Rationally Speaking #39 - The Science and Philosophy of Free Will
In this episode we tackle the never ending debate about free will, which David Hume famously defined as "a power of acting or of not acting, according to the determination of the will." We do this wit...
17 Jul 201148min
Rationally Speaking #38 - Holden Karnofsky on Evidence-based Philanthropy
Our guest Holden Karnofsky joins us to discuss Givewell, the nonprofit organization he founded. Givewell is devoted to investigating charities and NGOs to determine how much of an impact they're havin...
3 Jul 201143min
Rationally Speaking #37 - The Science and Philosophy of Happiness
Debates over what's important to happiness — Money? Children? Love? Achievement? — are ancient and universal, but attempts to study the subject empirically are much newer. What have psychologists lear...
19 Jun 201148min
Rationally Speaking #36 - Why Should We Care About Teaching the Humanities?
Universities all around the country are closing programs in the humanities, at least in part because of the increasing widespread attitude that higher education should be treated as a business, and th...
5 Jun 201150min
Rationally Speaking #35 - What is Philosophy of Science Good for?
In this episode we explore philosophy of science: What is it about, and should it matter to scientists? Massimo and Julia also discuss some of the most important questions in philosophy of science now...
22 Mai 201148min
Rationally Speaking #34 - Celebrities and the Damage They Can Do
If the recent hoopla about the royal wedding wasn't enough to remind you, we live in a culture of celebrity, one where famous people command our attention and often pontificate on things they know not...
8 Mai 201150min
Rationally Speaking #33 - Live at NECSS: New Dilemmas in Bioethics
In this one hour episode, recorded live at the 2011 Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, Massimo and Julia discuss bioethics with two special guests: Jacob Appel, doctor, author, lawyer and...
24 Apr 20111h 4min
Rationally Speaking #32 - Value-free Science?
We all think that science is about objectivity and "just the facts, ma'am." Not so fast, philosophers, historians and sociologists of science have been arguing now for a number of decades. To begin wi...
10 Apr 201149min
