Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

There is something special about gravity. After decades of effort, there is still no convergence on the right way to reconcile Einstein's theory of general relativity with the framework of quantum mec...

"Lamarkism" is a term often attached to a seemingly discredited idea in evolutionary biology: that one organism could acquire characteristics (e.g., becoming stronger through exercise) that would then...

In the 18th century, philosopher Jeremy Bentham suggested the Panopticon as a model of a prison where inmates could be constantly observed by just a single prison guard. Although his original idea was...

Intelligence is a many splendored thing, especially when it comes to comparisons between species. Chimpanzees are better than humans at some numerical tasks, but less good at understanding what number...

Welcome to the March 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patre...

Behaving rationally involves facing up to conditions of uncertainty; we never navigate the world with perfect confidence. Sometimes we are uncertain about the way the world is, but we can also be unce...

It's possible to look at the course of history over the past few centuries and discern a movement toward increasing democracy, freedom, and individual rights -- "liberalism," in the political-philosop...

For all that human beings spend a lot of their time thinking, it's far from obvious what that process actually entails. Part of it amounts to classical logical reasoning. But an even bigger part invol...

Welcome to the February 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Pa...

Evolution with natural selection involves an intricate mix of the random and the driven. Mutations are essentially random, while selection pressures work to prefer certain outcomes over others. There ...