Is Elon Musk Right About Big Government?
Government reform isn’t an exclusively partisan issue, so why does it seem to fall under the purview of Republicans? The researcher Jennifer Pahlka says Democrats need to “get in the game” of governme...
21 Jan 202553min
The Scientist vs. the Machine
Editor’s note: After this episode aired, MIT issued a statement raising concerns about the integrity of Aidan Toner-Rodgers's working paper “Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product ...
14 Jan 202551min
The Political Psychology of NIMBYism
What makes someone a NIMBY? The prevailing theory suggests that people support or reject new housing in their neighborhood based on what’s best for them personally. The political scientist David Brooc...
7 Jan 202555min
RFK Jr.'s 'Seeds of Truth'
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to lead the Department of Health and Human Services under President-Elect Donald Trump. He has said “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” but Dr. Rachael Bed...
31 Dec 202450min
Best of: Are Young Men Really Becoming More Sexist?
Are young men becoming radicalized? Could they be further to the right than even their fathers and grandfathers? These questions have yet to be answered definitively, but in some countries, electoral ...
24 Dec 202449min
Do Voters Reward Good Policy?
The key idea behind democracy is that if politicians pass good policy, people will reward them with votes. But is that actually true? The political scientist Hunter Rendleman looked at what happened w...
17 Dec 202453min
How to Solve a Housing Crisis
New Zealand was in a major housing crisis. But then the Pacific nation actually took ambitious steps to address it. The researcher Eleanor West recounts the policy wins and political pitfalls of what ...
10 Dec 202452min
The Evidence on Policing and Crime
Four years ago, the murder of George Floyd—and the international protests that followed—amplified calls to defund or abolish the police. But what do we actually know about the relationship between pol...
3 Dec 202448min
