Curated Video
All in the Same Boat
James Robert Brown, University of Toronto, describes how, despite our impressive knowledge about the biomechanics of our brains and sense, how we produce our corresponding belief about the natural world is just as mysterious as how a...
Curated Video
Modelling Politics
Tufts University philosopher Brian Epstein describes how key aspects of his philosophical views of the social world can be directly applied to politics, explaining that to understand politics, it is vital to consider what led people to...
Curated Video
Measuring Democracy
UCSD Chinese Studies specialist Karl Gerth describes how the standard view that “America is democratic and China isn’t”, while hardly entirely incorrect, doesn’t really bear up under careful scrutiny.
Curated Video
Investigating Corruption
Tufts University philosopher Brian Epstein describes how carefully developing a model of bureaucratic corruption can lead to identifying key factors that traditional social science models will necessarily overlook.
Curated Video
Different Domains
UC Berkeley historian Martin Jay contrasts the political domain with the scientific one, explaining that it’s important to recognize that the two are distinct, believing it would be a very bad idea to try to recreate politics in the...
Curated Video
Political Character
Philosopher Brian Epstein (Tufts) uses the example of electoral control models to highlight problems with model-building.
Curated Video
Conceptual Rigor
Political scientist Mark Bevir (UC Berkeley) describes how too many people associate rigor primarily with methodology rather than basic thinking.
Curated Video
Behind the Bureaucrats
Philosopher Brian Epstein (Tufts) describes how our models of bureaucratic corruption often fail to include initial selection processes.
Curated Video
Building Better Models
Philosopher Brian Epstein (Tufts University) describes how we can use philosophical understanding to help build better, more rigorous models in social science.
Curated Video
Flawed Models
Philosopher Brian Epstein (Tufts University) relates his concern that many agent-based models are based on a flawed assumption of what the social world actually consists of.
Curated Video
Against Weber
Historian Nile Green (UCLA) cites the model of religious economy as a counter-argument to classical Weberian secularization theory.
Curated Video
In Search of Religious Principles
Historian and social anthropologist Nile Green, UCLA, describes why he uses the model of “religious economy” as an “anti-rhetoric” to deliberately get people to think about religion and core religious principles in a new and different way.
Curated Video
Grounding and Anchoring
Philosopher Brian Epstein (Tufts University) explains how his grounding and anchoring model of social ontology works.
The Guardian
Dating in the Dark
At the age of 30, John Kapellas was married and had a child when he came out as gay. He and his wife decided to stay together but lead a mostly celebate life. In this video, John discusses what that time in his life was like and how his...
Curated Video
Your Identity Is NOT Private
AI can be used to re-identify individuals based on videos, images, and now anonymized data. What can you do to protect yourself, and what is the future of this technology?
Curated Video
Why Self-Driving Cars Are Hard To Make
Aren’t we supposed to have self-driving cars by now? Well, it turns out they’re harder to make than we thought.