The Curious Task

Eric Merkley — Why Don't We Trust The Experts?

Alex Aragona speaks with Eric Merkley as he explores the reasons why the public often mistrusts experts.

References from Episode 65 with Eric Merkley

• Eric has a list of his publications on his website. 
• Alex references the following excerpts from Eric’s article “Anti-Intellectualism, Populism, and Motivated Resistance to Expert Consensus,” which can be accessed through an active account with Oxford Academic or your Institution at this link:
  “… anti-intellectualism, the generalized mistrust and suspicion of intellectuals and experts...”
  “Populism and anti-intellectualism have a complex relationship. They are connected to one another, but the latter should not be seen as a component of the former.”
• Alex also references the following excerpts from Eric’s article “Are Experts (News)Worthy? Balance, Conflict, and Mass Media Coverage of Expert Consensus,” which can be accessed through an active account with Taylor and Francis Online or your Institution at this link:
  “The fault for sharply diverging opinions between experts and the public may not entirely rest with citizens, however. Scholars must also be attentive to the political information environment – the information space used by citizens to learn about political issues – of which the news media is a critical part.”
  “News coverage of expert consensus on general matters of policy is likely limited as a result of journalists’ emphasis in news production on novelty and drama at the expense of thematic context.”
• Bill Clinton’s speech on American protectionism from the Washington Boeing Hangar is available for viewing on Youtube here. 
• More contextual information on the top-down model of attitude formation is available from this study published on the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health or this article by Ryan M. Stolier and Jonathan B. Freeman.
• Martin A. Nie published an article on Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s relationship to the environment for Presidential Studies Quarterly, which can be accessed with an active JSTOR account here.
• You can read Eric’s article, “The causes and consequences of COVID-19 misperceptions: understanding the role of news and social media,” that was featured on the Harvard Kennedy School’s Misinformation Review at this link. It discusses how social media is more responsible for misinformation than newsmedia (infodemic).

Bart Wilson — Is The Idea of Property Universal?

Alex Aragona speaks with Bart Wilson as he explores the natural tendencies of humans in relation to their views and attitudes on property.

References from Episode 64 with Bart Wilson

• You can purchase Bart Wilson’s book, The Property Species: Mine, Yours, and The Human Mind on Amazon Canada.
• Bart referenced a study by linguists Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka on the conceptual semantics of possession found in every language, which may be accessed through ScienceDirect at this link.
• The full Bing episode, Not Yours, which demonstrates the morality of possession within children is available for viewing on Youtube.
• Bart’s laboratory study, “Exchange and Specialization as a Discovery Process,” was co-authored with Sean Crockett and Vernon L. Smith and appeared in volume 119, issue 539 of The Economic Journal (2009). You can access an e-version of the article through Wiley Online Library.
• In the podcast, Bart draws upon the whaling norms in the absence of formal sea jurisdictions featured in Robert C. Ellickson’s publication, Order without Law, and additionally informed one of his experiments’ testing for the rules of competition. Order without Law is available for purchase from the Harvard University Press’ website.
• A PDF copy of The Case of the Swans that was briefly mentioned by Bart and contains the concept of “hath property in” is available for viewing on CommonLII here. 
• You can purchase the Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans study, The Semantics of English Propositions, from which Bart illustrates the lingual relationship between physical objects and functionality in the podcast directly from the publisher’s website. 

Michael Strong — Can Entrepreneurship Solve The World's Problems?

Alex Aragona speaks with Michael Strong as he explores how entrepreneurship improves the lives of people all over the world. 

References

1. “Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems” by Michael Strong and John Mackey

Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Be-Solution-Entrepreneurs-Conscious-Capitalists/dp/0470450037

2. “The Magic Washing Machine” video by Hans Rosling

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoKfap4g4w&ab_channel=TED

Cara Zwibel — Can We Maintain Civil Liberties During a Pandemic?

Alex Aragona speaks with Cara Zwibel as she offers her thoughts on whether we can maintain our civil liberties during an emergency like a pandemic, and how we can do so.

References from Episode 62 with Cara Zwibel

• This is the website for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
• The Government of Canada has sector and industry-specific guidelines in place for the COVID-19 pandemic, which may be reviewed here.
• You can refresh yourself on the articles of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the Canada Justice Laws Website.
• You can read about the Government of Canada’s travel restrictions and position on face coverings (Note: provinces and territories may have varying mandatory rules on face coverings).
• Provincial and territorial travel restrictions may be accessed through this official masterlist.
• Taylor v. Her Majesty the Queen, 2020 NLSC 125 is the Newfoundland Court challenge pursued by the CCLA.
• The transcript of Cara’s interview with The Halifax Examiner can be read here.
• This is the CCLA’s letter to the Correctional Service of Canada outlining their concerns “regarding the health and well-being of the inmates and staff in Canada’s federal correctional institutions.”
• A link to the CCLA’s press release on their mission to support Toronto’s homeless population can be accessed here.