Rationally Speaking Podcast

Rationally Speaking is the bi-weekly podcast of New York City Skeptics. Join host Julia Galef and guests as they explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense, likely from unlikely, and science from pseudoscience. Any topic is fair game as long as we can bring reason to bear upon it, with both a skeptical eye and a good dose of humor! We agree with the Marquis de Condorcet, who said that in an open society we ought to devote ourselves to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them."Rationally Speaking was co-created with Massimo Pigliucci, is produced by Benny Pollak, and is recorded in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village.

Website

Most frequent guests

Sean Carroll 3 episodes
Bryan Caplan 3 episodes
Eric Schwitzgebel 3 episodes
Scott Aaronson 2 episodes
Spencer Greenberg 2 episodes
Maria Konnikova 2 episodes
Sam Arbesman 2 episodes
Michael Shermer 2 episodes
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein 2 episodes
Zach Weinersmith 2 episodes

Every guest on Rationally Speaking Podcast

168 guests, ranked by how many people never want them back.

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Sean Carroll
Rationally Speaking #162 - Sean Carroll on "Poetic Naturalism" · 3 episodes

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Kathryn Paige Harden
The genetic lottery (Kathryn Paige Harden) · Oct 2021

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Robert Wright
Rationally Speaking #194 - Robert Wright on "Why Buddhism is True" · Oct 2017

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Ezra Klein
Why we're polarized (Ezra Klein) · Nov 2021

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Tyler Cowen
Rationally Speaking #232 - Tyler Cowen on "Defending big business against its critics" · Apr 2019

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Holden Karnofsky
Rationally Speaking #38 - Holden Karnofsky on Evidence-based Philanthropy · Jul 2011

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Max Tegmark
Rationally Speaking #101 - Max Tegmark on the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis · Feb 2014

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Edward Frenkel
Rationally Speaking #104 - Edward Frenkel on Love and Math · Mar 2014

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Tim Urban
Rationally Speaking #178 - Tim Urban on "Trying to live well, as semi-rational animals" · Feb 2017

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Robin Hanson
Rationally Speaking #135 - Robin Hanson on: "Most human behavior is signaling" · May 2015

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Jonathan Haidt
Understanding moral disagreements (Jonathan Haidt) · Feb 2021

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Chris Blattman
Rationally Speaking #175 - Chris Blattman on "Do sweatshops reduce poverty?" · Jan 2017

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Peter Woit
Rationally Speaking #7 - Peter Woit discusses whether string theory is "not even wrong" · Apr 2010

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Vitalik Buterin
Intellectual honesty, cryptocurrency, & more (Vitalik Buterin) · Mar 2021

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Scott Aaronson
Rationally Speaking #171 - Scott Aaronson on "The ethics and strategy of vote trading" · 2 episodes

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Peter Singer
Rationally Speaking #97 - Peter Singer on Being a Utilitarian in the Real World · Nov 2013

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Spencer Greenberg
Rationally Speaking #222 - Spencer Greenberg and Seth Cottrell on "Ask a Mathematician, Ask a Physicist" · 2 episodes

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Rob Kurzban
Rationally Speaking #188 - Robert Kurzban on "Being strategically wrong" · Jul 2017

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Coleman Hughes
The case for racial colorblindness (Coleman Hughes) · Jan 2021

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Gregory Clark
Rationally Speaking #184 - Gregory Clark on "What caused the industrial revolution?" · May 2017

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Bryan Caplan
Rationally Speaking #243 - Bryan Caplan on "The Case for Open Borders" · 3 episodes

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Paul Bloom
Rationally Speaking #142 - Paul Bloom on "The case against empathy" · Sep 2015

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Tim Harford
How to be a data detective (Tim Harford) · Jun 2021

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Stuart Ritchie
Rationally Speaking #210 - Stuart Ritchie on "Conceptual objections to IQ testing" · Jun 2018

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Sabine Hossenfelder
Rationally Speaking #211 - Sabine Hossenfelder on "The case against beauty in physics" · Jun 2018

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David McRaney
Rationally Speaking #156 - David McRaney on "Why it's so hard to change someone's mind" · Apr 2016

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Brian Christian

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Diana Fleischman
Rationally Speaking #216 - Diana Fleischman on "Being a transhumanist evolutionary psychologist" · Sep 2018

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Annie Duke
Rationally Speaking #208 - Annie Duke on "Thinking in bets" · May 2018

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Matthew Yglesias
The case for one billion Americans, & more (Matt Yglesias) · Feb 2021

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Buster Benson

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Mario Livio
Rationally Speaking #88 - Mario Livio on Brilliant Blunders · Jun 2013

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Michael Mann
Rationally Speaking #93 - Dr. Michael E. Mann On The Science Of Climate Change · Sep 2013

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David Manheim
Rationally Speaking #240 - David Manheim on "Goodhart's Law and why metrics fail" · Sep 2019

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Maria Konnikova
Rationally Speaking #151 - Maria Konnikova on "Why everyone falls for con artists" · 2 episodes

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Razib Khan
Rationally Speaking #238 - Razib Khan on "Stuff I've Been Wrong About" · Aug 2019

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Alex Tabarrok
Rationally Speaking #236 - Alex Tabarrok on "Why are the Prices So D*mn High?" · Jul 2019

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Andrew Przybylski
Rationally Speaking #237 - Andy Przybylski on "Is screen time bad for you?" · Aug 2019

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Brian Nosek
Rationally Speaking #172 - Brian Nosek on "Why science needs openness" · Nov 2016

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Scott Lilienfeld

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Recent episodes

263 episodes from the feed, newest first.

Is cash the best way to help the poor? (Michael Faye)
with Michael Faye

Dec 2021
Humanity on the precipice (Toby Ord)
with Toby Ord

Dec 2021
Dangerous biological research - is it worth it? (Kevin Esvelt)
with Kevin Esvelt

Nov 2021
Why we're polarized (Ezra Klein)
with Ezra Klein

Nov 2021
The genetic lottery (Kathryn Paige Harden)
with Kathryn Paige Harden

Oct 2021
How to reason about COVID, and other hard things (Kelsey Piper)
with Kelsey Piper

Sep 2021
"Price gouging" in emergencies
Aug 2021
How to be a data detective (Tim Harford)
with Tim Harford

Jun 2021
Are Uber and Lyft drivers being exploited?
Apr 2021
Unfair laws / Why judges should be originalists (William Baude)
with William Baude

Mar 2021
Intellectual honesty, cryptocurrency, & more (Vitalik Buterin)
with Vitalik Buterin

Mar 2021
Understanding moral disagreements (Jonathan Haidt)
with Jonathan Haidt

Feb 2021
The case for one billion Americans, & more (Matt Yglesias)
with Matthew Yglesias

Feb 2021
What's wrong with tech companies banning people? (Julian Sanchez)
with Julian Sanchez

Jan 2021
The case for racial colorblindness (Coleman Hughes)
with Coleman Hughes

Jan 2021
Are Democrats being irrational? (David Shor)
with David Shor

Dec 2020
The moral limits of markets / The problem with meritocracy (Michael Sandel)
with Michael Sandel

Dec 2020
Deaths of despair / Effective altruism (Angus Deaton)
with Angus Deaton

Nov 2020
Are Boomers to blame for Millennials' struggles?
Nov 2020
Rationally Speaking #244 - Stephanie Lepp and Buster Benson on "Seeing other perspectives, with compassion"
with Stephanie Lepp

Nov 2019
Rationally Speaking #243 - Bryan Caplan on "The Case for Open Borders"
with Bryan Caplan

Nov 2019
Rationally Speaking #242 - Keith Frankish on "Why consciousness is an illusion"
with Keith Frankish

Oct 2019
Rationally Speaking #241 - Thibault Le Texier on "Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment"
with Thibault Le Texier

Oct 2019
Rationally Speaking #240 - David Manheim on "Goodhart's Law and why metrics fail"
with David Manheim

Sep 2019
Rationally Speaking #239 - Saloni Dattani on "The debate over whether male and female brains are different"
with Saloni Dattani

Sep 2019