Human Intelligence

Jan 20 2025 16 ep. 13 mins 123

Human Intelligence Podcast artwork

In Human Intelligence, Naomi Alderman dissects the minds of brilliant thinkers from the past; examining the myriad ways in which humans think and realising that great minds don't, in fact, think alike.

History Science

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Collectors: Charles Darwin

Jan 20 2025 14 mins

Darwin asked big questions. His theory of evolution transformed our understanding of life on Earth. But Naomi Alderman discovers that he did it by looking at small things and tiny changes that other people had overlooked. From earliest childhood, he’d been a collector – pocketing shells, coins, minerals, bits of pottery and rooftiles – and his travels on HMS Beagle allowed hi

Collectors: Samuel Johnson

Jan 20 2025 14 mins

Samuel Johnson was living proof that a person can be extremely messy and disorganised but still do work of great worth. He compiled and almost single-handedly wrote an English dictionary that changed the language for good. ‘Dictionary Johnson’ established the spelling and meaning of many words; he looked at etymology; he poked fun and cracked jokes. He lived hand to mouth, writ

Collectors: Pamphila

Jan 20 2025 14 mins

Naomi Alderman examines the intelligence and sharp humour of an ancient Greek historian known as Pamphila of Epidaurus. She was a female historian working in a society that believed women were constitutionally unsuited to the rational and peculiarly masculine task of recording facts for posterity. She wrote thirty-three volumes of her famed Historical Commentaries from her home. Sh

Collectors: Denis Diderot

Jan 20 2025 14 mins

Naomi Alderman looks at the remarkable way Denis Diderot connected ideas and people. In 18th-century Paris, he edited one of the very first encyclopaedias: twenty-eight volumes with tens of thousands of articles on everything from the concept of liberty to cutting-edge medical research, the manufacture of silk stockings and a recipe for apricot jam. Diderot was the perfect man for

Collectors: Sei Shōnagon

Jan 20 2025 14 mins

Naomi Alderman wonders at lady-in-waiting, writer and all-round entertainer Sei Shōnagon, who wrote The Pillow Book over a thousand years ago in the Japanese imperial court.The Empress and her entourage lived in a closed world, glimpsed through half-shut blinds, while political machinations went on all around them. Poetry and wit were highly prized; and Sei Shōnagon was unmatched

Teachers: Diogenes

Jan 13 2025 14 mins

Naomi Alderman investigates the eccentric brilliance of Diogenes. He was a ‘cynic’ philosopher, which originally meant ‘dog-like’, and wanted to teach us that humans could learn from dogs and the simple authentic manner in which they went about their lives. Diogenes was sharp, hilarious, downright rude and a menace in the market place. Special thanks to Dr Robert Cromarty,

Teachers: Peter Ramus

Jan 13 2025 14 mins

Naomi Alderman meets Peter Ramus – a teacher determined to simplify and systematise the teaching of difficult things. He spoke his mind and thrived on stirring up trouble.Ramus was behind one of the most important learning devices in history. A system of organising knowledge that helped overthrow the primacy of Aristotle in medieval universities and allowed everyone to access ide

Teachers: Mary Somerville

Jan 13 2025 14 mins

Mary Somerville was a brilliant polymath who found time to correct the work of Isaac Newton whilst looking after her infant children. Naomi Alderman investigates her extraordinary work ethic and expansive interests.Somerville's writings, across a range of disciplines – maths, astronomy, botany, geography – became essential reading for those learning science, and helped to defin

Teachers: Maimonides

Jan 13 2025 14 mins

Naomi Alderman explores one of the greatest minds of the medieval world and in the history of Jewish thought. His work, The Guide for the Perplexed, is among the most influential works of medieval philosophy. In his efforts to reconcile faith and reason, Maimonides was having parts of the Enlightenment in his head 600 years early. Special thanks to Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum, Dean of t

Teachers: Michael Faraday

Jan 13 2025 14 mins

The modern world is inconceivable without this son of a blacksmith and his meticulous, relentless brain. Naomi Alderman meets the mind behind huge scientific advances – who made breakthroughs in the understanding of electricity, changed the technology by which we live and contributed to our theoretical understanding of the forces underpinning the universe. Faraday also devoted hi