In this 246 in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we talk about the state of the world through an evolutionary lens.
In this week’s episode, we discuss how Kamala Harris is presenting herself, and being presented, in the mainstream media, and whether there is any misinformation therein. Then: How the reductionist, scientistic approach to human health is making us less healthy, rather than more. Examples: California requires folic acid be added to tortillas and other masa products (“it’s an equity issue”), and fluoride in municipal water supplies is recognized as a correlate of lower childhood IQs. Also: Doctor Strangelove. Finally: a discussion of technocrats and their science skin suits.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Harris, pre and post editing on 60 Minutes: https://x.com/derrickevans4wv/status/1843693772150059371
Folic acid in tortillas in California: https://calmatters.org/health/2024/09/folic-acid-tortilla-law/
NTP Monograph on the State of the Science Concerning Fluoride Exposure and Neurodevelopment and Cognition: A Systematic Review: https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/publications/monographs/mgraph08
Technocrats in science skin suits: https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/technocrats-in-science-skin-suits
"The nested sets nature of logic, which branching diagrams can reveal in a different way than if you just nested the sets within parentheses or something, can show you that it could be Tyler Robinson and still not have him be some lone gun nut, which is exactly what you have established here." Heather Heying
"I get it. And it’s not that it is impossible to imagine robotic teachers doing an excellent job, but it is stunning to watch a sophisticated person fail to recognize what happens when you think that that’s what you’re going to produce, and you set it in motion.
Let me point out that Wikipedia has many of the advantages that Melania is describing in this video. It is completely democratizing of knowledge, such that it doesn’t matter where on earth you are. If you have an internet connection, you’ve got Wikipedia. It’s like an extension of your own mind, and it will make us all brilliant.
Now, of course, that didn’t happen, did it? Wikipedia is a hellscape of misinformation, much of it targeted based on a political agenda. We are less certain of what we know, and less capable of reasoning on our own.
Now, that doesn’t all come from Wikipedia, but my point is the promise of Wikipedia was not realized. And what we got instead is arguably worse than what we had before it was ...
Olympus Spa, a traditional Korean nude spa for women in the Seattle area, was told by the state of Washington, now upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, that they must let men in, so long as those men think they’re women. Judge VanDyke’s dissent correctly summarizes the issue as one of “swinging dicks.”
Heather Heying explains:
"These are such clowns. These judges are such clowns. And one of them’s a woman who apparently gives no fucks about the women and girls as young as 13, who might go to this amazing spa and be exposed to a very confused and mentally unstable man who’s got his balls and dick out.
More likely, frankly, most of us who once went to this amazing business are not going to go anymore. They’re going to have put out of business a Korean family who happened to be conservative Christians because of what? ...
In Ep. 318 of the Evolutionary Lens, Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying discuss how to understand our universe: through logic, intuition, and probability, through keeping track of what we believe, and being willing to change our minds.
Avoiding certainty is difficult, but necessary. Using examples of: who killed Charlie Kirk, and whether the venue where he was speaking suggests black magic, we discuss how to make sense of the world in a scientific way.
Add “Careful Thinking in Reckless Times” with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying to your podcast playlist:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FJapnzOqxY
Rumble: https://rumble.com/v77m1g0-the-318th-evolutionary-lens-with-bret-weinstein-and-heather-heying.html
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4lrFDTeb5h0lcaz8ziWLUO?si=1DvxraHoT2GggKiHy0o9dQ
Apple: ...
Failure of Imagination
When zero sum thinking is a mindset
If you haven’t listened to Avraham Burg and Tucker’s conversation, I highly recommend it. As someone who is fascinated with the Israeli mindset, I found the conversation to have a wealth of information. Burg is a former Speaker of the Knesset and interim president of Israel. He grew up inside the system and spent decades at the center of Israeli political life. And in this interview, he genuinely transformed how I think about those in the Israeli political scene.
Here are the quotes that stood out to me the most:
1)
> “We Israelis live in a reality where a constitution can be seen as a threat.”
Unfortunately, I am starting to think more Americans feel this way too. A lot of Americans, especially when it comes to vaccines or figures like Charlie Kirk, seem to adopt what I would call “Sam Harrisonian” thinking—where we must trust the institutions because institutions need to be trusted. Therefore, it’s okay to ask questions… but only after the endless ...
