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To The Best Of Our Knowledge "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" is a nationally-syndicated, Peabody award-winning public radio show that dives headlong into the deeper end of ideas. We have conversations with novelists and poets, scientists and software engineers, journalists and historians, filmmakers and philosophers, artists and activists — people with big ideas and a passion to share them.
To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Podcast Directory
To The Best Of Our Knowledge

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

From Wisconsin Public Radio

"To The Best Of Our Knowledge" is a nationally-syndicated, Peabody award-winning public radio show that dives headlong into the deeper end of ideas. We have conversations with novelists and poets, scientists and software engineers, journalists and historians, filmmakers and philosophers, artists and activists — people with big ideas and a passion to share them.

Most Recent Episodes

Deep Time: The Tyranny of Time

When you're on the clock, you're always running out of time – because in our culture, time is money. The relentless countdown is making us and the planet sick. But clock time isn't the only kind. There are older, deeper rhythms of time that sustain life. What would it be like to live more in tune with nature's clocks? **Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives. Original Air Date: June 03, 2023 Interviews In This Hour: How time came to rule our lives — and how we might free ourselves — The past and future of keeping time Guests: Jenny Odell, David Rooney Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Eye-To-Eye Animal Encounters

There's a certain a kind of visual encounter that can be life changing: A cross-species gaze. The experience of looking directly into the eyes of an animal in the wild, and seeing it look back. It happens more often than you'd think and it can be so profound, there's a name for it: eye-to-eye epiphany. So what happens when someone with feathers or fur and claws looks back? How does it change people, and what can it teach us? Human identity cannot be separated from our nonhuman kin. From forest ecology to the human microbiome, emerging research suggests that being human is a complicated journey made possible only by the good graces of our many companions. In partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature and with support from the Kalliopeia Foundation, To The Best Of Our Knowledge is exploring this theme of "kinship" in a special radio series. To learn more about the Kinship series, head to ttbook.org/kinship. Original Air Date: February 08, 2020 Interviews In This Hour: In The Eye Of The Osprey: A Physicist's Wild Epiphany — 100 Bird Eyes Are Watching You — The Look That Changed Primatology — Watching the Fierce Green Fire Die: Animal Gazes That Shaped Conservation Movements — The 600 Million Year History Of The Eye — 'We Are The Feast' — A Feminist Philosopher's Life-Changing Encounter With A Crocodile — How Do You Practice Kinship? A Brief Meditation — Sharing Eye-To-Eye Epiphanies With The Animal World Guests: Gavin Van Horn, Jenny Kendler, Ivan Schwab, Jane Goodall, Alan Lightman Further Reading: "The Disruptive Eye" by Gavin Van Horn—"6 a.m. on LaSalle Street" by Katherine Cummings—"Salmon Speak ~ Why Not Earth?" by Bron Taylor—"The Eyes of an Owl" by Greg Ripley—"From Bestiary" by Elise Paschen Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter. Categories: animals, wild animals, epiphanies, kinship

Why Do We Have So Much Stuff?

If you wrote a list of all the things you own in your house, how long would it be? We surround ourselves with possessions, but at what point do they start to possess us? Original Air Date: September 05, 2020 Interviews In This Hour: The Magnum Opus Of Pointless Stuff — 'A $400K Container For A Washing Machine': An Author Grapples With The Inherent Ickiness Of Homeownership — The Global Garage Sale — Why Stuff Doesn't Last Anymore — A Museum Of The Mundane Guests: Angelo Bautista, Eula Biss, Adam Minter, Giles Slade, Clare Dolan Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

For The Love Of Moms

We celebrate Mother's Day with a collection of stories from our archives, by and about moms. Stories about care and about courage — about the work of mothering. Original Air Date: May 13, 2023 Interviews In This Hour: The all-encompassing worlds of motherhood and poverty — Eula Biss on 'The Argonauts' — Jacqueline Plumez on Mother Power — Amanda Henry on the Road to Motherhood — Ayelet Waldman on Trying to Be a Decent Mother Guests: Stephanie Land, Eula Biss, Jacqueline Horner Plumez, Amanda Henry, Ayelet Waldman Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

A Parenting Revolution

The pandemic has made it clear that parents are walking a tightrope with no safety net. We talk to parents about how they want to change the system, what it's like to raise black boys in a time of racial injustice, and how we might learn from ancient cultures to improve our parenting skills. Original Air Date: May 22, 2021 Interviews In This Hour: A Parenting Movement Emerges From the Pandemic — Modern Parenting Tips From Ancient Civilizations — Two Poets On Raising Black Teenage Boys In America Guests: Alissa Quart, Brittany Powell, Michaeleen Doucleff, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Cherene Sherrard Further Reading: Economic Hardship Reporting Project Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Decolonizing the Mind

Colonization in Africa was much more than a land grab. It was a project to replace — and even erase — local cultures. To label them inferior. Music, arts, literature and of course language. In other words, it permeated everything. So how do you undo that? How do you unlearn what you've been forced to learn? In this hour, produced in partnership with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and Africa is a Country — we learn what it means to decolonize the mind. Original Air Date: March 20, 2021 Interviews In This Hour: Reckon with the Past To Decolonize the Future — Reclaiming the Hidden History of Blackness — Never Write In The Language of the Colonizer Guests: Adom Getachew, Simon Gikandi, Ngugi wa Thiong'o Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

The World is a Laboratory

In some of our favorite science interviews — discover the joy of studying fossils, the invention of a paper microscope, the science of flow states, pioneering field studies of great apes, and the astrophysics of making a hard-boiled egg. Original Air Date: April 22, 2023 Interviews In This Hour: 'Lab Girl' Author Discusses Women In Science, Life Lessons From Childhood — Could a 50 Cent Microscope Change the World? — Cooking With Neil deGrasse Tyson — The Science of Peak Performance — The Women Who Revolutionized Primatology Guests: Hope Jahren, Manu Prakash, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jamie Wheal, Jane Goodall, Jane Goodall, Birute Galdikas Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Losing Yourself in Fantasy

We all need a good fantasy world to retreat to sometimes – whether it's Hogwarts or Middle Earth, Westeros or Wakanda. But magical thinking can be dangerous too. And escapism isn't always innocent. So where do you draw the line between fantasy and reality? Original Air Date: September 17, 2022 Interviews In This Hour: Why not escape into fantasy? A tale of Disney adults — The magical thinkers, the dreamers, and the hucksters of America's fantasyland — Neil Gaiman on where dreams — and nightmares — come from Guests: Sarah Rachul, Marianne Eloise, Kurt Andersen, Neil Gaiman Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Luminous: What Can Psychedelics Teach Us About Dying?

In the first episode of "Luminous," our series about the philosophy and the future of psychedelics, how can psilocybin ease our fears about dying? And how can psychedelics change the way we approach the end of life? Original Air Date: April 08, 2023 Interviews In This Hour: How a pioneering psychedelic researcher 'leaned in' to his terminal cancer diagnosis — Dying without fear: How psychedelics can ease the anxiety of terminal illness — The terror and the ecstasy of psychedelics Guests: Roland Griffiths, Lou Lukas, Anthony Bossis Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter. Categories: LuminousPod,

Year of Return

2019 was an important year throughout the African diaspora — the 400th year since enslaved Africans first arrived in the United States. In Ghana — once the center of the European slave trade — 2019 was declared "the year of return" and the start of a campaign to encourage descendants of enslaved Africans to re-connect with the land of their ancestors. Thousands of African-Americans made the trip to Ghana — and many have decided to stay. They're fed up with police brutality and systemic racism in the US, ready to build new lives in Africa — and their number is growing. Original Air Date: September 03, 2022 Interviews In This Hour: 'This is where I should be': 1,500 Black Americans make Ghana their new home — The land of your ancestors — Should Africans move to America? — A Black friendship Guests: Robert Hanserd, Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman, Prince Marfo, Ato Quayson, Emmanuel Kofi Apraku Bempong Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Podcast Directory