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With all the scientific progress we’ve made over the past centuries, there’s still a massive, unknowable amount of information that we have yet to comprehend. In many cases, we haven’t figured out even basic truths about our world: what is the force of gravity, really? How does human consciousness actually function? In this brief, animated and humorous skewering of the cult of knowledge, the BBC producer John Lloyd argues that for all our striving for intelligence and information, what matters most is learning how to conduct our everyday lives better.
From the RSA
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History of science
Meet the Quaker pacifist who shattered British science’s highest glass ceilings
14 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
9 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
Why large language models are mysterious – even to their creators
8 minutes
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Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes
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Information and communication
‘Astonished and somewhat terrified’ – Victorians’ reactions to the phonograph
36 minutes
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Animals and humans
Are zoos and natural history museums born of a desire to understand, or to control?
57 minutes
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Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
11 minutes
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Political philosophy
The radical activist couple who fought for social change in the courtroom
21 minutes
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Human rights and justice
Can providing humanitarian aid be illegal? A troubling case from the US-Mexico border
17 minutes