Xenophilious

Via Open Culture a radio series by CBC Ideas on science (and the history and philosophy of science):

If science is neither cookery, nor angelic virtuosity, then what is it?

Modern societies have tended to take science for granted as a way of knowing, ordering and controlling the world. Everything was subject to science, but science itself largely escaped scrutiny. This situation has changed dramatically in recent years. Historians, sociologists, philosophers and sometimes scientists themselves have begun to ask fundamental questions about how the institution of science is structured and how it knows what it knows. David Cayley talks to some of the leading lights of this new field of study.

Below are the 24 episodes, which can be played or downloaded by clicking on the play symbol or the link right after it. Hover over (info) after each episode to see more information or click (info) to go to the episode on the CBC site. The size of each episode is approximately 25 MB with a length of around 50-54 minutes.

Episode 1 – Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer (info)
Episode 2 – Lorraine Daston (info)
Episode 3 – Margaret Lock (info)
Episode 4 – Ian Hacking & Andrew Pickering (info)
Episode 5 – Ulrich Beck and Bruno Latour (info)
Episode 6 – James Lovelock (info)
Episode 7 – Arthur Zajonc (info)
Episode 8 – Wendell Berry (info)
Episode 9 – Rupert Sheldrake (info)
Episode 10 – Brian Wynne (info)
Episode 11 – Sajay Samuel (info)
Episode 12 – David Abram (info)
Episode 13 – Dean Bavington (info)
Episode 14 – Evelyn Fox Keller (info)
Episode 15 – Barbara Duden & Silya Samerski (info)
Episode 16 – Steven Shapin (info)
Episode 17 – Peter Galison (info)
Episode 18 – Richard Lewontin (info)
Episode 19 – Ruth Hubbard (info)
Episode 20 – Michael Gibbons, Peter Scott, and Janet Atkinson Grosjean (info)
Episode 21 – Christopher Norris and Mary Midgley (info)
Episode 22 – Allan Young (info)
Episode 23 – Lee Smolin (info)
Episode 24 – Nicholas Maxwell (info)

The Shroud of Turin: The Great Gothic Art Fraud — Because If It’s Real the Brain of Jesus Was the Size of a Protohuman’s!

Gregory S. Paul

Rarely on public display due to issues of light degradation, the shroud of Turin is again on temporary exhibit. The historical provenance and the radiometric measuring of its age place the creation of the object in the late medieval Gothic period. Although its owner, the Catholic Church, does not claim that the shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ they have not explicitly denied its authenticity as Bishop Pierre D’Arcis apparently did when he denounced a fake shroud in 1389.

The exhibition has inspired another round of claims by certain researchers that it really is the cloth that covered the deceased “Son of God.” Some go all the way to contend that the image cannot be a work of art or even of nature, and must be the miraculous result of the Resurrection. The hypothesis that the shroud is the real deal was promoted in the notoriously biased, two hour History Channel documentary The Real Face of Jesus, which was broadcast shortly before the latest exhibition. (…)

Also see the Skepdic entry and a blog entry by Ben Radford.