This is Human Universe (BBC2), and Brian is taking a giant leap, towards mankind, and questions such as: who are we, and what are we doing here?
As the mortgage refinance guy on the radio says, "It's the biggest no-brainer in the history of mankind". The question is not whether the school board will approve the final project once the study is completed, even though that is not a slam dunk.
He gives positive answers to the questions mankind is asking.
These are among the most profound questions mankind can hope to address and lie at the heart of general interest in science, yet are still far from being answered.
She learned in childhood, she says, "that Judaism's greatest contribution to mankind was asking questions that can't be answered and that the glory of the race has less to do with giving the world Moses and Marx and Jesus and everything to do with the invention of the phrase 'on the other hand.' " This remark, offered early on, is with its presumed cleverness telltale.
The Royal Society is publishing a new document today after a rebellion by more than 40 of its fellows who questioned mankind's contribution to rising temperatures.
They are part of an exhibition the sculptor hopes will make Brazilians question mankind's place in nature - but so far the figures have prompted several calls to local police reporting potential suicide jumpers.
Following the publication of Darwin's ideas on evolution, writers began to question mankind's place in the world and its relationship with God.
This theory suggests that similar catastrophes could easily reoccur and raises troubling questions about mankind's treatment of its closest animal relatives.
It uncannily anticipates thorny questions about mankind's troubled relationship with technology, and has thrilling episodes of astral travel, philosophical riddles, and fantastical political allegories something like those later to be found in "Battlestar Galactica".
