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By |May 1st, 2022|Information, Podcasts, Research|
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“Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change” with Professor Alex Madva

Achieving meaningful and sustainable social change is a complex task and a demanding challenge. Many of the most urgent problems, such as climate change, racism, and poverty are structural. They arise from collective practices, including laws, economies, history, culture and social norms. Yet structural change still depends on individuals making different choices—choices that confront existing structures and challenge established norms.

In their recent book “Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change” Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly present a novel and scientific account of how personal choices can contribute to transformative social change. The authors argue that individual action matters most when it connects people to collective efforts. Meaningful change happens when individuals work with others to challenge and reshape existing structures. In this episode of Bridging the Gaps I speak with Professor Alex Madva.

Alex Madva is Professor of Philosophy, Director of the California Center for Ethics and Policy, and Co-Director of the Digital Humanities Consortium at Cal Poly Pomona.

We begin our discussion by unpacking a key point made in the book: many people feel trapped in “either/or thinking” about personal choices and structural change, as though they must choose between the two. The authors describe the book as a way to help readers “get unstuck,” and we explore what this means in practice.

We then examine the book’s two central themes: the climate crisis and racism. We discuss why the authors focus on these issues rather than others. We also discuss the book’s writing style, including its use of humour, and consider the value of humour when addressing serious and complex topics.

The discussion then turns to pluralistic ignorance, particularly the problem of people not knowing how much others care about social issues. We examine this concept in depth. We also consider several real-world examples, including Chris Smalls’s unionization campaign at Amazon.

Finally, we discuss the differences between face-to-face and online activism. We reflect on whether activists should observe certain limits when their actions affect the daily lives of ordinary people. We also touch on research showing how small actions can create wider social effects, and how movements that appear to fail in the short term may still lay the groundwork for future victories.

Overall, this has been an enlightening discussion.

Complement this discussion with “The Painful Truth about Hunger in America” with Professor Mariana Chilton and then listen to “A Passion for Ignorance” and for Denials and Negations with Professor Renata Salecl.

By |May 27th, 2026|Philosophy, Podcasts, Research, Social Science|
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“Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds” with Professor Scott Solomon

We are entering a new era of space exploration—one in which, for the first time, large numbers of people may travel beyond Earth. Some may even choose to remain there. This raises important questions: how will the extreme conditions of space affect the human body and mind? What can spacefaring individuals expect during journeys to an orbiting station, the Moon, or Mars?

Looking further ahead, what might happen to children born on another planet? Could they gradually evolve into a distinct human variant? Would adaptation occur naturally through evolution, or might advances in genetic engineering enable more rapid, intentional changes to help humans thrive in unfamiliar environments?

In Becoming Martian, Scott Solomon examines how humanity’s expansion into space could reshape both our physiology and psychology. The book explores how life beyond Earth may influence future generations, as well as the potential unintended consequences of establishing human settlements in space. In this episode of Bridging the Gaps, I speak with Professor Scott Solomon about these ideas.

Scott Solomon is a biologist, science communicator and a teaching Professor at Rice University in Houston. He is also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. He is also the host of the podcast Wild World with Scott Solomon.

We begin our discussion with a set of timely and relevant questions surrounding humanity’s renewed interest in returning to the Moon. We explore the motivations behind this shift, considering both the rapid advancement of new technologies that make such missions feasible and the emergence of a new space race shaped by evolving geopolitical dynamics.

From there, we turn our attention to NASA’s Space Launch System and the broader Artemis program, including its planned missions and long-term objectives. This leads into a wider discussion about humanity’s future in space.

We then examine the physiological effects of space travel, particularly for missions in which humans return to Earth. Topics include the impact of prolonged exposure to microgravity on muscle mass, bone density, and other aspects of human health.

Shifting to a longer-term perspective, we consider what will happen when humans travel to destinations such as the Moon, Mars, and beyond with the intention of establishing permanent settlements. We explore how such environments may affect human biology and what it means to live outside Earth’s uniquely supportive ecosystem.

The conversation also delves into the challenges of sustaining life in environments devoid of existing biological systems. We discuss, in detail, the complexities of human reproduction in space and how future generations might develop under such conditions.

Finally, we examine both the natural adaptability of humans and the role of cutting-edge genetic research in potentially enabling us to survive—and even thrive—in entirely new environments. Overall, the discussion is deeply engaging, thought-provoking, and highly informative.

Complement this discussion with “Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space” with Dr Erika Nesvold and then listen to “A Traveller’s Guide to the Stars” with Physicist, Author and Nasa Technologist Les Johnson.

By |April 3rd, 2026|Biology, Future, Uncategorized|
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“Everything Evolves” and the Generalised Evolutionary Theory with Professor Mark Vellend

The idea that evolutionary theory applies far beyond biology is not new. Yet one major obstacle to the broader acceptance of a generalized evolutionary theory is our tendency to begin with biology and extend outward from it. This approach obscures an important historical fact. Long before scientists developed theories to explain the evolution of life, scholars in fields such as linguistics, economics, and technology had already proposed ideas about change that were evolutionary in the modern sense.

The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould even suggested that “Darwin may have cribbed the idea of natural selection from economics.” Beginning with biology can create the misleading impression that evolutionary processes in areas such as language, technology, or economics are weaker or derivative forms of evolution. In reality, evolutionary processes are largely independent of the substrate on which they operate. They generate diverse outcomes—organisms, technologies, and cultural practices—that are well adapted to particular functions.

In his book Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More than We Think, from Proteins to Politics, Professor Mark Vellend shows how evolutionary dynamics shape many aspects of the world around us. He also explores how evolutionary principles are being applied to practical challenges, from increasing the global food supply to developing artificial intelligence systems that can evolve solutions to complex problems.

In this episode of Bridging the Gaps, I speak with Professor Mark Vellend.

Mark Vellend is a professor of biology at Université de Sherbrooke and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

We begin our discussion with an intriguing idea from the book: reality can be understood through two broad sciences. The first is physics. The second is the science of evolvable systems. We explore this distinction in detail.

We then turn to the concept of generalized evolutionary theory and discuss why it is important to communicate this broader framework to a wider audience. In this context, we also touch on the argument that the strong emphasis on Darwin can sometimes be a distraction from the larger evolutionary perspective.

Next, we examine several examples that illustrate how generalized evolutionary processes allow different artifacts and systems to evolve over time. We then discuss a framework presented in the book that explains how generalized evolution operates. This framework is described using the metaphor of a soundboard, where each knob represents a distinct variable in the evolutionary process. We explore this “Evolutionary Soundboard” in detail.

Our conversation then turns to the role of randomness and the ways systems can improve over time through deliberate design. We also discuss the importance of diversity, which enables and sustains evolutionary processes.

Overall, the discussion is both engaging and informative, raising a number of thought-provoking ideas.

Complement this discussion with “The Evolution of Biological Information: How Evolution Creates Complexity, from Viruses to Brains” with Professor Christoph Adami and then listen to “The Network of Life: A New View of Evolution” with Professor David Mindell.

By |March 15th, 2026|Biology, Knowledge, Research, Technology|
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