The Why Factor

Latest Episodes:

Horoscopes Apr 18, 2014

Show notes

Why do we read horoscopes?

On this week’s Why Factor, Mike Williams gets a reading from celebrity astrologer Susan Miller and delves into the history and psychology of horoscopes. He unpicks the complicated relationship between religion and astrology and questions why some of us make important life decisions based on our horoscope while others think it is all nonsense.

(Image: Getty)

Racism Apr 11, 2014

Show notes

Why are some people racist and judge others by the colour of their skin? Is it some deep seated fear of the ‘other’ which has roots in genetic and cultural difference or are exposure to artificial factors constructed by politicians and the media to blame?

This week's Why Factor with presenter Jo Fidgeon explores the experience of racism around the world and in different societies. She finds out about the personal experiences of racism and how it affects peoples’ everyday lives. She also begins to understand how racism is perpetuated through generations and cemented through institutional racism.

(Image: Members of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan participate in a neo-Nazi rally. Credit: Associated Press)

Boredom Apr 04, 2014

Show notes

The programme examines boredom and discovers the history of how it developed as an idea and consequently became a moral issue. Boredom is becoming a fashionable area of academic research where surprising conclusions have been reached about its effects and purpose. And even if today’s hi–tech workplace - or perhaps because of it - boredom is still to be found and presenting challenges as to how to deal with it.

Jo Fidgen discusses boredom with historian Dr Tiffany Watt-Smith from the University of London, Professor Missy Cummings, Institute for Brain Sciences, Duke University, North Carolina, USA and a former drone pilot Lt Col Bruce Black. She also submits herself to a boredom experiment with Dr Wijnand van Tilburg a psychologist at Southampton University. BBC archive recordings include Inside Job and Hancock’s Half Hour.

(Image of a lady yawning. Credit: Think Stock)

Envy Mar 28, 2014

Show notes

Why do we envy other people? Mike Williams meets a woman who is experiencing severe ‘baby envy’ because she cannot have a child. He explores the role envy plays in literature, whether social media makes us all more envious and if the emotion - often considered dangerously destructive - can sometimes be a force for good.

(Photo: A baby wanting the gold cup for herself. Credit: Getty Images)

Dance Mar 21, 2014

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Dance exists in every culture. It’s thought that humans were dancing before we learned to speak.

But why do we have this desire to move, and what are we trying to communicate? Mike Williams explores the idea of ‘muscular bonding’ – that moving together creates communities. He hears how Indian Kathak dance connects body and soul, how a Northern Australian society uses dance to blur gender divides, and how watching others dance makes us move too.

Picture: Dancers perform 'Bharatanatyam' on wheelchairs, a classical Indian dance at an event in Bangalore. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Family Names Mar 14, 2014

Show notes

Last names tell a story. Your last name could determine your career. It could decide how easily you move through society or alternatively how hard it could be to get ahead. Some last names grow longer and longer as they carry a family story from generation to generation. Others stagger under a double barrel as partners perpetuate their own last names through their children and a hyphen.

So what’s in a last name? A whole lot as Mike Williams discovers in The Why Factor.

(Image: A mixture of surnames from around the world. BBC Copyright)

Given Names Mar 07, 2014

Show notes

What’s in a name? Each of us has one and it is a fairly fundamental part of us. But what does the name say about us - and about our parents who, in most cases - chose it for us?

Why do some names go in and out of fashion? And is the freedom to name our children as we wish a fundamental human right? In the first of two programmes on names, we begin with first or given names. The programme is presented by the solidly-named Mike Williams.

(Image: A mixture of names from around the world. BBC Copyright)

Privacy Feb 28, 2014

Show notes

Although we assume a natural right to privacy, we readily give it away on our mobile phones and on social media websites. So as technology alters the very definition of what privacy is and the science of surveillance becomes ever more acute, is the idea of privacy little more than a quaint last-century notion? Mike Williams traces its history, and ponders what a society without privacy might look like.

(Image: Girls peer through a crack in the door. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Coffee Feb 21, 2014

Show notes

Why is drinking coffee so compulsive, and controversial? Mike Williams explores the spread of coffee drinking, and why its production, and consumption, matters so much around the globe.

He hears about coffee’s dark origins as a mystical drink, its social function in café societies, and its recent spread through trends such as ‘Seattle coffee culture’. Are tea-drinking cultures willing to be converted? And, as producing nations like Brazil, face huge variations in world prices and the long-term threat of climate change, what does coffee’s future look like?

(Image: Hands holding coffee beans. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Trees of Life Feb 14, 2014

Show notes

Wood is a vital human resource. But trees inspire myths and reverence. So, Mike Williams asks, why are our feelings about trees so mixed? He hears why every human age is a ‘wood age’, why trees are crucial to social life in African cities, why one New Zealander swapped cutting trees for spending nights in them, and why Danes fear global disease and climate change may lose them their mythical ‘tree of life’.

(Image: An arborist works on top of a tree at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. London Credit: Getty Images)