All Episodes

#358 Michael McCullough: The Kindness of Strangers

Aug 27, 2020

Dr. Michael McCullough is a professor of psychology at the University of California San Diego, where he directs the Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory. Most of the research they conduct in the lab is focused on extending an evolutionary analysis to some of the key psychological features of human social life. He is the author of several books, including “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct,” and, the most recent one, “The Kindness of Strangers: How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Moral Code”. More»
#357 Elliott Sober: Group Selection, Altruism, and Multilevel Selection

Aug 24, 2020

Dr. Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. He’s the author of books like Philosophy of Biology, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, and The Design Argument. More»
#356 David Haig: Genetics, Development, and Intragenomic Conflict

Aug 20, 2020

Dr. David Haig is an evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and professor in Harvard University's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. He is interested in intragenomic conflict, genomic imprinting and parent–offspring conflict, and wrote the book Genomic Imprinting and Kinship. His major contribution to the field of evolutionary theory is the kinship theory of genomic imprinting. He’s the author of several books, including the most recent one, From Darwin to Derrida: Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life. More»
#355 Kay Holekamp: Hyenas, and the Evolution of General Intelligence

Aug 17, 2020

Dr. Kay Holekamp is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Integrated Biology, and Director of the Program in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology & Behavior at Michigan State University. She is also Principal Investigator at the Holekamp Lab. She is recognized as one of the world’s leading behavioral ecologists. Dr. Holekamp has devoted her career to animal behavior and behavioral neuroendocrinology, focusing specifically on the study of the evolution of intelligence. Her long-running study of spotted hyenas in Africa has acquired more than 30 years of data, covering 10 generations of hyena. Dr. Holekamp’s honors include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, being named a fellow of the Animal Behavior Society, and a Merriam Award from the American Society of Mammalogists. More»
#354 Agner Fog: Warlike and Peaceful Societies

Aug 13, 2020

Dr. Agner Fog is associate professor of computer science at Technical University of Denmark. Dr. Fog does research in Evolutionary Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Social systems and Computer Science. His current project is 'Theory of cultural change based on evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, and cultural evolution.' He’s the author of “Warlike and Peaceful Societies: The Interaction of Genes and Culture”. More»
#353 Guy Madison: The Psychology of Music

Aug 10, 2020

Dr. Guy Madison is Professor at the Department of Psychology at University of Umeå, Sweden. Dr. Madison does research in Neuroscience, Genetics and Evolutionary Biology. More»
#352 Marco Del Giudice: The Evolutionary Psychology of Gender Differences (Part 2)

Aug 6, 2020

Dr. Marco Del Giudice is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. In his work he explores a wide range of topics at the intersection of human behavior, evolution, and development. His approach is interdisciplinary and driven by the quest for theoretical synthesis. Over the years he has developed some broad, integrative models: the Adaptive Calibration Model of individual differences in stress responsivity (with Bruce Ellis and Birdie Shirtcliff); an evolutionary-developmental model of sex differences in attachment styles; and a unifying life history framework for evolutionary psychopathology. Most of his current empirical work is devoted to testing, advancing, and refining these models with a variety of research methods. He’s the author of Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach. More»
#351 H. Clark Barrett: Consciousness, Moral Judgment, and Cross-cultural Studies

Aug 3, 2020

Dr. H. Clark Barrett is Professor in the Department of Anthropology, and the Director of the Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture at UCLA. He is a biological anthropologist specializing in evolutionary psychology, the study of the mind’s evolved mechanisms and processes. In his work he uses methods from anthropology and psychology to examine universals and variation in how thinking develops across cultures. He conducts field research among the Shuar, an indigenous culture in southeast Ecuador, as well as in Los Angeles. His research has focused on learning and conceptual development in several domains, including “theory of mind,” or the ability to make inferences about others’ thoughts and intentions, and learning about danger. He has also collaborated with a variety of anthropologists, psychologists, and other social scientists on a variety of topics ranging from infant-directed speech to the evolution of morality, and supervise graduate projects on the evolution of cognition. He’s the author of the book The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve. More»
#350 Julian De Freitas: The Self, Morality, and Common Knowledge

Jul 27, 2020

Julian De Freitas is a cognitive scientist in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He studies social intelligence, with a focus on the self, strategic thinking, and ethics. More»
#349 Jean-François Bonnefon: Morality, Machine Behavior, and Moral Machines

Jul 20, 2020

Dr. Jean-François Bonnefon (PhD, cognitive psychology) is a Research Director at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, affiliated to the Toulouse School of Economics, the Toulouse School of Management, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. He holds the Moral AI chair at the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute, and is the president of the European Commission expert group on the ethics of driverless mobility. He conducts research on decisions which have a moral component, especially in the context of machine ethics and human-AI cooperation. His research appeared in 100+ academic articles, in outlets that include Science, Nature, and PNAS. More»