CastRoller

David Cayley concludes his series with guest Nicholas Maxwell, a philosopher, retired from University College London. He's the author of "Is Science Neurotic?" and "From Knowledge to Wisdom." His theory is that science misunderstands itself, portraying itself an empirical, just-the-facts-m'aam enterprise, when it actually rests on all sorts of presuppositions, both social and metaphysical.

David Cayley talks to Theoretical Physicist Lee Smolin talks about his book "The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of Science and What Comes Next."

McGill scientist Dr. Allan Young talks about post-traumatic stress disorder and his book The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Christopher Norris of the University of Cardiff will talk about what he sees as a drift away from belief in the objective validity of scientific knowledge, and why he thinks this new relativism presents a threat that is moral and political as well as scientific. And then Mary Midgley will argue her view that science is always embedded in some myth or orienting story that expresses it deepest aims.

"Science has spoken... to society for more than half a millenium... In the past half century science has begun to speak back." So say the authors of a book called "Rethinking Science." Michael Gibbons and Peter Scott share their thoughts on the growing integration of science and society. And Janet Atkinson Grosjean discusses her new book "Public Science, Private Interest" which looks at how Canadian science policy tries to harness science to social and economic goals.

David Cayley talks to Ruth Hubbard, Harvard's first tenured female professor biology, and one of the first women to raise the question of male bias in science. Her recent work has tackled what she calls "the gene myth" and raised fears that new genetic technologies are producing a new eugenics.

Science cannot live without metaphors. The lay person can only form a conception of a gene, or an electron, by translating the scientific idea into an image of some kind. But we forget that our metaphors are only metaphors at our peril, says evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin. Richard Lewontin joins David Cayley to discuss the role of metaphor of science.

Many books discuss the theories of physics. Historian Peter Galison approaches the field like an anthropologist interested in its material culture. Machines play as big a role as theories in his history of physics.

David Cayley in conversation with historian Steven Shapin. He's one of the authors of "Leviathan and the Air Pump", a book which has helped a generation of readers to re-imagine the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. Steven Shapin talks about the authority of science in the 17th century and today.

The word gene is a scientific term, but it is now also common currency, popping up all the time in everyday conversation and popular journalism. German scholars Barbara Duden and Silya Samerski have been investigating this "pop-gene." They ask, what do pop-genes say to us about who and what we are. Series continues in April.