I love this podcast! Skeptoid & This American Life are my other faves. Anyone have other recommendations?

I have heard the stories and they are very interesting especially Shankar Vedantam. Of course we are a product of our culture. That is one reason why those in rural areas tend to be more conservative than those in an urban one. One way around this is to go outside one's culture and live in other ones. I lived in Germany, Turkey and several parts of the US as well as traveled extensively. I know another language so I have a mix if cultures in my brain. I now live on an island (rural) which should preclude extreme conservatism but here just the opposite is true. There are many people like myself living here so we are very progressive (but also middle-class and white which bothers some but it is a geographical phenomena not a social one).

There's probably innate racism, xenophobia, in-group/out-group prejudice, etc., in most of us, to some degree, but I think that diminishes as we get to know people from a variety of backgrounds.