#256 - A Contagion of Bad Ideas

07/23/21 • 86 min

Making Sense with Sam Harris - Invalid feed

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Eric Topol about vaccine hesitancy and related misinformation. They discuss the problem of political and social siloing, concerns about mRNA vaccines, the Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA, the effectiveness of the COVID vaccines, vaccine efficacy vs effectiveness, the Delta variant, the misuse of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), concerns about long-term side effects from vaccines, bad incentives in medicine, ivermectin, government and corporate censorship, vaccine mandates, and other topics.

Eric Topol is the Founder and Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, Professor of Molecular Medicine, and Executive Vice-President of Scripps Research.

As a researcher, he has published over 1200 peer-reviewed articles, with more than 290,000 citations, elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine. His principal scientific focus has been on the genomic and digital tools to individualize medicine—and the power that brings to individuals to drive the future of medicine.

In 2016, Topol was awarded a $207M grant from the NIH to lead a significant part of the Precision Medicine (All of Us) Initiative, a prospective research program enrolling 1 million participants in the US.

Prior to coming to lead the Scripps Research Translational Institute in 2007, for which he is the principal investigator of a flagship $35M NIH grant, he led the Cleveland Clinic to become the #1 center for heart care and was the founder of a new medical school there.

He has been voted as the #1 most Influential physician leader in the United States in a national poll conducted by Modern Healthcare. Besides editing several textbooks, he has published 3 bestseller books on the future of medicine: The Creative Destruction of Medicine and The Patient Will See You Now. His latest book Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again came out in 2019.

Topol was commissioned by the UK 2018-2019 to lead planning for the National Health Service’s integration of AI and new technologies.

Recently, he has been reporting insights and research findings for COVID-19 on his popular Twitter feed.

Website: drerictopol.com

Twitter: @EricTopol

Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Eric Topol is the Founder and Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, Professor of Molecular Medicine, and Executive Vice-President of Scripps Research.

Topol was commissioned by the UK 2018-2019 to lead planning for the National Health Service’s integration of AI and new technologies.

Recently, he has been reporting insights and research findings for COVID-19 on his popular Twitter feed.

Website: drerictopol.com

Twitter: @EricTopol

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#255 - The Future of Intelligence

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Jeff Hawkins about the nature of intelligence. They discuss how the neocortex creates models of the world, the role of prediction in sensory-motor experience, cortical columns, reference frames, thought as movement in conceptual space, the future of artificial intelligence, AI risk, the “alignment problem,” the distinction between reason and emotion, the “illusory truth effect,” bad outcomes vs existential risk, and other topics.

Jeff Hawkins is a scientist whose life-long interest in neuroscience led to the co-founding and creation of Numenta, a team of scientists and engineers applying neuroscience principles to machine intelligence research. His research focuses on how the cortex learns predictive models of the world through sensation and movement. In 2002, he founded the Redwood Neuroscience Institute, where he served as Director for three years. The institute is currently located at U.C. Berkeley. Previously, he co-founded two companies, Palm and Handspring, where he designed products such as the PalmPilot and Treo smartphone. Jeff has written two books, On Intelligence (2004 with Sandra Blakeslee) and A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence (2021).

Jeff earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 1979. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003.

Website: numenta.com

Twitter: @Numenta

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#257 - The State of the World

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Dambisa Moyo about the state of the world. They discuss public goods, economic growth, capitalism, American economic history, bad public-policy choices, inequality, tax avoidance among the wealthy, government inefficiency, the problems with democracy, the breakdown of trust in institutions, failures of transparency, voter participation, future automation and unemployment, identity politics, the reality of racism in America, the problems with affirmative action, competition with China, and other topics.

Dambisa Moyo is a prizewinning author of the New York Times bestsellers Edge of Chaos, Winner Take All, Dead Aid, and How Boards Work. Born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia, Moyo holds a Ph.D. in economics from Oxford University and a master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She worked for the World Bank as a consultant, at Goldman Sachs, and serves on a variety of corporate boards. She regularly contributes to the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times and was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” by Time magazine. She lives in New York City and London.

Website: dambisamoyo.com

Twitter: @damibisamoyo