My guest today is Professor Abhijit Banerjee. Professor Banerjee is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, an econ professor at MIT, and a co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Banerjee and I discussed the difference between empirical work and theoretical work in economics. We talk about Banerjee's Nobel Prize-winning research on alleviating global poverty. We talk about whether immigrants drive down wages for native workers, the role of financial incentives and driving human behavi...
Oct 01, 2021•59 min•Ep. 31
My guest today is Helen Joyce. Helen is a staff journalist at the Economist magazine, and has been an editor there since 2005. She also has a PhD in mathematics from University College London. Helen just released a controversial new book called "Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality." Now, this is one of those books that is likely to be misrepresented on Twitter and in some media as transphobic but is in fact a deep and thoughtful attempt to navigate all the complex issues at the intersection of ge...
Sep 24, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 30
My guest today is Professor Peter Doherty. Professor Doherty is a Nobel Prize-winning veterinary surgeon. His prize-winning research focused on how the immune system reacts to viruses. He is also the author of "Pandemics: What Everyone Needs to Know", "An Insider's Plague Year" and many other books. This episode is about all things COVID. Professor Doherty goes into detail about the physiology of COVID and what happens when you get infected. We talk about the way MRNA vaccines work, whether mask...
Sep 17, 2021•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 29
Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today is Amy Chua. Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School. Her books include World on Fire, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, The Triple Package, Political Tribes, and many more. She's made Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people in 2011 and has been a guest on many TV shows, including Good Morning America, The Today Show, and Real Time with Bill Maher. Amy and I spoke on August 26 and discussed the situation in Af...
Sep 11, 2021•45 min•Ep. 64
Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today is Christopher Rufo. Christopher is a documentary filmmaker and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He has almost single-handedly led the national fight against Critical Race Theory, as it manifests in public schools and in workplaces. I haven't said much about this subject yet. So it was great to finally dive into it. Christopher and I talk about where Critical Race Theory comes from. We talk about diversity traini...
Sep 04, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 27
Today's episode is a Pre-Recorded Q&A. A majority of these questions were sent to me via text and a handful via Instagram. In this episode, I answer questions about rap culture, The Roland Fryer Study on racial disparities in police shootings, The 'Veil of Darkness' Study by Stanford, meditating on psychedelics, my thoughts on the term "Critical Race Theory", progressive tax, and several other topics. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. If you would like to send in your questions for the...
Aug 28, 2021•56 min•Ep. 62
My guest today is David Hogg. David is a Gun Violence Activist and a History Major at Harvard University. He rose to national prominence after surviving the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018. He is also the Co-Author of the New York Times Best Seller: #NeverAgain: A New Generation Draws the Line This episode is all about gun violence. Despite surviving a mass shooting, David feels and I agree that mass shootings get more attention than they should and tha...
Aug 21, 2021•59 min•Ep. 26
Today's episode is all about China. My guest is Michael Beckley, who's an associate professor of Political Science at Tufts University and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He's received awards from the American Political Science Association and the International Studies Association and he's been featured in numerous media outlets, including the Financial Times foreign affairs, foreign policy, The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post. Michael is also the author of ...
Aug 14, 2021•58 min•Ep. 25
Today's episode is actually a recording of an event I did a few weeks ago for the organisation Braver Angels. The mission of Braver Angels is to depolarise our politics by setting up dialogues between people who disagree on stuff. In that spirit, they set up this conversation between myself and Rakim Brooks, who is the Senior Campaign Strategist and Systemic Equality Campaign Manager for the ACLU. This was moderated by my friend John Wood Jr, a great Writer and National Leader for Braver Angels....
Aug 07, 2021•1 hr 50 min•Ep. 59
Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today who probably needs no introduction is Ezra Klein. Ezra Klein is a Journalist and Political Writer. He co-founded Vox before leaving for the New York Times where he's now a Columnist. He also hosts the podcast The Ezra Klein Show, which I've been listening to for many years. Ezra and I talk about a wide range of subjects. We talk about his background as a smart kid who got horrible grades, the over prescription of Adderall t...
Jul 30, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 24
My guest today probably needs no introduction. Today I'm talking to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ayaan is a Writer, Activist, and former Politician. She is also a New York Times best-selling author. If you haven't read her memoirs, Infidel and Nomad, then you've missed out on one of the most beautiful story arcs that I've ever encountered. Her new book is called Prey: Immigration, Islam and the Erosion of Women's Rights. Her thesis is that the wave of migration from Muslim majority countries into Europe has...
Jul 23, 2021•55 min•Ep. 23
Before I get to my guest today, I have two announcements. The first is that there's limited edition merchandise is available for fans of the show! You can check that out at Colemanhughes.org. My second announcement today is about my interview with Michael Shellenberger from a few weeks back. It seems that Michael made some very misleading or outright false claims about the connection between climate change and extreme weather events. Specifically, he said that climate change did not contribute t...
Jul 16, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 22
For my members who have signed up via my website, I'm pleased to announce that transcripts are now available for Season One of Conversations with Coleman. For those of you who haven't signed up via my website, I'd recommend making the switch so you can claim these amazing benefits via https://colemanhughes.org Today's episode is a recording of a live Q&A that I did a few months ago. I talked about how to have difficult conversations, what anti-racist books I'd recommend for children, the con...
Jul 09, 2021•46 min•Ep. 22
My guest today requires a longer-than-normal preamble. I'm speaking with Charles Murray, who is a Political Scientist, Writer, and W.H. Brady scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Murray has been a controversial figure throughout his whole career, but especially since the publication of "The Bell Curve" in the '90s. The most controversial claim in that book was that the mean IQ gap between black and white Americans is partly genetic in origin, meaning it cannot be fully closed by changin...
Jul 03, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 21
Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today is Joseph Henrich, a Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Joseph is also the author of the books, "The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous", "The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter" and "Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation (Evolution and...
Jun 26, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 20
Welcome to another Conversation with Coleman! To date, we have given around 400 free subscriptions to those who have expressed financial challenges. With the growing impact of this podcast, I hope to continue providing free memberships to those with financial difficulties. To continue doing this, we have started a campaign to pay it forward. Help us grow the Conversations with Coleman community so we can continue providing free access to those who request it. Please consider paying it forward by...
Jun 18, 2021•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 19
I'm pleased to announce that supporters of the show will be able to interact with me through text messages. If you are considering joining our community, you can sign up at colemanhughes.org/ Today's guest is Michael Shellenberger. Michael is a journalist, author, environmental activist and was dubbed ‘Hero of the Environment’ by Time Magazine. He's the Founder and President of Environmental Progress, a nonprofit dedicated to eradicating poverty and saving the natural environment. He's co-writte...
Jun 12, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 18
Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today is Wilfred Reilly. Wilfred is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Southern Illinois University and a Law degree from The University of Illinois. He is also the author of the books "Taboo: 10 Facts You Can't Talk About" and "Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War" Wilfred and I talked about the undiscussed progress that America h...
Jun 03, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 17
Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today is Daniel Schmachtenberger. Daniel is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. His writing is focused on ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a focus on catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and sc...
May 27, 2021•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 16
My guest today is Scott Barry Kaufman. Scott is a cognitive scientist who has taught courses on intelligence, creativity, and well-being at Columbia University, NYU, The University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. He is the author of the latest book "Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization" and the host of The Psychology Podcast. In 2015, he was named one of the "50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see the world" by Business Insider. Scott and I talked about his back...
May 21, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 15
My guest today is Michael Shermer. Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine, the host of the Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101. For 18 years he was a monthly columnist for Scientific American. He's the author of New York Times bestsellers, ‘Why People Believe Weird Things’, ‘The Believing Brain', ‘Why Darwin Matters’, ‘The Science of Good and Evil', ‘The Moral Arc’, ‘Heavens on Earth', and ‘Giving The Devil ...
May 14, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 14
My guest today is Julia Galef. Julia Galef is an author and podcaster. She's the Co-founder of the Centre for Applied Rationality and the host of the podcast "Rationally Speaking". In this episode, we discuss her new book, "The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't". We talked about the difference between intelligence and open-mindedness, the tension between pursuing the truth dispassionately and belonging to a tribe, the notion of instrumental rationality, the trade...
May 07, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 13
Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. This episode is actually a recording of an event I did many months ago with Brittany King, an up-and-coming freelance writer. We talked about Brittany's background, leading her local BLM chapter, her experience studying with Ta-Nehisi Coates, her evolving views on race and identity politics, how American race politics affect many people's views of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the causes of the 2020 summer riots and many similar topics. ...
Apr 29, 2021•55 min
My guest today is Jesse Singal, Jesse Singal is a journalist and author. He was a contributing writer for New York magazine for years and has written for The Atlantic and many other outlets, and he's now on Substack. Jesse and I discuss his new book, ‘The Quick Fix : Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social Ills’. We discussed the replication crisis in psychology, why so much psych research gets debunked in the long run. We talked about the problem with notions like self-esteem, power, posing, g...
Apr 23, 2021•59 min•Ep. 12
My guest today is Tristan Harris. Tristan is a computer scientist and president of the Centre for Humane Technology. He was named TIME 100's 'next leader shaping the future', and Rolling Stone magazine's '25 people shaping the world'. Tristan is the co host of Your Undivided Attention, consistently among the top 10 tech podcasts on Apple. Tristan was also the primary subject of the acclaimed Netflix documentary 'The Social Dilemma', which we talked about in this episode. Tristan and I talked abo...
Apr 16, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 11
Today's guest is Desi-Rae Campbell. Desi-Rae is a YouTuber, writer, and artist. Her show which I've been on is called 'Just Thinking Out Loud'. Desi-Rae and I talk about racial identity and 'blackness', the notion of racial pride, the differences between America and Desi-Rae's homeland of Jamaica with respect to racial identity, how children think about race, affirmative action, immigration, and more #Ad : Today's episode is sponsored by our friends at Ritual. We deserve to know what we're putti...
Apr 09, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 10
Today's guest is Aella, she is a difficult person to describe as you'll see. Aella is a blogger, a sex worker, and the queen of interesting Twitter polls. During our conversation we talked about her upbringing as a fundamentalist Christian, psychedelics meditation, sex work, polyamory, sexual jealousy, the psychology of trauma, critical race theory, and identity politics. Please note there are minor audio glitches due to an unstable internet connection. I'd also like to point you in the directio...
Apr 02, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 9
My guest today is Amy Chua. Amy is a professor at Yale Law School. Her books include 'World on Fire', Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother', 'The Triple Package', and 'Political Tribes'. She made Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people in 2011 and has been a guest on many TV shows including Good Morning America, the Today Show, and Real Time with Bill Maher. Amy and I talk about tribalism, highly successful minority groups, and how ethnic tensions have undermined the US foreign policy. We...
Mar 26, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 8
Just one announcement, I'll be hosting a members only Q&A on Sunday, March 28, 6 -7 PM ET on YouTube. If you're not a member and would like to participate please sign up at colemanhughes.org. Today's episode is a bit different than usual. It's actually a recording of a talk I gave at Harvard's Program on Constitutional Government three months ago, entitled The Case for Color-blindness. My talk is about 30 minutes, and it's followed by an audience Q&A. I hope you enjoy it Learn more about...
Mar 19, 2021•1 hr 23 min
The purpose of my solo episode is twofold. First, I'd like to update you all on the status of my attempted conversation with Ibram X. Kendi, the author of 'How to be an Anti-racist', and arguably the leading anti-racist public intellectual in America at the moment. And second, I want to respond to the most common critiques I receive regarding my views on race. Bonus episodes are a members-only perk, however, I have decided to release a portion of the episode to the public. If you would like to a...
Mar 12, 2021•21 min
