This is a special episode: this podcast will change after this episode, from remote audio-only interviews to exclusively in-person video interviews. Dan Quintana, professor at the University of Oslo and host of the Everything Hertz podcast, joins me to discuss why and how I'm making this change, podcasting and science communication more broadly, time management as an academic and podcaster, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: An obnoxious episode: podcasters talking about podcasting

0:02:22: Why Dan and I started our podcasts

0:07:15: Video vs audio podcasts, YouTube as a podcast platform, and social media

0:13:08: In-person vs. online/remote recordings

0:18:40: My plans for recording in-person video interviews

0:28:55: To start a remote podcast, you only need a laptop now

0:30:58: Managing a podcast while being a full-time scientist

0:39:14: Inviting guests to do interviews

0:43:20: Is podcasting a waste of time?

0:48:22: Science communication

0:49:56: Should I change my podcast's name and logo?

0:55:55: Final recommendations for the podcast from Dan? And for people who want to start a podcast

1:04:02: A book or paper more people should read

1:09:50: Something Dan wishes he'd learnt sooner

1:12:11: Advice for postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Dan's links

• Website: https://geni.us/quintana-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/quintana-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/quintana-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

Other links & references

Samson 2QU microphone: https://samsontech.com/products/microphones/usb-microphones/q2u/

Latour & Woolgar (1979). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts.

Morris (1979). The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

Todes (2014). Ivan Pavlov: A Russian life in science.

Lauren Ross is a professor of logic and philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. We talk about her work on causation, mechanism, and explanation in neuroscience, Lauren's background in medicine, how to write clearly, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Why Lauren studied medicine

0:04:23: Differences between medicine and philosophy

0:21:19: Why Lauren switched to philosophy of science

0:25:30: How to learn to write clearly

0:30:21: Are doctors practitioners of causality?

0:34:25: What's so difficult about causality?

0:38:46: Causal structures: mechanism, pathway, cascade, circuit.

1:02:11: The practical use of thinking about causal structures and varieties

1:11:35: What's the difference between a circuit and a pathway? And what are you trying to do?

1:20:31: Secondary features of causation/causal varieties: strength, stability, speed, specificity

1:29:29: A book or paper more people should read

1:30:45: Something Lauren wishes she'd learnt sooner

1:33:29: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Lauren's links

• Website: https://geni.us/ross-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/ross-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/ross-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References

Alon (2006). An introduction to systems biology: design principles of biological circuits. [There's a lecture series by Alon that seems to be based on the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6VZeWuME_A&list=PLLbr-B8cNbo6v4kc68JowzUeAYdh6gdQH]

Barack, Miller, Moore, Packer, Pessoa, Ross, & Rust (2022). A call for more clarity around causality in neuroscience. Trends in neurosciences.

Forsyth (2013). The elements of eloquence: How to turn the perfect English phrase.

Hempel (1965). Aspects of scientific explanation.

Ross (2021). Causal concepts in biology: How pathways differ from mechanisms and why it matters. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

Ross & Bassett (2024). Causation in neuroscience: keeping mechanism meaningful. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Kai Ruggeri is professor for health policy and management at Columbia University. We talk about his global collaborations, in which they studied various important decision-making aspects, including Prospect Theory and temporal discounting.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps
0:00:00: Why Kai studied stats anxiety in his PhD, and then moved to broader policy questions

0:09:15: Replicating the original Prospect Theory paper across the world

0:30:01: Adversarial collaborations and choosing which findings are worth being replicated

0:38:31: How to run global collaborations

0:56:25: Overlooked aspects of these global collaborations

1:03:59: Should we collect data from non-Western countries without local collaborators?

1:10:24: A book or paper more people should read

1:16:38: Something Kai wishes he'd learnt sooner

1:27:50: Advice for postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Kai's links

• Website: https://geni.us/ruggeri-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/ruggeri-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/ruggeri-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References, links & notes

Junior Researcher Programme: https://jrp.pscholars.org/

Today, Israel uses the Shekel, but when Kahneman & Tversky did research there, they used the Israeli pound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_pound

Prolific: https://www.prolific.com/

Besample: https://besample.app/

Kahneman's final decision: https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/daniel-kahneman-assisted-suicide-9fb16124

Gal & Rucker (2018). The loss of loss aversion: Will it loom larger than its gain? J Cons Psych.

Kahneman & Tversky (1979). Prospect theory: an analysis of decisions under risk. Econometrica.

Lewis (2016). The undoing project.

Macher, ... & Ruggeri (2012). Statistics anxiety, trait anxiety, learning behavior, and academic performance. Europ J psych edu.

Macher, ... Ruggeri, ... (2013). Statistics anxiety, state anxiety during an examination, and academic achievement. British J Edu Psych.

Mellers, Hertwig & Kahneman (2001). Do frequency representations eliminate conjunction effects? An exercise in adversarial collaboration. Psych Sci.

Parks, Joireman & Van Lange (2013). Cooperation, trust, and antagonism: How public goods are promoted. Psych sci in the public interest.

Ruggeri, ... & Folke (2020). Replicating patterns of prospect theory for decision under risk. Nat Hum Behav.

Ruggeri, ... & Folke (2021). The general fault in our fault lines. Nat Hum Behav.

Ruggeri, ... & Toscano (2022). The globalizability of temporal discounting. Nat Hum Behav.

Ruggeri (Ed.). (2018). Behavioral insights for public policy: concepts and cases.

Thaler (2015). Misbehaving.

Elsa Fouragnan is an Associate Professor and UKRI Future Leader Fellow at the University of Plymouth. We talk mainly about her work on focussed transcranial ultrasound stimulation, a new non-invasive way other stimulating (human) brains, including deep areas that can't be reached with TMS. We also discuss her childhood in French Polynesia, how she started doing research, what it's like seeing a brain during surgery, and much more.

This was the first episode I recorded in-person. The audio quality is really good, with the minor exception that I made a really silly error during editing, such that quiet parts are sometimes not entirely audible. A few words are not audible, but this shouldn't affect comprehension.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Elsa's childhood in French Polynesia and in mainland France

0:10:25: Why Elsa studied engineering and started doing research

0:19:04: How Elsa started working on Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation

0:23:08: What is Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation?

0:28:20: Is it safe?

0:36:12: What can you do with it/what kind of stimulations is it?

0:53:41: The practicalities of using TUS

1:04:42: What it's like to see brain surgery in the operating theatre

1:10:11: Back to the skull being a problem and which brains regions can be reached with TUS?

1:18:49: The future of TUS

1:27:59: A book or paper more people should read

1:30:13: Something Elsa wishes she'd learnt sooner

1:34:51: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Elsa's links

• Website: https://geni.us/fouragnan-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/fouragnan-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/fouragnan-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References and links

Ua Pou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ua_Pou

Folloni, Verhagen, Mars, Fouragnan, ... & Sallet (2019). Manipulation of subcortical and deep cortical activity in the primate brain using transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation. Neuron.

Liptrot (2015). The Outrun.

Murphy & Fouragnan (2024). The future of transcranial ultrasound as a precision brain interface. PLoS Biology.

Yoo, Mittelstein, Hurt, Lacroix & Shapiro (2022). Focused ultrasound excites cortical neurons via mechanosensitive calcium accumulation and ion channel amplification. Nature Communications.

Yaakub, ... & Fouragnan (2024). Non-invasive Ultrasound Deep Neuromodulation of the Human Nucleus Accumbens Increases Win-Stay Behaviour. BioRxiv.

Melinda Baldwin is an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland. We talk about her work studying the history of Nature, scientific journals more broadly, what it means to be a scientist, peer review, the Tyndall project, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Melinda's chemistry-history double major

0:03:42: Why Melinda did a PhD on the history of Nature

0:07:06: The glorious beginning of Nature and the history of scientific journals

0:17:00: How Nature became a journal for scientists (rather than the educated general public)

0:19:59: When did scientists start calling themselves 'scientists'? The mergence of science as a profession

0:26:26: The history of peer review: How to get into Nature in the 19th century, and the rise of peer review during the Cold War

0:40:53: Establishing causality in historical research

0:48:33: The future of peer review

1:06:16: Tyndall, why?

1:19:02: A book or paper more people should read

1:22:24: Something Melinda wishes she'd learnt sooner

1:29:05: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Melinda's links

• Website: https://geni.us/baldwin-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/baldwin-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/baldwin-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References and links

eLife peer review: https://elifesciences.org/about/peer-review

John Tyndall project: https://tyndallproject.com/

Baldwin (2017). In referees we trust? Physics Today.

Baldwin (2018). Scientific autonomy, public accountability, and the rise of “peer review” in the Cold War United States. Isis.

Baldwin (2019). Making" Nature" The History of a Scientific Journal.

Gordin (2012). The pseudoscience wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the birth of the modern fringe.

Poehler (2014). Yes please.

Zuckerman & Merton (1971). Patterns of evaluation in science: Institutionalisation, structure and functions of the referee system. Minerva.

Steve Fleming is a professor in psychology at University College London. I invited Steve to talk about his work on meta-cognition, but we ended up spending the entire episode talking about lab culture, starting a lab, applying for funding, Steve's background in music, and what drew him to do cognitive neuroscience. There's even a tiny discussion about consciousness research at the end.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Steve ran his lab in London from Croatia for a few years

0:23:57: Lessons as a PI: students and postdocs are adults and will figure it out

0:28:45: Learning more skills as a postdoc vs. starting a lab

0:41:13: Contacting departments to apply for grants

0:52:19: Steve's background in music

1:07:13: What drew Steve to cognitive science? A brief discussion of the future of consciousness research

1:27:23: A book or paper more people should read

1:33:02: Something Steve wishes he'd learnt sooner

1:38:16: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Steve's links

• Website: https://geni.us/sfleming-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/fleming-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/fleming-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References and links

FIL at UCL: https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/

ERC Starting Grant: https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/starting-grant

Wellcome Trust Early-Career Award (without strict time restrictions): https://wellcome.org/research-funding/schemes/wellcome-early-career-awards

Example paper by Josh Mcdermott on music: McDermott, Schultz, Undurraga & Godoy (2016). Indifference to dissonance in native Amazonians reveals cultural variation in music perception. Nature.

Carter (2002). Consciousness.

Chalmers (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of consciousness studies.

Dehaene, Al Roumi, Lakretz, Planton & Sablé-Meyer (2022). Symbols and mental programs: a hypothesis about human singularity. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Isaacson (2021). The code breaker.

Marr (1982). Vision: A computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information.

Pinker (1997). How the mind works.

Tononi (2004). An information integration theory of consciousness. BMC neuroscience.

Damian Blasi is a professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. We talk about his article 'Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science', linguistic diversity, how to study across the world's languages, his career path, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Why Damian studied physics

0:06:31: How to deal with small, sparse, incomplete, imbalanced, noisy, and non-independent observational data

0:09:38: Evolutionary advantages of different languages

0:14:01: How Damian started doing research on linguistics

0:20:09: How to study a language you don't speak

0:28:58: Start discussing Damian's paper 'Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science'

0:48:25: What can experimental scientists do about the vast differences between cultures, especially of difficult to reach peoples? And how different are languages and cultures really?

1:10:15: Why is New Guinea so (linguistically) diverse?

1:17:34: Should I learn a common or a rare language? And where?

1:29:09: A book or paper more people should read

1:32:31: Something Damian wishes he'd learnt sooner

1:33:56: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Damian's links

• Website: https://geni.us/blasi-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/blasi-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/blasi-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References

World Atlas of Languages: https://en.wal.unesco.org/world-atlas-languages

The Andamanese group that's hostile to strangers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese

"the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito_surrender_broadcast

Bakker (2022). The sounds of life.

Blasi ... Neubig (2021). Systematic inequalities in language technology performance across the world's languages. arXiv.

Blasi ... Bickel (2019). Human sound systems are shaped by post-Neolithic changes in bite configuration. Science.

Blasi ... Majid (2022). Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science. Trends in cognitive sciences.

Everett (2023). A myriad of tongues.

Floyd ... Enfield (2018). Universals and cultural diversity in the expression of gratitude. Royal Society Open Science.

Gordon (2004). Numerical cognition without words: Evidence from Amazonia. Science.

Hossenfelder (2018). Lost in math.

Koyama & Rubin (2022). How the world became rich.

Nettle (1998). Explaining global patterns of language diversity. Journal of anthropological archaeology.

Pica ... Dehaene (2004). Exact and approximate arithmetic in an Amazonian indigene group. Science.

Skirgård ... Gray (2023). Grambank reveals the importance of genealogical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss. Science Advances.

Gordon Pennycook is an Associate Professor at Cornell University. We talk about his upbringing in rural Northern Canada, how he got into academia, and his work on misinformation: why people share it and what can be done about it.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Straight outta Carrot River: From Northern Canada to publishing in Nature

0:37:01: Exploration vs focusing on one topic: finding your research topic

0:48:57: A sense of having made it

0:54:17: Why apply reasoning research to religion?

0:59:45: Starting working on misinformation

1:08:20: Defining misinformation, disinformation, and fake news

1:15:52: Social media, the consumption of news, and Bayesian updating

1:24:48: Reasons for why people share misinformation

1:35:57: Are social media companies listening to Pennycook et al?

1:38:19: Using AI to change conspiracy beliefs

1:44:59: A book or paper more people should read

1:46:33: Something Gordon wishes he'd learnt sooner

1:48:12: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Gordon's links

• Website: https://geni.us/pennycook_web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/pennycook-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pennycook-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar

References

Costello, Pennycook & Rand (2024). Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI. Science.

Dawkins (2006). The God Delusion.

MacLeod, ... & Ozubko (2010). The production effect: delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

Nowak & Highfield (2012). Supercooperators: Altruism, evolution, and why we need each other to succeed.

Pennycook, ... & Fugelsang (2012). Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief. Cognition.

Pennycook, Fugelsang & Koehler (2015). What makes us think? A three-stage dual-process model of analytic engagement. Cognitive Psychology.

Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler & Fugelsang (2015). On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit. Judgment and Decision making.

Pennycook & Rand (2019). Lazy, not biased: Susceptibility to partisan fake news is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning. Cognition.

Pennycook & Rand (2021). The psychology of fake news. Trends in cognitive sciences.

Rand (2016). Cooperation, fast and slow: Meta-analytic evidence for a theory of social heuristics and self-interested deliberation. Psychological Science.

Stanovich (2005). The robot's rebellion: Finding meaning in the age of Darwin.

Tappin, Pennycook & Rand (2020). Thinking clearly about causal inferences of politically motivated reasoning: Why paradigmatic study designs often undermine causal inference. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences.

Thompson, Turner & Pennycook (2011). Intuition, reason, and metacognition. Cognitive Psychology.