Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast

Fifty years since the publication of his ground-breaking book, The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins reflects on the ideas that defined his career, the debates the book sparked around the world, and what fifty years of subsequent research have confirmed, refined or challenged. He also reflects on the developments in artificial intelligence, where they may take us in the evolutionary process and how it's being used in determining the characteristics of babies. Professor Dawkins is touring Australia with Thinkable events.
Guest: Professor Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and author
Producer: Catherine Zengerer
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Former Israeli military chief Gadi Eisenkot has been asked to try to form a new coalition government, meeting Israel's President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem on Sunday to receive his invite to start negotiations. But as it stands, every prospective deal will require major concessions. 
Guest: Irris Makler, journalist and former Jerusalem correspondent

Since federation Australia has fought alongside Britain and the United States in almost every major war of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But earlier this year Australia, following Britain’s lead, declined to join the US in its war on Iran.  Military strategist David Kilcullen argues we should be doing more thinking for ourselves in terms of our own national interests, as well as bearing in mind the ethical considerations of both getting into, and out of, war. 
Guest: David Kilcullen, CEO at Cordillera Applications Group, UNSW Professor of International and Political Studies,  and Professor of Practice in the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University
Producer: Catherine Zengerer
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Australians are 'more divided' and 'more pessimistic', according to the latest annual survey by the Scanlon Foundation. The latest report (Mapping Social Cohesion 2026), with data from 10,000 participants, found that one in three respondents expressed anxiety about their future — triple the number of respondents who expressed the same pessimism in Scanlon's first 2006 survey. On the issue of migration, more Australians are of the view that the current intake is too high, but most still agree that immigrants improve Australians society.
Guest: Dr James O'Donnell, demographer at ANU, lead investigator at Scanlon Foundation
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The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the age when developments in technology and design meant guns rapidly became small enough and affordable enough to be held and used by ordinary men. Italy led the way, helped along by Leonardo da Vinci. They caused havoc, and changed both the art of war between states, and arguments between gentlemen, forever. The posed a difficult question for the ruling Italian states - how to balance their need for defence versus how to control their use in everyday life. 
Guest:  Catherine Fletcher, professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires published by Princeton University Press
Producer: Catherine Zengerer
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Email us at latenightlive_rn@abc.net.au