016 - Conspiracy Theories - Steven Novella and Jesse Walker

We return to The Dress and the psychological lessons offered by one of the most viral moments in the history of the internet via an episode of Decoder Ring in which David McRaney shares some insights ...

14 Sep 43min

Astronomer Phil Plait joins us to discuss his new book, Under Alien Skies, in which he describes what it would be like (through human eyes and real physical experiences) to actually travel to Saturn, ...

31 Aug 1h 10min

The suffering is real, but the source may not be what you assume. That's the essence of the nocebo effect, the placebo effect's evil twin. As neuroscientist Dr. Helen Pilcher explains, illness is not ...

17 Aug 59min

MIT professor Thomas Levenson, the author of the book A Pox on Fools, takes us through the same repeating patterns throughout history which have led to antivaxxers and vaccine hesitancy since the very...

3 Aug 1h 6min

Can intellectual humility be measured? What influences it and affects it, limits it and enhances it? What even is it, scientifically speaking? We explore all of this and then play an episode of How to...

3 Aug 1h 7min

What is misinformation? How does it differ from disinformation or just plain ‘ole propaganda? How do we protect ourselves from people with nefarious intentions using all of these things to affect our ...

6 Jul 1h 8min

Tim Harford of the podcast Cautionary Tales sits down with David McRaney to hear a story from David's book, How Minds Change, about how (and why) a prominent conspiracy theorist realized he was wrong....

22 Jun 47min

Communications professor Heather Barnes teaches us how to use what she learned teaching at Second City, managing the Museum of Science and Industry, and taking classes at the Alan Alda Center for Comm...

8 Jun 45min