Glenn Murphy returns to the podcast to discuss a thorny problem that all of us face these days: how to evaluate claims in areas where we aren't experts.
For me, that's health and nutrition, politics, economics, business, geology, environmental science, and just about everything else. In other words, my entire life is predicated on some kind of algorithm for deciding what I believe.
And that's probably true of you as well. You know what you believe, and who you believe, and where you're certain and where you aren't so sure - but do you know how you arrived at your conclusions?
I didn't.
This conversation helped me identify and articulate my own "epistemological heuristics," to use two words that frankly I'm not exactly sure what they mean, let alone how to spell them without the aid of spell checker.
I was surprised at the high emotional valence that went into my decisions about what and who to trust. As an aspiring rational being, it was interesting to me to acknowledge just how much stake I put in the kindness and humility of the experts that I trust, as opposed to their unvarnished authority and expertise.
Glenn and I talk frankly about researchers and clinicians who have fallen victim to ego stroking rather than truth seeking. We share examples from the whole food plant-based world, from the world of metabolomics, from the arguments about who has the "best" martial art, and from the annals of positive and behavioral psychology.
If you're interested in truth, I think this conversation will challenge and delight you.
But I could be wrong.
Links
Burn, by Herman Pontzer, PhD
Amy Cuddy, PhD's TED talk
Cuddy's co-author recants findings on "Power Poses"
Brian Wansink, PhD on Plant Yourself
Brian Wansink resigns on charges of data manipulation
Tyson Yunkaporta on Plant Yourself: First | Second
Glenn Murphy's excellent "Systema For Life" podcast