Katy Purviance Basic is talking about form and function on this week's installment of Burning Down the House. Curtis B. Wayne calls up Katy to chat about the role of architecture in improving life, and the problems with design school. Why does so much contemporary architecture neglect the users of the structure? Curtis and Katy talk about formalism, and how novel (but generally nonfunctional) design often leads to increased work for designers and architects. What commonalities do Christopher Alexander and Dr. Temple Grandin share? Find out on today's episode of Burning Down the House! This program has been sponsored by The Heritage Meat Shop.

"I believe, like many others, that form follows function. But when you start with form and try to stuff the function into it, you get a building that doesn't quite work." [5:30] -- Katy Purviance Basic on Burning Down the House

This week The Naturalist gets real about evolution. Did you know that on an international scale that the U.S. only stands above Turkey with only 40% of our entire population believing in evolution? With the help of friend and director of the Hudson River Audobon Society, Saul Scheinbach, host Bernie Wides shines a scientific light on why Americans and people around the world are still uncomfortable about evolution and yet how Darwin's theory is continuing to be proven true 150 years later. Learn what exactly the terms theory, species, natural selection mean as well as the differences between allopatric and simpatric speciation. This episode is sponsored by S. Wallace Edwards & Sons.

"In the United States 40% think evolution is true, 40% think its false, and 20% say they don't know."

"There is nothing in biology that we see that is outside of [Darwin's] theory and it's been 150 years since he has published it."

"In many ways [humans] are not special and that is why so many people resist Darwin's theory"

"In Darwin's theory of natural selection God had no place at all and that's why he sat on his theories for so long."

"Chance plays a big role in evolution and that's why people don't like the idea of evolution."

Saul Scheinbach on The Naturalist

This week The Farm Report is pleased to welcome Jesse LaFlamme, head of Pete And Gerry's Organic Eggs, the first Certified Humane egg farm in the country. Pete and Gerry’s is proving commercial farming and organic, humane, sustainable farming are not mutually exclusive. Pete and Gerry’s has realized consistent growth without becoming a factory farm. Jesse recruits small family farms as egg producers, keeping family farmers in business and protecting valuable open space. He combines state-of-the-art husbandry and farming technology with streamlined and efficient processing to make Pete and Gerry’s cost competitive with much larger operations. Those efficiencies also allow him to share those margins with his producers. Jesse is one of the new breed of 21st Century farmers who understands that the world needs commercial farms to feed its inhabitants, but needs to do it without degrading the environment and exploiting livestock. This episode is sponsored The Barterhouse.

"[Farmers] just want to be farmers, it sounds basic, but in today's big agriculture that is hard to do." -Jesse LaFlamme, head of Pete & Gerry's Organic Eggs on The Farm Report