Latif Nasser is the current co-host of the WNYC show Radiolab. Radiolab is probably the first podcast I was ever really a fan of. I've been listening since 2007 when it was hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. It's an amazing show that leans on the incredible audio production to convey the wonder of science. The show has branched out to tell all kinds of stories--not just about science--but it's still one of the best science shows out there.
Latif came to Radiolab while working on his Ph.D. in the History of Science at Harvard. He eventually joined the show's team to report stories and occupy the role of Director of Research. In 2020, he joined Lulu Miller as co-host of the show. Also in 2020, he hosted a 6-episode show for Netflix: Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything. And I think I first really learned about Latif through an incredible (although not super science-y) series he produced, The Other Latif. Seriously, you have to check it out.
In our conversation, we talk about the philosophy of science communication, the role of narrative, and how Radiolab works. We also break down an episode that Latif reported in 2021, "Of Bombs and Butterflies."
You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.
For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/
Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.
Latif Nasser is the current co-host of the WNYC show Radiolab. Radiolab is probably the first podcast I was ever really a fan of. I've been listening since 2007 when it was hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. It's an amazing show that leans on the incredible audio production to convey the wonder of science. The show has branched out to tell all kinds of stories--not just about science--but it's still one of the best science shows out there.
Latif came to Radiolab while working on his Ph.D. in the History of Science at Harvard. He eventually joined the show's team to report stories and occupy the role of Director of Research. In 2020, he joined Lulu Miller as co-host of the show. Also in 2020, he hosted a 6-episode show for Netflix: Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything. And I think I first really learned about Latif through an incredible (although not super science-y) series he produced, The Other Latif. Seriously, you have to check it out.
In our conversation, we talk about the philosophy of science communication, the role of narrative, and how Radiolab works. We also break down an episode that Latif reported in 2021, "Of Bombs and Butterflies."
You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.
For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/
Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.
Hi, there You're back, or here for the first time. Either is fine with me, I'm just happy to see you. Okay, I've got to say I'm not sure I've ever been more nervous to interview someone and not like worried, nervous, but excited nervous. My guest this week is Latif Nasser, who is currently one of the hosts of the show Radiolab. And here's the thing Radiolab is my jam.
Speaker 1:I still have vivid memories of just listening to certain episodes 10 years ago. So let's go back to February 2007. I'm a freshman in art school and it's going fine, and I don't know if I like drank a Red Bull at 10 at night or what, but I just could not convince my body to go to sleep. I was up all night, truly until morning I was awake, trying to stay quiet, with two roommates sleeping within 10 feet of me. So I listened to a couple of episodes of this American Life which I had just started getting into. So that killed a couple hours. And then I turned on this other show that I had heard about, radiolab. It's like two in the morning, so why not? Let's try it. And I just remember being completely swept away by this show. I had never heard anything else like it. It was immersive, captivating, awe-inspiring, and it taught me new things about science. That was their thing broadcasting curious ideas from math and science into your ears in a way that just grabs you. And they've been doing it for years. So Lutthiff was not part of the Radiolab machine when I was lying on a dorm room bed in 2007, but around 2010,. When he was doing his PhD in the history of science at Harvard, he heard an episode of Radiolab that covered the topic of his eventual dissertation. He started pitching them stories and eventually he became Radiolab's director of research. In 2020, he became a co-host. Also in 2020, he hosted a six-episode podcast series called the Other Lutthiff, which is not particularly sciencey, but it is incredible. You should listen to it. Also, also in 2020, he hosted a six-episode science program for Netflix called Connected Also great.
Speaker 1:All of this is to say that Lutthiff is basically a dream guest for a podcast on science communication. So, yeah, I was excited to meet him. I had heard his voice in my head so much over the years and what a pleasure to find that he was just as kind and fun to talk to as I suspected. Okay, but you're not here to listen to me. I get that, so let's get right into it. We talk about Lutthiff's story, how Radiolab works, how to tell a science story, everything. And here it is. So the way I'm going to frame this question is if your life was a biopic where everything actually did flow one to the next, what would those early scenes look like that make us go oh, this guy is going to be great at telling science stories. Eventually, what was going on in childhood, young adulthood, what were you interested in? Fascinated?
Speaker 2:I think the early scenes are. It would be the most boring biopic. Everybody would walk out at the beginning. But because it's a happy fun, I think I had a great. I had a wonderful grew up in an immigrant family in the suburbs of Toronto. Both my parents were very hard working people but also kind of sweet and curious and encouraging, and I think, even more so than the sort of traditional stereotypical immigrant family. Both my sister and I became journalists somehow, which is like we didn't know any journalists. That wasn't even an option. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I took one of those aptitude tests. It told me to go into the military. I was like that is, I don't know anything except that this is wrong, that I do not belong in the military.
Speaker 2:But I think probably the scene you would start for as the budding science communicator was me kind of in science class coming in, especially in early high school, coming in really excited, having like being one like everybody, I think. I think everybody is born this way, which is that you're just curious, there's a lot of things around that make no sense and it's like a lot of things to wonder at a lot of things and then just kind of like sitting in a high school, you know, like just a normal, standard public high school science class, and just like all of that excitement and love and enthusiasm, just like slowly draining out of my face and like like I think that I mean the way and I've said this before, but like I really feel like it encapsulates, like what I felt like in that moment, which is, like you, you come in, you're so excited and then the on the first day of science class, like they, like they said this textbook on your desk and it's like here's a, here's a stack of answers to questions you didn't even ask or care about. Like, like the you know the melting point of this, or the you know what's the like I don't know what the boiling point of like, I don't know what any of this stuff is. I never asked these. These aren't the questions I had, but these are the things now I have to memorize. Or do you know like, do kind of like? Yeah, I don't know the kind of like, the meticulousness and the like. Like I don't know science. Like I was so excited by the ambitions, the questions of science, but then the actual doing of it. I was like this is and the and the way that it was taught to me. It just it like completely like I was like this is not for me, this is not for me, this has never been for me and I I was wrong to think it. Well, you know that sort of feeling.
Speaker 2:And then, and then I was lucky enough to kind of switch modes, weirdly, like the thing that then I then I fell into with theater and this all I think very much is relevant to science, communication and the stuff. The thing I fell in love with was theater and was stories and storytelling and I was like, oh, I just love, I love stories and stories stick in my brain more Like they, they just they. They're easier to relate to and understand and comprehend, where as science, it felt so like abstract and dry and dusty and technical, whereas like, like, like I fell into theater and I was like, oh, this is like, this is people who are right in front of me and I can, I can, even if it's all pretend like I can feel it. And then kind of through a weird back door, like in college, like I was taking this. It was for like a science requirement that I had to do.
Speaker 2:I took this history of science class and I was like, wait, a second history of science, like, oh, that's like stories of science.
Speaker 2:And then I, and then I for a.
Speaker 2:There was like a like optional, like project or final, whatever assignment.
Speaker 2:And then, and then, like I was with a bunch of theater kids in the class and they were like you could put up, you could do a play about a history of science thing.
Speaker 2:We did Bertolt Brecht's life of Galileo and it was at that moment where it all sort of clicked for me, where I was like, oh, like I can get that those big, the big ambition of science, the big questions, the big, you know, like wondering at the world, wondering about the world, like I can do all of that stuff, but also, at the same time, have it be about people who are relatable, who I can talk to, who I feel, who like, and that'll actually stick in my brain in a way, and so that I don't know. That to me was the. I feel like the way that I took a while for the pieces to come together. But those were the pieces where I was like, oh, okay, I like this part of this thing, I like this part of this thing, and and and history, theater, science, like, and is there a way to weave all these together? And then it turned out, weirdly the way, the place that I could do that best was in a totally other field, which is journalism.
Speaker 1:What when you were doing theater? What were you like? What was the?
Speaker 2:oh, I wanted to be a playwright, like I just love being a like like. I love the idea of kind of like the, like the, the, the. The playwright that I really love the most and kind of was aspiring to be like was was George Bernard Shaw, where it was like oh, here's like, here's a guy who could take. I mean, he was kind of like a socialist and like he was like a, he was like a political writer in a way, but like he would take an issue and he would just be like okay, let me like, let me like explode that out into different perspectives, and then I'll just have them talk to each other and kind of debate one another, but like in a story.
Speaker 2:And that's kind of what I do now. Like it's like. It's like oh, I'm going to take other people's voices and I'm going to write these other people and they turn out to be real people, not pretend characters but and I have to take more care with them but but like I'm kind of writing with their words into one another and having them debate one another in a kind of narrative shape. Like I kind of feel like that's that's sort of the yeah, that's sort of the the genesis and inspiration, and like, like I wanted to be a playwright. I wanted to write with other people's words, and now that's kind of what I do.
Speaker 1:I feel like would you ever do something that's more fiction oriented?
Speaker 2:Eventually, yeah, I think there's definitely, yeah, for sure, for sure. I have, oh man, I have so many ideas and visions and half started projects that I'm like you know, that are still like halfway between being a glint in my eye and being like a draft on paper, but like, yeah, there's, there's a lot of things that I think especially in in science, where there's so many things, I mean so many of the topics we do, like I think I'm drawn to stories that are like dramatic and maybe, you know, cinematic or theatrical way, and like that you, you can't always get the thing you know, that that you want, I don't know. Yeah, I think fictionalizing, like there's so many things that you there's a limit to what you can actually know, and then and then when, like, but I'm still hungry, like I still want more, so like why can't I just imagine it like I, like I, yeah, I'm drawn by that all the time.
Speaker 1:So if we, if we fast-forward to now, yeah, how would you describe what you do now Like? What is your job entail today?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in particular at radio lab there's sort of two parts of my job. I guess mostly one is as a reporter and I I pitch my own stories, I report my own stories, I help produce my own stories Not like to a far lesser degree the producing and yeah, so and that that all is like a the majority of my job, because that's the part I love and then also I'm a host, which is to say I'm kind of like I help kind of shape the editorial vision of the show. I help, like, hopefully, mentor and nurture other other folks on staff and and outside the show and try to kind of, yeah, try to put stuff out there as a, as a show that that you can't find anywhere else and stories that really will will make people see the world in a, you know, in a whole new way. I don't know, maybe that's vague and highfalutin or something.
Speaker 1:I mean it. So I came to radio lab in 2006 I think I was a freshman in college.
Speaker 2:Oh, before me you. You've been listening before. Before I was listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, and it it still remains in a league of its own. Like there's, there's just something about it that's like it established this tone and voice and it it's shifted over time but it's never straight from like just being what it is and that's sort of like it morphs, but it doesn't morph into something that's already out there, like it's evolving in a brand new direction.
Speaker 2:High compliment, and from such a I feel like a connoisseur of science communication as yourself, it's a high praise.
Speaker 1:So if we think about like how to do that, how to pull that off and tell these kinds of stories, I maybe want to get into nuts and bolts like decisions you make when you put these stories together, actually before we get there.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I was thinking when you were describing your role is something I heard you say you were distinguishing between writing a dissertation yeah and reporting stories for a year, and a critical difference is that you're doing one of those things completely by yourself yeah and you're doing the other, yeah on a team, yeah, and so, like if you're to weigh the pros and cons of having complete control and driving this whole thing yourself versus being a team player, what's the difference between those two ways?
Speaker 2:Oh it is. That is such a crucial difference and and to me I think it's something for, especially if we're talking to kind of people out there who are thinking of getting into this field or thinking of what, what, what sort of way they want to get into this field, that is such a crucial difference and it's such a personal, idiosyncratic thing for me. Writing a dissertation, which I did for years, labored over it, you know, doing original research on a story, it it is amazing to have the freedom it also, I mean, you can kind of drown in the freedom of like oh, I can, I can research anything like, like, even if, you know, I'll solicit advice from people. But I don't have to take it like I can. I can, I can forge my own path, I can frame things how I want, I can pitch them where I want. I can, I can carve them, you know, carve up this idea here. This I'm putting on.
Speaker 2:This is a tweet, this is a. You know, this is a article. This is a podcast. This is a. This thing is that you can kind of you have this infinite freedom, I mean, as long as you can feed yourself, I guess, but, uh, but to me that all of that freedom. It was the kind of the, the like. I was just in cold libraries by myself all the time. The, the cold and the loneliness Like it broke me like I and and also even after that I tried to sort of be a freelancer. I was a freelance journalist for maybe a year or two and that was really hard. That was so hard. You're just kind of waiting on emails from people and you are yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know, there was a kind of I Don't know, and it almost like like doing original research. And then and then when you find something incredible, amazing, so exciting that you want to share with us, like I would go to my then girlfriend, now wife, and I'm like, oh my god, I found this amazing thing. And she'd like great, great, but I like can you pick up the milk or whatever, and so like it just was a thing. That was, yeah, it felt like you were sort of in it alone and it was a quite lonely feeling and and that was a feeling where I was like I don't, I don't want to do this. And then what I noticed, starting to do stories with radio lab in other places, where I was like, oh, this, like I Can trade some of that autonomy for both, camaraderie, being on a team where I, you know you can, you can get in the weeds with people and, and you know, just like, have fun. But then also, like, when you're doing it with the right people who are kind but also critical but also Competent, who know like they can take something and make it so much better than you ever could on your own.
Speaker 2:And there are definitely, you know in that, in that Jumble, in that, in that collective making, there are compromises for sure.
Speaker 2:Like there are things that you love that get cut.
Speaker 2:There are things that you, you know, big ideas you have that you know don't yeah, that don't make it. And you also have to be assertive in certain ways and you also have to be, you know, you have to really like fight for your own but ultimately, like if you're, you know you're on the right team when you look around and you're like I like all these people and they're helping me make something better than I could make all by myself, and and that to me is like that to me is the sort of the best of both worlds. But then there are, equally, I've seen other people and people who have done very well who are more kind of like the loneliness didn't Affect as much, and they, they, they really value that autonomy and they, they, they do so well with it. They're really able to kind of to take up all that space and to use it and they have a kind of a vision of what they want to do and how they want to do and I really respect those kinds of people.
Speaker 2:But I just I learned kind of the hard way that I? I wasn't one of them.
Speaker 1:I feel like it probably also accelerates the process to be on a team. So I'm thinking of, like you know, the as a former and current Pixar junkie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these legendary tales of the writing, yeah, I say it's whether just like hammering it out and so they reach a higher quality product. But like maybe one person could have gotten there, but it would have taken so many false starts to do it Right. Like yeah, you can just fail so fast with your ideas. Yeah, when you have other people checking you, that's right the process that's right, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. And I mean, I guess the the flip side of that is like, maybe, if you're on your own, one of those ideas that would otherwise have gotten nipped in the bud by one of your collaborators, which was so weird and out there that you know that that you, you alone, could have taken it to that like, that's possible for sure. But at the same time, I do think, I do think you're right. Like it's sort of like you, I don't know, like your most valuable commodity is your time and and and, if you want to, yeah, though, like, for every one of those adventures you go off of like like you know, many more of them will be dead ends than that one, than that one fabled, bizarre, genius, unique idea that will, that will perfectly work. Like like, yeah, I think you're right, I think it does, it does save time. But there is Whether in like theoretically, or or or actually like, like. There there is a trade-off. There's always a trade-off, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Uh, so okay, so in terms of Uh, put in pen to paper and making one of these stories, I want to go back to something you said about the problem in textbooks is that they give you answers to questions that you don't have. Yeah, and so I've heard you sort of say that, like when we talk about science, that's usually the frame we use, right, like look at all this stuff we know now, but without like a driving curiosity to make that matter, yeah, and so what does it mean to you to center a story on a question as opposed to on an answer?
Speaker 2:I think it's, I think it's everything like to me, that's my whole, that's, I think, radio labs, mo, and that's kind of my personal, like life sort of philosophy. I think that the questions are more interesting than the answers, that the questions that we sort of. Um, there's a thing my wife my wife is a playwright and she wrote and one of her plays and I think about it all the time which is like, oh, I'm gonna butcher the line. I can't believe I'm gonna butcher the line. But it was something like, um, as we grow up, do we get worse at asking questions or do we just get better at settling for smaller and smaller answers? Which is, like I think so beautiful. But but to me the thing is that like it's to remind ourselves that the questions are way bigger than the answers, that that we're ultimately gonna have such partial and piecemeal answers to anything, any scientific question, any, any big philosophical question any more like moral question, any, any question that we have about, about how to live or about the world that we live in, like like these are, like we know so little. We know such a symbol full of the ocean, like, like we know so little.
Speaker 2:And the thing I want to do at the beginning of all the stories. That I do is to sort of like Infect someone with a question, maybe a question that they already had, maybe a question they had when they were young, and then we're kind of like like like Sort of forgot about, or maybe it's a question they deep down and still have inside, or maybe it's a question they never even thought of and now, all of a sudden, they won't stop being able to think about. But it's like. It's like like Making that question matter and then at the end, we're gonna get something, hopefully some offering that feels like it's some kind of closure on the, you know At least.
Speaker 2:So it feels ending, you know, so that I didn't just like waste your time, but but at the same time to kind of say, like this is a provisional answer, like this is the best we can do, which is which is nowhere near as as important or powerful as as as the question itself. Because I think, like the questions I think are more universal, the questions are more Profound, the questions are so often yeah, they're, they're the, they're timeless, you know, and and and the answers are so often, you know, exit. Answers have expiry dates. Answers have yeah, anyway, I just like. To me, questions are so much more important than the answer.
Speaker 1:It makes me think, too, of a philosophical point about like why is science good and useful? And it's. You know, there's sort of a distaste, I think, among scientists who are like it's not so much that we know these laws of the universe, it's that we have a way of coming to those laws of the universe. And I think it's a someone in the social sciences I have that same thought of. Like people are complicated, right, like the answers are always going to be constrained, intentative and open to new ways of thinking about them. Yeah, but isn't it incredible that we could have a way of figuring out what is it that people are gonna do under these situations and not those ones? And that's the storytelling, right, like that's.
Speaker 1:And so, just to push that a little further, it makes me think of this moment early in the pandemic, where there was a so much uncertainty and there was this like Don't wear masks, wait a minute. Yeah, you, everyone should be wearing masks, wait a minute, only wear masks. Under this. And I could imagine people if they think, well, science is about the answers, then like what? Well, that's right, the answer keeps changing, yeah, but if instead it's like no, but don't you understand? Like, then incredible thing is that we can evolve that understanding over time.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 2:And when you start with a question, that's the story you get to tell that's right, and imagine like, like in this moment, like, and, and that just that's not only true on kind of a, on kind of a, like, a, a science, ethical like, a point of view, but that's also true, I think, like in the in this moment, and, and that the pandemic moment is like a especially good example of it, where there's tons of misinformation.
Speaker 2:People feel jerked around, like, it feels like, and I think they think of science like a kind of parent who's telling you what to do, and and One day you know wine is good for your heart and the next day it's bad for your liver, and then you're like, what the hell like, make up your mind. You know, like, it's like a, yeah, it's like. Of course I'm gonna feel jerked around and I'm not gonna believe what you're saying if you're telling me contradictory things every time and the headlines that we lead with are the answers that are gonna be proved wrong tomorrow. You know, like, like, to me that's there's a kind of Truth and ethical Like from the source, but then also from the, from the receiving end of that information, there's like a quit, quit dicking me around. Like, like, like, like and and Every.
Speaker 1:Every time you do that, I trust you a little less, but if we talk about science more as the process and the questions then as the answer is, it prepares people to get jerked around and it doesn't feel so bad. I have a friend who does work on. When we feel conflicted about whether something is good or bad and you meet someone, they do something great, then they do something questionable and you go. I just don't know how to feel about this person. But if you can prepare people for the reality that people are complicated, yeah, they're not as bothered. When they see this conflicting set of behaviors, they go like yeah, that's what people do, I don't have to be bothered by the fact that this is back and forth.
Speaker 2:I think about that a lot. Like it's like. It's like Building up a threshold of complexity. Like it's like building up people being able to feel that, oh yeah, this is complicated. Like, even though it's such a simple question, are masks gonna help or not? Such a simple question it's like. And all of them like, like so many of the questions that we have there's they're such simple, they're elegantly, beautifully simple questions that a kid could ask the kids often do ask, but then to answer like To me, then it's like.
Speaker 2:It's like like, once you win the person with the question, like then it's like, okay, we're going on a journey together and you know what we're gonna do. Like like, okay, yeah, yesterday we thought them asked to work, but but guess what? Today we're gonna misfrizzle our way to being these tiny molecules. And we built this whole simulation where I'm gonna get through. I'm gonna try to drive my school bus through this mask, but look, oh my gosh, that it got stuck in this part, but not it will got through that part. Like, like we had to build this whole simulation to try to Answer this very simple question and and this is the best simulation we got and it's saying this, but we might have a better simulation tomorrow like, like I think that's the way to do it to me that then, as you say, it's like you're building up a Reasonable expectation that, like, this is more complicated because it's so tiny, this is so much more complicated, and then then, then, then you would ever expect and, and that the answer is gonna keep changing.
Speaker 2:But like, but, like, I promise I'm on it, like it like, we're working on it, people who are really really well-meaning and trying, they're working on it and they're, they're getting you the best answers that you know. Cuz, cuz, these, yeah, I don't know. There's something I think really like, like to me. That's the way that feels. Like it's all of us together. Questions are more uniting. You know, and and and like. Anyway, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a good transition to something else I wanted to ask you about. Which is so. One of my favorite radio lab episodes from the last several years was the one on Bombs and butterflies.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh, thank you.
Speaker 1:And so, when I knew I was gonna talk to you, I went back and I re-listened to it and there are some like it's a great example of this, of like it's not so much like what's going on as like here, this guy figured it out. It's that this guy could not figure it out.
Speaker 2:You could not figure it out. Oh my, something so simple yeah.
Speaker 1:And so two things I wanted to sort of put a finger on in this episode is one that in the opening minute or so, you sort of just lay out in one sentence the entire premise of the episode, which I think it's just a good storytelling trick, but it just does it so beautifully. So here's what you say. You say this is a story about a tiny, fragile critter Doing its best to survive in a hostile world, and whether we should help, let it live or die, or whether we should help it or let it die, yeah, which is just like. You hear that and you go, oh, I'm sold. Like, yeah, take me away. Right, but it strikes me as the kind of thing that is so tight that it took forever to arrive at the head. Yeah, so at what point in a reporting process do you go this is this, is it? This sentence is actually what we're doing here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. It's so funny that I'm trying to remember who wrote that, whether I wrote that or whether my editor, soren wheeler, wrote that or whether somebody else wrote that. But I Often feel like that one. The story came from a book and the book was the was Nick Haddad's the main character, his, his book, and it was chapter in his book and I can't claim to have like like Crystallize, that brilliance, like I think that came from from his sort of decades of grappling with this. Really, you know, that book is about each chapter is about a different butterfly and that's like right on the brink of extinction and that that one is the butterfly that he particularly studies.
Speaker 2:And I think, yeah, I might have even ripped that from the book, but, but, but, but it, but it is as a thesis like it, it. It does encapsulate everything in hostile world. It's a kind of almost like a double entendre, because the world is a hostile place, obviously, with climate change and whatever else, but then also this is like the most hostile place, which is like a Artillery testing ground on a military base, but uh, yeah, I think like it's funny. In that case, I think that might have come at the pitch phase where it was like. This is it's so stark an example of something that feels so Universal in common and and a kind of a question we have about endangered species and our place as stewards on this planet. But, but, but it's true that sometimes that doesn't come until the very end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I wonder how often that's the case. So it sounds like in this case, this was a story worth pursuing because this hook was because the hook was there exactly, yeah, but yeah, it does it. It does it happen that you sort of go down rabbit holes and only later do you go? Oh, actually the stories about this, yeah, or is it pretty that?
Speaker 2:happens. Oh yeah, oh yeah, Sometimes long after. I feel like I had a conversation with my wife the other night when I was telling her about a new story I'm working on she's like you're really interested in and then she just basically Said one line.
Speaker 2:That was like five of my stories and I like and it never dawned on me Then any of those stories was can were connected. The thing she said was like you're really really interested in essentially like real-life superheroes who are punished for their, for their heroism basically, or who have to kind of survive a an immensely like like inhuman amount of Punishment basically, and and then kind of like emerge from it a hero and and I don't know, maybe that's really vague and maybe that's every every story, but like I like it really specifically describes like a whole bunch of stories I've worked on at the moment and I think it was one of those things were and including a bunch of stories I've already done where I was like, oh, I didn't even, I didn't even realize that's what I was doing Until until long after the fact. So yeah, it does. Sometimes I don't know, it's mysterious Maybe when that, when, that, when that pops out.
Speaker 1:But it also speaks to like these stories are worth telling. When there is a point like this right again, it's not just oh, there's these butterflies and that's. I figured out how to say. That's right. Well, that's okay. Yeah, there are stakes here, yeah, and you set them up within the first minute for reporting this and and that this, this is Right.
Speaker 2:This is just one story that is Standing for something way larger that this is. This is a metaphor, like like it's it's. It's one story, but it's a story to think about the whole world with, and and it's it's yeah, it's about so much more than itself, hopefully it strikes me that that's maybe a freedom of Journalism as opposed to the scientists themselves.
Speaker 1:So I think about when I try to convey these sorts of things. I go like I've got a lot writing on you appreciating what we found right. The thing I find so interesting is like this is something that we know now and you know it's. It's worth Considering whether, like, what's the goal? Is the goal that I teach you something? Or is the goal that I, like take you on this journey and I use this as, yeah, like you're gonna learn about, like how butterflies survive and like the importance of these other things, but it's really we're gonna end with like a question that you're not gonna resolve and you're gonna have to sit with for a while. That's like a very journalistic move that I don't know that scientists are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true, it's true and it is funny. It's a funny. It's a funny thing, though, because sometimes it it's both like it's and it's both in both, because as journalists, we have fat checkers. We want to be like really, really true and specific to the thing, and and scientists as well, they want to be able to, even though they're looking at like gypsy mods or whatever the thing you know like like they want to be able to say some big, broad thing about evolution or whatever like like to me.
Speaker 2:I think the there is a kind of a funny thing that I think is true across both of these fields, which is like, theoretically, hopefully, if you're doing it right, the more specific you get it like. There is that Like like, if you're looking at a thing in the right way and have approached it with the right question, the more specific you get it. Actually, the more universal it's gonna get, even though you're being true and honest to the real nitty-gritty specifics of it, those, those will sing in a way that feel like like much louder and much more than just about gypsy mods, you know.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a something a playwright might. The story that is real and authentic Can tell more stories than just the one as opposed to one that's trying to make a general point.
Speaker 2:I think so because like it, because that's it, because it's in those nitty-gritty details where it surprises you like, like where you couldn't have predicted you know, even if you do know the big shape of the thing. Like it's like there's this one detail That'll come out and they'll be like what and how and how does that? Yeah, that'll wrinkle up. I, we have them, as, as I was talking before, we like we have a radio lab, we have these things called blab labs where we invite people who we really like and admire. And Recently an editor for the New Yorker magazine came out and she said that and who's being there and worked in many magazines. And one of the things she said and I've been thinking about this last few weeks Is she was like so many, one of the errors that, like, early New Yorker writers make that she kind of notices and it's like they're trying to make their stories the perfect story, they're trying to make it fit their sort of idea of a perfect story and the details that will sort of like line up with that imaginary perfect story or the kind of the best version of that other archetypal story that they've seen over and over again.
Speaker 2:Whereas, like the more experienced journalist. She said the mess is kind of the fun, like the way that it actually diverges from that archetype. That's where it becomes like. That's actually where it becomes interesting and juicy and weird and like that's the thing that actually as a listener, you're kind of, because you've heard that other story before, you don't want that other story. You want the like what are the wrinkles here? That, yeah, those are important.
Speaker 1:One other thing about this episode that I just wanted to hit, which is sort of along these lines of conveying what the message is or what the premise is, something that I definitely didn't notice the first time I listened to it.
Speaker 1:But on re-listening the number of times, you restate this premise and so at one point you say even though this little butterfly is about the size of a quarter, this thing is entirely upturned, this person's idea of life and death and creation and destruction. And then you tell the story and then you say and what he starts to realize is basically that, like everything he knows about this butterfly, everything he knows about conservation, everything he knows about life and death is wrong. On a continue to tell the story, nicodod says what I realized is my perception of butterflies as fragile was totally misplaced. And you say and like this whole time, he was exactly 180 degrees wrong. So it strikes me that that is an importance, just like making sure we're all we all get, like why this is so important. But there's a delicate balance where, like by the fifth time you say it, we go yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I know, and maybe like hearing you say it, I'm like, oh God, we like overhand held it Well, I can tell them all.
Speaker 2:No, but yeah, I think it's a great cause. It is often also like so many, like even that evolutionary biology here and like it can get really technical and it's like hard to like and so you want people to have enough of it that they are getting a feeling for it and they can understand it. But like you also want to kind of signpost and like hand wave and be like no, no, no, no, but this is so dramatic Like look what's happening here.
Speaker 1:It's so cool.
Speaker 2:And it's really. It was surprising and it was like there's drama here and suspense, what's he gonna find? Like all of that stuff, like you want to do all that, but you also don't want to. Obviously like like a handhold too much and like people are like okay, thanks, dude, I got it and I think there is. Yeah, there's like there's a fine line, but like and you never know whether you're hitting it or not but like, but you do to me, I think different people at radio labs sort of land in different ways.
Speaker 2:I'm on the like. I want things to be super clear. Like just dumb it down for me. Tell me really, really simply, like I would rather everybody knows what's going on and we kind of can, yeah, we can kind of all walk together, yeah, and there's a thing we do like.
Speaker 2:There's a thing we do at radio lab a lot like one of our credos in a way is like lead with tape. So like what you do is like you lead with tape and you burst in a while for a while and you're like as a listener, you're like wait, what is that? And then you kind of come and back explain it and you're like oh, and so this was like and then the reason I was here was because I was doing this thing. And so there's like a little mystery, and then you're nicely explained and oh, we're all hand holding and we know what we're doing, oh, and then there's a little mystery, and then we're explained and it just creates this like micro level of like, oh, you're doing a little bit of work, and then I'm giving you a little treat, and then I'm giving you a little work, and then I'm giving you a little treat, and there's like I don't know, I find that really satisfying too.
Speaker 1:It seems like it's maybe unique to this kind of like science domain, where you go like you just don't have the tools to appreciate why this is so incredible. If you don't already know this, like, you need me to reinforce. Like no, you don't understand. This is outrageous.
Speaker 1:As opposed to like a show. Don't tell Maxim in storytelling where you go. It's not my job to tell you the point, but you go well in this kind of reporting. That is my job, right Like. I'm here to contextualize this complicated idea for you and make sure you understand just why this is incredible.
Speaker 2:Right, which is funny, because that's also one of the reasons why I feel like casting is so important in sort of science storytelling, cause, like you want to do, the show don't tell, and sometimes you have to cut in and be like well, what you don't understand is like for 40 years, everyone has thought the exact opposite of what this person is saying.
Speaker 2:But also another reason, another way to do that in the showing mode is like to have a scientist like Nicodad bless him who's great, a great talker, who can be like I had no idea, like I was completely wrong, like I had no clue what was going on, like that kind of thing to be for them to be able to do it themselves, like there's something, there's a great value to that as well. But it is like you obviously always want to show, but there are sometimes there's some things like that are that you know a debate that has been going on for a long time in journal articles of the you know, journal of Marine Archaeology or whatever, and you're like okay, I kind of have to tell you about this because I can't really show it to you.
Speaker 1:All right for just as a way of rounding things out. The other sort of technique level thing that I wanted to get your take on is that when I think about stories that you do, the impression I get is that they're particularly good at putting me in a state of awe. There's like a thing about these stories where it's like you, just like I feel your excitement, like I'm excited vicariously through you, and I think this is also well done on the Netflix series too.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. So I also rewatched the dust episode.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that's my favorite one, and it's just like the whole time you're like what this thing has been going on this whole time and I don't know about it. And I don't know that I would feel that way if I didn't have this guy who was like no, no, no, come on, you gotta see this, yeah, and then you'll never guess it also matters on this other continent, right right.
Speaker 1:So the other thing I associate with you is I feel I get the sense sometimes that Radio Lab puts you in a sound booth one day and said we want you to say wow and whoa a bunch of times. We do have a and we're gonna sprinkle it in.
Speaker 2:We have that is a secret of Radio Lab that we have. I don't think we have it now, but we used to have like there was, for in the Jad and Robert days. There was a.
Speaker 2:We called them RoboJad and Robo Robert and they were like, yeah, there was like a little folder of like wow's and you know, zowie's or whatever it was, but yeah, but like, I do feel like and it's actually quite I mean a somewhat polarizing thing, but like, to me I do feel like probably my one superpower, more than anything else, is my enthusiasm. Like that's the thing I can get excited about, the things I'm excited about, and that's a lot of things, and I think that's sort of my power and I think I hope that it makes it more palatable for people to get into topics that they don't know about. Like, there's something like I feel so privileged to work at a show where people will listen. They will tune in like in, millions of people will listen to something they don't know anything about. Like, how many shows do you do that for?
Speaker 2:Like, usually you're tuning in to either celebrities talking or like about news that you already kind of know a little bit about, or about you know, a TV show you already watched, or about a sports match that you're about to watch or have just watched.
Speaker 2:Like I'm gonna tell you about a obscure sport you've never heard of. I'm gonna tell you about, for Sy Hub, most of our listeners like a website you've never heard of or for you know, like, to me, I think that's really cool that we have that ability. And to me, I think the enthusiasm is, in a way, it's like a way to promise, like this means a lot to me and I'm putting a little bit of my heart on the table and like and it's okay if it doesn't mean anything to you, but it means a lot to me, so, and I'm trying to share it with you in like, in good faith and not ironically or because I'm, like you know, angry about it or pissed about it I actually think this is like a beautiful thing that people ought to know. So that's really cool. It is polarizing, like there are people who are like oh my God, I feel like I get reviews all the time and on every medium basically, where it's like people like who is this guy? He seems so fake.
Speaker 1:I just wanna punch him in the face.
Speaker 2:Like this seems so, you know, like it's so over the top it's like, and I'm like no, I'm actually like that Like I don't drink coffee, I'm just naturally like this. But to me, I think it's like it's just a kind of I don't know. There's a kind of honesty about it. There's a kind of like. I think it's a yeah, it's a way to. It's a I don't know. It's a helpful gateway drug into a topic you don't know, and it's like that's a harder thing for a lot of people to do. It's to kind of venture into a topic that they know nothing about, you know.
Speaker 1:It also strikes me as kind of a kindness to the people who you're featuring, right, they're sort of like this is also like this person is probably even more excited than I am and I just wanna, like, I wanna amp you up so that, like you really can that's right as other person, that's right and so yeah, so that's a. So I guess, like nuts and bolts, is there anything you would say that you do to sort of like? Part of this, I think, is at the pitching and rejecting stage, where you go well, we're only gonna do this if I am excited.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:But even still, you could be excited about something and it won't read on the radio, or so for so many of these stories, you're working on them for a long time.
Speaker 2:Like your excitement it's. They're peaks and crests and like it troughs. You know where there are moments where you're like, why am I doing this story again?
Speaker 1:What the hell.
Speaker 2:To me. I think One thing is to, when you first find an idea and it's like a little, you know ember or not an ember. It's a little glint of whatever flint, of a whatever spark spark was the word I was looking for. It's like document. That like like make a do a voice memo to yourself or write a little like my pitches for me are like kind of the. They're like compasses in a way, like I write my pitches in a way specifically so that I can, three months from now, when I'm working on this thing and I've forgotten, like I'm like why does anybody care about this?
Speaker 1:Why should I?
Speaker 2:ever. Why did I ever care about this? I can read that pitch and be like, oh, that's why. Because I like, because, yeah, because it, you know, scratches this itch or it answers this question, or it asks this question, or it like, oh, I've seen a million stories like this, but I've never seen a story like that. You know, or who would? If I was in that position, I would have done the exact opposite thing than this person did and like, wow, what an extraordinary thing. Or who would have thought that they would have found this thing in this place, or whatever?
Speaker 2:It is Like the thing that actually is the hot center of the enthusiasm for you like like, write it down. Like, don't trust that, that'll always be there. For you Like, keep that and hold that and use that all throughout. And people are gonna say stuff, be they editors or people rejecting your story, or even people casually at parties who will like, who you'll start to tell them the story and then they'll be like, oh great, oh, look like a little miniature hot dog. I'm gonna go follow that instead. Thanks, like that's more interesting than whatever you're telling me about Anything that'll happen like it's like. It's like like, use that thing as your sort of buttress to be like yes, this is interesting. I know, because I trust my old self, I, you know, and I trust this thing that I wrote that like this is gonna be. This is interesting and the world ought to hear it, you know.
Speaker 1:So the last. This is just like I wanna get inside the radio lab machine for a second, please, because one of the things that I love about the voice of the show is that it is somehow very conversational and very produced, and so I'm curious, like, how do you pull that off? Like, is this a case where this is way more scripted than I could possibly tell, because you all are very good actors.
Speaker 2:Or not a good actor.
Speaker 1:I've sort of heard a rumor that there's a lot of like recording informal conversations a whole bunch of times and then cutting that as almost as if it is the tape, even though it becomes the narration that's right, it's basically what you just said.
Speaker 2:So we have we basically like information management is important. So people know certain parts of the story, or someone comes back from a reporting trip and they don't talk until they get into the studio and then you talk to them the first time. You know where, you hear, where the host is hearing that, and maybe the reporter is even saying that information for the first time in real time on the air or whatever on the mic. So then also what we do is there's a thing that we do after we do kind of a storyboard, we'll do a thing called a brain dump, and the brain dump is basically the reporter kind of loosely prepares the rundown of the whole story and then the host will sit with the reporter and the reporter will tell it just very conversationally and the hosts, who at that point maybe vaguely remember the pitch from like a year ago or something, yeah, or genuinely like just know nothing about the story will sit and have honest, real human reactions to the yeah, to the kind of story that hopefully is being told in pretty similar to what will be the eventual structure of the story. So it is a real conversation, it's an honest conversation.
Speaker 2:And then the reason when we come in and like hyper produce it and overly produce it is like oh, this question, was this actually really interesting? Or it actually leads us down a place that we don't actually go. So let's cut that. Oh, this, it turns out, fact the fact, check turned up that this thing is so let's actually fix that over here and this actually maybe we could move this over here, but otherwise it's generally the same. So there is a lot of kind of tidying up, but like we try to keep the, because you really can hear the difference if someone is talking versus if someone is actually kind of just like having an actual human conversation, and so we try to, when possible, have that actual human conversation. It takes way more time, it makes way more tape, it takes way more editing kind of muscle, but we think it's worth it.
Speaker 1:All right, well, now I know the secret. This has been super fun. I just want to say thanks for taking the time and talking about all this. This was a real treat for me.
Speaker 2:Andy, you're so kind and I think what you're asking, you're asking so many great questions and you're like I mean it, like you're sort of a connoisseur of this thing and I feel like you know it even better than I do when I'm doing it, and it's kind of a it's like so nice to sort of pop your head out and be like oh, what are we doing again? So yeah, I appreciate you and this has been a really wonderful conversation and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:Adam Estriani, Sam Jones, Siri Carpenter, Allie Ward and Lettif Nusser how lucky are you? Well, how lucky am I? Having a reason to talk with all of these people and vicking their brains is such a privilege. I'm so grateful. I wasn't sure if I was gonna do another season of this Psycom series, but I'm so glad I did and thank you for being here. And yeah, I'll do the outro again for old time's sake.
Speaker 1:This series on science communication is a special presentation of my podcast, Opinion Science, a show about the science of our opinions, where they come from and how they change. You can subscribe any old place where they have podcasts your apples, your Spotify's, your Amazon musics. If you're like me, you're using the same $12 version of BeyondPod that you downloaded 12 years ago. Whatever, whatever works, and be sure to check out OpinionSciencePodcastcom for all the episodes and whatnot. Thank you so much for listening. Your regularly scheduled Opinion Science programming will be back in a couple of weeks. I talked to Dan Simons and Chris Chabry, the guys who are able to psychologically erase a whole dang gorilla from your attention. If you know, you know. And if you don't know, come back here in a couple of weeks for more Opinion, Science. Bye-bye MUSIC.