
39 episodes

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis Pushkin
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- Society & Culture
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4.7 • 417 Ratings
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Journalist and bestselling author Michael Lewis takes a searing look at what’s happened to fairness in American life through the lens of people who depend on public trust. After exploring what’s happened to referees and coaches, the third season of Against the Rules tackles what’s happened to our trust in experts and expertise. An expert has probably saved your life more than once. So why is it so hard to judge who the real experts are? And why, once we’ve found them, do we struggle to listen to what experts have to say? In this season, we meet oceanographers and baseball writers, nurses and former gang members — people who don’t have a lot in common but the mixed blessing of their expertise.
iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.
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Episode 1: Six Levels Down
Athenahealth was just another healthcare provider facing the biggest problem US doctors face: not treating patients, but getting insurance companies to pay their bills. But then the company figured out how to fix the problem, by recognizing an overlooked expert toiling in the hospital basement.
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Episode 2: The Art of the Untold Story
Why can’t we see the experts right in front of us, even when they're saving our lives? Maybe it's because the specialized knowledge of many experts defies good storytelling. We hear from a nonprofit trying to elevate the esoteric work of government experts, and we hear from one of their nominees. His work has changed the survival prospects for many lost at sea, but even those survivors have never heard his name.
If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Episode 3: Field of Ignorance
The right kind of expert, at the right time, can change everything. While working as a security guard at a pork-and-beans cannery in Kansas, Bill James started writing about baseball. But writing about it through the poetry of statistical analysis. It took a long time, but James's way of looking at the game changed more than just baseball.
If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Episode 4: Respect the Polygon
Experts know more now than ever before. And we’re more critical of them than ever before, too. But one kind of expert really gets us riled up: the type who deals in probabilities. We hear from meteorologists, political forecasters, and even nurses about why calculating the odds is so hard, and why we all suffer the deadly consequences as a result.
If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. -
Episode 5: The Sanchez Problem
There’s one kind of expert whose role is enshrined in law: that of the expert witness, who’s called on to bolster one side of a case. But courtrooms are not great places for nuance. Overconfident expert testimony has been linked to countless wrongful convictions, especially in gang-related cases. Michael speaks with a new kind of expert witness: former gang members who struggle to counteract the testimony of police.If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm.
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Episode 6: The Overconfidence Game
In which several people, including Rebecca Solnit, Katty Kay, and Maria Konnikova, help Michael understand the not-so-secret power of men to offer themselves up as experts, when they clearly are not.
If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to sign up for our email list at Pushkin.fm.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Customer Reviews
Excellent - but hard to find!
I just binged all the Liar’s Poker podcasts and it was so enjoyable. I might read Liar’s Poker next, or listen to the audiobook, or listen to the rest of these pods... I love Michael Lewis’s humour and light touch. The only possible tiny fishbone I have to pick is that the LP pods are hard to find - they could easily have been a mini series of their own, a delicious palate cleanser. Just a thought.
Great content terrible episode ordering
I’m not sure if this is just my experience but the episodes are a nightmare to navigate. On most podcasts the latest episode is at the top and then they file in chronological order. There’s season one first, then trailers, it’s a mess and I can never work out what is the new from the old. There’s been some fascinating stuff and I wish it was all free.
Easy going style so how very profound it is creeps up on you
If podcasts become part of the curriculum in high school these should be high on the listening list