The Why Factor

Latest Episodes:

Why Are We Getting Smarter Jul 15, 2016

Show notes

For many decades now we’ve been getting smarter. All across the planet average IQ results have been rising… by about 3 points every ten years. It’s called the Flynn Effect and it’s changing our societies. So what is it? What causes it? And what could be the consequences if — as seems possible — it goes into reverse.

(Image : Woman and man standing back to back with think bubbles. Copyright - Racorn/Shutterstock)

Newspapers Jul 08, 2016

Show notes

Free, digital news is threatening traditional newspapers around the world, so why do they survive and what is their future? Mike Williams speaks to legendary newspaper editor Sir Harry Evans and journalist in exile Qaabata Boru who fought to set up an independent newspaper in a Kenyan refugee camp.

Mike also hears from Melody Martinsen who owns and edits The Choteau Acantha, a tiny newspaper in rural Montana where not even the premature birth of her son stopped publication.

And at the British Library’s newspaper archive, Mike learns how, as chronicles of ordinary people’s lives, newspapers can throw up some surprise stories missed by the history books.

(Image: Early edition of the Daily Mirror spread on table. Credit: Image courtesy of the British Library)

Attraction Jun 27, 2016

Show notes

Why are we attracted to some people and to not others? Mike Williams explores the factors that lie behind our feelings of attraction. He speaks to the authors Christy and Clare Campbell. Christy fell in love at first sight, but it took Clare six months to feel that strong sense of attraction. After 40 years of marriage they are still attracted to each other.

Beauty, facial symmetry, personality and values all play a role in our attraction to others. Evolution biologist Dr Anna Machin from Oxford University explains the science behind attraction. Dr Machin explains how chemicals released in our brains gives us the confidence to approach someone who we are attracted to and how the smell and taste of a prospective partner can tell us a lot of their genes and whether they will be a compatible mate.

(Photo: A couple gazing at each other. Credit: Shutterstock)

Loneliness Jun 17, 2016

Show notes

What is loneliness and why do we feel it? Why do some people feel lonely when surrounded by people and others never feel lonely at all. Mike Williams finds out why feeling lonely can help us to survive.

Feelings of loneliness do not only come from the position we can sometimes find ourselves in. Studies of twins in Holland have shown that loneliness has a hereditary element. And surprisingly loneliness can also be contagious.

Mike speaks to the Chinese artist Li Tianbing about how growing up under China’s one child policy shaped his art and to a Swedish entrepreneur who invited 11 people to come and live with her to combat her loneliness.

(Photo: Woman alone on a bridge. Credit: Shutterstock)

Safe Space Jun 13, 2016

Show notes

The ideal university experience is expected to train the minds of students by exposing them to new ideas and challenging their assumptions. Why then, in the English speaking west at least, are some students rebelling against this principle by insisting there are some ideas which are so abhorrent they should not be heard? To them a university should be a safe space. In this edition of the Why Factor, Mike Williams tries to discover where the balance lies between freedom of speech and protection from offence and asks what exactly is a safe space?

Producer: Sandra Kanthal

Image: Students sharing space on campus (Credit: Rawpixel/ Shutterstock)

Copying Art Jun 10, 2016

Show notes

Why do people try to create old masters and modern art, brush stroke by brush stroke? And, why do people buy them? He talks to art copier David Henty, fine art expert and gallery owner Philip Mould, Paul Dong a Beijing based art auctioneer, Colette Loll founder and director of the Washington-based Art Fraud Insights and art copy customer Patricia Burns from Canada.

(Photo: A copy of Pablo Picasso's The Weeping Woman painted by David Henty, courtesy of the artist D.Henty)

Thin May 27, 2016

Show notes

For thousands of years, a thin body was a sign of poverty or disease. But there is now a growing, global obsession with being thin. And this at a time when many populations around the world are, paradoxically, suffering epidemics of obesity. Mike Williams finds out why, as he speaks to former French model Victoire Macon Dauxerre, Tony Glenville from the London College of Fashion, Anne Becker from Harvard Medical School, Professor John Speakman from University of Aberdeen and Etta Edim from Nigeria’s Efik tribe.

Image: A vendor arranges stick-thin mannequins in a store in China (Credit: China Photos/Getty Images)

Why Are We Afraid of Robots? May 20, 2016

Show notes

Robots are in our homes, our factories, on battlefields and in hospitals. Some are smarter than us, some are faster. Some are here to help us, others not. Science fiction is filled with malign machines which rise against humanity. In the Why Factor this week, Mike Williams asks if we have reason to fear the machines we are creating.

Insert: “I, Robot” 2004 Twentieth Century Fox. Director Alex Proyas, based on story by Isaac Asimov

Time Perception May 13, 2016

Show notes

Mike Williams asks why some weeks just fly by but sometimes minutes can seem like hours? Why do we perceive time differently in different circumstances? Mike talks to Pakistani writer and broadcaster Raza Rumi; Claudia Hammond, author of Time Warped; David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine at Houston and John McCarthy, a British journalist taken hostage in Lebanon in 1986.

(Photo: Hands of a clock over female silhouette. Credit: Shutterstock)

Statues: Why we put people on pedestals May 06, 2016

Show notes

For thousands of years mankind has erected pillars of public art. Statues exist across almost every culture. To some they pay homage to gods, to others they are attempts at immortalising man. Their toppling has become a symbol of regime change. They are worshipped and prayed to, idolised and in some cases despised. They are a unique art form that has seemingly never gone out of vogue.

Lucy Ash explores the significance of these sculptures and speaks to Jasleen Kaur, a young artist whose art examines if history can be retold through art. In the UK, the Oxford University campaign to remove a statue of the controversial figure, Cecil Rhodes, has sparked a passionate debate around the way we view the past. In South Korea, she speaks to protest sculptors whose statue of a little girl outside of the Japanese embassy in Seoul almost derailed a 10-year Korean-Japanese relations agreement. Lucy examines why societies insist on placing its people on pedestals. What are the motivations behind the commissioning of statues? And, what sentiment can they project onto a population? Why have the building of statues become pet projects for the politically powerful? And, can culture be exported across borders and can any statue really stand the test of time?

(Photo: Kim Seo-kyung (left) and Kim Eun-sung (right) sculptors of the 'Comfort Women' statue)

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