Evolutionary Psychology (the podcast)

The Yanamamo and Nap Chagnon with Ray Hames

Ray Hames, along with guest-host Zach Garfield, discusses his time with the Yanamamo, being a student of Napoleon Chagnon, and what it was like to be in the early, 2nd generation of anthropologists applying evolution to human behavior. Topics include hunting, the history of sociobiology, human behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology, attitudes about indigenous populations, the elderly, sexual orientation, and the darkness in Eldorado hoax. 
 
More about Ray Hames:
https://rhames.unl.edu/
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BZ98oywAAAAJ&hl=en
https://www.nasonline.org/directory-entry/raymond-b-hames-srcedw/
 

Sex and Gender with Dan Conroy-Beam

What is sex? What is gender? These are big, weighty questions with not a few societal and political tensions involved. Who better to guide us through this morass than Dan Conroy-Beam (UCSB)? Get ready for a clear-minded, derived-from-first-principles tour of the evolution of sex, sex roles, and gender. Other topics include the culture vs. biology distinction, mentors, friends, what agent based modeling is, and why it's not self-indulgent to model the evolution of sex. 
More about Dan Conroy-Beam:
https://www.danconroybeam.com/
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ifQUQssAAAAJ&hl=en
https://psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/daniel-conroy-beam
 

Revenge and Forgiveness with Mike McCullough

Revenge, forgiveness, morality. Join us and our guest Mike McCullough (UC San Diego) as we navigate the deep cost/benefit structure of the social world. Topics include what punishment really is, why we should respect revenge, why victims may sometimes not seek help, and why times heals all wounds. 
 
More about Mike McCullough:
https://www.michael-mccullough.com/
https://psychology.ucsd.edu/people/profiles/mmccullough.html
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZyAttkAAAAAJ&hl=en
 

Causality with Tadeg Quillien

Causality is....well...causality...it's hard to explain. And that's exactly what Tadeg Quillien (Edinburgh) does: figure out what the heck causality is, and how our mind does it. Other topics include domain generality vs. specificity, counterfactuals, relevance, morality, beliefs and theory of mind, and what it means to be computational, and how David Hume was pretty cool. 
More about Tadeg Quillien:
https://quillienlab.github.io/people/
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7h0VM_kAAAAJ&hl=fr
 

Founding Evolutionary Psychology with Leda Cosmides

A guest who needs no introduction. Leda Cosmides (UCSB) talks about how she and John Tooby co-founded the enterprise "evolutionary psychology"---including the how's, when's and why's---and what she thinks about current work. Other topics include why it's good for science to not be a jerk, and how she's come to understand what the heck behavioral and experimental economists are up to. More about Leda Cosmides:https://psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/leda-cosmides
https://www.cep.ucsb.edu/
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=V1vCfTYAAAAJ&hl=en
 
 

The Origins of evolutionary psychology with Martin Daly

Along with Margo Wilson, Martin Daly (McMaster) is one the founding pioneers of evolutionary psychology. In this episode, we get Martin's take on the history and the field. Topics include studying real-world phenomena (like homicide), inequality, and how evolutionary biologists like Williams and Hamilton supported the upstart approach (and whether it's really a different approach at all), and what happens when you give a lab-reared rat the kind of plant that it evolved to eat out in the wild, but has never seen before. 
More about Martin Daly:https://www.martindaly.ca/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Daly_(professor)
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1BUIq-UAAAAJ

Music and Acoustics with Greg Bryant

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
 

Stress with Jen Byrd-Craven

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