• CES & HBES 2026 mini-episode
    May 19 2026

    This week features a special mini-episode, fresh off the presses from our trip to the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) conference in Rabat, Morocco. We (briefly) talk with Bret Beheim (Max Planck Leipzig), Cristina Moya (UC Davis), and Brian Wood (UCLA). Also, this episode marks one year of the podcast!

    More about Brian Wood:

    https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/brian-wood/

    http://brianwoodresearch.com/

    https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=oRH6SiEAAAAJ&hl=en

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    15 mins
  • Evolutionary Social Psychology with Steve Neuberg
    May 12 2026

    Steve Neuberg (ASU) takes us on a professional and personal journey, explaining what it means to straddle two different sub-disciplines with grace, tact, and not a little bit of success. Topics include: the specificity of discrimination and stereotyping, the difference between going phenomenon vs. adaptive problem first in one's approach, why it's useful to give the benefit of the doubt, and what Steve's newest venture is. A fun, thoughtful, and wide-ranging conversation.

    More about Steve:

    https://psychology.asu.edu/research/labs/evolution-ecology-social-behavior

    https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=98Zaz2MAAAAJ&hl=en

    https://search.asu.edu/profile/11074

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    2 hrs and 3 mins
  • The Yanamamo and Nap Chagnon with Ray Hames
    May 5 2026

    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/

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    1 hr and 43 mins
  • Sex and Gender with Dan Conroy-Beam
    Apr 28 2026

    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

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    2 hrs and 6 mins
  • Revenge and Forgiveness with Mike McCullough
    Apr 21 2026

    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

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    1 hr and 52 mins
  • Causality with Tadeg Quillien
    Apr 14 2026

    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

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    2 hrs and 7 mins
  • Founding Evolutionary Psychology with Leda Cosmides
    Apr 7 2026

    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

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    2 hrs and 4 mins
  • The Origins of evolutionary psychology with Martin Daly
    Mar 31 2026

    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

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    2 hrs