Can nature teach us how to live, or is the universe random and meaningless? In the first episode of The PloughCast’s new 6-part series about nature and creatures, Susannah quizzes Peter about his dog Hektor, who plays a starring role in Peter’s Plough editorial “The Book of Creatures.” They discuss the evolution of dogs, especially the way dogs’ faces have evolved to hack into human emotions of tenderness – and ask whether this should make us more cynical about nature, or more open to the possibility that it is freighted with meaning and purpose.

The imprisoned Czech dissident Vaclav Havel, not a religious believer, nevertheless had a mystical experience of nature that changed his life. The Boston writer Ian Marcus Corbin tells Havel’s story in an ambitious Plough essay “The Abyss of Beauty,” which the hosts discuss, prompting Susannah to describe her own, distinctly urban, version Havel’s conversion experience.

The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat then joins The PloughCast for a wide-ranging discussion of nature-related topics. First up is a debate whether there is such a thing as natural law, and if there is, why it fails to move public opinion on controversial questions such as bioethics. Ross then recounts his personal story of the dark side of nature: a harrowing experience of long-term Lyme disease which led him to write his forthcoming book The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery (October 2021).

On a lighter note, Ross agrees to talk about the paranormal: UFOs (now also known as UAPs or “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), space aliens, and alien abductions. What are we to make of the US military’s recent official confirmation of UFO sightings? Are aliens part of the natural world, or are they supernatural – perhaps the same beings formerly called fairies and elves? Finally, an important warning: Don’t anger the Good People.