- Spring 2024
Syllabus Description:
You can find the full syllabus here
Smith's grading scale here
Course AI policy here
Final exam study guide here
March 26 Free will, nature, and nurture in political science and other disciplines (slides) (recording failed today)
Read/listen/watch:
Closer to Truth, The Big Questions in Free Will (2016), watch
March 28 Free will in Western philosophy (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Julian Baggini, Do We Have Free Will? (2015), listen or watch
Paul Bloom, The War on Reason (2014), 
read
Robert Sapolsky, The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (2018), watch
April 2 Religious ideas, determinism, and free will (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Jayaram V, Perspectives on What Karma Means (2021), read
Richard Phillips, The Origin of Sin (2021), read
Jane Dempsey Douglass, Predestination (1985), read
WhyIslam, Concept of God in Islam (2014), read
April 2 Acknowledgment of course policies due, 8:00 PM
April 4 Free will and moral responsibility (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Adrian Raine, Making a Murderer (2021), watch
Paul Bloom, Natural Born Killers (2013), read
Michael Shermer, Free Will and Moral Responsibility in a Secular Society (2014), watch
Stephen Cave, There’s No Such Thing as Free Will (2016), read
April 9 Free will in political science: structure and agency (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Raj Chatty, Improving Equality of Opportunity (2019), watch
Tage Rai, How Could They? (2015), read
Brian Klaas, Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters, LSE event (2024), watch
April 11 Nature and evolutionary psychology (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Frans de Waal, Moral Behavior in Animals (2012), watch
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, The Mind Is Not a Blank Slate (2015), watch
Cristine Legare, Why Social Science Needs Evolutionary Theory (2018), read
Laith Al-Shawaf, Seven Key Misconceptions about Evolutionary Psychology (2019), read
Laith Al-Shawaf, Evolutionary Psychology: Predictively Powerful or Just-So Stories? (2020), read
April 16 Nurture and cultural anthropology (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Honor and Moral Revolutions (2014), watch
Whet Moser, American Violence and Southern Culture (2012), read
Michele Gelfand, Understanding the Cultural Codes that Drive Behavior (2019), watch
Pew Research Center, What’s Morally Acceptable (2014), read
April 18 Nature and nurture: reconciling evolutionary psychology and cultural anthropology (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Susan Clancy, Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Abducted by Aliens, (2016), watch
Hidden Brain, Olympic Victory and Defeat (2016), listen
Alison Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter, talk at Google (2016), watch
Rebecca Saxe, How We Read Each Other’s Minds (2009), watch
April 23 Midterm exam
April 25 Nature and nurture in behavioral genetics, part I (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Robert Plomin, How DNA Makes Us Who We Are (2019), watch
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Can Progressives Be Convinced that Genetics Matters? (2021), read here, or here if you hit the paywall
April 30 Nature and nurture in behavioral genetics, part II (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Freddie deBoer, Individual Genetics, Group Environments (2020), read
Ed Yong, A Waste of 1,000 Research papers (2019), read here or here if you hit the paywall
Nancy Segal, Twin Misconceptions (2017), listen or watch
Gretchen Reynolds, One Twin Exercises, The Other Doesn’t (2015), read
May 2 Free will and willpower; discussion of Gladwell book (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, Introduction and chapters 1-4, 6, 8-9, and the Epilogue (2008)
May 7 Group identity and politics (slides) (recording) (note: due to a computer error--thank you, Microsoft!--the recording contains only the 2nd half of class)
Read/listen/watch:
Laurie Santos, The Roots of Racism in Rhesus Monkeys (2011), watch
Seth Andrews, Let’s Not Wake Up Like This (2019), watch
Thomas Edsall, America, We Have a Problem (2020), read, or here if you hit the paywall
May 9 Political attitudes and behaviors, part I (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Robert Kurzban, Why Everybody (Else) Is a Hypocrite, talk at The Amazing Meeting (2014), watch
Hannah Holmes, Red Brain, Blue Brain (2014), watch
John Hibbing, Liberals and Conservatives: The Biology of Political Differences (2019), watch
Christopher Federico, The Psychology of Political Behavior (2019), listen
May 14 Political attitudes and behaviors, part II (slides) (recording) (note: recording failed for first half of class and is available only for the 2nd half, on the midterm exam)
Read/listen/watch:
Glenn Wilson, The Psychology of Politics (2012), watch
Shadi Hamid, How Politics Replaced Religion in America (2021), read, or here if you hit the paywall
David Pinsof, The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems (2024), listen
May 16 Political attitudes and behaviors, part III (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Roy Baumeister, Do You Really Have Free Will? (2013), read
Julia Galef, Soldiers and Scouts: Why Our Minds Weren’t Built for Truth, talk at Long Now Foundation (2019), just the first 50:45 (watch)
May 20 Paper due by 8:00 PM
May 21 Nature and nurture in religion (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Justin Barrett, The Naturalness of Religion (2011), listen
Ara Norenzayan, The Idea that Launched a Thousand Civilizations (2012), read
Kristin Laurin, Belief in God: A Cultural Adaptation with Important Side Effects (2017), read
Azim Shariff, Psychological and Social Consequences of Religious (Dis)belief (2015), watch
May 23 Nature and nurture in sex and gender (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
The Economist, The Perils of Polygamy, 2017, read
Scott Barry Kaufman, Taking Sex Differences in Personality Seriously (2019), read
Judith Butler, Your Behavior Creates Your Gender (2011), watch
wikipedia entry on fa'afafine, read
May 28 Nature and nurture in sexual orientation (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
The Economist, A Scientific Study Has Established That There Is No 'Gay Gene' (2021), read
Robert Sapolsky, The Toxic Intersection of Poverty and Stress (2019), listen (Although it's not on today's topic, the Sapolsky interview complements themes from earlier class sessions)
May 30 The political and policy implications of beliefs about free will, nature, and nurture (slides) (recording)
Read/listen/watch:
Elizabeth Suhay, The Political Science of Genetic Explanations (2018), listen
Discovery Institute, The Wedge Document (1998), read
J. P. Moreland, Neuroscience and the Soul (2013), watch
Robert Frank, Before Tea, Thank Your Lucky Stars (2009), read
June 6 Final exam, 4:30-6:20