Bright colors, long tails, and dances of seduction: they may hurt a bird's chances of survival in the wild, but they seem to increase the chances of reproduction. Is this all part of natural selection or is sexual selection its own force in the bird world? Is there such a thing as beauty for beauty's sake? What can we learn from birds about the human experience of beauty? Listen as author and naturalist Matt Ridley speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about a puzzle that kept Darwin up at night and that still troubles modern evolutionary biologists.

Feedback on exams and papers--grades and comments--should be more than an assessment. It should point the way to improvement. So argues educational consultant Daisy Christodoulou, emphasizing that actionable feedback has to be more than comments scribbled in the margins of a paper or at its end. Listen as she speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about a new model for enabling educational improvement, with implications for learning to get better at writing and just about everything.

What can the restaurant business teach us about leadership and management? Listen as Will Guidara, the former owner of Eleven Madison Park, explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts how his restaurant became good enough to be named the best restaurant in the world. Foodies will enjoy a look behind the scenes of a restaurant at the very top of its game, but the lessons for leadership and organizational culture are useful for anyone interested in creating and sustaining excellence.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East but it seems a lot more alien and chaotic than many of the older democracies of the West. Hear Rachel Gur of Reichman University explain to EconTalk's Russ Roberts how the Israeli political system works and sometimes, doesn't work. The conversation brings into relief the challenges all democracies face and the ways that political minorities can wield power or be ignored depending on the political rules of the game.

Until the end of WWI, the Middle East as we know it didn't exist. No Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, or Iraq. Instead, there was the Ottoman Empire, whose dissolution using an arbitrary line on a map set the region on a course of upheaval that's still with us. Listen as historian James Barr speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, and how, in the century that followed, the machinations of the French, the British, and the local residents created the modern Middle East and affected the lives of millions.

For more than a century, some economists have insisted that central planning can outperform markets. Economists like Mises, Hayek, and Friedman disagreed. Who won this debate? Is it over? Does AI change how we should think about the power of planning? Listen as economist Peter Boettke of George Mason University discusses what is known as the "socialist calculation debate" with EconTalk's Russ Roberts.

Why do we buy stuff we don't need? Maybe for the same reason that some people can't stand stuff at all. Listen as author Michael Easter speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how two seemingly opposed approaches to our possessions--minimalism and hoarding--may stem from the same impulse to cope with uncertainty. They also discuss the downsides of minimalism and how to figure out whether we're really buying the right things.

Surely perfection is better than imperfection. But applying technology to improve decision-making can backfire. Listen as ed-tech innovator Daisy Christodoulou and EconTalk's Russ Roberts talk about the costs of seeking perfection when technology is used to improve refereeing in sports. They also talk about ways to embrace imperfection and how the economist Ronald Coase can help us understand the power of the rules of the game, both in sports and in life.

Should we worry about the human future in a world of AI? Reid Hoffman is unafraid and even optimistic. He argues that the brave new world that awaits is going to be great for humanity. Listen as he talks about his book Superagency with EconTalk's Russ Roberts and argues that the future is bright not just for AI, but for the people who remake the world using it.

How can opera, with words we rarely understand, make us cry? Why does opera, filled with melodrama, move us? Listen as poet and librettist Dana Gioia explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts why words matter more than we think, in both opera and on Broadway.