The Insight
Latest Episodes
Brian Hare and Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity
Razib discusses the new book Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity with one of the authors. https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B07ZC6XGGX/geneexpressio-20
Why Western Europeans are so WEIRD and why that matters!
Razib talks to evolutionary anthropologist Joe Henrich about his new book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous,
Why much of science is fiction
Razib talks to Stuart Ritchie about his new book, Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250222699/geneexpressio-20
Siberian paleohistory
Razib and Spencer discuss the geography, prehistory, and genetics, of Siberia. Also, the time Spencer experienced a Siberian winter!
Sundaland: a human evolutionary hearth
Razib and Spencer discuss why the geology and biogeography of Southeast Asia may explain why it is so important in the history of human evolution. Show notes:
Peopling the Americas 32,000 years ago
Razib discusses revolutionary new work published in Nature that tells us that modern humans were present in the Americas 32,000 years ago with one of the authors, Lorena Becerra-Valdivia.
Ghost in the machine
Spencer and Razib talk about what we mean when we say "ghost population" in human genetics, and why it's so important to understand our origins.
Native American admixture into Polynesia!
Razib talks to Alex Ioannidis on the new paper which he is a first author of which argues that there is pre-Columbian Native American ancestry in Eastern Polynesia. Did the Polynesians bring them back from the mainland? Or did they voyage themselves?
Will to Power and the Holocene transition
Razib and Spencer talk about what a new ancient DNA paper from Neolithic Ireland suggests about radical inequality and power differentials in early agricultural societies, and what that says about the transition from hunting and gathering more...
Two cultures, humanities and science
Spencer and Razib discuss what the humanities can offer to science with Kerim Yasar, professor of East Asian literature