Simplifying Complexity

In the last episode, Paul Smaldino, Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences at the University of California, Merced, and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute discussed how human behaviour is shaped by cultural evolution.

In this episode, Paul discusses social learning and identity signalling and how they’re both being affected by rapidly changing technologies.

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We all know that we are shaped by evolution, but we're also shaped by cultural evolution.

In this episode, we’re joined by Paul Smaldino, Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences at the University of California, Merced, and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, to explain how cultural evolution has shaped human behaviour.

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Ricardo Hausmann is the Founder and Director of Harvard’s Growth Lab and the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School.

In this episode, Ricardo explains how the amount and diversity of knowledge within an economy shapes its current capabilities and influences a country’s possible economic growth.

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In the last episode, Kevin Mitchell, Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, compared human brains with single-celled organisms to introduce us to the impact of genetics on conscious thought.

In this episode, Kevin discusses metacognition, or how humans think about thinking, and its implications on free will versus determinism.

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In this episode, Kevin Mitchell, Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, takes us on a journey from single-celled organisms to human consciousness to explore if we have free will.

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