Here is a recent conversation recordedDaniel Pipes, the best expert by far on the seething and long-running anti-western turmoil in the Arab Middle East. But first some words of background.

Many American foreign affairs scholars classify themselves as of the school of “realism.” That supposedly means that they take inter-nation competition and distrust as always operative, potentially or actually.  A further premise is that struggles of that sort will persist until “victory” or exhaustion are reached. Nowhere is this overview of “international relations” more regnant than in the clusters of “Middle Eastern scholarship” found at many American universities.

Together with many hidden away in the State Department and more visible and audible in the American and West European print and electronic press, the prevailing view among such Middle East “experts” has been this: that murderous jihadism, in its many contemporary manifestations, was and is an inevitable reaction to the humiliation (originally colonialistic and then Israeli) to which the Arab nations and peoples have been subjected.  At their worst such intellectoid apologists have sometimes come close to implying that “tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.”

Compounding the offense is the increasingly evoked gambit (Edward Said may well have been its most prominent American academic exemplar) that the standard of “realism”  forces all explanation of the renascent barbarism of Al Queda  to be understood on this basis. That view is now often whispered – whether in academic, journalistic or governmental settings – about the new monstrosity of ISIS/ISIL.

Some well qualified scholars – trained in the American scholastic tradition but operating beyond its received “truths” – have provided a far more accurately realistic account of where and how modern jihadism came from, how it operates and how it may be countered, perhaps in a rather extended “twilight struggle.”

Foremost among such analysts is the redoubtable Daniel Pipes. His rejection by some of the entrenched academics is in fact testimony to his tremendously important contributions over the last 30 years as he provided a detailed and truly realistic account of what went wrong in the Middle East, and in Islam itself.

Atheism has probably been debated as long as religion has been available. Inevitably such debate is a not uncommon feature on talk shows. On Extension 720 we have had a number of such discussions and the one that is remembered as the  most calm, illuminating and mutually respectful occurred in 2007.  And here it is.

…is, as far as we know, still being put together. Ultimately it will list every one of the 465,000 species of beetles. How many ant-eaters, marmosets or orchids are there or have there been? The project started back in 2007 when we discussed the almost infinite number of life forms with three of the contributing biological scientists. Does the vast range of biodiversity require the conception of “intelligent design” or does it disprove it?

According to Richard Posner, a public intellectual uses general ideas drawn from history, philosophy and the sciences to analyze public problems and issues of general concern. George Orwell is an example of a great public intellectual, says Judge Posner – who goes on to argue that they don’t make them as they used to. In this vigorous conversation from 2002, Posner and Ron Grossman run through a large list of “intellectuals” who presume to explain – through their writing and broadcasting – what’s right, wrong and worth conserving or rejecting in contemporary society.

Two linguistic science specialists join us in this conversation from 1996 as we ask and they answer such basic questions as: How did language originate? Do non-human animals ever achieve real language? What are the major families of language? Why and how do languages change and new ones emerge? If the French (actually from Normandy) had not successfully invaded Britain in 1066, would the English language exist? These and many other fascinating issues are discussed by our two guests while the host goes on to recite the middle-English prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.