All Episodes

#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»
#680 Jon Wisman - The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality: Sex, Politics, and Ideology

Sep 19, 2022

Dr. Jon Wisman is Professor of Economics at American University in Washington, DC. He teaches graduate courses in the history of economic thought and economic methodology and undergraduate courses in macroeconomics, European economic history, American economic history, economic development, and labor economics. He is the author of The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality: Sex, Politics, and Ideology. More»
#679 Nick Enfield - Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists

Sep 16, 2022

Dr. Nick Enfield is Professor and Chair of Linguistics at the University of Sydney and director of the Sydney Centre for Language Research. His research on language, culture, cognition and social life is based on long-term fieldwork in mainland Southeast Asia, especially Laos. His latest book is Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists. More»
#678 Gilbert Herdt: The Anthropology of Sexual Orientation

Sep 15, 2022

Dr. Gilbert Herdt is Emeritus Professor of Human Sexuality Studies and Anthropology and a Founder of the Department of Sexuality Studies and the National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University. He founded the Summer Institute on Sexuality and Society at the University of Amsterdam (1996). He founded the PhD Program in Human Sexuality at the California Institute for Integral Studies, San Francisco (2013). He conducted long-term fieldwork among the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea, and has written widely on the nature and variation in human sexual expression in Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, and across cultures. More»