All Episodes

#1123 Philip Nitschke: Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die

Jul 14, 2025

Dr. Philip Nitschke is an Australian humanist, author, former physician, and founder and director of the pro-euthanasia group Exit International. He campaigned successfully to have a legal euthanasia law passed in Australia's Northern Territory and assisted four people in ending their lives before the law was overturned by the Government of Australia. Nitschke was the first doctor in the world to administer a legal, voluntary, lethal injection, after which the patient activated the syringe using a computer. More»
#1122 Daniela Rodrigues: Communication in Apes and Humans, and the Cognitive Foundations of Language

Jul 11, 2025

Dr. Evelina Daniela Rodrigues is an invited assistant professor at Universidade Católica Portuguesa, where she teaches Master’s students about the cognitive foundations of language. She studies gestural communication in human and non-human primates. Beyond communication, she is also interested in other aspects of social development and cognition, including interactions among social partners (such as hierarchy and social bonds), social learning and culture, object manipulation and tool use, and theory of mind. More»
#1121 Deena Emera: A Brief History of the Female Body

Jul 10, 2025

Dr. Deena Emera is an evolutionary biologist, author, and teacher. She is a Senior Scientist and Writer-in-Residence in the Center for Reproductive Longevity and Equality at the Buck Institute, where she is drawing on her evolutionary background and expertise on female reproduction to investigate the evolution of menopause. She is the author of A Brief History of the Female Body: An Evolutionary Look at How and Why the Female Form Came to Be. More»
#1120 Pascal Boyer: Ritualized Behavior, Ownership Psychology, and Victim-Devaluation

Jul 7, 2025

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. More»
#1119 Anna Ivanova: Language and Large Language Models

Jul 4, 2025

Dr. Anna Ivanova is Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at Georgia Tech. She is interested in studying the relationship between language and other aspects of human cognition. In her work, she uses tools from cognitive neuroscience (such as fMRI) and artificial intelligence (such as large language models). More»
#1118 Peter Adamson - Heirs of Avicenna: Philosophy in the Islamic East, 12-13th Centuries

Jul 3, 2025

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". He is the author of several books, including Heirs of Avicenna: Philosophy in the Islamic East, 12-13th Centuries. More»
#1117 Stephen Morris - Moral Damages: The Case for Abolishing Morality

Jun 30, 2025

Dr. Stephen Morris is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The College of Staten Island/CUNY. His research interests include ethical theory, applied ethics, free will, and moral psychology. He is the author of Moral Damages: The Case for Abolishing Morality. More»
#1116 Adam Safron: Consciousness, AI, Psychedelics, and The Self

Jun 27, 2025

Dr. Adam Safron is Research Fellow at the Allen Discovery Institute at Tufts University, and is leading an interdisciplinary research program at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies. Most of his work has focused on characterizing the nature of preferences and motivation from mechanistic, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives. He has also studied the effects of brief mindfulness interventions on cognition and well-being. While conducting this research, he developed a neurophenomenological model of sensory absorption and ecstatic states via neural entrainment, which eventually led to developing a synthetic theory of consciousness attempting to integrate across seemingly conflicting perspectives. More»
#1115 Patrícia Silva: Portugal in the 21st Century

Jun 26, 2025

Dr. Patrícia Silva is an Assistant Professor at the University of Aveiro and a researcher at the Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies Research Centre (GOVCOPP) of the University of Aveiro, where she has developed research work on political parties, the politicization of recruitment of appointed elites, public administration, and local governance. She is the editor (together with Pedro Magalhães and Nuno Monteiro) of Portugal in the 21st Century. More»
#1114 Sybil Hart: Attachment and Parent-Offspring Conflict

Jun 23, 2025

Dr. Sybil Hart is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at Texas Tech University. Dr. Hart focuses on psycho-social development in infants and young children in the context of their relationships with parents and siblings. She is the author of Attachment and Parent-Offspring Conflict. More»