The 7th Avenue Project

“As a black male in the United States,” says George Yancy, “to do philosophy in the abstract would be to deny the reality of my own existence.” Yancy grew up in a tough North Philadelphia housing project, where young men were far more likely to end up in early graves or jail than in academia. He beat the odds and now enjoys the status of a tenured professor at a major university, but he hasn't forgotten where he came from, or the racial realities that made his story so unlikely. George and I talked about his beginnings, becoming a philosopher and using his brand of "down to earth" philosophizing to explore the structure of blackness, whiteness and lived experience in a racialized society.

It’s one thing to genetically modify an organism in the lab. It’s another thing entirely to spread those modifications in the wild, altering whole populations or even species. A new technology, the “CRISPR gene drive,” promises to do just that, giving human beings an unprecedented ability to fine-tune the natural world and nudge evolution in new directions. Malaria-resistant mosquitoes? Lyme-blocking ticks? Those are just a few of the applications floated so far, but the possibilities are endless. I talked to molecular biologist and “evolutionary sculptor” Kevin Esvelt, who first proposed the CRISPR gene drive, about its potential, perils and steps to ensure that we use our new powers wisely.

If you’re going to tell cool stories in comic books, it helps to have had a colorful life and interesting friends. Dean Haspiel has had both. His dad was a writer, occasional street vigilante and confidante of Marilyn Monroe. Mom’s pals included Shelly Winters and the young Bobby De Niro, who was one of Dean’s babysitters. Dean worked with Harvey Pekar and Jonathan Ames on their respective graphic novels, and won an Emmy for his title work on Jonathan’s HBO sitcom "Bored to Death." He was also the inspiration for Ray the cartoonist, played on BTD by Zack Galifianakis. We talked about all of the above, plus Dean’s beginnings as a comic artist, his love of superheroes and his own hero complex, his residencies at the Yaddo artist colony, and his latest comic memoir, "Beef with Tomato."

Jonathan Gottschall’s career as a college English prof was on the rocks, and he was desperate to do something completely different. So in his late 30s he left the classroom for the cage, taking up mixed martial arts and training for an amateur bout. It was more than a mid-life escapade, though. Jonathan had some unresolved issues around bullying in his own youth, and wanted to better understand the relationship between violence and masculinity, including his own. We talked about MMA, male aggression and Jonathan’s book "The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch," as well as his ill-fated stint as a literary scholar with an evolutionary bent.

“I was an obscure novelist and then I was given the keys to this production, and I had to learn on the spot.” And learn he did, helming HBO’s "Bored to Death" for three hilarious seasons and now "Blunt Talk" on Starz. Jonathan Ames describes the delights and terrors of television auteur-dom, the dubious distinction of being TV’s first showrunner to go Full Monty, being manhandled by Zack Galifianakis, his friendship with Jason Schwartzman, the comedic excellence of Patrick Stewart and more, while making decorous use of euphemism.

It’s been called the "decline effect," "the proteus phenomenon," and "the reproducibility crisis": the startling realization that a lot of seemingly solid scientific research doesn’t pan out under repeated testing. The latest blow to scientific confidence comes from the Reproducibility Project, which attempted to replicate 100 published psychology studies and found that, when the experiments were repeated, half or more failed to uphold the original findings. So is it time to start doubting the credibility of research in general? Stanford University psychologist and Reproducibility Project participant Mike Frank joined us to explain what the results really mean, misconceptions about statistical rigor in science, the various ways experimenters blunder and sometimes delude themselves, and the gradual, cumulative nature of scientific progress.

Cop shows and tough-on-crime rhetoric often depict a world so brutish that police have no choice but to play rough and kick butt, but Seth Stoughton says we’ve been misled. The former cop turned law professor and policing expert contends that civility, a cool head and patience are far more effective in fighting crime and reducing risks to the public and police than the warrior mentality getting so much emphasis these days in popular culture and some police departments.Seth and I talked about the psychology of police-civilian confrontations, alternatives to deadly force, and some recent cases where things went famously wrong, including the Walter Scott shooting, the Sandra Bland arrest and the McKinney pool party.

Huang Ruo’s career wasn’t his to choose. His fortune-teller grandfather and composer father did that for him, and at the age of 12 he was bundled off to a distant music conservatory in Shanghai as his mother wept. Sad as that may sound, it all worked out remarkably well. Huang Ruo’s path eventually took him from China to the U.S., to Oberlin and Julliard, and today it’s hard to imagine him as anything other than the prolific and exuberant composer he’s become. His work draws on all the music he heard growing up in China and in the years since – from ancient ritual chants and folk songs to classical, rock and pop (both Chinese and western) – to create something that feels integral, vibrant and new. He’s also a wonderful singer, as you’ll hear in this very musical interview. I met Huang Ruo when he was in town for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and getting to know him and his work was a highlight of the festival for me. Here are some of the things we talked about as we listened to a selection of his incredibly varied music.

People suffering from Cotard’s Syndrome think they’re dead. Victims of body integrity identity disorder believe their own limbs don't belong to them, and schizophrenics feel their thoughts aren’t their own. By chipping away at our sense of a unified, stable self, these and other mental conditions hint at how selfhood might be assembled in the first place. What exactly is a self, anyway? Is it the product of specific neural mechanisms, or perhaps a psych-social construct? Does it ever go entirely away? Science writer Anil Ananthaswamy examines the evidence from neuroscience along with theories of the self from psychology, philosophy and spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, in his new book "The Man Who Wasn't There: Investigations into the Strange New Science of the Self."

TThe Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music brings together some of the best and brightest composers working today. I spoke to three from this year’s lineup as we listened to some of their pieces. Harpist/composer Hannah Lash confided her love of tuned percussion and hidden structure. Missy Mazzoli discussed her "River Rouge Transfiguration" – inspired by the iconic Ford auto plant–and "Vespers for a New Dark Age": secular music with sacred sources. Nico Muhly reflected on cartoon travelogues and Disneyfied gamelan in his piece "Wish You Were Here" and his "technical exercise with a heart of gold," "Étude #3" featuring violist Nadia Sirota.

Rebecca Goldstein says some of her best friends are “philosophy jeerers,” convinced that anything philosophers can do, scientists can do better. She begs to differ, and offers the grandaddy of Western philosophy as exhibit A. 21st-century America has a surprising amount in common with Athens c. 400 BCE, Rebecca says, and Plato still has a thing or two to teach us moderns. She shows how well the 2,400-year-old-man has aged by transporting him to our own times in her new book “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t go Away.” Rebecca and I talked about the world of the ancient Greeks, the death of Socrates, the relevance of Plato and what philosophy is good for. Plus a bonus segment: just how timely is Plato? Philosophical rapper Dr. Awkward makes the case in rhymes.

Harry Greene is a much-admired natural historian and herpetologist with a soft spot for black-tailed rattlesnakes. He’s spent years in the field studying venomous serpents, when not in the classroom or lab (he’s currently a prof at Cornell; before that he was at UC Berkeley, where he both taught and curated the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology). Harry’s a very thoughtful guy and serious writer, as evidenced in his new memoir Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art. We talked about his career, about field biology vs. theory and experiment, about the wonders of snakedom and some of his favorite rattlers (like “Superfemale 21”), and life and death in the natural and human worlds.

Cosmologist Anthony Aguirre and I continue our jaunt through General Relativity. Last week we presented some of the basics. This week, we talk about the evidence, the impacts and implications, including the cosmological constant, the expanding universe, gravity waves, time dilation, black holes, and spacetime singularities.

If you’ve bought into the simplified notion that genes are top-down bosses, issuing marching orders that your cells, body and brain merely obey, it’s time to rethink. Biobehavioral scientist Steve Cole and colleagues are assembling a new picture of genes that don’t just talk, but also listen. Though scientists have long known that external inputs affect gene regulation (which genes are switched on or off), the degree to which large numbers of genes are influenced moment-to-moment by our experiences – including our social life, our feelings and perceptions – is an important developing story. Steve and I talked about this new understanding of the mind-body connection, how feelings and perceptions may impact the immune system via changes in gene regulation and the emerging field he calls “social genomics.” After hearing this interview, you may never feel the same about your genome again.

With apologies to Bob Newhart and others, my favorite TV shrink will always be Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. A lot of the best comics of our era tried out their routines—and worked out their issues—on Dr. Katz’s couch, and the effect was certainly therapeutic for viewers like me. The animated series ran from 1995-1999 and marks its 20th birthday this year with a live performance at SF Sketchfest. I spoke with co-creator and star Jonathan Katz about the show, his life and career. Including: improv with H. Jon Benjamin and Laura Silverman; hustling ping-pong with David Mamet; how not to pitch a project; ripping it up on a mobility scooter.