Dr. Frank von Hippel is a Professor of Ecotoxicology and Environmental Health Sciences at the University. He is the host of his own successful podcast, The Science History Podcast, and author of The Chemical Age. In this episode we talk about Frank’s own field of ecotoxicology, the study of environmental toxins and their effects on humans and other animals, and Frank’s book The Chemical Age. We discuss the pros and cons of advancements in chemistry, from advancements in medicine and agriculture to chemical warfare and the environmental harms of industrialization. We also talk about what makes something a toxin, how our bodies respond differently to organic vs. synthetic compounds, and about the massive benefits and potential harms of pesticide use in modern agriculture. Lastly, we talk about Frank’s own research on how pollutants such as plastics harm humans and animals in the Arctic, and about both the threats of climate change to biodiversity and how we might overcome them.

Dr. Robert Epstein is a longtime psychology researcher and professor—a distinguished scientist who is passionate about educating the public about advances in mental health and the behavioral sciences. The former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, Dr. Epstein is currently Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. He is also the founder and Director Emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in Massachusetts. He is also the author of The Case Against Adolescence, and its updated release Teen 2.0. In this episode we discuss Dr. Epstein’s case against adolescence, the argument that historically, the social transition from childhood to adulthood was more rapid, and that the view of adolescence as a distinct phase of the lifespan is a relatively modern and Western concept. Dr. Epstein and I engage in a healthy debate on this topic, informed by my own research on adolescent development and the view that puberty marks a distinct and protracted period of physiological, neural, and psychological development. In support of his argument Dr. Epstein discusses a wide-range of social and technological transformations impacting childhood development and our views on teenagers across the last two centuries, including industrialization, mandatory education, child labor laws, and more recently, social media and technology use. We additionally discuss positive steps towards promoting healthy development in teens, including individualized education, increased autonomy, and increased responsibility.

Dr. Jason Mitchell is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, where he directs the Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. His research uses a combination of neuroimaging and behavioral measures to investigate the cognitive processes that support inferences about the psychological states of other people and introspective awareness of the self. In this episode we introduce social neuroscience as a field of research at the intersection between social psychology and cognitive neuroscience, and discuss the neuroscience of mindreading. Mindreading, in this context, refers to our social cognitive capacity for thinking about the thoughts and feelings of others, otherwise known as mentalizing or theory of mind. Jason and I discuss how mindreading relates to other processes such as introspection, and how mindreading may be accomplished either through mental simulation (placing oneself in another’s shoes) or heuristics. Next, we discuss Jason’s own research on the neuroscience of introspection and mindreading, and his findings that mindreading looks more similar to introspection in the brain when reasoning about others more similar to us. Lastly, we discuss more exotic forms of mindreading such as animal theory of mind and empathizing with inanimate objects or cartoons, and what these processes tell us about the cognitive mechanisms underlying mindreading and empathy.

Dr. Bryce Huebner is the Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, where he conducts research connecting philosophy of mind, cognitive science, biology, and moral psychology. In this episode we talk broadly about what it means to be conscious, and how cognition and emotion are governed by bodily processes. Bryce and I discuss how philosophy of mind ought to be informed by the biological limitations that give rise to complex thought, how much of our thought and behavior revolves around maintaining homeostasis and satisfying conflicting motivations, and how both nature and nurture give rise to individual differences in these processes. We also talk about the possibility for artificial intelligence and consciousness in non-human animals, and discuss the relationships between consciousness, life, and functionalism. Lastly, we discuss the concept of distributed cognition in Bryce’s book Macrocognition, and how this relates to moral psychology.

Dr. Randolph Nesse is a Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, and the Institute for Social Research at The University of Michigan, and one of the pioneers of the field of evolutionary psychiatry. He is the Founding President of The International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, and author of the book Good Reasons for Bad Feelings. In this episode we talk about the field of evolutionary psychiatry, and more broadly about the evolution of both negative emotions such as fear and anxiety and positive emotions such as happiness. We talk about how humans have evolved with a “negativity bias” which primes us to sense threat, even in the case of false alarms, and how at the extreme this leads to anxiety disorders. On the other hand, we talk about how either a lack of positive emotion (depression) or excess positive emotion (mania) can be pathological, and how evolution must act to fine-tune our emotions for the right context. Overall, we have good reasons for bad feelings, but knowledge of why our emotions have evolved and what contexts they evolved in can help us fine-tune our emotions in our modern environments. Find Dr. Nesse’s book and learn more about his work at: goodreasons.info

Dr. Steven Pinker is a Cognitive Scientist and the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today,” and the bestselling author of 12 books including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Enlightenment Now, and most recently, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scare, and Why it Matters. In this episode we discuss Dr. Pinker’s latest book Rationality, and how rationality is best defined as using knowledge to achieve a particular goal. We talk about the distinction between rationality as expressed in formal logic and ecological rationality, why people (including hunter-gatherers) may fail at logic puzzles but excel at those same puzzles when applied to reasoning about social or resource dilemmas. We also discuss cognitive biases that interfere with rationality, such as the “myside bias” and how the availability heuristic distorts our memories, and how these biases may be overcome through looking at the world in data. Additionally, we discuss how many irrational beliefs, such as conspiracy theories, are not failed attempts at objective descriptions of the world, but rather beliefs constructed using a “mythology mindset” that attempts to convey a moral message. Lastly, we discuss how rationality relates to enlightenment values, and the case to be (cautiously) made for rational optimism. 0:00:50Motivation for writing the book0:03:43Defining rationality0:05:22How people can behave more rationally in real-life situations0:10:30The rationality of hunter-gatherers0:13:07The relationship between intelligence and rationality0:14:51The role of cognitive biases in irrationality0:19:39The influence of social factors on rationality0:24:07The scarcity of rationality and the spread of irrational beliefs0:30:57The role of memes and cultural evolution in irrational beliefs0:35:06The possibility of rationality being hijacked by parasitic ideas0:38:42The importance of trust in scientific and journalistic institutions0:43:12The connection between rationality and progress0:46:29The need for a cognitive immune system against irrational beliefs0:50:10The continuation of progress and setbacks in different areas0:54:38The connection between rationality and moral philosophy

Dr. Ilan Dar-Nimrod is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, and an expert on how people reason about genetic causes of behavior, the psychology of gender and sexuality, and the existential psychology of death. In this episode we talk about psychological essentialism, the belief that people have an innate “essence,” and how over time, as society has become more secular, people have become genetically essentialist. We talk about how genetic essentialism is associated with more sympathy for wrongdoers, due to lower beliefs in free will. We also talk about how essentialism is associated with divisive groupthink, as in the case of gender and sexuality. Lastly, we talk about the relationship between essentialism and existentialism, noting that people who are more essentialist are more likely to believe in an inherent order to the world, while people who are more secular must grapple with finding their own meaning.

Dr. Imac Zambrana is an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Oslo, and an expert in the study of children’s language development, social cognition, and social learning. She is also the Chief Scientific Officer at Nordic Neurotech, which aims to use virtual reality to help with psychological and medical research. In this episode we discuss Imac’s research on childhood language development, and how this process is influenced by social learning, such as through the pointing gestures of parents. We also discuss children’s learning more broadly, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for learning, breadth vs. depth of knowledge, and how digital media has shaped children’s learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, we discuss Imac’s work with Nordic Neurotech, including how virtual reality technology can be used to improve children’s educational outcomes, and how neuroimaging technology can be used in therapeutic medicine.

Dr. Valerie van Mulukom is an Assistant Professor at Coventry University’s Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations, and a Research Associate at the University of Oxford’s Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion. Her research spans a broad range of topics, roughly unified within the cognitive and evolutionary science of imagination, memory, and belief. In this episode we talk about Valerie’s early cognitive research on imagination and memory, and her more recent research on belief, including religious, secular, and conspiracy beliefs. We talk about how cognitive heuristics such as social learning bias evolved and shape our beliefs, how cultural evolution selects for specific beliefs, the role imagination plays in children’s play and intuitive science, and how we inevitably construct worldviews to explain the world - whether these worldviews are scientific, religious, or conspiratorial.

Dr. Anna Lembke is a Professor of Addiction Medicine at Stanford University, Program Director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, a diplomate of the American Board of Addiction Medicine, and the bestselling author of the books Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop, and Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. In this episode we talk about what dopamine is and how it governs the brain’s systems of pleasure and pain, how dopamine causes addiction (both with drugs and behaviors), how addiction has become a public health crisis in the United States, and what we can do about it. We talk about addictive technologies such as smartphones, and how this impacts today’s youth, and strategies for dopamine detoxification in order to promote happiness and well-being. Lastly, we discuss the difference between biological and sociological problems, and discuss Dr. Lembke’s warning against doctors overprescribing drugs and attempting to “biologize” non-biological problems.