btrmt. lectures

Dorian Minors
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A brain scientist talking about (better) patterns of thought, of feeling, and of action. One pattern, one podcast—you see if it works for you. The btrmt. lectures, with Dr Dorian Minors. (btrmt.—said "betterment.")

  1. Meditation isn't for everyone

    4 days ago

    Meditation isn't for everyone

    Meditation is the one practice everyone agrees on. It’s on the NHS, in schools, in every influencer’s guide to life, and the pitch is always the same: good for you, good for everyone, can’t hurt. Two of those three are false. It can hurt, it isn’t for everyone—and once you see what it actually is underneath the cushion, you realise you’re probably already doing it. Further reading Meditating for fun and for profit — the article that inspired this lecture. The Scientific Ritual — the first lecture in this arc, on science as a belief system. In Praise of the Sage — the second, on why we trust doctors the way we trust gurus. Positive Intelligence — one of the wellbeing-program takedowns mentioned up top. It’s not ‘just’ a placebo — on why “all in the head” is the point, not the problem. Not brain regions, brain networks — where the harms of mindfulness for some populations come up again. Overengineering calming down — the companion takedown of the calm-down-advice genre. Spirituality of Mind — more on the contemplative tradition meditation was lifted from. References Farias, M. & Wikholm, C. (2015). The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You? Publisher page. Van Dam, N. T., Targett, J., Davies, J. N., Burger, A. & Galante, J. (2025). Incidence and predictors of meditation-related unusual experiences and adverse effects in a representative sample of meditators in the United States. Clinical Psychological Science. Article. Schlosser, M., Sparby, T., Vörös, S., Jones, R. & Marchant, N. L. (2019). Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations. PLOS ONE. Article. Lindahl, J. R., Fisher, N. E., Cooper, D. J., Rosen, R. K. & Britton, W. B. (2017). The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists. PLOS ONE. Article. Farias, M., Maraldi, E., Wallenkampf, K. C. & Lucchetti, G. (2020). Adverse events in meditation practices and meditation-based therapies: A systematic review. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. Article. Kabat-Zinn, J. (1982). An outpatient program in behavioral medicine for chronic pain patients based on the practice of mindfulness meditation. General Hospital Psychiatry. Article.

    26 min
  2. In Praise of the Sage

    16 May

    In Praise of the Sage

    The modern Western story is that real knowledge comes from science or careful reasoning, and anything else—the elder, the guru, the village wise woman—is suspect. But science and reflection themselves rest on a third, intuitive, embodied mode of knowing that we use constantly and pretend we don’t. The doctor and the guru are running on the same authority structure; the only difference is who’s allowed to wear the coat. Which means we’re picking our sages by taste instead of principle—and that’s how charlatans win. Not sure what I’ve got against linen trousers in this episode. Quite like them if I’m honest. Further reading In praise of the sage The scientific ritual (lecture) Mundane cults (lecture) It’s not ‘just’ a placebo Useful pharmacology How some psychics use psychology to screw you (Forer) AI hallucination is just man-guessing Moral blindspots Successful prophets Everything is ideology The charismatic leader (Weber) References Aristotle, Metaphysics John Dewey, Experience and Nature Richard Dawkins, TED: Militant atheism Bertram Forer, The fallacy of personal validation Phenotypic drug discovery Yann Martel, Life of Pi

    33 min
  3. The Scientific Ritual

    2 May

    The Scientific Ritual

    Science feels like the most reliable thing we have. The opposite of belief. But it’s a belief system itself—a ritual, with all the failure modes that rituals have. And the receipts are right there in the replication crisis. Further reading The Scientific Ritual — the article this lecture is based on Problems with p-values — the technical companion: Fisher, Neyman-Pearson, the hybrid mess The trap of scientific evidence — on the “no evidence” tension and the homeopathy/parachute paradox Everything is ideology — science as one belief system among several In praise of the sage — other ways of knowing; the MD/PhD distinction Scientific fact — on what science actually does The value of ritual — ritual as a knowledge-production strategy Meditation — on the dinner-table meditation example Beyond System 1 and System 2 — on Kahneman’s dual-process framework The placebo effect — on why “works for some, not for others” is a feature, not a bug Grit — positive-psychology critique Overengineering calming down (lecture) — the broader positive-psychology audit Bias is good (lecture) — the cognitive-bias series Life is worse (lecture) — the previous episode; a worked example of reading a literature References The replication crisis itself Open Science Collaboration (2015), Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science, Science 349 (6251) Wikipedia: replication crisis American Statistical Association: Wasserstein, Schirm & Lazar (2019), Moving to a World Beyond “p 3 substantial, BF > 10 strong) come from JASP — the open-source Bayesian statistics software with default priors Specific replication-crisis casualties Cuddy, Wilmuth & Carney (2010) original power posing paper; Carney’s later statement withdrawing support Hagger et al. (2016), A Multilab Preregistered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Effect Bargh, Chen & Burrows (1996) original elderly priming paper; failed Doyen et al. (2012) replication Brown, Sokal & Friedman (2013), The Complex Dynamics of Wishful Thinking — demolishing the 3:1 positivity ratio Carol Dweck, growth mindset — replication concerns documented in Sisk et al. (2018) and Bahník & Vranka (2017) Angela Duckworth, grit — meta-analytic critique in Credé, Tynan & Harms (2017) Books cited in the lecture Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow Stephen J. Gould, Adam’s Navel and Other Essays Yann Martel, Life of Pi Bill Mollison, Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual Other Richard Dawkins on militant atheism (TED) — the “evidence vs. faith” framing Reform efforts: preregistration, open data, multi-lab replication consortia (e.g. ManyLabs)

    37 min
  4. It’s Not Social Media, Life Is Just Worse

    17 Apr

    It’s Not Social Media, Life Is Just Worse

    Everyone’s worried about social media and mental health. Jonathan Haidt sold two million copies telling us smartphones rewired our children’s brains. Thirty-five US states passed phone restriction legislation off the back of it. But when you look at the research—really look—the evidence for social media causing mental health problems is shockingly thin. What isn’t thin is the evidence that life, structurally, is getting worse in a dozen measurable ways. Maybe we’re blaming the screen because the alternative is harder to fix. Further reading It’s Not Social Media, Life Is Just Worse—the article that inspired this lecture Amusing Ourselves to Death—on Neil Postman and the information overload problem Why Do People Kill Themselves—on what structural decline does to the most vulnerable Atavism Isn’t the Answer—the lecture on why “go back to the old ways” rarely works The Trap of Scientific Evidence—on the two forms of “no evidence” Why Being Sad Isn’t Always a Bad Thing—on situation–symptom congruence The Loneliness Epidemic Models of Psychopathology—on diagnostic quality and what counts as mental illness The Scientific Ritual—on the replication crisis and lazy application of the scientific method The True Meaning of Family Ties—on changing family structures and social fragmentation Creating a Digital Home—on digital selfhood and why we don’t treat our digital lives with care References Amy Orben’s research group, University of Cambridge Ferguson, C. J. et al. (2024). Social media use and youth mental health: A meta-analysis. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. doi:10.1037/pro0000589 Fassi, L., Orben, A. et al. (2024). Social media and adolescent mental health: A meta-analysis of 143 studies. JAMA Pediatrics. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.2078 Tolboll, K. B. (2026). Social media use and mental health in children and adolescents: An umbrella review. Child and Adolescent Mental Health. doi:10.1111/camh.70071 Fassi, L., Orben, A. et al. (2025). Digital technology use and adolescent mental health: A registered report. Nature Human Behaviour. doi:10.1038/s41562-025-02134-4 Broadbent, P. et al. (2023). The public health implications of the cost-of-living crisis. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe. doi:10.1016/j.lanepe.2023.100585 Arundel, R. et al. (2022). Housing unaffordability and mental health. International Journal of Housing Policy. doi:10.1080/19491247.2022.2106541 McGorry, P. D. et al. (2025). The youth mental health crisis: A paradigm shift. Frontiers in Psychiatry. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1517533 Kirkbride, J. B. et al. (2024). The social determinants of mental health and disorder. World Psychiatry. doi:10.1002/wps.21160 Plackett, R. et al. (2022). Digital technology and mental health of young people: A scoping review. JMIR Mental Health. doi:10.2196/43213 Garcia-Manglano, J. et al. (2024). Escapism, social media, and internalising symptoms in adolescents. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. doi:10.1177/02654075241230248 Maheux, A. J. et al. (2024). Social media use and adolescent mental health: An annual research review. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. doi:10.1111/jcpp.14085 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985). Wikipedia Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation (2024). Wikipedia Stuart Ritchie, Science Fictions (2020). Publisher

    29 min
  5. Bias is Good

    21 Mar

    Bias is Good

    Everyone’s been told that bias is the enemy of good thinking. Over 200 cognitive biases catalogued on Wikipedia, and the message is clear: your brain is broken, and if you could just think more rationally, you’d make better decisions. But when researchers actually tested whether knowledge of biases helped predict behaviour, the experts did worse than random laypeople. Maybe the problem isn’t bias. Maybe the problem is what we think bias is. Further reading The Betterment article that inspired this Confirmation bias is all there is — fundamental beliefs and belief-consistent processing Bias vs Bias — heuristics vs biases, and why the distinction matters Stress and the Yerkes-Dodson Law — bias vs noise in the stress response Stress is Good (Lecture 1) — the stress lecture The Amygdala is Not the Fear Centre (Lecture 2) — the amygdala lecture Everything is Ideology — why biases are adaptive Pop Neuroscience is Just a Fancy Way of Saying “Calm Down” References Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) List of cognitive biases (Wikipedia) — the 200+ biases Rational-actor model (Wikipedia) Milkman et al. (2021): Megastudy on behavioural nudges for vaccination Oeberst & Imhoff (2023): Toward Parsimony in Bias Research — the fundamental beliefs paper Robert Axelrod’s iterated prisoner’s dilemma tournaments Bias–variance tradeoff (Wikipedia)

    26 min
  6. The Amygdala is Not the Fear Centre

    7 Mar

    The Amygdala is Not the Fear Centre

    Everyone’s been told the amygdala is the fear centre of the brain. That it hijacks your rational mind and throws you into fight-or-flight at the sound of an email notification. This is nonsense—the kind of nonsense that makes every McKinsey consultant sound like a neuroscientist and every neuroscientist cringe. The amygdala is an emotional intensity detector, not an emotional dictator. And focusing on it is distracting you from what actually matters: how you respond to the world. Further reading The Betterment article that inspired this Stress is Good (Lecture 1) — the stress lecture that set this up More on stress and the Yerkes-Dodson Law Why fight-or-flight isn’t what you think Pop Neuroscience is Just a Fancy Way of Saying “Calm Down” — the next lecture in this thread How we make meaning in the brain References The Atlantic article — the management professor’s piece on stress and the amygdala Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (1995) Amygdala hijack (Wikipedia) — note the lack of academic citations Amygdala (Wikipedia) — particularly the section on emotional learning Pessoa (2010): Emotion and cognition (PDF) — reappraisal evidence, pg 44 Janak & Tye (2015): From circuits to behaviour in the amygdala — the complexity of amygdala function Adolphs (2015): “The unsolved problems of neuroscience” — on the amygdala and emotional significance

    18 min
  7. Hydraulic Despotism

    21 Feb

    Hydraulic Despotism

    Karl Wittfogel’s theory of hydraulic despotism was savaged by his peers and rightly so. But the pattern he was reaching for—that whoever controls the essential flowing resource controls the people—is the story of modern infrastructure. Energy, social media, payment systems, AI compute. We handed over the water. We don’t have to hand over everything else. Further reading: - The Betterment article that inspired this - From Zero: on recreating systems from scratch - Digital Selves: taking control of your digital presence - True Family Ties: on the erosion of our communities - Education is Entertainment: on why some ideas stick References: - Karl Wittfogel and Hydraulic civilisations on Wikipedia - Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (1957) - Thames Water’s debt crisis (BBC) - Russia-Ukraine food insecurity (European Council) - Nvidia valuation (BBC) - Mann’s Infrastructural Power on Wikipedia - Platform Capitalism and its dynamics - Callon’s Obligatory Passage Points and Latour’s Actor-Network Theory on Wikipedia - Essential Facilities Doctrine on Wikipedia - EU Digital Markets Act on Wikipedia - Cory Doctorow, “The Post-American Internet” (39C3 talk) — on the new coalition, anticircumvention law, and Eurostack - Cory Doctorow on enshittification and adversarial interoperability - Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (1990) - Selye’s Eustress — the distinction between good stress and bad stress

    17 min
  8. Atavism Isn’t the Answer

    7 Feb

    Atavism Isn’t the Answer

    Seed oils, raw milk, carnivore diets, tradwives, phone bans, anti-sunscreen, cold plunges—these look like separate cultural phenomena across health, diet, gender, and technology. They’re all the same pattern: the same two faulty assumptions, the same Just So Story template, the same political movement. The yearnings are real. The reasoning isn’t. Further reading: - The Betterment article that inspired this - Evolution is Overrated - All Food is Toxic - Hydraulic Despotism - Nature vs Nurture Just Isn’t That Interesting - Tinbergen’s Four Questions - Education is Entertainment: on why some ideas stick - Mundane Cults References: - MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) on Wikipedia - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wikipedia - Butter and Plant-Based Oils Intake and Mortality, JAMA Internal Medicine (2025) - The Evidence Behind Seed Oils’ Health Effects, Johns Hopkins (2025) - Paul Saladino, The Carnivore Code - Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation - Candice Odgers, Nature review on smartphones and mental health - Ferguson (2025): Do Social Media Experiments Prove a Link With Mental Health: A Methodological and Meta-Analytic Review - Liver King on Wikipedia - Andrew Huberman on Wikipedia - Ballerina Farm / Hannah Neeleman on Wikipedia - Tradwife on Wikipedia - Tradwife: Between Myths and Realities, King’s College London Global Institute for Women’s Leadership - MAHA, Means, Money, Public Citizen report on MAHA and wellness industry revenue

    28 min
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About

A brain scientist talking about (better) patterns of thought, of feeling, and of action. One pattern, one podcast—you see if it works for you. The btrmt. lectures, with Dr Dorian Minors. (btrmt.—said "betterment.")

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  • Creator
    Dorian Minors
  • Years Active
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  • Episodes
    16
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    © Dorian Minors
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