Manifold

Steve and Corey talk to Betsy McKay, senior writer on U.S. and global public health at The Wall Street Journal, about her recent articles on heart disease. Betsy describes how background reporting led to her article linking the recent drop in life expectancy in the United States, often attributed to the opioid crisis or increases in middle age suicides due to economic despair, to the increasing prevalence of heart disease, driven by the rise in obesity. The three also discuss current public health recommendations on how to reduce heart disease risk and on the use of calcium scans to assess arterial plaque buildup. Steve describes boutique medical programs available to the super-rich that include full body scans to search for early signs of disease. Betsy elaborates on how she approached reporting on a new study linking egg consumption to higher cholesterol and increased risk of death, a result at odds with other recent findings and national recommendations that two eggs a day eggs is safe and healthy. Finally, they consider whether people are wasting money on buying fish oil supplements.ResourcesTranscriptDeath Rates Rising for Young, Middle-Aged U.S. AdultsHow to Reduce Your Risk of Heart DiseaseNew BP guidelines that set elevated BP as above 120mmHG/80 and Stage 1 hypertension is 120-130/80-90, Stage 2 140/90 or above.New ACC/AHA High Blood Pressure Guidelines Lower Definition of HypertensionHeart Attack at 49—America’s Biggest Killer Makes a Deadly ComebackStudy Links Eggs to Higher Cholesterol and Risk of Heart DiseaseFish Oil: Hunting for Evidence to Tip the ScalesDon’t Use Bootleg or Street Vaping Products, C.D.C. Warns

Renowned science fiction writer Ted Chiang discusses the philosophical implications of science in his stories. They delve into topics such as the illusion of free will, varieties of time travel, perfect memory and life logging, investment in OpenAI, and the role of privilege and luck.

Dr. Rebecca Campbell is a Professor of Psychology at Michigan State University, whose research focuses on violence against women and children with an emphasis on sexual assault. Steve and Corey discuss her recent National Institute of Justice-funded project to study Detroit’s untested rape kits. Dr. Campbell describes the problem of untested kits and her work with police departments around the country to reduce the backlog. She explains how the use of the national CODIS database has led to sharply higher estimates of the proportion of rapes committed by serial perpetrators and how many rapists appear to be criminal “generalists”, committing a wide range of offenses. She describes the dynamics of sexual assault investigations, the factors that lead police to put more effort into investigating certain cases over others, and how common ways of questioning women can lead them to disengage from the process. Other topics include the incentives at work in law enforcement, the slow pace at which new research in DNA testing and treatment of victims is incorporated into police training, and Dr. Campbell’s efforts to engage with law enforcement agencies to improve investigative practices.RESOURCESPapersThe National Problem of Untested Sexual Assault Kits (SAKs): Scope, Causes, and Future Directions for Research, Policy, and Practice.Forgotten evidence: A mixed methods study of why sexual assault kits (SAKs) are not submitted for DNA forensic testing.Why Police “Couldn’t or Wouldn’t” Submit Sexual Assault Kits for Forensic DNA Testing: A Focal Concerns Theory Analysis of Untested Rape KitsTested at Last: How DNA Evidence in Untested Rape Kits Can Identify Offenders and Serial Sexual Assaults.Comparing Standard and Selective Degradation DNA Extraction Methods: Results from a Field Experiment with Sexual Assault KitsEvaluation of a Victim-Centered, Trauma-Informed Victim Notification Protocol for Untested Sexual Assault Kits (SAKs)Do You Wish to Prosecute the Person Who Assaulted You?: Untested Sexual Assault Kits and Victim Notification of Rape Survivors Assaulted as AdolescentsWill history repeat itself? Growth mixture modeling of suspected serial sexual offending using forensic DNA evidenceOtherWhy Don’t Police Catch Serial Rapists? – The AtlanticMSU Appoints Presidential Advisers on Sexual Misconduct IssuesTranscript

Steve and Corey talk with Mark Moffett, Photographer and Research Fellow at the Smithsonian Institute, about his new book The Human Swarm: How our Societies Arise, Thrive and Fall. They discuss Mark’s view that being able walk into a cafe filled with others and not be attacked illustrates what makes human societies distinct and so successful. Mark explains why he is far more interested in questions about when war and other events occur than with traditional issues such as the genetic origins of human behavior. The three discuss Dehumanization and its Chimp equivalent, Dechimpanizeeization, and how they lead to the division of societies, friend turning against friend, and genocide. They discuss the conditions under which foreigners are embraced and whether the US might ever enter into a post-racial society where group differences don’t matter and immigrants are more easily accepted.ResourcesMark Moffett’s BioMark Moffett’s PhotographyThe Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and FallTranscript

John Schulman is a research scientist at OpenAI. He co-leads the Reinforcement Learning group and works on agent learning in virtual game worlds (e.g., Dota) as well as in robotics. John, Corey, and Steve talk about AI, AGI (Artifical General Intelligence), the Singularity (self-reinforcing advances in AI which lead to runaway behavior that is incomprehensible to humans), and the creation and goals of OpenAI. They discuss recent advances in language models (GPT-2) and whether these results raise doubts about the usefulness of linguistic research over the past 60 years. Does GPT-2 imply that neural networks trained using large amounts of human-generated text can encode “common sense” knowledge about the world? They also discuss what humans are better at than current AI systems, and near term examples of what is already feasible: for example, using AI drones to kill people.ResourcesJohn SchulmanOpenAIBetter Language Models and Their Implications (GPT-2)Transcript

Daniel Max, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of Every Love Story is A Ghost Story, a biography of David Foster Wallace, speaks with Corey and Steve about his first book, The Family that Couldn’t Sleep. The discussion covers the emerging genre of literary non-fiction, Daniel’s process of writing The Family that Couldn’t Sleep, and how he approached and gained the trust of the family at the heart of the story. Corey probes Daniel about how he handled the complex scientific characters, Carl Gajdusek and Stanley Prusiner, who led research into prion disease for 40 years. Daniel recounts how Shirley Glasse (now Lindenbaum) discovered how prions were transmitted through ritual cannibalism in Papua New, a critical step in solving the mystery of what causes of the disease, but how credit was given to Gajdusek. The three discuss the painfully slow pace of research and the inspiring story of a young couple, Eric Minikel and Sonia Vallabh, who have changed careers to dedicate their lives to finding a cure.ResourcesMax’s New Yorker PageMax’s initial 2001 article for the New York Times Magazine on the Italian Family with FFIMax’s 2013 New Yorker story on Minikel and VallabhThe Family that Couldn’t SleepEvery Love Story is A Ghost StoryTranscript

Steve and Corey speak with Stuart Firestein (Professor of Neuroscience at Columbia University, specializing in the olfactory system) about his two books Ignorance: How It Drives Science and Failure: Why Science Is So Successful. Stuart explains why he thinks that it is a mistake to believe that scientists make discoveries by following the “scientific method” and what he sees as the real relationship between science and art. We discuss Stuart’s recent research showing that current models of olfactory processing are wrong, while Steve delves into the puzzling infinities in calculations that led to the development of quantum electrodynamics. Stuart also makes the case that the theory of intelligent design is more intelligent than most scientists give it credit for and that it would be wise to teach it in science classes.ResourcesStuart FiresteinFailure: Why Science Is so SuccessfulIgnorance: How it drives scienceTranscript

Corey and Steve continue their discussion with Joe Cesario and examine methodological biases in the design and conduct of experiments in social psychology and ideological bias in the interpretation of the findings. Joe argues that experiments in his field are designed to be simple but that in making experimental set ups simple researchers remove critical factors that actually matter for a police officer to make a decision in the real world. In consequence, he argues that the results cannot be taken to show anything about actual police behavior. Joe maintains that social psychology as a whole is biased toward the left politically and that this affects how courses are taught and research conducted. Steve points out the university faculty on the whole tend to be shifted left relative to the general population. Joe, Corey, and Steve discuss the current ideological situation on campus and how it can be alienating for students from conservative backgrounds.ResourcesJoseph Cesario’s LabA new look at racial disparities in police use of deadly forceTranscript

James Cham is a partner at Bloomberg Beta, a venture capital firm focused on the future of work. James invests in companies applying machine intelligence to businesses and society. Prior to Bloomberg Beta, James was a Principal at Trinity Ventures and a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. He was educated in computer science at Harvard and at the MIT Sloan School of Business.ResourcesJames ChamBloomberg BetaTranscript

Corey and Steve talk with Joe Cesario about his recent work showing that, contrary to many activist claims and media reports, there is no widespread racial bias in police shootings. Joe discusses his analysis of national criminal justice data and his experimental studies with police officers in a specially designed realistic simulator. He maintains that evidence suggests that racial bias does exist in other uses force of force such as tasering but that the decision to shoot is fundamentally different and driven by facts about criminal context in which officers find themselves rather than race.ResourcesExample of officer completing shooting simulatorA new look at racial disparities in police use of deadly forceIs There Evidence of Racial Disparity in Police Use of Deadly Force? Analyses of Officer-Involved Fatal Shootings in 2015–2016Overview of Current Research on Officer-Involved ShootingsJoseph Cesario’s LabTranscript