I recently found out about RADIOLAB, a popular hour- long radio show from NPR about science and philosophy. Thanks to Khan of the Socrates Café group for putting me on to it. Actually, it’s kind of hard to listen to RADIOLAB on the radio, as they only make five episodes each year. It’s mostly an internet pod-cast thing; you can listen anytime to any of the episodes made since 2002, when RADIOLAB got started. Also, they put a handful of additional “shorts” on their site each season.
The RADIOLAB producers producers often focus on topics relating to the brain and mind, or to numbers and modern physics. Well, if you know anything at all about me or my blog, you know that science and philosophy and mind-stuff are right up my alley (even though I often get mugged in that alley). So, I got out the earplugs and started catching up with RADIOLAB.
After listening to 5 or 6 full episodes and 7 or 8 mini-podcasts, I have a few impressions and reactions to share. My initial impression was that RADIOLAB is annoying. It uses plenty of manufactured sound effects (“soundscapes”), and spends a lot of time talking with and telling stories about real ordinary people. In other words, RADIOLAB is going out of its way to be entertaining. And then there’s the non-stop cutesy banter between RADIOLAB hosts Jad and Robert, with lots of little jokes (intelligent jokes, of course – this is NPR) and smarmy, snickery laughter. And even more time is wasted on hip musical interludes. It’s not unlike another morning drive-time radio show.
However . . . . . When RADIOLAB finally does get serious, it can be brilliant. Once they get past all the entertainment, they often include (all too brief) interviews with heavy-hitters, e.g. brain researchers Robert Sapolsky, Oliver Sacks and V. Ramachandran, mathematician Steven Strogatz, and string-theory physicist Brian Greene. At its worst, RADIOLAB is still ultimately interesting. In listening to my sample, I learned about hookworms as therapy for immune system disorders; how cat toxoplasmosis parasite infection may cause humans to crash cars and become promiscuous; how the frequency of word use in writing can tell how well your brain is working; how people are biased toward impulsive choices (e.g., go out and drink too much with your friends, even though you know it will make you sick) when the frontal cortex is distracted (e.g., trying to understand why your girlfriend just dumped you); and how mini-black holes might be combined with dark energy to create new universes – and how those new universes would create space in an entirely new set of dimensions, i.e. they would not barge in and take up time and space in the old universe. (!!)
And they often leave you with something philosophic to ponder – e.g., if our decisions are so easily influenced by “subconscious priming”, which advertisers use to make us head for McDonalds or buy Cocoa Crispies or drink Bud, then just how much “free will” can we have as we head into a brave new world of neuroscientific marketing?
Obviously I’d like to have an “executive summary” version of RADIOLAB. Maybe it’s a generational thing. RADIOLAB offers a real thinking and learning experience and a lot of substantial insight. But it wraps all of this in many layers of sugary coating, i.e. plenty of entertaining stimulation. So, you’re in for a “fun hour” with two cool, hip young guys (well, Jad is young; Robert is getting some wrinkles, but he’s obviously ‘staying relevant’). If I were still young, maybe I’d see it differently. But at my age, I would like them to get to the point without excess drama.
So, RADIOLAB will remain a frustrating experience for me. The stuff they get into is just too good to ignore. But all the entertaining dross is too fluffy to waste time with. So I’ll just have to multi-task while I listen, and focus in once Jad and Robert put the music and personal stories and soundscapes and little quips aside, and get serious about their topic. That’s the beauty of internet listening; you can choose your time and place, and go back and forth to find the meat (metaphorically, anyway; I remain a vegetarian).
Jim, Your description of RADIOLAB has me thinking of something I realized too many
years ago in a book store. I was glancing over the new books and found that I wanted
to read all of them. I realized that the time of reading almost every new books that
came out was OVER! I would definitely have to pick and choose what to read and what
to pass by. (Yes, I am just an old lady at this point in life, feeling ever more so
as the days go by.)
And as the years go by with the proliferation of the information published and available
in today’s world, I find myself even more choosy as to what I will and will not decide to
give my attention to.
And I’m fast losing any interest in the massive multi-tasking that has become a “taken-for-
granted” in today’s technological world. One can only do so much of multi-tasking before
one soon has a case of ADHD, and one ends up learning only bits and pieces of this and that
and does not enjoy anything in depth. MCS
Comment by MCS — June 3, 2010 @ 11:06 pm
Hey Jim,
I’m glad you are enjoying the radio show… granted, with some reservations. ;)
I think your gripes are definitely worthy of consideration. Unfortunately, in this world where public TV and radio stations have to be funded through public membership donations, I think it’s a marvel that this type of show exists at at all. Personally I do like the balance of dealing heady subjects with some sense of humor and without any hint of elitist hubris.
Also, if you already haven’t checked out websites like fora.tv or ted.com, please do so. They are also wonderful source of great lectures of all kinds of topics.
Cheers,
Kon
Comment by Kon — June 4, 2010 @ 8:15 pm
Mary — yes, I also want to read much more than time would ever allow. Just this past weekend I stopped by a B&N and saw a 1000 page book by Roger Penrose, “The Road to Reality”, which has detailed explanations of modern quantum physics, relativity, cosmology, particle physics, string theory, black holes, information and entropy, hyper-dimensional space-time geometry and topology — and I wanted it so bad. But I’d be lucky to get 100 pages into it in the next 5 years. In another month another “must read” book will come along, and it would wind up in the big pile of my previous “must read” books, like the 600 page compendium on philosophical articles regarding mind and consciousness. I don’t think I even read 100 pages of that.
Kon, first, sorry for mis-spelling your name! I guess that I still have Star Trek on the brain (even though you don’t look much like Ricardo Montablan . . . ;^) But thanx again, you’re really up with what’s happening intellectually out beyond the castle of paper books, where I’m mostly holed up. I’ll definitely check out those lecture sites. See ya soon at the S. Cafe. Jim G.
Comment by Jim G — June 7, 2010 @ 9:10 pm
smarmy fake laughter, lumpen sound effects, irritating accents.
yes, RadioLab!
Comment by lord reith — July 20, 2010 @ 4:37 pm
Jim, I also have mixed feelings about RadioLab. They recently did a story about George Price. George Price is not someone who most people have heard of, but he is worth knowing about, and I credit RadioLab with at least presenting him to the public. Price was a highly eccentric mathematician who came up with a formula showing how natural selection can occur at a group as well as individual level, which has been used to explain how altruistic behavior can evolve. The hosts of RadioLab misinterpreted Price’s work in terms of the alternate altruism explanation of kin selection. There is a dispute among some biologists on this point, with E O Wilson favoring group selection and Richard Dawkins favoring kin selection. In true RadioLab style, the misinterpreted substance of Price’s work was quickly skimmed over with most of the time devoted to describing his rather peculiar personal life. I felt like throwing a shoe at the radio.
Comment by MartinC — July 28, 2013 @ 2:30 pm