The Podcast Bringing Ethics to Life
A production of PAN Works
If you like smart, humane conversations that don’t dodge difficult issues, PAN Thinks is for you.
We unpack the ideas and arguments behind today’s hardest animal issues with careful reasoning, compassion, expert insight, and practical takeaways. Integrating ethics with science and policy, we explore “how we ought to live” in a more than human world where imals matter. Expect lively conversations that challenges conventional wisdom and gives you fresh insight into the place of animals in our lives.
If you like smart, humane conversations that don’t dodge difficult issues, PAN Thinks is for you.
We unpack the ideas and arguments behind today’s hardest animal issues with careful reasoning, compassion, expert insight, and practical takeaways. Integrating ethics with science and policy, we explore “how we ought to live” in a more than human world where animals matter. Expect lively conversations that challenges conventional wisdom and gives you fresh insight into the place of animals in our lives.
PAN Thinks is a production of PAN Works, a centre for ethics, science and policy dedicated to animal wellbeing.
Brandon Keim’s latest book is Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World (2024). He draws on the explosion of research into animal cognition to argue that the cities and landscapes around us are filled with thinking, feeling individuals. Taking these animals seriously means they deserve to be understood not merely as populations to be managed, but as neighbours entitled to moral consideration.
HOSTS & GUESTS
Brandon Keim is a freelance journalist specializing in science, nature, and animals. His first book was The Eye of the Sandpiper (2017), and he’s written many articles on animals for National Geographic, the New York Times, The Atlantic, and WIRED. He is also a contributing editor at Nautilus Quarterly. You can learn more about Brandon’s fascinating work on his website, https://brandonkeim.net/.
William S. Lynn, PhD (Bill) is the founder of PAN Works and host of the PAN Thinks podcast. https://panworks.io/team/name/william-lynn/
Barbara J. King is a PAN Works Fellow and a freelance science writer and public speaker, https://panworks.io/team/name/barbara-king/.
Fred Koontz, PhD, is a PAN Works Emeritus Fellow and an ethological zoologist. https://panworks.io/team/name/fred-koontz/.
Production is by Gary Sheer. https://garysheerphotography.com/
Recorded on 22 May 2025.
Episode Art Kate Russell on Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/photos/a-squirrel-is-sitting-on-a-tree-branch-6vQ-Kq2dkZc?
FROM THIS EPISODE
Keim, B. (2017). The Eye of the Sandpiper: Stories from the Living World (1 ed.). Comstock Publishing Associates.
Keim, B. (2024). Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World. W. W. Norton.
Keim, B. (2025). When That Chickadee Is No Longer “A Machine With Feathers”. Issues in Science and Technology, XLI(3 Spring), 52–59. https://doi.org/10.58875/PIKP7447
King, B. J. (2024). Valuing animal lives. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq5698
Lynn, W. S. (2025). Chickadee was Never a Feathered Machine. Issues in Science and Technology, XLI(4), forthcoming. https://issues.org/evolving-view-animal-minds-keim-forum/
This pod is part of a joint series on ethics in conservation undertaken by PAN Works and the Society for Conservation Biology North America.
PAN Works is an ethics think tank for animals. To help power our mission, visit https://panworks.io/
LISTEN on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pan-thinks/id1870689174
VIEW on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@panworksio
