Utterly Moderate Podcast

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we are joined by Michael Huemer , a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is here to talk about political myths and why they are dangerous. Political myths are factual claims which are believed by members of a political tribe that strongly support an element of that tribe’s ideology—yet they are demonstrably...

Today’s Utterly Moderate podcast episode focuses on the positives and negatives of President Trump’s first 100 days in office in this his second term. We are joined by Jim Swift, a longtime Republican and senior editor at The Bulwark . If you aren’t familiar with the work that they do over at  The Bulwark , it is an online publication founded by longtime Republicans from the...

This episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast deals with liberal bias in higher education and what to do about it, with a specific focus on the field of sociology. According to Gallup , a strong majority (68%) of Americans believe that higher education is headed in the wrong direction. Barely more than a third (36%) of Americans express a high level of confidence in U.S. colleges and universities,...

America is separating into two nations with two different experiences of reality itself: Red America and Blue America. As Robert Talisse , Vanderbilt University political theorist and today’s Utterly Moderate podcast guest, writes : “[O]ur everyday social environments are increasingly segregated along partisan lines. It is no exaggeration to say that in the United States today, opposin...

From all of us at the Connors Institute at Shippensburg University , we thank you for listening and hope you have a truly Happy Thanksgiving! Wherever you spend the holiday and whoever you spend it with, we hope you have lots to be thankful for and good people to be thankful with. On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast , social scientist Mark Rank is here to discuss his newest book, The R...

Before we begin, don't forget to check out Lawrence Eppard's new book,  The Poisoning of the American Mind , and to read the  newest piece in the  Connors Journal  on single parenthood in the U.S. Now on to the podcast. . .  Kimberly Wehle , a constitutional law expert at the University of Baltimore's School of Law, joins the  Utterly Moderate Podcast   to d...

Single parenthood has risen dramatically in the United States over time. Today, 34% of all children live in a single parent household, up from 9% in 1960 . There are regrettable negative consequences of these statistics, as The Bulwark’s Mona Charen notes : “[C]hildren in mother-only homes are five times more likely to live in poverty than children with two parents. And children in fat...

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast , the authors of the brand new book, The Poisoning of the American Mind , talk about the book and its implications for America.  So what is their argument? A significant amount of  research suggests that most people seek out news and information sources that mirror their worldviews, avoid ones that don’t, and interpret information usi...

We want to express our deepest sympathies and condolences to the family of Corey Comperatore. He was killed during the attempted assassination of former President Trump.  According to NBC Philadelphia, Comperatore raised two daughters with his high school sweetheart and spent his final moments shielding his family that he loved so much from the gunfire. May he rest in peace. His family is in...

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast , host Lawrence Eppard and Connors Institute co-director Jacob Mackey discuss techniques and shortcuts that you can use to spot real expertise in a world where people with expert credentials are sometimes frauds and where people without expert credentials are often very knowledgeable. They also discuss crucial techniques for examining your personal b...

Before we talk about this episode, we hope you didn’t miss the latest research from the Connors Institute on the gender pay gap. Check it out now ! We talk quite a bit on this podcast about some of the things that many liberal and conservative Americans believe that just ain’t so. In fact, we just released a free online documentary about this titled The Poisoning of the American Mind ....

Before we talk about this week’s podcast episode, don’t forget to check out the Connors Institute’s new documentary, The Poisoning of the American Mind , an illuminating film about how conservatives and liberals in America regularly fall for misinformation and disinformation. On this week’s episode of the  Utterly Moderate Podcast , we are joined by everyone’s fa...

We’ve talked a lot on the Utterly Moderate Podcast about how both liberals and conservatives in America are bombarded with misleading information on a regular basis. On the left, unfortunately, a lot of this bad info comes from an academic research community which is overwhelmingly liberal. A recent study found the least imbalanced discipline to be engineering, which was still 62% liberal pr...

It is extremely hard for the average citizen to understand what the “state of the science” is on many issues. We can all type our queries about a particular topic into Google but, when we get the flood of results, most of us are not trained to be able to (a) understand the complicated statistical methodologies employed in many research studies, (b) compare studies and evaluate their st...

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we are joined by Jacob Mackey to discuss two big gender-related stories in the news. The first story is positive, and we have covered it in the Connors Newsletter —a big new research study shows that we have made great progress combatting sex discrimination in the labor market. This is great news! Then there is a difficult and troubling story....

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we are joined again by Lisa Selin Davis , a writer who covers issues related to gender and gender affirming care. Davis joins the program to discuss a recent UnHerd article “Why did three journals reject my puberty-blocker study? Trans children deserve to know the facts,” written by Sallie Baxendale, a clinical neuropsychologist at Univer...

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we discuss recent controversies at and concerns about colleges and universities in the United States—from highly publicized instances of campus unrest to a lack of intellectual diversity among faculty to hypocrisy on free speech . This episode’s guest is Jacob Mackey, associate professor at Occidental College and coeditor with host Lawren...

Before we get to today’s episode, check out this article about the Connors Institute in The Sentinel newspaper! On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we are joined by Robert VerBruggen from the Manhattan Institute to discuss a new documentary which claims to disprove that George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin, as well as a new research study which claims to disprove that income inequa...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Connors Institute at Shippensburg University! Since this Utterly Moderate episode is both our Christmas program and our 100th PODCAST EPISODE , we thought we would try to be as uplifting as possible. In that spirit, we are being joined by Johan Norberg , author of a number of books including Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future . In that b...

Jim Swift from The Bulwark joins the Utterly Moderate Podcast to discuss the fraught nature of the immigration debate in the U.S. Both sides in the immigration debate have important points to bring to the table, and good faith discussions and compromises are badly needed. Unfortunately, such efforts often get sidetracked by misinformation and disinformation about this thorny issue. Swift discusses...

Leading American poverty researcher Mark Robert Rank joins the Utterly Moderate Podcast to discuss his Poverty Risk Calculator , the record-low poverty rates that the U.S. saw in 2021, Dr. Rank’s research on the risk Americans face of experiencing poverty throughout their lives, a new book he has coming out on luck, and more! Rank has spent his career studying poverty, economic inequality, and soc...

Friend of the Connors Forum and frequent Utterly Moderate guest, Lee McIntyre , has a new book out titled On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy , a “powerful, pocket-sized citizen’s guide on how to fight back against the disinformation campaigns that are imperiling American democracy, from the bestselling author of  Post-Truth  and  How to Talk to a Science Denier .” McIn...

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we discuss both the pros and cons of nuclear power, especially as it pertains to combatting global climate change. The international community is attempting to keep the world from warming no more than 1.5-2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century. While there have been incredible efforts to achieve this—efforts that h...

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast  we are going to be talking about something called the “replication crisis.” Most people will not be familiar with this since it has been happening in academia but we promise it is not only quite intriguing and full of juicy details but it also has some pretty big implications for the larger society. So what is the replication crisis? In the past 15...

On this Utterly Moderate Podcast episode we tackle a sensitive issue that is hard to find a clear, definitive answer to: does race play a significant role in fatal shootings of civilians by law enforcement in America? Our guest, Robert VerBruggen , a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has done important work on this topic, including his March 2022 report: “Fatal Police Shootings and Race: A Review...