What’s the Return on ROI? The 213th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

In this 213th in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we talk about the state of the world through an evolutionary lens.

In this episode, we discuss sex, gender, and plants. First up: sex is binary, gender is downstream of sex, and rare Disorders of Sexual Development do not put the lie to the sex binary. Then: Duke University is deep-sixing its world class herbarium. We discuss the value of natural history museums, and of libraries, and defend the liberal arts and sciences as fundamental not just to human inquiry, but to human flourishing.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Colin Wright on Eric Weinstein’s appearance on Modern Wisdom: https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/1759718664369050058

Me, She, He, They: Reality vs Identity in the 21st Century (Heather on sex and gender):https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/meshehethey

Duke plans to close its Herbarium, “A tragic mistake”: https://www.science.org/content/article/tragic-mistake-decision-close-duke-university-s-herbarium-triggers-furor

Herman, S.G., 2002. Wildlife biology and natural history: time for a reunion. The Journal of wildlife management66(4): 933-946. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3802927

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Timestamps:
(00:00) Wait
(00:05:40) Welcome
(00:08:30) Sponsors
(00:17:50) Assange
(00:19:10) Top podcast
(00:20:20) Eric Weinstein on sex and gender
(00:35:10) Bait and switch
(00:43:40) Surgical interventions
(00:49:35) Excerpt
(00:56:24) Plants
(01:01:00) Libraries
(01:12:30) Herbarium closing
(01:18:40) Zero is a special number
(01:21:25) Management and natural history
(01:33:10) Wrap up