Episode 71: Enlisting Imagination under the Banner of Science

The Endless Knot · Jun 18, 2019 · 1h 20m

We discuss a person who had an important impact on both science and language: Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles. In particular, we talk about the use of poetry to explain science, from Hesiod to Lucretius to Darwin to Baba Brinkman, and the new wave of science communicators on and off line.

Erasmus Darwin cocktail menu, based on The Loves of the Plants

D.G. King-Hele. “Erasmus Darwin, Man of Ideas and Inventor of Words.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 42.2 (1988): 149–180 .

Baba Brinkman

Hesiod’s Theogony

Aratus’s Phaenomena

Acapella Science

Thomas Meritt

Susan McMaster…