Mixed Mental Arts

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Ep158 - Barb Oakley Oct 02, 2014

Show notes

Barb Oakley may be a Professor of Engineering now but all through high school she was a self-professed math hater. She got a D in geometry…twice. She far preferred to follow her passions for literature and languages than waste her time doing something that seemed worthless. After joining the army, learning fluent Russian and getting a degree in it, she was assigned to work as a communications officer and found herself suddenly surrounded by engineers. She realized that unless she made a serious course correction her opportunities in life were going to be severely limited. So, she decided to follow her non-passion and master mathematics. In her latest book, A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Mathematics (even if you flunked Algebra), Barb (as she insists we all call her) lays out the simple techniques that she, top teachers and students have used and that you can use too to master mathematics…or anything. What makes Barb's latest book so interesting is how it fits in with her previous books. While this book heavily explores the individual's power to determine what their brains become, previous books like Evil Genes and Pathological Altruism explore the parts of human nature that are hard-wired within us. In this interview, we further explore the relation of Nature + Nurture and how ideological agendas can distort the fearless investigation of the science. All of Barb's books are available on Amazon. We'll be reading them all and bringing her back on the show. (Huge thanks to David Sloan Wilson for recommending her.) In other news, Barb is starting a Learning How to Learn MOOC this Friday (aka tomorrow) on Coursera. You can find it here: https://www.coursera.org/course/learning. It looks awesome. Just like Barb. Here are the links to the studies Barb mentioned in the show: McCord, Joan. "A Thirty-Year Follow-up of Treatment Effects." American Psychologist 33, no. 3 (1978): 284. And here's the link to the study on the virtually non-existent replication of research in education: Matthew Makel, Jonathan Plucker, "Facts Are More Important Than Novelty: Replication in the Education Sciences," Educational Researcher, August 14, 2014. DOI: 10.3102/0013189X14545513 There's also a very nice popular article discussion of Makel and Plucker's study from Inside Higher Ed: "Failure to Replicate," by Charlie Tyson

Ep157 - Justin Gest Sep 29, 2014

Show notes

Since ISIS captured the attention of the West by beheading foreign journalists, the news media has been obsessed with covering them. Since 9/11, some of the most eye-catching terror-related stories have been about Western muslims who have joined the ranks of international terrorist organizations. That storyline has come to the fore with the coverage of ISIS. In this episode, we ask Justin Gest, assistant professor at George Mason University and author of Apart: Alienated and Engaged Muslims in the West, to give us a sense of what life is like for young Muslim men living in Europe and to give us a sense of why these young men turn to terror and what society as a whole can do to engage them in Western society so they aren't driven to want to tear it down.Apart: Alienated and Engaged Muslims in the West is available on Amazon. Visit Justin Gest online

Ep156 - Caitlin Doughty Sep 25, 2014

Show notes

Caitlin Doughty thinks an awful lot about death. In fact, she's been doing it for years and that's what lead her to become a mortician. In Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory, Doughty describes how being constantly faced with death (far from making her morbid) has actually helped bring her emotions back to life. While in former centuries we were constantly faced with the dead, today the dead have been quietly removed from public view. The result is a culture of death denial that is out of touch with reality. Until you accept death, it's hard to really appreciate just how rare and special every moment of life is. After reading Doughty's book and hearing her talk, you might want to go work in a crematory for a little while too. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is available on Amazon. You can follow her on twitter at @TheGoodDeath.

Ep155 - Vanessa Tyson Sep 22, 2014

Show notes

Vanessa Tyson is a Professor of Government at the Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. In this third episode of our series of conversations with Vanessa, Bryan booked a TV job! So, Hunter and Vanessa take this one alone. They try to discuss districting but don't quite make it there. Instead, they discuss a day in the life of a congressperson and ways in which we have failed to live up to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. You can follow Vanessa on twitter at @vanessactyson. Her book Twists of Fate: Multiracial Coalitions and Minority Representation in the US House will be coming out in 2015. We'll be buying it and when it does come out, we'll be bringing her back on to discuss that. In the meantime, stay tuned for the next round of Tyson.

Ep154 - William Deresiewicz Sep 18, 2014

Show notes

As a Professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz became concerned by what had happened to America's education. More than anything, he found that rather than turning out leaders was turning out a bunch of mindless followers. In his book, Excellent Sheep Deresiewicz lays out how the nation's best universities are miseducating our youth to be so obsessed with achieving success at all costs that we end up with politicians and business leaders who are selfish and complacent. You can find Excellent Sheep on Amazon. You can follow Professor Deresiewicz on twitter at @WDeresiewicz. If you reach out to him, he asks that you call him Bill.

Ep153 - Robert D. Kaplan Sep 15, 2014

Show notes

Robert D. Kaplan is the author of fifteen books on foreign policy and international affairs. He is Chief Geopolitical Analyst for Stratfor, a private intelligence firm. He is a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C., and has been a foreign correspondent for The Atlantic for over a quarter-century. In 2011 and 2012, Kaplan was chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world's "Top 100 Global Thinkers." In this interview, we discuss with him his recent article Terrorism as Theater (http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/terrorism-theater) and explore how terrorists are taking advantage of the media age and how by getting enraged we are playing right into their hands. You can follow Mr. Kaplan on twitter @robertdkaplan. His most recent books include Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific and The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us about Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate.

Ep152 - Vanessa Tyson Part 2 Sep 11, 2014

Show notes

Vanessa Tyson is a Professor of Government at the Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. In this second episode of our series of conversations with Vanessa, we discuss the role that education has to play in creating a citizenry capable of demanding elected officials worthy of our country. Vanessa also explains the process of making a law and how campaign finance affects us all. You can follow Vanessa on twitter at @vanessactyson.Modestly, she hadn't mentioned until now that she has a book coming out in 2015: Twists of Fate: Multiracial Coalitions and Minority Representation in the US House. We'll be buying it and when it does come out, we'll be bringing her back on to discuss that. In the meantime, stay tuned for the next round of Tyson.

Ep151 - Euny Hong Sep 08, 2014

Show notes

When Euny Hong moved to South Korea in 1985, it was by her own description not a wealthy country and yet now it's one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. We know how Euny grew up over the last three decades (the natural human growth process) but how did Korea do it? And why does one Korean leader believe that pop culture is the country's best weapon against North Korea? In her incredibly fun book, The Birth of Korean Cool, Euny Hong uses fun anecdotes and cultural tidbits to show us not just what makes Korean Culture tick but a practical demonstration of the Soft Power that Professor Joseph Nye was talking about. You don't need to nuke North Korea out of existence, you can make them disappear with a pop culture invasion.The Birth of Korean Cool is available from all good booksellers. You can follow Euny Hong on twitter at @Euny.

Ep150 - Lewis Dartnell Sep 04, 2014

Show notes

The world seems fascinated with the possibility of an apocalypse. Zombies, mutant viruses, a giant meteorite impact, alien invasions…the point is the same. If everything fell apart, how would we cope and would we survive. Lewis Dartnell's book begins from the premise that we would. Human beings have always shown tremendous resourcefulness and ingenuity. His question is after the dust has settled how do we rebuild our civilization as quickly as possible? In his book The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch, Dartnell shows us much more than how to rebuild our civilization; he shows us how we built it in the first place. Part history of technology and part tribute to human ingenuity, The Knowledge is highly enjoyable way to learn things that are vital but which in anybody else's hands wouldn't be nearly as much fun. There's loads more available on the book's website: http://the-knowledge.org You can also get the book directly from: http://georiot.co/Hardback or by going to Amazon. His personal website is www.lewisdartnell.com and his twitter handle is @lewis_dartnell.

Ep149 - Jim Rickards Sep 01, 2014

Show notes

A year ago, we interviewed Jim Rickards about his book Currency Wars which examined how money could be used as a weapon between nations. In his most recent book, The Death of Money, Rickards examines the far greater internal threat by governments recklessly printing money to solve short-term financial crises. Through a maze of jargon like IMF, quantitative easing and terms so complicated I can't even remember them right now, financial technocrats have obscured what they are doing and convinced themselves that they have the situation under control just as they used complex mathematics to convince themselves that housing prices could never go down. It's a pleasure to have Jim Rickards on the show again. Both Currency Wars and The Death of Money are available on Amazon and Audible. You can visit Jim on the web at http://www.jamesrickardsproject.com/ and follow him on twitter at @jamesgrickards.

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