Does that title suggest a newly-arisen concern? Not actually. Here are three veteran football players (all from the Chicago Bears) telling their disturbing stories way back  in 2001. What emerges in this rollicking conversation is that getting your bones broken gains you temporary riches, great stories and permanent pain.

Those, say our guests, that are among “the best that has been thought or said.” Our two very well read guests are Mark Bauerlein of Emory University and Bruce Gans of Wright College – who is also the founder of the Great Books Institute. Yes of course, Plato, Machiavelli, Dante, Shakespeare and the rest of that crowd are discussed; but you will be surprised and probably fascinated by some of the other authors who show up and are here quoted and appreciated in a memorable discussion from 2004.

That is the title of a book by Jerry Coyne, one of our guests in this assertive and informative 2009 show. He is Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. Our other guest, Robert Richards, is in Philosophy of Science at the same institution. Both are experts on Darwinian theory. But, say the doubters, how could something as complex as the human eye have “just evolved” rather than have been designed? They explain that one and a great deal more in this noteworthy discussion.

The idea that it is – and that experience is the basic influence upon personality – was strongly argued by British philosopher John Locke. The contrary view is that much of what we are in intelligence, personality and character is set by genetics. The simpler version of the argument is “nature vs. nurture.” Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard, is on the nature side and rejects the causal primacy of experience. He lays it all out in a popular book that was published in 2002, namely, “The Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature” which we discussed in this fascinating program.