All Episodes

#690 Catherine Molho: Norms, Punishment, Moral Emotions, Disgust, and Interdependence

Oct 13, 2022

Dr. Catherine Molho is an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at VU Amsterdam. Dr. Molho is a psychologist studying human cooperation, morality, and the role of emotions in decision-making. She draws upon insights from social and evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology to better understand the factors underlying cooperative and punitive decisions. In her work, she uses decision-making experiments, questionnaires, and intensive experience sampling methods. More»
#689 Michael Tomasello - The Evolution of Agency: Behavioral Organization from Lizards to Humans

Oct 10, 2022

Dr. Michael Tomasello is Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and James F. Bonk Distinguished Professor at Duke University. He is considered one of today's most authoritative developmental and comparative psychologists. He’s the author of several books, including The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999), A Natural History of Human Thinking (2014), A Natural History of Human Morality (2016), and Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny (2019). His most recent book is The Evolution of Agency: Behavioral Organization from Lizards to Humans. More»
#688 Christopher Krupenye: Primatology, Theory of Mind, False Beliefs, and Sharing Behavior

Oct 7, 2022

Dr. Christopher Krupenye is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Krupenye is interested in the cognitive abilities of humans and other species, especially those involved in navigating the social world. More»
#687 Kristopher Smith: Human Cooperation, Partner Choice, and Long-Distance Relationships

Oct 6, 2022

Dr. Kristopher Smith is a postdoc in the Human Sociality Lab in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University, where he studies long-distance relationships and natural resource management in Tanzania in collaboration with Anne Pisor and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder. This project applies evolutionary anthropology to better understand how communities can work together to manage shared, open-access fisheries. He previously worked as a research associate for the Geography of Philosophy Project, led by Edouard Machery, Clark Barrett, and Stephen Stich, examining cultural variation in folk concepts of knowledge, wisdom, and reasoning. He also worked with Coren Apicella, studying how the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania maintain group cooperation and what traits they prefer in potential social partners. More»
#686 Olivier Morin: How Traditions Live and Die

Oct 3, 2022

Dr. Olivier Morin has a full-time tenured research position at the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris. He is also a Research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Jena, with the Minds and Traditions Research Group. His work focuses on cultural transmission and touches on the relations between anthropology, psychology and the philosophy of social science. He is the author of How Traditions Live and Die. More»
#685 Kim Sterelny - The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution

Sep 30, 2022

Dr. Kim Sterelny is professor of philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington. He is the winner of several international prizes in the philosophy of science, and was previously editor of Biology and Philosophy. He is also a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is currently the First Vice President of the Division for Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (2020-2023). He is the author of several books, including The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution. More»
#684 Patrick Lee Miller: Plato vs. Nietzsche, Metaphysics, and Morality

Sep 29, 2022

Dr. Patrick Lee Miller is an associate professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2012), and co-editor of Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy (Hackett, 2015). More»
#683 Allen Buchanan - Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism

Sep 26, 2022

Dr. Allen Buchanan is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Duke University, and Laureate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. He has written six books covering such topics as applied ethics (especially bio-medical ethics), social justice, and international justice, including the foundations of international law. He is the author of Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism. More»
#682 Daniel Willingham: Why Don't Students Like School?

Sep 23, 2022

Dr. Daniel Willingham is Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. Until about 2000, his research focused solely on the brain basis of learning and memory. Today, all of his research concerns the application of cognitive psychology to K-16 education. He is the author of books like Cognition: The Thinking Animal, Why Don't Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom, and Outsmart Your Brain. More»
#681 Marjorie Prokosch: Harshness, the Immune System, and Climate Change

Sep 22, 2022

Dr. Marjorie Prokosch is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Disasters, Trust, and Social Change Lab at the University of Florida, and an incoming Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She studies social and health-related decision-making, with an emphasis on how environmental threats (such as the threat posed by infectious disease) and our own condition (e.g., our immune system, developmental experiences with harshness) motivate our perceptions and behavior. Specific areas of interest include risk perception, self-regulation, and close relationships. In her current role at UF, she is examining how environmental hazards (like hurricanes) and climate change threats intersect with social inequality to impact decision-making. More»