Apple Seed

Guest: Matt Novak, Writes for Gizmodo  There is lots of geeking out going on over a new installment of Star Wars, due out next month – which technically takes place “a long time ago and far far away.” But it’s pretty futuristic, if you ask me. And we’ve just marked Back to the Future day – October 21, 2015 – the date to which Marty McFly and Doc Brown travelled to in the second installment of the film franchise. In 1985, the movie envisioned a world 30 years in the future where cars and skateboards flew, clothes and shoes automatically adjusted to fit and a thumbprint was all you needed to pay for a cab or open a door.

Guest: Gary Bolton, PhD, Professor of Managerial Economics at the University of Texas at Dallas  If you are a risk-taker, research shows you’ll be a little less-bold in your decisions when other people are involved. The power of the group to push people toward more conservative choices is fairly well documented. The question is, why does it happen?

Guest: G. Daniel Lassiter, PhD, Psychology Professor at Ohio University  Cellphone camera video of a white school officer upending the desk of a black high school student in South Carolina and dragging her across the floor went viral yesterday. Investigations are underway. It’s just the latest video to prompt debate over race and policing. Police departments across the country are getting federal grants to equip officers with body cameras. Hundreds of jurisdictions already require interrogations of suspects to be videotaped. The general thinking is that the camera doesn’t lie. That when video is available, the truth will out.

Guest: Wade Rowatt, PhD, Psychology Professor at Baylor University  Nobody likes a know-it-all, except maybe when that person’s the ringer on your Trivia Night team. Generally, we consider humility better than arrogance.  Is one universally good and the other bad?

Guest: Michele Dunn, PhD, Directs the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace