Rationally Speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.

For more information, please visit us at NYCCEceptics.org.

Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.

I'm your host, Julia Galef, and with me is today's guest, physicist Sean Carroll.

He's a returning guest on Rationally Speaking.

And to refresh your memory, he's a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology.

He is a blogger at Preposterous Universe and the author of several books on physics and philosophy for a popular audience, including from eternity to hear and the particle at the end of the universe.

And most recently, the big picture on the origins of life, meaning, and the particle at the end of the universe, and most recently, the big picture on the origins of

life, meaning, and the universe itself. It's a big ambitious subtitle that we're going to

explore in today's episode. Sean, welcome back to rationally speaking. It's great to be here. Thanks

for having me, Julia. So the core project of the big picture, I would say, feel free to correct me, is the

introduction and the exploration of this new ism called poetic naturalism, which we'll delve

into in the show. But at first, I just want to point out, I don't know if you've noticed this,

but some people on Facebook have already started calling themselves poetic naturalists

as their religion. I think that's a pretty clear sign of a successful propagation of a meme.

I'm looking into some sort of uniform that I can wear with a hat and so forth, so I can be the pope of poetic natural.

I'm looking forward to this.

You should really jump on that role before anyone else snags it. I know, because it's not a good history for people founding religions and living for a long

time.

So what is poetic naturalism?

Well, I think the world needs more isms out there, right?

Obviously.

...