The Rational View podcast with Dr. Al Scott

Valerie Alexander on how to outsmart our unconscious biases

In this episode I’m continuing my investigation of cognitive bias by interviewing an expert who has thought about this topic a lot.
Committed to expanding happiness and inclusion in all communities, Valerie Alexander is a globally-recognized speaker on the topics of happiness in the workplace, the advancement of women, and unconscious bias. Her TED Talk, “How to Outsmart Your Own Unconscious Bias” has been viewed over half a million times and is used in boardrooms and classrooms around the world to enlighten leaders and future leaders about the brain science behind bias and how we can work together to create more equitable outcomes for everyone. 
Valerie’s books include: Happiness as a Second Language, Success as a Second Language, and How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace (Despite Having “Female Brains”) Valerie has had a varied and successful career as a corporate securities lawyer, investment banker and Internet executive in the Silicon Valley, and more recently as a Hollywood screenwriter and director.
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#TheRationalView #podcast #cognitivebias #bias #equity #workplace 

Dr. Daniel Kahneman on how we think

In this episode I have the honour to interview a Nobel Laureate who has devoted his life to understanding the way we think. His work has interesting links, not only to my new research topic of cognitive biases, but also on humanity’s continuing self examination of consciousness and the mysteries of the mind.
Berkely-trained psychologist Daniel Kahneman was corecipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2002 for his integration of psychological research into economic science. His pioneering work examined human judgment and decision making under uncertainty.
He was a lecturer (1961–70) and a professor (1970–78) of psychology at the Hebrew University, University of British Columbia, University of California Berkeley, and Princeton University where he was the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and a professor of public affairs at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Kahneman’s groundbreaking nobel research showed that people’s inferences of future probabilities are not strictly rational, but show various biases.
In 2011 Kahneman received the Talcott Parsons Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his contributions to the social sciences. Also that year he published the best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow, which highlights two different ways in which people make decisions. His other books included Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. In 2013 Kahneman was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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#TheRationalView #podcast #consciousness #cognitivebias #mind #economics #rationality

Dr. Andrew Budson has a new theory of consciousness

In this episode I am interviewing the lead author of a recent paper describing a new theory of how consciousness works. It is based on evolutionary principles, and it posits that we mostly go about our lives unconsciously acting and reacting with no free will in the present moment.  Their theory is that the conscious mind has evolved to enable reasoning and goal-driven behaviour through manipulation of memories.  In this theory, we have no direct control over our actions in the present, as our observations are always a few milliseconds behind. This idea has interesting things to say about free will and first person experiences.
Educated at Haverford College and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Andrew Budson is Chief of Cognitive Behavioral Neurology at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, Associate Director of the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Professor of Neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, and Lecturer in Neurology at Harvard Medical School.
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#TheRationalView #podcast #consciousness #memory #awareness #sentience #qualia

Will fusion save us? A summary

I’ve had several good interviews on the topics of hot and cold fusion. Omar Hurricane and Alex Zylstra from NIF in the US, Fulvio Millitelo of MAST-U in the UK, Edmund Storms LANL and Lutz Jaitner on cold fusion & LENR.
What have we learned? Cold Fusion has not yet been reliably harnessed despite decades of study, but I don’t think we should shame them for this—hot fusion has been working for much longer and they haven’t commercialized yet either. Fusion is not coming to our rescue in the next decade, and maybe not the one after that. The largest government fusion progams in the world are the US NIF facility based on over one hundred high power lasers, and the planned International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) based on confining ionized plasma in a toroidal Tokamak with huge electromagnets. But this isn’t the whole story, because there are also billions of dollars being invested in commercial ventures.
If you are interested, and want to look into these companies, some of the largest are Helion, General Fusion, and TAE technologies.  Each of the fusion companies out there has a unique idea that they believe gives them an edge.  The coolest thing I read was about Helion technology harnessing the back reaction of the high pressure fusing plasma on the magnetic coils to directly generate electricity.
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#TheRationalView #podcast #fusion #cleanenergy #greenenergy 

We need a rational assessment of nuclear energy

In this episode I want to address what I’ve come to realize is an asymmetry in society’s approach to energy technologies, and most specifically nuclear energy, after decades of mostly unopposed anti-nuclear lobbying. 
Nuclear energy must struggle on an uneven playing field with other energy technologies. This asymmetry is one of the leading reasons that new nuclear reactors have struggled to be built in regions that have been dominated by anti-nuclear ideologies for the past several decades and it is this situation that has catalyzed the climate crisis.
Nuclear is the only energy source to which humanity applies the precautionary principle.  Other power sources are allowed to operate with a certain level of known risk that in some cases translates into a rather significant body count.  But since we are used to it, and the effects are typically distributed over large areas and not concentrated in one area, the asymmetry with nuclear policy is lost on the general public. Of all these energy sources, nuclear energy seems to be the only one that elicits a visceral fear reaction in a significant fraction of the populace.
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#TheRationalView #podcast #nuclearenergy #risk #overtonwindow #assymetry #fossilfuel #renewables #greenenergy #energytransition #atomicenergy

Dr. Mark Winfield discusses hydrogen, carbon and sustainable energy

In this episode I am interviewing someone deeply involved with advising Canadian institutions on the energy policy, especially sustainable energy transitions.  As this has also been a focus of the podcast, I’m looking forward to discussing the best approaches for the country.
Mark Winfield is a Professor of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. He is also Co-Chair of the Faculty's Sustainable Energy Initiative, and Coordinator of the Joint Master of Environmental Studies/Juris Doctor program offered in conjunction with Osgoode Hall Law School.  He has published articles, book chapters and reports on a wide range of climate change, environment and energy law and policy topics. Professor Winfield has acted as an advisor to the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario and federal Commissioner for Environment and Development. From 2017-2020 he served as a member of the Conseil d'administration (board of directors) of Transitions energetique Quebec, a Crown corporation established to implement a low-carbon energy transition strategy for Quebec.  He is currently co-editing a volume on Sustainable Energy Transitions for Canada: Opportunities and Challenges for UBC Press.
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#TheRationalView #podcast #sustainableenergy #greenenergy #hydrogen #CCUS #carboncapture #nuclearenergy 

D.J. LeClear-The Rad Guy discusses nuclear radiation

This episode is the digitally enhanced re-release of 'Nuclear Power-is it rational to worry?' episodes 21 and 22 from October 2020 where I interviewed D.J. LeClear, 'The Rad Guy', before he started his successful YouTube channel dealing out short educational videos on nuclear radiation, and before he grew that magnificent handlebar moustache. If you've been with me since 2020, please enjoy this blast from the past. If you are new to The Rational View, you will love this coherent and incisive discussion about the myths surrounding nuclear radiation, initially released in two parts.
D.J. has been in nuclear power and radiation health physics since his enlistment in the Naval Nuclear Program where he did radiochemistry and radiation protection aboard the USS Harry S. Truman. Currently, he works in health emergency preparedness as a technical expert for radiation hazards. He has a bachelor of science in Nuclear Engineering Technology and he is enrolled in the Health Physics Master's program at Illinois Institute of Technology. 
In his spare time, he practices science communication by running the Facebook page "The Pragmatic Environmentalist" and his new YouTube channel "The Rad Guy".
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#TheRationalView #podcast #nuclearenergy #radiation #myths #greenenergy #atomicenergy 

Stéphane Germain on GHGSat methane leak discoveries

In this episode I am interviewing a new-space entrepreneur who is using optical remote sensing to provide important data on localized greenhouse gas emissions.  The NordStream fossil gas pipelines ruptured a few days before this podcast was taped.  My guest’s company has the hardware in place to measure these emissions from space and determine the impacts of this apparent sabotage on the climate.
Stéphane Germain is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GHGSat whose technology provides actionable greenhouse gas emissions data and insights to various industries. Stéphane founded GHGSat in 2011 to answer a market need for consistent, high-quality measurements of greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities worldwide. Mr. Germain has been passionate about applying space technology for the good of the Earth for over 30 years.
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#TheRationalView #podcast #ghgsat #methane #flaring #climatechange #greenhousegas #satellite

Dr. Fulvio Militello discusses the MAST-U fusion program

In this episode I am continuing my exploration of the state of nuclear fusion research. I will be interviewing a leader in the MAST fusion experiment.  MAST is an acronym for Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak.  A Tokamak is a device that typically uses extremely strong magnetic fields to confine an energetic plasma and ram hydrogen nuclei together at high energies, essentially trying to replicate the processes occurring at the core of the sun, to create fusion energy.  This process takes tremendous energy inputs and has been explored in the lab for decades without successfully transitioning to commercial power.  Experiments are getting larger and larger, and researchers have been making incremental progress towards the goal of break-even.  Join me as I explore the high pressure science of fusion energy.
Fulvio Militello is a fusion scientist with twenty years of experience. Following a career as a theoretical plasma physicist and science manager, he is currently the Director of Tokamak Science and MAST-U at United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Before joining UKAEA, he worked in Italy, France, and United States, in National Laboratories and Universities, authoring 100 scientific papers. Fulvio is also Adjunct Professor of Physics at Chalmers University (Sweden) and Visiting Reader at the Imperial College London. While his heart is still in Italy, he lives in Didcot, UK, with his Swedish wife (met in France) and two daughters (born in the UK). In his free time, he likes to cook, practice martial arts, read philosophy books, play games, look at the stars and learn as much as he can about everything that stimulates his curiosity
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#TheRationalView #podcast #fusion #greenenergy #MAST #ITER #tokamak 

Online convenience vs. customer service

Over the past couple weeks the COVID virus has gone through my household, and I’ve been too busy to put together a well researched podcast. But I wanted to share a story with you that I think some of you might be able to relate to. It is a story about where all of our time has gone. In the modern era we’ve traded customer service for convenience.  This is my saga.
We think that we're saving time by online shopping, but sometimes that turns out to be the opposite of the truth. Join me while I take you through my personal saga in which I discovered that in the modern era we may have mistakenly traded good customer service for "convenience."
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#TheRationalView #podcast #convenience #customerservice #online #rant