On Humans

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Holiday Highlights ~ Philip Kitcher on Secular Humanism & Religion Dec 27, 2022

Show notes

Ilari is taking some time off for Christmas and New Year. Instead of new episodes, this holiday season features some highlights from this fall's conversations.

This highlight revisits episode 2, where Philip Kitcher explores the relationship between secular humanism and religion. For links and references, see the original episode.

A Cultural Biology of Sex, Love, and Monogamy ~ Helen Fisher Dec 22, 2022

Show notes

Why do we love? And how much does our culture shape the way we do so?

In this episode, Ilari talks with Helen Fisher about the powers that drive and shape our romantic relationships. Ilari and Professor Fisher discuss:

Is romantic love a modern invention?
Is monogamy a social invention?
Do men care more about sex? Do women care more about romance?
Why agriculture, especially with the plough, caused havoc in romantic relationships.
Why divorces might be on the decline.
A science-based guide for maintaining romantic relations (based on couples who are still in love after 25 years)
Why (certain) antidepressants can kill the sex drive and blunt romantic love (to read more, see the end of the notes)
How common is polygamy or polyandry? Where in the world do we find most "free love"?
Why did homosexuality evolve?

Names mentioned

Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt (as recounted by Alison Gopnik in her The Gardener and the Carpenter)
Bill Jankowiak
Robert Sternberg (see episode 7)
Anderson Thompson
Bertrand Russell

Technical terms and ethnic groups mentioned

Ventral tegmental area VTA
Hypothalamus
Dopamine, testosterone, oxytocin, vasopressin, serotonine
Monogamy (serial or lifelong; social or biological)
Polygamy (several wives) and polyandry (several husbands)
Tlingit (the polyandrous Inuit society with wealthy women)
Oneida community (in New York State)

Dig Deeper

Antidepressants: To read more about the possible effects of SSRIs on sex drive and romantic love, see ⁠⁠Tocco and Brumbaugh (2019)⁠⁠. Remember that this is for information only, and is not health advice.Always discuss with your doctor before making decisions about your medication.

Polyamory: In the episode, Professor Fisher suggests that many Amazonian tribes have informal polyandry, i.e. women have many partners, albeit only one formal husband. However, there are non-academic sources suggesting that formalised polyandry is common in the Zo’é community in Amazon. For some of these photos of Zo’é and other Amazonian tribes, many of whom exhibit remarkably liberal attitudes to sex, see the recent Amazonia exhibition in the London Science Museum.

What Can Science Tell Us About Happiness? ~ Anna Alexandrova Dec 10, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, a philosopher of science from Cambridge offers us a cautiously optimistic guide to the science of happiness. Dr Anna Alexandrova, the author of A Philosophy for the Science of Well-being, and Ilari discuss questions such as:

What do happiness questionnaires measure?
Are rich countries happier than poorer ones?
Should the science of happiness measure concepts such as “flourishing”? Or focus on simple questions like “how satisfied are you with your life”?
Why psychologists and economists are averse to qualitative measures? When is this a problem?
Why are some scholars so pessimistic about the science of happiness?
Dr Alexandrova's experience of growing up in the Soviet Union and post-soviet Russia
Is Ilari actually from the world’s happiest country?

Names mentioned

Dan Hayburn (philosopher at St Louis University)
Max Weber (sociologist 1864-1920)
Polly Mitchell (philosopher at KCL)
Thomas Kuhn (philosopher of science, 1922-1966)
Johanna Thoma (philosopher at LSE)
Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway (authors of Merchants of Doubt)
Mark Fabian (political theorists at Cambridge)
Jeffrey Sachs (economist at Columbia University)

Terms mentioned

Utilitarianism
Easterlin paradox
World Happiness Report
WELLBY (measure adopted by the UK government)
“Participatory methods” (in construct validation)
Turn To Us (UK-based anti-poverty charity)

Get in touch

Form: https://on-humans.podcastpage.io/contact
Email: makela dot ilari at outlook dot com

Do Dogs Feel Love & Other Questions in Animal Neuroscience ~ Gregory Berns Dec 03, 2022

Show notes

What is it like to be a non-human animal? Can neuroscience tell us the answer?

In one of the most famous philosophy essays of the 20th century, Thomas Nagel suggested that we can never use science to know what it is like to be another animal, say, a bat. Neuroscience can describe bat physiology. But it can never tell us “what it is like to be a bat”.

Gregory Berns is an animal neuroscientist. As you might guess, he disagrees with Nagel.

Berns is a pioneer in using fMRI scanning on dogs (who in his lab, participate voluntarily). And Berns believes that studying the dog brain can tell us what it is like to be a dog - or at least, give us a hint.

In this discussion, Ilari and Prof Berns discuss:

Do dogs love their owners? The origins and findings of the Dog Project.
Would Nagel actually disagree with Berns’ conclusions?
Is attributing human emotions to dogs a form of anthropomorphism?
The Panksepp vs Barrett debate in affective neuroscience: Are emotions hardwired to our brain? Or are they dependent on concepts and language?
Animal welfare and speciesism: Are some species "special" in relevant ways? How do Prof Berns and Ilari approach the issue of animal welfare in their diets?

Names mentioned

Rene Descartes (French philosopher, 1596-1650)
Thomas Nagel (20th Century, 1937-)
Jeremy Bentham (British philosopher & utilitarian, 1748-1832)
Jaak Panksepp (Estonian-American neuroscientist, 1943-2017)
Lisa Feldman Barrett (American neuroscientist, 1963-)
Hal Hertzhog (anthrozoologist)

Technical terms mentioned

fMRI (brain scanning technology)
PET (brain scanning technology)
Chemotaxis
Claustrum
Brain stem

Extra points

Get in touch: email makela.ilari@outlook.comor form https://on-humans.podcastpage.io/contact
Ilari’s bonus recommendation (not a paid promotion): Gourmet-level insect foods from YumBug https://www.yumbug.com/shop

Is War Natural For Humans? ~ Douglas P. Fry Nov 19, 2022

Show notes

Thomas Hobbes famously wrote that life in the state of nature was “nasty, brutish, and short”. Recently, various scholars have claimed that Hobbes was basically right: our ancestors lived in a state of constant raiding and chronic warfare. Indeed, some have suggested that as many as 15% of ancestral humans died due to war. And the claims are made with the utmost confidence.

But there is something disturbing about this confidence. The earliest archaeological records of war are only c. 14 000 years old. And many anthropologists working with modern-day hunter-gatherers claim that they tend to be remarkably peaceful.

The literature around this question is dense and difficult to penetrate. This episode aims to make it a notch more accessible.

Douglas P. Fry is an anthropologist and a leading scholar on the topic. He has written extensively about the origins of war in books such as War, Peace and Human Nature. His papers on the matter have been published in top journals such as Science. And his conclusions might be surprising to many.

In this discussion, Ilari and Professor Fry talk about:

The archaeological evidence for the origins of war.
Why do some hunter-gatherers wage war? Why does Fry think that most of them do not? And why is the data in Better Angels of Our Natureso misleading - even fabricated?
How common is lethal violence in mammals more generally?
How violent was the human Pleistocene (over 11,700 years ago)? Does it matter?

Ethnic groups mentioned

Pacific Northwest hunter-gatherers (hunter-gatherer groups well-known for having complex “civilisation”, including social hierarchies, warfare and slavery)
Calusa (a complex hunter-gatherer group in Florida)
Tiwi (Australian hunter-gathers who are atypical for having clans and a high level of lethal violence)
Andaman Islanders (in the Bay of Bengal)
Iñupiaq (the warring Inuit group, which was not named in the discussion)

Names and technical terms

Herbert Manscher
Jane Goodall (primatologist who recorded so-called Gombe wars in chimpanzees)
Steven Pinker
Samuel Bowles
Leslie Sponsel
Christopher Boehm
C. Darwent, J. Darwent

References

Misreported “war deaths” in Better Angles of Out Nature (Fry & Söderberg 2019) and lethal violence in hunter-gatherers (Fry & Söderberg 2013)
Lethal violence in mammals (Gomez et al. 2016) and in archaeological skeletons (Haas & Piscitelli)
Cooperation in a spatial prisoner’s dilemma (Aktipis 2004)
Peace systems (video & the Nature article)

Psychology of Love & Hate ~ Robert Sternberg Nov 12, 2022

Show notes

We often treat love as a single emotion. But simple questions like “how much do you love me?” can be misleading. Love is not a single dimension. It is a multitude. To really understand romantic bonds, a more nuanced vocabulary is needed.

Robert Sternberg is famous for creating such vocabulary.

Sternberg is a professor at Cornell University, where he teaches legendary classes on topics like intelligence (beyond IQ), wisdom, creativity, and of course, love and hate. But he is more than your average psychology professor: he is the 2nd most cited psychologist alive.*

In this discussion, Sternberg joins Ilari and his co-host, Blake Robertson, to discuss the elements of love and hate, and how to use these insights to create a better world.

Names & technical terms mentioned

John Bowlby’s attachment theory
Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences
- Alison Gopnik (quoted from conversation with Ezra Klein)
- Agatha Christie
Joan Crawford
Anthony Ray Hinton, the author of The Sun Does Shine
- Henry Hays, the only KKK member in the 20th Century to suffer capital punishment due to lynchings by the KKK.

References

The Triangular Theory of Love (1986 paper)
Triangular Theory Tested in 25 Countries (2021 paper)
LoveMultiverse.com (website by Karin & Robert Sternberg)
Dutton & Aron high bridge -experiment (1974 paper)
Nature of Hate (book by Robert Sternberg & Karin Sternberg)

* After Martin Seligman, excluding neuroscientists and behavioural economists. Based on Google Scholar profiles in November 2022.

Are Grandmothers the Key to Our Evolutionary Success? ~ Kristen Hawkes Nov 05, 2022

Show notes

Humans live long, much longer than any of our closest relatives. For human females, this means living a large part of adulthood without being able to produce new offspring. This is an evolutionary puzzle. Indeed, menopause is exceedingly rare in the animal kingdom, typical only in humans and some species of whales.

Kristen Hawkes has a theory to explain this puzzle. Hawkes is an evolutionary anthropologist, best known for her pioneering role around the so-called “grandmother hypothesis”.

In this episode, Ilari and Professor Hawkes discuss two aspects of the grandmother hypothesis. First, why would humans have evolved to survive menopause? And second, why is this a big deal? What were the cascading changes that surviving the menopause arguably triggered?

The conversation touches upon many topics, such as:

Grandmother hypothesis: the basics
Rapid birth intervals in humans
Pair bonding and romantic partnerships
Role of fathers (and grandfathers)
Brain size and brain development
The “social appetite” in humans
Humans vs chimpanzees: why are humans less competitive and more cooperative
Climate changes and human origins

Technical terms & ethnic groups mentioned

The Hadza (Tanzania)
The Ache (Paraguay)
Pliocene (5.3 million – 2.6 million years ago)
Australopithecus (Wikipedia)
Altricial (undeveloped, immature) vs precocial (well-matured early on) (Wikipedia)
Mau Mau rebellion (a 1950’s rebellion against British rule in Kenya which included systemic torture by British colonial officers, Wikipedia)

Names mentioned

Jane Goodall
Nicholas Blurton Jones
James (Jim) O’Connell
Geoff Parker
Richard Wrangham
Sherwood Washburn
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
Barbara Finlay

References

A 1998 overview of the grandmother hypothesis (by Kristen Hawkes)
Calories produced by mothers and grandmothers in the Hadza (by Kristen Hawkes)
Distorting Darwinism (by Ilari)

Psychology of Conspiracy Theories & The Limits of Science ~ Michael Shermer Oct 25, 2022

Show notes

Why do conspiracy theories seduce the minds of so many?

Michael Shermer is a historian of science, best-selling author, founder of the Skeptic Society, and the host of a popular science podcast, Michael Shermer Show. His most recent book, Conspiracy, explores the causes and consequences of human gullibility regarding conspiracies.

Ilari and Dr Shermer discuss the psychological reasons behind conspiracy theories, and what to do about them. This discussion touches upon topics from QAnon to flat earth, and from the 2020 election to the war in Ukraine.

All of this does raise a question, though. What if we are both wrong? What if it is the conspiracists who have the truth? How would we know? Beyond just conspiracies, this discussion touches upon the very promise and danger of scientific scepticism. In the end, Ilari and Dr Shermer explore the very limits of the territory, in which we should use science as our guide. This is a discussion that ultimately relates to the role that science can play in moral progress - a topic explored by Shermer in his 2015 book, The Moral Arc.

Referenced works

Whitson and Galinsky’s experiment on pattern recognition
See also: A meta-analysis of similar experiments, which is critical of the original findings, but does find some similar effects
Princeton study on rejection and conspiratorial tendencies
Poll on 33% of Americans believing in 5G Dakota Crash is from work by Chrisopher Bader
Ivan Krastev’s interview with Ezra Klein

Referenced conspiracy theories and related terms

JFK Assassination
January 6th Insurrection and the claim that the 2020 election was rigged
The claim that Emmy Awards in 2004 and 2005 were rigged when the Apprentice lost against Amazing Race.
QAnon
OJ Simpson trials
Flat earth -theories
Holocaust denials
5G Dakota Crash

Other technical terms:

Bayesian thinking
Type II and Type I errors (in statistics)
Theraplay
Is-ought gap (similar to the naturalistic fallacy)

Other names mentioned:

Edward Snowden
Carl Sagan
Bill Bar
Deepak Chopra
Thomas Sowell

The Harmful Delusion of a Singular Self ~ Gregory Berns Oct 18, 2022

Show notes

We like to box things into neat categories. We like to box ourselves into a ‘Self’, a ‘Me’, an independent ‘Soul’, caged away from the rest of the world by the bags of our skin. When something goes wrong in our mental health, we like to box the issue into neat buckets of mental health disorders and search for an answer from within this individuated cage. On the other hand, we like to think of the ‘Self’ as a solid, unified, and permanent ‘Me’, making any fundamental change to ourselves difficult.

What if this is all a mistake?

Today’s guest is Gregory Berns, a psychiatrist and a professor of neuroscience at Emory University. His most recent book, published today on the 18th of October, is titled 'Self Delusion: The Neuroscience of How We Invent – and Reinvent – Our Identities'. (Order the book from Basic Books or Amazon. )

Ilari and professor Berns discuss topics such as:

Does Berns agree with Buddha and David Hume about the illusionary nature of self?
Why would a psychiatrist care about this issue?
The neuroscience of how fictional stories shape who we are
Dissociative identity disorder (DID, also known as multiple personality disorder, MPD)
Can social pressure change what we see?
Is it problematic to think of mental health problems as neat buckets? Or should we think of them on a continuum?
Bern’s answer to ‘what is missing from our biological approach to mental health?’
Why does it feel right to locate the soul in the heart, rather than the brain?
Internal family systems therapy (IFST)

Work mentioned and other references

Metaphors We Live By (George Lakoff & Mark Johnson)
Bowling Alone (By Robert D. Putnam)
Bern’s et al. on fiction and the brain
Bern’s et al. on the neuroscience of conformity
Paper on 3rd person memory & depression

Technical terms and names mentioned

David Hume
Resting-state fMRI (Wikipedia)
Dissociative Identity disorder DID (Wikipedia)
Conformity & Solomon Ash’s classic studies
DSM (a major diagnostic manual for mental health)
Internal family system therapy (IFST, in the episode, mistakenly called internal family dynamics therapy)
Cognitive behavioural therapy

A Musical Biology of Love ~ Ruth Feldman Oct 13, 2022

Show notes

Can biology expand our appreciation of love? What is the relationship between jazz and neuroscience? What does it mean to be in "synch" with someone?

Ruth Feldman is a professor of neuroscience at Reichman University, Israel, with a joint appointment at the Yale Child Story Centre. A jazz musician before being a neuroscientist, Feldman combines musical ideas of synchrony into her research on the neurobiology of attachment, bonding, and love.

Ilari and professor Feldman discuss topics such as:

Why study the biology of love
What happens in the brain when we love
Brain-to-brain synchrony: How love (and friendship) can synchronize our brains with each other
Oxytocin with loved ones, strangers, and enemies
Post-partum depression
Parental love in gay dads
Females and males as primary caregivers
The relationship between brain-to-brain synchrony and oxytocin
Empathy within and beyond group boundaries with Israeli and Palestinian youth
Attachment theory, attachment problems, and ways to overcome them

Technical terms mentioned