Listen Now

Ever since he was diagnosed as a kid, Adam has wondered if ADHD is a serious psychological condition, or a false diagnosis pushed by an overzealous industry. This week Dr. Stephen Hinshaw, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley is on the show to help answer these questions. You can check out his book The ADHD Explosion: Myths, Medication, Money, and Today's Push for Performance at factuallypod.com/books.

Everywhere you look, some pundit is claiming that AI is soon to replace humanity. But is that really inevitable - or are we choosing to make it happen? Technologist Glen Weyl joins Adam to discuss why he believes AI isn’t really a technology - it’s an ideology.

Journalist Jesse Eisinger joins Adam to explain how he and his colleagues at ProPublica exposed how little billionaires pay in taxes – often, nothing at all – and the underhanded techniques they use to do it.

LA Times reporter Johana Bhuiyan joins Adam to explain how Ring built a private surveillance empire by promising kickbacks to an unlikely accomplice: the cops.

Seashells may seem like a small topic for a book, or a podcast. But when we look into them deeply, we find that they reveal startling truths about our oceans, our planet, and ourselves. This week Cynthia Barnett joins Adam to talk about the surprising history of seashells and her new book The Sound of The Sea. You can check out her book at factuallypod.com/books.

What are our moral obligations to nature, and the wild animals that live in it? Should we vaccinate them? Should we feed them when they're starving? Should we kill so called "invasive" species? Emma Marris is back this week to discuss her new book Wild Souls and the complex ethical dilemmas surrounding our relationship with wild animals. You can check out her book at factuallypod.com/books. 

Tesla and other automakers have convinced the public that fully automated vehicles are just around the corner. But what if … they aren’t? Dr. Missy Cummings, AI researcher and director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory at Duke, joins Adam to detail the massive gap between Silicon Valley's promises and the technology’s limitations, and explain the real benefits that might come when we use AI to enhance human capability rather than replace us.

As nature lovers, we prize the idea of places untouched by human influence. But new research shows that such places were few and far between as long as 12,000 years ago. This week paleo-ecologist Dr. Jacquelyn Gill is on the show to talk about the surprisingly strong effect humans have had on nature for thousands and thousands of years, and how knowing this changes our relationship with the natural world.

Despite their limited representation in the media, Native Americans have had a profound influence on American comedy. So why isn't Charlie Hill a household name? This week historian Kliph Nesteroff and comic Adrianne Chalepah chat with Adam about their new book We Had A Little Real Estate Problem, which tells the fascinating story of Native American comedy. Check it out at factuallypod.com/books. 

Adam asks comic and soon to be car owner Liza Treyger about family recipes, the weirdest places she's ever performed, and more! 

Quantum mechanics is over a century old, yet most of us still struggle to truly understand it. This week theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli is on the show to discuss his new book Helgoland and help Adam begin to truly understand how quantum physics can fit into a broader picture of reality. Check out Carlo's book at factuallypod.com/books.

We know that not all American trust science. But why, exactly, should they, when scientists are fallible humans, just like the rest of us? Acclaimed science historian and author Naomi Oreskes is on the show this week to answer exactly that. Check out her new book, Why Trust Science?, at factuallypod.com/books. 

Today we're bringing you a FREE episode of Adam's STITCHER PREMIUM show, Questions & Adam. In it, Adam chats and answers questions with comedian friends. Listen to the rest of the bonus episodes exclusively on Stitcher Premium. For a free month, go to stitcher.com/premium, select a monthly plan, and enter the code FACT. 

This week Adam welcomes an author whose book blew his mind more than perhaps any other. Americans are typically taught that prior to the arrival of European settlers, indigenous communities were sparsely populated, lacked technology, and did little to shape the natural landscape. But as this week’s guest Charles C. Mann’s 1491 tells Adam, the most recent research reveals that the American indigenous civilizations were sophisticated, dynamic, and massively populated. Purchase his books 1491 and 1493 at http://factuallypod.com/books. 

Is the human body a doughnut? Adam asks writer and producer Sam Roudman this conundrum. Plus Adam asks questions about podcast production, what makes for a great interview, and more!

If you love video games, working in game development sounds like a dream job — especially since the industry now grosses more than movies and sports combined. But the reality is a lot less… fun than you might think. This week journalist Jason Schreier joins Adam to discuss his latest book Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry. In it, Jason sheds new light on the strenuous, sometimes-abusive work environments behind some of the world's most popular and beloved games. Purchase Jason's book Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry at http://factuallypod.com/books

Voting rights are under assault around the country. And while we tend to see “democracy" as a big, abstract noun, it’s the smallest, most mundane details that determine whether or not people actually have the right to vote. This week Adam sits down with Tomas Lopez, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a non-partisan organization that works to expand ballot access and protect voting rights in one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. Learn more by visiting https://democracync.org.

Adam asks actress Hayley Marie Norman about her favorite interesting fact, how she decompresses after information overload, cryotherapy, and more!

It had to happen eventually: We’re doing an episode about crypto. This week artist and technologist Everest Pipkin joins Adam to discuss Bitcoin, the blockchain, and the dire costs of crypto art, not only on our environment, but on the art community itself. Find Everest Pipkin’s art at https://everest-pipkin.com.

Facebook pushes dangerous misinformation to billions of people every day. So why can’t it… stop? This week, MIT Technology Review’s Senior AI Reporter, Karen Hao, joins Adam to detail her blockbuster report on how Facebook’s internal AI teams were instructed to stop fighting misinformation because doing so interfered with Facebook’s growth. Read her reporting at: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/11/1020600/facebook-responsible-ai-misinformation/