595. Why Don't We Have Better Candidates for ...

New York City’s mayor called them “public enemy number one.” History books say they caused the Black Death — although recent scientific evidence disputes that claim. In an updated episode from 2025, we ask: Is the rat a scapegoat? And what does our rat hatred say about us? SOURCE ...  Show more

One possibility: a leading hypothesis pursued by researchers (and funders) was built on science that now appears to be fraudulent. Stephen Dubner speaks with the scientist and the journalist who blew the whistle. SOURCES: Charles Piller, investigative journalist for Science, auth ...  Show more

Katherine Gehl, a former CEO and the founder of the Institute for Political Innovation, and Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, apply his Five Forces framework to explain why U.S. politics are dysfunctional. They argue that the Republican and Democratic partie ...  Show more

Economist Daron Acemoglu likes to tackle big questions. He tells Steve how colonialism still affects us today, who benefits from new technology, and why democracy wasn’t always a sure thing.

In this episode, I talk to Forward Party’s founder Andrew Yang about the future of American democracy. Andrew shares the insights he’s learned from his presidential and mayoral campaigns. His major realization is that America’s two-party system is designed for polarization and dy ...  Show more

In the year of a Presidential election, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode investigate the murky world of American Elections on screen.Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 Presidential election, inspired many film lovers to reconnect with two films - John Frankenheimer’s 1962 political ...  Show more