Big Think

"Quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement are becoming very real. We're beginning to be able to access this tremendously complicated configuration space to do useful things." With a topic as seemingly complicated as quantum physics, where can you start if you want to build your understanding? In just 22 minutes, physicist and professor Brian Cox unpacks the subatomic world, beginning with the theories as we understand them today. Chapters: 0:00 The subatomic world 1:23 A shift in teaching quantum mechanics 2:48 Quantum mechanics vs. Classic theory 6:07 The double slit experiment 11:31 Complex numbers 13:53 Sub-atomic vs. Perceivable world 16:40 Quantum entanglement About Brian Cox: Brian Cox obtained a first class honors degree in physics from the University of Manchester in 1995 and in 1998 a Ph.D. In High Energy Particle Physics at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg. He is now Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester, The Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Brian is widely recognized as the foremost communicator for all things scientific, having presented a number of highly acclaimed science programs for the BBC watched by billions internationally including ‘Adventures in Space and Time’ (2021), ‘Universe’ (2021), ‘The Planets’ (2018), ‘Forces of Nature’ (2016), ‘Human Universe’ (2014), ‘Wonders of Life’ (2012), ‘Wonders of the Universe’ (2011) and ‘Wonders of the Solar System’ (2010). As an author, Brian has also sold over a million books worldwide including ‘Black Holes’, ‘Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos’, ‘Quantum Universe’ and ‘Why Does E=mc2?’ with co-author Professor Jeffrey Forshaw. He has set several world records for his sell-out live tours, including his most recent tour Horizons which has taken in venues across the globe. Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Age expert Dr. Morgan Levine explains why living to 100 is the wrong goal. Dr. Morgan Levine suggests that we should aim for living better, not just longer. In her book, “True Age,” Levine introduces the idea of healthspan, which is about staying healthy and enjoying life, rather than merely adding years to it. She explores the concept of “compression of morbidity,” a goal to squeeze most of our inevitable ailments into a short period before we die, mirroring the patterns seen in people who live to 100 or more. Levine also highlights a paradox: Women generally outlive men, but they also endure more age-related illnesses. Ultimately, she argues that the benefits of longevity science should be accessible to everyone, with the goal of health disparities rather than increasing them. 0:00 The immortality obsession 0:30 The male-female survival paradox 1:34 Prolonging healthy life 2:07 Squeezing morbidity into fewer years 3:05 LIfe extension for all ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Morgan Levine: Morgan Levine was previously a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the department of Pathology at Yale University where she ran the Laboratory for Aging in Living Systems. In 2022, she was recruited to join Altos Labs as a Founding Principal Investigator at the San Diego Institute of Science. She currently leads a research group at Altos Labs working at the intersection of bioinformatics, cellular biology, complex systems, and biostatistics with the overall goal of understanding the molecular trajectories aging cells, tissues, and organisms take through time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Human Genome Project was a major breakthrough in medicine, but according to network scientist Albert-László Barabási, simply having a list of genes is not enough to fully understand how they interact, and crucially, how our bodies work. Barabási believes network science — which studies complex patterns and interactions between our cells — can fill in this gap by creating a biological map from which we could develop new cures, and even predict diseases. He explains that disease genes often have mutations that result in a missing interaction within the sub-cellular network, which then causes problems in the functioning of a cell. Traditional medicinal interventions can lead to unwanted side effects, as they also affect other cellular processes in the network; network medicine has revealed that these complex systems, though robust, are also fragile to attacks, and removing a few major hubs can break the network into tiny pieces. Understanding the structure of the network within our cells can allow for precise interventions that cure the problem without causing other issues. For Barabási, the ideal future of medicine would involve individualized network diagrams being adopted as a standard tool for doctors to show patients where mutations are, how they impact the rest of the cell, and how interventions can stop their effects. 0:00 The map of life: Human Genome Project 1:01 What is network medicine? 2:09 The Achilles’ heel 4:20 A new kind of doctor will emerge --------------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if everything you’ve heard about managing emotions is wrong? Psychologist and author Ethan Kross challenges popular emotional advice, like the idea that venting is always helpful or that we should avoid emotions at all costs. He explains that regulation isn’t about quick fixes or staying in the moment constantly. Instead, it’s about building a flexible toolkit. ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

**🧬 What *Is* Life, Really? And Could We Build It From Scratch?** What if the key to understanding life… is not *what it’s made of* — but *how it assembles*? Ask ten scientists “What is life?” and you’ll get a thousand different answers. But **Lee Cronin**, the chemist behind **Assembly Theory**, offers a radical simplification: > **Life is any system that can produce complexity at scale.** Not DNA, not metabolism — just *non-random complexity*, multiplied. ### 🔧 Enter “Assembly Theory” — Life by the Numbers Instead of asking “Does it have genes?” Cronin asks: **How much *selection* went into producing these objects?** - **Assembly Index**: How complex is an object — how many steps to make it? - **Multiply that by how many copies of it exist**, and you get a system’s *Assembly*. - The more **non-random complexity** at scale? The more likely you’re looking at life. In essence: > **Life is what happens when the universe gets choosy — and does it over and over again.** ### 🌌 Why This Changes Everything 1. **We can *measure* life**, not just define it vaguely. 2. **We can trace its evolution** anywhere — even on other planets. 3. **We might even build it.** Yep — **we might be close to creating life in a lab.** ### 🧪 The “Origin of Life” Machine Cronin and his team are building a **selection engine** — a machine designed to sift through random chemistry and spot the emergence of life-like behavior. They're targeting three critical time factors: 1. **Time to create** the object. 2. **Time until it decays** if left alone. 3. **Time it can persist** through generations in a living system. If a molecule scores high on all three? It might just be alive — or close. ### 🚀 How soon will we create synthetic life? No one knows. But Cronin believes it's not decades away. > “We now know what we’re looking for — and we’re building the tools to find it.” **✨ Big Idea:** What if “life” isn’t some magical property… but an **inevitable result** of chemistry and selection? If so, life may not be rare. It may be **written into the fabric of the universe**. About Lee Cronin: Leroy Cronin has one of the largest multidisciplinary, chemistry-based research teams in the world. He has given over 300 international talks and has authored over 350 peer-reviewed papers with recent work published in Nature, Science, and PNAS. He and his team are trying to make artificial life forms, find alien life, explore the digitization of chemistry, understand how information can be encoded into chemicals, and construct chemical computers. He went to the University of York where he completed both a degree and PhD in chemistry and then went on to do postdocs in Edinburgh and Germany before becoming a lecturer at the Universities of Birmingham, and then Glasgow where he has been since 2002, working up the ranks to become the Regius Professor of Chemistry in 2013 at age 39. Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A neuroscientist, a psychologist, and a psychotherapist discuss how emotions are stories built from old experiences. By introducing new ones, you can shift the way your past shapes you. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, psychologist Paul Eckman, PhD, and psychotherapist Esther Perel, PhD, explain how the brain constantly rebuilds emotions from memory and prediction. According to their research, by choosing new experiences today, we can reshape how our past influences us, gain more control over our feelings, and create new possibilities for connection and growth. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD: Lisa Feldman Barrett is University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She directs the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory, where she researches the nature of emotion and the brain’s predictive processes. About Esther Perel, PhD: Esther Perel is a psychotherapist and author recognized worldwide for her work on modern relationships. Perel is also a sought-after public speaker, with TED Talks reaching millions, and consults globally with organizations on relational intelligence. About Paul Ekman, PhD: Paul Ekman is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, and a leading authority on emotion and nonverbal communication. He pioneered research on microexpressions and developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), used widely in psychology, law enforcement, and security. ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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"Understanding more about monetary policy and the economic regime that you're living under can help ease some of the fundamental uncertainties [that have been] prevalent since COVID, and help you make better decisions in your day-to-day life." In the wake of the pandemic, our economy entered into a new era marked by supply chain shortages, rapidly rising inflation, and a sharp increase in interest rates. And consumers, businesses, and governments are more uncertain than they've ever been. It's impossible to understand the changes that we've gone through over the last four years and, in a broader sense, over the last two decades without understanding the shifts in monetary policy over that time period, says Joseph Politano, an economic analyst, a data journalist, and the writer behind Apricitas Economics. We interviewed Politano on April 30th, 2024 and he explained this global economic shift. About Joseph Politano:Joseph Politano is a Financial Management Analyst at the Bureau of Labor Statistics working to support the Labor Market Information and Occupational Health and Safety surveys that BLS conducts. He writes independently about economics, business, and public policy for a better world at apricitas.substack.com. Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"We're stuck at type zero. But what would it take to move between universes? What would it take to enter a black hole? What would it take to break the light barrier?"    If alien life exists, how would we even recognize it? Physicist Michio Kaku argues that our search for intelligence beyond Earth forces us to question the assumptions behind our own definition of “intelligent.” Our current criteria for intelligence might be too narrow. Here’s what that means for the search for extraterrestrial life. 00:00 How can we recognize alien intelligence 01:53 Decoding animal intelligence 03:00 The Kardashev scale 03:55 What type civilization are we? 05:15 How would we recognize a type 2 or 3? 06:16 Flying saucers and UAPs 07:53 Optical illusion or extraterrestrial? 10:38 A 'gold mine' of UFO data ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎙️ Greg Lukianoff on Free Speech & Campus Culture Greg Lukianoff, head of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), discusses the importance of protecting free speech on campuses and in society. He co-wrote "The Canceling of the American Mind" with Rikki Schlott. 🔓 What is FIRE? Founded in 1999 to fight campus speech codes, FIRE now works off-campus too. Lukianoff highlights that while laws matter, what really sustains free speech is culture — shared values like “everyone’s entitled to their opinion” 💬. 📜 First Amendment 101 Free speech is broadly protected under U.S. Law, even if it offends. Exceptions include: 🚫 True threats 🔥 Incitement to violence 🧾 Defamation ⚖️ Discriminatory harassment (severe, targeted speech) 📉 Shift in Campus Culture In the 2000s, most students supported open expression, while college administrators often pushed censorship. But by 2013–2014, student activism shifted toward demanding censorship too — trigger warnings, speaker bans, and safe spaces. For the first time, both students and administrators aligned against free expression 😬. 🧠 The Bigger Picture Lukianoff says: ✅ Laws protect our rights ✅ Culture protects our minds Without a culture that encourages listening, disagreement, and tolerance, even the best laws can’t save free speech. To stay truly free, we must defend both the right to speak and the willingness to hear others out 🤝. Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

### 🎭 **Kel Mitchell: From Pain to Purpose** **Who is Kel Mitchell?** Actor, comedian, author, pastor — and a deeply reflective human being. ### 🌟 Key Life Lessons from Kel’s Story: #### 🧠 1. **Childhood Trauma Sticks Around** - A moment of childhood hate left a lasting imprint. - Unresolved pain can resurface in adulthood and distort how we see others. #### 🤝 2. **The Power of Honest Conversations** - Kel used to bottle up emotions and avoid conflict. - Growth began when he started **sharing his truth** and **understanding others deeply**. #### 💔 3. **Divorce and Losing Access to His Children** - A painful court battle left him alienated from his kids. - Sharing his story on YouTube brought **connection and healing**—for him and others. #### 😔 4. **His Darkest Moment: Suicidal Thoughts** - At a low point, he stood on a balcony ready to give up. - A voice (which he believes was God) told him to **step away** and find healing. ### 🙌 The Comeback: Faith, Family & Self-Love - Rebuilt his life by reconnecting with God and loving himself. - Now a proud father of four and married to a loving partner. - Learned to embrace mistakes as lessons, not regrets. ### 🎮 Kel’s Wisdom, Nintendo-Style: > "The designer made cheat codes to skip levels. Now I know the Designer of me. So I can jump levels in life—because I’ve learned from the pain." ### 💬 Final Message: There’s no going back. But there’s **so much forward** when you let go, learn, and love yourself through the process. Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Nothing about human behavior makes sense except in the light of culture and in anthropology, and we need to understand the cultural component to our behaviors as well.” Why do many of us struggle with exercise when it's essential for our well-being? Evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman says that it’s not laziness: it's evolution. For most of human history, conserving energy was of utmost importance: The key to survival: motion without purpose would be a waste. Lieberman explains why modern fitness feels unnatural, why guilt-driven workouts will always fail, and what hunter-gatherer lifestyles reveal about health today. 00:00:00 How evolution shaped the human body 00:02:20 How we stabilize our heads when we run 00:03:25 How bodies change in industrial cities 00:07:19 The origins of exercise 00:09:00 Exercise vs. Physical activity 00:09:50 How many of us get enough exercise? 00:12:12 Myths about exercise 00:26:02 Smarter sitting, smarter sleeping 00:27:04 Typical calorie expenditure 00:28:23 Myths about physical inactivity 00:28:46 Is sitting the new smoking? 00:31:45 Myths about sleep 00:36:17 Walking, running, and everyday strength 00:36:40 Bipeds vs. Quadrupeds 00:42:12 The origins of different sports 00:42:44 Not all sports are physically active 00:47:48 Average American step counts 00:50:09 The myth of 10,000 steps 00:59:51 Exercise as medicine 01:02:35 How much exercise do I need? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Daniel Lieberman: Daniel Lieberman is Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences and a professor of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He received degrees from Harvard and Cambridge, and taught at Rutgers University and George Washington University before joining Harvard University as a Professor in 2001. He is a member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Lieberman loves teaching and has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers, many in journals such as Nature, Science, and PNAS, as well as three popular books, The Evolution of the Human Head (2011), The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease (2013), and Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding (2020). ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chloé Valdary shares 3 rules for effective anti-racism. Chloé Valdary's Theory of Enchantment offers a fresh perspective on anti-racism, shifting the focus from rigid identity categories to a deeper understanding of human experiences. The theory emphasizes three core principles: treating people as human beings rather than political abstractions, criticizing to uplift and empower, and anchoring actions in love and compassion. By acknowledging the inner struggles and complexities that drive individual racism, Valdary encourages self-awareness to promote more thoughtful and compassionate interactions with others. Through this framework, the Theory of Enchantment aims to foster positive change by addressing the pain, suffering, and confusion that underlie racism and promoting a more empathetic and inclusive society. 0:00 3 key principles for an anti-racist mindset 1:27 James Baldwin on the inner psyche ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Chloé Valdary: After spending a year as a Bartley fellow at the Wall Street Journal, Chloé Valdary developed The Theory of Enchantment, an innovative framework for compassionate antiracism that combines social emotional learning (SEL), character development, and interpersonal growth as tools for leadership development in the boardroom and beyond. Chloé has trained around the world, including in South Africa, The Netherlands, Germany, and Israel. Her clients have included high school and college students, government agencies, business teams, + many more. She has also lectured in universities across America, including Harvard and Georgetown. Her work has been covered in Psychology Today Magazine and her writings have appeared in the New York Times and the Wall St Journal. ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

**“Men Are in Crisis—But No One’s Listening”** Today, masculinity is often discussed with a sneer. Phrases like “men are trash” and “toxic masculinity” dominate public discourse, leaving little room for empathy—or solutions. Yet, beneath the image of male power (presidents, CEOs, dominance), lies a quieter truth: **most men are struggling**. Christine Emba, author of *Rethinking Sex: A Provocation*, argues that men are indeed in crisis—across work, education, relationships, and identity. As the economy shifts from industrial labor to credentialed, white-collar work, many men are being left behind. College dropout rates are soaring—70% of pandemic-era dropouts were male. Relationships are fraying, with more men single, lonely, and feeling unwanted. A generation of disconnected young men—NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training)—have turned to the internet. There, they find virtual brotherhood in gaming, forums, and a rising class of “manfluencers” like Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, and Joe Rogan. Some offer empathy and guidance. Others spiral into **misogyny masked as masculinity**. What’s missing is a **positive vision of manhood**—one that embraces responsibility, strength (not just physical), leadership, and care. Masculinity need not compete with femininity; it can **complement and uplift**. As Emba says, this is not a zero-sum game. “The sexes rise and fall together.” If society wants to thrive, we can’t ignore the crisis facing men. We must redefine masculinity—not tear it down, but **build it up**. Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Patrick McNamara, an experimental neuroscientist, argues that the function of religion is not just to quell existential anxiety or stave off the fear of death, but to disrupt current models of the self and to update those models in relation to the world around us. Religious experiences promote imaginative simulation of other possible worlds, giving us space to update those models. One core facet of the spiritual experience is what McNamara calls “de-centering” — a powerful technique that promotes self-transformation and makes us incredibly vulnerable when triggered. When held in the context of a ritual, like many religious practices, we can achieve massive personal growth and transcendence. But de-centering isn’t only effective within the context of religion: Secular people can re-discover or create their own rich traditions to support the de-centering experience. The field of experimental neuroscience is uncovering some fundamental aspects of human nature and experience, simultaneously enhancing our understanding but also deepening the mystery. McNamara’s research sheds light on the potential benefits of religion and ritual, and highlights how much more is still to be learned about how these processes can be harnessed for positive transformation. 0:00 The standard theory of religion 1:25 What is a self model? 2:32 Simulating other possible worlds 3:05 “Decentering”: A self-transformation process 5:12 Fanaticism: When decentering goes wrong 6:23 Ritual decentering ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Patrick McNamara: Patrick McNamara is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northcentral University. He also holds appointments in the departments of Neurology at the University of Minnesota and Boston University School of Medicine. He is a founding editor of Religion, Brain & Behavior, the flagship journal for the emerging field of neuroscience of religion. McNamara's current research centers on the evolution of the frontal lobes, the evolution of the two mammalian sleep states (REM and NREM), and the evolution of religion in human cultures. McNamara is the editor of Where God and Science Meet and Science and World Religions, and the author of The Neuroscience of Religious Experience (Cambridge University Press), Religion, Neuroscience and the Self: A New Personalism (Routledge), and numerous publications on the neurology and psychology of religion. McNamara is a John Templeton Foundation award recipient for his research project The Neurology of Religious Cognition. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quantum wormholes are mathematically possible — but might also be physically impossible. Physicist Janna Levin explains the wormhole paradox. Theoretical cosmologist Janna Levin challenges long-held assumptions about the behavior of black holes, information conservation, and the fundamental nature of space, time, and gravity. She uses black holes to explore the physical feasibility of wormholes: theoretical passages or tunnel-like structures that connect separate points in spacetime. Stephen Hawking proposed that black holes emit energy via quantum particles, causing them to eventually evaporate and challenge the conservation of information. The holographic principle suggests that information is encoded on a black hole's surface, addressing the information paradox. Levin metaphorically likens black holes to embroidery, woven from quantum threads. Her quantum perspective has profound implications, potentially altering our understanding of gravity and spacetime's fundamental nature — even questioning our pursuit of a theory of everything. ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“The truth is there are very few supplements that have good evidence-based medicine to support them.” Supplements and vitamins constantly go viral with claims that they can transform your health just by integrating these pills into your daily routine. But before you add to cart, take a pause and make sure you’re buying exactly what you think you are. In the US, supplement companies can’t explicitly claim to cure, treat, or prevent a disease. So how can you know which ones are legit, and which ones might just be a money grab?Besides being potentially ineffective and a waste of money, some supplements have been shown to contain heavy metal, fungi, or even mold contaminants, and others contain just a fraction of what they claim to.OB/GYN and bestselling author Dr. Jen Gunter says that you can easily discern snake oil salesmen from legitimate supplements grounded in good science with these 3 tips. About Dr. Jen Gunter:I am an OB/GYN and a pain medicine physician. I write a lot about sex, science, and social media, but sometimes I write about other things because, well, why not?I’ve been called Twitter’s resident gynecologist, the Internet’s OB/GYN, and one of the fiercest advocates for women’s health. I have devoted my professional life to caring for women.I’m here to build a better medical Internet. You can’t be empowered about your health if you have incorrect information. I got interested in online snake oil and dubious science when my own children were born extremely prematurely. I found separating the facts from the fiction difficult and I am a doctor, so I started thinking if this is hard for me how does everyone else manage? It put the bad information that my own patients were bringing into the office in perspective. I know people sit up late at night Googling things and fall down rabbit holes of misinformation because I’ve been there! Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“The idea of evolution by natural selection is, for me, probably the most beautiful idea in biology.” Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection did more than explain evolution, it revealed how complexity can emerge without a designer. Nobel laureate Paul Nurse unpacks Darwin’s insights, from the logic of tiny differences to the profound impacts these variations have on our understanding of life. Nurse explores the deep genetic connections linking all organisms, from humans to gorillas to yeast. This shared ancestry, he argues, reframes how we think about responsibility: If all life is related, what do we owe to the living world? 0:00 The most beautiful idea in biology 0:15 Evolution and the mechanism 0:48 Darwin’s 5-year voyage 2:45 Red coat vs yellow coat 4:22 The consequences of evolution 6:15 The similarity of living things ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Paul Nurse: Paul Nurse, Ph.D, is a British biochemist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Leland H. Hartwell and R. Timothy Hunt for their discoveries regarding cell cycle regulation by cyclin and cyclin dependent kinases. He became Rockefeller University's ninth president in 2003. ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"One of the ways you can see the Roman Empire is it's the worldwide web of its day." What did it really mean to live in Ancient Rome? Not as an emperor, but as an ordinary person navigating daily life? Classicist Mary Beard says that the truth would surprise us, challenging our myths about the empire. Ancient Rome emerges as a complex, uneven, often uncomfortable prototype of globalization. Roads were designed for conquest more than convenience. Sex, trade, and culture operated under systems of inequality. And yet, across the Ancient Roman empire, ideas and identities moved faster than we might think. 00:12 How did ancient Rome connect continents? 03:06 What kind of ideas traveled along Roman roads? 06:10 Anchovy-stuffed mice or stone-stuffed bread? 11:05 What was sex like in ancient Rome? Is it as wild as the movies? 15:11 What were the Romans doing in terms of money and trade? 20:23 What about war and the military? 26:37 What can we learn from ancient Rome? 31:13 What drew you to study this particular period in history? 34:37 In the age of information, how should we record history? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Mary Beard: Winifred Mary Beard, OBE, FBA, FSA is an English Classical scholar. She is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of Newnham College, and Royal Academy of Arts professor of ancient literature. She is also the classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog, "A Don's Life," which appears in The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist." ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Americans no longer feel safe to speak their minds. The levels of self-silencing in the country rival that of Mccarthyism in the late 1940s – or higher, says research scientist Todd Rose. Our social trust is non-existent, so much so that many are opting out of sharing their opinions altogether, making way for those at the extremes to be the dominant voices. But just because the most vocal want something, doesn’t mean that the rest of the country shares this ideology. In fact, our brains mistake this extremist noise for consensus, reinforcing the lie that this is what we must believe. Here’s why this social silence must be changed. Why it's healthy to invite in other points of view – even if they differ from yours. This is The Dilemma with Irshad Manji, a series from Big Think created in partnership with Moral Courage College. About Irshad Manji: Irshad Manji is an award-winning educator, author, and advocate for moral courage and diversity of thought. As the founder of Moral Courage College, she equips people to engage in honest conversations across lines of difference. Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes ----------------------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices