What is sex? What is gender? These are big, weighty questions with not a few societal and political tensions involved. Who better to guide us through this morass than Dan Conroy-Beam (UCSB)? Get ready for a clear-minded, derived-from-first-principles tour of the evolution of sex, sex roles, and gender. Other topics include the culture vs. biology distinction, mentors, friends, what agent based modeling is, and why it's not self-indulgent to model the evolution of sex.

More about Dan Conroy-Beam:

https://www.danconroybeam.com/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ifQUQssAAAAJ&hl=en

https://psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/daniel-conroy-beam

Revenge, forgiveness, morality. Join us and our guest Mike McCullough (UC San Diego) as we navigate the deep cost/benefit structure of the social world. Topics include what punishment really is, why we should respect revenge, why victims may sometimes not seek help, and why times heals all wounds.

More about Mike McCullough:

https://www.michael-mccullough.com/

https://psychology.ucsd.edu/people/profiles/mmccullough.html

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZyAttkAAAAAJ&hl=en

Causality is....well...causality...it's hard to explain. And that's exactly what Tadeg Quillien (Edinburgh) does: figure out what the heck causality is, and how our mind does it. Other topics include domain generality vs. specificity, counterfactuals, relevance, morality, beliefs and theory of mind, and what it means to be computational, and how David Hume was pretty cool.

More about Tadeg Quillien:

https://quillienlab.github.io/people/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7h0VM_kAAAAJ&hl=fr

A guest who needs no introduction. Leda Cosmides (UCSB) talks about how she and John Tooby co-founded the enterprise "evolutionary psychology"---including the how's, when's and why's---and what she thinks about current work. Other topics include why it's good for science to not be a jerk, and how she's come to understand what the heck behavioral and experimental economists are up to. More about Leda Cosmides: https://psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/leda-cosmides

https://www.cep.ucsb.edu/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=V1vCfTYAAAAJ&hl=en

Along with Margo Wilson, Martin Daly (McMaster) is one the founding pioneers of evolutionary psychology. In this episode, we get Martin's take on the history and the field. Topics include studying real-world phenomena (like homicide), inequality, and how evolutionary biologists like Williams and Hamilton supported the upstart approach (and whether it's really a different approach at all), and what happens when you give a lab-reared rat the kind of plant that it evolved to eat out in the wild, but has never seen before.

More about Martin Daly: https://www.martindaly.ca/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Daly_(professor)

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1BUIq-UAAAAJ

What's up with music? Why do vibrating strings tug on our emotions? And why can't most animals keep a beat? In this episode, we talk to Greg Bryant (UCLA) all about things acoustic and musical. Other topics include: the evolutionary logic of distortion in rock, laughter (including in rats!), and the psychology of perfect pitch and jamming.

More about Greg Bryant:

https://gabryant.scholar.ss.ucla.edu/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=urz-QfkAAAAJ&hl=en

Greg's music:

/gbryant.bandzoogle.com/home

https://gbryant.bandcamp.com/album/soft-assembly-of-a-die-hard

What is stress? Is it useful? What is the endocrine system? Why do we need it (and why isn't a brain enough)? In this episode, we talk to Jen Byrd-Craven (Oklahoma State) about all things stress and endocrine. Other topics include development, supposedly "over-active" stress responses, rage-bait, chilling out, obesity, parenting, status, teaching history, and much more.

More about Jen Byrd-Craven:

https://byrd-cravenpsychobiologylab.mystrikingly.com/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MYyZEL4AAAAJ&hl=en

Along with Pete Richerson, Rob Boyd (ASU) is one of *the* founders of cultural evolution, and one of the key figures in connecting human behavior with evolution. A very special episode with one of the greats! To top it off, we have Rob's former PhD student (and previous guest) Cristina Moya, in the role of guest host.

More about Rob Boyd:

https://www.robboyd.net/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyd_(anthropologist)

https://search.asu.edu/profile/1952328

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YucHqSsAAAAJ&hl=en