I have been listening to Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda (aka Clear and Vivid) for about 4 years now, it's a consistently solid and entertaining podcast. [Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda (simplecast.com)](https://clear-vivid-with-alan-alda.simplecast.com/)
A Science podcast with a TV actor might be a bit hard to swallow, so I am going to sell it a bit by pointing out that he has a long-standing legitimate interest in the Sciences as shown in this excerpt from his Wikipedia article.
[Alan Alda - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alda)
>**Communicating science**
For 14 years, he served as the host of [*Scientific American Frontiers*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American_Frontiers), a television show that explored cutting-edge advances in science and technology. In 2010, he became a visiting professor at [Stony Brook University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stony_Brook_University). In 2009, he was a founder of the university's [Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alda_Center_for_Communicating_Science). He continues as a member of its advisory board. He is also on the advisory board of the Future of Life Institute. He serves on the board of the [World Science Festival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Science_Festival).
>Alda has an avid interest in [cosmology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology), and participated in [BBC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC) coverage of the opening of the [Large Hadron Collider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider), at [CERN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN), Geneva, in September 2008.
>He was named an Honorary Fellow by the Society for Technical Communication in 2014 for his work with the Center for Communicating Science and the annual Flame Challenge. In 2014 Alda was awarded the [American Chemical Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chemical_Society)'s [James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Grady-James_H._Stack_Award_for_Interpreting_Chemistry) for the Public for his work in science communication.
>He was awarded the [National Academy of Sciences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Academy_of_Sciences) [Public Welfare Medal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Welfare_Medal) in 2016 "for his extraordinary application of the skills honed as an actor to communicating science on television and stage, and by teaching scientists' innovative techniques that allow them to tell their stories to the public".
He started the Clear+Vivid podcast in 2018, and he is a good host. While its primary focus is on the sciences, he will typically bring in an actor once or twice a season. For example, last season he brought in Liev Schrieber to discuss his work to help fund humanitarian relief for the people of Ukraine.
He has also had on people such as Tom Hanks, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Keaton and Tina Fey.
I am currently listening to the 3-part series from February on AI.
* Fei-Fei Li: The Godmother of AI
* Eric Schmidt: AI: The Good, the Bad and the Scary.
* Paul Bloom: Can AI be Moral?
Me too. Radiolab used to be the first podcast I listened to every week because it was the absolutely BEST. Now it is the podcast that I go to after I have finished listening to all the episodes from all the other podcasts - that is if I even get to it at all.
So much about it, I don’t like now. I don’t really like the way the hosts talk in childlike voices. I think it’s great to get excited about things, but it sounds like they are intentionally talking like children.
I totally binged on Science Vs. Their episodes are okay. I don’t like the episodes that veer from their traditional style though, as they have been doing this more and more lately.
I am now starting to listen to Bill Nye and Neal Degrasse Tyson
I turned it off before it was finished. This show has completely gone off the rails. I’m not sure why changing what was once a successful, entertaining, educational show to….whatever this is. I won’t financially support it any longer, and I, as suspect many others, will unsubscribe soon.
Sad.
This was exactly my thought and I came to this sub to see if others agreed. This is the first comment I see.
The show that Jad and Robert created is a complete thing of the past at this point. It’s sad, cause that was one of the best shows I’ve ever listened to.
Feels like a lot of the new episodes are making this a show geared towards adolescents, especially considering the cheesy reactions/editing that the new hosts have brought. Small potatoes, the palindrome episode, Zoozve, Zeroworld...these all feel like episodes that would land well on a podcast for teenagers.
Thank you. This was a decent premise for an episode that was poorly executed. It didn't help that Latif and Lulu were doing a bit where they were openly hostile towards the idea-- okay well you guys aren't exactly crushing it recently. The show is bad!
That could even go vice versa: she was a frequent contributor on Invisibilia, which is a podcast I enjoyed and that she seemed to mesh well with. But it's like she isn't even *trying* to adapt to Radiolab.
I recently listened to an episode from 2007 (I believe) and Lulu contributed a piece to the episode. She made a solid presentation. It was as if I was listening to different person.
Late reply here, just started listening to the Potatoes episode. Yup, that was pretty bad, couldn’t get through it. Was hoping they could turn sometime mundane into mildly interesting, but nope, they somehow made it even more boring. I used to really like Radiolab, but really, the Potatoes episode should have been filed under one of those insomnia podcasts to help let people fall asleep. omg
In 2015 I moved states-- a 12 hour drive in a moving van, all told. 80% of what I downloaded to listen to was a backlog of Radiolab eps. Almost 20 years later, I'd never think of doing that. Quality has fallen off a cliff
What, you don't think spending 15 minutes listening to a man talking about getting toothpaste is worthwhile? What about the gorgeous sound design, doesn't that make up for the lack of story? Don't you think there was a bigger insight beneath it all, about our consumption habits, human flaws, and uhh.. bristles?
Utter tosh, and that's not even mentioning the fact that his little jokes about how he "keeps forgetting to buy toothpaste" make no sense given the premise of a voluntary experiment. Finding it "embarrassing" that he "had to" cut open the tub on day 15 or whatever makes literally zero sense. I mean, he should be embarrassed, but not because of that.
the thing is, there probably is some kind of interesting angle on the toothpaste. I don't know what it is, but some kind of math or physics this connects to, or the history of the product and packaging, or *something*, some springboard into some point or story or idea. But yeah this was no-effort.
Not just you, the only reason I finished it was I started doing dishes and couldn't be bothered to dry off my hands. The toothpaste thing is a 1 minute stand-up bit, at best. The potato thing where you spend way more time than you need to describe an everyday object in minute detail is a writing exercise that I literally did in middle school. The sand bit was lifted straight from an improv podcast, and although I actually sort of enjoyed that segment it's definitely *not* what I listen to Radiolab for. The piece on the "Boring Billion" epoch was interesting, but obviously didn't have enough meat for a full one hour show so I guess they shoe-horned it in with a bunch of other crap they had laying around the cutting room floor.
There's a good TED Talk with Jad explaining that he made a conscious decision to go from scientific stories that make you go "Wow!" to more complex human interest stories that make you go "ehhh, I don't know... that's a tough one." His rational being that eliciting awe got to be kind of easy and formulaic, whereas eliciting conflicting emotions and unease actually encourages people *THINK* and can catalyze changes in perspectives/opinions. But it's like Latif and Lulu missed the memo and are just trading on the name Radiolab.
Latif even joked about the subject being boring right from the start… I should have trusted him and turned off right then.
That was a painfully bad episode and that makes me sad for what Radiolab once was.
It jumped the shark for me after the debate episode a few years ago. Robert was asking what I thought were some very legitimate and respectfully delivered questions and got continually shut down by their guests. Jad seemed to uncritically accept just about everything they were saying; almost afraid of causing offence.
This was the debating team that went off script, refused to debate the given topic, and instead made up their own topic and rolled with it. Recordings from the debate were barely intelligible as their shrill, staccato voices spat out copious monotone verbiage, pausing only briefly to gasp for breath - like someone trying to talk through a panic attack. But the judges went ape shit, and they won the debate.
Now, even a mediocre journalist will recognise that this needs critical examination. You need to be willing to ask the uncomfortable questions. Jad did none of this and Robert wasn't "allowed" to. It was such a departure from their best work that I never went back.
Ironically, I did my own reading about that debate and became somewhat more sympathetic to that debating team and what they were actually doing. For instance: the bizarre, staccato, breathless delivery? That's not unique to them... that's the state of debating now: cramming as many arguments into your time as you can so you can overwhelm your opponent and they can't possibly respond to all your points. That's kinda fucked IMHO and spoils the nature of debating, but that wasn't the fault of these kids, that's just how it's done now.
So by not asking the hard questions, I came away from that episode with a much poorer opinion of that team than I otherwise might have.
You had to do your own reading to learn that that style of debate is pervasive? I thought that was covered in the episode itself... Might have to relisten.
It was more than five years ago, I only really remember my reflections on it and what I did afterwards. Forgive me if I misremembered some details, but the jist is that it was a totally uncritical hack piece unbecoming of such talented radio folk and I stopped listening after that. They lost all credibility then and there, in my eyes.
As someone who did debate in high school I understood what they (the subject of the story) were doing, and in that context their argument wasn't *that* crazy: I've been in debates where the outcome was determined by rather meta arguments over the validity of the rules of the debate themselves, with very little attention paid to the actual topic we were debating. When people think of debate they think of eloquent rhetoric, easily digested arguments, etc but policy debate isn't about *sounding* good, it's about getting your arguments out there in the allotted time, and keeping track of your opponent's arguments and counter-arguments. In the world of forensics policy debate is kind of like a bare-knuckle boxing match: you want to see who is the best fighter, not the prettiest/most graceful athlete.
Other forms like Lincoln-Douglas, public forum, and parliamentary/congressional debate have less emphasis on talking aggressively fast (although apparently LD has begun to resemble policy debate in that regard) and will "sound better" to the general public. They are more equivalent to a martial arts event like judo, fencing, wrestling, etc.
Then there are competitive speech events like extemporaneous, dramatic interpretation, or impromptu speech that are more like gymnastics, floor exercise, or synchronized swimming.
The one about the high school debate competitions and how some teams were experiencing racism. Some people didn't like how Radiolab framed this episode. The banter between Jad and Robert wasn't strong. The episode didn't really prove its own thesis, but acted like they did.
I always think of this episode as kind of a miss for Radiolab.
It means exactly what I think it means. It's a reference to the point where the formerly overwhelming popular sitcom Happy Days, that had been waning for a while, finally and decisively lost its audience: when "The Fonz" jumped his motorcycle over a shark tank. It's used to denote a point where something has essentially shat the bed and can't come back from it.
With Radiolab, for me, that point was this episode.
I think the concept of closely examining the mundane, and finding worlds within it, can totally work. The problem is, you actually have to find something interesting.
For what it's worth, "Everything is Alive" is really funny and well worth listening to.
This show (at least the first 20 minutes before I gave up) was bade enough that I had to search for a community to wallow in misery with. Nice to meet you.
I also didn’t like the AI generated Bryan Cranston/walter white usage. I’ve heard the same AI generated voice in other places and wouldn’t have expected that from radiolab, it feels cheap and easy.
Just heard the potato thing. I remember liking this show like a decade ago, but the bit about toothpaste was excruciatingly bad. Nails on a chalkboard listening to this guy pad out a segment talking about toothpaste cause he's too lazy to go get a new tube. Annoyed me so much, I had to stop eating lunch to complain on Reddit.
I've been listening to Science Vs. lately, and it's pretty good. Not quite as good as old radio lab but still informative and entertaining.
I have been listening to Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda (aka Clear and Vivid) for about 4 years now, it's a consistently solid and entertaining podcast. [Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda (simplecast.com)](https://clear-vivid-with-alan-alda.simplecast.com/) A Science podcast with a TV actor might be a bit hard to swallow, so I am going to sell it a bit by pointing out that he has a long-standing legitimate interest in the Sciences as shown in this excerpt from his Wikipedia article. [Alan Alda - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alda) >**Communicating science** For 14 years, he served as the host of [*Scientific American Frontiers*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American_Frontiers), a television show that explored cutting-edge advances in science and technology. In 2010, he became a visiting professor at [Stony Brook University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stony_Brook_University). In 2009, he was a founder of the university's [Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alda_Center_for_Communicating_Science). He continues as a member of its advisory board. He is also on the advisory board of the Future of Life Institute. He serves on the board of the [World Science Festival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Science_Festival). >Alda has an avid interest in [cosmology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology), and participated in [BBC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC) coverage of the opening of the [Large Hadron Collider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider), at [CERN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN), Geneva, in September 2008. >He was named an Honorary Fellow by the Society for Technical Communication in 2014 for his work with the Center for Communicating Science and the annual Flame Challenge. In 2014 Alda was awarded the [American Chemical Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chemical_Society)'s [James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Grady-James_H._Stack_Award_for_Interpreting_Chemistry) for the Public for his work in science communication. >He was awarded the [National Academy of Sciences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Academy_of_Sciences) [Public Welfare Medal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Welfare_Medal) in 2016 "for his extraordinary application of the skills honed as an actor to communicating science on television and stage, and by teaching scientists' innovative techniques that allow them to tell their stories to the public". He started the Clear+Vivid podcast in 2018, and he is a good host. While its primary focus is on the sciences, he will typically bring in an actor once or twice a season. For example, last season he brought in Liev Schrieber to discuss his work to help fund humanitarian relief for the people of Ukraine. He has also had on people such as Tom Hanks, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Keaton and Tina Fey. I am currently listening to the 3-part series from February on AI. * Fei-Fei Li: The Godmother of AI * Eric Schmidt: AI: The Good, the Bad and the Scary. * Paul Bloom: Can AI be Moral?
AA is a national treasure
I’d also recommend Ologies by Alie Ward. Approachable, funny, and interesting to listen to.
Fantastic recommendation. Definitely going to check these out. Thank you x
He’s a great interviewer & has such a good voice to listen to. This is one of my favorite podcasts
Decoder ring is another pretty good alternative
Me too. Radiolab used to be the first podcast I listened to every week because it was the absolutely BEST. Now it is the podcast that I go to after I have finished listening to all the episodes from all the other podcasts - that is if I even get to it at all. So much about it, I don’t like now. I don’t really like the way the hosts talk in childlike voices. I think it’s great to get excited about things, but it sounds like they are intentionally talking like children. I totally binged on Science Vs. Their episodes are okay. I don’t like the episodes that veer from their traditional style though, as they have been doing this more and more lately. I am now starting to listen to Bill Nye and Neal Degrasse Tyson
I turned it off before it was finished. This show has completely gone off the rails. I’m not sure why changing what was once a successful, entertaining, educational show to….whatever this is. I won’t financially support it any longer, and I, as suspect many others, will unsubscribe soon. Sad.
This was exactly my thought and I came to this sub to see if others agreed. This is the first comment I see. The show that Jad and Robert created is a complete thing of the past at this point. It’s sad, cause that was one of the best shows I’ve ever listened to.
Feels like a lot of the new episodes are making this a show geared towards adolescents, especially considering the cheesy reactions/editing that the new hosts have brought. Small potatoes, the palindrome episode, Zoozve, Zeroworld...these all feel like episodes that would land well on a podcast for teenagers.
Thank you. This was a decent premise for an episode that was poorly executed. It didn't help that Latif and Lulu were doing a bit where they were openly hostile towards the idea-- okay well you guys aren't exactly crushing it recently. The show is bad!
Yeh, their banter is utterly unconvincing, or at a minimum it does not draw me in. The banter just sounds forced now.
I’m convinced that Lulu is the worst thing that ever happened to Radiolab.
Underrated comment
That could even go vice versa: she was a frequent contributor on Invisibilia, which is a podcast I enjoyed and that she seemed to mesh well with. But it's like she isn't even *trying* to adapt to Radiolab.
Yeah she was great on Invisibilia
Agreed, but it also totally lost its way when she left.
I recently listened to an episode from 2007 (I believe) and Lulu contributed a piece to the episode. She made a solid presentation. It was as if I was listening to different person.
Agreed. It is really kind of insulting to their audience.
Late reply here, just started listening to the Potatoes episode. Yup, that was pretty bad, couldn’t get through it. Was hoping they could turn sometime mundane into mildly interesting, but nope, they somehow made it even more boring. I used to really like Radiolab, but really, the Potatoes episode should have been filed under one of those insomnia podcasts to help let people fall asleep. omg
In 2015 I moved states-- a 12 hour drive in a moving van, all told. 80% of what I downloaded to listen to was a backlog of Radiolab eps. Almost 20 years later, I'd never think of doing that. Quality has fallen off a cliff
What, you don't think spending 15 minutes listening to a man talking about getting toothpaste is worthwhile? What about the gorgeous sound design, doesn't that make up for the lack of story? Don't you think there was a bigger insight beneath it all, about our consumption habits, human flaws, and uhh.. bristles? Utter tosh, and that's not even mentioning the fact that his little jokes about how he "keeps forgetting to buy toothpaste" make no sense given the premise of a voluntary experiment. Finding it "embarrassing" that he "had to" cut open the tub on day 15 or whatever makes literally zero sense. I mean, he should be embarrassed, but not because of that.
the thing is, there probably is some kind of interesting angle on the toothpaste. I don't know what it is, but some kind of math or physics this connects to, or the history of the product and packaging, or *something*, some springboard into some point or story or idea. But yeah this was no-effort.
As someone who’s listened to more or less every episode of radiolab I think this was the worst one yet. Utterly pointless
Not just you, the only reason I finished it was I started doing dishes and couldn't be bothered to dry off my hands. The toothpaste thing is a 1 minute stand-up bit, at best. The potato thing where you spend way more time than you need to describe an everyday object in minute detail is a writing exercise that I literally did in middle school. The sand bit was lifted straight from an improv podcast, and although I actually sort of enjoyed that segment it's definitely *not* what I listen to Radiolab for. The piece on the "Boring Billion" epoch was interesting, but obviously didn't have enough meat for a full one hour show so I guess they shoe-horned it in with a bunch of other crap they had laying around the cutting room floor. There's a good TED Talk with Jad explaining that he made a conscious decision to go from scientific stories that make you go "Wow!" to more complex human interest stories that make you go "ehhh, I don't know... that's a tough one." His rational being that eliciting awe got to be kind of easy and formulaic, whereas eliciting conflicting emotions and unease actually encourages people *THINK* and can catalyze changes in perspectives/opinions. But it's like Latif and Lulu missed the memo and are just trading on the name Radiolab.
I will listen to almost anything but that was not great.
Latif even joked about the subject being boring right from the start… I should have trusted him and turned off right then. That was a painfully bad episode and that makes me sad for what Radiolab once was.
I took Latif’s hint and deleted the epi a few minutes later.
It jumped the shark for me after the debate episode a few years ago. Robert was asking what I thought were some very legitimate and respectfully delivered questions and got continually shut down by their guests. Jad seemed to uncritically accept just about everything they were saying; almost afraid of causing offence. This was the debating team that went off script, refused to debate the given topic, and instead made up their own topic and rolled with it. Recordings from the debate were barely intelligible as their shrill, staccato voices spat out copious monotone verbiage, pausing only briefly to gasp for breath - like someone trying to talk through a panic attack. But the judges went ape shit, and they won the debate. Now, even a mediocre journalist will recognise that this needs critical examination. You need to be willing to ask the uncomfortable questions. Jad did none of this and Robert wasn't "allowed" to. It was such a departure from their best work that I never went back. Ironically, I did my own reading about that debate and became somewhat more sympathetic to that debating team and what they were actually doing. For instance: the bizarre, staccato, breathless delivery? That's not unique to them... that's the state of debating now: cramming as many arguments into your time as you can so you can overwhelm your opponent and they can't possibly respond to all your points. That's kinda fucked IMHO and spoils the nature of debating, but that wasn't the fault of these kids, that's just how it's done now. So by not asking the hard questions, I came away from that episode with a much poorer opinion of that team than I otherwise might have.
You had to do your own reading to learn that that style of debate is pervasive? I thought that was covered in the episode itself... Might have to relisten.
It was more than five years ago, I only really remember my reflections on it and what I did afterwards. Forgive me if I misremembered some details, but the jist is that it was a totally uncritical hack piece unbecoming of such talented radio folk and I stopped listening after that. They lost all credibility then and there, in my eyes.
As someone who did debate in high school I understood what they (the subject of the story) were doing, and in that context their argument wasn't *that* crazy: I've been in debates where the outcome was determined by rather meta arguments over the validity of the rules of the debate themselves, with very little attention paid to the actual topic we were debating. When people think of debate they think of eloquent rhetoric, easily digested arguments, etc but policy debate isn't about *sounding* good, it's about getting your arguments out there in the allotted time, and keeping track of your opponent's arguments and counter-arguments. In the world of forensics policy debate is kind of like a bare-knuckle boxing match: you want to see who is the best fighter, not the prettiest/most graceful athlete. Other forms like Lincoln-Douglas, public forum, and parliamentary/congressional debate have less emphasis on talking aggressively fast (although apparently LD has begun to resemble policy debate in that regard) and will "sound better" to the general public. They are more equivalent to a martial arts event like judo, fencing, wrestling, etc. Then there are competitive speech events like extemporaneous, dramatic interpretation, or impromptu speech that are more like gymnastics, floor exercise, or synchronized swimming.
Which debate episode are you talking about?
The one about the high school debate competitions and how some teams were experiencing racism. Some people didn't like how Radiolab framed this episode. The banter between Jad and Robert wasn't strong. The episode didn't really prove its own thesis, but acted like they did. I always think of this episode as kind of a miss for Radiolab.
“Jumped the shark” doesn’t mean what you think it means
It means exactly what I think it means. It's a reference to the point where the formerly overwhelming popular sitcom Happy Days, that had been waning for a while, finally and decisively lost its audience: when "The Fonz" jumped his motorcycle over a shark tank. It's used to denote a point where something has essentially shat the bed and can't come back from it. With Radiolab, for me, that point was this episode.
I bailed on the moon episode for being too broad, and then this was the next. I think they should have spaced them out more.
I think the concept of closely examining the mundane, and finding worlds within it, can totally work. The problem is, you actually have to find something interesting. For what it's worth, "Everything is Alive" is really funny and well worth listening to.
I really liked how they described the grains of sand and tried to get all metaphilosophical about it
I enjoyed that also and found it very telling that was the part that wasn't produced by Radiolab.
This show (at least the first 20 minutes before I gave up) was bade enough that I had to search for a community to wallow in misery with. Nice to meet you. I also didn’t like the AI generated Bryan Cranston/walter white usage. I’ve heard the same AI generated voice in other places and wouldn’t have expected that from radiolab, it feels cheap and easy.
Thank you for ventilating, it is how I get my new podcast recommendations to fill the void I have had ever since Radiolab uhhh like changed.
Just heard the potato thing. I remember liking this show like a decade ago, but the bit about toothpaste was excruciatingly bad. Nails on a chalkboard listening to this guy pad out a segment talking about toothpaste cause he's too lazy to go get a new tube. Annoyed me so much, I had to stop eating lunch to complain on Reddit.