Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson are anthropologists based in America. Their partnership was central to the development of Dual-Inheritance Theory, a framework that applies Darwinian evolution to culture and explains how genes and culture have intertwined to shape our species. This is their first ever joint interview. Full transcript available at: j…

In the conclusion of our look at the assassination of John Lennon, we discover that it is a virtual impossibility that the man who has spent the last 44 years behind bars for the crime, Mark Chapman, could have done it. While Chapman confessed to the crime — and may truly believe he committed murder — the evidence simply does not support this, as N…

In the first of a two-part look at the murder of John Lennon, we look at the life and work of the former Beatle, and the strange story of the man who was convicted of killing him, Mark Chapman. Host Niall speaks with author David Whelan about his fascinating new book Mind Games: The Assassination of John Lennon, which contains important and surpris…

Lucy Turnbull is an urbanist, businesswoman and philanthropist. She was the first female Lord Mayor of Sydney, from 2003-4. From 2015-20, she was the inaugural Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission, tasked with delivering strategic planning for the whole of metropolitan Sydney. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University. A bestselling author, his books include The Case Against Education, Open Borders, and Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Deregulation. Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/bryan-caplan-155 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

A Fairfax, Virginia based computing journalist who had turned his hand to deep-dive investigative journalism, in the early-1990s Casolaro was looking into an alleged theft of cutting-edge software by the US Government, which led him down a rabbit hole of seemingly bizarre conspiracy theories — thanks to disinformation fed to him by a shady self-pro…

Alexander Odeh was a Palestinian who had moved to the United States in the 1970s. While engaged in political activism in support of Arab people, both in the Middle East and in the USA, he was killed in a bombing attack widely attributed to a Jewish American terrorist cell. The alleged perpetrators subsequently fled to Israel in order to evade murde…

In this special episode, the tables are turned as I'm interviewed by a listener of the show, DJ Thornton from Sydney. We reflect on the progress of the show in 2023, what I learned from this year's guests, and what's in store for 2024. Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

A legend and a mystery in his own lifetime, the decades following his death have only added to the mystique — and confusion — about who Jan Erik Hanussen really was and what his role in the rise of the Nazis might have been. We find out about the various dubious accounts that have shaped public perception about this once-famous mesmerist and clairv…

At a time when the Enlightenment is under attack from without and within, I bring together two of the most thoughtful defenders of progress and reason, for their first ever public dialogue. Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. I think of him as providing the strongest empirical defence of the Enlightenment (…

Shruti Rajagopalan is an Indian-American economist. She leads the Indian political economy research program and Emergent Ventures India at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She also hosts the Ideas of India podcast. Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

What were the deep causes of the global financial crisis and great recession? Has unconventional monetary policy in the wake of the crisis done more harm than good? And should monetary policy target financial stability? I discuss these questions and more with Indian economist and Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Raghuram Rajan. Rag…

Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is widely regarded as the world's most influential living philosopher. Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com Episode recorded on 26 April 2023. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker

Peter Turchin is a complexity scientist and one of the founders of cliodynamics — a new, cross-disciplinary field that applies mathematics and big data to test historical theories. Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker

Blown up while sailing on his fishing boat along the coast of County Sligo in Ireland in 1979, the assassination of Lord Mountbatten resulted in international condemnation of the IRA, which claimed responsibility for the blast. Three other people — two teenaged boys and a woman in her eighties — were also killed. Many wondered why the IRA had chose…

Stephen Wolfram is a physicist, computer scientist and businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the creator of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha, and the author of A New Kind of Science. Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker

Katalin Karikó is a Hungarian-American biochemist. She is one of the inventors of mRNA technology. Full transcript available at: thejspod.com. Episode recorded on 15 February 2023. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker

Richard Rhodes is an American historian and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Full transcript available at: thejspod.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker

On the 5th of November, 1605, a dastardly plot to assassinate King James and the English parliament was foiled. Many of the conspirators, most famously Guy Fawkes, were captured, tortured, and brutally executed. But might they have been mere pawns in some else’s game, part of a devious design to flush out enemies of the state and test the strength …

Dr Ken Henry is an Australian economist who served as Secretary of Australia's Treasury from 2001 to 2011. He was instrumental in helping Australia avoid recession during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis — Australia was the only major advanced economy to do so. Full transcript available at: thejspod.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor…

Palmer Luckey is an American tech entrepreneur and billionaire. He has founded two companies: Oculus VR (acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014), and Anduril (recently valued at $8.5 billion). He has been described as the real-life Tony Stark. Full transcript available at: www.thejspod.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.…

Daniel Kahneman is widely regarded as the most influential psychologist alive. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics (2002) for his work on judgment and decision-making under uncertainty, much of it done jointly with his late collaborator Amos Tversky. He is the author of the bestselling books Thinking, Fast and Slow and Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgme…

In the long run, talent allocation is almost everything. But as a society, we're not actually very good at it. The question of how to reliably match people with jobs they are well suited for is one of the big unsolved problems of our times. Joe catches up with return guest Tyler Cowen to discuss the art of identifying talent. Tyler is a professor o…

From language and writing to the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, computers and Adobe Photoshop, our species has a history of inventing tools for augmenting our own intelligence. But what comes next? Andy Matuschak is a developer and designer. He helped build iOS at Apple, founded and led Khan Academy's R&D lab, and now works as an independent research…

How rational are we? How can a species smart enough to set foot on the moon also be prone to conspiracy theories that the moon landing was fake? Joe speaks with Steven Pinker to discuss rationality — and its opposite. Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, an elected t…

Did Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal single-handedly nearly wipe out his dynasty, including his own parents and siblings? Or maybe he was a patsy, a pawn in someone else’s game … someone who stood to benefit most from one of the bloodiest moments in the country’s history. To find out more about the people and music featured in today’s episode, visit …

One of the most vocal opponents and the State of Israel, Faisal lavished money on Palestinian causes. Following the 1973 Ramadan / Yom Kippur War, the Saudi king instituted an oil embargo against the United States and other countries that backed Israel. Other Muslim oil-producing countries joined the embargo, leading to the Energy Crisis, which had…

Long before the House of Saud became synonymous with fabulous wealth flowing from their oil rich kingdom, they were tribal warriors who aspired to unite the Arabian Peninsula — and control the holy cities of Mecca and Medina — under their flag and guided by their obscure interpretation of the Islamic faith. Before we look at the details of the assa…

We look at the life and death of another Alexander — this time it’s Tsar Alexander II of Russia. A reformer who granted freedom to some 23 million serfs, he was on the brink of signing into law a program of changes to the Russian system of government that could have set the empire on a democratic and constitutional route. But a team of assassins fr…

The slaying of the Yugoslavian king on the streets of Marseille, France, in 1934 sent shockwaves throughout Europe. His assassination by a squad of Croatian and Macedonian nationalist militants was part of an international conspiracy by more powerful forces that sought to reshape the map of Europe. After a narrative historical recounting of events,…

From a narrative historical account of the slaying of the Macedonian king, we move on to look at the fortunes of his son, Alexander the Great. And we ask the question: What might the world look like if Philip had lived? To find out more about the people and music featured in today’s episode, visit the Assassinations Podcast website, www.Assassinati…

Bayesianism, the doctrine that it's always rational to represent our beliefs in terms of probabilities, dominates the intellectual world, from decision theory to the philosophy of science. But does it make sense to quantify our beliefs about such ineffable things as scientific theories or the future? And what separates empty prophecy from legitimat…

Before we start on Season 8 of the show, which will focus on the theme of royal assassinations, we take the opportunity to look at the life and death of the controversial Ukrainian nationalist figure. To find out more about the people and music featured in today’s episode, visit the Assassinations Podcast website, www.AssassinationsPodcast.com. Whi…

Following on from last week’s conversation on the use of assassination by the US during the Cold War, culminating in the “Season of Inquiry” during the Ford administration, historian Luca Trenta discusses the evolving policy on assassination under successive presidents to the present day. Part 2 of 2. Check out producer Lindsey’s exciting new proje…

An academic at the University of Swansea, Dr Trenta discusses his research into America’s use of assassination as a tool of foreign policy during the Cold War and the development of the so-called ban on assassinations, which was instituted through an executive order by President Gerald Ford in 1975. The conversation between Luca and host Niall cont…

Kit has extensively looked into the alleged attempted assassination of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in England in 2018. In this interview he shares his thoughts on the case, as well as more recent developments and a potential connection with another other high-profile alleged chemical weapons attack that year. Thanks to Kit Klarenberg for joining us fo…

A former British Army officer and private security contractor, Le Mesurier helped to found the Syrian Civil Defense, aka the White Helmets. Embroiled in scandals in the last months of his life, was his death an accident, suicide, or murder? In this episode we talked about an organization called ARK. It’s website is: https://www.ark.international To…

In this mini episode we consider the life and death of the Lebanese leader, whose extensive business interests and political activities made him a friend, confidante, and rival to some of the most powerful - and dangerous - people on earth. To find out more about the people and music featured in today’s episode, visit the Assassinations Podcast web…

William Dalrymple is an acclaimed historian and writer. Show notes available at: josephnoelwalker.com/138-afghanistan See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker

Richard Holden is Professor of Economics at UNSW. Steven Hamilton is an Assistant Professor of Economics at The George Washington University. Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/holden-hamilton See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker

Ole Peters is a physicist and a Fellow at the London Mathematical Laboratory. Show notes available at: josephnoelwalker.com/136-ergodicity See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker

One was a Nazi torturer, protected by the United States. The other was a Marxist guerrilla, hunted by the Bolivian government. Their paths would cross in one of the most infamous episodes of the Cold War. Assassinated, Guevara would become a countercultural icon. Meanwhile Barbie would go on to commit many more crimes before his final date with des…

Though authorities blamed an outlawed far-left militant group called the Red Army Faction for the assassination of this prominent West German businessman, there is good reason to think that other forces might have been behind the hit. This episode is brought to you by Omio. Use the link https://omio.sjv.io/c/2544961/1078765/7385 and promo code OMIO…

Gerald Bull had been developing “super guns” for decades, culminating in his work for the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. Assassinated in 1990, it is unclear if Bull was killed by the Israelis, the Iranians, some other covert agency … or by the Iraqis themselves. This episode is brought to you by Omio. Use the link https://omio.sjv.io/c/2544961…

Michael Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard University, where he is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory. His course “Justice” is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on television and has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world. Full transcript available at: josephno…

Graham Allison is an American political scientist and the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government Harvard University. Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/graham-allison See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker

Niall Ferguson is one of the world's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is the author of sixteen books, including most recently Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. Full tr…

For our 100th episode, we travel back to the thirteenth century to hear a story about the most feared killers of their age: the Order of Assassins, led by the mysterious Old Man of the Mountains. To find out more about the people and music featured in today’s episode, visit the Assassinations Podcast website, www.AssassinationsPodcast.com While the…

Our 100th episode, which comes out next week, will bring us face to face with the OG assassins of yore. To find out more, visit the Assassinations Podcast website, www.AssassinationsPodcast.com While there, you can check out our Bookstore, where we recommend some great episode-related books and reading material, or shop our Merch Store to nab a log…

John Hewson is a former Australian politician and was leader of the Liberal Party from 1990 to 1994. Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/john-hewson See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.By Joe Walker