All Episodes

#901 Victoria Dougherty: Creating a Story, Character Development, and the Limits of Art

Feb 16, 2024

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, 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. More»
#900 Cailin O'Connor: Game Theory, Science, and Misinformation in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Feb 15, 2024

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. More»
#899 Darcia Narvaez & Gay Bradshaw: The Evolved Nest

Feb 12, 2024

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. More»
#898 Eli Merritt: How to Save Democracy

Feb 9, 2024

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. More»
#897 Merlijn Olthof: A Complex Systems Approach to Psychopathology

Feb 8, 2024

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. More»
#896 Gregory Radick - Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology

Feb 5, 2024

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 Genius with Stephen Hawking. In 2022 he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Science Museum Group. He is the author of several books, including Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology. More»
#895 Naomi de Ruiter - Toward a Process Approach in Psychology: Stepping into Heraclitus' River

Feb 2, 2024

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 Psychology: Stepping into Heraclitus' River. More»
#894 Paco Calvo - Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence

Feb 1, 2024

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 understanding of cognition beyond the animal kingdom, challenging conventional perspectives on intelligence and mental capacities. He is the author of Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence. More»
#893 Sarah Hart - Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature

Jan 29, 2024

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. More»
#892 Philip Ball - The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings

Jan 26, 2024

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. More»