Big Ideas (audio)

The theory of evolution is credited to Charles Darwin but important contributions were also made by Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Wallace. The stories of these three adventurers are chronicled by Sean B. Carroll, author of the book Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species.

Author Harold Kushner on his latest book Conquering Fear

Anthropologist and author, Wade Davis, delivers the 2009 Massey Lecture The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. Davis explores the importance of the myriad and diverse cultures of the world and the impact on all of us when a culture disappears.

Dr. Peter Diamandis is the Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, a non-profit initiative focused on designing and launching large incentive prizes, such as the Google Lunar X PRIZE, to drive radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. This lecture entitled The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Invent it Yourself! was delivered at the Quantum to Cosmos science festival at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo.

University of Toronto English professor Nick Mount discusses Samuel Beckett?s controversial play Waiting For Godot.

The author of A Love of Reading, acclaimed book reviewer Robert Adams, discusses the Man Booker Prize winning novel Mister Pip by New Zealand author Lloyd Jones.

Harvard psychologist and author, Howard Gardner, best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, delivers a lecture based on his book Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet.

Harvard sociologist and noted public intellectual, Nathan Glazer, presents the 2009 Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture entitled Democracy and Diversity: Dealing with Deep Divides.

Influential blogger, Shel Israel, shares insights from his book Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighbourhoods.

Editor of Skeptic Magazine, Michael Shermer, delivers an entertaining lecture on his book Why People Believe Weird Things.

The author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, Liaquat Ahamed, discusses the connections between the world's financial decision makers in the period leading up to the Great Depression and their counterparts in the current global financial crisis.

Describing herself as an atheist who defends religion, academic and author, Camille Paglia, argues that an understanding of world religions and their symbols is essential to fully understanding human civilization and our place in the universe.

The second part of the lecture entitled Justice and Theatre: Great Moments in Great Trials examines Nicolae Bukharin and the Moscow Show Trials and the 1945 Nuremberg Trials.

The first of this two-part lecture entitled Justice and Theatre: Great Moments in Great Trials looks at the libel trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895.

Richard Leakey, professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University in New York is best known for his paleontological work in Africa. His lecture, entitled Climate Change and the Future of Life on Earth deals with wildlife conservation and was recorded at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on May 30th, 2009.

Leonard Mlodinow, of the California Institute of Technology is the author of The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. His lecture on the subject of randomness was presented by the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario on May 6th, 2009.

Lawrence Krauss is a professor in the Department of Physics at Arizona State University. His lecture entitled Life, the Universe and Nothing was recorded at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto on March 27th, 2009.

Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, delivers a lecture at the Royal Ontario Museum entitled The Three New Commandments in conjunction with the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

John Ralston Saul, Margaret MacMillan, Naomi Klein and Adam Gopnik reflect on what constitutes a good leader and why some leaders thrive while others fail.

The author of The Truth About Stories, Thomas King, delivers his 2003 Massey Lecture entitled, What Is It About Us that You Don?t Like?