Point of Inquiry
Center for Inquiry
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Point of Inquiry is the Center for Inquiry's flagship podcast, where the brightest minds of our time sound off on all the things you're not supposed to talk about at the dinner table: science, religion, and politics.
Guests have included Brian Greene, Susan Jacoby, Richard Dawkins, Ann Druyan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Eugenie Scott, Adam Savage, Bill Nye, and Francis Collins.
Point of Inquiry is produced at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y.
Available episodes
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Nov 25, 2020
Revisiting The Life Of Frank Sinatra – Living A Life Of Homelessness
In 1997 Jim produced and directed a short documentary called “A Day in the Life of Frank Sinatra” that was an exploration of what it was like to be a homeless man with a famous name. Twenty three years later, Frank Sinatra is recently off the streets, lives in a government-funded camper in Los Angeles, and is trying to live a normal life.
In this episode, Jim sits down with Frank and asks him about being a cab driver, a one-time contestant on the “Gong Show”, about homelessness in Los Angeles for the last 28 years, the troubles and lasting damage addiction can cause, how Frank believes that no one is immune to turning to drugs, and his hopes for the future.
This episode of Point of Inquiry does contain explicit language.
Nov 12, 2020
The Puritan Roger Williams, Church State Separation, and The Impact on Today
What does the Puritan founder of both the state of Rhode Island and the Baptist Church have to say about modern evangelicals?
Roger Williams had certain ideas that didn't fit into 17th century England or its American colonies. Freedom of conscience, separation of church and crown, fair treatment of indigenous peoples, and supporting the rights of women were all a tough sell in the 1600s. But sell he did, and though Roger Williams is far from a household name in 2020, some of his ideas still reverberate through our country and our world.
In this episode, Jim Underdown speaks to Roger Williams' 12th great-granddaughter, Becky Garrison, about her book, Roger Williams's Little Book of Virtues. They speak about and his legacy, dive into his beliefs and their context in the 1600s, and how much of Williams' legacy impacts us today.
Oct 22, 2020
J.R. Becker on the Annabelle and Aiden Book Series and Teaching Children Critical Thinking
Author J.R. Becker joins Leighann Lord in this episode of Point of Inquiry to speak about his book series, Annabelle & Aiden. The series is a pro-science children's book series that explores science, philosophy, and critical thinking. Their conversation dives into:
* What inspired Becker to write the series
* How the books teach critical thinking and a skeptical outlook to children and why that's important
* The push back the series has had from various religious groups
* How adults can enjoy and learn from these books as well
* What's in store in Annabelle & Aiden's future
You can learn more about the Annabelle & Aiden series on annabelleandaiden.com
Oct 8, 2020
Chris Matheson on Writing Bill and Ted and his Books on God and Buddha
Screenwriter and author Chris Matheson joins Jim in this episode which touches on the recently released Bill & Ted Face the Music, then dives deeply into Matheson's two comedic books on the Bible and the Buddha.
In his The Story of God, Chris gets into the mind of what must be an insane and sadistic deity by using the Bible itself to retell the story. In The Buddha's Story, he points his rapier wit at the “Awakened One” -- also through scripture -- and unveils a religious icon most would find rather reprehensible.
Both books find a way to raise incisive questions about key religious figures in a very humorous way. Chris Matheson is one of those rare people who can get people to laugh and learn at the same time.
You can find both of Matheson's books,
The Story of God: A Biblical Comedy about Love (and Hate) and The Buddha's Story on Amazon
We are proud to announce that this episode of Point of Inquiry was sponsored by the Wadsworth-Sheng Fund. Our friends, Spike Wadsworth and Sherry Sheng, are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to thought-provoking content that addresses the big questions in science, religion, politics, and culture. We are grateful for their support. If you would like to learn more about how to support Point of Inquiry or the work of its umbrella organization, the Center for Inquiry, please contact our Director of Development, Connie Skingel, at development@centerforinquiry.org.
Point of Inquiry has a listener survey available that we are asking you to complete! Visit the survey at bit.ly/poisurvey. Filling out the survey will help the show grow and improve as we understand the fine folks who listen. Thank you.
Sep 24, 2020
Rev. Barry W. Lynn on The Supreme Court, Retirement, and His Upcoming Book
The recent passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has left many shaken. A few weeks prior to her passing, Leighann Lord had the opportunity to speak with Rev. Barry Lynn, former executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution’s religious liberty provisions. Rev. Lynn has spent much of his career working between religion, government, and fighting for the rights of marginalized communities.
He and Lord discuss his new retirement and how it was not what he was anticipating, stories from his new book, “You Don’t Know Me - But You Might Have Heard of Some of the People I’ve Met”, the importance of the separation of church and state, the hyper-politicization of US politics, how we've moved away from finding creative compromises, and how this has bred a new kind of evil in men like Tucker Carlson. Finally, Rev. Lynn speaks his views on the Supreme Court and what needs to change for anything meaningful to happen and how even before Justice Ginsburg's passing, the difficultly and unlikelihood that certain policies, like The Green New Deal or Medicare for All, would be passed.
You can find out what Rev. Lynn is up to by visiting his website or twitter.
We are proud to announce that this episode of Point of Inquiry was sponsored by the Wadsworth-Sheng Fund. Our friends, Spike Wadsworth and Sherry Sheng, are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to thought-provoking content that addresses the big questions in science, religion, politics, and culture. We are grateful for their support. If you would like to learn more about how to support Point of Inquiry or the work of its umbrella organization, the Center for Inquiry, please contact our Director of Development, Connie Skingel, at development@centerforinquiry.org.
Point of Inquiry has a listener survey available that we are asking you to complete! Visit the survey at bit.ly/poisurvey. Filling out the survey will help the show grow and improve as we understand the fine folks who listen. Thank you.
Sep 10, 2020
Dr. Raymond Hall on Physicsfun and Teaching Critical Thinking
One professor is using social media to remind us that physics is the real magic of the universe. Through showing off his massive collection of science gadgets and physics toys, Dr. Raymond Hall is teaching many, young and old, the wonderful world of physics and how everyday phenomena is just science in action.
In this episode of Point of Inquiry, Dr. Raymond Hall joins Jim Underdown as Hall explains how his physicsfun Instagram was started and how it launched into popularity, the power of social media to spread awareness of science, physics, and complex topics, Professor Hall's research into why people believe in pseudoscience and magical thinking, and his quest to answer this question: does simply teaching science or methodology innoculate folks from believing misinformation and pseudoscience or do you need to do more?
Dr. Raymond Hall is a professor of Physics at California State University-Fresno. His work has involved working with a team that discovered the top quark, a fundamental particle of nature.
You can see more of his great physicsfun experiments on Instagram and Youtube. This Week's Music
“Idle Ways” by Blue Dot Sessions / CC BY-NC 4.0
“Cold” by Pictures of the Floating World / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
“Teahouse and Bamboo Trees” by springtide / CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Aug 20, 2020
The Brazen Atheist Erin Louis on Countering Conspiracists With Critical Thinking
Would you rather have your children looking at QAnon conspiracy Youtubers or porn online? That's a question author Erin Louis has had to confront with her teenage son. How do you employ critical thinking, media literacy, and a skeptical mindset in the every day world to make a real impact.
In this episode of Point of Inquiry, Erin Louis joins Leighann Lord as they discuss her journey through the freethought movement, countering conspiracists with critical thinking, why she wrote Expose Yourself, stories from her life as a stripper, and how to get over our unconscious or implicit biases.
Erin Louis, also known as the Brazen Atheist, has authored the books EXPOSE YOURSELF: How To Take Risks, Question Everything and Find Yourself - Humor and Insights From My Life As a Stripper, Dirty Money: Memoirs of a Stripper, and Think You Want To Be A Stripper? Her goal is to facilitate and foster self acceptance and critical thinking. You can follow Erin on her website erinlouis.com and on twitter @ErinLouis666
Jul 23, 2020
Steven Hassan on Breaking Down The Cult of Trump
The names Jim Jones, L.Ron Hubbard, David Koresh, and Sun Myung Moon might come to mind when someone uses the term cult leader. Many have suggested that Donald Trump falls into the category. But does Trump himself truly qualify as a cult leader? Can Trump's followers be correctly described as a cult?
In this episode of Point of Inquiry, Steven Hassan joins Jim Underdown as they dive into persuasive reasoning, the work of BJ Fogg's persuasive marketing technology used widely on social media platforms, why cults are successful, the processes involved that lead people into joining a cult, and why the President of the United States can accurately be described as a cult leader.
Steven Hassan, is an expert on Undue Influence, brainwashing and unethical hypnosis and author of the best-selling book, Combating Cult Mind Control. He is a licensed mental health professional and cult expert. Steven helps people leave destructive cults after he was deprogrammed and left Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. He is the founding director of the Freedom of Mind Resource Center. He developed the BITE and Influence Continuum models to assess what control methods an individual or group uses and where they fall on a continuum from not harmful to extremely harmful.
Jul 9, 2020
Anthony Pinn on Religion, Oppression, and Humanists
In this episode of Point of Inquiry, co-host Leighann Lord talks with professor, writer, and humanist Dr. Anthony Pinn.
Lord and Pinn discuss the power and persistence of magical thinking as we face the current pandemic, the role of the church at a time when science is so important, Black Lives Matter and Pinn's opinion on struggle and progress, how women of color deal with oppression based on race, gender, and class, and the issue with respectability politics. Pinn also proposes the question, "What does our nontheistic perspective offer folks at this moment? What do we offer them beyond the critique of religion?" as we face the pandemic and the ever growing need for honest discussions and action on the issues of race.
Anthony Pinn received his Ph.D. in the Study of Religion from Harvard University, and is currently the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University. He is also the Founding Director of The Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning at Rice University, and Director of Research at The Institute for Humanist Studies. Among his many books are Writing God’s Obituary: How a Good Methodist Became a Better Atheist and When Colorblindness Isn’t the Answer: Humanism and the Challenge of Race.
Jun 26, 2020
Scientology in Hollywood | A Guided Tour
Looming over the sidewalk of Hollywood, California are tens of millions of dollars of buildings owned by the Church of Scientology. This beleaguered religion may have had a decade of bad PR, but they still own a substantial amount of real estate in California and Florida.
In this week's episode of Point of Inquiry, Jim Underdown decided to ride his bike to six major Scientology facilities in Hollywood. Activist Tory Christman, who spent 30 years in the "Church" of Scientology, spoke with Jim the following day to sit down and walk listeners through what happens in these buildings. You can follow along below with the pictures that Jim took while on his bike.
Jun 9, 2020
Monuments to Misinformation | The Ark Experience & Creation Museum
A short drive south of Cincinnati, OH, lie two well-funded, well-executed museums dedicated to the telling of biblical "history." The Creation Museum and the Ark Experience came about through Answers in Genesis, a Christian Apologetics organization, and its founder and CEO, Ken Ham.
While the modern science-based community always found fault in these propaganda factories' notions about the age of the earth (6000 years), and the theory of evolution (it's wrong) -- among myriad other beliefs -- the Ark Encounter brought a new layer of controversy to the table when it was granted land, cash, and tax kickbacks by local government and the state of Kentucky at taxpayers expense.
A documentary called We Believe in Dinosaurs looks at some of the issues surrounding these facilities through the eyes of both believers and skeptics.
Joining Jim Underdown on this episode of Point of Inquiry are Rob Boston, Communications Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Dan Phelps…
May 21, 2020
The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe and Science-Based Medicine's Steven Novella
In this episode of Point of Inquiry, cohost Leighann Lord talks with famous skeptic and Assistant Professor of Neurology, Steven Novella, MD.
Novella is also the founder and current Executive Editor of Science-Based Medicine which explores issues and controversies between science and medicine and works to expose dangerous medical scams and practices. He is also the host of the popular weekly podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. Novella also has a series of insightful courses on critical thinking that he has published through Great Courses.
In this week's interview, Lord and Novella speak about the ongoing battle to fight scientific ignorance especially during the current Covid-19 outbreak, how Novella's Science-Based Medicine has stepped up to counter vast amounts of misinformation about the disease, the relationship between doctors and patients when there's hard news to deliver, how we all have blind spots in our thinking that hinder our curiosity and skepticism, and the…
May 7, 2020
Ian Harris on Comedy, Skeptical Audiences, and Atheism
In this episode of Point of Inquiry, cohost Leighann Lord talks with fellow comic Ian Harris.
Besides being a comedian, Harris is a voice actor, writer, director, and MMA trainer. He is also an outspoken atheist and skeptic who confronts magical thinking and religion in his comedy. In 2019, Leighann Lord and Harris joined forces and performed their mainstage show at Dragon Con. That show, dubbed “The Science and Fiction Comedy Show,” blended nerdom (it's Drgaon Con after all!), atheism, skepticism, and science.
In this engaging interview with Lord, Harris tells us about what it's like to perform skeptical comedy for audiences and lets us in on the type of audience that gives the best laughs. Harris explains how he effectively uses his comedy to teach people skeptical and critical thinking. He's seen certain topics, such as climate change, become politicized and divorced from science. It’s his hope to rectify that with his comedy. Lord and Harris also dive into the observation t…
Apr 23, 2020
Mandisa Thomas on Black Nonbelievers and the Atheist Community
On this week's episode, Leighann Lord speaks with Mandisa Thomas, president of Black Nonbelievers. Black Nonbelievers connect with other Black folks and allies who have chosen to live without religion. They serve as a community for those who have been otherwise shunned by family and friends. From the Black Nonbelievers' website, "Instead of accepting dogma, we seek to determine truth and morality through reason and evidence."
Leighann and Mandisa have a frank and honest discussion about their shared experience of what it's like to exist in the atheist community as women of color and how things they've seen and witnessed may be holding the atheist community back from growing. They also discuss the importance of critical thinking and introspection and how growing up as a New Yorker has helped Mandisa navigate a world as an atheist women of color running a national organization. You can follow what Mandisa and Black Nonbelievers are up to on twitter @mandy0904 and @BNonbelievers.
You c…
Apr 9, 2020
Kurt Andersen, Fantastyland, and How Irrational Thought Worsened the Pandemic
Kurt Andersen is the author of the novels Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History (2017), True Believers (2012), Heyday (2007), and Turn of the Century (1999). He's also written for film, television, and the stage and is the former host and co-creator of the Peabody Award winning Studio 360, a weekly radio show about arts and culture. He regularly appears as a commentator on MSNBC, CNN, PBS, and the BBC. He is also the former editor of New York Magazine and co-creator of Spy magazine.
On this week's episode Andersen speaks with Point of Inquiry's new host, Leighann Lord, to discuss his book, Fantasyland and if the United State's "fantasyland" thinking helped create the current predicament the country finds itself dealing with. Andersen and Lord offer context on Fantasyland to better understand what happens when the departure from empirical reality-based thought plays out during a global pandemic. You can also watch Andersen's CSICon talk where he goes into riveting d…
Mar 11, 2020
Recognizing Misinformation and Staying Safe from Coronavirusa
Coronavirus continues to infect more and more people around the world. As the number of infected grows so does the misinformation surrounding the virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. From fake and explicitly dangerous cures, like drinking bleach to folklorish myths and conspiracies on the origins of the virus, institutions like the CDC and the World Health Organization are doing what they can to not only battle the virus itself but also the overwhelming amount of misleading information on social media and the web.
In this week's episode, Jim Underdown speaks with Ben Radford to debunk the most common myths and pieces of misinformation surrounding the coronavirus. How did it really begin? What can be done to prevent it? How has racism and xenophobia contributed to the spreading of various myths? Radford has also recently published an article on CFI where he goes into more detail on the virus's myths and conspiracies.
Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer scie…
Feb 20, 2020
Professor Elizabeth Loftus on False Memories
Can our memories be trusted if they are easily manipulated by suggestions? Where is the line between repressed memories that bubble up to the surface and false memories that never existed?
In this week's episode, Jim Underdown speaks to Professor Elizabeth Loftus on what happens in the courtroom when a person's memory of events are a result of suggestion or coercion. Loftus recounts various legal cases she's been involved with where wrongful convictions resulted from false memories implanted in the mind of a witness by family members, prosecutors, or persons of authority. Work done by Harvard professor, Richard McNally has looked into the likelihood for someone to truly have a repressed or recovered memory in relation to past traumas.
Loftus is a professor of psychology and law at the University of California, Irvine. She has given a TED talk on the manipulation of memories, has published numerous articles and books, and has served as an expert witness or consultant in hundreds of c…
Feb 6, 2020
Where Are We In The Battle For Church State Separation
Where does the separation of church and state stand with a conservative majority in the Supreme Court? The short answer: not great.
In this week's episode, Jim Underdown speaks to CFI board member, lawyer, atheist, and human rights activist, Eddie Tabash on how the Founding Fathers viewed religion and law, the religious ties of the newest Supreme Court justices, and where we go from here.
Jan 23, 2020
Is a Good God Logically Possible? | James Sterba
James Sterba is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, USA. His book, Is a Good God Logically Possible? deals with the Argument from Evil and whether a God who is all good and all powerful is logically compatible in a world where moral and natural evil exists.
Sterba sits down with Underdown to discuss the arguments for and against the existence of God, how Sterba's history as a member of a religious order and later Professor of Philosophy led him to write his book, and the finer points of the argument.
Jan 9, 2020
Playwright and Actor Ian Ruskin on Thomas Paine
Ian Ruskin is a producer, writer, actor and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He has starred in theatre, television, and film in both the UK and the US. He has written and performed in various one man plays, From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks which details the life of Australian-born American union leader, Harry Bridges and To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine. To learn more about or contact Ian Ruskin visit: www.ianruskin.org
In this week's interview, Jim Underdown and Ruskin discuss the life of Thomas Paine, his influence on politics and religion, and what Ian learned about Paine in his work preparing for The Life of Thomas Paine.
In 1775, a man who had lived 37 remarkably unremarkable years in England arrived in Philadelphia. He then proceeded to change the world. His pen ignited the American Revolution, defined the French Revolution and articulated the concept of Reason. For this he was nearly hanged in England, nearly guillotined in Fr…
Dec 12, 2019
Dawkins on his new Book Outgrowing God
Richard Dawkins is the recipient of a number of awards for his writing on science, including the Royal Society of Literature Award and the LA Times Literary Prize, he has also been awarded the Royal Society Michael Faraday Award for the furtherance of the public understanding of science. He is the author of a number of critically acclaimed books, such as The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Unweaving the Rainbow, The Devil’s Chaplain, and The Ancestor’s Tale.
In this week's interview with Jim Underdown, Dawkins discusses his newest book, Outgrowing God, designed for young people. It is Dawkin's attempt to address the cyclical nature of growing up religious.
Nov 29, 2019
Professor Chris French - Anomalistic Psychology and Conspiracy Theories in Politics
Chris French is a British psychologist and prominent skeptic focusing on the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences. He is currently Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, is head of their Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit which he founded in 2000, and former Editor-in-Chief of The Skeptic (UK) magazine.
Jim talks with Chris on the trajectory of the skeptics movement in the UK and US and how they both became involved, what it's like to run Skeptics in the Pub, and how skeptics have widened their focus from the paranormal to fake news and political conspiracy theories.
Nov 14, 2019
Richard Wiseman on the Skeptics Movement and Tricking People
Richard Wiseman is Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in England. Richard began his career as a professional magician before pursuing a career in psychology, and developing a reputation for research into luck, deception, the paranormal, humor, and the science of self-help.
Wiseman joins Jim Underdown in London where they both attended the presentation of the Richard Dawkins Award to Ricky Gervais. Wiseman was the interviewer of Dawkins and Gervais on stage at the event. Jim talks with Wiseman on his history in the skeptics movement and how he got started, his work performing psychology experiments on the people of Britain, debunking the myths of misconceptions around positive psychology, and why he continues to be involved in the movement.
Oct 31, 2019
ECSO President, Claire Klingenberg on the State of Skepticism
The European Council of Skeptical Organisations (ECSO) is an umbrella of skeptical organizations throughout the EU that investigate claims of pseudoscience, and defend scientific integrity and practice in research, education, medicine, and public policy.
Point of Inquiry co-host Kavin Senapathy attended the 2019 European Skeptics Congress in Ghent, Belgium, where she presented during the session on "Green Skepticism." While there, Senapathy had the opportunity to put her head together with some of the most respected skeptics in the world, including ECSO president Claire Klingenberg.
In this episode, Kavin and Claire dive into the current state of the skeptics movement around the world, and what the future of skepticism may look like. Claire explains what she sees as the ideological difference between the American skeptical movement and the European skeptical movement and the interplay between politics and skepticism. They also break down how the social sciences fit into skept…
Oct 17, 2019
How Defy Ventures Reduces Recidivism with Rehabilitation
In the second part of this two-part series on the prison system reform, Jim Underdown speaks with Andrew Glazier, president of Defy Ventures, on the high recidivism rates in prisons, how Glazier and Defy Ventures are improving prison inmate rehabilitation, and what happens to communities when people are kept locked up indefinitely.
Defy Ventures is a nonprofit organization that helps current and formerly incarcerated adults with career-readiness and entrepreneurial training programs. You can learn more about the work Defy Ventures is doing by visiting their website or follow them on Twitter.
Oct 3, 2019
Former Security Guard and Atheist Activist Steve Hill on the Prison System
How humane are prisons in the U.S.? And what is their purpose – to punish or to rehabilitate?
This is part one of a two-part series that dives into the prison system, what it looks like from the inside, how it destroys the lives of black and brown folks who have been overpoliced and tossed into the prison system for decades, and the work being done to counteract that system.
After a field trip to a California state prison, Jim Underdown spoke to Steve Hill about his frank experiences as a prison security guard and what he thinks about the future of the prison system. Steve Hill is an atheist activist, Comedian politician, a former marine, and former prison security guard who worked in the California penal system as a prison guard for ten years.
Sep 19, 2019
Angela Saini on the Return of Race Science
Even though there’s growing awareness that race is a social construct — it defies biological definition — it’s really hard to let go of a concept that feels so real. There’s also a temptation for progressive, more or less decent human beings, who wouldn’t consider themselves racist, to define racism as something that happens on the far right, among Neo-Nazis, the KKK, and people sporting MAGA hats.
Turns out that’s not the case. At all.
One of the most pervasive issues when it comes to race is the science. What does the history of race science have to do with today’s science on human variation? Why do modern scientists need to grapple with the legacy of racial definition and oppression? How does the centuries-old mythology of race impact the practice of medicine well into the 21st century?
On this episode of Point of Inquiry, Kavin Senapathy speaks with author Angela Saini about her book Superior: The Return of Race Science. The Telegraph advises “philosophically…
Sep 5, 2019
Dr. Sarah Taber on the Myth of the Destruction of Family Farms
Point of Inquiry co-host Kavin Senapathy has covered food and agriculture for years, and if she’s learned one thing, it’s that people’s views on farming are rife with misconceptions. The conversation around food is complex, and involves a slew of gray areas and mountains of data.
Enter Dr. Sarah Taber. She’s the host of the Farm to Taber Podcast, a farm and food systems strategist, and one of Twitter’s most prolific and eye-opening agriculture myth-busters. Taber’s work has included food safety, regulatory compliance, crop care, and making work flows as efficient as possible in farms and facilities.
On this episode, Kavin speaks with Dr. Taber on agriculture and the myth of the destruction of family farms. Part of this myth involves tackling whether big agribusiness destroyed these farms, and what sharecropping has to do with it. Topics also include how racism against various ethnicities displaced our country's farmworkers, what really separates family and corporate farm…
Aug 22, 2019
Jerry Minor - From Jehovah’s Witness to Comedian
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes actor, comedian, and former Jehovah's Witness, Jerry Minor. Minor has been a cast member and writer on Saturday Night Live and appeared on HBO's Mr. Show and various other television and film spots throughout his career. He joins Jim Underdown to dive into his life during and after being a Jehovah’s Witness. They also get into how the Jehovah's Witness religion drove Minor to attempt suicide, the different Christianity sects and how Minor views them as cults, and how his past faith has shaped his career as a comedian and entertainer.
Together with friend, Tony Ortega, Underdown and Minor host their own podcast, The Cult Awareness Podcast, where they explore the latest in cult news.
Please share this episode either through a tweet, email, facebook, postcard, or letter with friends and family. Your support helps the show and we appreciate it.
Aug 8, 2019
Clearing Up the Concept of Risk Assessment
How well do you think you can assess risk? The evidence is clear that humans are innately poor at assessing risk in our personal lives, in part due to how our brains are wired, and that can make it challenging to make informed decisions about everything from vaccines and medicines to diet and children’s safety. Errors in risk perception can be a problem when we worry more than the evidence says we need to, or less than the evidence says we should.
On this week’s episode, Kavin Senapathy speaks with neuroscientist Alison Bernstein and biologist Iida Ruishalme, who teamed up to write a series of articles titled “Risk In Perspective.” The interview takes listeners through key concepts in risk and risk perception, including the difference between hazard and risk, and whether zero risk is ever really possible. How can putting risk into perspective inform regulatory actions? How does environmental justice tie into health and risk perception? How are marketers taking advantage of our…
Jul 25, 2019
Julia Sweeney on Atheism, Saturday Night Live, and Me Too
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes comedian, monologist, and atheist, Julia Sweeney. Many may know Sweeney from her time on Saturday Night Live, her appearances on NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!, and from her current roles on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Hulu's Shrill.
Jim Underdown sat down with Sweeney at CFI West to discuss her time working on SNL, dealing with her catholic faith after the passing of her brother to cancer, how Carl Sagan, Michael Shermer, and CFI helped her become an atheist, her experiences navigating Hollywood as a non-believer, and her conflicting opinions surrounding the Me Too movement after her good friend, Al Franken was accused of misconduct.
If you've never seen it before, Sweeney's, "Letting Go of God" talk is highly recommended for those who became atheists after living with a religious point of view. You can find Sweeney on twitter: @JIsbackintown.
Jul 11, 2019
Why Do People Love Umami but Fear MSG?
Why do people love the taste of Umami but avoid monosodium glutamate (MSG), which is the purest form of Umami on Earth? In this episode of Point of Inquiry, Kavin Senapathy speaks with experts on MSG— which was first isolated by Japanese chemist Dr. Kikunae Ikeda— to explore this culinary and scientific disconnect.
Tia Rains, PhD, is currently Senior Director of Public Relations at Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition (Ajinomoto was founded in 1907 to manufacture and sell Ikeda’s MSG). She has over 20 years of experience in the fields of food and nutrition.
Mary Lee Chin MS, RD, has been involved in dietetics for over 40 years. She consults with food industry and commodity groups; including Monsanto, Ajinomoto, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
In 1968, a letter was published in the New England Journal of Medicine about “numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, and general weakness and palpitation” after eating food from Chine…
Jun 27, 2019
Diving into the Lawsuit Against Walmart and Fraudulent Homeopathic Medicines
The Center for Inquiry has filed a lawsuit against Walmart for deceiving its customers with marketing, labeling, and product placement that present homeopathic medicines as equivalent and effective alternatives to science-based medicines with tested active ingredients. The lawsuit argues that this is not only consumer fraud, but also endangers the health of the people who purchase homeopathic remedies thinking that they contain actual medicine.
The suit against Walmarts comes just a few months after the Center for Inquiry filed a similar lawsuit against CVS for fraud over the sale of fake homeopathic drugs. In this episode of Point of Inquiry, Kavin Senapathy speaks with Nick Little, Center for Inquiry's legal director and general counsel, on the history of homeopathy and how it differs from other kinds of alternative medicines, and why CFI is bringing a suit against the nation's largest retailer. They also discuss the responsibility retailers have to provide truthful information to…
Jun 13, 2019
Meet Science for the People
Science for the People began as a group in 1969 that grew out of the anti-war movement and lasted until 1989. SftP has been rebirthed for a new generation of SftP members to explore the history of radical science and to rebuild the movement for today.
In this week's episode of Point of Inquiry, Kavin Senapathy speaks with two SftP members, biologist, Ben Allen and neuroscientist, Katherine Bryant.
If science is a form of knowledge production and the knowledge being produced only focuses on a particular set of people, that knowledge can then tend to become skewed towards those groups and lead to reinforcing biases. This is only one of the topics explored on this week's episode as these two representatives from the radical science organization, Science for the People explore the problems with science, why there needs to be more inclusivity in the field, and why the people who support pseudoscientific beliefs like genetic determinism and climate denial are much more harmful to us all t…
May 30, 2019
Matt Walsh On The Road To Hollywood, His Secular Wedding, and More
On this week's episode of Point of Inquiry, Jim Underdown speaks with longtime friend, actor, writer, and comedian Matt Walsh. This episode may be different from what you're used to as we take a break from examining science, culture, and religion and instead give you the chance to get to know one of Point of Inquiry's new hosts.
Underdown has been close friends with Matt Walsh for over 30 years. Many may know Walsh from his role as Mike McLintock on the show Veep, which recently aired its series finale. The two grew up in Chicago where they both performed improv comedy before Walsh went on to form the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in New York City along with members Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, and Ian Roberts.
Walsh has appeared in numerous films, television shows, and has toured the country performing. He also is involved with various charities and socially impactful causes like The Awesome Foundation and Defy Ventures, which aims to end mass incarceration and the recidivism rate.…
May 16, 2019
Dr. Jenny Yip on OCD, Anxiety, and Mental Health
On this week's episode of Point of Inquiry, Dr. Jenny Yip discusses OCD and anxiety and the widespread impact these can have on our lives as well as how they're exhibited in different people. Kavin Senapathy and Dr. Yip share their own experiences with OCD and anxiety disorders and Dr. Yip shares her insight into effective and ineffective treatments for OCD and anxiety.
You can find out more about Dr. Yip's work by listening to her podcast, The Stress-Less Life. You can also follow her on Twitter: @DrJennyYip
May 2, 2019
Carol Tavris And Avrum Bluming On The Myth That Estrogen Causes Breast Cancer
This week’s episode of Point of Inquiry Jim Underdown speaks with Carol Tavris, social psychologist and author of Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) and Avrum Bluming, hematologist, medical oncologist, and emeritus clinical professor at USC about the common myth in the medical field surrounding the link between breast cancer and estrogen.
The talk centers around their recent book, Estrogen Matters which examines the practice of administering estrogen to women suffering from symptoms of menopause and the push back they received due to a long-held misconception that estrogen leads to an increased chance of contracting breast cancer. Tavris and Bluming's work illustrates the important need for critical thinking, especially in the area of health where people's well-being is constantly at stake and how people will often times not accept information when it is in their best interest to do so.
Apr 18, 2019
Massimo Pigliucci and Susan Blackmore on Scientism and Subjectivity
This week's episode of Point of Inquiry is our final episode recorded from CSICon 2018. We're closing this series of interviews with Professor Massimo Pigliucci who discusses his ideas on scientism and how it's used by people like Sam Harris, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins with host Kavin Senapathy. Also featured on this episode is Professor Susan Blackmore who discusses her out of body experiences and whose research has centered around consciousness, memes, and subjectivity.
Prof. Massimo Pigliucci has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee. He currently is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His research interests include the philosophy of biology, the relationship between science and philosophy, the nature of pseudoscience, and the practical philosophy of Stoicism.
Susan Blackmore is a psychologist, lecturer, and writer researching consciousness, memes,…
Apr 4, 2019
The Secret Sting Operation to Expose Celeb Psychics with Susan Gerbic
On this week's episode of Point of Inquiry, we are thrilled to have friend of the Center for Inquiry, Susan Gerbic to talk about the recent New York Times featured story that detailed Gerbic and her team's work exposing celebrity psychics. Kavin Senapathy and Gerbic also explore why exposing fake psychics and mediums is important, the methodologies Gerbic and her team employ in these kinds of sting operations, how psychics performed hot reads before the days of the internet (and exactly what a hot read is), and the issues that arise from companies giving mediums and psychics platforms.
Susan Gerbic is the cofounder of Monterey County Skeptics and a self-proclaimed skeptical junkie. Susan is also founder of the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project. She is a frequent contributor to Skeptical Inquirer (CSICOP) and Skepticality Podcast. She is the winner of the CSI In the Trenches Award from 2012, James Randi Award for Skepticism in the Public Interest 2013. In 2018, Susan fo…
Mar 21, 2019
Mark Boslough on the Dangers of Climate Change and Destructive Asteroids
Mark Boslough is a Caltech-trained physicist and CSI Fellow who spent 34 years at Sandia National Laboratories doing research on hypervelocity impacts, energetic materials, explosions, and global risk from asteroid impacts and climate change. He has participated in many science documentaries with field expeditions to airburst locations including the Libyan Desert of Egypt in 2006, Tunguska in 2008, Chelyabinsk in 2013, and the Nevada Test Site in 2017.
Underdown sits down with Boslough to refute the ridiculous beliefs over climate change and what we can do now to counter the Earth's warming. They also spend time speaking about the impact asteroids have had on the Earth and clearing up definitions between asteroids and meteoroids, and comets. New music heard on this episode
"Wahre" by Blue Dot Sessions / CC BY-NC 4.0
"SuzyB" by Blue Dot Sessions / CC BY-NC 4.0
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Mar 7, 2019
Carl Zimmer and Paul Offit on Genetics, Race, and Vaccinations at CSICon 2018
We find ourselves in the information age among many who, although have the access to proper and accurate scientific information, choose not to believe it.
What causes the parents of a newborn to avoid vaccines? Where do the misconceptions of genetics originate? Today on Point of Inquiry, Kavin Senapathy talks with Carl Zimmer and Dr. Paul A Offit while at CSICon 2018 about their research into vaccinations, science denial, and how some groups in the US have tried to use genes and heredity to argue in favor of white supremacy.
Carl Zimmer is an award-winning New York Times columnist and the author of 13 books about science. His newest book is She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity
You can find Zimmer on twitter: twitter.com/carlzimmer
Paul A. Offit, MD is the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as well as the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a Professor of Pediatrics at the Pere…
Feb 21, 2019
The New Stars of Skeptical Investigation
The world of skeptical investigation is full of interesting personalities full of stories about their run-ins with ghost chasers, debunking charlatans, and dealing with "magic". Today on Point of Inquiry, Jim Underdown talks with Massimo Polidoro and Kenny Biddle while at CSICon 2018 about what they've been through as two of the top investigators in the skeptic movement.
In this episode, Massimo speaks about the fascinating details around the life of genius, Leonardo da Vinci and about his new book, Leonardo.
Jim and Massimo also speak about Massimo's training under James Randi to be a magician and about Sherlock Holme's creator, Arthur Conan Doyle and his fascination with the occult and spiritualism, specifically Conan Doyle's fascination with The Cottingley Fairies and Princess Mary's Gift Book.
Jim and Kenny speak about Kenny's work with Skeptical Inquirer, The Independent Investigations Group, and Kenny's previous life as a ghost chaser.
Massimo Polidoro is a writer and an inte…
Feb 7, 2019
Twitter’s Resident Gynecologist And The Crusher Of The Gender Binary
Dr. Jen Gunter is an OB/GYN, pain medicine physician, and Twitter's resident gynecologist. She blogs and also writes The Cycle, a column on the intersection sex, science, and society, for the New York Times.
One day she hopes to ask Gwyneth Paltrow for the physics equation that explains how a jade egg can be recharged with lunar energy.
Abby Hafer is an author, scientist, educator, and public speaker. Her scientific career includes a doctorate in zoology from Oxford University and teaching human anatomy and physiology at Curry College. She has recently broadened her scope to include crushing the gender binary using biology, and giving the same treatment to morality based on the supernatural.
This week on Point of Inquiry, Kavin Senapthy speaks to Jen Gunter and Abby Hafer (recorded during CSICon 2018). Jen chats about how she combats misinformation from Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop and the settlement the company had to pay for fraudulent health claims linked to their magical Jade Eggs. Sh…
Jan 24, 2019
The Battle for Young Minds - Bertha Vazquez on Teaching Evolution in Schools
As science standards across the country improve to include middle school standards on evolution, more and more teachers are teaching evolution for the first time and the battle to teach sound science moves into the individual classrooms themselves. The Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES) is a program of the Center for Inquiry. TIES seeks to helps teachers teach evolution by providing them with the content and resources to do so effectively. In just three and a half years, TIES has grown from a powerful idea shared by Richard Dawkins and Bertha Vazquez to a network of over fifty teachers who have presented over 100 professional development workshops in over 40 states.
TIES Director Bertha Vazquez has been teaching middle school science in Miami-Dade County Public Schools for 27 years. An educator with National Board Certification, she is the recipient of several national and local honors, including the 2014 Samsung’s $150,000 Solve For Tomorrow Contest and the $5,000 Ch…
Jan 10, 2019
Adam Conover and Tim Caulified on The Algorithm, Gwyneth Paltrow, Netflix and more
Adam Conover is the creator and host of Adam Ruins Everything, an informational comedy show that debunks common misconceptions and encourages critical thinking. The New York Times calls it “one of history’s most entertaining shows dedicated to the art of debunking” and refers to Adam as a “genial provocateur”.
He is a founding member of the sketch group Olde English, who performed at HBO’s Comedy Fest in Aspen and was named “Best Sketch Group on the Web” by Cracked.com. As a standup comedian, he performs at colleges and theaters across the country.
Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health, and Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta. His interdisciplinary research on topics like stem cells, genetics, research ethics, the public representations of science and health policy issues has allowed him to publish over 350 academic articles.
He h…
May 17, 2018
The Odyssey of the Plutophiles: Alan Stern and David Grinspoon on the Voyage of New Horizons
In July of 2015, a spacecraft called New Horizons gave humankind its first close-up view of a small, misunderstood world called Pluto. It took almost 10 years for New Horizons to soar across more than 3 billion miles of space and give us our first meeting with Pluto and its family of moons.
But that journey is just a small part of a much bigger and more harrowing story of how New Horizons came to be. It was a mission that was decades in the making, an endeavor that endured several near-death experiences, from its early planning stages all the way to the eve of its encounter with Pluto.
Our guests are now telling this incredible story in the new book Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto, having experienced this adventure first-hand and from two very different perspectives. Alan Stern is the principle investigator of the New Horizons mission, and his co-author, David Grinspoon, is an astrobiologist, author, and advisor to NASA who witnessed the New Horizons saga…
Dec 29, 2017
Trying to Throw Science at Them: Yvette d'Entremont and Kavin Senapathy on Food, Fads, and Fear
We are living in a land of confusion, as the band Genesis warned us back in 1986, but even they could not have predicted just how much more confusing things would get 31 years later. With a storm of misinformation engulfing almost every field of human endeavor, 2017 was ripe with confusion. And one of the most bewildering subjects is also one of the most personal: our health.
With celebrity gurus pitching pseudoscientific nonsense, conflicting news stories about what will and won't kill you, and an entire culture of hyper-privilege teaching people to be suspicious of science, people are being made to be afraid of their food. And there's a lot of money to made off of that fear.
To help us navigate these choppy waters, Point of Inquiry host Paul Fidalgo is joined by two brilliant science communicators; Kavin Senapathy, a science and parenting columnist and co-author of The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House; and Yvette d'Entremont, better known as the SciBabe, whose writin…
Dec 6, 2017
Margaret Sullivan: Reckoning and Redemption for the Reality-Based Press
In the post-truth world, the mainstream media is beset on all sides. Peddlers of propaganda, misinformation, and conspiracy theories seek to strip the media of its authority by creating parallel realities and fomenting anger and mistrust. At the same time, poor editorial judgments and a toxic culture of sexism have landed countless self-inflected wounds. How can a reality-based press ever hope to fulfill its mission to seek the truth, hold power accountable, and leave the public more informed?
There may be no one better positioned to answer these questions than Margaret Sullivan. She's the media columnist for The Washington Post, and previously spent three and half years at The New York Times as its Public Editor, and as the first woman to be chief editor of The Buffalo News. She joins host Paul Fidalgo to talk about the crises facing journalism today, and why the reality-based press now finds itself at an inflection point: Its flaws have been exposed, and yet it is also producing som…
Sep 27, 2017
Lee Billings on the Search for Life in a Silent Universe
It’s a big cosmos out there. It wasn’t too long ago that we couldn’t be sure that any planets existed anywhere outside of our own solar system. But in just the past handful of years, we’ve learned that planets orbiting stars are the rule, not the exception, which suggests that there may be 200 billion planets just in our galaxy alone, and trillions upon trillions of planets throughout the known universe. Surely, many of the planets in the Milky Way must be home to life forms, and even technologically advanced civilizations.
So where the heck are they? Why can’t we find them? Why won’t they talk to us? Would we even know it if they did? To talk about the prospects for life on other worlds, intelligent and otherwise, Point of Inquiry host Paul Fidalgo talks to journalist Lee Billings. Lee is a reporter and editor for Scientific American covering space and physics, as well as the author of Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars.
Billings explains…
Aug 24, 2017
Be Not Constrained: James Croft on Humanists’ Responsibility to Fight Oppression
The modern conception of secular humanism arose in large part as a response to the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust, and the evils of racism and bigotry. Humanist Manifesto II, written in 1973, called for “the elimination of all discrimination based upon race, religion, sex, age, or national origin,” and envisioned a world in which all human beings were given equal dignity within a global community.
It is now two weeks since newly emboldened white supremacists, including Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen, marched on Charlottesville, attacked counter-protesters, and murdered Heather Heyer. President Trump has exacerbated the ensuing tension and fear by refusing to assign full responsibility to the white supremacists, and insisting that the blame be shared by some contingent of an alleged “alt-left.”
It is time for humanism to respond once again. Our guest for this episode of Point of Inquiry is James Croft of the St. Louis Ethical Society, who encourages us to fully live out the v…
Jul 18, 2017
Space Reporter Loren Grush: Hope and Hubris in Space Exploration
The U.S. space program is both beloved and neglected. It brings us breathtaking pictures from distant worlds and drives the human species to push itself farther out into the cosmos. But at the same time, it is subject to terrestrial political concerns, and without the urgency of a Cold War-era “moonshot” to galvanize the public’s enthusiasm, U.S. space policy is at times directionless, and always underfunded.
To talk about the state of space exploration, Point of Inquiry host Paul Fidalgo talks to Loren Grush, space reporter for The Verge, and previously of Popular Science. They discuss space policy in the Trump era, the challenges NASA faces to realize its ambitions, the grand promises of the private space industry, the prospects and perils for a human mission to Mars, the hostility women continue to face within the space community, and much more.
Oh, and we’ll also find out what it was that Mike Pence touched at the Kennedy Space Center that he was told not to touch.
Links…
Jun 12, 2017
Elizabeth Kolbert on Coming to Grips with a Warming Planet
We want to believe that climate change can be stopped, that humanity can summon the political will to take decisive and meaningful action to avert disaster and save civilization. But the difficult reality is that even if we make our very best efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is coming. The real question now is how bad are we going to allow it to get?
There is perhaps no one better suited to discuss humanity’s unwitting impact on the planet than this episode’s guest, Elizabeth Kolbert. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History and as a staff writer at The New Yorker she has chronicled the agonizing but undeniable realities of the ecological damage wrought by humans and the complicated politics of confronting — or ignoring — that damage.
Kolbert talks to Point of Inquiry host Paul Fidalgo about how we as a society and as individuals think and talk about climate change and the inevitable environmental and politi…
Jun 2, 2017
Carl Pope on Trump, Paris, and the Climate: We’re Going to Be Okay
On June 1, President Donald Trump declared that he was withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord, an international agreement meant to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the global average temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. For those who accept the reality of the threat posed by climate change, the news has sparked a good deal of anger, outrage, and not a small amount of despair for the fate of our planet.
Despair not, says our guest, Carl Pope, the former Executive Director of the Sierra Club, and the co-author of the optimistic new book _Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses and Citizens Can Save the Planet_, co-written with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In a timely conversation with _Point of Inquiry’s_ new host Paul Fidalgo (in his first episode as host!), Pope rejects doomsday attitudes about global warming, insisting that the window to stop climate change has not closed. He’ll tell us why he’s…
May 3, 2017
Show Update - Get Ready for Point of Inquiry: The Next Generation
Don’t touch that podcast!
Yes, Lindsay Beyerstein and Josh Zepps have moved on to new endeavors, but a new chapter for Point of Inquiry is about to begin, with new hosts and a new format.
In this quick update the hosts-to-be will tell us a little bit about themselves and preview what they have planned for Point of Inquiry’s new direction.
So stay subscribed to Point of Inquiry in your podcast app of choice, and look for new episodes starting in June.
Apr 24, 2017
Is Anybody Listening? Jill Tarter on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Jill Tarter holds the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, CA where she also served as the former director of the Center for SETI Research. She was also a Project Scientist for NASA’s SETI program and has conducted a number of observational programs at radio observatories worldwide. Since funding for NASA’s SETI program was cut in 1993, she has worked to secure private funding so that SETI may continue to explore.
In this conversation with _Point of Inquiry_ host Josh Zepps, Tarter discusses the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, how we go about looking for it, and why the search is so important to humanity. Zepps presses Tarter on the possible dangers of finding life outside our world, what it means to be alive in the first place, and the potential threats we face with artificial intelligence on our own planet.
*Special note from the Center for Inquiry:* This is Josh Zepp’s…
Apr 11, 2017
Sarah Posner: How Trump Got His Hands on the Religious Right
How did a man living an ostensibly godless, hedonistic life become the champion of the very groups who one would expect to denounce his behavior? Being a real estate mogul and reality TV star, it’s no secret to anyone that President Trump has spent far more time in country clubs than churches. A man who’s had several wives, owned casinos and bars, and had multiple accusations of sexual assault leveled against him is hardly the pinnacle of virtue the religious right professes to yearn for. Trump’s aggressively nationalistic campaign rhetoric clearly appealed to the so-called “alt-right,” but he could not have won the election without simultaneously appealing to religious conservatives. So what happened?
Today’s guest is investigative journalist Sarah Posner, whose expertise in reporting on religion and the conservative movement enable her to unravel the reasoning behind Trump’s success with evangelical Christians. Posner’s newest piece for _The New Republic_ is "https:…
Apr 4, 2017
Paul Offit: The Fate of Science in an Age of Darkness
While science was once the force that propelled humanity into an age of enlightenment, a pernicious fear of science and the unknown threatens to plunge society to into an age of darkness. So says Dr. Paul Offit, a groundbreaking immunologist, and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Offit’s new book, _Pandora’s Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong_, comes at a time when the fundamental concepts of evidence, facts, and truth itself are being smothered by a miasma of misinformation.
Dr. Offit joins _Point of Inquiry_ host Josh Zepps for a vital discussion about the prognosis for science under the Trump administration, the dangers of the anti-vaccination movement, the probability of future pandemics, and much more.
Mar 28, 2017
Phoebe Maltz Bovy: Check Your Privilege-Checking
Often when we talk about privilege, we’re referring to the systemic advantages some groups of people have over others, by virtue of their race, gender, or orientation. Having social awareness of privilege like this is an important part of fostering a more equal and inclusive society. Why then do people who value inclusiveness feel insulted when their own privilege is pointed out? Writer and editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy joins us to discus her new book, _The Perils of “Privilege”: Why Injustice Can’t be Solved by Accusing Others of Advantage_.
Bovy explains that while “privilege” is meant to illustrate advantages placed on us by societal injustice, the word also has undertones suggesting economic wealth and a life free of hardship. She asserts that for this reason using the word provokes a lot of confusion and outrage. Bovy believes that because very few people’s lives are without hardship, being told they are privileged can be counterproductive.
Mar 20, 2017
Mile-High Violence: Judith Matloff on Mountain Conflict
People living at mountainous high altitudes account for only 10 percent of the world’s population, spread out over roughly 25 percent of the Earth’s surface, and yet they also are responsible for a huge portion of the world’s most violent and persistent conflicts. The reason for this correlation between altitude and violence isn’t entirely understood, but there are several factors contributing to the effect the geography of mountain living undoubtedly plays in conflict. Journalist and foreign correspondent Judith Matloff has spent her career covering conflict across the world. She has been a leading pioneer in safety training for journalist abroad and now teaches conflict reporting at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
Matloff first noticed this geographical trend of violence when her 10-year-old son asked her to point out all the places she’s covered conflict on a globe. The boy quickly pointed out a curious pattern; that they all took place in mountainous regions.…
Mar 14, 2017
Tweaking the Travel Ban: Dahlia Lithwick on Trump’s Revised Executive Order
President Trump’s travel ban aimed at select Muslim-majority countries (with exceptions for Christian minorities) was first framed this past January as an urgent action to protect the nation from the imminent danger of foreign terror attacks. With airports in disarray over the unprompted and unclear executive order, the directive was quickly taken to court, and it became clear that Trump’s dire warnings about national security threats were lacking one very important thing: evidence.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the ban was likely in violation of the Constitution. Trump’s administration quickly began fine-tuning the ban in order to appease the court with a new order, claiming to be equally predicated on imminent danger to the nation. Here to offer insight on what we can expect with the new ban’s rollout is _Slate_ senior editor Dahila Lithwick. She specializes in writing about courts and law, regularly contributing to Slate’s political columns Supreme Cour…
Mar 6, 2017
Lawrence Krauss: Accidental Origins
Fate. Purpose. Design. These are words that hang over many of our heads as we navigate the everyday chaos of life. Religion is often given exclusive purview over the discourse surrounding these concepts, but what if science was able to answer some of these same deep existential questions? We may not always like the answers that science has to give us.
Laurence Krauss is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, professor, author, and science communicator, and an honorary member of the Center for Inquiry Board of Directors. His newest book is _The Greatest Story Ever Told… So Far_, a look at the standard model of particle physics and its implications for our existence. It’s a follow up to his critically acclaimed book _A Universe From Nothing_, in which Krauss not only delves into how we’ve reached our current understanding of the universe, but also celebrates the wonders and beauty of the natural world and our accidental existence. The universe, says Krauss, is not fine-tuned for li…
Feb 27, 2017
The Pains of Justice: David M. Engel on Why Americans Don’t Sue
Americans have a stereotype of being somewhat lawsuit-happy. Any disagreements, no matter how small, wind up in court and we will sue the pants off our neighbors at the slightest scrape or bump. David M. Engel, author and law professor at University at Buffalo, objects.
His newest book is _The Myth of the Litigious Society: Why We Don’t Sue_, where he explains that contrary to popular belief, most American injury victims never so much as contact a lawyer, let alone file a claim. Engel lays out the reasons that Americans rarely sue and why it is that we think we do anyway. He believes that understanding the realities of the American legal system is the first step toward answering questions about what we should do about injuries and restitution as a society to prevent and mitigate pain and suffering.
Feb 20, 2017
James McGrath Morris on Ethel Payne, First Lady of the Black Press
Every significant turn towards progress has had its trailblazers, and history can easily forget these pioneering individuals who have helped get us to where we are today. One of the most important figures at the height of the civil rights movement was activist and journalist Ethel Payne, who played a pivotal role as a trailblazer for both women’s rights and civil rights in general, rising to become the first black female commentator employed by a national television network.
James McGrath Morris is an American biographer whose newest book is _Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, First Lady of the Black Press_. Morris follows Payne’s career as a journalist at the Chicago Defender, an important black newspaper known for covering stories the mainstream media didn’t cover. She was one of the best journalists of her time and one of very few black female journalists. Morris tells of Payne’s tenacity and her reputation for asking questions that no one else thought to ask, thereby arriv…
Feb 13, 2017
Gary Taubes: The Bittersweet Truth about the Dangers of Sugar
Diabetes and obesity are on the rise in America in epidemic proportions, but we don’t respond to it with the urgency of an epidemic. Sugar industry lobbyists work hard to keep regulations at bay, and today sugar can be found in everything from baby formula to cigarettes. There is no customer too young or too old for the sugar industry, and the earlier in a person's life a dependency is developed, the better.
Renowned journalist and author Gary Taubes doesn’t sugarcoat how bad our sugar problem really is in his new book _The Case Against Sugar_. Taubes exposes common misconceptions about sugar and brings to light the research that suggests just how helpless we may be to its deadly impact. While the harms are clear, the sugar lobby has successfully embedded it into the fabric of our culture — which is why Taubes believes that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium.
Feb 6, 2017
Science, Stopped at the Border: Jen Golbeck on Science in Trump’s America
The United States leads the world in science and innovation, but there’s no guarantee that this will always be the case. The Trump administration’s orders to halt federal science publication and public communication has American scientists racing against the clock to back up their data in fear of it being eradicated. Meanwhile, the scientists who come to America from all over the world face new roadblocks, as the travel ban from select Muslim-majority nations is reeking havoc on scientists who are not only kept from visiting loved ones, but are unable to leave the country for academic work in fear of being barred from reentry.
In this eye opening discussion, _Point of Inquiry_ host Josh Zepps talks to Jen Golbeck, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland College Park. She speaks with first-hand experience about the blow American science is taking from the travel ban — not only in its immediate effects, but the long-term consequences these policies will undoubtedly hav…
Jan 30, 2017
Murder, Chaos, and Cover-Ups After Hurricane Katrina, with Ronnie Greene
Ronnie Green is a Pulitzer-winning journalist and author whose latest book is _Shots on the Bridge: Police Violence and Cover-Up in the Wake of Katrina_. His book follows the true story of an innocent family seeking help and security in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but was instead ambushed by New Orleans police officers’ gunfire. Further outrage comes not just from the massacre itself but that the officers and their supervisors at the New Orleans Police Department planted evidence in an attempt to cover up the murders.
In a city overtaken my chaos and police officers overcome by fear, catastrophe ensued, leaving the surviving family to pick up the pieces left by the hurricane that ran through their lives. The victims’ family endured over a decade of legal battles before the officers at fault pleaded guilty to the charges. This story is a clear account of how the very people meant to protect and serve citizens can break the law, cover their tracks, and manipulate the legal…
Jan 24, 2017
Extended Mileage in Someone Else’s Shoes: Ted Conover on Immersive Journalism
Ted Conover is an American journalist and author, known for fully immersing himself in the world of the subjects he covers. Conover writes about the people we understand the least by attempting to live their lives. Whether he’s riding freight trains with the homeless or navigating the ethical pitfalls of being a prison guard, he walks a mile in their shoes so we don’t have to.
His newest book is _Immersion: A Writer’s Guide to Going Deep_, and in this week’s episode of _Point of Inquiry_, Conover discloses to host Lindsay Beyerstein what some of the most difficult moments of his immersion-journalism career have been, and reveals some of the tricks of the trade for getting close to your subjects without losing yourself in the process.
Jan 17, 2017
Daniel Dennett: The Magic of Consciousness…Without the Magic
Daniel C. Dennett is one of the most influential philosophers of our time, perhaps best known in cognitive science for his multiple drafts (or "fame in the brain") model of human consciousness, and to the secular community for his 2006 book _Breaking the Spell_. Author and co-author of two-dozen books, he’s the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, where he taught our very own _Point of Inquiry_ host Lindsay Beyerstein.
Beyerstein and Dennett catch up to discuss Dennett’s newest book, _From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds_. It’s a fresh look at Dennett’s earlier work on the subject of consciousness, taken in new directions as he seeks a “bottom-up view of creation.” Join Dennett and Beyerstein as they discuss the how’s and why’s of consciousness, not just from an evolutionary and neurological standpoint, but also through the lenses of computer science and human culture.
Jan 9, 2017
Enemies List Redux: Rick Perlstein on the Parallels between Trump and Nixon
With great power, comes great responsibility, so we are told by Voltaire and Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben. It’s something we learn anew with each presidency, as the person who holds the office must decide how they will wield the power they’ve been given. For Richard Nixon, power was something to be used in the service of itself, to be maintained and defended at all costs.
Soon to be our 45th president, Donald Trump comes to the office with some striking similarities to the 37th, complete with “enemies lists” and paranoid vendettas against foes real and imagined. To give us some historical perspective about the comparison between Trump and Nixon, we welcome historian, author, and journalist Rick Perlstein.
Peristein is the bestselling author of _Nixonland_ and _Before the Storm_, about the conservative movement sparked by Barry Goldwater. His newest book is _The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and The Rise of Reagan_. Perlstein recently published his latest critical analys…
Dec 27, 2016
Should Atheists Celebrate Christmas? Tom Flynn Debates Lindsay Beyerstein
Tom Flynn is Executive Director of Council for Secular Humanism (a program of the Center for Inquiry), as well as a novelist, journalist, and editor of _Free Inquiry_ magazine. Outside of the freethought universe, however, Flynn may be best known as a professional Christmas opponent “the Anti-Claus,” and author of the book _The Trouble with Christmas_.
For decades, Flynn has argued against atheists taking part in the celebration of Christmas, saying it makes hypocrites of nonbelievers and validates Christians’ claims over the season. _Point of Inquiry_ host Lindsay Beyerstein disagrees, and this week she and Flynn engage in a friendly debate over whether atheists should reject all trappings of the holiday, or claim its secular aspects for our own.
Dec 21, 2016
Amanda Marcotte on the Trump Transition and the Reshaping of America
There's no question that Trump and his incoming administration have plans to take the country in a very different direction on a plethora of issues. To help us sort through what to expect, we welcome writer and political journalist, Amanda Marcotte. Marcotte currently blogs at _The Raw Story_ and is a political contributor for _Slate_, _Salon_, and _The Guardian_.
With Republican majorities in the House and Senate, Marcotte says we can expect drastic changes on a multitude of issues, and in areas such as immigration and climate change, Trump will not even require congressional approval. Labor rights, healthcare, and abortion rights, while vulnerable, will take more of an effort from Trump and Republican lawmakers to change. Marcotte urges progressives not to give up hope, as she lays out where Trump’s agenda can be most effectively resisted.
Dec 12, 2016
Embargo for America: Andrew W. Cohen on Smuggling and the Rise of a Superpower
From the early isolationist policies of George Washington to Thomas Jefferson’s universal embargo on foreign trade, 19th century America had no plans to become an imperial power. How then does a nation with no navy and a commitment to not having a standing army become a global superpower?
Andrew W. Cohen is an author and U.S. history professor at Syracuse University. His new book is _Contraband: Smuggling and the Birth of the American Century_. Cohen argues that looking at early 19th century American trade policies, and the effort to police smuggling goods and contraband, gives us some telling insight about the transformation of America into what it is today.
Dec 5, 2016
Michael Berube: The Value and the Virtue of Raising a Child with Down Syndrome
Michael Berube is the Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University where he teaches American literature, disabilities studies, and cultural studies. His newest book is _Life as Jamie Knows it: An Exceptional Child Grows Up_. The book follows Berube’s son Jamie as he grows into adulthood, eagerly navigating the world as a young adult with Down syndrome.
Berube tackles the misconceptions about intellectual disability from the perspectives of both a scholar of disabilities and that of a father. He challenges the misconception that intellectual disability detracts from the value of a life, as exemplified by his son Jamie, who Berube describes as witty, inquisitive, and full of a love for life. Berube asserts that like most children, when given ample amounts of love and attention, kids with Down syndrome have the best fighting chance at meeting their full potential and living a successful, happy life. Berube calls upon bioethicists, politicians,…
Nov 28, 2016
Only as Bad as it’s Ever Been: PJ O’Rourke on American Values, Politics and Culture
This week we’re dusting off a favorite _Point of Inquiry_ episode from three years ago: Josh Zepps' conversation with P.J. O'Rourke – humorist, cultural commentator and bestselling author of sixteen books. Originally broadcast in December of 2013, this episode's subject matter is remarkably relevant for this current political and cultural moment, as we prepare for the presidency of a man whose campaign was based on the promise to return America to a golden age that really never existed.
O’Rourke is an early proponent of "gonzo journalism" and is a self described libertarian, he’s served as editor-in-chief of National Lampoon, and has spent 20 years reporting for _Rolling Stone_ and _The Atlantic_ as the worlds only "trouble spot humorist" going to wars, riots, rebellions, and other "Holidays in Hell" in more than 40 countries. O'Rourke is the H.L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and a frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show _Wait Wait... Don't Tell…
Nov 21, 2016
The Normalization of Hate: David Neiwert on Trump and the Rise of the Alt-Right
There’s no getting around the fact that the alt-right has come out of the shadows to fully embrace Trump as their candidate. From Steve Bannon to David Duke, controversial support did not wait long to rush to Trump's side. It’s clear that for many “make America great again” may just mean to make America white again. To help us get to the root of this unprecedented following Trump has produced, we welcome author and award-winning journalist and blogger, David Neiwert.
Neiwert is an expert on the radical right and a correspondent for the anti-hate group the Southern Poverty Law Center. He most recently coauthored an award-winning piece in _Mother Jones_ titled, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-hate-groups-neo-nazi-white-supremacist-racism">"How Trump Took Hate Groups Mainstream." Neiwert and coauthor Sarah Posner have thoroughly tracked Trump's social media engagement with the white nationalist movement from the start of his campaign. Neiwert suggests tha…
Nov 14, 2016
Trump’s Victory and the Challenge to a Secular America, with Larry Decker
The religiously unaffiliated, also known as the “nones,” are currently the largest “faith” demographic in the country. Yet evangelicals beat them two to one in turnout at the polls. We live in an increasingly secular nation based on secular principles, but in government, the secular worldview is badly underrepresented. President-elect Donald Trump spoke to many American’s economic struggles, but his is also a victory for the religious right that rallied strongly behind him. Much of Trump’s platform and policy agenda is incredibly unpopular with the American people, which is part of what is so perplexing about his victory. Yet despite being a relative minority within the population, evangelicals reliably vote, and secular Americans overwhelmingly do not.
Here to talk about how we got here and the effort to fix this voting disparity is Larry Decker, Executive Director of Secular Coalition for America. Decker believes that much of America’s core secular values are in grave…
Nov 7, 2016
Comprehending the Incomprehensible: Samuel Arbesman on Rapidly Accelerating Technology
We live in a digital era in which science and technology have revealed new frontiers never before possible. In developing the complicated technologies that permeate our lives, is it possible that humans have failed to grasp the magnitude of the complexity they have created? This week’s guest is a complexity scientist, Samuel Arbesman, author of the new book _Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension_.
Arbesman explains that the rate of technological expansion is growing too quickly for our intellects to keep up, and the dangers of not understanding the inner workings of our creations are already revealing themselves, whether it’s the New York Stock Exchange suspending trading without warning or Toyota cars accelerating uncontrollably to the surprise of their drivers. The complexity of the code behind much of what has become fundamental components of society are so far past the limits of human comprehension that oftentimes no one is even able to find the cause when…
Oct 31, 2016
Halloween Special: Joe Nickell on the Paranormal's Origin Story
Joe Nickell is perhaps the world's foremost investigator of the paranormal, as well as a magician and author, and he joins us for this special Halloween episode to discuss his recent feature article in _Skeptical Inquirer_, "Creators of The Paranormal."
According to Nickell, the term "paranormal" refers to things that lie beyond the normal range of human experience and scientific explanation. Nickell’s paranormal investigations have covered everything from spirits and psychic phenomena to less spectral phenomena such as UFOs and cryptozoology. Questions about the paranormal have haunted humans since ancient times, but much of our modern conceptions about the paranormal date back only as far as the 19th century. Nickell attributes the advent of modern day spiritualism and the proliferation of the paranormal to a handful of distinct individuals who, for better or worse, popularized paranormal beliefs that are still championed by believers to this day.
Oct 24, 2016
Cats and the Domestication of Humans, with Abigail Tucker
The cat. King of the jungle, emperor of the internet, overlord of our homes? Cats are easily among the most adaptable mesopredator, able to survive and thrive everywhere from the deserts of Australia, to the Arctic tundra, to a cramped studio apartment.
Abigail Tucker is a contributing writer for Smithsonian and author of the new book, _Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World._ Tucker explains just how wild the beasts that live among us really are. Known for their independence and convenience, cats need little house training, if any. Tucker asserts that while cats don’t require training, they may actually be the ones training us, monitoring our behaviors and teaching us how to keep them happy. So who, exactly, is domesticating whom?
Tucker delves paws-first into the feline mind, debunking cat myths and misconceptions, and shedding light on the role cats have played throughout history, as well as how we might be able to benefit from them in the fut…
Oct 17, 2016
Trolling Unplugged: Benjamin Radford on the Creepy Clown Craze
Halloween is almost here, and Target stores are pulling clown masks from their shelves. After the creepy clown craze made its way through Europe, the circus has finally arrived in the US with sightings in at least 40 states, 10 of which have now resulted in actual arrests. With more reports filed every day, the clown scare that’s taking the nation by storm shows no signs of breaking. Where are all these clowns coming from and why are these once-lovable jesters suddenly so terrifying?
Point of Inquiry welcomes writer, author and skeptic Benjamin Radford to discuss his new book, _Bad Clowns_. Radford’s research dives deep into the historical culture, pop culture, and counterculture of clowns in order to connect the dots to how we got here. Radford, deputy editor of the Center for Inquiry’s _Skeptical Inquirer magazine, compares the clown phenomenon to the appeal some find in Internet trolling. Being a killer clown allows you to be seen without actually being seen; it’s the thril…
Oct 10, 2016
Godless Infidels: Leigh Eric Schmidt on Atheism in the 19th Century
Today the United States is the most secular and irreligious it has ever been. According to http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/11/religious-nones-are-not-only-growing-theyre-becoming-more-secular/">Pew Research, the percentage of Americans who identify as atheist, agnostic, or having no religion in particular is up to 23%, compared to the 16% it was in 2007. With a lack of religious affiliation becoming normalized, it’s hard to imagine what it was like for the nonreligious when God’s primacy was almost entirely unquestioned.
_Point of Inquiry_ welcomes Leigh Eric Schmidt, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the new book, _Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation_. Schmidt gives a detailed account of what it was like to be secular in a society where God was considered to be the sole source of all morality. While some worked to prove that God was not essential to being a moral, upstanding citizen, others were…
Oct 4, 2016
Doomsday Dread: The End of Civilization, with Phil Torres
Phil Torres is an author, contributing writer for the Future of Life Institute, and an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. His writing has been featured in numerous publications such as _Time_, _Motherboard_, _Salon_, _Huffington Post_, and our very own https://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/3532">_Free Inquiry_. His book is _The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us About the Apocalypse_.
Since the beginning of civilization, people have worried about its collapse. Pockets of people across the world have long warned that the end is near, and as it turns out, their warnings of apocalypse might be closer to the truth than we think. Torres joins _Point of Inquiry_ host Josh Zepps to discuss just how close we are to experiencing catastrophes that have the potential to fuel our demise. With everything from climate change and biodiversity loss to uncontrollable technologies and the greater accessibility of advanced weaponry, Torres predicts that the…
Sep 26, 2016
Editing Our Pasts: Dr. Julia Shaw on The Illusion of Memory
Dr. Julia Shaw is a psychological scientist and senior researcher in the Department of Law and Social Science at London South Bank University. She teaches at the undergraduate and graduate level and her research on false memory has been published in several international academic journals. She returns to Point of Inquiry this week to discuss her new book, _The Memory Illusion_.
Our memories are a collection of perceptions of our past experiences, and they influence what we think we’re capable of in the future. Dr. Shaw argues that if we start to question the accuracy of our memories we’re then forced to question the foundation of who we think we are. She shows us that our memories aren’t as reliable as we think. Not only are we capable of co-opting other people’s memories as our own, but we can also be easily persuaded by the power of suggestion that we’ve committed acts that have never actually occurred. Even when it comes to our most confident recollections, the potential…
Sep 19, 2016
The People vs. the Planet: Barry Vann on the Consequences of Climate Change
Since the beginning of humankind unpredictable forces of nature have been among our most dangerous threats: volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, tornados, hurricanes, and other disasters that trigger our fight-or-flight survival instincts. Pollution invoked climate change is exacerbating natural disasters and spurring unprecedented human migration. So when so many people are clamoring for safety and running for the hills, what does that mean for those who are already atop them?
Author and geographer Barry Vann explains what awaits the future of our planet and its human populations in his new book _Forces of Nature: Our Quest to Conquer the Planet_. In this fascinating yet sobering conversation with Josh Zepps, Vann elaborates on both the causes of migration as well as the outcomes of the population shifts to come. They discuss both the impact humans have had on our planet, and how our planet affects us in turn. Vann is optimistic that while society is prone to taking the…
Sep 12, 2016
Terrible Food, Small Portions: Andrew Stark on Accepting Your Inevitable Demise
Death is an unsettling thing to come to grips with. We know it is inevitable that it will one day happen to us. One of the first things most of us learn about death is that it happens to everyone, yet perhaps because no one ever comes back to tell the tale, there’s a lot about our impending doom that’s difficult to fully grasp. To help us take comfort in our inexorable demise, we welcome Andrew Stark, an author and political science professor at the University of Toronto.
Having spent time as a policy advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada, he now offers himself as a life advisor – or rather, a death advisor – in his new book _The Consolations of Mortality: Making Sense of Death_. Stark gives us an overview of what the greatest minds of history have said about what it means to die. With a skeptical eye, he sorts through the various arguments for how we should feel about death, effectively shaking off the sugar coating of mortality in an effort to provide us with solace that s…
Sep 7, 2016
In the Weeds with Emily Willingham on Medical Cannabis
Emily Willingham is a journalist, scientist, and award winning skeptical blogger, with much of her work centered on autism and debunking junk science controversies. Recently the autism community has shown a surge in support for medical cannabis, as anti-vaccination activists claim that cannabis may hold the key for a cure, and many people with autism claim it to be a useful for controlling their symptoms. Willingham and host Lindsay Beyerstein delve further into the topic to sort through the misconceptions that exist on both sides of the debate.
Willingham explains that the data is limited on the relationship between cannabis and autism, in part because of the strict research restrictions that have been placed on what the government classifies as a Schedule I substance, a drug with no medical value. Despite the abundance of data showing its benefits and safety in regard to pain relief and inducing appetite, Willingham points out that the stigma against cannabis has lead to restriction…
Aug 29, 2016
Faking Your Own Death: Elizabeth Greenwood on Death Fraud
Elizabeth Greenwood teaches at Columbia University and like many other young professionals she has an insurmountable amount of student loan debt. With the overwhelming feeling that she would never escape her debt she desperately longed for a new start. There was no going back on what she had done to accumulate her debt, but perhaps she could skip ahead. She began to investigate what it would take to fake one’s own death in the 21st century.
Greenwood was shocked to find a robust infrastructure of death fraud all at her fingertips. Eager to know more about the strange subculture, she decided to go through with faking her own death and writes about it in her new book, _Playing Dead: A Journey Through The World of Death Fraud_. She meets some interesting characters along the way and realizes that a new start might not be as easy and appealing as it sounds.
Aug 23, 2016
Getting to the Pit of the Bull: Bronwen Dickey on Canines and Conspiracies
Bronwen Dickey is a contributing editor at The Oxford American, and author of _Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon_. Her writing can also be found in _The New York Times_, _The Virginia Quarterly Review_, _Newsweek_, _Slate_, _The San Francisco Chronicle_, and numerous other publications. For Dickey’s most recent piece, just published in _Popular Mechanics_, she embarks on the “Conspire-Sea Cruise,” giving us an inside look at what the world of a conspiracy theorist is like and what fuels the need to believe in vast, nefarious plots.
Dickey says she was inspired to report on the conspiracy cruise after working on _Pit Bull_, where she discovered just how strong the desire can be to ignore evidence and seek out junk science that supports one’s existing beliefs. In conversation with host Lindsay Beyerstein, Dickey looks at the paranoia that propels people towards conspiracy and compares it to the tireless fear mongering pit bull breeds are subjected to. Dickey gives a det…
Aug 16, 2016
Competitive Cupping: David Gorski on Pseudoscience at the Olympics
Those following the Olympics this year may have noticed Michael Phelps sporting circular bruises all over his body. That’s because Phelps, like many Olympic athletes, won’t go after their medals without going after their cups. The growing fad of cupping is an ancient practice in which cups are placed all over the body and skin is suctioned inside the cup, bursting blood vessels and creating circular bruises. The claim is that cupping releases toxins and heals muscle tissue, among a number of other alleged health benefits, none of which can be backed up by scientific evidence.
Dr. David Gorski is a surgical oncologist, blogger, and advocate for evidence-based reasoning. He joins us today to discuss the latest Olympic pseudoscience fads and what it is about them that makes them pseudoscience. He gives his take on why alt-med practices like cupping are so appealing to people, and the best ways to go about persuading people out of them.
Aug 8, 2016
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar: Facebook and Social Media Silencing
Iraqi-born writer Faisal Saeed Al Mutar is a blogger for the _Huffington Post_ and a columnist for the Center for Inquiry’s own _Free Inquiry_ magazine. Having grown up in Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein, he’s now a human rights activist and secularism advocate as well as founder of the Global Secular Humanist Movement and Secular Post.
For Faisal and progressive Muslims and secularists across the globe, social media is the primary means of not only seeking community and acceptance, but to opening dialogues about fraught issues such as dissent from Islam. But recently Facebook seems to be singling out many of these conversations and communities, and shutting them down. In a conversation with Josh Zepps, Faisal gives several examples of Muslims and Arabs having their posts and pages removed. Arab secularist groups, condemnations of the Taliban, and other challenges to Islam are being banned from the site, which is often justified by claims of racism, hate speech, and other a…
Aug 2, 2016
Donald Trump's Dirty Laundry, with David Cay Johnston
David Cay Johnston is an award winning investigative journalist and New York Times best-selling author, as well as one of few journalists who has deeply dug into the dirty laundry of Donald Trump, now the Republican nominee for President of the United States. In 1988 Johnston left the LA Times to report on casino gambling in Atlantic City, which resulted in uncovering a detailed history of corruption in Trump’s past dealings. The information he began to unearth compelled Johnston to follow Trump’s career closely for decades, eventually leading to the release of his newest book, _The Making of Donald Trump_.
_Point of Inquiry_ host Lindsay Beyerstien talks to Johnston about some of the key insights of his book, including the similarities between Trump and TV psychics, and Trump’s astounding ability to deflect any responsibility, and avoid any consequences for his actions.
Jul 26, 2016
Wendy Kaminer: Dangerous Spaces for Free Speech
Free speech on college campuses has become a topic of impassioned debate, as the lines between hate speech and harassment, or peaceful protest and public disturbance, are rather blurry and hotly contested. Particularly since the protest movements of the 1960s, college campuses have long been a kind of testing ground for different norms and boundaries of free expression. At the same time, some institutions of higher learning have speech codes which many feel are serving to silence debate and discussion among students in the name of protecting feelings.
Our guest this week, Wendy Kaminer, is among those who believe that things like speech codes and trigger warnings have gotten out of control. Kaminer is a lawyer and writer who has dedicated much of her life’s work to defending free speech. She and host Lindsay Beyerstein engage in a spirited discussion about the grayest areas concerning speech and censorship on campus and in the culture at large.
Kaminer will also be one of the man…
Jul 18, 2016
Ali Rizvi: Islam and Identity for an Atheist Muslim
Religions have always gone through transitions over time. Not only do the faiths themselves evolve, but the role they play in day-to-day life adapts to fit the needs of a given culture. As the youngest Abrahamic religion on the market, all eyes are on Islam, as a debate rages as to whether there is any chance of reform or secularization within a religion that is so deeply woven into the fabric of the Muslim world.
Ali Rizvi is a Pakistani-Canadian writer, physician, and author of the new book _Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason_. Rizvi is one of many Muslims who assert that while they have lost their religion, they haven’t lost their Muslim identity. Rizvi considers Islam to be a religion with a set of ideas that are fair game to be criticized, but he also sees Muslims as distinct, as a culture of which Islam is not a mandatory component. After losing his faith while studying as a scientist and physician, Rizvi continued to participate and identify with many of the c…
Jul 11, 2016
Digitally Aware: David Levy on Mindfulness in an Information Overload
It was only a couple of decades ago that the most complex handheld computing system fathomable was a TI-83 graphing calculator. Technology has usually served to make our lives easier, but in the post-digital boom, in which full-blown pocket size computers are the norm, our attention spans are shrinking along with our free time (and graphing is the least of our data worries). Technology can seem to have made certain aspects of life simultaneously easier and more difficult.
Our guest this week is David Levy, a computer scientist and professor at the Information School of the University of Washington. He was a member of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in Silicon Valley during the information revolution in which we began converting information from paper to digital. He has since focused the body of his work and research on information overload. His new book, _Mindful Tech: How to Bring Balance to Our Digital Lives_, offers simple strategies and exercises to help develop digita…
Jun 28, 2016
Surviving the Beauty Culture, with Autumn Whitefield-Mandrano
Autumn Whitefield-Mandrano is the author of the acclaimed new book on feminism and beauty, _Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women’s Lives_. Her work can be found such outlets as _Glamour, Jezebel, Salon, The Guardian_, and her own blog, _The Beheld: Beauty and What It Means_. Her book takes a closer look at why beauty is so coveted in American society and how the pedestal of beauty affects women in particular.
She and host Lindsay Beyerstein delve into perceptions of beauty from both scientific and sociological perspectives. While Autumn’s research supports the notion that many women see beauty as a healthy celebration of individuality, she’s also all too aware of the multi-billion-dollar industry that cynically peddles snake oil and empty promises to women who feel forced to maintain impossible beauty standards.
Jun 20, 2016
Invisible Asperger’s: Michelle Vines on Late-Life Diagnosis
Michelle Vines grew up knowing she was different from other people. She always assumed she was just a bit odd and eccentric but never in a way that suggested she wasn’t neurotypical. She lived in Australia where she excelled in math and science and became a chemical engineer in the oil and gas industry. After finding her work environment deeply unsatisfying and her personal relationships increasingly frustrating, she was forced to sort through why she was struggling. When the possibility of Asperger’s syndrome was raised, it was both jarring and illuminating.
In 2008 she put her chemical engineering career on hold and moved to the U.S. where at 30 years old she was formally diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at the University of Texas Health Science Center. The experience of living her entire life without fully understanding her own brain inspired her to write her memoir, _Asperger’s on the Inside_. Since being diagnosed, she has been a strong advocate and spokesperson for au…
Jun 13, 2016
Bloody Bangladesh: Michael De Dora on the Attacks on Secularists
Secularist bloggers, writers and LGBT activists are being hacked to death in the streets of Bangladesh by militant Islamic groups. To help us get to the bottom of why there needs to be no end in sight to the violence is the Center for Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy Director, Michael De Dora. Starting in April of 2013 when secular activist Avijit Roy reached out to De Dora, the Center for Inquiry has worked closely with threatened individuals like Roy to move writers and bloggers in Bangladesh to safety. Roy was himself murdered in Dhaka in February of 2015, beginning the current wave of attacks.
De Dora, who is also CFI’s main representative to the United Nations, explains that many of these champions of free speech in Bangladesh have no other choice but to leave their home country, as the Bangladeshi government refuses to come to terms with the threat, and instead directs responsibility to the dead for their writings. While the current government in power is ostensibly secula…
Jun 7, 2016
Jessica Valenti: The Measure of a Woman's Worth
Author and _Guardian US_ columnist Jessica Valenti is a pioneer of digital-age feminist writing, starting her blog feministing.com">Feministing in 2004, and becoming known as one of the leading voices in the discussion about gender equality. Valenti’s newest contribution to the movement is her new book, _Sex Object: A Memoir_.
Her witty and courageous book explores the cold, hard realities of growing up female in a male-dominated society, with a unique spin on a story many women are all too familiar with. Point of Inquiry’s Lindsay Beyerstein gets the inside scoop on what motivated Valenti to write the memoir and what she advises for the future of feminism and the fight for gender equality. They talk about many of the stories Valenti shares about her life, and discuss the personal impact of divulging one’s most vulnerable experiences in order to tell the difficult truths about many women’s everyday lives.
May 31, 2016
Susan Jacoby on Conversions, Both Profound and Practical
In the literature about religious conversion, embracing a new faith is usually explained as being a profound and magical experience. A flash of light, a near death experience, an emotional new beginning; these are all common themes in religious conversion stories. But what about the less flashy stories of people who change their religious affiliation simply for reasons of practicality?
Point of Inquiry welcomes back bestselling, award-winning author Susan Jacoby to discus her new book, _Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion_, an exploration of the cultural, political and secular forces driving religious conversion in the western world. Jacoby argues that while spiritual revelation may be a motivator for some, the majority of religious conversions are far more often due to the secular components of an individual’s life.
Susan Jacoby was honored with a Center for Inquiry Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015, and formerly served as the program director of CFI’s New York City…
May 23, 2016
Hooked on a Stigma: Maia Szalavitz on Understanding Addiction
Maia Szalavitz is an author and award-winning journalist specializing in science, public policy, and addiction treatment. Most famous of her several books was her 2006 exposé, _Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled–Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids_. Her latest book is _Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction_.
As a recovering addict herself, Szalavitz knows about the stigma of addiction first hand. She spent much of her teen and young adult life addicted to drugs like heroin and cocaine, but now with over 20 years of sobriety under her belt she’s dedicated a large portion of her career to investigating and reporting addiction treatment. Szalavitz’s research suggests that addiction is actually an emotional learning disorder, which, if true, could revolutionize not only the way we treat addiction but also the way we perceive addiction treatment.
May 17, 2016
An Unrecognizable Reformation: Shadi Hamid on Islamic Exceptionalism
This week, Josh Zepps sits down with commentator and writer Shadi Hamid. He’s a senior fellow in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, a contributing writer to _The Atlantic_, and his new book is _http://amzn.to/1OcgSw3">Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World._
There is a heated debate about whether there is something intrinsically unique about the religion of Islam that has lead to destructive groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS, or whether their existence has nothing to do with religion and are merely the product of politics. Many insist that Islam is not unlike any other religion in its infancy and that with time it will go through a natural course of reform. Hamid suggests that Islam is indeed distinct from other religions, but that those distinctions aren’t in and of themselves good or bad. Hamid urges us to look at the root of these conflicts, because Islam’s unique doctrine and origi…
May 9, 2016
Lies They Told My Mother: Dr. Amy Tuteur on the Moralization of Childbirth
Dr. Amy Tuteur is an obstetrician-gynecologist and writer, returning to _Point of Inquiry_ to discuss her new book, _Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting_. Known from her popular blog as The Skeptical OB_, she has appeared in several publications and news outlets over the years educating the public about the facts of birthing healthy babies, and more importantly correcting the misinformation surrounding birth and mothering, such as breast feeding, nipple confusion, attachment theory, and “birth warriors.” _
Her book takes a closer look at the factual misconceptions surrounding childbirth, as well as the history behind these unscientific ideas. Dr Tuteur and host Lindsay Beyerstein discuss the history of natural parenting and how it affects mothers today, particularly the ways myths about childbirth can make life miserable for mothers, and how the natural childbirth industry can profit from their worries.
May 3, 2016
Race Car Brains with Bicycle Brakes: Dr. Ned Hallowell on ADHD in a Distracting World
Dr. Ned Hallowell is a child and adult psychiatrist, a _New York Times_ bestselling author, and among the world’s leading experts in the field of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He’s written numerous books about ADHD and modern distraction, including _Driven to Distraction_, _Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder_, _Worry: Controlling it and Using it Wisely_, and others. Dr. Hallowell points out that those with ADHD possess what he calls a “race car brain,” capable of brilliance and great creativity, but without an understanding of how to control and train minds with ADHD, it can result in chaos and havoc.__
Dr. Hallowell offers insight on the spectrum of ADHD, and the misuse of the diagnosis. In the age of digital distraction, a great many of us struggle to focus on tasks and goals. While his advice primarily focuses on helping people with ADHD to regain control of their minds and their lives, much of what he…
Apr 26, 2016
Single Ladies, Single Longer: Rebecca Traister on the Rise of the Unmarried Woman
For a very long time marriage was considered a foundation of American life. Adulthood and marriage came hand in hand, and shortly after marriage children were the next logical step. Breaking that mold wasn’t a socially acceptable or financially viable option for women. Today, however, marriage rates show us a very different picture of what is considered the norm. To lend some insight into these changing conventions, Point of Inquiry welcomes Rebecca Traister, an author and award-winning journalist who is the writer-at-large for _New York Magazine_ and a contributing editor at _Elle_. Her new book is _All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation_.
In 1960, the majority of American women were married by age 29. Today only 20 percent of American women are married by then. For over a century the median age of first marriages for women in America had remained between 20 and 22, but in recent years it has jumped dramatically to age 27. Overall, fewer Americ…
Apr 18, 2016
The Burzynski Case and the Pitfalls of Medical Journalism, with Tamar Wilner
Medical doctors can hold our lives in their hands. But with great power comes great responsibility, and doctors owe it to their patients to provide accurate information and treatments based on science and evidence. This is the standard we expect and take for granted; yet one doctor, Stanislaw Burzynski, has been skirting medical ethics and scientific protocols for decades with his controversial and unproven cancer treatments, which he claims without evidence, can destroy cancer cells. The Center for Inquiry, which produces this podcast, has worked to expose Burzynski’s treatments and for the FDA to http://www.centerforinquiry.net/newsroom/stop_burzynskis_dangerous_cancer_treatments/">reinstate restrictions on his dubious medical trials.
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes science journalist Tamar Wilner to discuss the most recent progress in the Burzynski case, and what it’s like to pursue the hard truth within such a murky and emotionally fraught situation. Wilner is a frequent…
Apr 13, 2016
Johann Hari: The Beginning of the End of the War on Drugs
This week we welcome back journalist Johann Hari, author of _Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs_. Hari is a vocal advocate for ending the drug war, and he joins us this week in advance of the UN General Assembly’s special session on drugs, being held April 18 to 21. This special session was not supposed to be held until 2019, but in September of 2012, Mexico, Colombia, and Guatemala expressed the need to hold an international conference on drug policy reform sooner than scheduled. The provision was sponsored by Mexico and co-sponsored by 95 other countries that are struggling with the violence and chaos surrounding current global drug policy.
Hari believes that this meeting represents a major shift in the conversation surrounding the drug war. As more and more countries are putting pressure on the United States to enact effective and humane drug policy options, Hari anticipates that these UN drug summits will become less about policy review and more abou…
Apr 4, 2016
David Silverman: The Relentless Ascent of Atheism
David Silverman, president of American Atheists, was recently seen on championing the importance of the atheist vote to American conservatives on the late night comedy show, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AYs0rajBlE">_Full Frontal with Samantha Bee_. Silverman attempted to persuade Republican believers and non-believers alike that that there was a dire need to keep God out of politics by promoting his cause at one of the most important conservative gatherings in politics: CPAC.
The author of _Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World_, Silverman is a loud-and proud-activist for atheism and is passionate about making sure the non-religious are included in the conservative conversation. In a spirited conversation with host Josh Zepps, Silverman argues that the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders heralds the end of religion’s grip on politics, and that if the Republican Party does not learn to appeal to atheist voters, they will inevitably be left behind.
Mar 28, 2016
Surviving Death: Ann Neumann on the Ethical Landscape of Dying
Many of us picture our dying moments as being surrounded by loved ones, uttering last words of gratitude and advice before we slip off into a peaceful departure. Yet the reality is that dying is often a long, painful, and constantly fluctuating process. Our guest this week, Ann Neumann, writes a monthly column at _The Revealer_ where she examines the intersection between religion and medicine, and she is the author of the new book, _The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America_.
Neumann was inspired to write the book after the struggle of caring for her father while he was dying. The experience she had was nothing like anything she had ever seen before in American culture. To better understand what she had gone through, she began volunteering at hospices and studying various perspectives on life and death. She explored everything from academic lectures to pro-life groups, giving her a wide understanding of the differences between the cultural interpretation and medical reality…
Mar 21, 2016
The Odds of Life’s Oddities, with Mathematician John Allen Paulos
John Allen Paulos is an award winning mathematician and best selling author. A professor in mathematics at Temple University, he has written for _The Guardian_, CFI’s Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and his monthly column for ABCNews.com, “Who’s Counting?” His new book is called _A Numerate Life: A Mathematician Explores the Vagaries of Life, His Own and Probably Yours_.
Paulos uses basic mathematic principles to lend a fresh perspective to everyday life, and the results can be fascinating. He sheds light on everything from the mathematical science behind romantic crushes to the astronomical consequences of the butterfly effect. Some of the harsher mathematical realities can be troubling, like the inevitable probability of becoming more jaded as we age. But Paulos’s mathematical message also has plenty to take solace in, like knowing that dimensional geography suggests that every single one of us is far more peculiar than we may be willing to admit. That’s right, you are…
Mar 15, 2016
Former White Supremacist Arno Michaelis: Understanding Hate, Overcoming Fear
Today’s guest is former white supremacist Arno Michaelis, author of _My Life After Hate_. A leader within what he called a “racial holy war," Michaelis later realized his hate was misplaced, the product of fear, anger, and an overall misunderstanding of concepts such as forgiveness and personal responsibility. Today he is a Buddhist and anti-violence activist with Serve 2 Unite, an organization that works with student leaders to create compassionate, nonviolent leadership in their communities.
In a frank discussion with Josh Zepps, Michaelis reflects on his mistakes, and how he came to let go of his hate and anger. He notes the similarities he perceives between the language and emotion of the white power movement he left, and that of the campaign rhetoric of Donald Trump, whose rallies are now plagued by racially charged clashes and violence. Michaelis joins us today to offer some insight on this worldview of rage, and how we can work toward alternatives to hate and violence.
Mar 7, 2016
The Cunning Art of Con Artistry, with Maria Konnikova
What is it about human behavior that allows con artists to pull off elaborate scams in which they fool thousands? Moreover what is about those thousands of people — many of them intelligent and sophisticated — that make them so vulnerable them to being scammed? New Yorker contributor Maria Konnikova joins us today to talk about her new book, _The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for it Every Time_.
Konnikova analyses the tactics that con artists use to appeal to our sensibilities, gain our trust, and lower our defenses, and she explores what motivates these fraudsters to do what they do. Some cons are so complicated that they can actually be more difficult than accomplishing the same thing when playing by the rules. Konnikova posits that a combination of entitlement and power spurs con artists to jump through hoops most of us could never imagine.
Feb 29, 2016
Censorship in the Islamic World, Through the Eyes of Journalist Jessica Davey-Quantick
We know more and more about how repressive attitudes about blasphemy and religious criticism in parts of the Islamic world can become explosive, as with the Charlie Hebdo attacks or the murder of secularist bloggers in Bangladesh. But these extreme instances don’t tell the whole story.
This week our guest is Jessica Davey-Quantick, who spent several years in Qatar as a reporter and editor for _Qatar Happening_ and _Time Out Doha_. She experienced first hand the often laughable degrees of arbitrary censorship and cultural oppression, and simultaneously the liberty with which certain members of society could behave as they pleased. She discovered a world that both reinforced and contradicted commonly held beliefs about the restrictiveness of the culture of Islam in the Gulf States, and wrote about her experiences in a recent article at Vox.
She and host Josh Zepps discuss the problems with how we discuss cultures outside our own, the ways religion is intertwined with repressive norms…
Feb 23, 2016
Can't Help Helping: Larissa MacFarquhar on Attitudes Toward Altruism
Most of us have no problem operating under the notion that we should do unto others as we would have others do unto us. But what do we make of people who do go well beyond that, while asking for nothing in return? Why are often perplexed by those who are willing to put their health and well being on the line for complete strangers? Today’s guest is Larissa MacFarquhar, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the new book _Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help_.
MacFarquhar argues that we have a history of labeling people who help excessively as having some sort of physiological disconnect, a mental health condition that causes them to give more than what seems reasonable to the rest of society. She finds this resistance to do-gooders troubling, and that our defensive need to justify their behavior may say more about our own philosophical shortcomings than it does about the altruists among us.
Feb 14, 2016
Sex and the Safely Satisfied, with Jaclyn Friedman (Valentine's Day Special)
Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, speaker, and sex education activist, challenging misconceptions about what it means to have consenting, satisfying sex. She’s the author of _What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex & Safety_, and she joins us on this special Valentine’s Day episode to bring some freethought to love and sex.
In addition to having written extensively on the topic of healthy sexuality and the myriad hang-ups and myths surrounding sex and pleasure, she’s also in the process of producing a new multimedia project, including a podcast about female sexual power and freedom.
Feb 8, 2016
Robyn Blumner and Ronald A. Lindsay: A Joining of Forces, a Passing of the Torch
The freethought movement has seen two of its most respected and influential institutions combine into what has been called a “supergroup” for secularism. The Center for Inquiry, the organization that proudly produces this program, announced in January that it would merge with the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, and that Robyn Blumner, the Richard Dawkins Foundation’s president and CEO, would take over from Ronald A. Lindsay as CEO of CFI.
Both Robyn Blumner and Ron Lindsay appear together as our guests this week, here to discuss with host Josh Zepps the reasoning behind the merger, and how the complementary strengths of the newly-joined organizations can make a larger impact on behalf of their shared mission: fostering a secular society based on reason, science, free inquiry, and humanist values.
We learn more about Blumner’s background as both an executive and a journalist, as well as what the Richard Dawkins Foundation (now a division of CFI) brings to th…
Feb 1, 2016
Athens' Atheists: Tim Whitmarsh on Religious Doubt in Ancient Greece
In ancient Greece, did everyone unquestioningly believe in the gods of Olympus? Was there no one in classical Athens to write the equivalent of “The Zeus Delusion”? According to our guest this week, the Greeks’ religious beliefs were as varied and nuanced as they are today. Tim Whitmarsh is a classicist and professor of Greek Culture at University of Cambridge. In his newest book, _Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World_, he explores the skeptical aspects of ancient history that are often left out of common retellings.
Like so many other cultures, ancient Greece went through its own periods of enlightenment and reform, times when religion and irreligion, and superstition and rationalism, coexisted. Whitmarsh argues that we moderns shouldn’t be so quick to tie the ancient Greeks to their mythology, because along with the myths and gods there is a rich history of secularism, critical thinking and even atheism.
Jan 25, 2016
Judaism for Nones: Millennials and God, with Rabbi Mark Wildes
The “nones” are on the rise in the U.S. with 33 million Americans identifying as having no religious affiliation. Atheists shouldn’t get too excited, though, because 68% of the unaffiliated indicate that they do believe in some sort of god. What kind of god do the nones believe in? This week’s guest, Rabbi Mark Wildes, wants it to be the God of Abraham.
Rabbi Mark Wildes is the founder and director of the Manhattan Jewish Experience, a program for young Jewish professionals in their 20s and 30s with little or no background in Judaism interested in connecting with the community. With the unaffiliated being concentrated heavily in the young adult demographic, and with 1 in 5 American Jews identifying as nones, Rabbi Wildes believes there very well may be something about Judaism that could draw in millennials, those who are looking for a certain kind of moral guidance that includes both purpose and reason.
Jan 19, 2016
Avoiding the TRAP: Defending Legal Abortion, with David A. Grimes, M.D.
This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Dr. David Grimes, a board certified physician in obstetrics and gynecology and author of the new book _Every Third Woman in America: How Legal Abortion Transformed Our Nation_. Dr. Grimes talks with host Lindsay Beyerstein about the enormous good that’s been done as a result of the legalization of abortion, and the horrors that women used to face — and face anew — as access to abortion services is chipped away.
A powerful movement is relentlessly fighting to turn back the clock to the pre-Roe v. Wade era, when abortions were just as common as they are today, but far more dangerous and life-threatening. States across the country have seen the introduction and passage of “TRAP laws” (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) that harshly restrict access to abortion, birth control, and even cancer screenings, all under the pretense of protecting patients’ health.
Jan 12, 2016
Religious Belief, Naturally Selected - with John C. Wathey
Throughout history, humans have looked to religion to explain why the world is the way it is. Thanks to the development of science, we now have more concrete ways of understanding the world, ways that do not rely on faith. Despite our progress, however, in 2016 faith and religion are still considered to be prime ways of knowing for billions of people. Our guest this week suggests that these feelings of faith may be harder to shake than those of us who are already secular might think; in fact they may be evolutionarily hardwired into us.
Point of Inquiry returns from its hiatus to welcome neuroscientist and computational biologist John C. Wathey to discuss the ideas in his new book, _The Illusion of God’s Presence: The Biological Origins of Spiritual Longing_. Wathey asserts that the intuitive feeling of God’s presence is the primary anchor of religious faith. It’s a consistent phenomenon across every religion and culture for people to “feel God” in their lives. Wathey argue…
Dec 7, 2015
Retconning Christmas: David Kyle Johnson on the Real Reason for the Season
During the perennial War on Christmas, certain Christians often feel the need to remind the rest pf us what the holiday season is really about. It’s Jesus Christ’s birthday and we’re all invited to the party… if by “party” you mean sitting reverently in pews at Christmas mass. Something as little as changing the seasonal decorations on a cardboard coffee cup is enough to put some Christians on edge, as some felt the new red and green Starbucks cups insufficiently acknowledged the role of Christ. Andrea Williams of the U.K.’s Christian Concern wrote, “This is a denial of historical reality and the great Christian heritage behind the American Dream that has so benefitted Starbucks.” But perhaps it's folks like Williams who are the ones guilty of historical denial.
Here to talk about the real historical origins of Christmas is writer and philosophy professor David Kyle Johnson, author of the new book, _The Myths that Stole Christmas_. Johnson explains how “the reason…
Nov 30, 2015
Islam, Paris, and Polarization - with Michael Brooks
After the Paris attacks, tensions are running higher than they have in many years over the threat posed by Islamism, how we should talk about it, and how policy should respond to it. One of our most difficult cultural challenges is distinguishing the acts of violent Islamists from public attitudes towards Muslims in general, and specifically how heated and often ugly rhetoric impacts how we confront the massive refugee crisis.
To discuss this thorny and emotionally charged issue, Josh Zepps talks with Michael Brooks, contributor for the award-winning daily political talk show, _The Majority Report_. It is a lively discussion of a highly polarized issue, revealing just how complicated and nuanced Islam’s role in these crises truly is.
Nov 23, 2015
No, This Podcast is Not About You: David Laporte on the Proliferation of Paranoia
You don’t have to be paranoid to recognize that privacy isn’t what it used to be. The government can get access to our phone calls and emails, video surveillance is becoming a norm in public places, and nearly everyone has the ability to record at will, discreetly from their cellphones. It’s no wonder that paranoia is becoming a common phenomenon. But at what point does a healthy suspicion become delusional denial?
Today’s guest is clinical psychologist David Laporte, a professor of psychology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and author of the new book, _Paranoid: Exploring Suspicion from the Dubious to the Delusional_. Laporte considers paranoia a defining affliction of the modern age, as the paranoid mindset becomes ever more legitimized by the media and political figures. Research suggests that one need not be schizophrenic to suffer from a paranoia disorder, as many people may fall within a spectrum of varying gravities of paranoia, much of which is just beginning to…
Nov 17, 2015
Steve Silberman: Evolving Attitudes Toward Autism
It used to be that autism was considered to be the result of poor parenting, but starting in the 1930s, it was understood to be a hereditary condition, and the behaviors often associated with autism turn out to be present, to one degree or another, in most of us. Though attitudes about autism have changed over the decades, the stigma attached to it lingers on.
To discuss our evolving understanding of autism, _Point of Inquiry_ welcomes award-winning science journalist Steve Silberman, author of the new book _Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity_. Silberman uncovers the lost history of autism, and shows how we arrived at the concept of the autism spectrum. Steve argues that many of us have autistic traits, and that some of which, such as social awkwardness and highly focused passions, have actually helped to shape the world in which we live, especially the digital realm we all now depend upon.
Nov 10, 2015
Mexico’s Drug Policy in Flux, with Sylvia Longmire
Is smoking pot a fundamental human right? On Wednesday, November 4th Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that four individuals involved in a private cannabis club have the constitutional right to grow, sell, and smoke cannabis based on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/05/mexicos-supreme-court-rules-that-smoking-weed-is-a-fundamental-human-right/">“the right to the free development of one’s personality.”</a> The ruling was limited to the specific individuals who brought the suit, but it introduces a host of questions about what might happen if the trend toward broader marijuana legalization continues in Mexico.
Here to talk about the current political climate as it relates to drugs in Mexico is journalist and intelligence analyst Sylvia Longmire. Longmire specializes in Mexico’s drug war, and provides valuable insight not only into this latest development, but also the particular quirks of the Mexican legal system, and the potential repercussions of Mexi…
Oct 31, 2015
Conjuring Rose: Joe Nickell’s Annual Houdini Séance (Halloween Extra)
Most people know Harry Houdini as the world famous magician and illusionist, but in addition to his life as a performer, Houdini was also known to have a deep fascination with the afterlife. So much so he spent the later part of his career investigating spiritualists and mediums. With the help of his undercover assistant Rose Mackenberg, he was able to investigate spiritual claims and assess if they were in fact actual paranormal occurrences or mere illusions, much like the ones he preformed as a magician.
In this special Halloween extra, _Point of Inquiry’s _producer Nora Hurley chats with Joe Nickell, the world’s leading paranormal investigator. Together, they conduct the Center for Inquiry’s Annual Houdini Séance. While summoning the dead, Nickell explains precisely how Houdini worked closely with his assistant Rose to expose fraudulent mediums and spiritualists, who were using illusions and trickery to profit off the grief of innocent people.
Having poor luck contacting Ho…
Oct 27, 2015
Sarah Posner: Trump, Carson, and the Religious Right in 2016
This week Josh Zepps chats about the 2016 Republican presidential primaries with journalist Sarah Posner, a senior correspondent for _Religion Dispatches_ and the author of _Gods Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters_. She is an expert in the political machinations of the religious right in the United States.
The current GOP field has Seventh-day Adventist Ben Carson and the newly Bible-loving Donald Trump battling for the top spot in polls, despite their theological differences with the Evangelical base of the party. Posner explores what’s behind the appeal of these two unlikely front-runners, compares their very different demeanors, and weighs on such topics as the influence of Pope Francis and the prospects for atheist political candidates.
Oct 19, 2015
Taste the Science! - Serious Eats' J. Kenji López-Alt
Myths and pseudoscience do not only apply to the realms of religion, alternative medicine, and the paranormal. One area of our lives in which science and a little myth-busting can do enormous good is…cooking!
This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Kenji Lopez-Alt, managing culinary director of the website Serious Eats. Kenji suggests we take the scientific methods we’ve learned in school and bring them into our kitchens in his new book _The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science_. Chatting with host Lindsay Beyerstein, he shows how cooking is nothing more than a series of reactions between heat, energy and molecules, and experimenting with what we know about these reactions can help us all to perfect our favorite recipes, and, really, make the world a happier place.
Oct 12, 2015
Putting Kids First: Sarah Levin and Ed Beck on Vaccine Laws
With misinformation about vaccines proliferating among certain groups in the U.S., diseases that had previously been thought eradicated are creeping back into American life. As far as the law is concerned, whether or not a parent chooses to put their own child at risk by denying them vaccinations remains, largely, their personal choice. But this hands-off attitude toward vaccinations, particularly among children, puts everyone else at risk.
Here to talk about the threat posed by the anti-vaccination movement, and what we can do to stop it, are Sarah Levin and Ed Beck. Sarah Levin is the Legislative Associate of the Secular Coalition and Ed Beck is the senior policy analyst for the Center For Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy. CFI is working with SCA to launch a new campaign called Put Kids First. For additional information about how you can help combat anti-vaccination laws in your area check out the campaign website, and visit CFI’s Keep Health Care Safe and Secular website to le…
Oct 5, 2015
The Mysteries of Parkinson’s, with Jon Palfreman
Brains, the means by which we scrutinize our world, are themselves inscrutable, and no more so than when things are going wrong. Just ask our guest this week, award winning medical journalist Jon Palfreman. After spending years of his life studying Parkinson’s in order to write the classic book, _The Case of the Frozen Addicts_, Palfreman was himself diagnosed with the very disease he built his career around understanding. Palfreman’s new book is called _Brain Storms: The Race to Unlock the Mysteries of Parkinson’s Disease_.
As modern medicine allows our bodies to live longer with each new generation, the search is on to find ways of preserving our brains from neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, diseases that drain much of the value from these lengthening lifespans. Palfreman gives insight into both our understanding of the disease, as well as the latest medical advancements and further points of study in our race to understand the brain.
Sep 29, 2015
Trials and Textbooks: Jeffrey Selman on Fighting Creationism in Schools
When the public school board in Cobb County, Georgia, placed a disclaimer describing evolution as “just a theory” (in the non-scientific sense) and not a fact, citizen and author Jeffrey Selman knew he had to take a stand for the integrity of his son’s education.
This week on _Point of Inquiry_ Josh Zepps talks to Selman about his new book, _God Sent Me: A Textbook Case On Evolution vs. Creation_, which is Selman’s personal account of reaching out to the ACLU and taking the entire school board of Cobb County to court for misrepresenting the credibility of evolution in order to promote religious belief. A strong supporter of religious freedom and a person of faith, Selman explains why separation of church and state is especially crucial in public schools, where vulnerable younger minds are heavily influenced by peer pressure and institutional coercion.
Sep 21, 2015
Keep ‘Em Separated: Rev. Barry Lynn on God and Government
One of the United States’ most prominent and respected advocates for secularism is a reverend, and that of course is our guest this week, Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Few have more experience untangling religion from government as Rev. Lynn, who has spent a career making the case that a truly free country requires a secular government, and true religious freedom requires church-state separation.
He and host Lindsay Beyerstein discuss the numerous ways the mixing of church and state have resulted in corruption and injustice. While Lynn believes that religion can play an important role in our communities and in many people’s lives, government should never be in a position to rely upon whatever charitable services a religious group might provide. Recounting some of fascinating experiences from his career, many from his new book __God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Co…
Sep 14, 2015
Craig Unger on the U.S. and Saudi Arabia: Frenemies 14 Years after 9/11
Last week marked 14 years since the attacks of 9/11, the reverberations of which will certainly be felt well into the future. But for all the impact and tragedy of the attacks, there is still so much that remains unanswered, and unanswered for. Here to lend some insight is American journalist Craig Unger, whose bestselling books include _House of Bush, House of Saud_, a book that explores the relationship between the Bush family (including its various advisors and functionaries) and the Saudi royal family.
Unger’s work drew attention to several unresolved questions about the Bush administration’s response to the attacks, and how we found ourselves mired in a global military project known as the War on Terror. In conversation with Josh Zepps, Unger looks at the radical religious ideology of the Saudis, its ongoing and confusing alliance with the U.S., and the complications brought on by conflicts with Iran and ISIS.
Sep 8, 2015
Invisible Catastrophes: Erik Loomis on the Consequences of Outsourcing
Corporate outsourcing is so common in the U.S. that it’s become exceedingly difficult to avoid consuming products made by unregulated and unethical means. But this has not always been the norm, as several decades ago America’s working class economy was booming, and with the advent of unions, labor laws, and environmental protections, the American dream seemed alive and well.
Here to talk about the history of corporate outsourcing in America, and the effects it has had on the economy, the environment, and the lives and well being of countless overseas workers, is author and labor expert, Dr. Erik Loomis. Dr. Loomis is a history professor, blogger, activist and author of the new book _Out of Sight: The Long and Disturbing Story of Corporations Outsourcing Catastrophe_. Dr. Loomis explains how various legislative incentives have made it nearly impossible for corporations to invest in cutting back on their carbon output, and why irresponsible corporate behavior has led to numerous dis…
Aug 31, 2015
The City is Still Drowning: Gary Rivlin on New Orleans Ten Years After Katrina
Ten years ago on August 29, 2005, nearly 80 percent of New Orleans found itself underwater. Over the following months, the _New York Times_ sent its correspondent Gary Rivlin to live in New Orleans and report on the city’s effort to rebuild. To this day, much of New Orleans are still in shambles and few outside of the city understand the nature of the chaos that ensued during and after the storm.
In his new book _Katrina: After The Flood_, Rivlin reveals how the story of Katrina, and why its impact was so devastating, was much more complicated than the simple narrative much of the media was providing. A decade after the disaster, he joins Josh Zepps on _Point of Inquiry_ this week to discuss how Katrina created a huge racial and class division in New Orleans, and how we might learn from the mistakes that were made in managing the aftermath of the storm.
Aug 24, 2015
Eugenie Scott: Decrypting Pseudoscience
Our very special guest on _Point of Inquiry__ this week is Eugenie Scott, the former director of the National Center for Science Education who has been waging and winning battles against creationism and pseudoscience for years, and has become one of the most venerated luminaries of the skeptic and secular movements. A Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, in 2013 she was honored with the Center for Inquiry Lifetime Achievement Award._
Scott is getting back to her roots as a biological anthropologist to talk about cryptozoology and other fringe anthropological claims. Talking with host Lindsay Beyerstein, Scott explains the distinctions between real science and pseudoscience, as well as some of the common misconceptions that lead people to mistake fiction for fact. Why is the existence of things like yetis so improbable? Why couldn’t humans and aliens procreate? Questions like these point to a need that is at the core of Scott’s career: the need to better educate kids abo…
Aug 17, 2015
Bred to Suffer: Paul Shapiro on Animals in Factory Farming
Happy cows and chickens grazing in pastures, we see them plastered all over our milk and egg cartons at the grocery store. While most of us realize these images are more marketing than reality, the truth about how animals are treated in factory farming is far worse than most of us imagine. It’s not even clear exactly how much better animals fare when packaging advertises things like "cage-free," "natural" and "vegetarian-fed.”
This week on _Point of Inquiry_, Paul Shapiro, the vice president of farm animal protection for the Humane Society, is here to sort through some of the common misconceptions about the meat industry. As a former factory farm inspector, Shapiro knows first hand how normalized animal suffering has become, and how lax the regulations are for determine how animals can be treated and mistreated throughout their lives. Shapiro and host Lindsay Beyerstein sort through many of the myths and misconceptions consumers have about animal well-being, from chickens raised i…
Aug 10, 2015
Dealing with Distraction in the Modern World, with Matt Crawford
Every year technology produces more innovative ways to entertain us. Everything from Twitter to Candy Crush and from billboards to viral commercials, the information that engrosses us on a daily basis makes dull tasks such as waiting in line at the post office pass in the blink of an eye. But what happens when the distractions of technology don’t disappear when you leave the queue?
Here to talk about the difficulty of unplugging our brains from our media-drenched world is author and contributing editor to _The New Atlantis_, Mathew Crawford.
Crawford is a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia and the author of _The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction_. Crawford explains some of the extensive research that is behind the design of manufactured experiences like social media and advertising, and explains how our brains are susceptible to these distractions in ways that give us very little…
Aug 3, 2015
Ta-Nehisi Coates: A Country Built on Black Bodies
This week on _Point of Inquiry_, our guest is Ta-Nehisi Coates, a renowned journalist and celebrated essayist on culture, history, and politics. He’s a senior editor at _The Atlantic_, where last year he ignited national introspection and heated debate with his cover feature,http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ "> “The Case for Reparations.” He is also author of the new bestseller, __Between the World and Me, a book he wrote for his son about surviving in America as a black man.
Coates joins Lindsay Beyerstein to discuss the heightening racial tension in America, the result of what he describes as a country built on black bodies and black suffering. In this evocative conversation, Coates compels us to look clearly at our illusions about American identity and social mobility, and explores what difficult remedies will be necessary to begin to rectify the damage American policies have done to black men and women over the centuries. H…
Jul 28, 2015
Stephen M. Walt: Learning to Live with the Islamic State
As difficult it is to accept, there may be no loosening of the grip ISIS currently holds over its territory, at least not any time soon. Our guest, Stephen M. Walt, begins to come to terms with this unpleasant situation in a new article for _Foreign Policy_ magazine,“What Should We Do if the Islamic State Wins?” His answer is not an inspiring one, but one based on the facts as he sees them: We will have to live with it.
On _Point of Inquiry_ this week, Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, explores with host Josh Zepps the historical precedence for successful revolutionary movements and their near-intractability once they’ve claimed power. According to Walt, once established, these revolutionary regimes will either continue to act as dangerous rogues who are isolated and contained by neighboring countries, or eventually moderate themselves to the point where even…
Jul 20, 2015
Patient Autonomy and Shifting Medical Ethics, with Dr. Barron Lerner
This week, Lindsay Beyerstein chats with medical ethicist Dr. Barron Lerner, author of the new book _The Good Doctor: A Father, A Son and the Evolution of Medical Ethics_. Lerner’s father Myer Lerner was a renowned infectious disease specialist who practiced medicine during what many consider to be the golden era of American medicine. Being a generation apart, Barron and Myer Lerner where taught very different approaches to medical ethics, especially when it came to patient autonomy and end-of-life issues.
Dr. Lerner critically examines the ethical principles that his father operated under during his years in practice, and explores how these ethical norms have either retained their value or become outdated. His understanding of his father’s point of view was illuminated when he was forced to make decisions about what was in the best interest of his father’s own medical care, without the benefit of his father’s input on the matter. Barron's unique perspective paints a global pi…
Jul 14, 2015
Radical Nationalism in Greece and the Romance of “No,” with Daphne Halikiopoulou
On July 5th, 2015 Greece said no to a bailout and austerity measures that would have kept them in the eurozone, lending more uncertainty to an already weakened financial structure. The country that birthed Western democracy has found itself at a standstill, with political factions unable or unwilling to find common ground.
Here to discuss the psychological and historical context behind Greece's struggle is Dr. Daphne Halikiopoulou, an expert in radical nationalism and populism, and the culture and politics of Greece. She is a lecturer at Reading University in the UK on comparative politics, a regular guest on the BBC, and the author of the new book, _The Golden Dawn's 'Nationalist Solution': Explaining the Rise of the Far Right in Greece_. Recording from Athens, she and host Josh Zepps discuss the cultural and philosophical implications of Greece's financial crisis; what it represents to Greeks and what their struggle says about the security and preservation of secularist values. Dr.…
Jul 6, 2015
Taslima Nasrin: A Woman of Courage without a Country
Taslima Nasrin is a world-renowned author and secular activist from Bangladesh. A physician by training, she has written a plethora of novels, poems and papers standing for the rights of women and criticizing religious extremism. Nasrin’s brave and influential writings have angered both governments and Islamists, forcing her to leave her home country, and take up residence in several different countries, at one point settling in India until very recently.
Dr. Nasrin tells her story in this special episode of Point of Inquiry, recorded before a live audience at the Center for Inquiry’s Reason for Change conference. In conversation with Lindsay Beyerstein, she discusses her life as a skeptical child in Bangladesh, her perspective on the Islamisation of her home country, and her rise to the dangerous status of human rights hero and “enemy number one” of Islamic extremists.
To this day her writing still causes outrage in Islamic extremists, and she was recently named as a targe…
Jun 29, 2015
Bangladeshi Blogger Asif Mohiuddin: Attacked, Imprisoned, and Undeterred
This week we welcome Bangladeshi atheist blogger and social activist, Asif Mohiuddin, for a special episode of _Point of Inquiry_, recorded before a live audience at the Center for Inquiry’s Reason for Change conference. His is a harrowing and deeply inspiring story of courage.
Mohiuddin is among the many secularist bloggers in Bnagladesh who have been targeted for death by Islamic extremists, and several attempts have been made on his life. (He was a friend and colleague of Avijit Roy, who was murdered when he visited Dhaka in February.) Rather than provide him protection from those trying kill him, the government of Bangladesh threw Mohiuddin in jail without trial for blasphemy, where he was kept in the same cell as his attackers, and was routinely threatened with death by other prisoners. Now free, but always wary of ongoing threats to his life, Mohiuddin is unwavering in his efforts bring secularism and equality to Bangladesh.
Prepare to be amazed by his willingness to bridge…
Jun 22, 2015
Richard Dawkins: LIVE at the Reason for Change Conference
This week, _Point of Inquiry_ welcomes Richard Dawkins for a special episode recorded before a live audience at the Center for Inquiry’s Reason for Change conference in Buffalo, New York on June 13, 2015. Dawkins is easily one of the world’s most influential and controversial scientists; a pioneer in evolutionary biology, science communication, and the public visibility of atheists. He is the author of several bestselling books including _The Selfish Gene_, _The God Delusion_, and _Unweaving the Rainbow_, and he is founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
Dawkins is joined by _Point of Inquiry_ host Josh Zepps, discusses how he found his love for science and evolution, the importance of secular values, and how we can inspire people to appreciate and embrace science. It’s not all serious and lofty, of course, as Dawkins cops to being “pretty condescending and bossy,” and displays his remarkable proficiency with an outlandish American accent.
Dawki…
Jun 15, 2015
Overwhelmed by Celebrity Culture, with Tim Caulfield
Celebrities have always played an oversized role in our culture, and there’s nothing new about them using their star power to endorse ideas or products. But we now live in a time in which mass media consumption is greater than ever before, and the celebrities we revere are now at our fingertips, often only tweet away. This constant bombardment of celebrity culture is proving to have a greater impact on how we live our lives than we may even realize. Even if you aim to ignore celebrity endorsement, the ripple effects in our hyper-connected world are often unavoidable.
This week on _Point of inquiry_, Lindsay Beyerstein chats with Tim Caulfield, law professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, as well as the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy. Caulfield is here to discuss his newest public health book, _Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?: When Celebrity Culture and Science Clash_. Caulfield’s research provides new insight into just how m…
Jun 8, 2015
Anti-Abortion Terrorism and Free Speech, with David Cohen
Opponents of abortion have been largely successful in wielding the First Amendment in their fight to protest abortion providers and patients, and according to this week’s guest, this freedom has too often resulted in the terrorization and harassment of providers who are forced to live each day fearing for their lives. Few realize just how dangerous it is to be a doctor who preforms abortion procedures, who often feel that they have no choice but to wear bulletproof vests or carry a firearm for protection.
David Cohen is associate professor at the Drexel University of Law and co-author of _Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism_, co-authored with Krysten Connon. They interviewed abortion providers across the country about what they deal with on a day to day basis. Talking with host Lindsay Beyerstein, Cohen brings the insight he’s gained as to how exactly we should be responding to anti-abortion terrorism, and the need to protect the lives of healt…
Jun 1, 2015
The Benefits of Religion Without the Belief, with Jeff Rasely
Religion is a very comforting aspect of many people’s lives, providing a community of like-minded individuals, as well as more than a little nostalgia. But even within the same faith groups, one can almost always find tension over theological technicalities.
This week on _Point of Inquiry_, Jeff Rasely, author of _Godless: Living a Valuable Life Beyond Belief_, talks about how beliefs tend to leave people divided, whereas secular values unite. Rasely spent 25 years of his life as a dedicated member of the Presbyterian Church, and even studied to become a minister. As comforting as religious belief can be, Rasley learned through his rich experiences that belief also often divides and isolates people who would otherwise find common ground, if they only embraced their shared values instead of contentious religious commandments.
May 26, 2015
Michael Specter on the Gluten-Free Fad
This week on _Point of Inquiry_, Lindsay Beyerstein is joined by renowned journalist Michael Specter, a staff writer for _The New Yorker_, to talk about the subject of his award-winning story, “Against the Grain: Should You Go Gluten-Free?”
The trend of gluten-rejection is growing despite the fact that foregoing gluten has zero health benefits, unless you’re among the 1% of the population with celiac disease. Specter explains how the misinformation about gluten has gotten to this point, and what a health diets should actually look like.
Michael Specter will also be speaking at CFI’s Reason for Change conference June 11-15 in Buffalo, New York. If you’d like to see Michael Specter and Lindsay Beyerstein in person, make sure you go to ReasonforChange.org to register today!
May 18, 2015
Alex Garland: Ex Machina and the Question of Consciousness
_Ex Machina_, a new film that tells the story of a billionaire programmer who creates an artificially intelligent female robot, is in theaters now, and its writer and director, Alex Garland, is our special guest on _Point of Inquiry_ this week. Although this is Garland's debut as a director he has also written hit novels such as _The Beach_ as well as written and produced screen plays such as _28 Days Later_.
As the power of computers and the software that runs them rapidly advances year by year, the representation of artificial intelligence in sci-fi films like _Ex Machina_ are inching closer and closer to reality. Josh Zepps talks to Garland about the science and philosophy behind consciousness, the future of self-aware machines, and the ethical considerations we’ve barely begun to ponder.
May 11, 2015
Clearing Up the Calorie: The Science of Nutrition, with Marion Nestle
When over one-third of American adults are obese, it’s no wonder that our culture is deluged with fad diets and alleged miracle supplements. Everyone is looking for the easiest way to obtain and maintain health but it’s no small task in the midst of a whirlwind of conflicting information. And what the heck is a calorie anyway? It may be that the easiest fix is to look at what science tells us about the kinds of foods best fuel our bodies.
This week on _Point of Inquiry_, Lindsay Beyerstein takes a closer look at what science tells us about our diets as she talks with nutritionist and author of _Why Calories Count_, Marion Nestle. She's the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University and works extensively to research and educate what our bodies do and don’t need to work their best.
May 4, 2015
Advice for the Teenage Atheist, with David Seidman
There are dozens of bestselling books on spirituality for teens (and many more not on the bestseller list), and many books on atheism as well. But, surprisingly, books about atheism and agnosticism specifically for young people are rare indeed. David Seidman was perplexed by this lack of material for teenagers questioning faith, and that led him to write _What If I'm an Atheist? A Teen's Guide to Exploring a Life Without Religion_.
In his conversation with _Point of Inquiry’s_ Lindsay Beyerstein, Seidman discusses several techniques for young nonbelievers as to how best to come out to religious parents, and has advice on such things as dating and fitting into peer groups — all of which are all the more difficult when identifying with a minority belief. Teenagers are rebuilding their identities as adults and losing faith can be isolating and traumatic, making the need for this book long over due.
Apr 27, 2015
Peter Singer: Maximizing Morality with Reason
Peter Singer has revolutionized the way we think about morals and values. He’s lead the way in providing evidence for some of the toughest moral controversies such as animal rights, abortion, and wealth inequality. Singer’s newest book is entitled _The Most Good You Can Do_, and it's an exploration of the philosophical movement known as effective altruism; the desire to make the world its best possible version using reason and evidence.
This week on _Point of Inquiry_, Singer discusses how opinion and fact are not mutually exclusive, and how effective altruism uses science-based evidence and critical thinking to uncover moral facts and open a dialogue about what values are objectively going to benefit us the most.
Apr 20, 2015
The Misinterpretations of the Supreme Court, with Ian Millhiser
Our guest this week says that the U.S. Supreme Court’s power to interpret the Constitution is so great that they can use it to justify nearly anything they please. Even the American founders who forged the Constitution often had differing ideas of how its words should be interpreted. But one thing they did not foresee was the Supreme Court having the final say over all constitutional interpretation. Ironically, the most unconstitutional practice that we have may be the Supreme Court’s absolute power to determine what is and is not considered constitutional.
This week _Point of Inquiry’s_ Lindsay Beyerstein chats with Ian Millhiser, the author of _Injustices: The Supreme Court’s History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted_. Millhiser takes a close look at how the various Justices of the Supreme Court have behaved throughout history, and rather than being champions of equality and justice, he concludes that the Court has largely served to perpetuate inequa…
Apr 13, 2015
Bassem Youssef and Ahmed Ahmed: The Risk and Rewards of Satire
While Bassem Youssef’s satirical voice has made him widely known as the Egyptian Jon Stewart, merely five years ago Youssef was a heart surgeon broadcasting humorous political commentary on YouTube from his laundry room. His videos soon exploded in popularity, and by 2011 he had moved his satirical show to television. In 2012 Jon Stewart invited Youssef to join him on _The Daily Show_, and shortly thereafter in 2013 _Time Magazine_ named Bassem Youssef one of the “100 most influential people in the world.” Unfortunately, some would like to see his influence muted, and the political climate in Egypt has made it too dangerous for Youssef to continue producing his show.
On _Point of Inquiry this week, Youssef is joined by international comedian Ahmed Ahmed and host Josh Zepps, and the three of them discuss the the role of satire in provoking real political change. Ahmed, like Yousself, has had to learn the hard way that satirists walk a fine line between pushing boundaries while t…
Apr 6, 2015
Phil Zuckerman: Those Normal, Upstanding Nonbelievers
Phil Zuckerman is a professor of sociology at Pitzer College, and among the world's leading experts in the growing field of secular studies, with a deep understanding of how people's lives are lived without religion. He’s the author of the books Living the Secular Life: New Answers to Old Questions, Society without God, and Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion.
There is wide range of secular people, from hardcore atheists and secular humanists to those for whom religion is simply unimportant, and Zuckerman distinguishes between the vast majority of nonbelievers who live normal, upstanding lives, and the small minority for whom secularism is an organizing force. He discusses with Point of Inquiry host Lindsay Beyerstein how empathy, rather than belief in the watchful eye of a deity, is the guiding force of secular morality, and how religion can actually hinder society’s larger moral understanding.
It’s a fascinating inward look at our own community of skeptics and humanis…
Mar 30, 2015
Realpolitik and America's Conflict with Iran, with Joint Chiefs of Staff Advisor David Crist
Negotiations between Iran and the U.S. in concert with Germany and the United Nations Security Council are set to result in an agreement on March 31, 2015 regarding Iran’s nuclear program, potentially restricting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Senior Historian for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and adviser to senior government officials on Iranian issues, David Crist, joins host Josh Zepps to discuss how the past several decades have lead up to this decision, and what it will mean for the future.
Though no one can say for certain what will be decided on March 31, Crist is uniquely qualified to offer his insight as author of the book The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran. While he does not hesitate to explain the ruthlessness of the Islamic regime, he also does not fail to criticize America’s shortcomings and missed opportunities. This is a fascinating and rare look into the realpolitik of one of the most consequential in…
Mar 23, 2015
Johann Hari: The Falsehoods of Addiction and The War on Drugs
Billions of dollars are funneled into federal drug programs to keep our children away from drugs and our cities safe from crime and economic turmoil. Our guest this week, journalist and author Johann Hari, has spent the last several years traveling and researching the war on drugs for his new book _Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs_, to find out if federal programs are as effective and righteous as we are often led to believe.
Hari talks to host Josh Zepps about how he discovered a the troubling beginnings of drug war riddled with corruption and ulterior motives, and argues that everything we thought we understood about drug addiction appears to be wrong.
Mar 16, 2015
The World Human Extinction Will Leave Behind, with Michael Tennesen
As climate change progresses and takes its toll on the planet, the life forms we share it with continue to evolve and adapt. Some species thrive while many face imminent extinction. What we often fail to realize as humans is that the world will continue to exist long after we’re unable to live on it.
Our guest this week is science journalist Michael Tennesen, author of The Next Species: The Future of Evolution in the Aftermath of Man. Tennesen explores the environmental impact climate change is having on the ecosystem, and discusses how its impact on the planet’s surviving species will be felt long, long after we’re gone.
Mar 9, 2015
Eli Lake: How Islamic is 'Islamic Extremism'?
This week on Point of Inquiry, Josh Zepps talks to Eli Lake, a journalist with extensive experience covering international intelligence, diplomacy, and the recent conflicts in the Muslim world. With the Islamic State now eclipsing Al Qaeda as a prime flashpoint for terrorism, discussing and defining the ideology behind the violence is fraught with tension, as evidenced by the uproar over President Obama's recent refusal to characterize "violent extremism" as "Islamic."
Why do new recruits flock to the Islamic State? What are its real-world political goals? What are the dividing lines between the various strains of Islamic extremism? Lake, whose reporting has been featured in outlets such as The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Bloomberg View, and the Washington Times, lends badly-needed clarity to what are difficult and murky topics.
Mar 2, 2015
False Memories Creating False Criminals, with Dr. Julia Shaw
Memory is remarkably fallible, as we often frustrate ourselves with how certain we are about where we left our car keys only to realize how entirely wrong we were. But could it be that our memories are so easily corrupted that we could be led to believe we’ve committed crimes that never happened? (And while we’re at it, could Brian Williams have sincerely believed that he had been under attack in that helicopter?)
This week on Point of Inquiry, Lindsay Beyerstein talks to Dr. Julia Shaw, a forensic psychology lecturer and false memory researcher. Dr. Shaw recently conducted a study in which she found that 70 percent of college-age students were convinced that they had committed a crime that never actually took place. By mixing actual facts with misinformation, in as little as 3 hours of friendly conversation, students not only admitted to committing these fictional crimes, they went as far as to recall details of their manufactured experience. Shaw suggests that these results have…
Feb 23, 2015
Leighann Lord: Courageous Comedy as a Safe Space
This week on a special episode highlighting the upcoming Reason for Change conference, Point of Inquiry welcomes stand up comedian Leighann Lord. Talking with show producer Nora Hurley, they discuss how the worlds of comedy and skepticism are not as distant as they seem. They explore the unique dynamic comedy creates for critical thinking, and how a good joke may just be the gateway to discourse and discussion.
Leighann will be preforming at the Reason For Change conference June 11th - 15th 2015. Learn more about seeing her live this summer at http://reasonforchange.org.
Feb 14, 2015
Laci Green: Truths and Myths about Sex and Love
This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Laci Green for a special tell-all Valentine's Day episode. Green is a popular Youtube video blogger, sex education activist and feminist. In a time when sex pervades popular culture and marketing, and yet rarely discussed, her videos have managed to shed light on a plethora of minefield topics concerning sex, love, and gender issues.
This Valentine's Day enhance your own carnal education as Laci Green has a frank and funny conversation with host Lindsay Beyerstein about the do's, don'ts, and wow-I-didn't-know-that's of sex.
Feb 9, 2015
Letting Go of the Soul, with Julien Musolino
Intuitively, it can feel as though the essence of our thoughts and feelings exists separate from the body and brain, and that essence is what is normally referred to as the soul. Empirical evidence, however, forces us to reconcile our intuitions with reality. As the science of the brain and consciousness advances, the case for the existence of a soul deteriorates.
This week on Point of Inquiry, Josh Zepps talks to Julien Musolino, psychology professor and author of The Soul Fallacy: What Science shows We Gain From Letting Go of Our Soul Beliefs. Musolino discusses why there isn’t room for belief in the soul in modern science, and how moving past that belief might make the world a better place.
Feb 2, 2015
Paul Offit, MD, on Measles in the Magic Kingdom and the Anti-Vaccine Movement
Measles are the newest attraction at Disneyland this season, and unfortunately the only thing magical about them is how quickly they’ve begun to spread throughout California and Arizona. Although measles were eliminated in the U.S. by 2000, the misinformation of the anti-vaccine movement has caused a return of a full-fledged outbreak.
Here to discuss the severity of the problem is Paul Offit. He is a Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children Hospital of Philadelphia. Offit is the author of the bookDo You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine, for which he won the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’s 2013 Balles Prize in Critical Thinking.
Jan 20, 2015
The Women Spies of the Civil War, with Karen Abbott
This week on Point of inquiry, New York Times bestselling author Karen Abbott talks to Lindsay Beyerstein about her newest book, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, which tells the true story of four women who served as spies during the U.S. Civil War.
In a time when women had few of the rights they would later win for themselves, the need for espionage turned out to be an early and important step in the fight for women’s suffrage. These bold women went to extraordinary lengths to fight for their respective sides, taking on various roles to gain information, even posing as men. The risk of being discovered was as much a concern during a military medical exam as it was when they were simply attempting to wear men’s pants properly.
Jan 12, 2015
Before Charlie Hebdo: The Danish Cartoons that Shook the world, with Jytte Klausen
The terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo was a human atrocity, as well as an assault on free expression. Yet numerous prominent news publications are still refusing to show the very Hebdo cartoons at the center of the story. Last year, in the midst of nebulous threats, Sony had removed their satirical film from theaters. How can we avoid yielding control to terrorism with censorship without putting ourselves in danger and subjecting groups to ethnic or religious discrimination?
Our guest this week is Jytte Klausen, a political scholar and professor at Brandeis University. In 2009 she published The Cartoons that Shook the World, a book about the publication of the 2005 "Danish cartoons" cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed, and the outcry of anger and protest they sparked in some corners of the Muslim world. Much to Klausen’s surprise, Yale University Press refused to include the very cartoons she was discussing. Klausen joins us to talk about the precariousness of the strug…
Jan 5, 2015
Penalizing Pregnancy: Lynn Paltrow on the Fight for Reproductive Justice
The effort to overturn Roe v. Wade and criminalize abortion has spiraled into challenging not only women’s right to abortion, but a women’s right to carry her baby to term. Across the country, women who seek medical help for pregnancy complications are being met with incarceration and outrageous sentences, all without proper representation. According to this week’s guest, if a woman would like to give birth in America, she needs to be prepared to surrender her basic liberties.
Here to discuss the fight for women’s pregnancy rights is, Lynn M. Paltrow, founder of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), a nonprofit civil rights group that advocates for pregnant and parenting women. Paltrow has also served as a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, as Director of Special Litigation at the Center of Reproductive Law and Policy and as Vice President for Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of New York City. Paltrow has not only done extensive wo…
Dec 25, 2014
Christmas Extra: Tom Flynn’s 30th Year of Anti-ClausingTom Flynn is Executive Director of The Council for Secular Humanism, Editor of Free Inquiry magazine, Director of Inquiry Media Productions, as well as professional anti-Christmas advocate and au
Tom Flynn is Executive Director of The Council for Secular Humanism, Editor of Free Inquiry magazine, as well as professional anti-Christmas advocate and author of “The Trouble with Christmas.”
Tom is on his 30th year of being completely Yule free and he’s here to talk about why the rest of us should join him in protesting the holidays.
Dec 22, 2014
Greta Christina on Coping with Death, No Afterlife Required
Our Guest this week is Greta Christina, popular atheist blogger, speaker and author of several books on atheism including her newest, “Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do With God.”
Christina discusses with Lindsay Beyerstein the tendencies we have to avoid and deny death and how it affects our abilities to cope. Christina explains how the concept of an afterlife may actually be failing to prepare people for the end of their lives, and how we can use our humanism and skepticism to find comfort in the midst of mortality and grief.
Dec 16, 2014
Frank Schaeffer on Cynicism and Paranoia in the "War on Christmas"
Fox News’ "War on Christmas" is already in full swing, as Bill O’Reilly wasted no time jumping into battle this year to defend the holiday from the great secular menace. However, it looks like Bill might be able to leave the trenches a little early this year; according to a new Pew survey, just over 70 percent of Americans believe that Jesus was literally birthed from the womb of a virgin (a staggering percentage considering that only one third of Americans report interpreting the Bible as the literal word of god). The question is why are conservative Christians so afraid of losing a fight that in so many ways they’ve already won?
This week on Point of Inquiry, former Evangelical fundamentalist Frank Schaeffer joins us to bring first-hand insight into the irrational fear within fundamentalism, and what it says about their belief system. Schaeffer grew up in a strict Evangelical household in which he was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father, Francis August…
Dec 8, 2014
Ronald A. Lindsay: Why God Can't Tell Us What to Do
Despite the fact that the United States was founded as a secular state, government neutrality toward religion remains a tumultuous and controversial issue -- a conversation-stopper in most public policy discussions. This week on the show, Lindsay Beyerstein welcomes Ronald A. Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, the organization responsible for Point of Inquiry. Ron joins us to discuss his just-released book, The Necessity of Secularism: Why God Can’t Tell Us What to Do, in which he explains how the language of secularism is the most ethical and productive language for believers and nonbelievers alike, the missing puzzle piece to fair public policy.
Ron Lindsay is both a lawyer and philosopher, as well as a veteran freethought activist, with several books and articles on ethics, philosophy, and secularism to his name. His particular background provides him with a unique understanding of how crucial the separation of church and state is for equality and stabili…
Dec 1, 2014
Deciphering Alan Turing, with Andrew Hodges
Alan Turing was a true visionary. Founding what we understand today as computer science, he was also a mathematician, a philosopher, and an early trailblazer for gay equality. Without his genius for codebreaking, the Second World War might have gone in a much darker direction. He saved millions of lives and potentially the world as we know it, yet his efforts for humanity were not enough to spare him the inhuman treatment he received for his sexual orientation.
Andrew Hodges was one of the first people to realize the multifaceted brilliance of Alan Turing, which eventually led him to write the renowned biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma, which was recently adapted into the film The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Like Turing, Hodges is a mathematician and gay rights activist, and understands first hand the impact Turing’s life has had on our world today.
This week on Point of Inquiry, Hodges explains how Turing became so influential in so many different fields, and ho…
Nov 24, 2014
Getting Over Racial Anxiety, with Rachel D. Godsil
As a nation, the U.S. prides itself on at least aspiring to the ideal of equality, even if it often falls short. The educational, health care, and legal systems, are plagued by institutional biases against racial minorities. The good news is that these disparities are likely not due to hateful intent, but caused by a combination of factors that include implicit bias, racial anxiety, and stereotype threat.
To make sense of this, Point of Inquiry welcomes Rachel D. Godsil, research director of the Perception Institute, who explains how the unconscious associations and attitudes that we have towards people of different racial groups can affect the way we behave and, more importantly, what we can do to relieve some of the racial anxiety that may be inadvertently causing many of us to behave in ways that are less than enlightened.
Nov 19, 2014
Surviving Saddam and Confronting Islam, with Faisal Saeed Al Mutar
As the threat posed by radical Islamists like those of ISIS grows in popular awareness, Islam itself becomes more of a target for criticism; some of it fair, and some of it based in ignorance or bigotry. Can efforts to defend Islam and Muslims from discrimination and racism go too far, and keep us from having an honest discussion about something of such critical importance?
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, an Iraqi refugee turned activist, and founder of the Global Secular Humanist Movement. Al Mutar talks about growing up in Iraq under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, and his belief that Islam needs to be more vigorously criticized, and that its adherents must be held to a higher moral standard.
Nov 10, 2014
Steven Pinker: Using Grammar as a Tool, Not as a Weapon
The English language is often treated as delicate and precious, and disagreements about what is “proper English” go back as far as the 18th century. Then as now, style manuals and grammar books placed innumerable restrictions on what is and isn’t “correct,” as "Language Mavens" continue to delight in pointing out the unforgivable errors of others. To bring some fresh perspective to this remarkably heated topic (and to let some of us who are less than perfect, grammatically speaking, off the hook), Point of Inquirywelcomes Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker, author the new book The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.
Pinker’s previous works include such award-winning books as The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, and The Better Angels of Our Nature. He’s been honored by such institutions as the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and…
Nov 3, 2014
Ebola in the Age of Epidemics - Special Live Episode
There’s no doubt that Ebola is an incredibly dangerous and genuinely lethal virus, but it’s also a highly manageable one, though you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise given the kind of hyperbolic coverage we’ve seen of the epidemic. In order to sort fact from fiction about the real threat posed by Ebola, and to better understand its origins and wider implications, Point of Inquiry presents a special episode, recorded before a live audience in New York.
We begin with a presentation by Dr. Jon Epstein, a veterinarian and epidemiologist who specializes in emerging pandemic threats in the developing world. Then Point of Inquiry host Josh Zepps goes more in depth, in a conversation with Dr. Epstein and Dr. Kevin Olival, a disease ecologist and evolutionary biologist. Both are world-leading experts on Ebola and disease prevention with a great deal of insight as to what governments and aid workers need to do to prevent Ebola from becoming a pandemic.
Recorded live a…
Oct 31, 2014
Halloween Extra: 18th Annual Houdini Séance with Joe Nickell
Harry Houdini, the most famous illusionist the world has ever known, spent the later part of his career fascinated with spiritualists and mediums. This led him to become a dedicated skeptic and investigator.
In this special Halloween episode for 2014, Point of Inquiry’s new producer Nora Hurley chats with Joe Nickell, the world’s leading paranormal investigator, and a former professional magician himself. Together, they conduct the Center for Inquiry’s 18th Annual Houdini Séance. Listen in as Nickell follows traditional séance protocol to call upon the spirit of Houdini to communicate with us beyond the grave.
While summoning the dead, Nickell explains how Houdini’s background as a magician allowed him to expose fraudulent mediums and spiritualists, who were using illusions and trickery to profit off the grief of innocent people. Joe Nickell continues to honor Harry Houdini, not just with annual séances, but more importantly by carrying on his investigative work.
Oct 22, 2014
Pro-Choice Without Apology, with Katha Pollitt
Given the divisive nature of the debates over abortion, the subject is understandably not the best table-talk material. But despite the fact that abortion is a normal and often necessary (one in three women will have an abortion before menopause), even those who are staunchly pro-choice feel compelled to hedge their support by making sounds about how abortions are "horrible" and "unfortunate." When both sides of the controversy associate abortions as immoral and shameful, much of the conversation ground is yielded to anti-abortion advocates.
This week on Point of Inquiry, columnist and activist Katha Pollitt discusses her new book, Pro: Reclaiming Reproductive Rights. With clinics closing at record high rates, unapologetically reclaiming women's reproductive rights may be the best way to keep the conversation - and the clinics - open.
Oct 14, 2014
The Human Impact of Discovering Alien Life, with Astrobiologist Steven J. Dick
Our universe is made up of billions of galaxies. The cosmos is so mind-bogglingly vast, that it’s hard not to suppose that we aren’t alone, that life must exist somewhere else besides our own planet. Last month, some of the world’s leading scientists gathered at an Astrobiology Symposium run by NASA and the Library of Congress to discuss where we stand in our search for extraterrestrial life.
This week on Point of Inquiry, Steven J. Dick, the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, discusses the progress that has been made in the search for extraterrestrial life, and what the potential ramifications may be if and when we make this most monumental of discoveries — that we are indeed not alone.
Oct 6, 2014
The Theology of ISIS, with Dr. Adam Silverman
The rise of ISIS, the self proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has sparked debate about the role of religion — specifically Islam — in violent extremism. This week, Dr. Adam Silverman offers us a glimpse into the theology of ISIS, and tackled some difficult questions; What does ISIS believe and how do its religious beliefs shape its political choices? What about the notorious video-taped beheadings and reports of rape as weapons of war? How does ISIS want the United States to react, and how should we?
Dr. Silverman has just completed a four-year stint as Cultural Advisor to the U.S. Army War College. He holds a doctorate in Political Science and Criminology from the University of Florida and he deployed in Iraq in 2008 to interview Iraqi religious and political leaders to better understand their culture and values.
Sep 29, 2014
Austin Dacey
Josh Zepps is off, and since this week is the 5th International Blasphemy Rights Day, we're rebroadcasting this interview by Chris Mooney with Austin Dacey, CFI's former UN representative and an expert on the subject of blasphemy laws.
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This week, our guest is a return one: Austin Dacey. He's a philosopher, a writer, a human rights activist, and the creator of the Impossible Music Sessions, which we featured in a past show.
Austin's books include The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life and, just out, The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights.
This show focused on Austin's new book on blasphemy. But he helped enhance the discussion with a few pieces of music that have been called blasphemous—which is why we wanted to distribute them as widely as possible.
Sep 22, 2014
Mark Oppenheimer on Misogyny in the Freethought Community
This week Point of Inquiry welcomes journalist Mark Oppenheimer. Mark writes the Beliefs column for the New York Times, and is the author of the e-book The Zen Predator of The Upper East Side. He is an expert on how religious and philosophical communities deal--or refuse to deal--with allegations of abuse in their ranks.
Mark joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to talk about a feature he wrote for BuzzFeed entitled "Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement?", a discussion (as he puts it, "from an outsiders' perspective") about sexism and sexual coercion in organized secularism and skepticism, a phenomenon that he concludes is a threat to the movement's potential to grow and achieve mainstream acceptance. They explore this tumultuous topic both in terms of current debates, as well as in context of the freethought movement's broader history.
Sep 17, 2014
Factory Farming and the Meat Racket: Christopher Leonard on our Irrational Meat Industry
It’s National Chicken Month! But rather than celebrating the consumption of fowl, Point of Inquiry is asking what exactly is going on in America's meat industry? Is the way we consume meat at all rational?
Joining us this week is Christopher Leonard, investigative journalist whose work has appeared in Fortune, Slate, and The New York Times. He is a fellow with The New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute in Washington, DC., and the author of The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business.
Leonard and host Josh Zepps explore the morality of super-industrialized meat production, the iron grip of certain large corporations, and how the centralized system of factory farming is, to Leonard, “Soviet-esque.”
Sep 8, 2014
Ask a Mortician: Caitlin Doughty on the Death Industry's Dirty Secrets
Point of Inquiry welcomes Caitlin Doughty, creator of the cult classic web series Ask A Mortician, which gives unvarnished answers to questions about dead bodies and the death industry. Caitlin has tackled topics ranging from "What to say to a grieving person?" to "How could my titanium hip implant end up as part of a road sign in the Midwest?"
Caitlin is the author of the new book Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: and Other Lessons from the Crematory, the story of her stint as a crematory operator in Los Angeles. She went on to become a licensed mortician to launch a one-woman crusade to change our culture's attitudes about death.
Sep 2, 2014
Sam Harris: Seeking Transcendence Without Religion
It’s been ten years since the publication of Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith kicked off the cultural phenomenon of “new atheism,” bringing frank criticism of religion into mainstream conversation. In the decade since, Harris has emerged as something of a maverick among nonbelievers and progressives, frequently at the center of controversy with his opinions on Islam and extremism, science’s role in morality, and his embrace of a kind of “spiritualism” grounded in science.
It is this last item that is the subject of his latest book, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, in which he seeks a rational approach to transcendence; one that puts the supernatural aside in favor of an honest, scientific exploration of the mind, altered states of consciousness, and other (as he puts it) “spooky phenomena.”
On this special episode of Point of Inquiry, Harris talks to host Josh Zepps about his foray into the mystical. In this fascinating interview,…
Aug 25, 2014
Dr. Adia Benton on The West African Ebola Outbreak
This week Point Of Inquiry welcomes Dr. Adia Benton, a professor of medical anthropology at Brown University. She joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to talk about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Medical anthropologists bring a unique expertise to epidemics because they study both the physiology of illness and the cultural factors that influence its transmission. That's why the World Health Organization has deployed med anthros to combat prior Ebloa outbreaks. They ask questions like: "How do people think a disease is spread?," "What role do traditional healers play in this culture?," and "Do people trust Western medicine?" The answers can be used to craft more effective public health messages.
These are urgent questions for the current Ebola outbreak, where some are resisting quarantine, attacking hospitals, and blaming the outbreak on doctors and nurses. In a crisis, culturally competent care can be a matter of life and death.
Aug 18, 2014
Paul Offit, MD - Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine
Point of Inquiry's hosts are off this week, so we're running Lindsay Beyerstein's excellent interview from earlier this year with Dr. Paul Offit. Dr. Offit will be the Center for Inquiry's special guest on September 6th in Amherst, NY, as he is awarded the Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking.
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Paul A. Offit, MD is best known as a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine and a staunch, public supporter of vaccination and opponent of pseudoscientific alternative medicine.
His most recent book, Do you Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicinepoints a critical eye at the alt-med industry, one than takes in 34 billion dollars a year with little to no regulation. Are patients being harmed, and is it any worse or better than so-called “Big Pharma”?
Dr. Offit talks with our host, Lindsay Beyerstein, about all of this and much more on this week’s Point of Inquiry.
Dr. Offit has published over 130 scholarly articles on the rotavirus v…
Aug 11, 2014
Christopher Capozzola: 100 Years After the Great War, Lessons in Reason
One hundred years ago, Great Britain declared war on Germany, joining in what we now refer to as World War I, a conflict which cost more than 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians their lives, and shaped the the world we know today. How did reasonable people let "The Great War" begin, and what can reasonable people today learn from it?
Joining us this week is Christopher Capozzola, an MIT professor in political and legal history, war, and the military, and author of Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen.
How did rational people plummet themselves into the irrationalism and chaos that tore apart the continent of Europe along with the rest of the world while sowing the seeds of much of the 20th Century's subsequent horrors? Dr. Capozzola and host Josh Zepps examine the kind of day-to-day rationality which can spiral off into madness.
Aug 4, 2014
Laurel Braitman on Animals and Mental Illness
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Laurel Braitman, a TED fellow with a PhD in History and Anthropology of Science from MIT, and the author of Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves.
It might sound strange to say that animals suffer from mental illness but the brain systems that regulate anxiety, attachment, and arousal are evolutionarily ancient. If faulty neurochemistry compounded by stress can lead to mental illness in humans, is it such a stretch to imagine it in other animals as well?
Today we look into the minds of our fellow animals. What do their minds and mental illnesses teach us about sanity, insanity and the concept of consciousness?
Jul 29, 2014
David Ropeik: Airplane Disasters and the Psychology of Risk
How do we rationally assess risk? Following a terrible series of horrifying air travel disasters, reasonable people begin to question what we consider to be "safe." But should we?
To answer this question, our host Josh Zepps is joined by David Ropeik, an international consultant and expert on the subject of risk perception and communication, and author of Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding Whats Really Safe and Whats Really Dangerous in the World Around You and How Risky Is It, Really?: Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts.
Ropeik discusses how human beings perceive danger versus mathematical probabilities, how fear and optimism affect our perception, and how it might be a good idea to be "gentle" with the word "rational" when it comes to the subject risk.
Jul 21, 2014
Jason Horowitz: Protecting the Whales from the U.S. Navy
On March 15, 2000, over a dozen whales beached themselves in the Bahamas in one of the largest multi-species strandings in history. Suspicion turned to U.S. Navy sonar, but at first there was no proof. This revelation brings us into the detective story told in War of the Whales: A True Story. Point of Inquiry welcomes the author, Joshua Horowitz.
We discuss the history of the U.S. Navy’s use of high-intensity active sonar; the cover-up of sonar in the Bahamas; and the titanic struggle between the Navy and an unlikely team of conservationists: marine biologist and ex-Navy sonar man Ken Balcomb, and environmental lawyer Joel Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Host, Lindsay Beyerstein and Horowitz also delve into the history of sonar, the militarization of dolphins, and the sordid history of whales in captivity.
Jul 14, 2014
Austin Dacey - The U.N. and Defamation of Religions
Point of Inquiry is taking a week off and filling in with a classic episode. After Saudi Arabia recently tried to silence the Center For Inquiry's UN representative, Josephine Macintosh, as she delivered a statement critical of their repeated assaults on freedom of religion, belief and expression, we felt that our Austin Dacey episode was fitting to fill in during our week off.
Austin Dacey serves as a respresentative to the United Nations for CFI, and is also on the editorial staff of Skeptical Inquirer and Free Inquiry magazines. His writings have appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times and USA Today. His new book is The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life.
In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Austin Dacey details his trip to Geneva, Switzerland on behalf of the Center for Inquiry's UN mission. He describes the UN lobbying efforts of the Center and its response to the United Nations Human Rights Council's resolution "Combatting the Defamatio…
Jul 7, 2014
The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby--With Brian Leiter
To discuss last week's Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, _Point of Inquiry_ welcomes Dr. Brian Leiter, law professor and philosopher at the University of Chicago. He's the author of several books including _Why Tolerate Religion?_. He blogs at Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog.
Leiter and host Lindsay Beyerstein discuss what the Hobby Lobby decision means for women's health, corporate personhood, and the separation of church and state.
In 2013, Leiter headlined a daylong symposium with the Center for Inquiry (the organization that produces _Point of Inquiry_), and you can watch the video here.
Jul 2, 2014
Montel Williams: Leading a Surge on the Veterans Administration
Best known for his 17 years as a talk show host, Montel Williams is now bringing his name and dynamic personality to activism on behalf of U.S. servicemen and women. Raised during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and into the tumultuous sixties, he joined the Marines as a young man and enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy, earning a Bachelor of Science in Engineering.
After spending years as a motivational speaker and talk show host he returns to his roots in supporting U.S. military men and women after their return home. Williams has put his weight behind a petition to the White House and a campaign known as #VASURGE in an effort to push the federal government to reform and improve the Veterans Administration, a crisis that has reached its boiling point after years of overlapping American wars.
Jun 23, 2014
Marlene Zuk: The Paleo Delusion
We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in caves rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than wear sneakers—or did we? These, along with many other questions about what is or is not "natural" for humans from an evolutionary perspective and is the subject of the new book by biologist, Dr. Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasies: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live. The book was recently long-listed for the Royal Society's Winton Prize, one of the most book prizes in science writing.
Dr. Zuk is an evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist at the University of Minnesota, where she heads the Zuk Lab. She has published many papers and books on evolution and evolutionary biology.
Lindsay interviews her about the book with a view to the "Paleo" craze in health and nutrition, asking if we really know what some claim we do about our paleolithic ancestors and what impact, if any, that knowledge should have on our lives.
Jun 16, 2014
Howard Fineman on Eric Cantor's Defeat and the Battle for the Soul of the GOP
Few intra-party political battles have been as astonishing and unexpected as last week's primary loss by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to religious-conservative challenger David Brat, who was quickly embraced by the Tea Party after his victory. To discuss what this means for the future of the GOP, and how religion has waxed and waned as a factor in American politics, Point of Inquiry welcomes the great political analyst Howard Fineman.
Howard Fineman is the editorial director of The Huffington Post Media Group, an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, former senior editor and columnist for Newsweek, and author of a best-selling book about political history called The Thirteen American Arguments.
Jun 9, 2014
Janet Mock, Redefining Realness, Biology, Sex and Gender
This week POI welcomes bestselling author and trans rights activist, Janet Mock. Janet is the author of the new memoir Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love and So Much More, which recounts her emotional and physical transition from an infant sexed male at birth in Hawaii in 1983, to a young woman in New York City.
Some traditionalists accuse trans activists of playing games with language when they insist on the right of trans people to be called by their preferred pronouns and to be treated as real members of their self-identified gender. Traditionalists claim that anatomy at birth is the only "real" litmus test of gender, despite the empirical evidence calling that simplistic formulation into question.
Trans activists and allies are throwing the burden of proof back on the claimant. Why should the traditional ideology of gender take precedence over the lived experience of trans people?
It's great to be skeptical of ideas that are obviously du…
Jun 3, 2014
Negin Farsad: Red States and Muslim Comedy
This week, we welcome Negin Farsad, a groundbreaking Iranian American comedian. A TED speaker and TED Fellow, she was named one of the Huffington Post's 50 Funniest Women. She's been seen on Comedy Central, MTV, CNN, MSNBC, and in her movie The Muslims are Coming!, a documentary following some of the funniest Muslim comedians as they travel America's Red States, cracking people up and demolishing stereotypes.
Host Josh Zepps and Farsad discuss everything from the gray areas in religious identification, to the situation for Muslims in post-9/11 America, and the theocracy in Iran. How does one of the best educated and culturally Western populations in the Middle East coexist with the theocratic totalitarianism of Iran's regime? What can Western liberals do to help moderates in these countries lessen the influence of Islam's radicals? Does any cultural action on the part of the West do more harm than good? And just what can you do with two masters degrees from Columbia? Apparently, comed…
May 27, 2014
Capital Punishment in Crisis with Dahlia Lithwick
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Editor and Legal Correspondent for Slate, where she writes the "Supreme Court Dispatches" and "Jurisprudence" columns. Her legal commentary won her a National Magazine Award in 2013. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School and she joins Lindsay Beyerstein to talk about the crisis facing capital punishment in the United States.
Almost all executions in the United States are performed by lethal Injection but America's go-to lethal injection drug cocktail is rapidly becoming obsolete because a key component is no longer readily available. States have been reduced to scrounging drugs from unregulated bulk pharmacies and experimenting with secret and untested mixtures of medications, a practice that may amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
On May 21, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the execution of Russell Bucklew of Missouri, just two hours before he was scheduled to be executed for the murder of Michael Sanders.…
May 20, 2014
Farzana Hassan on Islamic Extremism and the Boko Haram
Our guest this week is Farzana Hassan, a Pakistani-Canadian political scientist, a columnist for the Toronto Sun, whose new book is Prophecy and the Fundamentalist Quest: An Integrative Study of Christian and Muslim Apocalyptic Religion.
Hassan joins Point of Inquiry's Josh Zepps to talk about issues surrounding Islam, in particular the difficulty in honestly dealing with terrorism and extremism and their relation to Islam, and the fine line between legitimate criticism and Islamophobia. Hassan, herself a Muslim, suggests that there exists doctrinal support within Islam for many of the terrible acts we see today done in its name. Hassan and Josh discuss whether moderate Muslims are serving as a cover for the extremists, or whether bridges should be built for moderate Muslims as the means to limiting the influence of radicals. Hear all this and more on this week's Point of Inquiry.
May 12, 2014
Science Denialism with Donald Prothero
Our guest this week is Donald Prothero, paleontologist, geologist, and author of the new book _Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten our Future_. He's an expert on the effect of past climate change on the fossil record, as well as the co-author of _Abominable Science_, a skeptical look at cryptozoology and cryptozoologists with Daniel Loxton.
Science Denialism is a many-headed hydra that rears up when people don't want to believe what science tells us. In this day and age, science has enough cache that educated people don't openly reject it when it tells them things they don't want to hear. Instead, they imitate the trappings of science to advance a political agenda.
There was "Big Tobacco" making up fake science and slandering critics to convince the world that smoking is good for you, then there were the apologists for nuclear proliferation, spreading bunk science about the survivability of nuclear war. When the courts decided that teaching Genesis in science class was…
May 5, 2014
Talking Nerdy (And Ethically) with Cara Santa Maria
Our guest this week is Cara Santa Maria, contributor to Al Jazeera America's science show _TechKnow_, and the host of the podcast _Talk Nerdy_. This neuroscientist, science educator, producer, writer, and television personality has brought her intelligence and insights to the _Huffington Post_ as its former senior science editor, was the co-host and producer of _TakePart Live_ on Pivot TV, and has appeared countless times on CNN, FOX, BBC, among many others.
_Point of Inquiry_’s Josh Zepps sat down with Santa Maria for a conversation about growing up Mormon in Texas (and the associated postmortem planetary inheritance), the scourge of false equivalency in modern journalism, and the appeal of “woo” from the metaphysical to the pseudoscientific. And just what are our prospects for scientific advancement, and who will benefit most? This is an episode full of fun and eye-opening insights.
Apr 28, 2014
Coming Out Atheist - Greta Christina
This week Point of Inquiry welcomes the well-known atheist blogger, speaker, and author Greta Christina to talk about her new book, _Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other and Why, _a no nonsense guide to leveling with everyone in your life about your non-belief.
Greta is a woman at home with difficult conversations. Her previous books include _Why Are You Atheists So Angry: 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless_, and _Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories about Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns & More_. Plus, she edited a book called, _Paying For It: A Guide By Sex Workers for Their Clients_.
So, if the thought of telling your grandmother that you don't believe in God makes you queasy, Greta can help. As an out-and-proud atheist, bisexual, and retired sex worker, she's had a lot of practice being forthright about who she is.
Lindsay and Greta talk about how coming out can improve your life and strengthen the secular community. They also discuss the distinctive challenges fac…
Apr 21, 2014
A Trek Through Skepticism with The Amazing Randi
This week, Point of Inquiry is excited to welcome “The Amazing” James Randi: famed magician a godfather (as it were) of the modern reason movement, and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation. Randi is the subject of a new documentary film, An Honest Liar, which brings to life Randi's intricate investigations that publicly exposed psychics, parapsychologists, fait- healers, and con artists.
Randi and host Josh Zepps diagnose the state of American credulity, and discuss why human beings continue to believe unreasonable things that simply “sound nice.” They reminisce about some of Randi's greatest hits with Johnny Carson and Oprah Winfrey, and consider the impact of the religious right in America, of the Internet and social media on skepticism, and much more.
It’s a funny and insightful trek through the last few decades of skepticism from the mind of a great man who helped make it all happen.
Apr 14, 2014
Living with a Wild God: Barbara Ehrenreich, Atheism, and Transcendence
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Barbara Ehrenreich, award-winning columnist and essayist, and author of 21 books. In _Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America_, she went undercover as a minimum wage worker and in _Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America_, she took aim at our punishing national obsession with positive thinking. Her new book _Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything_ is very different from her previous writing.
Living is the story of Ehrenreich's intellectual coming of age. At 17, she had what she calls a mystical experience. She thinks experiences like hers raise the possibility of a world beyond the physical, which might include deities or extra-terrestrials. The only form of deity that she definitively rules out is the judgmental, anthropomorphic god of monotheism. Beyerstein and Ehrenreich also discuss the status of transcendent experience within a naturalistic worldview.
Ehrenreich will be speaki…
Apr 7, 2014
Ann Druyan: Telling the Story of the Cosmos
This week, _Point of Inquiry _is delighted to welcome Ann Druyan, co-writer and co-creator of both the original _Cosmos: A Personal Voyage_, starring her late husband Carl Sagan, as well as the new series, _Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey_, starring Neil deGrasse Tyson.
In a wide-ranging discussion, Druyan talks to Josh Zepps about how the first _Cosmos _series_ _came to be, her efforts to translate the majesty of science into relatable and accessible storytelling, and how we've progressed toward making a more reasonable and humane society. We also get a little bit of insight into what it was like to get to know Carl Sagan for the first time.
Ann Druyan co-wrote with Sagan the books _Comet_, _Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors_, and sections of _The Demon-Haunted World_. Their twenty-year professional collaboration also included NASA’s Voyager Interstellar Message (the famous "Golden Record" aboard the _Voyager_ spacecraft) along with many articles, speeches, and other wri…
Mar 31, 2014
Investigating the Oldest Profession: Prostitution and Science Meet, with Meredith Dank of the Urban Institute
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Meredith Dank, PhD, Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute. Dank is the co-principal investigator on several international and domestic human trafficking projects, including the new study, "Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities”, which attempts to put dollar figures on prostitution in Atlanta, Denver, San Diego, Seattle, and other major municipalities.
Point of Inquiry goes behind the headlines to interrogate the methodology and meaning of this three-year study, which uses a complex statistical model to extrapolate the size of sex markets from interview data from 73 incarcerated pimps and sex traffickers. We explore questions such as whether the interviewees are representative of the sex industry as a whole, and the role of trafficking in sex work.
Mar 24, 2014
Frank Schaeffer on Escaping Fundamentalism, and the Death of Fred Phelps
Following the death of the Westboro Baptist Church's Fred Phelps, Josh Zepps discusses the state of religious fundamentalism with Frank Schaeffer, the _New York Times_ bestselling author of_ Crazy for God: How I grew up as one of the Elect_, _Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics-- and How I learned to love Women (and Jesus) Anyway_, among many others.
Having recovered from being raised in a fundamentalist Christian family, and having written multiple novels about growing up in that world, Schaeffer has a fascinating perspective on what he sees as the psychological damage inflicted by angry fundamentalism, and helps us examine how we, as atheists, might respond to the death of those we despise.
Mar 17, 2014
Cancer Quack Stanislaw Burzynski: Exposed
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes David Gorski, MD, PhD: cancer researcher, surgeon, and managing editor of the Science-Based Medicine blog, aka "Orac" of Respectful Insolence.
Gorski and Beyerstein discuss a pair of exposés of cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski in the March/April issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, one by Gorski and one by skeptical activist Robert Blaskiewicz.
Gorski explains why Burzynski's urine-derived antineoplaston therapy is worthless; how the doctor strong-armed the FDA into letting him peddle these expensive and potentially dangerous drugs for over 30 years; and how the treatment may have killed a little girl. Gorski also discusses Blaskiewicz's report on skeptical activists who banded together online to warn the public about Burzynski's quackery and push back against his attempts to silence his critics.
Mar 10, 2014
The Philosophy of Belief with Rebecca Goldstein
Rebecca Goldstein, a professor of philosophy and the author of five novels and a collection of short stories, joins us on _Point of Inquiry_ to discuss atheism, philosophy and her new book, _Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away_. Along with some of her weightier philosophical works she has also recently published _36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction_, a novel that is both deep and playful in its examination of apologist positions.
Goldstein, who will be a guest at the upcoming Women in Secularism III conference, has written five novels -- including the recent _36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction _-- as well as a number of short stories, essays, and biographical studies. As someone with a distinguished career teaching Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Mind, and as the recipient of a MacArthur Fellow "Genius Award", and the Humanist of the Year award, she is in an exciting position to discuss historic, current and developing…
Mar 3, 2014
Daniel Loxton: Bigfoot, Nessie and Other Kinds of “Abominable Science”
This week _Point of Inquiry_ welcomes Daniel Loxton, longtime Editor of_ Junior Skeptic_, the 10-page kids' science section bound within _Skeptic_ magazine, author and illustrator of the national award-winning kids' science book _Evolution: How We and All Living Beings Came to Be_, and a series of illustrated books subtitled Tales of Prehistoric Life. Loxton has published two major essays on skeptical activism; "Where Do We Go From Here?" in 2007, dealing with the focus and direction of the new generation of skepticism, and which helped to inspire the SkeptiCamp community organized conferences on scientific skepticism; and "What Do I Do Next?" in 2009, providing ideas and suggestions for individual involvement in the skepticism movement.
Recently, Loxton, along with co-author Donald R. Prothero, has written an entertaining, educational and definitive text on cryptids, presenting the arguments both for and against their existence. Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nes…
Feb 24, 2014
Gabriel Sherman - The Loudest Voice in the Room : How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--and Divided a Country
This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Gabriel Sherman, writer and contributing editor for New York Magazine and author of the new book The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News - and Divided a Country. The book takes an indepth look at Roger Ailes, the conservative mastermind and president of Fox News Channel, and the effect he has had on American culture. Sherman interviewed over 600 people and spent years compiling a history of Ailes, from the 1960s when Ailes was a producer for the "Mike Douglas Show," through Ailes' time with the Nixon administration, all the way to his reign at Fox News.
This week we venture into the mind, motivations and mission of the heart of right wing news.
Feb 17, 2014
Amy Tuteur, MD
This week, Point of Inquiry looks into midwives, home births, and what they mean for a safe delivery for child and mother. Our guest is skeptic, obstetrician, gynecologist, and author of How Your Baby is Born, Dr. Amy Tuteur.
Dr. Tuteur, a graduate of Harvard and the Boston University School of Medicine, and former clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, joins us to talk about some of the misinformation and unscientific theories being peddled to expectant mothers, and the harm that can come from them. Dr. Tuteur's blog is The Skeptical OB.
Feb 10, 2014
Stanton Peele, PhD - Addiction and Recovery
This week, _Point of Inquiry_ welcomes Stanton Peele, PhD., J.D.. Dr. Peele, an addiction expert and author of 12 books on the subject, discusses his views on the current ‘disease model’ view of addiction and the recent tragedy involving actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Peele holds the somewhat contrarian position that, depending on the person, abstinence or moderation are valid approaches to treat excessive drinking or other substance abuses. He argues that 12-step programs may do more harm than good and that there is no evidence that they perform any better than “quitting cold turkey.” Peele also suggests that the current model of addiction treatment may even violate standards of medical ethics.
In Dr. Peele’s most recent book, _Recover!: Stop Thinking Like an Addict and Reclaim Your Life with The PERFECT Program_, he describes mindfulness techniques to stop the behaviors which are detrimental to your life without becoming addicted to the recovery program itself.
Feb 4, 2014
Greg Dworkin, MD - Founding Editor of Flu Wiki
This week, _Point of Inquiry_ welcomes Greg Dworkin, MD. Dr. Dworkin is a founding editor of Flu Wiki (http://fluwiki.info.) an international*, wiki-*format clearinghouse of Influenza information* designed* to help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic.* He’s **an expert on pandemic Flu preparedness and is joining us to discuss the Flu, the vaccine and staying healthy this H1N1 season.*
Dr. Dworkin is Chief of Pediatric Pulmonology and Medical Director of the Pediatric In-patient Unit at Danbury Hospital in Danbury CT, where he has been in clinical practice for eighteen years, and serves on the Danbury city and school Pandemic Flu Task Forces. Dworkin holds academic appointments as Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at New York Medical College and Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor of Allied Health Science at Quinnipiac College.
Jan 28, 2014
J.R. Havlan - Writer for The Daily Show
This week _Point of Inquiry_ discusses satire in politics and American life with J.R. Havlan, eight-time Emmy Award winning writer on _The Daily Show_. J.R. was previously a stand-up comic, including a stint doing crowd warm-up for _Politically Incorrect_ which led to writing jokes for that show's monologues. He's also co-author of the _New York Times_ best-selling books _America: The Book_,_ Earth: The Book_, and wrote for the 2006 and 2008 Academy Awards. Most recently, J.R. began his own podcast called Writers' Bloc, on which he interviews other television and film comedy writers about their backgrounds, beginnings and influences with a focus on the process of writing comedy.
Perhaps no other popular television show does more to defend rationality and to fight B.S. than _The Daily Show with Jon Stewart_. How do the show's writers think about their role in American culture? Does the show actively seek to oppose Fox News and the religious right? How does it use comedy t…
Jan 21, 2014
Jason Stanley - Is the United States a ‘Racial Democracy?
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy at Yale and co-author of a provocative essay in last week’s New York Times entitled _Is the United States a ‘Racial Democracy?__ _
Dr. Stanley and his co-author, Dr. Vesla Weaver, argue that the disproportionate surveillance, imprisonment, and post-conviction voter disenfranchisement of black Americans threatens the very integrity of our democracy. On any given day, 5.85 million people are unable to vote because they are in prison, on parole, or disenfranchised as felons. A disproportionate percentage of them are black. Of the nation's 2.3 million prisoners, about 1 million are black, despite the fact that black people represent just 13% of the population. If current trends continue, 1 in 3 black men born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime.
You don't even have to get arrested to be affected by the surveillance state. New research shows that any unwanted contact with police, even somethin…
Jan 14, 2014
Arthur Caplan, PhD - Ethics of Brain Death, end of life, the State and the Right
This week Point of Inquiry is discussing Death. Specifically, Brain death and the efforts of some areas of the religious right and their attempts to eliminate whole brain Brain Death as the legal standard for death in America.
To aid in that,Lindsay Beyerstein welcomes, head of the division of bioethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center, Arthur Caplan, PhD.
Dr. Caplan is the author of 32 books and over 600 papers on bioethics as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Centering on the recent high-profile cases in recent months with brain dead people being kept 'alive' by machines long after total irreversible loss of brain function. They discuss these cases specifically but also the idea of Brain Death in general and what keeping a corpse alive on machines entails.
What can and should you do to avoid putting your family through this ordeal if you were to fall into the dead zone of Brain Death? Of course, the unreasonable fear of org…
Jan 6, 2014
Chris Emden - Hip Hop Archivist and Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University
This week on Point of Inquiry we welcome Chris Emden, a Columbia Professor who's helped design New York City's public school policy, a leading science education researcher, and Harvard Hip Hop Archive Fellow.
Chris Emden is a favored guest of Josh Zepps on Huffpost Live, and for good reason. They chat about the state of American science education, and the ways in which Emden is trying to shake things up. Josh and Emden talk about how we can make science education more interesting and culturally available for students across the country, how to introduce children to science as a personal discipline in life – not just a subject in school – and how to bring about a more scientifically literate population.
Dec 30, 2013
The War on Christmas
As the War on Christmas wages on, our host, Josh Zepps, interviews Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst for American's United for the Separation of Church and State, Editor of _Church & State_ magazine and author of Close Encounters with the Religious Right : Journeys into the Twilight Zone of Religion and Politics.
Together they get to the bottom of the War on Christmas. They explain how saying "Happy Holidays" is a violation of Christian liberty and explore the vast number of schools banning red, green, and jolly old men.
Is the War on Christmas a fact or is it fear-mongering and imagined persecution among the Christian media elite? This week, an amusing, year end, episode of Point of Inquiry which actually delves into some serious Church-State, First Amendment issues along with some festive humor.
Dec 23, 2013
Kathryn Joyce - The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption
Joining Lindsay Bernstein this week is Kathryn Joyce, one of the foremost reporters chronicling the Religious Right today. She made “Quiverfull” a household name with her first book, _Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement._Her new book is called _The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption._ The book is the product of four years of reporting from four different countries.
Joyce found that adoption has become the hot new spiritual fad among U.S. evangelicals, often with devastating consequences for children and families at home and abroad.
Evangelical adoption crusaders sell the idea that there are tens of millions of orphans just waiting to be “saved” by devout American parents. But the true number of orphans is much smaller. With pastors in mega-church pulpits exhorting their flocks to adopt, adopt, adopt, the demand for children now outstrips the supply leading to dubious activities.
Orphanages in countries like Ethiopia and…
Dec 16, 2013
P.J. O'Rourke - American Satirist, Journalist and Author
This week on Point of Inquiry, Josh Zepps welcomes P.J. O’Rourke, humorist, cultural commentator, and best selling author of sixteen books. An early proponent of “gonzo journalism” and is a self-described libertarian, O’Rourke has served as editor-in-chief of National Lampoon, and has spent 20 years reporting for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic as the world’s only “trouble spot humorist,” going to wars, riots, rebellions, and other “Holidays in Hell” in more than 40 countries. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and a frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
In this episode they discuss everything from abortion and privacy, to the party following the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the looting of the Baghdad Museum. They are, however, able to steer clear of the dicey topic of free will.
Dec 10, 2013
Barry W. Lynn - Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State
This week on Point of Inquiry, Lindsay Beyerstein talks with Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, and a strong advocate of separation of church and state.
The conversation focuses on the Supreme Court's recent decision to hear the Hobby Lobby contraception mandate case. This is the most high profile case challenging the birth control mandate, one of the requirements of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
Lynn explains how Hobby Lobby's court challenge could open the door for Jehovah's Witness-owned companies to refuse to cover blood transfusions, or for Christian Scientist-owned companies to refuse to cover any medical care.
** Due to recording problems minutes 1:30 through 2:40 of Mr. Lynn's portion of the recording are slightly distorted. We apologize for the inconvenience and assure you that the remainder of the recording is clear and that, throughout, t…
Dec 2, 2013
Gadadhara Pandit Dasa - First Hindu Chaplain for Columbia University
This week's Point of Inquiry features Gadadhara Pandit Dasa, first ever Hindu Chaplain for
Columbia University and New York University, the interfaith chaplain at Union Theological
Seminary, and author of Urban Monk: Exploring Karma, Consciousness, and the Divine.
Pandit, who teaches courses on Hindu scriptures, has spoken at a recent TEDx Conference and
was featured in the NPR piece "Long Days and Short Nights of a Hindu Monk." He appeared in
a PBS documentary on the Bhagavad Gita, and is also a regular contributor for the Huffington
Post.
Host Josh Zepps frames this episode’s interview as a conversation between an atheist and
a believer. Pandit discusses his views on science and faith, inter-religious conflict, and the
perspectives of a believer on atheism.
Nov 25, 2013
Paul Offit, MD - Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine
This week’s guest on _Point of Inquiry_, Paul A. Offit, MDis best known as a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine and a staunch, public supporter of vaccination and opponent of pseudoscientific alternative medicine.
His most recent book, *_Do you Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine_* points a critical eye at the alt-med industry, one than takes in 34 billion dollars a year with little to no regulation. Are patients being harmed, and is it any worse or better than so-called “Big Pharma”?
Dr. Offit talks with our host, Lindsay Beyerstein, about all of this and much more on this week’s _Point of Inquiry_.
Dr. Offit has published over 130 scholarly articles on the rotavirus vaccine and vaccine safety and efficacy in general. He has also authored or co-authored many books on pediatric medicine, childhood vaccination and opposing pseudoscience in Medicine.
He is also the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, Professor of Pediatrics at the Uni…
Nov 16, 2013
Bill Nye The Science Guy
Famed educator, engineer and "Science Guy," Bill Nye Joins our host Josh Zepps for this week's Point of Inquiry. They discuss Bill's start as an Engineer and part time stand up comedian to his groundbreaking work in television educating a generation on science. They also delve into Bill's view into the future of science, science education, as well as how to become excessively rich using the tools of science to change the world.
Nov 11, 2013
Katherine Stewart: The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children
Point of Inquiry, the flagship podcast for the Center for Inquiry, presents a special episode recorded before a live audience at the 2013 CFI Summit in Tacoma, Washington, with new co-host Lindsay Beyerstein.
The fundamentalist, Christian right's influence and impact on our schools and the educating of our children is the subject of the new book The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children. Its author, Katherine Stewart, is our guest on this edition of Point of Inquiry, available in both video and audio editions.
Stewart has publiched two novels about 21st Century parenting, worked in investigative journalism, written freelance for such publications as Newsweek International, Rolling Stone, The New York Observer, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Bloomberg View, and Religion Dispatches.
What are these "Good News Clubs" and what is their influence on schools across the nation?Evolution and sex education are just two of the avenues t…
Nov 5, 2013
Leonard Mlodinow: Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior
Point of Inquiry, the flagship podcast of the Center for Inquiry, relaunches with a special episode recorded before a live audience at the 2013 CFI Summit in Tacoma, Washington, with new co-host Josh Zepps of HuffPost Live.
Our unconscious minds offer us something of a paradox. On the one hand, we'd be lost without it, as it processes information without us ever being aware of it — it's how we deal with the real world in real time. But on the other hand, we don't always have a complete picture, so the unconscious mind can often draw mistaken conclusions, even though they may feel right at a "gut level."
This is the subject of the work of Leonard Mlodinow in his most recent book Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, for which he won the 2013 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for a book of literary nonfiction on the subject of the physical or biological sciences. In this interview, Mlodinow explains how we have trouble poking holes in our own supposi…
Sep 30, 2013
Neil deGrasse Tyson - Communicating Science
Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Susan Jacoby, and other luminaries in the science and secularism movement.
Our guest this week needs little introduction—he may be our most famous public communicator of science.
He's Neil DeGrasse Tyson, renowned American astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, and the host of PBS's NOVA ScienceNow, which just completed a new six part season.
Tyson is also the author of 9 books, most recently Death By Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries, which was a New York Times bestseller, and The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet.
In this double length episode, Tyson discusses a wide range of topics: the just finished 2011 season of ScienceNow; how to restore a science "Zeitgeist" in our culture; Bill O'Reilly's rec…
Sep 10, 2013
Bill Nye - In Praise of Reason (and Skepticism)
Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Susan Jacoby, and other luminaries in the science and secularism movement.
Recently in New Orleans, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry held the very first CSIcon—the conference dedicated to scientific inquiry and critical thinking.
The main honoree: Bill Nye the Science Guy, who was given CSI's premiere "In Praise of Reason" award.
The next day, Point of Inquiry caught up with Nye, a guest who really needs no introduction... at least not to the thousands upon thousands of kids who saw a little show called Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Since then, Nye has been involved in many other endeavors and television programs to improve science teaching and understanding in our country, including his latest show on Planet Green, "Stuff Happens".
Nye is an engineer, inventor, author, comedian—a su…
Aug 19, 2013
Brian Greene - The Fabric of the Cosmos
Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Susan Jacoby, and other luminaries in the science and secularism movement.
It's the beginning of a new year here at Point of Inquiry, and we've got a pretty good guest to kick it off.
He needs no introduction. He's Brian Greene—celebrity physicist, bestselling author, television star and all around science communication maestro.
Officially: Greene is co-founder and director of Columbia University's Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, author of the bestselling books The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, and co-founder of the World Science Festival.
We caught up with Greene to discuss the recently aired four part NOVA special based on The Fabric of the Cosmos, as well as, well, sciency things in general.
Aug 12, 2013
Temple Grandin - The Science of Livestock Animal Welfare
Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Susan Jacoby, and other luminaries in the science and secularism movement.
According to the USDA, Americans produce and consume more beef, veal, and chicken than any other nation in the world. As a result, the status of animal welfare in the meat production industry should be of some concern to all Americans, regardless of dietary habits. One of the world's leading experts in livestock handling practices is Dr. Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University.
In addition to gaining international recognition for her research on animal behavior and designs of feed yards and slaughterhouses, Dr. Grandin is also arguably the most famous high-functioning autistic adult. Her story has inspired countless individuals and families who have been touched by autism spectrum di…
Aug 5, 2013
Susan Jacoby - American Freethought Heritage
Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Susan Jacoby, and other luminaries in the science and secularism movement.
Susan Jacoby is the author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, now in its tenth hardcover printing and recently published in paperback. Freethinkers was hailed in the New York Times as an “ardent and insightful work” that “seeks to rescue a proud tradition from the indifference of posterity.” Named a notable nonfiction book of 2004 by The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, Freethinkers was cited in England as one of the outstanding international books of 2004 by the Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian.
In this interview with DJ Grothe, Jacoby talks about the role that freethinkers played in American social justice movements, and discusses the forgotten history of Robert Green I…
Jul 29, 2013
Neil deGrasse Tyson - Communicating Science to the Public
Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Susan Jacoby, and other luminaries in the science and secularism movement.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of America’s leading spokespersons for science. The research areas he focuses on are star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. In addition to many scholarly publications, Dr Tyson is one of America’s most respected science writers, and he writes a monthly column for Natural History magazine simply titled the “Universe.” Among his eight books is his memoir The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist; and also Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, co-written with Donald Goldsmith. His most recent book is Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries. He is the on-camera host of PBS-NOVA…
Jun 24, 2013
Ethan Zuckerman - Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is an inspiring thinker whom we've wanted to get on the show for a long, long time: Ethan Zuckerman.
He's the director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, and works at MIT's Media Lab. He's also the co-founder of Global Voices, a community of global bloggers—and has worked in the past at Geekcorps and Tripod.
We're here to discuss his new book Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection—which among other things argues that the technological ability to communicate with someone does not inevitably lead to increased human connection. In other words, it's about nothing less than how to use the Internet to open, rather than close, your mind.
Jun 19, 2013
Mario Livio - Brilliant Blunders From Darwin to Einstein
Host: Chris Mooney
One thing we often forget about great scientists, especially as they are lionized and mythologized: they made mistakes. Sometimes big ones. Sometimes, even, brilliant ones.
Charles Darwin, for instance, didn't understand genetics. He and Gregor Mendel were as ships passing in the night. Granted, Darwin eventually realized that he needed a better theory of heredity in order for his idea of natural selection to work—so he came up with "pangenesis," a completely wrong idea that... well, the less said about it the better.
But Darwin isn't the only one. From Linus Pauling to Albert Einstein, many of history's greatest thinkers have blundered badly on occasion. They've made major mistakes—sometimes outright embarrassing ones. And now, acclaimed scientist and science writer Mario Livio has compiled these cases together into an intriguing narrative that helps us understand the importance of mistakes to science itself, and to how we think about it.
Mario Livio is a se…
Jun 11, 2013
Daniel Dennett - Tools for Thinking
Host: Indre Viskontas
Having spent 50 years as an influential thinker, Daniel Dennett has earned the right to tell us how to think. His latest book is a collection of 77 tools for thinking, which every self-respecting critical thinker should consider, if not actively use.
American philosopher and author Daniel C. Dennett is perhaps best known in cognitive science for his multiple drafts (or "fame in the brain") model of human consciousness and he is among the most influential philosophers of our day. He is the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, and the author of 16 books including Elbow Room; The Intentional Stance; Consciousness Explained; Darwin's Dangerous Idea and most recently, Intuition Pumps and other Tools for Thinking. Prof Dennett has also published more than 300 scholarly articles and was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contributions to society in 2012.
Jun 4, 2013
Stephan Lewandowsky - The Mind of the Conspiracy Theorist
Host: Chris Mooney
From 9-11, to the death of Osama bin Laden, to the Boston Bombings, there's been a consistently bizarre and troubling reaction by some members of the public.
We're referring to the people—a minority, to be sure, but a surprisingly large one—who always seem to think there's some kind of cover up. The U.S. government, they feel, was really behind the attacks on, uh, itself. And as for Bin Laden—well, he isn't really dead.
These people are called conspiracy theorists, and, their particular form of irrationality is uniquely befuddling. It has been often denounced, but rarely understood. That's too bad, because conspiratorial thinking clearly plays an important role in science denial, on matters ranging from the connection between HIV and AIDS, to the safety of vaccines, to global warming.
Fortunately, conspiracy mongers are now becoming the subject of research and study—and our latest guest is helping to lead this inquiry.
His name is Stephan Lewandowsky, an…
May 22, 2013
Katha Pollitt - Is Religion Inherently Sexist?
Host: Chris Mooney
Over the weekend, the Center for Inquiry's Women in Secularism II conference unfolded in Washington, D.C.—and we caught up with one of the event's most distinguished speakers, the feminist poet and author Katha Pollitt.
You probably know her "Subject to Debate" column in the Nation—always both insightful and also hilarious to read. It has been called, by the Washington Post, the "best place to go for original thinking on the left." The column won the National Magazine Award in 2003.
Pollitt is also the author of four essay collections—most recently, Learning to Drive and Other Stories—and two books of poetry, the latest being The Mind Body Problem. In this interview, she discusses her talk at "Women in Secularism II" on the subject: "Sexism and Religion: Can the Knot Be Untied?"
May 14, 2013
Michael Levi - Fracking, Pipelines, and Science
Host: Chris Mooney
A few months back on this show, we heard from Bill McKibben, the celebrated environmental writer and, more recently, leader of a mass movement around preventing climate change that has focused on blocking the Keystone XL pipeline.
McKibben makes a compelling case that our climate system is at dire risk. But many thinkers who fully accept the science of climate change nonetheless take a very different approach to climate and energy policy. And as someone who personally sees strengths on both sides of this question, today I want to feature one of them.
So today we feature one of the smartest and most thoughtful of these environmental moderates: Michael Levi. He's author of the new book The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future—in which he talks favorably about natural gas drilling through "fracking" and even, yes, the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Michael Levi is the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and the environment at the C…
May 8, 2013
Jared Diamond - The World Until Yesterday
Note: You can watch this episode on Youtube.
In this special episode of Point of Inquiry, Chris and Indre speak with the Pulitzer Prize winning Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Dr. Diamond is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles and has traveled extensively to New Guinea for his research. His observations there form the foundation of his new book, The World Until Yesterday: What We Can Learn from Traditional Societies, which is the subject of this interview.
Afterwards, Chris and Indre debate aspects of Diamond's new book that they found both surprising and, on occasion, frustrating.
Apr 30, 2013
Mary Roach - Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
Host: Indre Viskontas
In the science section at your local bookstore, you'll find plenty of books on everything from the brain, to the climate, to the cosmos.
But how many books will you find that take you on a tour of the digestive tract—from our mouths, to our stomachs, to our intestines? Popular science writer Mary Roach's new book, Gulp, does just that.
Decoding the science of taboo topics like vaginal weight-lifting, amputee bowling leagues, and how much food it takes to burst a human stomach has become the signature style of Roach, who has been described by the Washington Post as "America's funniest science writer."
Mary Roach writes about human bodies in unusual circumstances and does not shy away from things that are gross. Her previous best-selling books include: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void but today we’ll b…
Apr 23, 2013
Scott Atran - What Makes a Terrorist?
Host: Chris Mooney
Back in the summer of 2011—just before the 10 year anniversary of 9/11—this show welcomed on Scott Atran, an anthropologist who is a leading expert on terrorism and violent extremism.
Now, in the wake of the Boston bombings and the dramatic capture of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, we called Atran back to discuss the first large scale U.S. terrorist bombing since 9/11.
As Atran's research shows, the Tsarnaev brothers share many parallels with other young, disaffected men who opt for extremist violence around the world.
But Atran's broader conclusion from the past week may be an unsettling one: When we devote such massive societal attention to a few homegrown terrorists, we may not ultimately be doing ourselves any favors.
Scott Atran is an anthropologist and an expert on terrorism with appointments at John Jay College, the University of Michigan, and Oxford. He is author of the book Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (un)Making of Terrorists, and…
Apr 16, 2013
Neil Gross - Why Are Professors (and Scientists) So Liberal?
Host: Chris Mooney
We've all heard the claim: Academia is liberal. And it indoctrinates students.
It kills their religious faith and basically—or at least, so the allegation goes—transforms them into unkempt, pot-smoking hippies.
As it turns out, this claim is precisely half true. Yes, academia is really liberal. But no, this has virtually nothing at all to do with ideological brainwashing.
That's the provocative claim of a new book by Neil Gross of the University of British Columbia. It's entitled Why Are Professors Liberal? And Why Do Conservatives Care? And basically, it's a powerful data analysis to bandy about whenever Ted Cruz, or Rick Santorum, start talking about liberal academic indoctrination mills.
Neil Gross taught at the University of Southern California and Harvard University before joining the University of British Columbia faculty in 2008. Trained at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Ph.D., 2002), and holding a BA in Legal Studies from the University of Cali…
Apr 9, 2013
A.C. Grayling - The God Argument
Host: Chris Mooney
Remember all the greatest hits of religious apologists—the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for God's existence?
You may have learned how to refute them in college—but not, perhaps, with the zest and humor shown by renowned philosopher A.C. Grayling in his new book The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and For Humanism.
But Grayling isn't just making a negative case—his book is about how to live, and flourish, without religion in your life. It's about how to be good—and in the end about why, to find meaning, it's important most of all to think.
A.C. Grayling is master of New College of the Humanities, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St. Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy and other topics—including The Good Book, Ideas That Matter, Liberty in the Age of Terror, and To Set Prometheus Free.
Apr 2, 2013
Frans de Waal - The Bonobo and the Atheist
Host: Chris Mooney
You hear it a lot from religious believers: Faith is about doing good works, bringing about good in the world, and showing compassion.
In fact, some go further and argue that you can't really be moral without religion.
Well, says primatologist Frans de Waal, they really ought to take a look at our close cousin the bonobo—in his new book The Bonobo and the Atheist.
For that matter, De Waal continues, those defending a faith-only version of morality ought to look at any number of moral, empathetic behaviors throughout the animal kingdom, in species ranging from dogs to elephants.
De Waal's conclusions from all of this, for atheists, though, are controversial. He wants a more secular morality, but also thinks you can't just wipe religion away, because it is too closely wrapped up with our evolved morality and our group allegiances.
So we wanted to interview De Waal about the latest science on morality—and about what it means for those who want the world to try…
Mar 26, 2013
Carol Tavris - The Science of Sex and Gender
Host: Indre Viskontas
Back in February, Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer made a decision that pushed gender issues and the work/life balance back into the headlines: she mandated that her employees can no longer work from home. It's a decision that impacts families with children in a big way—and puts a focus on women in the workplace.
Are decisions like Mayer's related to a broader cultural bias against women? Do biological differences between men and women account for the gender disparity in leadership positions in many industries? What do we even know about gender differences? Does science have answers to any of these questions yet? To find out, we invited Carol Tavris, a noted social psychologist and a pioneer of gender studies, to join us in this week's episode.
Carol Tavris received a PhD in social psychology from the University of Michigan, and has taught psychology at UCLA and the New School for Social Research. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Associatio…
Mar 19, 2013
Amanda Marcotte - Skepticism Needs Feminism
Host: Chris Mooney
Later this year, May 17 to 19 in Washington, D.C., the Center for Inquiry will convene its second "Women in Secularism" conference.
There are a host of great speakers, many of whom we've had on this show before, like Susan Jacoby, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Greta Christina, and Rebecca Watson.
And we're going to be there covering it.
But in the meantime, to get you ready, we've invited on one of the featured speakers ahead of time—Amanda Marcotte.
Marcotte writes for and manages the blog Pandagon, blogs for Slate's Double X, and has two books out: It's A Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments and Get Opinionated: A Progressive's Guide to Finding Your Voice (and Taking a Little Action).
She's written about politics, pop culture, and feminism for outlets such as Slate, Salon, the LA Times, the Guardian, and the American Prospect.
Mar 5, 2013
Mark Lynas - Science and the Left
Host: Chris Mooney
I'm a big defender of the proposition that when it comes to abusing science, the political left and the political right are very different beasts.
But that doesn't make the left innocent of science abuses—and one man who knows that very well is Mark Lynas.
He's a British environmentalist and author, and he recently gained dramatic attention for his public conversion on the issue GM crops—denouncing his prior allies, and also his prior self, on the issue.
Lynas had been an anti-GM activist and even a destroyer of crops. Now, he thinks science leads to a very different conclusion. He's also a defender of science on other issues where one can make a pretty serious case that the Left gets it wrong—like nuclear power.
So I wanted to bring Mark on to discuss anti-science on the left—and finally, to weigh the irrationality of the political poles and see if the scales are really balanced... or not.
Mark Lynas is a British journalist and environmental activist.…
Feb 28, 2013
Matthew Hutson - The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking
Host: Indre Viskontas
Even the hard-core skeptics believe in magic, says Matthew Hutson in his new book The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep us Happy, Healthy and Sane which has just been released in paperback.
Most of us have some sentimental objects that would seem to lose their importance if replaced by an exact copy. We imbue our pets with human personality traits. We are disgusted at the thought of eating a cake that looks like fecal matter. We expect that what goes around comes around. All of these are examples of magical thinking, Hutson argues. A skeptic and an atheist, Hutson claims that ‘our ongoing flirtation with supernaturalism is a relationship that we depend on for survival.' I'm not convinced. In a lively discussion, we delve into magical thinking, its pitfalls and potential benefits.
Matthew Hutson is a former editor at Psychology Today, and has a B.Sc. in cognitive neuroscience from Brown University and an M.S. in science writing from MIT.…
Feb 20, 2013
Point of Inquiry Live | Steven Pinker - The Decline of Violence
Note: You can watch this episode on Youtube.
Since the horrendous massacre of children and teachers in Newtown, CT last year, gun control and the second amendment have been frequent topics of the national conversation. Point of Inquiry would be remiss if we didn't add our signature long-form interview style to the discussion. To that end, we interviewed Steven Pinker whose recent book suggests that we are, contrary to popular belief, living in the most peaceful time in humanity's existence.
Steven Pinker is professor of psychology at Harvard University. He is the author of eight books, including How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Language Instinct and most recently The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. He is a two-time Pulitzer-prize finalist, one of Time's 100 Most Influential People and one of Foreign Policy's top 100 Global Thinkers.
Also featured is an interview with Tom Di Liberto, meteorologist at NOAA and winner of the 2013 America's Science Idol c…
Feb 12, 2013
Susan Jacoby - Freethought’s Forgotten Hero
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is Susan Jacoby.
She's the bestselling author of a number of books about secularism and American culture, including Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism and The Age of American Unreason.
Jacoby started her career at the Washington Post, and her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Book Review, Newsday, Harper's, The Nation, Vogue, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, and the AARP Magazine, among other publications.
Her latest book, just published and the subject of our interview, is The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought.
Feb 5, 2013
Carl Zimmer - Viruses and Other Little Things
This year's flu season has been dubbed the worst in recent history, despite the fact that the flu vaccine is fairly effective and readily available. But of course, not everyone experiencing flu-like symptoms actually has the flu—with so many cold viruses and bacterial infections being passed around, it seems that everyone has been sick this January. Long nights, low humidity, holiday parties all combine to create the perfect breeding ground for the tiny organisms that make us miserable.
Singers like myself are particularly sensitive to illnesses that make it impossible for us to do our jobs and so, as I traveled to Raleigh last week for a conference of science writers, journalists, bloggers and broadcasters, I couldn't help but think about bugs and viruses in between hand washings. It's no surprise then, that when I had the opportunity to chat with one of the most prolific and popular science writers in the world—Carl Zimmer—we climbed through the looking glass and into the micr…
Jan 28, 2013
Paul Krugman - Science and Pseudoscience in Economics
Host: Chris Mooney
We are thrilled by our guest this week, who is not only one of the world's most famous economists and economics commentators, but also a Nobel Laureate in his field: Paul Krugman.
In case he needs any introduction: He is a professor of economics at Princeton and a columnist for the New York Times, as well of the author of the blog on its website entitled "The Conscience of a Liberal."
The occasion for our interview is the release of his latest book, End this Depression Now, in paperback. It is just out and, besides being a very lucid explanation of our current economic predicament, it is also a work that goes straight at the heart of a central concern of this show—what is science, and what isn't, in a field that is perhaps even more political than other aspects of science... economics.
Jan 22, 2013
Sean Carroll - The Particle at the End of the Universe
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is Sean Carroll—theoretical physicist at CalTech, and skilled science communicator.
I've known Sean and his work for almost a decade, and I've invited him on to talk about his latest book: The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World.
Sean Carroll is a physicist at the California Institute of Technology. His research focuses on theoretical physics and cosmology, especially the origin and constituents of the universe. He has contributed to models of interactions between dark matter, dark energy, and ordinary matter; alternative theories of gravity; and violations of fundamental symmetries. Carroll is also the author of From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time. He has appeared on TV shows such as The Colbert Report and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, and frequently serves as a science consultant for film and television. He blogs at Preposterous Universe.
Jan 14, 2013
Maria Konnikova - How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is Maria Konnikova, who is the author of a simply fascinating new book about training your mind so you're as sharp as the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.
It's entitled Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes.
In addition to her new book, Konnikova writes the "Literally Psyched" column for Scientific American, and is a doctoral candidate in psychology at Columbia University.
She's also written for The Atlantic, Slate, The New York Times, and other publications. Mastermind is her first book.
Jan 7, 2013
Phil Plait - #Notpocalypse!
Host: Chris Mooney
This is our first show of 2013, and notably, we're still here.
A lot of people actually thought the world was going to end at the end of last year, which, presumably, means that now it's rejoicing time.
And also reflection time. Time for reflection on all the things that people are capable of believing, as well as the things that might really lead to global catastrophe someday.
To help us in that process, we've invited back our expert on all things related to the world ending and not ending: Phil Plait.
He needs no introduction, except to say that he's the Bad Astronomer. He's the Bad Astronomer at Slate, on Twitter, and on every other platform you can imagine.
Phil Plait is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope data and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. His two books are Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax" and…
Jan 1, 2013
Scott Sigler - Encouraging Critical Thinking Through Science Fiction
Host: Indre Viskontas
It's become almost a truism that in their spare time, skeptics tend to gravitate towards TV shows, novels and games that portray the very monsters, myths and conspiracies that they work so hard to debunk. A great story is just as entertaining to the most hardened skeptics as it is to the rest of the population. And because they are often more knowledgeable about the history of a particular monster or myth, skeptics might even enjoy fictional depictions of pet topics more than the uninitiated general public.
A case in point is author and podcaster Scott Sigler, whose fascination with monsters led him not only to read and watch stories about monsters, but even to invest all of his creative energy and talent into writing horrifying and thrilling science fiction novels. But is there a risk of propagating myths through storytelling? Does science fiction help or hurt critical thinking? To get some insights into these questions, we talked to Scott about his writing pro…
Dec 27, 2012
Ronald A. Lindsay and Michael De Dora - Mr. Science Goes to Washington
Host: Chris Mooney
We usually record Point of Inquiry at a distance. Over the phone. Skyping.
But for this show, I packed up my gear and hailed a cab—to the Center for Inquiry's brand new Office of Public Policy in downtown, Washington, D.C.
The Center for Inquiry is here to literally make this country listen to reason... and science. It's a sensibility that is simply in far too short of a supply in this town.
So I sat down with Ronald A. Lindsay, CFI's president, and Michael De Dora, head of the Office of Public Policy, to talk about their plans to make our legislators and leaders just a little more rational and science based.
Ronald A. Lindsay is president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry and its affiliates, the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He has led the organization since 2008.
Michael De Dora is director of the Center for Inquiry Office of Public Policy and its representative to the United Nations.
Dec 20, 2012
David Brin - Uplifting Existence
Host: Chris Mooney
It's rare that I can say about a guest that, I read his books when I was a kid.
But David Brin is just such a guest. He's the celebrated science fiction author of the Uplift novels, The Postman, and many other books—most recently, Existence. I read the Uplift books when I was tearing through sci-fi as a teenager.
But on top of that, Brin is also a trained scientist and public policy commentator. And in his commentary, as in his novels, he's concerned with the same themes that motivate this show: How can we protect science from the forces that want to do it in? And, can people really be rational?
So, we're excited to have him on the show.
Dec 13, 2012
Bill McKibben - Do the Math
Host: Chris Mooney
When we last had Bill McKibben on this show in 2010, I was mainly treating him as another bestselling science author—one who happens to focus on climate change.
Well.
Something kinda big happened in the intervening years, and McKibben has become, simply put, the country's leading environmental spokesman and advocate through his organization 350.org.
From protests against the Keystone XL pipeline to, most recently, his "Do the Math" tour, rallying of college students to call for their universities to divest from fossil fuel companies... McKibben now speaks for a stunning mass movement of concerned people.
Many of them are young. And many of them are terrified at what is happening to the planet that, in his last book, McKibben renamed "Eaarth," because, he said, the old name just didn't really capture it any longer.
So, we are simply thrilled to welcome him back on the show.
Dec 4, 2012
Samuel Arbesman - The Half-Life of Facts
Host: Indre Viskontas
Because we live in an uncertain world, we arm ourselves with facts to gain a sense of control and therefore some modicum of comfort. We know that the sun will rise tomorrow even though it disappears tonight. But what happens when facts, those bits of information that we believed captured some fundamental truth about our world, are shown to be no longer true? With the exponential rise in our knowledge about our universe comes a tsunami of data overturning what we once thought we knew with complete certainty. Are there patterns that emerge from this wasteland of myths that once were accepted facts.
One tried and true solution is to apply math to the problem, and network scientist and author Samuel Arbesman has done just that in his recently published book on the Half-life of Facts.
Samuel Arbesman is an applied mathematician and network scientist. He is a Senior Scholar at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and a fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social…
Nov 27, 2012
Steven Novella - Exposing Medical Nonsense
Host: Chris Mooney
One of the first people I ever got to know in skepticism was Steven Novella.
He was a professor at Yale, just starting out as an organized skeptic—I was a student, just getting fired up about the same stuff.
Since then, Steve has become hugely successful as a skeptic leader and as a communicator of skeptical ideas, particularly when it comes to his area of specialty, alternative medicine.
And one thing I've always noticed about him over the years is his unending capacity to consider what really works to promote skepticism and critical thinking, and what doesn't—and to adjust accordingly.
So I asked Steve on the show to discuss this process, and to talk about grappling with one of the toughest issues in skepticism and the issue that is his personal specialty—dealing with false claims about medical cures, or what is sometimes called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
Steven Novella is a neurologist at the Yale University School of Medicine. He's…
Nov 20, 2012
Michael Gordin - The Pseudoscience Wars
Host: Chris Mooney
Before the "complementary and alternative medicine" fad, and before UFO craze, lived a man whom you might call the first modern pseudoscientist.
His name was Immanuel Velikovsky. He had a strange theory about a comet—that turned out to be Venus—shaping the course of human history.
He tangled with Carl Sagan about it—and with the scientific community about it. And then, he was mostly forgotten.
But no longer, because Princeton historian of science Michael Gordin has tracked down Velikovsky's personal papers. In his book The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe, Gordin uses Velikovsky's example to show how he laid the groundwork for other pseudosciences-it's kind of like they followed in his footsteps.
Michael Gordin is professor of history at Princeton University and director of the program in Russian and Eurasian Studies. He has written widely in the history of science with a focus on the Soviet Union and the early nuc…
Nov 13, 2012
Jacques Berlinerblau - How to Be Secular
Host: Chris Mooney
On this show, we often debate the state of American secularism—covering topics like the rise of the so-called "nones," or the unending battle to rescue the country from the pernicious influence of Christian right.
Our guest this week, Jacques Berlinerblau, has a provocative thesis about all this. He says that American secularism has clearly and distinctly lost major ground. And to recover from that loss, well... he's got some suggestions that might not go down well—but it's important to hear them.
Even if, you know, you're not quite ready for a political allegiance with religious moderates.
Jacques Berlinerblau is author of the new book How to be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom. He's an associate professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, where he directs the Program for Jewish Civilization.
Nov 5, 2012
Oliver Sacks - Hallucinations
Host: Indre Viskotnas
Despite our individual differences, highlighted especially during an election, much of what we see, hear, smell or feel is shareable: that is, when standing in front of an object, we can more or less agree that it has a particular color, shape, texture, size and so on. But what if I tell you that I see an object clearly which you do not? Or hear a voice that doesn't have a physical source? Now we enter the world of hallucinations.
Hallucinations, or perceptions of objects without an external reality, are not confined to the minds of people with schizophrenia or those who take hallucinogenic drugs. In many cultures, visions are considered a privileged state of consciousness; the trait of a special person chosen by some supernatural force to pass along an important message. But in our western worldview, hallucinations are often associated with a malfunctioning brain. What causes the startling, unbidden perception of something that seems very real, but has no mater…
Oct 31, 2012
Special Double Episode: Jon Ronson and Richard Wiseman, with Indre Viskontas and Chris Mooney
Hosts: Indre Viskontas and Chris Mooney
At the 2012 CSICON conference in Nashville, Tennessee, your Point of Inquiry hosts Indre Viskontas and Chris Mooney finally actually found themselves in the same place. The result was a show that features both of them covering current events—the 2012 election, the passing of CFI founder Paul Kurtz—and each also conducting an interview!
Our guests:
Jon Ronson (interviewed by Chris Mooney) is a journalist, filmmaker, radio personality and humorist-author of books you have heard of like The Men Who Stare at Goats and The Psychopath Test. You may have heard him on This American Life, or read him in the Guardian—or, if you are a very strange and odd person, or maybe a psychopath, you may have been interviewed by him! Because that would put you right in his wheelhouse, as he explains in this interview.
Richard Wiseman (interviewed by Indre Viskontas) holds Britain's only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the Universit…
Oct 22, 2012
Bruce Hood - Superstitions in Baseball
Host: Indre Viskontas
The month of October is associated with falling leaves, autumn winds and hallowe'en. But for sports fans in the US, it also signals a high point in America's national pastime: baseball's postseason. After a long run of 162 games, the last weeks of October are ripe with matchups in which legends are made and broken. Any skeptic worth his or her salt, however, can't help but marvel at the diversity and frequency of ritualistic behaviors on display amongst these world class athletes. What is it about baseball that cause intelligent, highly-motivated, elite athletes to refrain from washing their underwear, to eat fried chicken or crunchy taco supremes, to put pennies in their supporters after every win, or chew the same piece of gum night after night, saving it under a baseball cap? The repertoire of routines that batters engage in while stepping into the box is often as choreographed as a ballet: with commentators going so far as calling Mike Hargrove the human rain…
Oct 15, 2012
Science and the 2012 Election - Shawn Otto and Matthew Chapman
Host: Chris Mooney
In this show, we talk to two founders of ScienceDebate, a nonprofit organization that in the last two election cycles has pushed to get the presidential candidates to talk about and debate science policy.
So far, there has been no actual presidential science debate. But this year, ScienceDebate got Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to answer 14 top science policy questions, leading to some revealing results. And with the election less than a month away—an election whose winner will guide science policy at a time when international research competitiveness, climate change, and other science based issues demand attention... it's hard to think of many things more important for voters to pay attention to.
The media feel otherwise, unfortunately. The first presidential debate and the vice-presidential debate have ignored science almost entirely. But that's precisely why we're here, and why ScienceDebate is here—to try to shine some light on the issues that matter critic…
Oct 8, 2012
Lisa Randall - Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is Lisa Randall, the Harvard theoretical physicist and one of the most heavily cited and influential researchers in her field. She's a member of a number of distinguished scientific societies, including the National Academy of Sciences—but she's also a very popular science author, behind the bestselling Warped Passages: Unraveling the Universe's Hidden Dimensions, and more recently Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, which is just out in paperback.
Between the hardback and paperback release of Knocking on Heaven's Door, a subject much discussed in the book—the quest for the discovery of the Higgs boson—was actually completed. Or at least, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider found a particle that sure looks like the Higgs.
Randall has a new e-book about this entitled Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space. So we were thrilled to speak with her about the Higgs,…
Oct 1, 2012
Massimo Pigliucci - Living Philosophically
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is a return guest of the show, Massimo Pigliucci.
We last heard about his book Nonsense on Stilts, which was about how to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. But his newest effort is in some ways even more ambitious.
It's called Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life. And in it, Pigliucci lays out an approach that he calls "sci-phi." It involves assessing the science of an issue—like, say, the biology of romance—and then also weighing an array of philosophical considerations, before figuring out how to negotiate this life domain.
It's quite the heady undertaking—but, well, that never stopped us here before....
Massimo Pigliucci is a professor in the Philosophy Program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and was formerly a biology professor at Stony Brook University. He is the author or editor of eight previous books, most recently Nonsense on Stilts: How t…
Sep 25, 2012
Dan Ariely - The Honest Truth about Dishonesty
Host: Indre Viskontas
There is no doubt that our world is populated with cheats and liars. Most of us, slaves to the availability heuristic, think of major cheaters like Bernie Madoff, Tiger Woods, and Barry Bonds as inflicting the most damage onto society. But just how honest are we, with others and with ourselves? The surprising finding from several studies conducted by Dan Ariely and his collaborators is that we all cheat. What's worse, the consequences of these little everyday deceptions can sometimes far outweigh the ill effects of even the biggest lies. Following up on his previous books demonstrating our irrationality, this week on Point of Inquiry Dan walks us through his account of the irrational forces that determine whether or not we behave ethically.
Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the Department of Economics, and…
Sep 18, 2012
Phil Zuckerman - The Sociology of Irreligion
Host: Chris Mooney
How many atheists are there in the world? Where do they live? What kind of people are they, and how do they get that way?
Are they happy? Are they prosperous? Do they drag their societies down into a cesspool of immortality—as is often alleged—or, is it precisely the opposite?
All of these questions are amenable to scientific study. With, like, data. It's just that people didn't much bother—until now.
One pioneer in the sociological study of atheists is Phil Zuckerman, professor of sociology at Pitzer College. He's the author of Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, and Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion. And we're excited to have him on this week to reveal what we actually know about secularity—on a global scale.
Sep 10, 2012
Rick Hayes-Roth - TruthMarket
Host: Chris Mooney
Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to make American politics just a little more rational, just a little more evidence based?
Wouldn't it be even nicer if there was a website, or an app, that helped that process along?
Maybe, just maybe, a promising innovation called TruthMarket can help with the problem. It's a site where people who care about the truth crowd-fund campaigns dedicated to either proving the veracity of true claims, or the falsity of wrong ones... where, in essence, you make money by showing definitively that you're right.
The goal, of course, is to use market forces to vanquish truthiness... and, well, here's hoping that it works.
To talk about this new site, we've invited on its founder, Rick Hayes-Roth.
Rick Hayes-Roth is the chairman and CEO of Truth Seal Corporation, and a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. In the past he has served as Chief Technology Officer for Software at Hewlett Packard, and program director for research in…
Sep 4, 2012
Peter Ditto - Morals, Facts, and Libertarians
Host: Chris Mooney
Several times on this show, we've discussed the topic of ideological asymmetry. In other words, are people of all political persuasions equally biased, equally prone to reasoning based on their emotions to support prior commitments?
A new scientific paper (PDF) has recently come out that reopens this question, so naturally, we had to invite on one of its authors. His name is Peter Ditto, and he's a social psychologist at the University of California-Irvine who has been a leader in the study of emotional, or motivated, reasoning.
At the same time, Ditto also studies the psychological foundations of political ideology more broadly. And in another recent paper, he and colleagues including Jonathan Haidt, provide a wealth of data on the personalities and motivations of people who choose to be libertarian. So we wanted to talk about that as well.
Peter Ditto is department chair and professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California-Irvine. Hi…
Aug 28, 2012
Temple Grandin - The Science of Livestock Animal Welfare
Host: Indre Viskontas
According to the USDA, Americans produce and consume more beef, veal, and chicken than any other nation in the world. As a result, the status of animal welfare in the meat production industry should be of some concern to all Americans, regardless of dietary habits. One of the world's leading experts in livestock handling practices is Dr. Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University.
In addition to gaining international recognition for her research on animal behavior and designs of feed yards and slaughterhouses, Dr. Grandin is also arguably the most famous high-functioning autistic adult. Her story has inspired countless individuals and families who have been touched by autism spectrum disorders, as well as other conditions that cause sensory hypersensitivity. In 2010, Clare Danes won both Emmy and Golden Globe awards for her portrayal of Temple in the critically-acclaimed HBO biopic Temple Grandin.
This week on Point of Inquiry, we…
Aug 21, 2012
Arie Kruglanski - The Science of Closed-Mindedness
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is Arie Kruglanski. He's a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland College Park, and has been a pioneer in the study of closed-mindedness-or, the "need for closure"—including how it drives fundamentalist belief systems and violent extremism.
Dr. Kruglanski has served on National Academy of Sciences panels related to counterterrorism, and is a founding co-principal investigator at the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism, or START, at the University of Maryland.
In addition, Kruglanski is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and has edited a variety of prominent journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Donald Campbell Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology. For more about his research, you can visit his website.
Aug 13, 2012
Joe Romm - Language Intelligence
Host: Chris Mooney
This week's guest is Joe Romm. You may know him as a top blogger on global warming and energy—but that's not why we're having him on.
In an impressive show of versatility, Romm the scientist has written a book about how to persuade people. It's entitled Language Intelligence: Lessons on Persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga. In essence, it's a treatise on the neglected art of rhetoric, the technique mastered by Shakespeare and the writers of the King James Bible.
In it, Romm delves deeply into figures of speech, and how they make orators persuasive by allowing them to activate people's emotions. Indeed, as Romm writes, modern neuroscience now confirms what the poets always knew about getting to people's heads through their hearts (that's a metaphor, by the way—one of the chief techniques that Romm discusses).
If you ever want to understand why scientists—and people devoted to reason and critical thinking—fare so poorly getting their m…
Aug 7, 2012
Peter Montgomery - 12 Rules for Mixing Religion and Politics
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is Peter Montgomery, senior fellow with People for the American Way and author of a new report entitled Twelve Rules for Mixing Religion and Politics, released last week with a new introduction by Bill Moyers.
Point of Inquiry invited Montgomery on the show to discuss these very useful rules of the road, but also to ask a key question: Will the religious right ever consent to follow them?
Peter Montgomery oversees the People For the American Way Foundation's research and writing on the Religious Right. Before joining the group in 1994, he was associate director of grassroots lobbying for Common Cause, and also wrote and edited for Common Cause Magazine, an award-winning journal featuring investigative reporting about the federal government.
Aug 1, 2012
Christopher diCarlo - How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass
Host: Indre Viskontas
In an election year, it is especially important that our critical thinking skills be sharply honed. We have to sift through facts, fiction, and hyperbole in order to decide who it is that should lead us for the next four years.
To remind us what the right questions to ask are and how to ask them, we invited on the show Dr. Christopher diCarlo, noted philosopher of science and ethics, whose research focuses on how and why humans reason, think, and act the way they do.
diCarlo is a Philosopher of Science and Ethics whose interests in cognitive evolution have taken him into the natural and social sciences. He is interested in how and why the human brain has evolved to its current state and what cross-cultural and cross-species behavior can provide insight into universally common modes of reasoning. He is also interested in the application of neuroscience (specifically fMRI work), in an effort to better understand psychoneuroendocrine feedback looping in problem so…
Jul 24, 2012
Kerry Emanuel - Conservative for Climate Science
Kerry Emanuel is a leading atmospheric scientist and a self-described conservative. As a result, lately he's been at the forefront of trying to convince his ideological brethren that the science behind global warming is real.
We invited Emanuel on to talk about whether global warming is indeed influencing the extreme weather that is afflicting the United States—and also for the unique vantage point that he brings to environmental and energy issues.
Kerry Emanuel is professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He is an expert on global warming and on tropical cyclones—aka, hurricanes. In addition to his large volume of scientific papers, he is also author of two popular books: Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, and What We Know About Climate Change.
Jul 16, 2012
David Niose - Nonbeliever Nation
Host: Chris Mooney
Can people who care about secularism take America back from the religious right?
Of all the questions that concern us on this show, this is perhaps the most important, the most central, of all.
And David Niose has an answer to it. Simply put, he thinks we can.
In his new book, Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans, Niose outlines the damage the religious right has done, and how the growing forces of secularity stand poised to finally effectively counter them.
Central to the strategy? Embracing the atheist, or at any rate, the secular identity, and wearing it proudly on one's sleeve.
David Niose is an attorney and president of the Washington-based American Humanist Association. He has appeared widely in national and international media advocating for secularism and humanism, and serves as vice president of the Secular Coalition for America.
Jul 10, 2012
Tina Dupuy - Skepticism Meets Comedy
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest is Tina Dupuy—the reporter, comedian, skeptic, and editor-in-chief of the startup publication SoapBlox.
Dupuy appears frequently on MSNBC, Current TV, RT and the BBC and on numerous radio shows. She has written for Mother Jones, the Atlantic, Skeptic, and many other publications.
Her weekly oped is syndicated nationally by Cagle Cartoons.
Jul 4, 2012
Special In Studio Episode: Jamie Kilstein, Ed Brayton, and More
Host: Chris Mooney
For this episode of Point of Inquiry, we tried something a little different. At Center for Inquiry headquarters in Amherst, NY, we filmed a special hour long program with multiple in-studio guests, including the famed atheist comedian Jamie Kilstein. As usual, the program is also available as an audio-only podcast.
In either format, here's what it contains:
When Doubt is a Crime: Michael De Dora, director of the Center for Inquiry Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C., discusses the disturbing case of an Indonesian man who was recently sentenced to two and a half years in prison, just for questioning whether God exists.
Fox News Bashing, Redux: Chris Mooney responds to recent listener comments, some of them complimentary, some... not so much.
From the Culture Wars to... Chuck Norris: We talk with Ed Brayton, the blogger behind Dispatches from the Culture Wars and owner of the FreethoughtBlogs network, about recent church state issues—and his steady mo…
Jun 25, 2012
Stuart Firestein - How Ignorance Drives Science
Host: Indre Viskontas
The idea that science moves forward by carefully peeling back layers of the onion of truth, one by one, in a deliberate fashion, is so prevalent that it borders on cliche. But the truth is that running scientific experiments often feels more akin to dipping a cup into a bottomless well of information: each new study simply raises more questions than it answers. Although scientific knowledge is vast, ignorance, or what's left to learn, dwarfs what we think we know. Exploring this boundless frontier, neurobiologist Stuart Firestein explains how ignorance, rather than facts, drives science.
Stuart Firestein is the Chair of Columbia University's Department of Biological Sciences where he studies the vertebrate olfactory system, possibly the best chemical detector on the face of the planet. Dedicated to promoting the accessibility of science to a public audience Firestein serves as an advisor for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's program for the Public Understanding o…
Jun 18, 2012
Chris Hayes - Twilight of the Elites
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC's Up With Chris Hayes and editor at large of The Nation.
Hayes has come out with a much anticipated new book that makes a surprising argument. It's called Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy, and in it, he attributes the stunning loss of trust in American institutions to, well, the system by which we chose who runs them.
That system is a meritocracy—and it's supposed to be a fair one in which people get ahead or fall behind based on their own inherent abilities. But in reality, Hayes says, inequality in, inequality out.
It's an intriguing and unexpected thesis, and after reading it, we wanted to ask Hayes about what this means for science in particular—which is, after all, a meritocracy. We also wanted to ask Hayes why people at the top of the totem pole—supposedly so smart, supposedly so well-trained and cultured—are in fact so poor at reasoning about those below them.
Jun 11, 2012
Cara Santa Maria - Talk Nerdy to Us
Host: Chris Mooney
Our guest this week is Cara Santa Maria, the senior science correspondent for the Huffington Post and the personage behind its "Talk Nerdy to Me" video series. Recent topics range from cannibalism, to the non-power of positive thinking, to the strange sex lives of animals, to the, well, bizarreness of creationism.
Cara has appeared previously on shows ranging from Larry King Live to Geraldo at Large, and has co-hosted an episode of Star Talk Radio with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. She was also recently seen hosting several episodes of The Young Turks' popular web spinoff series The Point. She tweets at @CaraSantaMaria, and you can find her videos at the Huffington Post's Talk Nerdy To Me.
Jun 4, 2012
Will Gervais - This is Your Brain on Religion
Host: Chris Mooney
In late April, a study came out in Science that really got the secular blogosphere hopping.
It was a paper showing that something we've long suspected may be true—less critical thinking is associated with more religiosity. In fact, having a cognitive style where you're less analytic, and more intuitive, promotes faith.
And vice versa.
It turns out this paper is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we're learning about the religious mind. So to get deeper into the topic, we invited on Will Gervais, lead author of the current paper and of much other work besides.
Will Gervais is a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Next year he will be an associate professor in psychology at the University of Kentucky.
His research studies the cognitive, evolutionary, and cultural reasons why people entertain in supernatural beliefs—or, why they don't, which is perhaps equally interesting.
May 29, 2012
Christof Koch - Consciousness and Free Will
Host: Indre Viskontas
Recently, there has been a flurry of neuroscientists declaring that free will is an illusion in the popular press. But before we can assess the extent to which we are zombies, we need to first tackle the question of what, exactly, is consciousness. To get up to speed on the state of the art, we talked to Christof Koch, a colorful pioneer in the application of scientific tools to delineate the neural correlates of consciousness, whose famous 18-year collaboration with Francis Crick helped legitimize the field. Koch has never shied away from controversy, commenting on sentience in machines and dogs without skipping a beat.
Christof Koch is Professor of Biology and of Engineering at the California Institute of Technology and Chief Scientific Office of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. He is the author of Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist and The Quest for Consciousness, among other books.
May 21, 2012
Johan Braeckman - The Rise of Islamic Creationism
Host: Chris Mooney
Over the weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend the 2012 World Skeptics Conference in Berlin.
It's important to keep tabs on our skeptical and freethinking colleagues around the world, and the challenges they're facing. And in this case, perhaps the most disturbing story out of the conference involved the spread of a new form of creationism—namely, Islamic creationism—in Europe.
It's a topic I've wanted to explore on the show for some time. So in Berlin, I stopped to speak with Johan Braeckman, who has been tracking the subject closely.
Johan Braeckman is a professor of philosophy of science at Ghent University in Belgium, and his research focuses on philosophical issues in the life sciences, particularly evolution and neuroscience. He's the author of a number of books and papers, including, most recently, Doubting Thomas Has a Point: A Guide to Critical Thinking, coauthored with Maarten Boudry.
May 14, 2012
Greta Christina - Why Are You Atheists So Angry?
Our guest this week is Greta Christina, a leading atheist blogger, speaker, and commentator, and a regular contributor to AlterNet.org.
Christina is author of the new ebook Why Are You Atheists So Angry?: 99 Things that Piss Off the Godless, which grows out of a 2007 blog post on the same topic. The book will also be out in print in June.
Greta Christina blogs at FreeThoughtBlogs.com, and her writing has appeared, among other places, in Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer. She is editor of the "Best Erotic Comics" anthology series, and of "Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients."
Apr 30, 2012
M.G. Lord - The Accidental Feminist
Host: Indre Viskontas
In developed countries at least, the status of women has improved considerably in the last century. But in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), they remain underrepresented in all but one field, according to a recent study conducted by the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
Often, femininity can seem incompatible with STEM and other male-dominated careers—but can young women today find an unlikely role model in Elizabeth Taylor, an actress dogged by the Catholic Church because of her sex appeal and promotion of secular ideas, including gay and lesbian rights?
Cultural critic and acclaimed author M.G. Lord explores the contributions of Elizabeth Taylor to feminism—and her struggles against the Church—in her latest book, The Accidental Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted By Her Beauty to Notice.
Apr 24, 2012
Naomi Oreskes - Neoliberalism and the Denial of Global Warming
Host: Chris Mooney
This week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a conference convened entitled "Science Writing in the Age of Denial." The keynote speaker was a former Point of Inquiry guest and a very popular one—Naomi Oreskes, co-author of the influential book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
Point of Inquiry caught up with Dr. Oreskes at the conference and interviewed her about her lecture there, entitled "Neoliberalism and the Denial of Global Warming."
Naomi Oreskes is professor of history and science studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her 2010 book Merchants of Doubt, written with Eric Conway, described how a small group of scientists sought to undermine a large body of research on issues like global warming, the health risks of smoking, and ozone depletion. She is the author of the famed 2004 essay for the journal Science entitled "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Ch…
Apr 16, 2012
Austin Dacey - The Future of Blasphemy
Host: Chris Mooney
This week, our guest is a return one: Austin Dacey. He's a philosopher, a writer, and a human rights activist, and the creator of the Impossible Music Sessions, which we featured in a past show.
Austin's books include The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life and, just out, The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights.
This show focused on Austin's new book on blasphemy. But he helped enhance the discussion with a few pieces of music that have been called blasphemous—which is why we wanted to distribute them as widely as possible.
Apr 9, 2012
Chris Mooney - The Republican Brain
Guest Host: John Shook
In this special episode of Point of Inquiry, we interview our host himself—about his new book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality.
From climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing, as is the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy and much more. Why won't Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts?
Science writer and host of Point of Inquiry Chris Mooney explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things; appear more likely than Democrats to oppose new ideas and less likely to change their beliefs in the face of new facts; and sometimes respond to compelling evidence by doubling down on their current beliefs.
Apr 2, 2012
Neil deGrasse Tyson - Space Chronicles
Host: Chris Mooney
This week, Point of Inquiry is thrilled to welcome back one of our most popular guests: Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famed astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.
Last time we had him on, Dr. Tyson engaged in a wide ranging discussion about science communication and the place of science in America.
This time, we focus in on his new book—Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier—and his call for revitalizing NASA and letting it play a central role in reconnecting America and science.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is America's most pre-eminent science communicator. In addition to his work at the Hayden Planetarium and his books and television appearances, he is also the host of Star Talk Radio.
Mar 26, 2012
David Morrison - Cosmic Impact Hazard
Host: Indre Viskontas
The end is nigh. 2012 is a banner year for doomsday prophecies, though there still seems to be debate concerning precisely how life as we know it will be snuffed out. Hollywood seems to prefer the 'death from the skies' scenario, with Lars von Trier's latest film Melancholia exploring the psychological consequences of believing that another planet is on a collision course with ours. But would we know? How much warning would we receive if such a catastrophe were to occur?
There is no better source for this information than Dr. David Morrison, the founder of the field of astrobiology, or the study of life in the universe. Once the Director of Space at NASA Ames, he is best known for his work on assessing the risk of near earth objects such as asteroids and comets. As the mind behind the popular 'Ask an Astrobiologist' blog on NASA's website, Dr. Morrison has all the answers.
David Morrison is the senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute, NASA Ames Res…
Mar 19, 2012
Jonathan Hai