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Rationally Speaking Podcast

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Rationally Speaking is the bi-weekly podcast of New York City Skeptics. Join host Julia Galef and guests as they explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense, likely from unlikely, and science from pseudoscience. Any topic is fair game as long as we can bring reason to bear upon it, with both a skeptical eye and a good dose of humor!
We agree with the Marquis de Condorcet, who said that in an open society we ought to devote ourselves to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them."Rationally Speaking was co-created with Massimo Pigliucci, is produced by Benny Pollak, and is recorded in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village.

Rationally Speaking #198 - Timur Kuran on "Private Truths and Public Lies"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 720 views
  • over 6 years ago
  • 59:08

In this episode, economist Timur Kuran explains the ubiquitous phenomenon of "preference falsification" -- in which people claim to support something publicly even though they don't support it privately -- and describes its harmful effects on society. He and Julia explore questions like: Is preference falsification all bad? Are there ways to reduce it? And how much has the Internet changed the dynamics around preference falsification?

Rationally Speaking #197 - Doug Hubbard on "Why people think some things can’t be quantified (and why they’re wrong)"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 630 views
  • over 6 years ago
  • 53:08

In this episode Julia talks with Doug Hubbard, author of How to Measure Anything, about why people so often believe things are impossible to quantify like "innovation" or "quality of life." For example, because people often have a deep misunderstanding of the meaning of probability. Or because they're reluctant to violate "sacred taboos" by putting a number on something like the value of human life. Or because it feels vulgar to "reduce" important things to a number. Doug explains how he responds to these objections and others.

Rationally Speaking #196 - Eric Schwitzgebel on "Weird ideas and opaque minds"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 630 views
  • over 6 years ago
  • 01:05:45

Philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel returns to the show to explore several related questions: His taxonomy of the three different styles of thinker -- "Truth," "Dare," and "Wonder" -- and whether one of them is better than the others. His case for why it's bad to interpret people "charitably." And his seemingly paradoxical claim that we are frequently wrong about our own conscious experience.

Rationally Speaking #195 - Zach Weinersmith on "Emerging technologies that'll improve and/or ruin everything"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 640 views
  • over 6 years ago
  • 50:07

This episode features Zach Weinersmith, creator of the philosophical webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and the co-author (with his wife Kelly Weinersmith) of the new book Soonish: 10 Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. Julia and Zach talk about which new technology is the most likely to happen, which would be most transformative, and which would pose the most risk to the world. Also, has our society become too risk-averse? And what are the main bottlenecks to technological development?

Rationally Speaking #194 - Robert Wright on "Why Buddhism is True"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 640 views
  • over 6 years ago
  • 50:32

This episode features bestselling author Robert Wright making the case for why Buddhism was right about human nature: its diagnosis that our suffering is mainly due to a failure to see reality clearly, and its prescription that meditation can help us see more clearly. Robert and Julia discuss whether it's suspicious that a religion turned out to be "right" about human nature, what it means for emotions to be true or false, and whether there are downsides to enlightenment.

Rationally Speaking #193 - Eric Jonas on "Could a neuroscientist understand a microprocessor?"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 640 views
  • over 6 years ago
  • 01:04:37

The field of neuroscience has been collecting more and more data, and developing increasingly advanced technological tools in its race to understand how the brain works. But can those data and tools ever yield true understanding? This episode features neuroscientist and computer scientist Eric Jonas, discussing his provocative paper titled "Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor?" in which he applied state-of-the-art neuroscience tools, like lesion analysis, to a computer chip. By applying neuroscience's tools to a system that humans fully understand (because we built it from scratch), he was able to reveal how surprisingly uninformative those tools actually are. Julia and Eric also discuss the related question: what kind of tools *would* we need to really understand the brain?

Rationally Speaking #192 - Jesse Singal on “The problems with implicit bias tests”

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 700 views
  • over 6 years ago
  • 51:47

You may have heard of the Implicit Associations Test (IAT) -- one of the most famous instruments from social psychology, it's frequently cited as evidence that most people harbor implicit racism or sexism, even if they aren't aware of it. This episode features science journalist Jesse Singal, who argues that the IAT has been massively overhyped, and that in fact there's little evidence that it's measuring real-life bias. Jesse and Julia discuss how to interpret the IAT, why it became so popular, and why it's still likely that implicit bias is real, even if the IAT isn't capturing it.

Rationally Speaking #191 - Seth Stephens-Davidowitz on "What the internet can tell us about human nature" (Fixed)

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 620 views
  • over 6 years ago
  • 59:21

There are a lot of sensitive topics about human nature that would be interesting to study, such as people's sexual behavior, or how racist people really are. Researchers studying those questions have always faced the problem that we tend to lie on surveys -- but we don't lie to Google. This episode features Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, economist and data scientist, and author of the book Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. Seth and Julia discuss the insights new research gives us into which parts of the USA are more racist, what kinds of strategies reduce racism, whether the internet is making political polarization worse, and the sexual fetishes and insecurities people will only admit to their search engine.

Rationally Speaking #190 - Amanda Askell on "Pascal's Wager and other low risks with high stakes"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 630 views
  • over 6 years ago
  • 46:29

You've probably heard of Pascal's Wager: That it's rational to believe in God, because if you're wrong it's no big deal, but if you're right then the payoff is huge. This episode features philosopher Amanda Askell, who (though not religious herself) argues that it's much trickier to rebut Pascal's Wager than most people think. Amanda and Julia also discuss how to handle other decisions where a risk has very low probability but would matter a lot if it came true -- should you round them down to zero? Does it matter how measurable the risk is? And should you take into account the chance you're being scammed?

Rationally Speaking #189 - Stephan Guyenet on "What causes obesity?"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 590 views
  • almost 7 years ago
  • 01:06:49

In this episode Julia sits down with neuroscientist and obesity researcher Stephan Guyenet, to talk about what scientists know so far about the causes of obesity, and in particular the brain's role in regulating weight gain. Julia and Stephan cover questions such as: Why did obesity start to increase in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century? Does the body have a "set point" of fat that it tries to defend, and what affects those set points? Are low-carb diets more effective for weight loss than low-fat diets, and if so, what explains the difference?

Rationally Speaking #188 - Robert Kurzban on "Being strategically wrong"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 600 views
  • almost 7 years ago
  • 45:48

In this episode, recorded live at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, Julia interviews evolutionary psychologist Rob Kurzban, author of "Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite." Rob describes the "modular mind" hypothesis, and how it explains hypocrisy, self-deception, and other seemingly irrational features of human nature. Rob and Julia argue about how useful these kinds of "strategic wrongness" really are.

Rationally Speaking #187 - Jason Weeden on "Do people vote based on self-interest?"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 670 views
  • almost 7 years ago
  • 01:02:16

What determines which policies a person votes for? Is it their personality, their upbringing, blind loyalty to their political party? Or is it self-interest -- people voting for policies that will benefit themselves and the groups they belong to? This episode features psychologist Jason Weeden, arguing that self-interest is a much bigger determinant of voter behavior than most political scientists think it is. Jason and Julia talk about why researchers disagree over this question, and what "self-interest" even means.

Rationally Speaking #186 - Tania Lombrozo on "Why we evolved the urge to explain"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 700 views
  • almost 7 years ago
  • 01:08:33

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.")

Rationally Speaking #185 - Hans Noel on "The role of ideology in politics"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 610 views
  • almost 7 years ago
  • 53:27

We're used to conflating political parties (Republican and Democrat) with political ideologies (conservative and liberal), but the two were very distinct only a few decades ago. In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia talks with political scientist Hans Noel about why the Democrats became the party of liberalism and the Republicans the party of conservatism, whether voters are hypocrites in the way they apply their ostensible ideology, and whether politicians are motivated by ideals or just self-interest.

Rationally Speaking #184 - Gregory Clark on "What caused the industrial revolution?"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 660 views
  • almost 7 years ago
  • 01:06:17

Nothing changed the course of human history as much as the industrial revolution. Yet its cause is a mystery: Why did it occur in the late 1700s, and not sooner (or later)? Why did it occur in Britain, a relatively small and geographically isolated country, and not somewhere much bigger like China, or elsewhere in Northern Europe like the Netherlands? This episode features economic historian Gregory Clark, author of A Farewell to Alms and one of the leading scholars of the industrial revolution. Greg and Julia explore different theories, as well as the epistemological challenges of answering this kind of causal question about history.

Rationally Speaking #183 - L. A. Paul on "Transformative Experiences"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 630 views
  • almost 7 years ago
  • 52:36

What if you had the opportunity to become a vampire, irreversibly -- and everyone you knew who had become one said "It's utterly indescribable." Would you take the leap, not knowing what it would feel like, or how it would change your personality and values? That's an example of what philosopher L. A. Paul calls a "transformative experience," one that's especially hard to choose (or forgo) rationally, because of how unknowable it is and how it changes your very preferences. In this episode, she and Julia discuss real life examples of transformative experiences -- such as having children -- and debate how to deal with them.

Rationally Speaking #182 - Spencer Greenberg on "How online research can be faster, better, and more useful"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 660 views
  • about 7 years ago
  • 52:07

This episode features mathematician and social entrepreneur Spencer Greenberg, talking about how he's taking advantage of the Internet to improve the research process. Spencer and Julia explore topics such as: how the meaning of your research can change dramatically when you ask people *why* they gave the answers they did on your survey, how the sheer speed of online research can help us solve the p-hacking problem, and how to incentivize scientists to share their data and methods.

Rationally Speaking #181 - William MacAskill on "Moral Uncertainty"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 600 views
  • about 7 years ago
  • 54:16

This episode introduces "moral uncertainty," the idea that you shouldn't be overly confident in your moral judgments -- like whether it's okay to eat meat, for example, or whether it's okay to abort a baby. The episode's guest is Will MacAskill, a founder of the effective altruism movement and Oxford professor of philosophy. Julia and Will discuss how to take multiple moral systems into account when making a decision, and how to deal with "absolutist" theories that insist some actions have infinite badness, like lying.

Rationally Speaking #180 - David Roodman on "The Worm Wars"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 650 views
  • about 7 years ago
  • 48:00

In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia talks with economics and public policy expert David Roodman about the "Worm Wars" in social science -- the debate over whether deworming pills are an effective way to fight poverty. Along the way they discuss how to analyze a study, the differences between economists and epidemiologists, and how to make high stakes decisions when all your evidence is flawed.

Rationally Speaking #179 - Dani Rodrik on "Is economics more art or science?"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

  • 600 views
  • about 7 years ago
  • 48:44

This episode features Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, talking about the epistemology of economics: Are there any general "laws" of economics that we can be really confident in? Do economists discard models if the data doesn't support them? And why do economists disagree with each other?