Stories of Impact – Details, episodes & analysis

Are animals capable of feeling joy? How do we know? What is joy? Dr. Erica Cartmill wants to find out. She's the Indiana University professor of cognitive science, animal behavior, and anthropology that long-time listeners to Stories of Impact will recognize from conversations we've had in the past about her studies of diverse intelligences and humor in apes. Today, we'll learn about one of her latest collaborative projects — a first of its kind multidisciplinary study: Joyful by Nature, on the evolution and the function of joy in animals. She's joined in conversation by Dr. Colin Allen, Professor of Philosophy at University of California Santa Barbara and Dr. Heidi Lyn, Joan M. Sinnott Professor in Psychology and Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama. This team of expert researchers shares why it's both timely and important to move the science of animal emotion forward.

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

In remembrance of Jane Goodall (4/3/34 - 10/1/25), we're bringing back our conversation featuring her life and legacy.

Luminary Dr. Jane Goodall for decades made significant contributions to not only the scientific world, but arguably, to the entire planet. 

When 26-year-old British-born Jane Goodall began field studies of primates in Tanzania in July 1960, she was the first researcher to observe chimpanzees in the wild, and she remains the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees. Her rigorous and creative approach quickly gained the attention of the National Geographic Society, which awarded her first grant, and has passionately championed her work in the decades since. Despite never getting a college degree, Dr. Goodall was accepted at Cambridge University, earned her PhD in ethology in 1966, and spent decades in the Gombe Stream National Park studying chimpanzee communities, eventually becoming the only human to ever be accepted into a chimpanzee society. 

In her 90 years, Dr. Goodall was a legendary conservationist, galvanizing educator, UN Messenger of Peace, and an inspiring writer and public speaker. Her curiosity, empathy, wisdom, protective heart, and unshakeable hope reflect the best of humanity, and even though her conversation was short, you'll hear all of those exemplary characteristics embodied in her voice and story.

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

Is science fundamentally in opposition to religion, or do they just have little to do with each other? Is the way you engage with science and religion in your life informed by your core beliefs, or are your core beliefs informed by them? Do you think it's scientists or religious experts, or both, or neither, that are best equipped to help humans explore the meaning of life?

People might find these questions to be provocative or controversial. But our guest in today's episode, science educator and researcher Dr. Berry Billingsley, was raised in a family culture of curiosity, so she's been asking these sorts of really big questions all her life.

Now a professor in Education at the University of Swansea and the former Director of the Learning about Science and Religion Centre at Canterbury Christ Church University, Dr. Billingsley, as devoted as she has been to young people's science education  throughout her career as a researcher, has built a body of work critiquing the way science is traditionally taught and breaking down the siloes between religious education and science education classes.

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Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

Today, host Richard Sergay speaks with Baroness Onora O'Neill, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Cambridge University. Prof. O'Neill, whose work has focused on international justice and the roles of trust and accountability in public life, discusses the value of privacy in a time of surveillance capitalism, human rights after the digital revolution, and the importance of listening as a civic virtue.

Mentioned in this episode: 

• Citizenship in a Networked Age
• Internment of Uighurs in China
• Plato's Phaedrus

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

As we explore our season focusing on citizenship in the networked age, journalist Richard Sergay explores the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen in the digital era, the individual and community strengths inherent in healthy citizenship, and the threats to our future without it. Today's conversation is with Sir Paul Collier, a professor of economics and public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. Professor Collier is a world-renowned economist and a best-selling author, including The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties, and his latest release, with John Kay, Greed is Dead: Politics After Individualism.

Mentioned in this episode: 

• Citizenship in a Networked Age
• Greed is Dead: Politics After Individualism by Paul Collier and John Kay
• The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties by Paul Collier
• Mette Frederiksen
• The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel
• Encyclopædia Britannica defining communitarianism

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

Today's conversation features three intersecting perspectives on the topic of citizenship in a networked age. We'll hear from Vint Cerf, Google's vice president and chief Internet evangelist, and one of the world's recognized "fathers of the Internet"; Nuala O'Connor, former president and CEO at the Center for Democracy and Technology; and Michael Wear, a strategist, speaker, and practitioner at the intersection of faith, politics, and public life. Each of them adds dimension to our podcast's ongoing discussion of the direction of developing technologies, governmental policy and online engagement, and the moral facets of civic participation.

Learn more about Vint Cerf, Nuala O'Connor and the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Michael Wear.

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Andrew Briggs, a professor of nanomaterials at the University of Oxford, and Dr. Dominic Burbidge, a lecturer in politics at the University of Oxford and director of the Canterbury Institute. Along with a team of scholars, their study of citizenship in a networked age has led to a carefully crafted report, including seven recommendations in support of their Agenda for Rebuilding Our Civic Ideals.

Learn more about Citizenship in a Networked Age and the Agenda for Rebuilding Our Civic Ideals.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Shoshanna Zuboff and The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
  
  

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

How can we listen to people we don't agree with? Rebuild trust in an era of "fake news" and "alternative facts"? Create social cohesion, cooperation, and healthy, safe, inclusive societies? 

If you find yourself asking, "What are our rights as citizens, and what are our responsibilities?," you'll want to join journalist Richard Sergay and producer Tavia Gilbert for Season 3 of the Stories of Impact podcast, which explores the timely and vital question of what it means to be a citizen in a networked age. In our third season, we are in conversation with some of the world's leading scholars who explore questions of citizenship—listening, privacy, decision-making, and more.

The Stories of Impact podcast delves into the big questions of meaning, purpose, and truth. It is made possible through the generous support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation.

In the final episode of our second season, we meet three scientists who are creating a community of people who see the world differently, bringing together scholars from around the globe who are passionate about collaboration and exploration of the myriad intelligences throughout the planet and the cosmos.

Richard Sergay speaks with Drs. Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster, co-directors of the Templeton World Charity Foundation Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI), and DISI associate director Dr. Kensy Cooperrider. They discuss the Diverse Intelligences initiative, their efforts to build community with today's young, emerging scientists and scholars, and what they hope will be DISI's legacy. 

We'll be on a break next week, but in two weeks, we'll be back with Season 3, in which we focus on the topic of Citizenship.

Learn more about Dr. Erica Cartmill, Dr. Jacob Foster, and Dr. Kensy Cooperrider.

Mentioned in this podcast: 

• Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
• Dr. Cooperrider's podcast, Many Minds
  
  
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Today, we speak with an ethicist, a computer scientist, and a neuroscientist who have teamed together at Duke University to research how we might build human morality into an artificially intelligent machine. Drs. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Jana Schaich Borg, and Vincent Conitzer also tell us about a surprising outcome of their research: that imbuing machines with the ability to act in accordance with moral principles can actually help us deepen our understanding of our own moral philosophy and behavior.

Learn more about Dr. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Dr. Jana Schaich Borg, and Dr. Vincent Conitzer.

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• Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation