Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas1 Heinä 2019

53 | Solo -- On Morality and Rationality

What does it mean to be a good person? To act ethically and morally in the world? In the old days we might appeal to the instructions we get from God, but a modern naturalist has to look elsewhere. Today I do a rare solo podcast, where I talk both about my personal views on morality, a variety of "constructivism" according to which human beings construct their ethical stances starting from basic impulses, logical reasoning, and communicating with others. In light of this view, I consider two real-world examples of contemporary moral controversies: Is it morally permissible to eat meat? Or is there an ethical imperative to be a vegetarian? Do inequities in society stem from discrimination, or from the natural order of things? As a jumping-off point I take the loose-knit group known as the Intellectual Dark Web, which includes Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Ben Shapiro, and others, and their nemeses the Social Justice Warriors (though the discussion is about broader issues, not just that group of folks). Probably everyone will agree with my takes on these issues once they listen to my eminently reasonable arguments. Actually this is a more conversational, exploratory episode, rather than a polished, tightly-argued case from start to finish. I don't claim to have all the final answers. The hope is to get people thinking and conversing, not to settle things once and for all. These issues are, on the one hand, very tricky, and none of us should be too certain that we have everything figured out; on the other hand, they can get very personal, and consequently emotions run high. The issues are important enough that we have to talk about them, and we can at least aspire to do so in the most reasonable way possible. Support Mindscape on Patreon or Paypal.

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119 | Musa al-Gharbi on the Value of Intellectual Diversity

In the service of seeking truth, there would seem to be value in intellectual diversity, both in keeping ourselves honest and in the possibility of new ideas coming from unexpected quarters. That's tr...

19 Loka 20201h 16min

118 | Adam Riess on the Expansion of the Universe and a Crisis in Cosmology

Astronomers rocked the cosmological world with the 1998 discovery that the universe is accelerating. Well-deserved Nobel Prizes were awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and today's guest Adam R...

12 Loka 20201h 18min

117 | Sean B. Carroll on Randomness and the Course of Evolution

Evolution is a messy business, involving as it does selection pressures, mutations, genetic drift, and the effects of random external interventions. So in the end, how much of it is predictable, and h...

5 Loka 20201h 20min

116 | Teresa Bejan on Free Speech, Civility, and Toleration

How can, and should, we talk to each other, especially to people with whom we disagree? "Free speech" is rightfully entrenched as an important value in liberal democratic societies, but implementing i...

28 Syys 20201h 43min

115 | Netta Engelhardt on Black Hole Information, Wormholes, and Quantum Gravity

Stephen Hawking made a number of memorable contributions to physics, but perhaps his greatest was a puzzle: what happens to information that falls into a black hole? The question sits squarely at the ...

21 Syys 20201h 27min

114 | Angela Chen on Asexuality in a Sex-Preoccupied World

Sexuality is, and always has been, a topic that is endlessly fascinating but also contentious. You might think that asexuality would be more straightforward, but you'd be wrong. Asexual people, or "ac...

14 Syys 20201h 8min

113 | Cailin O'Connor on Game Theory, Evolution, and the Origins of Unfairness

You can't always get what you want, as a wise person once said. But we do try, even when someone else wants the same thing. Our lives as people, and the evolution of other animals over time, are shape...

7 Syys 20201h 19min

112 | Fyodor Urnov on Gene Editing, CRISPR, and Human Engineering

Not too long ago nobody carried a mobile phone; now almost everybody does. That's the kind of rate of rapid progress we're seeing with our ability to directly edit genomes. With the use of CRISPR-Cas9...

31 Elo 20201h 20min