{"podcast":{"title":"The Michael Shermer Show","slug":"the-michael-shermer-show-444422","podcast_index_feed_id":444422,"rss_url":"https://sciencesalon.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/6/3/e/3/63e344572bed54e488c4a68c3ddbc4f2/The_Michael_Shermer_Show_logo_2023.jpg","author":"Michael Shermer","episode_count":631,"summary":"The Michael Shermer Show is a series of long-form conversations between Dr. Michael Shermer and leading scientists, philosophers, historians, scholars, writers and thinkers about the most important issues of our time.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-12T18:19:28.702187+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-michael-shermer-show-444422"},"episode":{"title":"Why Do We Exist? Hakeem Oluseyi","slug":"why-do-we-exist-hakeem-oluseyi","published_at":"2026-04-28T17:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-michael-shermer-show-444422/why-do-we-exist-hakeem-oluseyi","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-michael-shermer-show-444422","url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/sciencesalon/mss605_Hakeem_Oluseyi_2026_04_28.mp3","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss605_Hakeem_Oluseyi_2026_04_28.mp3?dest-id=513978","summary":"Astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi has lived a life that sounds almost impossible: a childhood marked by poverty, violence, and constant upheaval; a teenage obsession with Einstein; a stint in the Navy; addiction and recovery; work as a janitor; and eventually a PhD in physics from Stanford. In this conversation, Michael Shermer and Oluseyi talk about his new book, Why Do We Exist? , and the biggest questions science can ask: what came before the Big Bang, whether the multiverse is real, why the universe seems fine-tuned for life, what dark matter and dark energy really mean, and why alien civilizations may be far rarer than we hope. Hakeem Oluseyi is a multidisciplinary astrophysicist, multi-patented inventor, award-winning author and journalist, and internationally recognized educator. His new book is Why Do We Exist?: The Nine Realms of Universe That Make You Possible .","meta_description":"Astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi has lived a life that sounds almost impossible: a childhood marked by poverty, violence, and constant upheaval; a teenage ob…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4289,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-michael-shermer-show-444422/episodes/why-do-we-exist-hakeem-oluseyi/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-michael-shermer-show-444422/why-do-we-exist-hakeem-oluseyi.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}