unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why moder...

When trying to figure out how to understand humans, we tend to look to our nearest neighbors: bonobos, chimps, and monkeys. But our guest Mark Moffett believes that in many ways, we're unlike chimps and more aligned with social insects like wasps and ants.  Mark Moffett is known for documenting new species and behaviors during his exploration of remote places in more than a hundred countries.  He...

Lee Dugatkin is a professor of biology at the University of Louisville and the author of many books, including what Greg calls one of the seminal texts in the area of evolutionary biology, “Principles of Animal Behavior.” Lee’s other books include “Power in the Wild: The Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Ways Animals Strive for Control over Others," How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog,” and “ Cheating Monkey...

When Alex Budak first started his course “Becoming a Changemaker” at UC Berkeley, he had to turn students away because it was too popular. This course was the first of its kind, providing experiential teaching that ignites the inner changemaker in students and future leaders from around the world. People are craving change.  Alex Budak calls himself a social entrepreneur. He is also a faculty memb...

Its no surprise to anyone in academia that the liberal arts and humanities are in crisis. Liberal arts colleges are closing down, departments are closing down, and students are fleeing from majoring in the social sciences. So what happened to this once essential element of higher education? Roosevelt Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University. There, he teache...

Character is a uniquely human feature, based on questions of agency, responsibility, free will and choice. But what qualifies as good or bad character, and how do we decide where we fall in this spectrum? Christian Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, and currently the Director of the Honesty Project. His main areas of research are meta-ethics, moral psycholo...

Its difficult to describe the work our guest Stephen Asma does, falling at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, religion, and study of the emotions. Greg calls it “Affective Neuro Philosophy.” So many different disciplines converge on what he is doing, but really it’s all about trying to understand humans. Stephen Asma is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College Chicago, where he is also...

Philip Delves Broughton was a news journalist before going to business school. And he ended up continuing his career as a writer since leaving. Now, there are not many journalists that have been to business school, giving Philip a unique perspective on this branch of academia.  Philip is a journalist and author, now known for his business journalism. His books include “Ahead of the Curve” and “The...

You can apply economics to just about anything. Economics provides you with a perspective and a toolbox that enables you to see things that you wouldn't otherwise see before. This is part of our guests specialty, with books titles like “An Economist Goes to the Game: How to Throw Away $580 Million and Other Surprising Insights from the Economics of Sports,” and “Everything I Ever Needed to Know Ab...

We’ve all had to deal with problematic bosses or coworkers at some point in our career journeys. But the issue is how can you deal with them in a productive way, so everyone still feels comfortable in the workplace and gets their work done. Tessa West is a Professor of Psychology at New York University and a leading expert in the science of interpersonal communication. Her research focuses on ques...

Has the idea of “peak performance” as the general public sees it, run its course? It seems like nowadays, there is much more of a focus & value placed upon rest and recuperation, rather than the unsustainable burnout culture & hustle to get ahead that we’ve seen for ages. Brad Stulberg is a writer and fellow at the University of Michigan’s graduate school of public health. He says his work explore...

We don't really question the importance of studying mathematics, or the importance of studying science. We don't even question the importance of athletics! But when it comes to the arts, people don't really understand their significance. They think of them as frills, as fun and pretty, but they don't understand their deep significance for humans. Ellen Winner's research focuses on cognition in the...

Can we teach leaders to become better strategic decision makers? Our guest Zach Shore says we can.  Part of the problem he says is that people get stuck in rigid mindsets, which often involve the failure to take alternative perspectives.. In his books “Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions,” and “sense of the enemy’ he aims to create a taxonomy of blunder causing mindsets and recount exampl...

In our guest's latest book “Sick to Debt,” Peter Ubel theorizes whether it is a bigger insult to call someone a doctor or an economist. Well, Peter is actually both! Peter Ubel M.D. is a physician and behavioral scientist whose research and writing explores the mixture of rational and irrational forces that affect our health, our happiness and the way our society functions.   Ubel is the Madge and...

When was the last time you learned something just out of curiosity? Not for school or to advance your career, with no end goal in sight. To learn something new just to learn it?  Zena Hitz is a Tutor at St. John’s College in Annapolis and the author of “Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life.” Her book explores the meaning and the value of learning through images and stories...

When the general public thinks about physics, they’re usually thinking about the origins of the universe, quantum theory; other terms that have bled into pop culture. But true physics isn't elegant in the way it is seen in textbooks. Our guest says the science is much more chaotic than that and Economics has a lot to learn from physics. Mark Buchanan is a physicist and science writer with Bloomber...

Sibling rivalry seems to exist in all families, whether human or non-human.. So why would animals want to compete, and maybe even kill their nearest relations?? This is the focus of the work of Douglas Mock. He is a Professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma and co-author of “The Evolution of Sibling Rivalry.” Doug and Greg analyze some of our most intimate relationships...

Its hard to believe that a book like The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth,” hasn't been written before, which surfaces the structures that we need in order to convert contention into facts and knowledge.  Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institute, and the author of eight books and many articles on public policy, culture, and governm...

The science of parenting…isn't really a science. It's a lot of myths and advice and stories from elder generations. But let's think about where we are getting that advice. Our guest Michaeleen Doucleff wrote her New York Times bestseller “Hunt, Gather, Parent ”after traveling to three continents with her 3-year-old daughter, Rosy.  She says Maya, Inuit, and Hadzabe families showed her how to tame...

“Belief” as a word can take on so many meanings. Most people only think about it in terms of religion. But our guest says belief plays a central role in many other critical distinctively human things, including economics, love and politics. He further defines belief as the “capacity humans have to commit wholly and fully to this mix of experience, imagination, ideology, thoughts, and ideas.” Agust...

Greg says our guest's book, “ Bernoulli’s Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science” is “a bombshell in a sense,” making some very, very bold claims.  Aubrey Clayton is an applied mathematical researcher, lecturer, and writer. He currently teaches graduate courses in the philosophy of probability at the Harvard Extension School, and has written for publications like the New Yor...

The last time you had a definitive question about something: an actor in that movie, or maybe something your friend did at a party last week. Did you try to figure it out on your own and think over the answer, or head to the internet to confirm your quandaries? Are we losing our ability to be naturally curious by always having concrete answers available in mere seconds? Ian Leslie is a writer and...

As machine learning and AI mature and adapt to the humans that created them, it's important we think carefully about not only what is creativity, but what is uniquely human about creativity. Marcus du Sautoy is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the Oxford University, a chair he holds jointly at the Department of Continuing Education and the Mathematical Insti...

When Greg found out that Massimo Pigliucci had a PhD in biology and a PhD in philosophy, he knew that this was somebody he had to get on the show. Massimo Pigliucci has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee, and is currently the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His research intere...

When Tina Cassidy set out to write her book “Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born,” in 2006, it was the first time in about 50 years an extensive work had been written on the subject, and the first by a woman. Birth is such an essential and important part of every life cycle, and all of us have been through it. Why haven't we seen more on the topic? Tina Cassidy writes about women and...