No dumb questions in new Netflix series
“Radiolab” host continues telling stories on screen
Latif Nasser’s new Netflix series, “Connected,” was only two days old when he and his wife headed to the hospital to have a baby. Add a pandemic to the mix and you have what Nasser calls “the weirdest time on top of the weirdest time.”
But Nasser is used to weird. In fact, he thrives in it.
“That’s sort of my compass,” he said last week from Los Angeles. “Surprise and delight and wonder. Those are the things that I gravitate toward.”
It’s the approach he has taken at “Radiolab,” the popular WNYC audio program for which he is the director of research, and now with “Connected,” a six-part documentary series that connects the dots on some of the biggest questions facing science and humanity today. That includes looking at the power of surveillance through the lens of migratory birds in Newark, Delaware; the complex history of human excrement in Minde, Portugal; and a literal fishing expedition through the Sahara.
Nasser’s storytelling is known for helping “Radiolab” listeners make sense of the chaos of the world — and maybe even find a little comfort and joy in it. With a PH.D. in the history of science from Harvard, Nasser sits at an uncommon vantage point to play guide to the world’s deepest curiosities.
“Connected” debuted on Aug. 2, and since then Nasser has been splitting his time between work and child care, which often involves checking Twitter in the middle of the night while pacing back and forth with his newborn. Nasser took a moment from his garage home studio to talk about his new project. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: You had two babies — an actual child and “Connected” — within a week. How are you holding up?
A: The baby thinks day is night and night is day, and then we have a 3-year-old who is certain that day is day and night is night, so between the two of them, this house is abuzz 24 hours a day.
Q: Did you have an “aha” moment when you first fell in love with science?
A: When I was in high school, it felt like someone handed you a big fact textbook and said, “Here are a bunch of answers to questions that you didn’t even ask.” That’s how we teach science. I realized in college, and then more so in grad school, that oh no, no no, they’re not the answers. There are shockingly simple questions that we don’t know the answer to, and we’re still figuring it out. I can vividly remember when I tried to be an archaeologist. I was like, “Oh my God, archaeology, this is going to be like ‘Indiana Jones’-type stuff.” They brought me in, sat me down and gave me a bucket of what felt to me like rocks — and a toothbrush to clean them. I hated it so much. But once you put it in a big picture, that we’re trying to answer this dynamic question about human history or fundamentals of our universe, and there are these dramatic stories of individuals trying to figure it out ... once you click that in, tooth-brushing those rocks seems like the most dynamic, interesting thing in the whole world. But you need to have that other information.
Q: We can’t be experts at everything, but you do have a PH.D. in the history of science. Has that helped shape your reporting?
A: Paradoxically, I think my fancy Harvard PH.D. has given me the license to be dumb. I feel like I can walk into a room and I can just ask the actual question that is actually on my mind without fear of people thinking I’m an idiot. Because often I am! That’s why I love this job.
Q: Playing dumb is often one of the best journalistic tools we have.
A: Oh, I feel that so hard! That’s my default crouch: I’m an idiot. Explain it to me. That’s how I jump into every interview.
Q: People seem to have this attraction to curiosity over authority. What do you make of that?
A: I find this time we live in as a very cynical time and maybe for a good reason — people are out there lying to us all the time and spinning things and selling us stuff. People are quite hesitant to believe you or go on a story with you. I never pretend to be an authority. I would much rather be the dumbest guy in the room than the smartest because I think that’s more intellectually honest. There are honest to god authorities out there that we should be listening to, but on the other hand, let’s just be open minded and listen and think critically and have our own questions.
Q: So in a way, you’re setting up a new way of learning about the world.
A: I hope so. I’m not alone, but I do think the trick is to lead with the question, not the answer. People want to be awakened to a question they didn’t even realize they had. And then all of a sudden they’re totally possessed by that question and need to know the answer. There something deeply satisfying about that, going all the way back to the riddle of the Sphinx.