All Episodes

#1107 Donald Johanson: Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis, and Homo habilis

Jun 6, 2025

Dr. Donald Johanson is the Virginia M Ullman Chair in Human Origins in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the Founding Director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. For the past 30 years, he has conducted field and laboratory research in paleoanthropology. Most notably, he discovered the 3.18-million-year-old hominid skeleton popularly known as "Lucy." Dr. Johanson has carried out field research in Ethiopia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Tanzania. More»
#1106 Kevin Hong: Magic, Divination, and Dream Interpretation Across Societies

Jun 5, 2025

Dr. Kevin Hong is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at The University of Macau. He is broadly interested in human behavior and culture, and currently has three lines of research: magic, divination, and epistemic norms in small-scale societies; reporting biases in the transmission of instrumental practices; and theoretical modeling of the transmission of culture. More»
#1105 Kostas Kampourakis - Trusting Science: Why We Need to Reconsider School Science Teaching

Jun 2, 2025

Dr. Kostas Kampourakis is author and editor of several books about science. He works at the Teacher Training Institute and the Section of Biology at the University of Geneva. At the Section of Biology, he teaches the courses “Biologie et Société” and “Comprendre l’évolution”. He is the author and editor of several books, including Trusting Science: Why We Need to Reconsider School Science Teaching. More»
#1104 Vanessa Wills: Marx's Ethical Vision

May 30, 2025

Dr. Vanessa Christina Wills is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The George Washington University. Her areas of specialization are moral, social, and political philosophy, nineteenth century German philosophy (especially Karl Marx), and the philosophy of race. Her research is importantly informed by her study of Marx’s work, and focuses on how socioeconomic arrangements can inhibit or promote the realization of values such as freedom, equality, and human development. She is the author of Marx’s Ethical Vision. More»
#1103 Paul Seabright - The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power, and People

May 29, 2025

Dr. Paul Seabright is British Professor of Economics in the Industrial Economics Institute and Toulouse School of Economics at the University of Toulouse, France. His research focuses on microeconomic theory, development economics, industrial policy in transition economies, and state aids to industry. He is the author of The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power, and People. More»
#1102 Mandi Astola: Character, Virtue, and Vice

May 26, 2025

Dr. Mandi Astola is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Delft University of Technology. Her research focuses on character: what good and bad character traits are like, why they are good or bad, and whether their status as good or bad changes according to context, and whether groups have a character which we can evaluate morally and epistemically. More»
#1101 Laura Betzig - The Badge of Lost Innocence: A History of the West

May 23, 2025

Dr. Laura Betzig is a Ph.D. in anthropology at Northwestern University; she’s held research and teaching positions at Northwestern, the University of California, and the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History. She’s lectured all over the US and Europe in departments of biology, anthropology, history, economics, philosophy, political science, psychology and religion; at interdisciplinary conferences; and to general audiences. She’s also the author of four books, the latest one being The Badge of Lost Innocence: A History of the West. More»
#1100 Jonathan Ichikawa: Epistemic Courage

May 22, 2025

Dr. Jonathan Ichikawa is a Professor of Philosophy and Department Head at the University of British Columbia. His main research areas are epistemology, philosophy of language, feminist philosophy, and ethics. He is particularly interested in connecting theoretical questions about the nature and significance of knowledge to moral, practical, and political questions, e.g. questions about structural oppression, rape culture, and the like. He is the author of Epistemic Courage. More»
#1099 Manvir Singh - Shamanism: The Timeless Religion

May 19, 2025

Dr. Manvir Singh is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. 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. He is the author of Shamanism: The Timeless Religion. More»
#1098 Karen Stollznow - B*tch: The Journey of a Word

May 16, 2025

Dr. Karen Stollznow is a researcher at Griffith University and a host of Monster Talk, an award-winning science-based podcast. She is a linguist and the author of On the Offensive, Missed Conceptions, God Bless America, and Language Myths, Mysteries, and Magic. She writes for Psychology Today, Scientific American Mind, and The Conversation and has appeared on the History Channel’s History’s Greatest Mysteries and Netflix’s The Unexplained Files. Her latest book is Bitch: The Journey of a Word. More»