Evolutionary Psychology (the podcast)

What's up with music? Why do vibrating strings tug on our emotions? And why can't most animals keep a beat? In this episode, we talk to Greg Bryant (UCLA) all about things acoustic and musical. Other topics include: the evolutionary logic of distortion in rock, laughter (including in rats!), and the psychology of perfect pitch and jamming.    More about Greg Bryant: https://gabryant.scholar.ss.ucla.edu/ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=urz-QfkAAAAJ&hl=en Greg's music: /gbryant.bandzoogle.com/home https://gbryant.bandcamp.com/album/soft-assembly-of-a-die-hard  

What is stress? Is it useful? What is the endocrine system? Why do we need it (and why isn't a brain enough)? In this episode, we talk to Jen Byrd-Craven (Oklahoma State) about all things stress and endocrine. Other topics include development, supposedly "over-active" stress responses, rage-bait, chilling out, obesity, parenting, status, teaching history, and much more.   More about Jen Byrd-Craven: https://byrd-cravenpsychobiologylab.mystrikingly.com/ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MYyZEL4AAAAJ&hl=en  

Along with Pete Richerson, Rob Boyd (ASU) is one of *the* founders of cultural evolution, and one of the key figures in connecting human behavior with evolution. A very special episode with one of the greats! To top it off, we have Rob's former PhD student (and previous guest) Cristina Moya, in the role of guest host.  More about Rob Boyd: https://www.robboyd.net/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyd_(anthropologist) https://search.asu.edu/profile/1952328 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YucHqSsAAAAJ&hl=en  

Are we one, or do we contain multitudes? In this episode, we explore the bizarre and fascinating world of microchimerism with Amy Boddy (UCSB).    More about Amy Boddy: https://www.anth.ucsb.edu/people/amy-boddy https://boddylab.com/ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jnNIBc4AAAAJ&hl=en  

What is status? What is inspiration? What is personality? It all sounds simple and obvious, but in this episode with Patrick Durkee (CSU Fresno), we make "the familiar strange" and think through how an evolved mind may figure out how to invest our time and energy, what inspiration means, and what personality really is.  More about Patrick Durkee:  https://www.pdurkee.com/ https://csm.fresnostate.edu/about/directory/psych/durkee-patrick.html https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=uj4K4rQAAAAJ&hl=en  

In this episode, we talk with Katrine Whiteson (UC Irvine) about her amazing work studying the human microbiome. We cannot stress enough how much we learned from this episode, from how to prevent your gut bacteria from becoming trashed by antibiotics, how to shop for food that will feed your healthy microbes and prevent blood sugar spikes. Other topics include: what's missing form our modern gut bacteria, the relationship between eating, cancer, and immune function, hunting for phages, and much more. A great example of using evolution to better understand our health.  More about Katrine Whiteson: https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=6103 https://kwhiteson.bio.uci.edu/

In this episode, we talk to Clark Barrett (UCLA) about all the ways we understand the mind, and all the ways that that understanding may be weirder and wider that our intellectual inheritance would have it. Topics include: lies, hunting magic, predicting the future, spirituality, dreams, Freud, fish with two jaws, embodiment, art, physical intelligence, not discounting other views of the mind, Konrad Lorenz, and the music of the Shuar.  http://www.hclarkbarrett.com/ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vIovbyUAAAAJ&hl=en https://www.geographyofphilosophy.com/    

It stinks to be sick. Our guest, Josh Tybur (VU Amsterdam), is the one of the foremost experts on how our brain--or better yet, our "behavioral immune system"--helps us avoid pathogens while still navigating the necessities of social and physical life: eating, hugging, parenting, mating, and so on. Topics include whether pathogen avoidance actually drives attitudes towards social outgroups, how disgust, sex, and morality all interact (including David's pet theory of kinky sexual practices), and whether evolutionary mismatch is over-used and under-specified (or not). Oh, that whole world-wide pandemic thing.  More about Josh Tybur: https://www.joshtybur.com/ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Ash8oRMAAAAJ&hl=en    

Intentions be damned! Whats matter is selection! In this episode, Paul Smaldino (UC Merced) takes us on a tour of his work on social signals, social identities, the perverse incentives of science, the stupidity and yet usefulness of models, and so much else. (Paul also shows us his small model of the solar system in the background).  More about Paul Smaldino: https://smaldino.com/wp/ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AwHfbP0AAAAJ&hl=en https://smalldinosaurs.bandcamp.com/album/dad-songs  

Consciousness: is it really that hard of a problem? In this episode, we talk to our favorite mechanistically-minded (and possibly clearest) thinker about consciousness we've had the pleasure to stumble across, Michael Graziano (Princeton). Topics include why consciousness has been so hard to study, what it is, and what future (evolutionary) work on consciousness would look like.  More about Michael Graziano: https://grazianolab.princeton.edu/ https://pni.princeton.edu/people/michael-graziano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Graziano https://www.press53.com/michael-s-a-graziano https://www.amazon.com/stores/B.-B.-Wurge/author/B001JS4X0U?