Serious Inquiries Only

A recent article in The Cut discusses allegations of sexual abuse which were made based on "recovered memories." Regardless of the truth or falsity of the accusations, the science of memory may have been very badly represented in this article, to harmful effect. Carrie of Oh No Ross and Carrie breaks it down for us! Complete with a Satanic Panic tie-in. (Link to the letters.)

It is unfathomable to me that Senator Kyrsten Sinema wants to preserve this idiotic accident of history. It is not anything the founders intended. It's not in the constitution. It's pure crap that stands in the way of not just progress but basic governance. I do a mini break down of how we got here, and I have a few ideas of how we could get around the filibuster and not make liars out of Manchin and Sinema.

The only thing that could possibly wrestle the internet back from Bernie Sanders's warm mittened hands is the GameStop madness. Joining me to break it down and try to explain and comment on approximately 1 billionth of everything to it is Phil Ferguson of the Phil Ferguson Show! Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, short and to the point! Support the show at patreon.com/seriouspod! Come watch us on Twitch! Follow us on Twitter: @seriouspod Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SIOmembers For comments, email [email protected]

A recent article by Jonathan Jarry made a few waves on the internet recently, as it claims that the Dunning-Kruger effect might not actually be real! Official SIO Science-splainer Lindsey Osterman is on with a full breakdown! Is the effect real or is it just statistical noise? Tune in and find out! Links: (Original paper) Kruger & Dunning (1999), (Review chapter) Dunning (2011), (Response to early statistical critiques) Kruger & Dunning (2002), (First Nuhfer paper): Nuhfer et al (2016), (Second Nuhfer paper): Nuhfer et al (2017)

It's a celebratory show! I've got some thoughts on it all, and why we shouldn't waste any time being mad at Joe Manchin. Also, this election was closer than 2016 and that blew my mind.

A few weeks back I had Eli Bosnick on to talk about Nicholas D. Kristof's Pornhub article. Eli attacked some of the fundamentalist Christian sources for the piece, and talked about the plight sex workers who had been left without income after the backlash. Tom, from Cognitive Dissonance and Citation Needed, has major disagreements with Eli on the topic and wanted to respond.

Harris recently released another both sidesy "I'm the only rational one" podcast episode about the recent insurrection at the Capitol. While he condemns Trump and the right, he also makes a series of terrible arguments in the name of anti-wokeness. Lindsey and I are here to set him straight! *note I said 2 Capitol officers were arrested. They were only suspended.* Check us out at twitch.tv/seriouspod! Lindsey's Links: Reporting on police response to January 6th vs. BLM -WaPo, ProPublica, nbc news, Business Insider, Uprising: A Guide From Portland Articles contextualizing the “bending the knee” moment during the BLM protests: Metro Times, WaPo Reporting/video of police instigating and escalating violence in BLM protests: Drone Video of the BLM protest in Richmond, Guardian, CNN

I had a whole good news episode planned about Georgia. I have so much to say, and so many things to be positive about. And then some fascist f*cks stormed the Capitol building. Andrew and I just felt that we needed to get on the stream with our audience and talk it out. Don't worry, there will still be plenty of time for the good news later!

Topics include Democratic messaging, the working class, tips for cutting out meat, and more!

Today's show features fan-favorite Eli Bosnick explaining how much is completely wrong about an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof. The article claims that PornHub is "...infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags." These are very serious claims, and reading the article might make you feel ill. However, there is a serious problem with it. Listen in and hear the breakdown! Eli's Links: http://Trafickinghub.com, Daily Beast article about them, Exodus Cry page, Open Democracy on Exodus Cry, Exodus Cry's documentary on Netflix about how tinder leads to young teens getting kidnapped, Exodus Cry faq page, their Intervention manual, trafficking hub’s petition to shut the site down, Elevate Academy, their courses, their staff page, PornHub human screening, trusted flaggers, content removal form, digital systems for blocking content, PornHub best in class policies, Visa and other card companies pulled plug on PornHub.

It's part 2 of the Defending Evo-Psych series! This one was so much fun. Lindsey talks about sex differences in different species and how they are also present in human behavior. We talk about ridiculous birds, mating dollars, casual sex, and all kinds of fun stuff! Studies referenced: Singh (2002) - REVIEW, WHR, attractiveness, and fecundity, Li et al. (2002) - necessities and luxuries of mate preferences

Since Lindsey has started to appear on the show more often, we've heard from a few people who were under the impression that her field (evolutionary psychology) is "bunk" or is all unprovable just-so stories. As an expert, Lindsey takes us through where these objections come from and why they aren't accurate. Plus she takes us through some fascinating research! Studies mentioned: Wertz & Wynn 2014 Infant avoidance of plants, Wertz 2019 Ho plants shape the mind

... and other monologues and listener questions! I have not eaten meat for 2 months, and I want to explain why and why I think you should do your best to reduce meat eating as well. Don't worry, no excessive shaming. I just want to share my reasoning and hope it influences people. Also, more listener questions!

I asked the patrons over at patreon.com/seriouspod and they overwhelmingly said I should publish this on the main feed. Keep in mind, it's raw and explicit, but I think some great points were made and it's useful listening. If you'd like to hear episode 267 sign up as a patron!

It's been something like 70 years since the George Floyd protests, and the news cycle has had no choice but to move onto so many other huge and terrible things. But Lindsey Osterman and I still haven't forgotten the terrible arguments used by people like Sam Harris, and many in the right-wing information ecosystem, to push back against Black Lives Matter and to try to undermine the massive protests we saw. Lindsey takes us through two papers that have heavily influence this view, and why they're completely wrong. (spoiler: one was even RETRACTED!) This episode was far more focused on the academic papers than on Sam Harris, but if you'd like to hear us absolutely destroy his "Can We Pull Back From the Brink" episode, make to become a Patron!

I'm finally answering my listener email! It's been a tense... year, and I haven't gone to the inbox for a while. Today that changes! Before that, I can't help but unload a bit about whether or not "the system worked." When I hear people say that, it just does not seem right. But also... it did... kinda? Then I get to your questions and comments, about Constitutional Conventions and lizard people and revolution and progressive policies and more!

After Democrats had a disappointing election in the House, there was a group call in which some centrist members blamed progressives. AOC responded in the New York Times. This has set off a pretty bitter debate. I wanted to get to the bottom of the claims using the actual voting data and see if there was anything to be learned going either way. Hours of data entry later, I believe I have (some) answers.

As of recording, it's looking like a narrow Biden victory and Republican control of the Senate. This isn't set in stone, and there's still an outside shot of taking the Senate and winning the Presidency by a more comfortable margin, but this analysis is under the assumption that we won't. Here are my thoughts.

Calmer than you are. It's election day. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU Here are a series of disjointed thoughts. God damn I hope this all ends.

Listeners were fascinated by the Monster Island experiment Aaron told us about last episode! At the same time, another member of the group responded by posting that Aaron had perhaps left some things out of his account. I thought it would be a great opportunity to hear more about the experiment and also see how identity can affect how things like this are experienced.

My brother from another pod-mother Aaron Rabinowitz is on to discuss the fantastic article he wrote for The Skeptic! The article is about his experience in the Facebook group Monster Island, which was a no-holds-barred debate group that some of you may have been involved with. If you weren't, Aaron will detail what happened, including a pretty scary twist (or predictable?) ending. Before that, we talk about James Lindsay going full Trump supporter.

I've been wondering how two things could be true - that Giuliani has an obviously fake story about obtaining Hunter Biden's laptop, and that the leak contains seemingly real texts between Joe and Hunter Biden. I tried to get to the bottom of it. I also talk about the recent murder of a teacher in Paris, committed by a Muslim refugee with radical beliefs, and how we can try to maintain proper perspective in the wake of visceral acts of terror.

Lindsey Osterman is back for a follow-up to our Social Dilemma episode. Last time we talked about where the documentary got things a little wrong. Today Lindsey's here to tell us what they had right, but didn't go enough into. It's not a pretty picture! As usual, she's got the science to back the claims: 3 major studies which show that Facebook has affected real elections. Studies: Kramer et al 2014, Bond et al 2012, Haenschen

The second part of our conversation on cults. We finish up on the psychology and then talk about Q anon and Trumpism and whether or not they can fairly be called cults.

If you've been watching The Vow on HBO (or any number of other cult related shows) you may have been wondering how cults work - why people join, and how cults hang onto their members. There is a lot of psychology behind it, so who better to help break it down than our evo psych expert Lindsey Osterman!

We're doubling our usual Torrez here! Andrew's son Alex, high school debate champ, is here to help us break down the monstrosity that was that presidential debate!

The death of the great RBG is absolutely devastating, and has made the stakes so much higher. In this episode, I talk about what we HAVE to do to keep our democracy. Things aren't good. Toward the end, I get into the arguments over whether RBG should have retired, mainly because in EVERY interaction I've seen online about this, people get a bunch of the factual information wrong. However, the arguments are almost completely moot, so if you feel you don't need a history lesson, feel free to skip this part. Links: Ideological measures of the court, Avg justice retirement age, excellent Rebecca Traister article, RBG on why she can't retire, 2014 article asking her to retire.

The new doc 'The Social Dilemma' on Netflix is making quite an impression on people. It tells a riveting story of the harms of social media, and has led to many people deleting their accounts or limiting their usage. But are all the claims backed up by science? Yes and no... If you've got an urge to delete all your accounts, you might want to hear what social psychologist Lindsey Osterman has to say about it! (and then maybe still delete your accounts if you want..) Links: Verge article I really liked, social network sites and well-being study, A systematic review: the influence of social media on depression, anxiety and psychological distress in adolescents, Time Spent on Social Network Sites and Psychological Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis.

It's been a while, but today we've got a science episode! Making her return to the show is Lindsey Osterman, a psychologist who has been studying parasocial relationships. It's already incredibly likely that you take part in some number of parasocial relationships, but now in the time of COVID they're more prevalent and important than ever. Here are the studies Lindsey references! Gabriel et al (2018) - From apprentice to presidentDownload Osterman & Hecmanczuk (2019) - Parasocial ForgivenessDownload

I've got thoughts and lots of them. How do we as progressives criticize Democrats without damaging our future? Is someone who thinks the DNC is corrupt more left than I am, or more.. something else? No prison stocks didn't go up because of Kamala Harris. Julian Assange is an absolute crap. And lots more.

Today I'm joined by philosopher Aaron Rabinowitz of Embrace the Void and Philosophers in Space to discuss the some revelations about James Lindsay's organization "New Discourses." If you're a long time listener, you'll remember James Lindsay from this show back when he didn't totally suck. Well he now very much sucks, and to no one's surprise, he's being propped up by right wing Christian Nationalist Michael O'Fallon. PZ Myers has a good writeup of it on his blog. Aaron and I talk about that, our history with James, and what to make of all this.

Here's part 2 of my discussion with Andrew Torrez of Opening Arguments! This time we focus on (hopefully) wild and unlikely scenarios if Trump refuses to leave office. Find out if any of them scare the expert and always optimistic P. Andrew Torrez, Esquire!

Hey folks, this is one of those unintentional 2-parters! I originally intended to have Andrew on to discuss the scary (and hopefully unlikely?) ways that Trump might try to stay in power even if he lost, but before we even got to that discussion, we go through the ways that Trump and the Republicans are cheating to try to win. Is vote by mail safe? What's the deal with poll-watchers? Those questions and more became part 1, and next episode we talk about the scary theories of how Trump could potentially try to remain president.

It's a solo show today. I have a lot of thoughts on two books I've read - White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. The monopoly example I used I should have credited to Kimberly Jones.

A lot of prominent writers, journalists, thinkers, etc, have signed an open letter about "Cancel Culture." New dad and world's funniest podcaster Eli Bosnick is back on the show to break it down! Here are links we discuss: brilliant New Republic Article; James Bennet Resigns as New York Times Opinion Editor; Harper's Editor Fired Over 'Sh*tty Men in Media' Story; Longtime Deadspin editor fired after controversial internal memo; Jeanine Cummins Syndrome; Pittsburgh Newspaper Bars Black Reporter From Covering Protests; UCLA Poli Sci Department Condemns Lecturer for Reading MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail, Showing Video About Lynching; White professor investigated for quoting James Baldwin's use of N-word.

We're joined this week by Brandon J. McKoy! He's the president of the New Jersey Policy Perspective, a think-tank whose focus is policy change to advance economic justice and prosperity. We discuss what #defundthepolice means to different advocacy groups, what it might look like in practice, and what other potential policy might lead to better policing in this country.

The New York Times recently published an Op-Ed by Tom Cotton advocating a severe crackdown on the protests. The piece sparked a giant backlash and even a bit of a civil war within the Times. The Opinion editor officially stepped down. Joining us today is Professor Bryan Van Norden, who has written about why not all opinions deserve to be heard. Much of the justification people use tends to derive from Mill's On Liberty, but does that essay really justify platforming fascism? Links: Bryan's Op-Ed, Bryan's lecture on political discourse, Mill's essay, Marcuse's essay, exposure to false claims increases likelihood to believe them.

It has been far, far too long since we've heard from Alix Jules on this show. I can't think of a more perfect guest to help us better understand the mayhem happening around the country right now.

Jamie and I are on to discuss the pandemic, the attacks on abortion rights coming from the right, and Jane Roe's deathbed conversion. Jamie's links: http://yellowhammerfund.org, http://bwhi.org, http://prochoice.org, http://lilithfund.org, http://prochoicetexas.org, http://teafund.org, http://westfund.org

I recently watched Parasite and was so blown away by it that I wanted to do a review/discussion of the film, and fortunately, Jamie was game! I loved it and there is so much to analyze and enjoy, so we hope you enjoy it along with us. We recommend you watch it first!

We've got questions on politics, philosophy, and more! As always, they lead to a spirited debate.

We've got questions on politics, philosophy, and more! As always, they lead to a spirited debate.

Today we bring you something not at all COVID (or politics) related. We recorded a wonderful interview with Skye Cleary back over a month ago, just before the pandemic changed all our lives. We thought it would be a much needed change of pace. Skye is a philosopher who teaches at Columbia University, and is the author of Existentialism and Romantic Love (Palgrave Macmillan 2015) and co-editor of How to Live a Good Life (Vintage 2020).

Jamie is back! We set out to discuss what happened in the primary and have a spirited debate as well. Some things I mentioned: 538, Vox, Weeds episode.

Joe Biden has been accused of sexual assault by Tara Reade, with the alleged incident taking place in 1993 when she worked for him. In my opinion, there has been a tremendous amount of bad faith in how this has been talked about my many outlets. This story has consumed my brain and I haven't been able to think of anything else for a few days, so I have just felt I had to do my best to lend an objective voice to a very charged topic. I know I'm just another privileged dude opining, but I believe I've shown that I take accusations very seriously and am willing to kill my heroes. With all that in mind, what follows is likely convoluted and circuitous, but that's because my feelings on this have been all over the place. I hope you find it useful. Here are the links I reference: Jezebel; Salon, Current Affairs Robinson Piece; Tara Reade Transcript on Current Affairs; Krassensteins Medium; Reade's Medium post; Lucy Flores's Accusation

It has been about a year since we talked about the charges against Cardinal Pell for sex crimes against minors, and now he has won on appeal to the highest court in Australia. This sounds like terrible news, but Andrew Torrez and Australian lawyer James Rogers are here to break it down for us! It's an Opening Arguments crossover spectacular!

Jamie and I talk about the pandemic.

It's a solo show! We've got a couple Tuesdays' worth of primary results to discuss, and they aren't good for Bernie Sanders. So why is Bernie doing so much worse than in 2016? According to Amanda Marcotte and others, it's maybe due to sexism. I discuss that and other responses to it. I also talk about some mindset changes I've been having, spurred by how awful Twitter has been in this primary and also by the book Politics is for Power, that really has opened my eyes to how many ways politics is merely a hobby and why that's not good.

This is a part 2 of 2. We continue the discussion with Gregg Caruso! He is a professor of philosophy at SUNY Corning in New York, honorary professor of philosophy at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and visiting researcher at the University of Aberdeen School of Law in Scotland. His latest book is Unjust Deserts: Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice (forthcoming). He also debated Daniel Dennett on free will in written form on Aeon, which we highly encourage you to check out!

This is a part 1 of 2! We're doubling the number of philosophers on the show this week, with a fantastic guest in Gregg Caruso! He is a professor of philosophy at SUNY Corning in New York, honorary professor of philosophy at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and visiting researcher at the University of Aberdeen School of Law in Scotland. His latest book is Unjust Deserts: Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice (forthcoming). He also debated Daniel Dennett on free will in written form on Aeon, which we highly encourage you to check out!