The Natural Reward podcast will focus on questions of innovation, progress and advancement in the evolution of life. We will discuss the evolution of scientific theories, how to think critically about science, and questions of progress and advancement in technology and human culture. The Natural Reward podcast will cover the philosophy and history of science, evolutionary theory, and economic theory. Music by Christian Bjoerklund.
Episode summary When starvation strikes, hundreds of thousands of solitary cellular-slime-mold cells ("social amoebae") assemble into a temporary multicellular body. Roughly one-quarter sacrifice reproduction to construct a dead stalk, allowing the remaining cells to become spores and disperse. That extraordinary cooperation creates an equally extraordinary opportunity for cheating. This episode follows the problem from Leo Buss’s 1982 description of a naturally occurring stalkless parasite, ...
28 Jun 2026
Why Myth-Busting Beats Shared Fictions
Episode Overview In this "deep dive" episode, the hosts take a sledgehammer to the comforting narratives of popular science. Drawing on the work of evolutionary biologist Dr. Owen Gilbert, the conversation explores the profound difference between falling for a "seductive fiction" and engaging in "rigorous, brutal myth-busting". The episode challenges the bedrock of traditional Neo-Darwinism and examines how human success is actually driven by the destruction of dogma rather than collective im...
25 Jun 2026
The Blind Entrepreneur: How Natural Reward Scales Life’s Greatest Inventions
Summary In this episode, we dive into a radical new evolutionary framework proposed by Owen M. Gilbert in his paper, "Natural Reward Drives the Advancement of Life." We explore why the traditional "scarcity mindset" of Darwinian evolution—the idea that nature is a zero-sum battlefield—fails to explain the massive, global expansion of life. By introducing the concept of Natural Reward, we shift the perspective from a "struggle for existence" to a "struggle for supremacy," where the winners are...
1 Jun 2026
Natural Reward’s Struggle to Exist: How a New Theory First Entered the Scientific World
I. What does it take for a new scientific theory to come into existence? Before a theory can spread, it must first emerge. It must be invented, named, clarified, defended, revised, and forced into a form that can survive public scrutiny. Only later comes dissemination: the broader process of spreading the theory, persuading an audience, applying it to new problems, and building a scientific movement around it. II. The hostile world: why natural reward had trouble being born. Evolutionary biol...
24 Feb 2026
Hamilton’s Rule and Inclusive Fitness, Part I: What Did Hamilton (1964) Actually Define?
Keywords Inclusive fitness, Hamilton’s rule, kin selection, altruism, social evolution, population genetics, gene substitution, Fisher’s average effect, relatedness, evolution of cooperation, greenbeard effect, dominance, allele frequency change, mathematical modeling, empirical research Summary In this episode of the Natural Reward podcast, brothers Owen and Jon Gilbert revisit Hamilton’s original papers on inclusive fitness and the evolution of altruism. They discuss how Hamilton’s rule (rb...
1 Mar 2024
Composite-trait evolution in pitcher plants: Ulrike Bauer
Ulrike Bauer discusses the evolution and diversity of pitcher plants, focusing on the spring trapping mechanism found in some species. Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants that capture insects in a fluid-filled cavity. They have evolved independently multiple times and are found all over the world. The spring trapping mechanism is a composite trait that involves multiple adaptations, including a horizontal lid, a spring-like structure, and a slippery surface. The study of this mechanism invo...
11 May 2023
Using Drones and AI to Find Illegal Dumping Sites: Interview with Brian Johnson
Illegal dumping is a widespread problem in cities throughout the world and differentially affects disadvantaged neighborhoods. Brian Johnson is a software engineer who moved to San Francisco nearly a decade ago. At the time, Brian could afford a house only in the least-expensive neighborhood, Bayview. Despite hopes for improvement, over time Bayview declined because of an illegal dumping problem. To protect his children, Brian started brainstorming ways to solve this problem. The ...
15 Feb 2023
Supplement to "Updating the Software of Social Evolution"
In this episode, Jon and I discuss some of the background to the previous episode. We discuss generalized versions of Hamilton's rule, Fisher's fundamental theorem, and Wright's fitness maximization formula. W. D. Hamilton used Sewall Wright's formula as the foundation of the theory of inclusive fitness. We discuss Wright's shifting balance theory and the role that Wright's formula played in his theory. We also discuss the difference between Wright's rendition of Fisher's fundamental th...
15 Feb 2023
Updating the Software of Social Evolution to Patch the Kin-Recognition Bug
In this episode, my brother Jon and I discuss my work on the evolution of kin recognition. Jon is a software engineer and likes to put my arguments in terms of debugging software. For many years, the mere finding of kin recognition in nature was taken as prima facie evidence of W. D. Hamilton's theory of "inclusive fitness." A large paradigm was built on the teleological assumption that kin recognition is evidence of the final cause of "inclusive fitness maximization." A major anomaly t...
19 May 2022
Innovation in Technology, Science, and Nature with Chris Fortier
This is my first conversation with Chris Fortier, Vice President of the Web 3.0 company Rally. It begins when Chris questions me on what he calls my "natural forces" theory, which invokes two nonrandom forces of evolution: natural selection and natural reward. Relevant to this theory, we discuss the concept of teleology, especially as it relates to evolutionary adaptation and experimental evolution in microorganisms. We then review the "major transition” framework for classifying evolutionary...
26 Dec 2021
Addressing Inequality and Rising Costs of Living with Market-Based Approaches with Jon Gilbert
Today, my brother Jon Gilbert addresses problems of income inequality and rising costs of living in the USA. In the first half of this episode, Jon presents figures showing the problem as it has manifested since the 1950s. Jon then argues that we may address the problem with a market-based solution: the use of "labor coins" to remove taxes on costs of living and transfer taxes to more frivolous expenditures. This is an interesting idea that I have never heard before, but which seems to mesh w...
16 Nov 2021
Local-Scale Approach to Conservation in Costa Rica with Andrés Vega
Andrés Vega is a native Costa Rican who has devoted his life to conservation, education, and research in Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica. In this episode, I speak with Andrés about how he got interested in conservation and his new approach to preserving wildlife. Andrés recounts his first morning in Corcovado, in which he got to see, and get chased by, some of the most charismatic large animals that live there. We talk about the geological and biological features that make Corcova...
4 Oct 2021
Spatial Sorting with Nikunj Goel
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Nikunj Goel about about spatial sorting, which refers to the build up of dispersal morphs on expanding edges of populations. Dr. Goel is a postdoctoral researcher at UT Austin working with Tim Keitt. We begin with a discussion of Dr. Goel’s background in physics and math, how he got interested in biology, and his work in ecology. We then get into Dr. Goel’s views on biological theory, and his approach to using the Price equation to model spatial sorting. I as...
27 Aug 2021
Follow up with Komi German: reviewer’s reaction to her work
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Komi German about a reviewer’s reaction to her book proposal. All academics deal with rejection. How a researcher deals with rejection determines whether she gets her work published, and how it will appear. We brainstorm strategies to deal with the reviewer’s response and the question of what approach to take in a revision. We discuss whether Komi should try to appeal to her opponents, or whether she should try to appeal to third parties. We also cover some o...
13 Aug 2021
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Academia with Komi German
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Komi German about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies in academia and related issues. Komi is a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedom (FIRE). Komi recently completed her Ph. D. in psychology at UC Riverside with a dissertation entitled, "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies in Academia: The Faculty's Response." Komi's dissertation reviews the history of DEI in academia and reports the results of her surveys of UC...
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