Twitter: @TheDissenterYT
Site: anchor.fm/thedissenter
954 episodes
2019 to present
Average episode: 65 minutes
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Categories: Interview-Style
Podcaster's summary: My name is Ricardo Lopes, and I’m from Portugal. Thank you for visiting my podcast. | | Over the past few years, I have conducted and released more than 700 interviews and talks with experts and academics from a variety of areas and disciplines, ranging from the Arts and Philosophy to the Social Sciences and Biology. You will certainly find a subject of your interest covered here. | | New interviews are released on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
| Episodes |
| 2024-Apr-15 • 113 minutes #928 Charles Roseman: The Evolution of Complex Traits, Hereditarianism, and Understanding Sex Dr. Charles Roseman is an Associate Professor of evolution, ecology and behavior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He studies the evolution of complex traits. | | In this episode, we first talk about complex traits and how we study their evolution, and we talk about adaptations, by-products, phenotypic plasticity, and genetic drift. We discuss the limitations of adaptationism. We talk about the example of the evolution of the cranium in hominins, and hybridization in human evolution. We t... |
| 2024-Apr-12 • 71 minutes #927 Paul Thagard - Falsehoods Fly: Why Misinformation Spreads and How to Stop It Dr. Paul Thagard is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Cognitive Science Society, and the Association for Psychological Science. The Canada Council awarded him a Molson Prize (2007) and a Killam Prize (2013). He is a philosopher, cognitive scientist, and author of many interdisciplinary books, the latest one being Falsehoods Fly: Why | Misinformation Spreads and How to Stop It. | | In this episode, we focus on False... |
| 2024-Apr-11 • 45 minutes #926 Michael Frank: Child Development and Language Acquisition Dr. Michael Frank is David and Lucile Packard Professor of Human Biology and Director of the Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University. He studies children's language learning and how it interacts with their developing understanding of the social world. He uses behavioral experiments, computational tools, and novel measurement methods like large-scale web-based studies, eye-tracking, and head-mounted cameras. He is the founder of the ManyBabies Consortium, a collaborative replication network for infan... |
| 2024-Apr-08 • 112 minutes #925 Amanda Podany: The History and Legacy of Mesopotamia Dr. Amanda Podany is Professor Emeritus of History at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She specializes in the study of Syria and Mesopotamia in the Middle and Late Bronze Age. She is the author of books like The Land of Hana: Kings, Chronology, and Scribal Tradition, The Ancient Near Eastern World, Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East, The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction, and the most recent one, Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New Histor... |
| 2024-Apr-05 • 101 minutes #924 Stephanie Hare - Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics Dr. Stephanie Hare is a researcher, broadcaster and author focused on technology, politics and history. Selected for the BBC Expert Women programme and the Foreign Policy Interrupted fellowship, she | contributes frequently to radio and television and has published in the | Financial Times, The Washington Post, the Guardian/Observer, the Harvard Business Review, and WIRED. Previously she worked at Accenture, Palantir, and Oxford Analytica and held the Alistair Horne Visiting Fellowship at St Antony’s Colleg... |
| 2024-Apr-04 • 122 minutes #923 Nicholas Brown: How to Spot Bad Science Dr. Nicholas Brown is a Researcher at Linnaeus University, Sweden. He works on developing new research methods in psychology and on applying meta-scientific perspectives on psychology as a science. | | In this episode, we start by discussing conceptual and methodological issues with positive psychology and the study of well-being, and go through critiques of Lyubomirsky’s “happiness pie”, and happiness surveys. We also address methodological flaws with studies on the link between genetics and well-being, ... |
| 2024-Apr-01 • 134 minutes #922 Stephen Grossberg - Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain: How Each Brain Makes a Mind Dr. Stephen Grossberg is Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics & Statistics, Psychological & Brain Sciences, and Biomedical Engineering, Founding Chairman of the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems, and Founder and Director of the Center for Adaptive Systems at Boston University. He is the author of several books, the latest one being Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain: How Each Brain Makes a Mind. | | In this episode, we focus on Conscious Mind, Reso... |
| 2024-Mar-29 • 78 minutes #921 Alva Noë - The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are Dr. Alva Noë is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a philosopher of mind whose research and teaching focus is perception and consciousness, and the philosophy of art. He is the author of Action in Perception; Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness; Varieties of Presence; Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature and, most recently, The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are. | | In this ep... |
| 2024-Mar-28 • 77 minutes #920 Jean-Manuel Roubineau: The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic Dr. Jean-Manuel Roubineau is a Professor of Ancient History at Université Rennes 2. He is a classics scholar who specializes in Greek antiquity, the historical anthropology of sport, and the history of social inequalities. He is the author of The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic. | | In this episode, we focus on The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic. We start by talking about the Mediterranean world of the 4th century BCE, and the life of Diogenes. We then go through his philoso... |
| 2024-Mar-25 • 122 minutes #919 Isabella Sarto-Jackson: How Social Interactions Shape the Human Mind Dr. Isabella Sarto-Jackson is Lecturer in Cognitive Science at the University of Vienna, Guest Lecturer in Cognitive Biology at the University of Bratislava, executive manager of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, and president of the Austrian Neuroscience Association (ANA). She is the author of The Making and Breaking of Minds: How social interactions shape the human mind. | | In this episode, we focus on The Making and Breaking of Minds. We go through topics in human psycho... |
| 2024-Mar-22 • 71 minutes #918 Antoine Marie: The Biases of People with Strong Political and Moral Convictions Dr. Antoine Marie is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is an evolutionary political psychologist with a background in philosophy, sociology, political science, and social psychology. He conducts cross-cultural psychology experiments and develops evolutionary theory to better understand, and if possible, mitigate, the cognitive biases that arise from people having strong moral convictions on controversial topics, typically in contexts of percei... |
| 2024-Mar-21 • 69 minutes #917 Dale Greenwalt - Remnants of Ancient Life: The New Science of Old Fossils Dr. Dale Greenwalt is Research Associate in the laboratory of Dr. Conrad Labandeira, curator of fossil arthropods, in the Paleobiology Department at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. His work centers on description of the insect fauna of the Coal Creek Member of the Middle Eocene Kishenehn Formation in northwestern Montana. He is also interested in defining the biological and geological processes that resulted in the preservation of these insects and the original biomolecular components ... |
| 2024-Mar-18 • 62 minutes #916 Christian Hart - The Psychology of Lying, and How You Can Avoid Being Duped Dr. Christian Hart is a Professor of Psychology at Texas Woman’s University, where he is the Director of the Psychological Science program as well as the Director of the Human Deception Laboratory. His research explores the behavioral cues of deception, pathological lying, lying within relationships, lying and morality, and the factors that influence decisions to be honest or deceptive. He is the author of Pathological Lying: Theory, Research, and Practice, and Big Liars: What Psychological Science Tells Us... |
| 2024-Mar-15 • 61 minutes #915 Bernard Reginster - The Will to Nothingness: An Essay on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality Dr. Bernard Reginster is Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. Dr. Reginster's research has focused mostly on issues in ethics, metaethics, and moral psychology in 19th-century German philosophy. His new research interests include the topics of identity and intersubjectivity, | for which he considers ideas from psychoanalytic theory, 20th century | Continental philosophy, and contemporary Anglo-Saxon philosophy. He is the author of The Will to Nothingness: An Essay on Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of ... |
| 2024-Mar-14 • 53 minutes #914 Eduardo Fernandez-Duque: Mating Systems, Biparental Care, and Cooperative Breeding in Primates Dr. Eduardo Fernandez-Duque is Professor of Anthropology at the School of the Environment at Yale University. He is a biological anthropologist with a general interest in understanding the evolution and maintenance of social systems. His main research interest is to examine the mechanisms that maintain pair-living, sexual monogamy and biparental care and the role that sexual selection may have had in the evolution of them. He is also motivated to study living primates as an approach to understanding the evo... |
| 2024-Mar-11 • 56 minutes #911 Caleb Everett - A Myriad of Tongues: How Languages Reveal Differences in How We Think Dr. Caleb Everett is a Senior Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Miami and a Professor in the Anthropology Department, with a secondary appointment in Psychology. He is a member of the inaugural class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows. His work explores language, cognition and behavior across the world's cultures. His latest book is A Myriad of Tongues: How Languages Reveal Differences in How We Think. | | In this episode, we focus on A Myriad of Tongues. We discuss how so... |
| 2024-Mar-08 • 79 minutes #910 Daniel Simons - Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do about It Dr. Daniel Simons is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, where he directs the Visual Cognition Laboratory. Dr. Simons studies visual cognition, perception, attention, and memory. Most of his recent research has focused on the cognitive underpinnings of our experience of a stable and continuous visual world. He is the author of The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us, and more recently, Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do about ... |
| 2024-Mar-07 • 91 minutes #909 Paul Halpern: The Allure of the Multiverse Dr. Paul Halpern is Professor of Physics at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Dr. Halpern's areas of expertise include the history of physics, cultural aspects of physics, and theoretical astrophysics & cosmology. He is the author of numerous books, the most recent one being The Allure of the Multiverse: Extra Dimensions, Other Worlds, and Parallel Universes. | | In this episode, we focus on The Allure of the Multiverse. We start by talking about how old the ideas of the multiverse is, and th... |
| 2024-Mar-04 • 103 minutes #908 Joanna Malinowska: Race and Ethnicity in Science and Medicine, and Human-Robot Interactions Dr. Joanna Malinowska is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. The subject of her research is a broadly understood philosophy of science, with particular emphasis on philosophy of medicine, philosophy of neurosciences and philosophy of psychology. She explores connections between these areas and questions in bioethics, epistemology, ontology, and methodology. Her current focus is on the conceptualization and use of ethnoracial categories in medicine. | | In thi... |
| 2024-Mar-01 • 52 minutes #907 Katarina Kovačević: Epistemic Responsibility and Strategic Ignorance ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: ... |
| 2024-Feb-29 • 44 minutes #906 Suthan Krishnarajan: Regime Instability and Support for Democracy and Autocracy Dr. Suthan Krishnarajan is Associate Professor in Political Science at Aarhus University. His research agenda seeks to understand and explain political regime instability. Broadly speaking, a political regime is the rules that determine who can access power, and how, in a given country. In democracies, leaders are chosen in competitive, free, and fair elections; in autocracies, leaders access power through alternative means. In his research, he examines why such regimes sometimes endure and at other times b... |
| 2024-Feb-26 • 102 minutes #905 David Pinsof: The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems, Meaning of Life, and Morality Dr. David Pinsof is a research scientist who received his PhD in Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2018. David’s research focuses on evolutionary psychology, political psychology, public opinion, and sexual behavior. His empirical work explores individual differences in mating psychology and their relation to political attitudes, mathematical models of alliance formation, and the origins of political belief systems. | | In this episode, we start by talking about the alliance the... |
| 2024-Feb-23 • 73 minutes #904 Liuba Papeo: Social Perception, and Processing Social Information Dr. Liuba Papeo is a tenured researcher at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives "Marc Jeannerod" of Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), and Principal Investigator of the research program “THEMPO” funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant. She is a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience, with a M.Sc. Psychology. After her Ph.D. (2010, SISSA Trieste), she joined the Department of Psychology at Harvard University as a Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellow (2011-2013). She completed the... |
| 2024-Feb-22 • 91 minutes #903 Luis Favela - The Ecological Brain: Unifying the Sciences of Brain, Body, and Environment Dr. Luis Favela is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences (tenured) at the University of Central Florida. He is concurrently a Fellow in the Research Corporation for Science Advancement's Molecular Basis of Cognition Scialog program. His research attempts to understand mind (i.e., behavior, cognition, and consciousness) from a naturalistic and interdisciplinary perspective. He is the author of The Ecological Brain: Unifying the Sciences of Brain, Body, and Environment. | | In this epi... |
| 2024-Feb-19 • 89 minutes #902 Joshua Knobe: How Morality Influences People's Philosophical and Scientific Intuitions Dr. Joshua Knobe is Professor of Philosophy, Linguistics and Psychology at Yale University. A lot of his recent research has been concerned with the impact of people’s moral judgments on their intuitions about questions that might initially appear to be entirely independent of morality (questions about intention, causation, etc.). | | In this episode, we talk about topics in experimental philosophy. We discuss how experimental philosophy relates to science. We talk about the relationship between belief an... |
| 2024-Feb-16 • 118 minutes #901 Victoria Dougherty: Creating a Story, Character Development, and the Limits of Art ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: ... |
| 2024-Feb-15 • 49 minutes #900 Cailin O'Connor: Game Theory, Science, and Misinformation in the COVID-19 Pandemic Dr. Cailin O’Connor is Professor in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at UC Irvine. She is a philosopher of biology and behavioral sciences, philosopher of science, and evolutionary game theorist. Her monograph The Origins of Unfairness was published in July 2019 by Oxford University Press. She is the author of Games in the Philosophy of Biology, and The Misinformation Age. | | In this episode, we start by talking about game theory, and what we can study through it. We then talk about soci... |
| 2024-Feb-12 • 58 minutes #899 Darcia Narvaez & Gay Bradshaw: The Evolved Nest Dr. Darcia Narvaez is a Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame. She has written extensively on issues of character and moral development. Dr. Narvaez’ research explores questions of species-typical and species-atypical development in terms of wellbeing, morality, and sustainable wisdom. She examines how early life experience (the evolved nest) influences moral functioning and wellbeing in children and adults. | Dr. Gay A. Bradshaw is a psychologist and ecologist, and director of Th... |
| 2024-Feb-09 • 50 minutes #898 Eli Merritt: How to Save Democracy Dr. Eli Merritt is a political historian at Vanderbilt University where he researches the ethics of democracy, the interface of demagogues and democracy, and the founding principles of the United States. He is the editor of How to Save Democracy: Inspiration and Advice From 95 World Leaders. | | In this episode, we focus on How to Save Democracy. We start by discussing what democracy is, and its main strengths and weaknesses. We talk about current threats to democracy, and recent backlash against progress... |
| 2024-Feb-08 • 43 minutes #897 Merlijn Olthof: A Complex Systems Approach to Psychopathology Dr. Merlijn Olthof is a Post-Doc in Tipping points in Treatment at the University of Groningen, and Lecturer in Pedagogical Sciences at Radboud University. His work focuses on complex systems, clinical psychology, developmental psychopathology, and related topics. | | In this episode, we talk about a complex systems approach to psychopathology. We first talk about the study of behavioral variability within individuals, and some conceptual foundations of a complex systems approach to psychopathology, like ... |
| 2024-Feb-05 • 72 minutes #896 Gregory Radick - Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology Dr. Gregory Radick is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds. He has held fellowships from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, and served as President of the British Society for the History of Science (2014‒16) and the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (2019‒21). He writes and lectures frequently for general audiences, and has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time and in the PBS/National Geographic television series ... |
| 2024-Feb-03 • 4 minutes 6 Years + Support on Patreon The channel/podcast is now 6 years old! | | This has been a wonderful journey, and I am extremely grateful to every single guest of the show, and to everyone who helped me over the years with financial support, suggestions, and words of encouragement. | | By now, I have already recorded 957 interviews, and I have new interviews scheduled until August. I am just about to release interview number 900, and interview number 1000 will come out later this year. | | Thanks to your great response to my previous ... |
| 2024-Feb-02 • 50 minutes #895 Naomi de Ruiter - Toward a Process Approach in Psychology: Stepping into Heraclitus' River Dr. Naomi de Ruiter is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Groningen. In her current research, she is inspired by critical psychology and discursive psychology in her attempt to study the ontology or process mechanisms of self and identity (and related concepts) as situated in time and context. In much of her research, she adopts a complex dynamic systems approach for micro-genetic or theoretical work. She is the author, together with Paul van Geert, of Toward a Process Approach in Psycho... |
| 2024-Feb-01 • 79 minutes #894 Paco Calvo - Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence Dr. Paco Calvo is a Professor at the University of Murcia in Spain, where he leads the Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINT Lab), focusing on the study of minimal cognition in plants. Dr. Calvo’s interdisciplinary work combines insights from biology, philosophy, and cognitive science to explore the fascinating world of plant behavior, decision-making, and problem-solving. By investigating the complex interactions and adaptive responses exhibited by plants, Dr. Calvo has significantly contributed to our understand... |
| 2024-Jan-29 • 60 minutes #893 Sarah Hart - Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature Dr. Sarah Hart is an Emerita Professor of Mathematics at Birkbeck, University of London. Educated at Oxford and Manchester, Dr. Hart is also the thirty-third Gresham Professor of Geometry, the first woman to hold the position since its inception in 1597. She is the author of Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature. | | In this episode, we focus on Once Upon a Prime. We talk about the connection between mathematics and literature in several different dimensions, inclu... |
| 2024-Jan-26 • 84 minutes #892 Philip Ball - The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings Dr. Philip Ball is a freelance science writer, with a BA in Chemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Physics from the University of Bristol. He was an editor at Nature for over 20 years. He is the author of many popular books on science, including The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to AI to Aliens. | | In this episode, we focus on The Book of Minds. We start by discussing the solipsist position, what a mind is, the idea of the “space of possible minds... |
| 2024-Jan-25 • 100 minutes #891 Luis Favela: Complexity Science, 4E Cognition, and Explanatory Pluralism Dr. Luis Favela is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences (tenured) at the University of Central Florida. He is concurrently a Fellow in the Research Corporation for Science Advancement's Molecular Basis of Cognition Scialog program. His research attempts to understand mind (i.e., behavior, cognition, and consciousness) from a naturalistic and interdisciplinary perspective. | | In this episode, we start by talking about complexity science, and how it applies to the study of the mind, ... |
| 2024-Jan-22 • 70 minutes #890 Richard Nisbett: Attribution Theory, Intelligence, and Cognitive Differences Across Cultures Dr. Richard Nisbett is the Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He was the recipient of the Donald T. Campbell Award from the American Psychological Association in 1982, and he’s a Guggenheim fellow. He’s also the author of several books, including Culture of Honor, The Geography of Thought, Mindware, and Thinking: A memoir. | | In this episode, we talk about topics in social psychology. We... |
| 2024-Jan-19 • 79 minutes #889 Nadine Strossen - Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know Dr. Nadine Strossen is the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School and past President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008). She is also a Senior Fellow with FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education). She serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin. Her latest book is Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know. | | In this episode, we fo... |
| 2024-Jan-18 • 51 minutes #888 Elmar Unnsteinsson - Talking About: An Intentionalist Theory of Reference Dr. Elmar Unnsteinsson is an Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow at University College Dublin, School of Philosophy. He is also the Principal Investigator of two research projects funded by The Icelandic Research Fund, The Confused Intentions Project and Insincerity for Fragmented Minds, both based at UCD and University of Iceland, where he has a part-time position as a Research Scientist. Dr. Unnsteinsson works on topics in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, history of analytic philosophy, met... |
| 2024-Jan-15 • 82 minutes #887 Carol Ember: Tight and Loose Cultures, Sexuality, Gender Differences, and Cultural Databases Dr. Carol Ember is President of the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University and the editor of the journal Cross-Cultural Research. Most of her research career has been devoted to cross-cultural research on variation in marriage, family, kin groups, gender roles, predictors of war and other forms of violence, but for the last eight years she has been working on cultural adaptations to natural hazards and other resource stressors. She is interested in research that integrates the fields of anthropology ... |
| 2024-Jan-12 • 107 minutes #886 Randall Beer: Autopoiesis, Enactivism, Dynamical Systems, and Evo-Devo Approaches in Biology Dr. Randall Beer is Professor of Cognitive Science and Informatics at Indiana University Bloomington. Dr. Beer's primary research interest is in understanding how coordinated behavior arises from the dynamical interaction of an animal's nervous system, its body and its environment. Toward this end, he works on the evolution and analysis of dynamical "nervous systems" for model agents, neuromechanical modeling of animals, biologically-inspired robotics, and dynamical systems approaches to behavior ... |
| 2024-Jan-11 • 67 minutes #885 Paul van Geert: A Dynamical Systems Approach to Developmental Psychology Dr. Paul van Geert is Professor Emeritus of Developmental Psychology at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. He is renowned for his work on developmental psychology and the application of dynamical systems theory in social science. He is the author of A Dynamic Systems Model of Cognitive and Language Growth, Dynamic Systems of Development: Change between Complexity and Chaos, and, together with Naomi de Ruiter, Toward a Process Approach in Psychology: Stepping into Heraclitus' River. | | In this epis... |
| 2024-Jan-08 • 64 minutes #884 Maleen Thiele: Infant Social Learning Dr. Maleen Thiele is a Postdoc in the Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and group leader of the Minerva Fasttrack Group there. She is a developmental psychologist and infancy researcher interested in | the psychological foundations of early social learning. In her current postdoc project, Dr. Thiele takes a comparative perspective studying the influence of observation-based social learning contexts on object-related memory across great a... |
| 2024-Jan-05 • 70 minutes #883 Jeremy DeSilva - First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human Dr. Jeremy DeSilva is a Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. He is a paleoanthropologist, specializing in the locomotion of the first apes (hominoids) and early human ancestors (hominins). His particular anatomical expertise-- the human foot and ankle-- has contributed to our understanding of the origins and evolution of upright walking in the human lineage. He has studied wild chimpanzees in Western Uganda and early human fossils in Museums throughout Eastern and South Africa. From 19... |
| 2024-Jan-04 • 90 minutes #882 Luiz Pessoa - The Entangled Brain: How Perception, Cognition, and Emotion Are Woven Together Dr. Luiz Pessoa is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland, and Director of the Maryland Neuroimaging Center. Dr. Pessoa uses behavioral and functional MRI methods to study cognition and emotion (as manipulated, for instance, via the threat of shock), with an emphasis on the interactions between cognitive and emotional brain systems. He also studies interactions between cognition and motivation (as manipulated, for instance, via cash reward). An additional focus of his rese... |
| 2024-Jan-01 • 117 minutes #881 Marina García-Granero: Nietzsche, Züchtung, Biopolitics, Race, and the Übermensch Dr. Marina García-Granero is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Valencia (Spain). She is a former postdoc from the Institute of Philosophy at KU Leuven, where she worked in 2022 as an Associate Member of an ERC Project titled "Homo Mimeticus." She earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Valencia with a thesis on Nietzsche's concept of "breeding" (Züchtung) in 2021. Her research and teaching areas are Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, ethics, and femin... |
| 2023-Dec-29 • 48 minutes #880 Richard Redding: Sociopolitical Values in Psychological Research and Clinical Practice Dr. Richard Redding is Ronald D. Rotunda Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of Psychology at Chapman University. Dr. Redding's research focuses on forensic issues in criminal law and juvenile justice, the use of social science research in law and public policy, scientific evidence, and legal education. His work in these areas is both theoretical or policy-oriented and empirical. | In this episode, we talk about sociopolitical values and diversity in psychological research and clinical pr... |
| 2023-Dec-28 • 70 minutes #879 James Lee: Behavior Genetics, Educational Attainment, IQ, and Alcohol and Tobacco Use Dr. James Lee is Associate Professor of Psychology, and a member of the Graduate Faculty of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Minnesota. In 2012, Dr. Lee earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. The papers collected in his dissertation cover causal inference, genome-wide association studies, and cognitive-experimental approaches to the study of individual differences. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Mathematical Biology Section of NIDDK/NIH ... |
| 2023-Dec-25 • 77 minutes #878 Vlasta Sikimić: Epistemic Attitudes in Science, Epistemic Efficiency, and Epistemic Equity Dr. Vlasta Sikimić is an Assistant Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Her research focus is on Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of AI, Empirical Philosophy, Logic, Science Policy, and Animal Ethics. More specifically, she works on data-driven approaches to optimization of scientific reasoning. | | In this episode, we talk about the epistemology of science. We first get into epistemic attitudes, epistemic tolerance and authoritarianism, skepticism towards the scientific method, whether e... |
| 2023-Dec-22 • 104 minutes #877 Luke Glowacki: Is Human Warfare Ancient or Recent? Dr. Luke Glowacki is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Boston University and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Innovation in Social Science. He studies the evolution of complex social behavior, including cooperation and war. Dr. Glowacki has done extensive fieldwork among nomadic pastoralists along the Ethiopian / South Sudanese border studying inter-ethnic violence. | | In this episode, we talk about the evolution of war, and human cooperation. We start by defining war, and we ... |
| 2023-Dec-21 • 83 minutes #876 Émile Torres - Human Extinction (Part 2): Existential Ethics Dr. Émile Torres is a post-doc researcher at Case Western Reserve University. Their work over the past decade has centered around a single theme: eschatology, whether religious, secular, or scientific. Recently, their work has been focused on the nature and causes of human extinction, its ethical implications, and the history of the idea. They are the author of Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks, and their latest book is Human Extinction: A History of the Scien... |
| 2023-Dec-18 • 68 minutes #875 Uta Frith & Chris Frith: What Makes Us Social? Dr. Uta Frith is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience since 2006. She has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Aarhus at the Interacting Minds Centre from 2007 to 2015. She has been a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Central European University in Budapest (February - June 2014). | Dr. Chris Frith is Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London, Visiting Profess... |
| 2023-Dec-15 • 52 minutes #874 Cecilie Traberg: Misinformation, Debunking, Prebunking, and Inoculation Approaches ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: ... |
| 2023-Dec-14 • 74 minutes #873 Hanno Sauer - Moral Teleology: A Theory of Progress Dr. Hanno Sauer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht University. His main research interests are in moral psychology and empirically informed metaethics. He is interested in whether and how we can bring empirical data from diverse disciplines such as social psychology, neuroscience or cognitive science to bear on questions of normative and/or metaethical interests, and what the limits of this approach are. His latest book is Moral Teleology: A Theory of Progress. | | In this episode, we focus o... |
| 2023-Dec-11 • 53 minutes #872 Heather Berlin: Impulsive and Compulsive Disorders, and the Study of Consciousness Dr. Heather Berlin is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. She explores the neural basis of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric and neurological disorders with the aim of developing novel treatments. She is also interested in the brain basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity. | | In this episode, we start by talking about impulsivity and compulsivity. We discuss the differences between imp... |
| 2023-Dec-08 • 59 minutes #871 Anil Seth - Being You: A New Science of Consciousness Dr. Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. He is also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. He is also an Engagement Fellow with the Wellcome Trust. He is the author of several books, the latest one being Being... |
| 2023-Dec-07 • 74 minutes #870 Amalia Bastos: Parrots, Dogs, Comparative Psychology, and Convergent Evolution Dr. Amalia Bastos is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Social & Cognitive Origins Group at Johns Hopkins University. She is interested in how evolutionary pressures have shaped the minds of different species, and which cognitive mechanisms animals employ while interacting with the world around them. Her current work focuses on how chimpanzees perceive third-party social interactions through eye-tracking technology, alongside research on dog cognition. | | In this episode, we talk about animal cognition and... |
| 2023-Dec-04 • 91 minutes #869 Alexandra Plakias - Thinking Through Food; Metaphysics, Epistemology, Aesthetics, and Ethics Dr. Alexandra Plakias is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hamilton College. Her research focuses on issues in moral psychology, such as the role of evolution and culture in our moral values. She has also written about moral relativism and about the role of empirical research in philosophical theorizing. She is the author of Thinking Through Food: A Philosophical Introduction. | | In this episode, we focus on Thinking Through Food. We start by discussing the metaphysics of food, what is food, whether s... |
| 2023-Dec-01 • 91 minutes #868 James Cresswell: Theories in Psychology Dr. James Cresswell is Professor of Psychology at Ambrose University, Adjunct Professor at the University of Calgary, Research Associate at the Canadian Poverty Institute, and Research Associate at the Newcomer Research Network. Dr. Cresswell has a deep commitment to education and to enhancing the student experience. His courses cover topics such as culture, immigration, and identities in an increasingly globalized world, as well as social psychology and interpersonal communication. Other teaching areas ar... |
| 2023-Nov-30 • 71 minutes #867 Jeroen Hopster, Julia Hermann & Ibo van de Poel: Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies Dr. Jeroen Hopster is an Assistant Professor of ethics at Utrecht University. His research centers on climate ethics and on investigating the nature of socially disruptive technologies. | Dr. Julia Hermann is an Assistant Professor of philosophy and ethics at the University of Twente where she works on ectogestative technology, care robots, technomoral change and progress, and new methodologies in the ethics of technology. | Dr. Ibo van de Poel is a Professor in ethics of technology at Delft University of T... |
| 2023-Nov-27 • 128 minutes #866 Vibeke Ottesen: The Evolution of Human Violence, Juvenile Crime, and Abortion Dr. Vibeke Ottesen is a Norwegian criminologist with an interest in how nature and nurture combined create human behavior. She has a popular science blog – Biosocial - where she comments on news, scientific findings and literature relevant to her subject – more often than not with an evolutionary-informed approach to understanding the subject matter. She has held numerous lectures on the benefits of an evolutionary-informed approach to understanding the cross-cultural sex and age differences in anti-social ... |
| 2023-Nov-24 • 48 minutes #865 Neil Van Leeuwen - Religion as Make-Believe: A Theory of Belief, Imagination, and Group Identity Dr. Neil Van Leeuwen is Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Philosophy at the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University. His research focuses on the question of what belief is. His approach involves contrasting belief with imagining and other cognitive attitudes. Accordingly, he also focuses on several topics having to do with imagination, like pretend play, mental imagery, the role of imagination in guiding action generally. His interest in belief and other cognitive attitudes also manifests i... |
| 2023-Nov-23 • 107 minutes #864 Colin DeYoung: Personality and Psychopathology Dr. Colin DeYoung is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. In his research in personality psychology, he has examined the theoretical structure of personality and the biological basis of personality. | | In this episode, we talk about personality and psychopathology. We start by discussing issues with how psychopathology is defined in psychiatry. We discuss whether statistical deviance should be enough to classify something as psychopathology, and the relationship between brain... |
| 2023-Nov-20 • 103 minutes #863 Diane O'Leary: Philosophy, Medicine, Mind-Body Dualism, and Psychiatry Dr. Diane O’Leary is a Public Voices Fellow for Advancing the Rights of Women and Girls with Equality Now and the op-ed project. She has a PhD in philosophy from University of Sydney, and an MA in philosophy from Syracuse University. In both cases her focus was metaphysics, though for the PhD she gave her attention to Plato, and the application of his metaphysical views to his choices as writer. In her work she focuses on philosophy of mind, clinical medicine, and gender equity. | | In this episode, we t... |
| 2023-Nov-17 • 81 minutes #862 Lisa Bortolotti: Why Delusions Matter Dr. Lisa Bortolotti is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, affiliated with the Philosophy Department in the School of Philosophy, Theology, and Religion; and with the Institute for Mental Health in the School of Psychology. Her research is in the philosophy of the cognitive sciences. She is the author of The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs, and more recently, Why Delusions Matter. | | In this episode, we focus on Why Delusions Matter. We start by defining delusions, and the ... |
| 2023-Nov-16 • 87 minutes #861 Léo Fitouchi: Moral Emotions, Punishment, and Puritanical Morality ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: ... |
| 2023-Nov-13 • 40 minutes #860 Carrie Mongle: Hominin Phylogeny, and Micro and Macroevolution Dr. Carrie Mongle is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University and the Turkana Basin Institute. She also heads the Mongle Lab. Her research aims to reconstruct the major trends and transitions that characterize hominin diversity and evolution. Her ongoing work toward that goal involves (1) the discovery and description of new hominin fossils from the Turkana Basin in Kenya; (2) quantification of morphological variation; and (3) comprehensive phylogenetic analyses founde... |
| 2023-Nov-10 • 75 minutes #859 Anna Riedl: Historical Map of the Cognitive Sciences, and the Great Rationality Debate ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: ... |
| 2023-Nov-09 • 52 minutes #858 Jessica Nowicki: The Evolution of Prosocial Behavior, Pair Bonding, and Empathy Dr. Jessica Nowicki is a Research Scientist at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University. She is interested in the mechanistic basis of prosocial behavior in early vertebrates. She uses poison frogs, which display considerable variation in sociality among closely related species, for comparatively identifying neural correlates of pair bonding within the clade. In order to verify the functional involvement of these correlates, she then couples this with functional tests on the strongly pair ... |
| 2023-Nov-06 • 72 minutes #857 Amy Arnsten: The Prefrontal Cortex, and How It Responds to Stress Dr. Amy Arnsten is Albert E. Kent Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology, and member of the Kavli Institute of | Neuroscience at Yale University. Dr. Arnsten is an international expert on the molecular regulation of higher cortical circuits, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Arnsten's research examines the neural basis of higher cognition. Her work has revealed that the newly evolved cortical circuits that underlie higher cognition are uniquely regulated at the molecular l... |
| 2023-Nov-03 • 39 minutes #856 Frank Keil: The Development of Causal Thinking, Explanation, and the Institution of Science Dr. Frank Keil is Charles C. & Dorathea S. Dilley Professor of Psychology & Linguistics and Director of the Cognition and Development lab at Yale University. At the most general level, he is interested in how we come to make sense of the world around us. One set of his studies is examining a level of explanatory insight that functions without knowledge of specific mechanisms and instead involves knowing what sorts of properties are causally potent in a domain and how they are likely to interact. He ... |
| 2023-Nov-02 • 56 minutes #855 Luciano Floridi - The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: Principles, Challenges, and Opportunities Dr. Luciano Floridi is the Founding Director of the Digital Ethics Center and Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University. His research concerns primarily Digital Ethics, the Philosophy of Information, and the Philosophy of Technology. He is editor of The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence for the Sustainable Development Goals, and author of The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: Principles, Challenges, and Opportunities (OUP), and The Green and the Blue: Naïve Ideas to Improve Politics in the Digital ... |
| 2023-Oct-30 • 54 minutes #854 Naomi Oreskes - The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market Dr. Naomi Oreskes is Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. A world-renowned earth scientist, | historian and public speaker, she is the author of the best-selling book, Merchants of Doubt (2010) and a leading voice on the role of science in society, the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and the role of disinformation in blocking climate action. Dr. Oreskes is author or co-author of 9 books, the latest one ... |
| 2023-Oct-27 • 50 minutes #853 Coralie Chevallier: The Psychological Effects of Living in Harsh and Unpredictable Environments Dr. Coralie Chevallier is a Researcher in the evolution and social cognition group, at the Cognitive Science Department of the École Normale Superieure – PSL. She is a behavioral scientist studying the evolutionary and cognitive determinants of social cognition. She has mainly focused on the way motivational factors affect people’s social behaviors. | | In this episode, we talk about individual differences in social cognition. We start by discussing what they are, and how they are studied, including behav... |
| 2023-Oct-26 • 64 minutes #852 Oded Galor - The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality Dr. Oded Galor is Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown University. Dr. Galor has advanced the field of Unified Growth Theory. He has contributed to the understanding of the relationship between inequality and growth, human evolution, and the process of development, demography, and growth, and the role of deep-rooted factors in comparative economic development. He is the author of The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality. | | In this episode, we focus on The Journey of... |
| 2023-Oct-23 • 71 minutes #851 Alecia Carter: Thanatology, Animal Personality, Comparative Psychology, and Culture Dr. Alecia Carter is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at University College London. Her current research investigates (1) how primates respond to the deaths of others and what this can tell us about the evolution of cognition and emotion and (2) how individuals access information to make decisions. In particular, she studies how individuals use their social environment to access information, and how their phenotype, their individual characteristics, may limit their use of that informati... |
| 2023-Oct-20 • 53 minutes #850 James McCann - Maize and Grace: A History of Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop Dr. James McCann is Professor Emeritus of History at Boston University. Dr. McCann’s research and teaching interests include agricultural and ecological history of Africa, Ethiopia, and the Horn of Africa, field research methods in African studies, and the history of food/cuisine in Africa and the Atlantic world. He is the author of books like Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine; Maize and Grace: A History of Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop; People of the Plow: An Agricultural History of... |
| 2023-Oct-19 • 76 minutes #849 Claudio Tennie: The Differences Between Ape Culture and Human Culture Dr. Claudio Tennie is a Tenured Research Group Leader (“Tools and Culture among Early Hominins”) in the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen. In addition, he is an adjunct scientist at the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes. His main research triangulates what (if anything) makes human cognition unique - as well as why (and relatedly, when this happened and how often). In particular, he uses various methods and pathways to study the ... |
| 2023-Oct-16 • 59 minutes #848 Robert Sapolsky - Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will Dr. Robert Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor and Professor of Biology, of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, and of Neurosurgery at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky is the author of several informative and comical books that present cutting-edge psychoneurobiological knowledge in an enjoyable, easy-to-read format. His latest book is Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will. | | In this episode, we focus on Determined. We start by discussing the relationship between the scien... |
| 2023-Oct-13 • 106 minutes #847 Lydia Moland: 19th-Century German Philosophy, Hegel, and Abolitionism in the US Dr. Lydia Moland is a Professor of Philosophy at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where she teaches courses on moral philosophy, aesthetics, and the history of modern philosophy. For most of her career, she has written on nineteenth-century German philosophy. Recently, she turned her attention to her own country and to women. She discovered the work of American abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, on whom she wrote a book titled Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life (2022). | | In this episode, we talk... |
| 2023-Oct-12 • 58 minutes #846 Michela Massimi: Perspectival Realism Dr. Michela Massimi is Professor of Philosophy of Science in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, affiliated with the Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics. She works in the area of history and philosophy of science with a focus on the physical sciences. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Astronomical Society, corresponding Member of the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences and elected Member of the Academia Europaea. Dr. Massimi is the recipi... |
| 2023-Oct-09 • 56 minutes #845 Branko Milanović - Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War Dr. Branko Milanović is Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center and a senior fellow at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at The City University of New York (CUNY). Dr. Milanović’s main area of work is income inequality, in individual countries and globally, as well as historically, among pre-industrial societies (Roman Empire, Byzantium, and France before the Revolution), and even inequality in soccer. His latest book is Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the C... |
| 2023-Oct-06 • 75 minutes #844 Hakwan Lau - In Consciousness We Trust: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Subjective Experience Dr. Hakwan Lau is Principal Investigator for the Laboratory for Consciousness at Riken Institute. He works on the neural mechanisms of conscious perception, attention, and sensory metacognition, using human fMRI and Bayesian computational modeling. He is the author of In Consciousness We Trust: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Subjective Experience. | | In this episode, we focus on In Consciousness We Trust. We talk about approaching consciousness from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience, and issues wi... |
| 2023-Oct-05 • 88 minutes #843 Émile Torres - Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation Dr. Émile Torres is a researcher at Leibniz Universität Hannover, in Germany. Their work over the past decade has centered around a single theme: eschatology, whether religious, secular, or scientific. Recently, their work has been focused on the nature and causes of human extinction, its ethical implications, and the history of the idea. They are the author of Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks, and their latest book is Human Extinction: A History of the Scien... |
| 2023-Oct-02 • 97 minutes #842 Kevin Mitchell - Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will Dr. Kevin Mitchell is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He is interested in the development of connectivity in the brain, specifically in how this process is controlled by genes and how mutations in such genes affect the connectivity of neuronal circuits, influence behavior and perception and contribute to disease. His latest book is Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will. | | In this episode, we focus on Free Agents. We start by discussing how scientists ap... |
| 2023-Sep-29 • 94 minutes #841 Rebecca Tuvel: Feminism, Cultural Appropriation, Transracialism, and Animal Ethics Dr. Rebecca Tuvel is Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Rhodes College. She works in feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, and the ethics of identity. Her book project Changing Race: The Ethics and Metaphysics of Transracialism explores the possibility and permissibility of changing one’s race. | | In this episode, we talk about feminism, cultural appropriation, the philosophy of race, and animal ethics. We discuss what it means to be a feminist, and why are there so few people identifying ... |
| 2023-Sep-28 • 100 minutes #840 Alicia Juarrero - Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence Dr. Alicia Juarrero is President and Founder of VectorAnalytica. Her research in neurophilosophy has been focused on the causal role of context-sensitive constraints in the emergence of mental events such as intentions. She is the author of several books, the most recent one being Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence. | | In this episode, we focus on Context Changes Everything. We start by discussing the problem of identity, how change is compatible with remaining the same, and why... |
| 2023-Sep-25 • 100 minutes #839 Michael Muthukrishna: A Theory of Everyone Dr. Michael Muthukrishna is an Associate Professor of Economic Psychology at the London School of Economics. His other affiliations include Affiliate of the Developmental Economics Group at STICERD, Affiliate of the Data Science Institute, Azrieli Global Scholar at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Technical Director of The Database of Religious History, and Board member of the One Pencil Project. His research focuses on the psychological and evolutionary processes that underlie culture ... |
| 2023-Sep-22 • 62 minutes #838 Jana Gallus: The Psychology and Economics of Incentives Dr. Jana Gallus is Associate Professor of Strategy and Behavioral Decision Making at UCLA Anderson School of Management. Her research interests lie in behavioral economics, strategy, and innovation, with a focus on recognition incentives and their effects on decision-making. She investigates how incentive schemes can be designed to enhance employee motivation and organizational performance in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. | | In this episode, we talk about the psychology and economics of inc... |
| 2023-Sep-21 • 65 minutes #837 Vanessa Bohns: You Have More Influence Than You Think Dr. Vanessa Bohns is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Cornell University. Her research focuses broadly on social influence and the psychology of compliance and consent. She is the author of You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate Our Power of Persuasion, and Why It Matters. | | In this episode, we focus on You Have More Influence Than You Think. We discuss how much we impact other people, and go through topics like compliments; expressing gratitude; the invisibility cloak ill... |
| 2023-Sep-18 • 47 minutes #836 Sabine Nöbel: Social Learning, Mate Copying, and Culture from a Biological Perspective Dr. Sabine Nöbel is a Postdoc at the Martin-Luther University Halle Wittenberg in the group “Animal Ecology“. Her background is in the behavioral ecology of Poeciliids and Drosophila studying non-genetic inheritance of mating preferences using mate-copying, by which females build mating preferences by observing and copying conspecific females’ mate-choice. She studies how new, socially learnt mating preferences can invade a population and persist across generations. Dr. Nöbel is the secretary of ESLR (Assoc... |
| 2023-Sep-15 • 128 minutes #835 William Kelly: The Sociocultural Anthropology of Japan Dr. William Kelly is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and the Sumitomo Professor Emeritus of Japanese Studies at Yale University. A noted authority on the social and historical anthropology of Japan, Dr. Kelly focused much of his research for two decades on regional society in Japan, based on extensive fieldwork in the Shōnai area of Yamagata Prefecture. He has also written widely on the broader dynamics of class formation in Japanese society. At the same time, much of his research for the past two decade... |
| 2023-Sep-14 • 97 minutes #834 Kristen Lindquist: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Emotions Dr. Kristen Lindquist is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research seeks to understand the psychological and neural basis of emotions, moods, and feelings. Her ongoing work uses tools from social cognition, physiology, neuroscience, and big data methods to examine how emotions emerge from the confluence of the body, brain, and culture. | | In this episode, we start by talking about a multidisciplinary approach to emotions. We discuss if infan... |
| 2023-Sep-11 • 77 minutes #833 Inês Hipólito: 4E Cognition, and Dynamical Approaches in Psychology/Cognitive Science Dr. Inês Hipólito is a faculty member at Macquarie University, where she serves as a Lecturer of Philosophy of AI and a researcher at the Ethics and Agency Research Center. Furthermore, she holds the position of Ethicist of AI at Verses, a pioneering cognitive computing company specializing in next-generation AI, with Karl Friston serving as Chief Research bridging the gap between academia and industry, contributing to ethical considerations embedded within cutting-edge AI advancements. As a co-founder and ... |
| 2023-Sep-09 • 3 minutes Support on Patreon – Goal: $900/Month; $116 To Go Thanks to your great response to my video last month, I have gone from $706 of monthly support on Patreon to $784. You’re amazing! | | I am now $116 away from my goal. If you like what I am doing, and if you can support the show, please help me get there. | | I am leaving the links to my Patreon page and to PayPal, if you can so kindly support me there. You also get all sorts of benefits on Patreon. | | ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | P... |
| 2023-Sep-08 • 73 minutes #832 Ursula Goodenough - The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved Dr. Ursula Goodenough is a Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University in St. Louis where she engaged in research on eukaryotic algae. She has presented the paradigm of Religious Naturalism and the Epic of Evolution in numerous venues around the world. She currently serves as president of the Religious Naturalist Association. She is the author of The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved. | | In this episode, we focus on The Sacred Depths of Nature. We talk about “why” questi... |
| 2023-Sep-07 • 57 minutes #831 Freddie deBoer: How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: ... |
| 2023-Sep-04 • 71 minutes #830 Émile Torres: The Philosophy of Effective Altruism and Longtermism Dr. Émile Torres is a researcher at Leibniz Universität Hannover, in | Germany. Their work over the past decade has centered around a single theme: eschatology, whether religious, secular, or scientific. Recently, their work has been focused on the nature and causes of human extinction, its ethical implications, and the history of the idea. They are the author of Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks, and their latest book is Human Extinction: A History of the Scie... |
| 2023-Sep-01 • 91 minutes #829 Susanna Schellenberg - The Unity of Perception: Content, Consciousness, Evidence Dr. Susanna Schellenberg is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University, where she holds a secondary appointment at the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science. She specializes in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language and is best known for her work on perceptual experience, evidence, capacities, mental content, and imagination. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Award, a Humboldt Prize, and a Mellon New Directions Fellows... |
| 2023-Aug-31 • 61 minutes #828 Greger Larson: Animal Domestication and Human Evolution Dr. Greger Larson is a Professor in the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Director of the Wellcome Trust Palaeogenomics and Bio-Archaeology Research Network (PaleoBARN). His research interests include evolutionary genomics, ancient DNA, domestication, human and animal | dispersal, and phylogenetics. His work on the domestication of canines and the origin of the domestic dog has provided insights into the prehistoric bond | between humans and early dogs. | | In this episode, we talk abo... |
| 2023-Aug-28 • 59 minutes #827 Joseph Henrich: Cross-Cultural Research, Intelligence, Mating Systems, and Religion Dr. Joseph Henrich is Professor and chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is interested in the question of how humans evolved from "being a relatively unremarkable primate a few million years ago to the most successful species on the globe", and how culture affected our genetic development. He is also the author of The Secret of Our Success, and The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous. | ... |
| 2023-Aug-25 • 89 minutes #826 Eric Funkhouser: The Signaling Functions of Beliefs, and Self-Deception Dr. Eric Funkhouser is Professor and Departmental Chair of Philosophy at the University of Arkansas. His main areas of research are in the philosophy of psychology/mind and metaphysics. He is currently working on a series of papers concerning how social forces shape the functions of belief and other mental states. This work should culminate in a book, The Signaling Mind: Belief as Social Manipulation. In this manuscript, he argues that many beliefs serve a signaling function—much like animal signals used to... |
| 2023-Aug-24 • 48 minutes #825 Mark Coeckelbergh - Self-Improvement: Technologies of the Soul in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Dr. Mark Coeckelbergh is Professor of Philosophy of Media and Technology at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. He is member of the High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence for the European Commission, the Rat für Robotik, as well as member of the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) for the Foundation for Responsible Robotics. His work is focused on the area of philosophy of technology, in particular the ethics of robotics and ICTs. He is the author of several books, including h... |
| 2023-Aug-21 • 104 minutes #824 Valerie Fridland - Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English Dr. Valerie Fridland is Professor and former Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English at the University of Nevada in Reno. She is an expert on the relationship between language and society. Dr. Fridland also speaks and writes widely for a popular audience. Her language blog, Language in the Wild, appears in Psychology Today and her lecture series, Language and Society, is featured with The Great Courses. She is the author of several books, including | Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the... |
| 2023-Aug-18 • 89 minutes #823 Owen Flanagan: Against Happiness Dr. Owen Flanagan is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Duke University. His work is in philosophy of mind and psychiatry, ethics, moral psychology, and cross-cultural philosophy. He is co-author of Against Happiness. | | In this episode, we focus on Against Happiness. We talk about the “happiness agenda”, and what is promoted by advocates of happiness as the ultimate goal. We discuss if this agenda is hedonist and utilitarian. We talk about some philosophical issues, and crit... |
| 2023-Aug-17 • 77 minutes #822 Christian Miller: The Virtues of Generosity and Patience Dr. Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. His research is primarily in contemporary ethics and philosophy of religion. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Slate, Prospect Magazine, Relevant Magazine, Michael Hyatt Magazine, The Conversation, Newsweek, Aeon, Greater Good Magazine, Nautilus Magazine, Fathom Magazine, Institute of Art and Ideas, and Christianity Today. He’s the author of several books, the most recent one being Hon... |
| 2023-Aug-14 • 41 minutes #821 Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters: Who Accepts Rape Myths, and Why? ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: htt... |
| 2023-Aug-11 • 75 minutes #820 Joseph Errington: The History of Linguistics, Colonialism, and Language Ideologies Dr. Joseph Errington is Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. He studies language change as a source of insight into the ways languages constitute intimate parts of our everyday lives, and at the same time are foundational for large-scale institutions, social groups, and social dynamics. He has worked mostly in Indonesia, studying Javanese (90 million speakers), Indonesian (250 million speakers) and a range of Malay dialects. He has also worked on questions of language ideology and practice: how con... |
| 2023-Aug-10 • 95 minutes #819 Geoffrey West - Scale; Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies Dr. Geoffrey West is Shannan Distinguished Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is a theoretical physicist whose primary interests have been in fundamental questions in physics, especially those concerning the elementary particles, their interactions and cosmological implications. His long-term fascination in general scaling phenomena evolved into a highly productive collaboration on the origin of universal scaling laws that pervade biology from the molecular genomic scale up through mitochondria and cel... |
| 2023-Aug-07 • 100 minutes #818 Tibor Rutar: The Rise, Benefits, and Challenges of Liberal Democracies Dr. Tibor Rutar is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, Researcher at the Center for the Study of Post-Socialist Societies in Maribor, and Researcher at the Research Center for Strategy and Governance at the University of Ljubljana. His last two books are Rational Choice and Democratic Government: A Sociological Approach (Routledge, 2021) and Capitalism for Realists: Virtues and Vices of the Modern Economy (Routledge, 2022). | | This time, we focus on Rational Choice an... |
| 2023-Aug-05 • 6 minutes I Need Help (5 and ½ Years of The Dissenter) I need help. Since last February, when I last asked for support, some more patrons had to cancel their support because their financial situation changed. I have been helped by a few donations over these last months, but I stand at $715 of support by the time of the recording of this video (July 31st), and I need to go up to $900 to keep the channel/podcast sustainable. | Over the past 5 years and a half, I’ve already released 817 interviews, have already done 865 interviews, and already have new interviews ... |
| 2023-Aug-04 • 52 minutes #817 Raymond Hames: Hunting, Mating Systems, Warfare, and Evolutionary Anthropology Dr. Raymond Hames is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research interests are in behavioral ecology, food and labor exchange, human ecology, marriage, and kin and parental | investment. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (anthropology section), past-president of the Evolutionary Anthropology Society of the American Anthropological Association, consulting editor for Human Nature, and for ten years he served as treasurer of the Human Behavior and Evolution So... |
| 2023-Aug-03 • 59 minutes #816 Gareth Leng - The Matter of Facts: Skepticism, Persuasion, and Evidence in Science Dr. Gareth Leng was one of the founders in 1983 of the British Society for Neuroendocrinology. He was appointed as the Chair of Experimental Physiology at the University of Edinburgh in 1994, after 17 years at what is now the Babraham Institute, Cambridge. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neuroendocrinology, and a former President of the International Neuroendocrine Federation. He is the author of The Matter of Facts: Skepticism, Persuasion, and Evidence in Science. | | In this episode, we... |
| 2023-Jul-31 • 77 minutes #815 Rebecca Sear: Demography, Family Structures, National IQs, and the Evolutionary Social Sciences Dr. Rebecca Sear is a demographer and anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), teaching demography and researching human reproductive behavior from an | evolutionary perspective. She is particularly interested in taking a comparative perspective to understanding human reproductive behavior, and exploring why such behavior varies between, as well as within, | populations. | | In this episode, we start by talking about the study of human demography, and what we can learn... |
| 2023-Jul-28 • 93 minutes #814 Christopher Ferrie - Quantum Bullsh*t: How to Ruin Your Life with Advice from Quantum Physics Dr. Christopher Ferrie is an Associate Professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Centre for Quantum Software and Information. His research interests include quantum estimation and control, and, in particular, the use of machine learning to solve statistical problems in quantum information science. He is the author of several books, the latest one being Quantum Bullsh*t: How to Ruin Your Life with Advice from Quantum Physics. | | In this episode, we focus on Quantum Bullsh*t. We discuss what “qu... |
| 2023-Jul-27 • 56 minutes #813 Marissa Harrison - Just as Deadly: The Psychology of Female Serial Killers Dr. Marissa Harrison is Associate Professor of Psychology in the School of Behavioral Sciences and Education, and Interim Chair of Social Sciences and Psychology at Penn State Harrisburg. She is a research psychologist who investigates serial murder, and interest in serial murder, from an evolutionary and other psychological perspectives. She is the author of Just as Deadly: The Psychology of Female Serial Killers. | In this episode, we focus on Just as Deadly. We start by talking about statistics on serial... |
| 2023-Jul-24 • 94 minutes #812 Mélusine Boon-Falleur: The Impact of Resources on Psychology, and Climate Change ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development do... |
| 2023-Jul-21 • 57 minutes #811 Elijah Millgram: Practical Reasoning and Ethics Dr. Elijah Millgram is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. His research focuses on rationality, theoretical reasoning, and practical reasoning. He is the author of six books, including Practical Induction, Varieties of Practical Reasoning, Ethics Done Right: Practical Reasoning as a Foundation for Moral Theory, and John Stuart Mill and the Meaning of Life. | In this episode, we talk about practical reasoning. We start by discussing what practical reasoning is, and the questions it applies t... |
| 2023-Jul-20 • 82 minutes #810 Jeff McMahan: Threats to Academic Freedom, and the Journal of Controversial Ideas Dr. Jeff McMahan is Sekyra and White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He specializes in Practical Ethics, Political Philosophy, and Ethics. He is editor of the Journal of Controversial Ideas. He’s the author of books like The Morality of Nationalism, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life, and Killing in War. | | In this episode, we talk about academic freedom. We start by discussing the role of universities, and if political activism is incompatible with academ... |
| 2023-Jul-17 • 39 minutes #809 Luciano Floridi: The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence for the Sustainable Development Goals Dr. Luciano Floridi is the Founding Director of the Digital Ethics Center and Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University. His research concerns primarily Digital Ethics, the Philosophy of Information, and the Philosophy of Technology. He is editor of The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence for the Sustainable Development Goals, and author of | forthcoming The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: Principles, Challenges, and Opportunities (OUP), and The Green and the Blue: Naïve Ideas to Improve Politics i... |
| 2023-Jul-14 • 69 minutes #808 Frederick Toates: Understanding Sexual Serial Killing Dr. Frederick Toates is Emeritus Professor of Biological Psychology at the Open University. Dr. Toates' research interests are primarily in the area of motivation. He is the author of a number of books, the most recent one being Understanding Sexual Serial Killing. | In this episode, we focus on Understanding Sexual Serial Killing. We start by defining sexual serial killing, and get into what motivates it. We talk about the psychological traits, the social context, and sociohistorical context of sexual seri... |
| 2023-Jul-13 • 41 minutes #807 Raymond Craib - Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit, from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age Dr. Raymond Craib is Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History at Cornell University. His research and teaching interests revolve around the intersections of space, politics, and everyday practice. He is the author of Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit, from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age. | In this episode, we focus on Adventure Capitalism. We talk about what characterizes libertarianism in the US, and how it became popular in the 1960s. We discuss exit projects, and how peop... |
| 2023-Jul-10 • 104 minutes #806 James Cortada - Birth of Modern Facts; Information, Government, Business, and Science Dr. James W. Cortada is Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota. He worked at IBM for thirty-eight years in sales, consulting, managerial, and research positions. His latest book is Birth of Modern Facts: How the Information Revolution Transformed Academic Research, Governments, and Businesses. | | In this episode, we focus on Birth of Modern Facts. We first discuss what information is, and how it changes over time. We talk about governments as suppliers of ... |
| 2023-Jul-07 • 38 minutes #805 Lisa Yon: Elephant Welfare, Environmental Pollutants, and Zoonotic Pathogens Dr. Lisa Yon is an Associate Professor in Zoo and Wildlife Medicine at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at the University of Nottingham. She is Head of the Behaviour Subgroup, and Vice Chair, of BIAZA's Elephant Welfare Group. She is a Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. She is interested in the health, welfare and conservation of captive and free-living wildlife (with a particular focus on elephants), which includes a One Health approach looking at the interface between humans/... |
| 2023-Jul-06 • 43 minutes #804 Deborah Gordon: Ant Colonies, Distributed Intelligence, and Systems Without Central Control Dr. Deborah Gordon is a Professor in the Department of Biology at Stanford University. She studies how ant colonies work without central control using networks of simple interactions, and how these networks evolve in relation to changing environments. | In this episode, we talk about ant colonies. We discuss decision-making from an ecological perspective, and distributed problem solving. We talk about the tole of genetics and the environment in ant sociality. We discuss task allocation, and why “division of... |
| 2023-Jul-03 • 56 minutes #803 Lee Dugatkin - Power in the Wild, The Ways Animals Strive for Control over Others Dr. Lee Dugatkin is a Professor of Biology and Distinguished Arts and Sciences Scholar in the Department of Biology at the University of Louisville. He is a behavioral ecologist and historian of science and his main area of research interest is the evolution of social behavior. He is the author of numerous books, including, Behind the Crimson Curtain: The Rise and Fall of Peale’s Museum, How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog, and textbooks like Principles of Animal Behavior, and Evolution. His latest book is Po... |
| 2023-Jun-30 • 84 minutes #802 Jared Rubin - How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth Dr. Jared Rubin is Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Society at Chapman University. He is an economic historian interested in the political and religious economies of the Middle East and Western Europe. His research focuses on historical relationships between political and religious institutions and their role in economic development. He is the author of How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth. | In this episode, we... |
| 2023-Jun-29 • 61 minutes #801 Jeffrey Lees: Implicit Attitudes, Meta-Perceptions, Morality, and Political Polarization Dr. Jeffrey Lees is Associate Research Scholar in the Behavioral Science for Policy Lab at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior & Psychology from Harvard University in 2020. He is a behavioral scientist studying the consequences of inaccurate beliefs for organizations, politics, and society. | In this episode, we talk about implicit attitudes and meta-perceptions, and how they apply to politics and morality. We start by discussing what implicit attitudes are, and how th... |
| 2023-Jun-26 • 105 minutes #800 Daisy Dixon: Art as Speech, Artistic Hate Speech, and Immoral Artists Dr. Daisy Dixon is a philosopher of art and an artist, and a Lecturer in Philosophy at Cardiff University. Her research falls at the intersection of philosophy of art, philosophy of language, and political philosophy. She explores how visual art behaves like speech, and how curators and interpreters can affect what an artwork communicates to its audience. Her current project concerns unjust aesthetics and aesthetic injustice, focusing on artistic hate speech, aesthetic ‘counterspeech’, and deceptive art. He... |
| 2023-Jun-23 • 41 minutes #799 Pasquale Raia: The Impact of Climate Change on Evolution, and the Extinction of Species Dr. Pasquale Raia is Professor of Paleontology and Paleoecology at the University of Naples Federico II. His scientific interests concern the evolution and the dynamics of extinction of animal species, and in particular the fossils of hominid species. His most notable scientific contributions regard evolutionary theories about the evolution of insular species, the complexity of organisms, and the dynamics of extinction of hominids. | In this episode, we start by talking about climate change as a factor in e... |
| 2023-Jun-22 • 59 minutes #798 Onurcan Yilmaz: Cognitive Styles, Politics, Morality, and Religion Dr. Onurcan Yilmaz is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Kadir Has University, Istanbul, and he currently leads the Moral Intuitions Laboratory (MINT Lab). He studies the intersection between morality, religion, politics and decision-making from perspectives derived from cognitive and evolutionary psychology and behavioral economics. | In this episode, we talk about cognitive styles, politics, morality, and religion. We start by talking about cognitive styles, and then go through several different link... |
| 2023-Jun-19 • 67 minutes #797 Evelina Fedorenko: The Neuroscience of Language Dr. Evelina Fedorenko is Middleton CD Associate Professor of Neuroscience in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department at MIT. Her research focuses on the language system, including its internal architecture, and its relationship with other cognitive systems. | In this episode, we talk about the language system. We talk about the areas of the brain where language is processed; how it is tied to other aspects of cognition; and if it is a biological adaptation. We discuss the role that it plays in categoriz... |
| 2023-Jun-16 • 75 minutes #796 Paul Harris - Child Psychology in Twelve Questions Dr. Paul Harris is Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He is interested in the early development of cognition, emotion, and imagination. He is the author of several books, the most recent one being Child Psychology in Twelve Questions. | In this episode, we focus on Child Psychology in Twelve Questions. We get into some of the questions explored in the book, including attachment theory; language comprehension; the kinds of questions children ask... |
| 2023-Jun-15 • 115 minutes #795 Owen Flanagan - The Geography of Morals: Varieties of Moral Possibility Dr. Owen Flanagan is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Duke University. He is the author of The Geography of Morals: Varieties of Moral Possibility. | In this episode, we focus on The Geography of Morals. We talk about what it means to do ethics in a more culturally attuned way. We discuss some of the challenges of living in multicultural societies. We discuss if philosophers can really identify what is good or right independently of history or culture, and how moral philosophe... |
| 2023-Jun-12 • 52 minutes #794 Oriel FeldmanHall: The Social Neuroscience of Moral Decision-Making Dr. Oriel FeldmanHall is the Alfred Manning Associate Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences at Brown University. Dr. FeldmanHall's research seeks to disentangle the cognitive and neural processes behind the complex choices that form the basis of human social behavior. | In this episode, we talk about morality from the perspective of social neuroscience. We discuss if it makes sense to talk about different psychological ingredients to morality, like moral foundations. We talk about th... |
| 2023-Jun-09 • 81 minutes #793 Adam Bulley - The Invention of Tomorrow: A Natural History of Foresight Dr. Adam Bulley is a postdoctoral fellow at the Brain and Mind Centre and School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, and the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He is the author (together with Thomas Suddendorf and Jonathan Redshaw) of The Invention of Tomorrow: A Natural History of Foresight. | In this episode, we focus on The Invention of Tomorrow. We start with the evolution of foresight; and talk about life history theory, and how foresight is a universal human trait. We discuss its de... |
| 2023-Jun-08 • 57 minutes #792 Justin Mogilski: Satisfaction and Maintenance in Monogamous and Non-Monogamous Relationships Dr. Justin Mogilski is Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie. His current program of research examines: 1) conflict resolution within consensually non-monogamous (CNM) romantic relationships, 2) how evolution has shaped moral decision-making, and 3) individual differences in predatory intimate relationship behaviors. | In this episode, we talk about romantic relationships. We talk about relationship satisfaction and what predicts it; emotional and sexual accessibility; what co... |
| 2023-Jun-05 • 33 minutes #791 Scott Claessens: Human Cooperation, Religiosity, and Cross-National Analyses Dr. Scott Claessens is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Auckland. He studies the biological and cultural evolution of human cooperation. He uses methods from experimental economics and evolutionary game theory to shed light on how and why we give to others. | In this episode, we talk about human cooperation, religiosity, and cross-national analyses. We discuss theories about why humans are so cooperative; the benefits people get from being seen to be cooperative; the “cooperative phenotyp... |
| 2023-Jun-02 • 60 minutes #790 Conor Cunningham: Theology, Nihilism, and Evolutionary Theory Dr. Conor Cunningham is Associate Professor in Theology and Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Nottingham. He is interested in Metaphysics, Epistemology, Science, and Religion. He is the author of books like Genealogy of Nihilism: Philosophies of Nothing and The Difference of Theology. | In this episode, we talk about the philosophy of nihilism. We first discuss the differences between theology and philosophy. We then get into nihilism, and we talk about its philosophical origins, its di... |
| 2023-Jun-01 • 76 minutes #789 Kieran Setiya - Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way Dr. Kieran Setiya is Professor of Philosophy at MIT. He works mainly in ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. He is the author of Practical Knowledge, Reasons without Rationalism, Knowing Right From Wrong, and, more recently, Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way. | In this episode, we focus on Life Is Hard. We start by discussing the purpose of philosophy. We talk about what makes life hard, and we discuss if we should avoid hardship; complaining about hardship, and pitying othe... |
| 2023-May-29 • 71 minutes #788 Alexander Bor: Online Political Hostily; and the Moralization and Political Effects of COVID-19 Dr. Alexander Bor is a postdoc at the CEU Democracy Institute's Research Group on De- and Re-Democratization and a Visiting Professor at CEU Vienna. His research focuses on how the human mind navigates social and political challenges like political polarization, online political hostility, the COVID-19 pandemic, or selecting and evaluating political leaders. | In this episode, we talk about online political hostility, and the COVID-19 pandemic. We start by talking about the sharing of fake news on social me... |
| 2023-May-26 • 58 minutes #787 Kennon Sheldon - Freely Determined; The New Psychology of the Self, and How to Live Dr. Kennon Sheldon is Curator's Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri. His research is in the areas of well-being, motivation, self-determination theory, personality, and positive psychology. He is the author of several books, the most recent one being Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live. | In this episode, we focus on Freely Determined. We talk about free will from a psychological perspective, and go... |
| 2023-May-25 • 63 minutes #786 Vassilis Saroglou: The Psychological Traits of Religious People Dr. Vassilis Saroglou is Full Professor of Psychology at the UCL-University of Louvain, with expertise in psychology of religion, personality, social, and cross-cultural psychology, moral psychology, and psychology of positive emotions. | In this episode, we talk about the psychology of religion. We talk about the distinction between intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity, and between devotional religion and coalitional religion. We discuss the relationship between religiosity and spirituality. We ... |
| 2023-May-22 • 56 minutes #785 Agustín Fuentes: The Origins of Patriarchy Dr. Agustín Fuentes is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. His research focuses on the biosocial, delving into the entanglement of biological systems with the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. He is the author of books like Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You, and Why We Believe. | In this episode, we talk about the origins of patriarchy. We start by defining patriarchy, and talk about how lon... |
| 2023-May-19 • 56 minutes #784 Paul Russell: Free Will and Moral Responsibility Dr. Paul Russell is Professor of Philosophy at Lund University (half-time appointment since 2018). He also serves as Director of the Lund|Gothenburg Responsibility Project (LGRP). Dr. Russell's interests cover the areas of free will and moral responsibility along with various topics in early modern philosophy. Within the area of free will and moral responsibility he is particularly interested in the challenge of skepticism and theories of responsibility that appeal to reactive attitudes or moral sentiments.... |
| 2023-May-18 • 47 minutes #783 Kevin Dorst: Epistemology, Justified Beliefs, and Epistemic Modesty Dr. Kevin Dorst is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. He works on epistemology, logic, language, and their intersections. In epistemology he’s interested in what we should think (the belief-credence connection), why we should think it (foundations), and how we should think about what we should think (higher-order uncertainty). In logic, he’s interested in various models of these things; in language, he’s interested the semantics of various statements about them. M... |
| 2023-May-15 • 68 minutes #782 Gillian Forrester: The Evolution of Handedness, Cerebral Lateralization, and Language Dr. Gillian Forrester is a Professor of Comparative Cognition in the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex. She is the director of the Comparative Cognition Group investigating the behaviors and brain organization of children, gorillas and chimpanzees focusing on how cognitive abilities evolve and develop over time and across species. | In this episode, we talk about the evolution of handedness and how it relates to language and other cognitive abilities. We first define handedness, and talk abou... |
| 2023-May-12 • 123 minutes #781 R. Brian Ferguson - Chimpanzees, War, and History: Are Men Born to Kill? Dr. R. Brian Ferguson is Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University Newark. His expertise lies in cultural anthropology, the anthropology of war, ethnic conflict, state-tribe interaction, policing, and Puerto Rico. His latest book is “Chimpanzees, War, and History: Are Men Born to Kill?”. | In this episode, we focus on Chimpanzees, War, and History. We start by talking about the history of the belief in a “death instinct” and aggressive drives, and what is war. We go through different cases of chimpanz... |
| 2023-May-11 • 75 minutes #780 Deborah Carr: Obesity, Disability, Healthcare, and Aging in America Dr. Deborah Carr is a Professor of Sociology and inaugural director of the Center of Innovation in Social Science at Boston University. Her research interests include aging and the life course, psychosocial factors influences on health over the life course, and end-of-life issues. Her latest book is Aging in America. | In this episode, we focus on aging, but also tackle other social issues in the US. We first discuss the obesity “epidemic”, the causes of obesity, and weight stigma. We talk about the relatio... |
| 2023-May-08 • 56 minutes #779 Keelah Williams: Stereotypes, Perceptions of Criminal Behavior, and Friendships Dr. Keelah Williams is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Director of Jurisprudence of Law and Justice Studies at Hamilton College. Her current research explores how the perception of threats and opportunities in the environment may shape stereotype content, punishment strategies, and legal decision-making. Her work has been published in journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. | In this episode, we talk about stereotypes, criminal justice, and friendships. We discuss what ste... |
| 2023-May-05 • 66 minutes #778 Carles Lalueza-Fox - Inequality: A Genetic History Dr. Carles Lalueza-Fox is Director of the Natural Science Museum in Barcelona. He is the author of Inequality: A Genetic History. | In this episode, we focus on Inequality. We start by talking about the premise of the book, and the current state of global inequality, with its social and political consequences. We get into the scientific tools we can use to study inequality in the past. We discuss sexual selection and assortative mating; if inequality is the result of individual traits or social structures; ... |
| 2023-May-04 • 67 minutes #777 Gil Greengross: The (Evolutionary) Psychology of Humor, Laughter, and Comedians Dr. Gil Greengross is a Lecturer in Psychology at Aberystwyth University. He is an evolutionary psychologist, studying the evolutionary roots of everyday behaviors and emotions. His main area of research focuses on the evolution of humor and laughter, what makes people laugh, and how humor is used in mating and mate choice. | In this episode, we talk about the evolutionary psychology of humor. We start by discussing what humor is. We talk about humor as a product of evolution, and its signaling functions. W... |
| 2023-May-01 • 77 minutes #776 Adina Roskies: Neuroimaging Studies, Neuroethics, and Free Will Dr. Adina Roskies is The Helman Family Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Cognitive Science Program at Dartmouth College. Dr. Roskies' philosophical research interests lie at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience, and include philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and ethics. She was a member of the McDonnell Project in Neurophilosophy, and the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project. | In this episode, we talk about neuroimaging studies, neuroethics, and free will. Starting with neuroima... |
| 2023-Apr-28 • 68 minutes #775 Charles Fernyhough: Inner Speech, Imaginary Companions, and Auditory Hallucinations Dr. Charles Fernyhough is a Professor of Psychology at Durham University, and Director of the Centre for Research into Inner Experience. He has contributed to the understanding of how language and thought are related in child development and beyond. The focus of his recent scientific work has been in applying ideas from mainstream developmental psychology to the study of psychosis, particularly the phenomenon of voice-hearing. | In this episode, we talk about inner speech, imaginary companions, and hallucin... |
| 2023-Apr-27 • 69 minutes #774 Andrew Buskell: Cultural Evolution, Cumulative Culture, and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Dr. Andrew Buskell is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Public Policy. His work analyses issues where human cognition, culture, politics, and biology intersect. His current project examines the ontological and epistemic assumptions underwriting cross-cultural comparison and their implications for research and policy design. | In this episode, we talk about cultural evolution. We start by discussing what cultural evolution is, when it started, and its elements.... |
| 2023-Apr-24 • 80 minutes #773 Catarina Dutilh Novaes: Argumentation, Reason, and Disinformation Dr. Catarina Dutilh Novaes is Professor and University Research Chair at the Department of Philosophy of the VU Amsterdam. She is also a Professorial Fellow at Arché in St. Andrews (2019-2024). She is currently running the ERC Consolidator project 'The Social Epistemology of Argumentation' (2018-2023). Her main fields of research are history and philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics, and social epistemology. | In this episode, we talk about argumentation, reason, and disinformation. We start with a... |
| 2023-Apr-21 • 56 minutes #772 Joseph Uscinski: The Politics and Psychology of Conspiracy Theories Dr. Joseph Uscinski is Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. He studies public opinion and mass media, with a focus on conspiracy theories and related misinformation. He is co-author of American Conspiracy Theories (Oxford, 2014) and editor of Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Oxford, 2018). His textbook on conspiracy theories is Conspiracy Theories: A Primer. | | In this episode, we talk about the politics and psychology of conspiracy thinking. We talk about the ro... |
| 2023-Apr-20 • 51 minutes #771 Jordi Camí & Luis Martínez - The Illusionist Brain: The Neuroscience of Magic Dr. Jordi Camí is Professor of Pharmacology (specialist in Clinical Pharmacology) at Pompeu Fabra University, General Director of the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), and Director of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation. | Dr. Luis Miguel Martínez is Head of the Laboratory of Visual Analogy at the Neuroscience Institute of Alicante. | They are both authors of The Illusionist Brain: The Neuroscience of Magic. | In this episode, we focus on The Illusionist Brain. We talk about magic from the perspective ... |
| 2023-Apr-17 • 74 minutes #770 Inês Hipólito: Enactive Cognition, Culture, Artificial Intelligence, and Diversity in Science Dr. Inês Hipólito is a Lecturer at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where she investigates the reciprocal relationship between the representational structures, basic cognition, and the nervous system. Additionally, as an Amsterdam Brain and Cognition Talent Grant Fellow at the University of Amsterdam, she studies the emergence of artificial intelligence as Augmented Cognition. Her research has earned her 19 awards and she has presented her findings at over 30 scientific... |
| 2023-Apr-14 • 67 minutes #769 Eric Schwitzgebel: Beliefs, Introspection, Ethics Professors, and Women in Philosophy Dr. Eric Schwitzgebel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. Most of Dr. Schwitzgebel’s research explores connections between empirical psychology and philosophy of mind, especially the nature of belief, the inaccuracy of our judgments about our stream of conscious experience, and the tenuous relationship between philosophical ethics and actual moral behavior. | In this episode, we talk about beliefs, ethics, and psychology. We start by defining belief. We discuss if we have ... |
| 2023-Apr-13 • 72 minutes #768 Laurence Kirmayer - Cultural Consultation: Encountering the Other in Mental Health Care Dr. Laurence Kirmayer is James McGill Professor and Director of the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill University. He directs the Culture & Mental Health Research Unit at the Jewish General Hospital where he conducts research on the mental health of Aboriginal peoples, and mental health services for immigrants and refugees. He is the editor of Cultural Consultation: Encountering the Other in Mental Health Care. | In this episode, we focus on Cultural Consultation. We first discuss... |
| 2023-Apr-10 • 80 minutes #767 Belén López-Pérez: Emotion Regulation, Emotion Goals, Happiness, and Empathy Dr. Belén López-Pérez is a Lecturer in Psychology at The University of Manchester. She concluded her PhD in Social psychology at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in 2012, and her Postdoctoral research in Social and Developmental Psychology in the School of Psychology at Plymouth University. Her research interests include empathy and interpersonal emotion regulation across the lifespan, as well as happiness and well-being. | | In this episode, we focus on emotion regulation, emotion goals, happiness, and emp... |
| 2023-Apr-07 • 53 minutes #766 Krister Bykvist: Metaethics, Population Ethics, and Antinatalism Dr. Krister Bykvist is Professor in Practical Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy at Stockholm University and Research Fellow at the Institute for Future Studies. He has been a visiting researcher at the Department of Philosophy, Canada, and at SCAS, Uppsala. His research concerns questions about our responsibility for future generations, the foundations of consequentialism, evaluative uncertainty, and the relationship between preferences, value, and welfare. He is the author of Moral Uncertainty. | ... |
| 2023-Apr-06 • 57 minutes #765 Matteo Colombo: Philosophy, Levels of Explanation in Cognitive Science, and Values in Science Dr. Matteo Colombo is an Associate Professor in the Tilburg Center for Logic, Ethics, and Philosophy of Science, and in the Department of Philosophy at Tilburg University. Much of his work is in the foundations of computational neuroscience, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. | In this episode, we talk about topics in neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy of science. We start by talking about experimental philosophy and the questions it deals with. We talk about the r... |
| 2023-Apr-03 • 132 minutes #764 Alessandra Cassar: Female Competitiveness, Cooperative Breeding, and Market Development Dr. Alessandra Cassar is a Professor of Economics at the University of San Francisco. She is the Vice-President for North America of the Economic Science Association. Her current research concentrates on the under-studied areas of female competitiveness; the consequences of conflict and disaster victimization for altruism, trust, religiosity, risk, and time preferences; and the role of social networks for economic outcomes. | In this episode, we start by talking about female competitiveness and what motivat... |
| 2023-Mar-31 • 55 minutes #763 Mitch Brown: Pathogen Avoidance, Mate Preferences for Facial Features, and Humor Dr. Mitch Brown is an instructor and researcher in Psychology at the University of Arkansas. His work primarily considers (1) the tradeoffs people invoke to avoid disease and belong to groups, (2) the prioritization of physical features and behaviors in shaping preferences for short-term and long-term mates, and (3) how inferences of men’s formidability inform stereotypes of personality and social functions. | In this episode, we talk about topics in evolutionary psychology. We start with the evolution of p... |
| 2023-Mar-30 • 43 minutes #762 Dean Buonomano: The Neuroscience of Time Dr. Dean Buonomano is Professor of Neurobiology and Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research goal is to understand how neurons develop selective responses to temporal features such as duration, interval and order. He is the author of Brain Bugs, and Your Brain is a Time Machine. | In this episode, we talk about the neuroscience of timing. We start by discussing how to understand time from the perspective of neuroscience, and how the brain processes time. We talk about factors th... |
| 2023-Mar-27 • 78 minutes #761 Paul Katsafanas - Philosophy of Devotion: The Longing for Invulnerable Ideals Dr. Paul Katsafanas is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Graduate Studies at Boston University. He works on ethics, moral psychology, and nineteenth-century philosophy. His latest book is Philosophy of Devotion: The Longing for Invulnerable Ideals. | | In this episode, we focus on Philosophy of Devotion. We start by discussing what devotion is. We talk about the psychological features of sacred values; psychological strategies for treating commitments and fixed and immutable; and the connection betwe... |
| 2023-Mar-24 • 56 minutes #760 Jonathan Maynard - Ideology and Mass Killing: The Radicalized Security Politics of Genocides Dr. Jonathan Maynard is a Lecturer in International Politics at King's College London's Department of Political Economy. His research is primarily concerned with the role of ideology in collective political violence, especially in forms of violence against civilians such as genocides, mass atrocities and terrorism. He is the author of Ideology and Mass Killing: The Radicalized Security Politics of Genocides and Deadly Atrocities. | In this episode, we focus on Ideology and Mass Killing. We first define mass... |
| 2023-Mar-23 • 57 minutes #759 Chad Orzel - A Brief History of Timekeeping; from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks Dr. Chad Orzel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College in Schenectady, NY, where he teaches a wide range of classes, and does research on atomic, molecular, and optical physics. His latest book is A Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks. | In this episode, we focus on A Brief History of Timekeeping. Topics include: timekeeping as a human universal; what a clock is; using the “movements” of the Sun; using othe... |
| 2023-Mar-20 • 38 minutes #758 Eli Alshanetsky: Articulating a Thought Dr. Eli Alshanetsky is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Temple University. Previously, he was an Andrew W. Mellon fellow in the Humanities at Stanford University. He received his PhD in philosophy from NYU. Dr. Alshanetsky's research and teaching interests are at the intersection of the philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and cognitive science. He is the author of Articulating a Thought. | In this episode, we focus on Articulating a Thought. We start by talking about self-knowledge, how pe... |
| 2023-Mar-17 • 63 minutes #757 Quentin Atkinson: Comparing Cultures, Climate Change, and Religion Dr. Quentin Atkinson is a Professor in Psychology at the University of Auckland, where he runs the Language, Cognition and Culture Lab, and co-Director of the University of Auckland Behavioural Insights Exchange (UoABIX). He uses lab and field experiments, computer modelling and evolutionary theory to answer questions including the origins of linguistic diversity, the function of religion, and the psychology of climate change. | In this episode, we talk about politics, culture, and religion. We first talk a... |
| 2023-Mar-16 • 90 minutes #756 Donald Hoffman: The Case Against Reality, and the Interface Theory of Perception Dr. Donald Hoffman is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. | In this episode, we focus on The Case Against Reality, and the interface theory of perception. We start by discussing the interface theory of perception, shape as an effective code for fitness, different ways of perceiving “reality”, and what is “real”. We address scientific and philosophical obj... |
| 2023-Mar-13 • 67 minutes #755 Alexandra Kalev - Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn't Dr. Alexandra Kalev is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University. She is developing an evidence-based approach to managing diversity in corporations and universities. She is the author, together with Frank Dobbin, of Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn't. | In this episode, we focus on Getting to Diversity. We start by discussing what a diversity program is, and its different types. We talk about bias. We discuss if current diversity programs work. We get into hara... |
| 2023-Mar-10 • 88 minutes #754 Jerome Wakefield: What is a Mental Disorder?; Depression, and Anxiety Dr. Jerome Wakefield is a Professor at NYU Silver as well as an NYU University Professor with multidisciplinary appointments. Dr. Wakefield’s scholarly specialty is the conceptual foundations of clinical theory. He’s the author of several books, including The Loss of Sadness, and All We Have to Fear. | In this episode, we talk about the concept of mental disorder, depression, and anxiety. After addressing the issues with the definition of mental disorder, we tackle depression, and discuss how to disti... |
| 2023-Mar-09 • 64 minutes #753 R. Paul Thompson: Evolution, Morality and the Fabric of Society Dr. R. Paul Thompson holds appointments as Professor in the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto. He has published extensively on evolutionary theory, population genetics, mathematical modelling in biology, theory structure in biology, philosophy of medicine, and ethics. He is the author of Evolution, Morality and the Fabric of Society. | In this episode, we focus on Evolution, Morality and the ... |
| 2023-Mar-06 • 60 minutes #752 Paul Bloom - Psych: The Story of the Human Mind Dr. Paul Bloom is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. Dr. Bloom studies how children and adults make sense of the world, with special focus on pleasure, morality, religion, fiction, and art. He is the author of seven books, including his latest Psych: The Story of the Human Mind. | In this episode, we focus on Psych. We talk about a mechanistic conception of mental life in modern psychology, and the relations... |
| 2023-Mar-03 • 61 minutes #751 Leslie Sponsel - Yanomami in the Amazon: Toward a more Ethical Anthropology beyond Othering Dr. Leslie Sponsel is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at UH Mānoa, Hawai’i. He is an expert in spiritual ecology, which is the vast, complex, diverse, and dynamic arena of intellectual and practical activities at the interfaces of religions and spiritualities with ecologies, environments, and environmentalisms. He is the author of several books, including the most recent one, Yanomami in the Amazon: Toward a more Ethical Anthropology beyond Othering. | In this episode, we focus on Yanom... |
| 2023-Mar-02 • 73 minutes #750 Adam Rutherford - Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics Dr. Adam Rutherford is Lecturer in Biology and Society at University College London’s Department of Genes, Evolution, and Environment, and President of Humanists UK. His interests are in evolution, genetics and developmental biology, and the history of biology. He is the author of Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics. | In this episode, we focus on Control. We start by discussing what eugenics is, and how old it is as an ideology. We discuss if it makes sense to talk about “good” and ... |
| 2023-Feb-27 • 69 minutes #749 Francesca Righetti: The Psychology of Close Relationships Dr. Francesca Righetti is an Associate Professor at the Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology at the VU Amsterdam. Dr. Righetti’s research focuses on close relationships. More specifically she studies sacrifice, ambivalence, and how dual processes shape relationship dynamics. | In this episode, we talk about close relationships. We first discuss sacrifice: what motivates it, when it is expected, when people regret it, and how they weigh its costs. We discuss when empathy is a burden, perceived p... |
| 2023-Feb-24 • 61 minutes #748 Tereza Capelos: Ressentiment, Populism, Brexit, and the Role of Trust in Politics Dr. Tereza Capelos is Associate Professor in Political Psychology at the University of Birmingham, and Director of the Institute for Conflict Cooperation and Security. Her research focuses on the role of emotions and values on political radicalization and tolerance, the formation and updating of institutional and individual reputations and the role of trust and confidence on political accountability attributions. | In this episode, we talk about topics in political psychology. We start with the mechanism of... |
| 2023-Feb-23 • 75 minutes #747 David Geary - Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences (Pt. 2) Dr. David C. Geary is Curators’ Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri. He’s the author of Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences. | This is our second talk on “Male, Female”. We go through topics like sexual selection; trade-offs between parental investment and mating; the evolution of fatherhood; intrasexual competition; mating systems (monogamy, polygyny, and polyandry); mate choice, mate preferences, and how they are influenc... |
| 2023-Feb-20 • 60 minutes #746 Simon Baron-Cohen: Autism, Systemizing, Empathy, and Sex Differences Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology and director of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. He has made major contributions to the fields of typical cognitive sex differences, autism, and synesthesia. Dr. Baron-Cohen was knighted in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to autistic people. His latest book is The Pattern Seekers: A New Theory of Human Invention. | In this episode, we talk about autism and sex differences. We first talk about autism; what ch... |
| 2023-Feb-17 • 134 minutes #745 Christopher Ferguson - Catastrophe!; Why Good People Make Bad Situations Worse Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson is professor of psychology at Stetson University. He is interested in media violence and, in particular, video games. He’s the author of Catastrophe!: How Psychology Explains Why Good People Make Bad Situations Worse. | In this episode, we focus on “Catastrophe!”. We talk about the cognitive biases that people have during emergencies. We get into topics like trends in suicide rates and blaming social media for it, views on relationships between races in the US. We discuss if the ... |
| 2023-Feb-16 • 71 minutes #744 Sander van der Linden - Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity Dr. Sander van der Linden is Professor of Social Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. He is the author of Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity. | In this episode, we focus on Foolproof. We start by distinguishing misinformation from disinformation, and then discuss if misinformation is on the rise, and if it spreads easier online. We talk about the psychological mechanisms that... |
| 2023-Feb-13 • 96 minutes #743 Vibeke Ottesen: The Evolution of Violence, and the Consequences of Banning Abortion Dr. Vibeke Ottesen is a Norwegian criminologist with an interest in how nature and nurture combined create human behavior. She has a popular science blog – Biosocial - where she comments on news, scientific findings and literature relevant to her subject – more often than not with an evolutionary informed approach to understanding the subject matter. | In this episode, we talk about violence from an evolutionary perspective. We get into the causes of criminal behavior, and discuss the relationship between m... |
| 2023-Feb-10 • 41 minutes #742 Zoe Liberman: Infant Social Cognition, Social Categorization, Gossip, and Ritual Dr. Zoe Liberman is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California Santa Barbara. Dr. Liberman investigates the origins and development of human social cognition. She is particularly interested in how infants begin to understand our complicated social world, as well as how this understanding changes across development and is shaped by experience. | In this episode, we talk about infant social cognition. We start by discussing if there is any particular period in development when children ... |
| 2023-Feb-09 • 71 minutes #741 Marya Schechtman: The Philosophy of the Self and Personal Identity Dr. Marya Schechtman is an LAS Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, as well as a member of the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her main areas of interest are personal identity, practical reasoning, and bioethics. She is the author of books like The Constitution of Selves (Cornell 1996), and Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (Oxford 2014). | In this episode, we talk about the self. We start by discussing what the self... |
| 2023-Feb-06 • 82 minutes #740 Tibor Rutar - Capitalism for Realists: Virtues and Vices of the Modern Economy Dr. Tibor Rutar is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, Researcher at the Center for the Study of Post-Socialist Societies in Maribor, and Researcher at the Research Center for Strategy and Governance at the University of Ljubljana. His scholarly work is currently focused on political, economic and historical sociology, particularly longstanding social issues related to democracy and capitalism. His latest book is Capitalism for Realists: Virtues and Vices of the Modern E... |
| 2023-Feb-04 • 4 minutes 5 Years + Support (I Still Need Your Help) The channel is now 5 years old. | This has been an amazing journey, and I thank you all very much for your support, and my guests for the great conversations. | Your recent response was incredible, but since my last video, another dear patron of mine has been afflicted by financial issues/inflation and had to drop his generous support. | This battle has not been won yet. I am now 20% away from the level of monthly support I was at before this crisis. | So, I would like to ask you if you could be so generous... |
| 2023-Feb-03 • 56 minutes #739 Aaron Sell: The Evolution of Anger and Hatred, and Justice-Making Institutions Dr. Aaron Sell is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Criminology at Heidelberg University. He is an evolutionary psychologist interested in anger and aggression, hatred, and formidability estimation. | In this episode, we talk about the evolution of the emotions of anger and hatred. We star by discussing emotions from an evolutionary perspective. We talk about anger, its functions, what triggers it, and cues of strength. We then get into hatred, how it differs from anger, and their relationship with reve... |
| 2023-Feb-02 • 53 minutes #738 Antoine Marie: Moral Convictions, Politics, Misinformation, and Conspiracy Theories Dr. Antoine Marie is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University, Denmark. He conducts cross-cultural psychology experiments and develops evolutionary theory to better understand, and if possible, mitigate, the cognitive biases that arise from people having strong moral convictions on controversial topics, typically in contexts of perceived intergroup conflict. | In this episode, we first discuss morality from an evolutionary perspective, including its social functi... |
| 2023-Jan-30 • 87 minutes #737 Christopher Burris - Evil in Mind: The Psychology of Harming Others Dr. Christopher Burris is a Professor of Psychology at St. Jerome's University, one of the six faculties that makes up the University of Waterloo. Over the years, he has dabbled in religion/spirituality, the self, sexuality, and motivation and emotion. He is the author of Evil in Mind: The Psychology of Harming Others. | In this episode, we focus on Evil in Mind. We talk about the criteria people use to label something as “evil”. We discuss the myth of pure evil. We talk about why and how people deflect the... |
| 2023-Jan-27 • 44 minutes #736 Todd Kashdan: The Psychology of Well-Being Dr. Todd Kashdan is Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. He is the author of The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why being your whole self - not just your “good” self - drives success and fulfillment, Curious? Discover the missing ingredient to a fulfilling life, and The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively. | In this episode, we talk about the psychology of well-being. We first define it as a psychological construct, and discuss how it is measured. We discuss aspects of psyc... |
| 2023-Jan-26 • 51 minutes #735 Daniel Blumstein: Predator-Prey Research, Antipredator Behavior, and Conservationism Dr. Daniel Blumstein is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He is a behavioral ecologist broadly interested in the evolution of behavior and the application of behavioral and evolutionary principles to policy, health, and defense. He is the author of books like A Primer of Conservation Behavior, The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It), ... |
| 2023-Jan-23 • 43 minutes #734 Helena Miton: Cognitive Science, Cultural Transmission, and Tacit Knowledge Dr. Helena Miton is Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. Dr. Miton’s research agenda approaches culture as an emergent effect of human everyday life. It aims to understand how individuals interact to produce, organize and transmit cultural systems. She studies cultural evolution using data from human and social sciences, with a strong emphasis on cognitive science. | In this episode, we talk about how we can study culture through cognitive science. We discuss lab studies and their limit... |
| 2023-Jan-20 • 54 minutes #733 Andrew Knoll - A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters Dr. Andrew Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard University. Professor Knoll’s honors include the Walcott Medal and the Mary Clark Thompson Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, the Moore Medal of the Society for Sedimentary Geology, the Paleontological Society Medal, and the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London. He is the author of A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters. | In this episode, we focus on A Brief History of Earth. We cover some ... |
| 2023-Jan-19 • 61 minutes #732 Jonas Olson: Ethics, Moral Error Theory, Abolitionism, Moral Nihilism, and Practical Philosophy Dr. Jonas Olson is Professor of Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University. His research areas include metaethics and related subjects. | In this episode, we talk about metaethics, and practical philosophy. We start by distinguishing metaethics from normative ethics and applied ethics. We talk about the main questions and approaches in metaethics. We get specifically into moral error theory, moral abolitionism, and moral nihilism. We also discuss what moral facts are. We talk about moral certitude. Finall... |
| 2023-Jan-16 • 51 minutes #731 Clara Mattei - The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism Dr. Clara Mattei is an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department of The New School for Social Research. Her research contributes to the history of capitalism, exploring the critical relation between economic ideas and technocratic policy making. She is the author of The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism. | In this episode, we focus on The Capital Order. We start by talking about how the relationship between the state and the market changed during World War I... |
| 2023-Jan-14 • 5 minutes THANK YOU! Thank you! Thanks to your incredible response to my previous video, I have recovered almost all of what I lost in November and December 2022. I am now just 3% away from the level of monthly support I was at before this crisis. | I am absolutely stunned by your love, kindness, encouragement, support, generosity, and by how much you value my work. You are definitely the best followers, fans, and supporters ever! | | ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedisse... |
| 2023-Jan-13 • 170 minutes #730 Victoria Dougherty: Science and Literature, Character Development, Realism, and Free Speech Victoria Dougherty is the author of The Bone Church, Welcome to the Hotel Yalta, and Cold. She writes fiction, drama, and essays that revolve around lovers, killers, curses, and destinies. Her work has been published or profiled in the New York Times, USA Today, The International Herald Tribune, and elsewhere. Her blog – COLD – features her short essays on faith, family, love, and writing. WordPress, the blogging platform that hosts some 70 million blogs worldwide, has singled out COLD as one of the Top 50 ... |
| 2023-Jan-12 • 53 minutes #729 Gregory Forth - Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid Dr. Gregory Forth received his doctorate at Oxford and was a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta for more than three decades. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and is the author of more than one hundred scholarly papers and several academic books. His latest book is Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid. | In this episode, we focus on Between Ape and Human. We first talk about Homo floresiensis: its discovery, its traits, and its relation t... |
| 2023-Jan-09 • 84 minutes #728 Filipe Nobre Faria: The Evolutionary Limits of Liberalism Dr. Filipe Nobre Faria currently works as a researcher in ethics and political philosophy at the Institute for Philosophy of the Nova University of Lisbon. He applies the insights of the behavioral and evolutionary sciences to issues in social and political philosophy. He is the author of The Evolutionary Limits of Liberalism: Democratic Problems, Market Solutions and the Ethics of Preference Satisfaction. | In this episode, we focus on The Evolutionary Limits of Liberalism. We start with the premise of the... |
| 2023-Jan-07 • 7 minutes I Need Help I need help. I’ve been struggling recently. Due to the awful effects of inflation, a few of my dear patrons had to cancel or reduce their support. Over the course of November and December 2022, I lost almost a third of my monthly support on Patreon. | In less than 5 years, I’ve already released more than 720 interviews, have many more scheduled to release, already have a full calendar until May 2023, and thousands of other potential guests on my list. I will release interview number 800 in June. | I’ve been... |
| 2023-Jan-06 • 56 minutes #727 Robert Talisse: Political Philosophy, Pragmatism, Democracy, and Liberalism Dr. Robert Talisse is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. His main area of research is political philosophy, with an emphasis on democratic theory and liberalism. | In this episode, we talk about pragmatism, democracy, and liberalism. We start by talking about what pragmatism is, and how it applies to political philosophy. We then discuss democracy, on what grounds it is justified, and the problems of pluralism and public ignorance. Finally, we talk about liberalism, and how it ... |
| 2023-Jan-05 • 75 minutes #726 Cristina Moya: Ethnic Categories, and Social Effects on Reproduction Dr. Cristina Moya is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. She is an evolutionary anthropologist interested in how humans respond adaptively to culturally structured social worlds. Two main foci of her research are: intergroup interactions and social cognition; and cross-cultural variation in social effects on reproduction. | In this episode, we talk about ethnic categories, and social effects on reproduction. We start by defining ethnic categories, and we talk about th... |
| 2023-Jan-02 • 74 minutes #725 Sarah Mathew: Human Sociality, Cooperation, Reciprocity, and Warfare Dr. Sarah Mathew is Associate Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. She studies the evolution of human ultra-sociality and the role of culture in enabling it. She is especially interested in how humans evolved the capacity to cooperate with millions of genetically unrelated individuals, and how this links to the origins of moral sentiments, prosocial behavior, norms, and large-scale warfare. | In this episode, we talk about the evolution of human sociality... |
| 2022-Dec-30 • 63 minutes #724 Lucia Melloni: Consciousness, Language, and Neuroplasticity Dr. Lucia Melloni is a Research Leader of the Neural Circuits, Consciousness and Cognition Group at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics. Her research areas include domain-general cortical computations, neural mechanisms by which the brain predictively controls sensory processing and perception, brain mechanism subserving language comprehension, and possibilities and limits of brain plasticity to restore cognitive functions. | In this episode, we talk about consciousness, language, and neuropla... |
| 2022-Dec-29 • 64 minutes #723 William Harris - Zero to Birth: How the Human Brain Is Built Dr. William Harris is Professor Emeritus of Anatomy at Cambridge University and fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. He was head of the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience since its formation in 2006 until his retirement in 2018. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2007, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2007, and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation in 2012. He is the author of Zero to Birth: How the Human Brain Is Built. | In this episode, we f... |
| 2022-Dec-26 • 64 minutes #722 Martin Lang: Rituals, Synchrony, Moralizing Gods, and the Study of Religion Dr. Martin Lang is an Assistant Professor at Masaryk University investigating the evolution of ritual behavior and the relationship between anxiety and rituals. | In this episode, we first talk about synchrony in the context of ritual, its psychological effects, identity fusion, how rituals might help internalize norms, and the effects of religious music. We then get into anxiety, what induces it, and how ritualized behavior helps control it. We also talk about the psychological effects of extreme religious... |
| 2022-Dec-23 • 61 minutes #721 Bart Streumer: Metaethics, Moral Facts, Error Theory, and Moral (Anti)-Realism Dr. Bart Streumer is Professor and Vice-Dean at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Groningen. His expertise is in metaethics and ethics. He is the author of Unbelievable Errors: An Error Theory About All Normative Judgements. | In this episode, we talk about metaethics. Topics include: the questions metaethics deals with; moral concepts, moral truths, and moral facts; challenges to moral realism; Dr. Streumer’s metaethical stance, based on error theory; and what moral anti-realists get wrong. | ... |
| 2022-Dec-22 • 78 minutes #720 Patrick McNamara - The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience: Decentering and the Self Dr. Patrick McNamara is an Associate Professor of Neurology in the Department of Neurology at the BU School of Medicine and Professor of Psychology at National University, and Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Religion Project, along with Dr. Jordan Grafman. He is the author of The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience: Decentering and the Self. | In this episode, we focus on The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience. We start by talking about the use of neuroscience in the study o... |
| 2022-Dec-19 • 88 minutes #719 Dimitris Xygalatas - Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living Dr. Dimitris Xygalatas is Associate Professor in Anthropology and Psychological Sciences and head of the Experimental Anthropology Lab at the University of Connecticut. He has also served as President of the International Association for the Cognitive and Evolutionary Sciences of Religion. He is the author of Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living. | In this episode, we focus on Ritual. We first ask what is a ritual, and how common it is. We talk about the functions of rituals, and how ... |
| 2022-Dec-16 • 93 minutes #718 Moshe Hoffman & Erez Yoeli - Hidden Games; Game Theory and Irrational Human Behavior (Pt. 2) Dr. Moshe Hoffman is a Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and Lecturer at Harvard's Department of Economics. He applies game theory, models of learning and evolution, and experimental methods, to try to decipher the (often subconscious and subtle) incentives that shape our social behavior, preferences, and ideologies. | Dr. Erez Yoeli is a Research Scientist at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where he directs the Applied Cooperation Team (ACT). His research focuses on ... |
| 2022-Dec-15 • 57 minutes #717 Allan Horwitz - DSM: A History of Psychiatry's Bible Dr. Allan Horwitz is Board of Governors Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Rutgers University. He has also chaired the Mental Health and Medical Sociology Sections of the American Sociological Association, as well as the Psychiatric Sociology Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. His research has focused on the sociology of mental health and illness. In addition, he has published several books, the most recent one being DSM: A History of Psychiatry's Bible. | In this episode, we focus on ... |
| 2022-Dec-12 • 67 minutes #716 Azar Gat - Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today’s Culture Wars Dr. Azar Gat is the Ezer Weizman Professor of National Security at Tel Aviv University, in Israel. He is the founder and head of the University's International Program in Security and Diplomacy Executive Master’s Program in Diplomacy and Security. His most recent book is Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today’s Culture Wars. | In this episode, we focus on Ideological Fixation. We start by addressing the premise of the book, and the current relevance of understanding ideology. We talk about ideolo... |
| 2022-Dec-09 • 55 minutes #715 Lee Edelman - No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive Dr. Lee Edelman is Fletcher Professor of English Literature at Tufts University. Dr. Edelman began his academic career as a scholar of twentieth-century American poetry. He has since become a central figure in the development, dissemination, and rethinking of queer theory. His current work explores the intersections of sexuality, rhetorical theory, cultural politics, and film. He is the author of books like No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive; and Sex, or the Unbearable. | In this episode, we focus ... |
| 2022-Dec-08 • 58 minutes #714 Robert Cialdini - Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Dr. Robert Cialdini is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Arizona State University. He has spent his entire career researching the science of influence, earning him an international reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance and prosocial behavior. He is the author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, a New York Times No. 1 bestseller, now in its third edition with over 5 million copies sold worldwide, and in over 40 languages. | In this episode, focus on Influence. We talk a bi... |
| 2022-Dec-05 • 94 minutes #713 Lucy Cooke - Bitch: On the Female of the Species Lucy Cooke is a New York Times best-selling author, award-winning documentary filmmaker and broadcaster, National Geographic explorer and TED talker with a Masters in Zoology from the University of Oxford. Her latest book is Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal. | In this episode, we focus on Bitch. We start by discussing the difference between sex and gender, and where assumptions regarding the female sex come from. We talk about behavioral sex differences, and how sex is de... |
| 2022-Dec-02 • 92 minutes #712 Lionel Page - Optimally Irrational: The Good Reasons We Behave the Way We Do Dr. Lionel Page is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Behavioural and Economic Science Cluster at the University of Queensland. He is interested in understanding how people make decisions, alone or in groups. He is the author of Optimally Irrational: The Good Reasons We Behave the Way We Do. | In this episode, we focus on Optimally Irrational. We start by discussing what it means to be optimally irrational, and how rationality has been traditionally studied in economics. We talk about biases, repl... |
| 2022-Dec-01 • 64 minutes #711 Daniel Williams: Beliefs, Rationalization Markets, Misinformation, and Motivated Cognition Dr. Daniel Williams is a Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, and an Associate Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI). He works mostly in the philosophy of mind and psychology. His primary research interest at the moment is on how various forms of irrationality and bias are socially adaptive, enabling individuals to achieve social goals that are in conflict with epistemic goals. | In this episode, we talk about beliefs, rationalization markets, mi... |
| 2022-Nov-28 • 109 minutes #710 Batja Mesquita - Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions Dr. Batja Mesquita is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where she studies the role of culture in emotions, and of emotions in culture and society. She is director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology in Leuven. She is the author of Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions. | In this episode, we focus on Between Us. We start by talking about what emotions are, and their functions. We discuss how people think about and categorize emotions, and the MINE (Me... |
| 2022-Nov-25 • 52 minutes #709 Jeanne Bovet: The Evolution of Female Attractiveness, and Parent-Offspring Conflict in Mating Dr. Jeanne Bovet is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at Northumbria University. Broadly, she tries to understand how evolution shaped our preferences, and what its consequences are in our contemporary lives. | Her work has covered various topics such as parent-offspring conflict over mate choice, variation in feminine beauty standards through history, sexual selection on age at menopause, and mate preferences for homogamy in facial features. | | In this episode, we talk about female a... |
| 2022-Nov-24 • 68 minutes #708 Denis Tatone: Interpreting Giving and Taking Actions, and the Development of Prosociality Dr. Denis Tatone is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cognitive Development Center at Central European University. He is a cognitive scientist broadly interested in the evolution and development of social cognition. His research focuses on how the mind represents the social world in terms of its constituent interactions, relations, and structures. He strives to develop a mechanistically tractable account of how humans from the first years of life form and flexibly transition among these representations. | In thi... |
| 2022-Nov-21 • 97 minutes #707 Renata Benavente: Saúde Mental, Psicogerontologia, Psicologia Forense e Justiça Social A Dra. Renata Benavente é Vice-Presidente da Direção Nacional da Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses (OPP). É doutorada em Psicologia Clínica pela FP-UL, e pós-graduada em Estudos e Intervenções com Famílias pela FPCE-UL e em Proteção de Menores pela FPCE-UL/ISCTE. É psicóloga clínica no ACES Almada-Seixal (desde 2016) e Psicóloga Forense no INMLCF, IP (desde 2011). É Investigadora no CRC-W – Católica Research Centre for Psychological, Family and Social Wellbeing. | Neste episódio, focamo-nos em sete áreas: ps... |
| 2022-Nov-18 • 47 minutes #706 Wiebke Bleidorn: Personality Change Across the Lifespan Dr. Wiebke Bleidorn is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich. Dr. Bleidorn examines the conditions, mechanisms, and consequences of personality change. Personality change is an emerging subfield that straddles the areas of personality, developmental, and social psychology. Dr. Bleidorn's work sits at this intersection. Her current research involves questions about the cultural and social conditions under which people change, the genetic and environmental mechanisms that account for change, a... |
| 2022-Nov-17 • 74 minutes #705 Christian Miller - Honesty: The Philosophy and Psychology of a Neglected Virtue Dr. Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. His research is primarily in contemporary ethics and philosophy of religion. He’s the author of several books, the most recent one being Honesty: The Philosophy and Psychology of a Neglected Virtue. | In this episode, we focus on Honesty. We start by discussing what makes something a virtue, and what honesty is. We talk about behaviors that are incompatible with honesty, with a focus on lying, cheating, and stealing... |
| 2022-Nov-14 • 84 minutes #704 Matthew Cobb - As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age Dr. Matthew Cobb is a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester, where his research focuses on the sense of smell, insect behavior and the history of science. He is also a historian of the French Resistance. He’s the author of several books, including As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age. | In this episode, we focus on As Gods. We first talk about the history of humans altering genomes, and the advent of genetic engineering. We discuss why geneticists paused their... |
| 2022-Nov-11 • 81 minutes #703 Neil Levy - Bad Beliefs: Why They Happen to Good People Dr. Neil Levy is Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. He is a wide-ranging philosopher, working principally at the intersection of philosophy of mind and psychology and ethics. He is the author of several books, including Bad Beliefs: Why They Happen to Good People. | In this episode, we focus on Bad Beliefs. We start by discussing what are rational beliefs, and concepts like higher-order evidence, and the epistemic environment. We discuss why sometimes people express bel... |
| 2022-Nov-10 • 80 minutes #702 Eric Schniter: Skill and Knowledge Acquisition, and Trust-Based Interactions Dr. Eric Schniter is a Lecturer in Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton, and a Visiting Research Associate at the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University. He has been examining the development of skill, knowledge and material production across the lifespan. He is also interested in how emotions calibrate personal and interpersonal behaviors, contributing to relationship maintenance and well-being. | In this episode, we talk about skill and knowledge acquisition, and trust-based in... |
| 2022-Nov-07 • 126 minutes #701 Anne Pisor: How Researchers Prepare for Fieldwork Dr. Anne Pisor is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. Her research interests include long-distance relationships and resource management, long-distance relationships and the downsides of climate change, and the evolution of human sociality. | In this episode, we talk about how anthropologists prepare for – and do – fieldwork. We go through the several stages, including the planning, the preparation, and the integration into the community. We get into specific issues regarding... |
| 2022-Nov-04 • 63 minutes #700 Claudio Tennie: Tool Behaviors in Great Apes, Cultural Transmission, and Cumulative Culture Dr. Claudio Tennie is a Tenured Research Group Leader (“Tools and Culture among Early Hominins”) in the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen. His main research triangulates what makes human cognition unique - as well as why. | In this episode, we talk about tool behaviors, and culture. We start with tool behaviors in apes, including flaked stone tools in orangutans and chimpanzees, and food cleaning in gorillas. We talk about what might have been the tool behav... |
| 2022-Nov-03 • 52 minutes #699 Kyle Fischer: Dual Evolutionary Foundations of Political Ideology Dr. Kyle Fischer has just finished his PhD in evolutionary political psychology at the University of Auckland. | In this episode, we talk about the evolutionary foundations of political ideology. We start by defining political ideology, and talking about how it has been traditionally studied. We discuss Dr. Fischer’s dual evolutionary foundations of political ideology model. We talk about what characterizes left-wing authoritarianism and right-wing authoritarianism. Finally, we discuss predictions derived f... |
| 2022-Oct-31 • 76 minutes #698 James Zimring - Partial Truths: How Fractions Distort Our Thinking Dr. James Zimring is Thomas W. Tillack Professor of Experimental Pathology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of What Science Is and How It Really Works (2019). His latest book is Partial Truths: How Fractions Distort Our Thinking. | In this episode, we focus on Partial Truths. We start with the premise of the book, and explain what a fraction is. We go through some biases and heuristics, like the confirmation bias and the availability heuristic, and talk about their evolution. We discuss bias ... |
| 2022-Oct-28 • 55 minutes #697 John Allen Paulos - Who’s Counting?; Uniting Numbers and Narratives with Stories Dr. John Allen Paulos is a Professor of Mathematics at Temple University. In 2003, he received the American Association for the Advancement of Science award for promoting public understanding of science, and in 2013 the Mathematics Communication Award from the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics. He is the author of several books, the most recent one being “Who’s Counting?: Uniting Numbers and Narratives with Stories from Pop Culture, Puzzles, Politics, and More”. | In this episode, we focus on “Who’s Counti... |
| 2022-Oct-27 • 57 minutes #696 Ryutaro Uchiyama: Cultural Evolution of Genetic Heritability Dr. Ryutaro Uchiyama is a Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests include cultural evolution, cognitive plasticity, and developmental psychobiology. | In this episode, we talk about the cultural evolution of genetic heritability. Dr. Uchiyama explains the cultural psychobiological framework. We talk about aspects of behavior genetics that get reframed in this framework, like heritability, the environment, gene-environment interactions, and gene-environment corr... |
| 2022-Oct-24 • 98 minutes #695 Susana Monsó: How Animals Experience and Understand Death Dr. Susana Monsó is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of Science at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. She was the recipient of the Lise Meitner FWF Austrian Science Fund. Her work focuses on the socio-cognitive abilities of animals and their ethical implications. She is the author of “La zarigüeya de Schrödinger: Cómo viven y entienden la muerte los animales”. | In this episode, we focus on “La zarigüeya de Schrödinger”. We start by talking about the fiel... |
| 2022-Oct-21 • 42 minutes #694 Patrick Savage: Musicology, the Evolution of Music, and Cross-Cultural Studies Dr. Patrick Savage is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies at Keio SFC, where he directs the CompMusic Lab for comparative and computational musicology. He has academic degrees in music composition (BA), psychology (MSc) and musicology (PhD), and has won national awards singing Japanese folk song. His research on the evolution of music and culture has appeared in outlets including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, The New York Times, and... |
| 2022-Oct-20 • 60 minutes #693 Stuart Vyse - The Uses of Delusion: Why It's Not Always Rational to Be Rational Dr. Stuart Vyse is a psychologist, teacher, speaker and author who specializes in belief in superstitions and critical thinking. He is a contributing editor for Skeptical Inquirer magazine. He has written personal and professional essays in a variety of places, including the Observer, Medium, The Atlantic, The Good Men Project, Tablet, and Time. His book Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition won the American Psychological Association's William James Book Award. His latest book is The Uses of De... |
| 2022-Oct-17 • 102 minutes #692 Annie Duke - Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away Annie Duke is an author, speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space, as well as Special Partner focused on Decision Science at First Round Capital Partners, a seed stage venture fund. As a former professional poker player, she has won more than $4 million in tournament poker. Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Annie’s latest book is Quit: The Power of Knowing When... |
| 2022-Oct-14 • 134 minutes #691 Radu Umbreș - Living with Distrust: Morality and Cooperation in a Romanian Village Dr. Radu Umbreș is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science at the National School for Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania. Dr. Umbreș does research in Social Anthropology, Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology. He is the author of Living with Distrust: Morality and Cooperation in a Romanian Village. | In this episode, we focus on Living with Distrust. First, we discuss the role of ethnography, and how it is done scientifically. We get into the village of Sateni, the focus the... |
| 2022-Oct-13 • 46 minutes #690 Catherine Molho: Norms, Punishment, Moral Emotions, Disgust, and Interdependence Dr. Catherine Molho is an assistant professor of social psychology at VU Amsterdam. Dr. Molho is a psychologist studying human cooperation, morality, and the role of emotions in decision-making. She draws upon insights from social and evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology to better understand the factors underlying cooperative and punitive decisions. In her work, she uses decision-making experiments, questionnaires, and intensive experience sampling methods. | In this episo... |
| 2022-Oct-10 • 48 minutes #689 Michael Tomasello - The Evolution of Agency: Behavioral Organization from Lizards to Humans Dr. Michael Tomasello is Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and James F. Bonk Distinguished Professor at Duke University. His most recent book is The Evolution of Agency: Behavioral Organization from Lizards to Humans. | In this episode, we focus on The Evolution of Agency. We talk about agency from an evolutionary perspective, focusing on the feedback control model of agency, and go through evolutionary history, touching on the first animate actors, the ... |
| 2022-Oct-07 • 59 minutes #688 Christopher Krupenye: Primatology, Theory of Mind, False Beliefs, and Sharing Behavior Dr. Christopher Krupenye is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Krupenye is interested in the cognitive abilities of humans and other species, especially those involved in navigating the social world. | In this episode, we talk about aspects of primate sociality. We start with theory of mind, and discuss if it is a unitary capacity, and how to study it in nonhuman primates. We ask if other primates have theory of mind, and talk abou... |
| 2022-Oct-06 • 51 minutes #687 Kristopher Smith: Human Cooperation, Partner Choice, and Long-Distance Relationships Dr. Kristopher Smith is a postdoc in the Human Sociality Lab in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University, where he studies long-distance relationships and natural resource management in Tanzania in collaboration with Anne Pisor and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder. This project applies evolutionary anthropology to better understand how communities can work together to manage shared, open-access fisheries. | In this episode, we talk about human cooperation. We start by talking about the a... |
| 2022-Oct-03 • 90 minutes #686 Olivier Morin: How Traditions Live and Die Dr. Olivier Morin has a full-time tenured research position at the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris. He is also a Research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Jena, with the Minds and Traditions Research Group. He is the author of How Traditions Live and Die. | In this episode, we focus on How Traditions Live and Die. We first define “tradition” and “culture”. We talk about theories of cultural transmission, like memetics, and forms of cultural transmission, like imitation, learning,... |
| 2022-Sep-30 • 57 minutes #685 Kim Sterelny - The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution Dr. Kim Sterelny is professor of philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington. He is the winner of several international prizes in the philosophy of science. He is currently the First Vice President of the Division for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (2020-2023). He is the author of The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture ... |
| 2022-Sep-29 • 137 minutes #684 Patrick Lee Miller: Plato vs. Nietzsche, Metaphysics, and Morality Dr. Patrick Lee Miller is an associate professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2012), and co-editor of Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy (Hackett, 2015). | In this episode, we talk about Nietzsche and Plato. We start by talking about Nietzsche’s phases in his writings, and ask if The Will to Power should be considered canon. We discuss why we can compare Nietzsc... |
| 2022-Sep-26 • 107 minutes #683 Allen Buchanan - Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism Dr. Allen Buchanan is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Duke University, and Laureate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. He has written six books covering such topics as applied ethics (especially bio-medical ethics), social justice, and international justice, including the foundations of international law. He is the author of Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism. | In this episode, we focus on Our Moral Fate. We discuss how to think ... |
| 2022-Sep-23 • 54 minutes #682 Daniel Willingham: Why Don't Students Like School? Dr. Daniel Willingham is Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. Until about 2000, his research focused solely on the brain basis of learning and memory. Today, all of his research concerns the application of cognitive psychology to K-16 education. He is the author of books like Cognition: The Thinking Animal, Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom, and Outsmart Your Brain. | In this episode, we foc... |
| 2022-Sep-22 • 44 minutes #681 Marjorie Prokosch: Harshness, the Immune System, and Climate Change Dr. Marjorie Prokosch is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Disasters, Trust, and Social Change Lab at the University of Florida, and an incoming Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She studies social and health-related decision-making, with an emphasis on how environmental threats and our own condition motivate our perceptions and behavior. In her current role at UF, she is examining how environmental hazards (like hurricanes) and climate change threats intersect with social inequality... |
| 2022-Sep-19 • 129 minutes #680 Jon Wisman - The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality: Sex, Politics, and Ideology Dr. Jon Wisman is Professor of Economics at American University in Washington, DC. He teaches graduate courses in the history of economic thought and economic methodology and undergraduate courses in macroeconomics, European economic history, American economic history, economic development, and labor economics. He is the author of The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality: Sex, Politics, and Ideology. | In this episode, we focus on The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality. We first talk about the different kinds... |
| 2022-Sep-16 • 99 minutes #679 Nick Enfield - Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists Dr. Nick Enfield is Professor and Chair of Linguistics at the University of Sydney and director of the Sydney Centre for Language Research. His latest book is Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists. | In this episode, we focus on Language vs. Reality. We talk about the premise of the book of language as both destroyer and creator. We discuss how language and reasoning are more about convincing people, rather than getting at the truth. We talk about perception and langu... |
| 2022-Sep-15 • 57 minutes #678 Gilbert Herdt: The Anthropology of Sexual Orientation Dr. Gilbert Herdt is Emeritus Professor of Human Sexuality Studies and Anthropology and a Founder of the Department of Sexuality Studies and the National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University. He founded the Summer Institute on Sexuality and Society at the University of Amsterdam (1996). He conducted long-term fieldwork among the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea, and has written widely on the nature and variation in human sexual expression in Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, and across cu... |
| 2022-Sep-12 • 65 minutes #677 Mahtab Jafari: The Truth About Dietary Supplements Dr. Mahtab Jafari is Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the School of Biological Sciences, and Director of the UCI Center for Healthspan Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of The Truth About Dietary Supplements: An Evidence-Based Guide to a Safe Medicine Cabinet. | In this episode, we focus on The Truth About Dietary Supplements. We start by talking about Dr. Jafari’s ... |
| 2022-Sep-09 • 52 minutes #676 Hector Qirko: Human Cooperation, Altruism, Kinship, and Institutions Dr. Hector Qirko is Professor of Anthropology at the College of Charleston. His research interests include applied anthropology, organizational and institutional cultures, evolutionary theory and cultural patterning, and popular culture and identity. | In this episode, we talk about the evolution of altruism. We start by talking about the most prominent evolutionary theories of human cooperation. We discuss how we can study intentional communities as a source of data about the evolution of cooperation. We g... |
| 2022-Sep-08 • 79 minutes #675 David Sloan Wilson: Religion, Multilevel Selection, Group Selection, and Designing Society Dr. David Sloan Wilson is SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. His books include Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society; and This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution. | In this episode, we focus on religion and multilevel selection. We start by talking about religion from an evolutionary perspective, its functions, and its individual benefits. We discuss the New Atheists’ take on religion, and the idea of “athei... |
| 2022-Sep-05 • 17 minutes #674 Bianca Acevedo: Attachment, Romantic Love, and Sensory Processing Sensitivity Dr. Bianca Acevedo is an Instructor at New York University. She is a social neuroscientist whose research focuses on the neural basis of attachment, caregiving, sensory processing sensitivity (and related disorders), and mind-body interventions. She conducted the first neuroimaging studies of long-term pair-bonding in humans for which she was awarded the 2012 International Women in Science Award. She joined the NRI in 2016 where she has been examining empathy in caregivers of ADRD individuals. Dr. Acevedo i... |
| 2022-Sep-02 • 53 minutes #673 Moshe Bar - Mindwandering; Mental Drift, Mood, and Creativity Dr. Moshe Bar is Head of the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at the Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University. He does research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Biological Psychiatry, NeuroImaging, and Learning and Memory. He is the author of Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Your Creativity. | In this episode, we focus on Mindwandering. Topics include: the default mode network; how thoughts get associated; good and bad types of mindwandering; the relati... |
| 2022-Sep-01 • 69 minutes #672 Michael Grenke - Warspeak: Nietzsche's Victory over Nihilism Dr. Michael Grenke is a Professor at St. John's College, with a BA from University of Chicago and PhD in Political Science and Government from Boston College. He has published numerous commentaries and translations on Nietzsche, and is a preeminent expert on that thinker. He wrote the Introduction to Warspeak: Nietzsche's Victory over Nihilism, authored by Dr. Lise van Boxel. | In this episode, we focus on Warspeak. We talk about nihilism, and its different kinds. We focus on Genealogy of Morals, and discus... |
| 2022-Aug-29 • 86 minutes #671 Victor Kumar - A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How it Made us Human Dr. Victor Kumar is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. He is director of the Mind and Morality Lab. His primary philosophical interests are in ethics, cognitive science, and evolutionary theory. He is the author (with Richmond Campbell) of A Better Ape: The Evolution of the Moral Mind and How it Made us Human. | In this episode, we focus on A Better Ape. We first present the gene-culture coevolution framework used in the book. We get into the three ingredients of the moral mind: core mo... |
| 2022-Aug-26 • 54 minutes #670 Steve Hamm - The Pivot: Addressing Global Problems Through Local Action Steve Hamm is a freelance writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of The Pivot: Addressing Global Problems Through Local Action, and Bangalore Tiger, and co-author with John Kelly of Smart Machines. | In this episode, we focus on The Pivot. We talk about Pivot Projects, including its creation, its goals, the motivations behind it, its approaches (systems thinking, AI systems), and its future. We also discuss climate change, economic inequality, the COVID-19 pandemic, and managing risk... |
| 2022-Aug-25 • 60 minutes #669 Stephen Darwall: Morality as Accountability, Moral Obligation, Rights, and Moral Psychology Dr. Stephen Darwall is the Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is deeply interested in moral philosophy and its history, and is focused on questions around the nature of moral obligation and well-being. | In this episode, we talk about some concepts in moral philosophy. We talk about Dr. Darwall’s take on “morality as accountability”, and how morality is objective. We discuss concepts such as moral obligation (and duty), moral respect, moral rights, and dignity. We talk about... |
| 2022-Aug-22 • 69 minutes #668 Annie Wertz: How Children Learn About Plants; Core Knowledge, and Human Universals Dr. Annie Wertz is Research Group Leader of the MPRG Naturalistic Social Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin. Her research investigates how infants and young children think about and learn from other people in naturalistic circumstances. Her work provided the first evidence that human infants do indeed possess behavioral and social learning strategies that are selective to plants (e.g., infants avoid plant dangers and selectively learn that some plants are edible). | In this ... |
| 2022-Aug-19 • 51 minutes #667 Justin Gregg - If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal; Evolution, Animal Intelligence, and Human Stupidity Dr. Justin Gregg is a Senior Research Associate with the Dolphin Communication Project and an Adjunct Professor at St. Francis Xavier University, where he lectures on animal behavior and cognition. Originally from Vermont, Dr. Gregg studied the echolocation abilities of wild dolphins in Japan and the Bahamas. He is the author of If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity. | In this episode, we focus on If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal. We first talk about Nietzsche’s thou... |
| 2022-Aug-18 • 54 minutes #666 Luana Maroja: Gene Exchange, Adaptation, Speciation, and Phylogeography Dr. Luana Maroja is Professor of Biology at Williams College. She is interested in the evolution of barriers to gene exchange, speciation, population genetics and phylogeography. Her study systems are crickets (Gryllus), artic plants and butterflies (heliconius). | In this episode, we talk about gene exchange, adaptation, speciation, and phylogeography. We start with gene exchange, and talk about how it occurs, gene transfers between species, and barriers to gene exchange. We talk about modular expression o... |
| 2022-Aug-15 • 58 minutes #665 Scott Grafton - Physical Intelligence; The Relationship Between the Body and the Mind Dr. Scott Grafton is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California Santa Barbara. Dr. Grafton is interested in how people organize movement into goal-oriented action. The emphasis is on elucidating the cognitive architecture that underlies action representation. He is the author of Physical Intelligence: The Science of How the Body and the Mind Guide Each Other Through Life. | In this episode, we focus on Physical Intelligence. We talk about physical intelligence and embodied cogniti... |
| 2022-Aug-12 • 55 minutes #664 Summer Mengelkoch: Early Life Stressors, Life History, Physiology, and Decision-Making Dr. Summer Mengelkoch has recently finished her PhD in experimental social psychology at Texas Christian University. She has just accepted a postdoc position at UCLA under George Slavich. She earned a B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 2013, and an M.S. From Texas Christian University in 2020. Dr. Mengelkoch seeks to better understand relationships between biology and behavior. To do so, she investigates relationships between biological factors (including hormones, hormonal contraceptive use, and immu... |
| 2022-Aug-11 • 46 minutes #663 Johannes Mahr: Episodic Memory, Imagination, and their Social Functions Dr. Johannes Mahr is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Schacter Memory Lab at Harvard University. He will be a professor of Philosophy at York University in Toronto. Before that, he was a Mind, Brain, and Behavior Fellow with a joint appointment in the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology at Harvard. He completed his PhD in Cognitive Science under the supervision of Gergely Csibra and Dan Sperber at Central European University. His work combines philosophical and empirical approaches to study episodic memory... |
| 2022-Aug-08 • 58 minutes #662 Christopher von Rueden: Leadership and Hierarchy from an Evolutionary Perspective Dr. Christopher von Rueden is Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. An anthropologist with expertise in traditional human societies, his research focuses on how humans form status hierarchies, why we evolved to do so, and the demographic and ecological factors that cause our hierarchies to be more or less coercive. Relatedly, he studies the role of leader-follower relationships in the evolution of human cooperation. In addition to his work on status and leadership, he has ... |
| 2022-Aug-05 • 59 minutes #661 Kristina Durante: The Career-Family Trade-Off for Modern Women, and Changing Gender Norms Dr. Kristina Durante is an evolutionary psychologist and Professor of Marketing, Marketing Department Vice Chair, and the marketing Ph.D. program coordinator at Rutgers Business School. She is a social psychologist interested in the biology of decision-making.Her areas of expertise include women’s consumer choice and luxury spending, family consumer decisions, hormones and behavior, and the psychological consequences of ambiguity. | In this episode, we talk about the complicated trade-off women many times h... |
| 2022-Aug-04 • 97 minutes #660 William Costello: The Psychology of Involuntary Celibates (Incels), and Modern Mating William Costello finished his MSc in Psychology: Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London in 2021. The topic of his thesis was incels. Later this year he will join Dr. David Buss's Evolutionary Psychology lab at the University of Texas at Austin, as a PhD student. He will retain an honorary research assistant role at Swansea University. He writes opinion pieces on a range of cultural issues including gender and identity politics, and his work has been featured in Quillette and Areo, and his academi... |
| 2022-Aug-01 • 77 minutes #659 Nick Chater & Morten Christiansen - The Language Game; Language as a Game of Charades Dr. Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. He works on rationality and language using a range of theoretical and experimental approaches. | Dr. Morten Christiansen is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. His research focuses on the interaction of biological and environmental constraints in the evolution, acquisition and processing of language. | They are both authors of The Language Game: How Improvisation C... |
| 2022-Jul-29 • 82 minutes #658 Todd Kashdan - The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively Dr. Todd Kashdan is Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. He has been named Distinguished Faculty Member of the Year at George Mason University and received the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology. His new book is The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively. | In this episode, we focus on The Art of Insubordination. We start by defining insubordination. We discuss conformity, its relationship to per... |
| 2022-Jul-28 • 53 minutes #657 David Benatar - The Fall of the University of Cape Town: Africa’s Leading University in Decline Dr. David Benatar is professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa. He is best known for his advocacy of anti-natalism in his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, in which he argues that coming into existence is a serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings. His new book is The Fall of the University of Cape To... |
| 2022-Jul-25 • 67 minutes #656 Tereza Capelos: The Psychology of Political Radicalization, Tolerance, and Reactionism Dr. Tereza Capelos is Associate Professor in Political Psychology at the University of Birmingham, Director of the Institute for Conflict Cooperation and Security, Director for the MSc in Political Psychology of International Relations, and President of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). Her research focuses on the affective, cognitive and motivational determinants of political judgments. She is particularly interested in the role of emotions and values on political radicalization and... |
| 2022-Jul-22 • 81 minutes #655 Anne Pisor: Studying Subsistence Societies, Long-Distance Relationships, and Climate Change Dr. Anne Pisor is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. Her research interests include long-distance relationships and resource management, long-distance relationships and the downsides of climate change, and the evolution of human sociality. | In this episode, we talk about topics in evolutionary anthropology, including: long-distance relationships, and how they’re built; inter-group tolerance; studying human sociality in preliterate societies, and the assumptions we have abou... |
| 2022-Jul-21 • 38 minutes #654 Russell Blackford: Religious Freedom, Atheism, Scientism, Nihilism, and Morality Dr. Russell Blackford is a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and a Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism. He holds an honorary appointment as Conjoint Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Newcastle. He is the author of several books, including Freedom of Religion and the Secular State, 50 Great Myths About Atheism, The Mystery of Moral Authority, and The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism. | In this episode, we talk about religio... |
| 2022-Jul-18 • 92 minutes #653 Cas Soper - The Evolution of Life Worth Living: Why we choose to live Dr. Cas Soper is a psychotherapist and psychologist in private practice. Dr. Soper has degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of London, and is registered by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His therapeutic work specializes in helping people deal with addiction, depression, bereavement and other life crises. He is the author of The Evolution of Suicide, and, more recently, The Evolution of Life Worth Living: Why we choose to live. | In this episode, we focus on... |
| 2022-Jul-15 • 85 minutes #652 Steven Frank - Microbial Life History: The Fundamental Forces of Biological Design Dr. Steven Frank is Donald Bren Professor & UCI Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. His areas of expertise are evolutionary genetics, host-parasite interactions and social evolution. He is the author of books like Foundations of Social Evolution, Immunology and Evolution of Infectious Disease, and more recently, Microbial Life History: The Fundamental Forces of Biological Design. | In this episode, we... |
| 2022-Jul-14 • 71 minutes #651 Bernard Reginster - The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism Dr. Bernard Reginster is Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. Dr. Reginster's research has focused mostly on issues in ethics, metaethics, and moral psychology in 19th century German philosophy. His new research interests include the topics of identity and intersubjectivity, for which he considers ideas from psychoanalytic theory, 20th century Continental philosophy, and contemporary Anglo-Saxon philosophy. He is the author of The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism, which offers a... |
| 2022-Jul-11 • 49 minutes #650 Melanie MacEacheron: The Evolution of Motherhood, Marital Surname Change, and Feminism Dr. Melanie MacEacheron is a Lecturer in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University. Her current research focus is women's psychology as potential or actual mothers or allomothers, and sex differences in mateships and romantic relationships. Of particular interest to her, is our ability to creatively label or act on evolved desires in order to serve our evolutionary interests, even or especially where these are not consciously known to us, and to influence others. | In this epi... |
| 2022-Jul-08 • 60 minutes #649 Bence Nanay: Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science, Mental Representations, and Perception Dr. Bence Nanay is Professor of Philosophy and BOF Research Professor at the University of Antwerp and has worked as a film critic. He is co-director of the Centre for Philosophical Psychology at the University of Antwerp. He is a cognitive scientist and philosopher of mind, working on perception, attention, mental imagery and action. He also works on topics in aesthetics. | In this episode, we talk about philosophy of mind and cognitive science. We start by discussing their relationship, and the role of ex... |
| 2022-Jul-07 • 56 minutes #648 Niamh McLoughlin: Child Social Development, Religion, Mental State Talk, and Group Affiliation Dr. Niamh McLoughlin is a Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at University of Kent. She studies how social information impacts young children’s cognition, evaluations and behavior. | In this episode, we talk about children’s social cognition. We first discuss how early children start processing social information, and then go through topics like religiosity and religious beliefs; believing in the content of stories; inferring causal relations; mental state talk, and theory of mind; the development of grou... |
| 2022-Jul-04 • 59 minutes #647 James Fallon: Psychopathy, Personality Disorders, Brain Scans, and the Nature-Nurture Debate Dr. James Fallon is professor of psychiatry and human behavior and emeritus professor of anatomy and neurobiology in the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. His research interests include adult stem cells, chemical neuroanatomy and circuitry, higher brain functions, and brain imaging. He is the author of The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain. | In this episode, we talk about psychopathy. We get into what it is, how it is diagnosed, its ge... |
| 2022-Jul-01 • 62 minutes #646 Russ Shafer-Landau: Metaethics, and Moral Realism Dr. Russ Shafer-Landau is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His primary interest is in ethics. He is the author of Moral Realism: A Defence (Oxford 2003), Whatever Happened to Good and Evil? (Oxford 2004), and The Fundamentals of Ethics (Oxford 2010). He is the editor of Oxford Studies in Metaethics, and is the founder and organizer of the annual Madison Metaethics Workshop (MadMeta). He is also the director of the Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics. | In this episode, we talk ab... |
| 2022-Jun-30 • 66 minutes #645 Steven Churchill: Homo naledi, Australopithecus sediba, and Human Evolution Dr. Steven Churchill is a Professor and past Chair of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University. He is also an Honorary Reader in the Evolutionary Studies Institute and Centre for Excellence in PalaeoSciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is a paleontologist who studies the fossil record of human evolution, especially that of early members of our genus (Homo) that lived between about two million to ten thousand years ago. | In this episode, we talk about aspects of human ev... |
| 2022-Jun-27 • 67 minutes #644 Mathias Clasen: The Evolutionary Psychology of Horror, Apocalyptic Stories, and Villains Dr. Mathias Clasen is associate professor in literature and media at Aarhus University. He is the Director of the Recreational Fear Lab, and Associate Editor of Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture. He studies horror fiction, and is the author of Why Horror Seduces, and A Very Nervous Person's Guide to Horror Movies. | In this episode, we talk about horror from an evolutionary perspective. We discuss horror from an evolutionary perspective, and the sociocultural factors behind it. We talk about the t... |
| 2022-Jun-24 • 100 minutes #643 Masahiro Morioka - Manga Introduction to Philosophy; Life, Death, Time, and the Meaning of Life Dr. Masahiro Morioka is a professor of philosophy and ethics at Waseda University, Japan. He is the director of Tokyo Philosophy Project, and the editor-in-chief of Journal of Philosophy of Life. He specializes in philosophy of life, life studies, bioethics, gender studies, and criticism of contemporary civilization. He is the author of books like Manga Introduction to Philosophy: An Exploration of Time, Existence, the Self, and the Meaning of Life. | In this episode, we focus on Manga Introduction to Philo... |
| 2022-Jun-23 • 135 minutes #642 Douglas Kenrick & David Lundberg-Kenrick - Solving Modern Problems with a Stone-Age Brain Dr. Douglas Kenrick is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. | David E. Lundberg-Kenrick is Program Manager of Psychology at Arizona State University. | They are both authors of Solving Modern Problems with a Stone-Age Brain: Human Evolution and the Seven Fundamental Motives. | In this episode, we focus on Solving Problems with a Stone-Age Brain. We start with the premise of the book, and go through the following topics: the seven fundamental motives; stone-age brains; how... |
| 2022-Jun-20 • 62 minutes #641 Robert Barton: The Evolution of the Primate Brain, The Visual Brain, and the Color Red Dr. Robert Barton is Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Member of the Durham Cultural Evolution Research Centre at Durham University, UK. He is an evolutionary biologist/anthropologist interested in brains, behavior and cognition, using phylogenetic comparative methods to study how these traits evolved. He developed and tested the 'Visual brain hypothesis' for primate brain size evolution. | In this episode, we talk about the evolution of the primate brain. We talk about the relationship between t... |
| 2022-Jun-17 • 69 minutes #640 Manvir Singh: Going Beyond the Nomadic-Egalitarian Model of Hunter-Gatherers Dr. Manvir Singh is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Toulouse. His research program aims to explain why societies develop complex, recurrent traditions such as shamanism, witchcraft, origin myths, property rights, sharing norms, lullabies, dance, music, and gods, as these have appeared in all types of societies across the globe, from nomadic hunter-gatherer bands to complex, industrial, mega-urbanized states. | In this episode, we talk about a recent paper of his, “Hu... |
| 2022-Jun-16 • 62 minutes #639 Leonid Tiokhin: Producing Scientific Knowledge, and Improving the Social Sciences Dr. Leonid Tiokhin is Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Amsterdam, and a postdoctoral researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Dr. Tiokhin is a meta-scientist who studies the forces that shape how scientists do their work and make inferences from the populations that they study. Much of his research focuses on how incentive structures affect scientific efficiency and reliability, and how we can improve the recognition and reward structures in science. | In... |
| 2022-Jun-13 • 60 minutes #638 Henkjan Honing: The Evolution, Cognition, and Neuroscience of Musicality and Music Dr. Henkjan Honing is professor in Music Cognition at both the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He conducts his research under the auspices of the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) and the University of Amsterdam's Brain and Cognition (ABC) Center. Dr. Honing is known as a passionate researcher in this new interdisciplinary field that gives us fundamental insights in the cognitive mechanisms underlying musicality. He published several ... |
| 2022-Jun-10 • 64 minutes #637 Lars Sandman: Ethics in Healthcare, Priority Settings, and End-of-Life Decisions Dr. Lars Sandman is Professor of Healthcare Ethics at Linköping University, and Director at National Centre for Priorities in Health, in Sweden. His research area is organizational ethics in healthcare, focusing on priority setting and ethical analysis of healthcare methods. He is the author of A Good Death: On the Value of Death and Dying. | In this episode, we talk about ethics in healthcare. We talk about organizational ethics in healthcare, and the questions it deals with. We discuss Person Centered Car... |
| 2022-Jun-09 • 67 minutes #636 Dan Weijers: The Philosophy of Wellbeing and Happiness Dr. Dan Weijers is a permanent Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy Programme at the University of Waikato, in New Zealand. His research specialties include normative ethics (especially hedonism, wellbeing, and experimental normative ethics), applied ethics (especially the ethics of prediction markets; e.g. PredictIt), and interdisciplinary happiness/wellbeing research (especially wellbeing and public policy, philosophy of happiness science, and conceptions of happiness). | In this episode, we talk about wellb... |
| 2022-Jun-06 • 86 minutes #635 Mattia Riccardi: Nietzsche’s Philosophical Psychology Dr. Mattia Riccardi is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Porto. He does work in the areas of philosophy of mind, Nietzsche’s philosophy, Kant’s philosophy, 19th-century German philosophy, phenomenology, philosophy of perception, and philosophy of action. He is the author of Nietzsche’s Philosophical Psychology. | In this episode, we focus on Nietzsche’s Philosophical Psychology. Topics include: Nietzsche's approach to psychology, and its “naturalism”; drives and affects; the so... |
| 2022-Jun-03 • 58 minutes #634 Simon Garnier: Swarm Intelligence, Collective Decision-Making, and Human Societies Dr. Simon Garnier is an Associate Professor of Biology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is the head of the Swarm Lab, an interdisciplinary research lab that studies the mechanisms underlying Collective Behaviors and Swarm Intelligence in natural and artificial systems (http://www.theswarmlab.com). His research aims to reveal the detailed functioning of collective intelligence in systems as diverse as ant colonies, human crowds or robotic swarms. | In this episode, we talk about swarm intelligen... |
| 2022-Jun-02 • 42 minutes #633 Svetlana Rudenko: Music Perception and Cognition, Consciousness, and Synaesthesia Dr. Svetlana Rudenko is a concert pianist and educator bringing a new feeling to the way in which sound, music, and art are perceived and experienced in new media. Dr. Rudenko was awarded Dr of Arts from University of Granada, Spain. In addition, she had three years on a Doctorate in the Music Performance program, Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin, Ireland, MMus in Performance from Conservatory of Music and Drama Dublin Institute of Technology, PG Dip in Interactive Digital Media from School of Computer ... |
| 2022-May-30 • 48 minutes #632 Dario Maestripieri: Human Nature, Individual Differences, Knowledge, and Consilience Dr. Dario Maestripieri is a Professor in Comparative Human Development and is also affiliated with the Institute on the Formation of Knowledge at the University of Chicago. His current main interests are, a) evolution of human behavior and its biological regulation, b) 20th century European literature. | In this episode, we talk about human nature, individual differences, knowledge, and consilience. We discuss what human nature is, how to account for individual differences in human behavior, and personality... |
| 2022-May-27 • 53 minutes #631 Laura Vowels: Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction, Sexual Values, and the COVID-19 Pandemic Dr. Laura Vowels is an ICEEFT certified emotionally-focused (EFT) therapist and a junior lecturer/postdoctoral researcher at University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She has published extensively on topics pertaining to romantic relationships and sexual desire and well-being. She also works as a principal researcher for Blueheart.io. Blueheart’s mission is to bring sex therapy to millions of couples in an app format to help couples navigate issues around sexual desire discrepancy. | In this episode, we talk abo... |
| 2022-May-26 • 48 minutes #630 Suki Finn: Epistemology of Logic, the Philosophy of Love, and the Metaphysics of Pregnancy Dr. Suki Finn is a Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway University of London. Her research spans the areas of metametaphysics, the metaphysics of pregnancy, the epistemology of logic, and feminist and queer theory. She is the editor of 'Women of Ideas' published with Oxford University Press which is a selection of interviews with women from Philosophy Bites. She is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy; she is on the Executive Committee for the Society for Women in Philosophy UK; she is on... |
| 2022-May-23 • 67 minutes #629 Robert Pennock - An Instinct for Truth: Curiosity and the Moral Character of Science Dr. Robert Pennock is University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University, where he is on the faculty of Lyman Briggs College, the Departments of Philosophy and Computer Science & Engineering, and the Ecology, Evolution and Behavior program. His research involves empirical and philosophical questions that relate to evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and the scientific character, such as the evolution of altruism, complexity, and intelligence. He is the author of books like An Instinct ... |
| 2022-May-20 • 58 minutes #628 Branko Milanović: Capitalism, and Global Inequality Dr. Branko Milanović is Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center and a senior fellow at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at The City University of New York (CUNY). Dr. Milanović’s main area of work is income inequality, in individual countries and globally, as well as historically, among pre-industrial societies, and even inequality in soccer. His books include “The Haves and the Have-nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality”, “Global Inequality: A New Approach for the ... |
| 2022-May-19 • 54 minutes #627 Tanya Luhrmann - How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others Dr. Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Albert Ray Lang Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department. She is a medical and psychological anthropologist, and also an anthropologist of religion. More recently she describes her work as an anthropology of mind. Her books include How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others. | In this episode, we focus on How God Becomes Real. We cover the main hypotheses put forth in the book: people don’t easily have faith in gods and spirits; detailed stories ... |
| 2022-May-16 • 56 minutes #626 Tanisha Fazal - Wars of Law: Unintended Consequences in the Regulation of Armed Conflict Dr. Tanisha Fazal is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Her research and teaching focus on sovereignty, international law, medical care in conflict zones, and armed conflict. From 2021–2023, she is also an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. She is the author of State Death: The Politics and Geography of Conquest, Occupation, and Annexation; and Wars of Law: Unintended Consequences in the Regulation of Armed Conflict. | In this episode, we focus on Wars of Law. We talk about the history of... |
| 2022-May-13 • 58 minutes #625 Francesca Luberti: The Relationship Between Mating Strategies and Socio-political Orientation Dr. Francesca Luberti has recently completed a PhD at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES), UNSW Sydney. She is now doing a postdoc in the Social Neuroendocrinology Lab at Nipissing University in Canada. Dr. Luberti does research in Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Biology, Social Psychology, and Biological Anthropology. | In this episode, we talk about the relationship between mating strategies and socio-political orientation, and laughter. We start be defining mating stra... |
| 2022-May-12 • 72 minutes #624 David Leiser - How We Misunderstand Economics And Why It Matters Dr. David Leiser is a professor of economic and social psychology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Dr. Leiser has served as President of the Economic Psychology division of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) since 2014. He is the author of Cognitive Science and Genetic Epistemology - a Case Study of Understanding, and How We Misunderstand Economics And Why It Matters: The Psychology of Bias, Distortion and Conspiracy. | In this episode, we focus on How We Misunderstand Economic... |
| 2022-May-09 • 49 minutes #623 Leonard Newman: Self-concept, Wrongdoing, Attitudinal Ambivalence, and Pluralistic Ignorance Dr. Leonard Newman is Associate Professor of Psychology at Syracuse University. At the broadest level, Dr. Newman’s research focuses on the motivational aspects of social cognition. More specific interests include dehumanization, social stigma, defensive and self-protective processes in judgment and memory, and the social psychology of genocide and mass killing. | In this episode, we talk about issues in social psychology. We talk about the self-concept, and how people deal with threats to it. We discuss ho... |
| 2022-May-06 • 56 minutes #622 Jessica Isserow: Moral Hypocrisy, Moral Worth, Debunking Arguments, and Moral Nihilism Dr. Jessica Isserow is a Lecturer in Moral and Political Philosophy at the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science at the University of Leeds. Her main research interests are in metaethics, normative ethics, and moral psychology. | In this episode, we talk about questions in metaethics. Topics include: moral hypocrisy, moral authority, what makes an action morally worthy, doing the right thing by accident, having bad people as friends, evolutionary debunking arguments, moral error theory, and ... |
| 2022-May-05 • 76 minutes #621 Jack Symes - The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast; Philosophers on Consciousness Jack Symes is the producer of The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast and editor of the Bloomsbury series, Talking about Philosophy. He is currently Teacher and Researcher of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, UK. He is the editor of Philosophers on Consciousness: Talking about the Mind. | In this episode, we focus on Philosophers on Consciousness. We first talk about The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast. We discuss what consciousness is, why it matters, and philosophical approaches to it. We ask what we nee... |
| 2022-May-02 • 65 minutes #620 John Barry - Perspectives in Male Psychology (Pt.2) - Education, Criminality, Military Dr. John Barry is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS), Honorary Lecturer in Psychology at University College London, clinical hypnotherapist and author of around 70 peer-reviewed publications on a variety of topics in psychology and health, including many on male psychology. He has also co-authored letters to The Psychologist magazine to raise awareness of issues relevant to male psychology. Dr. Barry co-founded both the Male Psychology Network and the Ma... |
| 2022-Apr-29 • 59 minutes #619 Philip Dwyer The Darker Angels of Our Nature: Refuting the Pinker Theory of History & Violence Dr. Philip Dwyer is Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He has published widely on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, including a three-volume biography of Napoleon. He is the general editor of a four volume Cambridge World History of Violence, and co-editor of the Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars. He is the editor of The Darker Angels of Our Nature: Refuting the Pinker Theory of History & Violence. | In this episode, we focus o... |
| 2022-Apr-28 • 60 minutes #618 Lee McIntyre - How to Talk to a Science Denier Dr. Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. His new book is How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason. | In this episode, we focus on How to Talk to a Science Denier. We characterize a science denier, and talk about the five tropes of science denial. We discuss how politics and ideology influence science denial. We talk about the strategies people can use to engage with sc... |
| 2022-Apr-25 • 58 minutes #617 Frans de Waal - Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist Dr. Frans de Waal is a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is Emeritus Candler Professor at Emory University, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Utrecht, and author of numerous books including Chimpanzee Politics, The Bonobo and the Atheist, Mamma’s Last Hug, and, more recently, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist. | In this episode, we focus on Different. We first ask where behavioral sex differences come from, and how we compare to other great Apes. We discuss self-socializat... |
| 2022-Apr-22 • 56 minutes #616 John Baird Callicott: Environmental Philosophy, Ethics, and Climate Change Dr. John Baird Callicott is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and a member of the Department of Philosophy and Religion and the Institute of Applied Sciences at the University of North Texas. He is a philosopher whose work has been at the forefront of the new field of environmental philosophy and ethics. He is the author of books like In Defense of the Land Ethic, Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, and Greek Natural Philosophy: The Presocratics and Their Importance for Environmenta... |
| 2022-Apr-21 • 52 minutes #615 Mark Moffett - The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall Dr. Mark W. Moffett is a tropical biologist and research associate at the Smithsonian and used to be a visiting scholar in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, which he used to write his book, The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall. | In this episode, we focus on The Human Swarm. We go through topics like: what is a society; what makes humans successful; different types of hunter-gatherer societies; how societies scale up; markers of membership; how people ... |
| 2022-Apr-18 • 72 minutes #614 Andrew Sayer - Why We Can't Afford the Rich; Economic Inequality, And Where It Stems From Dr. Andrew Sayer is Emeritus Professor of Social Theory and Political Economy at Lancaster University. He is known for significant contributions to methodology and theory in the social sciences. He is the author of multiple books, including Why We Can't Afford the Rich. | In this episode, we focus on Why We Can’t Afford the Rich. We start by talking about economic inequality, and how it got worse since the rise of neoliberalism. We define who are the “rich”, and go through how they took control of the econo... |
| 2022-Apr-15 • 61 minutes #613 Hannah Bradshaw: Female beauty, Beautification, Luxury Products, and Food Choices Dr. Hannah K. Bradshaw is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Washington and Jefferson College. Her research program explores how interpersonal and ecological cues might affect our perceptions and decisions in the broader social world. While she has a wide variety of research interests, she tends to gravitate towards questions that pertain to disgust sensitivity, women’s sociality, and consumer preferences and behavior. | In this episode, we talk about female beauty, beautification, ec... |
| 2022-Apr-14 • 58 minutes #612 Ralph Schroeder: Virtual Environments, Online Politics, Populism, and Big Data Dr. Ralph Schroeder is Professor in Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute. Dr. Schroeder has interests in virtual environments, the social aspects of e-science, and the sociology of science and technology. He has written extensively about virtual reality technology. He is the author of several books, including Knowledge Machines: Digital Transformations of the Sciences and Humanities, and Social Theory After the Internet: Media, Technology, and Globalization. | In this episod... |
| 2022-Apr-11 • 38 minutes #611 Jennifer Church - Why It’s Ok to be of Two Minds Dr. Jennifer Church is a Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Her research addresses various topics in the philosophy of mind. She is the author of Possibilities of Perception (Oxford UP, 2013), and Why It’s OK to Be of Two Minds. | In this episode, we focus on Why It’s Ok to be of Two Minds. We talk about what it means to be of two minds; the positive effects of not eliminating the conflict; three different models of dealing with the conflict: a juggler model, an isometrics ... |
| 2022-Apr-08 • 47 minutes #610 Dorothea Debus: Philosophy of Memory, and Mental Self-regulation Dr. Dorothea Debus is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at Konstanz University, with a special focus on the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. Her main area of research is the Philosophy of Mind. A substantial part of her published work is concerned with the mental phenomenon of memory; but she has also written on various other mental phenomena – imagination, attention, perception and the emotions. | In this episode, we talk about philosophy of memory, and mental self-regulation. We ... |
| 2022-Apr-07 • 86 minutes #609 Joel Marks: Morality, Amorality, Desirism, and Animal Ethics Dr. Joel Marks is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven and a Bioethics Center Scholar at Yale University. His main areas of scholarly interest have been theoretical and applied ethics, both having come together in recent years in thinking about animal ethics. Meanwhile a new area of interest is planetary defense (against comets and asteroids). He is the author of several books, including Ethics Without Morals: In Defense of Amorality; It's Just a Feeling: The Philosophy of Desiris... |
| 2022-Apr-04 • 108 minutes #608 Moshe Hoffman & Erez Yoeli - Hidden Games; Game Theory and Irrational Human Behavior Dr. Moshe Hoffman is a Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and Lecturer at Harvard's Department of Economics. | Dr. Erez Yoeli is a research scientist at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where he directs the Applied Cooperation Team (ACT). His research focuses on altruism: understanding how it works and how to promote it. | They are both authors of Hidden Games: The Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior. | In this episode, we focus on Hidde... |
| 2022-Apr-01 • 38 minutes #607 Nicole Prause: Sex, Porn, and Addiction Dr. Nicole Prause is a neuroscientist researching human sexual behavior, addiction, and the physiology of sexual response. She is also the founder of Liberos LLC, an independent research institute. | In this episode, we talk about sex, porn, and addiction. We start with sex, and hypersexual people. We then get into porn, and ask if it can be addictive, and talk about the relationship between porn consumption and sex drive, the effects of masturbation, the (negative) psychological effects of watching porn, a... |
| 2022-Mar-31 • 59 minutes #606 Peter Sterling - What is health? Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design (Pt. 1) Dr. Peter Sterling is Professor of Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His broad goal has been to learn how the brain is designed – to understand its functional architecture. He is the author of books like Principles of Neural Design, and What is health? Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design. | In this episode, we focus on What is health?. We start by talking about the best way to approach the study of how the brain is designed, and how to study it at di... |
| 2022-Mar-28 • 41 minutes #605 Frank McAndrew: Evolutionary Psychology, Gossip, Namesaking, and Aggression Dr. Francis McAndrew is the Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College. He studies human social behavior from an evolutionary perspective. He is especially interested in understanding the psychology of everyday life. Why do we enjoy gossip about celebrities? Why do some people name their children after themselves while others do not? His current research projects are concerned with aggression, gossip, and creepiness, and he writes a blog for Psychology Today Magazine titled "Out of the Ooze:... |
| 2022-Mar-25 • 48 minutes #604 George Sher - A Wild West of the Mind; The Morality of Nasty Thoughts Dr. George Sher is Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Rice University. In recent years, his research has centered on two main topics: responsibility and distributive justice. He is the author of several books, the most recent one being A Wild West of the Mind. | In this episode, we focus on A Wild West of the Mind. We start with the premise of the book, and then go through topics like the psychological effects of “bad” thoughts, and linking thoughts to actions; characte... |
| 2022-Mar-24 • 53 minutes #603 Daniel Kreiss: Digital Media, Political Campaigns, Journalism, and Partisan Identity Dr. Daniel Kreiss is Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Dr. Kreiss’ research explores the impact of technological change on the public sphere and political practice. He is the author of books like Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama, and Prototype Politics: The Making and Unmaking of Technological Innovation in the Republican and Democratic Parties, 2000-2014. | In this episode, we ta... |
| 2022-Mar-21 • 36 minutes #602 Sean Carroll - A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You Dr. Sean Carroll is Balo-Simon Professor and Endowed Chair of Biology at the University of Maryland. He is also Professor Emeritus of Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Carroll was an HHMI investigator from 1990 to 2010. In September 2010, he became vice president for science education at HHMI. He is the author of several books, including A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You. | In this episode, we focus on A Series of Fortun... |
| 2022-Mar-18 • 46 minutes #601 Henrik Høgh-Olesen - The Aesthetic Animal Dr. Henrik Høgh-Olesen is Professor of Psychology at Aarhus University. His research interests include Evolutionary psychology, Comparative psychology/Ethology, Primatology, Aesthetics, Psychology of religion, and History of psychology. He is the author of 13 scientific books, including The Aesthetic Animal. | In this episode, we focus on The Aesthetic Animal. We talk about the aesthetic impulse, and the evolution of art and aesthetic appreciation. We also discuss individual differences in art appreciation.... |
| 2022-Mar-17 • 53 minutes #600 Katherine Freese - The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter Dr. Katherine Freese is a professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin, where she holds the Jeff and Gail Kodosky Endowed Chair in Physics. She is known for her work in theoretical cosmology at the interface of particle physics and astrophysics. She is the author of The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter. | In this episode, we focus on The Cosmic Cocktail. We talk about percentages of ordinary matter, dark matter, and dark energy in the Universe, and how we got to them. We get into the hi... |
| 2022-Mar-14 • 62 minutes #599 Joshua Tucker: Social Media, Politics, Echo Chambers, and Organizing Political Action Online Dr. Joshua Tucker is a Professor of Politics, an affiliated Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies, and an affiliated Professor of Data Science at New York University. He is the Director of NYU’s Jordan Center for Advanced Study of Russia, a co-director of the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics (CSMaP) and the Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) lab, and a co-editor of the award-winning politics and policy blog The Monkey Cage at The Washington Post. He has been spending a lot of time wo... |
| 2022-Mar-11 • 67 minutes #598 Chris Letheby: Philosophy of Psychedelics Dr. Chris Letheby is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Western Australia, and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Adelaide. Dr. Letheby is a philosopher of mind and cognitive science, working on issues arising from the use of psychedelic drugs in psychiatry and neuroscience. His doctoral research, conducted at the University of Adelaide, presented the first systematic analysis of psychedelic experience within the framework of 21st century philosophy of cognitive science. He is the autho... |
| 2022-Mar-10 • 48 minutes #597 Talya Miron-Shatz - Your Life Depends on It; Medical Decision-Making Dr. Talya Miron-Shatz is an author, consultant, speaker, and researcher, who studies medical decision-making in a humanistic way, aiming to guarantee that people understand, and are genuinely part of, their care. She has a Ph.D. in psychology and is an internationally acclaimed expert in medical decision making, with notable experience in both academia and in the healthcare industry, which has led to significant public outreach. She is the author of Your Life Depends on It: What You Can Do to Make Better Ch... |
| 2022-Mar-07 • 61 minutes #596 George Zarkadakis - Cyber Republic: Reinventing Democracy in the Age of Intelligent Machines Dr. George Zarkadakis is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, a science communicator, an Artificial Intelligence engineer, a futurist, and a digital innovation professional. He writes fiction and non-fiction books, and he’s also working with private and public organizations to reimagine business and democratic institutions in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He is the author of several books, including Cyber Republic: Reinventing Democracy in the Age of Intelligent Machines. | In this episode, we focus on ... |
| 2022-Mar-04 • 31 minutes #595 Susan Fiske: Social Categorization, Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination Dr. Susan Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Dr. Fiske's research addresses how stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination are encouraged or discouraged by social relationships, such as cooperation, competition, and power. | In this episode, we talk about social categorization, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination., individuation, and social comparison. | -- | A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, PER HELGE LARS... |
| 2022-Mar-03 • 36 minutes #594 James Salzman - Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives Dr. James Salzman is the Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law with joint appointments at the UCLA School of Law and at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara. In twelve books and more than 100 articles and book chapters, his broad-ranging scholarship has addressed topics spanning drinking water, trade and environment conflicts, ownership engineering, and creating markets for ecosystem services. He is the author of Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Owne... |
| 2022-Feb-28 • 86 minutes #593 Brian Boyd - On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction Dr. Brian Boyd is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is known primarily as an expert on the life and works of author Vladimir Nabokov and on literature and evolution. He is the author of On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. | In this episode, we focus on On the Origin of Stories. We first talk about the evolutionary origins of art and storytelling, including questions like the functions of art; if it is an ... |
| 2022-Feb-25 • 41 minutes #592 Rodolfo Leyva: Neoliberalism, Social Media, Fake News, and Political Polarization Dr. Rodolfo Leyva is a Fellow in the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Lecturer in the University of Birmingham. He has a PhD in Political Sociology from the King’s College London School of Education, Communication and Society. Prior to his current appointment, he has been a lecturer at several universities and have led various quantitative and qualitative research methods, sociology, and media modules. He has also worked as a post-doctoral research assistant on various mixed-methods com... |
| 2022-Feb-24 • 76 minutes #591 John Petrocelli - The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit Dr. John Petrocelli is Professor of Psychology at Wake Forest University. He is a social psychologist and his research involves experimental social cognition and judgment and decision making. His specific research interests include attitude strength and persuasion, bullshitting, counterfactual thinking and metacognition. He is the author of The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit. | In this episode, we focus on The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit. We define bullshit, and discuss the moti... |
| 2022-Feb-21 • 42 minutes #590 Thomas Costello: Authoritarianism on the Right and the Left, and Sexual Objectification Thomas Costello is a Ph.D. Candidate at Emory University. Certain personality traits, thinking styles, and worldviews give rise to maladaptive political attitudes and behaviors, such as violence, extreme partisanship, and authoritarianism. Thomas’ research leverages the tools and expertise of personality psychology and clinical science to understand, measure, and statistically model the psychological causes and correlates of these attitudes and behaviors. | In this episode, we talk about political attitudes... |
| 2022-Feb-18 • 61 minutes #589 Ashley Thomas: Naïve Sociology, and How Children Think About Hierarchies and Social Relations Dr. Ashley Thomas is a postdoctoral fellow at the center for research on open and equitable scholarship at MIT. She is interested in humans as a social species. She investigates what infants, toddlers, and children think about social relationships (i.e., their naive sociology). She has studied how they think and feel about social hierarchy (i.e. situations where there is a 'winner' and a 'loser' or when someone is 'in charge.'). She has also studied people's moral judgments of parenting decisions. | In this... |
| 2022-Feb-17 • 58 minutes #588 Jennifer Lackey: The Epistemology of Groups; Groups Assertions, Groups Lies, and Responsibility Dr. Jennifer Lackey is Wayne and Elizabeth Jones Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. Jennifer Lackey specializes in epistemology, with a particular emphasis on a broad range of issues in social epistemology. Her recent work focuses on false confessions, the criminal justice system, the duty to object, norms of credibility, the epistemic status of punishment, the epistemology of groups, expertise, and the distribution of epistemic goods. She is the author of several books, including The Epist... |
| 2022-Feb-14 • 156 minutes #587 Victoria Dougherty: Nihilism, Horror, Depression, Love, and Writing Victoria Dougherty is the author of The Bone Church, Welcome to the Hotel Yalta, and Cold. She writes fiction, drama, and essays that revolve around lovers, killers, curses, and destinies. Her blog – COLD – features her short essays on faith, family, love, and writing. WordPress, the blogging platform that hosts some 70 million blogs worldwide, has singled out COLD as one of the Top 50 Recommended Blogs by writers or about writing. | In this episode, we talk about Fernando Pessoa, nihilism; if fictional wri... |
| 2022-Feb-11 • 57 minutes #586 Marianna Ganapini: Beliefs, Confabulations, Rationalizations, and AI Systems Dr. Marianna Ganapini is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Union College (NY). She works primarily in contemporary philosophy of mind and epistemology. She also has related interests in the ethics and epistemology of AI. | In this episode, we talk about beliefs, confabulations, fake news, and AI. We start with beliefs, what they are, and the different approaches in philosophy of mind to try to understand how they work. We get into the concept of belief’s minimal rationality. We discuss ... |
| 2022-Feb-10 • 50 minutes #585 Philippe Rochat Moral Acrobatics: How We Avoid Ethical Ambiguity by Thinking in Black and White Dr. Philippe Rochat is Professor of Psychology at Emory University. What is the nature and origins of human self-conscious psychology? Driven by this question, the main focus of Dr. Rochat's research in the Emory Infant and Child Lab is on the early sense of self, emerging self-concept, the development of social cognition and relatedness, and the emergence of a moral sense during the preschool years in children from all over the world growing up in different cultural environments and socio-economic circumst... |
| 2022-Feb-07 • 39 minutes #584 William Glod: Why It’s OK to Make Bad Choices Dr. William Glod is Senior Program Officer at the Institute for Humane Studies, an educational non-profit affiliated with George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. He is the author of Why It’s OK to Make Bad Choices. | In this episode, we focus on Why It’s OK to Make Bad Choices. We first discuss how we determine that a particular choice is a bad one. We talk about paternalism – coercive and libertarian. We discuss matters related to free will, and State regulations. We talk about the potential life b... |
| 2022-Feb-05 • 3 minutes 4 YEARS + SUPPORT You have been extremely kind and helpful for these past few years. I feel very humbled and grateful from the bottom of my heart to you all! | Now, I am very close to getting a comfortable income from this project. | So, in order to sustain the channel, and even to support myself, I would like to ask for your help. | If you appreciate what I am doing, and have some money you could spare, please help me keep this channel going! | | For these past four years, I have brought on the show some of the top academi... |
| 2022-Feb-04 • 59 minutes #583 Peter Ditto: Motivated Reasoning, Morality, and Politics Dr. Peter Ditto is Professor of Psychological Science at UC Irvine School of Social Ecology. His research examines the role of motivation, emotion and intuition in social, political, moral, medical, and legal judgment. Most generally, he has sought to explain the phenomenon of “motivated reasoning” — how the desire to reach a particular conclusion biases the processing of information related to that conclusion. Another key focus of his current research is partisan political bias. | In this episode, we talk ... |
| 2022-Feb-03 • 62 minutes #582 Mary Beth Willard: Why It’s OK to Enjoy the Work of Immoral Artists Dr. Mary Beth Willard is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Weber State University. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University and writes primarily in aesthetics and blogs at aestheticsforbirds.com. She is the author of Why It’s OK to Enjoy the Work of Immoral Artists. | In this episode, we focus on Why It’s OK to Enjoy the Work of Immoral Artists. We first discuss how aesthetic questions might relate to ethical ones. We then ask if art can itself be immoral. We discuss the complicated questions of ho... |
| 2022-Jan-31 • 33 minutes #581 Robert Larzelere: Parenting Styles, Authoritative Parenting, and Spanking Dr. Robert Larzelere is Professor and Research Methodologist in the College of Education and Human Sciences at Oklahoma State University. He is interested in collaborating with others who are concerned about the best scientific evidence on important questions about family and family-type relationships. He investigates specific disciplinary processes that account for the effectiveness of the authoritative parenting combination of warmth, communication, just-firm-enough control and increasing autonomy. | In t... |
| 2022-Jan-28 • 47 minutes #580 Emily Kubin: Political Polarization, Dehumanization, and the Media Emily Kubin is a PhD student in the Political Psychology & Communication Lab at the University of Koblenz-Landau (at Landau). She studies political communication. Specifically, she focuses on how political opponents view and interact with one another, and the role media play in opponents’ perceptions of one another. She places a special focus on studying strategies political opponents (and the media) can use to reduce affective polarization. | In this episode, we talk about affective polarization and th... |
| 2022-Jan-27 • 42 minutes #579 Valerie Hardcastle: The Self, Consciousness, Pain, and Abnormal Psychology Dr. Valerie Hardcastle is St. Elizabeth Healthcare Executive Director of the Institute for Health Innovation and Vice President for Health Innovation at Northern Kentucky University. Dr. Hardcastle specializes in philosophy of neuroscience/biology, philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of psychology, and philosophical implications of psychiatry. She is the author of several books, including Locating Consciousness, The Myth of Pain, and Constructing the Self. | In this episode, we talk about the self, ... |
| 2022-Jan-24 • 57 minutes #578 Drew Bailey: Educational Attainment, Educational Interventions, and Sex Differences Dr. Drew Bailey is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include mathematical development, individual differences, and longitudinal methods. | In this episode, we talk about individual differences in educational attainment, educational interventions, and sex differences in cognitive abilities. We start by discussing what to think about the finding in behavioral genetics when it comes to educational attainment. We talk about educational... |
| 2022-Jan-21 • 63 minutes #577 Russell Gray: Language Evolution, Big Gods and Rituals, and Animal Cognition Dr. Russell Gray is the director to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. Dr. Gray’s research spans the areas of cultural evolution, linguistics, animal cognition, and the philosophy of biology. | In this episode, we talk about linguistics, cultural evolution, and animal cognition. We start with linguistics, and discuss if language is innate or acquired and Universal Grammar; approaches to the study of the evolution of languages, like Bayesian phylolinguistics; constraints in li... |
| 2022-Jan-20 • 88 minutes #576 Tania Reynolds: Male Suffering, Female Same-Sex Relationships, and Moral Reactions to Covid-19 Dr. Tania Reynolds is Assistant Professor in Psychology at the University of New Mexico. | In this episode, we talk about male suffering, female same-sex relationships, discrimination in hiring, and moral reactions to covid-19 health responses. We start by talking about the ways men suffer and how they get derogated, and the evolutionary bases to all of that. We go into biases in moral typecasting, and discuss if people are insensitive to male suffering. We then get into what women evolved to look for in sa... |
| 2022-Jan-17 • 57 minutes #575 J. Michael Bailey: Sexual Orientation, Sexual Arousal, and Gender Identity Dr. J. Michael Bailey is an American psychologist, behavioral geneticist, and professor at Northwestern University. His interests include sexual orientation, gender nonconformity, sexual arousal, behavior genetics, and evolutionary psychology. He maintains that sexual orientation is heavily influenced by biology and male homosexuality is most likely inborn. He is the author of The Man Who Would Be Queen. | In this episode, we talk about sexual orientation, sexual arousal, gender identity, and transsexualism... |
| 2022-Jan-14 • 70 minutes #574 Andreas Jungherr: Online Political Discourse, Digital Media and Politics, and Misinformation Dr. Andreas Jungherr is Professor for Political Science with a focus on the Governance of Complex and Innovative Technical Systems at Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg. He examines the impact of digital media on politics and society. He has worked on the uses of digital media and technology by publics, political actors, and organizations in international comparison. He is the author of books like Retooling Politics: How Digital Media are Shaping Democracy, and Analyzing Political Communication with Digital ... |
| 2022-Jan-13 • 47 minutes #573 Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington: Evolutionary Psychology, Political Ideology, and Social Inequality Dr. Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington is Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a social psychologist interested in the mechanisms underlying our human sensitivity to power, status, and group membership: their origins, interactions, and manifestation in societal context. | In this episode, we talk about evolutionary and social psychology. We discuss if humans are a hierarchical species, and how to understand power and status from an evolutionary pe... |
| 2022-Jan-10 • 61 minutes #572 Günter Wagner: Gene Regulation, Evolutionary Novelties, and the Evolution of Pregnancy Dr. Günter Wagner is Alison Richard Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Adjunct Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at Yale University, and Adjunct Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Wayne State University. He is an evolutionary geneticist with training in biochemical engineering, zoology and mathematics from the University of Vienna, Austria. Dr. Wagner's research interest is the evolution of gene regulati... |
| 2022-Jan-07 • 64 minutes #571 Sónia Frota: Aquisição de Linguagem, Prosódia, o Baby Lab, e o Português ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development don... |
| 2022-Jan-06 • 71 minutes #570 Brian Knutson: The Neuroscience of Emotions, and Economic Decision-Making Dr. Brian Knutson is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Stanford University. His research focuses on the neural basis of emotional experience and expression. | In this episode, we talk about affective neuroscience. We start by discussing what it is, and the kinds of questions it deals with. We talk about affect, emotions, and what they correspond to in the brain. We discuss if is makes sense to distinguish between emotions and feelings. We talk about the areas in the brain that play a role in emo... |
| 2022-Jan-03 • 70 minutes #569 Andrew Thomas: Ovulation, Mate Preferences, and Mating Strategies Dr. Andrew Thomas is a Lecturer in Psychology at Swansea University, UK. His research is concerned with the differences in mating strategies within and between the sexes. This includes environmental and social factors which contribute to this variance and whether mating preferences themselves are reactive to environmental changes over short-term periods. | In this episode, we talk about mating, mate preferences, and cyberpsychology. We start with the ovulatory-shift hypothesis, and ask if women seek out ext... |
| 2021-Dec-31 • 61 minutes #568 Şerife Tekin: Philosophy of Psychiatry, Mental Disorder, The Self, and Flourishing Dr. Şerife Tekin is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Medical Humanities program at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Her work is in philosophy of science/medicine, philosophy of mind/cognitive science and bioethics. It is heavily informed by feminist and social epistemology. She has two co-edited edited books, The Bloomsbury Companion to Philosophy of Psychiatry, and Extraordinary Science and Psychiatry: Responses to the Crisis in Mental Health Research, which adopts a K... |
| 2021-Dec-30 • 51 minutes #567 Chris Knight: The Cultural and Social Bases of Language Dr. Chris Knight is Honorary Professor in the Department of Anthropology at University College London. Over many years, he has been exploring the idea that human language and culture emerged in our species not purely through gradual Darwinian evolution but in a cumulative process culminating in sudden revolutionary change. The details of his ‘sex strike’ theory remain controversial, but the general idea that the transition to language was a ‘major transition’ or ‘revolution’ (often termed the human revoluti... |
| 2021-Dec-27 • 51 minutes #566 Joel Paris: The Current State of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Dr. Joel Paris is Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University, and Research Associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital. His research interests include developmental factors in personality disorders (especially borderline personality), and culture and personality. | In this episode, we talk about current issues in psychiatric and psychotherapeutic practice. Topics include: historical fads in psychiatry, and what lessons can be drawn for the present; attempts o... |
| 2021-Dec-24 • 78 minutes #565 Iddo Landau: Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World Dr. Iddo Landau is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa. He has written extensively on the meaning of life. He is the author of Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World. | In this episode, we focus on Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World. We start by discussing what is meaning, and how we decide that a life is meaningful of meaningless. We go through different criteria to determine the meaningfulness of life: the perfectionist view of life; the importance of freedom; if life has to be moral; i... |
| 2021-Dec-23 • 59 minutes #564 Hans-Georg Moeller - The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality Dr Hans-Georg Moeller is a professor in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Programme at the University of Macau. His research focuses on Chinese and Comparative Philosophy (specifically Daoism) and on Social and Political Thought (specifically Social Systems Theory). He is the author of several books, including The Moral Fool: A Case for Amorality. | In this episode, we focus on The Moral Fool. We start by talk about morality as a tool, and the uses and abuses of morality. We discuss the concept of the “m... |
| 2021-Dec-20 • 60 minutes #563 Robert Brooks Artificial Intimacy: Virtual Friends, Digital Lovers, and Algorithmic Matchmakers Dr. Robert Brooks is Professor of Evolution at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He studies the evolution of mate choice, the costs of being attractive, sexual conflict, the reason animals age and the links between sex, diet, obesity and death. He is the author of Sex, Genes & Rock ‘n’ Roll: How Evolution has Shaped the Modern World, and, more recently, Artificial Intimacy: Virtual Friends, Digital Lovers, and Algorithmic Matchmakers. | In this episode, we focus on Artificial Intim... |
| 2021-Dec-17 • 56 minutes #562 Jason Manning - Suicide: The Social Causes of Self-Destruction Dr. Jason Manning is an Associate Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. He’s a theoretical sociologist who seeks to develop general explanations of human behavior, his work focuses primarily on conflict and social control, including various means of expressing grievances, handling disputes, and punishing offenses. Within this area he specializes in violent conflict, particularly in self-destructive forms of violence such as protest suicide, homicide-suicide, and suicide terrorism. His other in... |
| 2021-Dec-16 • 77 minutes #561 Anna Warrener: The Evolution of the Human Pelvis, Bipedalism, and Childbirth Dr. Anna Warrener is an assistant professor in the Anthropology department at University of Colorado Denver. Her research focuses on the evolution of the human musculoskeletal system using biomechanical techniques to assess how variation in physical structure affects locomotor performance. She is specifically interested in the human pelvis and how its unique anatomy impacts both locomotion and human birth. | In this episode, we talk about human bipedalism, the human pelvis, and childbirth. We start by talki... |
| 2021-Dec-13 • 40 minutes #560 Jayashri Kulkarni: Women's Mental Health, Depression, and Clinical Research Dr. Jayashri Kulkarni is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Monash University who works in the area of women's mental health. She has written about Premenstrual syndrome. She has used hormones to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression in women. She founded and heads the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre. | In this episode, we talk about women’s mental health. Topics include: depression, and its hormonal factors; post-natal depression; the impact of menopause on women’s mental wellbeing; g... |
| 2021-Dec-10 • 64 minutes #559 Thomas Metzinger: Consciousness, Subjectivity, the Self, and the Ethics of AI Dr. Thomas K. Metzinger is senior research professor at the department of philosophy at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. From 2014-2019 he was a Fellow at the Gutenberg Research College. He is the founder and director of the MIND group and Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies, Germany. His research centers on analytic philosophy of mind, applied ethics, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. | In this episode, we talk about philosophy of mind, and A... |
| 2021-Dec-09 • 88 minutes #558 Justin Barrett - Thriving with Stone Age Minds; Evo Psych, Christian Faith, and Flourishing Dr. Justin L. Barrett is adjunct professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. His new book is Thriving with Stone Age Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing. | In this episode, we focus on Thriving with Stone Age Minds. We start by defining “thriving”, and what it means from both an evolutionary psychological and a Christian theological perspective. We discuss why the book is focused on Christianity and not any other religion. We talk about the concep... |
| 2021-Dec-06 • 76 minutes #557 Stephen Fleming - Know Thyself: The New Science of Self-Awareness Dr. Stephen Fleming is Wellcome Trust/Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the Department of Experimental Psychology and Principal Investigator at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging where he leads the Metacognition Group, at University College London. The question that drives most his research is: what supports the remarkable capacity for human self-awareness? He is the author of Know Thyself: The New Science of Self-Awareness. | In this episode, we focus on Know Thyself. We start by discussing wh... |
| 2021-Dec-03 • 74 minutes #556 Dan Sperber: Culture, Cultural Attraction Theory, Epistemic Vigilance, and Reason Dr. Dan Sperber is a researcher at the Institut Jean Nicod, and a professor in cognitive science and philosophy at the Central European University in Budapest. He is the author of numerous articles in anthropology, linguistics, philosophy and psychology and of several books, including Meaning and Relevance (with Deirdre Wilson), Relevance: Communication and Cognition (with Deirdre Wilson), and The Enigma of Reason (with Hugo Mercier). | In this episode, we talk about cultural evolution, cultural attraction ... |
| 2021-Dec-02 • 62 minutes #555 Karen Kramer: Life History, Parenting, Population Growth, Dipersals, and Mating Systems Dr. Karen Kramer is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah. Her research interests span behavioral ecology, demography, comparative life history and reproductive ecology, the evolution of juvenility, cooperative breeding, intergenerational transfers and the interaction between economic and demographic transitions. The question that unifies her research is why do humans have the unparalleled capacity for population growth compared to closely related species? | In this episode, we talk abou... |
| 2021-Nov-29 • 59 minutes #554 Felipe De Brigard: Memory, Imagination, and Free Will Dr. Felipe De Brigard is Fuchsberg-Levine Family Associate Professor at Duke University. Most of his research focuses on the way in which memory and imagination interact. So far, he has explored ways in which episodic memory both guides and constrains episodic counterfactual thinking (i.e., thoughts about alternative ways in which past personal events could have occurred), and how this interaction affects the perceived plausibility of imagined counterfactual events. He also explores the differential contrib... |
| 2021-Nov-26 • 69 minutes #553 April Bleske-Rechek: Gender Roles, Division of Labor, Occupation and Educational Choices Dr. April Bleske-Rechek is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. As a researcher, she focuses on human mating, friendship, cognitive abilities and intellectual giftedness, and science literacy. | In this episode, we talk about a recent paper, “Gendered Perspectives on Sharing the Load: Men’s and Women’s Attitudes Toward Family Roles and Household and Childcare Tasks”. We first talk about where the evolutionary bases of the human sexual division of labor. We go through some of ... |
| 2021-Nov-25 • 46 minutes #552 Kate Adamala: Synthetic Cells, Cell Evolution, the Origin of Life, and Astrobiology Dr. Katarzyna (Kate) P. Adamala is a synthetic biologist and a professor of genetics at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Adamala's work includes contributions to the field of astrobiology, synthetic cell engineering, and biocomputing. | | In this episode, we talk about synthetic biology. We discuss what is a synthetic cell, and how we can use it to study cell evolution and cell functions. We talk about the origin of life of Earth, and some of the theories out there. We also talk about cells before the Last... |
| 2021-Nov-22 • 70 minutes #551 Louise Barrett: Baboon Societies, Ecology, Embodied Cognition, and Evolutionary Psychology Dr. Louise Barrett is Professor of Psychology and Canada Research Chair in Cognition, Evolution & Behaviour at the University of Lethbridge. She is the author of Beyond the Brain: How Body and Environment Shape Animal and Human Minds (Princeton University Press). | In this episode, we talk about evolutionary psychology. We start by talking about behavioral ecology, and how ecological factors influence behavior. We discuss the place of culture in the context of evolutionary psychology. We ask if the brai... |
| 2021-Nov-19 • 38 minutes #550 Jonathan Zimmerman - Free Speech: And Why You Should Give a Damn Dr. Jonathan Zimmerman is a Professor of History of Education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Dr. Zimmerman is one of the foremost education historians working today. His work examines how education practices and policies have developed over time, and the myths that often cloud our understanding of teaching and learning. He has a particular interest in how political and social movements come to shape education. He is the author of several books, including the most recent one,... |
| 2021-Nov-18 • 58 minutes #549 Arvid Ågren: The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution Dr. Arvid Ågren is Wenner-Gren Fellow in the Department of Evolutionary Biology at Uppsala University. He is an evolutionary biologist studying genomic conflicts. He is the author of The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution. | In this episode, we focus on The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution. We first introduce the idea, and walk-through concepts like the “selfish gene”, and the replicator-vehicle approach. We get into the debate surrounding levels of selection, and inclusive fitness theory and group selection. We talk... |
| 2021-Nov-15 • 87 minutes #548 Todd Shackelford: An Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology Dr. Todd Shackelford is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of Psychology at Oakland University. | In this episode, we focus on The SAGE Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. We first get into what evolutionary psychology is, and a bit of its history and theoretical bases. We then go through sex differences (and how they derive from sexual selection and intrasexual competition), parental investment, life history theory, attachment theory, Tinbergen’s 4 questions, and culture from an evolutionary perspective.... |
| 2021-Nov-12 • 48 minutes #547 Alison Suen: Why It's OK to Be a Slacker Dr. Alison Suen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Iona College, New York. She is the volume editor of Response Ethics (2018), the author of The Speaking Animal: Ethics, Language and the Human Animal Divide (2015), and Why It’s OK to Be a Slacker. | In this episode, we focus on Why It’s OK to Be a Slacker. Topics include: what is a slacker?; the different types of slacker, including academic slackers; hyper-productive societies, and how our work is part of our identity; the morality of slacking; the be... |
| 2021-Nov-11 • 62 minutes #546 John Barry: Perspectives in Male Psychology (Pt.1) - Mental Health Dr. John Barry is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS), Honorary Lecturer in Psychology at University College London, and clinical hypnotherapist. He is also co-author (with Louise Liddon) of the new book Perspectives in Male Psychology: An Introduction. | This is the first of a two-part talk where we focus on Perspectives in Male Psychology. In this episode, we talk about male psychology and mental health. We start by talking about the clinical goals of s... |
| 2021-Nov-08 • 50 minutes #545 Martin Puchner: Rotwelsch, The Language of Thieves, and the Nazi Regime Dr. Martin Puchner is the Byron and Anita Wien Professor of Drama and of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He serves as the founding director of the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research at Harvard University. He is the author of several books, including The Language of Thieves: My Family's Obsession with a Secret Code the Nazis Tried to Eliminate. | In this episode, we focus on The Language of Thieves. We talk about the origins of Rotwelsch, how it was influenced by othe... |
| 2021-Nov-05 • 75 minutes #544 David M. G. Lewis: Evolution, Personality, Friendships, and Physical Attraction Dr. David Lewis is Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology at Murdoch University. | In this episode, we talk about personality, friendship, and attractiveness from an evolutionary perspective. We start with personality, and ask how we should understand it from an evolutionary standpoint, and discuss if there is a personality inventory that would make more sense evolutionarily-speaking. We also discuss if personality traits are adaptations. We talk about the condition-dependent model of individual differences. ... |
| 2021-Nov-04 • 59 minutes #543 Orestis Palermos: Epistemology, Technology, Extended Cognition, and Philosophical Engineering Dr. Orestis Palermos is Lecturer in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University. He works at the intersection of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, epistemology, philosophy of science and philosophy of technology. He is interested in the idea of philosophical engineering: the way philosophy can impact the design of emerging technologies and socio-technical systems. | In this episode, we talk about epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of technology. We disting... |
| 2021-Nov-01 • 73 minutes #542 Paul Bloom - The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning Dr. Paul Bloom is Professor Emeritus at Yale University and Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. His new book is The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning. | In this episode, we focus on The Sweet Spot. We start with a few definitions (pleasure, suffering, happiness, and meaning). We then get into topics like: the difference between chosen and unchosen suffering; the relationship between happiness and meaning; motivational pluralism; the difference between suffer... |
| 2021-Oct-29 • 52 minutes #541 Charles Foster - Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness Dr. Charles Foster is a Fellow of Green Templeton College, a member of the Oxford Law Faculty (where he is a Visiting Professor), a Senior Research Associate at the Uehiro Institute for Practical Ethics (within the Faculty of Philosophy), and a Research Associate at the Ethox Centre and the Helex Centre (both within the Faculty of Medicine). His main areas of interest are medical law and ethics. Recently he has been focused particularly on questions of identity, personhood, and authenticity, on whether theo... |
| 2021-Oct-28 • 66 minutes #540 Itai Yanai: The Society of Genes; Genome Evolution, Epigenetics, Health, and Gene Editing Dr. Itai Yanai is Founding Director of the Institute for Computational Medicine at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is also a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at NYU. He does research on cancer, computational biology, developmental genetics, genomics, microbiome, systems biology, single-cell transcriptomics, gene expression atlas construction, genome evolution. He is the author of The Society of Genes. | In this episode, we focus on The Society of Genes. We first... |
| 2021-Oct-25 • 63 minutes #539 Ralph Hertwig - Deliberate Ignorance: Choosing Not to Know Dr. Ralph Hertwig is Director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. His research interests include models of bounded and ecological rationality; decisions from experience; the psychology of risk; lifespan development of decision making; and evidence-based public policy. He is the editor of Deliberate Ignorance: Choosing Not to Know. | In this episode, we focus on Deliberate Ignorance. We define bounded rationality, ecological rationality... |
| 2021-Oct-22 • 69 minutes #538 Stephen Gaukroger - The Failures of Philosophy: A Historical Essay Dr. Stephen Gaukroger is Emeritus Professor of History of Philosophy and History of Science at the University of Sydney. Dr. Gaukroger has completed a long-term project on the emergence and consolidation of a scientific culture in the West from 1210 to 1935: The Emergence of a Scientific Culture (Oxford, 2006),The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility(Oxford, 2010),The Natural and the Human (Oxford, 2016), Civilization and the Culture of Science (Oxford, 2020). His re-working of the history of p... |
| 2021-Oct-21 • 57 minutes #537 Christopher Kuzawa: Developmental Plasticity, Life History, and Epigenetics Dr. Christopher Kuzawa is Professor of Anthropology and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. He uses principles from anthropology and evolutionary biology to gain insights into the biological and health impacts of human developmental plasticity. His primary field research is conducted in Cebu, the Philippines, where he works with a large birth cohort study that enrolled more than 3,000 pregnant women in 1983 and has since followed their offspring into adulthood (no... |
| 2021-Oct-18 • 63 minutes #536 James Pennebaker: Language Use, Writing, Personality, and Stories Dr. James Pennebaker is the Regents Centennial Professor of Liberal Arts and Professor of Psychology. He and his students are exploring natural language use, group dynamics, and personality in both laboratory and real-world settings. His earlier work on expressive writing found that physical health and work performance can improve by simple writing and/or talking exercises. His cross-disciplinary research is related to linguistics, clinical and cognitive psychology, communications, medicine, and computer sc... |
| 2021-Oct-15 • 61 minutes #535 Glenn Geher: Politics and Academic Values in Higher Education Dr. Glenn Geher is Professor of Psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz where he has been awarded SUNY Chancellor Awards for Excellence for both Teaching and Research. His most recent book is Positive Evolutionary Psychology: Darwin's Guide to Living a Richer Life. | In this episode, we talk about a recent paper - Politics and Academic Values in Higher Education: Just How Much Does Political Orientation Drive the Values of the Ivory Tower? We first talk about academic values, parti... |
| 2021-Oct-14 • 107 minutes #534 Michael Huemer: Moral Realism, Ethical Intuitionism, and Veganism Dr. Michael Huemer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. He is the author of more than seventy academic articles in epistemology, ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy, as well as several books, like Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, Ethical Intuitionism, The Problem of Political Authority, Approaching Infinity, Paradox Lost, and Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism. | In this episode, we talk about ethics and veganism. We start by discussing objectivity in ethic... |
| 2021-Oct-11 • 47 minutes #533 Alexander Rosenberg: Scientism, Nihilism, and Atheism Dr. Alexander Rosenberg is the R. Taylor Cole Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. He has held fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. In 1993, Dr. Rosenberg received the Lakatos Award in the philosophy of science. In 2006-2007 he held a fellowship at the National Humanities Center. He’s the author of both fictional and non-fictional literature, including The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, and Ho... |
| 2021-Oct-08 • 53 minutes #532 Robert Paarlberg - Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat Dr. Robert Paarlberg is Betty Freyhof Johnson ’44 Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Wellesley College, and an Associate in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University. His research focuses on the international agricultural and environmental policy, regulation of modern technology, including biotechnology. He is the author of many books, including Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About the Food We Grow and Eat. | In this episode, we focus on Resetting the Table. We start by framing fo... |
| 2021-Oct-07 • 61 minutes #531 Kyle Thomas: The Psychology of Common Knowledge Dr. Kyle Thomas recently received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Harvard University, where he developed his research program on the psychology of common knowledge under his advisor, Steven Pinker. He is currently the Chief Scientist at MotiveMetrics, where they turn cutting-edge psychological science into software tools that can accurately reveal true motivations from publicly available data. In short, they help marketers understand why people buy—or don’t—at the click of a button. Software hasn’... |
| 2021-Oct-04 • 82 minutes #530 Jeremy DeSilva - A Most Interesting Problem; Darwin’s Descent of Man (150th anniversary) Dr. Jeremy DeSilva is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. He is the author of A Most Interesting Problem: What Darwin’s Descent of Man Got Right and Wrong about Human Evolution. | In this episode, we focus on A Most Interesting Problem, and Darwin’s Descend of Man. We first discuss the Descent of Man in its historical context, and compare it to the Origin of Species, and try to trace back the origins of some of its most prominent ideas. We talk about part 1 of the book, and the evol... |
| 2021-Oct-01 • 64 minutes #529 David Pietraszewski: Modularity of Mind, Coalitional Psychology, and Politics Dr. David Pietraszewski is Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. He is an experimental psychologist who applies evolutionary theorizing to Social, Cognitive, and Developmental questions. He is particularly interested in characterizing the psychology of multi-agent conflict and cooperation ("coalitional psychology"). | In this episode, we talk about modularity of mind and coalitional psychology. In terms of modularity of mind, we cover topics like: Fodorian modularity, modular... |
| 2021-Sep-30 • 66 minutes #528 Rebecca Owens: Sex Differences in Mating Behavior, Male Psychology, and Body Modifications Dr. Rebecca Owens is Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sunderland. She is also a Chartered member of the British Psychological Society and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her interests include mating behaviors, preferences, and strategies; male psychology; and body image/identity and wellbeing. | In this episode, we talk about sex differences in mating behavior, male psychology, and the psychology of body modifications. We first discuss sex differences in mating strategies and mat... |
| 2021-Sep-27 • 105 minutes #527 Kim Hill: Human Sociality, Human Universals, and Protecting Isolated Societies Dr. Kim Hill is a professor in the Anthropology department at Arizona State University. | In this episode, we talk about hunter-gatherer tribes and human sociality. We walk through many of the societies Dr. Hill studied, including the Aché, the Hiwi, the Mashco-Piro, the Matsiguenga, the Yora, and the Sea Nomads, and aspects of their sociality. We get into like what anthropologists learn by studying traditional societies, how we can compare contemporary hunter-gatherers with the societies we evolved in, and... |
| 2021-Sep-24 • 54 minutes #526 Jordan Moss: The Psychology of the Alt-right and the PC Authoritarians and Liberals Jordan Moss is a psychology graduate and medical student at the University of Sydney. He has research interests in individual differences, with particular interest in personality theory and moral psychology. | In this episode, we talk about the alt-right and the Politically Correct left. We start by characterizing the alt-right, and the move on to the political correctness authoritarians and liberals. We talk about the psychological differences and similarities between the al-right and the PC folks. W... |
| 2021-Sep-23 • 89 minutes #525 Brian Leiter: Moral Psychology with Nietzsche Dr. Brian Leiter is Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and founder and Director of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy and Human Values. He is the author of books like Nietzsche on Morality, Naturalizing Jurisprudence, Why Tolerate Religion? and, more recently, Moral Psychology with Nietzsche. | In this episode, we talk about Moral Psychology with Nietzsche. First, Dr. Leiter tells us what got him interested in Nietzsche. We then ask if Nietzsche was a mora... |
| 2021-Sep-20 • 57 minutes #524 Andrew Guess: Political Polarization, Misinformation, Fake News, and Digital Media Literacy Dr. Andrew Guess is an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. His research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of political communication, public opinion, and political behavior. Via a combination of experimental methods, large datasets, machine learning, and innovative measurement, he studies how people choose, process, spread, and respond to information about politics. Recent work investigates the extent to which online Americans' news habits are polarized (... |
| 2021-Sep-17 • 48 minutes #523 Roman Yampolskiy: AI, Security, Controllability, and the Singularity Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy is a Tenured Associate Professor in the department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the Speed School of Engineering at the University of Louisville. He is the founding and current director of the Cyber Security Lab and an author of many books including Artificial Superintelligence: a Futuristic Approach. Dr. Yampolskiy is a Senior member of IEEE and AGI; Member of Kentucky Academy of Science, and Research Advisor for MIRI and Associate of GCRI. Dr. Yampolskiy’s main ar... |
| 2021-Sep-16 • 63 minutes #522 Jaimie Krems: Female Friendships, Stereotypes, and Religion and Monogamy Dr. Jaimie Krems is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Oklahoma State University. Dr. Krems is a social psychologist with interdisciplinary training. Her research draws on theoretical perspectives from social psychology, behavioral ecology, evolutionary biology and anthropology, as well as animal behavior to investigate how people use cues to strategically navigate their social worlds and meet their social goals. | In this episode, we talk about female friendships, stereotypes and prejudice, and religion ... |
| 2021-Sep-13 • 73 minutes #521 Edward Watts - The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The History of a Dangerous Idea Dr. Edward Watts is presently the Vassiliadis Professor of Byzantine Greek History at UC San Diego. His research interests center on the intellectual and religious history of the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. His new book is The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The History of a Dangerous Idea. | In this episode, we focus on The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome. We walk through topics like: when did people start theorizing about the decline and fall of Rome; the actual factors that played a r... |
| 2021-Sep-10 • 58 minutes #520 Agustín Fuentes: Race, Gender, Monogamy, and Darwin's Descent of Man (150th anniversary) Dr. Agustín Fuentes is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. He is the author of books like Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature, and Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being. | This interview is part of the series on the 150thanniversary of Darwin’s Descent of Man. | In this episode, we talk about biological anthropology, and Darwin’s Descent of Man. We get a bit into the field of Biological Anthropology, and talk about the kinds of questio... |
| 2021-Sep-09 • 88 minutes #519 Douglas Fry: The Origins and Causes of War, and Peace Social Systems and How to Maintain Them Dr. Douglas P. Fry is Professor and Chair in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has written extensively on aggression, conflict, and conflict resolution in his own books and in journals such as Science and American Anthropologist. He’s the author or editor of books like The Human Potential for Peace; Beyond War; War, Peace, and Human Nature; and Nurturing Our Humanity. | This is our second interview on the anthropology of war. You can find the ... |
| 2021-Sep-06 • 76 minutes #518 Andrew Berry: The History of Evolutionary Biology (Pt. 2) - Genetics, and Speciation Dr. Andrew Berry is a lecturer in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. He is an evolutionary biologist with a particular interest in Alfred Russel Wallace. His research combined field and laboratory methods to detect positive Darwinian selection (i.e. adaptive evolution) at the molecular level in natural populations. He has published two books: Infinite tropics: an Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology, with a foreword written by Stephen Jay Gould, and DNA: The Secret of Life with James Watson. | This is the seco... |
| 2021-Sep-03 • 68 minutes #517 James Costa: Darwin, Wallace, The Origin of Species, and The Descent of Man (150th anniversary) Dr. James Costa is Executive Director of the Highlands Biological Station and Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Western Carolina University. He has authored 7 books, including Darwin's Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory (W. W. Norton, 2017) — a finalist for the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Prize — and the co-edited volume An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion (Chicago, 2019). | In this episode, we talk about Darwin, Wallace, On the Origin of Species, and The De... |
| 2021-Sep-02 • 61 minutes #516 Nichola Raihani - The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the World Dr. Nichola Raihani is Professor of Evolution and Behavior at University College London. Her research considers the evolution of cooperation in nature. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2019. Her first book is The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the World. | In this episode, we focus on The Social Instinct. We first discuss the structure of the book, and why the focus is on cooperation. We talk about the mechanisms used to explain the evolution of cooperation – kin selection,... |
| 2021-Aug-30 • 59 minutes #515 Sacha Altay: Social Media, Fake News, Science Communication, and the COVID-19 Pandemic Sacha Altay is doing his PhD in cognitive science at the Institut Jean Nicod of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Fascinated by apparently irrational beliefs and behaviors, he works with Hugo Mercier on the role of epistemic reputation in communication and the cognitive mechanisms underlying information transmission and evaluation. | In this episode, we talk about fake news, and scientific misinformation. We start with fake news, and discuss how widespread it really is, and the sort of cultural and soc... |
| 2021-Aug-26 • 70 minutes #513 Benjamin Friedman: Religion and the Rise of Capitalism Dr. Benjamin M. Friedman is the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy, and formerly Chairman of the Department of Economics, at Harvard University. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1972. Dr Friedman’s newest book is Religion and the Rise of Capitalism – a fundamental reassessment of the foundations of current-day economics, showing how religious thinking has shaped economic thinking ever since the beginnings of modern Western economics and how this influence continues to be relevant today espe... |
| 2021-Aug-23 • 90 minutes #512 Sander van der Linden: Social Media, Fake News, COVID, and Science Communication Dr. Sander van der Linden is Professor of Social Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. His research interests center around the psychology of human judgment, communication, and decision-making, including social norms and networks, attitudes and polarization, reasoning about evidence, and the public understanding of risk and uncertainty. | In this episode, we talk about social media, fake news, and science communica... |
| 2021-Aug-20 • 54 minutes #511 Cécile Sarabian: The Evolution of Disgust and Hygiene, and Conservation Dr. Cécile Sarabian is a Postdoctoral researcher in Cognitive Ecology at Kyoto University. She investigates parasite avoidance behaviors and their effectiveness in non-human primates and other animals via field and lab experimentation/observations. She is generally interested in the origins of hygiene and disgust in humans and in the potential applications of disgust into the field of Conservation. | In this episode, we talk about disgust and conservation. We start by discussing disgust from an evolutionary... |
| 2021-Aug-19 • 66 minutes #510 David Buss - When Men Behave Badly; Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault (Part 2) Dr. David Buss is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s one of the founders of the field of evolutionary psychology. His primary research focus is on strategies of human mating. He’s the author of many books, including The Evolution of Desire, and the first textbook in Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. His most recent book is When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault. | This episode is part... |
| 2021-Aug-16 • 66 minutes #509 Christian Hoffmann: Social Media, Fake News, and Political Polarization Dr. Christian Pieter Hoffmann is Professor of Communication Management and Political Communication at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Leipzig, Germany. In addition, he is responsible for teaching in the field of political communication in cooperation with the Institute for Political Science. His research interests include strategic communication management, financial communication and political communication – with a particular focus on the challenges and opportunities ... |
| 2021-Aug-13 • 51 minutes #508 Scott Small - Forgetting: The Benefits of Not Remembering Dr. Scott A. Small is the Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University, where he is the Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology. He is appointed in the Departments of Neurology, Radiology, and Psychiatry. With an expertise in Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive aging, Dr. Small’s research focuses on the hippocampus, a circuit in the brain targeted by these and other disorders, notably schizophrenia. He has pioneered the development and application of high-resolution functional... |
| 2021-Aug-12 • 62 minutes #507 Jessica Thompson: Human Evolution, and Our Impact on the Environment Dr. Jessica Thompson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. Dr. Thompson specializes in human evolution, and especially those aspects that can be revealed through the analysis of ancient animal bones found at archaeological sites (zooarchaeology). She leads the Malawi Ancient Lifeways and Peoples Project in Malawi, central Africa, where she has maintained a field site since 2009. This multidisciplinary work combines archaeological science, evolutionary theory, and hunter-gatherer ethnogr... |
| 2021-Aug-09 • 44 minutes #506 Crystal Lee: Data Visualizations, Online Misinformation, and the Covid-19 Pandemic Crystal Lee is a PhD candidate at the History / Anthropology / Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS) program at MIT, a researcher at the Visualization Group in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Her research focuses on how people interpret and make data visualizations. She also thinks a lot about the relationship between technology and disability, and she loves talking about mixed methods research t... |
| 2021-Aug-07 • 4 minutes 3 and 1/2 YEARS + SUPPORT ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter... | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | -... |
| 2021-Aug-06 • 34 minutes #505 Michelle Montague: Mind, Phenomenology, Cognition, Perception, Consciousness, and Metaphysics Dr. Michelle Montague is Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Dr. Montague is the editor of Non-Propositional Intentionality, Cognitive Phenomenology, and Philosophical Writings by P.F. Strawson (co-edited with Galen Strawson). She is the author of The Given: experience and its content. | In this episode, we talk about philosophy of mind, with a focus on The Given. We go through several different concepts, like mental content,... |
| 2021-Aug-05 • 54 minutes #504 Ewa Dabrowska: Linguistics, and Native and Second Language Attainment Dr. Ewa Dabrowska is Professor at Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen, and in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at Birmingham University. Her research interests include cognitive linguistics, language acquisition, the mental status of rules, and individual differences in linguistic knowledge. She has published monographs on the semantics of case and the relationship between linguistics and other disciplines studying language, and numerous articles. She is the editor of Cognitive Lingui... |
| 2021-Aug-02 • 64 minutes #503 Luke Russell - Being Evil: A Philosophical Perspective Dr. Luke Russell is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. His research explores moral philosophy and he has written about evil, forgiveness, virtue and vice. Dr. Russell teaches ethics, moral psychology, and critical thinking, as well as running the University's high school philosophy course, Mind and Morality. His new book is Being Evil: A Philosophical Perspective. | In this episode, we focus on Being Evil. We ask what evil is, and go through several different cr... |
| 2021-Jul-30 • 91 minutes #502 Marco Neves: História do Português Desde o Big Bang THIS INTERVIEW IS IN PORTUGUESE. | Marco Neves é professor de tradução na Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, tradutor e diretor do escritório de Lisboa da Eurologos e colunista no Sapo 24. O seu novo livro é “História do Português Desde o Big Bang”. | Neste episódio, focamo-nos no “História do Português Desde o Big Bang”. Seguimos mais ou menos o esquema do livro, e começamos por falar do porquê de ir até ao Big Bang, e também de alguns aspetos da nossa história evolutiv... |
| 2021-Jul-29 • 47 minutes #501 Ethan Porter: The Consumer Citizen Dr. Ethan Porter is an assistant professor at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. His research has appeared or is forthcoming in Political Communication, Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Politics, Groups and Identities and Journal of Experimental Political Science. He has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post and other popular publications. His research interests include public opinion, politica... |
| 2021-Jul-26 • 50 minutes #500 Elly Vintiadis - Philosophy by Women: 22 Philosophers Reflect on Philosophy and Its Value Dr. Elly Vintiadis is a philosopher of mind and psychiatry at Deree, the American College of Greece. Her work focuses on the mind, its products and disorders, and the nature of their dependence on the social environment. She is mainly interested in what mental disorders can tell us about the nature of the mind, and in emergence and explanation, but her research also extends to epistemology, metaphilosophy and animal ethics. She is the author of three books, including Philosophy by Women: 22 Philosophers ref... |
| 2021-Jul-23 • 81 minutes #499 Nic Bommarito - Seeing Clearly: A Buddhist Guide to Life Dr. Nicolas Bommarito is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University. His research focuses on questions in virtue ethics, moral psychology, and Buddhist philosophy, particularly Tibetan Buddhism. He is the author of Seeing Clearly: A Buddhist Guide to Life. | In this episode, we focus on Seeing Clearly. We start with some of the theoretical foundations of Buddhism, and cover concepts like emptiness, the relational nature of reality, the self, and attachment. We talk about personal transform... |
| 2021-Jul-22 • 79 minutes #498 Kristen Syme: Mental Disorders and Suicide From an Anthropological Perspective Dr. Kristen Syme is research associate at the Faculty of Behavioral and Movement Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She received her BA in anthropology from the University of Delaware where she developed an interest in using evolutionary theory to investigate mental health and behavioral phenomena that are diagnosed and treated as diseases and deviations according to the Western medical paradigm. She conducted her MA research on suicidal behavior in 53 cultures and received her MA in 2014. Her resear... |
| 2021-Jul-19 • 60 minutes #497 Daniel Bell - Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World Dr. Daniel A. Bell is Dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University. Dr. Bell received the Huilin Prize in 2018. He is the author of Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World. | In this episode, we focus on Just Hierarchy. We first discuss what is a hierarchy, and what makes for a just hierarchy. Throughout the conservation, we refer to different kinds of hierarchies: relations between intimates; relations between citizens; re... |
| 2021-Jul-16 • 71 minutes #496 Daniel Hoyer - Figuring Out the Past: The 3,495 Vital Statistics that Explain World History Dr. Daniel Hoyer currently holds a postdoctoral position working with Dr. Peter Turchin on the Deep Roots of the Modern World, part of the SESHAT: Global History Databank Project, a large-scale, interdisciplinary and comparative project hosted by the Evolution Institute and the University of Oxford. He is the author of Figuring Out The Past: The 3,495 Vital Statistics that Explain World History. | In this episode, we focus on Figuring Out The Past. We start by discussing some possible limitations of (narrat... |
| 2021-Jul-15 • 56 minutes #495 Robin Crompton: The Evolution of Human Bipedalism Dr. Robin Huw Crompton is professor of musculoskeletal biology at the University of Liverpool in the Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease. He has developed the Fossil Footprint Archive jointly with Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University. | In this episode, we talk about the evolution of human bipedality. We start by talking about the locomotion of our common ancestor with chimpanzees, and go through some of the main steps in the evolution of our musculoskeletal system. During the conversation, Dr. Cro... |
| 2021-Jul-12 • 71 minutes #494 Carole Hooven - T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us Dr. Carole Hooven is Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer in Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Her research Interests include behavioral endocrinology and evolution of sex differences in humans (physiology, behavior and cognition). She is the author of T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us. | In this episode, we focus on T. We start with some basics, and talk about the physiological processes testosterone participates in, and the activational-or... |
| 2021-Jul-09 • 77 minutes #493 Tim Clutton-Brock: The Evolution of Sociality, and Mammal Societies Dr. Tim Clutton-Brock is Professor in the Department of Zoology at Cambridge University. He is known for his comparative studies of the behavioral ecology of mammals, particularly red deer and meerkats. He currently works in three main areas: The evolution of vertebrate breeding systems; Population regulation and the control of population stability in large mammals; Natural and sexual selection in natural populations. | In this episode, we talk about mammal societies. First, we discuss when societies starte... |
| 2021-Jul-08 • 77 minutes #492 Hrishikesh Joshi: Why It's OK to Speak Your Mind Dr. Hrishikesh Joshi is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of Why It’s OK to Speak Your Mind. | In this episode, we talk about Why It’s OK to Speak Your Mind. We start by discussing the concept of “epistemic commons”, and talking about how we reason better collectively. We talk about free speech, and constraints on knowledge production. We discuss the social costs of speaking our minds, and the morality of it. We talk about how people’s beliefs have m... |
| 2021-Jul-05 • 55 minutes #491 Chiara Marletto - The Science of Can and Can't; The Physics/Science of Counterfactuals Dr. Chiara Marletto is Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the Department of Physics at Oxford University. Her research interests include Quantum Theory of Computation, Foundations of Physics, Condensed-Matter Physics and Quantum Biology. She is the author of The Science of Can and Can't: A Physicist's Journey through the Land of Counterfactuals. | In this episode, we focus on The Science of Can and Can’t. We start by defining “counterfactual”, and we ask what it means for something to be designed. We get in... |
| 2021-Jul-02 • 49 minutes #490 Mark Stoneking: Evolutionary Genetics, The Mitochondrial Eve, and Out of Africa Migrations Dr. Mark Stoneking directs the Human Population History Group in the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He is also Honorary Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of Leipzig. He, along with his doctoral advisor Allan Wilson and a fellow researcher Rebecca L. Cann, contributed to the Out of Africa Theory in 1987 by introducing the concept of Mitochondrial Eve. | In this episode, we talk about evolutionary genetics... |
| 2021-Jul-01 • 62 minutes #489 David Potter - Disruption: Why Things Change Dr. David Potter is Francis W. Kelsey Collegiate Professor of Greek and Roman History and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan. His books include The Origin of Empire: Rome from the Republic to Hadrian, Constantine the Emperor, The Victor's Crown: A History of Ancient Sport from Homer to Byzantium, and Theodora: Actress, Empress, Saint. His new book is Disruption: Why Things Change. | In this episode, we focus on Disruption. We first define disruption, and discuss the factors and causes... |
| 2021-Jun-28 • 56 minutes #488 Erik Kimbrough: Norms, Institutions, Impersonal Exchange, Specialization, and Organ Donation Dr. Erik Kimbrough is an associate professor of economics at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy in the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University. His research uses experiments to explore the underpinnings of prosociality, cooperation and conflict resolution and to identify the origins of economic institutions such as property rights. He has also worked on finding ways to increase the supply of transplantable organs, measuring the spitefulness of individuals, unders... |
| 2021-Jun-25 • 66 minutes #487 Suzana Herculano-Houzel: The Evolution of the Human Brain, and Darwin's Descent of Man Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel is Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Director for Communications at Vanderbilt Brain Institute at Vanderbilt University. She is interested in comparative neuroanatomy, cellular composition of brains, brain morphology, brain evolution, metabolic cost of body and brain, sleep requirement across species, feeding time, and really interested in how all of these are tied together. She writes about neuroscience and science in general for the public. She is the author of Th... |
| 2021-Jun-24 • 74 minutes #486 Kevin Mitchell: Psychological Epigenetics, and Other Fads in Neuroscience Dr. Kevin Mitchell is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He’s the author of Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are. | In this episode, we talk about psychological epigenetics. We first address what is epigenetics, and when people first identified epigenetic mechanisms or theorized about them. We refer to several mechanisms, involving chromatin, methylation, and others. We discuss if epigenetics fits into the larger puzzle of evolutionary theory. We ta... |
| 2021-Jun-21 • 57 minutes #485 Joshua Glasgow - The Solace: Finding Value in Death through Gratitude for Life Dr. Joshua Glasgow is Associate Professor in (and Chair of) the Philosophy Department at Sonoma State University. Dr. Glasgow works on a variety of topics in moral, political, and legal philosophy. His publications have covered a variety of issues concerning ethics, the good life, race and racism, language, law, mind, and more. He’s the author of The Solace: Finding Value in Death Through Gratitude for Life. | In this episode, we focus on The Solace. We discuss questions like “What is the meaning of life?”,... |
| 2021-Jun-18 • 98 minutes #484 David Bjorklund: How Children Invented Humanity: The Role of Development in Human Evolution Dr. David F. Bjorklund is a Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University. His new book is How Children Invented Humanity: The Role of Development in Human Evolution. | In this episode, we focus on How Children Invented Humanity. We discuss the relationship between evolution and development. We explore our extended period of development, and what distinguishes it from other species. We talk about behavioral plasticity, neoteny, behavioral genetics, innateness, and individual differences. We discuss... |
| 2021-Jun-17 • 41 minutes #483 Lauren Brent: The Evolution of Sociality, and Primate Societies Dr. Lauren Brent is Associate Professor in the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour at the University of Exeter. She is a biologist interested in the evolution of sociality. Her research asks why social relationships are formed and how they are maintained. Her work focuses on highly gregarious, group-living animals. She works mostly with data collected from wild or free-ranging groups, and specialize on study systems with uniquely long-term datasets. She uses a diverse set of methods, including technique... |
| 2021-Jun-14 • 82 minutes #482 David Pearce: Transhumanism, The Hedonistic Imperative, and Abolishing Suffering David Pearce is a prominent figure within the transhumanism movement and one of the co-founders of the World Transhumanist Association, currently rebranded and incorporated as Humanity+. His self-published internet manifesto, The Hedonistic Imperative (1995), outlines how pharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and neurosurgery could converge to eliminate all forms of unpleasant experience from human and non-human life, replacing suffering with "gradients of bliss". Pearce calls this the "abolitio... |
| 2021-Jun-11 • 65 minutes #481 Saul Smilansky: 10 Moral Paradoxes Dr. Saul Smilansky is a Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Haifa, Israel. He works primarily on normative and applied ethics, the free will problem, and the meaning of life. He is the author of Free Will and Illusion (Oxford University Press 2000), and 10 Moral Paradoxes (Blackwell 2007). | In this episode, we focus on moral paradoxes. We first define them, and then we go through some of them, including misfortunes, the paradox of beneficial retirement, punishment, feeling sorry ... |
| 2021-Jun-10 • 103 minutes #480 Vibeke Ottesen: The Evolution of Homicide, Filicide, and Neonaticide Dr. Vibeke Ottesen is a Norwegian criminologist with an interest in how nature and nurture combined create human behavior. She has a popular science blog – Biosocial - where she comments on news, scientific findings and literature relevant to her subject – more often than not with an evolutionary informed approach to understanding the subject matter. | In this episode, we talk about criminal behavior from an evolutionary perspective. We first get into some of the basics of evolutionary theory that help expl... |
| 2021-Jun-07 • 57 minutes #479 James Cortada - Fake News Nation: The Long History of Lies and Misinterpretations in America Dr. James W. Cortada is Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota. He worked at IBM for thirty-eight years in sales, consulting, managerial, and research positions. He is the author of books like Information and the Modern Corporation, and Fake News Nation: The Long History of Lies and Misinterpretations in America. | In this episode, we focus on Fake News Nation. We start by defining fake news, and talking a bit about its history. We talk about different kinds o... |
| 2021-Jun-04 • 63 minutes #478 Cari Goetz: Mate Preferences, Mate Value, the EEA, and Evolutionary Mismatch Dr. Cari D. Goetz is Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, San Bernardino. She does research in Evolutionary Psychology, specifically human mating strategies and mating-related psychology. | In this episode, we go through some topics in evolutionary psychology: sex differences in mate preferences; cues of sexual exploitability, and who responds to them more strongly; mate value discrepancies, and their impact on romantic relationships; and concepts like the environment of evoluti... |
| 2021-Jun-03 • 58 minutes #477 Ilana Redstone - Unassailable Ideas, Social Media, and Discourse in American Higher Education Dr. Ilana Redstone is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Redstone's work has focused on legal permanent residents to the United States. Using a quantitative analytic approach, she has addressed questions surrounding a variety of dimensions of immigrant adaptation to the U.S. She has also written on the discipline of Sociology and the divisions therein. Dr. Redstone's current work focuses on campus climate and viewpoint diversity. She is the author of U... |
| 2021-May-31 • 71 minutes #476 Edward Slingerland - Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization Dr. Edward Slingerland is a Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. His most recent book is Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization. | In this episode, we focus on Drunk. We first talk about alcohol consumption during our evolutionary history. We discuss the particular case of East Asians, and their difficulty in metabolically processing alcohol. We compare alcohol to other intoxicants, and talk about its social benefits, considering th... |
| 2021-May-28 • 60 minutes #475 Lee McIntyre - The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience Dr. Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. He is interested in comparative methodology across the natural and social sciences. He is the author of books like Post-Truth, and The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience. | In this episode, we focus on The Scientific Attitude. We start by discussing the demarcation problem and the scientific method, and then go over topics like the scientific attitude; ske... |
| 2021-May-27 • 78 minutes #474 Andrew Norman - Mental Immunity; Reason, Critical Thinking, Beliefs, and Morality Dr. Andrew Norman teaches philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He works on the conceptual and historical foundations of humanism. He has published widely on the nature of reason and the teaching of wisdom, and written books on critical thinking and the structure of dialogue. He is the author of Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think. | In this episode, we focus on Mental Immunity. We first get into what cognitive immunology is, and some aspects of ho... |
| 2021-May-24 • 35 minutes #473 George Yancey: Racism in the US, and Anti-Christian Hostility Dr. George Yancey is a Professor of Sociology at the Baylor University. He has published several research articles on the topics of institutional racial diversity, racial identity, academic bias, progressive Christians and anti-Christian hostility. His books include Compromising Scholarship, What Motivates Cultural Progressives, There is no God, So Many Christians, So Few Lions (Rowman and Littlefield) a book that assess Christianophobia in the United States. | In this episode, we talk about racism in the U... |
| 2021-May-21 • 48 minutes #472 Aiyana Koka Willard: Religion, Cognition, Culture, and Human Universals Dr. Aiyana Koka Willard is a Lecturer in the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London. Her research focuses around the culture and cognitive origins of supernatural and religious beliefs. She is particularly interested in how thinking about minds and causal reasoning is related to supernatural beliefs. Her current research focuses on witchcraft, karma, and evil eye beliefs. | In this episode, we talk about the anthropology and cognitive science of religion. We start with a discussing abo... |
| 2021-May-20 • 58 minutes #471 Darcia Narvaez: Moral Development, and Flourishing Dr. Darcia Narvaez is a Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame. She has written extensively on issues of character and moral development. Dr. Narvaez’ research explores questions of species-typical and species-atypical development in terms of wellbeing, morality, and sustainable wisdom. Her 2014 book - Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality - won the 2015 William James Book Award from the APA and the 2017 Expanded Reason Award for research. She also writes a popular blog... |
| 2021-May-17 • 64 minutes #470 Olivier Sibony - Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment Dr. Olivier Sibony is Associate Professor at HEC Paris. He is a writer, educator and consultant specializing in strategy, strategic decision making and the organization of decision processes. His research interests center on the effect of heuristics and biases in strategic decision making and procedures to improve the quality of decisions. He is the author of Cracked It!, You're About to Make a Terrible Mistake, and, more recently, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. | In this episode, we focus on Noise. We st... |
| 2021-May-14 • 51 minutes #469 Tim Maudlin: Philosophy of Physics, Quantum Mechanics, and Metaphysics Dr. Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. Her has interests primarily focused in the foundations of physics, metaphysics, and logic. His books include Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity, Truth and Paradox and The Metaphysics Within Physics. He is a member of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences and the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi). He has been a Guggenheim Fellow. | In this episode, we talk about the philosophy of physics and metaphysics. We start by p... |
| 2021-May-13 • 52 minutes #468 Andreas Elpidorou: How Boredom, Frustration, and Anticipation Lead us to the Good Life Dr. Andreas Elpidorou is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Louisville. He specializes in the philosophical study of the mind and has published extensively on the nature of emotions (especially, boredom), consciousness, and cognition. He is best known for his work on the function and value of boredom. He is the co-author of Consciousness and Physicalism: A Defense of a Research Program (Routledge, 2018), the co-editor of Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology: Conceptual and Empirical A... |
| 2021-May-10 • 95 minutes #467 David Barash - Threats: Intimidation and Its Discontents ; Nuclear Deterrence Dr. David P. Barash is Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Washington. He has written, edited or co-authored 40 books, including ones on human aggression, peace studies, and the sexual behavior of animals and people. His books include “Homo Mysterious – Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature”, “Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science”, “Approaches to Peace: A Reader in Peace Studies”, and “Through a Glass Brightly: using science to see our species as we really a... |
| 2021-May-07 • 58 minutes #466 Bart Wilson - The Property Species: Mine, Yours, and the Human Mind Dr. Bart J. Wilson is the Donald P. Kennedy Endowed Chair in Economics and Law at Chapman University. He is a founding member of the Economic Science Institute and founding member and Director of the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy. His research uses experimental economics to explore the foundations of exchange and specialization and the origins of property. Another of his research programs compares decision making in humans, apes, and monkeys. He is the author of The Property Species: ... |
| 2021-May-06 • 52 minutes #465 Gabrielle Principe: Memory Development, False Memories, and Eyewitnesses Dr. Gabrielle Principe is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the College of Charleston. Her research has been federally funded by the National Institutes of Health and she has published her research in numerous scientific journals including Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, and Cognition and Development. She has a lifelong fascination with the implications of evolutionary ideas on cognitive development and a serious interest in translating the latest scient... |
| 2021-May-03 • 59 minutes #464 Brent Roberts: Continuity and Change in Personality, Conscientiousness, and Narcissism Dr. Brent W. Roberts is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Social and Behavioral Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Roberts's research has focused on determining the replicable patterns of continuity and change in personality traits across adulthood, the life experiences associated with changes in personality traits over time, and the significance of these changes for individual functioning. Dr. Roberts also conducts research on psychometric issues, in parti... |
| 2021-Apr-30 • 105 minutes #463 Musa al-Gharbi: Academic Freedom, Trump and the 2016 Elections, and Political Polarization Dr. Musa al-Gharbi is a Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in the Department of Sociology, and a Mellon-Sawyer Fellow on Trust and Mistrust of Experts for the Interdisciplinary Center on Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE), in partnership with the American Assembly, at Columbia University. His research explores how knowledge is produced, transmitted, evaluated and put to use (or not) — and how people’s thinking is shaped by the social contexts they find themselves in. He applies these lenses to a range of topics... |
| 2021-Apr-29 • 52 minutes #462 David Papineau: The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience Dr. David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy at King's College London, having previously taught for several years at Cambridge University where he was a fellow of Robinson College. His new book is The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience. | In this episode, we focus on The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience. We first define sensory experience, discuss its conscious nature, and talk about false sensory experiences, like illusions and hallucinations. We ask if sensory experience is primarily about objects of sub... |
| 2021-Apr-26 • 59 minutes #461 David Buss When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault Dr. David Buss is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s one of the founders of the field of evolutionary psychology. His primary research focus is on strategies of human mating. He’s the author of many books, including The Evolution of Desire, and the first textbook in Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. His most recent book is When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault. | In this episode, we ... |
| 2021-Apr-23 • 53 minutes #460 Steven Gangestad: Ovulatory shifts, physical attractiveness, and psychological adaptations Dr. Steven Gangestad is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico. His research interests include social behavior; interpersonal relationships; social/personality psychology; psychopathology; and health related behavior, as informed by Evolutionary Psychology. | In this episode, we talk about ovulatory shifts, physical attractiveness, and psychological adaptations and exaptations. We start with the ovulatory-shift hypothesis, and the several controversies surrounding it, and what we k... |
| 2021-Apr-22 • 69 minutes #459 Bear Braumoeller - Only the Dead: The Persistence of War in the Modern Age Dr. Bear F. Braumoeller is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Ohio State University. He previously held faculty positions at Harvard University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Braumoeller’s research is in the areas of international security and computational social science. His current research focus is on the relationship between international order and international conflict. He is the author Only the Dead: The Persistence of War in the Modern Age (Oxford Univers... |
| 2021-Apr-19 • 92 minutes #458 Lesley Newson & Peter Richerson - A Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution Dr. Lesley Newson is honorary post-doc at University of California, Davis. | Dr. Peter Richerson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis. He’s also the author of books like Culture and the Evolutionary Process, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, and The Origin and Evolution of Cultures, all written in collaboration with Dr. Robert Boyd. | They are both authors of a recent book, A Story of Us: A... |
| 2021-Apr-16 • 73 minutes #457 Michael Strevens - The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science Dr. Michael Strevens is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. He works on the philosophy of science, where his interests include explanation, complex systems, probability, confirmation, the social structure of science, and causation; the psychology of concepts; and the philosophical applications of cognitive science. He is the author of The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science. | In this episode, we focus on The Knowledge Machine. We first talk about science before the scien... |
| 2021-Apr-15 • 59 minutes #456 Henry Greely - CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans Dr. Henry Greely is currently the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and Professor by courtesy of Genetics at Stanford University, and also an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He specializes in the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to neuroscience, genetics, or stem cell research. He’s also the author of The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction, and more recently, CRISPR Peop... |
| 2021-Apr-12 • 76 minutes #455 Barbara Tversky - Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought Dr. Barbara Tversky is a Professor Emerita of Psychology at Stanford University and a Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Tversky specializes in cognitive psychology. She is an authority in the areas of visual-spatial reasoning and collaborative cognition. Dr. Tversky’s research interests include language and communication, comprehension of events and narratives, and the mapping and modeling of cognitive processes. She is the author of Mind in Motion: How Acti... |
| 2021-Apr-09 • 69 minutes #454 Edward Westermann - Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany Dr. Edward Westermann is Professor of History at Texas A&M University (USA), where he teaches courses related to Modern and Contemporary European History. His most recent book is Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany. | In this episode, we focus on Drunk on Genocide. We start by talking about other historical examples of alcohol associated with coalitional violence. We then talk about drinking in German society prior to the rise of the Nazi regime. We discuss reasons why alcohol is ... |
| 2021-Apr-08 • 41 minutes #453 Giuliana Spadaro: Trust, Cooperation Between Strangers, and the Bystander Effect Dr. Giuliana Spadaro is Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Behavioral and Movement Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is interested in conducting experimental research on prosocial and cooperative behavior. Her PhD project captured this interest, and focused on understanding the relation between institutions, trust, and cooperation among strangers. | In this episode, we talk about trust and cooperation. We define trust, and talk about trust and cooperation among strangers. We discuss individual di... |
| 2021-Apr-05 • 42 minutes #452 Christopher Bail - Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing Dr. Christopher Bail is Professor of Sociology, Public Policy, and Data Science at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. A leader in the emerging field of computational social science, Dr. Bail’s research examines fundamental questions of social psychology, extremism, and political polarization using social media data, bots, and the latest advances in machine learning. Dr. Bail is the recipient of Guggenheim and Carnegie Fellowships. His research appears in top journals, such as Science, t... |
| 2021-Apr-02 • 62 minutes #451 Nicole Barbaro: Attachment Theory, Behavior Genetics, Intimate Partner Violence, and Spanking Dr. Nicole Barbaro is Educational Research Scientist for WGU Labs, an Adjunct Professor at Utah Valley University, and the Communications Officer for the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Her interests are in human sexual psychology and behavior, including application of life history theory and sperm competition theory. | In this episode, we focus on attachment theory and behavioral genetics. We dissect attachment theory, going through topics like the different attachment styles; their relationship with... |
| 2021-Apr-01 • 34 minutes #450 Kirsty Graham: Gestural Communication in Primates Dr. Kirsty Graham is Research Associate at the University of St. Andrews. Her PhD research, supervised by Prof. Richard Byrne, catalogued the full gestural repertoire of wild bonobos. She examined individual differences in repertoire size and usage. Most importantly, she defined the meaning of each gesture type by determining the reaction given by the recipient that satisfies the signaller. Understanding meanings or ambiguity of meanings for wild bonobo gestural communication provides insights into the evol... |
| 2021-Mar-29 • 91 minutes #449 Adaner Usmani: Mass Incarceration, Black Subordination, and Modern Democracies Dr. Adaner Usmani is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Studies at Harvard University. | In this episode, we focus on topics like mass incarceration, discrimination against black Americans and the root causes of their subordination, modern democracies and their weaknesses, creating a Left that does not deny human nature, and the viability of communism in current political systems. We discuss the causes and motivations behind mass incarceration in the US. We talk about the contentious issue of... |
| 2021-Mar-26 • 74 minutes #448 Touré Reed - Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism Dr. Touré Reed is a professor in the History department at Illinois State University. Dr. Reed earned his BA in American Studies from Hampshire College (Amherst, MA), and his PhD in History from Columbia University (New York, NY). Dr. Reed's research interests center on race, class, and inequality. He’s the author of Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism. | In this episode, we focus on Toward Freedom. We go through some of the history of black politics in the US, including slavery, the post-New... |
| 2021-Mar-25 • 56 minutes #447 W. Keith Campbell: The New Science of Narcissism Dr. William Keith Campbell is a professor in the Department of Psychology in the University of Georgia's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. He has published over 120 peer-reviewed papers and a number of books, including The Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Findings, and Treatments (with Joshua Miller) and The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (with Jean Twenge). Dr. Keith Campbell’s new book, in collaboration with Grady C... |
| 2021-Mar-22 • 109 minutes #446 Pedro Galvão: Três Diálogos Sobre a Morte ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done d... |
| 2021-Mar-19 • 30 minutes #445 Kateřina Lochmanová: The History and Philosophy of Antinatalism ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: http... |
| 2021-Mar-18 • 52 minutes #444 Joel Paris: Psychoanalysis and Modern Psychiatry Dr. Joel Paris is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University, and Research Associate in the Department of Psychiatry at Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital. His research interests include developmental factors in personality disorders (especially borderline personality), and culture and personality. He’s the author of many books, including An Evidence-Based Critique of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, The Fall of an Icon: Psychoanalysis and Academic Psychiatry, and Fads a... |
| 2021-Mar-15 • 44 minutes #443 Christopher Holden: The HEXACO, Romantic Relationships, Mate Retention, Humor, and Self-esteem Dr. Christopher Holden is Professor of Psychology and Principal Investigator of the Personality and Romantic Relationships Lab at Appalachian State University. His research focuses on topics like personality and evolutionary psychology, romantic relationships, the HEXACO model of personality, self-esteem, mate retention behavior, and others. | In this episode, we talk about personality and evolutionary psychology. More specifically, we address topics like the HEXACO model of personality; personality and mat... |
| 2021-Mar-12 • 77 minutes #442 Nathan Lents - Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes Dr. Nathan H. Lents is Professor of Biology and director of the honors program and the campus Macaulay Honors College program at John Jay College. Dr. Lents is noted for his work in cell biology, genetics, and forensic science, as well as his popular science writing and blogging on the evolution of human biology and behavior. He is the author of books like Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals, and Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes. | In this episode,... |
| 2021-Mar-11 • 59 minutes #441 Francesca Minerva: Abortion, Cryonics, Lookism, and the Journal of Controversial Ideas Dr. Francesca Minerva is a research fellow at Warwick University and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Ghent. She is the co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Controversial Ideas. Her research focuses on applied philosophy, including lookism, conscientious objection, abortion, academic freedom, and cryonics. | In this episode, we talk about cryonics, lookism, abortion, academic freedom, and conscientious objection. We start with abortion, and refer to abortion before and after birth. We also ... |
| 2021-Mar-08 • 57 minutes #440 James Lenman: Ethics, Motives, Consequentialism, and Morality Dr. James Lenman is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. He is known for his expertise on ethics. Dr. Lenman is a former president of the British Society for Ethical Theory (2002-2008). | In this episode, we talk about ethics. Topics include: motives; justifications; consequentialism; the objectivity of morality; and if it is possible to end discussions on morality and ethics. | -- | Follow Dr. Lenman’s work: | Faculty page: http://bit.ly/34hhuzQ | Website: http://bit.ly/37p6Adx | PhilPeo... |
| 2021-Mar-05 • 58 minutes #439 Eric Kaufmann - Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities Dr. Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. He is principally interested in cultural politics: ethnicity, national identity and religion. He’s the author of Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities. | In this episode, we focus on Whiteshift. First, Dr. Kaufmann tells us about the main thesis of the book. We discuss the relationship between ethnicity and culture, and the relationship between ethnic identity and politics. We go t... |
| 2021-Mar-04 • 47 minutes #438 John Paul Wright: The Psychology of Criminal Behavior Dr. John Paul Wright is Professor of Criminal Justice in the Division of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Wright was rated as the most productive associate professor in criminology and was recently evaluated as one of the most cited criminologists in the United States. He has published over 130 scholarly articles in criminology, psychology, behavioral genetics, and molecular genetics journals and is a frequent lecturer to professional organizations interested in the development of serio... |
| 2021-Mar-01 • 47 minutes #437 Allan Horwitz: What's Normal? Reconciling Biology and Culture Dr. Allan Horwitz is Board of Governors Professor in the Department of Sociology and Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers University. He has also chaired the Mental Health and Medical Sociology Sections of the American Sociological Association, as well as the Psychiatric Sociology Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. His research has focused on the sociology of mental health and illness. In addition, he has published several books including What’s... |
| 2021-Feb-26 • 79 minutes #436 Gregg Caruso: Just Deserts, and Rejecting Retributivism Dr. Gregg D. Caruso is Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning and Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University. He is also the Co-Director of the Justice Without Retribution Network (JWRN) at the University of Aberdeen School of Law. His research interests include free will, agency, and responsibility (both moral and legal), as well as philosophy of mind, cognitive science, neuroethics, moral psychology, criminal law, punishment, and public policy. His books include Rejecting Retributivism: Fre... |
| 2021-Feb-25 • 60 minutes #435 Ghristopher Kavanagh: Religion, Rituals, Belief in Japanese Society, and WEIRD Psychology Dr. Christopher Kavanagh is an associate professor in the College of Contemporary Psychology at Rikkyo University and a researcher in cognitive anthropology at the Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology (ICEA) at the University of Oxford. Currently he is based in Japan where he conducts research in collaboration with Masaki Yuki’s Culture, Social Ecology, and Psychology Lab in Hokkaido University. His research interests include East Asian religions, ritual behavior, and the bonding effects o... |
| 2021-Feb-22 • 82 minutes #434 Thomas Coleman: The Psychology of Believers and Nonbelievers Thomas Coleman III is PhD student at Coventry University, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bialystok as part of the Society and Cognition Unit. He draws on multiple approaches from across the sciences and humanities, to study the origins, development, and maintenance of (non)religious worldviews. His research focuses on three areas: Identifying and measuring components of nonreligious worldviews; computer simulated models of the cognitive and social dynamics leading to (non)belief in super... |
| 2021-Feb-19 • 53 minutes #433 Timothy Lenton - Revolutions that Made the Earth Dr. Timothy Lenton is Professor of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter and Director of the Global Systems Institute. He has over 20 years of research experience in studying the Earth as a system, and developing and using models to understand its behavior. He is particularly interested in how life has reshaped the planet in the past, and what lessons we can draw from this as we proceed to reshape the planet now. These topics are covered in his books ‘Earth System Science: A Ve... |
| 2021-Feb-18 • 70 minutes #432 Laith Al-Shawaf: Evolutionary Psychology, Just-so Stories, Anger and Disgust, and Culture Dr. Laith Al-Shawaf is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). Before, he was an Assistant Professor at Bilkent University in Turkey and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, Germany. Laith has taught and conducted research in several different countries, and is a member of the Arab-German Young Academy (AGYA), as well as an academic adviser at Ideas Beyond Borders (IBB). | In this episode, we focus on a recent article of his pub... |
| 2021-Feb-15 • 75 minutes #431 Menelaos Apostolou: The Evolution of Same-Sex Attraction Dr. Menelaos Apostolou is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. He’s the author of a new book, The Evolution of Same-Sex Attraction. | This is my second interview with Dr. Apostolou, where we focus on The Evolution of Same-Sex attraction. We start by discussing the evolution of sexual reproduction, and we talk a lot about sexual attraction (its evolution; if it occurs on a continuum; if it is fluid; and the genetic basis and possible environmental factors behind its developm... |
| 2021-Feb-12 • 62 minutes #430 David Lahti: Philosophy of Biology, Complex Traits, and Evolutionary Ethics Dr. David C. Lahti is an Associate Professor of Biology at Queens College, City University of New York, where he runs a Behavior & Evolution laboratory. His work focuses on evolutionary and behavioral ecology, especially the evolution of complex and learned traits in birds and humans. | In this episode, we talk about philosophy of biology and evolutionary theory. Topics include: complex and learned traits; birds, and the evolutionary insights we can get by studying them; culture from an evolutionary per... |
| 2021-Feb-11 • 61 minutes #429 Andrew Berry: The History of Evolutionary Biology (Pt. 1) Dr. Andrew Berry is a lecturer in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. He is an evolutionary biologist with a particular interest in Alfred Russel Wallace. His research combined field and laboratory methods to detect positive Darwinian selection (i.e. adaptive evolution) at the molecular level in natural populations. He has published two books: Infinite tropics: an Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology, with a foreword written by Stephen Jay Gould, and DNA: The Secret of Life with James Watson. | In this episode,... |
| 2021-Feb-08 • 46 minutes #428 Stanley Fish - There's No Such Thing as Free Speech Dr. Stanley Fish is Professor of Law at Florida International University and Visiting Professor of Law at Cardoso Law School. In addition to being one of the country’s leading public intellectuals, Professor Fish is an extraordinarily prolific author. Professor Dr. Fish has written for many of the country’s leading law journals. including Stanford Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and Texas Law Review. His books include There’s No Such Thi... |
| 2021-Feb-05 • 70 minutes #427 Arthur Glenberg: Embodied Cognition, Simulation, Mirror Neurons, and Education Dr. Arthur Glenberg is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a member of INICO at the Univeridad de Salamanca. He does basic research in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience with a focus on developing theories of embodied cognition in the areas of language, education, and social processes. In addition, he and his colleagues at ASU have developed an embodied reading comprehension intervention (EMBRAC... |
| 2021-Feb-04 • 73 minutes #426 Lyle Steadman: Society, Kinship, Tradition, Ancestor Worship, and Religion Dr. Lyle Steadman is Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University. Dr. Steadman focuses on religion and kinship, especially their interrelationship, and the influence of natural selection on human social and cultural behavior. He has done extensive research among the Hewa, a society in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. A short period of fieldwork was also conducted in an Indian village in Baja California, Mexico. | In this episode, we talk about kinship and religion. We first discuss the Hewa, and then g... |
| 2021-Feb-01 • 83 minutes #425 Azar Gat - Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism Dr. Azar Gat is the Ezer Weizman Professor of National Security at Tel Aviv University, in Israel. He is the founder and head of the University's International Program in Security and Diplomacy Executive Master’s Program in Diplomacy and Security. He’s also the author of books like A History of Military Thought, War in Human Civilization, and Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism. | In this episode, we focus on Dr. Gat’s book, Nations. What talk about nationalism an... |
| 2021-Jan-30 • 6 minutes 3 YEARS + SUPPORT + 100 PATRONS ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter... | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | ----... |
| 2021-Jan-29 • 60 minutes #424 Stefaan Blancke: Science, Pseudoscience, Rationality, and Cultural Evolution Dr. Stefaan Blancke is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tilburg University, Netherlands. He studies the diffusion of (pseudo)scientific beliefs from an epidemiological perspective. His research focuses on the psychological and environmental factors that shape and constrain the development and distribution of these beliefs in the history and philosophy of science, science education and the public understanding of science. He is also interested in the philosophy of cultural evolution and the role of reaso... |
| 2021-Jan-28 • 50 minutes #423 Andrew Delton: Evolution, Politics, the Welfare State, Partisanship, and Voting Behavior Dr. Andrew Delton is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Center for Behavioral Political Economy at Stony Brook University. His research is at the intersection of political science, evolutionary psychology, and behavioral economics. Topics include collective action and public goods, generosity and redistribution, voting and political mobilization, partisanship, risk and time preferences, and emotions such as anger, compassion, and shame. Methods include behavioral economic gam... |
| 2021-Jan-25 • 47 minutes #422 Michael Tomasello: Interdependence, Shared Intentionality, Culture, and Morality Dr. Michael Tomasello is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as linguist. He is Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and professor of psychology at Duke University. Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he is considered one of today's most authoritative developmental and comparative psychologists. He’s also the author of several books, including The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999), A Natural ... |
| 2021-Jan-22 • 77 minutes #421 Steven Heine: Cultural Psychology, and How Psychology Varies Across Cultures Dr. Steven J. Heine is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of British Columbia. | In this episode, we talk about Cultural Psychology. We start with some basic questions, regarding the field of cultural psychology, and what is culture. We then go through several topics like: where does cultural variation come from?; ways of classifying different cultures; differences in psychological mechanisms influenced by culture, and if these are perman... |
| 2021-Jan-21 • 106 minutes #420 Stephen Stearns: Life History Theory, and Evolutionary Medicine Dr. Stephen Stearns is Edward P Bass Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Yale University. Dr. Stearns specializes in life history evolution, which links the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology, and in evolutionary medicine. His books include “Evolutionary Medicine” (Sinauer, 2015) with Ruslan Medzhitov, “Evolution, an introduction” (Oxford, 2000, 2nd Ed 2005) with Rolf Hoekstra, “Watching, from the Edge of Extinction” (Yale, 1999) with his wife Beve... |
| 2021-Jan-18 • 89 minutes #419 Christian List: Why Free Will Is Real Dr. Christian List is Professor of Philosophy and Decision Theory at LMU Munich and Co-Director of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. He’s the author of Why Free Will Is Real. | In this episode, we talk about Why Free Will Is Real. We start with some basic questions, like what is free will, and what is an agent. We then get into the moral side of things, and talk about moral responsibility and the law. We address three major challenges do free will (the “challenge from radical materialism,” the ... |
| 2021-Jan-15 • 84 minutes #418 Frederick Coolidge: Neuropsychology, Cognitive Archaeology, and Human Evolution Dr. Frederick Coolidge is Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of Undergraduate Education in Psychology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. He teaches introductory and advanced undergraduate statistics, cognitive evolution, evolutionary neuropsychology, abnormal psychology, and sleep and dreams. | In this episode, we talk about neuropsychology, cognitive archaeology, and paleoanthropology. We start with neuropsychology, evolutionary neuropsychology, evolutionary psychology, and cogniti... |
| 2021-Jan-14 • 68 minutes #417 Rick Shenkman - Political Animals: How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter... | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | ----... |
| 2021-Jan-11 • 84 minutes #416 Evert Van de Vliert: Climate, Economics, Affluence, Social Organizations, and Culture Dr. Evert Van de Vliert received his PhD from the Free University in Amsterdam in 1973 and held teacher and researcher positions at the same university, at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and at the Royal Military Academy in the Netherlands. He served as chairman of the Dutch Research Association of Social and Organizational Psychologists (1984–1989) and as research director of the Kurt Lewin Institute (1993–1996). At present, he is professor emeritus of organizational psychology at the Universit... |
| 2021-Jan-08 • 61 minutes #415 Jacob Stegenga: Philosophy of Medicine, Evidence, Disease, and Medical Nihilism Dr. Jacob Stegenga is a Reader in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. He has published widely on fundamental topics in reasoning and rationality and philosophical problems in medicine and biology. Prior to joining Cambridge he taught in the United States and Canada, and he received his PhD from the University of California San Diego. He is the author of Medical Nihilism and Care and Cure: An Introduction to Philosophy of Medicine, and he is currently writing a... |
| 2021-Jan-07 • 101 minutes #414 Robert McCauley & George Graham: Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind Dr. Robert McCauley is the William Rand Kenan Jr. University Professor of Philosophy at the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture, at Emory University. | Dr. George Graham is former Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Georgia State University, and the AC Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. | They are both authors of a recent book, Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind: What Mental Abnormalities Can Teach Us About Religions. | In this episode,... |
| 2021-Jan-04 • 58 minutes #413 Michael Anderson: Understanding How The Brain Evolved Dr. Michael Anderson is Rotman Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Science, Core member at the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, and Core member at the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario. For 2012-13, Dr. Anderson is a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, at Stanford University. His primary areas of research include an account of the evolution of the cortex via exaptation of existing neural circuitry (the "massive redeployment hypothesis"); the role... |
| 2021-Jan-01 • 101 minutes #412 Agner Fog: Cultural Evolution, Memetics, Politics and the Media Dr. Agner Fog is associate professor of computer science at Technical University of Denmark. Dr. Fog does research in Evolutionary Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Social systems and Computer Science. His current project is 'Theory of cultural change based on evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, and cultural evolution.' He’s the author of “Warlike and Peaceful Societies: The Interaction of Genes and Culture”, and “Cultural Selection”. | In this episode, we talk about cultural evolution. We sta... |
| 2020-Dec-31 • 81 minutes #411 Ann-Sophie Barwich - Smellosophy: What the Nose tells the Mind Dr. Ann-Sophie Barwich is Assistant Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and Cognitive Science at Indiana University Bloomington. She is a cognitive scientist and empirical philosopher & historian of science, technology, and the senses. She divides her brain-time between the Department of History & Philosophy of Science and the Cognitive Science Program. Estimated begin of lab (EEG/Olfactometry) in early 2021. She’s the author of Smellosophy: What the Nose tells the Mind. | In this episode... |
| 2020-Dec-28 • 90 minutes #410 Edward Watts - Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny Dr. Edward Watts is presently the Vassiliadis Professor of Byzantine Greek History at UC San Diego, where he was formerly Co-Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies. His research interests center on the intellectual and religious history of the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. He is the author of several books on ancient history, the most recent one being Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny. He also has a new book coming out in 2021, The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome: The History ... |
| 2020-Dec-25 • 83 minutes #409 Gordon Gallup: Orgasm, Sperm Competition, Mating Strategies, Self-Recognition, and Religion Dr. Gordon Gallup is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Albany. He is best known for developing the mirror test, also called the mirror self-recognition test, or MSR, in 1970, which gauges self-awareness of animals. He also studied tonic immobility, or "animal hypnosis,". His later work on animal behavior focused on ethological approaches to the study of animal behavior under laboratory conditions. Since the 1990s, Dr. Gallup has researched human evolutionary psychology exclusive... |
| 2020-Dec-24 • 151 minutes #408 Victoria Dougherty: Writing Fiction, Religion, Politics, Comedy, and Interesting Villains ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter... | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | ----... |
| 2020-Dec-21 • 61 minutes #407 Joseph LeDoux: The Deep History of Ourselves Dr. Joseph LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, Professor of Neural Science, Professor of Psychiatry, and Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University. His work is focused on the brain mechanisms of emotion and memory. He’s the author of many books, the most recent one being The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains. | In this episode, we focus on The Deep History of Ourselves, and talk about the evolution of behavior... |
| 2020-Dec-18 • 61 minutes #406 Caleb Scharf: Life, on Earth and Elsewhere Dr. Caleb Scharf is the director of the multidisciplinary Columbia Astrobiology Center at Columbia University. He works in the fields of exoplanetary science and astrobiology, and writes extensively about science for a popular audience. One ultimate goal of his research is to find planets that could harbor recognizable life, and to detect the presence of that life—an effort that falls under the banner of astrobiology. | In this episode, we talk about astrobiology and exoplanetary science. We start with a bi... |
| 2020-Dec-17 • 56 minutes #405 Andrew Gallup: The Evolution of Aggression, and Yawning Dr. Andrew Gallup is Assistant Professor of Psychology and the director of the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) Lab at SUNY Poly. His research spans a variety of topics, including contagious behavior and comparative neuroanatomy, brain thermoregulation and vigilance, collective behavior and social cognition, aggression and sexual conflict, the evolution of cooperation, sports and athletic competition from an evolutionary perspective, biomarkers of Darwinian fitness, and the effects of neuromodulation o... |
| 2020-Dec-14 • 123 minutes #404 Hanno Sauer: Ethics, Moral Realism, Moral Progress, and Human Rationality Dr. Hanno Sauer is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht University. His main research interests are in moral psychology and empirically informed metaethics. He is interested in whether and how we can bring empirical data from diverse disciplines such as social psychology, neuroscience or cognitive science to bear on questions of normative and/or metaethical interests, and what the limits of this approach are. | In this episode, we tackle lots of approaches, challenges and arguments in (meta)ethics. ... |
| 2020-Dec-11 • 63 minutes #403 Christopher Freiman - Why It's OK to Ignore Politics Dr. Christopher Freiman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of William & Mary. His research interests include democratic theory, distributive justice, and immigration. He’s the author of two books, Unequivocal Justice, and the most recent one, Why It’s OK to Ignore Politics. His work has appeared in venues such as the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, The Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Politics, Philosophy, and ... |
| 2020-Dec-10 • 86 minutes #402 David Geary - Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences Dr. David C. Geary is Curators’ Professor and Thomas Jefferson Fellow in the Department of Psychological Sciences and Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. He’s the author of several books including Children's mathematical development, Male, female: The evolution of human sex differences, and Evolution of vulnerability: Implications for sex differences in health and development. | In this episode, we talk about “Male, Female”, whose third edition has jus... |
| 2020-Dec-07 • 60 minutes #401 Kristina Durante: Female Intrasexual Competition, and Consumer Choices Dr. Kristina Durante is an associate professor of marketing, Marketing Department Vice Chair, and the marketing Ph.D. program coordinator at Rutgers Business School. She is a social psychologist interested in the biology of decision-making. Her research lies at the intersection of social psychology, evolutionary biology, and consumer decision-making. Dr. Durante’s research program focuses on how our evolved biology (ancestral ecology and internal physiological systems) and our modern social environment inte... |
| 2020-Dec-04 • 78 minutes #400 John Hoffecker - Modern Humans: Their African Origin and Global Dispersal Dr. John Hoffecker is Fellow of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). He specializes in archaeology and human paleoecology. His primary research focus is the global dispersal of anatomically modern humans, which began more than 50,000 years ago in Africa. He is the author of several books, including Modern Humans: Their African Origin and Global Dispersal (2017). | In this episode, we focus on Dr. Hoffecker’s book. We cover some of the major topics of the book, including: the importance of ... |
| 2020-Dec-03 • 58 minutes #399 Niels Dingemanse: Ecology, Behavioral Plasticity, and Animal Personality Dr. Niels Dingemanse is Tenured Professor in Behavioural Ecology in the Department of Biology at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany. He conducts evolutionary behavioral ecology research, asking questions about the adaptive evolution of behavioral strategies, and their genetic architectures, within an ecological context. His research is motivated by behavioral ecology, life-history, and quantitative genetics theory, and seeks to test predictions and assumptions of adaptive theory using observational ... |
| 2020-Nov-30 • 52 minutes #398 Stuart Russell: Human-Level AI, How Worried We Should Be About AI, and Its Present and Future Dr. Stuart Russell is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also holds the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering. He founded and leads the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence there. His current concerns include the threat of autonomous weapons and the long-term future of artificial intelligence and its relation to humanity. Dr. Russell is co-author of the most popular textbook in the field of artificial intelligence: Artificial Intelligence: A M... |
| 2020-Nov-27 • 69 minutes #397 Gordon Burghardt: The Evolution And Function of Play Dr. Gordon M. Burghardt is Alumni Distinguished Service Professor in the departments of Psychology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee. His research focus has been on comparative studies of behavioral development in animals with special attention to reptiles, bears, and the evolution of play, as well as historical and theoretical issues in ethology and psychology. He has served as editor or editorial board member of numerous journals and is past president of the Animal Beha... |
| 2020-Nov-26 • 72 minutes #396 Jeff McMahan: Killing in War, and the Ethics of Veganism Dr. Jeff McMahan is White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He specializes in Practical Ethics, Political Philosophy, and Ethics. He’s the author of books like The Morality of Nationalism, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life, and Killing in War. | In this episode, we focus on the killing in war, and the ethics of vegetarianism/veganism. About killing in ward, we address questions like what is a just and an unjust war, the circumstances where soldiers are morally... |
| 2020-Nov-23 • 69 minutes #395 Lisa Bortolotti: The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs Dr. Lisa Bortolotti is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, affiliated with the Philosophy Department in the School of Philosophy, Theology, and Religion; and with the Institute for Mental Health in the School of Psychology. Her research is in the philosophy of the cognitive sciences. She is the author of The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs. | In this episode, we talk about The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs. We start with some basic concepts, like “irrational belief... |
| 2020-Nov-20 • 59 minutes #394 Chiara Marletto: Quantum Mechanics, Constructor Theory, Free Will, and Reality Dr. Chiara Marletto is Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the Department of Physics at Oxford University. Her research interests include Quantum Theory of Computation, Foundations of Physics, Condensed-Matter Physics and Quantum Biology. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the "Graduate Prize Scholarship" at Merton College, 2012; "Optime" Award for Academic Excellence, offered by Unione Industriale di Torino, 2011; and the "Ing. Vittorino Pollo e Dott.Ssa Zita Pollo" Award for Academic Excelle... |
| 2020-Nov-19 • 50 minutes #393 Paul Bloom: Moral Development, Empathy, Pleasure and/in Pain Dr. Paul Bloom is the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University. His research explores how children and adults understand the physical and social world, with special focus on language, morality, religion, fiction, and art. He is the author of books like How Children Learn the Meanings of Words (2000), How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like (2010), Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil (2013), and Against Empathy: The Case for Ratio... |
| 2020-Nov-16 • 91 minutes #392 Christopher Ferguson: Violent Media and Its Effects, and How Madness Shaped History Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson is professor of psychology at Stetson University. He is interested in media violence and, in particular, video games. Dr. Ferguson is also interested in the sociology of media research itself...how political pressure, social moral panics and culture war can distort media effects research into "opinions with numbers.". He’s the author of How Madness Shaped History: An Eccentric Array of Maniacal Rulers, Raving Narcissists, and Psychotic Visionaries. | In this episode, we talk abou... |
| 2020-Nov-13 • 73 minutes #391 Matthew Cobb: The Idea of the Brain Dr. Matthew Cobb is Professor of Zoology at the University of Manchester, where his research focuses on the sense of smell, insect behavior and the history of science. He is also a historian of the French Resistance. He’s the author of several books, including The Idea of the Brain: A History. | In this episode, we talk about The Idea of the Brain, and the history and approaches in the discipline of neuroscience. We start with some of the history about where people located the mind in the body, when we star... |
| 2020-Nov-12 • 64 minutes #390 Justin Tosi - Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk Dr. Justin Tosi is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Texas Tech University. He works in social, political, legal, and moral philosophy, and especially on state legitimacy, special obligations, and social morality. He’s the author of Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk (co-authored with Brandon Warmke). | In this episode, we talk about Grandstanding. We define grandstanding, and the different types of it. We talk about the distinction between moral grandstanding and virtue signaling. We ask if ... |
| 2020-Nov-09 • 74 minutes #389 Robert Atkinson - Big Is Beautiful: Debunking the Myth of Small Business Dr. Robert Atkinson is a Canadian-American economist. He is president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., that promotes policies based on innovation economics. He was previously Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute. He’s the author of four books, including Big Is Beautiful: Debunking the Myth of Small Business. | In this episode, we discuss Big is Beautiful. We begin with the history of how the idea of small busi... |
| 2020-Nov-06 • 74 minutes #388 Warren Brown: Neuroscience, Dualism, Emergentism, Science and Religion Dr. Warren Brown is Director of the Lee Edwards Travis Research Institute and Professor of Psychology in the Department of Doctoral Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Currently, he is most actively involved in neuroscience research in two areas: (1) the cognitive and psychosocial disabilities in a congenital brain malformation called agenesis of the corpus callosum, and (2) the consequences in adults of a childhood hemispherectomy for the control of seizures. Brown has also studied functioning of th... |
| 2020-Nov-05 • 100 minutes #387 Greg Eghigian: The History of Mental Illness and Psychiatry Dr. Greg Eghigian is Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University. A historian of both the human sciences and modern Europe, he is particularly interested in how societies grapple with the questions and problems associated with modernity through the vehicles of science, technology, and medicine. His research has largely focused on the nature of power and the relationship between the state, science, and medicine in understanding and managing things such as disability, deviance, criminality, mental i... |
| 2020-Nov-02 • 45 minutes #386 Shawn Smith: The APA Guidelines for Practice with Boys and Men Dr. Shawn Smith is a clinical psychologist in Denver, Colorado and the author of five psychology books. He also writes a blog at docsmith.co. And he has a YouTube channel - Dr. Shawn T. Smith. | In this episode, we talk about the APA Guidelines for Practice with Boys and Men. We discuss the traits associated with traditional masculinity, evolutionary psychology, real problems men face in modern societies and how to help them, and how the APA wants clinical practitioners to become political activists. | -- |... |
| 2020-Oct-30 • 130 minutes #385 Russell Warne - In the Know: Debunking 35 Myths about Human Intelligence Dr. Russell T. Warne is Associate Professor of Psychology at Utah Valley University. His new book is In the Know: Debunking 35 Myths About Human Intelligence. | In this episode, the topic of conversation is Dr. Warne’s new book, In the Know. We cover some of the major topics of the book, including: g and IQ; what general intelligence is; if IQ tests only work in the West, and are culture-specific; the evolution of general intelligence; the neuroscience of IQ, and the P-FIT model; if there any multiple intel... |
| 2020-Oct-29 • 39 minutes #384 Robert Sapolsky: Behavior, Self-control, Morality, Primates, Humans, and Religion Dr. Robert Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biology and Professor of Neurology and of Neurosurgery at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky is the author of several informative and comical books that present cutting edge psychoneurobiological knowledge in an enjoyable, easy to read format. He's also a renowned researcher and award-winning professor at Stanford University. He’s the author of books like Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Bi... |
| 2020-Oct-26 • 63 minutes #383 Daniel Kruger: Life History Theory, Time Perspective, and Health Dr. Daniel Kruger is Research Investigator in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. He applies evolutionary principles to advance the understanding of a wide range of human psychology and behavior. Much of his work is founded on Life History Theory, which provides a powerful framework for understanding individual variation. He pursues both basic research to advance theory as well as applied projects that leverage the most powerful theoretical framework in the life sciences to promote ... |
| 2020-Oct-23 • 59 minutes #382 Howard Friedman - Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life Dr. Howard Steven Friedman is a data scientist, health economist, writer and artist. He teaches at Columbia University and has decades of experience in the public sector, private sector and academia. He has authored/co-authored about 100 scientific articles and book chapters in areas of data science, applied statistics, health economics and politics. His most recent release, Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life, has been covered by major media including National Public Radio and the journal Science an... |
| 2020-Oct-22 • 77 minutes #381 Virgil Zeigler-Hill: Self-Esteem, Narcissism, and Romantic Love Styles Dr. Virgil Zeigler-Hill is Professor of Psychology and Director of Graduate Training at Oakland University. He is a social-personality psychologist with primary research interests in four interrelated areas: (1) self-esteem, (2) narcissism, (3) cognitive representations of the self, and (4) interpersonal relationships. His research concerning self-esteem has largely focused on the potential causes and consequences of fragile high self-esteem. | In this episode, we talk about the self, self-esteem – in... |
| 2020-Oct-19 • 67 minutes #380 Gordon Pennycook: Analytic Thinking, Reasoning, and Fake News Dr. Gordon Pennycook is Assistant Professor of Behavioural Science at University of Regina’s Hill/Levene Schools of Business. He’s also an Associate Member of the Department of Psychology. He’s a member of the editorial board for Thinking & Reasoning and a consulting editor for Judgment and Decision Making. His research focus is on reasoning and decision-making, broadly defined. He investigates the distinction between intuitive processes (“gut feelings”) and more deliberative (“analytic”) reasoning proc... |
| 2020-Oct-16 • 55 minutes #379 Paul Eastwick: Close Relationships and Evolutionary Psychology Dr. Paul Eastwick is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Eastwick’s research investigates how people initiate romantic relationships and the psychological mechanisms that help romantic partners to remain committed and attached. One of his research programs examines how the qualities that people say are critically important to them in a romantic partner—their ideal partner preferences—direct romantic partner selection and retention. He is also interested in exploring how close... |
| 2020-Oct-15 • 48 minutes #378 Brian Hare: Survival of the Friendliest Dr. Brian Hare is a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University. He researches the evolution of cognition by studying both humans, our close relatives the primates (especially bonobos and chimpanzees), and species whose cognition converged with our own (primarily domestic dogs). He founded and co-directs the Duke Canine Cognition Center. He’s the author of several books, including the most recent one, Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity.... |
| 2020-Oct-12 • 62 minutes #377 Michael Taborsky: The Evolution of Altruism and Sexual Reproduction Dr. Michael Taborsky is the Director of the Behavioural Ecology Department and Co-director of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His major research focus is the adaptive function of behavior, with emphasis on cooperation and conflict, sociality and sexual reproduction. | In this episode, we talk about eusociality, and how it might tie back to the evolution of organisms, and the division of labor between specialized cells. We also discuss the evolution of altruism,... |
| 2020-Oct-09 • 66 minutes #376 Russell Warne: Standardized Tests, Critical Thinking and Creativity Dr. Russell T. Warne is Associate Professor of Psychology at Utah Valley University. Dr. Warne is the associate editor for the Journal for the Education of the Gifted and serves on the editorial boards for Intelligence, the Journal of School Psychology, Gifted Child Quarterly, and the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment. Dr. Warne has published over 55 scholarly articles in peer reviewed journals and is the author of the acclaimed undergraduate statistics textbook Statistics for the Social Sciences: A G... |
| 2020-Oct-08 • 64 minutes #375 Karenleigh Overmann: Cognitive Archaeology, Numeracy, and Language Dr. Karenleigh A. Overmann is an associate professor of anthropology (adjunct) at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS) Center for Cognitive Archaeology. She recently completed two years of postdoctoral research at the University of Bergen (MSCA individual fellowship, EU project 785793). She earned her doctorate in archaeology from the University of Oxford as a Clarendon scholar. She also has a master's degree (psychology) and bachelor's (anthropology, philosophy, English) from UCCS. She’s the... |
| 2020-Oct-05 • 57 minutes #374 Moshe Hoffman: Incentives, Preferences, and Reason Dr. Moshe Hoffman is a Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab & Lecturer at Harvard's Department of Economics. He applies game theory, models of learning and evolution, and experimental methods, to try to decipher the (often subconscious and subtle) incentives that shape our social behavior, preferences, and ideologies. Dr. Hoffman obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and his B.S. in Economics from the University of Chicago. He also co-designed and teache... |
| 2020-Oct-02 • 65 minutes #373 Melanie Mitchell: AI, Complex Systems, Human Cognition, and Algorithms Dr. Melanie Mitchell is the Davis Professor of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, and Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University. Her current research focuses on conceptual abstraction, analogy-making, and visual recognition in artificial intelligence systems. Dr. Mitchell is the author or editor of six books and numerous scholarly papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems. Her book Complexity: A Guided Tour (Oxford University Press) won the 2... |
| 2020-Oct-01 • 71 minutes #372 Thibaud Gruber: Primates, Tool Use, and Communication Dr. Thibaud Gruber is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Geneva, and he is also part of the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences. A primatologist halfway between Switzerland and the UK. Working with chimps, orangutans and bonobos, he is interested in the evolutionary origins of culture and language. | In this episode, we focus on tool use and vocalizations from chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans. We start with toll use, and go through some general topics, like how transmission of cultura... |
| 2020-Sep-28 • 66 minutes #371 Marc Bekoff: Ethology and Animal Conservation Dr. Marc Bekoff is professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. He has won many awards for his scientific research including the Exemplar Award from the Animal Behavior Society and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Dr. Bekoff has published numerous essays (popular, scientific, and book chapters), 31 books, and has edited three encyclopedias. | In this episode, we talk about animal c... |
| 2020-Sep-25 • 52 minutes #370 Martie Haselton - Hormonal: The Hidden Intelligence of Hormones Dr. Martie Haselton is Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Communication as well as the ISG (Institute for Society and Genetics) at UCLA. Her research focuses on evolution and human behavior, social psychology, interpersonal communication, and social endocrinology. Her empirical work explores intimate relationships, sexuality, olfactory communication, psychological sex differences, social inference, evolution and health, and the effects of reproductive hormones on human behavior. She’s the author... |
| 2020-Sep-24 • 54 minutes #369 Alberto Acerbi: Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age Dr. Alberto Acerbi is a Lecturer in Psychology in the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London. He is a cognitive/evolutionary anthropologist with a particular interest in computational science. The main question that drives his research is: is it possible to find some general factors determining why some cultural traits succeed and others do not? He is interested in particular in contemporary cultural phenomena, and he uses a naturalistic, quantitative, and evolutionary approach with di... |
| 2020-Sep-21 • 72 minutes #368 Ian Tattersall: Human Evolution and Cognition Dr. Ian Tattersall is currently curator emeritus in the Division of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He has carried out both primatological and paleontological fieldwork in countries as diverse as Madagascar, Vietnam, Surinam, Yemen, and Mauritius. Trained in archaeology and anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and in geology and vertebrate paleontology at Yale University, Dr. Tattersall has concentrated his research since the 1960s in three main areas: the an... |
| 2020-Sep-18 • 57 minutes #367 Christophe Heintz: Adaptive Cognition, Cognitive History, and Science Dr. Christophe Heintz is Associate Professor at the Central European University, where he leads the research group ACE (Adaptive Cognition and Economics). Dr. Heintz is working on the role of adaptive cognition in shaping economic behavior, cultural evolution, and the history of science. Scientific practices and economic choices have traditionally been described as rational. He attempts to describe them as resulting from both environmental/contextual and psychological causal factors, with a focus on evolved... |
| 2020-Sep-17 • 62 minutes #366 Ann Druyan - Cosmos: Possible Worlds ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter... | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | ----... |
| 2020-Sep-14 • 75 minutes #365 Dan McAdams: The Psychology of Donald Trump Dr. Dan P. McAdams is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology and professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University. Dr. McAdams is most well-known for formulating a life-story theory of human identity, which argues that modern adults provide their lives with a sense of unity and purpose by constructing and internalizing self-defining life stories or “personal myths.” He’s a leader in the recent emergence within the social sciences of narrative approaches to studying human li... |
| 2020-Sep-11 • 82 minutes #364 Limor Raviv: Psycholinguistics, Child Development, and Language Acquisition Dr. Limor Raviv is a research associate at the University of Madison, Wisconsin. Her research focuses on the cultural evolution of languages in different social environments. Specifically, she studies how the social structure of the environment affects the grammatical structure of languages. | In this episode, we talk about many questions that Psycholinguistics tries to answer. We ask what why child development is so important for linguistics, and if language is innate, including the poverty of the stimulus... |
| 2020-Sep-10 • 51 minutes #363 Nina Jablonski: The Evolution of Human Skin, and Racism Dr. Nina G. Jablonski is Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology at The Pennsylvania State University. A biological anthropologist and paleobiologist, she studies the evolution of adaptations to the environment in Old World primates including humans. Her research program is focused in two major areas. Her paleoanthropological research concerns the evolutionary history of Old World monkeys, and currently includes an active field project in China. Her research on the evolution of human adaptations to t... |
| 2020-Sep-07 • 69 minutes #362 Manvir Singh: Shamanism, Witchcraft, Religion, and Music Dr. Manvir Singh just graduated with a PhD in human evolutionary biology from Harvard University, with a focus on cognitive and evolutionary anthropology. His research program aims to explain why societies develop complex, recurrent traditions such as shamanism, witchcraft, origin myths, property rights, sharing norms, lullabies, dance, music, and gods, as these have appeared in all types of societies across the globe, from nomadic hunter-gatherer bands to complex, industrial, mega-urbanized states. | In th... |
| 2020-Sep-04 • 87 minutes #361 Joseph Henrich: The WEIRDest People in the World Dr. Joseph Henrich is Professor and chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is interested in the question of how humans evolved from "being a relatively unremarkable primate a few million years ago to the most successful species on the globe", and how culture affected our genetic development. He is also the author of The Secret of Our Success and The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous. | In this episo... |
| 2020-Sep-03 • 68 minutes #360 Bo Winegard: The Intellectual Elite, and Social Conservatism Dr. Bo Winegard generally approaches psychological puzzles from an evolutionary perspective, applying Darwin's theory of natural selection to the human mind. He focuses mostly on status, group differences, individual differences, bias, methods, and political psychology. He’s also the cohost, together with Cory Clark, of the Psyphilopod podcast. | In this episode, we talk about the vices and defects of intellectuals and intellectual life, and also about social conservatism, by going through some of Bo’s twee... |
| 2020-Aug-31 • 110 minutes #359 Guy Madison: Gender Studies, and the Politics of Gender Dr. Guy Madison is Professor at the Department of Psychology at University of Umeå, Sweden. Dr. Madison does research in Neuroscience, Genetics and Evolutionary Biology. | This is my second talk with Dr. Guy Madison, where we talk about gender studies and the politics of gender. We refer to gender studies and the impact they have on academia in general. We get into Swedish politicians’ arguments for gender quotas, and ask if they really solve any issues, and what they are really about (power and influence r... |
| 2020-Aug-27 • 114 minutes #358 Michael McCullough: The Kindness of Strangers Dr. Michael McCullough is a professor of psychology at the University of California San Diego, where he directs the Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory. Most of the research they conduct in the lab is focused on extending an evolutionary analysis to some of the key psychological features of human social life. He is the author of several books, including “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct,” and, the most recent one, “The Kindness of Strangers: How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Mora... |
| 2020-Aug-24 • 64 minutes #357 Elliott Sober: Group Selection, Altruism, and Multilevel Selection Dr. Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. He’s the author of books like Philosophy of Biology, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, and The Design Argument. | In this episode, we focus our conversation on the topic of group selection. We establish the kinds of behavior that... |
| 2020-Aug-20 • 61 minutes #356 David Haig: Genetics, Development, and Intragenomic Conflict Dr. David Haig is an evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and professor in Harvard University's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. He is interested in intragenomic conflict, genomic imprinting and parent–offspring conflict, and wrote the book Genomic Imprinting and Kinship. His major contribution to the field of evolutionary theory is the kinship theory of genomic imprinting. He’s the author of several books, including the most recent one, From Darwin to Derrida: Selfish Genes, Social Selves,... |
| 2020-Aug-17 • 37 minutes #355 Kay Holekamp: Hyenas, and the Evolution of General Intelligence Dr. Kay Holekamp is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Integrated Biology, and Director of the Program in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology & Behavior at Michigan State University. She is also Principal Investigator at the Holekamp Lab. She is recognized as one of the world’s leading behavioral ecologists. Dr. Holekamp has devoted her career to animal behavior and behavioral neuroendocrinology, focusing specifically on the study of the evolution of intelligence. Her long-running study o... |
| 2020-Aug-13 • 86 minutes #354 Agner Fog: Warlike and Peaceful Societies Dr. Agner Fog is associate professor of computer science at Technical University of Denmark. Dr. Fog does research in Evolutionary Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Social systems and Computer Science. His current project is 'Theory of cultural change based on evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, and cultural evolution.' He’s the author of “Warlike and Peaceful Societies: The Interaction of Genes and Culture”. | In this episode, we talk about warlike and peaceful societies. We discuss if war is... |
| 2020-Aug-10 • 68 minutes #353 Guy Madison: The Psychology of Music Dr. Guy Madison is Professor at the Department of Psychology at University of Umeå, Sweden. Dr. Madison does research in Neuroscience, Genetics and Evolutionary Biology. | In this episode, we talk about the psychology of music, and several of the topics studied in this discipline. We talk about the possible evolutionary bases of music, including the role of sexual selection. We also discuss the genetic basis of musical ability, how it relates to personality and IQ, how music might improve certain kinds of p... |
| 2020-Aug-06 • 142 minutes #352 Marco Del Giudice: The Evolutionary Psychology of Gender Differences (Part 2) Dr. Marco Del Giudice is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. In his work he explores a wide range of topics at the intersection of human behavior, evolution, and development. His approach is interdisciplinary and driven by the quest for theoretical synthesis. Over the years he has developed some broad, integrative models: the Adaptive Calibration Model of individual differences in stress responsivity (with Bruce Ellis and Birdie Shirtcliff); an evolutionary-d... |
| 2020-Aug-03 • 64 minutes #351 H. Clark Barrett: Consciousness, Moral Judgment, and Cross-cultural Studies Dr. H. Clark Barrett is Professor in the Department of Anthropology, and the Director of the Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture at UCLA. His research has focused on learning and conceptual development in several domains, including “theory of mind,” or the ability to make inferences about others’ thoughts and intentions, and learning about danger. He’s the author of the book The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve. | In this episode, we talk about consciousness, theory of mind, mora... |
| 2020-Jul-27 • 49 minutes #350 Julian De Freitas: The Self, Morality, And Common Knowledge Julian De Freitas is a cognitive scientist in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He studies social intelligence, with a focus on the self, strategic thinking, and ethics. | In this episode, we talk about the self, morality, and common knowledge. We start by tackling the questions of what is really the “self”, and the relationship between the self and moral behavior. Then we talk about moral judgment, the optimality bias, common intuitions about the moral nature of the self, and morality, ha... |
| 2020-Jul-20 • 65 minutes #349 Jean-François Bonnefon: Morality, Machine Behavior, And Moral Machines Dr. Jean-François Bonnefon (PhD, cognitive psychology) is a Research Director at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, affiliated to the Toulouse School of Economics, the Toulouse School of Management, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. He holds the Moral AI chair at the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute, and is the president of the European Commission expert group on the ethics of driverless mobility. He conducts research on decisions which have a mora... |
| 2020-Jul-13 • 49 minutes #348 Robyn Bluhm: Medicine, Psychiatry, And Neurosexism Dr. Robyn Bluhm is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Philosophy and Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State University. Her research examines philosophical issues in neuroscience and in medicine, with a particular focus on the relationship between ethical and epistemological questions in these areas. She has written extensively on the philosophy of evidence-based practice and on the use of functional neuroimaging in psychiatry. She is a co-editor of Neurofeminism: Issues at... |
| 2020-Jul-06 • 28 minutes #347 Laura Crucianelli: Interoception, Affective Touch, And Anorexia Nervosa Dr. Laura Crucianelli currently works as a postdoctoral researcher in Henrik Erhsson’s lab at the Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm. Dr. Crucianelli completed her PhD at the Department of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, and in collaboration with University College London under the supervision of Dr. Paul Jenkinson and Dr. Katerina Fotopoulou. Her PhD project investigated affective touch, sense of body ownership and interoceptive awareness in both healthy and clinical populations. | In this episode... |
| 2020-Jun-29 • 69 minutes #346 Peter Jonason: Mating, The Dark Triad, Booty Calls, And Evo Psych Dr. Peter Jonason is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Padova, Italy. By training he is a social/personality psychologist who uses evolutionary theory to derive predictions and account for observable phenomena in (mostly) personality, individual differences, mating strategies, and sexuality. | In this episode, we focus on human mating behavior. We first talk about the relationship between the Dark Triad traits and mating behavior, and also the costs associated with them. Then we go thro... |
| 2020-Jun-22 • 59 minutes #345 Colin Holbrook: Threat, And Human-Robot Interaction (Part 1) Dr. Colin Holbrook is Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences at the University of California Merced. He researches decision-making under contexts of threat, with particular focus on political orientation, group prejudice, and the representation of mental states. | In this episode, we focus on the psychology of threat, threat detection, threat salience, and response to threat. We first ask what threat is really about, and the kinds of threat that exist, as well as how people respond to it.... |
| 2020-Jun-19 • 74 minutes #344 Joseph Henrich: Cultural Evolution, Human Cooperation, and WEIRD Psychology Dr. Joseph Henrich is Professor and chair of The Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is interested in the question of how humans evolved from "being a relatively unremarkable primate a few million years ago to the most successful species on the globe", and how culture affected our genetic development. He is also the author of The Secret of Our Success and The WEIRDest People in World. | In this episode, we talk about some of the main topics in Dr. Henrich’s vast and interdisci... |
| 2020-Jun-15 • 74 minutes #343 Marco Del Giudice: The Evolutionary Psychology of Gender Differences (Part 1) Dr. Marco Del Giudice is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. In his work he explores a wide range of topics at the intersection of human behavior, evolution, and development. His approach is interdisciplinary and driven by the quest for theoretical synthesis. Over the years he has developed some broad, integrative models: the Adaptive Calibration Model of individual differences in stress responsivity (with Bruce Ellis and Birdie Shirtcliff); an evolutionary-d... |
| 2020-Jun-13 • 9 minutes UPDATE: NEWS + SUPPORT All of you were extremely kind and helpful over these past few months. | I feel very humbled and grateful from the bottom of my heart to you all! | But I am still going through hard times. | In order to sustain the channel, and even to support myself I need your help. | I am trying to get another job to complement what I am getting from the channel, but you certainly now that that is extremely difficult at the moment, due to the impact coronavirus is having on the economy across the globe. | I am going to t... |
| 2020-Jun-08 • 59 minutes #342 H. Clark Barrett: On Mental Adaptations And Modularity Of Mind Dr. H. Clark Barrett is Professor in the Department of Anthropology, and the Director of the Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture at UCLA. He is a biological anthropologist specializing in evolutionary psychology, the study of the mind’s evolved mechanisms and processes. In his work he uses methods from anthropology and psychology to examine universals and variation in how thinking develops across cultures. He conducts field research among the Shuar, an indigenous culture in southeast Ecuador, as well... |
| 2020-Jun-01 • 60 minutes #341 Scott Barry Kaufman - Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman is a humanistic psychologist exploring the depths of human potential. He is interested in using his research to help all kinds of minds live a creative, fulfilling, and self-actualized life. He likes to share his enthusiasm of psychology through his teaching, writing, speaking, and podcast. He writes the column Beautiful Minds for Scientific American and hosts The Psychology Podcast, which has received over 10 million downloads. Dr. Kaufman’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Psy... |
| 2020-May-29 • 51 minutes #340 Melanie Meng Xue: Economics And Gender In Imperial And Modern China Dr. Melanie Meng Xue is assistant professor in the Social Science Division at New York University in Abu Dhabi. Her research lies at the intersection of economic history and political economy. She has studied the rise of gender-equitable beliefs and the deterioration of civil society in the context of imperial China. By tracing the impact of historical events over time and in various institutional settings, her work isolates the role of values, beliefs and norms in shaping economic and political disparities... |
| 2020-May-28 • 55 minutes #339 Shaun Nichols: The Philosophy And Psychology Of Morality Dr. Shaun Nichols is Professor in the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University. He works in philosophy of cognitive science. Most of his research concerns the psychological foundations of philosophical thought. Recently he’s been drawing on learning theory to try to understand how people acquire philosophically significant concepts and distinctions, especially in the domain of morality. | In this episode, we talk about morality. We approach it from a philosophical and scientific perspective. We discu... |
| 2020-May-25 • 48 minutes #338 Don Moore - Perfectly Confident: How To Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely Dr. Don Moore is the Lorraine Tyson Mitchell Professor of Communication and Leadership at the Haas School of Business, and a member of the Management of Organizations group, at UC Berkeley. Prior to Haas, Dr. Moore served on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, where he held the Carnegie Bosch chair. His research interests focus on overconfidence, including when people think they’re better than they are, when they think they are better than others, and when they are too sur... |
| 2020-May-22 • 58 minutes #337 Ann-Sophie Barwich: Philosophy of Science, Neuroscience, And Olfaction Dr. Ann-Sophie Barwich is Assistant Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and Cognitive Science at Indiana University Bloomington. She is a cognitive scientist and empirical philosopher & historian of science, technology, and the senses. She divides her brain-time between the Department of History & Philosophy of Science and the Cognitive Science Program. Estimated begin of lab (EEG/Olfactometry) in early 2021. She’s the author of Smellosophy: What the Nose tells the Mind. | In this episode... |
| 2020-May-21 • 60 minutes #336 Melinda Zeder: Domestication, And The Origins and Dispersal of Agriculture Dr. Melinda Zeder is Curator Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Her zooarchaeological research has revolutionized the understanding of animal domestication. She has conducted extensive fieldwork throughout the Near East, including in Iran, Israel, Turkey, and Syria. Her research focuses on the origins of plant and animal domestication, and the impacts of agriculture on human prehistory. She has also pioneered approaches that combine... |
| 2020-May-18 • 54 minutes #335 Jeroen Hopster: Evolution, Morality, Climate Change, And Animal Rights Dr. Jeroen Hopster was a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University, and now he is doing research on climate ethics at the University of Graz. In February 2019 he defended his dissertation 'Moral Objectivity: Origins and Foundations'. | In this episode, we focus mostly on moral realism. We ask what it really is about, and what an evolutionary perspective brings to the table. We also discuss in what ways morality can be objective. And we deal with specific applied ethics topics, like climate ethics, the e... |
| 2020-May-15 • 71 minutes #334 Brian Hayden: Cultural Ecology, Feasting, Ritual Sanctuaries, And Funerals Dr. Brian Hayden is Retired Professor in the Department of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University, and he also holds a research position at the University of British Columbia. His research topics include Cultural ecology and political ecology; Hunting and gathering societies; transegalitarian societies; Aggrandizer strategies, especially feasting and secret societies; Prehistory of religion & early ritual structures; and lithic technology. | In this episode, we talk about cultural and political ecology,... |
| 2020-May-14 • 42 minutes #333 Bernard Wood: Paleoanthropology, Human Systematics, And Human Evolution Dr. Bernard Wood is University Professor of Human Origins at the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology at the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences at George Washington University. He is a medically trained paleoanthropologist. His research interests are all related in one way or another to a long-standing pre-occupation with hominin systematics. How can we improve our ability to recognize species in the fossil record, and how can we do a better job of reconstructing their phylogenetic rela... |
| 2020-May-11 • 50 minutes #332 Jeffrey Barrett: The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics Dr. Jeffrey Barrett is Chancellor’s Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine. His current research involves two general topics. First, he is interested in attempts to resolve the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Second, he is interested in using decision theory and evolutionary game theory to model basic features of empirical and mathematical inquiry. In particular, he has been modeling the coevolution of descriptive language and predictive theory in the ... |
| 2020-May-08 • 51 minutes #331 Hugo Mercier: Not Born Yesterday; Gullibility, Vigilance, Politics, and Social Media Dr. Hugo Mercier is a research scientist at the CNRS – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Institut Jean Nicod), where he works with the Evolution and Social Cognition team. Most of his work so far has focused on the function and workings of reasoning. He’s the author of The Enigma of Reason, and, more recently, Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe. | In this episode, we center on Dr. Mercier’s recent book, Not Born Yesterday. He walks us through the recent science t... |
| 2020-May-07 • 46 minutes #330 Jonathan Anomaly - Creating Future People: The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement Dr. Jonathan Anomaly is a Professor in the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program at the University of Pennsylvania. He works mostly on issues at the intersection of ethics, economics, and biology. These include what we should do about antibiotic resistance, and how we should respond to the emerging market for genetic engineering. More generally, he’s interested in the relative role of social norms and legal institutions in solving different kinds of collective action problems. He’s the author of Creati... |
| 2020-May-04 • 57 minutes #329 Luciano Floridi: Information, Knowledge, Science, and AI Dr. Luciano Floridi is the OII‘s Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, where he is also the Director of the Digital Ethics Lab of the Oxford Internet Institute, and Professorial Fellow of Exeter College. He is a Turing Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute (the UK national institute for data science and artificial intelligence) and Chair of its Data Ethics Group. Still in Oxford, he is Distinguished Research Fellow of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and Senior M... |
| 2020-May-02 • 9 minutes UPDATE: NEW PATREON GOAL (100 patrons) + FUTURE OF THE CHANNEL I'm launching a new Patreon goal: reaching 100 patrons. | Please help me get there, and get all the benefits associated with being a The Dissenter patron. | Also, if you can, please help me get through this coronavirus crisis with a pledge or a donation. | | -- | A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, PER HELGE LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, JERRY MULLER, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BERNARDO SEIXAS, HERBERT GINTIS, RUTGER VOS, RICARDO VLADIMIRO, BO WINEGARD, CRAIG HEALY, OLAF ALEX, PHIL... |
| 2020-May-01 • 59 minutes #328 Iris Berent - The Blind Storyteller: How We Reason About Human Nature Dr. Iris Berent is Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, US. Her research examines the nature of linguistic competence, its origins, and its interaction with reading ability. She’s the author of the book The Phonological Mind. She is also the author of a new book, The Blind Storyteller: How We Reason About Human Nature. | In this episode, we talk focus on Dr. Berent’s new book, The Blind Storyteller. Topics include: the empiricist-nativist debate; core knowledge; dualism and essentialism; idea... |
| 2020-Apr-30 • 41 minutes #327 Sarah Garfinkel: Interoception, Emotion, And Mental Health Dr. Sarah Garfinkel is Professor of neuroscience and psychiatry based at the University of Sussex and the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Her research is focused on the link between interoception and emotion and memory. In 2018, she was selected as one of 11 researchers on the Nature Index 2018 Rising Stars. Dr. Garfinkel's research focuses on interoception, the ability to sense one’s own body, and the link between interoception and the brain. She specifically focuses on the heartbeat, and has shown tha... |
| 2020-Apr-27 • 56 minutes #326 Cristine Legare: Child Development, Culture, And Scientific Reasoning Dr. Cristine Legare is a professor of psychology and the director of the Evolution, Variation, and Ontogeny of Learning Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines how the human mind enables us to learn, create, and transmit culture. She conducts comparisons across age, culture, and species to address fundamental questions about cognitive and cultural evolution. | In this episode, we first talk about the phylogenetic and ontogenetic bases of culture. We also refer to the cognitive... |
| 2020-Apr-25 • 8 minutes UPDATE: THANK YOU + I NEED MORE SUPPORT All of you were extremely kind and helpful again last month. I feel very humbled and grateful from the bottom of my heart to you all! | But I am still going through hard times. I really do hope this is the last time I have to ask for your help. In order to sustain the channel, and even to support myself and my girlfriend I need your help. | My girlfriend has just lost her job, and I will be needing to fully support her and myself for whatever amount of time needed, until things get better... |
| 2020-Apr-24 • 43 minutes #325 Holger Wiese: The Psychology of Face Recognition Dr. Holger Wiese is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Durham University, where he runs an EEG lab. He is mainly interested in face recognition and face perception. He investigates how we recognize familiar faces, how we learn new facial identities, why people are more accurate at remembering faces of their own ethnic and age groups, how we perceive age, sex, and attractiveness in unfamiliar faces, and how our knowledge about other people is structured in semantic memory. He is also inte... |
| 2020-Apr-23 • 55 minutes #324 Edward Fischer: The Anthropology of Wellbeing, The Good Life, Values, And Markets Dr. Edward Fischer is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt University. He is also the founder of Maní+, an award-winning social enterprise in Guatemala that develops and produces locally sourced foods to fight malnutrition. Dr. Fischer advises the WHO-Europe on the cultural contexts of health, and serves on the board of the Maya Education Foundation. His research focusses on issues of political economy, values, wellbeing, and ... |
| 2020-Apr-20 • 58 minutes #323 Rivka Weinberg: The Ethics of Procreation Dr. Rivka Weinberg is a professor of philosophy at Scripps College in Claremont, California. As a philosopher and bioethicist, Dr. Weinberg specializes in ethical and metaphysical issues regarding birth, death, and meaning. She’s the author of the book The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When, and Why Procreation May Be Permissible. | In this episode, we talk about the ethics of procreation. We first discuss antinatalism, and some of its flaws. We then get into the ethics of procreation, and go through several dif... |
| 2020-Apr-17 • 60 minutes #322 Curtis Marean: Zooarchaeology, Human Origins And Evolution Dr. Curtis Marean is Foundation Professor and Associate Director at the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. Dr. Marean’s research interests focus on the origins of modern humans, the prehistory of Africa, the study of animal bones from archaeological sites and climates and environments of the past. In the area of the origins of modern humans, he is particularly interested in questions about foraging strategies and the evolution of modern human behavior. He has a special interest in human... |
| 2020-Apr-16 • 47 minutes #321 Dick Swaab: The Neuroscience of Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Dr. Dick Swaab is an internationally renowned researcher in neuroscience, who received numerous awards and published over 540 scientific papers. He earned his medical and doctoral degrees at the University of Amsterdam and served as director of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience for 27 years. In 1985, Professor Swaab founded the Netherlands Brain Bank, which supplies the international research community with clinical and neuropathological brain tissue. Dr. Swaab is Emeritus Professor at the Universi... |
| 2020-Apr-13 • 63 minutes #320 Max Beilby: Evolutionary Organizational Psychology Max Beilby is a Management and Organizational Psychologist and author of the Darwinian Business blog. He’s currently working as a practitioner in the banking industry. | In this episode, we talk about the application of Evolutionary Psychology to Organizational Psychology. We start by tackling the concept of evolutionary mismatch, and then go through some examples of it that apply to the modern workplace, like Dunbar’s number, leadership and hierarchy, overconfidence, and dissatisfaction, stress, and burnou... |
| 2020-Apr-10 • 57 minutes #319 Jeff McMahan: The Ethics of Killing; Abortion, Euthanasia, Suicide Dr. Jeff McMahan is White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He specializes in Practical Ethics, Political Philosophy, and Ethics. He’s the author of books like The Morality of Nationalism, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life, and Killing in War. | In this episode, we talk about the ethics of killing. We first clarify what is death and what constitutes an act of killing. We discuss the connection between psychological capacities and moral status, and the notions ... |
| 2020-Apr-09 • 67 minutes #318 Benjamin Bergen: Embodied Cognition, Embodied Simulation, Language, And AI Dr. Benjamin Bergen is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California San Diego. His research interests include language comprehension and production, including grammar, word meaning, metaphor, profanity, and talking while driving. He’s the author of the books Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning, and What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves. | In this episode, we focus on embodied cognition and language. First, we tackle wha... |
| 2020-Apr-06 • 65 minutes #317 Khandis Blake: Evolution, Income Inequality, Female Competition, And Feminism Dr. Khandis Blake is an evolutionary social psychologist at The University of Melbourne. She is an expert in gendered conflict. Her research considers how behavior, attitudes, and culture associated with gender are influenced by the interplay between nature, nurture, and the state of the economy. Herself and her collaborators propose that gendered phenomena such as inimate partner violence, attitudes toward abortion, and male-male aggression arise partially out of market conditions that shift the bargaining... |
| 2020-Apr-03 • 61 minutes #316 Colin Wright: Insect Personality, And The New Evolution Deniers Dr. Colin Wright is Eberly Fellow in the Department of Biology at Pennsylvania State University. His research explores the effects of animal personality on collective behavior and colony success. Using a combination of laboratory and field experiments, he tests for relationships between group personality composition, inter-colony differences in collective behavior and behavioral flexibility, and colony performance. He uses social spiders (genus Stegodyphus) and paper wasps (genus Polistes) to probe these to... |
| 2020-Apr-02 • 74 minutes #315 Edward Hagen: Anthropology, And The Bargaining Model of Depression And Suicide Dr. Edward Hagen is Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Washington State University. His research takes an evolutionary approach to non-infectious diseases, with a focus on mental health. He investigates tobacco use in the larger context of human use of plant secondary compounds. He investigates depression, suicide, and deliberate self-harm as potential signaling strategies. Child growth and development is a research theme that grew out of his work on postpartum depression. He has also recently begun ... |
| 2020-Mar-30 • 47 minutes #314 Zanna Clay: Bonobo Societies, And Comparative Psychology Dr. Zanna Clay is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Durham University. She is a comparative and developmental psychologist with expertise in primatology. She studies and compares great apes and young children in order to investigate the evolutionary and developmental basis of hominid social cognition and behavior. Her main interests are the development & evolution of social cognition and communication, focusing on empathy, language and social learning. | In this episode, We focus mo... |
| 2020-Mar-27 • 104 minutes #313 Robert Kelly: The Fifth Beginning, And The Lifeways Of Hunter-Gatherers Dr. Robert Kelly is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Wyoming. Dr. Kelly has shaped and contributed much to our understanding of hunter-gatherer societies. He has a deep interest in Western North American archaeology, especially in the Great Basin area. Current understanding of hunter-gatherer mobility and foraging patterns are also influenced strongly by his research, fieldwork, and ethnology. By examining the Pleistocene colonization of the Americas by examining artifacts and lithic technology... |
| 2020-Mar-26 • 103 minutes #312 Sven Nyholm - Humans and Robots: Ethics, Agency, and Anthropomorphism Dr. Sven Nyholm is an Assistant Professor of Philosophical Ethics at Utrecht University. His main areas of research are applied ethics (especially the ethics of technology), ethical theory, and the history of ethics. More specifically, he has recently published on love-relationships and biomedical enhancements, sex robots, motivation-enhancements, accident-algorithms for self-driving cars, deep brain stimulation, happiness and well-being, meaning in life, and interpersonal respect and moral reasoning. His w... |
| 2020-Mar-23 • 51 minutes #311 Renee Magnan: Health, Affect, Physical Activity, And Addiction Dr. Renee Magnan is Associate Professor and Director of Experimental Training in the Department of Psychology at Washington State University. She applies social psychological theory to address issues in preventive health behaviors and health behavior promotion. Specifically, much of the research in her lab focuses on understanding the role that affect (e.g., worry) plays on health decisions and behavior (e.g., smoking cessation, exercise, cannabis). She is interested in both how one’s feelings about health ... |
| 2020-Mar-20 • 62 minutes #310 Hal Whitehead: The Sociality And Culture Of Whales Dr. Hal Whitehead is Professor in the Department of Biology at Dalhousie University. His work focuses mainly on the behavior, ecology, population biology and conservation of two species of deep-diving whale: the sperm and northern bottlenose. He and his team have ongoing research projects on sperm whales in the eastern Pacific (since 1985) and Atlantic (since 2004) on northern bottlenose whales off Nova Scotia (since 1998), and on pilot whales off Nova Scotia Isince 1998). They spend periods of weeks at sea... |
| 2020-Mar-19 • 39 minutes #309 Robert Sapolsky: Human Behavior, Evolution, Morality, and Free Will Dr. Robert Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biology and Professor of Neurology and of Neurosurgery at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky is the author of several informative and comical books that present cutting edge psychoneurobiological knowledge in an enjoyable, easy to read format. He's also a renowned researcher and award-winning professor at Stanford University. He’s the author of books like Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Bi... |
| 2020-Mar-16 • 127 minutes #308 Pedro Galvão: O Que É A Ética? + Aborto E Eutanásia THIS INTERVIEW IS IN PORTUGUESE. | O Dr. Pedro Galvão ensina no Departamento de Filosofia da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, onde também é membro do Centro de Filosofia. Nesta unidade de investigação, pertence ao grupo LanCog. É Diretor de Curso da Licenciatura em Filosofia e do Doutoramento em Ética, Democracia e Desafios Societais. Interessa-se por ética filosófica e também por várias questões de metafísica. No campo da história da filosofia, tem-se concentrado nos grandes filósofos dos séc... |
| 2020-Mar-13 • 39 minutes #307 Elizabeth Loftus: Memory, Eyewitness Testimony, and Recovered Memory Therapy Dr. Elizabeth Loftus is a Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science and Law, and of Cognitive Science in the Departments of Psychological Science, and Criminology, Law, and Society at University of California, Irvine. She is also Fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. Dr. Loftus is best known for her ground-breaking work on the misinformation effect and eyewitness memory, and the creation and nature of false memories, including recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. ... |
| 2020-Mar-12 • 42 minutes #306 Nadav Klein: Reputation, Prosociality, Moral Character, and Lie Detection Dr. Nadav Klein is an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD. His research focuses on the basic processes of judgment that affect how people make decisions, process information, and evaluate others and themselves. Some of the findings Nadav has explored are the surprising reputational benefits of being a little bit nice to other people, the ability of groups to detect lies, people's weak desire to be seen as moral and strong desire not to be seen as immoral, and people's overestimation of... |
| 2020-Mar-09 • 55 minutes #305 Steven Pinker: The Enlightenment, Cultural Evolution, and the Human Mind Dr. Steven Pinker is a Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time and The Atlantic, and is the author of ten books, including The Language Instinct, How The Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and most recently, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. | In this episo... |
| 2020-Mar-06 • 69 minutes #304 Bryony Cole: The Future of Sex, Relationships, and Technology Bryony Cole is the host of sex tech podcast Future of Sex and works as a researcher and strategist in future human and technology fields. She is the world’s leading authority on sextech. Since launching the top-rated podcast, Future of Sex, Bryony has been on stages across the world, defining the direction of sextech for governments, technology and entertainment companies. Her wide body of research and annual Future of Sex report are considered the lead in industry insights. Bryony is an international speak... |
| 2020-Mar-05 • 80 minutes #303 Marco Neves: História e Evolução do Português, o AO, e os Nazis da Gramática THIS INTERVIEW IS IN PORTUGUESE. | Marco Neves é professor de tradução na Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, tradutor e diretor do escritório de Lisboa da Eurologos e colunista no Sapo 24. É também autor do blogue Certas Palavras, e de livros como “A Incrível História Secreta da Língua Portuguesa”, “Dicionário de Erros Falsos e Mitos do Português”, “Gramática para Todos — O Português na Ponta da Língua” e “O Galego e o Português São a Mesma Língua?”. | Neste episódio, fa... |
| 2020-Mar-02 • 54 minutes #302 Jonathan Marks: Origin Stories In The Science Of Human Evolution Dr. Jonathan Marks is Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His primary training is in biological anthropology and genetics. In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2012 he was awarded the First Citizen’s Bank Scholar’s Medal from UNC Charlotte. In recent years he has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the ESRC Genomics Forum in Edinburgh, at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and a Templ... |
| 2020-Feb-28 • 44 minutes #301 Michael Masters: The Anthropology Of Identified Flying Objects Dr. Michael Masters is Professor of Anthropology at Montana Tech. His research centers on investigating human ocular, orbital, midfacial, cerebral and neurocranial morphology, and how competition among these features may act to constrain the eye and surrounding ocular tissues during ontogeny, as it relates to the disparate incidence & severity of astigmatism and juvenile-onset myopia. Further research interests center on investigating hominin biocultural evolution, astrobiology, astronomy and the physic... |
| 2020-Feb-27 • 72 minutes #300 Kristen Hawkes: The Grandmother Hypothesis Dr. Kristen Hawkes is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah. Dr. Hawkes, an expert in human evolution and sociobiology, is the author of several studies on the “grandmother hypothesis,” which asserts that many of the characteristics that distinguish us from our ape ancestors are thanks to the thoughtful care of our grandmothers. Her research is based on ethnographic observation studies of hunter-gatherer communities such as the Aché and Hadza. She has also developed mathematical ... |
| 2020-Feb-24 • 59 minutes #299 Thom Scott-Phillips: The Biological And Cultural Bases Of Language Dr. Thomas Scott-Phillips is a Senior Research Scientist in the Social Mind Center and the Department of Cognitive Science, at Central European University, Budapest. In particular he studies communication, and how it makes us human. His first book, Speaking Our Minds, was reviewed as “The most important and the best book ever written on the evolution of language” and “The best linguistics book I’ve read in 10 years”. He’s written short pieces for outlets such as Aeon, Scientific American, The Conversation; ... |
| 2020-Feb-21 • 80 minutes #298 Michael Inzlicht: Self-control, Gratification Delay, Ego-depletion, And The Replication Crisis Dr. Michael Inzlicht is a Research Excellence Faculty Scholar at the University of Toronto. His primary appointment is as Professor in the Department of Psychology, but he is also cross-appointed as Professor at the Rotman School of Management. Dr. Inzlicht conducts research that sits at the boundaries of social psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience. Although he has published papers on the topics of prejudice, academic performance, and religion, his most recent interests have been in the topics of... |
| 2020-Feb-20 • 54 minutes #297 Richard Ronay: Evolution, Hierarchy, And Leadership Dr. Richard Ronay is Associate Professor of Leadership and Management at University of Amsterdam Business School. His research interests include power and status; social hierarchy; leadership; inequality; overconfidence; social intelligence; decision making; evolutionary psychology; and social neuroendocrinology. | In this episode, we focus on human social hierarchies and leadership. We first talk about social hierarchy from an evolutionary perspective, the different kinds of hierarchies that we can establi... |
| 2020-Feb-17 • 81 minutes #296 Laith Al-Shawaf: The Theoretical Bases Of Evolutionary Psychology, And Common Misconceptions Dr. Laith Al-Shawaf is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). Before, he was an Assistant Professor at Bilkent University in Turkey and the youngest Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, Germany. Laith has worked as a statistical consultant for an online dating company, has taught and conducted research in several different countries, and is a member of the Arab-German Young Academy (AGYA), as well as an academic adviser at Ideas ... |
| 2020-Feb-15 • 11 minutes FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN - I NEED YOUR SUPPORT Thank you all for this great first week of fundraising. It was great, but I still need more support. | I would love to keep doing it for another 2 years, but to be honest, I am broke. | For these past two years, I have brought on the show some of the top academics/scholars in a diversity of fields, like Psychology, Anthropology, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and even Literary Studies. | Some of the biggest names that appeared throughout my 300 interviews include: Noam Chomsky, Jerome Kagan, R... |
| 2020-Feb-14 • 59 minutes #295 David Benatar: The Second Sexism; Discrimination Against Men And Boys Dr. David Benatar is professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa. He is best known for his advocacy of anti-natalism in his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, in which he argues that coming into existence is a serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings. He’s also the author of books like The Second Sexism:... |
| 2020-Feb-13 • 60 minutes #294 Rob Dunn: Never Home Alone; The Species We Live With Dr. Robert Dunn is William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor in the Department of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University. He is known for efforts to involve the public as citizen scientists in arthropod surveys and bacterial flora studies. His projects include studies of belly button biodiversity, mites that live on human faces, ants in backyards, and fungi and bacteria in houses. He’s the author of five books, his most recent one being Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Cr... |
| 2020-Feb-10 • 61 minutes #293 Kristin Andrews: Animal Minds, Theory of Mind, And Animal Ethics Dr. Kristin Andrews is York Research Chair in Animal Minds and Professor of Philosophy at York University (Toronto), where she also helps coordinate the Cognitive Science program and the Toronto Area Animal Cognition Discussion Group. Dr. Andrews is on the board of directors of the Borneo Orangutan Society Canada, a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada, and the author of several books on social minds, animal minds, and ethics. | In this episode, we talk about how to properly study animal min... |
| 2020-Feb-08 • 15 minutes THE DISSENTER: 2 YEARS + I NEED YOUR SUPPORT Just this past Sunday, was the 2-year anniversary of the show. I would love to keep doing it for another 2 years, but to be honest, I am broke. | In order to sustain the channel, I need your help. | For these past two years, I have brought on the show some of the top academics/scholars in a diversity of fields, like Psychology, Anthropology, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and even Literary Studies. | Some of the biggest names that appeared throughout my 300 interviews include: Noam Choms... |
| 2020-Feb-07 • 54 minutes #292 Mattia Riccardi: Nietzsche's Psychology And Epistemology Dr. Mattia Riccardi is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Porto. He does work in the areas of philosophy of mind, Nietzsche’s philosophy, Kant’s philosophy, 19th-century German philosophy, phenomenology, philosophy of perception, and philosophy of action. | In this episode, we focus mostly on Nietzsche’s psychology and epistemology. We talk about his thoughts on free will, consciousness, and introspection. We also discuss Nietzschean drives, and if they are homuncular. We also r... |
| 2020-Feb-06 • 138 minutes #291 Nicholas Stang: The Metaphysics, Epistemology, And Ethics of Kant Dr. Nicholas Stang is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department of the University of Toronto, and also a Humboldt Research Fellow at the Humboldt University in Berlin. His primary research interests are metaphysics and its history (mainly in German philosophy). His first book, Kant’s Modal Metaphysics, was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. While most of Dr. Stang’s published work has been about Kant, he is increasingly interested in pre-Kantian rationalism (Leibniz, Spinoza) and in post-K... |
| 2020-Feb-03 • 74 minutes #290 Colin Camerer: The Economics And Neuroscience Of Decision-Making Dr. Colin F. Camerer is the Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance and Economics at the California Institute of Technology, where he teaches cognitive psychology and economics. His work seeks a better understanding of the psychological and neurobiological basis of decision-making in order to determine the validity of models of human economic behavior. His research uses mostly economics experiments—and occasionally field studies—to understand how people behave when making decisions (e.g., risky gambles... |
| 2020-Jan-31 • 128 minutes #289 Colin DeYoung: The Big Five And The Ten Aspects; Politics, Gender, And Psychopathology Dr. Colin DeYoung is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. In his research in personality psychology, he has examined the theoretical structure of personality and the biological basis of personality. | In this episode, we talk about the Big Five personality traits and their ten aspects. We first go through the ten aspects. We then talk about the personality traits of liberals and conservatives, and gender differences in personality. We discuss the behavioral genetics of personali... |
| 2020-Jan-30 • 45 minutes #288 Joanna Schug: Emotional Expressions, And Relational Mobility Dr. Joanna Schug is Associate Professor of Psychology and Undergraduate Studies Director at the College of William & Mary. Her areas of specialization include cross-cultural psychology, social psychology, and socio-ecological approaches to human behavior. | In this episode, we talk about the socio-ecological approach, emotional expressivity, and relational mobility. We first refer to what the socio-ecological approach is and where it is positioned within Psychology. We then address the topic of emotiona... |
| 2020-Jan-27 • 84 minutes #287 John Danaher: Automation and Utopia; The End of Work, Cyborgs, And Virtual Worlds Dr. John Danaher is a senior lecturer in the Law School at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He holds a BCL from University College Cork (2006); an LLM from Trinity College Dublin (2007); and a PhD from University College Cork (2011). He was lecturer in law at Keele University in the UK from 2011 until 2014. He joined NUI Galway in July 2014. Dr. Danaher’s research focuses on the ethical, legal and social implications of new technologies. He maintains a blog called Philosophical Disquisitions, and... |
| 2020-Jan-24 • 55 minutes #286 Andrew Piper: Data Science, Reading, And Literary Criticism Dr. Andrew Piper is Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at McGill University. He directs .txtLAB, a laboratory for cultural analytics at McGill, and is also an editor of the Journal of Cultural Analytics. His work focuses on applying the tools and techniques of data science to the study of literature and culture, with a particular emphasis on questions of cultural equality. He has on-going projects that address questions of cultural capital, academic publishing and power, and... |
| 2020-Jan-23 • 43 minutes #285 Nicholas Christakis: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society Dr. Nicholas Christakis is Sterling Professor of Social & Natural Science, and Professor of Internal Medicine and General Medicine at Yale University. He’s a sociologist and physician known for his research on social networks and on the socioeconomic, biosocial, and evolutionary determinants of behavior, health, and longevity. Dr. Christakis was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006; of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010; a... |
| 2020-Jan-20 • 55 minutes #284 Abraham Tesser: The Self-evaluation Maintenance Model Dr. Abraham Tesser is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Georgia. His research has made significant contributions to several areas in the field of Social Psychology. He created the self-evaluation maintenance model, a theory in social psychology that focuses on the motives for self-enhancement. | In this episode, we talk about the self-evaluation maintenance model. We refer to how it helps us better understand how people navigate their personal relationships, and ho... |
| 2020-Jan-17 • 59 minutes #283 Max Krasnow: The Evolution of Cooperation, Punishment, Honesty, and Deterrence Dr. Max Krasnow is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. His research interests include: evolutionary psychology, evolution of sociality, psychology of cooperation and punishment, ecological rationality, and psychology of foraging. Dr. Krasnow’s primary line of research focuses on the evolutionary origins and computational design of the mechanisms underlying human cooperation and social behavior. Why are we more generous, trusting and cooperative, but also vengeful and p... |
| 2020-Jan-16 • 70 minutes #282 Menelaos Apostolou: The Evolution of Singlehood, Parental Mate Choice, and Sexual Orientation Dr. Menelaos Apostolou is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. He was born in Athens, Greece and he completed his post-graduate and graduate studies in the United Kingdom. He has published several peer-reviewed papers, books and chapters in books in the area of evolutionary psychology. | In this episode, we focus on the evolutionary bases of singlehood, parent-offspring conflict and mating control, and the evolution of human sexuality. We start with singlehood, and discuss ... |
| 2020-Jan-13 • 57 minutes #281 Henry Greely: The Future of Human Reproduction Dr. Henry Greely is currently the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and Professor by courtesy of Genetics at Stanford University, and also an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He specializes in the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to neuroscience, genetics, or stem cell research. He is a founder and president of the International Neuroethics Society; a member of the Multi-Council Worki... |
| 2020-Jan-10 • 56 minutes #280 Manuel Vargas: Free Will, Moral Responsibility, And Social Justice Dr. Manuel Vargas is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at UC San Diego, where he teaches classes on various topics, including ethics, the history of Mexican philosophy, and whatever it is he’s thinking about with respect to agency, moral psychology, and sociality. | In this episode, we focus on free will, moral responsibility, and the legal system. We first discuss what free will is about, and how we can determine if it exists. We also consider the degree to which we should take folk intuitions ab... |
| 2020-Jan-09 • 54 minutes #279 Daniel Lieberman: The Evolution of Bipedalism, and Modern Evolutionary Mismatch Dr. Daniel Lieberman is Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences, Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He studies and teaches how and why the human body looks and functions the way it does. He started his career studying the evolution of the human head, but is now more focused on the evolution of human physical activity, and how evolutionary approaches to activities such as walking and running, as well as changes to our body’s environments (such as wearing shoes and bein... |
| 2020-Jan-06 • 53 minutes #278 Jerome Kagan: Temperament, Feelings, Emotions, and Personality Dr. Jerome Kagan is Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Harvard University. Professor Kagan's research, on the cognitive and emotional development of a child during the first decade of life, focuses on the origins of temperament. He has tracked the development of inhibited and uninhibited children from infancy to adolescence. Dr. Kagan’s research indicates that shyness and other temperamental differences in adults and children have both environmental and genetic influences. A shy adult is more likely to hav... |
| 2020-Jan-03 • 86 minutes #277 Aaron Rabinowitz: Moral Realism, and Objective Morality Aaron Rabinowitz is an Adjunct Professor (PTL) in the Rutgers Philosophy department and the Rutgers Honors College. He specializes in ethics, metaethics, and AI. His work focuses on developing a secular moral realism that is compatible with the problem of moral luck. He also hosts two philosophy podcasts: Philosophers in Space and Embrace the Void. The goal of both shows is to make philosophy accessible for everyone, using science fiction and existential horror. | In this episode, we discuss metaethics, and... |
| 2020-Jan-02 • 60 minutes #276 Daniel Everett: The Evolution and Varieties of Language, and the Pirahã Dr. Daniel Everett is Trustee Professor of Cognitive Sciences at Bentley University. He holds a ScD and a Masters of Linguistics from the Universidade Estadual in Campinas (UNICAMP). He is well-known for his many years of field research among the Pirahã people of the Brazilian Amazon jungle. Dr. Everett's books include Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious, and How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention. | In this episode, we talk about linguistics, and the Pira... |
| 2019-Dec-30 • 132 minutes #275 Marco Del Giudice: Evolutionary Psychopathology, Attachment, And Life History Dr. Marco Del Giudice is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. In his work he explores a wide range of topics at the intersection of human behavior, evolution, and development. His approach is interdisciplinary and driven by the quest for theoretical synthesis. Over the years he has developed some broad, integrative models: the Adaptive Calibration Model of individual differences in stress responsivity (with Bruce Ellis and Birdie Shirtcliff); an evolutionary-d... |
| 2019-Dec-27 • 77 minutes #274 Kevin Mitchell: Innate, How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are Dr. Kevin Mitchell is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He is interested in the development of connectivity in the brain, specifically in how this process is controlled by genes and how mutations in such genes affect the connectivity of neuronal circuits, influence behavior and perception and contribute to disease. His research group uses genetic approaches in the mouse to address these questions, and they are also involved in collaborative research looking at the g... |
| 2019-Dec-26 • 57 minutes #273 David Puts: Sexual Dimorphism, Sexual Orientation, And Female Orgasm Dr. David Puts is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Puts studies the neuroendocrine and evolutionary bases of human sexuality and sex differences, with special focus on behavior and psychology. His research topics include the influence of sex hormones on psychology, behavior, and anatomy; hormonal and genetic influences on sexual differentiation; sexual selection and the evolution of sex differences in voices, faces, bodies, brains, and behavior; the development and e... |
| 2019-Dec-23 • 48 minutes #272 Peter Ungar: The Evolution Of Teeth, And Our Diet Dr. Peter S. Ungar is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Director of Environmental Dynamics at the University of Arkansas. His research focuses on paleoecology and teeth. He’s the author of books like Mammal Teeth, Evolution’s Bite, and of textbooks like Human Diet: Its Origin and Evolution. | In this episode, we focus on the evolution of teeth. We discuss how anthropologists study teeth and how they are used. We address the important distinction between what an animal can eat and the types of food... |
| 2019-Dec-20 • 72 minutes #271 Alice Eagly: The Psychology Of Gender, And Gender Equality Dr. Alice H. Eagly is Emerita Professor of Psychology and of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University. She currently holds the James Padilla Chair for Arts and Sciences and a Faculty Fellowship for the Institute of Policy Research at Northwestern University. Her primary research contributions have been in the area of social psychology, as well as personality psychology and Industrial Organizational Psychology. Her research interests include the psychology of gender, especially sex differences... |
| 2019-Dec-19 • 56 minutes #270 Christopher Stringer: The Past And Future Of Human Evolution Dr. Christopher Stringer is a British physical anthropologist noted for his work on human evolution. He is a Research Leader in Human Origins at the Natural History Museum. His early research was on the relationship of Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe, but through his work on the Recent African Origin model for modern human origins, he now collaborates with archaeologists, dating specialists, and geneticists in attempting to reconstruct the evolution of modern humans globally. Now he’s co-dire... |
| 2019-Dec-16 • 68 minutes #269 Colin Allen: Minds, Cognition, And Cognitive Ethology Dr. Colin Allen is Distinguished Professor, and Director of Graduate Admissions in the Department of History and Philosophy of at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Allen's main areas of research concern the philosophical foundations of cognitive science and neuroscience. He is particularly interested in the scientific study of cognition in nonhuman animals and computers, and he has published widely on topics in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and artificial intelligence. | In this episode, we... |
| 2019-Dec-13 • 112 minutes #268 Stephen Sanderson: Gender Roles, Marriage, And Parenthood Across Societies RECORDED ON OCTOBER 2nd, 2019. | Dr. Stephen K. Sanderson is an American sociologist. He was a professor of sociology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Since 2007 he has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California, Riverside. His areas of focus include comparative sociology, historical sociology, sociological theory and sociocultural evolution. He is a specialist in sociological theory and comparative and historical sociology and is one of the ... |
| 2019-Dec-12 • 61 minutes #267 Richard Jean So: Cultural Analytics, Literary Studies, And Race Dr. Richard Jean So is Assistant Professor of English and Cultural Analytics at McGill University in Montreal. Previously, he served as an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago, where he co-founded the university's first digital humanities lab ("Textual Optics Lab"). He earned his BA at Brown University in English and Economics, and PhD in English at Columbia University. More recently, he has retrained in Computer Science at the University of Washington, and Statistics at the Universit... |
| 2019-Dec-09 • 44 minutes #266 Lyn Wadley: Archaeology, And The Evolution of Human Cognition Dr. Lyn Wadley is jointly Honorary Professor of Archaeology in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, and the Evolutionary Studies Institute, at University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She directs a Wits-recognized programme called ACACIA (Ancient Cognition and Culture in Africa). Her specialty is the African Stone Age: Middle Stone Age (which lasted from approximately 300,000 to 25,000 years ago) and Later Stone Age (the last 25,000 years). She began her career researching s... |
| 2019-Dec-06 • 53 minutes #265 Reinout de Vries: Personality, The HEXACO, And Communication Styles Dr. Reinout E. de Vries is Associate Professor at the VU University Amsterdam and Full Professor at the University of Twente. Together with researchers like Michael Ashton and Kibeom Lee, he has worked on the HEXACO model of personality, showing that it provides a more optimal description of personality than the Big Five model and showing that it is, through its addition of Honesty-Humility, better able to predict a number of counterproductive behaviors than the Big Five model. His main research interests a... |
| 2019-Dec-05 • 66 minutes #264 Kevin Zollman: Game Theory, Evolutionary Biology, And Social Dynamics Dr. Kevin Zollman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to his primary appointment at Carnegie Mellon, he is an associate fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, a visiting professor at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (part of Ludwig-Maximilians Universität), and an associate editor of the journal Philosophy of Science. With Paul Raeburn, he is the author of The Game Theorist's Guide to Paren... |
| 2019-Dec-02 • 61 minutes #263 Mark Alfano: Virtue Ethics, And Moral Psychology Dr. Mark Alfano is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Delft University of Technology and the Australian Catholic University. Dr. Alfano uses tools and methods from philosophy and the sciences to explore topics in moral psychology, epistemology, and digital humanities. He studies how people become and remain virtuous, how values become integrated into people's lives, and how these virtues and values are (or fail to be) manifested in their perception, thoughts, feelings, deliberations, and behavior. One... |
| 2019-Nov-29 • 54 minutes #262 Indre Viskontas: The Psychology of Music Dr. Indre Viskontas is a Professor of Psychology at the University of San Francisco, and serves on the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She is also the Creative Director of Pasadena Opera. Dr. Viskontas is a neuroscientist and operatic soprano. She holds a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and a M.M. in opera. She’s the author of How Music Can Make You Better. | In this episode, we talk about the psychology of music. We first go through how music is a construct of our brains and its evoluti... |
| 2019-Nov-28 • 40 minutes #261 Noam Chomsky: Cognitive Revolution, Piaget, Foucault, And Evolutionary Psychology Dr. Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, political activist, and social critic. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Dr. Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He holds a joint appointment as Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and laureate professor at the University of Arizona, and is the author of over 100 books on topics such ... |
| 2019-Nov-22 • 43 minutes #259 Tyler Volk: From Quarks to Culture I’M SORRY ABOUT THE MISSING BITS OF AUDIO HERE AND THERE, BUT THE CONNECTION WAS A BIT WEAK. | Dr. Tyler Volk is Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at New York University. His areas of interest include principles of form and function in systems (described as metapatterns), environmental challenges to global prosperity, CO2 and global change, biosphere theory and the role of life in earth dynamics. Dr. Volk has authored seven books, most recently, Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be. His previou... |
| 2019-Nov-21 • 67 minutes #258 Mark Silcox: The Experience Machine, Simulation, And Videogames Dr. Mark Silcox is a Professor and Chair of de Department of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Central Oklahoma. He is the co-author (with Jon Cogburn) of Philosophy Through Video Games (Taylor & Francis, 2008) and their co-edited Open Court Volume Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy: Raiding the Temple of Wisdom came out in late 2012. He is mainly interested in metaethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of games. | In this episode, we go through a number of to... |
| 2019-Nov-18 • 95 minutes #257 Tania Reynolds: Intrasexual Competition, Moral Typecasting, And Victim Sanctification Dr. Tania Reynolds is a Social Psychology postdoctoral researcher at the Kinsey Institute. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from Florida State University under Dr. Roy Baumeister and Dr. Jon Maner. Her research examines how pressure to compete for social and romantic partners asymmetrically affects the competitive behaviors and well-being of men and women. Through a joint appointment with the Gender Studies department, Dr. Reynolds offers courses on human sexuality and sex/gender differences. As a ... |
| 2019-Nov-15 • 69 minutes #256 Catherine Salmon: Evolutionary Psychology And Pop Culture RECORDED ON SEPTEMBER 6th, 2019. | Dr. Catherine Salmon is a Full Professor in the psychology department at the University of Redlands. She is the co-author (with Donald Symons) of Warrior Lovers: Erotic fiction, evolution and female sexuality. She has written chapters in numerous books including Buss' Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology and The Literary Animal. She is also a co-editor of the books Evolutionary Psychology: Public Policy and Personal Decisions (with Charles Crawford) Family Psychology: An Ev... |
| 2019-Nov-14 • 63 minutes #255 Mark Sheskin: Moral Developmental Psychology Dr. Mark Sheskin is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at Minerva Schools at KGI, and a Research Affiliate at Yale University, where he is coordinating thechidlab.com. His research interests are at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, with a particular focus on the origins of prosocial behavior and moral judgment. | In this episode, we talk about the developmental psychology of morality and moral philosophy. We start off with children’s care for equality and fairness, including the development... |
| 2019-Nov-11 • 81 minutes #254 Michael Gurven: Division Of Labor, Polygyny, And Personality Across Societies Dr. Michael Gurven is a Professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, chair of the Integrative Anthropological Sciences Unit, and also head of the Evolutionary Anthropology and Biodemography Research Group. He is an evolutionary anthropologist aiming to explain behavior and physiological systems as adaptive solutions to competing demands of limited resource allocation. He employs ethnographic field settings as laboratories for testing hypotheses about human vari... |
| 2019-Nov-08 • 100 minutes #253 Douglas Fry: Is War Part Of Human Nature? RECORDED ON SEPTEMBER 4th, 2019. | Dr. Douglas P. Fry is Professor and Chair in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has written extensively on aggression, conflict, and conflict resolution in his own books and in journals such as Science and American Anthropologist. His work frequently engages the debate surrounding the origins of war, arguing against claims that war or lethal aggression is rooted in human evolution. He’s the author or editor of... |
| 2019-Nov-07 • 73 minutes #252 Patricia Churchland: Conscience, Morality, and Moral Philosophy Dr. Patricia Churchland is a Canadian-American Philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She has also held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since 1989. She is a member of the Board of Trustees Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Philosophy Department, at Moscow State University. In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of t... |
| 2019-Nov-04 • 68 minutes #251 Diana Fleischman: Sex Robots, Technology, And The Future Of Human Relationships Dr. Diana Fleischman completed a PhD in Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, US, under the supervision of David Buss. She is currently a senior lecturer of Psychology at the University of Portsmouth, as well as a member of the Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology group there. Her research interests are hormonal influences on behavior, human sexuality, disgust and, recently, the interface of evolutionary psychology and behaviorism. | In this episode, we talk about the evolutionary p... |
| 2019-Nov-01 • 60 minutes #250 Rachel Kleinfeld: A Savage Order; Decivilization, Dirty Deals, And Recivilization Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She’s a leading expert on how democracies – including the United States – can improve, with a particular focus on countries facing poor leadership, polarized populations, violence, and corruption. She advises governments, philanthropists, and activists on how democracies make major social change. In 2010, Time magazine named Dr. Kleinfeld one of the top 40 political leaders under 40 in America. She serves on the board... |
| 2019-Oct-31 • 81 minutes #249 Moshe Hoffman: Problems With Theories In Psychology Dr. Moshe Hoffman is a Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab & Lecturer at Harvard's Department of Economics. He applies game theory, models of learning and evolution, and experimental methods, to try to decipher the (often subconscious and subtle) incentives that shape our social behavior, preferences, and ideologies. Dr. Hoffman obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and his B.S. in Economics from the University of Chicago. He also co-designed and teache... |
| 2019-Oct-28 • 77 minutes #248 Todd Shackelford & Viviana Weekes-Shackelford: Mating After Children Dr. Todd Shackelford is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of Psychology at Oakland University, as well as the Co-Director of the Evolutionary Psychology Lab there. He is the editor in chief of the academic journals Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Psychological Science. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. | Dr. Viviana Weekes-Shackelford received her Ph.D. in evolutionary developmental psychology in 2011 from Florida Atlantic Univ... |
| 2019-Oct-25 • 145 minutes #247 Victoria Dougherty: What People Want From Fiction, And The Art Of Worldbuilding Victoria Dougherty is the author of The Bone Church, Welcome to the Hotel Yalta, and Cold. She writes fiction, drama, and essays that revolve around lovers, killers, curses, and destinies. Her work has been published or profiled in the New York Times, USA Today, The International Herald Tribune, and elsewhere. Earlier in her career, while living in Prague, she co-founded Black Box Theater, translating, producing, and acting in several Czech plays. Her blog – COLD – features her short essays on faith, family... |
| 2019-Oct-24 • 57 minutes #246 Robert Burton: On Being Certain Dr. Robert A. Burton graduated from Yale University and the University of California at San Francisco medical school, where he also completed his neurology residency. At age thirty-three, he was appointed chief of the Division of Neurology at UCSF Medical Center at Mt. Zion, where he subsequently became Associate Chief of the Department of Neurosciences. His books include On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind; What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us A... |
| 2019-Oct-21 • 62 minutes #245 Daniel Conroy-Beam: The Evolutionary Psychology of Mating Dr. Daniel Conroy-Beam is Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He uses an evolutionary perspective to understand how mate preferences are linked to actual mating outcomes. Specifically, he is interested in how mate preferences are integrated with one another computationally in order to make mating decisions. His work combines agent-based modeling of mate choice evolution with studies of real couples t... |
| 2019-Oct-18 • 51 minutes #244 Ruth Feldman: The Neurobiology Of Attachment, Oxytocin, And Synchrony Dr. Ruth Feldman is the Simms-Mann Professor of Developmental Social Neuroscience at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzlia with joint appointment at Yale Child Study Center. With degrees in music composition (summa cum-laude), neuroscience (with honors), clinical psychology (with honors), and developmental psychology and psychopathology, her approach integrates perspectives from neuroscience, human development, philosophy, clinical practice, and the arts within an interpersonal frame and a behavior-bas... |
| 2019-Oct-17 • 123 minutes #243 Lars Penke: The Evolution Of Personality, Intelligence, And Mate Preferences Dr. Lars Penke is Full Professor of Biological Personality Psychology at the Georg August University of Göttingen. His research interests include the evolutionary significance of individual differences, social endocrinology, links of somatometric measures of the body and face with psychological traits, the evolutionary psychology of mate choice, romantic relationships and sexuality, neurostructural indicators of intelligence and cognitive ageing, behavior genetics, and life history theory. | In this episode... |
| 2019-Oct-14 • 60 minutes #242 Nicholas Humphrey: The Psychology Of Consciousness And Intelligence Dr. Nicholas Humphrey is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the New College of the Humanities, and Senior Member at Darwin College, Cambridge. Dr. Humphrey is a theoretical psychologist, who is known for his work on the evolution of human intelligence and consciousness. His interests are wide ranging. He studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, he was the first to demonstrate the existence of “blindsight” after brain damage in... |
| 2019-Oct-11 • 54 minutes #241 Marianne Brandon: Sex Robots And Human Sexuality Dr. Marianne Brandon is a clinical psychologist and Diplomate in sex therapy. Dr. Brandon is the author of Monogamy: The Untold Story, the ebook Unlocking the Sexy in Surrender: Using the Neuroscience of Power to Recharge Your Sex Life, and co-author of the book Reclaiming Desire: 4 Keys to Finding Your Lost Libido. Dr. Brandon served as a board member for an International Sexual Health Society, and also co-hosted a sex therapy radio show called “In Bed with Dr. B and Ted”. Dr. Brandon is a member of the Ma... |
| 2019-Oct-10 • 74 minutes #240 Paul Katsafanas: Nietzsche And Moral Psychology Dr. Paul Katsafanas is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Boston University. He works on ethics, moral psychology, and nineteenth-century philosophy. He’s the author of the books Agency and the Foundations of Ethics: Nietzschean Constitutivism, and The Nietzschean Self: Moral Psychology, Agency, and the Unconscious. | In this episode, we talk about some of Nietzsche’s insights on human psychology, and how that relates to his moral philosophy. We start off by discussing the importance of ... |
| 2019-Oct-07 • 57 minutes #239 Abigail Page: Cooperative Breeding, Social Networks, And Health In The Agta Dr. Abigail Page is MRC Research Fellow at the Department of Population Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her research is focused on understanding the relationship between the environment (both social and natural) and behavior, and ultimately how this influences health and wellbeing. Her background is in evolutionary approaches to human behavior (in particular Human Behavioral Ecology), therefore her research seeks to test hypotheses developed from evolutionary theory and ultimat... |
| 2019-Oct-04 • 61 minutes #238 Elizabeth Hill: Life History Theory, Development, And Risky Behavior Dr. Elizabeth Hill is Professor of Psychology at the University of Detroit Mercy. Dr. Hill received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Tulane University. She teaches courses in research methods, statistics, biopsychology, and gender differences. Her primary areas of research interest and activity focus on evolutionary and comparative psychology. She has investigated the interaction between biological and environmental factors in risk-taking behavior. In this research, she used evolutionary theory rel... |
| 2019-Oct-03 • 112 minutes #237 Herbert Gintis: Altruism And Self-interest, As Revealed Through Game Theory Dr. Herbert Gintis is External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He and Professor Robert Boyd (Anthropology, UCLA) headed a multidisciplinary research project that models such behaviors as empathy, reciprocity, insider/outsider behavior, vengefulness, and other observed human behaviors not well handled by the traditional model of the self-regarding agent. Professor Gintis is also author of several books including Game Theory Evolving, The Bounds of Reason, A Cooperative Species, Game Theory in Action, an... |
| 2019-Sep-30 • 59 minutes #236 Sarah Hill: This Is Your Brain on Birth Control Dr. Sarah Hill is Associate Professor of Psychology at Texas Christian University. She studies a range of topics, applying an evolutionary lens, including the interplay between immune function and mating strategies; the impact of inflammation; poverty, food regulation, and weight gain; hormonal contraceptives and mate choice; and other topics under the rubric of life history theory. She is just about to release a book, This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the L... |
| 2019-Sep-27 • 62 minutes #235 RoundTable 1: What is PsychTable? ft. Daniel Glass & Niruban Balachandran Dr. Daniel Glass is a clinician and researcher in the disciplines of evolutionary and clinical psychology. He has published sixteen peer-reviewed scholarly articles in the fields of psychology, medicine, and evolutionary studies, on subjects ranging from human emotions to peer bullying/victimization to Alzheimer’s disease. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Suffolk University and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at a private practice in Connecticut. His dissertation is on the emotional ... |
| 2019-Sep-26 • 55 minutes #234 Samir Okasha: Natural Selection, From Genes To Groups Dr. Samir Okasha is a Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Bristol. He is a winner of the Lakatos Award for his book Evolution and the Levels of Selection. He was appointed a Fellow of the British Academy in 2018, and he is also the President of the European Philosophy of Science Association. He has broad philosophical interests, though most of his research falls into two main areas: (i) philosophy of biology / evolutionary theory; and (ii) epistemology /philosophy of science. Within phil... |
| 2019-Sep-23 • 70 minutes #233 Randolph Nesse: Good Reasons for Bad Feelings Dr. Randolph Nesse is Foundation Professor of Life Sciences and Founding Director in The Center for Evolution and Medicine at Arizona State University, Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology and the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, and Founding President of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health. He was the initial organizer and second president of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, and is currently the president of... |
| 2019-Sep-20 • 82 minutes #232 Glenn Geher: Positive Evolutionary Psychology, Darwin's Guide to Living a Richer Life RECORDED ON AUGUST 30TH, 2019. | | Dr. Glenn Geher is Professor of Psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz where he has been awarded SUNY Chancellor Awards for Excellence for both Teaching and Research. In addition to teaching various courses and directing the New Paltz Evolutionary Psychology Lab, Dr. Geher serves as founding director of the campus’ Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) program. He is also credited as the founder of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society (NEEPS). He ha... |
| 2019-Sep-19 • 61 minutes #231 Carlton Patrick: From Disgust To Legal Systems Dr. Carlton Patrick is Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the College of Community, Innovation and Education at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Patrick studies the psychology of legal decision-making, often from an evolutionary perspective. His research combines doctrinal legal analysis with the methodologies and perspectives of the behavioral sciences to examine the roots of human behavior in legally-relevant contexts. He is the coauthor, together with Debra Lieberman, of the book Objection: Di... |
| 2019-Sep-16 • 58 minutes #230 Rutger Vos: Natural Selection, Human Behavior, Race, And Adaptations Dr. Rutger Vos is an evolutionary biologist from Leiden University and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, both in The Netherlands. He does work in computational biology and contributes to various open source software projects. | In this episode, we talk about some general topics in evolutionary biology. We first discuss the basic ingredients we need to have evolution by natural selection, and the mechanisms associated with it. We refer to some of the issues about the “extended evolutionary synthesis”, as pr... |
| 2019-Sep-13 • 72 minutes #229 Steven Hayes: A Liberated Mind; Relational Frame Theory And Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Dr. Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor in the Behavior Analysis program at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 44 books and nearly 600 scientific articles, his career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language and cognition and the application of this to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering. He is the developer of Relational Frame Theory, an account of human higher cognition, and has guided its extension to Acceptance and Commitm... |
| 2019-Sep-12 • 70 minutes #228 Alex Mesoudi: Studying Cultural Evolution, Migration And Transmission Dr. Alex Mesoudi is an Associate Professor of Cultural Evolution at the Human Behaviour and Cultural Evolution Group at the University of Exeter’s Cornwall Campus, UK. He studies cultural evolution, both in the lab and by constructing models and simulations of it. He’s also the author of the book Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory Can Explain Human Culture and Synthesize the Social Sciences. | In this episode, we talk about some of the theoretical foundations of cultural evolution. We first discuss th... |
| 2019-Sep-09 • 55 minutes #227 Miguel Farias: Mindfulness, Religion, And Scientific Faith Dr. Miguel Farias is a Associate Professor at Coventry University, UK. His work explores the psychological impact of beliefs and spiritual practices, including meditation and pilgrimage. He is also interested in the biological roots of our beliefs and how we can change them. He’s the author of The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You?. | In this episode, we focus on some of the main topics in Dr. Farias’ book, The Buddha Pill. We go through some of the main issues in the psychological research on the effe... |
| 2019-Sep-06 • 192 minutes #226 Patrick Lee Miller: The Philosophy of Black Mirror Dr. Patrick Lee Miller is an associate professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2012), and co-editor of Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy (Hackett, 2015). He also writes for Quillette. | In this episode, we talk about the philosophy of the Black Mirror series, by Charlie Brooker. We go through some of the general themes we were able to identify running through th... |
| 2019-Sep-05 • 67 minutes #225 Daniel Sznycer: The Evolutionary Psychology of Emotions Dr. Daniel Sznycer is Assistant Professor in Department of Psychology at the University of Montreal, Canada. He is an evolutionary social psychologist conducting research on emotion and cooperation. He has multiple lines of cross-cultural evidence on shame, pride, compassion, and envy, and their roles in altruism, cooperation, social exclusion, and conflict. He’s also working to map the system that regulates how much weight one individual places on the welfare of another. He conducts research on how these e... |
| 2019-Sep-02 • 50 minutes #224 Michele Gelfand: Rule Makers, Rule Breakers; Tight and Loose Cultures Dr. Michele Gelfand is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. She uses field, experimental, computational, and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture--as well as its multilevel consequences for human groups. Her work has been cited over 20,000 times and has been featured in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, National Public Radio, Voice of America, Fox News, NBC News, ABC News, The Economist, among other outlets. She is ... |
| 2019-Aug-30 • 123 minutes #223 Pascal Boyer: Minds Make Societies, Religion, And Conspiracy Theories Dr. Pascal Boyer is the Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory in the Departments of Psychology and Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He was a Guggenheim Fellow and a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Lyon, France. He’s also the author of books like Religion Explained; Memory, Mind and Culture; and Minds Make Societies. | In this episode, we focus mostly on the main topics of Minds Make Societies. We start off by talki... |
| 2019-Aug-29 • 74 minutes #222 Sven Nyholm: Self-Driving Cars, Love Enhancement, And Sex Robots Dr. Sven Nyholm is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). His main areas of research are applied ethics (especially the ethics of technology), ethical theory, and the history of ethics. More specifically, he has recently published on love-relationships and biomedical enhancements, sex robots, motivation-enhancements, accident-algorithms for self-driving cars, deep brain stimulation, happiness and well-being, meaning in life, and interpersonal respect an... |
| 2019-Aug-26 • 108 minutes #221 Peter Descioli: The Evolution of Morality, Moral Judgment, And Common Knowledge Dr. Peter DeScioli is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University. His research investigates how the human mind uses principles of strategy to solve problems in the social world. Much of his work has focused on moral condemnation, especially the functions of morally judging other people, moralistic punishment, and moral impartiality. In another line of work, he studies how people form alliances, how they choose their loyalties to others, and how they display and conc... |
| 2019-Aug-23 • 89 minutes #220 Cory Clark & Bo Winegard: The Biggest Issues in Psychology Dr. Cory Clark is an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Durham University, UK. Dr. Clark does research in Moral Psychology, Political Psychology, Experimental Philosophy, and Motivated Cognition. | Dr. Bo Winegard is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Marietta College. He generally approaches psychological puzzles from an evolutionary perspective, applying Darwin's theory of natural selection to the human mind. He focuses mostly on status, group differences, individual differences, bias, me... |
| 2019-Aug-22 • 66 minutes #219 Lee Cronk: Modern Cultural Anthropology, And Human Cooperation Dr. Lee Cronk is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University. His research and teaching interests include human evolutionary ecology, including behavioral ecology, cultural ecology, and cognitive ecology; signaling theory; culture; and cooperation. Dr. Cronk is also affiliated with the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies, the Perceptual Science Graduate Training Program, and the Program in Evolutionary Biology. He is a member of the Evolutionary Ant... |
| 2019-Aug-19 • 54 minutes #218 Sabina Leonelli: Science In The World of Big Data Dr. Sabina Leonelli is Professor of Philosophy and History of Science at the University of Exeter. She pursues an approach to philosophy of science that is grounded on the empirical study of scientific practices, as informed by historical research, ethnographic methods used in the social and anthropological studies of science and technology, and collaboration with practicing scientists. She has a strong interest in topics like Data-Intensive Science and Practices of Data Sharing and Re-Use, Open Science and... |
| 2019-Aug-16 • 80 minutes #217 Maryanne Fisher: Evolutionary Psychology, Women, And Feminism Dr. Maryanne Fisher is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, and a member of the Women and Gender Studies Program, at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Canada. Her research on how women compete for men has received international media attention, such as the BBC and Discovery Channel. She also investigates the determinants of women's physical attractiveness and what women want in a mate. She has published over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles primarily related to interpersonal relationships. She is... |
| 2019-Aug-15 • 69 minutes #216 Thomas Morgan: Cultural Evolution And Transmission, And Cumulative Culture Dr. Thomas Morgan is Assistant Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. His background is in the evolution of animal social behavior and cognition. He graduated from Cambridge with a bachelor's in zoology in 2009, focusing on vertebrate evolution and behavioral ecology. He completed his doctorate in 2013 at the University of St. Andrews working with Kevin Laland to carry out a series of experiments testing evolutionary hypotheses about human social learning. ... |
| 2019-Aug-12 • 63 minutes #215 Peter Adamson: The Origins of Philosophy, And The Pre-Socratics Dr. Peter Adamson is Professor of Philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and at King's College London. He has written articles, monographs and edited books, mostly on philosophy in the Islamic world and ancient philosophy. He is the host of the weekly podcast "History of Philosophy without any gaps", which by 2014 had more than four million downloads and led to the publication of a book series. He received the Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2003, for "outstanding research achievements of young... |
| 2019-Aug-12 • 55 minutes #132 David Papineau: Naturalism, Mind-Brain Dualism, and Consciousness Dr. David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy at King's College London and at the City University of New York Graduate Center, having previously taught for several years at Cambridge University where he was a fellow of Robinson College. He was President of the British Society for Philosophy of Science for 1993-5, President of the Mind Association for 2009-10, and President of the Aristotelian Society for 2013-14. He’s also the author of 9 books, including Philosophical Naturalism, Thinking About Conscious... |
| 2019-Aug-10 • 54 minutes #131 Nikola Danaylov: The Singularity, Doing Futurism, and the Human Element ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Mr. Nikola Danaylov is a #1 Bestselling Author of Conversations with the Future, a Keynote Speaker, Futurist, Strategic Adviser, popular Blogger and Podcast host, also known as Socrates in the Singularity community. In 1998... |
| 2019-Aug-09 • 40 minutes Iris Berent Part 2: Spoken Language, Sign Language, Written Language, and the Pirahã ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Iris Berent: Spoken Language, Sign Language, and Written Language. | Time Links: | 00:00 Spoken language and sign language | 06:00 Critical periods in language acquisi... |
| 2019-Aug-09 • 56 minutes #214 Jonathon Crystal: Memory and Metacognition in Animal Models Dr. Jonathon Crystal is Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University. His research focuses on developing animal models of cognition. His current work focuses on episodic memory, source memory, and prospective memory in rats. He has also developed rodent models to assess retrieval practice, working memory, and metacognition. He is currently the Editor of Learning & Behavior, and he recently served as President of the Comparative Cognition Society. | In this episode, we talk a... |
| 2019-Aug-08 • 39 minutes Iris Berent Part 1: Skinner and Chomsky, Linguistics and Cognition ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Iris Berent: Skinner and Chomsky, Linguistics and Cognition. | Time Links: | 00:43 What do we study in Linguistics? | 03:14 Skinner, Chomsky, and language acquisition ... |
| 2019-Aug-08 • 77 minutes #213 Paulo Castro: Philosophy of Quantum Physics, Pilot Wave Theory, And the EmDrive Dr. PauIo Castro graduated in Anthropology at the NOVA University of Lisbon in 1996 after studying Physics at the University of Lisbon. He taught Mathematics and IT in Secondary and Polythecnical schools. In 2014 he obtained his PhD in the Philosophy of Contemporary Thought at the Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, with the dissertation “The Epistemology of Choice – On the possibility of artificial simulation of human intelligence”. In 2015 Dr. Castro became a member of the Center for Philo... |
| 2019-Aug-07 • 79 minutes #130 Iris Berent: Linguistics, Skinner and Chomsky, Spoken and Written Language Dr. Iris Berent is Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, US. Her research examines the nature of linguistic competence, its origins, and its interaction with reading ability. She’s the author of the book The Phonological Mind. She will also be releasing a new book in the near future, The Blind Storyteller. | In this episode, we talk about what is Linguistics, and how it’s done nowadays; what is innate and learned in language; if we are the only species that has language; why written lang... |
| 2019-Aug-06 • 62 minutes #129 Igor Grossmann: Culture, Emotion Regulation, and Wisdom Dr. Igor Grossmann is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He’s been the recipient of several awards, including the 2015 "Rising Star" Award, by the Association for Psychological Science; the 2015 President's New Researcher Award, by the Canadian Psychological Association; the 2017 Early Career Award, by the Ontario Ministry of Research Innovation and Science; and the 2017 Outstanding Alumni Award, by the International Max Plank Research School on the Life Course (LIFE). ... |
| 2019-Aug-05 • 55 minutes Randy Thornhill Part 2: Parasite-Stress, Disgust, Religion, Values, and Speciation ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Randy Thornhill: Parasite-Stress, Disgust, Religion, Values, and Speciation. | Time Links: | 00:00 Pathogens from human sources, and the ones from other animals (zoono... |
| 2019-Aug-05 • 86 minutes #212 Donald Hoffman: The Case Against Reality; Perception, Consciousness, And Reality Dr. Donald Hoffman is a Professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Hoffman studies consciousness, visual perception and evolutionary psychology using mathematical models and psychophysical experiments. His research subjects include facial attractiveness, the recognition of shape, the perception of motion and color, the evolution of perception, and the mind-body problem. He has co-authored two technical books: Observer Mechanics: A Formal Theory of Percepti... |
| 2019-Aug-03 • 45 minutes Randy Thornhill Part 1: Parasite-Stress, Culture, Politics, Sociality, and Personality ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Randy Thornhill: Parasite-Stress, Culture, Politics, Sociality, and Personality. | Time Links: | 01:51 What is the Parasite-Stress Theory of Values? | 20:02 The biological b... |
| 2019-Aug-02 • 64 minutes #211 Catherine Wilson: Epicureanism, Atomism, Materialism, And Modernity Dr. Catherine Wilson was until recently Professor of Philosophy at the University of York, and is now teaching part-time at the City University of New York, and also a writer. She holds degrees in Philosophy from Yale, Oxford and Princeton and has taught in the USA, Canada, and Germany. Dr. Wilson teaches and writes in the history of modern philosophy and on early modern science and also works in the areas of ethics and aesthetics with a special interest in the evolution of morality and the science behind v... |
| 2019-Aug-02 • 101 minutes #128 Randy Thornhill: Parasite-Stress, Sociality, Values, Personality, and Politics Dr. Randy Thornhill is an American entomologist and evolutionary biologist. He is a professor of biology at the University of New Mexico, and was president of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society from 2011 to 2013. He is known for his evolutionary explanation of rape as well as his work on insect mating systems and the parasite-stress theory. He’s the author of several books, including A Natural History of Rape, and The Parasite-Stress Theory of Values and Sociality. | In this episode, we focus on the m... |
| 2019-Aug-01 • 80 minutes #210 Dwight Read: Cultural Kin Systems, And The Evolution of Human Sociality Dr. Dwight Read is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). His research interests include mathematical anthropology, the structural logic of kinship terminologies, theory of social organization, cultural evolution, and archaeological classification. He’s the author of books like Artifact Classification: A Conceptual and Methodological Approach, Human Thought and Social Organization: Anthropology on a New Plane, and How Culture Makes Us Human: Primate... |
| 2019-Aug-01 • 46 minutes #127 Michael Graziano: Consciousness, From Animals To AI Dr. Michael Graziano is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University. His scientific research focuses on the brain basis of awareness. He has proposed the "attention schema" theory, an explanation of how, and for what adaptive advantage, brains attribute the property of awareness to themselves. His previous work focused on how the cerebral cortex monitors the space around the body and controls movement within that space. Notably he has suggested that the classical map of the body in mo... |
| 2019-Jul-31 • 53 minutes #126 Sarah Hill: Life History Theory, Puberty, Immune Function, and Mating Strategies Dr. Sarah Hill is Associate Professor of Psychology at Texas Christian University. She studies a range of topics, applying an evolutionary lens, including the interplay between immune function and mating strategies; the impact of inflammation; poverty, food regulation, and weight gain; hormonal contraceptives and mate choice; and other topics under the rubric of life history theory. | In this episode, we talk about life history theory; how life history varies between species, and also how environmental cues... |
| 2019-Jul-30 • 55 minutes #125 Patrick Forscher: Implicit Bias, Stereotypes, and the Science Reform Movement Dr. Patrick Forscher is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the J. William Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Arkansas. He studies social disparities and what to do about them. He also has a strong interest in research methods. As such, he has used a wide variety of methods to pursue his research interests, including scale construction, meta-analysis, field research, and conventional laboratory studies. | In this episode, we talk about implicit biases, stereotypes, and prejudice.... |
| 2019-Jul-29 • 56 minutes Robert Plomin Part 2: Polygenic Scores, Clinical Psychology, and Gene Editing ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Robert Plomin: Polygenic Scores, Clinical Psychology, and Gene Editing. | Time Links: | 00:00 Making good use of polygenic scores, and issues regarding society and equ... |
| 2019-Jul-29 • 79 minutes #209 Cecilia Heyes: Cultural Evolutionary Psychology, Imitation, And Mindreading Dr. Cecilia Heyes is a Professor of Psychology and Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical Life Science at All Souls College, University of Oxford. She was trained as an experimental psychologist at University College London (UCL, 1978-84). As a Harkness Fellow in the United States (1984-6), she studied evolutionary epistemology with Donald T. Campbell and philosophy of mind with Daniel Dennett. She’s done experimental work, initially in animal cognition and later in cognitive neuroscience, and more recently ... |
| 2019-Jul-27 • 61 minutes Robert Plomin Part 1: Behavioral Genetics, Twins and Adoptees, and GWAS ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Robert Plomin: Behavioral Genetics, Twins and Adoptees, and GWAS. | Time Links: | 01:07 The history of Behavioral Genetics | 09:13 Environmentalism in the history of Psychol... |
| 2019-Jul-26 • 56 minutes #208 David Wootton: History of Science, Philosophy, Politics, And Capitalism Dr. David Wootton is Anniversary Professor of History at the University of York. He works on the intellectual and cultural history of the English-speaking countries, Italy, and France, from the 17th to the 19th centuries. His most recent book is Power, Pleasure, and Profit published by Harvard University Press, and he’s also the author of The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution. He has given the Carlyle and Besterman Lectures at Oxford, the Raleigh Lecture at the British Academy... |
| 2019-Jul-26 • 116 minutes #124 Robert Plomin: Blueprint, Genetics, Environment, Clinical Psychology, and Gene Editing Dr. Robert Plomin is Professor of Behavioural Genetics at the Social Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Center at King’s College London, and Research Professor at the Medical Research Council (MRC). He’s one of the leading figures in the entire field of Behavioral Genetics. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Dr. Plomin as the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century. And he’s also the author of many books, including Behavioral Genetics: A Primer (1989), Separate Liv... |
| 2019-Jul-25 • 57 minutes #207 Eugénia Cunha: Antropologia Biológica e Forense, e Evolução Humana A Dra. Eugénia Cunha é Professora Catedrática de Antropologia no Departamento de Ciências da Vida da FCTUC (Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra). É, desde 2018, Diretora do Instituto de Medicina Legal de Lisboa, Coordenadora do 2º ciclo em Evolução e Biologia Humana na FCTUC, sendo igualmente co-editora de um livro internacional em Antropologia Forense e autora de diversos artigos científicos e de divulgação. A sua investigação foca-se na biologia do esqueleto no âmbito da Antropol... |
| 2019-Jul-25 • 66 minutes #123 David Sloan Wilson: Evolution, Contextual Behavioral Science, Religion, and Group Selection Dr. David Sloan Wilson is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He applies evolutionary theory to all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life, both in his own research and as director of the Evolution Institute, a unique campus-wide evolutionary studies program that recently received NSF funding to expand into a nationwide consortium. His books include Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society; Evolution for Everyone: How Darw... |
| 2019-Jul-24 • 38 minutes #122 Mark Blyth: Austerity, The European Union, Inequality, and Global Trumpism Dr. Mark Blyth is William R. Roads Professor of International Economics at Brown University. His research interests lie in the field of international political economy. More specifically, his research trespasses several fields and aims to be as interdisciplinary as possible, drawing from political science, economics, sociology, complexity theory, and evolutionary theory. His work falls into several related areas: the politics of ideas, how institutions change, political parties, and the politics of finance.... |
| 2019-Jul-23 • 53 minutes #121 Alan Fiske: The Four Relational Models, Virtuous Violence, and Morality Dr. Alan Fiske is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He’s a psychological anthropologist studying how natural selection, neurobiology, ontogeny, psychology, and culture jointly shape human sociality. He’s also the author of the books Structures of Social Life: The Four Elementary Forms of Human Relations, and Virtuous Violence: Hurting and Killing to Create, Sustain, End, and Honor Social Relationships. | In this episode, we talk about the four relational models at the... |
| 2019-Jul-22 • 67 minutes #206 Derek Leben: Ethics for Robots, Contractarianism, Self-Driving Cars Dr. Derek Leben is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown. He works at the intersection of ethics, cognitive science, and emerging technologies. In his new book, Ethics for Robots, Dr. Leben argues for the use of a particular moral framework for designing autonomous systems based on the Contractarianism of John Rawls. He also demonstrates how this framework can be productively applied to autonomous vehicles, medical technologies, and weapons systems. | In this episode, ... |
| 2019-Jul-22 • 66 minutes #120 Michael Bang Petersen: Evolution, Emotions, Groups, and Politics Dr. Michael Bang Petersen is Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University, in Denmark. He also directs The Politics and Evolution Lab (PoNE Lab) there. He investigates how the adaptive challenges of human evolutionary history shape the way modern citizens think about mass politics. | In this episode, we talk about evolutionary political psychology. We discuss what is to be understood as political behavior; the emotions, heuristics and biases that are more relevant to understand people’s politic... |
| 2019-Jul-20 • 43 minutes Terrence Deacon Part 2: Consciousness, Semiotics, Symbolism and Language ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Terrence Deacon: Consciousness, Semiotics, Symbolism and Language. | Time Links: | 00:00 Consciousness, and unconscious mental processes | 06:52 Semiotics, and studying how ... |
| 2019-Jul-19 • 49 minutes Terrence Deacon Part 1: Absence and Constraints, from Physics to Mental Phenomena ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Terrence Deacon: Absence and Constraints, from Physics to Mental Phenomena. | Time Links: | 01:32 Dr. Deacon’s interdisciplinary approach | 06:04 Life and the second law of ... |
| 2019-Jul-19 • 38 minutes #205 Laura Cabrera: The Philosophy of Human Enhancement Dr. Laura Cabrera is Assistant Professor in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences and the Department of Translational Science & Molecular Medicine at Michigan State University. Dr. Cabrera's interests focus on the ethical and societal implications of neurotechnology and neuroscientific advances. She has been working on projects that explore the media coverage and the attitudes of the general public toward pharmacological and novel neurosurgical interventions for the treatment of psyc... |
| 2019-Jul-18 • 91 minutes #204 Carlos Fiolhais: A Ciência, o Método Científico e a Pseudociência O Dr. Carlos Fiolhais é Professor Catedrático de Física na Universidade de Coimbra. Foi professor convidado em universidades de Portugal, Brasil e Estados Unidos. É autor de mais de 30 livros de divulgação científica. Participou em inúmeros encontros, conferências e ações promovendo a ciência e a cultura científica. Criou o portal de ciência www.mocho.pt. Ganhou em 1994 o Prémio União Latina/JNICT de tradução científica. Ganhou o Globo de Ouro de Mérito e Excelência em Ciência de 2004 atribuído pela televis... |
| 2019-Jul-18 • 93 minutes #119 Terrence Deacon: Incomplete Nature, from Physics to Mind Dr. Terrence Deacon is currently Professor of Anthropology and member of the Cognitive Science faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. His theoretical interests include the study of evolution-like processes at multiple levels, including their role in embryonic development, neural signal processing, language change, social processes, and focusing especially on how these different processes interact and depend on each other. Professor Deacon's research has combined human evolutionary biology and ne... |
| 2019-Jul-17 • 41 minutes #118 Lee Ross: Fundamental Attribution Error, Naïve Realism, and Politics Dr. Lee Ross is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and co-founder of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. He’s been the recipient of several awards. The author of three influential books, Human Inference and the Person and the Situation (both with Richard Nisbett) and, more recently, The Wisest One in the Room (with Thomas Gilovich), and many highly cited papers. His research on attributional biases and shortcomings in human inference has exerted a major impact in social psychology... |
| 2019-Jul-16 • 50 minutes #117 Wendy Johnson: Genetics and Environment in Personality and Intelligence Dr. Wendy Johnson is Professor of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. She also holds the Chair in Differential Development in the University of Edinburgh's Department of Psychology and Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology. She is known for her research on human intelligence and personality. In 2004, the International Society for Intelligence Research honored her with its John B. Carroll Award for Research Methodology. In 2011, she received the American Psychological Association's Aw... |
| 2019-Jul-15 • 59 minutes #203 Gordon Ingram: Children's Social Development, And Cyberpsychology Dr. Gordon Ingram is Associate Professor of Psychology at Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. He teaches undergraduate courses in Developmental Psychology, Cyberpsychology, and Psychology of Language, and a graduate course in Cognition and Culture. He supervises several graduate students researching children’s social and moral development. His research centers on children’s and adolescents’ everyday communication online. | In this episode, we first talk about children’s social development, with partic... |
| 2019-Jul-15 • 55 minutes #116 Colin Holbrook: Threat Detection, Group Prejudice, Warfare, and Religion Dr. Colin Holbrook is Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He researches decision-making under contexts of threat, with particular focus on political orientation, group prejudice, and the representation of mental states. | In this episode, we talk about threat detection; the relationship between threat and fight-or-flight responses; how threat instigates group prejudice; threat in the context of politics and warfare; religion and soci... |
| 2019-Jul-13 • 61 minutes #115 Alexander Rosenberg: Theory of Mind, History, Mental Illusions, and Nihilism Dr. Alexander Rosenberg is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. He has been a visiting professor and fellow at the Center for the Philosophy of Science, at the University of Minnesota, as well as the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Oxford University, and a visiting fellow of the Philosophy Department at the Research School of Social Science, of the Australian National University. In 2016 he was the Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol. He has he... |
| 2019-Jul-12 • 54 minutes #202 Arlindo Oliveira: O Presente e o Futuro da Inteligência Artificial O Dr. Arlindo Oliveira é Presidente do Instituto Superior Técnico e Professor do Departamento de Engenharia Informática, onde tem desenvolvido trabalho no contexto de sistemas digitais, síntese lógica, algoritmia, aprendizagem automática e bioinformática. Doutorou-se em Engenharia Electrotécnica e Ciências da Computação (EECS) pela Universidade da Califórnia em Berkeley, em 1994. É um dos maiores especialistas portugueses em Inteligência Artificial, e publicou em 2017 o livro “The Digital Mind: How Science ... |
| 2019-Jul-12 • 33 minutes #114 Hugo Mercier: The Enigma of Reason, Modularity, and Cognition Dr. Hugo Mercier is a research scientist at the CNRS – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Institut Jean Nicod), where he works with the Evolution and Social Cognition team. Most of his work so far has focused on the function and workings of reasoning. Together with Dan Sperber, he wrote a book that develops and extends the argumentative theory of reasoning, called The Enigma of Reason. | In this episode, we focus on The Enigma of Reason, and talk about how reason might have evolved, and its cogni... |
| 2019-Jul-11 • 51 minutes #201 Mark Leary: The Self, Self-presentation, And Social Status Dr. Mark Leary is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. Dr. Leary has taught at Denison University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Wake Forest University, where he also served as department chair. His research interests focus on social motivation and emotion, and on processes involving self-reflection and self-relevant thought. He has written or edited 12 books and over 200 scholarly articles and chapters. He was the 2010 recipient of the Lifetime Career Award from the Interna... |
| 2019-Jul-11 • 50 minutes #113 Joshua M. Tybur: Disgust, Evolution, Politics, and Social Psychology Dr. Joshua M. Tybur is an Associate Professor in the Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology at VU Amsterdam. His work is dedicated to better understanding how people solve some of the fundamental problems of life, including avoiding infectious diseases, obtaining and retaining a mate, and navigating the threats and affordances of interdependence. He approaches these topics with a combination of ideas and techniques from social psychology, personality psychology, and evolutionary biology. | In thi... |
| 2019-Jul-10 • 48 minutes #112 Diane Halpern: Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities, Critical Thinking, and Creativity Dr. Diane Halpern is Dean Emerita of Social Sciences at Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute and former Emerita Professor of Psychology at Claremont McKenna College. She has won many awards for her teaching and research, including an Honorary Award in 2016 from the Federation for Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) for "scientists who have made important and lasting contributions to the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior" and the 2013 Association for Psychological Science James McKeen Cattell Fel... |
| 2019-Jul-09 • 67 minutes #111 Nick Chater: The Mind Is Flat, and Our Illusions of Mental Depth Dr. Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. He works on rationality and language using a range of theoretical and experimental approaches. He has over 200 publications, has won four national awards for psychological research, and has served as Associate Editor for the journals Cognitive Science, Psychological Review, and Psychological Science. He was elected a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society in 2010 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 2012. Dr. Chater is co-fou... |
| 2019-Jul-08 • 75 minutes #200 David Barash: Mysteries of Human Evolution, Sexuality, And Consciousness Dr. David P. Barash is Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Washington. He has written, edited or co-authored 40 books, including ones on human aggression, peace studies, and the sexual behavior of animals and people. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been the recipient of several honors. His books include “Homo Mysterious – Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature”, “Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science”, “Approa... |
| 2019-Jul-08 • 41 minutes #110 Barbara Oakley: Evil Genes, and Pathological Altruism Dr. Barbara Oakley is a Professor of Engineering at Oakland University. She is involved in multiple areas of research, ranging from STEM education, to engineering education, to learning practices. Her work focuses on the complex relationship between neuroscience and social behavior. She has published in outlets as varied as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Her research has been described as “revolutionary” in the Wall Street Journal. She’s... |
| 2019-Jul-06 • 60 minutes #109 Simon DeDeo: From Atoms to Societies, Emergentism and Reductionism Dr. Simon DeDeo is an Assistant Professor in Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He also runs the Laboratory for Social Minds, were he and his team undertake empirical investigations, and build mathematical theories, of both historical and contemporary phenomena. | In this episode, we talk about the ways we can apply knowledge and mathematical models from Physics to the study of human social behavior and cultural evolution. We also de... |
| 2019-Jul-05 • 41 minutes Richard Shweder Part 2: Alan Fiske's Relational Models, Cultural Psychology, and Multiculturalism ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Richard Shweder: Alan Fiske, Cultural Psychology, and Multiculturalism. | Time Links: | 00:00 Alan Fiske’s Relational Models – Communal Sharing, Authority Ranking, Equality ... |
| 2019-Jul-05 • 90 minutes #199 Clark McCauley: The Psychology of Political Radicalization Dr. Clark McCauley is a Research Professor of Psychology and co-director of the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College. His research interests include the psychology of group identification, group dynamics and intergroup conflict, and the psychological foundations of ethnic conflict and genocide. He is founding editor of the journal Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways toward Terrorism and Genocide. He’s also the author of several books, including Why Not Kill... |
| 2019-Jul-04 • 55 minutes Richard Shweder Part 1: Morality, and Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Richard Shweder: Morality, and Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations. | Time Links: | 01:23 What is morality? | 09:37 Evolutionary and cultural perspectives on morality |... |
| 2019-Jul-04 • 122 minutes #198 Stephen Sanderson: Sociology, Darwinian Conflict Theory, And Religion Dr. Stephen K. Sanderson is an American sociologist. He was a professor of sociology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Since 2007 he has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California, Riverside. His areas of focus include comparative sociology, historical sociology, sociological theory and sociocultural evolution. He is a specialist in sociological theory and comparative and historical sociology and is one of the leading sociologists to develop a... |
| 2019-Jul-03 • 95 minutes #108 Richard Shweder: Morality, Haidt's Moral Foundations, and Multiculturalism Dr. Richard Shweder is a cultural anthropologist and the Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Human Development at the University of Chicago, US. He’s the author of Thinking Through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology and Why Do Men Barbecue? Recipes for Cultural Psychology, and editor or co-editor of many books in the areas of cultural psychology, psychological anthropology and comparative human development. Dr. Shweder has been the recipient of many awards, including a John Simon Gu... |
| 2019-Jul-02 • 56 minutes #107 Frederick Crews: Why Freud is a Fraud Dr. Frederick Crews is an American essayist and literary critic, and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Also, a prominent participant in the "Freud wars" of the 1980s and 1990s, a debate over the reputation, scholarship and impact on the 20th century of the founder of psychoanalysis, Freud. He’s the author of many books, including the ones that are relevant to our conversation today, The Memory Wars: Freud’s Legacy in Dispute, and Freud: The Making of an Illusion. | In ... |
| 2019-Jul-01 • 67 minutes #197 Paulo Finuras: Biossociologia, Psicologia Evolutiva e Liderança O Dr. Paulo Finuras é Doutorado em Ciências Sociais e do Comportamento (especialidade de Ciência Política) pela ULHT (Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias), Pós-graduado em Gestão e Política Internacional e Licenciado em Sociologia (ISCTE-IUL). É investigador na área da Biossociologia e da Psicologia Evolutiva e investigador integrado do CIPES da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais da ULHT. É também autor dos livros “Gestão Intercultural”, “Humanus: pessoas iguais, culturas diferentes”, “O Dilema da... |
| 2019-Jun-29 • 54 minutes #106 Michelle Sugiyama: The Evolution of Storytelling, and Its Role in Human Societies Dr. Michelle Scalise Sugiyama is Senior Instructor at the University of Oregon Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences, and an affiliate of the University of Oregon Anthropology Department. She is an evolutionary psychologist/anthropologist who specializes in symbolic and aesthetic behavior, with an emphasis on storytelling, art, and play. Her work investigates the origins of these behaviors—specifically, the selection pressures that led to their emergence, the role they played in ancestral human socie... |
| 2019-Jun-28 • 69 minutes #196 Peter Singer: Ethics, Veganism, And Effective Altruism Dr. Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specializes in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He is known in particular for his book Animal Liberation (1975), in which he argues in favor of veganism, and his essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he argues in favor of donating to help the glo... |
| 2019-Jun-28 • 46 minutes #105 Françoise Baylis: The Ethics of CRISPR-cas9 Gene Editing Technology Dr. Françoise Baylis is University Research Professor at Dalhousie University, Canada. She is a frequent guest on CBC and Radio Canada. The focus of her research is on issues of women's health and assisted reproductive technologies, but her research and publication record also extend to such topics as research involving humans (including human embryo research), gene editing, novel genetic technologies, public health, the role of bioethics consultants, and neuroethics. She has a forthcoming book on ethics an... |
| 2019-Jun-27 • 36 minutes Michael Ruse Part 2: Race, Gene Editing, Religion and Science ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Michael Ruse: Race, Gene Editing, Religion and Science. | Time Links: | 54:11 About race and its biological basis | 04:04 The potential troubles with gene editing | 07:19 Is... |
| 2019-Jun-27 • 114 minutes #195 Todd Shackelford: The Evolution and Varieties of Human Violence Dr. Todd Shackelford is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of Psychology at Oakland University, as well as the Co-Director of the Evolutionary Psychology Lab there. He is the editor in chief of the academic journals Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Psychological Science. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. | In this episode, we explore the evolution of human violence. At the beginning, we define violence, and talk about ways of cre... |
| 2019-Jun-26 • 54 minutes Michael Ruse Part 1: How Evolution by Natural Selection Works ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Michael Ruse: How Evolution by Natural Selection Works. | Time Links: | 00:56 Darwinism as a scientific and philosophical revolution | 07:34 On purpose | 15:11 Natural... |
| 2019-Jun-25 • 90 minutes #104 Michael Ruse: Darwinism, Species, Race, Gene Editing, and Religion Dr. Michael Ruse is a philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcation problem within science. He currently teaches at Florida State University, where he is Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor and Director of HPS Program. He’s also a very prolific writer, author of books like The Darwinian Revolution, Darwin and Design, and On Purpose. | In this episode, we talk about the ... |
| 2019-Jun-24 • 68 minutes #194 Anna Vedel: Personality, Academia, Ageing, And The Gender Equality Paradox Dr. Anna Vedel is PhD and Postdoc in the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research areas are in individual differences, personality, academic performance, and study choices. | In this episode, we talk about how personality traits and individual differences influence educational, occupational and life choices. First, we discuss current personality inventories, particularly the Big Five, and their scientific basis and validity. Then, we get into issues... |
| 2019-Jun-22 • 30 minutes #102 Valerie Curtis: Disgust and Hygiene Behavior Dr. Valerie Curtis is Director of the Environmental Health Group, a multidisciplinary group researching hygiene, sanitation and water (WASH), at the London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is trained in engineering, epidemiology and anthropology and studies human behavior from an evolutionary perspective. She’s also the author of the book Don’t Look, Don’t Touch, Don’t Eat: The Science Behind Revulsion. | In this episode, we talk about the emotion of disgust, and how it might have evolved. Ho... |
| 2019-Jun-21 • 94 minutes #193 Paul Slovic: Risk Perception, GMOs, Vaccines, And Climate Change Dr. Paul Slovic is a founder and President of Decision Research and Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, where he studies human judgment, decision making, and risk analysis. He and his colleagues worldwide have developed methods to describe risk perceptions and measure their impacts on individuals, industry, and society. He publishes extensively and serves as a consultant to industry and government. Dr. Slovic is a past President of the Society for Risk Analysis. He’s the recipient of severa... |
| 2019-Jun-21 • 59 minutes #101 Todd Shackelford: Evolution and Family Conflict, Sperm Competition, Stepparenting Dr. Todd Shackelford is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of Psychology at the University of Oakland, as well as the Co-Director of the Evolutionary Psychology Lab there. He is the editor in chief of the academic journals Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Psychological Science. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. | In this episode, we talk about family relationships and dynamics from an evolutionary perspective. We focus on conflic... |
| 2019-Jun-20 • 80 minutes #192 Paulo Gama Mota: The History of Sexual Selection Theory, And Cultural Evolution Dr. Paulo Gama Mota is Associate Professor of Biology in the Department of Life Sciences of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra. He’s also a researcher at the Center for Research in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources at he University of Porto (CIBIO). Dr. Gama Mota is very interested in science communication, having been a former Director of the National Museum of Science and Technique, and the Museum of Science of the University of Coimbra (2006-2015), and also an organizer o... |
| 2019-Jun-20 • 62 minutes #100 Phoebe Ellsworth: Emotions, Eyewitness Accuracy, Juries, and the Death Penalty Dr. Phoebe Ellsworth is Frank Murphy Distinguished Professor of Law and Psychology, and Faculty Associate at the ISR Research Center for Group Dynamics, at the University of Michigan, US. She is noted for her work in law and psychology. More specifically, she has done research on jury behavior and decision making, public opinion and the death penalty, and eyewitness identification. Her other main research interest is in emotions. Some areas of research in this topic include facial emotions, cognition and in... |
| 2019-Jun-19 • 33 minutes #99 Hal Arkes: Biases, Heuritics, and Decision-Making Dr. Hal Arkes is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University. His research focuses primarily on areas like judgement/decision-making, medical decision-making, and economic decision making. He’s received several honors and awards over the years, such as President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (1996-1997); Elected "Fellow" of the American Psychological Society in 1997; College of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Teacher Award (Ohio University) in 1987; and Provost's Teaching Rec... |
| 2019-Jun-18 • 53 minutes #98 Carin Perilloux: Perceiving Sexual Interest, Physical Attractiveness, Parent-Offspring Conflict Dr. Carin Perilloux is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Southwestern University, US. She uses cognitive science to study social phenomena from an evolutionary perspective. In particular, she applies an adaptationist lens to human mating. Her main research interests include sexual intent perception, physical attractiveness, sexual victimization and parent-offspring conflict. | In this episode, we focus on particular aspects of human mating, including sexual intent perception, cues of physical attractiven... |
| 2019-Jun-17 • 56 minutes #97 Jennifer Vonk: Comparing Humans and Other Species, and Primate Cognition Dr. Jennifer Vonk is Professor of comparative/cognitive psychology at Oakland University. Her primary research interests are in two overlapping areas: animal cognition, and cognitive development. The underlying goal of her work is to examine cognitive continuities and discontinuities between humans and both closely and distantly related species. | In this episode, Dr. Vonk joins me to talk about what is comparative psychology; how we can apply evolutionary principles to better compare cognition betwee... |
| 2019-Jun-17 • 58 minutes #191 Susan Blackmore: How Memetics Works Dr. Susan Blackmore is a psychologist, lecturer and writer researching consciousness, memes, and anomalous experiences, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. She is best known for her book The Meme Machine, and has written or contributed to over 40 books, mostly on consciousness. | In this episode, we focus on memetics. First, Dr. Blackmore gives a proper definition of memetics, and then we talk about some specific criticisms, some of them coming from my interview with Drs. Robert Boyd and... |
| 2019-Jun-15 • 35 minutes #96 Heather Montgomery: Social Anthropology of Childhood and Child Labor Dr. Heather Montgomery is a social anthropologist who studied for her PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge, which she wrote on child prostitution in Thailand. She has had jobs and research positions in Sussex, Norway, Texas and at Oxford. Her research interests are within Childhood Studies, especially the history and anthropology of childhood and children’s rights. | In this episode, we talk about what might be some cultural influences on childhood, and how boys and girls behave. We address the issue about how... |
| 2019-Jun-14 • 35 minutes #95 Robert Kurzban: The Hidden Agenda of Our Minds, Modularity, and Politics Dr. Robert Kurzban is a former Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the nature of evolved cognitive adaptations for social life. Dr. Kurzban has served as both the editor-in-chief of the journal Evolution & Human Behavior and President of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. He’s also the author of the books Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite, and The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind. | In this episode, we talk about the approach to the mind as... |
| 2019-Jun-14 • 78 minutes #190 Philip Kavanagh: Evolution And Clinical Psychology, Self-Esteem, And The Dark Triad Dr. Phillip Kavanagh is an Associate Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the Institute for Social Neuroscience, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of South Australia. Dr. Kavanagh lectures across both the undergraduate and postgraduate psychology programs, provides research supervision to honors, master's, and PhD students, and clinical supervision to students in the clinical program. | In this episode, we talk about the relationship between evolutionary psychology and clini... |
| 2019-Jun-13 • 36 minutes #94 Athena Aktipis: Cooperation and Conflict, From Cells to Human Societies Dr. Athena Aktipis is Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Arizona State University, co-Director of the Human Generosity Project and Director of Human and Social Evolution, and co-founder of the Center for Evolution and Cancer at the University of California, San Francisco. She is a cooperation theorist, theoretical evolutionary biologist, and cancer biologist who now works at the intersection of these fields. She will be having a book coming out in the near future, Evolution in the Flesh: Ca... |
| 2019-Jun-13 • 66 minutes #189 Viviana Weekes-Shackelford: Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, And Modern Society Dr. Viviana Weekes-Shackelford received her Ph.D. in evolutionary developmental psychology in 2011 from Florida Atlantic University. She is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in Sociology and Criminal Justice at Oakland University and Co-Director of the Evolutionary Psychology Lab. Her research over the years has been evolutionarily inspired and has had the broader goal of gaining a more comprehensive understanding of violence and conflict in families and romantic relationships. Her research interests a... |
| 2019-Jun-12 • 55 minutes #93 Steven Neuberg: The Evolutionary Bases of Stereotypes and Prejudices Dr. Steven Neuberg is a Foundation Professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University (ASU). He is the co-director of the Kenrick-Neuberg Social Cognition Laboratory. He also founded the ASU Global Group Relations Project, a multidisciplinary and global study of factors, including religion, which shape intergroup conflict. Dr. Neuberg is a fellow of multiple scientific societies and the recipient of several teaching awards, including ASU’s 2012 Outstanding Doctoral Mentor Award.... |
| 2019-Jun-11 • 50 minutes #92 Lisa Welling: Hormones and Behavior, Evolutionary Psychology and Social Psychology Dr. Lisa Welling is a tenured Associate Professor at Oakland University, US, and head of The Welling Research Lab there. She was awarded the Oakland University New Investigator Research Excellence Award in 2015, and the Oakland University Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award in 2018. She currently serves on the Editorial Boards for the journals Evolutionary Psychological Science, Evolutionary Psychology, and Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology. She is particularly interested in how hormones affect different... |
| 2019-Jun-10 • 60 minutes #91 Lee Jussim: How Stereotypes Work, and the Current State of Social Psychology Dr. Lee Jussim is Distinguished Professor, Chair and Graduate Director of the Department of Psychology at Rutgers University. He also runs the Social Perception Lab there. The lab studies how people perceive, think about, and judge others. He is a leader in the fields of person perception, stereotype accuracy and bias and has been integral in the initiative for viewpoint diversity which advocates to correct the inaccuracies in the field of social psychology research. In support of the latter, he helped star... |
| 2019-Jun-10 • 67 minutes #188 Gustavo Carlo: Prosocial And Moral Development In Children And Adolescents Dr. Gustavo Carlo is Millsap Professor of Diversity in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at the University of Missouri. His research areas and interests include: Prosocial and moral development among children and adolescents; Temperament, family correlates, social cognition and emotions, and culture-related variables associated with such development; and Positive health and adjustment among Latino families and youth. He’s also been the recipient of several awards, including the 2017 Top... |
| 2019-Jun-08 • 41 minutes #90 Jason Manning: Sociology of Suicide and Terrorism Dr. Jason Manning is an Associate Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. He’s a theoretical sociologist who seeks to develop general explanations of human behavior, his work focuses primarily on conflict and social control, including various means of expressing grievances, handling disputes, and punishing offenses. Within this area he specializes in violent conflict, particularly in self-destructive forms of violence such as protest suicide, homicide-suicide, and suicide terrorism. His other in... |
| 2019-Jun-07 • 49 minutes Gad Saad Part 2: The Enemies of Truth, Reason and Science ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Gad Saad: The Enemies of Truth, Reason and Science. | Time Links: | 00:00 About intellectual terrorists | 11:11 Nomological networks of cumulative evidence | 24:18 Consilien... |
| 2019-Jun-07 • 102 minutes #187 Robert Trivers: Parental Investment, Reciprocal Altruism, Self-Deception Dr. Robert Trivers is an American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist. He proposed the theories of reciprocal altruism (1971), parental investment (1972), facultative sex ratio determination (1973), and parent–offspring conflict (1974). He has also contributed by explaining self-deception as an adaptive evolutionary strategy (first described in 1976) and discussing intragenomic conflict. Steven Pinker considers Dr. Trivers to be "one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought". He’s also ... |
| 2019-Jun-06 • 47 minutes Gad Saad Part 1: The Evolution of Consumer Behavior ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Gad Saad: The Evolution of Consumer Behavior. | Time Links: | 02:09 How Dr. Saad decided to apply evolutionary theory to consumer behavior | 10:45 Cultural products as fossi... |
| 2019-Jun-06 • 63 minutes #186 Felix Warneken: Cooperation And Altruism In Apes And Children Dr. Felix Warneken is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan. He’s interested in Developmental Psychology; Culture; Cognition; and Comparative Animal Behavior. His research group addresses questions like how and why human social life involves complex interactions between individuals working together, and what cognitive skills allow them to do so. They do so by examining the earliest forms of cooperation in young children, untangling the processes shaping cooperatio... |
| 2019-Jun-05 • 96 minutes #89 Gad Saad: The Evolution of Consumer Behavior, and the Enemies of Science Dr. Gad Saad is Professor of Marketing at Concordia University, holder of the Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption. He’s the founder of the field of Darwinian Consumption. He was an Associate Editor of Evolutionary Psychology (2012-2015) and of Customer Needs and Solutions (2014- ). He’s been the recipient of several awards, and he’s also a prolific writer, a popular blogger for Psychology Today, and the author of three books, including The Evolutionary Bases of Consu... |
| 2019-Jun-04 • 57 minutes #88 David Buss: Evolutionary Psychology, and the Basics of Human Mating Dr. David Buss is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s one of the founders of the field of evolutionary psychology. His primary research focus is on strategies of human mating. He’s the author of many books, including The Evolution of Desire, and the first textbook in Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. | In this episode, we start off by talking a bit about Dr. Buss’ background, and what led him to Evolutionary Psychology. Then, we g... |
| 2019-Jun-03 • 48 minutes #87 Helen Steward: Philosophy of Action, Free Will, Moral Responsibility Dr. Helen Steward is a Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Action at the University of Leeds, in the UK. Her research focusses on Philosophy of Action, Free Will, Philosophy of Mind and Metaphysics. In February 2015 she was awarded a Research Leadership Fellowship by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She’s an associate editor for the journal Philosophical Explorations. And she’s also the author of the books The Ontology of Mind, and A Metaphysics for Freedom. | In this episode, we talk about P... |
| 2019-Jun-03 • 76 minutes #185 Helen Fisher: The Anthropology Of Romantic Love, Attraction, And Attachment Dr. Helen Fisher is a biological anthropologist, and a Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute, Indiana University. She has written six books on the evolution, biology, and psychology of human sexuality, monogamy, adultery and divorce, gender differences in the brain, the neural chemistry of romantic love and attachment, human biologically-based personality styles, why we fall in love with one person rather than another, hooking up, friends with benefits, living together and other current trends, and... |
| 2019-May-31 • 60 minutes #86 Colin McGinn: Types of Minds, Consciousness, Animal Rights Dr. Colin McGinn has taught philosophy at institutions of higher learning including University College London, Rutgers University, and Oxford University. He’s the author of over two dozen books including The Character of Mind, Consciousness and Its Objects, and The Making of a Philosopher, and he has also written for the London Review of Books, The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. | In this episode, I talk with Dr. McGinn about minds and consciou... |
| 2019-May-31 • 77 minutes #184 Hector Garcia: Sex, Power, And Partisanship Dr. Hector A. Garcia is a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He’s Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He has published extensively on the treatment of PTSD in combat veterans, masculine psychology in the aftermath of war, the evolutionary roots of political partisanship, and the interplay between religious practice and psychopathology. He’s also the autho... |
| 2019-May-30 • 54 minutes #183 Charles Lineweaver: Astrobiology, And What Is Life Dr. Charles H. Lineweaver is the convener of the Australian National University's Planetary Science Institute and holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Research School of Earth Sciences. He was a member of the COBE satellite team that discovered the temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. Before his appointment at ANU, he held post-doctoral positions at Strasbourg Observatory and the University of New South Wales... |
| 2019-May-29 • 49 minutes #84 Garett Jones: Hive Mind, The Importance of National IQ, and Immigration Dr. Garett Jones is Associate Professor of Economics and BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center, at George Mason University. His research interests include macroeconomics, monetary economics, and the microfoundations of economic growth. His work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Economic Growth, and Critical Review. His first book, published in 2015 by Stanford University Press, is entitled Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matter... |
| 2019-May-28 • 45 minutes #83 Richard Wilkinson: The Spirit Level, How to Seek Equality Dr. Richard Wilkinson is Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, having retired in 2008. He is also Honorary Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London and Visiting Professor at the University of York. In 2009, he co-founded The Equality Trust. He was also awarded a 2013 Silver Rose Award from Solidar for championing equality and the 2014 Charles Cully Memorial Medal by the Irish Cancer Society. Finally, he’s the co-author of the greatly influ... |
| 2019-May-27 • 41 minutes #82 Maurício Martins: Cérebro, Mente, Comportamento e Livre Arbítrio ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | O Dr. Maurício Martins encontra-se neste momento a fazer um pós-doutoramento na Berlin School of Mind and Brain, da Humboldt Universtät zu Berlin, e também do Instituto Max Plack para as Ciências Cognitivas Humanas e do Cér... |
| 2019-May-27 • 79 minutes #182 David Bjorklund: Evolution, Child Development, And Modern Environments Dr. David F. Bjorklund is a Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in developmental and evolutionary psychology. He served as Associate Editor of Child Development (1997-2001) and is currently serving as Editor of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. His books include The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology (with Anthony Pellegrini), Origins of the Social Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and Child Developmen... |
| 2019-May-25 • 37 minutes Samuel Andreyev Part 2: The Purpose and Function of Music and Art ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 2 of the conversation with Mr. Samuel Andreyev: The Purpose and Function of Music and Art. | Time Links: | 00:00 Music applied to other forms of art | 05:09 Does music have a purpose? | 09:24 What is represented in mus... |
| 2019-May-24 • 36 minutes Samuel Andreyev Part 1: How To Evaluate Music ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 1 of the conversation with Mr. Samuel Andreyev: How To Evaluate Music. | Time Links: | 00:48 Can any person evaluate music? | 07:03 Is music training important? | 12:36 Exposing oneself to music from ... |
| 2019-May-24 • 91 minutes #181 Cory Clark: The Psychology of Moral Judgment And Political Bias Dr. Cory Clark is an Assistant Professor of Quantitative Social Psychology at Durham University, UK. Dr. Clark does research in Moral Psychology, Political Psychology, Experimental Philosophy, and Motivated Cognition. She’s also the cohost of Psyphilopod. | In this episode, we focus on experimental philosophy, moral judgment, beliefs in free will and determinism, and political bias. We first talk about the new field of experimental philosophy, and how it differs from how philosophy was traditionally done. W... |
| 2019-May-23 • 73 minutes #81 Samuel Andreyev: Philosophy of Music and Art | ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Samuel Andreyev is a Canadian music composer and writer residing in France. He also has a YouTube channel with his name. | Mr. Andreyev is a return guest on the show. Please go check out our first conversatio... |
| 2019-May-23 • 87 minutes #180 Joseph Bulbulia: Religion, Cognition, Ritual, Morality, And Meaning Dr. Joseph A. Bulbulia is a Professor in the School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts at the University of Auckland, where he was appointed the Maclaurin Goodfellow Chair in Theological and Religious Studies in 2018. Dr. Bulbulia is regarded as one of the founders of the contemporary evolutionary religious studies. He is a past President of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion and is currently co-editor of Religion, Brain & Behavior. Dr. Bulbulia is one of four on the Senior ... |
| 2019-May-22 • 59 minutes #80 Stephen Hicks: Nietzsche, the Nazis, and the Postmodernists Dr. Stephen Hicks teaches at Rockford University, where he also directs the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship. He is the author of books like Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, and Nietzsche and the Nazis. Additionally, he has published articles and essays on a range of subjects, including entrepreneurism, free speech in academia, the history and development of modern art, Ayn Rand's Objectivism, business ethics and the philosophy of education, including a ser... |
| 2019-May-20 • 62 minutes #78 Catherine Wilson: How to Reach Morality, Egalitarianism, Affirmative Action, and Feminism Dr. Catherine Wilson is Anniversary Professor of Philosophy at the University of York. She holds degrees in Philosophy from Yale, Oxford and Princeton and has taught in the USA, Canada, and Germany. Dr. Wilson teaches and writes in the history of modern philosophy and on early modern science and also works in the areas of ethics and aesthetics with a special interest in the evolution of morality and the science behind visual experience. She’s the author of the book Moral Animals: Ideals and Constraints in M... |
| 2019-May-20 • 77 minutes #179 Justin Barrett: Cognition And Development In Religion Dr. Justin L. Barrett is Professor of Psychology at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology and Chief Project Developer for the Office for Science, Theology and Religion Iniciatives at Fuller Theological Seminary. Professor Barrett is regarded as one of the founders of the cognitive science of religion field. He’s also the author of books like Why Would Anyone Believe in God?, Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology: From Human Minds to Divine Minds, and Born Believers: The Science of Children's Religious Be... |
| 2019-May-18 • 33 minutes #77 Nuno Lobo Antunes: Novo Projeto de Lei do PAN, Metilfenidato e Atomoxetina, PHDA ------------------Apoiem o canal------------------- | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Sigam-me em--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Nuno Lobo Antunes nasceu em Lisboa, e é neuropediatra. Licenciado em Medicina pela Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa. Recebeu treino pós-graduado em Portugal e Nova Iorque. Fez um Internato policlínico em pediatria. Teve tam... |
| 2019-May-17 • 58 minutes #76 David Christian: Big History, and the Unity of Knowledge Dr. David Christian is Professor at the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University. He is notable for teaching and promoting the discipline of Big History. He is credited with coining the term Big History and he serves as president of the International Big History Association. He’s the author of several books, including Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, and the recently published Origin Story: A Big History of Everything. | In this episode, w... |
| 2019-May-17 • 54 minutes #178 Stephen Shennan: Darwinian Archaeology, Culture, And The Origins of Agriculture Dr. Stephen Shennan is Professor of Theoretical Archaeology in the Institute of Archaeology at University College London. Dr. Shennan focuses on cultural evolution and Darwinian archaeology, applying theories from evolutionary ecology and cladistics to archaeology. In July 2006, he was elected Fellow of the British Academy. He’s the author of several books, including Genes, Memes and Human History: Darwinian Archaeology and Cultural Evolution, Mapping Our Ancestors: Phylogenetic Approaches in Anthropology a... |
| 2019-May-16 • 53 minutes #75 Andrew Thomas: Human Mating, Sex Differences, and the Concept of Gender Dr. Andrew Thomas is a Lecturer in Psychology at Swansea University, UK. His research is concerned with the differences in mating strategies within and between the sexes. This includes environmental and social factors which contribute to this variance and whether mating preferences themselves are reactive to environmental changes over short term periods. He also has a secondary interest in cyber-psychology and online interaction; particularly how one represents oneself using internet avatars and aliases. | ... |
| 2019-May-16 • 57 minutes #177 Azim Shariff: The Science of Religion, Morality, And Self-Driving Cars Dr. Azim Shariff is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a social psychologist whose research focuses on where morality intersects with religion, cultural attitudes and economics. Another rapidly expanding part of his research looks at human-technology interactions and the ethics of automation, including self-driving cars. | In this episode, we talk about the science of religion, and the ethics of self-driving cars. First, we refer to the role th... |
| 2019-May-15 • 52 minutes #74 Christopher Chabris: The Invisible Gorilla, and Other Cognitive Illusions Dr. Christopher Chabris is a Professor at Geisinger, an integrated healthcare system in Pennsylvania, and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, France. He has taught at Union College and Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. in psychology and A.B. in computer science from Harvard. His research focuses on attention, intelligence (individual, collective, and social), behavior genetics, and decision-making. His work has been published in leading journals including Science, Natu... |
| 2019-May-14 • 59 minutes #73 Richard Nisbett: What Social Psychology Tells Us About Cognition Dr. Richard Nisbett is the Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He was the recipient of the Donald T. Campbell Award from the American Psychological Association in 1982, and he’s a Guggenheim fellow. He’s also the author of several books, including Culture of Honor, The Geography of Thought, and Mindware. | In today’s episode, we talk about some of the work by Dr. Nisbett on social ps... |
| 2019-May-13 • 51 minutes #72 Randy Thornhill: Why Men Rape, and How to Prevent It With Science Dr. Randy Thornhill is an American entomologist and evolutionary biologist. He is a professor of biology at the University of New Mexico, and was president of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society from 2011 to 2013. He is known for his evolutionary explanation of rape as well as his work on insect mating systems and the parasite-stress theory. He’s the author of several books, including A Natural History of Rape, and The Parasite-Stress Theory of Values and Sociality. | In this episode, we focus on the m... |
| 2019-May-13 • 90 minutes #176 John Brooke: Environmental History, And The Anthropocene Dr. John Brooke is Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor of History, Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Ohio State University Center for Historical Research. He is also the co-chair of the 2011-2012 Program: Disease, Health, and Environment in Global History. In 2007-2008 he served as the president of the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic. His teaching areas include Early American History and Environmental History. His most recent book, Climate Change and the Course of G... |
| 2019-May-11 • 56 minutes #71 Massimo Pigliucci: The Philosophy of Pseudoscience Dr. Massimo Pigliucci is Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College, formerly co-host of the Rationally Speaking Podcast, and formerly the editor in chief for the online magazine Scientia Salon. He’s also the author of several books, including Phenotypic Plasticity, Philosophy of Pseudoscience, and How to Be a Stoic. | In today’s episode, we talk about how we can demarcate pseudoscience from science. We go more specifically into certain criteria, like falsifiability, predictability, explicability, and rep... |
| 2019-May-10 • 28 minutes #70 Redouan Bshary: Game Theory and Animal Social Behavior Dr. Redouan Bshary is Ordinary Professor of Eco-ethology at the Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland. His research is focused on cooperation within and between species (mutualism), making use of game theoretic models. He also studies links between game theoretic approaches, animal cognition and behavioral endocrinology. | In this episode, we talk about game theory in the studying of animal social behavior. Topics include cleaning mutualism in fish; the cognitive tools necessary for social behavior; wh... |
| 2019-May-10 • 60 minutes #175 Nicole Barbaro: Mating, Life History, Attachment, And Mate Guarding ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter... | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | -... |
| 2019-May-09 • 41 minutes #69 Peter Carruthers: Innate Human Cognition Dr. Peter Carruthers is a British-American philosopher and cognitive scientist working primarily in the area of philosophy of mind, though he has also made contributions to philosophy of language and ethics. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, associate member of the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program and member of the Committee for Philosophy and the Sciences. He’s also the author of many books, like The Philosophy of Psychology, The Architecture of the Mind, ... |
| 2019-May-09 • 73 minutes #174 Michael Muthukrishna: Human Culture, The Cultural Brain, And Political Corruption Dr. Michael Muthukrishna is an Assistant Professor of Economic Psychology at the London School of Economics. His other affiliations include Research Associate of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, Affiliate of the Developmental Economics Group at STICERD, and Technical Director of The Database of Religious History. His research focuses on the psychological and evolutionary processes that underlie culture and how culture is transmitted, maintained, and modified. He’s interest... |
| 2019-May-08 • 55 minutes #68 Jerry Z. Muller: History and Philosophy of Capitalism Dr. Jerry Muller is Ordinary Professor of History at the Catholic University of America, where he teaches courses on historical and contemporary subjects, including capitalism; nationalism; conservatism; the history of social, political, economic, and religious thought; and modern German and Jewish history. He’s also the author of books like The Mind and the Market, Capitalism and the Jews, and, the most recent one, The Tyranny of Metrics. | In this episode, we talk about the conditions that favored the dev... |
| 2019-May-07 • 33 minutes #67 Martin Schaefer: The Right Way to Preserve Biodiversity Dr. Martin Schaefer is a former Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Animal Ecology of the University of Freiburg, Germany. Now, he’s leading a conservation NGO, Fundación Jocotoco (www.fjocotoco.org), based in Ecuador. | In this episode, we talk about the conservation of endangered species, what biological aspects should be taken into consideration, and how to best canalize our efforts and resources. We also talk a little bit about the work Dr. Schaefer is doing at Fundación Jocotoco, in Ecuador. To... |
| 2019-May-06 • 50 minutes #66 David Gorski: Science-Based Medicine, Fighting Quackery Dr. David Gorski is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, where he also serves as the Medical Director of the Alexander J. Walt Comprehensive Breast Center. He’s also Professor of Surgery and Oncology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, and faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology. He’s also the Managing Editor of Science-Based Medicine (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/). | In this episode, we talk about the great on... |
| 2019-May-06 • 54 minutes #173 Belén López-Pérez: Cruel To Be Kind, Empathy, Emotion Regulation And Happiness Dr. Belén López-Pérez is a Lecturer in Psychology at Liverpool Hope University in the UK, where she also directs the ChildLab. She concluded her PhD in Social psychology at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in 2012, and her Postdoctoral research in Social and Developmental Psychology in the School of Psychology at Plymouth University. Her research interests include empathy and interpersonal emotion regulation across the lifespan, as well as happiness and wellbeing. Her current research projects are focused on ... |
| 2019-May-04 • 29 minutes #65 Dale Purves: How Perception and Cognition Work Dr. Dale Purves is Geller Professor of Neurobiology Emeritus at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, at Duke University. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989 for his work on neural development and synaptic plasticity. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. He is the author of many books, including Principles of Neural Development, and Brains: How they Seem to Work, and also the lead author on the textbooks Neuroscience, and P... |
| 2019-May-03 • 38 minutes Patricia Churchland Part 2: Self, Morality, Reductionism, Meaning of Life ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Patricia Churchland: Self, Morality, Reductionism, Meaning of Life. | Time Links: | 00:00 Is there a “self”? | 02:36 Morality in the brain | 09:33 Free will and personal responsibil... |
| 2019-May-03 • 52 minutes #172 Joseph Carroll: Literary Darwinism, Postmodernism, And The Humanities Dr. Joseph Carroll is a scholar in the field of literature and evolution. He is currently Curators’ Professor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, where he has taught since 1985. Dr. Carroll's Evolution and Literary Theory was one of the first literary studies to "take the cue from important developments in disciplines such as evolutionary psychology, evolutionary anthropology, and sociobiology," seeing evolutionary biology as an alternative to poststructuralism and rejecting poststructuralism's textual... |
| 2019-May-02 • 53 minutes Patricia Churchland Part 1: Neurophilosophy, Epistemology, and Consciousness ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Patricia Churchland: Neurophilosophy, Epistemology, and Consciousness. | Time Links: | 00:55 What is neurophilosophy? | 04:50 The philosophical relevance of the structure of our ner... |
| 2019-May-02 • 36 minutes #171 Peter Smith: Bullying, Cyberbullying and Children's Development Dr. Professor Peter K. Smith is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His research interest is children’s social development. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Association of Psychological Sciences, and the Academy of Social Sciences. | In this episode, we focus on bullying and cyberbullying. We first discuss the definition of bullying, from a developmental psychological perspective, bullying and child development, the types of bullying, bullyin... |
| 2019-May-01 • 90 minutes #64 Patricia Churchland: Neurophilosophy, Consciousness, Free Will, and Morality Dr. Patricia Churchland is a Canadian-American Philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She has also held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since 1989. She is a member of the Board of Trustees Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Philosophy Department, at Moscow State University. In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of t... |
| 2019-Apr-30 • 60 minutes #63 Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The Philosophy of Science, and The Science of Philosophy Dr. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an American philosopher, novelist and public intellectual. She is a MacArthur Fellow and has received the National Humanities Medal of the US, the National Jewish Book Award, and numerous other honors. She’s the author of ten books, both fiction and nonfiction, including The Mind-Body Problem, Betraying Spinoza, and Plato at the Googleplex. | Today, we talk about the relation between philosophy and science, and how each can inform the other. Other specific topics inc... |
| 2019-Apr-29 • 41 minutes #62 Lewis Goldberg: The Development and Scientific Relevance of the BIG FIVE Dr. Lewis Goldberg is an American personality psychologist and a Professor Emeritus at the University of Oregon. He is closely associated with the lexical hypothesis, that says that any culturally important personality characteristic will be represented in the language of the particular culture. This hypothesis led to the discovery of a five-factor structure of personality trait adjectives (which he dubbed the Big Five). | In this episode, we talk about: the scientific history behind the lexical hypothesis;... |
| 2019-Apr-29 • 42 minutes #170 Steven Hales: Philosophy of Luck, Relativism and Perspectivism, And Evolutionary Psychology Dr. Steven Hales is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University, US. His areas of specialization include epistemology and metaphysics. He’s the author of books like Metaphysics, A Companion to Relativism, Nietzsche’s Perspectivism, and This Is Philosophy. | In this episode, we talk about the philosophy of luck, and relativism. First, we discuss what is luck from a philosophical perspective, including the differences between epistemic and moral luck and the most prominent the... |
| 2019-Apr-27 • 66 minutes #61 Oliver Scott Curry: Morality as Cooperation, Moral Foundations Dr. Oliver Scott Curry is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, at the University of Oxford. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics in 2005. In addition to his research, which focuses a lot on morality, Dr. Curry has previously taught courses on evolution and human behavior, covering evolutionary theory, animal behavior, evolutionary psychology, cross-cultural psychology, statistics and research methods. He is also a consultant for kindness.org. | ... |
| 2019-Apr-26 • 57 minutes #60 Fernanda Drumond (Gapminder): The Right Way to Look at Progress ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Gapminder Foundation is a non-profit venture based in Stockholm, Sweden, that promotes sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of ... |
| 2019-Apr-26 • 75 minutes #169 Bo Winegard: The Psychology of Group Differences and Political Bias Dr. Bo Winegard is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Marietta College. He generally approaches psychological puzzles from an evolutionary perspective, applying Darwin's theory of natural selection to the human mind. He focuses mostly on status, group differences, individual differences, bias, methods, and political psychology. He’s also the cohost, together with Cory Clark, of the Psyphilopod podcast. | In this episode, we talk about the study of group differences in Psychology. We also discuss the impor... |
| 2019-Apr-25 • 40 minutes #59 Peter Kappeler: Sexual and Mating Dynamics in Primate Species, Human Universals Dr. Peter Kappeler is a Professor at the faculty of Zoology and Anthropology at Göttingen University, Germany, and at the Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology department at the German Primate Center. He also teaches as a guest lecturer at the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar. He’s the author or editor of books like Mind the Gap: Tracing the Origins of Human Universals, Animal Behaviour: Evolution and Mechanisms, and The Evolution of Primate Species. | In this episode, the conversation revolves around... |
| 2019-Apr-25 • 40 minutes #168 Anthony Biglan: The Nurture Effect, Child Development, and Nurturing Societies Dr. Anthony Biglan is a Senior Scientist at Oregon Research Institute and the Co-Director of the Promise Neighborhood Research Consortium. He has been conducting research on the development and prevention of child and adolescent problem behavior for the past several decades. His work has included studies of the risk and protective factors associated with tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use; high-risk sexual behavior; and antisocial behavior. He and colleagues at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavio... |
| 2019-Apr-24 • 81 minutes #58 April Bleske-Rechek: The Psychology of Friendship, Mate Selection, Modern Psychology Dr. April Bleske-Rechek is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. As a researcher, she focuses on human mating, friendship, cognitive abilities and intellectual giftedness, and science literacy. | In this episode, the conversation revolves around the evolutionary psychology of friendship and mate selection. She gives a personal account of the development and importance of evolutionary psychology. And then we move on to talk same-sex and opposite-sex friendship; friendship rival... |
| 2019-Apr-23 • 39 minutes #57 Andreas M. Antonopoulos: Bitcoin and the Blockchain; The Prosociality of Digital Currencies ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a critically-acclaimed best-selling author, speaker, educator, and one of the world’s foremost bitcoin and open blockchain experts. He is a teaching fellow at the University of Nicosia, and serves... |
| 2019-Apr-22 • 39 minutes Simon Blackburn Part 2: Moral Relativism, Free Will, and the Meaning of Life ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Simon Blackburn: Moral Relativism, Free Will, Meaning of Life. | Time Links: | 00:00 Contradictions of moral relativism | 05:17 Nihilism | 10:21 Free will and personal respons... |
| 2019-Apr-22 • 51 minutes #167 Rani Lill Anjum: Philosophy of Causation, Scientific Models, And Medicine Dr. Rani Lill Anjum is Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) School of Economics and Business, and Leader of the CAPS – Center for Applied Philosophy of Science since 2018. She spent two years at the University of Nottingham, working with Professor Stephen Mumford on dispositions and causation from 2007 to 2009. Together they developed a new theory of causation. After Nottingham, she got funding from FRIPRO NFR for a 4-year research project, Causation in Science (... |
| 2019-Apr-20 • 42 minutes Simon Blackburn Part 1: The Sources of Ethics ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Simon Blackburn: The Sources of Metaethics. | Time Links: | 01:05 What is metaethics? | 04:05 Evolutionary theory as the basis of morality | 10:41 The trouble with reason ... |
| 2019-Apr-19 • 81 minutes #56 Simon Blackburn: Metaethics, The Bases of Ethical Systems, Meaning of Life, and Beauty Dr. Simon Blackburn taught Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He is a distinguished research professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College, and a member of the professoriate of New College of the Humanities. He was previously a Fellow of Pembroke College, and has also taught full-time at the University of North Carolina as an Edna J. Koury Professor. He is a former president of the Aristotelian Society. He was elected a Fellow of t... |
| 2019-Apr-19 • 55 minutes #166 Daniel Nettle: The Evolution of Personality, Individual Variation And Behavioral Flexibility Dr. Daniel Nettle is Professor of Behavioural Science at Newcastle University, where he is a member of the cross-disciplinary Centre for Behaviour and Evolution. He studies a number of different topics relating to behaviour, ageing and wellbeing. He mainly studies humans, but sometimes other animals (especially starlings) too. Dr. Nettle is the author of several books, most notably, Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile (2005), Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are (2007), and Tyneside Neighbourhoo... |
| 2019-Apr-18 • 51 minutes Bradley Campbell Part 2: Issues with Sociology, Victimhood on the Right, the Alt-Right ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Bradley Campbell: Issues with Sociology, Victimhood on the Right, the Alt-Right. | Time Links: | 00:00 The problem within sociology | 10:39 What’s the role of moral status? | 13:35 Could ... |
| 2019-Apr-18 • 52 minutes #165 Stephen Law: Naturalism, Liberalism, And The Religious And The Atheists Dr. Stephen Law is formally Reader in Philosophy at Heythrop College, and before that Research Fellow at The Queen’s College Oxford. He is currently editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal THINK. He has published several books, including The Philosophy Gym, A Very Short Introduction to Humanism, and Believing Bullshit. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and Commerce and in 2008 became the provost of the Centre for Inquiry UK. | In this episode, we start off by talking about the li... |
| 2019-Apr-17 • 64 minutes Bradley Campbell Part 1: Culture of Victimhood, Its Historical Precedents and Influences ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Bradley Campbell: Culture of Victimhood, Its Historical Precedents and Influences. | Time Links: | 00:26 Cultures of honor, cultures of dignity, and cultures of victimhood | 17:36 H... |
| 2019-Apr-16 • 115 minutes #55 Bradley Campbell: The Rise of Victimhood Culture, and Its Dangers on the Left and the Right Dr. Bradley Campbell is an Associate Professor of Sociology at California State University. He’s also the author of books like The Geometry of Genocide, and, more recently, The Rise of Victimhood Culture. | In this episode, the conversation centers around the book The Rise of Victimhood Culture, co-authored with Jason Manning. We talk about the distinction between cultures of honor, cultures of dignity, and cultures of victimhood; the historical precedents of victimhood culture and the boom in 2013/2014; th... |
| 2019-Apr-15 • 49 minutes Robin Hanson Part 3: Changing Behavior, Modern Life, Capitalism, Social Progress ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 3 of the conversation with Dr. Robin Hanson: Changing Behavior, Modern Life, Capitalism, Social Progress. | Time Links: | 00:00 The narrative of the self | 03:19 Enlightened self-interest | 06:16 Being humble | 11:31 B... |
| 2019-Apr-15 • 65 minutes #164 Herbert Gintis: Sociobiology, Game Theory, Cooperation, And Social Institutions Dr. Herbert Gintis is External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He and Professor Robert Boyd (Anthropology, UCLA) headed a multidisciplinary research project that models such behaviors as empathy, reciprocity, insider/outsider behavior, vengefulness, and other observed human behaviors not well handled by the traditional model of the self-regarding agent. Professor Gintis is also author of several books including Game Theory Evolving, The Bounds of Reason, A Cooperative Species, Game Theory in Action, an... |
| 2019-Apr-13 • 49 minutes Robin Hanson Part 2: Hidden motives in Advertising, Charity, Education, and Medicine ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Robin Hanson: Hidden motives in Advertising, Charity, Education, and Medicine. | Time Links: | 00:00 The social aspects of advertising | 06:10 Art and conspicuous signaling | 12:20 Charit... |
| 2019-Apr-12 • 46 minutes #163 Sarah Brosnan: Morality, Reciprocity, Fairness, And Property in Primates Dr. Sarah Brosnan is a Professor in the departments of psychology and philosophy and the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University. She is also a member of the Brains & Behavior program and the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience. She directs the Comparative Economics and Behavioral Studies Laboratory (CEBUS Lab) and does research with nonhuman primates at both the Language Research Center of Georgia State University and the Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research of the ... |
| 2019-Apr-11 • 155 minutes #54 Robin Hanson: The Elephant in the Brain, Selfishness and Prosociality, Social Progress Dr. Robin Hanson is an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He’s also the author of books like The Age of Em, and The Elephant in the Brain. | In this episode, the conversation centers around the book The Elephant in the Brain. We talk about subconscious motivations; selfishness and prosociality; rationalizations; strong and weak social norms; personality variability and hidden motivations; conspicuous ... |
| 2019-Apr-11 • 57 minutes #162 Philip Goff: Materialism, Consciousness, And The Nature of Reality Dr. Philip Goff is a philosopher and consciousness researcher at Durham University, UK. His main research focus is trying to explain how the brain produces consciousness. He thinks we need to radically rethink our understanding of matter in order to explain consciousness, in something like the way Einstein radically rethought the nature of space and time. Dr. Goff also has a sideline in political philosophy, focusing on issues pertaining to taxation, globalization and social justice. He’s also the author of... |
| 2019-Apr-10 • 52 minutes #53 Johan Norberg: Capitalism, Globalism, Progress, Inequality & More ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | Mr. Johan Norberg is an author and historian from Sweden. He’s been a senior fellow at the Cato Institute since 2007, and the executive director at Free To Choose Media since 2017. He is the author of books like In Defense of ... |
| 2019-Apr-09 • 52 minutes #52 Eric Turkheimer: Four Laws of Behavior Genetics, Gene-Environment Dynamics, IQ Dr. Eric Turkheimer is the Hugh Scott Hamilton Professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, US. | In this episode, we talk about some concepts coming from Behavior Genetics; the four laws of Behavior Genetics; gene-environment correlations (active, passive, and reactive); gene-environment interactions; and genetics and environment in the study of IQ. | -- | O Dr. Eric Turkheimer é o Hugh Scott Hamilton Professor de psicologia da Universidade da Virgínia, EUA. | Neste episódio, falamos sobre concei... |
| 2019-Apr-08 • 59 minutes #51 James Flynn: Intelligence and IQ, the Flynn effect, group comparisons Dr. James Flynn is a world-renowned intelligence researcher, an Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He’s the author of several books, including What Is Intelligence: Beyond the Flynn Effect, Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century, and Intelligence and Human Progress: The Story of What was Hidden in our Genes. | In this episode, we talk about the scientific definitions of intelligence and IQ; IQ tests and their limitations; the We... |
| 2019-Apr-08 • 69 minutes #161 Ian Gilligan: The Evolution of Clothing and Agriculture Dr. Ian Gilligan is Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology of the University of Sydney. He graduated in psychology (UNSW) and medicine (Sydney University) before studying prehistoric archaeology (Sydney University) and biological anthropology (PhD ANU). He specializes in the origin of clothing and the role of textiles in the transition to agriculture. He also has an interest in traditional clothing in Aboriginal Australia, particularly in Tasmania during the last ice age. In addition,... |
| 2019-Apr-06 • 49 minutes #50 Nancy Segal: Accidental Brothers, Twin Studies, Nature and Nurture, Epigenetics & More Dr. Nancy Segal is Professor of Developmental Psychology and Director of the Twin Studies Center, at California State University, Fullerton. She’s been the recipient of many awards and distinctions. She served as Assistant Director of the Minnesota Center for Twin and Adoption Research, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, from 1985 to 1991. She’s also the author of many books, including Entwined Lives, Indivisible by Two, Someone Else's Twin, Born Together-Reared Apart, and, the ... |
| 2019-Apr-05 • 38 minutes #49 Robert Boyd: Gene-culture Coevolution, Cultural Evolution Dr. Robert Boyd has a Ph.D. in Ecology, by the University of California-Davis. He is Professor of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (SHESC) at Arizona State University (ASU). He’s also the author of several books including How Humans Evolved, Culture and the Evolutionary Process, and Not By Genes Alone. | In this episode, we talk about dual inheritance theory; how climate fluctuations during the Pleistocene accentuated the importance of culture in human evolution; cultural adaptations and mala... |
| 2019-Apr-05 • 83 minutes #160 Richard Haier: The Neuroscience of Intelligence, Group Differences, And AI Dr. Richard Haier is Professor Emeritus in the Pediatric Neurology Division of the School of Medicine at University of California, Irvine. He is also the editor-in-chief of the journal Intelligence since 2016. In 1994, he was one of 52 signatories on "Mainstream Science on Intelligence," an editorial written by the American psychologist Linda Gottfredson and published in the Wall Street Journal, which summarized findings from intelligence research. His work on the parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT) ... |
| 2019-Apr-04 • 61 minutes #48 Susan Pinker: The Sexual Paradox and The Village Effect ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Mrs. Susan Pinker is a psychologist, author and social science columnist for The Wall Street Journal. She is a former weekly columnist for The Globe and Mail, and has also written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and T... |
| 2019-Apr-04 • 61 minutes #159 Ian Crawford: Astrobiology, Space Exploration, and Big History Dr. Ian Crawford is Professor of Planetary Science and Astrobiology at Birkbeck College, University of London. His research activities mostly lie in the fields of space exploration (especially lunar science and exploration), and the science of astrobiology (the search for life in the Universe). | In this episode, we talk about astrobiology and Big History. What is astrobiology, and the criteria that are used to search for life in the Universe, and also the limitations of those criteria, including the Goldil... |
| 2019-Apr-03 • 39 minutes #47 Luís Ricardo: O Líder Charlatão, Líderes e Estilos de Liderança em Sociedade Humanas ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Luís Ricardo é doutorado em Liderança Educacional, e tem experiência como professor e como responsável técnico/comercial em empresas. Publicou vários artigos sobre liderança e é autor dos livros “O Líder e a Liderança”, “O ... |
| 2019-Apr-02 • 25 minutes #46 Barbara Webb: Embodied Cognition, AI, and the Study of Natural Cognition Dr. Barbara Webb first studied Psychology at the University of Sydney. She obtained her PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh in 1993, where she is now part of the School of Informatics as Professor of Biorobotics. | In this episode, we talk about embodied cognition; the role played by the physical structure of the body; the importance of centralized processing of information in living systems; the interplay between the body and the environment; embodied cognition in the developmen... |
| 2019-Apr-01 • 58 minutes #45 Mark Schaller: Interpersonal Communication and Human Culture, The Behavioral Immune System Dr. Mark Schaller graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1984 and obtained a PhD in Psychology at Arizona State University in 1989. He is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He edited books like The Psychological Foundations of Culture and Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind. | In this episode, we talk about what is culture and how it gets generated; the Dynamic Social Impact Theory, and the concepts of consolidation, clustering, and cor... |
| 2019-Apr-01 • 54 minutes #158 Jay Belsky: Attachment, Child Development, And Child Maltreatment Dr. Jay Belsky is Robert and Natalie Read Dorne Professor of Human Development in the Department of Human Ecology and Program in Human Development at the University of California, Davis. Professor Belsky is an internationally recognized expert in the field of child development and family studies. His areas of expertise include the effects of day care, parent-child relations during the infancy and early childhood years (including attachment), the transition to parenthood, the etiology of child maltreatment a... |
| 2019-Mar-29 • 43 minutes #43 Diana Fleischman: The Psychology of Disgust and Mate Selection Dr. Diana Fleischman completed a PhD in Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, US, under the supervision of David Buss. She is currently a senior lecturer of Psychology at the University of Portsmouth, as well as a member of the Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology group there. | In this episode, we talk about the different types of disgust in human psychology (pathogen, sexual, and moral); sex differences in pathogen and sexual disgust; the compensatory behavioral prophylaxis hypoth... |
| 2019-Mar-29 • 46 minutes #157 Gerard Saucier: Personality, The Big Five, The Big Six, and The Big Two Dr. Gerard Saucier is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon. He won the 1999 Cattell Early Career Research Award from the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology. His research focuses on Personality Psychology, Values, Cultural Psychology, Moral Psychology, and Political Psychology. Dr. Saucier has been a leader in developing and refining dimensional models for personality (the Big Five, and upgrading from the Big Five to a more comprehensive Big Six model and a broader, more univers... |
| 2019-Mar-28 • 50 minutes #42 Ville Tulkki: Dispelling the Fear About Nuclear Energy ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Mr. Ville Tulkki is a Doctor of Science in Technology and a Certified project manager (IPMA-C) from Finland. He’s a member of Fuel&Materials, part of the Halden Programme Group. He’s also a Member of the Jules Horowitz ... |
| 2019-Mar-28 • 59 minutes #156 Samuel Andreyev: Innate and Acquired Aesthetic and Artistic Tastes ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter... | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy | PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l | PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz | PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m | PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao | | -... |
| 2019-Mar-26 • 34 minutes #40 Frans de Waal: Morality, Sociality, and Culture in Primate Societies Dr. Frans de Waal is a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is the Charles Howard Candler professor of Primate Behavior at the Emory University psychology department in Atlanta, Georgia, US, the director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utrecht, and author of numerous books including Chimpanzee Politics and The Bonobo and the Atheist. | Here, we talk about what Primatology offers to the study of human psychology; prim... |
| 2019-Mar-25 • 63 minutes #39 Vera Gomes: Doença Inflamatória do Intestino e Síndrome do Intestino Irritável ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | A Vera Gomes sofre de doença inflamatória do intestino, neste caso colite ulcerosa, e é uma ativista a tentar sensibilizar para este tipo de condições de saúde, em Portugal, mas também no resto do mundo. | Para o efei... |
| 2019-Mar-25 • 62 minutes #155 Glenn Geher: Evolutionary Psych, Mating, Attachment, And The PsychTable Dr. Glenn Geher is Professor of Psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz where he has been awarded SUNY Chancellor Awards for Excellence for both Teaching and Research. In addition to teaching various courses and directing the New Paltz Evolutionary Psychology Lab, Dr. Geher serves as founding director of the campus’ Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) program. He is also credited as the founder of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society (NEEPS). He has also published several books inclu... |
| 2019-Mar-23 • 50 minutes #38 Monique Borgerhoff Mulder: Evolutionary Anthropology, Gender Roles, Sexual Selection Dr. Monique Borgerhoff Mulder trained as a social anthropologist at the University of Edinburgh, and received a Ph.D. at Northwestern University. After a post doc at the Evolution and Human Behavior Program at the University of Michigan, she joined the UC Davis Anthropology (Evolutionary Wing) faculty, where she is now a Distinguished Professor. Professor Borgerhoff Mulder is a human behavioral ecologist (HBE) working on projects relating to life history, inequality, natural resource management, and pattern... |
| 2019-Mar-22 • 89 minutes #37 David F. Lancy: Children's Play and Learning in Traditional and WEIRD Societies Dr. David F. Lancy is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Utah State University. He is the author/editor of several books on childhood and culture, including Cross-Cultural Studies in Cognition and Mathematics (1983), Studying Children and Schools (2001), Playing on the Mother Ground: Cultural Routines for Children's Learning (1996) and Anthropological Perspectives on Learning in Childhood (2010). | Here, we talk about children’s play as a human universal; teaching behavior from adults in different cultur... |
| 2019-Mar-22 • 129 minutes #154 Robert McCauley: Cognitive Science of Religion, Culture, Cognition, Evolution, and Ritual Dr. Robert McCauley is the William Rand Kenan Jr. University Professor of Philosophy at the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture, at Emory University. Dr. McCauley is a professor of philosophy, psychology, religion, and anthropology who is a pioneer in the cognitive science of religion. He is also the author of Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not and of Philosophical Foundations of the Cognitive Science of Religion as well as the co-author with E. Thomas Lawson of both Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychol... |
| 2019-Mar-21 • 40 minutes #36 Jacy Reese: The End of Animal Farming, Veganism, Animal Welfare, Enviromentalism ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Jacy Reese is the co-founder of the Sentience Institute, alongside Kelly Witwicki, as well as its Research Director. This year he will release the book The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists... |
| 2019-Mar-21 • 72 minutes #153 Jessica Pierce: Animal Morality, Animal Ethics, and Veganism Dr. Jessica Pierce is an American bioethicist, philosopher, and writer. She currently has a loose affiliation with the Center for Bioethics and Humanities, University of Colorado Denver, but considers herself mostly independent. She has previously worked variously at the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Randolph-Macon Women's College, having studied at the University of Virginia, Harvard Divinity School and Scripps College. Early in her career, she focused on qu... |
| 2019-Mar-20 • 62 minutes Leda Cosmides Part 3: Applied Evolutionary Psychology (Politics, Human Relationships) ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 3 of the conversation with Dr. Leda Cosmides: Applied Evolutionary Psychology (Politics, Human Relationships). | -- | A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, JUNOS, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LAR... |
| 2019-Mar-19 • 69 minutes Leda Cosmides Part 2: How to Think About Evolutionary Psychology ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Leda Cosmides: How to Think About Evolutionary Psychology. | -- | A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, JUNOS, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, R... |
| 2019-Mar-18 • 72 minutes Leda Cosmides Part 1: Basic Concepts of Evolutionary Psychology ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Leda Cosmides: Basic Concepts of Evolutionary Psychology. | -- | A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, JUNOS, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, RU... |
| 2019-Mar-18 • 55 minutes #152 Erica van de Waal: Social Cognition And Culture in Primates Dr. Erica van de Waal is Professor of Primatology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She is also Director of the Inkawu Vervet Project, at the Mawana Game Reserve, in South Africa, an experimental field site with a study population of over 200 wild vervet monkeys, and a Branco Weiss Fellow of the Society in Science at the University of Zurich. She is interested in the evolution of primate social behaviors with a main focus on cultural transmission and cognition. | In this episode, we talk about the... |
| 2019-Mar-16 • 61 minutes #34 Azar Gat: War and Terrorism, from the Hunter-Gatherers to the Long Peace Dr. Azar Gat is the Ezer Weizman Professor of National Security and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University, in Israel. He is the founder and head of the University's Executive Master’s Program in Diplomacy and Security. He’s also the author of books like A History of Military Thought, War in Human Civilization, and Nations. | Here, we talk about the evolutionary underpinnings of war in human society; the history and evolution of war, and how war manifests itself in pre-sta... |
| 2019-Mar-15 • 61 minutes #33 Richard Lippa: Sex Differences in Cognition and Interests Dr. Richard Lippa is a Professor of Psychology at California State University. He’s the author of books like Introduction to Social Psychology, and Gender, Nature, and Nurture. | Here, we talk about the controversies surrounding the study of human sex differences; the sources we draw from while establishing the sex differences as scientific facts; the use of sex and gender as scientific terms; the role of biology in psychological and behavioral sex differences; some of the main sex differences, in aggressio... |
| 2019-Mar-15 • 56 minutes #151 Richard Wrangham: The Goodness Paradox, Human Self-Domestication and Aggression Dr. Richard Wrangham is Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and founded the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in 1987. He has conducted extensive research on primate ecology, nutrition, and social behavior. He is best known for his work on the evolution of human warfare, described in the book Demonic Males, and on the role of cooking in human evolution, described in the book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Together with E... |
| 2019-Mar-14 • 74 minutes #150 Steve Stewart-Williams: The Ape That Understood The Universe, Biology and Human Culture Dr. Steve Stewart-Williams is Associate Professor of Psychology at Nottingham University Malaysia Campus. His research revolves around the idea that theories from evolutionary biology can shed light on human psychology. In particular, he’s interested in the evolutionary origins of altruistic behavior and human sex differences. He also has a long-standing interest in the philosophical implications of evolutionary theory. He’s also the author of the books Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life (2010) and The Ape... |
| 2019-Mar-13 • 45 minutes #31 Samuel Andreyev: Music Across Times and Cultures ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Samuel Andreyev is a Canadian composer and writer residing in France. | Here, we talk about his work, and his Youtube channel; the differences between classical and modern music compositions; what are the universal traits o... |
| 2019-Mar-12 • 53 minutes #30 David C. Geary: Folk Cognition, Sex Differences in Vulnerability, Children's Learning Dr. David C. Geary is a cognitive developmental and evolutionary psychologist. He is currently a Curators’ Professor and Thomas Jefferson Fellow in the Department of Psychological Sciences and Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. He’s the author of several books including Children's Mathematical Development, Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences, and Evolution of vulnerability: Implications For Sex Differences in Health and Development.&n... |
| 2019-Mar-11 • 90 minutes #149 Martin Daly: Evolution, Inequality, Violence And Homicide Dr. Martin Daly is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster University, Canada. His areas of interest are human violence (especially homicide), family relations, and evolutionary psychology. He is a founding member and past-president (1991-1993) of the Human Behavior & Evolution Society (HBES), and with his late wife Margo Wilson, he served as co-editor-in-chief of the society's journal Evolution & Human Behaviour for its first decade. In 1998, Dr.... |
| 2019-Mar-09 • 41 minutes #28 Edward Slingerland: The Cognitive Science of Religion, And What Sicence Offers the Humanities Dr. Edward Slingerland is a Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He’s the Director of the Cultural Evolution of Religion Research Consortium (CERC), the Director of the Database of Religious History (DRH), and the Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture (HECC). And he’s also the author of books like What Science Offers the Humanities: Integrating Body and Culture, and Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontanei... |
| 2019-Mar-08 • 31 minutes #27 Virtutis Discipulus: Evolution of Language, Spelling Agreements, Virtue ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | My guest today is the host of the Youtube channel, Virtutis Discipulus, where he promotes the study of the Latin and Greek origins of the Portuguese language, and also promotes a rational approach to virtue. | Here, we talk... |
| 2019-Mar-08 • 63 minutes #148 David Benatar: Anti-Natalism, Abortion, Suicide, Euthanasia, Environmentalism Dr. David Benatar is professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa. He is best known for his advocacy of antinatalism in his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, in which he argues that coming into existence is a serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings. He’s also the author of books like The Second Sexism: ... |
| 2019-Mar-07 • 37 minutes #26 Claire Lehmann: Quillette, Leadership in the Feminine, Ethical Journalism ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Claire Lehmann is an Australian writer and the editor and founder of the online magazine Quillette. | Here, we talk her academic background; what led her to launch Quillette; the philosophy being Quillette; its recent expan... |
| 2019-Mar-07 • 65 minutes #147 Rebecca Roache: Philosophy of Psychiatry, Depression, Human Enhancement, and Crime Dr. Rebecca Roache is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. She teaches practical ethics, logic, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychiatry, philosophy of language, and early modern philosophy. She’s also been Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and Programme Manager of the Oxford Loebel Lectures and Research Programme, at the University of Oxford. Before that, she was James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute. Since 2013, Dr. Roache... |
| 2019-Mar-04 • 37 minutes #23 Olof Gränström: Gapminder, Industrial Revolution, Violence Rates, Economic Inequality ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Olof Gränström is the Project Manager at Gapminder. He is a political scientist with a background as an educator. | Here, we talk about some of the background story of Gapminder and Hans Rosling; the sources for the data Ga... |
| 2019-Mar-04 • 56 minutes #146 Peggy Mason: The Neuroscience of Empathy and Helping Behavior Dr. Peggy Mason is a Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Chicago. She received both her BA in Biology and her Phd in Neuroscience from Harvard. Professor Mason has been on the faculty of University of Chicago since 1992. She has taught undergraduate, graduate and medical students and has received numerous teaching awards. Using her nearly 15 years of experience teaching medical students, Professor Mason wrote a single-author textbook designed for medical students (Medical Neurob... |
| 2019-Mar-02 • 63 minutes #22 Fernanda Drumond: Gapminder, Dollar Street, Progress at All Levels of Income ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Gapminder Foundation is a non-profit venture based in Stockholm, Sweden, that promotes sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of ... |
| 2019-Mar-01 • 99 minutes #21 Norman Sandridge: Leadership, from Cyrus to Trump Dr. Norman Sandridge has a B.S. in Physics, with a minor in Mathematics by the University of Alabama; a M.A. in Latin by Florida State University; a M.A. in Greek by the University of North Carolina; and a Ph.D. in Classics also by the University of North Carolina. He’s an Associate Professor of Classics, Fellow in Leadership Studies and Greater Washington Outreach at Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies. He’s been involved in the development of hybrid-online education programs on Classicism. And he also w... |
| 2019-Mar-01 • 96 minutes #145 Filipe Nobre Faria: Evolutionary Theory, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics, and Market Liberalism Dr. Filipe Nobre Faria currently works as a post-doctoral researcher in ethics and political philosophy at the Institute for Philosophy of the Nova University of Lisbon (IFILNOVA). Furthermore, he lectures on subjects of his expertise at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences/Nova. Previously, he earned his PhD in Political Theory (2016) from King’s College London and his master degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (2011) from the University of East Anglia. He also taught within the areas of polit... |
| 2019-Feb-28 • 65 minutes #20 Stephen Hicks: Postmodernism, from Rousseau to the Present Dr. Stephen Hicks teaches at Rockford University, where he also directs the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship. He is the author of books like Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, and Nietzsche and the Nazis. Additionally, he has published articles and essays on a range of subjects, including entrepreneurism, free speech in academia, the history and development of modern art, Ayn Rand's Objectivism, business ethics and the philosophy of education, including a ser... |
| 2019-Feb-28 • 71 minutes #144 David Zaruk: Environmentalism, The EU, and SlimeGate Dr. David Zaruk is the Risk-Monger. He has been an EU risk and science communications specialist since 2000, active in EU policy events from REACH and SCALE to the Pesticides Directive, from Science in Society questions to the use of the Precautionary Principle. He was part of the team that set up GreenFacts to encourage a wider use of evidence-based decision-making in the EU on environmental health matters. Dr. Zaruk is a professor at Odisee University College where he lectures on Communications, Marketing... |
| 2019-Feb-27 • 36 minutes #19 Roberto Rivera: Human Sex Distribution, Genotype and Phenotype, Epigenetics ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Roberto Calzadilla Rivera has studied Biology and Mathematics at the University of Puerto Rico, working in molecular and evolutionary genetics. He’s trained as a population geneticist. Currently he’s working as a computatio... |
| 2019-Feb-26 • 58 minutes #18 Eric Smith: The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth Dr. Eric Smith received the Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1987, and a Ph.D. in Physics from The University of Texas at Austin in 1993. He is External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Research Professor at George Mason University, and Principal Investigator at the Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is a physicist specializing in the origin of life, non-equilibrium systems, economics, and the evolution of human la... |
| 2019-Feb-25 • 65 minutes #143 William von Hippel: The Social Leap, Human Sociality, Mating, Agriculture, and Happiness Dr. William von Hippel is Professor of Psychology at the University of Queensland, Australia. He has published more than a hundred articles, chapters, and edited books in social psychology, and his research has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, The Economist, the BBC, Le Monde, El Mundo, Der Spiegel, and The Australian. He also recently published a book, “The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy” (2018). | In this episode, w... |
| 2019-Feb-23 • 32 minutes #16 Jon Entine: Genetic Literacy Project, Bioengineering, GMOs, Chemophobia ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Jon Entine is an American author and journalist, and the Executive Director of the Genetic Literacy Project. He’s also a senior research fellow at the Institute for Food and Agricultural Literacy at the University of Califo... |
| 2019-Feb-22 • 59 minutes #142 James Tabery: The Nature-Nurture Debate, And Its Ethics Dr. James Tabery is Adjunct Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Adjunct Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. His research focuses largely on the philosophy of science and applied ethics, as well as the intersection between those domains. On the philosophy of science side, he investigates questions of causation and explanation in biology; while on the applied ethics side, he explores how the answers to those questions have ethical, legal, an... |
| 2019-Feb-21 • 108 minutes #141 Moshe Hoffman: Game Theory, Norm Enforcement, and Evolutionary Psychology Dr. Moshe Hoffman is a Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab & Lecturer at Harvard's Department of Economics. He applies game theory, models of learning and evolution, and experimental methods, to try to decipher the (often subconscious and subtle) incentives that shape our social behavior, preferences, and ideologies. Dr. Hoffman obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and his B.S. in Economics from the University of Chicago. He also co-designed and teache... |
| 2019-Feb-20 • 59 minutes #13 Matt McGue: MISTRA, Twin Studies, Gender Differences, Race and Ancestry Dr. Matt McGue is a behavior geneticist and Regents Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, where he co-directs the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research. Dr. McGue has authored or co-authored and published over 375 articles in academic journals. His h-index according to Google Scholar is 103. Dr. McGue participated in one of the greatest scientific endeavors of all time, the MISTRA (Minnesota Study on Twins Reared Apart), alongside big names of this type of research, like Thomas Bou... |
| 2019-Feb-19 • 38 minutes #12 Jacob Little: Conformity, PC culture, Hate Speech, and Feminism ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Jacob Little is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Nonfiction at Ohio University, and obtained his MFA in Poetry at Minnesota State University. He is the Managing Editor of Brevity, and a co-founder and Consulting Editor... |
| 2019-Feb-18 • 50 minutes #140 Paul Zak: Neuroeconomics, Oxytocin, Trust, Companies and Society Dr. Paul Zak is an American neuroeconomist, who is known as a proponent of the field. His current work applies neuroscience to build high performance organizations and to understand and guide consumer decisions. Dr. Zak is the founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and Professor of Economics, Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He has degrees in mathematics and economics from San Diego State University, a Ph.D. in economics from University of Pennsylvania, and pos... |
| 2019-Feb-18 • 37 minutes #11 Kevin Lomangino: HealthNewsReview, Health Care News | Notícias de Saúde (320 kbps) ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Mr. Kevin Lomangino is the managing editor of HealthNewsReview.org. He is also an independent health care journalist who was previously editor-in-chief of Clinical Nutrition Insight, a monthly evidence-based newsletter for ... |
| 2019-Feb-15 • 48 minutes #9 Michael Shermer: Heavens on Earth, Protopia and Pseudoscience Dr. Michael Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic. | He’s also the author of 19 books, including Why People Believe Weird Things; The Science of Good and Evil; Why Darwin Matters; The Believing Brain; and, more recently, Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia. | Here, we talk about his latest book, Heavens on Earth; the afterlife, immortality and utopia; terror mana... |
| 2019-Feb-15 • 55 minutes #139 Peter Richerson: Biology and Culture, Cultural Evolution, Cognition, and Group Selection Dr. Peter Richerson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis. He’s a biologist with interest in cultural evolution, animal social learning and mathematical models. He’s also the author of books like Culture and the Evolutionary Process, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, and The Origin and Evolution of Cultures, all written in collaboration with Dr. Robert Boyd. | In this episode, we talk about ... |
| 2019-Feb-14 • 55 minutes #8 João Júlio Cerqueira: Evidence-based Science | SCIMED ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | -- | João Júlio Cerqueira is the author of SCIMED, a blog and a Facebook page, where he shares updated, correct and evidence-based information about several scientific subjects, essentially focused on health issues. | Here we ... |
| 2019-Feb-14 • 83 minutes #138 Keith Frankish: Consciousness, Illusionism, Free Will, and AI Dr. Keith Frankish is a British philosopher and writer, currently living in Crete, Greece. He’s an Honorary Reader at the University of Sheffield, UK, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, UK, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme at the University of Crete. He works mainly in philosophy of mind, also with interests in other areas of Philosophy. He’s also the author of books like Mind and Supermind (2004) and Illusionism: As a Theory of Consciousness (2017). | In this epi... |
| 2019-Feb-13 • 41 minutes #7 Sue Everatt: The Venus Project, and a Resource-Based Economy | Projeto Venus ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | -- | Sue Everatt is The Venus Project Point of Contact (POC) for Spain. She’s on the admin team for TVP Support on a global level. And she coordinates the Spanish language team for the Linguistic Team International (LTI). | He... |
| 2019-Feb-11 • 94 minutes #137 Derek Elliott: Beyond Enlightenment, Reason, Free Will, Self-deception, and Modularity Dr. Derek Elliott is a newly minted doctor of philosophy from Duquesne University. He specializes in philosophy of psychology as well as action theory with a special interest in irrationality and evolutionary psychology. | In this episode, we go through some of the main topics of Dr. Elliott’s dissertation, “Beyond Enlightenment: The Evolution of Agency and the Modularity of the Mind in a Post-Darwinian World”. We talk about some of the values and beliefs of the Enlightenment that recent science, particular... |
| 2019-Feb-08 • 53 minutes Patrick Lee Miller Part 3: Postmodernism vs Modernism | Pós-modernismo vs Modernismo ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | Part 3 of the conversation with Dr. Patrick Lee Miller: Postmodernism vs Modernism. | Parte 3 da conversa com o Dr. Patrick Lee Miller: Pós-modernismo vs Modernismo. | -- | A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, AN... |
| 2019-Feb-08 • 56 minutes Patrick Colm Hogan Part 2: Literature, Storytelling, Theory of Mind, and the Humanities ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Patrick Colm Hogan: Literature, Storytelling, Theory of Mind, and the Humanities. | Time Links: | 00:00 Universals in literary fiction | 07:17 The social functio... |
| 2019-Feb-08 • 48 minutes Patrick Colm Hogan Part 1: Human Universals, Evolution, Beauty and Aesthetics ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Patrick Colm Hogan: Human Universals, Evolution, Beauty and Aesthetics. | Time Links: | 00:46 What are human universals? | 05:36 How do we determine them? | 14:45 The ... |
| 2019-Feb-08 • 104 minutes #136 Patrick Colm Hogan: Evolution, Human Universals, Arts, and Literature Dr. Patrick Colm Hogan is Distinguished Professor of the Department of English, and the Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, at the University of Connecticut, US. His specialties are: literary theory, cognitive and affective science of literature, and world literature. He’s the author of several books, including The Mind and Its Stories, What Literature Teaches Us About Emotion, and Beauty and Sublimity. | In this episode, we talk about human universals. First, we discuss what are human universals, a... |
| 2019-Feb-07 • 44 minutes Patrick Lee Miller Part 2: Truth and Morality | Verdade e Moralidade ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Patrick Lee Miller: Truth and Morality | Parte 2 da conversa com o Dr. Patrick Lee Miller: Verdade e Moralidade. | -- | A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, JUNOS,... |
| 2019-Feb-07 • 47 minutes #135 Rebecca Sear: Human Behavioral Ecology, Mating, Parenting, Reproduction Dr. Rebecca Sear is Reader at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), teaching demography and researching human reproductive behaviour from an evolutionary perspective. She is trained in zoology, biological anthropology, and statistics, and subsequently worked first in a social science institution (London School of Economics) and then in an institution of global and public health (LSHTM). Having been exposed to a variety of disciplines, she is particularly interested in how the natural, ... |
| 2019-Feb-06 • 72 minutes Patrick Lee Miller Part 1: Reason, from the Presocratics to the Modernists | Razão ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Patrick Lee Miller: Reason, from the Presocratics to the Modernists. | Parte 1 da conversa com o Dr. Patrick Lee Miller: Razão, dos Pré-socráticos aos Modernistas. | -- | A HUGE THANK YOU TO... |
| 2019-Feb-05 • 168 minutes #5 Patrick Lee Miller: Reason and Morality From Antiquity to Postmodernism | Razão e Moralidade ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | -- | Patrick Lee Miller is an associate professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2012), and co-editor of ... |
| 2019-Feb-04 • 36 minutes #3 Louise Mazanti: Alienation in the Modern World | Alienação no Mundo Moderno Dr. Louise Mazanti has trained as a Psychosynthesis counsellor and specialized in Psychosexual Somatics®, which she is now co-developing and teaching with Dr. Mike Lousada, based on his groundbreaking work. In addition, she is trained in energy psychology, esoteric wisdom, she has studied integral philosophy and shamanism. | She has a private practice in London, and works with clients on Skype and wherever she travels, to support her clients regain their sexual and personal power. She is at the faculty at t... |
| 2019-Feb-04 • 53 minutes #134 Christian Miller: The Character Gap, Our Moral Flaws, and How to Improve Them Dr. Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. His research is primarily in contemporary ethics and philosophy of religion. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Slate, Prospect Magazine, Relevant Magazine, Michael Hyatt Magazine, The Conversation, Newsweek, Aeon, Greater Good Magazine, Nautilus Magazine, Fathom Magazine, Institute of Art and Ideas, and Christianity Today. He’s the author of three books, including Moral Character: An E... |
| 2019-Feb-01 • 44 minutes Don Ross Part 2: Picoeconomics, Addiction, Scientific Models, and Consilience ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 2 of the conversation with Dr. Don Ross: Picoeconomics, Addiction, Scientific Models, and Consilience. | Time Links: | 00:00 Picoeconomics | 08:39 Addiction, decision-making, economics, and cl... |
| 2019-Feb-01 • 42 minutes Don Ross Part 1: Naturalism, Philosophy, Economics and Social Science ------------------Support the channel------------ | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter | PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter | ------------------Follow me on--------------------- | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ | Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT | | This is Part 1 of the conversation with Dr. Don Ross: Naturalism, Philosophy, Economics and Social Science. | Time Links: | 01:15 The epistemology of naturalism and science | 05:34 The role of philosophy in a scientif... |
| 2019-Feb-01 • 85 minutes #133 Don Ross: Naturalism, Philosophy of Economics, and Addiction Dr. Don Ross is Head of the School of Sociology, Philosophy, Criminology, Government, and Politics at University College Cork, Ireland; Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa; and Program Director for Methodology at the Center for Economic Analysis of Risk at Georgia State University, USA. His research focuses on the foundations of economic theory, the experimental economics of addiction, risk, and time preference, philosophy of science, and infrastructure, trade and industry po... |