Several recent books have argued there's no difference between male and female brains. Saloni Dattani, a PhD in psychiatric genetics, discusses some of the problems with the argument, and what we really know so far about gender and the brain.

It's rare for public intellectuals to talk about things they've gotten wrong, but geneticist Razib Khan is an exception. He and Julia discuss a list of 28 things he's changed his mind about in the last decade.

It's common wisdom that spending a lot of time on your smartphone, or checking social media like Facebook and Twitter, takes a psychological toll. But is there any research to back that up? Julia discusses the evidence with professor Andy Przybylski.

In this episode, economist Alex Tabarrok discusses his latest book, co-authored with Eric Heller, "Why are the Prices So D*mn High?," which blames rising costs on a phenomenon called the Baumol Effect.

We typically think of violence as being caused by a lack of control, or by selfish motives. But what if, more often than not, violence is intended to be morally righteous? Author Tage Rai debates this with Julia.

The global poverty rate has fallen significantly over the last few decades, but there's a heated debate over how to view that fact. Vox journalist Dylan Matthews explains the disagreement.

Technology writer Clive Thompson discusses his latest book, "Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World."

Economist Tyler Cowen discusses his latest book, "Big Business: A love-letter to an American anti-hero.” Why has anti-capitalist sentiment increased recently, and to what extent is it justified?

Helen Toner, the director of strategy at Georgetown's Center for Strategy and Emerging Technology (CSET), shares her observations from the last few years of talking with AI scientists and policymakers in the US and China.

This episode features journalist Kelsey Piper, blogger and journalist for "Future Perfect," a new site focused on topics that impact the long-term future of the world.

This episode features John Nerst, data scientist and blogger at everythingstudies.com, discussing a potential new field called "erisology," the study of disagreement.

William Gunn, director of scholarly communications for Elsevier, and Alex Holcombe, cognitive scientist and open science advocate, discuss the University of California's decision to end their contract with Elsevier, the world's largest scientific publisher.

This episode features Sarah Haider, the president of Ex-Muslims of North America. Julia and Sarah discuss why it's important to talk about the challenges of leaving Islam, and why that makes people uncomfortable or angry.

If you want to do as much good as possible with your career, what problems should you work on, and what jobs should you consider? This episode features Rob Wiblin, director of research for effective altruist organization 80,000 Hours.

This episode features Neerav Kingsland, who helped rebuild New Orleans' public school system after Hurricane Katrina, converting it into the country's first nearly-100% charter school system.

This episode features Rick Nevin, an economist who is known for his research suggesting that lead is one of the main causes of crime.

Not enough people know about the Mohists, a strikingly modern group of Chinese philosophers active in 479-221 BCE. This episode features Chris Fraser, expert on Mohism and professor of philosophy at the University of Hong Kong.

This episode features the hosts of "Ask a Mathematician, Ask a Physicist," a blog that grew out of a Burning Man booth in which a Spencer Greenberg and Seth Cottrell answer people's questions about life, the universe, and everything.

This episode features political scientist Rob Reich, author of "Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy, and How it Can Do Better". Rob and Julia debate his criticisms of philanthropy.

This episode features Peter Eckersley, an expert in law and computer science, who has worked with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Partnership on AI. Peter and Julia first delve into some of the most fundamental questions about privacy.

In this episode, economist Jason Collins discusses some of the problems with behavioral economics.

In this episode, economist Chris Auld describes some common criticisms of his field and why they're wrong. Julia and Chris also discuss whether there are any good critiques of the field.

Aviv Ovadya, an expert on misinformation, talks with Julia about the multiple phenomena that get lumped together as "fake news." For example, articles that are straightforwardly false, misleading, or artificially created.

On this episode of Rationally Speaking, professor Diana Fleischman makes the case for transhumanist evolutionary psychology: understanding our evolved drives, so that we can better overcome them..

This episode features Anders Sandberg, a researcher at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, explaining several reasons why it's valuable to think about humanity's long-term future.