Polymath World Channel

SIMONE WEIL: Dr Chris Thomas and Dr Alex Carter Together with Dr Chris Thomas, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Dr Alex Carter from Cambridge University, we discuss the incredible thought, writings and legacy of the philosopher Simone Weil. A true treasure, she is perhaps the most underappreciated and best kept secret in philosophy. Someone whose life and wr...

ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS and THEOLOGY Dr Gillian Straine is one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. A tremendous mind, she did a PhD in atmospheric physics at Imperial College London when she suffered from lymphatic cancer, undergoing a long and painful chemotherapy journey. Contracting cancer at such a young age was a significant blow and although she recovered, her journey of healing took...

PHILOSOPHY Dr Amna Whiston is a philosopher who specialises in moral philosophy and the philosophy of mind. She teaches at Oxford University and Cambridge University's continuing education. She also writes popularly for the Institute for Art and Ideas and has engaged in debates about consciousness and AI on platforms such as Unbelievable . I've loved engaging with Amna in the past year in public o...

PHILOSOPHY Dr Craig is a world renowned philosopher of religion and an authority on the discipline known as "apologetics". He authored the textbook we used as masters students and is one of the most famous philosophers of his generation. The architect of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, Dr Craig is a true polymath with doctorates in philosophy of religion from the University of Birmingham and a do...

PHARMACOLOGY AND SPACE SCIENCE Dr Julie Keeble is senior lecturer in pharmacology at Kings College London in the faculty of medicine and life sciences. She is part of the aerospace medicine and extreme physiology group at KCL. Dr Keeble has sent over 30 experiments to space in her role with ISSET as a chief scientist. Her role in sending student experiments to the ISS as part of the science resear...

THEORETICAL PHYSICS Conspiracy theories, science denial and inspiring wonder  Dr Lawrence Krauss is an award winning science communicator and author, theoretical physicist and cosmologist who founded the Origins Project. His work has featured all over the world in works by the likes of PBS and NOVA. His career has taken him through Caltech, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Case Western and Arizona S...

DNA repair in space Can we survive on Mars with the radiation? In October 2025 I had the honour of speaking at the University of Southern California for the 2025 Mars Society Conference. My lecture was on DNA double strand breaks due to space radiation and the immense challenges we face in keeping astronauts alive in deep space. Enjoy! The Polymath World Channel brings you interviews with extraord...

NASA Astronaut  The wonder of spacewalks  NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold has spent 210 says in space across his 2 missions. He has completed 5 spacewalks (EVAs) for over 32 hours. A former schoolteacher, marine biologist and accountant, Ricky became a NASA astronaut in the class of 2004. After completing a NEEMO mission undersea in Florida as well as a caves mission in Europe, he flew aboard Space Sh...

CELL AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY And The Intelligent Design Trial 20 years later Dr Kenneth Miller is professor (emeritus) of biology at Brown University in the USA. He is a world authority on cell and molecular biology and an early pioneer in computational biology. His work has spanned the globe and made huge inroads in protein science. He has written biology textbooks used en masse in high schools and...

ASTROPHYSICS WHAT IS GALACTIC ARCHAEOLOGY? Dr Anke Arentsen-Ardern is an observational astronomer in the field of Galactic Archaeology at Cambridge's world famous Institute of Astronomy. She works on the formation and evolution of the ancient Milky Way and the properties of old stellar populations, using observations of old, metal-poor stars, typically utilising spectroscopy. Anke has been a Herch...

Political commentator Candace Owens believes dinosaurs never existed. Why? For what reason? What is there to gain from believing dinosaurs are a conspiracy? This is not healthy scepticism or critical thinking, but madness. Hating science and denying evidence never got anyone anywhere worth a damn. The Polymath World Channel brings you interviews with extraordinary researchers and academics working...

ESA ASTRONAUT I loved talking to the outstanding Dr Meganne Christian, astronaut reserve for the European Space Agency. Dr Meganne Christian is an ESA astronaut in reserve, appointed from the 2022 class. Meganne studied at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Engineering in industrial chemistry. In 2014 she received her PhD in industrial...

Something a bit different this week. This is another issue close to my heart and a conspiracy theory that is so problematic and disappointing. Candace Owens is a political commentator who doesn't believe we landed on the moon. I love Bill Maher and he has a lot of patience here and handles this pretty well. Her reasons are abysmal and it is tragic that she uses her huge platform to propagate such...

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...