Serious Inquiries Only

How does AI use affect learning? You'd be surprised how much we already know. Dr. Jenessa Seymour takes us through the research on screen use, metacognition, cognitive offloading, and some recent papers

Sources:

• Clinton, V. (2019). Reading from paper compared to screens: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Reading, 42, 288-325.
• Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L.S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., & Kestin, G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. PNAS, 116, 19251-19257.
• Risko, E.F. & Gilbert, S.J. (2016). Cognitive offloading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20, 676-688.
• Bastani, H., Bastani, O., Sungu, A., Ge, H., Kabakci, O., & Mariman, R. (2025). Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning: Evidence from high school mathematics. Economic Sciences, 122, 1-8.
• Tian, J. & Zhang, R. (2025). Learners' AI dependence and critical thinking: The psychological mechanism of fatigue and the social buffering role of AI literacy. Acta Psychologica, 260.

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Kids are weird, like really weird, but in a fun way? Dr. Jenessa Seymour is back to tell us about some classic child development paradigms that really need to be reevaluated. Depending on when you learned about these experiments, you were either taught that they were the gospel truth, with established ages where kids can and cannot pass these tests, and major consequences for late development, or maybe you heard that recent studies show it's a bit more complicated. Still makes for some cute and funny demonstrations either way.

Sources:

• The marshmallow test is really about trust
• The "curse of knowledge"
• Autistic kids pass theory-of-mind tests on a computer
• Passing the theory-of-mind test with implicit looking measures at 15-months-old and 13-months-old
• Kids pass the conservation test sooner when they do it themselves

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You've seen the headline: AI "solved" one of math's Millennium Prize problems. Thomas and Jenessa (here as a friend, not an expert) are joined by David Souther, a software engineer and LLM researcher, who's SO annoyed about it. Why did he answer Jenessa's text in all caps? And what's the deal with a rushed phone call between OpenAI and a math professor?

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Dr. Tania Lombrozo, professor of psychology at Princeton University (affiliated with its philosophy and cognitive science departments), joins Thomas to discuss her forthcoming book Why We Ask Why: The Science of Explanation and the Human Drive to Understand.

Why are humans so driven to explain things, but only some things? Why does understanding go beyond just being able to predict? And what happens when asking why makes you the social liability in the room?

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David O'Brien, higher education policy scholar with the California Community Colleges System, is back to answer the question Thomas posed last time: why is college so expensive?

They get into tuition vs. total cost of attendance, the dirty little secret of private university pricing, administrative bloat, the amenities arms race, and why the people loudest about college costs are likely well-off, but getting very little financial aid.

Mentioned:

• The Daily: College, Student Loans, and Trump

• Sara Goldrick-Rab's research on college costs and student basic needs

• Cal Grant program (California)

• Pell Grant

• Americans with Disabilities Act

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I cannot stop thinking about Cody from Some More News's video in which he could not stop thinking about Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Cody is INCREDIBLY sure that you're an idiot incapable of watching movies or consuming art if you don't agree with his conception of what the ending of Brand New Day meant. The problem is... Cody gets about a billion things wrong and his arguments are terrible.

This was going to be just a Patreon bonus of Serious Inquiries Only but I wanted to put it up on YouTube so it's going out to everyone! WATCH HERE!

• Cody's video: "How Did People Become So Bad At Watching Movies?"

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... and other autism/ADHD research! So pleased to have Dr. Jenessa Seymour back - this time with a variety of studies in the Autism and ADHD realms.

• Jurek, L., Duchier, A., Gauld, C., Henault, L., Giroudon, C., Fourneret, P., … Nourredine, M. (2025). Sensory processing in individuals with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder compared with control populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 64, 1132-1147.

• Le Cunff, A., Russell, C. & Dommett, E.J. (2026). Hyperactive–impulsive ADHD traits predict

• Higher curiosity in adults: evidence from a cross-sectional study. BMC Psychology, 14, 1-11.

• White, R.C. & Remington, A. (2018). Object personification in Autism: This paper will be very sad if you don't read it. Autism, 23, 1042-1045.

• Botha, M. & Cage, E. (2022). "Autism research is in crisis": A mixed method study of researcher's constructions of autistic people and autism research. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1-22.

• Devlin, H. (July 5, 2026). Pioneer of 'extreme male brain' theory of autism now says phrase unhelpful. The Guardian.

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Part 2! Dr. Eric Jaffe returns to actually treat the cancer this time: why radiation is basically catching your kid smoking and making him finish the carton, how CRISPR turns your own T cells into an assassin squad, and why oncolytic viruses are just Jurassic World Dominion for tumors.

Haven't heard Part 1 yet? Start there or you'll be lost.

Mentioned:

• CAR-T therapy

• RAS inhibitor drugs

• Oncolytic viruses

• mRNA cancer vaccines

• Red Queen hypothesis

• Cancer-sniffing dogs

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Part 1! Dr. Eric Jaffe, the biology teacher who keeps naming proteins after cartoon characters, returns for a two-part cancer deep dive. Today: what cancer actually is at the cellular level, why elephants barely get it, why whales get it even less, and why the "they're hiding the cure" conspiracy falls apart the second you learn who actually funds the research.

Mentioned:

• Peto's paradox

• HeLa cells

• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

• XKCD cancer comic

Part 2, the cure, is already up for Patreon supporters!

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Part 2! Thomas is joined again by David O'Brien, a higher education policy scholar with the California Community Colleges system, to finish dismantling The Daily's take on Trump's student loan crackdown. Reagan, Pell Grants, and decades of quiet state defunding all get their due, plus a theory on why tuition keeps climbing that has nothing to do with cosmetology degrees.

Mentioned:

• The Daily college episode

• Gainful employment rules

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