File 023120
Strange Bedfellows: Culture Meet Science Television Series Proposal (File 023120)
A television series proposal for "Strange Bedfellows," featuring discussions between cultural icons and prominent scientists, moderated by Lawrence Krauss. The first season lineup includes ten episodes pairing celebrities with Nobel laureates and leading academics.
Summary
This document outlines a television series called "Strange Bedfellows: Culture Meet Science" designed to facilitate conversations between cultural figures and prominent scientists. Moderated by physicist and author Lawrence Krauss, the series draws from his Origins Project at Arizona State University, which has attracted large audiences for science-culture dialogues. The first season includes ten planned episodes pairing celebrities such as Woody Allen, Barack Obama, and Ricky Gervais with distinguished scientists including Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, and various Nobel laureates. Each episode will be shot in different cities worldwide and feature moderated discussions exploring commonalities between science and culture.
Strange Bedfellows: Culture, Mgggggggeet Science/Science, Meet Culture
This series will bring together cultural icons, celebrities, movie stars, directors, writers and musicians with famous scientists to talk about commonalities and differences. Each segment will be moderated by scientist/author/provocateur Lawrence Krauss, who has spent much of his career successfully crossing the chasm separating science and culture. His Origins Project at Arizona State University produced singular events in which over 3000 people would regularly attend live, and up to 500,000 people would watch the recorded events to hear dialogues and panels, to be entertained and informed.
First Season
1. Johnny Depp, Courtney Love, Michael Manson talk creativity in music versus creativity in Science with Nobel Laureates Frank Wilczek and Yuval Hoffman. 2. Woody Allen talks about the human condition with Linguist Noam Chomsky. 3. Ricky Gervais and Astronomer Royale, former President of the Royal Society, Martin Rees. 4. Sarah Silverman and Nobel Prizewinning economist Paul Krugman. 5. William Shatner and Nobel Prize winning physicists Kip Thorne/ Steve Weinberg or Elon Musk. 6. Director Werner Herzog, Cormac McCarthy, with biologist Svante Paabo. 7. Ian McEwan and physicist/writer Jana Levin or Nobel Laureate Biologist Elizabeth Blackburn. 8. Barack Obama and psychologist Steven Pinker. 9. Director Alex Garland and IT computer scientist Eric Horvitz/Larry Page 10. Actor Bill Pullman and Nobel Prizewinning economist/psychologist Danny Kahneman.
The series will bring together Krauss and the directorial team that produced the Feature Documentary The Unbelievers. Each episode will be shot in a beautiful location in a different city around the world. We will go where the participants live, or work.
Format will be moderated discussion. Krauss will introduce each participant and being the episode by asking some questions to provoke discussion. The participants will be encouraged whenever possible to dialogue with each other as well. We may or may not have a studio audience, and if we do, we will take one or two questions from the audience to end the program before Krauss gives concluding remarks.