Simon Schaffer on humans, apes and Carl Linnaeus

Historian Justin Champion on Early Modern Comet TheoryThose who watched in awe as the space craft Philae bounced its way onto a comet last November should hold a candle for William Whiston. Back in 16...

16 Jan 201511min

If the universe exists what caused it to be? Theologian Giles Fraser examines the brilliant medieval scholar St. Thomas Aquinas' and his argument for God as the first cause of everything. It's part of...

15 Jan 201512min

What put the Bang in the Big Bang?On the 7th of November 1919 an announcement was made to the great and good of the Royal Society. Photographs from the observations of a solar eclipse had just arrived...

14 Jan 201511min

How did the world begin? In the Old Testament it all starts with an act of God, but where did God come from?Dr Jessica Frazier, lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Kent and fellow of th...

13 Jan 201511min

A new history of ideas presented by Melvyn Bragg but told in many voices.Each week Melvyn is joined by four guests with different backgrounds to discuss a really big question. This week he's asking 'H...

12 Jan 201511min

Philosopher Angie Hobbs examines the concept of conscience or moral intuition and asks whether it stands up to rational scrutiny. In his Novel 'The Brothers Karamazov' the 19th century Russian write...

28 Nov 201412min

Criminal Barrister Harry Potter asks whether the law should enforce morals, and if so, which morals?Should the law tell us what we can and can't do? Or should it go further and tell us what is right, ...

27 Nov 201412min

The eighteenth century writer Jeremy Bentham thought that telling right from wrong as simple: morally right things were the ones that increased the total of human happiness. Wrong things were the ones...

26 Nov 201412min