126 - Separate Spheres (rebroadcast)
Despite their relative invisibility, a norm, even a dying one, can sometimes be harnessed and wielded like a weapon by conjuring up old fears from a bygone era. It’s a great way to slow down social ch...
22 Apr 201835min
125 - Status Quo Rationalization
When faced with an inescapable and unwanted situation, we often rationalize our predicament so as to make it seem less awful and more bearable, but what if that situation is a new law or a new adminis...
9 Apr 201845min
124 - Belief Change Blindness
When was the last time you changed your mind? Are you sure?In this episode we explore new research that suggests for the majority of the mind change we experience, after we update our priors, we delet...
26 Mars 201840min
123 - Active Information Avoidance (rebroadcast)
Little did the champions of the Enlightenment know that once we had access to all the facts…well, reason and rationality wouldn’t just immediately wash across the land in a giant wave of enlightenment...
11 Mars 201828min
122 - Tribal Psychology
The evidence is clear that humans value being good members of their tribes much more than they value being correct. We will choose to be wrong if it keeps us in good standing with our peers.In this ep...
26 Feb 20181h 5min
121 - Progress (rebroadcast)
Do we have the power to change the outcome of history? Is progress inevitable? Is it natural? Are we headed somewhere definite, or is change just chaos that seems organized in hindsight? In this episo...
12 Feb 20181h
120 - The Backfire Effect - Part Four
Last year on this show, we did three episodes about the backfire effect, and by far, those episodes were the most popular we’ve ever done.In fact, the famous web comic The Oatmeal turned them into a s...
29 Jan 20181h 10min
119 - The Unpersuadables
Our guest for this episode, Will Storr, wrote a book called The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science. In that book, Storr spends time with Holocaust deniers, young Earth creationists...
15 Jan 201839min
