unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

“Belief” as a word can take on so many meanings. Most people only think about it in terms of religion. But our guest says belief plays a central role in many other critical distinctively human things, including economics, love and politics. He further defines belief as the “capacity humans have to commit wholly and fully to this mix of experience, imagination, ideology, thoughts, and ideas.” Agustín Fuentes is a primatologist and biological anthropologist at Princeton University whose research focuses on the biosocial, delving into the entanglement of biological systems with the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. From chasing monkeys in jungles and cities, to exploring the lives of our evolutionary ancestors, to examining human health, behavior, and diversity across the globe, Agustín is interested in both the big questions and the small details of what makes humans and our close relations tick. His written works include “Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature,” “Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being,” and “The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional.”Greg and Agustín dig into the world of believing, discussing how human niches differ from other organisms, tolerating heterogeneous cultural beliefs, and the physiology of our beliefs, and what we are getting wrong about human nature.Episode Quotes:The disconnection of empathy in academicsI think one thing that we're really lacking here in the current United States in the moment is empathy, and I think academics lack a lot of empathy frequently. You can't be in someone else's mind if you don't share those beliefs, but you can empathize with them. You can listen. You can sort of get an idea, right? Remember, the philosopher Thomas Nagel says, "You can't think yourself into the mind of a bat." You can't fully think yourself into the mind of someone who believes something radically different from you, but you can listen to them. You can empathize with them. You can try to understand where they're coming from, and that gives you, I think, as close as possible, that connection.On human beliefWhen I'm talking about human belief, what I'm talking about is this ability to take life experiences, understandings, information, imaginings, possibilities, ideologies, and to put them together in such a manner that they become wholly real, fully felt, and experienced by the individual.The complexity on human natureThey say human nature, I say human natures. There are many successful ways to be human. There's these commonalities and these patterns, we better know what they are. But actually there's more variation and more interesting complexity than most people think.Show Links:Resources:Episode 110: Cecilia Heyes — unSILOed PodcastSemiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce - WikipediaEpisode 103: Edward Slingerland — unSILOed PodcastThe Encultured BrainGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Princeton UniversityProfessional Profile at SapiensAgustín Fuentes WebsiteAgustín Fuentes on LinkedInAgustín Fuentes on TwitterAgustín Fuentes on FacebookAgustín Fuentes at TEDxUNDHis Work:Agustín Fuentes on Google ScholarWhy We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being (Foundational Questions in Science) Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You, Second Edition: Busting Myths about Human NatureThe Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans ExceptionalBiological Anthropology: Concepts and ConnectionConversations on Human NatureMonkeys on the Edge: Ecology and Management of Long-Tailed Macaques and their Interface with Humans Evolution of Human BehaviorCore Concepts in Biological Anthropology Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greg says our guest's book, “Bernoulli’s Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science” is “a bombshell in a sense,” making some very, very bold claims. Aubrey Clayton is an applied mathematical researcher, lecturer, and writer. He currently teaches graduate courses in the philosophy of probability at the Harvard Extension School, and has written for publications like the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Nautilus. Additionally, Aubrey says he technically “worked on Wall Street” but only in the same sense that a hot dog vendor does. Greg and Aubrey dive deep into the radical ideas behind Aubrey’s book, the merits of the scientific method as a process, Bayesian Statistics, and the replication crisis in this conversation.Episode Quotes:Probability and informationWe have to come up with a form of probability that has all the mathematical properties that we want it to have. But that also is usable in the sense of, you know, applies to all these different settings where you need to assign probabilities to things. And I think that the answer probably has to do with information.The essence of Bernoulli’s FallacyIt gets back to a desire to make probabilities observable and measurable in the form of frequency.Bernoulli’s FallacyBernoulli’s Fallacy is the idea that you can make good decisions about hypotheses, scientific hypotheses or statistical hypotheses, or just research theories in general, using the language of probabilities. But focusing entirely on probabilities that are oriented in the direction of: “if a hypothesis is true, then what is the probability of some observation or some data.”Show Links:Resources: Statistical Rethinking | Richard McElreathDaryl Bem Ronald Fisher Thomas Bayes Edwin Thompson JaynesP-valueGuest Profile:Professional Profile on Moody's AnalyticsAubrey Clayton WebsiteAubrey Clayton on LinkedInAubrey Clayton on TwitterAubrey Clayton on YoutubeHis Work:Aubrey Clayton’s ArticlesBernoulli's Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The last time you had a definitive question about something: an actor in that movie, or maybe something your friend did at a party last week. Did you try to figure it out on your own and think over the answer, or head to the internet to confirm your quandaries? Are we losing our ability to be naturally curious by always having concrete answers available in mere seconds?Ian Leslie is a writer and author of acclaimed books on human behaviour. Ian’s first career was in advertising, as a creative strategist for some of the world’s biggest brands, at ad agencies in London and New York. He now writes about psychology, culture, technology and business for the New Statesman, the Economist, the Guardian and the Financial Times. Some of his books include “Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It,” and “Conflicted: Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart and How They Can Bring Us Together.”Ian and Greg debate the pros and cons of classic curiosity in this episode, delineate the different kinds of curiosity, as well as marriage & “good” disagreements. Episode Quotes:The good effect of having conflictsIn a conflict, particularly if it's heated, you are actually learning about the other person. You are learning about what they really care about. What they really think like once the veil of politeness, which exists even in intimate relationships drops, or once the kind of veil of passivity drops, we often just avoid these things If we can. When you actually have the row, you have it out. You're seeing the inside of that person's mind and that person's heart and emotion is part of that. So if it's too kind of rational you might not see that and that ultimately brings you closer. Because as a couple, you know, you are both evolving. You think you know each other really well, but under the surface, each of you is changing and moving. The Value of CuriosityOne valuable thing about curiosity is that it takes you away from your specialization as well as driving you deeper into it.Diversive Curiosity So diversive curiosity is this hunger for the novel, for the new, for the: Ooh! What's that? Let me see. And it gets you off the beaten path. So whatever you're doing, whatever you're thinking about, diversive curiosity will pull you off it and it's an instinct. It's something you feel almost against your will or you know, it's involuntary.Show Links:Guest Profile:Speakers Profile at Chartwell SpeakersIan Leslie WebsiteIan Leslie on LinkedInIan Leslie on TwitterIan Leslie on SubstackHis Work:His Work on The GuardianConflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes Born Liars: We All Do It But Which One Are You - Psychopath, Sociopath or Little White Liar?Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As machine learning and AI mature and adapt to the humans that created them, it's important we think carefully about not only what is creativity, but what is uniquely human about creativity.Marcus du Sautoy is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the Oxford University, a chair he holds jointly at the Department of Continuing Education and the Mathematical Institute, as well as a Professor of Mathematics and a Fellow of New College.His many books dive deep into the world of machines and creativity, and include “Thinking Better: the Art of the Shortcut,” and “The Creativity Code.”He sits down for this stimulating conversation with Greg covering generative adversarial networks, Ada Lovelace and machine generated music, crediting the code or the coder, and what the future holds for art & AI.Episode Quotes:Two kinds of algorithm we need at work:You need a sort of two algorithms at work. One is the creator coming up with babbling new ideas. And then the second is like, oh, the judgments. No, that's no good. That doesn't work because of this. And you know in my own research, I often pair up with another mathematician and we play these two roles, the creator and the discriminator.So, I think some of the most interesting algorithms that we're seeing that are beginning to look like they're making something genuinely new are capturing that element that we take advantage of as humans.Machines still need humansMachines might be able to do things at speed or at depth that a human could never achieve. But ultimately, we should credit the creativity with the human that told the machine what to do.The Emotional Resonance to MathematicsAda Lovelace went to see, you know, Charles Babbage making a machine do math, but, no, it wasn't doing math. It was doing arithmetic and that's the kind of bread and butter. But mathematics is something much more creative. And, we use this word creativity as a kind of protective shield about, against why a computer can't do what we're doing, because we're making lots of leaps into the unknown, lots of choices, things we choose proofs, which kind of move us emotionally because they got “Aha” moment in them.Show Links:Resources:The ContinuatorThe Turing TestForget Turing, the Lovelace Test Has a Better Shot at Spotting AIAda LovelaceAlphaGoGPT3 algorithmAnish KapoorLibrary of BabelDeep Dream GeneratorGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at University of OxfordProfessional Profile at the Royal SocietyMarcus du Sautoy WebsiteMarcus du Sautoy on TwitterMarcus du Sautoy on FacebookMarcus du Sautoy on YoutubeMarcus Sautoy on TEDTalkHis Work:The Creativity Code: Art and Innovation in the Age of AIFinding Moonshine BlogThinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut in Math and LifeI is a Strange LoopHow to Count to Infinity (Little Ways to Live a Big Life Book 1)The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of ScienceWhat We Cannot Know: From consciousness to the cosmos, the cutting edge of science explainedThe Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics The Number Mysteries: A Mathematical Odyssey through Everyday Life (MacSci)Symmetry: A Mathematical Journey Finding Moonshine: A Mathematician's Journey Through Symmetry Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When Greg found out that Massimo Pigliucci had a PhD in biology and a PhD in philosophy, he knew that this was somebody he had to get on the show.Massimo Pigliucci has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee, and is currently the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His research interests include the philosophy of science, the nature of pseudoscience, and practical philosophies like Stoicism and New Skepticism.At last count, Prof. Pigliucci has published 176 technical papers in science and philosophy. He is also the author or editor of 16 books, including the best selling “How to Be A Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life,” “Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk,” and the most recent “The Quest for Character: What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us about Our Search for Good Leaders.”Massimo and Greg dig into where morality might come from in a scientific way, the decisions that lead to our lifestyle choices, and “doing your own research.” Episode Quotes:Misconceptions about philosophyWhen people think about philosophy, they think about really complex, abstract process of thinking. But the choices you make on a day-to-day basis, your priorities in life, etc. will be evident to a psychologist, or a behavioral ecologist, or an economist, just by observing what you do. Right? And those choices will reflect an underlying set of values and priorities, which is what I would call a philosophy of life and everyone has it. Science & philosophy are interconnectedI used the word "Sci-Phi" to signify that science and philosophy need to work together to give us the best understanding of not only the world, as it is and as it works. But also how we should behave and what we should do about our lives.There are different paths to living a good lifeSo what an expert can do, is to provide you with options and say, okay, so if your question is how to live a good life as a human being, how to figure out the best way to spend your life, how to figure out your priorities and things like that. There are a number of options. And I, as an expert, can present you with those options and can walk you through those options. But I can't tell you which one you should choose because they are equivalent, meaning there are different paths to living a good life.Show Links:Resources:DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA: EVOLUTION AND THE MEANINGS OF LIFE Chrysippus | Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyOn the Ends of Good and Evil: De Finibus Bonorum et MalorumGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at City College of New YorkProfessional Profile at PhilPeopleMassimo Pigliucci WebsiteMassimo Pigliucci on TEDxAthensHis Work:His works on AeonMassimo Pigliucci on Google ScholarPhilosophy as a Way of Life PodcastStoic Meditations PodcastHow to Be a Stoic WebsiteThe Quest for Character: What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us about Our Search for Good LeadersThink like a Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World - AudiobookA Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for LivingHow to Live a Good Life: A Guide to Choosing Your Personal PhilosophyA Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control—52 Week-by-Week LessonsNonsense on StiltsHow to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life HardcoverAnswers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to A More Meaningful Life Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When Tina Cassidy set out to write her book “Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born,”in 2006, it was the first time in about 50 years an extensive work had been written on the subject, and the first by a woman. Birth is such an essential and important part of every life cycle, and all of us have been through it. Why haven't we seen more on the topic?Tina Cassidy writes about women and culture. In addition to “Birth,” she is the author of “Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait? Alice Paul, Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the Right to Vote,” as well as “Jackie After O: One Remarkable Year When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Defied Expectations and Rediscovered Her Dreams.” A former journalist who spent most of her career at the Boston Globe covering business, fashion and politics, Tina is also the Chief Marketing Officer of GBH. She sits down with Greg to discuss the medicalization of the birthing process, birthing in different cultures and the uniqueness of human birth.Episode Quotes:Giving Birth: From Home to HospitalA midwife wouldn't necessarily be a professionally trained woman. It would just be, you know, someone's mother, aunt, neighbor from the village. Someone who had probably given birth herself and learned from other women who had attended births, right? And that started to change around a hundred years ago with the advent of pain relief drugs, where Queen Victoria was among the first to say that she wanted and needed this. And only a doctor could be smart enough to be able to deliver that pain relief. So that's why birth then began to move from the home to the hospital.Childbirth is a reflection of cultureThe way birth typically happens in any given culture is often a reflection of that culture.Cultural differences in birthing around the worldThe Dutch have had historically one of the highest levels of home birth anywhere in the world, even today. And if you think about the level of equality that Dutch women have in that society, it basically shows that people have faith in women giving birth. And that women have faith in themselves to give birth at home. Show Links:Guest Profile:Professional Profile at WGBH Educational FoundationAuthor’s Profile at Simon & SchusterTina Cassidy’s WebsiteTina Cassidy on LinkedInTina Cassidy on TwitterTina Cassidy on FacebookTina Cassidy on TEDxBeaconStreetHer Work:Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are BornMr. President, How Long Must We Wait?: Alice Paul, Woodrow Wilson, and the Fight for the Right to VoteJackie After O: One Remarkable Year When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Defied Expectations and Rediscovered Her Dreams Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It was August 2011 when Mitt Romney famously told a crowd at the Iowa State Fair, "corporations are people, my friend." Corporations have had what you could call a civil rights history of their own, which has gone on in parallel to all other civil rights movements. But with so much knowledge in this field publicly available to us, how could this entire history be so poorly understood?This is highlighted in Adam Winker’s work, and most recently his book, “We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Right.” Professor Adam Winkler is a specialist in American constitutional law, the Supreme Court, and gun policy, as well as the Connell Professor of law at the UCLA School of Law. He is also the author of “Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America.” Greg and Adam discuss this question among others, while also analyzing landmark cases in the flights of Corporations including Citizens United v. FEC, Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, and Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. Episode Quotes:The Supreme Court case that shaped our view on corporationsIn the Dartmouth College case, the Supreme Court firmly sided with the idea that a corporation was more like a person, an individual than it was like the government. The court, in that case, could have allowed the state of New Hampshire to take over Dartmouth College and said that a corporation is really just another state agency in some form or some mild form of a state agency or government actor. But instead, the court said that the corporation was on the private side, more like the individual, and had rights against the government. And so that decision was really essential in sort of changing how we started to think about corporations and they became less and less about achieving public purposes and more and more about achieving private purposes. That is to say, making money for investors.Corporations have racial identities"…we don't think of corporations necessarily as being black or white or whatnot, but the law treats them in such a way. We have laws that provide, for instance, various kinds of preferences, affirmative action, if you will, for minority business enterprises. Well, what is a minority business enterprise, other than a corporation that has been deemed to have a racial identity."Why focus on corporate issuesCorporations have not all of the same rights as you and me, but nearly all the same rights as you and me. And pretty much all of the rights that a corporation or a business person could want the corporation to have. And so, I realized that this was a story that hadn't been well told, and as I dug into it, I found that it was a much more interesting, unexpected, surprising, and fascinating history than I could have ever imagined.Show Links:Recommended Resources:BlackstoneCitizens United v. FEC Dartmouth College v. Woodward - WikipediaCharles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge - WikipediaBank of the United States v. Deveaux - WikipediaBurwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. - WikipediaPeoples Pleasure Park Co. v. Rohleder, 109 Va. 439 (1909) | Caselaw Access ProjectRoscoe Conkling - WikipediaSanta Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. - WikipediaDaniel Webster - WikipediaLochner era - WikipediaMasterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission - WikipediaUnited States v. Carolene Products Co. - WikipediaBrown v. Board of Education - WikipediaGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at UCLA LawProfessional Profile at The Federalist SocietyAdam Winkler on LinkedInAdam Winkler on TwitterAdam Winkler on InstagramAdam Winkler on PBS NewsHourHis Work:We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil RightsGunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

David Buss is one of the founders of the field of evolutionary psychology, currently at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary research focus is on strategies of human mating, and he is most well-known for his studies on mate selection, tactics of mate attraction, infidelity, tactics of mate retention, tactics of mate poaching, and the mating emotions of jealousy, lust, and love.David has also authored several books for wide audiences, such as “The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating,” and most recently “When Men Behave Badly” and also textbooks such as “Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind.” This episode covers topics like freedom of sexual choice, error management in the sexual domain, jealousy, polyamory and online dating.Episode Quotes:Mating evolution and long-term relationshipsOn average, men find women to be more attractive than women find men. And we know that a lot of mating, historically, that has over evolutionary time has been hypergamous, that is women marrying up in SES (Socioeconomic status) and polygynous mating system allows that to some degree. And we know that women have evolved mate preferences for men who are high in status. And so you have, these online dating formats, women going after the top 20% of the guys. And so then there are 80% of the guys who experience few or no mating opportunities. And this is a big problem because that top 20% of the males who receive all the female sexual attention are typically unwilling to commit to a long-term mating relationship.Function of JealousyOne of the functions of jealousy is that it evolved to preserve paternity certainty, on the part of the investing male.On vulnerability and moving awaySo you take a young woman surrounded by close kin who function as body guards and deterring sexual aggression. And in the modern environment, ship them off a thousand miles away to a college or university, where they have no kin around and they lose also their friendship network that they previously had in their hometown. And so you stripped them of their body guards, and that makes them vulnerable.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Error management theory - WikipediaMartie G.Haselton, Ph.D. | University of California, Los AngelesThe Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven PinkerGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at University of Texas at AustinDavid Buss on LinkedInDavid Buss on TwitterDavid Buss on FacebookHis Work:Buss LabDavid Buss on Google ScholarWhen Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and AssaultEvolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the MindThe Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human MatingWhy Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between)The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to KillThe Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Whether it's smoking cigarettes or mindlessly buying things on Amazon, breaking bad habits can be incredibly difficult. Judson Brewer, MD, Ph.D. or “Dr. Jud” is a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery,” who blends over 20 years of experience with mindfulness training and a career in scientific research. He is passionate about understanding how our brains work, and how to use that knowledge to help people make deep, permanent change in their lives — with the goal of reducing suffering in the world at large.He is also the director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, where he also serves as an associate professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of Public Health and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University. Judson’s published works include “The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love, Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits” and the best-seller, “Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind.”Judson is both an academic and an entrepreneur. And in this episode we dive into his many projects including his app based behavior change programs, how our brains reward system works, interest, curiosity and prioritizing all of the addictions available to us in modern society.Episode Quotes:On addiction & quittingThe process is the same, whether it's food or social media, the process is the same. If we can see and really see what we're getting from it, then we can learn to consume in moderation without forcing ourselves to like lock our phones in our trunk when we're driving. Or go through these really extreme behavioral ways to kind of force ourselves not to do things. We don't have to do that. It really comes back to like how can we just leverage the power of our minds, which is super powerful.Body vs. brainSo think of it this way. Our feeling body is much stronger than our thinking brain. So we can think something's bad for me, but that's not gonna help.Interest curiosityThat craving, we can go, oh no, I have to have a cigarette. Or we can flip that with interest curiosity and go, oh, what does this craving feel like right now in my body? And so here we go to the source, like, what is it that's driving me to do this? Show Links:Resources:Doritos Celebrates One Millionth Ingredient60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper on Mindfulness & Anxiety | Dr. JudGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Brown UniversitySpeaker Profile at TEDTalkProfessional Profile at SharecareJudson Brewer on LinkedInJudson Brewer on TwitterJudson Brewer on YoutubeJudson Brewer on InstagramJudson Brewer on TedMEDHis Work:Judson Brewer on Google ScholarFree Course for Healthcare ProfessionalsTrain Your Brain to Break Bad HabitsUnwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your MindThe Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love – Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jordan Ellenberg is the first official mathematician we’ve had on the show, but his work weaves through many different domains. Afterall, whether it's something like game theory or data science, it's all built on math.Jordan Ellenberg is at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics. His research centers on the fields of number theory and algebraic geometry, the parts of mathematics which address fundamental questions about algebraic equations and their solutions in whole numbers. Jordan has also been writing for a general audience about math for more than fifteen years; including “How Not To Be Wrong: The Power Of Mathematical Thinking,” “Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else,” his novel “The Grasshopper King,” and his “Do the Math” column in Slate. Jordan joins Greg to talk about what makes math special, how published studies might not be reliable, and, the geometry of how we relate to the world.Episode Quotes:Math & IntuitionImprobable things are very common. Like if you like open a book to a random page and look at it and you're like, wow, 432, what's the chance that I would've opened it to exactly the page 432, like pretty small, right? The book has a lot of pages. That's a very unlikely event. And yet something in you knows not to find that remarkable, even though it's definitely improbable. So you see how your intuition gets like a little weird and twisted around. You have to be very careful.Math class is hardWe know that it's like one of the classes that creates a lot of stress for kids. And one reason is that it is a venue where we tell people they're wrong.Math is fundamentalMath is like a fundamentally human activity. Every single human society that's ever existed does it. And if we sort of, slice off either our poetic side or our quantitative side, we're just like slicing off like part of our human nature. Why would we do that?Show Links:Resources: Geometry by Rita DoveGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at University of WisconsinJordan Ellenberg's WebsiteJordan Ellenberg on TwitterJordan Ellenberg on FacebookHis Work:Articles on SlateJordan Ellenberg on Google ScholarHow Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical ThinkingShape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything ElseThe Grasshopper King Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.