With Reason New Humanist magazine | The RA

As mainstream space tourism grows ever more likely, New Yorker writer Nicholas Schmidle tells Niki Seth-Smith about life inside the new space race, as explored in his new book 'Test Gods'. What motivates men like Bezos, Branson and Musk? How does the approach to risk in private business compare with that at NASA? And should we be looking to space at all, with so much unresolved here on planet earth? Plus, Nicholas reflects on fatherhood and masculinity, including the life of his father:...

Racism is not an externality to British policing but is integral to its history, says sociologist and ex-youth worker, Adam Elliott-Cooper. He tells Samira Shackle about the ideas behind his book ‘Black Resistance to British Policing’. Recognising racism as far more than just interpersonal or about prejudice alone, he connects it to colonialism and the state, and highlights the role of resistance - including by women of colour who have long championed justice and radical change.Plus: why the ...

What does it mean to contemplate 'motherhood' in a world that values some bodies - and some decisions - over others? Behavioural scientist Pragya Agarwal tells Alice Bloch about her experiences as a woman of South Asian heritage - from abortion, to pregnancy, to surrogacy - and the social, historical and scientific factors that shape how we talk about motherhood. How have women been controlled and contained through history? And how does that continue, worldwide, today? A can...

Carlo Rovelli, the globally celebrated physicist and bestselling storyteller of science, talks to Niki Seth-Smith about the history - and sheer wonder - of quantum theory. How did a feverish young man named Werner Heisenberg, working alone on the North Sea island of Helgoland in 1925, develop a radical insight that would shake the world of physics? What’s its legacy for how we think about the nature of reality and perception itself? And how does the ‘relational’ interpretation of quantum mech...

A special episode from the How To Academy Podcast. Human rights lawyer and award-winning author Philippe Sands QC meets the Dutch historian and viral superstar Rutger Bregman to hear a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good.How To Academy is London’s home of big thinking. In livestream and through live events, they host the world’s biggest thinkers, artists, entrepreneurs and leaders – from Ai Weiwei to Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Gates to Patt...

For centuries, we’ve had an intuitive sense that connecting with “nature” is good for our wellbeing. But what’s the hard evidence? What exactly is “nature” anyway? Should we be wary of it being prescribed as a catch-all cure for complex problems? And what impact does nature writing itself actually have? Science writer Lucy Jones talks to Alice Bloch about her prize-winning book ‘Losing Eden’, which surveys the mass of research – from the work of Carl Jung to cutting-edge neurology, medical an...