Podcasts about rationally speaking

How to maximize wins and minimize losses, explained by four experts on game theory. Game theory is a useful tool for decision-making in situations where the outcome depends on multiple parties. It provides a systematic way to analyze the interdependence of individuals or organizations and their potential strategies. Not only does game theory help you identify the optimal strategy for achieving your goals, it can also help you avoid the sunk-cost fallacy — the tendency to persist in an endeavor because of the resources you've already invested. By taking into account the potential actions and responses of other players, game theory allows you to minimize your losses and make informed choices that lead to better outcomes. Whether you're negotiating a business deal or making investment decisions, game theory can be a valuable asset in helping you make smarter choices and achieve your objectives. Chapters:- 0:00 What is game theory? 1:08 War: Learn from Reagan and Gorbachev 2:58 Poker: The sunk cost fallacy 5:56 Zero-sum games: The minimax strategy About Kevin Zollman: Kevin Zollman is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also an associate fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, visiting professor at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (part of Ludwig-Maximilians Universität), and an associate editor of the journal Philosophy of Science. His research focuses on game theory, agent based modeling, and the philosophy of science. Zollman is the co-author of The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting: How the Science of Strategic Thinking Can Help You Deal with the Toughest Negotiators You Know--Your Kids, with Paul Raeburn. About Annie Duke: Annie Duke has leveraged her expertise in the science of smart decision making to excel at pursuits as varied as championship poker to public speaking. For two decades, Annie was one of the top poker players in the world. In 2004, she bested a field of 234 players to win her first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet. The same year, she triumphed in the $2 million winner-take-all, invitation-only WSOP Tournament of Champions. In 2010, she won the prestigious NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded the National Science Foundation Fellowship. Thanks to this fellowship, she studied Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. About Liv Boeree: Olivia "Liv" Boeree is a poker player, TV presenter and model from England who won the 2010 European Poker Tour in Sanremo. Born in Kent, Boeree studied at Ashford School before going on to earn a First Class Honours degree in Physics with Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. She was the #1 ranked female player on the Global Poker Index as of November 2015, and #6 on the female all-time live poker winnings list. About Julia Galef: Julia Galef is a New York-based writer and public speaker specializing in science, rationality, and design. She serves on the board of directors of the New York City Skeptics, co-hosts their official podcast, Rationally Speaking, and co-writes the blog Rationally Speaking along with philosopher of science Massimo Pigliucci. She has moderated panel discussions at The Amazing Meeting and the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, and gives frequent public lectures to organizations including the Center for Inquiry and the Secular Student Alliance. Julia received her B.A. in statistics from Columbia in 2005. About Big Think | Smarter Faster™ ► Big Think The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. ► Big Think+ Make your business smarter, faster: https://bigthink.com/plus/ Get Smarter, Faster With Interviews From The Worlds Biggest Thinkers. Follow This Podcast And Turn On The Notifications Rate Us With 5 Stars Share This Episode --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bigthink/message Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your mindset is the topic on this episode. Do you wish you had emotional skills, habits and ways of looking at the world that served you better? Our guest, Julia Galef, says you can learn new ways of looking at the world and you should! Julia is the co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, the host of the podcast, "Rationally Speaking", and the author of the book, "The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't".  Her website is https://juliagalef.com/

Your mindset is the topic on this episode. Do you wish you had emotional skills, habits and ways of looking at the world that served you better? Our guest, Julia Galef, says you can learn new ways of looking at the world and you should! Julia is the co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, the host of the podcast, "Rationally Speaking", and the author of the book, "The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't".  Her website is https://juliagalef.com/   Note: This episode was previously aired.   Thanks to our sponsor, Lomi, the world's first Smart Waste Appliance.  If you've struggled with composting and feel it's too much work, or feel bad that you're not doing your part to help the environment, you have to check out Lomi, the countertop electric composter.  Just about anything you'd put into the kitchen disposer can be put into the Lomi on your countertop and turned into dirt in four hours.  Use that dirt in your garden! There's no smell when Lomi runs and it's really quiet.  Food waste is gross, Lomi is your solution!  With the holidays just around the corner, Lomi will make the perfect gift for someone on your shopping list.  Just head to LOMI.COM/NTM and use the promo code NTM to get $50 off your Lomi! Thanks to our sponsor, Hover.  If you have a brand that you've always dreamt of building or a business you want to take online, the first step is finding your domain name. Hover makes this super simple with a clear and straightforward user experience, easy-to-use tools, and truly amazing support. Getting online has helped thousands of people around the world reach new heights with their businesses. In addition to the classics like .COM, you can get extensions like .SHOP, .TECH, and .ART, with over 400 more to choose from. You can buy a domain, set up custom email boxes, and point it to your website in just a few clicks.  Get your idea off the ground with the perfect domain name. Head to hover.com/NOBODY to get 10% off your first Hover purchase!

Julia Galef, co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, host of the podcast Rationally Speaking, and author of The Scout Mindset joins World of DaaS host Auren Hoffman. Auren and Julia explore building a scout mindset as defined in Julia's new book, why embracing being wrong is important and tactical approaches to shifting your mindset. They also cover how entrepreneurs approach risk and how the scout mindset manifests in unique ways across different professions.  World of DaaS is brought to you by SafeGraph. For more episodes, visit safegraph.com/podcastsYou can find Auren Hoffman (CEO of SafeGraph) on Twitter at @auren

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Bioethicists are (Mostly) Alright, published by Devin Kalish on January 7, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Author's Note: this post is based in part on Discord and Slack rants, as well as various conversations I have had recently, but is largely original Special thanks to Applied Divinity Studies, for conversation on this matter, as well as commentary on earlier drafts. Some of the wording and sources in the final piece are based on their input This is my second post on this forum. My co-blogger Nicholas Kross posted my first one here from his account, but it was a little weird to just have him be a proxy for me. I explained my reasons a bit in this comment, but even so, I decided to just get an account of my own this time. Sorry that this is another criticism of Effective Altruists, I swear I don't hate you guys or anything, I'm an Effective Altruist myself, it's just a coincidence that the first two pieces I was ready to write and post here are both critical. It is a recent truism of the circles I run in that you should blog about your career. It is also a recent truism of the circles I run in that bioethicists are crazy and dumb. Bryan Caplan has compared them to astrologers. Robert Wiblin implied it is typical for them to think licking ice-cream in public is wrong. Byrne Hobart made a widely retweeted joke that bioethicists wouldn't be approved by bioethicists if they were a treatment. Alec Stapp flatly asserted that bioethicists are grifters who stopped us from having challenge trials early in COVID. Scott Alexander even called bioethicists the rationalist “outgroup” along with evil robots back in 2016. Well I have great news guys, I have infiltrated the enemy. Through clever subterfuge and sheer nerve, I have embedded myself inside a real life bioethics graduate program! And.look, I can't keep this up. I am in bioethics because it is related to my academic interests. I have always found the reaction to the field prominent in EA/rat/adjacent spaces [1] pretty weird. I have had informal conversations about this disparity in impressions several times recently. Twice in the last several months when mentioning my degree to others from my ingroup, once at an ACX meetup and once in correspondence with Applied Divinity Studies, the reaction was relief that someone from their background might be able to add some sense to the field on the margin. I am unusual in my bioethics program, but I am unusual just about everywhere except, to an extent, Effective Altruist spaces. I don't feel unusually unusual in the bioethics program. I am not sure how to prove that bioethics just isn't that bad, I am not even certain that it isn't, but I want to at least register some evidence. A key issue that I see people from my ingroup berating bioethicists about is challenge trials. Human challenge trials for COVID vaccines are popular with the public, so why do bioethicists oppose them? This question came up semi-recently in the Rationally Speaking interview with Matthew Yglesias, Matt: “Like, what is the field of bioethics? I don't understand how that's a purported domain of expertise. Because I've clashed with bioethics Twitter, on both this vaccine distribution thing and on human challenge trials for vaccines. . And, I don't know, the ethics experts just disagree about the big picture, obvious controversies. The trolley problem, et cetera. I was blown away, on the human challenge trials, that Christine Korsgaard, my former professor – I think the leading Kantian deontological thinker – she had her name on the 1Day Sooner challenge trials thing. And then there's these, I don't know who, being like, ‘Well that's not good ethics.' And I'm like, ‘Well, according to whom?' Right? Obviously in consequentialist terms, it's good ethics. I happened to know the top expert in Kantian eth...

My guest today is Julia Galef. Julia Galef is an author and podcaster. She's the Co-founder of the Centre for Applied Rationality and the host of the podcast "Rationally Speaking". In this episode, we discuss her new book, "The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't". We talked about the difference between intelligence and open-mindedness, the tension between pursuing the truth dispassionately and belonging to a tribe, the notion of instrumental rationality, the trade-off between building a larger audience and remaining true to one's principles, and whether affiliating with a political party makes it harder to form true beliefs.#AdWe deserve to know what we're putting in our bodies and why, especially when it comes to something we take every day. Rituals clean, vegan friendly multivitamin is formulated with high quality nutrients in bioavailable forms your body can actually use what you won't find sugars, GMOs, major allergens, synthetic fillers and artificial colorants. Ritual is offering listeners of this podcast 10% off during the first three months. Visit ritual.com/Coleman to start your ritual today.

Podcast: Sped up Rationally SpeakingEpisode: Rationally Speaking #63 - Consilience: The Unity of KnowledgePub date: 2020-12-14Will all knowledge eventually be united? And what does that even mean, anyway? In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Massimo and Julia explore the topic of consilience, or the "unity of knowledge," a concept popularized by biologist and theorizer E. O. Wilson. Along the way they discuss whether all phenomena can be explained in terms of physics, the importance of precise language, and the seductive dangers of the "deepity." Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.04']The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from rs_speedup, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

This episode features a chat with Don Moore, professor of management of organizations at the University of California Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and an expert in overconfidence. Don and Julia discuss the various forms of overconfidence, whether its upsides are big enough to outweigh its downsides, and what people mean when they insist "I think things are better than they really are." Sped up the speakers by ['1.13', '1.0']

For several centuries, historians have tried to answer the question: "Why is Western Europe (and later, North America) the dominant world power?" Past explanations cited culture, or "great men" who influenced the course of history. Stanford historian Prof. Ian Morris casts doubt on those explanations, instead taking a data-driven approach to the question that attempts to measure "social development" over history and find explanations for it. In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia delves into Morris' method and conclusions, and asks: can we make causal inferences about history? Ian Morris is Willard Professor of Classics and Fellow of the Archaeology Center, Stanford University. He is a historian and archaeologist. He has excavated in Britain, Greece, and Italy, most recently as director of Stanford's dig at Monte Polizzo, a native Sicilian site from the age of Greek colonization. He is also the author of a number of books, among them: "Why the West Rules--for Now". "War! What Is It Good For?", and "Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels." Sped up the speakers by ['1.13', '1.0']

Parents in the United States are spending more time and energy than ever to ensure that their children turn out happy, healthy, and successful. But what does the evidence suggest about the impact of their efforts? Economist Bryan Caplan (and the author of "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids") argues that, despite our intuition that parenting choices affect children's life outcomes, there's strong evidence to the contrary. Bryan and Julia discuss his case, and explore what that means for how people should parent and how many kids they should have. Sped up the speakers by ['1.33', '1.0']

Can rational people disagree? This episode of Rationally Speaking features guest Scott Aaronson. Scott is a professor of computer science at MIT and has written about "Aumann's Agreement Theorem," which is related to Bayesian probability theory and seems to imply that two people cannot rationally disagree after they've shared their opinions and information with each other. Julia and Scott discuss how to reconcile Aumann's theorem with real-world disagreements, and explore the disconcerting question: Why should you favor your own beliefs, just because they're yours? Sped up the speakers by ['1.18', '1.0']

"I'm writing a book on empathy," psychologist Paul Bloom tells people. They respond warmly, until he follows up with, "I'm against it." On this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia and Paul discuss what empathy is, why Paul is concerned that it's a terrible guide to moral decision making, and what the alternatives are. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.0', '1.0']

The traditional story about reason is that it evolved to help humans see the world more clearly and (thereby) make better decisions. But on that view, some mysteries remain: why is the human brain so biased? Why are we so much better at defending our pre-existing views than at evaluating new ideas objectively? In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia talks with guest Dan Sperber, professor of cognitive and social sciences, who is famous for advancing an alternate view of reason: that it evolved to help us argue with our fellow humans and convince them that we're right. Dan Sperber is a social and cognitive scientist. His most influential work has been in the fields of cognitive anthropology and linguistic pragmatics. Sperber currently holds the positions of Directeur de Recherche émérite at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Director of the International Cognition and Culture Institute. Sped up the speakers by ['1.22', '1.17', '1.0']

This episode of Rationally Speaking features philosopher Kenny Easwaran, who delves into the notorious "Newcomb's Paradox" -- the puzzle about which it was once said, "To almost everyone it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost evenly on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly." Kenny and Julia explore how Newcomb's Paradox is related to other puzzles in decision theory, like the Prisoners' Dilemma; what its implications are for free will; and what Kenny calls the "deep tragedy" at the heart of rationality. Kenny Easwaran is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at Texas A&M University. He works on several topics relating to epistemology and decision theory, and the role of probability in helping to understand these and related concepts. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.0', '1.0']

You might expect that professional ethicists -- people whose job it is to determine which behaviors are ethical and why -- would behave more ethically than other people. You'd be wrong! This episode features philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel , who is well known for his work studying whether experts in ethics live up to their own standards. He and Julia discuss why the answer is "no," and explore questions like, "How do you decide how moral you're going to try to be?" Eric Schwitzgebel is a Professor of Philosophy at University of California at Riverside. He is the co-author (with Russell T. Hurlburt) of Describing Inner Experience?: Proponent Meets Skeptic and blogs at The splintered Mind. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.16']

Common wisdom holds that the world is getting more violent, but is that really true? Leading skeptic Michael Shermer, professor and author of many books on science, morality and skepticism, argues to the contrary. Shermer's thesis in his recent book, "The Moral Arc: How Science Leads Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom," is that as science has advanced our understanding of the world, we have become more willing to expand our circle of empathy beyond our own provincial "tribes," and more able to design our societies to encourage human flourishing. Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, a regular contributor to Time.com, and Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. His new book is The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom. Sped up the speakers by ['1.21', '1.0']

Can we pull the world's poor out of poverty by giving them access to financial services? This episode features a conversation with economist David Roodman, formerly a fellow at the Center for Global Development and senior advisor to the Gates Foundation, currently senior advisor to the Open Philanthropy Project, and the author of Due Diligence: An Impertinent Inquiry into Microfinance. Roodman casts a critical eye on the hype about microfinance as a panacea for global poverty. He and Julia explore why it's hard to design a good study, even a randomized one; three different conceptions of "development,"; and why Goodman doesn't think we should give up on microfinance altogether. Sped up the speakers by ['1.07', '1.0']

In this episode, economist Robin Hanson explains the signaling theory of human behavior: That our motivations for our choices, about school, shopping, medical care, and so on, evolved primarily to shape other people's perceptions of us. In the process Robin and Julia discuss what makes a good theory: How to decide what you should (a priori) expect to see, and why simplicity is a virtue. Robin Dale Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He is known as an expert on idea futures and markets, and he was involved in the creation of the Foresight Exchange and DARPA's Future MAP project. he blogs at Overcomng Bias. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.0', '1.0']

This episode marks the fifth anniversary of the Rationally Speaking podcast! To commemorate the occasion, Massimo and Julia hold a live-streaming Q&A in which they respond to questions submitted via Twitter. Topics include: What's the best book to read to improve your rationality? What's the biggest problem with the skeptic community? How can we get politicians to be reasonable? And how can you be so sure that other people exist? Halfway through the show, Massimo makes a surprising and poignant announcement. Sped up the speakers by ['1.06', '1.0']

Feynman famously said that a philosopher of science is as much use to scientists as an ornithologist is to birds. This episode of Rationally Speaking features philosopher of physics Elise Crull, who explains why Feynman is misguided, and what philosophers have to say about important issues in physics -- like quantum mechanics, physical laws, and whether anything "really" exists at all. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.08']

Can it be rational to believe conspiracy theories? On this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia and Massimo welcome Prof. Preston Bost, a professor of psychology at Wabash College who investigates what kinds of people latch onto conspiracy theories, and why. The three discuss evolutionary reasons for conspiracy theories' appeal, and ask: how do you determine whether a belief is "rational," anyway? Sped up the speakers by ['1.1', '1.0', '1.14']

People have been keeping track of their moods, sleeping, dietary habits and more for hundreds of years -- Benjamin Franklin famously recorded instances of his virtues and vices. But only in the last decade has the rise of smartphones and fast computing created the new "Quantified Self" movement in which some people are trying to mine their own data for insights about how to be happier and more effective. In this episode, Massimo and Julia discuss self tracking -- what you can learn from it, and what its pitfalls might be. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.08']

What can we do now to affect whether humanity is still around in 1000 years (and what life will be like then)? In this episode, Julia talks with Owen Cotton-Barratt, a mathematician at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute. They cover questions like: Given our poor track record of forecasting, is there any point to speculating about the far future? And is it rational to prioritize current people over future people? Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.16']

How did "social justice" come to mean what it does today? This episode features a chat with Will Wilkinson, a writer, political philosopher, and vice president of policy for the Niskanen Institute. Will and Julia discuss the libertarian reaction to social justice, whether or not social justice is a zero-sum game, and how the Internet exacerbates conflicts over social justice. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.0', '1.0']

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. In this episode, Julia talks with complexity scientist Samuel Arbesman, about his new book Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension, why these unprecedented levels of complexity might be dangerous, and what we should do about it. Sped up the speakers by ['1.18', '1.0']

Most people are terrible at predicting the future. But a small subset of people are significantly less terrible: the Superforecasters. On this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia talks with professor Phil Tetlock, whose team of volunteer forecasters has racked up landslide wins in forecasting tournaments sponsored by the US government. He and Julia explore what his teams were doing right and what we can learn from them, the problem of meta-uncertainty, and how much we should expect prediction skill in one domain (like politics or economics) to carry over to other domains in real life. Sped up the speakers by ['1.07', '1.0']

This episode of Rationally Speaking features Jesse Richardson, a creative director who has been using his advertising background "for good and not for evil," as he puts it -- by building skeptic sites that go viral. Jesse's most famous creation is "Your Logical Fallacy Is," an illustrated poster featuring the names and descriptions of various common fallacies. Julia asks: Aren't many so-called logical fallacies not actually fallacious? Is encouraging people to call out fallacies helping rational discourse overall, or harming it? And is there a trade-off between accuracy and virality? Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.0', '1.0']

Ever make a plan to diet, or exercise, or study, and then -- when the scheduled hour rolls around -- decide, "Nah, I'll just put it off another day"? If you said "no," I don't believe you! This episode features behavioral psychiatrist (and economist) George Ainslie, who demonstrated the existence of this ubiquitous phenomenon in human willpower, called hyperbolic discounting, in which our preferences change depending on how immediate or distant the choice is. George and Julia discuss why hyperbolic discounting exists, and how it can be modeled as a negotiation between your current self and your future selves. In the process they explore some of the benefits and risks of this "intertemporal bargaining" approach to willpower, and how it relates to philosophical thought experiments such as the Prisoner's Dilemma and Kavka's Toxin. Sped up the speakers by ['1.03', '1.0']

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 with an orgasmic blob." On the other hand, many theories in physics that sounded similarly crazy turned out to be very well-supported (think of quantum theory, or relativity). So what role should "common sense" play in evaluating new theories? This episode features a discussion with philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel on his theory of "Crazyism," that we should expect the truth to be at least a little bit crazy. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.04']

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 -- but what you don't see are all the people who also worked hard and made smart choices, but didn't succeed because luck wasn't on their side. In this episode, Julia chats with professor of economics Robert Frank about his latest book, Success and Luck: The Myth of the Modern Meritocracy. They explore questions like: Why do we discount the role of luck in success? Has luck become more important in recent years? And would acknowledging luck's importance sap our motivation to try? Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.15']

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 without us even realizing it? In this episode of Rationally Speaking Julia talks with sociologist of science James Evans, who investigates questions like these using some clever data mining. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.15']

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 talks with philosopher Gregg Caruso, who advocates a position of "optimistic skepticism" on the topic. Skepticism because people don't have free will as a sense of moral responsibility, but optimistic because society would be better off if we accept that we do. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.06']

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 skepticism. But does it imply that there can be no meaning, or purpose, or morality in the universe? This episode features physicist Sean Carroll, author of the recent bestseller The Big Picture: on the Origins of Life, Meaning and the Universe Itself. Sean and Julia talk about the new "ism" he introduces in the book, "poetic naturalism," and how it attempts to resolve the apparent conflict between science on the one hand, and things like morality, free will, consciousness, and meaning on the other. Sped up the speakers by ['1.1', '1.0']

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 career, and prioritizing your projects. In the process, they discuss the assumptions that underlie those algorithms (and what to do about the fact that those assumptions are inevitably violated by the messy real world), and why procrastination might actually be the right algorithm for the wrong problem. Sped up the speakers by ['1.11', '1.2', '1.0']

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 psychiatrist). Jacob and Julia discuss various bioethical dilemmas, such as: How do you handle parents who want to withhold medical treatment from their child for religious reasons? Is it unethical for American doctors to test new medications in the third-world? And what kinds of principles does a bioethicist use to justify their decisions, beyond "that's just my personal opinion"? Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.17']

We're all familiar with Santa Claus -- but how much do you *really* know about that jolly old elf? In this episode, Julia interviews philosophy professor David Kyle Johnson, the author of "The Myths that Stole Christmas." Kyle explains the little-known, and somewhat sinister, origin story of Santa Claus -- and then Kyle and Julia debate whether it's ethical to lie to your children about the reality of Santa Claus (and possible alternatives to explore). Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.0', '1.0']

In this episode Julia talks with philosopher of cognitive science Colin Allen about whether fish can feel pain. In the process they explore a cluster of related questions: Are fish conscious, and how could we tell? What's the difference between pain and suffering? And are there evolutionarily adaptive reasons why animals would have the subjective experience of pain, as opposed to just instinctive reflexes to avoid potentially harmful stimuli? Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.0']

For centuries, scientists have wondered what makes humans so much smarter than other species. Some proposed it was the size of our brain (though that didn't explain why whales weren't smarter than us); others thought it was the size of our brain relative to our body size (but there were problems with that explanation as well). In this episode, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel lays out the mystery of the "Human advantage," and explains how a new technique she invented several years ago has shed light on some of these longstanding mysteries. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.05']

You're probably already aware that it's hard to change someone's mind with logical arguments and evidence, especially about emotionally charged topics. But are there exceptions? David McRaney, bestselling author of "You Are Not So Smart" (and host of the blog and podcast by the same name) describes his experiences with people who have done an about-face on some important topic, like 9/11 conspiracy theories. He and Julia discuss a technique for changing someone's mind with evidence, how individual mind-change mirrors scientific progress, and what happens when you confront Trump fans with facts that contradict their narrative. Sped up the speakers by ['1.05', '1.0']

He's been called a "Data vigilante." In this episode, Prof. Uri Simonsohn describes how he detects fraudulent work in psychology and economics -- what clues tip him off? How big of a problem is fraud relative to other issues like P-hacking? And what solutions are there? Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.0', '1.0']

You've probably heard about cognitive biases -- the systematic errors human brains make when we try to reason or make decisions. But what if our biases are actually a sign of rationality? This episode features Tom Griffiths, professor of cognitive science at University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Computational Cognitive Science lab. Tom makes the case for why our built-in reasoning strategies might be optimal after all. Sped up the speakers by ['1.14', '1.0']

We like to think of doctors as experts, whose recommendations are backed up by solid evidence. So why does it keep happening that a widely used medical intervention -- like estrogen replacement therapy, or heart stents -- turns out to be useless, or even harmful? This episode features Dr. Vinay Prasad, author of "Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives," who talks with Julia about why medical research is so often fatally flawed, and what we can do about it. Sped up the speakers by ['1.15', '1.0']

Julia invites philosopher and blogger Dan Fincke onto the show, inspired by a productive disagreement they had on Facebook. Their topic in this episode: civility in public discourse. Do atheists and skeptics have a responsibility to be civil when expressing disagreement, and does that responsibility vary depending on who their target is? Is there a legitimate role for offensive satire? And might there be downsides to civility? Dan and Julia also revisit the subject of their original disagreement: the recent NECSS decision to rescind Richard Dawkins' speaking invitation, on account of a video he tweeted which compared feminists to Islamists. Dan and Julia attempt to put the Dawkins case study in the broader context of the civility debate, asking questions like: What makes something offensive, and can someone be *unjustifiably* offended? Sped up the speakers by ['1.06', '1.0']

You've probably heard about victims of con artists -- like the people who hand over their life savings to sketchy gurus or psychics, or the people who wire thousands of dollars to a "Nigerian prince" who just needs some help getting his far bigger fortune to you. And you've probably thought to yourself, "What a sucker. I'd never fall for something like that." But are you sure? In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia interviews Maria Konnikova, science journalist and author of "The Confidence Game: Why we fall for it... Every time," who explains why con artists are so effective that even the best of us are vulnerable. Along the way, they explore questions like: Why do people refuse to believe they've been conned? Are con artists getting more sophisticated over time? And how do con artists view themselves -- do they rationalize their actions, or are they impassive sociopaths? Sped up the speakers by ['1.12', '1.0']

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you had that great day at Disneyland where you got to meet Bugs Bunny? No? Think harder. It was a sunny day... In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia interviews psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, whose pioneering work on human memory revealed that our memories can be contaminated by the questions people ask us, or by misinformation we encounter after the fact -- even to the point of making us remember entire events that never could have happened. (Like meeting Bugs Bunny, a Warner Bros character, at Disneyland.) Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.02']

In this episode, psychologist Susan Gelman describes her work on the psychological trait of essentialism: the innate human urge to categorize reality and to assume that those categories reflect meaningful, invisible differences. Julia and Susan discuss why the discovery of essentialism in children was such a surprise to scientists, how the language we use affects the way we view reality, and whether essentialism is to blame for bad philosophy. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.0', '1.0']

There are two contradictory stories about politics and class: On the one hand, that the Republicans are the party of the fat cat businessmen and the Democrats are the party of the people. And on the other hand, that the Republicans are the party of the salt-of-the-earth Joe Sixpacks, while the Democrats are latte-sipping elites. In this episode, professor of statistics and political science Andrew Gelman shines some clarifying light on the intersection between politics and class in America, explaining what the numbers really show. He and Julia also cover the question, "Is it rational to vote?" Sped up the speakers by ['1.17', '1.0']

In this episode, Julia and Massimo talk about the problems with "race" as a genetically-based concept. Starting with the controversial recent book "A Troublesome Inheritance," by NY Times science writer Nicholas Wade, they critique the statistical analyses that group people into racial categories, and Wade's (and others') attempts to attribute differences between rich and poor countries to innate racial differences. Sped up the speakers by ['1.11', '1.0']

A controversial field of research is "gain-of-function," in which scientists take a virus (like a strain of flu) and attempt to make it more dangerous, for example by making it transmissible in mammals when it had previously been solely an avian flu. The motivation is to learn how viruses might mutate in nature so that we can be prepared -- but what if those engineered "superbugs" escape the lab and start a pandemic? In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Harvard professor of epidemiology Marc Lipsitch argues that the risks outweigh the benefits, and that we should halt gain-of-function research as soon as possible. Marc Lipsitch is Professor of Epidemiology with primary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and a joint appointment in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases. He directs the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, a center of excellence funded by the MIDAS program of NIH/NIGMS. He is also the Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Concentration in Infectious Disease Epidemiology. Sped up the speakers by ['1.0', '1.1']

This live episode of Rationally Speaking, taped at the 2015 Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, is a special one: it's Massimo's last episode as co-host! He and Julia look back over their history together and discuss which topics they've changed their mind about since the podcast began. Sped up the speakers by ['1.08', '1.0']