The Thought Exchange

TTE 2.09 Matt Shirley

This episode is a conversation with Matt Shirley, a conservation scientist with a particular passion for and interest in crocodiles. I met Matt on a shoot, where he was the animal expert and I was brought in to deal with some pretty challenging technical problems, in order to capture crocodile behaviour which had not only never been filmed but had never even been observed in the wild before. Unfortunately, I can’t say any more as we are signed up to an NDA…. So I got to know Matt on a long journey into the jungle of Gabon, it took us 11 days to go from Libreville (the capital) to the point where we could record on camera. Matt’s expertise and knowledge of the local conditions and people were formidable. A child-hood passion for reptiles led him to work with crocodiles, but Matt also works on pangolins and forest-dwelling tortoises, primarily in the forests of West Africa. His research has led to the recognition of 3 new crocodile species. However, it is his work as a conservation scientist which I found most fascinating. The work he has done and the conclusions he has drawn, might be uncomfortable for Western observers who passionately want to protect and save all individuals from under-pressure species. Yet, for anyone who has spent time and worked in those challenged eco-systems and been confronted by the poverty of the people trying to survive within or alongside them, it is hard not to see the sense in positions that advocate meaningful management rather than preservation at all costs. In particular, Matt discusses the example of the American Alligator, which was almost extinct by the 1950s, but recovered so well there are now millions of them across the Southern States. It was a story I had never heard and one which upsets many preconceptions about how to save species.

TTE 2.08 Iain McGilchrist

This episode is a conversation with Iain McGilchrist, a psychiatrist and writer, who originally started at Oxford as a literary scholar. Dissatisfied with literary criticism, having published Against Criticism in 1982, McGilchrist sought greater philosophical understanding of human experience by retraining in medicine and he went on to become a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London. I heard McGilchrist talk on the Sam Harris podcast and was immediately fascinated by his ideas on the way the different brain hemispheres work both separately and in collaboration. In his book, The Master and the Emissary, McGilchrist explores the huge library of science in this field, much of which is in German and French and much of which has been ignored by English-language scientists. In fact, McGilchrist was initially warned off studying the ways in which the different hemispheres process information, given that the topic was considered pop or junk science. But, thankfully, he stuck at it and has given us a fascinating exploration of how to think more deeply about the brain, consciousness and how they affect the real world. Since our conversation, McGilchrist has published a further book on the topic titled The Matter with Things. There was no way we could do the body of his work justice in the short conversation we had, but I hope we were able to open the door on this incredible topic and that listeners will be inspired to seek out his books to learn more. Hardback internationallyAmazon.com [https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Things-Brains-Delusions-Unmaking/dp/1914568060/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1638197964&sr=8-1]andThe Book Depository [https://www.bookdepository.com/Matter-With-Things-Iain-McGilchrist/9781914568060] Hardback UK onlyChannel McGilchrist [https://channelmcgilchrist.com/order-book/],Amazon UK [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matter-Things-Brains-Delusions-Unmaking/dp/1914568060/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MVUEC3JBP1XJ&keywords=the+matter+with+things+iain+mcgilchrist&qid=1638197871&sprefix=The+Matter+with%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-1]and other booksellers nationwide Kindle onwww.amazon.co.uk [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matter-Things-Brains-Delusions-Unmaking-ebook/dp/B09KY5B3QL/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1638197871&sr=8-1]andwww.amazon.com [https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Things-Brains-Delusions-Unmaking-ebook/dp/B09KY5B3QL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=33DP5CE4A2U1W&keywords=the+matter+with+things+iain+mcgilchrist&qid=1638197964&sprefix=The+Matter+with+Things+Iain%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-1]

TTE 2.07 Tristan Guttridge

This episode of the Podcast is a conversation with Tristan Guttridge a biologist with a passion for sharks, in fact he describes himself as a shark fanatic. With a PhD in Behavioural Ecology, based on research he undertook at the Shark Lab in Bimini, Bahamas, Tristan has many strings to his bow as he advocates for greater understanding and protection of sharks. In addition to continued shark research, Tristan has become a well-known presenter on Discovery Channels, and I worked with him in March 2021 for a programme for Discovery Shark Week 2021. With his wife, Annie, Tristan has also founded a non-profit called Save the Blue, which enables volunteers to learn more about shark research aswell as providing education programmes for schoolchildren in the Bahamas. Much of his work is based in the waters around Andros Island in the Bahamas, a uniquely pristine barrier reef environment with a trench of very deep water, the Tongue of the Ocean, directly alongside and a huge area of protected marine reserve. We had a very intense shoot schedule, including multiple night shoots and dives, but we were able to have a conversation on the final day while we were packing to leave. It was a really fantastic experience to do an interview live and face-to-face for the first time. I learnt a lot about sharks and Tristan’s enthusiasm is infectious.

TTE 2.06B Jack Goldstone Bonus

This episode of the Podcast is actually a Bonus episode with Jack Goldstone. During our conversation, I asked Jack to talk me through 3 specific examples of social change which help illustrate his model: the British Revolution, the American Civil War and the Chinese Revolutions which ended with Mao and the Communist Party entering Beijing in 1949. When listening back and editing the main Podcast, I felt that these three examples needed to be lifted and put in a separate Podcast with space to breathe. Doing so has allowed the main Podcast to have a better flow, but this extra episode will allow anyone interested in these ideas to go a little deeper with a lot more detail.

TTE 2.06 Jack Goldstone

This episode of The Thought Exchange is a conversation American sociologist, historian and political scientist Jack A Goldstone. Goldstone is author of 13 books and many, many research articles, with a focus on revolutions and social change. In particular, he made a key contributions in looking at the relationship between population cycles and political revolutions. Indeed, there are those who have credited Goldstone with predicting Trump and the turbulent Twenties almost 30 years ago, when he developed and published his Demographic-Structural Theory. Jack A. Goldstone is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel Professor of Public Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Goldstone has worked all over the world, including Russia and Hong Kong, and has worked for a number of US government agencies, consulting on USAID Democracy Assistance Programs, as_well as the UN and various European governments. He has also worked at the Brookings Institute think tank and is a current fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre. Goldstone has worked extensively on the conditions required for building democracy and stability in developing nations. Goldstone has studied revolution and social change around the world and across time, with fascinating analyses of world-changing political events throughout modern history. In particular, his 20143 book Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction is clear and accessible, with a number of compelling but counter-intuitive conclusions. The conversation is a deep-dive into Goldstone’s thinking about the causes of revolution, what current social conditions might tell us about where we are headed and also how to ensure scientifically rigorous methodology in the social sciences.