The Nature & Nurture Podcast
by Adam Omary
Discussing the interaction between Nature (our biology, genes, evolutionary past, and the laws of our universe) and Nurture (our social environments, culture, history, and upbringings), and how these forces impact our lives. New episodes every week with scientists, authors, and bright minds from a wide array of backgrounds. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheNatureNurturePodcast
Episodes
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Nature & Nurture #164: Dr. Matt Zwolinski - The History of Libertarianism
Dr. Matt Zwolinski is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego specializing in Political Philosophy and Applied Ethics. He is the director of USD’s Center for Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy, and co-author, together with John Tomasi, of The Individualists: Radicals,...
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Nature & Nurture #163: Nicholas Wade - The Origin of Politics
Nicholas Wade is the author of several books on human evolution, and has served as staff writer and editor for Nature, Science, and the science section of The New York Times. In this episode, we discuss Nicholas’ latest book The Origins of Politics on the evolutionary psychology of social...
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Nature & Nurture #162: Dr. Simon LeVay - The Science of Desire
Dr. Simon LeVay is a neuroscientist and author of Attraction, Love, Sex: The Inside Story.
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Nature & Nurture #161: Dr. Lars Krutak - The History of Indigenous Tattoos
Dr. Lars Krutak is an anthropologist, a research associate at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, host of the Discovery Channel series Tattoo Hunter, and author of Indigenous Tattoo Traditions.
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Nature & Nurture #160: Dr. Robert King - The Science of Orgasms
Dr. Robert King is a researcher at the School of Applied Psychology of University College Cork in Ireland. He is an expert in evolutionary psychology, sexual selection, and the science of orgasms, as detailed in his book Naturally Selective: Evolution, Orgasm, and Female Choice.
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Nature & Nurture #159: Dr. Jaap de Roode - How Parasites & Immune Systems Evolved
Dr. Jaap de Roode is the Samuel C. Dobbs Professor of Biology at Emory University, and the author of Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, & Other Animals Heal Themselves. He is an expert in the population biology of parasites and virus transmission, and how animals defend themselves against these...
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Nature & Nurture #158: Dr. Eric Kaufmann - Universities & The History of Wokeness
Dr. Eric Kaufmann is a Professor of Politics at The University of Buckingham and Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science. He is the author of several books including The Third Awokening: A 12-Point Plan for Rolling Back Progressive Extremism. In this episode, Eric and I discuss The...
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Nature & Nurture #157: Dr. Bill von Hippel - Evolutionary Psychology & Digital Health
Dr. Bill von Hippel is a social psychologist and author of The Social Paradox: Autonomy, Connection, and Why We Need Both to Find Happiness.
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Nature & Nurture #156: Dr. Dean Hamer - The Genetics of Sexual Orientation
Dr. Dean Hamer is a geneticist, author of several books including The Science of Desire and The God Gene, and a filmmaker. In this episode, we talk about Dean’s background in genetics and how the science of sexual orientation helped shape the “born this way” movement in gay civil rights. We talk...
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Nature & Nurture #155: Dr. Helen Joyce - Making Sense of the Transgender Debate
Dr. Helen Joyce is a journalist, mathematician, women’s right advocate, and author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. In this episode, we talk about Helen’s background in mathematics and transition into journalism, and eventually the so-called gender culture war. We discuss sex differences in...
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Nature & Nurture #154: Dr. Carl Marci - Protecting Your Brain From Screens
Dr. Carl Marci is a psychiatrist, Director of the Social Neuroscience Psychotherapy Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, and author of Rewired: Protecting Your Brain in the Digital Age. In this episode, we discuss how social media and digital technology impact attention span and...
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Nature & Nurture #153: Dr. Robin Nusslock - Neuroinflammation, Emotion, & Mindfulness
Dr. Robin Nusslock is a neuroscientist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University. He is an expert on the interactions between the brain and the immune system, including the role of neuroinflammation in regulating positive emotion, negative emotion, and mental health. In…
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Nature & Nurture #152: Dr. Webb Keane - Technology, Morality, & Narrative
Dr. Webb Keane is the George Herbert Mead Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is an expert in the anthropology of religion and ethics; semiotics and language; material culture; gifts, commodities, and money; and media. He is the...
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Nature & Nurture #151: Dr. Michael Bernstein - The Placebo & Nocebo Effects
Dr. Michael Bernstein is an experimental psychologist, Assistant Professor at Brown University Medical School, and the author of The Nocebo Effect: When Words Make You Sick. Dr. Bernstein’s research is focused on the overlap between cognitive science and medicine, studying the role of expectation...
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Nature & Nurture #150: Dr. Michael Bailey - Gender Dysphoria and Sexual Orientation
Dr. Bailey is a psychologist, behavioral geneticist, and Professor at Northwestern University specializing in the etiology of sexual orientation, sexual preferences and paraphilias, and gender diversity. In this episode, we discuss the history of transexualism in clinical psychology and its...
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Nature & Nurture #149: Dr. Ogi Ogas - Autism, Sex, & Consciousness
Dr. Ogi Ogas is a mathematical neuroscientist and author several books including Consciousness: How It’s Made, and A Billion Wicked Thoughts. He writes about autism, mathematical neuroscience, consciousness, and more on his Dark Gift blog: https://www.ogiogas.com/ In this episode Ogi and I…
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Nature & Nurture #148: Dr. Holly Bowen - Emotion, Motivation, & Memory
Dr. Holly Bowen is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Southern Methodist University. Dr. Bowen’s research focuses on how affective states, specifically emotion and motivation, influence how we form memories and remember past experiences. She is also interested in how the links between…
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Nature & Nurture #147: Dr. Jason Storm - From Postmodernism to Metamodernism
Dr. Jason Storm is a philosopher, historian, and the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Religion at Williams College. Dr. Storm is the author of several books including Metamodernism: The Future of Theory. In this episode, Jason and I talk about the history of modernism and...
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Nature & Nurture #146: Dr. Susana Monsó - How Animals Understand Death
Dr. Susana Monsó is a philosopher, animal ethicist, and author of Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death. In this episode, we discuss how different animals grieve, how opossums fake death, why predators play with their prey, why dogs sometimes eat their deceased owners as a sign of love…
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Nature & Nurture #145: Dr. Karen Bales - Neurobiology of Care & Attachment
Dr. Karen Bales is a Professor of Psychology and Neurobiology at UC Davis, and an expert in oxytocin, pairbonding, and the neurobiology of care. In this episode we discuss Karen’s background, education, and research on parental care and pairbonding across a wide variety of species including...
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Nature & Nurture #144: Dr. Alexey Tolchinsky - Chaos Theory in Psychology & Neuroscience
Dr. Alexey Tolchinsky is a licensed psychologist and an adjunct professor at the George Washington University. In this episode, we discuss Alexey’s clinical experience as a therapist, our shared research interests in neuropsychoanalysis, chaos theory as a way to measure complexity in neuroscience...
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Nature & Nurture #143: Dr. Nicholas Christakis - The Evolution of Social Networks
Dr. Nicholas Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, where he directs the Human Nature Lab. Dr. Christakis is an MD-PhD physician and sociologist known for applying social network analysis to the study of public health and the evolutionary psychology...
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Nature & Nurture #142: Dr. Mark Solms - A Journey to the Source of Consciousness
Dr. Mark Solms is a neuropsychologist, Professor at the University of Cape Town, and author of The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness. In this episode, we discuss The Hidden Spring - core areas within the brainstem which are the root of all feeling and consciousness in all...
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Nature & Nurture #141: Dr. Jorge Morales - The Neuroscience & Philosophy of Perception
Dr. Jorge Morales is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at Northeastern University, where he directs the Subjectivity Lab. In this episode, we discuss Jorge’s research on the neuropsychology and philosophy of visual perception, introspection, and theory of mind as lenses through...
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Nature & Nurture #140: Dr. Beatriz Luna - Adolescent Brain Development, Dopamine, & Risk-Taking
Dr. Beatriz Luna is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, where she directs the Laboratory of Neurocognitive Development. Dr. Luna is an expert in adolescent brain development and the neurodevelopment of the dopamine reward system, and its interactions with...
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Nature & Nurture #139: Dr. Rob Chavez - Computational Neuroscience & Social Cognition
Dr. Robert Chavez is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Oregon, where he directs the Computational Social Neuroscience Lab. https://csnl.uoregon.edu/ In this episode, Rob and I discuss our shared background in cognitive science and statistics, our mutual...
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Nature & Nurture #138: Dr. Adriene Beltz - Hormones, Sex Differences, & Contraceptives
Dr. Adriene Beltz is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, where she directs the Methods, Sex Differences, and Development Lab.
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Nature & Nurture #137: Dr. Larry Young - Hormones & Sexual Behavior Across Species
Dr. Larry Young is the William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry at Emory School of Medicine, where he directs the Center for Translational Social Neuroscience and the Silvio O. Conte Center for Oxytocin and Social Cognition at Emory University. He is the author of The Chemistry Between Us: Love,...
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Nature & Nurture #136: Dr. Steve Rathje - The Global Social Media Experiment
Steve Rathjay is a Psychologist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Social Identity and Morality Lab of New York University. He is an expert in the psychology of social media use and one of the leaders of the Global Social Media Experiment, an international collaboration examining the causal...
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Nature & Nurture #135: Dr. Rob Henderson - Childhood Instability, Poverty, Education, & Resilience
Dr. Rob Henderson is a Psychologist, Air Force Veteran, and author of Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class. Expanding on our past episode, in which we discuss luxury beliefs, social status, and classism at length, this time our discussion is much more personal. In this...
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Nature & Nurture #134: Dr. Sergio Pellis - The Neurobiology of Play
Dr. Sergio Pellis is a Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge and one of the world’s leading experts in the neurobiology of play. In this episode, we discuss how play behavior across mammals relies on the same neural reward circuitry, the evolutionary origins and benefits of...
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Nature & Nurture #133: Angel Millar - The Path of the Warrior-Mystic
Angel Millar is a hypnotist, martial artist, and author of The Path of the Warrior-Mystic: Being a Man in an Age of Chaos. In this episode we discuss the balance between masculine and feminine traits, discipline and creativity, mind and body, and tradition and modernity. The warrior-mystic, Angel...
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Nature & Nurture #132: Dr. Daniel Quintana - Oxytocin & Sex Hormones
Daniel Quintana is an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo. He leads a lab investigating biological systems that link psychological and social factors to health, with a focus on neuroendocrine systems (e.g., oxytocin) and the autonomic nervous system. His lab…
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Nature & Nurture #131: Dr. Lee Cronin - Evolution, Entropy, & The Chemical Origins of Life
Dr. Lee Cronin is a Professor and the Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, where he leads research on the chemical origins of life, computerized chemistry, and assembly theory. In this episode, we explore how assembly theory, analogues between chemistry and computation, the...
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Nature & Nurture #130: Dr. Alex Byrne - There Is No Gender Without Sex
Dr. Alex Byrne is a Professor of Philosophy at MIT and author of Trouble with Gender. In this episode, we talk about the problematic concept of gender, which is often used interchangeably to mean sex, gender identity, gender role, gender norm, or gender stereotypes. Alex and I discuss each of...
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Nature & Nurture #129: Dr. Wolfram Schultz - All About Dopamine Neurons
Dr. Wolfram Schultz is a Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and one of the world’s leading experts on dopamine. In this episode, we discuss the dopamine system's role in reward processing, evolutionary fitness, the functioning of dopamine neurons, the interplay between…
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Nature & Nurture #128: Dr. Camilla Nord - Neurotransmitters, Prediction Error, & Mental Health
Dr. Camilla Nord is a neuroscientist, leader of the Mental Health Neuroscience Lab at the University of Cambridge, and the author of The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health. In this episode we talk about The Balanced Brain, prediction error as the source of positive and negative emotion,...
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Nature & Nurture #127. Dr. Rachel Marsh - Self-Regulation, Brain Development, & Anxiety
Dr. Rachel Marsh is the Irving Philips Professor of Medical Psychology in Child Psychology at Columbia University Medical Center, where she runs the Cognitive Development and Neuroimaging Lab. Dr. Marsh studies the neurodevelopment of self-regulatory control and its pathology in disorders such as...
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Nature & Nurture #126. Dr. Walter Veit - Animal Consciousness, Evolution, & Morality
Dr. Walter Veit is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Reading and author of A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness. He is an expert in philosophy of mind, cognitive and biological sciences, applied ethics, and animal welfare. In this episode, we talk about philosophy of...
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Nature & Nurture #125: Dr. Ellen Langer - The Mother of Mindfulness
Dr. Ellen Langer is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and one of the pioneers of the positive psychology movement, known as the Mother of Mindfulness. Dr. Langer has won numerous awards including 3 Distinguished Scientist Award, the Staats Award for Unifying Psychology, and the...
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Nature & Nurture #124: Dr. Henning Tiemeier - Hormones, Brain Development, & Public Health
Dr. Henning Tiemeier is a Professor of Social and Behavioral Science and the Sumner and Esther Feldberg Chair of Maternal and Child Health at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Tiemeier is an expert in pediatric epidemiology, focusing on prenatal exposures and the environmental...
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Nature & Nurture #123. Dr. Willem Frankenhuis - Development, Evolution, Ecology, & Adversity
Dr. Willem Frankenhuis, he's an Associate Professor of Evolutionary and Population Biology at the University of Amsterdam, a Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law, and Director of the Research Network on Communicating Strength-Based Approaches to...
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Nature & Nurture #122: Dr. Lars Chittka - The Mind of a Bee
Dr. Lars Chittka is a Professor of Sensory and Behavioral Ecology and the founder of the Research Center for Psychology at Queen Mary University of London. He directs the Bee Sensory and Behavioral Ecology Lab, and is the author of The Mind of a Bee. In this episode, we discuss the results of...
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Nature & Nurture #121: Dr. Jack Schultz - Cultural Anthropology, Religion, & Relativism
Dr. Jack Schultz is a Professor of Anthropology at Concordia University and an expert in the cultural anthropology of religion and sociology of knowledge.
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Nature & Nurture #120: Dr. Kevin Mitchell - Evolution, Entropy, Neurogenetics, & Free Will
Dr. Kevin Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He's the author of Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are, and Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will. In this episode, we talk about Free Agents and the question of free…
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Nature & Nurture #119: Dr. Edward Hagen - Evolutionary Anthropology, Sex Differences, & Drugs
Dr. Edward Hagen is a Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Washington State University, where he directs the Bioanthropology Lab. In this episode, Ed and I discuss the recent controversy of the American Anthropological Association’s decision to censor a conference panel on sex differences…
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Nature & Nurture #118: Dr. Jennifer Silvers - Brain Development, Puberty, & Emotion Regulation
Dr. Jennifer Silvers is an Associate Professor of Psychology and the Bernice Wenzel and Wendell Jeffrey Term Endowed Chair in Developmental Neuroscience at UCLA, where she runs the Social Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab. She is an expert in adolescent brain, cognitive, and emotional...
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Nature & Nurture #117: Dr. Cory Clark - Meta-Science, Morality, and Psychological Bias
Dr. Cory Clark is a social psychologist and Director of the Adversarial Collaboration Project at the University of Pennsylvania. In this episode we talk about adversarial collaboration and open science, meta-psychology research on common biases in psychology carried by psychologists themselves…
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Nature & Nurture #116: Dr. James Roney - Sex Hormones, Motivation, & Evolution
Dr. James Roney is a Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he runs the Human Behavioral Endocrinology Lab. In this episode we talk about the proximate and ultimate evolutionary explanations of different sex hormones’ roles in…
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Nature & Nurture #115: Dr. Joseph Henrich - Culture, Cognition, & Coevolution
Dr. Joseph Henrich is an anthropologist and Chair of the Human Evolutionary Biology Department at Harvard University, where he runs the Culture, Cognition, and Coevolution Lab. Joe is also the author of the WEIRDest People in the World and The Secret of Our Success. Timestamps:0:00:46…
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About this show
Discussing the interaction between Nature (our biology, genes, evolutionary past, and the laws of our universe) and Nurture (our social environments, culture, history, and upbringings), and how these forces impact our lives. New episodes every week with scientists, authors, and bright minds from a wide array of backgrounds. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheNatureNurturePodcast
Hosted by
Adam Omary
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