Your friend is in a bit of distress. They’ve just been dunked in a pool, and they can’t pull themselves out. You’re looking on as they’re paddling furiously, trying to hold onto the pool’s ledge. Fortunately, there’s a way to save your friend, to give them an escape route. The thing is, there’s also something else vying for your attention at the moment: a chunk of chocolate. So what do you do? Do you first nab the chocolate and then free your friend? Turns out that most rats in this position—that’s right, rats—will first free their friend and then go for the chocolate. This is one of many studies that have raised profound questions about whether animals are moral beings, about whether they are capable of things like care and empathy. Such studies are doing more than raising questions about animal morality, though; they’re also reshaping our understanding of what animal minds are capable of. My guests today are not one but two philosophers: Dr. Kristin Andrews, Professor of Philosophy at York University in Toronto and Dr. Susana Monsó, Assistant Professor in the Department of Logic, History, and Philosophy of Science at UNED in Spain. Both Susana and Kristin have emerged as central figures in the new conversations and debates that springing about animal minds and animal morality. We cover a lot of ground in this episode. We talk about rats and empathy. We discuss the role of philosophy in the crossdisciplinary study of animal cognition. We talk about Kristin’s most recent book, which is a critical consideration of how scientists are trained to study animals, and Susana’s book, which is an extended investigation into animals’ understandings of death. We zoom in on the “animal morality debate”—about whether animals should be considered moral beings. We consider how touch might inform the debate and social norms and morality are deeply enmeshed than you may realize. As we navigate these lofty ideas, we also touch on the use of thermography to study emotions in marmosets, planning in orangutans, tongue-biting in orcas, and playing dead in possums. This is basically a double episode. It features two amazing guests. It takes on two big topics—the study of animal minds in general and the animal morality debate in particular. It’s also a tad longer than our usual fare, but I promised its packed with useful frameworks, provocative findings, and a bunch of open questions. I think it also picks up steam as we go—so be sure to stick with it, through to the second half. Alright folks, as always, thanks so much for listening. And be sure to send us your guest and topic ideas, your glowing reviews, and your crotchety comments. You can reach us on Twitter or by email at manymindspodcast@gmail.com. Now for my conversation with Dr. Susana Monsó and Dr. Kristin Andrews. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode is available here.   Notes and links 5:00 – An essay by Dr. Andrews & Dr. Monsó in Aeon magazine, about how rats deserve ethical protections. 7:30 – A popular article about findings that vervet monkeys socially learn food preferences. The original research paper is here. 9:10 – A popular article on the findings that rats can learn to play hide-and-seek. 22:00 – Dr. Andrews’ most recent book is How to Study Animal Minds. Her earlier book, The Animal Mind, is now out in a second edition. 24:00 – Morgan’s Canon has been widely discussed and criticized in recent decades (see here, here, and here). 27:00 – A paper by Dr. Andrews on the role of folk psychology in animal cognition research. 33:00 – A paper by Dr. Andrews discussing the idea of “anthropectomy.” 34:00 – The paper by Dan Dennett that makes the distinction between “romantics” and “killjoys.” 35:20 – Dr. Monsó’s recent book (in Spanish) translates as Schrödinger’s Opossum. See also: her essay in Aeon about the phenomenon of “playing dead” and what it tells us about predator cognition; and her recent philosophical papers on the same topic (here, here). 49:30 – See the recent chapter by Dr. Monsó & Dr. Andrews on “animal moral psychologies.” See also a paper by Dr. Monsó and colleagues, ‘Animal morality: What it means and why it matters.’ 51:30 – A classic article by Frans de Waal, ‘Putting the altruism back into altruism.’ 53:40 – An “appreciation and update” to Tinbergen’s four questions. 58:00 – For a review of some of the “rat empathy” studies, see the “animal moral psychologies” chapter by Dr. Monsó & Dr. Andrews. This line of work began with a paper by Bartal and colleagues in 2011. A skeptical take can be found here. 1:01 – A popular article on how chimpanzees pass the “marshmallow test.” 1:04:00 – A paper on (the apparent absence of) “third-party punishment” in chimpanzees. 1:06:00 – A recent paper using thermography to gauge whether marmosets understand each other’s “conversations.” 1:08:00 – One of the now-famous “ape suit” studies by Chris Krupenye and colleagues. 1:11:30 – A recent paper by Dr. Andrews on the possibility of animal social norms. 1:17:00 – A recent paper by Dr. Monsó on “how the study of touch can inform the animal morality debate.” 1:21:00 – A recent paper by Filip Mattens on touch—and the “vigilance” function of touch in particular. 1:25:20 – A video of “eye-poking” in capuchins, which Susan Perry has studied. 1:28:00 – On the WEIRD issue, see our essay on first decade of the acronym.   Dr. Andrews recommends: The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Animal Minds, edited by Dr. Andrews & Jacob Beck ‘Gricean communication, language development, and animal minds,’ by Richard Moore Chimpanzee Memoirs, edited by Stephen Ross* & Lydia Hopper Dr. Monsó recommends: The Animal Cognition entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka (forthcoming) An Immense World, Ed Yong (forthcoming) You can read more about Dr. Andrews’ work at her website and follow her on Twitter. You can read more about Dr. Monsó’s work at her website and follow her on Twitter. * Sadly, shortly after this episode was recorded, Stephen Ross died unexpectedly. Read an obituary here.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Welcome back friends and happy spring! (Or fall, as the case may be.) Today's show takes on a disarmingly simple question: What is language for? As in, why do we say things to each other? What do words do for us? Why do our languages label some aspects of the world, but not others? My guest today is Dr. Nick Enfield. He's Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. Nick has authored or edited more than a dozen books on different aspects of human language and communication—books on word meaning, gesture, conversation, social interaction, the languages of Southeast Asia, and more. His latest book, just published by MIT press, is titled Language vs Reality: Why Language is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists. In it, Nick argues that language is pretty awful at capturing reality—but actually that's fine, because capturing reality isn’t the primary reason we use it. The real reason, in his view, is to coordinate with others. In this conversation, Nick and I flesh out this way of thinking about language as foremost a social coordination tool. Along the way, we talk about the two "reductions" that happen as brute reality gets transmuted into words. We discuss the economist Thomas Schelling and so-called Schelling maps. We talk about color words and plant names, salt and spoons, the insights of Benjamin Lee Whorf, the idea of “verbal overshadowing,” and a bunch of other phenomena and thinkers. As I say in the interview, Nick has one of the most expansive views of human language of anyone I know. He draws on anthropology, economics, primatology, developmental psychology, not to mention decades of his own fieldwork in Laos. That expansive—one might say, "many minded"—perspective is on full display here. Briefly, before we get to the conversation: if you have any ideas for future guests or topics—or want to lodge some criticisms—you can reach out to us at manymindspodcast@gmail.com. That's manymindspodcast@gmail.com. We're always eager to hear from listeners. Alright friends, now to my conversation with Dr. Nick Enfield. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode is available here.   Notes and links 10:00 – Dr. Enfield’s 2002 edited book on “ethnosyntax.” Here is a brief overview of serial verb constructions. 15:30 – Dr. Enfield has another book coming out later this year, with Jack Sidnell, titled Consequences of Language. 20:00 – The website of the influential semanticist Anna Wierzbicka, one of Dr. Enfield’s early mentors. 22:45 – Roger Brown’s classic 1958 paper ‘How shall a thing be called?’ 24:30 – Daniel Dor’s 2015 book, The Instruction of the Imagination. 25:40 – A popular article about the contributions of the economist Thomas Schelling. Another article on his notion of “focal points.” 37:00 – The classic treatment of color terms across languages is Berlin & Kay’s 1991 book Basic Color Terms. 40:00 – Dr. Enfield spent a large portion of his early career at the MPI for Psycholinguistics. 44:45 – The classic treatment of plant names across cultures is Berlin’s book, Ethnobiological Classification. 49:30 – Dr. Enfield has been documenting Kri, an indigenous language in Laos. 53:00 – The classic study on “verbal overshadowing” was done by Schooler & Engstler-Schooler in 1990. 58:20 – A classic paper by Krebs and Dawkins on signaling in nonhuman animals. 1:00:00 – The website of the influential (late) linguist Wallace Chafe. 1:08:30 – A widely-circulated 2013 paper by Dr. Enfield and colleagues on whether “huh” is a universal word. Spoiler: it seems to be. 1:10:00 - The researcher Jim Hurford has written several influential books on the evolution of language.   Dr. Enfield recommends: Origins of Human Communication, by Michael Tomasello Social Intelligence and Interaction, edited by Esther Goody Language, Thought, and Reality, by Benjamin Lee Whorf You can read more about Dr. Enfield’s work at his website and follow him on Twitter.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Friends—we're busy with some spring cleaning this week, but will be back in mid-April. In the meanwhile, here's a favorite audio essay from our archives. Enjoy! ______ Welcome back folks! Today is a return to one of our favorite formats: the audio essay. If you like your audio essays short, concise, and full of tidbits, then this one will not disappoint. We take a look at a 140-year-old idea but very much a radical one—the root-brain hypothesis. It was proposed by Charles Darwin in a book published in the twilight of his career. The idea, in short, is that plants have a structure that is, in some ways, brain-like—and it is located underground, at their roots. We talk about how Darwin and his son Francis arrived at this idea, why it was ignored for so long, and how it’s recently stirred to life. Enjoy!   A text version of this essay is available here.   Notes and links 2:15 – The last page of Darwin’s The Power of Movement in Plants (1880). 3:25 – The 2009 paper by Dr. Baluška and colleagues about the history and modern revival of the “root-brain hypothesis.” 6:00 – The tinfoil hats experiment—and its influence—is discussed in this 2009 paper. 8:00 – The dust-up between Darwin and Sachs is described in this 1996 paper. 8:47 – The 2011 paper listing many of the environmental variables plants are now known to be sensitive to. 9:28 – Dr. Gagliano and colleagues’ paper on associative learning in plant and on plants’ use of sounds to find water. The possibility of echolocation is discussed here. 9:45 – For broader context surrounding the question of plants may have something like a brain, see Oné R. Pagán's essay titled 'The brain: A concept in flux.' 9:57 – The 2006 paper that inaugurated the field of “plant neurobiology.” 10:34 – Discussions of the “transition zone” of the root can be found in the 2009 paper by Baluška and colleagues, as well as in this more technical paper from 2010. 11:00 – The response letter to the original “plant neurobiology” paper, signed by 36 plant biologists. 12:00 – Michael Pollan’s 2013 article ‘The Intelligent Plant’ in The New Yorker. 12:05 – Anthony Trewavas’s letter, highlighting the power of metaphors in science. 12:26 – The 2020 paper about pea tendrils in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Correction: The audio version of this episode misstates the publication year of Darwin's final book, about worms. The correct year is 1881, not 1883.      Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

It’s an old question: How does experience shape our minds and brains? Some people play the piano; others drive taxis; others grow up trilingual. For years now, scientists have examined how these and other kinds of life experiences can lead to subtle differences in our concepts and cortexes. But to really push on the question, to really explore the limits of how experience can rewire us, some researchers have turned to an especially dramatic case: blindness. What does a life without visual input do to the mind and brain? My guest today is Dr. Marina Bedny, an Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. For more than a decade now, Marina has been researching blindness and, in particular, what blindness can tell us much about where our concepts come from and about how our brains get organized. Here, Marina and I discuss how people who have been blind since birth nonetheless develop rich, sophisticated understandings of the visual world. We talk about how the visual cortex in blind folks gets repurposed for other decidedly non-visual functions, like language. We consider the intriguing findings that blind people very often outperform sighted people in certain kinds of tasks. On the way, we also touch on John Locke and the British empiricists; the notion of cortical recycling; the possibility of re-opening the brain's critical periods; and a bunch else.  This was a super thought-provoking conversation—I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I think you will too. But, before we get to it, a final reminder about the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, or DISI. This year’s DISI will be not only in-person but held in the charming seaside city of St Andrews, Scotland. More details at disi.org. The application window is only open for a little while longer, so better act fast.  Alright friends, on to my chat with Dr. Marina Bedny. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode is available here.   Notes and links 3:30 ­– A popular article and video on the ideas of John Locke and other empiricists. 4:50 – One of the original articles by the philosopher Frank Jackson on Mary the color scientist. 7:35 – The 1985 book by Dr. Barbara Landau and Dr. Lila Gleitman on language acquisition in (a few) blind children. 11:00 – Dr. Bedny’s first study involving blind subjects, in collaboration with Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone and Dr. Rebecca Saxe. 15:00 – A recent study in Dr. Bedny’s lab, led by Dr. Judy Kim, comparing color knowledge in blind and sighted adults. 23:30 – A recent study by Dr. Bedny and collaborators on blind people’s understanding of visual verbs like sparkle, glow, peek, and stare. 30:30 – A recent study in Dr. Bedny’s lab, led by Dr. Judy Kim, comparing knowledge of animal appearance in blind and sighted adults. 34:00 – Tour an interactive model of the visual cortex—and the rest of the brain—here. 36:00 – A now-classic paper by Dr. Norihiro Sadato and colleagues on how reading Braille activates blind people’s “visual” cortex. 37:30– The “metamodal” hypothesis and the “pluripotent” hypothesis are compared in Dr. Bedny’s recent article in TiCs. 45:30 – A 2011 paper by Dr. Bedny and colleagues about how, in blind people, the “visual” cortex is involved in language processing. 49:00 – A paper showing that “visual” areas in blind people are highly synchronized when listening to stories. A more recent paper in a similar vein. 53:00 – A now-classic paper by Dehaene and Cohen on the “cultural recycling” of certain brain areas. 56:00 – A paper by Dr. Bedny and colleagues on sensitive periods and cortical specialization. 1:01:00 – A recent paper from Dr. Bedny’s lab, led by Karen Arcos, showing superior verbal working memory in blind relative to sighted adults. 1:03:30 – Another study from Dr. Bedny’s lab showing that blind people are less likely than sighted people to be led astray by garden-path sentences.   Dr. Bedny recommends: Her TiCs article on the “pluripotent cortex” Recent papers (e.g. here and here) from her lab led by Dr. Judy Kim A now-classic paper on cortical recycling.   You can read more about Dr. Bedny’s work at her lab’s website.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

To be a good magician, you have to be a good psychologist. If you want to pull off a really good magic trick, you need to know your audience—what they are likely to attend to or gloss over, what shortcuts they take, what predictions they tend to make. Which all raises a question: Could you get to know a new audience, a very different audience, by seeing which tricks they fall for and which they don't? Could we use magic as a scientific tool, in other words, as a window into minds that may be quite unlike our own? My guest today is Dr. Nicola Clayton. Nicky is Professor of Comparative Cognition in the Psychology department at the University of Cambridge. She is this year's winner of the prestigious ASAB medal, awarded by Association for the Study of Animal Behavior. Nicky is perhaps best known for her research on birds—corvids in particular—and how they show evidence of sophisticated cognitive abilities like memory, planning, mental time travel, and even understanding of other minds. Recently, Nicky and her colleagues have been up to something new: showing magic tricks to birds, as a way of probing their impressive mental capacities. Here, Nicky and I talk about why magic is a useful tool for psychologists. We discuss her pioneering earlier work on corvids and, in particular, on how they hide or “cache” vast amounts of food. We talk about how corvids protect their caches from would-be thieves using tactics that, curiously, resemble some of those used by human magicians. We dive into some recent studies from Nicky's lab that involved showing classic magic tricks to Eurasian jays. And, finally, we get a tiny taste of what might be coming up in this line of research. Before we get to it, one quick announcement: Applications are now open for the 2022 Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute or DISI. After two years in the Zoomverse, DISI will be back in 3D this summer in St Andrews, Scotland. If you like the topics we talk about on this show, it’s a pretty safe bet you’d be into DISI. So check out disi.org for more info. Alright folks, without further hocus pocus, here's my conversation about magic and birds with Dr. Nicky Clayton. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode is available here.   Notes and links 2:45 ­– A recent editorial in Science by Dr. Clayton and colleagues about the promise of using magic to illuminate animal minds. 4:45 – One of Dr. Clayton’s primary collaborators on her magic studies is Clive Wilkins, who is an artist, writer, and professional magician. He is a member of the Magic Circle in London. 8:30 – For more on tool use in corvids, see our prior episode with Dr. Alex Taylor. Dr. Taylor and Dr. Clayton have collaborated on a number of studies. 10:30 – A 2004 paper in Science by Dr. Clayton and Dr. Nathan Emery on the convergent evolution of intelligence in apes and corvids. A recent paper on physical and social intelligence in ravens. 14:00 – Dr. Clayton has authored a number of influential studies on caching behavior in corvids; see here, here, and here, among others. 17:30 – A paper by Dr. Clayton and a colleague on how caching jays are sensitive to who can hear them caching. 21:30 – A recent paper in PNAS by Dr. Clayton and her colleagues, including lead author Elias Garcia-Pelegrin, examining three sleight of hand tricks in jays and humans. 24:00 – A recent video profile of Dr. Clayton’s line of work on magic includes examples of these sleight of hand tricks. 27:00 – A recent paper by Dr. Clayton and her colleagues, including lead author Dr. Alex Schnell, examining a version of the “cup and balls” trick, also shown to jays.   35:00 – The proposed priming experiment was inspired by a recent paper on subconscious gestural priming in humans. 36:00 – For work on cephalopods, see our prior episode with Dr. Alex Schnell, who has collaborated with Dr. Clayton on the magic work in addition to wave-making studies on cephalopods. Dr. Clayton recommends: A profile of her lab’s work on magic in New Scientist Bird Brain, by Nathan Emery Experiencing the Impossible, by Gustav Kuhn You can find Dr. Clayton on Twitter (@nickyclayton22).   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

I have this theory about podcasts—it’s almost certainly not original, and it's probably not right. But anyway, I have this theory that what makes for a great podcast episode is really just a few good moments. Sure, it’s nice if the conversation has a satisfying arc and good energy; it's great if it’s not too dense or repetitive—all that stuff matters. But I think what really makes an interview stick out for us—and stick with us—are these little time slices. Charged little moments that burn a little brighter. On Many Minds, those moments might come when someone is telling us about their big idea or reframe, a sudden realization they had, maybe just a charming factoid. It might come from them transporting us to a recent research trip, or musing on what it’s like to be another creature. It really could come from almost anywhere honestly. So on the occasion of our 2nd birthday— okay, fine, I seem to have buried the lead. We have a birthday this week: we are turning two years old. Incredible—I know. It’s really gone by in a flash, but also felt like eons and all that. But anyway, on the occasion of our 2nd birthday, we wanted to look back at some of our favorite moments from the first two years. Fair warning, this is a highly selective selection. We weren’t able to feature all our episodes—less than half of them, actually. And those that are featured have been reduced to a tiny snippet. So it’s a selective and reductive sample but hopefully somehow still a satisfying one.  One more thing: some of you will no doubt be wondering what to get us for our birthday. Great question. In lieu of the usual cake or cards or cash, we would happily take a rating or review, a forward to a friend, or a shout out on social media. All that stuff makes us feel good, and ensures that we can keep going and keep growing.  Alright friends without further ado, here’s a select few of our favorite moments from the show—interleaved with bits of context and commentary. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode is available here.   Episodes excerpted: Bat Signals Clever Crows and Cheeky Keas Our Pranking Primate Cousins The Roots of Rhythm How Do Chimps Communicate? The Scents of Language Of Bees and Brains Architects of the Underworld Cultures of the Deep Intoxication Revising the Neanderthal Story The Savvy Cephalopod From Where We Stand Culture, Innovation, and the Collective Brain Aligning AI with Our Values Babies, Grandmas, and Our Most Human Capacities Born to be Cultured Why Do We Dream? Why is AI So Hard? Mind Everywhere

You have a big brain. I have a big brain. We, as a species, have pretty big brains. But this wasn't always the case. Way back when, our brains were much smaller; then they went through a bit of growth spurt, one that lasted for a couple million years. This steady ballooning of brain size is one of the key themes of the human story. But then there's a late-breaking twist in that story—a kind of unexpected epilogue. You see, after our brains grew, they shrank. But when this shrinkage happened and—of course, why—have remained mysterious.  My guest today is Jeremy DeSilva, a paleoanthropologist at Dartmouth College. He’s an expert on the evolution of the foot and ankle. But, it turns out the body is all connected, so he also thinks about brains and heads. In a recent paper, Jerry and his colleagues took up the mystery of human brain shrinkage. They first set out to establish more precisely when in our past this occurred. Using a large database of crania, spanning few million years, Jerry’s team was able to establish that this shrinkage event happened much more recently than previously thought—a mere 3000 years ago. Naturally, the next question was why? What happened around that time that could have possibly caused our brains to deflate? To answer this, Jerry and his collaborators turned to an unexpected source of insight: Ants. That’s right, ants. They argue that these ultrasocial critters may offer clues to why we might have suddenly dispensed with a chunk of brain about the size of a lemon.  This is a really juicy paper and a super fun conversation, so we should just get to it. But I did want to mention: Jerry has a recent book from 2021 called First Steps that I whole-heartedly recommend. It’s about origins of upright walking in humans—which it turns out, is bound up with all kinds of other important aspects of being human. So definitely check that out! Thanks folks—on to my chat with Dr. Jerry DeSilva. Enjoy!   The paper we discuss is available here. A transcript of this episode is available here.   Notes and links 3:00 ­– A podcast episode from the Leakey Foundation about the so-called “obstetrical dilemma.” 5:40 – A refresher for those who have trouble keeping their ‘cenes’ straight: the Pleistocene refers to the period from 2.58 million years ago to 11,700 years ago; immediately after that came the Holocene, which we are still in today. 7:00 – An article discussing the issue of unethical collections of human remains. 10:30 – The key figure form Dr. DeSilva’s paper—showing the changing “slopes” of brain size over time—is available here. 19:30 – The original article by Leslie Aiello and Peter Wheeler on the “expensive tissue hypothesis.” A more recent popular article on the hypothesis. 20:45 – An article by a major proponent of the social intelligence hypothesis, Dr. Robin Dunbar. A more critical review of the social intelligence hypothesis. 23:00 – A recent paper by Jeff Stibel and an older preprint by John Hawks evaluating the “body size” explanation of recent brain shrinkage.   24:00 – See our earlier episode on human self-domestication with Brian Hare.   29:00 – One of Dr. DeSilva’s collaborators on this research is Dr. James Traniello, who specializes in ants. 34:45 – An overview of the earliest history of writing. 37:20 – Dr. DeSilva’s book, First Steps, came out in 2021. 39:00 – A recent paper discussing the evolution of rotational birth in humans. Dr. DeSilva recommends: Kindred, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes (featured in an earlier episode!) Origin, by Jennifer Raff   You can find Dr. DeSilva on Twitter.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

You’ve probably seen those lists of the so-called “wonders of the world.” Many are works of architecture: the Great Wall, the pyramids, the colosseum, Taj Mahal. But these lists are, in a sense, always incomplete. Our world holds other architectural wonders, after all—albeit ones that are hidden from human eyes, made from different materials, and a bit scaled down. I’m talking, of course, about the wonders of the underworld. I’m talking about ant nests. My guest today is Dr. Walter Tschinkel. Walter is an Emeritus Professor of Biological Science at Florida State University, where he’s led a distinguished career as a myrmecologist—a scientist who studies ants. He’s the author of the recent book Ant Architecture: The Wonder, Beauty, and Science of Underground Nests. For decades now, Walter has been delving into ant colonies using a variety of creative, homegrown techniques. Foremost among these is his method of “nest casting”—the process of making durable, three-dimensional casts of ant nests. In this conversation, Walter and I do a bit of “Ants 101.” We discuss the notion of ant colonies as superorganisms. We talk about how Walter developed his nest-casting technique (not to mention other ingenious methods). We discuss where the blueprint for an ant nest resides, and whether ants might appreciate the beauty of their own nests. We also talk about the scientific process—about the joys of low-tech problem solving, about the importance of negative results, and about the pleasure of pursuing a good scientific mystery.   One last thing I’ll mention: a podcast really can’t do justice to these ant nests. So be sure check out the show notes below—and also Walter’s gorgeously illustrated book—to see these architectural wonders for yourselves. Alright, folks, on to my conversation with Dr. Walter Tschinkel. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode is available here.   Notes and links 5:00 – Dr. E. O. Wilson, one of the starts of myrmecology, recently passed away at the age of 92. Read a recent tribute to him. 6:00 – Dr. Tschinkel’s previous book, published in 2013, was The Fire Ants. 6:30 – See a recent popular article about harvester ants. 10:20 – An interactive map showing the diversity of ant species. 15:00 – On the “superorganism” concept, see the book by the same name by Bert Hölldobler & E. O. Wilson. 20:30 – A figure from an academic paper showing the excavation of a giant leafcutter ant colony in Brazil. See also this 2012 popular article. 24:05 – A photo of Dr. Tschinkel’s original plaster cast that has made the rounds on the internet. You can also view numerous other images of Dr. Tschinkel’s nest casts in this recent paper. Finally, check out this recent video showcasing some of Dr. Tschinkel’s methods and nest casts. 29:00 – A recent paper on the division of labor in leafcutter ants, and another paper critiquing the concept of division of labor as applied to ants. 38:30 – A recent editorial on null results in science. 39:00 – An article by Dr. Tschinkel describing his technique for building artificial ice nests. 43:00 – A photo showing the contrast between the charcoal-covered nest disk of an old harvester ant colony with the in-progress (uncharcoaled) nest disk of a new colony. 54:15 – Here Dr. Tschinkel is referring to two books: On size and life, and Scaling: Why is animal size so important? 56:00 – A recent article on the so-called “insect apocalypse.”   Dr. Tschinkel recommends the following books: The Ants, by Bert Hölldobler & E. O. Wilson The Superorganism, by Bert Hölldobler & E. O. Wilson The Guests of Ants, by Bert Hölldobler & Christina Kwapich For more on ant architecture, be sure to check out Dr. Tschinkel’s fascinating book!   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/).   You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

We're on a brief winter break right now, but we'll be back later in January. To tide you over, here's one of our favorite episodes from 2021: a conversation with Dr. Luke Rendell about culture in whales and dolphins. Enjoy! -- Whales and dolphins are, without a doubt, some of the most charismatic, enigmatic creatures around. Part of what draws us to them is that­—different as our worlds are from theirs, different as our bodies are—we sense a certain kinship. We know they’ve got big brains, much like we do. We know that some cetacean species live long lives, sing songs, and form close bonds. If you’re like me, you may have also wondered about other parallels. For example, do whales and dolphins have something we might want to call culture? If so, what do those cultures look like? What sorts of traditions might these animals be innovating and circulating down in the depths? On this week’s episode I chatted with Dr. Luke Rendell, a Reader in the School of Biology and a member of the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He’s been studying cetaceans for more than two decades. He’s the author, with Hal Whitehead, of the 2014 book The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins. (You can probably guess by the book’s title where Luke comes down on the question of cetacean culture.) Luke’s work is, to my mind, an impressive blend of naturalistic observation, cutting edge methods, and big-picture theorizing. In this conversation, Luke and I do a bit of “Cetaceans 101.” We talk about what culture is and why whale song is a good example of it. We discuss lob-tail feeding in humpback whales and tail-walking in bottlenose dolphins. We talk about Luke’s very recent work on how sperm whales in the 19th century may have learned from each other how to evade whalers. And we discuss why an understanding of culture may be crucial for ongoing cetacean conservation efforts. We didn’t plumb all the depths of this rich topic—nor did we exhaust all the maritime puns—but we did have a far-reaching chat about some of the most fascinating beings on our planet and their distinctive cultures. As always, thanks a bunch for listening folks. On to my conversation with Dr. Luke Rendell. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode is available here.    Notes and links 2:30 – My favorite edition of Moby Dick (for what it’s worth). 6:45 – A primer on cetaceans. 9:30 – A paper on the ins and outs of the whale nose. 10:45 – A general audience article about echolocation in cetaceans, drawing on this recent academic article. 12:30 ­– A discussion of Roger Payne’s storied whale song album. 19:00 – A paper on cetacean brain and body size. 19:45 – Dr. Rendell’s 2001 article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, co-authored with Hal Whitehead. The paper made a splash. 24:50 – A paper by Dr. Rendell and colleagues describing some of his work on whale song. 26:40 – The 2000 paper by Michael Noad and colleagues, presenting some of compelling early evidence for whale song as a culturally transmitted phenomenon. 28:30 – A subsequent paper by Ellen Garland, Michael Noad, and colleagues showing further evidence for the socially transmitted nature of song. 31:45 – Dr. Rendell has also done important theoretical work on social learning strategies. See, for instance, here and here. 33:24 – An article offering evidence of imitation in killer whales. 36:10 – The paper by Dr. Rendell and colleagues on lob-tail feeding in humpback whales. 36:35 – A video illustrating “bubble net feeding.” 47:45 – The paper by Dr. Rendell and colleagues on tail-walking in dolphins. 55:30 – The paper by Dr. Rendell and colleagues on 19th century sperm whales' evasion tactics, as well as a popular piece on the same. 57:00 – A website documenting various aspects of whaling history. 1:05:00 – A recent discussion of gene-culture co-evolution across animal species. 1:10:00 – A recent paper by Dr. Rendell and (many) colleagues about how an appreciation of animal culture offers important lessons for conservation.   Dr. Rendell’s end of show recommendations: Dolphin Politics in Shark Bay, by Richard Connor Deep Thinkers, edited by Janet Mann The Wayfinders, by Wade Davis You can keep up with Dr. Rendell on Twitter (@_lrendell).   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster, and Associate Director Hilda Loury. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

A pharmacologist and a philosopher walk into a bar. This is not the start of a joke—it’s the start of our 2021 finale and our first ever theme episode. The idea with these theme episodes is that we have not one but two guests, from different fields, coming together to discuss a topic of mutual interest. Our theme for this first one—in the spirit of the holiday season—is intoxication and our guests are Dr. Oné Pagán and Dr. Edward Slingerland. Oné is a Professor of Biology at West Chester University and our pharmacologist in residence for this episode. He just published Drunk flies and stoned dolphins: A trip through the world of animal intoxication. Ted is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia and our resident philosopher. He is the author of the recent book Drunk: How we sipped, danced, and stumbled our way into civilization. We range over a lot of ground in this conversation. We talk about alcohol as a kind of pharmacological “hand grenade”—whereas other substances are more like “scalpels”. We touch on catnip, cannabis, psychedelic fungi, and poison toads. We discuss Asian flushing genes and what they might suggest about the functions of alcohol. We talk about self-medication in the animal kingdom and in Neanderthals. We size up the "drunken monkey”, "stoned ape”, and "beer before bread" hypotheses. And though we mostly keep things light and festive here, we also do delve into the dark side of intoxication—which may have gotten that much darker with the advent of distilled liquor. Whether you're a tippler or a teetotaler, I’m guessing you’ll find this to be a heady conversation. Did you really think I was going to make it to the end of this intro without a single intoxication-related pun? You know me better. Alright friends—be well, be merry, and be safe this holiday season. We’ll be back in mid-January after a not so long winter’s nap. Now on to my conversation with Dr. Oné Pagán and Ted Slingerland. Cheers!   A transcript of this episode is now available.   Notes and links 4:00 – The “write drunk, edit sober” idea is sometimes (mis)attributed to Ernest Hemingway. 8:00 – Dr. Pagán wrote an earlier book about his favored model organism, the planaria (or flatworms). You may recall we discussed planaria in our recent episode with Dr. Michael Levin. 10:10 – Dr. Slingerland wrote an earlier book about the Chinese ideal of wu-wei. See this brief discussion of his ideas in The Marginalian. 13:00 – The idea of alcohol as pharmacological “hand grenade” is a metaphor due to Steven Braun. 19:30 – An article in Science about “why cats are crazy for catnip.” 21:20 – A recent article in The Conversation about Asian flushing genes. 26:00 – Thomas Hunt Morgan, who won the Nobel Prize in 1933, pioneered the use of drosophila as an animal model. 28:20 – An article on the inebriometer (with an accompanying illustration). 33:00 – The biologist Robert Dudley introduced the “drunken monkey” hypothesis. A recent synopsis by Dudley. 38:00 – Not to be confused with the “stoned ape” hypothesis, which was introduced by Terrence McKenna. A recent popular article on the hypothesis.   41:00 – The idea of psychedelics as introducing “mutagens” into culture comes from How to Change Your Mind, by Michael Pollan. 44:00 – A recent popular article on the “beer before bread” hypothesis. The idea was originally proposed in 1953. 48:50 – Pharmaceutical practices of non-human animals are called “zoopharmacognosy.” A 2014 summary of findings about animal self-medication. 53:00 – The original report in Science on the “flower burial” in Shanidar cave. 56:20 – The Laussel Venus appears to be drinking (alcohol?) from a horn. 59:20 – An article describing the tragic case of Tusko the elephant. 1:03:50 – One example of practices that moderate alcohol’s dangerous effect is the Greek symposium. 1:08:00 – A brief history of distillation, which is a relatively recent invention. 1:11:00 – Planaria are widely used as an animal model for understanding nicotine, among other intoxicating substances.   Dr. Slingerland recommends the following books: Buzz, by Steven Braun Drink, by Iain Gately A Short History of Drunkenness, by Mark Forsyth   Dr. Pagán recommends the following book: Intoxication, by Ronald Siegel   You can find Dr. Slingerland on Twitter (@slingerland20) and follow him at his website; you can find Dr. Pagán on Twitter (@Baldscientist), follow him at his website, and listen to his podcast.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.