Natural Reward Podcast

Episode Overview In this "deep dive" episode, the hosts take a sledgehammer to the comforting narratives of popular science. Drawing on the work of evolutionary biologist Dr. Owen Gilbert , the conversation explores the profound difference between falling for a "seductive fiction" and engaging in "rigorous, brutal myth-busting". The episode challenges the bedrock of t...

Summary In this episode, we dive into a radical new evolutionary framework proposed by Owen M. Gilbert in his paper, "Natural Reward Drives the Advancement of Life." We explore why the traditional "scarcity mindset" of Darwinian evolution—the idea that nature is a zero-sum battlefield—fails to explain the massive, global expansion of life. By introducing the concept of Natural...

I. What does it take for a new scientific theory to come into existence? Before a theory can spread, it must first emerge . It must be invented, named, clarified, defended, revised, and forced into a form that can survive public scrutiny. Only later comes dissemination : the broader process of spreading the theory, persuading an audience, applying it to new problems, and building a scientific move...

Keywords Inclusive fitness, Hamilton’s rule, kin selection, altruism, social evolution, population genetics, gene substitution, Fisher’s average effect, relatedness, evolution of cooperation, greenbeard effect, dominance, allele frequency change, mathematical modeling, empirical research Summary In this episode of the Natural Reward podcast, brothers Owen and Jon Gilbert revisit Hamilton’s origina...

Ulrike Bauer discusses the evolution and diversity of pitcher plants, focusing on the spring trapping mechanism found in some species. Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants that capture insects in a fluid-filled cavity. They have evolved independently multiple times and are found all over the world. The spring trapping mechanism is a composite trait that involves multiple adaptations, including a...

Illegal dumping is a widespread problem in cities throughout the world and differentially affects disadvantaged neighborhoods.  Brian Johnson is a software engineer who moved to San Francisco nearly a decade ago. At the time, Brian could afford a house only in the least-expensive neighborhood, Bayview. Despite hopes for improvement, over time Bayview declined because of an illegal dumping problem....

In this episode, Jon and I discuss some of the background to the previous episode. We discuss generalized versions of Hamilton's rule, Fisher's fundamental theorem, and Wright's fitness maximization formula. W. D. Hamilton used Sewall Wright's formula as the foundation of the theory of inclusive fitness. We discuss Wright's shifting balance theory and the role that Wright&...

In this episode, my brother Jon and I discuss my work on the evolution of kin recognition. Jon is a software engineer and likes to put my arguments in terms of debugging software. For many years, the mere finding of kin recognition in nature was taken as prima facie evidence of W. D. Hamilton's theory of "inclusive fitness." A large paradigm was built on the teleological assumption...

This is my first conversation with Chris Fortier, Vice President of the Web 3.0 company Rally. It begins when Chris questions me on what he calls my "natural forces" theory, which invokes two nonrandom forces of evolution: natural selection and natural reward. Relevant to this theory, we discuss the concept of teleology, especially as it relates to evolutionary adaptation and experimenta...

Today, my brother Jon Gilbert addresses problems of income inequality and rising costs of living in the USA. In the first half of this episode, Jon presents figures showing the problem as it has manifested since the 1950s. Jon then argues that we may address the problem with a market-based solution: the use of "labor coins" to remove taxes on costs of living and transfer taxes to more fr...

Andrés Vega is a native Costa Rican who has devoted his life to conservation, education, and research in Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica. In this episode, I speak with Andrés about how he got interested in conservation and his new approach to preserving wildlife. Andrés recounts his first morning in Corcovado, in which he got to see, and get chased by, some of the most charismatic large anim...

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Nikunj Goel about about spatial sorting, which refers to the build up of dispersal morphs on expanding edges of populations. Dr. Goel is a postdoctoral researcher at UT Austin working with Tim Keitt. We begin with a discussion of Dr. Goel’s background in physics and math, how he got interested in biology, and his work in ecology. We then get into Dr. Goel’s views...

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Komi German about a reviewer’s reaction to her book proposal. All academics deal with rejection. How a researcher deals with rejection determines whether she gets her work published, and how it will appear. We brainstorm strategies to deal with the reviewer’s response and the question of what approach to take in a revision. We discuss whether Komi should try to ap...

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Komi German about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies in academia and related issues. Komi is a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedom (FIRE). Komi recently completed her Ph. D. in psychology at UC Riverside with a dissertation entitled, "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies in Academia: The Faculty's Respons...