unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

We've covered a lot of ground in 163 episodes of unSILOed. We’ve dug into topics like economics, psychology, biology, and many many more. So today we're going to tackle the meaning of life. It's about time, right?!Iddo Landau, Ph.D., is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa. He has written extensively on the meaning of life. His latest book is “Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World.” So let's dive into the meaning of life here. Within that, Greg & Iddo discuss perfectionism, subjective happiness, mediocrity as a virtue, “good enough mothers,” and finding meaning in doing the dishes.Episode Quotes:On the meaning of lifeI think in general, we should remember that life is terrible and life is wonderful. It includes horrific things and it includes very good and wonderful things. And many people, not all people, but many people, have quite a lot of power to live their lives in ways in which there is more meaningfulness or good than meaninglessness or bad.The business of philosophyThe business of philosophy is the pursuit of truth. So we should not try to cheat ourselves or delude ourselves.On happinessI think that happiness can be seen as of intrinsic value. I mean, there is good reason to be happy just for the sake of happiness. However, that does not mean that happiness and meaningfulness always come together.On perfectionismThe general thrust of perfectionism is the view or the sensation that if things are not excellent or perfect, of extremely high quality, then they're not worth anything. It's a bit like a person who looks into the sun and then is blinded because he cannot see anything that is in regular light. Show Links:Resources:Viktor Frankl - WikipediaWhat Is a "Good Enough Mother"? | Psychology TodayDonald Winnicott - WikipediaGuest Profile:Professional Profile at University of HaifaProfessional Profile at Psychology TodayHis Work:Iddo Landau on Google ScholarThe Oxford Handbook of Meaning in LifeFinding Meaning in an Imperfect WorldIs Philosophy Androcentric? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's a bit of a theme when it comes to Stuart Firestein’s books, with titles like “Failure: Why Science Is So Successful,” and “Ignorance: How It Drives Science.”Stuart Firestein is Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University where he and his colleagues study the vertebrate olfactory system. He says his lab is dedicated to answering that fundamental human question: How do I smell?In this episode, Stuart tells us about his lab, what it means to succeed in science, failure vs. error, and if there is a science of serendipity.Episode Quotes:On teaching science When I go to a conference or a meeting, fellow scientists, we don't talk about what we know, we talk about what we don't know, what we'd like to know. And so I thought, well, maybe that's what we should start teaching these kids a little bit of the, what we don't know, because that's really where, the cool science is. That's really where science happens. Failure is interestingI like to see experiments succeed now and again, but they're often more interesting when they don't quite succeed the way you think they would. On experiments & failure An experiment that's not replicated is often conflated with fraud, and those are two different things.Show Links:Resources:Principles of Neural Science (Principles of Neural Science (Kandel)) 5th EditionAntónio Egas Moniz (1874–1955): Lobotomy pioneer and Nobel laureate - PMCGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Columbia UniversityFaculty Profile at Santa Fe InstituteStuart Firestein’s WebsiteStuart Firestein on LinkedInStuart Firestein on TEDTalkHis Work:Stuart Firestein on Google ScholarFirestein LabFailure: Why Science Is So SuccessfulIgnorance: How It Drives Science Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

With all of the recent advances in machine learning, what’s left for us humans to do? Well, according to Ken Cukier, there is plenty: humans have not and may not ever be matched when it comes to thinking thru frames and models, using imagination to think through what is not in the data as much as what is in the data. Ken Cukier is a Senior Editor at The Economist, and host of its weekly podcast on technology. He is also an associate fellow at Said Business School at Oxford, researching artificial intelligence. His most recent book is, “Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil,” c0-authored with xxxx which is a follow up to the earlier book “Big Data: A Revolution That Transforms How We Live, Work, and Think” he co authored with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger. He is also the author of “Learning with Big Data: The Future of Education.”Listen as Ken and Greg discuss framing, re-framing, learning by teaching, and the educated elite. Episode Quotes:Fundamental difference between AI & humansHuman beings are able to visualize things that don't exist. We don't have to run the experiment, we can run it in our minds in our imaginations. The computers cannot do that. Artificial intelligence has no ability to conceptualize information that it doesn't have. It can only rely on information that it does have. That is the fundamental difference: that we are able to see things that are not there.Liberal perspectivismIsn't it interesting that people are bristling in 2022 of trying to adopt the position of other people to walk in their shoes, to see things through their lens. You wouldn't have expected that. Encouraging reframingBy the time you're in your late thirties, and you've touched a little bit of authority and responsibility and a little bit more income and business class lounges, what's the likelihood that you're going to risk that by coming up with a new idea? I mean, unless you're already in a venture backed startup, probably not. So we do such a terrible job as a society at encouraging that reframing and that fresh thinking, we need to get better at it.Cognitively lazy peopleI think some people are more primed to being more dynamic. Stand up comedians are probably the least cognitively (or good ones at least), are probably the least cognitively lazy in the world. They thrive on newness of changing their act, developing things. Show Links:Recommended Resources:Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World by Matthew BishopTheodore Levitt - WikipediaWhat Business Are You In?: Classic Advice from Theodore LevittFosbury Flop - WikipediaTania LombrozoJoel M. Podolny - WikipediaCal NewportDavid Foster Wallace - WikipediaGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Saïd Business SchoolProfessional Profile at The EconomistSpeaker Profile at TEDTalkKen Cukier’s WebsiteKen Cukier on LinkedInKen Cukier on TwitterKen Cukier on TEDSalon BerlinHis Work:Former Host of the Babbage PodcastKen Cukier on MediumFramers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and TurmoilLearning With Big Data: The Future of EducationBig Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When it comes to game theory, the stories we tell can be incredibly powerful, because it's not enough to just analyze a situation and come up with what you think is the right thing to do. You have to convince people to make change. David McAdams is Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, as well as a Professor of Economics in the Economics Department. McAdams has broad research interests in microeconomic theory and game theory, with particular focus on the epidemiology of information, with applications to infectious disease and misinformation, and auction theory, with applications to market design. David is also the author of "Game-Changer: Game Theory and the Art of Transforming Strategic Situations." Greg and David discuss all things game theory in this episode: why every transaction you've ever done is a prisoner's dilemma, how familiarity with game theory can make you a better person, and war games.Episode Quotes:Game theory and changeYou need game theory to imagine the big change. So you will never get there if you're just measuring around yourself and making little incremental things. To make big change, to dramatically make the world a better place, you need to have the vision that comes from game theory. And then going back to that storytelling, you can probably convince people, yeah, this is going to work.Why game theory?That's what jazzes me up the most about game theory. It just encourages you to think big and think creatively.Game theory and storytellingThe most powerful thing you get from being a game theorist is storytelling. You become a storytelling master. And this is powerful, but it can also be powerful in some really negative ways too.Show Links:Resources:Dani RodrikThe Ownership of Enterprise — Henry Hansmann Steve TadelisDo Firms Maximize? Evidence from Professional Football by David RomerNFL Coaches Are Too Chicken for Their Own GoodSam Brown (Biological Sciences, Georgia Tech)The Economics of Managing Evolution Guest Profile:Faculty Profile at Duke University: The Fuqua School of BusinessDavid McAdams WebsiteDavid McAdams on LinkedInDavid McAdams on TwitterHis Work:David McAdams on Google ScholarGames of Strategy Game-Changer: Game Theory and the Art of Transforming Strategic Situation Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There are many many opinions on how genetic engineering is affecting the future. But Beth Shapiro has an optimistic view of how humans seem to be much more conscious of the impact that they're having, and where genetic engineering fits into that impact. Beth Shapiro is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology r at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). She is also the director of evolutionary genomics at the UCSC Genomics Institute. Her lab's research focuses on a wide range of evolutionary and ecological questions, mostly involving the application of genomics techniques to better understand how species and populations evolve through time. She is also the author of a number of books including “Life as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined―and Redefined―Nature,” and “How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction.”Beth joins Greg to talk about how her career moved from studying bison to genetic engineering, megafaunal extinctions, and GMOs in our food.Episode Quotes:How science & genetics has evolvedI don't think anybody in the late 1990s or early 2000s had any idea how much we would learn by doing this. How much being able to reach directly into the past and pull genetic data directly from the past, like a snapshot into history, was going to change the way we think about foundational things like what makes a species.On human impactOur footprints, our fingerprints are on everything that's out there. Even the species that we're trying to protect and preserve. And I don't think that's a bad thing.The timing of megafaunal extinctionsThe timing of megafaunal extinctions around the world is different depending on which continent we're talking about. And it just so happens that that timing coincides with the archeological evidence of the first appearance of people in most parts of the world. What's difficult about this is that it also coincides in many places with really rapid and large scale climate changes. Show Links:Guest Profile:Faculty Profile at University of California, Santa CruzProfessional Profile at Howard Hughes Medical InstituteProfessional Profile at Advances in Genome Biology and TechnologyBeth Shapiro on LinkedInBeth Shapiro on TwitterBeth Shapiro on TEDxDeExtinctionHer Work:UCSC Paleogenomics LabBeth Shapiro on Google ScholarHow to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-ExtinctionLife as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined—and Redefined—Nature  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From bad teeth to appendix surgeries, it seems like our bodies are breaking down in modern times. So how has society and evolution changed how our bodies work?Alex Bezzerides is a professor of biology at Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho, where he teaches a wide range of biology classes, from human anatomy and physiology to entomology. He is also the author of “Evolution Gone Wrong: The Curious Reasons Why Our Bodies Work (Or Don't).”In this episode, Greg and Alex cover bipedalism and its baggage, sore feet and back pain, snoring and sleep apnea and other bodily quirks. Episode Quotes:Evolution and the rise of C-sections First, you have the bipedal issue, which did change the shape of the birth canal. That's the first piece of the difficulty of birth puzzle. And then the brain gets, triples in size, in that period of time from 5 million years to a couple of millionyears ago. And then with modern nutrition, you're able to feed that fetus in a way that it's never been fed before. So the women can develop and grow this child that is bigger than it's ever been. You put all that in the stew and mix it together and you've got a problem. Timeline of human speechSomewhere around 50,000 years ago is when the modern head and neck comes into place. That means for most of the time humans have been humans, they weren't capable of the type of speech that they are now.Why are feet are sore all the timeIt used to make sense for our feet, right? When they needed to be nimble and grabbing branches, doing all these things. But now it's just a mess. You got all these bones down there that are just pounding the earth, which is not what they were made to do. And they slip and slide and sprain.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Optima for Animals by R. McNeill Alexander Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee WilsonBecoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon Paperback by Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa  Jeremy DeSilva | Department of AnthropologyFastest 100 m running on all fours - Guinness World RecordsHolly Dunsworth – Department of Sociology and AnthropologyGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Lewis Clark State CollegeAlex Bezzerides’ WebsiteAlex Bezzerides on TwitterHis Work:Evolution Gone Wrong: The Curious Reasons Why Our Bodies Work (Or Don't) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What exactly is science? It's something that philosophers have grappled with quite a bit. Well, the good news is that you don't have to have a philosophical understanding of the foundation of science to understand science. Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School.He is the author of many many books, including “How to Talk to a Science Denier,” Post-Truth, and The Scientific Attitude.He sits down with Greg to look at science from a philosophical angle. They discuss flat earthers, anti-vaxxers and disinformation on the internet, paradigm shifts, the politicization of everything and becoming a philosopher of science.Episode Quotes:The problem with misinformation and science denial It's that it polarizes us and demonizes the other side. It creates a us versus them dynamic around empirical issues, so that we literally fall into, you know, and different teams and hate the people on the other side. And that gives scientists an impossible task to do good science communication.Science denial isn't newScience denial has been around for as long as science has. And I don't think anybody with a straight face can say that science denial is worse now than it was in Galileo's time. More on science deniersThey think of themselves as being more scientific than the scientists. More open-minded and more skeptical at the same time. That they're really the rigorous thinkers and that scientists are biased.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Richard Feynman - WikipediaKarl Popper - WikipediaMemoirs of an Unregulated Economist, StiglerBehind the Curve FilmGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Boston UniversityLee McIntyre’s WebsiteLee McIntyre on LinkedInLee McIntyre on TwitterLee McIntyre on FacebookHis Work: Lee McIntyre on Google ScholarHow to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy ReasonThe Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and PseudosciencePost-TruthThe Art of Good and EvilPhilosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)The Sin EaterRespecting Truth: Willful Ignorance in the Internet AgeDark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We all know the diseases associated with aging: cancer, heart disease, dementia. But what if they are just symptoms of and the disease is aging itself? How would this view affect our approach to medical research? While the last few centuries have extended human lifespan by decades, our healthspan has not kept up. New scientific insights are pointing toward a better understanding of the causes of aging and perhaps may lead to the extension of our healthspan.Sue Armstrong explores these topics and more in her latest book, “Borrowed Time: The Science of How and Why We Age.” She is a science writer and broadcaster. As a foreign correspondent based in Brussels and then South Africa, Sue worked for outlets such as New Scientist magazine and the BBC World Service radio.She has worked as a consultant writer for the World Health Organization and UNAIDS for more than 25 years, and has worked extensively on reporting on HIV and other science and health topics over the years.Sue joins Greg to discuss senescent cells, how the immune system degrades as we age, sitting as the new smoking and Alzheimers.Episode Quotes:Aging as a diseaseSo there's quite a lot of things we can do to ameliorate aging. But as long as it's seen as a completely natural process, there's no money in it. The FDA doesn't see it as a disease. It's not something that is recognized as something we should be curing. Extending life & the thesis of her latest book What I was interested in doing was exploring the biology of aging and what we could do to improve the health span while we were alive, rather than extend it into immortality. On working in biologyThere are absolutely no quick fixes, but what's fascinating about biology is the way it does something and it'll compensate in some other way and it finds ways to run things - it's so intricate. It's just wonderful. That's what I find so exciting about writing about it. Show Links:Recommended Resources:George Williams (philanthropist) - WikipediaDisposable Soma Theory of AgingBiosphere 2Guest Profile:Professional Profile at Mosaic ScienceProfessional Profile at Watson, Little LtdSue Armstrong on LinkedInSue Armstrong on TwitterHer Work:Articles in NewScientistArticle in Science Focusp53: The Gene that Cracked the Cancer CodeBorrowed Time: The Science of How and Why We Age Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Robert McCauley is the Kenan University Professor of Philosophy at Emory University with associated appointments in psychology, religion, and anthropology.In his view, our minds are better suited to religious belief than to scientific inquiry because the explanations that religion provides make intuitive sense to us and engage our natural cognitive systems, while science involves abstract thinking and forms of reflection that require a lot of mental work. His books include “Hearing Voices and Other Matters of Mind,” and “Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not.”Greg and Robert discuss a number of topics in this episode including contamination management systems, cognitive fluidity, and developing intuition.Episode Quotes:Religions & natural systemsBecause these systems are natural, cognitively natural, because they're intuitive, because they're automatic, because they're instantaneous, it just means that folks instantly know how to manage them. They don't need to be taught that God thinks about certain things, certain ways. Or that if he thinks about certain things, certain ways that he must want certain outcomes to, you know, go in one direction as opposed to another. Those are inferences that are just automatic.On scienceScience, it seems to me is something that also has certain cognitively natural dimensions to it.What is religionI actually don't offer any definitions of religion. I'm really not interested in definitions of religion, I'm not worried about that. What I'm interested in is cognition and how it Impacts whole host of systems out there in the world that we call “religions.”Show Links:Recommended Resources:Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Dan SperberStephen Jay Gould - WikipediaMichael McCloskey | Cognitive Science | Johns Hopkins UniversityJustin BarrettFrank Keil | Department of PsychologyShane Frederick | Yale School of ManagementProfessor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen - Autism Research CentreGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Emory CollegeProfessional Profile at Psychology TodayRobert McCauley’s WebsiteRobert McCauley on LinkedInHis Work:Robert McCauley on Google ScholarRobert McCauley on Psychology TodayHearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind: What Mental Abnormalities Can Teach Us About ReligionsPhilosophical Foundations of the Cognitive Science of Religion: A Head Start Why Religion is Natural and Science is NotBringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In economics and in finance, we're always trying to tease out timeless rules of how markets work. And yet, when we look out in the world, there's a lot of politics, there's a lot of history, there's a lot of particularity.  Our guest today emphasizes the importance of narrative, individual case analysis, and historical exploration. Charlie Calomiris is Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia Business School, Director of the Business School’s Program for Financial Studies Initiative on Finance and Growth in Emerging Markets, and a professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. His research spans the areas of banking, corporate finance, financial history and monetary economics, and he co-authored the book “Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit” with Stephen Haber.Today he chats with Greg about banking systems, Adam Smith, the medieval view of the corporation, bank bargains and the political origins of the subprime crisis.Episode Quotes:On our unstable economyYou know what I tell people, I said, you want to know why we have such an unstable economy? Look in the mirror, look in the mirror. You're the reason, you vote for these people and you do it on purpose because they've got you bamboozled.US vs CanadaI would describe the U.S. as a Federalist constitution. And I would describe the Canadian constitution as an anti-federalist constitution.On monopoly rentsThe way that we like to get there is to say to people, look, If you're trying to create a banking system, you need people to actually contribute the capital for banks. You need the banks to be willing to lend the capital. You need people to contribute to deposits for banks too. And so when you go through those participation constraints, you quickly realize that there are two solutions.Show Links:Guest Profile:Faculty Profile at Columbia Business SchoolProfessional Profile at Cornerstone ResearchSpeaker’s Profile at AAE SpeakersCharles Calomiris on TwitterCharles Calomiris at the 79th International Atlantic Economic Conference in Milan, Italy.His Work:Charles Calomiris on Google ScholarFragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce CreditChina's Financial Transition at a CrossroadsA Globalist Manifesto for Public PolicyU.S. Bank Deregulation in Historical Perspective Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.