Free Thinking

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

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The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Perfecting the Body

Perfecting the Body

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Perfecting the Body

Eugenics to cyborgs: Adam Rutherford, Clare Chambers, Xine Yao and Harry Parker discuss.

Adam Rutherford, Harry Parker, Xine Yao and Professor Clare Chambers join Matthew Sweet for a conversation about how we see bodies and the impact of technology, surgery and race.

After Iraq and Afghanistan, solider Harry Parker turned author and has written a study of the way robotics, computing and AI might be about to irrevocably alter our understanding of what it means to be human.  Scientist and Radio 4 presenter Adam Rutherford's new book traces ideas about the perfect body and eugenics from the Spartans and Plato to present day politics and the pandemic.  In her new book, philosopher and professor Clare Chambers argues that the unmodified body is a key principle of equality. While defending the right of anyone to change their bodies, she traces the way that the social pressure to modify send a powerful message: you are not good enough.  They join Matthew Sweet alongside New Generation Thinker and academic at UCL, Xine Yao

Hybrid Humans: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Man and Machine by Harry Parker is out now. 

Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics by Adam Rutherford is out now. You can hear him discussing  Genes, racism, ageing and evidence with guests including Daniel Levitin in a previous episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fpj2

Intact: A Defence of the Unmodified Body by Clare Chambers is out now.

Xine Yao is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio. You can find an essay about The Inscrutable Writing of Sui Sin Far on BBC Sounds https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v9gl  and a discussion about Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s31z

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Image: Harry Parker
Image credit: Gemma Day

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