Serious Inquiries Only

This episode was inspired by this Insider article, Baby Boomers Are More Sensitive Than Millennials. Science is often butchered by the media, so I sent it along to our own Dr. Lindsey Osterman to see if the study backs up the article. As it turns out... not really. But it does say some interesting things. Listen in and find out!

Wetzel and colleagues (2017), The Narcissism Epidemic is Dead; Long Live the Narcissism Epidemic

Today Lindsey and I are joined by Dr. Caleb Lack. Caleb is a full professor of psychology at the University of Central Oklahoma, and he's here to talk about evidence based mental healthcare. When it comes to treatment, what is actually evidence based and what is unsupported at best and pseudoscience at worst? Also, find out how Caleb trolled a predatory academic journal!

Check out Caleb's book, Critical Thinking, Science, and Pseudoscience.

Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, short and to the point! Support the show at patreon.com/seriouspod! Come watch us on Twitch! Follow us on Twitter: @seriouspod Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SIOmembers For comments, email [email protected]

It's episode 300! And also the June patreon QnA! Topics covered include: moral panics – does the left engage in them too? Syria and an old SIO guest. Are we close to full institutional breakdown? How f*cked are we in 2022 and 2024? Who would we root for in a war against America? Christian socialists, critical race theory, people on the left wanting to lift mask mandates. And, what episodes are good for reachable right wing people?

You've seen Critical Race Theory discussed everywhere thanks to an entirely ginned up moral panic by Christopher Rufo, but have you gotten to hear someone who actually teaches it talk about what it's really about? If not, I hope you'll listen as Dr. Ery Shin takes us through some basics, and also answers a few anti-CRT talking points from James Lindsay's Christian Nationalist funded New Discourses.

with special guest Aaron Rabinowitz! You know him from Embrace the Void and Philosophers in Space, but today he's here to philosophize at us. A paper on pointlessness was published in the first issue of the Journal of Controversial ideas. How good is it? How controversial? Find out!

Perhaps some number of them did, but neither these atheist leaders, nor the movement as a whole "merged with the far right," as this Salon article says. I suppose it may seem like a minor point to some, but I think it's pretty significantly journalistically irresponsible to have a headline as explosive as that, with the picture like that, and not have it be supported by the article.

Recently, Jeff McMahan, Francesca Minerva and Peter Singer started a journal called The Journal of Controversial Ideas. In it, people can post racist transphobic stuff that is TOO controversial for other journals! (except that it totally isn't.) Lindsey and I give some background, and do a fair bit of yelling about the race science paper published in the first issue of the journal. Links: "Who Is The Victim In The Anna Stubblefield Case?", "Gender Muddle: Reply to Dembroff", "Cognitive Creationism Compared to Young-Earth Creationism", Holly Dunsworth's essay, VBW on IQ & Race, pt 1 https://www.verybadwizards.com/122 and pt 2 https://www.verybadwizards.com/123

Lots of great questions from our patrons! Lindsey gives us a taser research update; why are puppies cuter than humans? Is PZ Myers wrong about EvoPsych? Spike proteins, anti-vax stuff, and more! Links: TASER study, Kurzban's response to PZ, Russian fox domestication experiment, Contrapoints on AGP, Blogpost on spike proteins, Aaaaaand one bonus link for you

Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer-winning journalist and developer of the 1619 Project, was appointed to a tenured professorship at UNC Chapel Hill. This is a position that is funded by the Knight foundation. However, a board of old white lawyers who happen to be the Trustees of the University, denied Hannah-Jones tenure, against the recommendations of, well... everyone who should matter in the decision making process. Many people have made bad faith arguments and whataboutisms, but Dr. Lindsey Osterman (tenured professor) is here to give us real perspective on it.

NYT: Nikole Hannah-Jones Denied Tenure, The 1619 Project, UNC Chapel Hill Faculty Handbook, Hussman School of Journalism Tenure Procedures, Open letter from the Hussman faculty, "We Are Critics of Nikole Hannah-Jones. Her Tenure Denial Is A Travesty.", Criticisms of her appointment, NYT note explaining revision of Hannah-Jones's essay, NC Policy Watch's Special Report on NHJ's tenure denial

The CDC recently made a surprise announcement that vaccinated people don't need to wear masks, with only a few exceptions. This was greeted with some excitement, but also with vigorous pushback by people on the left. So what's the science behind this decision, and what are the practical concerns? We break it down! Then, we talk about a very premature victory lap taken by Bret Weinstein over the lab-leak hypothesis being confir... I mean not quite technically disproven. ***FACTUAL CORRECTION*** I said that 27 states never had mask mandates. I misread that. 27 didn't have them in place at the time of the CDC's announcement. 11 states never had mandates. Links: CDC Updates To Recommendations, CDC Science Brief, KFF Report on Vaccine Hesitancy/Enthusiasm, Science Letter, "Investigate the origins of COVID-19", NYT Article on Science Letter