Beliefs aren’t just ideas floating in our minds—they’re deeply wired into our brains, influencing how we see the world and navigate it. Dr. Leor Zmigrod’s groundbreaking research dives into how ideologies take root, uncovering the neurological patterns that drive dogma, polarization, and radicalization.

Dr. Zmigrod sits down at The Conduit with philosopher, broadcaster, and author of Would You Kill the Fat Man? David Edmonds to unpack how our neural makeup shapes our susceptibility to rigid thinking. From a simple card game that predicts your approach to life to the ways ideologies rewire our brains, she connects cutting-edge neuroscience to the everyday decisions that define us.

Speakers:

Dr Leor Zmigrod is a prize-winning scientist and pioneer in the field of ‘political neuroscience.’ She studied at Cambridge University as a Gates Scholar before winning a Junior Research Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge. Zmigrod has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers and has held visiting fellowships at Stanford, Harvard, and both the Berlin and Paris Institutes for Advanced Study. She was listed on ‘Forbes 30 Under 30’ in Science and has won numerous prizes, including the Women of the Future Science Award and the Glushko Prize. She has spoken at the Hay Festival and TEDx, and her research has been featured widely in the media, including in The New York Times, Guardian, Financial Times and New Scientist. Zmigrod advises policymakers at the United Nations, the UK and US governments, and other international organizations. This is her first book.

David Edmonds is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University and a former BBC radio journalist. A prolific author, his books—including Wittgenstein’s Poker (co-authored with John Eidinow), Would You Kill the Fat Man?, and Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality—have been translated into over two dozen languages. He is the co-creator of the acclaimed Philosophy Bites podcast with Nigel Warburton, which has amassed over 47 million downloads, as well as the host of Social Science Bites and Philosophy 24/7. With a PhD in philosophy from the Open University and fellowships at the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan, Edmonds specialises in making complex philosophical ideas accessible to a broad audience.