275. The Disrupted Mind: Noga Arikha on What Happens to Identity When the Brain Is Assaulted by Disease and Injury
Shermer and Arikha discuss: what it means for a mind to be disrupted • dementia, senility, and Alzheimer's disease • mental illness and the labeling problem • the social construction of mental illness...
28 Maj 20221h 13min
274. Frans De Waal on Sex and Gender Across the Primate Spectrum
What is gender? How different are men and women? Are differences due to biological sex or to culture? How do they compare with what is known about our fellow primates? Do apes also culturally learn th...
24 Maj 20221h 27min
273. Cathy Young — The Russian Riddle Wrapped in a Ukrainian Mystery Inside an American Enigma
Shermer and Young discuss: Florida's "Don't say 'gay'" law • What is the appropriate age to discuss sex and gender issues with children? • sex, gender, and trans matters • Critical Race Theory, race a...
21 Maj 20222h 5min
272. Stuart Vyse — The Uses of Delusion: Why It's Not Always Rational to Be Rational
Shermer and Vyse discuss: What is a delusion? • veridical perception • perceptual illusions and irrationalities • Kahneman vs. Gigerenzer: rationality, irrationality, and bounded rationality • Rationa...
17 Maj 20221h 25min
271. Peter Ward — The Price of Immortality: The Race to Live Forever
Shermer and Ward discuss: religious immortality • Church of Perpetual Life in Florida • what it means to live forever • why lives have doubled in length the past century • Stein's Law: things that can...
14 Maj 20221h 26min
270. Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrationality (Moshe Hoffman and Erez Yoeli)
Shermer, Hoffman, and Yoeli discuss: the problems game theory was developed to solve • How rational or irrational an animal are we? • the evolutionary logic of game theory • Alan Fiske's four relation...
10 Maj 20221h 57min
269. Richard Dawkins — Flights of Fancy: Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution
Do you sometimes dream you can fly like a bird? Gliding effortlessly above the treetops, soaring and swooping, playing and dodging through the third dimension. Computer games, virtual reality headsets...
7 Maj 20221h 28min
268. Douglas Murray on The War on the West: Race, Politics, and Culture
Shermer and Murray discuss: what it takes to become a successful writer • Is this "war" on Western civilization just a necessary course correction from the sins of the past? • Is at least some of the ...
3 Maj 202259min
