Shows / Intelligence Squared
Intelligence Squared
Ideas shape the world. Intelligence Squared brings you the conversations that explain them. In every episode, we bring together leading thinkers, writers, scientists, policymakers and entrepreneurs, to challenge assumptions, test ideas and debate the questions shaping our future. If you want to think more clearly about the world and where it's heading, you're in the right place. If you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free…
Episodes
Intelligence SquaredHow to Think Like a Freak: Learn How to Make Smarter Decisions with the authors of "Freakonomics"
The books Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics have been worldwide sensations, selling tens of millions of copies. They have come to stand for challenging…
Intelligence SquaredLook West Not East: South America Will be the 21st Century's Superpower
Conventional wisdom tells us that a new star will rise in the East, and all eyes have been looking towards China or India as the 21st century’s new superpower…
Intelligence SquaredThe Allied Bombing of German Cities in World War Two Was Unjustifiable
No one doubts the bravery of the thousands of men who flew and died in Bomber Command. The death rate was an appalling 44%. And yet until the opening of a…
Intelligence SquaredCalm Down Dears: State Snooping Is A Price Worth Paying For Our Security
So now we know: our spooks and their spooks are hoovering up and exchanging massive amounts of data on our private lives: not just whom we phone and email but…
Intelligence SquaredWestern Parents Don't Know How to Bring Up Their Children
Why are there so many Chinese maths and music prodigies? Because Chinese mothers believe schoolwork and music practice come first, that an A-minus is a bad…
Intelligence SquaredThe Making Of The Modern Middle East: Lawrence of Arabia and King Faisal I
How much blame for the current troubles in the Middle East lies with the decisions made by the West in 1919 – when the Ottoman Empire was carved up arbitrarily…
Intelligence SquaredBritain Should Not Have Fought In The First World War
As we approach the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, books, television documentaries and articles on the subject abound. So do different…
Intelligence SquaredStephen Fry and Friends on the Life, Loves and Hates of Christopher Hitchens
In this historic event, Stephen Fry and other friends of Christopher Hitchens came together to celebrate the life and work of this great writer, iconoclast and…
Intelligence SquaredThe Hand that Rocks the Cradle Cannot Rock the Boardroom
Is it a myth that women can have it all, all of the time? Or do the rising numbers of female executives in Hong Kong and around the world suggest otherwise?…
Intelligence SquaredThe Best Chance For Peace In Israel And Palestine Is For Uncle Sam To Butt Out
Is it surprising that the Israelis and Palestinians are still unable to come to some sort of agreement? After all if the adjudicator in a mediation is firmly…
Intelligence SquaredOne Size Doesn’t Fit All: Democracy is Not Always the Best Form of Government
Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. So said Winston Churchill and who would disagree? One man, one vote, the…
Intelligence SquaredSam Harris on the Science of Good and Evil
Where do our ideas about morality and meaning come from? Most people - from religious extremists to secular scientists - would agree on one point: that science…
Intelligence SquaredBetween You and I The English Language Is Going To The Dogs
Speaking and writing correct English are the hallmarks of an intelligent person. No one who cares about language wants to be caught splitting an infinitive or…
Intelligence SquaredJane Austen Vs Emily Bronte: The Queens of English Literature Debate
Who was the Queen of English literature. Was it Jane Austen with her sensitive ear for the hypocrisy lurking beneath the genteel conversation in the drawing…
Intelligence SquaredNiall Ferguson On The Six Killer Apps Of Western Civilisation
Niall Ferguson is the most brilliant British historian of his generation. In this talk from February 2011, based on his book 'Civilisation: The West and the…
Intelligence Squared"Let The Bad Guys Be: The Perils of Foreign Intervention" with David Aaronovitch and Rory Stewart
Some leaders are so objectionable – Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe – that it may seem only right to strain every sinew to get rid of them. But ghastly as their…
Intelligence SquaredDaniel Goleman On Focus: The Secret to High Performance and Fulfilment
Psychologist Daniel Goleman shot to fame with his groundbreaking bestseller 'Emotional Intelligence'. The premise of the book, now widely accepted, is that raw…
Intelligence SquaredWe've Never Had It So Good
It's 2014 and what does Britain have to look forward to? Osborne’s welfare cuts. An umpteenth series of Celebrity Big Brother. Adult children still living at…
Intelligence SquaredAn Evening With Slavoj Zizek
Radical philosopher, polymath, film star, cult icon, and author of over 30 books, Slavoj Žižek is one of the most controversial and leading contemporary public…
Intelligence SquaredLet Them Come: We Have Nothing To Fear From High Levels Of Immigration
Does mass immigration boost our economy and cultural richness or undermine them? Hear Times columnist David Aaronovitch, former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone…
Intelligence SquaredSteven Pinker on The Better Angels of Our Nature
We launch our first podcast of the year today – our 2011 talk by the world renowned American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. In it he argues that, contrary…
Intelligence SquaredVerdi vs Wagner: The 200th Anniversary Debate with Stephen Fry
Think opera and you think Verdi. Verdi created some of the most beloved operas of all time, from the romantic tragedy of La traviata and Rigoletto to the…
Intelligence SquaredEric Schmidt On The New Digital Age
Eric Schmidt is one of the leading visionaries of our time. He has taken Google from a small start-up to one of the world’s most influential companies. In this…
Intelligence SquaredAn Anatomy Of Truth: Conversations on Truth-Telling
Not everyone tells the truth. ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’ ‘This isn’t going to hurt.’ ‘I see no ships, my lord.’ ‘Of course I love you.’ When can we know…
Intelligence SquaredPutin Has Been Good For Russia
There’s not a lot to like about Vladimir Putin: he’s autocratic, vain and runs a corrupt government. And he doesn’t give a fig for human rights. The repression…
Intelligence SquaredNate Silver On The Art And Science Of Prediction
Nate Silver is the 35-year-old data engineer and forecaster with superstar status. He shot to fame in 2008 for correctly predicting the outcome in 49 out of 50…
Intelligence SquaredAngela Merkel is Destroying Europe
They're calling her the devil. Inflammatory words, but Europe has every reason to be livid with the German Chancellor. Angela Merkel’s austerity measures are…
Intelligence SquaredJimmy Carter in Conversation with Jon Snow
President Jimmy Carter is a Nobel Prize winner, author, humanitarian, professor, farmer, naval officer and carpenter. In this special Intelligence Squared…
Intelligence SquaredSend Them Back: The Parthenon Marbles Should be Returned to Athens
What’s all this nonsense about sending the Parthenon Marbles back to Greece? If Lord Elgin hadn’t rescued them from the Parthenon in Athens and presented them…
Intelligence SquaredThe West Has Failed Syria
To say “The West has failed Syria” tempts us into the dangerous belief that had we only got stuck into this conflict from the off, things would now be better…
Intelligence SquaredThe Catholic Church is a Force For Good in The World
Can anything good really be said of an institution that has such a warped attitude to sex that it tries to stop the world from wearing a condom, is bitterly…
Intelligence SquaredDaniel Dennett on Tools to Transform our Thinking
Daniel Dennett is one of the world’s most original and provocative thinkers. A philosopher and cognitive scientist, he is known as one of the ‘Four Horseman of…
Intelligence SquaredThomas Friedman: A Manifesto For Rescuing America
Thomas Friedman: A manifesto for rescuing America Thomas L. Friedman is an internationally renowned author, reporter, and columnist – the recipient of three…
Intelligence SquaredDavid Eagleman on the Science of De- (and Re-) Humanisation (and Why it Matters)
Which side were you on? The Jets or the Sharks? The Capulets or the Montagues? The Greeks or the Trojans? Antony or Caesar? William or Harold? And so the list…
Intelligence SquaredNaomi Wolf on 'Vagina: A New Biography'
American author Naomi Wolf made her name with The Beauty Myth, a book that exposed the tyranny of the ideal of female beauty. Now she’s back with a no less…
Intelligence SquaredChris Anderson on the Democratisation of Manufacturing, Design and Technology
In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to…
Intelligence SquaredJeffrey Sachs on JFK and His Quest For Peace
How can leadership lessons from the past be applied to intractable international problems today? In this talk from July 2013, shortly before the 50th…
Intelligence SquaredTerry Eagleton in conversation with Roger Scruton
What really divides the left and the right? To answer this question, Intelligence Squared brought together two giants of British intellectual culture for an…
Intelligence SquaredDan Pink on the Science of Buoyancy
It happens to all of us every day. You get rejected. Your customer doesn’t buy. Your boss doesn’t agree. Your crush doesn’t say yes. In this provocative and…
Intelligence SquaredMichael Sandel on the Moral Limits of Markets
Should we pay children to get good grades? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to…
Intelligence SquaredRobert Macfarlane on Landscape and the Human Heart
For several years and more than a thousand miles, celebrated travel writer Robert Macfarlane has been following the vast network of old paths and routes that…
Intelligence SquaredWestern Liberal Democracy Would be Wrong for China
People everywhere are better off living in liberal democracy: that has been the reigning assumption of the western world. But could it be we’ve got it wrong?…
Intelligence SquaredPornography is Good For Us: Without it We Would Be a Far More Repressed Society
Hooray for porn! What would we be without it? Bored, repressed, frustrated. Porn allows the timid to indulge fantasies they’d never live out in real life and…
Intelligence SquaredBoth Britain and the EU Would Be Happier if They got Divorced
Some people just can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that a relationship is over. Finished. Unsalvageable. David Cameron, for instance. His long awaited…