Intelligence Squared

In this week's episode former Surgeon General of the United States, Dr Vivek Murthy speaks to Ros Urwin about how he discovered first hand how loneliness lies behind some of our greatest personal and societal challenges, from anxiety and depression to addiction and violence. To find out more and buy Dr Murthy's new book 'Together: Loneliness, Health and What Happens When We Find Connection' click...

Why do so many of us no longer trust experts, facts and statistics? Why has politics become so fractious and warlike? And how can the history of ideas help us understand our present? In this episode Professor Will Davies, author of Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over The World speaks to Carl Miller about the long history of how societies based on facts and reason were built and why they are now...

In this week's episode Robert H. Frank, author of 'Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work' speaks to Linda Yueh about how our social environments influence our behaviour more than we think. They discuss why behaviours from smoking to cheating are largely products of social environments and how we can use this understanding to direct human behaviour toward choices we make for the benefi...

In this week's episode award-winning journalist Rachel Louise Snyder speaks to Helen Lewis about some common misconceptions about domestic violence: that it happens to an unlucky few; that it's a matter of poor choices; that if things are dire enough, victims will leave. Her perception changed when she began talking to the victims and perpetrators whose stories she tells in this episode and her bo...

In this episode, leading soldier-scholar David Kilcullen speaks to Carl Miller about how the West’s opponents have learned from twenty-first-century conflict and explains how their cutting-edge tactics and adaptability pose a serious threat to America and its allies, disabling the West’s military advantage. Click here to find out more about David's book 'The Dragons and The Snakes': https://bit.ly...

Intelligence Squared+. The world's best speakers. Your questions. £4.99 per month. Intelligence Squared+ will bring you live, interactive events every week on our new online platform. Just like at our real-life events, you’ll be able to put your questions to our speakers, vote in live polls and interact with other members of the audience. Your subscription will give you access to multiple events f...

Intelligence Squared+. The world's best speakers. Your questions. £4.99 per month. Intelligence Squared+ will bring you live, interactive events every week on our new online platform. Just like at our real-life events, you’ll be able to put your questions to our speakers, vote in live polls and interact with other members of the audience. Your subscription will give you access to multiple events f...

Intelligence Squared+. The world's best speakers. Your questions. £4.99 per month. Intelligence Squared+ will bring you live, interactive events every week on our new online platform. Just like at our real-life events, you’ll be able to put your questions to our speakers, vote in live polls and interact with other members of the audience. Your subscription will give you access to multiple events f...

Intelligence Squared+. The world's best speakers. Your questions. £4.99 per month. Intelligence Squared+ will bring you live, interactive events every week on our new online platform. Just like at our real-life events, you’ll be able to put your questions to our speakers, vote in live polls and interact with other members of the audience. Your subscription will give you access to multiple events f...

Ultras are football fans like no others. A hugely visible and controversial part of the sporting game. This movement of extreme fandom and politics is also one of the largest youth movements in the world. In this episode, James Montague, author of '1312: Among the Ultras: A journey with the world's most extreme fans' speaks to Ros Urwin about how the movement began and how it grew to become a glob...

Feeling confused by all the data and metrics about coronavirus that are flying around? In this episode, Britain’s most eminent statistician David Spiegelhalter, biometrics expert Sheila Bird, and the American scientist John Ioannidis, who has written that Covid-19 ‘might be a one-in-a-century evidence fiasco’. The conversation is chaired by Anne McElvoy of The Economist.  Support this show http://...

Why are self-confident ignoramuses so often believed? Why are thoughtful experts so often given the cold shoulder? And why do apparently irrelevant details such as a person’s height, their relative wealth, or their Facebook photo influence whether or not we trust what they are saying? In this episode we are joined by Stephen Martin and Joseph Marks, behavioural scientists and authors of Messengers...

What will the long-term economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic be? For the fourth in a new series of interactive events from Intelligence Squared - Coronavirus: Your Questions Answered - we brought together a panel of leading experts in a free live online event to examine how Covid-19 will affect the economy around the world. How deep and long-lasting is the upcoming recession likely to be? W...

Hype has a dark side. It can mislead, distract and blinker us from seeing what is actually going on. In this episode we are joined by Gemma Milne, tech journalist and author of Smoke and Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It, in conversation with Carl Miller of the think tank Demos.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared. See acast.com/privacy for...

The coronavirus pandemic threatens to remake the world's political systems. But how exactly? In the third in a new series of interactive events from Intelligence Squared - Coronavirus: Your Questions Answered - we brought together a panel of leading commentators in a free live online event to examine how the crisis will affect politics around the world. Does the pandemic hail the return of big gov...

It all started in 1979. According to Kim Ghattas, the former BBC journalist and author of Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry That Unravelled the Middle East, this was the pivotal year that kickstarted a forty-year rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, plunging the Middle East in turmoil. In this episode of the podcast, she examined this fascinating period of history with UCL political...

In both time and space, the cosmos is astoundingly vast, and yet is governed by simple, elegant, universal mathematical laws. In this episode we are joined by Brian Greene, theoretical physicist and author of Until The End of Time, in conversation with Tom Whipple, science editor of The Times. They discuss quantum mechanics, consciousness and how life and mind emerged from the chaos of the univers...

How can we protect ourselves from coronavirus? How long will the current situation last? Why has the death rate been so high in Italy? And why have some other countries apparently been more successful at reducing the spread of the virus? This episode is from a live online event that we staged on Friday March 27, and it features science broadcaster Xand Van Tulleken, epidemiologist David Heymann, e...

The UK's former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks appears in this special episode of the Intelligence Squared podcast, recorded remotely while he self-isolates in his home. In an in-depth discussion with the BBC's Ritula Shah, he discusses how our society can restore its sense of morality and the common good during the coronavirus pandemic.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquare...

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been raging for decades, with seemingly no end in sight. In this episode, we are joined by Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian-American historian and Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He is the author of a new book, titled The Hundred Years' War On Palestine, and in this episode he appears in conversation with The Guardian's Jonathan Freedla...

In these incredibly uncertain times, we're exploring the concept of 'radical uncertainty' in this episode with Mervyn King, the former Governor of the Bank of England, alongside renowned economist John Kay and Jesse Norman MP. Mervyn and John are the co-authors of a new book titled Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers, and in this episode they discuss the most successful - and m...

When was the last time you listened to someone, or someone really listened to you? At work, we’re taught to lead the conversation. On social media, we shape our personal narratives. At parties, we talk over one another. So do our politicians. We’re not listening. And no one is listening to us. This episode features Kate Murphy, the New York Times contributor and bestselling author of You're Not Li...

We tend to associate old age with deterioration, especially of our mental powers and memory. But today we are seeing a new cohort of the so-called young-old, people in their sixties, seventies and beyond, who are still healthy, active and fully engaged with life. Neuroscientist and bestselling author Daniel Levitin is at the forefront of research to find out how to lead a long and healthy life and...

Michael Cashman has been an actor, a politician and one of the pioneers of the struggle for LGBT equality in the UK. He is the author of a new book titled One Of Them: From Albert Square to Parliament Square and in this episode of the podcast he was interviewed by Razia Iqbal of the BBC on his fascinating life and career, as well as the stirring history of the British LGBT rights movement. Photo:...

In this episode of the Intelligence Squared podcast we are joined by Helen Lewis, staff writer for the Atlantic, who claims that too many pioneers of women’s rights have been whitewashed or forgotten because society likes its heroines to be cuddly and safe. Lewis believes it’s time to reclaim the history of feminism as a history of difficult women, and on Tuesday February 25 she came to the Intell...