Polymath World Channel

EVOLUTIONARY GENETICS Dr Zachary Ardern is an evolutionary geneticist at the world-famous Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre in Cambridge. His work investigates the  evolution and functions of young genes in pathogenic bacteria and viruses, working as a SEED fellow (Sanger Epidemiological and Evolutionary Dynamics) as part of the Thomson group. Tracing the genetic changes of organisms over time, and how...

Of all the creationist pseudoscience videos I have seen, this was the one that tipped me over the edge. In this skit by Genesis Apologetics we have the worst collection of everything I struggle to tolerate: misinformation and basic factual errors wedded to massive overconfidence, immense disrespect for science and scientists, painting science as a homogenous collective enemy whose agenda is anti-r...

GENETICS, CANCER AND SCIENCE COMMUNICATION Why is cancer so hard to cure in humans? Dr Kat Arney is a geneticist and an award-winning science communicator.  Kat tells stories about science. She is the founder and director of First Create The Media : a communications and media consultancy for people who do science, offering consultancy, copywriting, media production, training and one-to-one coachin...

I finally have a look at a video by Answers In Genesis (Canada). It is a short explaining why evolution is false, apparently. There have been some poor videos from young earth creationism and intelligent design that we have looked at, but I was caught off guard by how mad this was! There are better, truer and more satisfying answers out there for the religious and non-religious alike. Creationists...

PARTICLE PHYSICS: THE BAD BOY OF SCIENCE Dr Sam Gregson is a particle physicist and science communicator who did his PhD at Cambridge University with the world-famous Cavendish Laboratory. After working at CERN and pursuing postdoctoral fellowships in particle physics he moved into science communication as the "Bad Boy of Science" where he performs live demonstrations and mixes in stand up comedy...

PHILOSOPHY  Dr Max Baker-Hytch is Senior Tutor in philosophy at Oxford University. He specialises in epistemology and philosophy of religion, is the author of the Cambridge Elements work God and the Problem of Evidential Ambiguity and has published many research articles in philosophy. He is a teaching fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University. He did his PhD at Oxford University and did a postdo...

Here I respond to another pseudoscience video, this time by an American religious apologetics ministry called Reasons For Hope. These two men come across as warm and likeable and are quite talented wordsmiths, but as is so often the case their science is woefully inadequate and misinformed. Like much American apologetics they recite the incorrect mantras of Intelligent Design verbatim without any...

Polymath World # Episode 20 - BRITISH INTERPLANETARY SOCIETY I interview former president of the British Interplanetary Society, Alistair Scott, about the history and work of the oldest space advocacy group on the planet. BiS has been active for almost a century, founded by the legendary Arthur C. Clarke. As meetings, research and publications grew, BiS was discussing moon landings 30 years before...

PLANT GENETICS Solving world hunger through potatoes! Dr Compton is associate professor of genetics at the University of Birmingham where she is based at the Centre for Computational Biology. Her research is in plant genetics using the potato as her model organism. Using modern genetics her hope is to tackle world hunger and malnutrition through efficient genetic research. This work has spanned th...

SPACE ELEVATORS  Dr Peter Swan is the Chief Architect of the Space Elevator Consortium and a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society. He has a PHD in engineering from UCLA where his thesis was on space tethers. He is a partner of Zodiac Planetary Services and has been advocating and leading research on the feasibility and execution of the space elevator concept for decades. An accomplished en...

SPACEX ASTRONAUT  Chris Sembroski flew in 2021 on the historic Inspiration4 mission. It was the first all-civilian space flight and is the subject of Netflix's documentary Inspiration4. Chris is an engineer for Blue Origin working on the New Glenn rocket and is a lecturer in aviation at Embry-Riddle University (his alma mater). Inspiration4 flew to 364 miles, the highest altitude flown since the H...

Religious apologist Dr Frank Turek (from Cross Examined) gives his 4 best arguments against evolution. Are they any good? Frank has a PhD in Christian Apologetics but has no science background and is well-known for advocating for Intelligent Design Creationism which is pseudoscientific. Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for evolution, and a long history of support for it from Christians...

Polymath World # Episode 16 - Professor Paul Heslop MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS Professor Paul Heslop is professor of mathematical physics at Durham University. A prolific researcher in his field, he has published over 80 papers across subdisciplines such as supersymmetric field theory and supergravity. We discuss his research including subjects like scattering amplitudes and AdS/CFT as well as his thoug...

Christian apologist Tim Barnett from the ministry Stand To Reason advocates for Intelligent Design Creationism. Much like many American apologetics ministries, they are anti-evolution and pro-Intelligent Design. In this video they ask us to "go where the evidence leads" whilst making strong claims about how science works and what it is we do. Is this accurate or fair? Intelligent Design makes outr...

NASA ASTRONAUT Lieutenant Colonel Charles Gemar is a former NASA astronaut who flew on 3 missions on the Space Shuttle. A former army pilot and engineer, he graduated from the NASA astronaut class of 1986 after the Challenger disaster. After serving in several roles including CAPCOM, he flew on STS-38 in 1990, STS-48 in 1991, and finally STS-62 in 1994. He spent 24 days in space across his 3 missi...

Polymath World # Episode 14 - Professor Simon Walker-Samuel BIOPHYSICS Simon is Professor of Biophysics and Co-Director of the UCL Centre for Computational Medicine and Vice Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Medical Sciences. His research focus is the development of virtual tissue models of disease, by combining biomedical imaging, computational modelling and machine learning. He did a physics Ph...

Polymath World Roundtable Chat: Evolution, Creationism and Intelligent Design Pseudoscience (With Professor Dave Explains and Phil Halper) Professor Dave Explains and Phil Halper join me for a discussion of evolutionary biology, creationism and Intelligent Design on the centenary of the Scopes Monkey Trial. What is stopping people from understanding and accepting the overwhelming evidence for evol...

ASTROPHYSICS AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY Lord Martin Rees is one of the most accomplished scientists of the 20th and 21st century. With over 500 research publications and a large number of popular books on science, he has made immense and significant impact on the fields of high-energy astrophysics, cosmology, galaxy formation, the origins of the cosmic microwave background, and in popular science...

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY Dr Matt Wilkinson is a lecturer in evolutionary biology at Cambridge University. He is a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. An authority of the evolution of locomotion, he wrote the book Restless Creatures on the evolution of complex movement in life. He is also an authority on pterosaurs. Matt also has a masters in theatre performance and is passionate about science communic...

PALEOBIOLOGY AND ANCIENT LIFE Dr Simon Conway-Morris is professor of Paleobiology at Cambridge University. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society for 30 years and is a fellow of St Johns College, Cambridge. He is one of the greatest living evolutionary biologists and one of the minds behind convergent evolution which is a grand unifying theory across biology. He gave the Royal Institution Chris...

Polymath World # Episode 10 - Phil Halper COSMOLOGY Phil Halper is a popular science communicator whose new book "Battle of the Big Bang", coauthored with Niayesh Afshordi, has just been released through University of Chicago Press. Here we discuss the premise of the book: which model will win out of the competing models for the beginning of the universe? And will the Big Bang survive new advances...

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR SCIENCE AND RELIGION CONFERENCE (ISSR) 2025 Synthetic Biology (SynBio) has the power to transform our engagement with the natural world. With tools like CRISPR-Cas9, "impossible" is an ever diminishing word. As biology accelerates at a rate not seen since the 1950s, what are the biggest questions facing humankind as we try to avert climate disaster and beat disease whilst...

SPACE ENGINEERING Laura González Llamazares is the Cofounder and CCO at Radian Systems. She is a rising star in the space sector who has already been involved in launching over 30 satellites, as well as disrupting the sector through the 3D printing of just about everything including rocket engines. A polymath of business and engineering, she has worked all over the world, including in Houston with...

PHILOSOPHY Dr Stephen Law is professor of philosophy at Oxford University's Department of Continuing Education and is the author of many popular books including Believing Bullshit, The Philosophy Gym, The Philosophy Files, The War for Children's Minds, and the Oxford University Very Short Introduction to Humanism. He was formerly head of philosophy at Heythrop College at the University of London a...

SPACE ARCHITECTURE  Melodie Yashar is a space architect who has worked across the space sector. An engineer and architect, she is developing robotic technology to create the means of 3D printing human rated habitats and landing facilities on the Moon and Mars. Formerly at NASA Ames Research Centre, she is a rising star in the space industry and her work can help transform the future of safer human...