Podcast appearances and mentions of tania lombrozo

How do we learn? Usually from experience, of course. Maybe we visit some new place, or encounter a new tool or trick. Or perhaps we learn from someone else—from a a teacher or friend or YouTube star who relays some shiny new fact or explanation. These are the kinds of experiences you probably first think of when you think of learning. But we can also learn in another way: simply by thinking. Sometimes we can just set our minds to work—just let the ideas already in our heads tumble around and spark off each other—and, is if by magic, come away with a new understanding of the world. But how does this happen exactly? And does it only happen in humans?    My guest today is Dr. Tania Lombrozo. Tania is a Professor of Psychology at Princeton University; she and her research group study learning, reasoning, explanation, belief, and more. In a recent paper, Tania outlines this puzzling alternative form of learning—learning by thinking, as it's known—and presents evidence that it happens in both humans and AIs.   In this conversation, Tania and I talk about her longstanding work on explanation, and how it led her to study this less- obvious form of learning. We zoom in on four flavors of learning by thinking—learning through explanation, through simulation, through analogy, and through reasoning. We talk about the evidence that machines also learn in this way, and we consider whether animals could, too. We discuss how to resolve the paradox at the heart of "learning by thinking": how it could be that reshuffling old bits of knowledge can actually lead to new understanding. Along the way, Tania and I touch on: chain of thought prompting in LLMs, the Reddit community 'Explain Like I'm Five,' the illusion of explanatory depth, the power of thought experiments, Darwin and Galileo, imagination and rationalization, how psychology and philosophy complement each other, and whether we can also learn—not just by thinking in our proverbial armchairs—but also by writing and talking.   So, happy 2025, friends! We've got some great stuff lined up for the coming year. If you like what we're doing with the show, we would—as ever—appreciate your support. And the main way you can support us is just by helping us get the word out—by telling a friend about us, or a colleague, or a student, or your thousands of social media followers.   Alright, without further ado, onto my conversation with Dr. Tania Lombrozo. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode will be available soon.   Notes and links 3:30 – An influential early paper on “chain-of-thought prompting” in Large Language Models. A recent preprint by a team, including Dr. Lombrozo, exploring the cases where “chain-of-thought prompting” actually impairs performs in LLMs. 8:00 – For some of Dr. Lombrozo's important earlier work on explanation, see here and here. 11:15 – The Reddit community ‘Explain Like I'm Five.' 13:00 – An early paper on the “curse of knowledge”—the difficulty of ignoring what you know. 19:00 – Dr. Lombrozo's recent review article on “learning by thinking” is here. Another article of hers on the same topic is here. 20:00 – The original report of the “self-explanation” effect. The original report of the “illusion of explanatory depth.” 30:00 – For a basic description of Galileo's falling bodies thought experiment see here. A discussion of this thought experiment by philosopher Tamar Gendler. 38:00 – For analysis of Darwin's analogy between artificial and natural selection, see here and here. 42:00 – A paper on rationalization by Fiery Cushman.  48:00 – A paper from Dr. Lombrozo's lab on “need for explanation.” The original paper describing the construct of “need for cognition.” 52:00 – The original report of “framing effects” by Tversky and Kahneman. 54:00 – A paper by Annette Karmiloff-Smith discussing “representational redescription.” 1:02:00 – A recent overview of issues surrounding “explainable” AI.    Recommendations Alison Gopnik, Andrew Meltzoff, & Patricia Kuhl, The Scientist in the Crib Frank Keil, Wonder: Childhood and the Lifelong Love of Science   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala.   Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com.    For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter (@ManyMindsPod) or Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).

Today's guest is Dr Kate Lynch, who will discuss the topic of 'causal explanation in science'. Kate is a philosopher of biology and a lecturer in HPS at the University of Melbourne. In this episode Kate introduces us to the difference between 'causation' and 'causal explanation', as well as difficulties involved in assessing what makes a good causal explanation. Some of Kate's research looks at medical explanations of death, including the complications that can be involved in deciding what cause of death will be officially documented. We were fascinated to learn of the varied practical, political, and even social considerations that can shape what cause a physician ends up recording on a death certificate. We also appreciated the way Kate used concrete examples like this to draw us into further discussion of the role social values play in science, all the way  down to the core scientific task of articulating causal explanations for natural phenomena.You can find more interviews with and by Kate on the ABC's Philosophers Zone below:The philosophy of biology - ABC listenCausation and death - ABC listenWhat can genes tell us? - ABC listenOther relevant links:Kate Lynch, Emily Parke & Maureen O'Malley 'How Causal are Microbiomes?'Kate Lynch '‘Gay gene' testing apps aren't just misleading – they're dangerous'Kate Lynch 'Genes are not destiny: environment and education still matter when it comes to intelligence'James Woodward on Causal ExplanationPeter Menzies 'Difference Maker'Tania Lombrozo 'Simplicity and Probability in Causal Explanation'Knobe & Fraser 'Causal Judgement & Moral Judgement: Two Experiments'The transcript for this episode can be found at: https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/s3-ep2-kate-lynch-transcriptThanks for listening to The HPS Podcast with your current hosts, Samara Greenwood and Carmelina Contarino.You can find more about us on our blog, website, bluesky, twitter, instagram and facebook feeds. This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne.www.hpsunimelb.org

In this episode, we discuss Quantifauxcation, described by statistician Philip Stark as “situations in which a number is, in effect, made up, and then is given credence merely because it is quantitative.” We give examples of quantifauxcation in psychology, including errors of the third kind. We spend the second half of the podcast discussing how to develop quantitative measures that are meaningful and bridge the divide between qualitative and quantitative observations.   Shownotes Statistics textbook by Philip Stark. Stark, P. B. (2022). Pay No attention to the model behind the curtain. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 179(11), 4121–4145. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-022-03137-2  Burgess, E. W. (1927). Statistics and case studies as methods of sociological research, Vol 12(3), 103-120. (Thanks to Andy Grieve!) Nick Brown's role in pointing out flaws in the positivity ratio. Retraction notice of the positivity ratio paper. Blog by Tania Lombrozo on nonsensical formulas in abstracts. Kimball, A. W. (1957). Errors of the third kind in statistical consulting. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 52(278), 133–142. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1957.10501374 Type III errors: Philip Stark's post of Deborah Mayo's blog Brower, D. (1949). The problem of quantification in psychological science. Psychological Review, 56(6), 325–333. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0061802 Guttman scales Wilson, M. (2023). Constructing measures: An item response modeling approach. Taylor & Francis. Wilson, M., Bathia, S., Morell, L., Gochyyev, P., Koo, B. W., & Smith, R. (2022). Seeking a better balance between efficiency and interpretability: Comparing the likert response format with the Guttman response format. Psychological Methods. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000462 Bhatti, H.A., Mehta, S., McNeil, R., Wilson, M. (2023). A scientific approach to assessment: Rasch measurement and the four building blocks. In X. Liu & W. Boone (Eds.), Advances in Applications of Rash Measurement in Science Education. Springer Nature.   

Luke is a lecturer working in the Department of Psychology at the University of Exeter. His research examines social and moral development between childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. Between 2017 and 2020 he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow on the Wellcome Trust, ESRC and NSF funded “STEM Teens” project. This project examined the role of youth educators in informal science learning sites, both by longitudinally following youth educators and by quasi-experimentally examining their role in these sites. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what's real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome - Previous guests Kristof Dhont (ep:47), Matti Wilks (ep:45) - PHAIR Society conference https://phairsociety.org/ 01:53 Luke Intro - Social & moral developmental #psychology - Human prejudice, discrimination - fairness, co-operation, resource allocation - PHAIR symposium on "The Meat Paradox" "That was a big inspirational moment for me" - Tania Lombrozo ep:168 04:13 What's Real? - "The beauty of this podcast is forcing people to wrestle with their own socialisation" - Mum from Northern Ireland & dad from Scotland "culturally religious backgrounds" - Going to church & "learning about the more scientific worldview alongside that... I wrestled with the conflict of those two things when I was younger" - Rural childhood "being face to face with the natural world" - "I sort of decided for myself when I was about 11 or 12 years old that the religious side of it was not really for me" - "My parents were so respectful of whatever we wanted to do as kids" - #punk and #metal - "There's lots of people who come from sub-cultures into this animal rights movement... it's those sub-cultural spaces where these more radical ideas are first laid down and then expand out into the broader world" - Nico Delon ep 159 - @moby 's Punk Rock Vegan Movie - "I haven't gone as far as the full animal rights sleeve tattoo yet but there's still time" - Peer influence "your parents might act as your early socialisers but a lot of what happens from when you're 6-7 years and older is down to the circles you're moving with in outside the home" - A vegetarian friend at 13 - "If you work in science for long enough you stop believing that anything can be proven 100%... do not use the word 'proof'... you cannot use that word." - "I'm with you - the more naturalistic view" - Nature-facing spiritual movements "pagans are on the rise again... people are turning back to nature" - Epistemological issues: #QAnon #antivaxx #flatearth #BigLie #trump #astrology #homeopathy #covid19 ... - "There could be a rational computational model for how we interact with the world but that's just not how it works - the social world is impossibly complicated and the human brain is not very well set up to understand... so we have to use these more simple heuristics" - "We see the importance of group membership time and time again - that identity aspect" - #ReplicationCrisis - "We have to use these simple decision-making processes because everything is too complicated" - "We can dream of being the rational thinker but we're never going to get there" - #misinformation , #disinformation , #conspiracy - Genuine vs. performative belief? - "What does it mean to really believe something?" ...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ via ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this simple form⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on FaceBook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Come join us there!

Tania is the Arthur W. Marks Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. She oversees the Concepts and Cognition Laboratory, which uses the empirical tools of cognitive psychology and the conceptual tools of analytic philosophy to study the human mind. Their research focuses on topics including explanation, learning, causal reasoning, and folk epistemology.  Tania is the recipient of numerous early-career awards including the Stanton Prize from the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, the Spence Award from the Association for Psychological Science, a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation and a James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition. She blogs about psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science at Psychology Today and for NPR's 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what's real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠. We discuss: 00:00 Welcome 01:49 Tania Intro - #interdisciplinary human #cognitivescience - Links to #epistemology & #ethics "I came to cognitive science from a background largely in philosophy of science & epistemology" - Questions at the boundary of empirical psychology & philosophy "how can we know things, what is knowledge, what does it mean to understand, how do we acquire understanding, how can we make the correct decisions" - "We can learn a lot from #philosophy " - What makes a compelling explanation & why we are so motivated to explain 03:57 What's Real? - "Because I am a psychologist I'm deeply sceptical of my own introspective sense" - Growing up in a #Jewish household and "I still identify as Jewish" - Jewish identity, community, ritual... "at the same time I feel like theistic beliefs just played pretty much no role in that at all" - Prayers: "They certainly talk about god, they certainly talk about occurrences that seem very, very implausible... but that just seemed to me to be not deeply connected to what was valuable or important about that religious identity growing up" - "That sounds somewhat foreign to many people I know from other religions where belief is really at the core of what it means to have a particular kind of a religious identity" - Not speaking Hebrew "you're able to get to a certain point where something might have meaning for you... before you actually know what it means" - "I definitely had experiences of actually reading the translations and being taken aback by them... this is what I've been saying?" - Hebrew School "I told my parents that it I thought it was a waste of time and I didn't want to keep going" - In high school "sought out Jewish education on my own... I discovered I was the only person there whose parents hadn't forced them to be there... it was a miserable class" - "I had a Jewish wedding... one of the conversations that we had with our Rabbi was that we didn't want god to be mentioned" - "Threading that needle... preserve some elements of a tradition that's meaningful... how to do it in a way that's consistent with other values that I hold." - "I think I'm a straightforward boring naturalist" - "I have no doubt that I routinely employ all sorts of background assumptions that I have not subjected to scrutiny & that I could not give good evidence based arguments for..." What Matters? Who Matters? A Better Future? ...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ via ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this simple form⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on FaceBook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Come join us there!

Tania Lombrozo is Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, where she directs the Concepts & Cognition Lab. Before that, she did her undergraduate work at Stanford University (!), her graduate work at Harvard University, and then taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Robinson and Tania discuss her work on explanation. Among other things, they touch on our intuitions about what makes explanations good, what makes certain observations seem to demand explanation, some of the differences between religious and scientific explanations, and how we reason about morally charged situations. Keep up with Tania's work through: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaniaLombrozo Tania's Website: https://psych.princeton.edu/people/tania-lombrozo The Concepts & Cognition Lab: https://cognition.princeton.edu OUTLINE: 00:00 Introduction 2:23 From Philosophy to Psychology 8:03:39 Tania's Interest in Learning and Explanation 11:28 Experiments to Test Our Intuitions About Explanation 16:16 Our Intuitions About What Makes a Good Explanation 27:06 Explanation-Based Processes 29:30 What Demands Explanation? 38:33 Religious and Scientific Explanation? 40:51 What Makes a Good Answer? 43:59 Marr's Levels of Explanation 48:36 Tania's Work with Neuroscientists 54:05 More on Explanations in Science and Religion 1:00:58 Moral Reasoning and Explanation 1:07:28 Can Science Explain the Human Mind? 1:12:57 Philosophy and Psychology 1:16:39 Psychology in Tania's Life Robinson's Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/robinson-erhardt/support

Tania Lombrozo on What Explanations Are https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/01/16/223-tania-lombrozo-on-what-explanations-are/ Dark Goya (Full length): The later Works https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2s&utm_source=pocket_reader&v=GLW9omJfAdk The Rise of the Nazis https://pca.st/5obbw5km The battle of the standards: why the US and UK can't stop fighting the metric system https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/16/23507199/us-uk-anti-metric-sentiment-beyond-measure-james-vincent-excerpt Decimal time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time Soviet calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_calendar Leia, Vale a Pena: 7 Laws of Magical Thinking https://leiavaleapena.com/2013/07/27/7-laws-magical-thinking/ Previsivelmente ... Read more

There are few human impulses more primal than the desire for explanations. We have expectations concerning what happens, and when what we experience differs from those expectations, we want to know the reason why. There are obvious philosophy questions here: What is an explanation? Do explanations bottom out, or go forever? But there are also psychology questions: What precisely is it that we seek when we demand an explanation? What makes us satisfied with one? Tania Lombrozo is a psychologist who is also conversant with the philosophical side of things. She offers some pretty convincing explanations for why we value explanation so highly.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Tania Lombrozo received her Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University. She is currently a professor of psychology at Princeton. Among her awards are the Gittier Award from the American Psychological Foundation, an Early Investigator Award from the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the Stanton Prize from the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.Web pageConcepts and Cognition LabGoogle Scholar publicationsPsychology Today articlesWikipediaTwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We humans make a lot of decisions. Apparently, 35,000 of them every day! So how do we improve our decisions? Is there a process to follow? Who are the experts to learn from? Do big data and AI make decisions easier or harder? Is there any way to get better at making decisions in this complex, modern world we live in?To dig into these questions we talked with…ourselves! We recently published our first book, Make Better Decisions: How to Improve Your Decision-Making in the Digital Age. In this book, we've provided a guide to practicing the cognitive skills needed for making better decisions in the age of data, algorithms, and AI. Make Better Decisions is structured around 50 nudges that have their lineage in scholarship from behavioral economics, cognitive science, computer science, decision science, design, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. Each nudge prompts the reader to use their beautiful, big human brain to notice when our automatic decision-making systems will lead us astray in our complex, modern world, and when they'll lead us in the right direction.In this conversation, we talk about our book, our favorite nudges at the moment, and some of the Great Minds who we have interviewed on Artificiality including Barbara Tversky, Jevin West, Michael Bungay Stanier, Stephen Fleming, Steven Sloman and Tania Lombrozo.If you enjoy our podcasts, please subscribe and leave a positive rating or comment. Sharing your positive feedback helps us reach more people and connect them with the world's great minds.Learn about our book Make Better Decisions and buy it on AmazonSubscribe to get Artificiality delivered to your emailLearn more about Sonder StudioThanks to Jonathan Coulton for our music This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit artificiality.substack.com

This week, we spoke with Dr. Tania Lombrozo, a Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, as well as an Associate of the Department of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values. Topics included: what prompts us to believe something, whether that's a religious credo, or a scientific explanation? Are those processes of belief the same or different when we think about religious or scientific answers? What counts as evidence for that belief, and who decides? 

Have you ever wondered why we humans love to use our intuition even when we are surrounded by data and we also know that even simple algorithms can be more accurate than human judgment? We put that exact question to Tania Lombrozo, Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Psychology and director of the Concepts & Cognition Lab at Princeton University, and it turns out that the answer is surprisingly complex. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit artificiality.substack.com

Occam's razor is the theory that given a choice between two hypotheses, the one involving fewer assumptions should be preferred. So why do we unconsciously and often unnecessarily complicate things that we desperately want to get right, like parenting? Tony takes a look at how understanding Occam's razor in the context of parenting gives us the permission to do what so many of us are trying to do in a variety of ways...love our kids! Tony refers to Tania Lombrozo, Ph.D.'s article "Choosing the Best Explanation Is Elementary, My Dear Watson" from Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/explananda/201201/choosing-the-best-explanation-is-elementary-my-dear-watson Please subscribe to The Virtual Couch YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/TheVirtualCouchPodcast/ and follow The Virtual Couch on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/virtualcouch/ This episode of The Virtual Couch is sponsored by http://betterhelp.com/virtualcouch With the continuing “sheltering” rules that are spreading across the country PLEASE do not think that you can’t continue or begin therapy now. http://betterhelp.com/virtualcouch can put you quickly in touch with licensed mental health professionals who can meet through text, email, or videoconference often as soon as 24-48 hours. And if you use the link http://betterhelp.com/virtualcouch you will receive 10% off your first month of services. Please make your own mental health a priority, http://betterhelp.com/virtualcouch offers affordable counseling, and they even have sliding scale options if your budget is tight. Tony's FREE parenting course, “Tips For Parenting Positively Even In the Not So Positive Times” is available NOW. Just go to https://www.tonyoverbay.com/courses-2/ and sign up today. This course will help you understand why it can be so difficult to communicate with and understand your children. You’ll learn how to keep your buttons hidden, how to genuinely give praise that will truly build inner wealth in your child, teen, or even in your adult children, and you’ll learn how to move from being “the punisher” to being someone your children will want to go to when they need help.Tony's new best-selling book "He's a Porn Addict...Now What? An Expert and a Former Addict Answer Your Questions" is now available on Kindle. https://amzn.to/38mauBoTony Overbay, is the co-author of "He's a Porn Addict...Now What? An Expert and a Former Addict Answer Your Questions" now available on Amazon https://amzn.to/33fk0U4. The book debuted in the number 1 spot in the Sexual Health Recovery category and remains there as the time of this record. The book has received numerous positive reviews from professionals in the mental health and recovery fields.You can learn more about Tony's pornography recovery program The Path Back by visiting http://pathbackrecovery.com And visit http://tonyoverbay.com and sign up to receive updates on upcoming programs, and podcasts.Tony mentioned a product that he used to take out all of the "uh's" and "um's" that, in his words, "must be created by wizards and magic!" because it's that good! To learn more about Descript click here https://descript.com?lmref=v95myQ  

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/explanation-its-best. In both everyday life and science, we often feel the pull of simpler, more elegant, or more beautiful explanations. For example, you notice the street is wet and infer the best explanation is that it rained earlier. But are we justified in assuming these tidy explanations are most likely to be true? What makes an explanation “simple” or “elegant” in the first place? And can the “loveliness” of an explanation ever be a good guide to its “likeliness”? Josh and Ken try to explain things with Princeton University psychologist Tania Lombrozo, co-editor of "Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy."

TANIA LOMBROZO is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as an affiliate of the Department of Philosophy and a member of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. She is a contributor to Psychology Today and the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos and Culture. The Conversation: https://www.edge.org/conversation/tania_lombrozo-learning-by-thinking

Humans have an innate urge to reach for explanations of the world around us. For example, "What caused this tragedy?" or "Why are some people successful?" This episode features psychologist and philosopher Tania Lombrozo, discussing her research on what purpose explanation serves -- i.e., why it helps us more than our brains just running prediction algorithms. Tania and Julia also discuss whether simple explanations are more likely to be true, and why we're drawn to teleological explanations (e.g., "Why does the sun shine? So that plants can grow.")

Our streak of very special guests continues!  Philosopher Eddy Nahmias joins the podcast to us why people mistakenly think they're not morally responsible, and how his new study casts doubt on Sam Harris's "pamphlet" on free will.  Eddy also describes his new project (with Toni Adleberg and Morgan Thompson) on why women leave philosophy.  Plus Dave and I discuss some reasons for having children, and eat a little Partially Examined Life crow. Links "Name five women in philosophy.  Bet you can't." Tania Lombrozo, [npr.og] "Do Women Have Different Philosophical Intuitions than Men?" Eddy Nahmias (philosophyofbrains.com) "Is Neuroscience the Death of Free Will?' Eddy Nahmias.  [nytimes.com] Eddy on Bypassing [agencyandresponsbility.typepad.com]Edd trashing Tamler's Book [agencyandresponsbility.typepad.com]     Special Guest: Eddy Nahmias.

University of California, Berkeley, psychologist Tania Lombrozo talks about why people believe what they do, especially regarding evolution or creationism. Author Steve Miller discusses his new book The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Science of Everything . Plus, we'll test your knowledge of some recent science in the news. Web sites related to this episode include psychology.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/tlombrozo.html