All Episodes

#73 Richard Nisbett: What Social Psychology Tells Us About Cognition

Sep 17, 2018

Dr. Richard Nisbett is the Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He was the recipient of the Donald T. Campbell Award from the American Psychological Association in 1982, and he’s a Guggenheim fellow. He’s also the author of several books, including Culture of Honor, The Geography of Thought, and Mindware. More»
#72 Randy Thornhill: Why Men Rape, and How to Prevent It With Science

Sep 14, 2018

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»
#71 Massimo Pigliucci: The Philosophy of Pseudoscience

Sep 13, 2018

Dr. Massimo Pigliucci is Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College, formerly co-host of the Rationally Speaking Podcast, and formerly the editor in chief for the online magazine Scientia Salon. He’s also the author of several books, including Phenotypic Plasticity, Philosophy of Pseudoscience, and How to Be a Stoic. More»
#70 Redouan Bshary: Game Theory and Animal Social Behavior

Sep 10, 2018

Dr. Redouan Bshary is Ordinary Professor of Eco-ethology at the Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland. His research is focused on cooperation within and between species (mutualism), making use of game theoretic models. He also studies links between game theoretic approaches, animal cognition and behavioral endocrinology. More»
#69 Peter Carruthers: Innate Human Cognition

Sep 7, 2018

Dr. Peter Carruthers is a British-American philosopher and cognitive scientist working primarily in the area of philosophy of mind, though he has also made contributions to philosophy of language and ethics. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, associate member of the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program and member of the Committee for Philosophy and the Sciences. He’s also the author of many books, like The Philosophy of Psychology, The Architecture of the Mind, and the editor of the trilogy Innate Mind. More»
#68 Jerry Z. Muller: History and Philosophy of Capitalism

Sep 6, 2018

Dr. Jerry Muller is Ordinary Professor of History at the Catholic University of America, where he teaches courses on historical and contemporary subjects, including capitalism; nationalism; conservatism; the history of social, political, economic, and religious thought; and modern German and Jewish history. He’s also the author of books like The Mind and the Market, Capitalism and the Jews, and, the most recent one, The Tyranny of Metrics. More»
#67 Martin Schaefer: The Right Way to Preserve Biodiversity

Sep 3, 2018

Dr. Martin Schaefer is a former Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Animal Ecology of the University of Freiburg, Germany. Now, he’s leading a conservation NGO, Fundación Jocotoco (www.fjocotoco.org), based in Ecuador. More»
#66 David Gorski: Science-Based Medicine, Fighting Quackery

Aug 31, 2018

Dr. David Gorski is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, where he also serves as the Medical Director of the Alexander J. Walt Comprehensive Breast Center. He’s also Professor of Surgery and Oncology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, and faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology. He’s also the Managing Editor of Science-Based Medicine (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/). More»
#65 Dale Purves: How Perception and Cognition Work

Aug 30, 2018

Dr. Dale Purves is Geller Professor of Neurobiology Emeritus at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, at Duke University. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989 for his work on neural development and synaptic plasticity. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. He is the author of many books, including Principles of Neural Development, and Brains: How they Seem to Work, and also the lead author on the textbooks Neuroscience, and Principles of Cognitive Neuroscience. His research during the last 15 years has sought to explain why we see and hear what we do, focusing on the visual perception of lightness, color, form, and motion, and the auditory perception of music and speech. More»
#64 Patricia Churchland: Neurophilosophy, Consciousness, Free Will, and Morality

Aug 27, 2018

Dr. Patricia Churchland is a Canadian-American Philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She has also held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since 1989. She is a member of the Board of Trustees Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Philosophy Department, at Moscow State University. In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She’s also the author of a number of books, including Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain, and Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality. More»