TTBOOK team, mushrooms, women and human mind

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

To The Best Of Our Knowledge is a nationally-syndicated, Peabody award-winning radio show where long-form interviews lead us to dive headlong into the deeper end of ideas. We have conversations with novelists and poets, scientists and software engineers, journalists and historians, filmmakers and philosophers, artists and activists—anyone with a big idea and a passion to have a creative and engaging conversation about it.

We consider ideas big and small, conventional and dangerous, and marshal them into shows centered around a theme. A show's theme sometimes centers on a big question, other times it will zero in on the small things that give us pause. A good theme is a conversation starter: is the Internet making us stupid? Can a computer truly be creative? Are humans innately good? What’s the best road trip you ever took?

Once we pick the theme, we dig in with interviews that explore the culture, the debate, the stories, the science and the actual sound of it all. And hopefully, when we’re done, we’ve animated the questions along with the answers, opening both our own minds and yours.

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To the Best of Our Knowledge

Out of the Anxiety Box

Saturday, March 25, 2023, 3:00pm

You're not even out of bed and you're already worrying. So let's talk about it: How anxious we are, how we got that way, and what to do about it.

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To the Best of Our Knowledge

Being Sincere in a Cynical World

Saturday, March 18, 2023, 1:00pm

Why is the world so damn cynical? Rather than surrendering to corrosive, hopeless snark, we look to some unexpected sources — video games, the lives lead by those who leave hate groups, and the optimism of the Afrofuturist art and culture movement — to make the case for sincerity.

To the Best of Our Knowledge

Cultivating Wonder

Saturday, March 18, 2023, 3:00pm

Maybe there’s something missing in your life you can’t quite explain. It might be that you need to re-discover your sense of wonder.

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What goosebumps, tears and grief can teach us about being awestruck

Saturday, March 18, 2023, 7:00am

Psychologist Dacher Keltner tells "TTBOOK" that awe is a unique experience, distinct from all other emotions, and it can make us feel better in a lot of ways.

A sense of wonder through the eyes — and ears — of a child

Saturday, March 18, 2023, 6:55am

Lulu Miller's latest project is a "Radiolab" podcast series for children: "Terrestrials." She explains for "TTBOOK" how nature and child-like sensibility can help adults rediscover a sense of wonder.

To the Best of Our Knowledge

Hope: How Do You Make It?

Saturday, March 11, 2023, 1:00pm

This hour we talk with people who’ve turned that around and made hope real, whether it’s through political activism, faith, music, or reading a life-changing novel.

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To the Best of Our Knowledge

Journeys Through Gender

Saturday, March 11, 2023, 3:00pm

Sharing of personal pronouns is just one sign of an increasingly widespread shift in how we think about gender. So what’s next? Maybe gender should be messy? Maybe trans should be joy?

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To the Best of Our Knowledge

Hope: Where Does It Come From?

Saturday, March 4, 2023, 1:00pm

Is hope something we’re innately born with, or something we can choose to have? We talk with people who tell us where they think hope lives in ourselves and our communities.

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To the Best of Our Knowledge

As Read By The Author

Saturday, March 4, 2023, 3:00pm

As audio producers, one of the most fun things we get to do is bring the soundscape of a novel to life — cue the monsters, the storms, the footsteps of a creature emerging slowly from the ocean. So that’s what we’re bringing you today: Great writers, epic sound design.

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To the Best of Our Knowledge

Reading While Young

Saturday, February 25, 2023, 1:00pm

Remember when reading still felt magical? We talk to authors about Wonderland, magic wands, unicorns and other children's stories that inspire.

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To the Best of Our Knowledge

How Should We Tell Our History?

Saturday, February 25, 2023, 3:00pm

Debates over history are front-page news – from critical race theory to controversies over AP history classes. We consider the stories we tell about the past.

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Columnist Jamelle Bouie on dispelling 'civic myths' with American history

Saturday, February 25, 2023, 5:20am

Jamelle Bouie is a columnist and political analyst with a knack for providing historical context for present-day debates. It’s given him a distinctive voice among today’s pundits.

To the Best of Our Knowledge

Walk With Me

Saturday, February 18, 2023, 3:00pm

We all know we should walk more. The evidence just keeps accumulating – walking makes us healthier, happier, smarter, more relaxed, more resilient – not to mention longer-lived. But even with the best of intentions, sometimes we all need a little push to get out the door.

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To the Best of Our Knowledge

Whose Land Is It?

Saturday, February 18, 2023, 1:00pm

Ever want to quit your job, leave the rat race behind, and head back to the land? Buy an old farmhouse or build a solar-powered home and live self-sufficiently on a few acres of your very own? Generations before you have shared that dream. The reality is more complicated. Even owning your own land is an ethical minefield.

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The radical philosopher mapping the crises of capitalism

Friday, February 17, 2023, 6:10am

Philosopher Nancy Fraser's work builds a theory of capitalism extending Marx and Engels' ideas to incorporate feminism, racial justice, the environment and the pandemic. She says moments of crisis like the pandemic offer the opportunity for new systems to be created.

To the Best of Our Knowledge

Against Capitalism

Saturday, February 11, 2023, 3:00pm

Congress has passed a Republican resolution "denouncing socialism." But what does that even mean? This hour, a socialist and a Marxist make the case against capitalism.

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