Podcast Episodes
Back to Search248. Elizabeth Weiss on Woke Archaeology and Erasing the Past
Episode 248
Shermer and anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss discuss: fossil ownership; how anthropologists draw conclusions about past peoples through their study of …
4 years, 2 months ago
247. Jacob Mchangama on Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media
Episode 247
Hailed as the "first freedom," free speech is the bedrock of democracy, and it is subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and …
4 years, 2 months ago
246. Nick Pope on UAPs, UFOs, Conspiracies, and Cover-ups
Episode 246
Shermer speaks with author, journalist, and TV personality Nick Pope about: what it was like working for the Ministry of Defense as their UFO expert;…
4 years, 3 months ago
245. Frank Sulloway on How Lives Turn Out: Genes, Environment, Pluck, and Luck
Episode 245
Shermer and Sulloway discuss: relative roles of genes, environment, hard work, and luck in how lives turn out; 60s and 70s Harvard culture; his relat…
4 years, 3 months ago
244. Johnjoe McFadden — Life is Simple: How Occam's Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the UniverseMcFadden — Life is Simple: How Occam's Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe
Episode 244
Centuries ago, the principle of Ockham's razor changed our world by showing simpler answers to be preferable and more often true. In Life Is Simple, …
4 years, 3 months ago
243. Sally Satel on Addiction, the Opioid Crisis, Deaths of Despair, and How Psychiatry Has Gone Woke
Episode 243
Shermer and Satel discuss: how political correctness has corrupted medicine; how wokeness and social justice activism has corrupted psychiatry; what …
4 years, 3 months ago
242. Jonathan Gottschall — The Story Paradox: How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down
Episode 242
Humans are storytelling animals. Stories are what make our societies possible. Countless books celebrate their virtues. But Jonathan Gottschall, an e…
4 years, 3 months ago
241. Jeff Maurer — I Might Be Wrong
Michael Shermer speaks with writer, comedian, and five-time Emmy winning Senior Writer for John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, Jeff Maurer, about the na…
4 years, 3 months ago
240. Leonard Mlodinow — Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking
Episode 240
xtraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well-being as thinking. In this conversation, S…
4 years, 3 months ago
239. Richard Firth-Godbehere — A Human History of Emotion: How the Way We Feel Built the World We Know
Episode 239
We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, who, as a species, have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the m…
4 years, 4 months ago