A Million Little Gods

Cafe La Morenita . “The little dark-haired girl.” Ehn. Should’ve made Yerba Mate or something. All right, let’s get back to it. Once people around the world had finally caught on to the fact that they’d been the marks in a shell game they’d foolishly been betting on since the industrial revolution—that their personal labor had been structured within a set of legal and economic institutions and had...

Uki Goñi was born in the United States. Much to the chagrin of folks whose political fortunes—and embarrassment of power—have lately been restored, that would normally mean that Goñi was an American citizen. But his father was an Argentine diplomat stationed at that country’s embassy in Washington, D.C. when he (Uki) was born. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the first section of which...

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Hello. Hi. My name is Aaron Gowen, and I’m here to tell you about this show that you’re listening to: A Million Little Gods . A Million Little Gods has been around for—I’m just gonna keep saying “ A Million Little Gods ” until it gets stuck in your synapses. A Million Little Gods . A.M.L.G. A Million little Gods is celebrating its tenth anniversary today. You might be saying to yourself, “Gosh, th...

It’s my favorite holiday again, and even though I’m hunkered down trying to produce the most complex, intricate, creative season of the podcast yet, there’s no way I’m going to skip a chance to celebrate. This time our guest is Bryon White, CEO of Yaupon Brothers, an organic producer of Yaupon Holly, a climate-change resistant plant once revered as a drink by all indigenous people of the Southeast...

Steve Metcalf seems to shed urbanity and passion like I shed dandruff. His off-the-cuff manner of speech is as trenchant as his writing, and he is able to say wise things about any subject. Here he discusses with me the topic that launched an episode of this podcast and my three-part essay “ Best Behavior ” (part three coming soon): the weird fact that we all changed our entire outlook on Woody Al...

In order to entice more people to become subscribers, here is our full interview (complimenting my three-part essay “The Razor Blade in the Apple,” which I released last month and you can read here ) with two scholars who have much to say about the formation of the scientific consensus on race: * Nathaniel Comfort, historian of genetics and the relationship between modern genomics and 19th-century...

We've reached the heart of the part of our series "Race: Is That a Thing?" devoted to statistics and data. Having laid the groundwork for understanding Bayesian techniques and machine learning—as well as the limits and discontents of those tools—in episodes nine and ten, we turn to how they've been used to understand the history and diversity of the human population. Carl Zimmer, New York Times sc...

Ben and Aaron, their families, and their colleagues and students at the University of Hamburg wish everyone in America a Happy Thanksgiving. Here's a little tone poem, so to speak, for the holiday. Stay safe everyone. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Get full access to A Million Little Gods at amillionlittlegods.substack.com/subscribe

Is the margin of error the same thing as the percentage of certainty you can have in that margin of error? Can a prediction ever happen in a vacuum without affecting the thing it's making a prediction about? Can we even distinguish between a deterministic universe and one in which we have free will? Does that have anything to do with time? Can two dudes drinking beer under bed comforters at home a...

Continuing the theme from Episode 9, we closely examine: how machine learning works, how our subconsciouses—both individual and collective—learn from the past, making ad hoc categories based on contingencies, how those categories are the origin of basically all of the things that populate the world, how technologies that use augmented versions of our own rational capacities are quickly altering ba...

We flip to the B-Side of Season 2, as we enter a section of the season devoted to statistics and mathematical modeling. In this episode we examine the life and career of baseball great Ted Williams and consider how adding new variables to a model can change what the model shows, for better or worse. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Get full access to A Million Little Gods...

Today we begin part two—or, as we're calling it, the B Side—of season two, "Race: Is That a Thing?" To kick things off we're re-releasing the last episode of part one, Episode 8: "The Holy Family in a Pane of Frosted Glass" together with Episode 9: "Ballpark Figures Part I." See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Get full access to A Million Little Gods at amillionlittlegods.su...

To set the stage for part two of our series, “Race: Is That a Thing?", we take a deep look at a recurring metaphor that has permeated our entire series. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Get full access to A Million Little Gods at amillionlittlegods.substack.com/subscribe

Once again, this is a set of material that we couldn’t fit into Episode Seven: “Categorical Declarative” proper. Consider the contents of the appendix the audio footnote podcasts—or “footcasts”—to that episode. We will be releasing Episode Eight: “The Holy Family in a Pane of Frosted Glass” on Monday, March 18. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Get full access to A Million...

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , he “is the central figure in modern philosophy. He synthesized early modern rationalism and empiricism, set the terms for much of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, and continues to exercise a significant influence today in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, and other fields.” But did Immanuel Kant c...

When people talk about things as social constructs, should we understand that as derision or dismissal? Do socially constructed human kinds, like races, get realer over time, the more those who supposedly fit a construct begin to behave as if they naturally fit it? We ask Professor of Philosophy and Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Ron Mallon of Washington University in St. Louis these questions...

Can there be a plurality of concepts of race floating in the social air? If so, are we okay with that? Are there pragmatic uses for one or more of those concepts in the areas of medicine or public policy? In this episode we speak with Robin O. Andreasen, philosopher and Associate Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt...

If race has no essence, then is it an irrational social contrivance? Or is it somewhere in-between? We speak with Michael Hardimon, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and author of Rethinking Race: The Case for Deflationary Realism , who argues we must come to terms with the limited ways in which race really does exist. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out...

As our guest this episode, philosopher Stewart Umphrey, writes, “Our everyday understanding of natural things presupposes that their reality does not depend on how we regard them, and that the way we ordinarily regard them is heuristically if not cognitively valuable.” Join us as we explore natural kinds in our continued attempt to determine whether “race” is really a thing, and what makes things...

Our season is called "Race: Is That a Thing?" What does it mean for a thing to be a thing? What is a thing? We consult Oxford English Dictionary editor and authorized OED historian Peter Gilliver, who updated the entry on "Thing." See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Get full access to A Million Little Gods at amillionlittlegods.substack.com/subscribe

How deep do the categories we use to navigate the world go? Are they more transient than we normally think? In episode one of the new season, Ben and Aaron lay the groundwork for the series "Race: Is That a Thing?" In this episode we meet Armand Marie Leroi, Prof. of Evolutionary Developmental Genetics at Imperial College, London, who caused a stir regarding "race" 13 years ago with a controversia...

Are there types of languages that are unique from other types of languages? Are there newer languages that are formed from other languages, but have less vocabulary, less grammar, less stuff? Is that what we mean by “creoles”? John McWhorter thinks so; Salikoko Mufwene doesn’t. Welcome to the smackdown. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Get full access to A Million Little...

Now produced at the University of Hamburg, A Million Little Gods is relaunching with the second season, a series called "Race: Is That a Thing?" The new season launches November 5. But watch out for a sneak peak of the new season tomorrow with a preview episode featuring John McWhorter called "Linguistic Typological Smackdown." Subscribe now!   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out informa...

In this final part of a three-part series on what it means to be a self—and the final episode of the first season—Aaron discusses with the analytic philosopher Galen Strawson whether you can know your own character, thinking of yourself as the same person over time, and telling a narrative about your life. And with Fr. James Martin, Aaron discusses knowing yourself in communion with other people a...