University College London
Cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot is director of the Affective Brain Lab and associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London. She is the author of The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain and The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals about Our Power to Change Others.
How to change minds… and have your mind changed The human brain has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to the point where we could put a man on the Moon and explore the universe. A new book raises the question, as one reviewer put it, "If humans are so smart, why are we so dumb?" A new book that addresses that question is The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals about Our Power to Change Others . Warren Olney speaks with the author, Tali Sharot, a neuroscientist who founded the Affective Brain Lab at University College London, about the science of why emotion trumps reason.
Why Don't Facts Matter? In this divided nation, more and more people respond only to new information that reinforces their established opinions. When they're presented with facts that contradict what they believe, their opinions get stronger — even when the contradictory evidence is irrefutable. Has the country become the Emotional States of America, or is there something about the way the human brain is wired? Is it the consequence of our culture, our politics or the way our brains are structured? We talk to a neuroscientist, a foreign-policy expert, and an obstetrician who performs abortions in Alabama in the name of science… and Christianity.
The Trump agenda: where's the beef? President Trump says big things are happening. After celebrating a House bill on health care, he doesn’t yet have Senate agreement. With James Comey’s public testimony scheduled tomorrow, the President today tweeted his selection of a new FBI Director. Is the Chief Executive all style and no substance? Later, terror attacks in Iran and conflicting claims about who’s behind them.
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.
The longest US war: Will Trump send more troops to Afghanistan? The Trump White House is divided over the Pentagon's request for more troops in Afghanistan—where the US has been fighting for the past 16 years. Is there a formula -- either for "victory" or a political settlement? Is there an end in sight for America's longest war?
Terrorism and tweets, hate speech and murder Just days before an election, Britain is coping with a rash of deadly terrorism, and Prime Minister Theresa May is on the defensive. And again today, President Trump has tweeted criticism of the Mayor of London. Later, a double murder in Portland, Oregon has revealed the ugly past of a supposedly “progressive” city. One immediate question: is “hate speech” protected by the First Amendment?