Rationally Speaking #167 - Samuel Arbesman on "Why technology is becoming too complex"
As the technology we rely on every day becomes increasingly sophisticated, it's getting to the point where it's too complicated to understand -- not just for individual users, but for any human at all...
4 Sep 201650min
Rationally Speaking #166 - Eric Schwitzgebel on "Why you should expect the truth to be crazy"
Some theories violate common sense so wildly that you want to just reject them out of hand. For example, "The United States is conscious," or "The most moral act would be to replace all living beings ...
21 Aug 201653min
Rationally Speaking #165 - Robert Frank on "Success and Luck"
If someone asks you, "What caused your success (in finance, your career, etc.)?" what probably comes to mind for you is a story about how you worked hard and made smart choices. Which is likely true -...
7 Aug 201656min
Rationally Speaking #164 - James Evans on "Using meta-knowledge to learn how science works"
Has science gotten slower over the years? Does the proliferation of jargon make it harder for scientists to collaborate? What unstated assumptions -- "ghost theories" -- are shaping our research witho...
24 Jul 201650min
Rationally Speaking #163 - Gregg Caruso on "Free Will and Moral Responsibility"
If people don't have free will, then can we be held morally responsible for our actions? And what would happen to society if we were to collectively shed our belief in free will? In this episode Julia...
10 Jul 201659min
Rationally Speaking #162 - Sean Carroll on "Poetic Naturalism"
Naturalism is the stance that everything that exists in the universe arises from "natural" causes, of the sort observable by science -- not supernatural ones. It's practically a foundational tenet of ...
26 Jun 201650min
Rationally Speaking #161 - Tom Griffiths and Brian Christian on "Algorithms to Live By"
Julia chats with the authors of Algorithms to Live By, about how to apply key algorithms from computer science to our real life problems. For example, deciding which apartment to rent, planning your c...
12 Jun 201649min
Rationally Speaking #160 - Live at NECSS -- Jacob Appel on "Tackling bioethical dilemmas"
It's the annual live Rationally Speaking episode, taped at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism in NYC! This year features returning guest Jacob Appel, a bioethicist (and lawyer, and psy...
29 Mai 20161h 7min
