Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I Heart Radio.

Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

My name is Robert Lam, and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're bringing you an interview

that Robert conducted with a professor of psychology named Barbara Bletchley.

Rob, I was not here for this conversation. You recorded it while I was out on vacation

a while back. So tell me about the talk. What is this?

Well, Barbara came on the show to discuss her new book, What Are The Chances Why We Believe

and Luck? This is a publication from Columbia University Press, and it's currently available

in hardback. You can get it as an e-book, an audio book, so anyway, you consume your books.

It's an option. Barbara is a professor of psychology at Agnes Scott College, Indicator

Georgia, and her scholarly and teaching interests include of physiological psychology, neuroscience,

research statistics, psychology of learning, sensation, and perception, also the biology

of depression, and factors both environmental and biological influencing the development

of the brain. Of course, the book in question here, which is a delightful read, I very much

enjoyed, is just all about luck. Getting into various topics related to luck that you

might not even instantly realize or are central to our understanding of it, such as randomness

and the difficulty in even contemplating randomness from a human perspective.

Barbara also gets into the neuroscience of luck as well as how it relates to various

mythologies and so forth. Sounds great. Let's jump right on in.

Hi, Barbara. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Hi. My name is Barbara Bludschley. I'm a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Agnes

Scott College. I've been there for about, oh, this is going to be embarrassing 30 years.

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