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EconTalk · 2025-05-26 · 68 min · 12,289 words

Nature vs. Nurture (with Paul Bloom)

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Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.

We'd love to hear from you. Today is April 29th, 2025, and my guest is psychologist Paul Bloom of the University of Toronto. His substack is called Small Potatoes. This is Paul's seventh appearance on the program. It was last year in April of 2024.

Talking about seeking immortality. Paul, welcome back to Econ Talk. It's always great to talk to you, Russ. In a recent essay on your Substack, Small Potatoes, that we'll link to, you asked Claude, what do you think of the question? is it nature or is it nurture?

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