Ideas at the House

Are scientists the new gods? As we increasingly rely on science to solve our problems, are we stretching scientific method to mystique? If scientists are not infallible, can we trust what they tell us? And if we can’t trust scientists, can we still trust science? Tim Flannery is one of Australia’s leading writers on climate change. An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, Tim was named Australian of the Year in 2007. Tim has held various academic positions including Professor at the University of Adelaide, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum and Visiting Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. A well known presenter on ABC Radio,NPR and the BBC for more than a decade, he has also written and presented several series on the Documentary Channel including The Future Eaters (1998), Wild Australasia (2003), Islands in the Sky (1992) and Bushfire (1997). His books include Here on Earth (2010) and The Weather Makers (2005). Alok Jha is the science correspondent for ITV News in the UK. Before that, he did the same job at The Guardianfor a decade, where he wrote news, features, comment and presented the award-winning Science Weeklypodcast. He has also reported live from Antarctica and presented many TV and radio programmes for the BBC. Natasha Mitchell is a multi-award winning journalist and presenter of flagship ABC Radio National programs including the daily morning show, Life Matters (2012-15), and the popular science, psychology & culture radio program, All in the Mind (2002-12). She was vice president of the World Federation of Science Journalists, and a recipient of the MIT Knight Fellowship.  Co-founder of The Maintainers themaintainers.org, a research group focused on maintenance, repair, infrastructure and mundane labor, Lee Vinsel is an Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Stevens Institute of Technology. His research focuses on science and technology policy, and his first book examines the history of government regulation of the automobile in the United States, from the birth of the internal combustion engine to the Google Car. His work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Le Monde, Fortune and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the recent nuclear deal transforms geopolitical relationships with the Islamic Republic of Iran, what do Westerners need to understand of the past and the future of Iran’s dissenting voices? Laura Secor has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Foreign Affairs, and other publications and has worked at The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The American Prospect and Lingua Franca. She has been a fellow at the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers and at the American Academy in Berlin. She has taught journalism at New York University and at Princeton. Her book, Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran, was published by Riverhead Books in February. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The scale of the Middle East refugee crisis is overwhelming authorities. But war, failed states and climate change seem to be the new world normal – and so does the global flow of desperate people. What does it mean for the future? Philippe Legrain is a critically acclaimed thinker and communicator who has also been a senior policy adviser. A senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics’ European Institute, he is the founder of Open Political Economy Network (OPEN), an international think-tank. A columnist for Project Syndicate, Foreign Policy and CapX, he commentates for many international media outlets. From 2011 to 2014 he was economic adviser to the President of the European Commission and head of the team providing the president with strategic policy advice. Previously he was special adviser to World Trade Organisation director-general Mike Moore and trade and economics correspondent for The Economist. Philippe is the author of four successful books, includingImmigrants: Your Country Needs Them (2007), which was shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year, and European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics are in a Mess – and How to Put Them Right(2014), which was among the FT’s Best Books of 2014. His first study for OPEN is Refugees Work: A Humanitarian Investment that Yields Economic Dividends (2016). As The Economist's environment correspondent, Miranda Johnson attended UN climate negotiations at COP21, the UN Paris Climate Conference, and the GLACIER conference on the state of the Arctic, in Alaska, last year. She also helped run The Economist's own recent events on energy and sustainability in England. Prior to this, Miranda was the influential UK title’s US southeast correspondent based in Atlanta, Georgia, and has written for its International, Europe, United States, Britain, China, Science and Business sections, on topics ranging from youth unemployment to energy policy and smartphones to fiscal corruption. Miranda also edited online coverage as a science correspondent and served as the editorial assistant for The Economist’s 'The World in 2014' publication. Hamish Macdonald is an award winning International Affairs Correspondent and Harvard Fellow. In recent years Hamish has covered war in Ukraine, the rise if ISIS in the Middle East, missing Nigerian schoolgirls, and the Gaza conflict. Previously, Hamish worked as anchor and correspondent for Aljazeera English. At Australia’s Ten Network he was creator, Executive Producer & host of prime-time documentary series ‘The Truth Is?’. Hamish has received a prestigious Walkley Award for Journalism and a Human Rights Australia Award for Journalism. Britain’s Royal Television Society named him “Young Journalist of the Year” in 2008 and GQ Magazine named Hamish “Media Man of the Year” in 2012. Jane McAdam is Scientia Professor of Law and Director of the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW. She is a non-resident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC, a Research Associate at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre, and an Associated Senior Fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway. Professor McAdam publishes widely in international refugee law and forced migration, with a particular focus on climate change and mobility. She is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Refugee Law, the leading journal in the field. Professor McAdam serves on a number of international committees, and has provided expert advice to organizations including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Organization for Migration, and the World Bank. She holds a doctorate in law from the University of Oxford, and first class honours degrees in law and history from the University of Sydney. In 2013, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In 2015, she was honoured as one of Australia's top ten Women of Influence, winning the ‘global’ category of the Australian Financial Review and Westpac’s 100 Women of Influence awards. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The tumultuous 17th century Enlightenment created the modern mind. What were the radical forces that shaped this intellectual world view we still share? And how is this under threat today? A.C. Grayling is the Master of the New College of the Humanities, London, and its Professor of Philosophy, and the author of over thirty books of philosophy, biography, history of ideas, and essays. His new book, The Age of Genius, was published by Bloomsbury in April 2016. He is a columnist for Prospect magazine, and was for a number of years a columnist on The Guardian and Times. He has contributed to many leading newspapers in the UK, US and Australia, and to BBC radios 4, 3, 2 and the World Service, for which he did the annual 'Exchanges at the Frontier' series; and he has often appeared on television. He has twice been a judge on the Booker Prize, in 2015 serving as the Chair of the judging panel. He is a Vice President of the British Humanist Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a time of turmoil, what happens when art and politics collide? Molly Crabapple is an artist and journalist who has covered Occupy Wall Street, Guantanamo Bay, migrant workers in Abu Dhabi, the US prison system, and the Syrian civil war.  Is it time for art to get out of the galleries and back on to the street? Molly Crabapple is an artist, journalist, author of the memoir, Drawing Blood and, according to New Republic, "an emblem of the way art can break out of the gilded gallery”. She has drawn and reported from Guantanamo Bay, Abu Dhabi's migrant labor camps, and in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, and Iraqi Kurdistan. Crabapple is a contributing editor for VICE, and has written for publications including The New York Times, Paris Review, and Vanity Fair. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you're on a bicycle at a red light with no car or pedestrian in sight, do you still wait for the green? Do you obey every single law? Surely fearful compliance with every niggling regulation defies the much-vaunted "freedom" that is the premise of democracy. Maybe that’s what drives our fascination with film and fiction criminality: we envy renegades. Is breaking a rule a day better than an apple for your health? Lionel Shriver's books include the international bestselling We Need to Talk About Kevin as well as Big Brother, New Republic, So Much For That, The Post-Birthday World, Double Fault and Game Control. Her latest book isThe Mandibles (2016). She writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and The Independent. Lionel lives in London and Brooklyn, New York. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have we entered the golden age of surveillance? With our own devices recording everything we do, have we brought this on ourselves? Does the Apple vs the FBI case expose our underlying tensions about privacy, technology and national security? Lev Grossman is the author of five novels, including the #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy, published in 25 countries and made into an hour-long drama on the Syfy channel. Grossman is the book critic for Time magazine and has written essays and criticism for Salon, Slate, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Lingua Franca, The Week, Village Voice and The Believer, among others. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children. Tobias Feakin is the founding director of the ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre. He researches how cyberspace is used by state and non-state actors and creating collaborative national and international policy responses. He is an Oxford Martin Associate at the Oxford University Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre and a Research Advisor for the Global Commission on Internet Governance. Alastair MacGibbon is the Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security, Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet. He was Formerly Children's eSafety Commissioner, General Manager (Security) for Dimension Data Australia, Director of the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra and Managing Partner at Surete Group, CEO Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers (CREST) Australia. As well as the Former Director of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre and Federal Agent with the Australian Federal Police.  Dr Katina Michael is a professor in the School of Information Systems and Technology at the University of Wollongong whose research looks at the socio-ethical implications of emerging technologies. She is the senior editor-in-chief of the IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, and senior editor of the IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. Since 2008 she has been a board member of the Australian Privacy Foundation, and until recently was the Vice-Chair. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Class war, multiculturalism, race, politics, culture wars, free speech, global warming - Bolt’s favourite targets get audiences excited, and this is a rare chance to explore where his ideas come from and whether he thinks they are dangerous. How dangerous is being an Australian commentator speaking your mind without reservation? Andrew Bolt is Australia’s most-read political commentator, published in the Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, Courier-Mail and Advertiser and runs Australia’s most popular political blog. On weeknights he hosts The Bolt Report on Sky News at 7pm and his Macquarie Radio show at 8pm, the top-rating show in its time slot in Melbourne and Sydney. His first book of columns, Still Not Sorry, was a best-seller and his second, Worth Fighting For, was released in June. Andrew was born in Adelaide and has worked on Labor election campaigns, the State Opera of South Australia and flower exporters in The Netherlands. He is married with three children and two dogs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have decades of social, political and economic change in the United States wrecked its social cohesion and a sense of community? How does the American dream work today? George Packer is the author, most recently, of The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, a New York Times bestseller, which won the National Book Award for non-fiction in 2013. He has published four other works of non-fiction, including The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, which received several prizes and was named one of the ten best books of 2005 by The New York Times Book Review; two novels; and a play,Betrayed, based on a New Yorker article, which ran five months Off Broadway in 2008 and won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play. He is the editor of The Fight Is for Democracy: Winning the War of Ideas in America and the World, and of a two-volume edition of George Orwell’s essays. Packer has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2003.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hot off the U.S. convention and campaign trail, America’s favourite living wit and best-selling author P.J. O'Rourke is heading straight to our stage to deliver his Dangerous State of the Nation. P.J. O’Rourke is a collection of curious contradictions. Roaming foreign affairs correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine for 20 years, he is also a conservative Republican satirist who recently reluctantly backed Hilary Clinton as “the second-worst thing that can happen to [America].” Former gonzo Editor of National Lampoon and writer of Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government, he is now the H.L Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute. Whether you share his political persuasions or not, his penchant for stiff drink or not, PJ O’Rourke has the rare ability to make you laugh out loud while being aghast at the same time. Join humourist hellraiser P.J. O’Rourke for a rollicking ride across the US political landscape and a firsthand assessment of the candidates hoping to make it into the White House in 2017. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.