Highbrow Drivel

Fresh from his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Edward Slingerland joins us to discuss his new book "Drunk: How we sipped, danced, and stumbled our way to civilisation" a book that offers a deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization — and the evolutionary roots of humanity’s appetite for intoxication.
On this episode we get to scratch the surface on the importance of alcohol historically, how it's used now, comparison to other intoxicants and how philosophy and alcohol mix.
Expert guest:
Edward Slingerland is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he also holds appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Asian Studies. Educated at Princeton, Stanford and UC Berkeley, he is an expert on early Chinese thought, comparative religion and cognitive science of religion, big data approaches to cultural analysis, cognitive linguistics, digital humanities and humanities-science integration.
An avid ocean kayaker, gardener, cook and appreciator of wine, Edward splits his time between Vancouver, Canada and Northern California.Comedian guest:
Juan Miles, is here for a 4th time. Juan is an Argentinian born, Berlin based stand-up comedian via Melbourne, Australia. He's one of the most wickedly funny people I know. As always, you can stay up-to-date with his news on his Instagram.

How did we evolve to be the way we are? I'm joined by international award winning philosopher on evolutionary science Dr Kim Sterelny and international acclaimed comedian Tom Ballard to find out.
Guest comedian:

Tom Ballard is one of Australia's most decorated comedians who has been selling out shows and winning awards around the world for over a decade. His accolades include (but aren't limited to) Best Newcomer Winner at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Best Show Winner at Sydney Comedy Festival and Best Show Nominee at Edinburgh Comedy Festival. When he's not on stage Tom is a regular on TV and Radio and also hosts the brilliant 'Like I'm a Six-Year-Old' podcast.

Tom has upcoming tours scheduled in Brisbane and Sydney and is filming his show across two nights in Melbourne.

You can learn more on his website. Or check out his Facebook, Instagram or Twitter
Guest expert:
Professor Kim Sterelny is arguably one of the most influential thinkers and academics of our generation. He is the winner of multiple international awards in science and philosophy, including the Jean-Nicod Prize and Lakatos Award. Kim is currently a Chief Investigator and leader of the Language Evolution program at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language. He is also an ARC Laureate Professor at the ANU School of Philosophy. His latest book The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution has just been published by Oxford University Press.
His research interests have always been in the border areas between philosophy and the sciences; most of his research and graduate supervision has been in philosophy of biology and the philosophy of the cognitive sciences. In the last decade and a half, he has been particularly interested in human evolution and in understanding the the evolution of the distinctive features of human social life, and of the cognitive capacities that make that life possible.
He is the author of The Representational Theory of Mind; the co-author of Language and Reality (with Michael Devitt); Sex and Death: An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology (with Paul Griffiths); Thought in a Hostile World (which won the 2003 Lakatos Prize); What is Biodiversity (with James MacLaurin); Dawkins vs Gould; and The Evolved Apprentice (the book of the 2009 Nicod Prize Lectures). He is Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the Royal Society of New Zealand. In addition to philosophy, Kim spends his time eating curries,drinking red wine, bushwalking, snorkelling and bird watching.

What do steam punks and modern quantum physicists have in common? What is quantum entanglement? How did the hippies save science? And we come up with a brilliant idea for the next Pixar blockbuster. All that & more in this week's episode.
Expert Guest:
Nicole re-envisions 19th-century thermodynamics for 21st-century settings—small - using the mathematical toolkit of quantum information theory. Nicole uses quantum thermodynamics as a new lens through which to view the rest of science. She calls her research “quantum steampunk,” after the steampunk genre of art and literature that juxtaposes Victorian settings with futuristic technologies. She has just realised an exciting new book to make this field of thinking available and accessible to a wider audience. You can learn more about her new book here.
Comedy guest:
Isabelle Farrah is a British Lebanese actor, comedian, and writer. After an undergraduate in French and Film studies, she trained at Drama Studio and on the Soho Theatre Comedy Lab. As an actress she has performed in theatre in the West End and on Tour and she has gigged across the UK and in Lisbon and New York City. Her short, Breakfast, was a finalist in the Funny Women Shorts Prize.
Her debut show, Ellipsis, was commended for the Screenshot Award in 2020. It was later named one of the best shows of EdFringe 2021 by Chortle and invited for an encore run at the Soho Theatre. You can find important links to all upcoming stuff including her new show here.

From marathon runners, to chilli lovers and kinksters, we all have things that bring us joy and pain simultaneously. Why and how does it happen? Join us to find out.
Expert guest:
Leigh Cowart is a researcher, science communicator and author. Their work has appeared in New York Magazine's The Cut, the Washington Post, Buzzfeed News, Hazlitt, The Verge, Deadspin, MIT Technology Review, and The Daily Beast, among others. Leigh's first book 'Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose' is the subject of today's episode and is a beautifully in-depth, personal and deeply scientific look into masochism.
You can (and should) learn more about the book here. And follow them on Twitter.
Comedy guest:
Vix Leyton is a hilariously natural storyteller. It's easy to see why she's one of comedy's rising stars. In 2021 Vix was a Funny Women awards semi finalist, her panel show podcast 'The Comedy Arcade' was nominated for best podcast at Leicester Comedy Festival and had a sell out run at Edinburgh Fringe. You can follow Vix on Twitter or Instagram to learn more.

Just this week we saw Tower Bridge flooded. How the heck a bridge floods, I don't know. It seems like flooding has snuck up on most of us as a major consequence of climate change. In this week's episode we talk with a flood modelling specialist and an critically acclaimed comedian to find out about why flooding is getting worse, how bad it will get and whether technology can help us manage the damage.
Comedy guest:
Isabelle Farrah is a British Lebanese actor, comedian, and writer. After an undergraduate in French and Film studies, she trained at Drama Studio and on the Soho Theatre Comedy Lab. As an actress she has performed in theatre in the West End and on Tour and she has gigged across the UK and in Lisbon and New York City. Her short, Breakfast, was a finalist in the Funny Women Shorts Prize.
Her debut show, Ellipsis, was commended for the Screenshot Award in 2020. It's been at Camden People’s Theatre, Southwark Playhouse, and EdFringe with Assembly Fest in 2021. It will be at Soho Theatre 11th-13th October 2021. You can find important links to all upcoming stuff here.
Expert guest:
Dr Andrew Smith is the co-founder of Fathom, a company formed whilst undertaking his PhD at the University of Bristol. Alongside his role as COO at Fathom, he is also an active research scientist where his expertise and research focuses on the development of computational flood models. As part of this, Andrew boasts an impressive scholarly portfolio, with a wide range of research examining various aspects of climate change risk modelling and modelling floods over large scales.You can view his full research portfolio by visiting
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=9JWJrzgAAAAJ&hl=en