April 24, 2011 In this one hour episode, recorded live at the 2011 Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, Massimo and Julia discuss bioethics with two special guests: Jacob Appel, doctor, author, lawyer and bioethicist; and Jennifer Michael Hecht, poet and historian of science. Topics covered included: Should parents be allowed to select the gender and sexual orientation … Read more

April 10, 2011 We all think that science is about objectivity and “just the facts, ma’am.” Not so fast, philosophers, historians and sociologists of science have been arguing now for a number of decades. To begin with, there are values embedded in the practice of science itself: testability, accuracy, generality, simplicity, and the like. Then … Read more

March 27, 2011 Vegetarianism is a complex set of beliefs and practices, spanning from the extreme “fruitarianism,” where people only eat fruits and other plant parts that can be gathered without “harming” the plant, to various forms of “flexitaranism,” like pollotarianism (poultry is okay to eat) and pescetarianism (fish okay). So, what does science have … Read more

March 13, 2011 Cordelia Fine joins us from Melbourne, Australia to discuss her book: “Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences.” Sex discrimination is supposedly a distant memory, yet popular books, magazines and even scientific articles increasingly defend inequalities by citing immutable biological differences between the male and female brain. That’s the reason, … Read more

February 13, 2011 Massimo and Julia sit down in front of a live audience at the Jefferson Market Library in New York City for a conversation about science, non-science, and pseudo-science. Based on Massimo’s book: “Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk” the topics they cover include whether the qualitative sciences are less reliable than … Read more

January 30, 2011 In honor of our first anniversary we invited Historian Timothy Alborn to help us understand the arbitrary nature of anniversaries, both those that mark events of personal significance and those that have a wider societal impact. We chose to record this episode on a very special “holiday”: Perihelinox. If you’ve never heard … Read more

January 16, 2011 In a recent article in the New York Times, Nicholas Wade reported that the American Anthropological Association had decided “to strip the word ‘science’ from a statement of its long-range plan.” Is this just a reflection of the long standing division between physical and cultural anthropology or is there more here? The revised … Read more

January 2, 2011 Massimo and Julia answer listeners’ questions, while trying to stay away from politics. In this installment the topics include: Is quantitative research more scientific than qualitative? Can philosophers really claim to have expertise on something? Is skepticism just another name for intelligence? How valuable is feminist philosophy? What is Bayesian reasoning? And … Read more

December 19, 2010 The term meme was introduced by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 bestseller “The Selfish Gene.” Dawkins was trying to establish the idea that Darwinian evolution is a universal, almost logically necessary phenomenon. He couldn’t, however, point to exobiological examples to reinforce the concept of universal Darwinism, so he turned to cultural evolution, renamed … Read more

December 5, 2010 Our guest, Carol Tavris discusses her book (co-authored with Elliot Aronson) “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts.”  In it they describe how our powerful cognitive dissonance engine of self-justification gives us the incredible ability to rationalize events and beliefs so that we always … Read more