Why do we believe what we believe? And our we aware of why we believe what we believe? And what is a belief anyway? And what should we think of people like Jordan Peterson? We tackle these questions and more in this episode with Dan Williams (Sussex): our first guest representing evolutionary approaches to philosophy.    More about Dan Williams: https://danwilliamsphilosophy.com/ https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/  

Did we evolve to live long lives? Is heart disease a human universal? In this episode, we talk to Mike Gurven (UCSB), who has run a number of large-scale studies on the life and health of non-Western populations (among much, much more). And now, he has a new book out (Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer) summarizing the big picture of what we've learned so far!    More about Mike Gurven: https://www.anth.ucsb.edu/people/michael-gurven https://gurven.anth.ucsb.edu/   More about the book (Mike is the real deal, so we are happy to plug his book!): https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691231990/seven-decades Enter code (PUP30 for a discount) https://www.target.com/p/seven-decades-by-michael-d-gurven-hardcover/-/A-94306245 https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Decades-Evolved-Live-Longer/dp/0691231990/ref=sr_1_1  

What do the lindy hop, ostensive communication, and the evolution of language all have in common? Thom Scott-Phillips! In this episode, we discuss if language is an adaptation, why art museums have that certain vibe, the theory crisis in the behavioral sciences, the state of scientific publishing, and why Thom loves the lindy hop.    More about Thom Scott-Phillips: https://www.thomscottphillips.com/  

Humor is one of the great puzzles of evolutionary psychology. Co-host David Pinsof (UCLA) presents the coordinating “mix-up” hypothesis of humor, in which….well, you’ll have to listen to find out. By Dave’s account, it is one of the best accounts of the psychology of humor out there (but what do we know?) Content warning: this episode does contain humor (or at least attempts at it).   More about David Pinsof:  https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:  https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski

Plants are mini chemical weapon factories! Learning and evolution are not opposed! This week, Annie Wertz (UCSB) joins us to describe her groundbreaking world on the evolutionary psychology of what babies know about plants, and how infants selectively use social information to guide their interactions with them. A lovely example of how adopting an evolutionary perspective inspires new areas of research, and a good example of how evolution builds learning mechanisms.    More about Annie Wertz:  https://psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/annie-e-wertz https://lilac.psych.ucsb.edu/

Pat Barclay (Guelph) joins us to discuss his work solving the mysteries of the evolution of cooperation. Pat is a wonderful human being and an exceptional scientist, whose work is at the forefront of understanding how and why we solve the problem of cooperation as a species.  More about Pat Barclay:  http://patbarclay.com/  More about David Pinsof:  https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:  https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski  

Why would a mind ever be delusional or depressed, and can we understand these as functional or maladaptive outcomes? Why do humans take drugs, and why do plants make them in the first place? (And why might the answer to the second question also answer the first?) Join us on a fun, wide-ranging conversation with guest Ed Hagen (Washington State, Vancouver) one of evolutionary psychology’s most encyclopedic minds.    More about Ed Hagen: https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/people/hagen/ https://blog.edhagen.net/   Evolutionary Psychology FAQ: https://grasshoppermouse.github.io/evpsychfaq/   More about David Pinsof: https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski: https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski

Guest Cristina Moya (UC Davis) is one of our favorite evolutionary behavioral scientists. In this episode, we discuss her work in Peru on ethnolinguistic group boundaries, why we all believe crazy things, and what the lay of the land is in the evolutionary behavioral sciences.    More about Cristina Moya: https://sites.google.com/site/cristinasolermoya/pubs?authuser=0 https://anthropology.ucdavis.edu/people/cristina-moya   More about David Pinsof:  https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:  https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski

Guest Brenda Bowser (CalState Fullerton) recounts a life spent studying conflict and politics in Canambo, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, with her late husband and colleague John Q. Patton. Brenda shares first and second hand accounts of incredible events (including death by phantasm), and how she thinks about status, violence, and conflict, and how these relate to our connections with others. One of our most memorable episodes!    More about Brenda Bowser: https://anthro.fullerton.edu/People/BrendaBowser.aspx https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-amazonian-house/   More about John Q. Patton: https://news.fullerton.edu/2024/11/anthropology-scholars-students-host-symposium-to-honor-late-professor/ https://anthro.fullerton.edu/People/JohnPatton.aspx https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NkJttDkP2ZID-a7HSgUNzIfSOlMnQ51I/view?usp=drive_link   John Q. Patton Memorial Symposium:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KRRcx00RJmWI6VKcwGs8ms29lRNnP-5oY6VIPqeEkNg/edit?tab=t.0    

Egalitarianism is not what you think it is! Guest Chris Von Rueden (URichmond) has wrapped his head around what egalitarianism is and shares his insights and what he’s learned living with and studying the Tsimane, hunter horticulturists in the Bolivian rainforest. TL;DR: How to make a more just society requires respecting the complexity of our evolved psychology.  More about Chris Von Rueden:https://sites.google.com/site/chrisvonrueden/home Tsimane Health and Life History Project:https://tsimane.anth.ucsb.edu/ More about David Pinsof: https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ https://www.kremslab.com/people More about Dave Pietraszewski: https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski  

Why do we appeal to disgust when we moralize, and why do we moralize what we find disgusting? Guest Deb Lieberman (UMiami) explains why our human propensity to gang up on others may be driving a lot of our moral sentiments, and why she gets uncomfortable when people appeal to disgust to argue for what is right and wrong.    More about Debra Lieberman:  https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OhbXo2kAAAAJ&hl=en https://people.miami.edu/profile/820e96aef57fc53a0625013a86f7ecee https://www.amazon.com/Objection-Disgust-Morality-Debra-Lieberman/dp/0190491299   More about David Pinsof:  https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:  https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski

From offering the UN insights into the psychology of terrorists to interviewing victims of war-torn Croatia, guest Michael Moncrieff has seen a lot of life and yet remains hopeful. Dave wonders aloud why we are so blind to the civilian impacts of war and David and Michael discuss predatory rationality. Michael explains the history of the drag-queen phenomenon from an evolutionary psychological perspective.    More about Michael Moncrieff:   https://www.michaelmoncrieff.com/   More about David Pinsof:    https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/   https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:    https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski

Dave and David read a review of the podcast, and future guest Pat Barclay (Guelph) joins them for a second reading. Topics include why it may be good to be skeptical of high production values, and the tradeoff between focusing on basic research findings versus their broader implications.

Dave and David move beyond the controversies to explain—and give examples of—evolutionary psychology done well. Topics covered include the science of racial categorization and why we get angry. If you’re looking for examples of novel insights in evolutionary psychology, this episode is for you.    More about Evolutionary Psychology    The Center for Evolutionary Psychology “Primer”   More about David Pinsof:    https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/   https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:    https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski

Helicopter parenting is not a human universal! Guest Sheina Lew-Levy (Durham) explains what drew her to studying childhood among BaYaka foragers in the Congo Basin, and what parenting and childhood is like there and how this helps us understand who we are and what we need growing up. In this episode we also cover why field anthropologists are bad*ss and how, for David, “roughing it” involves staying at a 3-star hotel without room-service.    More about Sheina Lew-Levy:    https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/sheina-lew-levy/   https://sites.google.com/view/sheinalewlevy/home   More about David Pinsof:    https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/   https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:    https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski  

Why is the study of friendship so lonely, and what makes Philadelphia Philly? Guest Jaimie Krems (UCLA) explains why friendship is a blindspot in science, and why she has no advice to give you if you’re feeling lonely (we’re only half-kidding). If you do want friends, don’t want friends, or have friends, you should listen to this episode.  More about Jaimie Krems:    UCLA Social Minds Lab   More about David Pinsof:    https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/   https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:    https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski  

Guest Daniel Conroy-Beam (UCSB) explains why human mating has occupied the interest of evolutionary psychologists, what consequences this has had on science, and how things might be done better. If you want to understand the science behind why we prefer certain other people to bonk, don’t listen to this episode (we’re kidding, this is exactly what Dan studies).    More about Daniel Conroy-Beam:    Computational Mate Choice @ UCSB   https://psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/daniel-conroy-beam    More about David Pinsof:    https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/   https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:    https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski

Dave and David plunge (or dip a toe) into the controversies surrounding evolutionary psychology and try to make a good-faith effort, while not suffering fools (or internet trolls) lightly.  Listen through to the end of this one.    More about Evolutionary Psychology  The Center for Evolutionary Psychology “Primer”   More about David Pinsof:  https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:  https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski

Co-host Dave Pietraszewski explains how he learned to love evolutionary psychology despite hating it at first, why attending basement cults as a child in upstate New York wasn’t all bad, really, and why he thinks understanding the human mind will require eventually understanding the evolutionary psychology of psychologists.    More about Evolutionary Psychology  The Center for Evolutionary Psychology “Primer”   More about David Pinsof:  https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:  https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski   Things mentioned this Episode:  Dave & Annie Wertz’s Modularity Paper Planetary Regression Dave’s How our intuitive psychology shapes our science paper Wayne Wu's paper on attention Music by David Pinsof Produced by Naomi Monahan-Miller  

Co-host David Pinsof explains how he discovered evolutionary psychology, why it might not be bulls**t, and why we hate status-seekers (most of the time). Since this is our first episode and it’s been a while, there may be other stuff in this episode, but we don’t remember what it is.   More about Evolutionary Psychology  The Center for Evolutionary Psychology “Primer”   More about David Pinsof:  https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ https://www.kremslab.com/people   More about Dave Pietraszewski:  https://cal.psych.ucsb.edu/david-pietraszewski   Things mentioned this Episode:  The Center for Evolutionary Psychology: Publication List Matrix Scene https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/ Status is a Four-Letter Word Paper David’s Politics as Alliances Paper  David’s Social Paradoxes Paper Dave & Annie Wertz’s Modularity Paper Music by David Pinsof Produced by Naomi Monahan-Miller