COMPLEXITY

Chart trend

Position in the Life Sciences chart (US), last 90 days.

#1#27#53JunJulAugSep

all-time peak

days in the top 10 since Nov 2024

Latest episodes

Showing 20 · updated from the feed

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 6: AI’s changing seasons

Guest: Melanie Mitchell, Resident Professor, Santa Fe InstituteHosts: Abha Eli Phoboo Producer: Katherine Moncure Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano Follow us on:

Dec 4 2024
44 min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 5: How do we assess intelligence?

Guests: Erica Cartmill, Professor, Anthropology and Cognitive Science, Indiana University BloomingtonEllie Pavlick, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Linguistic

Nov 20 2024
48 min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 4: Babies vs Machines

Guests: Linda Smith, Distinguished Professor and Chancellor's Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana Unive

Nov 6 2024
38 min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 3: What kind of intelligence is an LLM?

Guests: Tomer Ullman, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard UniversityMurray Shanahan, Professor of Cognitive Robotics, Department of Computing, Imperi

Oct 23 2024
45 min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 2: The relationship between language and thought

Guests: Evelina Fedorenko, Associate Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MITSteve Piantadosi

Oct 9 2024
37 min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 1: What is Intelligence

Guests: Alison Gopnik, SFI External Faculty; Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley; Member of Berkeley

Sep 25 2024
43 min

Trailer for The Nature of Intelligence

Right now, AI is having a moment — and it’s not the first time grand predictions about the potential of machines are being made. But, what does it really mean to say some

Sep 19 2024
3 min

Physics of Life, Ep 6: Multiple worlds, containing multitudes

Guests: Heather Graham, Research Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight CenterHosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes Producer: Katherine Moncure Podcast theme music by

Apr 10 2024
40 min

Physics of Life, Ep 5: How human history shapes scientific inquiry

Guests: David Krakauer, President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe InstituteSean Carroll, External Professor and Fractal Faculty at th

Mar 27 2024
33 min

Physics of Life, Ep 4: The physics of collectives

Guests: Melanie Moses, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Professor of Computer Science and Associate Professor of Biology at University of New MexicoHyejin

Mar 13 2024
33 min

Physics of Life, Ep 3: Why is life so diverse?

Guests: Brian Enquist, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of ArizonaPablo Marquet, External Profe

Feb 28 2024
29 min

Physics of Life, Ep 2: How do we identify life?

Guests: Ricard Solé, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Head of the Complex Systems Lab at Universitat Pompeu FabraSara Walker, External Professor at the San

Feb 14 2024
33 min

Physics of Life, Ep 1: What can physics tell us about ourselves?

Guests: Vijay Balasubramanian, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Cathy and Marc Lasry Professor of Physics at the University of PennsylvaniaGeoffrey West, S

Jan 31 2024
34 min

Trailer for Physics of Life

Trailer for Complexity: Physics of Life, from the Santa Fe Institute

Jan 29 2024
3 min

Michael Garfield & David Krakauer on Evolution, Information, and Jurassic Park

Episode Title and Show Notes: 106 - Michael Garfield & David Krakauer on Evolution, Information, and Jurassic Park Welcome to Complexity, the official podcast of the Sa

Jun 30 2023
1 h 39 min

Mason Porter on Community Detection and Data Topology

One way of looking at the world reveals it as an interference pattern of dynamic, ever-changing links — relationships that grow and break in nested groups of multilayer n

Apr 5 2023
1 h 22 min

Andrea Wulf on Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and The Invention of The Self

For centuries, Medieval life in Europe meant a world determined and prescribed by church and royalty. The social sphere was very much a pyramid, and everybody had to answ

Mar 24 2023
1 h 06 min

Carlos Gershenson on Balance, Criticality, Antifragility, and The Philosophy of Complex Systems

How do we get a handle on complex systems thinking? What are the implications of this science for philosophy, and where does philosophical tradition foreshadow findings f

Mar 9 2023
1 h 06 min

Complex Conceptions of Time with David Krakauer, Ted Chiang, David Wolpert, & James Gleick

And now for something completely different! Last October, The Santa Fe Institute held its third InterPlanetary Festival at SITE Santa Fe, celebrating the immensely long

Feb 24 2023
1 h 00 min

Paul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems with Value Metrics & Governance at Scale (EPE 06)

There are maps, and there are territories, and humans frequently confuse the two. No matter how insistently this point has been made by cognitive neuroscience, epistemolo

Feb 9 2023
1 h 12 min

Chart positions

Where COMPLEXITY ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Sep 9, 2026).

#26 ▼ 1 Life Sciences US

What listeners say

A curated, balanced selection of Apple Podcasts reviews.

The new reboot of Complexity podcast is very different. It has all the science I love, and “high” production values (sound effects and scoring) and “best” practices (male-female voice alternations, etc.). But somehow it feels a bit overproduced, overwritten, over-rehearsed, flatly delivered. I am probably not its target audience (longtime listener, academic professor in adjacent science areas). It seems aimed at a more popular accessible level, which is great - donors for instance, not least! Even for that purpose, I wonder if it could gain some ineffable sparkle from being read standing up in a room with “audience” even just >3 humans, maybe one or more from its target audience? This is an intimate medium and a subtle flatness can be unfortunately important. The text occasionally veers from clear top-level plain-speak statements (almost tropes

MiamiBrian · Apr 2024

As someone relatively new to the field, I like the new format 100x better than the old one. Whereas previously there was no attempt to explain unfamiliar concepts, names, or references, now there is clearly a desire to introduce these ideas to a wider audience. Love it!

Junipersage · Mar 2024

I absolutely love this podcast. It lays out some plain English while also challenging the intellect. I’m captivated.

belvedere64 · Feb 2024

SFI will likely be the court of advisors and prognosticators who make the continuation of humanity possible. These entertaining, sober, and thoughtful analyses of the complexities of our time are vital to understanding complex social and epidemiological phenomena ranging from origin of life algorithms to COVID-19 to meme warfare on social media. Anyone and everyone who feels humanity is worth saving needs to listen to, rate, and viralize this podcast in their social media and personal circles.

Johnny Burque · Sep 2022

Garfield brought intellectual stimulation and points of view that didn’t oversimplify and dumb down concepts to help people “understand.” We understand better when expected to understand - we can rise to the occasion. These episodes are slow, basic and full of annoying generic terms such as “great biodiversity” and “rich history” and remind me of an NPR story. There’s already so many simplistic explanatory podcasts… this one used to be different because it hit smart and hard - these new episodes need to step it up, badly.

cdrghvdstujjnbvnk · Mar 2024

My true review would be 3 or 4 stars, but in order to increase the informational content of my review I’m giving it 2 stars. This is a fascinating podcast with really great guests discussing boundary-pushing ideas in the sciences. If you’re familiar with the Santa Fe Institute and what it’s all about, then you’ll find this podcast interesting. The host is highly knowledgeable, dedicated to his subject matter, and well-prepared for every interview. The issue is that he talks too much. He overwhelms guests (and listeners) with 2-, 3-, even 5-part questions that often make it difficult to follow a straight line through the conversation. Yes, there’s value in drawing connections between different thinkers and different disciplines, but the host does so too early and often to be useful. Guests are sometimes audibly flummoxed by long-winded questions that stray from the subject matter or try to make connections that are too tenuous or metaphorical. I think it’s important to give adequate space and care to the ideas of those working in complexity and complexity-adjacent fields. These scientists are working with subtle ideas that take time and effort to grasp. This calls for a bit more discipline and care in structuring and conducting their interviews. All of that said, I’m a regular listener to this podcast, and it often generates moments of real clarity and insight. It’s a valuable addition to the intellectual environment and I hope it keeps going.

ofdavis123 · Jul 2022

We strive to present a balanced view by showing a diverse range of reviews from Apple Podcasts.