Listen to Brendan O’Neill on ABC radio

Spiked’s editor Brendan O’Neill is guest-hosting the radio show Counterpoint on ABC, the public broadcaster of Australia, for the next three weeks.

Counterpoint, as its name suggests, is a show that seeks to promote alternative, occasionally even contrarian worldviews, outlooks that run counter to received opinion and what passes for everyday wisdom.

For his stint in the host’s chair, Brendan is exploring a major theme of our age in each of the hour-long shows. He’s devoting one show to discussing the culture wars, and the question of who, if anyone, is winning them, and one to freedom of speech and why it’s the most important freedom of all.

But for his first show – broadcast in Australia earlier this week and now available online – Brendan tackled scientific determinism, what he calls ‘the return of fate’ through the idea that everything from our sexuality to our political outlook is biologically or genetically determined.

The show features a fascinating interview with philosopher and humanist Raymond Tallis, on the ‘remarkableness of humankind’ and why we cannot be explained in simple naturalistic terms. It also has Brendan exploring the pseudoscientific rehabilitation of the idea of fate and fortune. And there is a very interesting discussion between Peter Tatchell, renowned gay rights activist, and Simon LeVay, one of the key architects of the modern idea that homosexuality is shaped by genes and biology.

You can listen to the show in full here.