Dr. Kevin Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College in Dublin. His research focuses on understanding the wiring of the brain and how it relates to variation in human faculties, especially to psychiatric and neurological disease. Kevin’s latest book tackles a longstanding philosophical debate and makes bold new claims. It is entitled Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will. Kevin joins the podcast to discuss how natural selection could have favored the development of agency and free will in humans and other complex organisms, and how consciousness provides major advantages in the natural world.