affirm their own system instead of the original idea of constantly improving things. And if they have enough power and influence, they can actually become an impediment to improved efficiency. Professional academic journals, for all the wonderful work they do, have also fallen into this self-reinforcing pattern where their financial success has replaced the original idea for which they were created, and maybe it's time we start a dialogue to figure out how to make everyone better off...

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What Is Evolution and Natural Selection?

I don't know if it's by design or circumstance, but (apart from the religious and ideological elements) part of the resistance to evolution has to do with the fact that a number of related but distinct concepts are normally conflated with each other, so that if you disagree with one, you automatically assume that you must disagree with all of them. For instance, many people confuse natural selection with evolution, and think of them as interchangeable concepts, but the former is simply the most famous, and possibly main mechanism driving the fact of the latter.

And talking about facts, people also tend to confuse the fact of evolution with the theory of evolution. Evolution, the change in (gene) allele frequency in populations over the span of multiple generations, is a fact that even the most hard-core creationists can't deny with a straight face (after all, you are not identical to either of your parents, nor to your own children). The theory of evolution is a scientific model (and by far the most successful account so far) to explain, understand and make sense of the fact of evolution (why it happens). And to bring it all full-circle, the theory makes use of various mechanisms, most notably, though not exclusively, natural selection. So yeah, I can understand why some people might get a little confused...

But if that seems needlessly abstract, here's a little animation to clarify what evolution is:

Having established that, the next point to touch on is the consequences of evolution and what it implies about us and our place in the grand scheme of things. Many people tend to disagree with evolution, not because it's not supported by more evidence than we know what to do with or because it doesn't make sense but because, as a kind of universal acid, it tends to undermine our inflated egos.

We like to think of ourselves as fallen angels, ignited by a kind of divine spark, but it may be more accurate to say that we are risen apes, and that we can trace our inglorious genealogical lineage all the way back to pond scum. Then again, how is that any worse than thinking we come from dust?

But before we consider the logical implications of this idea, here's a little lesson, again clearly articulated, explaining the basic logic behind the mechanism of natural selection:

And here's why the idea of 'intelligent design' is undermined by our observation of fossils and the massive number of extinct species: evolution is a 'blind watchmaker,' a tinkerer (not a designer) whose success is acquired by the death and destruction of all those experiments that ended up failing.

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Richard Feynman on the Scientific Method

When it comes to backward, mystical, conspiratorial, pseudoscientific thinking, I'm actually pretty forgiving of people in the past: apart from  a small intellectual elite, most people didn't always have the technological and conceptual tools necessary to separate reasonable ideas from the bat-shit crazy. Today, however, when we have such easy access to the accumulated knowledge and wisdom humanity has accrued over the past few thousand years, all of which can be easily accessed through our phones, there is no longer an excuse for science illiteracy. Today, if we are ignorant, much of that is by choice.

By science literacy I'm not talking about keeping up with the details of all the latest studies and experiments published in the latest and most prestigious science journals. I'm talking about a basic understanding of the thinking and methods involved in adjudicating competing claims, whatever their source and whatever their nature. And who better to give you an idea of this kind of thinking, if you're not already familiar with it, than the inimitable and hilarious Richard Feynman? :)

Share with your friends. This is a gospel worth spreading :)

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Laura Snyder - The Philosophical Breakfast Club

When we think about scientists, and especially the birth of science, our minds usually go straight to Galileo, Descartes, Kepler and Newton, and then to folks like Michael Faraday, Joseph Priestly, Antoine Lavoisier, Lord Kelvin, Darwin, etc. Or maybe for some of you it goes all the way back to Thales, Democritus, Empedocles and Aristotle...

What most people don't know, however, is that none of these people called themselves 'scientists.' The term was only invented by the philosopher/scientist William Whewell during Darwin's lifetime to demarcate the work of experimental 'natural philosophers' and naturalists from that of 'philosophers' more broadly construed. Whewell came up with the word 'scientits' as the equivalent of 'artists' to separate those philosophers who worked according to inductive reasoning based on observation and experimentation from those that engaged in reasoning from first principles.

But Whewell wasn't content with simply assigning a different name to these experimental philosophers. Along with his friends Charles Babbage (inventor of the difference and analytic engines, and mentor to Ada Lovelace, the enchantress of numbers), John Herschel and Richard Jones, Whewell wanted to change the very nature of what science is, how it works and what purposes it strives to achieve. In the following TEDTalk, historian Laura Snyder (and I'm guessing by her tone, former museum tour-guide) tells the story of this fascinating scientific revolution, about which you can also read in her book The Philosophical Breakfast Club.

If you ever get a chance, you ought to read up on John Stuart Mill and William Whewell's battle to determine the precise nature of inductive reasoning, and how Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution by natural selection got caught up right in the middle of it...

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Pat Robertson - Want Miracles? Be Simple-Minded, Credulous and Uneducated

In a strange case similar to that of Benjamin Button, it seems as though Pat Robertson's senility is firmly advancing in the direction of reason, to the point that I've been wondering lately whether he's becoming one of the most interesting exponents of religious nonsense and an unexpected advocate for secularism. Well, either that or he's so far gone the deep end that he's not even trying to be ironic... Here's a case in point:

Ah, those simple, primitive people... they'll believe any nonsense you tell them :)

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The TEDTalks Woo-Woo Speech - The Science Delusion

When they first became publicly available, I instantly fell in love with TEDTalks (as you can tell from all the presentations I've posted in this blog). Having leading thinkers condense their various ideas and deliver them in powerful 18-minute presentations was a great way to introduce and inspire the general public with a vision of education, empowerment and cross-disciplinary cooperation from which everyone could benefit.

Unfortunately, since greatness and true innovation are limited resources, the day would come when TED would run out of the best and most interesting speakers, and would have to content itself with more questionable characters willing to deliver shoddy presentations that sacrifice truth and the discoveries of rigorous research for the sake of wanting to sound revolutionary, controversial or intellectually daring and interesting. And so the past year or two has seen a steep decline in the quality of their presentations, and it's gotten to the point, apparently, that they are happy to showcase the nonsensical pseudo-scientific views of a man who, aided by a pretty awesome British accent, willfully mischaracterizes serious science and philosophy in order to peddle his quackery about telepathy and crystals having memory...

In short: "woo-woo must exist because I can't explain some things and because I don't really understand how science works... even though I should, since I'm a scientist..."

Now, that's not to say that one cannot challenge science... nothing should be immune from question. but while we recognize science is the best means we have of attaining knowledge of the world, we also need to be aware of its limits precisely so that we can protect it from misuse and abuse by unscrupulous parties who demand of it that it do things outside of its proper domain. The consequence should be obvious: if we ask science to do things outside of its proper field of application, and science fails to get us those results, we are likely to make the mistake of assuming that such a failure is somehow science's fault. But this is a ridiculous position to adopt. It's as if you ask your plumber to perform brain surgery, the plumber botches the operation, and you think that obviously plumbing is useless...

It's one thing to criticize science, but it's quite another to mischaracterize it with straw man arguments in order to pretend to have beaten it into submission, and it's yet another to think you can replace it with pseudo-scientific bullshit simply because it doesn't conform to your woo-woo nonsense beliefs...

It would be awesome to see a real intellectual respond to Sheldrake in just the same way that Daniel Dennett took Rick Warren to task for his vacuous-driven talk... Can we rely on TED to deliver such a goodie?


Update: It looks like the folks at TED have listened to criticisms similar to mine, apparently from lots of people, and they have decided to pull Rupert's talk and one by Graham Hancock on consciousness. Let that be a lesson to anyone wanting to present: make sure you have done your homework, or be prepared to be ridiculed in the eternal land of the interwebs...

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Ben Goldacre - What Doctors Don't Know About the Drugs They Prescribe

Richard Feynman once defined science as that which we do to avoid fooling ourselves. We humans are universally prone to the cognitive bias known as selection (or confirmation) bias: instead of looking at the big picture, hits and misses alike, we have a natural tendency to look for evidence that confirms the things we already believe, and we tend to ignore and/or forget evidence that would contradict our view of the world.

This is why if you're a liberal, you watch MSNBC, and if you're a conservative, why you watch Faux News. In both cases, you're not really looking for information: you're looking for confirmation. You're listening to people who are going to tell you that the way you see the world is exactly how you think it is. Yes, it's extremely self-congratulatory. This is why you might believe in homeopathic remedies or alternative medicine: you count every time they "worked," and are completely unaware of the much greater amount of times when they don't, and so you think they count as real medicine.

And science, and scientific thinking in general, are supposed to be an antidote against confirmation bias, but as Ben Goldacre explains in the following chilling TEDTalk, there is a major problem with selection bias in the reporting and publishing of scientific studies regarding the health effects of various drugs: the studies that tend to get published are those that find a positive effect, while studies that find no effect, or even an adverse effect, tend not to see the light of day. And if your doctor is prescribing some medication based on this incomplete amount of information (through no fault of his own), it's your health that is ultimately at risk...

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Science vs. Philosophy? Nigga Please...

When it comes to the question of the importance and relevance of philosophy, I'm not sure whether Lawrence Krauss just loves the attention of being polemic, doesn't get just how narrow-minded and simplistic his beliefs are, doesn't realize he's committing some major category mistakes and some basic logical fallacies that a first-year philosophy student would easily identify, or is just too stubborn to admit that he spoke out of his ass without knowing what the hell he is talking about, especially about a subject about which he seems to know very little. For a scientist, you'd think he'd be persuaded by the ample evidence presented to justify philosophy, so whatever the merits of the arguments, his attitude in this case seems entirely unscientific.

It would be easy to create a straw man and dismiss philosophers as illiterate when it comes to science, and depending on the branch of philosophical inquiry, that charge could stick in some cases, but what happens when someone like Massimo Pigliucci, who's both a philosopher and a scientist, enters the discussion? Some major ass kicking!

But if you're not persuaded by the evidence or the logic of the arguments, perhaps a little art will persuade you that philosophy and science are best thought of as cooperative friends, not competitive foes, so in that spirit I present this awesome tattoo I came across recently, which celebrates all of these disciplines as different approaches to enrich our mental life:

I'm wondering whether I ought to brand that ink on my body... thoughts?

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Secrets of Our Living Planet - The Emerald Band

I may not be able to blog this week, since I'm going to be spending some quality time with my family, so I'm leaving you dear readers with a fascinating documentary.

We've seen in multiple cases before the intricacies of various animals. What's different about today's documentary is that it showcases the interesting and intricate relationships between various organisms to explain why there is so much biological diversity in the Earth's rain forests, why so many of these organisms are so weird, and why these relationships and processes matter.

Part of the key has to do with the runaway result of an evolutionary arms races of specialization and ingenious manipulation between plants and pests, predators and prey, parasites and hosts. And underneath it all is the process of natural selection, that blind watchmaker that can produce incredible adaptations out of physical, chemical and biological necessity.

See you next week!

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Dare Mighty Things - Curiosity on Mars

I don't know about you, but I'm still ecstatic about the Curiosity success, and things just keep getting better and better...

Some of the obvious important and concrete goals of NASA have to do with scientific research, discovery, application and engineering, but although it cannot be so easily quantified, one could easily argue that whether by design or chance, it is one of the greatest vehicles we have to increase the fecundity of scientific inspiration: NASA's successes inspire new generations of young people to dream big and to work to make those dreams come true, especially in an age when scientific literacy is more needed than ever to solve our technological, social and environmental challenges.

So here is a little bit of inspiration:

And also, thanks to my good friend Harris, I get to share some high-definition footage of Curiosity landing on Mars, captured by Curiosity itself:

And this one is the same thing, but it centers on the heat shield, so it's a lot more stable:

Go create something great :)

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Todd Akin, Republicans and "Legitimate Rape"

As you may be aware, Congressman Todd Akin has been receiving fire from all directions for his stupid, right-wing ideological, scientifically illiterate and insensitive remarks about how women who are victims of "legitimate rape" have natural physiological mechanisms to prevent pregnancies, implying that women who do get pregnant after being raped were not really raped. Everyone's been jumping on the response bandwagon, and so I can do no better than to summarize what's going on.

First we have the folks from Mr. Deity promoting the "mourning-after pill," for those ladies who may have "enjoyed their forced sexual encounter just a little too much":

And while Republicans are acting all offended by Akin's remarks, one should not forget that Akin's real sin is to make public what these heartless jerks really believe and have actually made their official party platform (and I'm talking even prominent Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mike Huckabee, not just fringe conservative outcasts).

Thankfully, the good folks at The Young Turks don't let these conservatives get away with these Republican bullshit public relations spins:

And if the whole idea that female bodies can prevent pregnancy due to forcible copulation does sound familiar to you, that's probably something you learned in this previous episode about sperm, but it wasn't about women... it was about ducks!

Here's a little more on that, plus some actual footage of the weird duck corkscrew penis...

And let's not lose focus about why conservatives are calling out for Akin's withdrawal from the race. It's not about their concern for women's health and reproductive rights, as if... it's about what will happen to the GOP come election time...

I swear... you cannot make this stuff up... If you care about women and their rights at all, make your voice heard in the elections, and vote these jerks out of office...

But of course, some of the best responses to this story come to us courtesy of The Onion.

First, we have the good news headline: Woman relieved to learn her rape was illegitimate.  The victim of a brutal sexual assault last month, Martha Byars confessed that “Being violently coerced into having sex was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, so I take comfort in knowing it wasn’t actually rape. Thank God for that,” she added. “I’m so relieved to know that my child’s father, the man who muffled my screams as he forcefully penetrated me over and over and left me hemorrhaging to death on the street, is not a rapist.” Hallelujah!

Then, in its story "I Misspoke—What I Meant To Say Is 'I Am Dumb As Dog Shit And I Am A Terrible Human Being'," we learn that this may have all been a misunderstanding based on a poor choice of words by Akin. What he really meant to say is "I am a worthless, moronic sack of shit and an utterly irredeemable human being who needs to shut up and go away forever. I am an evil, fucked-up man who should never have been elected to the United States Congress, and anyone who would vote for me is probably a pretty big fucking dumbshit, too. I am not a competent or respectable politician; I am, essentially, a subhuman monster of a prick, a prick as profoundly insensitive as he is monumentally unintelligent in every respect; somebody should apply dozens of layers of duct tape to my mouth every morning so that words are not able to exit my large, dumb, misogynist, imbecilic mouth at any point; I make the planet worse; I don’t know jack shit about any of the topics I spoke about in that interview, or about any topics at all, really; I should apologize every day to the women of the world, but doing so would most likely be an exercise in futility given my rock-bottom intellect and my complete and utter lack of human decency; I am, in no uncertain terms, not even worth the time it took you to read this."

And of course, while Akin may be an utter dumbshit, that in no way reflects GOP views, since Republicans Condemn Akin's Comments as Blemish on Party's Otherwise Spotless Women's Rights Record...

But even after all this, Akin has not withdrawn from the race, and in fact he's just barely behind his opponent, so before you faint in disbelief, you should be aware that Poll Reveals You Live In Country Where Mentally Ill Man Still Has Good Chance Of Being Senator.

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The Word - On the Straight & Narrow-Minded

Despite the horrible traffic, the humidity, the bad smells, the crowded subways, and so on, sometimes I'm actually glad I live in NYC and not in, say, Texas. Why, you ask?

For one thing, because Texas is ruled by Republicans, conservative culture, religion, racism, homophobia and narrow-minded gun-toting hillbillies. Case in point, the folks from the Texas GOP believe that the impressionable minds of young people are being poisoned by knowledge and the basic critical thinking skills that allow them to reach conclusions based on reason and evidence, and not just on the narrow-minded traditions with which they were raised... and so they're moving to ban the teaching of critical thinking!!!

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Even the Young Turks had something to say about this embarrassment:

Well, now I know... if I ever move to Texas, I can expect to be unemployed...

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Electric Vocabulary

Why do we call electricity "electricity"? Why do we talk about its "charge"? Or talk about whether that charge is "positive" or "negative"? And why do we refer to a device to store electricity as a "battery"?

One great way to find out about the fascinating history of this strange phenomenon, and the one I would recommend, is to watch the excellent documentary series Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity, narrated by Jim Al-Khalili.

But if you don't have the time to watch that right now, here's a simple and short introduction to get you started with at least the etymology of these words:

But seriously, go watch Shock and Awe...

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Sean Carroll - The Case for Naturalism

If you follow current events in the world of public intellectualism, you probably know that over the past few decades, and increasingly over the past couple of years, some prominent physicists (Richard Feynman, Steven Weinberg, Stephen Hawking, and Lawrence Krauss, for instance) have been taking jabs at philosophy. The usual charge is that philosophy doesn't help us make scientific progress, which, for the most part, is kind of true. But, of course, who ever said that the job of philosophy is to make scientific progress? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what science is supposed to do?

You probably wouldn't criticize a sculptor for not hitting a home run, for not breaking a 100-meter dash world record, for not building the LHC, or for not discovering the Higgs Boson, etc. Why? Because that's not what sculpture is about! So for those physicists, all of whom I love but who don't know what the hell philosophy is or even what it's supposed to do, please stop talking about things over which you have no expertise. You kind of sound as ignorant as religious fundamentalists when they talk about science...

One of the physicists who does understand the ways in which philosophy and science can make great allies and help each other in their respective disciplines, however, is Sean Carroll. He's a great thinker, with a gift for precision, clarity and profundity. The following video has nothing to do with the physics/philosophy stuff I mentioned above, but it is a nice example of just how great he is at breaking down complex ideas into an accessible and nicely organized format without sounding the least bit condescending:

I'll check out the rest of this apparent debate later on, and if it's good, I'll post it in its entirety in the weeks to follow.

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Olber's Paradox - Why Is the Sky Dark at Night?

I know that may seem like a silly question at first glance, but there is a long history of seemingly silly questions that end up producing some mind-blowing and really counter-intuitive results that really get us to question our most basic presuppositions about the nature of reality, and in many cases redefine our understanding of the universe. This case is no exception.

So back to the question, sure, the sun is hiding on the other side of the planet, but there are stars in literally every possible direction, so photons are hitting us all the time from every possible direction. But if this is the case, shouldn't the night sky look bright from all these stars?

Well, as the following simple animation brilliantly demonstrates, the sky really is bright from all those stars... we just can't see all that light, not with our eyes anyway, but it is there, and what that tells us about cosmology and the universe is absolutely fascinating!

Bet you didn't see that coming, huh? No pun intended, actually. I was just blown away by the connections. This stuff is awesome :)

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Is Pluto a Planet?

A few days ago we saw that Joe the Plumber (representing the view of thousands or millions of Americans) prefers the Bible to science books because science books go through constant revisions while the Bible contains eternal, unchanging truth.

Of course, Joe the Plumber and company probably don't realize that, over the last few thousands of years, the Bible has gone through countless revisions, additions, omissions, translations, translations of translations, etc. And many of these, of course, are based on either innocent human error at best or ideological manipulation at worst.

When genuine science books come up with revisions, on the other hand, the reason is that new evidence has been shown to challenge some of our former ideas, and there is no sense in holding on to ideas that have been empirically shown to be deficient or at least inconsistent with other things we have evidence to believe are true.

Today we have a simple example of this idea: why Pluto got "demoted" from the status of planet to the master of the Kuiper Belt:

And if you want a more detailed explanation of our changing views of Pluto (and the reasons why), NASA has a nice video. And if Neil deGrasse Tyson is more your style, you can check him out talking about the whole Pluto debacle, including all the hate mail he's been getting from second graders, or you can check out his NOVA documentary The Pluto Files.

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E.O. Wilson - Advice to Young Scientists

"The world needs you, badly." That's how celebrated evolutionary biologist and entomologist E.O. Wilson (also known as Darwin's heir, or the Lord of the Ants) begins this fascinating, amusing and inspirational TEDTalk presentation encouraging you, yes, you, to pursue a career in science and scientific research.

You may be apprehensive. You may think you're not smart enough, you may be uncomfortable with your own level of mathematical literacy, you may think that there's little you could discover, etc. Don't worry. Wilson himself is a prime example of modest beginnings overcoming adversity to achieve academic greatness, and as someone who's had to struggle with many things throughout his own professional life, he's gathered some tips and ideas that he's graciously willing to share with you, in the form of a few general principles, to help motivate you and guide you into the fascinating, meaningful and rewarding field of scientific research and discovery.

And in case you're wondering, yes, I am aware of the whole selfish-gene/inclusive fitness vs multi-level selection brouhaha that's recently exploded between people like E.O and D.S. Wilson on the one hand, and Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers and Steven Pinker on the other. My own ignorant take: E.O. Wilson is wrong to reject kin selection, and Dawkins and company are wrong to reject multi-level selection.

Still, the debate is fascinating, and as a public debate (and except when those involved resort to cheap ad hominem attacks), the ideas presented by both sides are raising the level of intellectual discourse to levels not common for the ordinary reader. Agree or disagree with his point of view, for instance, Dawkins' recent review of E.O. Wilson's latest book, while harsh, manages to provide a clear and powerful explanation of the nature of the debate, as well as his defense of the selfish gene hypothesis and inclusive fitness. Of course, things didn't end there, because then D.S. Wilson did his own review of Dawkins' review. Don't you just love it when things get meta? :)

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Getting to Mars - Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror

On their own right, the semi-autonomic rovers that explore the surface of Mars for us are great feats of engineering. The fact that they do what they do (from such a long distance away it's virtually impossible for us to really wrap our heads around) ought to be enough to impress anyone, but have you wondered how it is that they get there in the first place?

As you may recall from memory or a little history, landing on Mars is no easy feat. Its gravity is relatively similar to our own, but its atmosphere is too thin and light, so even if you get the angle of entry right (and that's a huge challenge in its own right), you still have to contest with the fact that you're falling at vertiginous speeds without much to slow you down sufficiently for a smooth touchdown.

So, how do you do it without smashing to smithereens all the equipment you want to use? Once it hits the atmosphere, the rover has an infamous seven minutes of terror to deploy a number of very delicate and specifically programmed functions about which you'll learn in the following pretty dramatic animation:

How would you do it?

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Breaking the Code - The Biography of Alan Turing

Computers don't grow on trees, and even though they are ubiquitous today, that wasn't always the case. In fact, they've only been around for less than a hundred years, and although there are certain folks to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude for laying down the conceptual foundations (the philosopher Leibniz for inventing the binary language system upon which programming depends, for instance, or the enchantress of numbers Ada Lovelace's brilliant insight into the power of computation rather than mere calculation), the individual most directly responsible for modern computation is Alan Turing.

His was a remarkable life, full of genius, insight, inspiration, courage and intellectual creativity. His contributions during World War II (like the fact he broke the Nazi code and was privy to the information sent in secret messages to Hitler and his thugs even before they received it) may be directly responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of lives, and of accelerating the end of the war.

For all of his importance, however, his life was also very tragic. Because of the top-secret nature of his mathematical work during the war, he was never officially recognized. And to add insult to injury, his homosexuality was used to ban him from his own work, to treat him worse than a common criminal, and eventually it led to his suicide. This is his life:

For more on Turing's mathematical and philosophical importance, check out two of my favorite documentaries in this whole blog: Dangerous Knowledge with David Malone, and The Secret Life of Chaos with Jim Al-Khalili.

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