Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss meteorology. The Book of Genesis resounds with a terrible act of vengeance, carried out by an angry God seeking to punish his people. And the mechanism with which this is carried out - a catastrophic flood which wipes out evil on earth. In fact, many ancient civilisations believed extreme meteorological phenomena like thunder and lightning, hailstones and even meteors were acts of divine intervention. Running parallel with this belief, however, was also a desire to understand and explain the natural world through rational enquiry and observation. This complex relationship – between the natural world and divinity – has fascinated philosophers, artists and scientists alike from antiquity to our own time. Aristotle, for example, coined the phrase meteorology but to what extent did he link meteorological events to the cosmos and the Gods? How did the development of instrumentation during the Renaissance aid the prediction of weather events? Why did 18th century writers such as Keats feel that these scientific advances stripped the skies of its mystique and romance? And why does meteorology continue to fascinate and mystify to this day? With Vladimir Jankovic, Wellcome Research Lecturer at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at Manchester University;Richard Hamblyn, writer; Liba Taub, Director of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science at Cambridge University.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the theories of a grand design in the universe. The late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould argued that if you re-ran the tape of evolutionary history, an entirely different set of creatures would emerge. Man would not exist because the multitude of random changes that resulted in us would never be repeated exactly the same way. Others disagree, arguing that there is a pattern that points to some kind of direction – even, perhaps, a design, a sense that some things are pre-ordained. Who were the original proponents of the idea of a grand design? Were they deliberately setting out to find a scientific theory that could sit alongside religious faith? On the other hand, can the concept of contingency – or the randomness of evolution - be compatible with a belief in God? With Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at Cambridge University and author of The Crucible of Creation – the Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals; Sandy Knapp, botanist at the Natural History Museum; John Brooke, Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the calendar, which shapes the lives of millions of people. It is an invention that gives meaning to the passing of time and orders our daily existence. It links us to the arcane movements of the heavens and the natural rhythms of the earth. It is both deeply practical and profoundly sacred. But where does this strange and complex creation come from? Why does the week last seven days but the year twelve months? Who named these concepts and through them shaped our lives so absolutely? The answers involve Babylonian Astronomers and Hebrew Theologians, Roman Emperors and Catholic Popes. If the calendar is a house built on the shifting sands of time, it has had many architects. With Robert Poole, Reader in History at St Martin’s College Lancaster and author of Time’s Alteration, Calendar Reform in Early Modern England; Kristen Lippincott, Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich; Peter Watson, Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge University and author of A Terrible Beauty – A History of the People and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss man and disease. The Book of Exodus makes clear that when God wants to strike humankind, he does so with plague and disease. For millennia epidemics were understood exactly that way - as acts of divine retribution, a force of nature that could devastate empires and annihilate great swathes of population at a stroke. From the bubonic plague to measles, from cholera to smallpox, epidemics have constantly reshaped our world, leaving destruction and huge social upheaval in their wake. Before advanced science, what defences did humankind have? How much did the ancient Greeks understand of the root causes of disease - or did they simply explain it as an imbalance of the four humours that governed the body? What were the social and political consequences of The Black Death of 14th century Europe which wiped out a third of the population? How did the scientific breakthroughs of the 19th century - and the discovery of germ theory - alter people's perception of disease? And is it possible to live in a disease free society? How have we understood these afflictions, how have we fought against them and is it a war we can ever win?With Dr Anne Hardy, Reader in the History of Medicine at the Wellcome Trust Centre at University College London; David Bradley, Professor of Tropical Hygiene at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Dr Chris Dye, epidemiologist with the World Health Organisation.

Melvyn Bragg investigates the creatives forces of the imagination. Immanuel Kant said, "Imagination is a blind but indispensable function of the soul without which we should have no knowledge whatever but of which we are scarcely even conscious". Imagination has been the companion of artists, scientists, leaders and visionaries but what exactly is it? When did human beings first develop an imagination and why? How does it relate to creativity and what evolutionary function does creativity have? And is it possible to know whether our brains’ capacity for imagination is still evolving? With Dr Susan Stuart, Lecturer in Philosophy of Mind at the University of Glasgow; Steven Mithen, Professor of Early Prehistory at the University of Reading; Semir Zeki, Professor of Neurobiology at the University of London and author of Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the vexing issue of human nature. Some argue that we are born as blank slates and our natures are defined by upbringing, experience, culture and the ideas of our time. Others believe that human nature is innate and pre-destined, regardless of time and place. Is there really such a thing as human nature? And, if there is, can it be changed? Does the truth about human nature mean we should stop striving for progress, or should it give us cause for optimism? How important is the human race in the wider scheme of things? With Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Centre of Cognitive Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Janet Radcliffe Richards, Philosopher, Reader in Bioethics, University College London; John Gray, Professor of European Thought, London School of Economics.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origin of the concept and historical role of the scientist. The word "science" first appeared in the English language in 1340 and ever since its meaning has been in a state of flux. The notion of "the scientist" has had a similarly evolving history. For some, "the scientist" does not truly appear until after the Renaissance, others put its emergence much later than that. When did the words and concepts we recognise today take on their contemporary meaning? How has the role of the scientist, and our understanding of it, changed? Has science always been a rival to religion, or was it once an ally? And how has the scientist been perceived by the wider world – as a modern saint, the "priest of reason", or as a terrifying and amoral menace - the "mad scientist" of film and literature? With John Gribbin, Visiting Fellow in Astronomy, University of Sussex; Patricia Fara, Lecturer on the History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University; Hugh Pennington, Head of the Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Aberdeen.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of politics on psychoanalysis. The 20th century saw the birth and rise of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud led people to think about how the mind functioned and how our behaviour might be understood through the process of working with a psychoanalyst, either one-to-one or in a group. Freud thought a lot about this process and in 1922 he published Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, in which he pronounced that the group "wants to be ruled and oppressed and to fear its masters." He was writing at a time when ideas about rules and oppression were much discussed because the 20th century was also a century of fascism, totalitarianism and dictatorship. Freud died in 1939, just as a wave of despotism was sweeping across Europe. To what extent does psychoanalysis function by the rules of a dictatorship and to what extent does it function like a democracy? Is there a part of us that craves dictatorship and, if so, why? Is there a war going on in our own minds between ideas that we allow in to our consciousness and other ideas that we repress? With Adam Phillips, general editor of the new Penguin translations of Freud; Sally Alexander, Professor of History, Goldsmiths College, University of London; Malcolm Bowie, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature and Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of drugs. Throughout history people have taken them to alter their perceptions and change their moods. The attractions lie in the promise of instant pleasure and the possibility of heightened perceptions. Nietzsche said that no art could exist without intoxication and believed that a dream-like state was an essential precondition to superior vision and understanding. But artists and writers from De Quincey to Coleridge to Huxley have found drugs to be both a creative and a destructive force in their lives and work. Coleridge said in his poem about opium: Fantastic Passions! Maddening Brawl! And shame and terror over all! The world of drugs is a topsy-turvy world of ambivalence and paradox: a world of clarity and confusion; stimulation and stupefaction; medicine and poison; vitality and death.Can drugs really stimulate creativity? What is the impact of drugs on the body? And what role have narcotics and stimulants played in the history of medicine? With Richard Davenport-Hines, historian and author of The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics; Sadie Plant, author of Writing on Drugs; Mike Jay, historian and author of Emperors of Dreams, Drugs in the Nineteenth Century.

Melvyn Bragg examines whether world is a fundamentally chaotic or orderly place. When Newton published his Principia Mathematica in 1687 his work was founded on one simple message: Nature has laws and we can find them. His explanation of the movements of the planets, and of gravity, was rooted in the principle that the universe functions like a machine and its patterns are predictable. Newton’s equations not only explained why night follows day but, importantly, predicted that night would continue to follow day for evermore. Three hundred years later Newton’s principles were thrown into question by a dread word that represented the antithesis of his vision of order: that word was Chaos. According to Chaos Theory, the world is far more complicated than was previously thought. Instead of the future of the universe being irredeemably fixed, we are, in fact, subject to the whims of random unpredictability. Tiny actions can change the world by setting off an infinite chain of reactions: famously, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil - it could cause a tornado in Berlin. So what’s the answer? Is the universe chaotic or orderly? If it’s all so complicated, why does night still follow day? And what is going on in that most complex machine of all - the brain - to filter and construct our perception of the world? With Susan Greenfield, Senior Research Fellow, Lincoln College, Oxford University; David Papineau, Professor of the Philosophy of Science, Kings College, London; Neil Johnson,University Lecturer in Physics at Oxford University.