All Episodes

#134 Christian Miller: The Character Gap, Our Moral Flaws, and How to Improve Them

Feb 4, 2019

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 Empirical Theory, Character and Moral Psychology, and the most recent one, The Character Gap: How Good Are We?. More»
#133 Don Ross: Naturalism, Philosophy of Economics, and Addiction

Feb 1, 2019

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 policy in Africa. He’s also the author of books like Economic Theory and Cognitive Science: Microexplanation; The Picoeconomics and Neuroeconomics of Disordered Gambling; and Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized and Philosophy of Economics. More»
#132 David Papineau: Naturalism, Mind-Brain Dualism, and Consciousness

Jan 31, 2019

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 Consciousness, and Knowing the Score. More»
#131 Nikola Danaylov: The Singularity, Doing Futurism, and the Human Element

Jan 28, 2019

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, he moved to Canada where he completed an HBA in Political Science, Philosophy & Economics at the University of Toronto followed by an MA in Political Science at York University. It was at YorkU that Mr. Danaylov became deeply interested in the Technological Singularity and wrote "Hacking Destiny: Critical Security at the Intersection of Human and Machine Intelligence." In 2011, he went to NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California and completed the Graduate Studies Program at Singularity University. He has spoken at public events on topics ranging from technology, transhumanism and the technological singularity to new media, blogging, and podcasting. He has been profiled in Next Stage Rising Stars Magazine and has been interviewed himself for numerous documentary films, blogs, podcasts, magazines, and newspapers. More»
#130 Iris Berent: Linguistics, Skinner and Chomsky, Spoken and Written Language

Jan 25, 2019

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. More»
#129 Igor Grossmann: Culture, Emotion Regulation, and Wisdom

Jan 24, 2019

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). Dr. Grossmann is a behavioral scientist exploring the interplay of sociocultural factors for adaptive emotion regulation and wisdom in the face of daily stressors. More»
#128 Randy Thornhill: Parasite-Stress, Sociality, Values, Personality, and Politics

Jan 21, 2019

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. More»
#127 Michael Graziano: Consciousness, From Animals To AI

Jan 18, 2019

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 motor cortex, the homunculus, is not correct and is better described as a map of complex actions that make up the behavioral repertoire. He's also the author of 13 books, including Consciousness and the Social Brain (2013), and The Spaces Between Us: A Story of Neuroscience, Evolution, and Human Nature (2018). More»
#126 Sarah Hill: Life History Theory, Puberty, Immune Function, and Mating Strategies

Jan 17, 2019

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. More»
#125 Patrick Forscher: Implicit Bias, Stereotypes, and the Science Reform Movement

Jan 14, 2019

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. More»