Tawai: the scientists
While making Tawai I spoke at length with scientists and thinkers whose work helped shape the film. These are the extended interviews.
Iain McGilchrist
Iain is a psychiatrist and philosopher. He lives on the Isle of Skye, where he is a prolific writer and visiting lecturer.
Jerome & Ingrid Lewis
Jerome is Professor of Anthropology at University College London, specialising in hunter-gatherer societies and egalitarian politics. Ingrid is a public health professional and therapist specialising in reproductive and women’s health. Both have spent years visiting and living with BaYaka hunter-gatherer peoples in the Congo. You can also see me visiting the Mbendjele with Jerome and Ingrid in Tawai III: Mbendjele.
Jerome’s new book, written with the anthropologist Chris Knight, is The Revolutionary Origins of Language (Yale University Press, November 2026), on how speech came out of a social revolution among our early ancestors.
Chris van Tulleken
Chris trained in medicine at Oxford University, is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians and has a diploma in Tropical Medicine. He has been a good friend since we crossed Greenland together for the BBC series Blizzard: Race to the Pole. More about Chris.
Richard Wilkinson
Richard Wilkinson is Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham.
Rupert Sheldrake
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and philosopher. His book The Science Delusion (2012) examines ten dogmas of modern science, showing how they can be turned into questions that open up scientific possibilities.
Marilyn Monk
Marilyn Monk is Emeritus Professor of Molecular Embryology at University College London, having retired in 2004.
Bruce Hood
Bruce Hood is Professor of Developmental Psychology in Society at the University of Bristol. His research explores cognitive development, and he specialises in the neuroscience of rationality, thought, action and the cognitive processes involved in magical thinking.