November 21, 2010 Our Guest, Dr. Steven Novella discusses a recent article in The Atlantic in which researcher John Ioannidis shows that 40% of papers published in top medical journals are either wrong or make exaggerated claims (and those are the top journals!).  He also discusses the difference between Science and Evidence based medicine. Also, Zombies: are they … Read more

November 7, 2010 Our guest, Joshua Knobe, is a philosopher interested in cognitive science, so interested, in fact, that he has contributed to establishing a whole new branch of inquiry known as experimental philosophy — and he plausibly claims that the name is not actually an oxymoron! The idea is summarized in this way on one … Read more

October 24, 2010 Massimo and Julia answer listeners’ questions. In this installment the topics include: can political discourse be rational, who changed M&J’s opinion on something and when have they changed someone’s opinion, how do they guard against biases when they debate people, the morality of bestiality, and did Samir Okasha really solve the induction … Read more

October 10, 2010 Ever notice how some beliefs only seem to become stronger, even as they’re repeatedly debunked? For example, the belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim, or that Bush banned all stem cell research in the country. Brendan Nyhan tells about what he’s learned from his research studies and his experience maintaining Spinsanity, a watchdog … Read more

September 26, 2010 You’ve heard the claims: men are inclined to cheat on women because natural selection favors multiple offspring from multiple mates, especially if you don’t have to pay child support. Even rape has been suggested to be the result of natural selection in favor of “secondary mating strategies” when the primary ones fail. … Read more

September 12, 2010 What’s so great about being human, anyway? The transhumanist movement — epitomized by organizations like Humanity+ and blogs like Accelerating Future — advocate the pursuit of technologies to fundamentally change the human condition, tinkering with our brain, bodies and genomes to make ourselves smarter, stronger, happier, and longer-lived. But many people worry that tampering … Read more

August 29, 2010 At a talk he gave at TAM 8, Massimo argued that non-experts in a field aren’t qualified to reject an expert consensus, such as that on anthropogenic climate change.  Most recently, he has taken Jerry Coyne to task for making a philosophical argument without having the necessary expertise. This raises a number … Read more

August 15, 2010 In the first of what we hope will be a regular feature of Rationally speaking, Massimo and Julia answer listeners’ questions. These range from what are M & J’s sacred cows, to how we should approach morally repugnant claims made by venerated philosophers, to whether we are deluding ourselves believing that our … Read more

August 1, 2010 Author, science historian, philosopher, and poet Jennifer Michael Hecht discusses her views on science, religion, and skepticism.  She talks about her book “The Happiness Myth“, showing how the very concept of happiness has changed dramatically both in time and across cultures, to the point that it may make little sense to simply … Read more

July 18, 2010 Is it possible that superstition is actually good for you? Well, it turns out that superstition may, at least some of the time, have beneficial effects.  A paper published in 2008 in Science for example, suggests that lacking control over a situation increases people’s propensity to see illusory patterns — the implication being that … Read more