Cave of Mirrors: The 234th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

In this 234th 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 week’s episode, we discuss the assassination attempt on Trump’s life, and the security and media landscape in which this happened. Are we all in a modern Plato’s Cave that has become a hall of mirrors, such that we can be sitting right next to someone, seeing a totally different reality? How can we evaluate different interpretations—is “lone gun nut” an inherently better or less biased hypothesis than conspiracy? Or are our use of aphorisms—like Hanlon’s Razor, “First, do no harm,” and “correlation doesn’t imply causation”—overused, and applied in places where they should not be? Finally: a poem.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Lone Assassins, by Michael Shermer (July 15, 2024): https://michaelshermer.substack.com/p/lone-assassins

Joy Reid on MSNBC (July 15, 2024): https://x.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1813003341640704499

Patriotism and Poetry, by Heather (July 16, 2024): https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/patriotism-and-poetry

The Iceberg Theory, by Gerald Locklin (2002): https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2002%252F08%252F15.html

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Timestamps:
(00:00) Countdown
(05:43) Welcome
(07:53) Sponsors
(18:08) Trump/Kennedy and leaked video
(21:52) Patriotism, nationalism and jeopardy for the nation
(34:08) Questions over assassination attempt
(36:53) Conspiracies and sloppy thinking
(43:48) Michael Shermer and line gunmen
(58:03) Secret service protection and excuses
(01:19:13) Reasonable bounds of discussion
(01:24:43) Hanlon's razor
(01:33:33) Issues with aphorisms
(01:47:28) Reaction by government and news
(01:51:43) Joy Reid
(02:00:23) Jack Black
(02:04:41) Cave of mirrors
(02:13:43) Poems
(02:17:43) Wrap up