How to Be Wrong

This episode of How To Be Wrong is a conversation with Mariia Shuvalova, a lecturer at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Fulbright Scholar (Harriman Institute, Columbia University in the city of New York, 2019–2020) and co-founder and head of the non-governmental organization New Ukrainian Academic Community. Joining us from Kyiv, Mariia talks about her experiences of the Russian invasion, imperialism, and Ukrainian identity, as well as her thoughts on anger and humility in the face of war. It’s an inspiring conversation. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For today’s episode we welcome jazz organist Tony Monaco to the show. Tony is a master of the Hammond B3 and has collaborated with many other great jazz musicians, including fellow jazz organist Joey DeFrancesco, drummer Steve Smith, as well as guitarists Pat Martino and George Benson, among many others. Downbeat Magazine named Tony in the top 5 jazz organists internationally for the years 2005-2011 and his albums have been both commercially successful and critically acclaimed, with several climbing to the upper levels of Jazzweek’s annual top 100 listings. Our conversation covers much ground related to error, ego, humility and music, but also Tony’s struggles with alcoholism over the course of his career. And be sure to listen all the way to the end for a great live rendition of Tony’s composition I’ll Remember Jimmy. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this episode we welcome Dr. Arthur Caplan, who is currently the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. Dr. Caplan is the author or editor of 35 books and more than 800 papers in peer reviewed journals. His most recent books are Vaccination Ethics and Policy (MIT Press, 2017, with Jason Schwartz) and Getting to Good: Research Integrity in Biomedicine (Springer, 2018, with Barbara Redman). Our conversation ranges from Dr. Caplan’s own experiences with polio as a child, intellectual and epistemic humility and bioethics, the shift “customerization” of patients and students, and professor watchlists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of How To Be Wrong is about humility, beauty and the ways in which our society dictates the nature and boundaries of what is deemed beautiful. We talk with philosophy professor and Pulitzer Prize finalist Chloé Cooper Jones about desirability and the ways in which difference is constrained through our social interactions, as well as her own experience as a disabled person. We also discuss some of the ideas in her superb book, Easy Beauty: A Memoir, published by Simon & Schuster in 2022. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode we talk with New York Times Opinion Section Editor Peter Catapano, who has edited and published more than 1,000 pieces in The Times and worked with thinkers and writers such as Arthur Danto and E.O. Wilson. Our conversation explores the relationship between writer and editor and the important work Catapano did editing Oliver Sacks’ chronicling his illness and death. Catapano’s The Stone, established in 2010, is the longest-running online series in Opinion, and draws millions of readers each year. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is a roundtable discussion on the influence of the neoliberal project on higher education. Our guests are Professor Emeritus Frank Fear from Michigan State University, Professor Claire Polster from the University of Regina, and Professor Rubén Martinez from Michigan State University. The conversation is wide-ranging across topics such as the quantification of higher education and the concept of students as customers. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of How To Be Wrong we talk with author, educator, and environmentalist Bill McKibben, founder of Third Act, an organization focused on bringing together people over 60 for action on climate and justice, and also 350.org, a global grassroots climate campaign. Bill’s work regularly appears in periodicals such as Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, and he has written numerous books, the most recent being The Flag, The Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened, published by Holt in 2022. Our conversation explores what went wrong in the 1970s in the US, ideas about intellectual humility, and the role people over 60 can play in addressing problems in our society. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s episode focuses on the new book by Lydia Moland, who is a Professor of Philosophy at Colby College. Her book, Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life (U Chicago Press, 2022) offers a powerful window into questions of humility and its relationship to racism and other forms of discrimination in American history. We talk about Child’s ideas, particularly as they relate to many of the issue facing contemporary American society. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s episode of How To Be Wrong welcomes back cohost John Kaag after a brief hiatus from the podcast and explores questions of assholery and humility with University of California Irvine philosopher Aaron James. Dr. James has written several fascinating books including Surfing with Sartre: An Aquatic Inquiry Into a Life of Meaning, Assholes: A Theory, and his most recent Money From Nothing: Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying About Debt and Learn to Love the Federal Reserve published by Penguin Random House in 2020. The conversation moves through Dr. James’ experiences as an academic, some of his work in Sumatra, and the ways in which surfing can generate humility. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode of How To Be Wrong we welcome Dr. Steven Dick, retired Chief Historian at NASA and one of the leading historians of space exploration. Our conversation ranges from Steve’s experiences having his initial dissertation proposal rejected as not focusing on a “legitimate” topic (the history of thinking about extraterrestrials) to his experiences at NASA following the Columbia disaster. Our conversation also moves into one of the more serious problems of our time—the growing tendency of science denial among some segments of society. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this episode of How To Be Wrong, I speak with George Styles, a biochemist and author of the book Contemplation. George is also what we describe these days as an “influencer”—although as we discuss he objects to that label—on social media, with over 37 thousand followers on Twitter. His approach to Twitter is novel in that he focuses on asking probing questions designed to generate discussion, which at times become rather heated. Our conversation moves through topics related to how Twitter is used and how it can be used as a tool for generating civil intellectual discourse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of How To Be Wrong explores questions of leadership and humility with Dr. Bill Tsutsui, Chancellor and Professor of History at Ottawa University, a private comprehensive university with residential campuses in Kansas and Arizona. Dr. Tsutsui has written extensively on Godzilla, among other things Japanese, and has developed a distinguished career both as an historian and in higher education administration, having held positions as associate dean for international studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Kansas, Dean of Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and the presidency of Hendrix College. Our conversation explores questions of diversity in higher education, as well as ways in which deeply learning about other cultures can influence approaches to leadership. We also discuss some of the major issues confronting higher education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of How To Be Wrong, we talk with novelist New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Douglas Richards, about his career as a writer and how his started in the biotech industry. Doug is the author of 18 novels, his most recent being the science fiction thriller, Unidentified. Our conversation explores questions of changing paths in one’s career and also the complex and difficult work that goes into being a writer. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode of How To Be Wrong we welcome Dr. Khytie Brown, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Brown’s research examines the intersections of religion, race, gender and sexual alterity, criminality, material culture, sensory epistemologies and social media practices among African diasporic religious practitioners in the Caribbean, Latin America and North America. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard and is a research associate at the Center on Transnational Policing at Princeton. Our conversation explores the humbling power of ethnographic research as well as ways in which race and gender influence perceptions about academic identity and power. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode of How To Be Wrong we welcome Adrian Lenardic, who is a professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Rice University and an avid scakteboarder. Adrian has an interesting background, having started as a visual arts major at UW Madison before switching to geophysics. He went on to get his PhD in planetary science form UCLA and did his postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley. Our conversation explores the systemic problems in higher education that work against intellectual humility and that tend to have a negative influence on how scholarship operates in the modern university. Quite a bit of our conversation explores the negative impact the business model is having on higher education and particularly on junior faculty and graduate students. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For today’s episode of How To Be Wrong we welcome Dr. Ken Wisian, who is geophysicist and Associate Director in the Environmental Division of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, Ken was a senior state executive responsible for disaster recovery, oil spill prevention and response, and coastal infrastructure and environmental protection for Texas. And as a military officer, he participated or lead military disaster response efforts for the Shuttle Columbia crash and multiple hurricanes. A retired Major General in the US Air Force, Ken’s experience in positions of leadership is extensive. The episode explores questions of leadership, error, and humility and explore questions of what we can learn about humility from the example of the military. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s episode of How To Be Wrong welcomes Glenn Sauer, who is Donald J. Ross Sr. Chair in Biology and Biochemistry and Professor of Biology at Fairfield University, where he also serves as Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences. Our conversation covers a range of topics related to the issue of intellectual humility, including the conflict between scientific and religious perspectives in the US and the politics of certainty that dominates much contemporary discourse about policy as well as ideas about being right or wrong. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of How To Be Wrong we talk with Dr. Sher Wells-Jensen, a professor of linguistics at Bowling Green State University and an expert in xenolinguistics or the study of how alien languages might work. It’s a wide-ranging conversation that explores issues related to humility and language, disability, music, and even the study of astrobiology and extraterrestrial intelligence. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of How To Be Wrong we talk with Marshall Poe, founder and head of the New Books Network, about his work as an historian of Russia and his ideas about making mistakes as a researcher. The interview explores Marshall’s own experience with error and his ideas about the relationship between uncertainty, truth, and expertise. John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"How To Be Wrong" is a podcast series hosted by John J. Kaag, Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and John W. Traphagan, Professor of Religious Studies and in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas at Austin. The series explores mistakes, errors, and the importance of embracing intellectual humility in a world that seems increasingly dominated by dualistic an uncritically oppositional thinking, argument, and debate. We talk with scholars, artists, authors, and others about their ideas and stories related to things that have gone wrong and ask them to discuss the ways this has influenced their lives and work and influenced their ideas about certainty and humility. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices