Utterly Moderate Podcast

About Utterly Moderate Podcast

The Utterly Moderate Podcast (https://connorsinstitute.org/podcast) is the official podcast of Connors Institute for Nonpartisan Research and Civic Engagement at Shippensburg University (https://connorsinstitute.org/). The core mission of the Connors Institute is to disseminate high-quality nonpartisan information to the public. Utterly Moderate is hosted by Lawrence Eppard, a researcher, university professor, and director of the Connors Institute. On each episode, Eppard is joined by a guest (or two or three!) who helps listeners understand important topics by focusing on just the weight of the empirical evidence and none of the unneeded opinions or political agendas. We are aggressively nonpartisan in our approach. Be sure to visit us at ConnorsInstitute.org (https://connorsinstitute.org/) to learn more about all that we do!

Publisher

Connors Institute

Category

news

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Feb 2021

Latest episode

30 Sept 2025

Latest episodes

117 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   30 Sept 2025

   The Problem of Political Myths (w/Michael Huemer)

   On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast (https://connorsinstitute.org/podcast) we are joined by Michael Huemer (https://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/people/faculty/michael-huemer), a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is here to talk about political myths and why they are dangerous. Political myths are factual claims which are believed by members of a political tribe that strongly support an element of that tribe’s ideology—yet they are demonstrably false or highly misleading. Professor Huemer has written a book taking a look at how political myths operate among liberals in America titled, Progressive Myths, available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Myths-Michael-Huemer/dp/B0DFG98588/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ONy6aHjQ8ozAMEPIjFOA3kfyy6r1FM4mNqAW2KWNBYg.glakRoFQ45NT79CX3r2ci6-2Q5zaN6IS7o9VuYtpX08&qid=1759260374&sr=8-1). In his book, Huemer writes that: “I think truth matters. Society cannot be reliably improved through lies, exaggerations, and misleading stories; it requires knowledge of the real, factual situation we face, in whatever area we seek to improve matters. . . To be clear, my problem is not that progressives have bad values, nor is it that I don’t like them or that they don’t belong to my tribe. My problem is that they are factually mistaken. They hold beliefs that objectively conflict with the way the world is in many respects; they misunderstand the current state of society, the causes of social problems, and the effects of social policies. This leads them to advocate policies and behaviors that worsen society and even undermine their own values.” Political myths are a problem in America today, as people are more and more isolated in ideological silos and bombarded with questionable claims that feel right to their side and are shielded from information that might undermine those claims. We hope you enjoy our exploration of this problem! For more, check us out at connorsinstitute.org (https://connorsinstitute.org/).

2. 

   4 Jun 2025

   First 100 Days of Trump 2.0 (w/Jim Swift)

   Jim Swift analyzes the potential impacts, both positive and negative, of Donald Trump's policies during his hypothetical second term as president in this interview.

3. 

   12 Mar 2025

   Improving American Sociology (w/Bradley Campbell, Jukka Savolainen, & Jacob Mackey)

   This episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast (https://connorsinstitute.org/podcast) deals with liberal bias in higher education and what to do about it, with a specific focus on the field of sociology. According to Gallup (https://news.gallup.com/poll/646880/confidence-higher-education-closely-divided.aspx), a strong majority (68%) of Americans believe that higher education is headed in the wrong direction. Barely more than a third (36%) of Americans express a high level of confidence in U.S. colleges and universities, down from 57% only a decade ago. Americans give the following reasons for this low confidence: political agendas, wrong focus/teaching the wrong things, and cost/expenses. Is this concern about “political agendas” warranted? Let’s first take a look at the politics of American professors. In a 2016-2017 survey (https://heri.ucla.edu/), UCLA researchers found a liberal-to-conservative (L:C) ratio of 5:1 among American college professors. Other studies show a much larger gap. When Mitchell Langbert and Sean Stevens (https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/partisan-registration-and-contributions-of-faculty-in-flagship-colleges) analyzed the voter registrations of college professors, for instance, they found a Democrat-to-Republican (D:R) ratio of 8:1. Among the same sample, they found the D:R political donor ratio to be a whopping 95:1. A discrepancy between the public—American voters are about evenly split between Democrats and Republicans (https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx)—and the professoriate is not a problem by itself. It becomes a problem if it impacts the teaching and research being done at American colleges. On this count, it seems to have become a problem. Many academics blur the line between activism and research, letting their leftist beliefs and values skew their work. This includes a number of big claims about systemic racism, police shootings, implicit bias, microaggressions, free markets, sexism, sex differences, transgender issues, single parenthood, IQ, and more. It is of course not the case that all or even most of the teaching and research happening on college campuses is corrupted by ideology. But far too many academics—perhaps most notably in fields in the humanities, social sciences, and education—make high-profile claims about social phenomena that go well beyond what the evidence will support, and these claims frequently align with leftwing ideologies. This can distort the public discourse, workplace practices, and social policy. You can read a much deeper discussion of this in the book, The Poisoning of the American Mind (https://www.amazon.com/Poisoning-American-Mind-Lawrence-Eppard/dp/194269542X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GmqbUkZWiQOmPKQ9apYORseioJlDDPqlbO1Rl43dthYudbrK9CRWemVOk3J4TXNCEZNCVm8-gqenT-2-71j0SUisLtthlpm964kfTWXpGVrOM_pxdjatfnKeTRWb045ntAb7dXcWbg0q-VS5moGui4W2hBrhPVuZVQTlSFBVvO0RLLeDsQORdwkSodrswMoD.lW6jeTs-jCmXyoUcM12WH1qwMMH3d-o0q6Gup8cU7e4&qid=1741806246&sr=8-1), as well as the documentary of the same name (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedD5q8GYFE&t=4s). On this podcast episode, we discuss liberal bias in higher education, why it is a problem, and what we might do about it. Enjoy! ------------- ------------- Episode Audio: "Air Background Corporate" by REDCVT (Free Music Archive) "Please Listen Carefully" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive) "Last Dance" by Jahzzar (Free Music Archive) “Happy Trails (To You)” by the Riders in the Sky (used with artist’s permission)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

47 ratings

Spotify

4.3 / 5

12 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 52 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

68

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

90

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Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.