BBC Radio 4 LW

In Search of Eden

In Search of Eden: The Flaming Sword

Documentaries

Factual

07/09/2016

The Flaming Sword

BBC Radio 4 - In Search of Eden, The Flaming Sword

Paul Howard-Jones finds out what we lose when we learn to read and to count.

Neuroscientist and Eden-seeker Paul Howard-Jones finds out what we lose when we learn to read and to count.

What really happened when we ate from the Tree of Knowledge? Paul Howard-Jones, Professor of Neuroscience and Education at Bristol University, has had a lifelong fascination with the story of the Garden of Eden. He first heard it in the Herefordshire church where his father was the vicar. Now, he investigates how knowledge has changed us, and whether the Eden story contains within it a nostalgic longing for our simpler, hunter-gathering past.
In episode three, he visits the archaeological dig at Catalhoyuk in Turkey, where he sees a thousand years of technological development exposed in the soil. And he finds out what we lose when we learn to read and to count.

Producer: Chris Ledgard.

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Neuroscientist and Eden-seeker Paul Howard-Jones investigates the downside of knowledge.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

In Search of Eden

The Flaming Sword

Genres

Formats

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4