This podcast is produced by volunteers at Accelerator Media, a nonprofit educational media organization. Our work is supported by listeners and viewers like you. If you’d like to help us ignite curiosity and inspire long-term thinking about our shared future, please consider making a donation: https://acceleratormedia.org/donate/In this episode of Curiosity Entangled, science writer Roger Highfield and historian Jörg Matthias Determann explore how science fiction, religion, and culture shape our visions of the future—and what they reveal about our present. From Islamic cosmology and the search for extraterrestrial life to the forgotten knowledge of the Apollo era and the ethical frontiers of AI, this conversation journeys across disciplines and centuries.Roger and Matthias reflect on the narratives that propel human space exploration, the surprising theological roots of science fiction, and the profound entanglement between mythology, science, and society. They ask: what do our imagined futures say about who we are today? And how can curiosity help us think more clearly—and skeptically—about the world we’re building?5 Questions This Episode Might Leave You With1. Can religion and science fiction help us prepare for alien contact?2. What will it take to build a sustainable human presence beyond Earth?3. What do ancient texts reveal about our place in the cosmos?4. Are today’s space missions modern-day myths of destiny and conquest?5. How can we balance wonder with skepticism in the age of AI?Learn more about the guestsRoger Highfield – https://www.rogerhighfield.com/Author of Stephen Hawking: Genius at Work – https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Hawking-Genius-at-Work/dp/0744084555Jörg Matthias Determann – https://qatar.vcu.edu/news/our-faculty/dr-jorg-matthias-determann/https://vcu.academia.edu/DetermannAuthor of Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life – https://www.amazon.com/Islam-Science-Fiction-Extraterrestrial-Life/dp/0755601270Timestamps00:01:12 – From neutron experiments to Chernobyl: how Roger became a science writer00:08:03 – Santa Claus, Harry Potter, and the physics of myth00:09:18 – Connecting the Quran and extraterrestrial life00:17:21 – Dune as a mirror for Middle Eastern history and geopolitics00:25:10 – The romantic origins of Soviet space dreams00:28:25 – Manifest destiny and religious language in modern space exploration00:35:22 – Should science fiction ideas be patentable?00:41:10 – Why we imagined Moon colonies by now—and what we missed00:45:39 – The lost knowledge of Apollo and the challenge of returning to the Moon00:49:35 – Space colonization as a spiritual and imperial narrative00:54:56 – Are we likely to find robotic alien life first?01:00:35 – AI and the unraveling of the scientific method01:05:09 – A fake news vaccine, and what it means for future communication01:08:38 – Skepticism, wonder, and why the future is still wide openFollow Accelerator Media:https://x.com/xceleratormediahttps://instagram.com/xcelerator.media/https://linkedin.com/company/accelerator-media-org