All Episodes

#442 Nathan Lents - Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes

Mar 12, 2021

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. More»
#441 Francesca Minerva: Abortion, Cryonics, Lookism, and the Journal of Controversial Ideas

Mar 11, 2021

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. More»
#440 James Lenman: Ethics, Motives, Consequentialism, and Morality

Mar 8, 2021

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). More»
#439 Eric Kaufmann - Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities

Mar 5, 2021

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. More»
#438 John Paul Wright: The Psychology of Criminal Behavior

Mar 4, 2021

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 earned his undergraduate degrees in criminology from Indiana State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. 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 serious, violent offending. The winner of four teaching awards, he teaches in the area of life-course development and biosocial criminology. More»
#437 Allan Horwitz: What's Normal? Reconciling Biology and Culture

Mar 1, 2021

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 2006, he received the Leonard I. Pearlin Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Sociological Study of Mental Health from the American Sociological Association's Section on Sociology of Mental Health. In addition, he has published several books including What’s Normal? Reconciling Biology and Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016). More»
#436 Gregg Caruso: Just Deserts, and Rejecting Retributivism

Feb 26, 2021

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: Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice (2021), Just Deserts: Debating Free Will (w/Daniel C. Dennett) (2021), Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will (2012), Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (2013), Science and Religion: 5 Questions (2014), Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience (co-edited w/Owen Flanagan); and Free Will Skepticism in Law and Society (co-edited w/Elizabeth Shaw and Derk Pereboom). More»
#435 Christopher Kavanagh: Religion, Rituals, Belief in Japanese Society, and WEIRD Psychology

Feb 25, 2021

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 of shared dysphoria. He is co-host of the Decoding the Gurus podcast. More»
#434 Thomas Coleman: The Psychology of Believers and Nonbelievers

Feb 22, 2021

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 supernatural agents; investigating how and why moral motivations are stereotypically attributed to religious, as opposed to nonreligious factors. More»
#433 Timothy Lenton - Revolutions that Made the Earth

Feb 19, 2021

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 Very Short Introduction’ (OUP, 2016) and (with Andrew Watson) ’Revolutions that Made the Earth’ (OUP, 2011). More»