Research reveals that people think some aspects of the mind are harder for science to capture than others.

A humorous reflection on the limits of evidence-based decision making.

Can natural explanations to life’s big questions be as consoling as religious ones?

Your car breaks down. Must be because you skipped an oil change last month. Or your favorite team loses. Well, that was because of a bad call by a corrupt referee. In reality, many events involve multiple contributing factors. But we tend to gravitate toward single causes. 

In this episode of Choiceology with Katy Milkman, we look at our desire to explain things simply, even when the truth may be more complex.

Why is my friend late? How does nuclear fission work? What occurs when I sneeze? We all need to understand why certain things happen. Some researchers think the drive to explain the world is a basic human impulse, similar to thirst or hunger. This week on Hidden Brain, we begin a three part series on why we tell stories. Psychologist Tania Lombrozo discusses how explanations can lead to discovery, delight, and disaster.

There are few human impulses more primal than the desire for explanations. We have expectations concerning what happens, and when what we experience differs from those expectations, we want to know the reason why. There are obvious philosophy questions here: What is an explanation? Do explanations bottom out, or go forever? But there are also psychology questions: What precisely is it that we seek when we demand an explanation? What makes us satisfied with one? Tania Lombrozo is a psychologist who is also conversant with the philosophical side of things. She offers some pretty convincing explanations for why we value explanation so highly.

How do we learn? Usually from experience, of course. Maybe we visit some new place, or encounter a new tool or trick. Or perhaps we learn from someone else—from a teacher or friend or YouTube star who relays some shiny new fact or explanation. These are the kinds of experiences you probably first think of when you think of learning. But we can also learn in another way: simply by thinking. Sometimes we can just set our minds to work—just let the ideas already in our heads tumble around and spark off each other—and, as if by magic, come away with a new understanding of the world. But how does this happen exactly? And does it only happen in humans? 

Have you ever wondered how similar information encoding and processing of artificial intelligence (AI) is to our own human brain? How are our minds incredibly energy efficient compared to the bucketloads of energy required to power these sophisticated yet oftentimes naive AI models? These are all questions we explore, and practical advice on how students can get involved in answering these types of questions as well as pursuing interdisciplinary studies! In this episode of Brains, Black Holes, and Beyond, Aanya Kasera sits down with Dr. Leslie and Dr. Lombrozo, professors and researchers who are part of heading the brand new interdisciplinary research initiative, Natural and Artificial Minds (NAM), to learn more about AI models and how that may enrich our understanding of the ever-enigmatic human mind. 

Homo sapiens was coined to refer to a new species, but it also described an unprecedented cognitive revolution within the animal realm, one that would lead to the invention of technology and scientific abstraction, alongside mythical thinking and representations of the divine. Disciplines such as archeology, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive science have shed new light on the human mind and the decisive role played by the use of language and metaphors in the development of religious belief and rationality. At the same time, they have raised new questions about the future of homo sapiens. Will the exponential development of generative AI systems transform the way we speak, think, and relate to one another? Do we need to tell new stories about what it means to be human? Cognitive psychologist Tania Lombrozo discusses these topics and more with Wisconsin Public Radio's Steve Paulson.

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.

In Episode 65 he interviews Tania Lombrozo.

This week, we spoke with Dr. Tania Lombrozo, a Professor of Psychology at Princeton University, as well as an Associate of the Department of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values. Topics included: what prompts us to believe something, whether that's a religious credo, or a scientific explanation? Are those processes of belief the same or different when we think about religious or scientific answers? What counts as evidence for that belief, and who decides?

We discuss the biggest questions: "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?" with scientists, celebrities, activists, writers and philosophers. The Sentientism worldview is "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." It's a simple, yet radical, philosophy that's grounded in reality (naturalistic epistemology) and has compassion for all sentient beings (mostly human and non-human animals). Naturalism & sentiocentrism combined. Also on YouTube!

We humans make a lot of decisions. Apparently, 35,000 of them every day! So how do we improve our decisions? Is there a process to follow? Who are the experts to learn from? Do big data and AI make decisions easier or harder? Is there any way to get better at making decisions in this complex, modern world we live in?

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In this conversation, we talk about our book, our favorite nudges at the moment, and some of the Great Minds who we have interviewed on Artificiality including Barbara Tversky, Jevin West, Michael Bungay Stanier, Stephen Fleming, Steven Sloman and Tania Lombrozo.

The fifth video in the "Citizen Brain" series explores how we can try to find a balance between the two hemispheres of our brain, so that we can hopefully achieve a productive, cooperative balance in our society as well. Hosted by Josh Kornbluth, an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute. Featuring neuroscientists Ian Robertson, Tali Sharot, and Tania Lombrozo.

Have you ever wondered why we humans love to use our intuition even when we are surrounded by data and we also know that even simple algorithms can be more accurate than human judgment? We put that exact question to Tania Lombrozo, Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Psychology and director of the Concepts & Cognition Lab at Princeton University, and it turns out that the answer is surprisingly complex.

Humans have an innate urge to reach for explanations of the world around us. For example, "What caused this tragedy?" or "Why are some people successful?" This episode features psychologist and philosopher Tania Lombrozo, discussing her research on what purpose explanation serves -- i.e., why it helps us more than our brains just running prediction algorithms. Tania and Julia also discuss whether simple explanations are more likely to be true, and why we're drawn to teleological explanations (e.g., "Why does the sun shine? So that plants can grow.")

TANIA LOMBROZO is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as an affiliate of the Department of Philosophy and a member of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. She is a contributor to Psychology Today and the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos and Culture. The Conversation: https://www.edge.org/conversation/tania_lombrozo-learning-by-thinking

University of California, Berkeley, psychologist Tania Lombrozo talks about why people believe what they do, especially regarding evolution or creationism. Author Steve Miller discusses his new book The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Science of Everything. Plus, we'll test your knowledge of some recent science in the news.