Project Overview

A few great questions about the human condition just won’t go away.

What is the nature of consciousness? How does good differ from evil? What is the significance of religious experience, the proper place of eros in a well-lived life, the meaning of death? How much can we know about the universe?

These questions have inspired great works of art, literature and philosophy. They are recurrent themes in world religion and the accumulated scholarship of the humanist tradition.

But are they scientific questions?

There is a stubborn gap in Western thought between scientific explanation and the domain of human values and subjectivity. Science looks for causes, but persons are free to choose. The scientific method rejects normative statements and terms, but individuals have values, make judgments, and seek meaning. Science requires objective data, but persons — even scientists — still hold some truths to be self-evident.

Informed by the latest research, and highlighted by contemporary controversies, Science and the Search for Meaning in the 21st Century will explore the fundamental philosophical questions at the intersection of science, values and subjectivity.

Scheduled to debut in 2008 on public radio stations across the country, these ten, hour-long documentaries will introduce prominent researchers in fields ranging from neuroscience to cosmology, and distinguished philosophers, ethicists, historians and theologians, to explore what happens when science tries to bridge this gap.

Science and the Search for Meaning in the 21st Century has been developed with the guidance of a distinguished team of academic advisors, and has received support from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The series is a project of SoundVision Productions®, a non-profit (501c3) corporation based in Berkeley, California. SoundVision is creator of The DNA Files and winner of the Peabody Award, the duPont-Columbia Silver Gavel, the Science Journalism “Pinnacle of Excellence” award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and other prestigious awards.