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Ethicists steal more and making turkeys exercise

November 25, 2025 · 34 min

Show notes

Are ethicists ethical? One would think that people who spend their careers studying ethics must be more ethical than others. But are people with looser morals more likely to become ethicists, so that they can understand what they lack?

Why do some ancient human bones have larger enthesis (sites on the bone where tendons and ligaments attach)? Did the individuals these bones belong to run or exercise more than their peers? How can we study this using Thanksgiving dinner?

In this episode, Lu quizzes Tirth on the science of Thanksgiving dinner. The two then discuss how you can evaluate the ethics of ethicists by going to a library and how forcing turkeys to walk on treadmills can teach us about human history.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 Intro
  • 0:57 Thanksgiving science quiz
  • 10:39 Ethics study
  • 24:15 Turkey study
  • 32:40 What did you learn today, outro

Article links:

  • Schwitzgebel, 2009. Do ethicists steal more books? Philosophical Psychology. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09515080903409952
  • Wallace et al., 2017. Physical activity alters limb bone structure but not entheseal morphology. Journal of Human Evolution. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248417300647

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Theme music by Dasein: https://open.spotify.com/artist/77H3GPgYigeKNlZKGx11KZ

Recreational Science is produced by Scientafic (https://www.scientafic.com/recscipod)

Video - never deep fry a frozen turkey:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KqtVCqFJsu0

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