Free Thinking

Are you planning your summer holiday? The first Saturday in January is called Sunshine Saturday because typically more holidays are booked on that day than on any other in the year. Today, planning a trip might involve consulting AI rather than reading a travel guide or visiting a travel agent. And the trip itself is more likely to involve an airplane than a stagecoach. But it's not just the practicalities of travel that have altered over the years. Reasons for travelling have changed, so have the meanings assigned to it. Was it ever a good vehicle for self discovery?

In Radio 4's roundtable ideas discussion programme Shahidha Bari is joined by:

award-winning travel journalist Mary Novakovich

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Is idleness ever a virtue? In a world that seems to privilege utility and productivity above all else, Matthew Sweet considers whether we can rethink the importance of doing nothing. His guests for Radio 4's late night ideas discussion programme are:

Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler and author of books including Idle Thoughts: Letters on Good Living, How to Live Like a Stoic: A Handbook for Happiness

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Do individuals or broader forces shape history? In the 2025 Reith lectures on BBC Radio 4, Rutger Bregman argues that small groups of individuals can have an outsize influence and he looks to examples in history from suffragism to the ending of slavery. In the Free Thinking studio for Radio 4's round-table discussion about the history of ideas, Matthew Sweet is joined by:

Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer prize winning historian and author of Autocracy Inc, which looks at the networks linking powerful people in our world

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Why marry? Jane Austen began her novel Pride and Prejudice with the observation "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife". Recent figures from the Office of National Statistics show less than half the adult UK population are married or in a legal partnership and predictions are that by 2050, only 3 in 10 people in the UK will marry.

Shahidha Bari hosts Radio 4's round-table discussion programme Free Thinking, which brings together philosophical and historical insights in a conversation about issues resonating in the present day. Her guests this week are:

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Rocks have shaped the fates of civilizations and the study of geology has transformed our intellectual landscape. In the 19th century developments in earth sciences led to the scientific rejection of Biblical timescales in favour of the far greater spans of geological time, which opened the way for Darwin's development of the theory of evolution by natural selection. More recently, historians have been keen to incorporate factors like access to natural resources and major events like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions into their accounts of the past and analyses of the present. Matthew Sweet asks how disciplines in the humanities, like history and political theory, might be transformed by incorporating insights and data from the earth sciences, and also how the earth sciences might be transformed if they become more historically and culturally aware. With historians Peter Frankopan and Rosemary Hill, geologist Anjana Khatwa, philosopher Graham Harman, and poet Sarah Jackson.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

What function do ceremonies like Armistice Day perform? How do we balance desires for reconciliation with feelings about revenge? How we remember wars and what commemoration means is much less settled than we might think. And that throws up questions, in times when conflicts are spreading close to us in western Europe, of how wars end and how we balance our concern for justice and peace with darker impulses?

Joining presenter Anne McElvoy for BBC Radio 4's roundtable discussion about the ideas shaping our world are:

Producer: Ruth Watts

"Doom-prepping" tech billionaires have been in the headlines recently and whether it’s ecological crisis or a breakdown in law and order, fear of societal collapse seems to lurk in the background of a lot of discussion in politics and wider society. But what does it mean? When has it happened in the past? Can we avoid it – or survive it – in the future? Joining presenter Shahidha Bari for Radio 4's roundtable discussion about the ideas shaping our world are:

From economics to dreams: Anne McElvoy and guests consider the value of irrationality. How often is emotion, instinct and unsound thinking behind the decisions taken by governments, financial markets and citizens? And does it matter if long term strategic thinking relying on calm assessments of the trade offs, conventional wisdom and the lessons of experience take a back seat. Is there a value in irrationality? Guests include: Bronwen Maddox, Director and CEO of Chatham House, the international think tank; Lionel Barber, author of Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Japan's Masayoshi Son; Salma Shah, who sits on the boards of Policy Exchange and the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge; Patrick Foulis, the foreign editor at the Economist and, Jonathan Egid, philosopher and BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Producer: Ruth Watts

From military ceremonies to folk customs - can traditions really provide an answer to nationalism and boost local pride? Former MP Penny Mordaunt is publishing a book called Pomp and Circumstance: Why Britain's Traditions Matter written with Chris Lewis. She's one of Matthew Sweet's guests in the Free Thinking studio alongside Sunder Katwala, author of How to be a patriot: Why love of country can end our very British culture war. He is the director of British Future which conducted the biggest-ever public consultation on immigration.

Producer: Robyn Read

Science is one of the major sources of authority in society today. Scientists develop technologies to make our lives easier and more comfortable. They fight diseases, they have identified and are helping to combat climate change. Yet developments like AI, and some areas of genetic science, seem to raise ethical dilemmas that scientists on their own can't address. And at a time when the authority of 'experts' has been challenged, where does that leave the authority of scientists? Shahidha Bari discusses science in society with theologian Dr Dafydd Mills Daniel, who's been working on Samuel Clarke, known as Newton's Bulldog, as a case study in the status of science in 17th century England, and Dr Sandra Knapp, researcher at the Natural History Museum and chair of the judges of this year's Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. Also Hannah Devlin, science correspondent for The Guardian, Nick Spencer, Senior Fellow at Theos, and geneticist, author and broadcaster Adam Rutherford.

Producer: Luke Mulhall