CSPI Podcast

Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal. Gabriel Rossman is a sociologist at UCLA. They join Richard to debate the relationship between woke institutions, civil rights law, and corporate culture. Each has written a recent article on this topic: Richard’s “ Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law ,” Charles’ “ The Geneology of Woke Capit...

Philippe Lemoine is a Research Fellow at CSPI and a PhD candidate in philosophy at Cornell University. He returns to the podcast to discuss his new paper, “Have we been thinking about the pandemic wrong? The effect of population structure on transmission.” He and Richard discuss the role of networks in COVID transmission, the politics and sociology of the pandemic, the enforcement of mask mandates...

This week’s guest is Leif Rasmussen, a PhD candidate in computer science at Northwestern University, and the author of the new CSPI report, “Increasing Politicization and Homogeneity in Scientific Funding: An Analysis of NSF Grants, 1990-2020.” He discusses the report and critiques of it, along with his experiences in academia, and the growing bias against non-conformists in intellectual life. A t...

Robert Plomin is a Professor of Behavioural Genetics at King’s College London and author of Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are. The conversation includes sections on the history of the field of behavioral genetics, and why we should not undersell what it tells us about why people turn out the way they do. Research involving twins, adoptees, and now looking directly at the genome, use a variety...

Michael Shellenberger is an activist and author. He joins the podcast to talk about his book San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities. He discusses debates around homelessness in San Francisco, the ideology driving the homelessness advocacy community, how the West coast differs from the rest of the world in its treatment of mental illness and addiction, and whether there is hope of political ch...

Razib Khan is a geneticist and Substacker. He joins the podcast to talk about what genetics can tell us about the human past and the progress made in his field over the last few decades. The conversation touches on population structures in Europe, India, China, and the Western Hemisphere, along with Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture among different races and how different fields define what it m...

Steven Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University. The author of several books, his latest is Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. He joins the podcast to talk about this work, and the discussion includes topics such as why voters make bad decisions, the appeal of conspiracy theories and the sense in which believing in them is rational, how to get more ratio...

Robin Hanson is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He joins the podcast to talk about futarchy, a system in which people would vote on values, but bet on beliefs. The conversation touches on the nature of rationality, why firms don't actually maximize profits, why betting markets are better than other forms of prediction or expertise, regulatory and psychological barriers to adop...

Noor Siddiqui is a former Thiel Fellow who has taught at Stanford and the founder and CEO of Orchid ( www.orchidhealth.com ), a biotech company. She joins the podcast to talk about the science behind embryo selection, its potential to help improve people's lives, ethical objections, and the importance of reproductive rights. Sign up for CSPI’s Substack newsletter: https://cspi.substack.com . Follo...

Marc Andreessen is a venture capitalist and the founder of Netscape. He joins the podcast to talk about what's the matter with science, the prerequisites for progress, and how tech has changed our lives and has the potential to disrupt stagnant institutions. Topics also include how the internet has changed dating, what venture capitalists actually do, and whether there is too much–or too little–mo...

Philippe Lemoine is a Research Fellow at CSPI and a PhD candidate in philosophy at Cornell University. He recently wrote a blog post called "Lockdowns, econometrics and the art of putting lipstick on a pig," where he takes apart a paper on the effects of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions. Richard and Philippe discuss what's wrong with this paper and what it reveals about academia and the i...

Eric Posner is a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He is the author of several books, including The Executive Unbound (with Adrian Vermeule) and The Demagogue's Playbook. He joins the CSPI podcast to discuss Trump, whether demagoguery is an exclusively right-wing problem, the struggle between elites and the masses and whether the last few years have made him reconsider his support...

Richard Hanania joins Razib Khan's podcast to talk about the recent Israeli/Palestinian conflict and its effects on American politics. Richard discusses his frustrations with the American conservative movement and the inadequacies of its approach to fighting wokeness, including Critical Race Theory bans. He also goes into the failures of the public health community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic...

Mark Lutter has a PhD in economics from George Mason University and is the Founder and Executive Director of the Charter Cities Institute. He joins the podcast to talk about his vision of how privately run cities can help end poverty. The discussion includes topics such as the philosophy behind charter cities, mistakes made by the charter city movement in the past, and ongoing projects. Richard an...

Sean McMeekin is a professor of history at Bard University and the author of Stalin's War: A New History of World War II. He joins Richard for a wide ranging discussion about the myths of World War II. They touch on the morality of the conflict, moral differences between Nazis and the USSR, the role of Soviet agents in determining US and British policy, and whether the western allies could have pr...

Jesse Singal is a contributing writer to New York Magazine and the author of The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social Ills. He discusses his book, why bad science ends up having an influence, the possible causes behind the recent uptick in crime, and whether the peer review system can be reformed or needs to be replaced. Sign up for CSPI’s Substack newsletter: https://cspi.substack....

Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, The Case Against Education, and Open Borders. He and Richard discuss their experiences in academia and why people get too much education and don't have enough kids. They also go into why parenting might not matter on average but having Bryan Ca...

Garett Jones is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He is the author of 10% Less Democracy and Hive Mind. He joins the podcast to talk about his latest book arguing that some countries may have too much democracy. In the course of the discussion, Richard and Garett discuss experts and the Iraq War, judicial review, the Singapore model, the western response to COVID-19, and whether...

John Mueller is a Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State University and a Research Fellow at the Cato Institute. His latest book is called The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency. He and Richard discuss how to explain the decline of war, why World War I was a cultural turning point, Hitler as a historical outlier, the Cold War, the war on terror, and th...

Eric Kaufmann joins Richard Hanania to continue the discussion of his report on academic freedom. Eric discusses recent reforms in the UK, and they debate what the policy response to suppression should be in the US. Eric favors a wide scale effort to remake the universities and ultimately change the culture, while Richard calls for encouraging fewer people to go to college and reducing the influen...

Philippe Lemoine is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Cornell University and a research fellow at CSPI. He recently started a blog, War on Science, on the CSPI website, and wrote a post arguing that lockdowns do not pass a cost-benefit analysis. An op-ed based on his research was published in the Wall Street Journal. Philippe joins Richard to discuss COVID-19, the differences in performance between...

Eric Kaufmann is a research fellow at CSPI and Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of a new CSPI report titled "Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship." Eric joins Richard to talk about the evidence for discrimination against non-liberal views in academia. They also discuss personal experiences and when an...

Razib Khan is the host of the Unsupervised Learning podcast. In the days following the Capitol Hill riots, he invited Richard Hanania on to talk about the likelihood of future political violence in the United States, the strength of partisanship, and the future of Trump and his movement. That podcast is rereleased here on CSPI, with a new intro, in which Richard looks back on how well his predicti...

Zach Goldberg is a PhD candidate at Georgia State University and research fellow at CSPI. He is generally credited with discovering the "Great Awokening," the leftward shift on race and identity issues that has occurred in the media and among white liberals over the last decade. Zach joins Richard to talk about his research, the evidence showing that the media caused the shift in public opinion, a...

On the inaugural CSPI podcast, George Hawley joins Richard Hanania to talk about his books on the conservative movement, the alt right, and the differences between Trump in 2016 and 2020. They also discuss their article, The National Populist Illusion, on why economic concerns do not explain the rise of Trump. Sign up for CSPI’s Substack newsletter: https://cspi.substack.com . Follow CSPI on Twitt...