Monthly Archives: October 2015

New review of ‘The Biology of Desire’ by Marc Lewis

There’s now a new review up of Marc Lewis’s bookThe Biology of Desire ‘The Biology of Desire: Why addiction is not a disease’, which you can read here. Marc Lewis is a neuroscientist and ex-addict who challenges what he sees as the over-medicalisation of addiction, providing a detailed account of the brain processes and some moving stories of individuals along the way. Marc Lewis was also recently interviewed by Barry for his podcast.

The MWS Podcast 81: Amelia Womack on Ecocide and Environmental Law

We are joined today by Amelia Womack, who is a British politician and deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales. Following a BSc in Environmental Biology, Amelia completed an MSc in environmental technology at Imperial College London in 2013, with a thesis entitled Who’s afraid of Environmental Law? – How the law of ecocide can secure our environment for business resilience. She has been an active campaigner on this issue since then and this will be the theme of our discussion today.


MWS Podcast 81: Amelia Womack as audio only:
Download audio: MWS_Podcast_81_Amelia_Womack

Click here to view other podcasts

The Power of Mindful Learning by Ellen J. Langer

A new review is now up of a great and highly readable pieceThe Power of Mindful Learning of psychology by Ellen Langer. Langer’s use of ‘mindful’ is much wider than normal today, and refers to provisionality and the recognition of uncertainty – core elements of the Middle Way. Click here to read the review.

The MWS Podcast 80: Steven Heine on the Weirdest People in the World

Our guest today is Steven Heine, a Canadian professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and a leader in the field of cultural psychology. In 2010, he, along with his colleagues Joseph Henrich and Ara Norenzayan wrote the ground-breaking paper ‘The WEIRDest’ people in the world?’ with WEIRD meaning Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. The paper suggests that the view we have of the mind derived from the research of behavioural scientists is distorted due to the majority of studies in this field being done on only a small and not particularly representative sector of the human population. This will be the topic of our conversation today.

Also for anyone interested, here’s the link to the paper The Weirdest People in the World and the paper Steve mentioned near the end of the talk by Adam Galinsky and Will Maddux on The Relationship between Living Abroad and Creativity


MWS Podcast 80: Steven Heine as audio only:
Download audio: MWS_Podcast_80_Steven_Heine

Click here to view other podcasts