The Armen Show

In this wide-ranging, deeply researched account, Murray Pittock examines the place of Scotland in the world. Pittock explores Scotland and Empire, the rise of nationalism, and the pressures on the country from an increasingly monolithic understanding of “Britishness.” From the Thirty Years’ War to Jacobite risings and today’s ongoing independence debates, Scotland and its diaspora have undergone profound changes. This ground-breaking account reveals the diversity of Scotland’s history and shows how, after the country disappeared from the map as an independent state, it continued to build a global brand. Professor Murray Pittock (MA D.Litt. Glasgow; D.Phil Oxford) is Bradley Professor and Pro Vice-Principal. He has worked at the universities of Manchester (where he was the first professor of Scottish literature at an English university), Edinburgh, Oxford, Aberdeen and Strathclyde, and has held visiting appointments at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (2002), New York University (Visiting Professor of English, 2015); Charles University, Prague (Ministry of Education Visiting Professor in Languages, 2010), Trinity College, Dublin (Visiting Professor in English and History, 2008), Auburn (History and Equality and Diversity, 2006), Notre Dame (NEH seminar visiting scholar in Irish Studies, 2014), USC (Roy Lecturer in Scottish Studies, 2015) and Yale (Senior Warnock Fellow, 1998 and 2000-1). Murray is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the English Association, the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Society of Arts and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland among other bodies, and an honorary Fellow of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. Murray’s books are set on courses in English, History, Irish Studies, theology and politics in around twenty-five countries, and he has been awarded or shortlisted/nominated for a number of literary and historical prizes and prize lectureships. He is one of the few UK academics to be a prize lecturer of both the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy, and has acted as an external assessor for chairs and grants from the Ivy League to the Middle East. Murray is Scottish History Adviser to the National Trust for Scotland, has acted as adviser to the National Galleries and has held grants in English, History, Museology, Tourism and the creative economy. In 2014, he became the founding convenor of the International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures, and remains chair of its Trustees. Murray has appeared in the UK and overseas media in over 50 countries on some 1500 occasions to comment on history, literature and current affairs, including scripting and presenting radio series ( The Roots of Scottish Nationalism -Radio 4, 6.25M aggregate audience, 81% UK wide approval rating) and has co-curated a number of exhibitions. He regularly acts as a consultant to national institutions. Murray supervises PhDs in the areas of Burns, Cultural History, Irish Studies, Jacobitism, Romanticism, Scott, Scottish Studies and other fields.

Joining us on episode 378 is Dr. Temple Grandin, author of Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions. Dr. Grandin is a designer of livestock handling facilities and a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Facilities she has designed are located in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Curved chute and race systems she has designed for cattle are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many people to reduce stress on their animals during handling. She has also developed an objective scoring system for assessing handling of cattle and pigs at meat plants. This scoring system is being used by many large corporations to improve animal welfare. Other areas of research are: cattle temperament, environmental enrichment for pigs, reducing dark cutters and bruises, bull fertility, training procedures, horse perception of novel objects, and effective stunning methods for cattle and pigs at meat plants. She obtained her B.A. at Franklin Pierce College and her M.S. in Animal Science at Arizona State University. Dr. Grandin received her Ph.D in Animal Science from the University of Illinois in 1989. Today she teaches courses on livestock behaviour and facility design at Colorado State University and consults with the livestock industry on facility design, livestock handling, and animal welfare. She has appeared on television shows such as 20/20, 48 Hours, CNN Larry King Live, PrimeTime Live, 60 Minutes, the Today Show, and many shows in other countries. In 2010, Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people. Interviews with Dr. Grandin have been broadcast on National Public Radio and she has a 2010 TED Lecture titled “The World Needs ALL Kinds of Minds.” She has also authored over 400 articles in both scientific journals and livestock periodicals on animal handling, welfare, and facility design. She is the author of “Thinking in Pictures”, “Livestock Handling and Transport,” “Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals,” “Guide to Working with Farm Animals,” and “Humane Livestock Handling.” Her books “Animals in Translation” and “Animals Make Us Human” were both on the New York Times best seller list. “Animals Make Us Human” was also on the Canadian best seller list. Her latest book, Calling All Minds, was a New York Times best seller for middle school students. Her life story has also been made into an HBO movie titled “Temple Grandin, staring Claire Danes,” which won seven Emmy awards and a Golden Globe. The movie shows her life as a teenager and how she started her career. In 2017, she was inducted into The Women’s Hall of Fame and in 2018 made a fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was named as one of the top 10 Best College Professors in 202 by CEO Magazine.

Our guest on episode 377 of the show is John Coogan, technologist, YouTuber, and co-founder of Soylent and Lucy. He has been an entrepreneur for a decade across multiple companies, and has brought forward marketing, ecommerce strategy, engineering, and finance to where he worked. Aside from his company work, he has become a great storyteller on his YouTube channel of over 240000 subscribers, where he showcases stories or happenings in the technology space, discussing companies or leading figures at those companies, as well as the direction of upcoming technologies like artificial intelligence. On this episode, we discussing his founding efforts, what makes for value in companies, and how to bring a compelling story through content creation that informs and entertains.

Advances in medicine have made possible better treatments for widespread, familiar human illnesses like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Yet there are thousands of much less common diseases, most of genetic origin, each classed as “rare” because it afflicts only a small number of people. These patient groups were long ignored by a pharmaceutical industry that judged them too small to provide a return on the investment needed to develop an effective remedy. Yet these “orphaned” diseases collectively caused misery and expense, often far greater than did more common ailments, for tens of millions of individuals and their families. Forty years ago, a revolution that transformed the prospects of patients with rare diseases was lit by three sparks. The passage of the 1983 U.S. Orphan Drug Act resulted from public pressure brought by rare disease patients, their families, and advocates. The AIDS epidemic triggered additional activism, compounded when patients with the rare disease hemophilia became HIV-positive after infusion of tainted blood products. And the third spark was the emergence in the early 1980s of biotechnology companies like Genentech, Amgen, and Biogen employing then-new genetic engineering instead of conventional approaches to pharmaceutical development. Soon after, Genzyme became the first company to develop a treatment for a rare genetic disorder, Gaucher disease, which would come to transform the industry. Jim Geraghty is an industry leader with over 30 years of strategic experience, including more than 25 years as a senior executive at biotechnology companies developing and commercializing innovative therapies. Mr. Geraghty is chairman of the boards of Idera and Pieris Pharmaceuticals and of Orchard Therapeutics, and a member of the board of Voyager and Fulcrum Therapeutics. He was from 2013-16 an entrepreneur in residence at Third Rock Ventures, and before that served as senior vice president, North America strategy and business development at Sanofi. He spent over 20 years at Genzyme, one of the world’s leading biotech companies, as senior vice president of international development, president of Genzyme Europe, and founding president and CEO of Genzyme Transgenics. He started his career in healthcare strategy consulting at Bain. A graduate of the Yale Law School, Mr. Geraghty also holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown.

Rama Chellappa, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering and chief scientist at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, is a pioneer in the area of artificial intelligence. His work in computer vision, pattern recognition, and machine learning have had a profound impact on areas including biometrics, smart cars, forensics, and 2D and 3D modeling of faces, objects, and terrain. His work in motion capturing and imaging shows promise for future use in health care and medicine. He joined Johns Hopkins after 29 years at the University of Maryland, where he served lengthy stretches as chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Center for Automation Research. He is a member of Johns Hopkins’ Mathematical Institute for Data Science and the Center for Imaging Science. Chellappa’s research has shaped the field of facial recognition technology—developing detailed face models based on shape, appearance, texture, and bone and muscle structure. Under a recent program called Janus, he and his team have developed a high-accuracy face recognition system that serves critical needs for federal and commercial sectors. The team has also worked on modeling facial expressions, with potential for a variety of medical applications. He also is known as an expert in machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that instructs computer systems to perform tasks based on patterns and inferences. In one recent experiment, Chellappa and colleagues tested the skills of expert forensic facial examiners against the skills of machines; as it turned out, the best results came when both sides worked together. This research has implications for how machine learning algorithms can help doctors diagnose disease. Chellappa has also worked on gait analysis, which can apply to an enormous range of uses—everything from diagnosing Parkinson’s disease to human identification at a distance. He was born and raised in South India, near Chennai, and studied at the University of Madras and the Indian Institute of Science before attending Purdue University in Indiana, which was then building an international reputation for a branch of machine learning known as statistical pattern recognition. Chellapa’s book, Can We Trust AI ?, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2022. Chellappa is the 2020 recipient of the Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal for his contributions to image and video processing, particularly face recognition. This is one of the top honors from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), where Chellappa is a life fellow and previously served as editor-in-chief of journals. Among many other honors, Chellappa has also won technical achievement awards from the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Signal Processing Society; the latter also awarded him with its highest honor, the Society Award. He earned his doctorate in electrical engineering there, studying under mentors including Keinosuke Fukunaga, R.L. Kayshyap, and King Sun-Fu. (Some three decades later, Chellappa won the esteemed award named for Sun-Fu, from the International Association of Pattern Recognition.) His interest in biomedical engineering dates back to these years when he designed a cardiac pacemaker as his capstone project. During his doctoral studies, he also conducted research at the University of Maryland (UMD) with Azriel Rosenfeld, one of the founding fathers of computer vision. The mentorship launched his career in this field, which trains computers to identify, classify, and understand digital images. Chellappa later joined UMD as a professor in 1991, after 10 years at the University of Southern California. Use code HAI30 for 30% off Can We Trust AI? when you order from Hopkins Press. Order here: https://bit.ly/3tSZ6K6

Dr. Barbaro holds a Ph.D. in psychology with a specialization in evolution and human development from Oakland University. She is currently an Educational Research Scientist for WGU Labs, an Adjunct Professor at Utah Valley University, and the Communications Officer for the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Outside of her formal work, she spends the majority of her time reading non-fiction books, writing about science and higher education, and exploring our wondrous planet. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband where she spends her weekends running, hiking, and skiing in the Wasatch mountains, camping in our nation’s beautiful national parks, and discovering the desert’s secrets.

Jana Gallus is an assistant professor in the strategy group at UCLA Anderson. Her research interests lie in behavioral economics, strategy, and innovation, with a focus on recognition incentives and their effects on decision-making. She investigates how incentive schemes can be designed to enhance employee motivation and organizational performance in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Gallus’ work has been published in Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, Applied Economics, Labour Economics, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, among other journals. Her research is informed by consulting activities for organizations on the design of incentives and recognition schemes. Gallus joined UCLA from Harvard, where she was a postdoctoral fellow. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Zurich, with the distinction summa cum laude, and holds two master’s degrees, from Sciences Po Paris in France and the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

Joining us on episode 372 is Dr. Marion Labouré, author of Democratizing Finance: The Radical Promise of Fintech. She is Senior Economist at Deutsche Bank in London and an associate of the department of economics at Harvard University. Regarding what “Democratizing Finance” covers, “We are only in the early stages of a broader revolution that will impact every aspect of the global economy, including commerce and government services. Coming financial technology innovations could improve the quality of life for all people. Over the past few decades, digital technology has transformed finance. Financial technology (fintech) has enabled more people with fewer resources, in more places around the world, to take advantage of banking, insurance, credit, investment, and other financial services. Marion Laboure and Nicolas Deffrennes argue that these changes are only the tip of the iceberg. A much broader revolution is under way that, if steered correctly, will lead to huge and beneficial social change.” She has extensive private sector, public policy, and monetary policy experience, including at the European Commission, the IMF, the Luxembourg Central Bank, and Barclays. Her research is focused on public finance, monetary economics and financial technology. She received first prize from the American Society of Actuaries, Revue Banque nominated her as a rising star in finance, she is part of the 45 standout women in fintech, and Business Insider named her a cryptocurrency mastermind. Marion holds a PhD in Economics from the Ecole Normale Superieure, and a Master’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics, as well as a Master in Finance from the University of Paris Dauphine.

Professor Andrew Shtulman is a cognitive developmental psychologist who studies conceptual development and conceptual change, particularly as they relate to science education. He is a Professor of Cognitive Science and Psychology at Occidental College, and chair of its Psychology department. His research explores both the acquisition of domain-specific concepts and the development of domain-general inference strategies. His work has appeared in such journals as Cognition, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Child Development, Journal of Educational Psychology, Psychological Science, and Psychological Review, and he is the recipient of an Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation and an Understanding Human Cognition Scholar Award from the James S. McDonnell Foundation. Dr. Shtulman is also the author of Scienceblind: Why Our Intuitive Theories About the World Are So Often Wrong (Basic Books, 2017).

Welcome to episode 370 with Dr. Michael Shermer, author of “Conspiracy”, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine. “This book is a must read for understanding conspiracy theories, who believes them and why, and how to counter them. When author Michael Shermer saw the video of a middle-aged man named Kevin Seefried walking across the rotunda in the Capitol Building dome on January 6, 2021, proudly waving a large Confederate flag representing bigotry and hate, he could not help but wonder, “What went wrong with this man’s beliefs?” With the legacy of January 6th and the conspiracy theory of a stolen election still plaguing the country (two-thirds of Republicans believe President Biden is illegitimate), the problem of today’s conspiracism is more pressing than at any time in our history. In Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational, best-selling author Michael Shermer, the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, presents his own original theory to explain why people believe conspiracy theories, and in an engrossing analysis shows how we can determine which conspiracy theories are likely true or false, and how we can break their power. Conspiracism has been part of the fabric of society for centuries; we evolved to detect external threats of dangerous coalitions. Many conspiracies are real. For instance, the most consequential conspiracy of the 20th century was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, resulting in a war costing tens of millions their lives. And conspiracies often grow up around a shared traumatizing event, like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the death of Princess Diana, or the events of 9/11. But the conspiracy theories that have gained popularity of late are markedly different from those in the past, in that they require little to no proof for their adherents. Mere assertion of a conspiracy claim suffices—“fake news” or “rigged” or “people are saying” is all the evidence many people need to be convinced of their veracity. Historically, popular American conspiracy theories tended to reside on the fringes of society, but today conspiratorial thinking has gone mainstream. Shermer cites Skeptics Society polling research showing that, for example, a remarkable one in five Americans believe that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the United States are controlled by Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation” (QAnon), and one in four believe that 9/11 was an “inside job” by the Bush administration. While the impulse to see conspiracies might be a natural human trait, it is not necessarily healthy, especially not for a diverse society and a liberal democracy that depends on institutional trust. How might we combat the rise in belief in conspiracies? One answer is education. Shermer notes that 42% of people without a high school diploma score highly in having conspiratorial predispositions, compared with those holding postgraduate degrees, who come in at 22%. Another is transparency: the checks and balances in the institutions that make up a liberal democracy must be immune to conspiracies. In Conspiracy, Michael Shermer provides an urgently needed model to explain who believes in conspiracy theories, why, and how to debunk them when they are false. As former president Barack Obama wrote in 2020, “If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work. And by definition our democracy doesn’t work.”” Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the host of the podcast The Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101. For 18 years he was a monthly columnist for Scientific American. He writes a weekly Substack column. He is the author of New York Times bestsellers Why People Believe Weird Things and The Believing Brain, Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil, The Moral Arc, Heavens on Earth, and Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist.