The Nature & Nurture Podcast

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.

Dr. Alan Levinovitz is an Associate Professor of Religion at James Madison University, and author of Natural: How Faith in Nature's Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws, and Flawed Science. In this episode we talk about Alan’s book Natural, and attempt to understand why people gravitate towards assuming what is natural is good, what is unnatural is bad, and how people come up with ideas of naturalness in the first place. We contrast examples such as “unnatural” foods and medicines improving our lives, and “natural” diseases harming us, to make the case that what is natural may not be good, and what is unnatural may not be bad. We discuss historical and evolutionary reasons, including reducing uncertainty, for why humans tend to deify the natural and associate it with the good, as well as the philosophical implications of these differing worldviews, and how to cope with uncertainty.

Dr. Frans de Waal is a primatologist and the C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. He has been elected to the (US) National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. He’s the author of several bestsellers including Chimpanzee Politics, Good Natured, Our Inner Ape, The Age of Empathy, Mama’s Last Hug, and most recently, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist. In this episode, we talk about Dr. de Waal’s most recent book, Different, comparing and contrasting sex and gender differences amongst humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos. Chimpanzees are patriarchal, competitive, and aggressive; while bonobos are matriarchal, peaceful, and highly sexual. Humans are somewhere in-between. We talk about how the field of primatology evolved over the decades, especially during the feminist revolution, and how old views of human and primate evolution focusing on male-dominance and violent competition, rather than egalitarian cooperation, have gone out of fashion. We talk about the role human moral values play in shaping the behavioral sciences, both for good and for bad. Lastly, we talk about how understanding which gender differences are natural and which are socially constructed allows us to reduce sexism and discrimination.

Dr. Kim Meidenbauer is a social, cognitive, and environmental neuroscientist, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Chicago, and incoming Assistant Professor at Washington State University. Her research focuses on how the physical environment influences brain development, and in turn, our cognition, emotion, and social behavior.    In this episode we talk about Kim’s research on how physical environmental stressors, such as heat exposure, influence our brains and predict social behavior, including crime rates. Additionally, we talk about the positive effects of greenspace, spending time in nature, on development and mental health, and how these effects can be measured using data gathered from smartphones and social media posts.   We talk about the question of free will: how free are we really, if our brains and behaviors are shaped by environmental and genetic influences? Lastly, we talk about the important policy implications of Kim’s research, especially as climate change accelerates and as we become more aware of the influence of the physical environment on our mental well-being.

Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar is a psychologist, best-selling author of the books Happier and Being Happy, and co-founder of the Happiness Studies Academy. In this episode we talk about the science of happiness, its roots in positive psychology, and what psychology commonly gets wrong about happiness. We talk about how happiness is neither synonymous with pleasure nor the “just fine” state of not being unhappy. We talk about mismatches between our current environment and our ancestral environment, and how lack of exercise, poor nutrition, and poor social bonds contribute to the epidemic of unhappiness. We talk about anti-fragility, meaning, delay of gratification, and how an optimal level of stress and scarcity is necessary for happiness. Lastly, we talk about how Tal founded the Happiness Studies Academy, and how happiness studies has emerged as an interdisciplinary new science.

Dr. Sofie Valk is a neuroscientist, Head of the Cognitive Neurogenetics Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, and Research Group Leader at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Brain and Behavior (INM-7), Research Centre in Jülich, Germany, where she studies the interplay of genetic factors and social behavior on brain structure. In this episode, we talk about Sofie’s background in neuroscience and cognitive science, her PhD research on how brain structure relates to empathy and theory of mind, and her current research on genetic factors relating to brain development and social cognition. Additionally, we discuss the nature and nurture debate in the context of neurogenetics research, and how genetic influences can be modeled by comparing twins, siblings, and non-related strangers for similarity.