Point of Inquiry

Dale McGowan - Raising Freethinkers

Fri, 15 May 2009 05:21:00 GMT

Dale McGowan has edited and co-authored Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, the first comprehensive resources for nonreligious parents. He writes the secular parenting blog The Meming of Life, teaches nonreligious parenting seminars across the United States, and serves as executive director of Foundation Beyond Belief, a 501(c)(3) humanist charitable and educational foundation based in Atlanta. In September 2008 he was named Harvard Humanist of the Year by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University.

In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Dale McGowan talks about raising freethinking children who are steeped in the values of science and humanism. He confronts some of reasons why some nonreligious parents may continue to raise their children in a religion, including moral education, identity and community. He describes trends within the scientific rationalist and humanist movements to provide secular community, which he argues are being driven by freethinking families. He talks about ways that church is increasingly becoming replaced by secular communities, and how churches are increasingly becoming more like secular community centers, as opposed to worship centers. He argues that raising freethinkers is the opposite of indoctrinating children in atheism, secular humanism or skepticism, emphasizing that "freethinking" is an approach to knowledge as opposed to a worldview. He also argues that parenting should not be focused on the value of inquiry and scientific skepticism, but on wonder, mystery and awe. He talks about the dangers of inculcating elitism among freethinking children. He explains why teaching about religion to freethinking children is important. He addresses ways of confronting death and the meaning of life with freethinking children, including how highly unlikely it is that any of us even exist. He talks about alternatives to lying to children about heaven, including facts from physics about the atoms in our bodies having existed since the beginning of the universe, and how such scientific truths may take on mystical pantheistic meanings. He talks about new social science research on happiness, and how it relates to and informs secular parenting. And he cautions that applying the best social science to parenting shouldn't mean that we make our children our next science project.

Also in this episode, Michael Blanford, founder of the Skeptical Society of St. Louis and coordinator for the Life Science Lab for the St. Louis Science Center, shares an audio essay about the awe of science for children and why freethinkers should be more emotionally engaged when celebrating evolution as the story of life.

David Koepsell - Who Owns You?

Sat, 9 May 2009 02:31:00 GMT

David Koepsell is an author, philosopher, and attorney whose recent research focuses on the nexus of science, technology, ethics, and public policy. He is Assistant Professor, Philosophy Section, Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management at the Technology University of Delft, in The Netherlands, andSenior Fellow, 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology, The Netherlands. He is also the author of The Ontology of Cyberspace: Philosophy, Law, and the Future of Intellectual Property, as well as numerous scholarly articles on law, philosophy, science, and ethics. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, David Koepsell discusses the implications of corporations patenting parts of the human genome, and how current patent practices negatively impact basic scientific research in genetics. He reviews the history of the practice of patenting genes and contrasts private ownership of gene sequences found in nature with that of the public ownership of the work of the Human Genome Project. He contrasts discovery with invention, and argues that patents should apply only to the latter. He details the relationship of human genes being patented with the practices of big agribusiness owning engineered crops, such as Monsanto's "terminator corn." He discusses the ACLU's recent lawsuit against Myriad Genetics on behalf of scientists and cancer patients, and how it may lead to one of the most important legal battles in the history of biotechnology. He talks about "upstream" and "downstream" patents, and how this impacts genetic research. And he discusses various solutions currently proposed for the problems resulting from private ownership of naturally occurring gene sequences.

Jeff Schweitzer - Beyond Cosmic Dice: Moral Life in a Random World

Fri, 1 May 2009 04:45:00 GMT

Dr. Jeffrey Schweitzer is an author, scientist and public speaker who has traveled widely speaking to varied groups about the application of the scientific worldview to public policy and ethical questions. He has published more than one hundred articles in an eclectic range of fields, including neurobiology, marine science, international development, environmental protection, and even aviation. He formerly served as assistant director for international affairs in the Clinton White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is a featured blogger on Huffington Post. His new book is Beyond Cosmic Dice: Moral Life in a Random World. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Dr. Jeffrey Schweitzer argues that adopting the scientific view of human origins has implications for understanding that morality is a consequence of our biology. He argues that religion puts humanity on a pedestal, and why that is dangerous. He contends that religion has failed to morally guide humanity, and he attacks religion for impeding the moral development of humanity and for causing much human suffering. He explains that religion results from fear of death, an attempt to understand the universe, achieve social cohesion and political power, and an attempt to control our fate by appealing to gods. But he argues that in the age of science, these reasons are no longer compelling. He denies that science has become a religion in itself. He explores if and how religion and science ask different questions, and if science can answer the existential questions that religion attempts to answer. He argues that life has no ultimate meaning, and that he derives this fact from science, while denying that this leads to nihilism. He discusses existentialism and contrasts it with his scientific worldview. He argues against the concept of free will as a false concept of religion, and discusses the implications this has for moral responsibility. He talks about the biological component to human morality, and defends his position from the charge of moral relativism, while admitting a kind of cultural relativism. He discusses Social Darwinism, and distinguishes core values from social values that progress over time. He explains components of his moral view, and compares his view with scientific or secular humanism. And he suggests that humanity is at a crossroads where our continued survival is uncertain, and describes the kind of behaviors consistent with a natural ethic that may be key to humanity's surviving the future.

Paul Kurtz - Science and the Limits of the New Skepticism

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:51:00 GMT

In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Paul Kurtz discusses the rationale for changing the name of CSICOP to the Committee of Skeptical Inquiry. He argues that the organized skeptical movement should apply the methods of scientific and skeptical inquiry to religion, and not just to paranormal claims, and he contrasts this approach with a direct atheistic assault on belief in God. He argues that while skepticism is essential to science, that the skeptical movement should promote the application of the methods of scientific inquiry into politics and economics, and talks about how divisive this may be within the skeptical movement. He considers whether political and economic questions are as amenable to critical thinking and skeptical inquiry as are paranormal claims. He talks about global warming and the extent to which the scientific community should be attentive to "global warming skeptics." He explains why he is cautious of certainty, contrasting certain knowledge with reliable knowledge, and recounts examples in the history of science when widely believed scientific theories were overturned by a small minority of new theorists. He talks about political and economic views he once held that he no longer holds. He contrasts skeptical inquiry with the classical skepticism of ancient Greece and Rome. And he argues that the new skepticism is not negative nor nay-saying, but rather is an affirmative and constructive philosophical worldview.

Bruce M. Hood - Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:49:00 GMT

Bruce M. Hood is chair of the Cognitive Development Center in the Experimental Psychology Department at the University of Bristol. He was a research fellow at Cambridge and has been a visiting scientist at MIT and professor at Harvard. Hood has received many awards for his work in child development and cognitive neuroscience. His newest book is Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Bruce M. Hood explains how his agenda is different than the common skeptical agenda to disprove supernatural claims, and instead is an attempt to explain why people believe hold such beliefs in the first place. He argues that everyone is born with a "supersense," an instinct to believe in unseen forces and to recognize patterns and infer their causation, citing examples such as seeing Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich, or the case of the "haunted scrotum." He explains how this supersense is universal, and that even skeptics and rationalists often exhibit it in their lives through rituals and the owning certain valued possessions, such as Richard Dawkins' prizing of objects once owned by Charles Darwin or MIT growing saplings from the tree under which Newton first discovered the laws of gravity. He details how rituals give a perceived sense of control to believers, and how they may actually affect a believer's performance. He talks about the "secular supernatural," contrasting it with the "religious supernatural." He argues against Daniel Dennett's and Richard Dawkins's thesis that religious belief results primarily from indoctrination in childhood. And he defends the position that unbelievable beliefs serve important social functions.

Mary Roach - Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:56:00 GMT

Mary Roach is the author of Stiff: The curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Her writing has appeared in Salon, Wired, National Geographic, New Scientist, and the New York Times Magazine. Her latest book is Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Mary Roach reveals why she looks to science rather than to religion for answers about death and sex, and why she is interested in such topics in the first place. She talks about the history of sex research, including Leonardo Da Vinci's anatomical explorations of coitus, as well as 19th century sex research connected to fertility and STDs. She talks about religious opposition to scientific research of human sexuality, and how it affects funding. She describes some on Alfred Kinsey's research that showed the diversity of sexual activity in the United States. She details various scientific attempts to improve human sexuality, including grafting additional testicles on men, or surgically relocating women's clitorises. She explores the role of the placebo effect in certain sexual cures, such as for impotence or increased arousal. And she talks about the link between sexual satisfaction and overall happiness.

Dacher Keltner - Born to Be Good

Sat, 4 Apr 2009 03:42:00 GMT

Dacher Keltner is professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, director of the Greater Good Science Center, and coeditor of Greater Good magazine. His researchÂfocuses on the prosocial emotions, such as love, sympathy and gratitude, and processes such as teasing and flirtation that enhance bonds. He has conducted empirical studies in three areas of inquiry: the determinants and effects of power, hierarchy and social class; the morality of everyday life, and how we negotiate moral truths in teasing, gossip, and other reputational matters; and the biological and evolutionary basis of the benevolent affects, including compassion, awe, love, gratitude, and laughter and modesty. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Dacher Keltner explores the evolutionary origins of human goodness, challenging the view that humans are hardwired to pursue self-interest and to compete. Based on his studies of human emotion, he argues instead that survival is not a matter of who is the fittest, but perhaps who is the kindest -- that people may have compassion built into their brains, nervous systems, and genes. He talks about the influence of Charles Darwin on his work studying human emotions. He elaborates on Darwin's position that sympathy is our strongest evolved instinct, and what everyday behaviors such as smiling, shrugging, and hand-shakes tell us about the conditions of our deep evolution as primates. He talks about how he is taking the Darwinian approach of looking at moment by moment expressions of emotion and asking how these emotions shape a meaningful life. He explains why he looks to science, as well as to secular Eastern philosophy such as Confucianism, for answers about a meaningful life, rather than to Western religions. He describes his concept of the Jen ratio, and how it relates to the neuroscience of happiness. And he explains what the scientific study of positive emotions and activities such as smiling, laughter, teasing, touching, love, gratitude and awe may suggest about happy marriages, well-adapted children, and healthy communities.

Austin Dacey - The U.N. and Defamation of Religions

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:48:00 GMT

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 Defamation of Religions." He explains that despite legitimate concerns about stereotyping Muslims or racial profiling, this resolution equates any criticism or satire of religious beliefs with bigotry. He contrasts Europe's position on free speech with the United States' and how it is used by Islamic countries to justify their blasphemy laws, which often carry mandatory sentences of death or life in prison. He talks about how the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the United Nations aims to build into international human rights such legal standards that actually outlaw offensive speech against religions. And he argues that what should be protected under international human rights laws are individuals, and not ideas â that persons should be protected from harm and discrimination, as opposed to ideologies being protected from being criticized or satirized.

Neil deGrasse Tyson - The Pluto Files

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:35:00 GMT

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History, director of the world-famous Hayden Planetarium, a monthly columnist for Natural History, and an award-winning author. Tyson is also the host of NOVA ScienceNOW and a frequent guest on The Daily Show and Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, and television documentaries on the universe. His latest book is The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Neil deGrasse Tyson recounts recent discoveries in astronomy, including methane on Mars and its possible implications, and questions regarding dark matter and dark energy. He explains how ignorance is seductive for the scientist. He details his involvement in the controversy regarding the status of Pluto, and the role of the Hayden Planetarium in the international debate over solar system nomenclature. He describes wether teaching the controversy over Pluto's status is helpful in teaching astronomy, and how this compares to the "teaching the controversy" argument regarding evolution versus intelligent design creationism. And he shares his views about the best ways to teach the solar system to students, by comparing and contrasting objects in the solar system and how they relate to each other.

Angie McQuaig - Camp Inquiry

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:34:00 GMT

Angie McQuaig is a distinguished educator whose PhD is in educational leadership. Dr. McQuaig has served for nineteen years in public education as a teacher and administrator both in the US and abroad. She is currently chief academic officer in a professional development company that trains teachers on exemplary pedagogy. Dr. McQuaig is the education advisor on the steering committee of Science Debate Inc. and Director of Camp Inquiry, an educational program for youth emphasizing humanistic, scientific, and critical thinking.Â In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Angie McQuaig talks about Camp Inquiry, the Center for Inquiry's summer youth camp. She explains the camp's mission, and how it aims to encourage humanistic, scientific and critical thinking among young people. She contrasts the mission of Camp Inquiry with religious summer camps like Jesus Camp. She explains the process of critical inquiry that is emphasized at Camp Inquiry, and argues against "secularist indoctrination." She recounts how campers at Camp Inquiry come from many different backgrounds, including religious backgrounds. And she details the various kinds of activities teacher-counselors and children engage in at Camp Inquiry, including magic, games, science experiments, workshops, skeptical investigations and secular ethical inquiry.

Eric Maisel - The Atheists Way

Sat, 7 Mar 2009 04:20:00 GMT

Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction. His nonfiction titles include Coaching the Artist Within, Fearless Creating, The Van Gogh Blues, The Creativity Book, Performance Anxiety, Ten Zen Seconds, A Writerâs San Francisco, and A Writerâs Paris. A columnist for Art Calendar magazine, Maisel is a creativity coach and creativity coach trainer who presents keynote addresses and workshops nationally and internationally. His new book is The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Eric Maisel addresses atheists who don't always find it easy to live as atheists, as well as religious believers who have doubts. He describes how the atheistic scientific worldview offers more advantages than the religious perspective. He encourages an understanding of the "tradition of atheism," and explains how to derive inspiration from it. He talks about how new atheists may cope with the loss of their church communities, even when they satisfy important human needs. He details the "main problem" for atheists, which he argues is making meaning in an indifferent universe. He talks about the importance of the atheist actively self-creating, being the hero of her own story, defending a radical individualism. He talks about existential depression that atheists may experience, and ways to respond to this nihilism and ultimate meaninglessness in the universe. And he defends the position that each atheist should be an "active moral philosopher," and "make his own ethics."

Jerry A. Coyne - Why Evolution Is True

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:03:00 GMT

Jerry A. Coyne has been a professor at the University of Chicago in the department of ecology and evolution for twenty years. He specializes in evolutionary genetics and works predominantly on the origin of new species. He is a regular contributor to The New Republic, the Times Literary Supplement, and other publications. His most recent book is Why Evolution Is True.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Jerry Coyne talks about extent and breadth of the evidence for evolution and how the reasons for believing in evolution are not as clearly argued in today's textbooks as they were fifty years ago. He contends that professional evolutionists may take evolution on faith, or on the authority of their intellectual forerunners. He explains how evolution is both a theory and a fact. He details the various kinds of evidence for evolution, including evidence from the fossil record, molecular biology, embryology, the existence of vestigial organs, biogeography, and from bad design. He explores how Darwin discovered evolution by natural selection without the evidence from the fossil record. He explains how sexual reproduction is the key to evolution, and talks about sexual selection. He discusses the Intelligent Design movement and exactly how many scientists are actually proponents of ID. He lists some genuine controversies within evolution, and states that they are indeed taught in the schools. He discusses the relationship of belief in evolution to disbelief in God. And he explains why he feels the need, as a scientist, to publicly speak out in defense of Darwinism.

Norm Allen - Skepticism and Black History

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:12:00 GMT

Norm Allen is executive director of African Americans for Humanism, an educational organization primarily concerned with fostering critical thinking, ethical conduct, church-state separation, and skepticism toward untested claims to knowledge among African Americans.Â He is the editor of the ground-breaking book African-American Humanism: An Anthology, AAH Examiner, and Deputy Editor of Free Inquiry magazine. He has traveled and lectured widely throughout North America, Europe, and Africa and his writings have been published in scores of newspapers throughout the U.S. He has spoken on numerous radio and television programs and his writings have appeared in such books as Culture Wars and the National Center for Science Educationâs Voices for Evolution. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Norm Allen discusses black history in the context of science and secularism. He talks about the Senegalese physicist Cheikh Anta Diop, and his humanistic views which were coupled with his science advocacy. He talks about Charles Drew, and his influence on setting up the first blood banks, as well as urban legends that have developed around him. He talks about the pseudoscience of supposed alternative medicine cures for AIDS, and their prominence in the black community. He talks about other black scientists and freethought figures, and defends the argument for the need for a "Black History Month." He describes the need for skepticism in the black community, focusing on how the black media covers psychics and belief in prophecy, citing examples of Tony Brown and Montel Williams. He also details some of the current black leaders in the skeptical movement, recounting the first African skeptical conference that he attended last year in Senegal.

Ronald A. Lindsay - The Future of The Center for Inquiry

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:36:00 GMT

Ronald A. Lindsay is a bioethicist, lawyer, and chief executive officer and senior research fellow of the Center for Inquiry. For many years he practiced law in Washington, DC, and was an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and American University, where he taught jurisprudence and philosophy courses. His new book is Future Bioethics: Overcoming Taboos, Myths, and Dogmas. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Ron Lindsay recounts his nearly thirty year history with the organization, including his role in a landmark legal case in Alabama regarding the question of whether or not secular humanism is a religion, elaborating on how the argument has been used since by the religious right. He describes the relationship of the "family of organizations" at the Center for Inquiry, including the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP), giving their histories. He talks about Paul Kurtz' inspiring and foundational role in all of these organizations and in the worldwide movements that they support. And he talks about why it is more important now than ever to get involved at the grassroots to advance the scientific and secular values of the Center for Inquiry, even with President Obama in the White House, highlighting concerns he has with Obama's positions on a number of issues.

David J Linden - The Accidental Mind

Fri, 6 Feb 2009 19:12:00 GMT

David J. Linden, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage in the brain, among other topics. He has a longstanding interest in scientific communication and serves as the Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology.

In this broad discussion with D.J. Grothe, David Linden challenges widespread beliefs about the brain, such as that people only use ten percent of it and that it is amazingly designed, arguing instead that the brain is "accidental." He talks about why, as a brain scientist, he writes about topics such as love, God and sexual orientation. He describes the downsides of how the brain has evolved by including systems from previous brain "models," and how this has given rise to those qualities that most profoundly shape our human experience. He discusses the neuron, and how it is a "lousy processor of information," describing how evolution has nonetheless used it to build "clever us." He talks about how our brains have constrained us, and may have physically led to the necessity of marriage, family and long childhoods. He surveys various claims regarding the enhancement of our cognitive capacities, such as playing Mozart to babies in utero, vitamins, smart drugs, mental exercises, and physical exercise. He talks about the brain science of homosexuality. And he argues that the brain has evolved to make everyone a "believer," describing the similarities between belief in science and in religion, that both are similar "branches of the same cognitive stream."

John W. Loftus - Why I Became an Atheist

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 04:37:00 GMT

John W. Loftus earned M.A. and M.Div. degrees in theology and philosophy from Lincoln Christian Seminary under the guidance of Dr. James D. Strauss. He then attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he studied under Dr. William Lane Craig and received a Th.M. degree in philosophy of religion. Before leaving the church, he had ministries in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana, and taught at several Christian colleges. Today he still teaches as an adjunct instructor in philosophy at Kellogg Community College and has an online blog devoted to "debunking Christianity." His new book is Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, John Loftus discusses his background as an Evangelical Christian preacher and apologist and what led to his rejection of the faith, including both emotional loss and "lovelessness in the church," and also philosophical arguments and historical evidence that caused him to doubt. He critiques the Christian illusion of moral superiority. He challenges religion with what he calls the "outsider test." He explores whether logic and reason led to his atheism, or followed only after he adopted an atheistic point of view for emotional reasons. And he explains what he does believe in now that he no longer believes in Christianity or God, and the benefits he thinks this new worldview brings him.

Kendrick Frazier - The Skeptical Inquirer

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 06:38:00 GMT

Kendrick Frazier has been the editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine for over 30 years. He is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the American Geophysical Union. In 2005, Frazier was made a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for "distinguished contributions to the public understanding of science through writing for and editing popular science magazines that emphasize science news and scientific reasoning and methods." He is the author of a number of books, including The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal, Encounters With the Paranormal: Science, Knowledge, and Belief, and Paranormal Borderlands of Science. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Kendrick Frazier discusses his long association with CSI (formerly CSICOP) and with Skeptical Inquirer magazine and explores the meanings of skeptical inquiry, both as ordinary common sense and as being continuous with science. He contrasts the paranormal with science, and explains why the paranormal was the initial focus of CSICOP. He explores debates within the skeptical community, such as whether or not belief in the paranormal is diminishing, and to what extent the movement has been successful. He talks about the breadth of claims currently dealt with at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, including both popular paranormal claims and more controversial scientific and scholarly subjects. He talks about three recent issues of Skeptical Inquirer focused on "deniers" and explains how deniers are different than skeptics. He explains paranormal or pseudoscientific claims that he has changed his mind about over the years, such as extraordinary human perception, and the mind-body connection as it relates to healing. He talks about how the magazine has dealt with religion over the years. And he talks about the future of skepticism and the need for new ways of outreach, especially to younger skeptics.

Christopher Burns- Deadly Decisions

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:42:00 GMT

Christopher Burns is one of the country's leading minds on modern information management. He has been a news executive and consultant to government and the private sector for thirty years, advising clients on emerging information management technologies and the evolution of the information economy. His previous positions include vice president of the Washington Post Company, senior vice president of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, and executive editor of United Press International. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Christopher Burns talks about the biology of the brain, the behavior of groups, and the structure of organizations and how each can lead to people making bad decisions. He discusses the paradox that in the age of information, it may be more difficult to make good decisions. He describes "false knowledge" and how to choose the right information to pay attention to. He emphasizes the value of skepticism in making good decisions, and of trusting ambiguity and uncertainty. He uses the example of the sinking of the Titanic to explain the concept of "information errors." He discusses how groups naturally discourage dissent, and how this harms the information system, citing examples from operating room and airline cockpit. He details ways of organizing that lead to better decision-making. And he talks about the political domain, and how to address challenges to good collective decision-making in a democracy, contrasting the Bush and Obama administrations.

Ginger Campbell - Podcasting Neuroscience

Fri, 9 Jan 2009 05:41:00 GMT

Ginger Campbell, M.D., is an emergency physician whose long-standing interest in philosophy and science motivated her to begin podcasting in 2006. While her Brain Science Podcast focuses on neuroscience, her other show, Books and Ideas, often explores the intersection between science and religion. She is also the founder of sciencepodcasters.org, which is a site devoted to promoting science through podcasting. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Ginger Campbell recounts how she first got involved in science podcasting, and why she focuses on neuroscience as her topic. She discusses the impact of Jennifer Michael Hecht's work on both her intellectual pursuits and her views about atheism and religion. She talks about the trends in neuroscience that may suggest the brain can be "trained" with products such as Brain Age on Nintendo's DS Lite, or that one's diet can increase one's intelligence. She describes "neuroplasticity," and how new brain imaging technologies, such as advanced fMRIs, show that our daily actions can impact specific parts of the brain. She explores the implications of neuroscience for religious belief, and why she has at times resisted the idea of atheism. She shares her reactions to the "New Atheists." And she discusses the increasing attacks on neuroscience from Creationist activists because of what it implies about consciousness, free-will and the existence of the soul.

Simon Singh - Trick or Treatment

Sat, 3 Jan 2009 01:40:00 GMT

Simon Singh is an author focusing on science and mathematics for the general public. His books include Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem, The Code Book, and Big Bang. He has produced a number of documentaries for television on science topics, and is a trustee of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, and the National Museum of Science and Industry, both in the United Kingdom. He is currently being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for comments he wrote in a column in The Guardian. His newest book, co-authored with Dr. Edzard Ernst, is Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Simon Singh talks about being an open-minded skeptic regarding complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). He discusses the efficacy of various CAM treatments, such as detox programs, homeopathy, and acupuncture. He examines the origins and claims of chiropractic, whether it works, and how it may be dangerous. He talks about the limits of scientific inquiry, and when a CAM claim might justifiably be dismissed. He discusses the funding of research into CAM versus the funding of its marketing. He explores the reasons why people continue using such treatments despite the lack of scientific data showing that it works. He explains the placebo effect and its legitimate therapeutic uses, and details the harm that some CAM treatments can cause even if they do work. He shares his opinions about why passions among skeptics and believers regarding CAM are so heated, giving advice to both the CAM and scientific communities. And he gives reasons for speaking out regarding CAM despite the possible negative repercussions from various quarters of the CAM community.

Tom Flynn - Science Fiction and Atheism

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 23:48:00 GMT

Tom Flynn is the Editor of Free Inquiry magazine. A journalist, novelist, entertainer, and folklorist, Flynn is the author of numerous articles for Free Inquiry, many addressing church-state issues, as well as the best-selling The Trouble With Christmas, about which he has made hundreds of radio and TV appearances in his role as the curmudgeonly âanti-Claus.â He is also the author of the critically acclaimed anti-religious black comedy science fiction novels, Galactic Rapture and Nothing Sacred. His latest work, The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, is a comprehensive reference work on the history, beliefs, and thinking of Americaâs fastest growing minority: those who live without religion. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Tom Flynn discusses the trouble he has with Christmas. He also explores the relationship of atheism and skepticism with science fiction. He talks about the connection that many of the leading figures in science fiction have had with the Center for Inquiry over the years. He surveys influential atheist and humanistic writers in science fiction including H.G. Wells, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, Douglas Adams, Phillip Pullman, and Kurt Vonnegut, among many others. He discusses the secular humanism in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek franchise, and an interesting connection an episode had with Scientology. He details Orson Scott Card's relationship with secular humanism. He talks about the influence of Robert Heinlein's earlier works on the development of his own religious skepticism. He discusses the similarities of Scientology and Mormonism with science fiction. He examines the intersection of sci fi and religious satire, as in the works of James Morrow and Bo Fowler. And he explains his own foray into science fiction, with his critically acclaimed books Galactic Rapture and Nothing Sacred.

Paul Kurtz - Forbidden Fruit

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:56:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz is the leading figure in the humanist and skeptical movements over the last four decades. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine, he has advanced a critical, humanistic inquiry into many of the most cherished beliefs of society for decades. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been featured widely in the media on topics as diverse as reincarnation, UFO abduction, secular versus religious ethics, communication with the dead, and the historicity of Jesus. During this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Paul Kurtz discusses the importance of creativity in terms of outreach for the skeptical and secular humanist movements. He talks about the his book Forbidden Fruit, which focuses on the application of science and reason to the Good Life and to normative ethics. He argues that ethics need not have religious foundations, and that ethics should instead have purely secular and humanist sources. He explores the secular meanings of stories about the mythical Garden of Eden, and actually celebrates the eating of the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and of the fruit of the Tree of Life. He argues that the universalistic ethics within the world's religions in fact stem from secular humanism. He details what it is to live a life of excellence and defends against the charge that his ethics is self-centered and self-absorbed, arguing for good will in a secular context, and that the common good is not alien to enlightened self-interest. He touches on the secular position on controversial social issues, such as abortion and sexual ethics, including gay rights and gay marriage. He expounds on what he calls the "common moral decencies," which he argues are a product of evolution. He finishes by discussing the myth of Sisyphus and what it portends for the scientific secularist today, arguing against nihilistic atheism.

Solomon Schimmel - Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:05:00 GMT

Solomon Schimmel is professor of Jewish education and psychology at Hebrew College. He is the author of a number of books, including The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian and Classical Reflections on Human Psychology, and numerous articles and book chapters on Jewish thought, psychology of religion and Jewish education. His newest book is The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Solomon Schimmel reveals whether he is an atheist and explains why he lives an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle without theism. He explores differences between his religiosity and that of fundamentalists, especially in terms of truth claims, and the values of honesty and knowledge. He describes the response he has received in the Orthodox Jewish community as a result of his views. He describes the psychology of the fundamentalist, and mechanisms such as confirmation bias, selective interpretation, and ad hominem attacks of critics. He explores various views of truth, including that the value of religion is not necessarily in the truth value of its claims. And he debates the value of reason versus emotion, and the role of authority when evaluating truth claims. He explores ways that rationalists can challenge fundamentalism, both in terms of argumentation and community, and in terms of focusing on the harms of fundamentalism.

Solomon Schimmel - The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs

Fri, 5 Dec 2008 05:26:00 GMT

Solomon Schimmel is professor of Jewish education and psychology at Hebrew College. He is the author of a number of books, including The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian and Classical Reflections on Human Psychology, and numerous articles and book chapters on Jewish thought, psychology of religion and Jewish education. His newest book isÂThe Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Schimmel discusses how and why, even as a complete skeptic of theological claims, he still practices Orthodox Judaism. He talks about the benefits that religion,Âincluding fundamentalism,Âmay bring a believer, such as caring and supportive communities, ethical codes, means of coping with stress and loss, celebrations of rites of passage, and a hope for life after death. He explores ways that people can experience these benefits while rejecting the unreasonable claims of religion, which he argues are especially pronounced in fundamentalism. He challenges Sam Harris's view regarding moderate religionists making room for fundamentalism. He examines many of the ways that Christian, Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism harms society, and argues that it should be challenged in public and in private, for the sake of democracy, scientific progress and the welfare of society. And he details some strategies to encourage people to give up their harmful and false beliefs and fundamentalist commitments.

Jennifer Michael Hecht - Doubt

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:34:00 GMT

Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of award-winning books of philosophy, history, and poetry, includingÂThe End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism and Anthropology;ÂDoubt: A History;ÂThe Happiness Myth,Âand her book of poetry,ÂFunny, which Publisherâs WeeklyÂcalled one of the most original and entertaining books of the year.ÂÂ In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Hecht talks about the relationship of her bookÂDoubt: A HistoryÂto the books of the New Atheists, if media reception of the New Atheists was "gendered," and in what sense her book is "less evangelical" than theirs. She explains what she means by the kind of doubt she believes in, how it is broader and deeper than mere disbelief, and the ways in which doubt can feed belief. She explores the implications of doubt for scientific inquiry, and how doubt should be applied to the questions and the certitude that some scientists and skeptics express. She talks about the importance of art, poetry and psychoanalysis for doubting, and how such forms of introspection and expression increase the benefits of doubt. And she reveals some her favorite doubters in history, and what she learns from them.

James McGaha - Lights in the Sky

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:29:00 GMT

James McGaha is a retired USAF pilot, astronomer and director of the Grasslands Observatory. He held a TOP SECRET compartmented security clearance and was involved in numerous classified operations including operations in the so-called "Area 51."ÂHis current work includes astrometry and photometry of asteroids and supernovae. He has discovered 15 Asteroids and 52 CometsÂand has over 1700 M.P.E.C. publications on Near Earth Asteroids.ÂHe is the winner of the 2002 Shoemaker NEO Grant. HeÂhas appeared widely in the media, having actively promoted science and debunked pseudoscience for over 35 years, focusing on belief in UFOs and astrology. He is the founder and chairman of the Tucson Skeptics and a Scientific Consultant to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, James McGaha talks about his astronomer- beginnings as a skeptic of UFOs, and the limitations of the term "UFO." He answers how open-minded he is about the possibility that extraterrestrial beings are visiting the earth today. He talks about the origins of UFO belief with the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, along with Fate, a magazine promoting paranormal belief. He talks about the history of Project Bluebook and the Condon Report. He details qualities of human perception that may explain UFO accounts, and explores some of the reasons people may adhere to UFO belief. He explains the famous Phoenix Lights sightings. He explores how to respond to those who have unshakable belief in unsupportable UFO claims. He compares qualities of contemporary UFO mythology with certain aspects of religious belief, including views of apocalypticism and salvation. And he talks about the dangers that belief in UFOs pose to a civil society.

Peter Singer - Vegetarianism and the Scientific Outlook

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:25:00 GMT

One of the most controversial and influential philosophers alive today, Peter Singer is DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne. He writes a regular column for Free Inquiry magazine, and is the author of dozens of books, including Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, Animal Liberation, and Writings on an Ethical Life. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Peter Singer defends vegetarianism, arguing that we should give equal consideration to all "beings who have interests." He draws ethical distinctions between human fetuses and animals, such as dogs and cats. He argues against "dominionism," which is the idea that humanity is special, and that other animals were made by God for humanity's benefit. He attacks "speciesism," and explains why he did not sign the Humanist Manifesto 2000. He describes factory farming, and the commercial imperatives that he says cause animals to be treated as mere property. He talks about the decision to become a vegetarian, and what keeps secularists and scientists from making the decision, in terms of the question he posed to Richard Dawkins at a recent Center for Inquiry conference. And he considers how working with the religious may advance vegetarianism in society.

Peter Singer - Ethics in an Age of Darwin

Fri, 7 Nov 2008 17:04:00 GMT

One of the most controversial and influential philosophers alive today, Peter Singer is DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne. He writes a regular column for Free Inquiry magazine, and is the author of dozens of books, including Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, Animal Liberation, and Writings on an Ethical Life. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Peter Singer explores how controversial or compatible his views are with religious thought and in what sense his ethics is informed by a naturalistic or Darwinian understanding of the origins of life. He discusses the value of human life as regards end-of-life questions such as doctor-assisted suicide, and offers justification for the involuntary euthanasia of severely disabled infants. He details what it means to be genuinely "pro-life." And he shares his views on stem cell research and abortion, arguing how that even though abortion is killing a human life, it is not unethical. He also explains what qualities of life would make killing it unethical.

The 12th Annual CFI Houdini Seance

Sat, 1 Nov 2008 00:25:00 GMT

Harry Houdini, the world-famous magician and skeptic, sincerely explored the religion of spiritualism and communication with the dead after his beloved motherâs death in 1913. In this episode for Halloween 2008, Joe Nickell, the worldâs leading paranormal investigator and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiryâs senior research fellow, and D.J. Grothe (both of whom are former professional magicians) conduct the Center for Inquiryâs 12th Annual Houdini Seance, using artifacts of the magician's art to entice Houdini's spirit to appear. They recount the history of the original Houdini Seance, and explore Houdini's views on the spirit world, and to what extent he was a "debunker," as opposed to an investigator. They talk about his skeptical methods, such as going undercover, and how he used his background in magic to aid his investigations. And as commemoration, Joe Nickell reads from Houdini's famous book on skeptical investigations, A Magician Among the Spirits.

Todd C. Riniolo - When Good Thinking Goes Bad

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 02:35:00 GMT

Todd C. Riniolo is an associate professor of psychology at Medaille College. He has written many peer-reviewed articles in the psychological literature. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Todd Riniolo discusses his book When Good Thinking Goes Bad: How Your Brain Can Have a Mind of Its Own, exploring ways that critical thinking should be applied to people's cherished and most certainly felt convictions. He discusses common cognitive, social and emotional biases people have when arriving at conclusions about the supernatural and paranormal, politics and economics, and how critical thinking is often applied inconsistently in these areas. He also focuses his skepticism on issues such as global warming and multiculturalism.

Edward Tabash - The U.S. Presidential Election and Secular Values Voters

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Edward Tabash is a constitutional and civil rights lawyer in Beverly Hills, California. He has chaired the National Legal Committee of Americans United for Separation of Church and State since 1995, and has argued and won before the California Supreme Court. He also sits as a part-time judge for the Los Angeles County Superior Court system. He has successfully represented the scientific outlook and secular humanism in public debates against the leading Christian philosophers around the world. In addition to serving on the Board of the Center for Inquiry and chairing the Council for Secular Humanismâs First Amendment Task Force, he chairs the Center for Inquiry's Los Angeles branch. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Edward Tabash explores issues valued by secularists and why they hang in the balance in this U.S. Presidential Election. ÂHe talks about gay marriage and abortion, and how both of these rights depend on a government neutrality in matters of religion. He details ways that pseudoscience and junk science are used to advance religiously derived public policy arguments against gay marriage and abortion. And he talks about global warming skepticism, and the need for scientific integrity in public policy. He emphasizes how the next U.S. President will reshape the Supreme Court, and what that portends for science and secular values. He also explains his role in gay rights victory with the Supreme Court of California earlier in 2008, and why he opposes Proposition 8, a proposed ballot measure in California that would amend the State Constitution to deny marriage rights to homosexuals.

Lawrence M. Krauss - The Fear of Physics

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:04:00 GMT

Lawrence M. Krauss is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Director of the new Origins Initiative at Arizona State University. He is an internationally famous theoretical physicist who focuses on the early universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity and neutrino astrophysics. He has investigated questions ranging from the nature of exploding stars to issues of the origin of all mass in the universe. He is the author of seven best-selling books, including the international bestseller, The Physics of Star Trek and Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions from Plato to String Theory and Beyond. Dr. Krauss is one of North America's leading activists for the public understanding of science and has been particularly involved in issues at the intersection of science and society, leading efforts by scientists to defend the teaching of science in public schools, and he has been a strong proponent of scientific integrity in government. His essay in the New York Times about evolution and Intelligent Design in May 2005 helped spur a controversy that ultimately caused the Catholic Church to refine its position on Darwinian evolution. Most recently he has led the call for a Presidential Debate on Science and Technology as a member of the steering committee for ScienceDebate2008.org. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Lawrence Krauss explores the fear of physics, noting that some of it stems from the fact that physics contradicts basic beliefs that many people have about their place in the universe. He also addresses how others are afraid of physics because of its potential to destroy civilization, such as with atomic and nuclear weapons, and the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. He explains some of the science behind the LHC. And he talks about the misuse of quantum physics in the New Age movement, and Rhonda Byrne's The Secret and the documentary What The Bleep Do We Know.

Michael Lackey - Science, Postmodernism, and the Varieties of Black Humanism

Fri, 3 Oct 2008 18:31:00 GMT

Michael Lackey teaches courses in twentieth-century American and African American literature at the University of Minnesota, Morris. A recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, he has published articles in many journals, including Philosophy and Literature, Journal of the History of Ideas, and the Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History. University Press of Florida has recently published his book, African American Atheists and Political Liberation: A Study of the Socio-Cultural Dynamics of Faith, which was named a âChoice Outstanding Academic Titleâ for 2007. He is currently working on his second book, which is tentatively titled: Modernist God States: A Literary Study of the Theological Origins of Totalitarianism. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Michael Lackey talks about black liberation atheism, and the view among certain black intellectuals that belief in God results in racial inequality. He explores the black intellectual critique of the Enlightenment and of humanism, and how this has played out in post-modernist skepticism of science and reason in the academy. Focusing on Richard Wright, he explains the view that the real value of science is how it is democratic, not necessarily that it leads to "the truth". And he talks about the correspondence theory of truth and why he rejects it.

Greg Long - The Making of Bigfoot

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 01:40:00 GMT

Greg Long is a professional writer, investigative journalist, and editor who lives in Washington state. He has been researching and writing about "mysteries" and unexplained phenomena of the Pacific Northwest for twenty-five years. His work has been featured on radio and television, including the Discovery Channel. His most recent book is The Making of Bigfoot: The Inside Story. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Greg Long discusses the famous Roger Patterson Bigfoot film from 1967, and why he says it is a hoax. ÂHe details his argument about Patterson's motivations, evidence from the costumer's perspective on why the creature in the film is almost certainly a man dressed in an ape suit, and the confession obtained from the person who wore it. He offers theories about why belief in the creature is so widely held, and what role the media plays in the public's belief in Bigfoot. He examines the recent reports of Bigfoot in the Atlanta area. And he explores the psychological reasons people may believe in Bigfoot, including how it may symbolize certain truths about humanity's evolutionary origins. He also argues why such skeptical inquiry into possibly trivial matters like Bigfoot is so important in our society.

Justin Trottier - The Fight for Science and Reason on the Campuses

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:25:00 GMT

Justin Trottier is Executive Director of the Centre for InquiryÂin Ontario, the first venue dedicated to secular humanists and freethinkers in Canada, and helps oversees CFI Communities in Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver. ÂA former freethought campus activist, Justin co-hosts the student oriented Course of Reason podcast and supports over 30 campus groups across Canada. He has had appeared on numerous television networks, including CBC, CTS, OMNI, CH and CityTV, as well as dozens of radio appearances and coverage in campus, city and national newspapers. ÂHe is also a regular panelist for the Globe and Mail and the Michael Coren Show and has contributed to Free Inquiry, Skeptical Inquirer and Humanist Perspectives magazines. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Justin Trottier talks about how he got involved with science and secularist activism while in college, and why he focuses much of his attention as an organizer now on colleges and universities. He also explains why the Center for Inquiry devotes so many resources to reaching the college students. He details current threats to the university from both the Right and the Left, and what CFI is doing to counter these trends of unreason, sharing ways that listeners can get involved in this effort.

Andrew Fraknoi - The Cosmic History of Your Body

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:23:00 GMT

Andrew Fraknoi is the Chair of the Astronomy Program at Foothill College near San Francisco. In 2007, he was selected as Professor of the Year for the state of California by the Carnegie Endowment for Higher Education. For 14 years, Fraknoi served as the Executive Director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and was editor of its popular level magazine, Mercury, and its newsletter for teachers, The Universe in the Classroom. He has edited two collections of science articles and science fiction stories for Bantam Books, and is the lead author of Voyages through the Universe, one of the leading astronomy textbooks in the world, and also the children's book Disney's Wonderful World of Space.ÂFraknoi serves on the Board of Trustees of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, and is also a Fellow of the Committee for the Skeptical Inquiry, specializing in debunking astrology. He has received the Annenberg Foundation Prize of the American Astronomical Society (the highest honor in the field of astronomy education), as well as the Klumpke-Roberts Prize of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (given for a lifetime of contributions to popularizing astronomy) and the Gemant Prize of the American Institute of Physics. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Andrew Fraknoi explains the history of the atoms in our bodies, and how we are literally made of "star stuff." He details how scientists know the history of these atoms, and explores the implications of this "simple but profound fact," and how some people derive mystical meaning from it, while others find it humbling. He talks about the compatibility of religion with astronomy, and the proper role of skepticism in the science classroom. He describes current threats to science education. And he makes a case for popularizing science and astronomy, and how this benefits society.Â

Barbara Oakley - Social Psychology, Genes and Human Evil

Sat, 6 Sep 2008 02:23:00 GMT

Barbara Oakley, PhD, has been dubbed a female Indiana Jones â her writing combines worldwide adventure with solid research expertise. Among other adventures, she has worked as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers in the Bering Sea, served as radio operator at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and risen from private to regular army captain in the U.S. Army. Currently an associate professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan, Oakley is a recent vice president of the worldâs largest bioengineering society and holds a doctorate in the integrative discipline of systems engineering. Her new book is Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hilter Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Motherâs Boyfriend. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Barbara Oakley shares her criticisms of the research of influential social scientists such as Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram, and explains why the biological sciences should be brought to bear on research about human evil. She addresses how her thesis in Evil Genes might be used as an excuse by some people in our society to do bad things, and details specifics from the life of her sister that serve as a window into her exploration of human evil. She also addresses the implications of her thesis for organized religion, arguing contra Christopher Hitchens that religion is not evil per se but that it might attract evil people to its institutions.Â

Ronald A. Lindsay - Future Bioethics

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:41:00 GMT

Ronald A. Lindsay is a bioethicist, lawyer, and chief executive officer and senior research fellow of the Center for Inquiry. He is also executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism. For many years he practiced law in Washington, DC, and was an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and American University, where he taught jurisprudence and philosophy courses. His new book is Future Bioethics: Overcoming Taboos, Myths, and Dogmas. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Ronald Lindsay reframes the debates surrounding current controversies in bioethics. Carefully examining and dissecting claims made by many policy makers and ethicists on topics such as assistance in dying, genetic engineering, and embryonic stem cell research, bioethicist, Lindsay shows that all too often these claims are based on instinctive reactions, beliefs that lack factual support, and religious or ideological dogma. Through his insightful analysis, Lindsay demonstrates how to achieve pragmatic, progressive solutions to these controversies.

Rev. Michael Dowd - The Marriage of Science and Religion

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:14:00 GMT

In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Michael Dowd reveals how his kind of Christianity is different from most others who would call themselves Christian, and argues that all religions are evolving in the direction of naturalism. He argues that evolution must be mythologized in order to save our species. He explains how he reinterprets orthodox Christian doctrines such as "personal salvation," "the centrality of the cross," and "original sin" in ways that are compatible with scientific ways of thinking, and recounts how understanding evolutionary brain science helps reinterpret certain notions of sexual "sin." He addresses the criticism that that there is no good reason to use religious language to speak about science and evolution. And he expresses why his evolution evangelism is so important: that evolution be embraced and that it would be able to "do its magic," listing the seven reasons how evolution can transform lives and change the world.

Rev. Michael Dowd - Thank God For Evolution

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:06:00 GMT

The Reverend Michael Dowd, along with his wife, science writer Connie Barlow, have lived permanently on the road for years, sharing a "sacred view of evolution" with religious and secular audiences of all ages. His new book is Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Michael Dowd discusses his new book Thank God for Evolution, which is a religious defense of the central organizing theory of modern biology. He reveals the agenda of the book, and the reception it has received from both the scientific and the religious communities. He explains his religious background, and how he has adopted a thoroughly "naturalized" religion that he calls "Religion 2.0," compatible with and integrated with evolution, and which rejects the supernatural or the "unnatural." He details why he has become an "evangelist for evolution" and why the "gospel of evolution" has been so popular for both the religious and the secular audiences he has spoken to over the last six and a half years. He expounds his "evolution theology," and how the traditionally religious can embrace the facts of evolution, which he considers the most important religious act they can commit.

Allan Mazur - Implausible Beliefs

Fri, 8 Aug 2008 23:53:00 GMT

Allan Mazur, a sociologist and an engineer, is professor of public affairs in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Previously a member of the social science faculties of MIT and Stanford University, he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published over 150 articles in the social science literature and is especially interested in biosociology; research methods; and in controversies over science, technology, and the environment. Among his books are Biosociology of Dominance & Deference, True Warnings and False Alarms about Technology, 1948-1971, and Global Social Problems. His new book is Implausible Beliefs: In the Bible, Astrology, and UFOs. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Allan Mazur discusses his interest in skepticism, and lists various criteria for disbelief, defending "closed-mindedness" about various implausibilities. He explores similarities in the credulity throughout the United States versus Europe and Asia. He details the implausibility of various beliefs about the inerrancy of the Bible, UFOs, and astrology, and explains how there is nothing unique about religious beliefs that make them more implausible than other unsupportable claims. He examines the origins of implausible beliefs, including social influence, and how one's social milieu may be a stronger factor in determining one's beliefs than evidence or one's education. He also examines personality characteristics and emotional comfort that certain implausible beliefs may bring the believer as further explanations for the roots of implausible beliefs.

Guy P. Harrison - 50 Reasons People Give For Believing In A God

Sat, 2 Aug 2008 00:54:00 GMT

Guy P. Harrison is a graduate of the University of South Florida with degrees in history and anthropology. he currently lives in the Cayman Islands, where he is a columnist and travel writer for a national newspaper. He has won several international awards for his writing and photography. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Guy P. Harrison talks about his new book 50 Reasons People Give For Believing In A God, and details such reasons for god-belief as the obviousness of God, "playing it safe," the fear of hell, that belief in gods brings genuine happiness and comforts, and the fact that so many people are religious. He explores similarities between the reasons people give for their belief in Western gods and Eastern gods, and also similarities between the reasons people give for belief in gods and in the paranormal.Â He calls for a wider understanding of religion in general as an important first step in inculcating skepticism about religion. He argues that the reasons people proffer are often very different than the reasons theologians argue that people should believe. And he offers advice for what he thinks is the best approach for engaging believers on these matters of belief.

Lewis Wolpert - The Evolutionary Origins of Belief

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:43:00 GMT

Lewis Wolpert is Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology of University College, London, focusing his research on the mechanisms involved in the development of the embryo. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the Royal Society of Literature. He has presented science on both radio and TV for years, and was Chairman of the Committee for the Public Understanding of Science in the UK. Among his books are Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression (the basis for the BBC documentary entitled 'A Living Hell") The Triumph of the Embryo, and A Passion for Science (with Alison Richards). His most recent book is Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Lewis Wolpert explores the evolutionary origins of belief, and argues that atheism is unnatural while belief in gods is not. He details the relationship between tool-making and belief in God, and shows how human primates are unique in this regard. He explains why he thinks it is so hard for people to give up their unbelievable beliefs. He shares his views on organized religion, including how it benefits believers, and examines if the same tools of science and reason can equally be applied to beliefs about the paranormal. He also debates the usefulness of argumentation with believers.

Joe Nickell - Humanistic Skepticism

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The worldâs leading paranormal investigator, Joe Nickell is a regular contributor to Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Looking for a Miracle, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, and most recently The Relics of the Christ.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Joe Nickell expounds on his unique kind of paranormal investigating, which is neither "mystery mongering," nor "debunking." He emphasizes how his humanist values carry over into his skeptical work, and how his notion of "doing good" is applied to skepticism as a movement. He criticizes many in the skeptical movement who seem not to care to honor claimants with on-the-ground investigations, instead dismissing from the "armchair" that a supernatural claim is impossible. He also challenges those with the "ghost hunter" mentality, who lack effective training in investigation and instead just promote belief in unsupportable paranormal claims, even while engaging in important field investigations. Nickell ends discussing the future of the skeptical movement and the odds he thinks it has to adopt the kind of "humanistic skepticism" he promotes.

Maggie Jackson - Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:29:00 GMT

Maggie Jackson is an award-winning author and journalist who writes the popular âBalancing Actsâ column in the Boston Globe. Her work also has appeared in the New York Times and on National Public Radio, among other national publications. Her acclaimed first book, Whatâs Happening to Home? Balancing Work, Life and Refuge in the Information Age, examined the loss of home as a refuge. Her newest book is Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Maggie Jackson discusses her controversial thesis about the downsides of the information age, and how the distractions from modern technologies lead to less critical thinking and less fulfilled lives. She explores the causes and effects of the erosion of attention, including media culture, the internet and personal communication devices, and even our fast-food culture, and how these impact relationships, work and personal identity. She details some advances in "attention science," a field in cognitive neuroscience, and what they tell us about how people can overcome their distractions. And she shares what listeners can do to stop the erosion of attention in their lives.

Ben Radford - Paranormal Investigation

Fri, 4 Jul 2008 18:51:00 GMT

Ben Radford is is one of the world's few science-based paranormal investigators, and has done first-hand research into psychics, ghosts and haunted houses, exorcisms, Bigfoot, lake monsters, UFO sightings, crop circles, and other topics. He is managing editors of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and editor-in-chief of the Spanish-language magazine Pensar, published in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The author of many books, including Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us, and Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures (with Joe Nickell), he also writes online at LiveScience.com and MediaMythmakers.com.

In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Radford recounts some of his experiences as a paranormal investigator, drawing a contrast between his work and that of the "ghost hunters." He talks about his attempts at "steath skepticism" and also about his new board-game, Playing Gods.

Also in this episode, philosopher and Center for Inquiry founder Paul Kurtz shares a special message for rationalists on Independence Day, about the Influence of the Enlightenment on America.

PZ Myers - Expelled from Expelled

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:42:00 GMT

PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris and the author of Pharyngula, the most heavily-trafficked science blog online.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, P.Z. Myers details his expulsion from a screening of Expelled, Ben Stein's documentary which claims that the scientific community is limiting academic freedom by not allowing Intelligent Design to be taught or discussed in the schools. He explains the background of how he and other scientists were invited to appear in the film under false pretenses, and what his response has been. He addresses "focus groups"; and other marketing methods for finding the best way to communicate science to the public. Calling himself part of the "radical fringe," he elaborates on his view that leading science organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement for Science and the National Academies of Science are "playing a shell game" on the public when it comes to teaching the compatibility of science with religion, arguing that there is a direct link between science education and religious skepticism. And he also shares his thoughts about the future of the atheist and rationalist movement in the United States.

PZ Myers - Science and Atheism in the Blogosphere

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:28:00 GMT

PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris and the author of Pharyngula, the most heavily-trafficked science blog online.

In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, P.Z. Myers explains the purpose and impact of his blog, and whether his priority is to advance science education or atheism. He talks about what he sees as his roles in the scientific community and the atheist movement, and how related these roles are. He explores the relationship between science and atheism, and argues that the more a public learns science, the likelier it is that they will become atheistic. And he talks about where a science educator's atheism fits in the classroom. He also addresses the position of leading scientific organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academies of Science regarding evolution being compatible with religious belief, and their use of religious scientists as spokespeople, and he assesses their motivations and strategies to advance science to a largely religious American public.

Susan Jacoby - The Age of American Unreason

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:52:00 GMT

Susan Jacoby is the author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. A prominent public intellectual, she frequently appears in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Free Inquiry. Her latest best selling book is The Age of American Unreason. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Susan Jacoby explores recent trends that she argues have led to the "Age of American Unreason," including religious fundamentalism, mass media consumption and "video culture," and multiculturalism. She addresses how fundamentalism feeds anti-intellectualism in America, and how not only fundamentalism can be blamed for it. She details both the upside and the downside of the internet, the perils of too much TV viewing, and the effect of such over-consumtion on the cultural literacy of average Americans. She addresses criticism that she is merely "elitist" or a "luddite," and ends with specifics on how people can work to challenge the Age of American Unreason.

Taner Edis - Science and Nonbelief

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 15:26:00 GMT

Taner Edis, born and raised in Turkey, is associate professor of physics at Truman State University and the author of The Ghost in the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science and Science and Non-belief, among other publications. His latest book is An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam.

In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Taner Edis explains reasons he thinks religion persists, and explores the complex relationship between science and nonbelief, detailing how the institutional interests of science may prevent some in the science community from working to diminish religion, the New Atheists excepted. He talks about how scientific theories are often misused by paranormalists or supernaturalists to advance their cultural position, focusing on the New Age movement's use of quantum physics and on the intelligent design movement. He examines differences between science and pseudoscience, arguing that often it is not possible to demarcate what is uniquely science. And he surveys various scientific approaches of examining religion, such as rational choice theory, the secularization hypothesis, and various evolutionary approaches, such as group selection theory, the byproduct theory of religion, and memetic approaches (that religion is a "virus of the mind").

Robert M. Price - Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's Pop Mysticisms

Sat, 31 May 2008 00:17:00 GMT

Robert M. Price is professor of theology and scriptural studies at Coleman Theological Seminary and professor of Biblical Criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. Heâs a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion and the Jesus Seminar. Dr. Price is the author of a number of books such as The Reason Driven Life, Deconstructing Jesus, Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, and The Da Vinci Fraud. He has appeared widely in the media, and was featured prominently in the movie The God Who Wasnât There. His latest book is Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's Pop Mysticisms. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Robert Price explores the origins, doctrines and dangers of various strands of contemporary "pop mysticism," including Rhonda Byrne's The Secret and other "New Thought" proponents, the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, and The Course in Miracles. He contends that there is some truth to many of these mystical worldviews, especially the emphasis on introspection and self-improvement, and details how to take what is of value while rejecting the unsupportable claims. He also addresses the popularity and influence of Christian televangelist Joel Olsteen, whom he argues is in fact a promoter of New Thought in Christian trappings. He also explores what the secular humanist and skeptic movements might learn from both the Christian Mega-churches and the New Age movements, and how they can work together as freethinkers against fundamentalist dogmatic religious-political movements.

Jamy Ian Swiss - Skepticism and the Art and Philosophy of Magic

Sat, 24 May 2008 03:02:00 GMT

Jamy Ian Swiss is universally considered one of the worldâs top sleight of hand performers, famous to magicians for his subtlety, skill and depth of understanding of magicâs history. He has appeared on a number of television programs in the United States, Europe, and Japan, including on The Today Show, CBSâs 48 Hours, Comedy Central, CNN, PBS Nova and the PBS documentary, The Art of Magic. Heâs performed internationally for corporate clients, lectured to magicians in over a dozen countries, and is a co-producer of New York Cityâs longest-running Off-Broadway magic show, Monday Night Magic. He is also a co-founder of the National Capital Area Skeptics and the New York City Skeptics, and a long-time contributor to the skeptical movement and its magazines. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Jamy Ian Swiss talks about his skeptical beginnings, and argues that magic done well is an "entertaining form of skepticism, rather than a debased form of mysticism" (as described by Adam Gopnik in the recent profile of Jamy in "The New Yorker"). He explores some of the philosophy of why and how magic works, and examines ethical and artistic issues related to the performance of contemporary magic and mentalism, as reflected n the work of a spectrum of performers ranging from Derren Brown to Marc Salem to Uri Geller. He also wonders about the effectiveness of the skeptical movement overall, and the value of getting involved in the skeptical community.

Paul Kurtz - The Transnational Center for Inquiry

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:16:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz, considered by many the father of the secular humanist movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine, he has advanced a critical, humanistic inquiry into many of the most cherished beliefs of society for the last forty years. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been featured very widely in the media, on topics as diverse as reincarnation, UFO abduction, secular versus religious ethics, communication with the dead, and the historicity of Jesus. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Paul Kurtz describes the Center for Inquiry's transnational efforts, detailing its activities to advance science and secular values in the Netherlands, Romania, Germany, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, Canada and various countries in Africa, the Middle East and South America. He shares some of the history of the worldwide skeptical and humanist movements, and shows how the recent worldwide expansion of the Center for Inquiry is a result of its commitment to what he calls "planetary humanism."

Austin Dacey - Moral Values After Darwin

Sat, 10 May 2008 02:54:00 GMT

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 conversation with D.J. Grothe, Austin Dacey argues for the objectivity of morality from a nonreligious perspective. Maintaining that the conscience is prior to and independent of God and religion, he advocates an "ethics from below" that steers a middle course between an empirical "science of good and evil" and a transcendental religious ethic. While sharply criticizing what he sees as simplistic and misleading applications of evolutionary science to moral matters, Dacey defends a naturalistic understanding of the right and good. He explains the advantages of consequentialist moral theories that seek to promote individual well-being, and returns to John Stuart Mill's On Liberty to show that the belief in objective values is perfectly compatible with the social philosophy of secular liberalism. Dacey also responds to Chris Hedges' assertions that secularists do not grasp the nature of evil and that the Enlightenment notion of moral progress is a myth.

Chris Hedges - I Dont Believe in Atheists

Fri, 2 May 2008 23:10:00 GMT

Chris Hedges is a journalist and author who focuses on American and Middle Eastern politics and society. He is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years. He is the author of What Every Person Should Know About What and American Fascists. His newest book is I Don't Believe in Atheists. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, acclaimed foreign correspondent Christ Hedges shares his criticism of the New Atheists, calling them "fundamentalists" in their own right. He responds to their account of the origins of Islamic religious extremism, and he accuses the New Atheists of racism. He explains his view that the New Atheists are proponents of the Neo-conservative agenda and how the American Left does advance secular values in the Muslim world. He also criticizes what he calls the "utopianism" of the New Atheists, detailing his skepticism about moral progress for humanity.

John Shook - Naturalism and the Scientific Outlook

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:20:00 GMT

John Shook is Vice President for Research and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry Transnational in Amherst, N.Y. He received his PhD in philosophy at the University at Buffalo and was a professor of philosophy at Oklahoma State University for six years. Among his current responsibilities are the Center for Inquiryâs Naturalism Research Project and the expansion of the Centerâs Jo Ann Boydston Library of American Philosophical Naturalism.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Shook describes the relationship of naturalism to the worldview based upon the sciences. He explores whether the sciences necessarily lead to naturalism, and to what extent the sciences can yield truth about human morality and the good life. He details a recent debate he had with the famous Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, and responds to some of Craig's challenges against naturalism and arguments in support of supernaturalism. And he examined what possible meaning (ultimate and otherwise) human life can have if there is no supernatural, "cosmic" significance.

Michael Shermer - The Mind of The Market

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:01:00 GMT

Michael Shermer is the author of ten books, including the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things and The Science of Good and Evil. An adjunct professor of economics at Claremont Graduate University, he is a columnist for Scientific American, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, and the founder and director of the international Skeptics Society. His latest book is The Mind of The Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales From Evolutionary Economics.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Michael Shermer discusses The Mind of the Market, and the new field of neuroeconomics. He explores the implications of Darwinian evolution for how people fare in market capitalism, including how we are naturally irrational when it comes to economics, due to our evolutionary heritage. He argues why market capitalism and liberal democracy are best suited to people's needs, and discusses socialized medicine and other aspects of social welfare programs, contrasting the economy of the United States with those of northern Europe. He examines how free trade may lead to world peace. He also addresses the growing political and economic diversity when it comes to the skeptical and humanist movements.

Tom Flynn - Ingersoll: The Most Famous Person You Have Never Heard Of

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:58:00 GMT

Tom Flynn is editor of Free Inquiry Magazine and director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum. He also directs traditional video operations at the Center for Inquiry. He is editor of The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief and author of three books: the science-fiction novels Galactic Rapture and Nothing Sacred and the polemic The Trouble With Christmas. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Tom Flynn talks about the life of Robert Green Ingersoll, the 19th Century orator and freethinker. He explains Ingersoll's views on religion, and his secular progressive outlook that he advanced as an alternative. He details Ingersoll's role in GOP politics of the day, and explores his popularity on the national stage. He also discusses about the Council for Secular Humanism's museum dedicated to the life of Robert Ingersoll. Also in this episode, Ron Lindsay, the director of the Council for Secular Humanism's First Amendment Task Force, responds to various issues related to comments made recently by Rep. Monique Davis (Democrat, Chicago) against the atheist activist Rob Sherman, and reiterates his recent call for her to resign.

Marc Hauser - Moral Minds

Fri, 4 Apr 2008 22:52:00 GMT

Marc Hauser is an evolutionary psychologist and biologist. He is Harvard College Professor and Professor of Psychology, and Director of the Primate Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Harvard University. He is the author of a number of books, including The Evolution of Communication, Wild Minds: What Animals Think, and Moral minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong.

In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Marc Hauser expounds his theory that morality has biological origins while challenging the common view that morality comes from God. He compares the human capacity for morality with Noam Chomsky's notion of a universal grammar, arguing that there is a "morality module" in the brain. He explains how his theory accounts for differences in morality across cultures, and discusses how morality could have evolved and what genetic benefit it might have afforded. He also explores the implications of his theory for the legal system, and for cultural institutions like religion and the family.

Sir Harold Kroto - Science Education and Freethinking

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:30:00 GMT

Sir Harold Kroto, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, is in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The Florida State University. He is a tireless science educator who gives lectures, presentations and workshops to groups of all ages with the aim of communicating his passion for science. He's a fellow of the Royal Society, and was awarded its 2002 Michael Faraday Award for public appreciation of science. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Sir Harold Kroto relates what budded his initial interests in science, including the influence of his childhood Meccano sets, and emphasizes the importance of hands-on exploration and science learning. He recounts the discovery of the Buckminster Fullerene, for which he won the Nobel Prize, and the frustration he has with people outside the sciences who view science as only worthwhile if it is "useful." He discusses his views on religion, and how his background in science has fueled his freethinking and religious skepticism. He explores the question of whether or not science education efforts are succeeding, and details his "buckyball" workshops for children. He also explores whether or not he advances the "religion of secular humanism" when he teaches science deliberately excluding any mention of God or religion.

Austin Dacey - The Secular Conscience

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:36:00 GMT

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. His new book is The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Austin Dacey argues that secularism has lost its sense of moral direction, ceding ground to religious positions it never should have. He explores the impact this has on the secular left's criticism of the New Atheists, and its approach to radical Islam. He discusses the reasons secular liberalism doesn't ally itself with the secularizing elements in the Islamic world, and why he thinks it should, also addressing "Islamophobia" and the "American Taliban." He explains why questions of conscience and morality, whether religious or secular in origin, should not be excluded from public discourse -- contrary to prevailing secular liberal opinion -- and also in what sense they should (and should not) merely be matters of private belief and freedom of conscience.

Norm Allen - African American Religiosity, Humanism, and Politics

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:34:00 GMT

Norm Allen is executive director of African Americans for Humanism, an educational organization primarily concerned with fostering critical thinking, ethical conduct, church-state separation, and skepticism toward untested claims to knowledge among African Americans. He is the editor of the ground-breaking book African-American Humanism: An Anthology, AAH Examiner, and Deputy Editor of Free Inquiry magazine. He has traveled and lectured widely throughout North America, Europe, and Africa and his writings have been published in scores of newspapers throughout the U.S. He has spoken on numerous radio and television programs and his writings have appeared in such books as Culture Wars and the National Center for Science Educationâs Voices for Evolution.

In this wide-ranging discussion with D.J. Grothe, Norm Allen explores some of the challenges advancing science and secularism within the African American community. He examines the pressure to conform to the religious ideal among various black skeptics and atheists, including many historical African American figures such as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, and Faye Wattleton, former president of Planned Parenthood of America. He debates whether religion is a liberating or oppressive force for African Americans. He also details many anti-science trends in the Black community, including those coming from Black entertainment outlets promoting anti-science such as psychic 900 lines, televangelists and belief in prophecy. He ties all of this discussion to an exploration of religion and secularism as they relate to political activism, including the influence of such high-profile Black preachers such as Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Senator Barack Obama's spiritual advisor.

Robert M. Price - The Paperback Apocalypse

Fri, 7 Mar 2008 18:53:00 GMT

Matthew C. Nisbet - Communicating about Science and Religion

Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:54:00 GMT

Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Communication at American University. His research tracks scientific and environmental controversies, examining the interactions between experts, journalists, and various publics. In this area, Nisbet has published numerous peer-reviewed studies, has written for several leading popular outlets including the Washington Post, the Columbia Journalism Review, and The Scientist, and has been frequently called upon as a commentator by major news organizations. He also contributes the semi-regular âScience and the Mediaâ? column for Skeptical Inquirer online, and he tracks current events related to strategic communication at his popular blog Framing Science.. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Nisbet highlights the recent AAAS panel he organized titled âCommunicating Science in a Religious America.â? He details his ideas for the most effective strategies to engage the public about science issues, and debates whether the warfare metaphor of science versus religion undermines science education, and contrasts the approaches of leading scientists like Richard Dawkins and EO Wilsion. Nisbet also explores why it might be advantageous for secularist activists to re-prioritize when it comes to working in coalition with the religious around certain issues of concern to the science-education community.

Tom Flynn - The Science vs. Religion Warfare Thesis

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:31:00 GMT

Tom Flynn is editor of Free Inquiry Magazine and director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum. He also directs traditional video operations at the Center for Inquiry. He is editor of The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief and author of three books: the science-fiction novels Galactic Rapture and Nothing Sacred and the polemic The Trouble With Christmas.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Flynn details the history of the idea of science and religion being at war, including details about the founding exponents of the idea, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. He explains the unintended growth of the idea, and its consequences. He explores Stephen Jay Gould's response to the Warfare Thesis, Gould's NOMA theory, and reaction to it. Flynn also explains his own views on the conflict between science and religion, and how science may be continuous with social progress.

Lynne Kelly - The Skeptics Guide to the Paranormal

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:37:00 GMT

Lynne Kelly is a writer and science educator in Australia, and a founding member of Australian Skeptics. An expert on the paranormal who uses aspects of the magicians art to advance skepticism, she holds degrees in education and engineering and is the author over a dozen books, including The Skeptic's Guide to the Paranormal. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Lynne Kelly examines differences in paranormal beliefs between Australia and the United States, and whether such beliefs are growing. She talks about various paranormal topics from her book, including crop circles, psychic detectives, and communicating with the dead, and explains how to best convey a skeptical approach to students when addressing such topics. She addresses why she avoids overt skepticism of religion when educating her audiences, and why skepticism as a movement has often avoided religious faith claims. She also debates the perils and proper use of the magician's art, especially "cold reading," when teaching skepticism.

Tory Christman - Anti-Science Scientology?

Sat, 9 Feb 2008 00:08:00 GMT

Tory Christman is a former member of the Church of Scientology. She left the organization in 2000, after being a member for about 30 years and is now one of its most visible and high-profile critics, having appeared on CNN, NPR and in the LA Times, and many other media outlets.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Christman recounts her experiences in Scientology, as well as her views about the church's practices with current and former members. She describes her participation in the church's anti-free-speech activities on the internet in the 1990's, and her views on the group Anonymous, a new web-based organization that seeks to respond to Scientology's activities. She explores some of the doctrines and beliefs of Scientology, including the church's views on medical science and psychiatry, auditing, Xenu, becoming a "clear," and e-meters. She also stresses the important role of science and critical thinking in confronting the challenges Scientology may bring to its detractors and adherents alike.

Edward Tabash - Science, Secularism, and the 2008 Presidential Election

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 22:45:00 GMT

Edward Tabash is a constitutional and civil rights lawyer in Beverly Hills, California. Graduating magna cum laude from UCLA in 1973, he graduated from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles three years later and was admitted to the California Bar that same year. He has chaired the National Legal Committee of Americans United for Separation of Church and State since 1995, and has argued and won before the California Supreme Court. He also sits as a part-time judge for the Los Angeles County Superior Court system. He has successfully represented the scientific outlook and secular humanism in public debates against the leading Christian philosophers around the world. In addition to serving on the Board of the Center for Inquiry and chairing the Council for Secular Humanismâs First Amendment Task Force, he chairs the Center for Inquiry's Los Angeles branch. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Edward Tabash explores issues of science and secularism relating to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. He surveys the stances of the candidates of both the Republican and Democratic parties as regards church-state separation, gay rights, abortion rights, global warming and other topics important to the pro-science secularist, regardless of his or her political leanings. Tabash also emphasizes the crucial importance of this election due to the Supreme Court appointments the next President will make. Also in this episode Toni Van Pelt, CFI's Director of Government Affairs, details ways listeners can get involved with CFI's activities on Capitol Hill through its Office of Public Policy.

John Allen Paulos - Irreligion

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:57:00 GMT

John Allen Paulos is Professor of Mathematics at Temple University. He has been celebrated as a writer and speaker about the importance of mathematical literacy, although he is also drawn to other related subjects, such as the mathematical basis of humor. He is the author of Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences, as well as A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper and A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market. His latest book is Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, John Allen Paulos explores some classical proof of God's existence, and why he discounts them. He criticizes some mathematical proofs for theism, including those based on statistics, and explains how free market economics might challenge Intelligent Design theory. He also details why it is important for the non-mathematician to know math, and how mathematics might be beautiful.

Colin McGinn - Secular Philosophy and Skepticism

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:43:00 GMT

Colin McGinn, educated at Oxford University, is the author of sixteen previous books, including The Making of a Philosopher. He has written for the London Review of Books, The New Republic, the New York Times Book Review, and other publications. He has taught philosophy at University College of London, Oxford, and Rutgers University, and is a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Miami. He is best known for his work in the philosophy of mind, but has published across the subjects of modern philosophy. He was featured in Bill Moyers' series Faith and Reason on PBS and also Jonathan Miller's Atheism Tapes, a BBC documentary series.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Colin McGinn explores various kinds of skepticism, giving his concerns about radical fallibilism and certain post-modern critiques of knowledge. He explains how he is certain that ghosts and Gods don't exist. He details how atheistic the profession of philosophy is, and how the tolerance shown while philosophers criticize each other serves as a model for good citizenship. He tells the reasons that led to his religious skepticism and atheism. He examines William Shakespeare as a philosopher, the problem of evil in Shakespeare's plays, and other philosophical subjects found in Shakespeare such as epistemology, ethics, life after death, happiness and the meaning of life. He also explains how getting into Shakespeare as a professional philosopher impacted his philosophy.

Aubrey de Grey - Ending Aging

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Aubrey de Grey, PhD, is a biomedical gerontologist and Chairman and Chief Science Officer of The Methuselah Foundation. His major research interests are the role and etiology of all forms of cellular and molecular damage in mammalian aging, and the design of interventions to reverse the age-related accumulation of such damage. He has published extensively on these and other areas of gerontology, and is also Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, the only peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on intervention in aging. He is the organiser of an ongoing series of conferences and workshops that focus on the key biomedical research relevant to SENS, and he also oversees the Methuselah Foundation's growing sponsorship of SENS research worldwide.

In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Aubrey de Grey explains aging, and the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) program that seeks to reverse aging in our lifetime. He explains how his work is, and is not, continuous with "transhumanism." He addresses challenges the medical and scientific establishment have brought against his work, and how his project is different than the quackery so widespread in the anti-aging movement. He also discusses some of the social and existential problems that ending aging may create for our civilization.

Dr. Stephen Barrett - Watching Out for Quackery

Fri, 4 Jan 2008 22:12:00 GMT

Stephen Barrett, M.D. has achieved national renown as an author, editor, and consumer advocate. In addition to heading Quackwatch, he is vice-president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, a scientific advisor to the American Council on Science and Health, and a Fellow of the Center for Inquiry's Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). The recipient of a number of awards, including the FDA Commissioner's Special Citation Award for Public Service in fighting nutrition quackery and the Distinguished Service to Health Education Award from the American Association for Health Education, he is the author of 50 books, including The Health Robbers: A Close Look at Quackery in America and seven editions of the college textbook Consumer Health: A Guide to Intelligent Decisions. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Dr. Barrett defines complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), the responsibilities of the consumer of healthcare, whether or not CAM is growing in mainstream healthcare, and the types of people who are susceptible to CAM claims. He also explores various CAM therapies including Therapeutic Touch, Chiropractic, myths about water fluoridization, and how a skeptic might most effectively confront family members who are consumers of complementary and alternative medicine. Also in this episode, Lauren Becker shares some thoughts on secular activism and science advocacy for 2008.

Lawrence Krauss - Seducing for Science

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:12:00 GMT

Lawrence M. Krauss is Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics, Prof of Astronomy, and Director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University. The author of 7 popular books including international bestseller, The Physics of Star Trek, and the award winning, Atom, and his newest book, Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions from Plato to String Theory and Beyond, Krauss is also a regular radio commentator and essayist for newspapers such as the New York Times, and appears regularly on television. He is the only physicist to have been awarded the highest awards of the American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the American Institute of Physics, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been particularly active leading the effort to defend the teaching of science in public schools, and to help define the proper limits of both science and religion, as well as defending scientific integrity in government. His essay in the New York Times on Evolution and Intelligent Design in May 2005 helped spur a recent controversy that has helped refine the Catholic Church's position on evolution. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Lawrence Krauss discusses the role scientists should serve in our society. He also details the sorry state of scientific literacy in America today, as well as some strategies for confronting the problem. He makes a case for why learning the methods and outlook of science is important in our democracy, even if it undermines society's basic beliefs about religion or the paranormal. And he challenges Richard Dawkins' methods of communicating the implications of science, even while applauding Dawkins for defending the place of the nonreligious in society.

Paul Kurtz - Ethics for the Nonreligious

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:02:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz, considered by many the father of the secular humanist movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine, he has advanced a critical, humanistic inquiry into many of the most cherished beliefs of society for the last forty years. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been featured very widely in the media, on topics as diverse as reincarnation, UFO abduction, secular versus religious ethics, communication with the dead, and the historicity of Jesus.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Paul Kurtz talks about ethics from a nonreligious perspective, how morality develops, the moral education of children, and whether or not ethics can ever be more than just self-interestedness. He also explains how the question of God's existence should be immaterial to any discussion of human morality.

Also in this episode, Free Inquiry magazine editor Tom Flynn explores the "reason for the season" as a secular humanist.

Student Freethought Leaders Speak Out

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:50:00 GMT

CFI supports a growing network of campus groups on about 200 campuses throughout North America and around the world. While this is a much smaller number than its "cultural competitors," with groups like Campus Crusade for Christ having an annual operating budget of $380 million, Center for Inquiry's campus groups are able to have an increasing impact through the dedication and vision of its student leaders. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, eight student leaders of CFI campus groups explore questions of mission and focus, as well as obstacles they face as they seek to advance science and secularism at the high school and college levels. They debate various strategies for outreach, and detail their successes, including events they have organized and faculty supporters they have discovered. They talk about the problem of how to present themselves to their wider learning community and how welcoming they should be of students who don't share their worldview. They also emphasize the importance of open-ended free inquiry, and how they see their goals as continuous with the university itself.

Richard Dawkins - Science and the New Atheism

Sat, 8 Dec 2007 02:51:00 GMT

In this candid discussion with D.J. Grothe recorded in front of a live audience at the recent Secular Society and Its Enemies conference, Richard Dawkins discusses the impact of his book The God Delusion, whether or not his uncompromising attack on religion undermines science education, and how people can find meaning in a godless universe. He also explores strategies for advancing atheism in society and highlights what secularists may learn from the gay rights and feminist movements. Additionally, during the audience Q&A, Dawkins fields a question from the eminent ethicist Peter Singer.

Keith Stanovich - Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:23:00 GMT

Keith Stanovich holds the Canada Research Chair of Applied Cognitive Science at the Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto. His research areas include the psychology of reasoning and rationality and the psychology of reading, which explores what happens in the brain and to the brain through the process of reading. Recently, he was named one of the 25 most productive educational psychologists. His many books include How to Think Straight about Psychology, Who Is Rational?: Studies of Individual Differences in Reasoning, The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Stanovich talks about his book The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in an Age of Darwin, which is about "Universal Darwinism" and its implications for widely and deeply held beliefs such as God, free-will, and the concept of the self. He explores the gene's eye view of life and also memes as self-replicating units of cuture, and how these selfish replicators use humans as vehicles for their own purposes, even as they might not be in the best interest of humans. He shows some ways that we may overcome, or rebel, against these forces to construct meaning from our existence.

Richard Wiseman - Quirkology

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, started his working life as a professional magician. He currently holds Britainâs only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. He frequently appears in the media, and has written over 60 academic articles and several books, including the best-selling The Luck Factor. His newest book is Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Richard Wiseman discusses "Quirkology," areas of psychology where many scientists fear to tread. He explores some practical applications of social psychology, detailing how we can more effectively detect liars, the use of critical thinking in detecting patterns in our lives, and how to be more informed about the psychology behind supernatural or paranormal experiences. He mentions the youtube successes that he has had in bringing social psychology to a wider public. He also discusses the importance of magic and legerdemain in exploring social psychology, and the relationship of Quirkology to other fringe areas of study such as research into psychic phenomena and parapsychology.

Neil deGrasse Tyson - Communicating Science to the Public

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:58:00 GMT

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 Americaâs most respected science writers, and he writes a monthly column for Natural History magazine simply titled the âUniverse.â? 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 also the on-camera host of PBS-NOVAâs program ScienceNow, which explore the frontiers of all the science that shapes our understanding of our place in the universe. He is the first occupant of the Frederick P. Rose Directorship of the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan, where he also teaches. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Neil deGrasse Tyson examines various approaches to informal science education, his experiences teaching science through pop-culture media outlets, and controversies regarding science popularization. He explains his views on the implications of science for religious belief, questioning the strategy of science educators who seem to equate science and atheism. He also recounts the direct influence of Carl Sagan on his professional development.

Michael Behe - The Edge of Evolution

Thu, 8 Nov 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Michael J. Behe, a central figure in the Intelligent Design movement, is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He is the author of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution and most recently The Edge of Evolution: Searching for the Limits of Darwinism. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Behe discusses his prominent role in the ID movement, and how he first got involved. He explores the differences between creationism and Intelligent Design theory, and details some of his experiences as a key witness for the defense in the Dover, Pennsylvania Intelligent Design trial. He also explains the thesis of his new book, and talks about what he considers the biases of mainstream science.

The 11th Annual Houdini Seance at CFI

Fri, 2 Nov 2007 21:40:00 GMT

Harry Houdini, the world-famous magician and escape artist, earnestly explored the religion of spiritualism and communication with the dead after his beloved motherâs death in 1913, even as he later crusaded against those whom he believed were fraudulent mediums. In this episode, recorded on Halloween, Joe Nickell, the worldâs leading paranormal investigator and CSI's senior research fellow, and D.J. Grothe (both of whom are former professional magicians) conduct CFIâs 11th Annual Houdini Seance. They also recount episodes in the history of Spiritualism, including details from the lives of the Fox Sisters and the Davenport Brothers, and Houdini's involvement investigating the religion of Spiritualism and his relationship to the Davenports. They discuss Lilydale, the Spiritualist community in Western New York, and talk about some of the secret methods Houdini exposed when challenging the mediums of his day. They conclude by exploring what might be the best balance between skepticism and compassion when investigating paranormal and spiritualistic claims.

Steven Pinker - The Stuff of Thought

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:56:00 GMT

Steven Pinker, a renowned cognitive neuroscientist, a research psychologist, and is Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His research on cognition and language won the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences and two prizes from the American Psychological Association. He has also received several honorary doctorates and many awards for graduate and undergraduate teaching, general achievement, and his critically acclaimed books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Slate. He is also a Humanist Laureate of CFIâs International Academy of Humanism. His newest book is The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Pinker explores what our use of language can tell us about human nature. He discusses our use of metaphors, and what concepts may be innate, how the "language of thought" may be hard-wired in our brains. He also explains how to avoid the pitfalls of such hard-wiring, using the methods of science as the model.

Edward Tabash - Why There Really Is No God

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:10:00 GMT

Barbara Oakley - Evil Genes

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:25:00 GMT

Barbara Oakley, PhD, has been dubbed a female Indiana Jones â her writing combines worldwide adventure with solid research expertise. Among other adventures, she has worked as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers in the Bering Sea, served as radio operator at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and risen from private to regular army captain in the U.S. Army. Currently an associate professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan, Oakley is a recent vice president of the world's largest bioengineering society and holds a doctorate in the integrative discipline of systems engineering. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Oakley explores human evil from a scientific perspective. She recounts experiences that led her to research the topic, including episodes from her sister's life, and from her travels. She details recent advances in brain imaging and genetics that have implications for traditional views of evil, and discusses why a scientific understanding of evil is important.

Alan Dershowitz - Blasphemy

Fri, 5 Oct 2007 20:47:00 GMT

Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, is one of the country's foremost appellate lawyers and a distinguished defender of civil liberties. More than a million people have heard him lecture around the world. His books include the New York Times bestsellers The Case for Israel and Chutzpah as well as Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights, The Vanishing American Jew, Why Terrorism Works, and America on Trial. He has been profiled and interviewed widely in the media and has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Free Inquiry, and many other newspapers and periodicals. His latest book is Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Dershowitz explores the question of whether America is a Christian nation, the use of the mention of God in the Declaration of Independence by the religious right to advance their aims, whether marriage and gay rights is a church-state separation issue, and separation of religion and state issues in the nation of Israel. He also discusses the secular roots of America's founding, and the secular roots of Zionism, addresses his long-time support of Israel as a secularist, and discusses the current political condition of the religious right in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

Also in this episode, Justin Trottier, executive director of CFI Ontario, discusses church-state separation issues in Ontario's public school system.

Joe Nickell - The New Idolatry

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 22:49:00 GMT

The world's leading paranormal investigator, Joe Nickell is a regular contributor to Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Looking for a Miracle, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, and most recently The Relics of the Christ.

In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Joe Nickell explores what he calls the "new idolatry," the term he uses to refer to weeping religious icons and statues that stream tears of blood, become animated, and weep human tears, among other supernatual claims. He recounts his investigation of a number of such cases, and defends his investigative approach. He also talks about why such investigation is important, even in a society where everyone is entitled to believe as he or she chooses.

Massimo Pigliucci - Making Sense of Evolution

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 01:42:00 GMT

Massimo Pigliucci is professor of Ecology and Evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is well known as an outspoken critic of creationism and advocate of the public understanding and appreciation of science. A recipient of the Dobzhansky Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, he has been awarded three times the Oak Ridge National Laboratories Science Alliance Faculty Research Award. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. His research in science focuses on genotype-environment interactions, on natural selection, and on the constraints imposed on the latter by the genetic and developmental makeup of organisms. As a philosopher, he is interested in epistemological issues in the philosophy of science and in the conceptual examination of fundamental ideas underlying evolutionary theory. Pigliucci writes regularly for Skeptical Inquirer and is the author of a number of books, including Phenotypic Integration; Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science; and Phenotypic Plasticity. His most recent book, co-authored with Jonathan Kaplan, is Making Sense of Evolution: The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology.

In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Massimo Pigliucci discusses both the methods and the concepts of evolutionary biologists and what may be wrong with them. He explores ideas in the history of evolutionary theory, such as natural selection, evolvability, and the levels at which evolution by natural selection operates (gene, individual, superorganism, or species). He also discusses why he says scientists, especially evolutionary biologists, need to do more philosophy than they are now doing.

Paul Kurtz - The New Atheism and Secular Humanism

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:27:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz, considered by many the father of the secular humanist movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine, he has advanced a critical, humanistic inquiry into many of the most cherished beliefs of society for the last forty years. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been featured very widely in the media, on topics as diverse as reincarnation, UFO abduction, secular versus religious ethics, communication with the dead, and the historicity of Jesus.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Paul Kurtz draws distinctions between the New Atheism and secular humanism, and explores commonalities that the nonreligious have with liberal religionists when it comes to environmentalism, gay rights, and other issues of concern. He also defines and defends certain conceptions of the good life without God.

Madeleine Van Hecke - Why Smart People Do Dumb Things

Fri, 7 Sep 2007 21:15:00 GMT

Madeleine Van KHecke is a licensed clinical psychologist and an adjunct faculty member at North College in Naperville, Illinois. She is a writer, and a lecturer and workshop leader for Open Arms Seminar. Her recent book is Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things.

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Van Hecke explores common missteps that even intelligent and educated people make when approaching certain topics, and how human intelligence can sometimes actually backfire. She explores how science may be brought to bear on nonscientific topics such as the quest for human meaning. She also explores certain biases that the skeptical community may have.

Dr. Francis Collins - The Language of God

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:36:00 GMT

Francis Collins is one of the world's leading scientists. He has been the longtime head of the Human Genome Project, the groundbreaking international effort to map and sequence all of the human DNA and then determine its functions. The Project is widely considered the most significant scientific undertaking of our time. A devout religious believer, Dr. Collins brings a unique perspective on the compatibility of science with religion, which he explores in his recent book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Francis Collins details the potential benefits of recent advances in the field of genetics, explores the question of whether or not religious belief negatively impacts a scientist's research, and talks about his journey from atheism to devout believer. He talks about the comforts that religion brings to a believer, and how the question of the origins of morality was central to his religious conversion. He also offers challenges to recent arguments against belief in God, to "fundamentalist atheism," and to atheistic bias among the scientific community, while also offering "theistic evolution" as an alternative to both atheistic evolution and Intelligent Design creationism.

Garrett G. Fagan - Archaeological Fantasies

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:09:00 GMT

Garrett G. Fagan is Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Penn State University. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and McMaster University Canada. His main research interests lie in the field of Roman History, about which heâs published numerous scholarly articles. He has lectured widely on topics in Roman history, and this year coedited From Augustus to Nero: An Intermediate Latin Reader. His newest book is Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Fagan explains the differences between archaeology and pseudoarchaeology, emphasizing how the science of archaeology benefits society. He explores possible motivations of pseudoarchaeologists, and challenges various pseudoarchaeological theories, such as Atlantis, the origins of the Great Pyramids in Egypt, and the theories purporting to discover great pyramids in Bosnia. He also details the various ways that pseudoarchaeology and other pseudoscientific thinking may harm society.

Chris Mooney - Storm World

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:42:00 GMT

Chris Mooney is an acclaimed writer who focuses on subjects at the intersection of science and politics. His writing has appeared in Wired, New Scientist, Free Inquiry, Skeptical Inquirer, Slate, Mother Jones, The Washington Post, The LA Times, and The Boston Globe, and he has appeared widely in the media, on programs such as The Daily Show with John Stewart, NPRâs Science Friday, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. His blog, called The Intersection, was a recipient of Scientific Americanâs 2005 Science and Technology web award, which noted that âscience is lucky to have such a staunch ally in acclaimed journalist Chris Mooney.â? The author of The Republican War on Science, his newest book is Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Mooney discusses Storm World, the science behind the controversies surrounding possible links of global warming to increased intensity of storms, and the nature of scientific debate. He also talks about the need for scientists to better frame their science for public understanding, and how the "science versus religion" frame may undercut the agenda of scientists.

Peter H. Gilmore - Science and Satanism

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:21:00 GMT

Peter H. Gilmore is the High Priest of the Church of Satan. He has been interviewed on numerous television and radio programs dealing with the topic of Satanism, including spots on The History Channel, BBC, The Sci-Fi Channel, and Bob Larson's Christian radio show. In 1989, he and his wife Peggy Nadramia began publishing The Black Flame; a Satanic journal, and continues to publish issues sporadically. In 2005, Gilmore provided a new introduction to LaVey's The Satanic Bible, and his essay on Satanism was published in the "Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature." On Walpurgisnacht 2007, The Satanic Scriptures was released, which is his newest collection of essays and writings on atheism and Satanism. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Peter Gilmore explores the similarities of atheism and Satanism, how science and Darwin's theory of evolution may undergird its worldview and ethics, and how Satanism is a theatrical "nonreligion." He also shares his opinions about recent strategies to popularize atheism, and contrasts Satanic ethics with other nonreligious ethical perspectives such as secular humanism and Objectivism.

Carol Tavris - Mistakes Were Made

Fri, 3 Aug 2007 21:43:00 GMT

Carol Tavris is a social psychologist, lecturer, and writer whose books include Anger and The Mismeasure of Woman. She has written on psychological topics for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Scientific American, Skeptical Inquiry, and many other publications. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and a member of the editorial board of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, she is also a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Her new book is Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, co-authored with Elliot Aronson, one of the most distinguished social psychologists in the world. In this wide-ranging discussion with D.J. Grothe, Carol Tavris explains "cognitive dissonance," and how it can lead to self-deception and self-justification. She talks about the ways that reducing dissonance leads to real-world negative effects in the areas of politics, law, criminal justice, and in interpersonal relationships. She also explores what dissonance theory says about confronting those who hold discredited beliefs, what dissonance theory may say about religious and paranormal belief, and the role of the scientific temper in avoiding the pitfalls of cognitive dissonance.

Peter Irons - God on Trial

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:30:00 GMT

Peter Irons is professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, San Diego. A noted constitutional scholar, historian, and lawyer, he is the author of the bestselling May It Please the Court; The Battle for the Constitution; War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution; and A Peopleâs History of the Supreme Court. His newest book is God on Trial: Dispatches from America's Religious Battlefields. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Peter Irons discusses the legal issues involved in the church-state court cases detailed in God on Trial, the personalities involved in the various cases and their motivations, and how religion can be so divisive in society. He also explores whether or not atheism is a civil rights issue, and what secularists and religious people alike may do to help secure separation of church and state in the United States.

Ophelia Benson - Why Truth Matters

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 22:20:00 GMT

Ophelia Benson is the joint-author (with Jeremy Stangroom) of Why Truth Matters and The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense, and Deputy Editor of The Philosophers' Magazine. In addition to maintaining the popular website butterfliesandwheels.com, she writes a monthly column for The Philosophers' Magazine Online. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, she discusses Why Truth Matters, and her attempts to "debunk fashionable nonsense," including post-modernism, creation science and intelligent design theory, among other fields. She also talks about the importance of truth for the non-philosopher, and how people can better restore truth to its rightful place.

Philip Kitcher - Living with Darwin

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:23:00 GMT

Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. An eminent philosopher, he is the author of many books on science, literature, and music, including Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism; The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities; and Science, Truth, and Democracy. Concerning himself mostly with the philosophy of science, he has also had influence in the study of the ethical and political constraints on scientific research, the evolution of altruism and morality, and the possible conflict between science and religion. His most recent book is Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith (Oxford University Press, 2006). In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Philip Kitcher explores the implications of Darwinism for both literalist religion, and for liberal faith, and to what extent the implications of Darwinâs theory for belief in God should be taught in the public schools. He also discusses the role and benefits of religion, and explores alternatives to it, such as secular humanism, and offers ideas for how secular humanism might become more popular in society.

Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great

Fri, 6 Jul 2007 22:22:00 GMT

Christopher Hitchens, one of the most celebrated social critics of our time, has been a columnist for Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The Nation, Slate and Free Inquiry. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including God is Not Great (2007), A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq (2003), Why Orwell Matters (2002), The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001), and Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001). Additionally, he has written prolifically for The London Review of Books, Granta, Harper's, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, New Left Review, The New York Review of Books, Newsweek International, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Washington Post. He is also a regular television and radio commentator. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Hitchens discusses his new best-selling book God Is Not Great, which is his contribution to the recent slate of best-selling atheist titles. He also explores various strategies for challenging religiosity in our society, the immorality of the Bible, how religion is bad for one's health, his many recent public debates with believers, and what he calls the war between the West and Islamism. He also comments on the relationship between atheism and intelligence, atheism and great literature, and the need for a "New Enlightenment."

Natalie Angier - The Canon

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 23:02:00 GMT

Natalie Anger is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist for the New York Times. Born in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York, she studied physics and English at Barnard College, where she graduated with high honors in 1978. From 1980 to 1984, Angier wrote about biology for Discover Magazine. She also worked as a science writer for Time Magazine. She is the recipient of a number of honors for her writing on science, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) prize for excellence in science journalism and the Lewis Thomas award for distinguished writing in the life sciences. The author of a number of critically accliamed books, her most recent is The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, she explores the reasons why everyone should work to become scientifically literate. She also details specific reasons why chemistry, evolutionary biology, astronomy and other fields should interest the non-scientist public. Other topics discussed include atheism and science, and the future of science writing.

Tom Clark - Encountering Naturalism

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:03:00 GMT

Tom Clark is founder and director of the Center For Naturalism, a non profit advocacy organization in the Boston area devoted to educating the public about naturalism, policy development, and community building. He is the editor of the popular online website, Naturalism.Org, which is among the web's most comprehensive resources on scientific naturalism, its implications and its applications. He is also the author of Encountering Naturalism. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Tom Clark explores the differences between methodological naturalism and scientific / philosophical / metaphysical naturalism. He also talks about some of the implications of naturalism for society's beliefs about religion, the paranormal, and concepts like free-will. He also explores how naturalism can help foster a sense of secular spirituality among those who adopt its worldview.

R. Joseph Hoffmann - The Jesus Project

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:54:00 GMT

Joe Hoffmann, formally at Oxford, is director of Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER). He has appeared widely in the media and at venues across the United States speaking on Christian origins, the historical Jesus, the proper role of religion in society, and similar topics. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Dr. Hoffmann details a new project involving scholars from many disciplines that is trying to determine the likelihood of Jesus of Nazareth having ever existed. The goal of The Jesus Project, according to Dr. Hoffmann, is not to "prove" the non-existence of Jesus, but to take the theory as a "testable hypothesis" and use the best methods of critical inquiry to reach a probable conclusion. Additionally, Dr. Hoffmann addresses critics by clarifying the agenda of the project.

Chris Wisnia - Dr. DeBunko

Fri, 8 Jun 2007 21:22:00 GMT

Chris Wisnia has been involved with the comics self-publishing for several years. The creator of the celebrated comic books Tabloia, and Doris Danger Seeks Where Giant Monsters Creep, he also recently began a comic book with a decidedly skeptical theme titled Dr. DeBunko, which features a character who investigates and debunks the supernatural and paranormal beliefs in our culture. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Wisnia discusses Dr. DeBunko, the reception the book has garnered in the skeptical community, and what effect he thinks it has (or that he intends it to have) on his readers. He also explores Dr. DeBunko's methods versus other methods of investigating the paranormal, and whether there is reason to be optimistic about the long-term effects of the skeptical movement.

David Triggle - Science and the Public

Fri, 1 Jun 2007 18:52:00 GMT

David Triggle is distinguished professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and president of the Center for Inquiry Institute. He is the author and editor of several books dealing with the autonomic nervous system and drug-receptor interactions, some two hundred and fifty research papers and some one hundred and fifty chapters and reviews. Currently, his research and teaching interests have expanded to include the philosophical basis of ethics and issues around the science-policy-public interface through the Center for Inquiry Institute. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, David Triggle explains the new Science and the Public masters degree jointly sponsored by the Center for Inquiry and the State University of New York. He also talks about various arguments for public science literacy, the difference between the need for science literacy and the need for the public's appreciation of the "ethos" of science, and various questions at the interface of science and public policy. He also treats the topic of whether science and religion are compatible.

Jennifer Michael Hecht - The Happiness Myth

Fri, 25 May 2007 21:44:00 GMT

Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of award-winning books of philosophy, history, and poetry. Her Doubt: A History (HarperCollins, 2003) demonstrates a long, strong history of religious doubt from the origins of written history to the present day, all over the world. Hecht's The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism and Anthropology (Columbia University, 2003), won the Phi Beta Kappa Society's 2004 prestigious Ralph Waldo Emerson Award for scholarly studies that contribute significantly to interpretations of the intellectual and cultural condition of humanity. Hecht's first poetry book, The Next Ancient World won the Poetry Society of America's 2002 Norma Farber First Book Award. Her most recent poetry book, Funny, won the University of Wisconsin's 2005 Felix Pollak Poetry Prize, and Publisher's Weekly called it one of the most original and entertaining books of the year. Her book reviews appear in The New York Times and The Washington Post. Her newest book, The Happiness Myth, has achieved wide critical praise. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Hecht discusses the history of the idea of happiness, and various ways that people throughout history have sought happiness. She also explores how people in today's society may sometimes undermine their happiness by the ways they seek it, such as through recreational drug use, consumerism, health and fitness and religion or spirituality. She concludes by talking about how focusing on one's death may be a vital part of living happily in a universe without God.

David Koepsell - Why Secular Humanism?

Fri, 18 May 2007 14:53:00 GMT

David Koepsell is the Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism, North America's leading organization for nonreligious people. An author, philosopher and an attorney, David's work focuses mostly on the nexus of science, technology, ethics and public policy. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, David explores the relationship between secular humanism and religion, whether secular humanism is just a religion for the nonreligious, the "tenets" of secular humanism, and addresses many challenges to the worldview both from Christian activists and from those in the "atheist movement." He also justifies it as a viable naturalistic life-stance, competitive with supernatural ways of looking at the world.

Joe Nickell - The Relics of the Christ

Sat, 12 May 2007 01:41:00 GMT

The worldâs leading paranormal investigator, Joe Nickell is a regular contributor to Skeptical Inquiry science magazine. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (1983, 1998) and most recently, The Relics of the Christ (2007).

In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Nickell talks about his new book, Relics of the Christ, and various Holy Artifacts he has scientifically investigated over the years. He details current skeptical thinking on the Shroud of Turin, purported to be Jesus of Nazareth's original burial cloth, certain relics cults throughout history, and the important role that relics have played in the history of the Catholic Church. He also touches on his research on the Holy Grail, investigations of the famed James Ossuary, the burial container claimed to belong to James the brother of Jesus, and fragments of the Cross of Jesus.

Hemant Mehta - I Sold My Soul on Ebay

Fri, 4 May 2007 23:29:00 GMT

Hemant Mehta is an honors graduate from the university of Illinois, and has been involved in secularist student activism for years. Early on, he attended one of CFI's summer sessions on scholarship, becoming that year's student volunteer president of CFI's campus outreach program. He is now in graduate school at DePaul University. Mehta once held an unique auction on eBay wherein the highest bidder could send Mehta to a church of his or her choice. This led to his writing his new book, I Sold My Soul On Ebay. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Mehta discusses common misconceptions people (and especially atheists) have about Christians, his impressions of various churches he has visited in the process of researching his book, and details specific mega-churches such as Ted Haggard's in Colorado Springs, and Joel Osteen's in Houston, Texas. He also offers suggestions about how churches can be more effective at reaching out in dialogue with the skeptical community.

Taner Edis - Science and Religion in Islam

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:53:00 GMT

Taner Edis, born and raised in Turkey, is associate professor of physics at Truman State University and the author of The Ghost in the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science and Science and Non-belief, among other publications. His latest book is An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Taner Edis explores whether the Koran anticipates the modern scientific understanding of the world, the intelligent design creationist movement within Islam, and whether science is even compatible with the Muslim faith. He also shares his views about the future of Islam, especially in relation to the secular, more scientific West.

Matthew C. Nisbet - Selling Science to the Public

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:52:00 GMT

Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Communication at American University. His research tracks scientific and environmental controversies, examining the interactions between experts, journalists, and various publics. In this area, Nisbet has published numerous peer-reviewed studies, with his work having been cited more than 100 times over the past couple years. In addition to his research, Nisbet co-authored with Chris Mooney the much-talked-about Columbia Journalism Review cover story on intelligent design, and he has written for other popular outlets such as Foreign Policy and Geotimes magazines. He also contributes the semi-regular "Science and the Media" column for Skeptical Inquirer online, and he tracks current events related to strategic communication at his blog Framing Science, which was recently named by the NY Daily News as a "top political blog." Nisbet is a frequent invited speaker at conferences and meetings across the U.S. and Canada, and he is often called upon for his expert analysis by major news organizations. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication from Cornell University and an A.B. in Government from Dartmouth College. From 1997 to 1999, he worked as Public Relations Director for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry at the Center for Inquiry-Transnational. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Nisbet explores the issue of "framing science" in the public mind, how scientists may be failing at effectively communicating the importance of the implications of science for society, and steps the science community may take to more expertly sell their science to a disinterested public. He also argues about Richard Dawkins and his effect on the public appreciation of science, and the impact of linking atheism with science for issues such as stem-cell research, teaching evolution in the public schools, and global warming.

Phil Plait - The Bad Astronomer

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 04:47:00 GMT

Phil Plait works in the physics and astronomy department at Sonoma State University. In the early '90's, he started Badastronomy.com, which has become a popular website focused on educating the public about astronomy and space science, especially as regards common misconceptions and pseudoscientific astronomy claims. In recent years, he has also been involved with debunking several more general pseudoscientific theories. In March 2006, Science magazine celebrated the Bad Astronomy website, praising Plait's blog, begun in March 2005. This blog was also a finalist for the 2006 Weblog Award (the "Bloggie"). The author of one book, The Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait is also a regular contributor to many online publications, including The Huffington Post. In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Phil Plait discusses science education, the need for the public appreciation of science, public investment in space science, and how such investment benefits society. He also addresses the question of science's compatibility with religion, and explores social conflicts surrounding the teaching of evolution in the public schools.

Joe Nickell - Debunking in Hollywood?

Fri, 6 Apr 2007 19:38:00 GMT

The world's leading paranormal investigator, Joe Nickell is a regular contributor to Skeptical Inquiry science magazine. He is the author orÂeditor of more than twenty books, including Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (1983, 1998) and most recently, The Relics of the Christ (2007). In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Nickell debates "debunking" versus open-minded skepticism, and defends himself against the charge that he is a biased anti-paranormalist with an agenda. He also talks about his consulting role in the new Warner Brothers movie, The Reaping, which stars Oscar-winner HilaryÂSwank as a lapsed Christian dedicated to debunking claims of religious miracles and how her role depended heavily on his books, articles and investigations. Nickell also talks about the role of skepticism in Hollywood more generally.

Nica Lalli - Nothing: Something to Believe In

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:42:00 GMT

Nica Lalli is an art educator working with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She also writes a weekly column in the Brooklyn Paper. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Nica talks about her new and acclaimed memoir of growing up nonreligious, Nothing: Something to Believe In. She also explores how to relate to devout relatives, the need to "come out" as a nonbeliever, and what she does believe in, if she doesn't believe in God.

Susan Haack - Defending Science -- Within Reason

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 23:36:00 GMT

Susan Haack, formerly Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge, and then professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, is presently Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law at the University of Miami. Her areas of interest include philosophy of logic and language, epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of science, including issues of scientific testimony in court, Pragmatism, and feminism. Professor Haack is the author of several celebrated books, including Deviant Logic, Philosophy of Logics, Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology, Deviant Logic, Fuzzy Logic: Beyond the Formalism, Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable Essays, and Defending Science -- Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism as well as of numerous articles. She has been widely reviewed and cited in general interest publications such as the Times Literary Supplement, the Wilson Quarterly, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as in specialized journals. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Haack explores the values of science, and addresses its critics, both supernaturalists and post-modernists. She also defends science as being continuous with common sense, explores whether science and religion are compatible, and talks about whether or not science can ever have any relevance to ethics.

Tawfik Hamid - My Life as a Muslim Terrorist

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 02:47:00 GMT

Tawfik Hamid, an expert on Islamic terrorism, joined the Islamic group Muslim GI in Egypt, while in medical school. His colleagues in the terror movement included Al Zawaherri, then a friend with whom Tawfik used to pray, and now the number 2 person of Al Qaeda. Eventually Dr. Hamid questioned the feelings of hatred and impulses to violence that his participation in extremist Islam was fomenting within him. He became a physician, and also a scholar of Islamic texts. When he began to preach in Mosques to promote a message of peace instead of violence and hatred, he himself became a target of the Islamic extremists who had previously been his friends. They threatened his life, forcing him and his family to flee Egypt , and then Saudi Arabia . His appearance on Fox TV in early 2006 and his testimony at the first major Intelligence Summit in Washington have further established him as a leading authority on global terror movements. He explains why extremist Islam is far more prevalent and poses a far more serious threat than most Americans appreciate to our economy, ecology, and national security. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Tawfik Hamid discusses his experiences with extremist Islam and the Al Quada affiliated organization he joined, the question of moderate Islam and moderate Muslim organizations such as the Council on Islamic American Relations. He also explores the dire need for Islam to be reformed, and the recent CFI-sponsored Secular Islam Summit in St. Petersburg, Florida. Also in this episode, Ibn Warraq reads the Declaration from the Secular Islam Summit, which has received worldwide press and grassroots attention.

Robert M. Price - Jesus: The Failed Hypothesis

Fri, 9 Mar 2007 23:41:00 GMT

Robert M. Price is professor of theology and scriptural studies at Coleman Theological Seminary and professor of Biblical Criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. He's a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion and the Jesus Seminar. Dr. Price is the author of a number of books such as Deconstructing Jesus, Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, and The Da Vinci Fraud. He has appeared widely in the media, and was featured prominently in the movie The God Who Wasn't There. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Price discusses the uses of doubt in historical inquiry and especially in Biblical criticism, his doubts about the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, and many of the assertions in his forthcoming book The Paperback Apocalypse, which treats current religious, political and social movements motivated by belief in the return of Jesus and fulfilled prophecies in the Jewish and Christian Bibles.

Victor Stenger - God: The Failed Hypothesis

Sat, 3 Mar 2007 00:13:00 GMT

Victor Stenger is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Hawaii and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado. He is also founder and president of Colorado Citizens for Science. He's held visiting faculty positions at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and at Oxford in the United Kingdom, and has been a visiting researcher at Rutherford Laboratory in England, the National Nuclear Physics Laboratory in Frascati, Italy, and the University of Florence in Italy. Stenger's search career has spanned the period of great progress in elementary particle physics that ultimately led to the current standard model. He participated in experiments that helped establish the properties of strange particles, quarks, gluons, and neutrinos and has also helped pioneer the emerging fields of very high energy gamma ray and neutrino astronomy. In his last project before retiring, Vic collaborated on the experiment in Japan which showed for the first time that the neutrino has mass. He is the author of many books, including Comprehensible Cosmos, The Unconscious Quantum, Not by Design, Has Science Found God, and the recent New York times best-seller God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist. In this talk with D.J. Grothe, Stenger explores many of the topics treated in his book, including the scientific evidence against the belief in God, where the laws of physics come from if not from a divine lawgiver, what E.S.P. research may imply about God's existence, the morality of atheism, and whether science should even be treating the topic of God in the first place. Also in this episode, Austin Dacey, director of the Center for Inquiry in New York City details the upcoming Secular Islam Summit in Florida, and the growing grassroots movement of secular muslims working to advance rationalism, science, and the separation of mosque and state in the Islamic world.

Steven Pinker - Evolutionary Psychology and Human Nature

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 21:55:00 GMT

Steven Pinker, a renowned research psychologist, is Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His research on cognition and language won the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences and two prizes from the American Psychological Association. He has also received several honorary doctorates and many awards for graduate and undergraduate teaching, general achievement, and his critically acclaimed books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Slate. He is also a Humanist Laureate of CFI's International Academy of Humanism. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Pinker explores what science tells us about human nature, explains the implications of and recent advances in evolutionary psychology, and talks about atheism and its relationship to the scientific outlook.

Barbara Forrest - The Wedge of Intelligent Design

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:33:00 GMT

Barbara Forrest is a philosopher and public intellectual at Southeastern Louisiana University. Widely praised for her compelling expert testimony in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, she is a tireless defender of science education and the teaching of evolution in U.S. public schools. With Paul R. Gross, she is co-author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Oxford University Press, 2004), which examines the goals and strategies of the intelligent design movement and its attempts to undermine the teaching of evolutionary biology. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Barbara Forrest examines the intelligent design movement, its history and its agenda, and the so-called "wedge strategy," including the ID movement's public relations efforts and other methods the movement has used to advance the widespread public acceptance of intelligent design. She also talks about the Discovery Institute and the implications of the theory of evolution for theistic belief.

Peter Singer - The Way We Eat

Fri, 9 Feb 2007 16:41:00 GMT

Peter Singer has been called "the world's most influential living philosopher," by The New Yorker and Time Magazine listed him in "The Time 100," their annual listing of the world's 100 most influential people. One of the most controversial philosophers alive today, he is DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne. He has been recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies, and is a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism. He writes a regular column for Free Inquiry magazine, and is the author of dozens of books, including Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, and Animal Liberation, which has sold more than a half million copies, Writings on an Ethical Life, One World: Ethics and Globalization, The President of Good and Evil, about George Bush, and In Defense of Animals. His most recent book, which is written with Jim Mason, is The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. In this wide-ranging conversation with D.J. Grothe, Peter Singer discusses The Way We Eat and the ethics of vegetarianism, topics in bioethics such as abortion and euthanasia, and what world poverty may demand from citizens in developed nations. He addresses common challenges to his robust system of secular ethics, and explores other implications of utilitarianism. He also considers reasons why people should be moral even if there is no God.

Solomon Schimmel - Specious Proofs for Quranic Divinity

Fri, 2 Feb 2007 22:52:00 GMT

Solomon Schimmel is a psychologist of religion and Professor of Jewish Education and Psychology at Hebrew College. He has been a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar and Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University and has lectured widely throughout the world. An expert on the psychology of forgiveness and reconciliation among the world's religions, he is the author of The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian, and Classical Reflections on Human Psychology and Wounds Not Healed by Time: The Power of Repentance and Forgiveness, both published by Oxford University Press. His forthcoming book, also to be published by Oxford University Press, is tentatively titled The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Jewish Christian and Muslim Scriptural Fundamentalists. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Professor Schimmel discusses the psychology of religion, why some believers use specious arguments for the divine authorship of their sacred texts, and the threat to civilization that certain Muslim extremists pose. He also talks about the obligation he says scholars have to undermine such anti-social and anti-democratic belief-systems.

Neil deGrasse Tyson - Death by Black Hole

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 05:22:00 GMT

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. He is the on-camera host of PBS-NOVA's program ScienceNow, which explore the frontiers of all the science that shapes our understanding of our place in the universe. He is the first occupant of the Frederick P. Rose Directorship of the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan, where he also teaches. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Dr. Tyson explores the "popularization" of science, the ups and downs of science education, why scientists should be personally motivated to increase public science interest, whether his studies in astrophysics make him more or less religious, the "spirituality" of the scientific outlook, and other topics that he treats in his new book Death By Black Hole. He also talks about his experiences hosting PBS-NOVA's ScienceNow.

John Shook - Scientific Naturalism and its Discontents

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:29:00 GMT

John Shook is Vice President for Research and Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry Transnational in Amherst, N.Y. He received his PhD in philosophy at the University at Buffalo and was a professor of philosophy at Oklahoma State University for six years. His research and writing focuses on American philosophy, philosophy of science, epistemology, and political theory. His most recent book is the Blackwell Companion to Pragmatism, edited with Joseph Margolis. He authored Deweyâs Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality, edited Pragmatic Naturalism and Realism, and edited the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers. He is also co-editor of the journals Contemporary Pragmatism and The Pluralist. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, John Shook discusses what Scientific Naturalism is, its history and its implications as well as its conflicts with Postmodernist, paranormal, and supernatural ideologies.

Eugene Burger - Magic and Mystery

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:22:00 GMT

Eugene Burger, "universally recognized as perhaps the finest close-up magician in the world," (Stagebill magazine) has written fifteen best-selling books for magicians, starred in a number of instructional videos, lectured widely to magicians' groups in over a dozen countries, and his writings have been translated into several languages. His deep understanding of the psychology and philosophy behind magic has won him international accolades, cover stories in conjuring magazines, and four awards from the famed Magic Castle in Hollywood, California. When the leading international trade journal Magic compiled its list of the one hundred most influential magicians of the twentieth century, Eugene Burger was included for his ability to "arouse feelings of astonishment, as well as a host of other indescribable sensations." His talk, "How Magicians Think," applies his special understanding of deception and perception to the corporate world. He has performed on numerous television shows in Great Britain, Canada, Belgium, Finland and Japan, and has been featured on PBS's The Art of Magic and The Learning Channel's Mysteries of Magic. He's also been been profiled twice on CNN. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Burger discusses belief in the paranormal, "Spirit Theater," and the possible deception of the public by paranormal claimants or entertainers such as Israeli psychic Uri Geller and American psychic medium John Edward. He also explores the relationship of magic to religion and to science, what magic can teach us about how we believe, and the kinds of benefits the student of magic receives from learning the art.

Ann Druyan - Carl Sagan and The Varieties of Scientific Experience

Sat, 6 Jan 2007 01:47:00 GMT

Ann Druyan is an author, public lecturer, and TV and movie writer and producer whose work focuses on the worldview of science. She is the widow of Carl Sagan, the great astronomer and public advocate of science and reason. With him, she co-wrote the Emmy Award Winning and the Peabody Award Winning television series Cosmos. She served as Creative Director for NASA's Voyager Interstellar Record Project, the goldern record on the Voyager Spacecrafts that includes visual images and music and she co-created and produced the movie Contact, which is based on the novel Contact that she co-wrote with Carl Sagan. She is also the author or co-author of several other books, including A Famous Broken Heart, and Comet, which was on the New York Times best seller list for two months. She edited the recent title, Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, which is Carl Sagan's last book. In this wide-ranging discussion with D.J. Grothe, Druyan discusses the new book The Varieties of Scientific Experience, her relationship with Carl Sagan, science as an outlook on life, what Sagan called "informed worship," the use of the word "spiritual" by nonreligious people, the humility of science, skepticism about politics and the paranormal, and the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. She also explores the place of humanity in the cosmos, the relationship of science to religion, and whether they are compatible.

R. Joseph Hoffmann - The Scientific Study of Religion

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:55:00 GMT

Joe Hoffmann, formally at Oxford, is director of Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER). He has appeared widely in the media and at venues across the United States speaking on Christian origins, the historical Jesus, the proper role of religion in society, and similar topics. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Dr. Hoffmann explores the implications of science for religion, and how to study religion in a scientific way, including from scientific perspectives such as cognitive neuroscience, textual criticism and philology, and through the application of the historical sciences. He also examines bias in the study of religion, from various quarters in the academy, and how the scientific approach to religious studies can help avoid such pitfalls.

Tom Flynn - The Real War on Christmas

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 21:54:00 GMT

Susan Blackmore - In Search of the Light

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 20:07:00 GMT

Sue Blackmore is a psychologist and writer whose research on consciousness, memes, and the paranormal has been published in over sixty academic papers, as well as book chapters, reviews and popular articles. She regularly writes in the Guardian, and often appears on radio and television in the United States and the United Kingdom. She spent two decades early in her career investigating psychic phenomena, following an out-of-body experience she had as a student at Oxford. She is the author of a number of books, including Dying to Live (on near-death experiences), In Search of the Light, and Test Your Psychic Powers (with Adam Hart-Davis). The Meme Machine (1999) has been widely acclaimed, and translated into 13 other languages. Her highly praised textbook, Consciousness: An Introduction, and A Very Short Introduction to Consciousness are both published by Oxford University Press, as is her most recent Conversations on Consciousness. In this far-ranging discussion with D.J. Grothe, Susan Blackmore talks about her research into the paranormal and near death experiences and why she left that field of study, memetics and religion as a meme, free will and the question of moral responsibility, consciousness and the illusory nature of the self, and Zen Buddhism and meditative practice, among other topics. She also explores why is it more important than ever for scientists to speak out about important issues of concern in the world today.

Paul Kurtz - What is the Point of Inquiry

Fri, 8 Dec 2006 06:02:00 GMT

In this special episode of Point of Inquiry, Paul Kurtz joins D.J. Grothe for an overview of CFI's mission and challenges. Kurtz is founder and chair of the Center for Inquiry and many other organizations and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, chairman of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (previously CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books. He is editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine and author of over forty five books, including Science and Religion: Are They Compatible and Living Without Religion. Throughout the last thirty years, he has been a leading defender of science and reason against the prevailing cults of irrationality in our society. In this episode, and for the first time in a year of weekly episodes featuring the leading minds of the day, Paul Kurtz and D.J. Grothe discuss the various programs and projects of the Center for Inquiry, including the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Societies, Secular Organizations for Sobreity (an atheist alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous), African Americans for Humanism, CFI's community and campus programs, its international programs, its North American branches, its magazines, its social services, and other aspects of CFI's work. Kurtz also discusses ways listeners can get involved in the Center's efforts.

Barry Kosmin - The Scientific Study of Secularism

Sat, 2 Dec 2006 01:52:00 GMT

Barry Kosmin is a sociologist, and is research professor in public policy and law at Trinity College. He is co-author of One Nation Under God and author of Religion in a Free Market. Kosmin was also the Principal investigator of the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, the groundbreaking study on religion in America that showed the number of seculars in America has almost doubled in the ten years preceding the survey. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, he details the scientific study of religion and secularism, the "secularization hypothesis," religious diversity in contemporary America, and the rise of the nonreligious in recent years. He also explores the relationship between science and secularism.

Norm Allen - Science, Humanism, and the Black Community

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 06:11:00 GMT

Michelle Goldberg - Kingdom Coming

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 04:59:00 GMT

Michelle Goldberg is a freelance writer who has reported from all over the United States, as well as from Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Israel and the West Bank. In her writing, she focuses on the role of ideology in politics, and has reported extensively on both sides of America's intensifying culture wars. In 2002, after a year of traveling and reporting in India and East Asia, Goldberg moved to New York City and took a job as a news and politics reporter with Salon.com, where she covered all aspects of the political right, from the neocons to the theocons. In addition to Salon, Goldberg's work has appeared in publications including Rolling Stone, The New York Observer, The New Republic online, The Guardian, The UTNE Reader, Newsday and other newspapers nationwide. She was a columnist for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and for Shift Magazine, and has taught at New York University's Graduate School of Journalism. She is a fellow at the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, which is one of the organizations here at the Center for Inquiry. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, she talks about her acclaimed book Kingdom Coming, and about religious-political extremism in America today and its anti-scientific agenda, the origins of its opposition to gay rights, the use of "secular humanism" as an Religious Right organizing principle, and about the future of "Christian Nationalism." She also talks about the recent midterm elections and the history and effects of the Religious Right in American and world politics. Also in this episode, Lauren Becker returns to offer some thoughts about Richard Dawkins, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the lure of fiction.

Richard Wiseman - Theatre of Science

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 23:38:00 GMT

Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman started his working life as a professional magician and currently holds Britain's only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. He frequently appears in the media, and has written over 60 academic articles and several books, including the best-selling The Luck Factor. Theatre of Science, his new show in collaboration with Dr. Simon Singh, is making its American debut with a run at the Theater for the New City in Manhattan as part of CFI's Science + Art festival, and is sponsored by Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Featuring lie detectors, bolts of lightning, backwards masking, and contortionist Delia Du Sol, this show revives a Victorian tradition in which audiences attended the theatre to see scientific demonstrations as entertainment. Theatre of Science previously played to sold-out audiences and rave reviews at the Soho Theatre, in London's West End. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Professor Wiseman discusses Theatre of Science, the intersection of science and art, and the role science plays in our society. He also explores strategies that science advocates can use to confront anti-science trends in our society. Also in this episode, Nathan Bupp explores a humanist answer to the question "Where are we going?"

Chris Mooney - Science, Politics, and the Midterm Election

Sat, 4 Nov 2006 03:45:00 GMT

Chris Mooney is an acclaimed writer about subjects at intersection of science and politics. His writing has appeared in Wired, New Scientist, Free Inquiry, Skeptical Inquirer, Slate, Mother Jones, The Washington Post, The LA Times, and The Boston Globe, and he has appeared widely in the media, on programs such as The Daily Show with John Stewart, NPR's Science Friday, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. His blog, called "The Intersection," was a recipient of Scientific American's 2005 Science and Technology web award, which noted that "science is lucky to have such a staunch ally in acclaimed journalist Chris Mooney." His book, The Republican War on Science is newly out in paperback, completely revised, and was hailed as "a landmark in contemporary political reporting" by Salon.com and a "well-researched, closely argued and amply referenced indictment of the right wing's assault on science and scientists" by Scientific American. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Mooney explores how important science is for deciding the political issues facing the country, and how science has been under attack by right-wingers in Republican party in a number of areas, including stem cell research, climate change, Intelligent Design, and sex education. He also discusses what listeners who value science can do in response to this assault, and discusses the midterm elections. Also in this episode, Toni Van Pelt details CFI's new Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C.

The CFI 10th Annual Houdini Seance - Halloween 2006

Wed, 1 Nov 2006 00:26:00 GMT

Harry Houdini, the world-famous magician and escape artist, earnestly explored the religion of spiritualism and communication with the dead after his beloved mother's death in 1913. He eventually crusaded vigorously against those whom he believed were fraudulent mediums, debunking and exposing those whom he argued preyed on the mourning of the grieving. He was renowned for his ability to seem to escape from almost any bonds. As such, he made a pact with his wife Bess, that if anyone could escape the bonds of death, he would. In this bonus episode of Point of Inquiry for Halloween night 2006, Joe Nickell, the world's leading paranormal investigator and CSICOP's senior research fellow, and D.J. Grothe (both of whom are former professional magicians) conduct CFI's 10th Annual Houdini Seance. They also explore Houdini's experiences as a "magician among the spirits," recount the ways he challenged the mediums of his day, and discuss his lasting impact on skepticism and society's beliefs about the afterlife. Also in this bonus episode is an audio clip of the last Houdini Seance of which Bess Houdini was a part. The recording, from Halloween night, 1936, was made at the historic Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood.

Salman Rushdie - Secular Values, Human Rights and Islamism

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 06:10:00 GMT

Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian essayist and novelist widely acclaimed for his narrative style that blends myth and fantasy with real life. He has won many awards for his fiction, including the Booker Prize. He is best known for The Satanic Verses which provoked violent reaction from the Muslim community and a fatwa by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and was banned in India and througout the Islamic world. In recent years, Rushdie has been more visible publicly, and speaks out against Islamic extremism, and for secularism and the West. On October 11, 2006, Salman Rushdie addressed an audience at an event sponsored the Center for Inquiry's New York branch, held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. This special episode of Point of Inquiry features Mr. Rushdieâs remarks, in their entirety, with an introduction by Ibn Warraq. Also in this episode, D.J. Grothe discusses science, the humanities and Islam with noted ex-Muslim Ibn Warraq.

Jill Tarter - Are We Alone?

Sat, 21 Oct 2006 00:17:00 GMT

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 serves as director of the Center for SETI Research. She served as Project Scientist for NASAâs SETI program, and has conducted a number of observational programs at radio observatories worldwide. Since funding for NASAâs SETI program was cut in 1993, she has served in a leadership role to secure private funding to continue the the exploratory science.ÂÂ Her work has brought her wide recognition in the scientific community, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from Women in Aerospace, two Public Service Medals from NASA, and many other awards. She was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002 and a California Academy of Sciences Fellow in 2003. In 2004, Time Magazine named her one of the Time 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2005 Tarter was awarded the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization at Wonderfest, the San Francisco Festival of Science.ÂTarter is very involved in childhood science education: In addition to her leadership at NASA and SETI Institute, she has spearheaded the creation of two curriculum development projects funded by NSF, NASA, and others. The first, the Life in the Universe series, created 6 science teaching guides for grades 3-9, which were published in the mid nineties. Her second project, Voyages Through Time, is an integrated high school science curriculum on the fundamental theme of evolution in six modules: Cosmic Evolution, Planetary Evolution, Origin of Life, Evolution of Life, Hominid Evolution and Evolution of Technology.Â In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Jill Tarter discusses the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, why the search for it is important, the implications for religious belief of such a discovery, recent cuts in science funding, the emerging field of astrobiology, and the need for teaching evolution in the public schools, among other subjects. She also talks aboutÂthe new Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, which was announced earlier in the week. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn asks Did You Know?Âabout the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.Â

Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 21:47:00 GMT

Richard Dawkins, considered one of the world's most influential scientists, is the first holder of the Charles Simonyi professorship of the public understanding of science at Oxford University and the recipient of a number of awards for his writings and for his science, including the International Cosmos Prize, the Kistler Prize, and the Shakespeare Prize.Â He is also a fellow of the Royal Society. In a recent poll in the United Kingdom, he was named Britain's leading public intellectual. He is the author of a number of critically acclaimed books, such as The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Unweaving the Rainbow,Â The Devil's Chaplain, and The Ancestor's Tale.ÂThe New York Times Book Review has hailed him as a writer who "understands the issues so clearly that he forces his reader to understand them too." In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Dawkins talks about his new best-selling book, The God Delusion, addressing challenges to his assertions from his critics. He also addresses the question of whether science and religion are really at war.

Sam Harris - Letter to a Christian Nation

Sat, 7 Oct 2006 02:56:00 GMT

Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times best-seller The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason. He is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University and has studied both Eastern and Western religious traditions, along with a variety of contemplative disciplines, for twenty years. He's now completing a doctorate in neuroscience. His work has been featured widely in the media, in such newspapers as the New York Times, LA Times, The Economist, The Guardian, The Toronto Star, and many others. He contributes regularly to Free Inquiry, the magazine of the Council for Secular Humanism. In this extensive discussion with D.J. Grothe, Sam Harris discusses his new best-selling book, Letter to a Christian Nation, explaining his motivations for his vigorous attacks against the Christian religion, and also explores the possible war between science and religion, the possible negative effects of religion in society, and strategies for secularists and moderates to meet the challenges that may be posed by religious fundamentalism. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn asks Did You Know? about Christianity in America, Pat Robertson and Christian-political activism, and what group of American's have the highest divorce rate.

Robert M. Price - The Reason Driven Life

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 21:59:00 GMT

Robert M. Price is professor of theology and scriptural studies at Coleman Theological Seminary and professor of Biblical Criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. He's a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion and the Jesus Seminar. Dr. Price is the author of a number of books such as Deconstructing Jesus, Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, and The Da Vinci Fraud. He has appeared widely in the media, and was featured in the movie The God Who Wasn't There. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Dr. Price discusses his new book, The Reason Driven Life, which is a rationalist response to Pastor Rick Warren's wildly best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life. Also in this episode Tim Binga, Directory of CFI Libraries, talks about Banned Books Week.

Michael Shermer - Why Darwin Matters

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 22:56:00 GMT

Michael Shermer is one of the most well-known skeptics in America. He is a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Scientific American, and is the host of the Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech. He is also the co-host and producer of the Fox Family TV show, Exploring the Unknown. He is the author of many books, including Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown, and Why People Believe Weird Things. Since founding the Skeptics Society in Southern California and Skeptic magazine, he has appeared widely on TV and radio advancing the scientific and skeptical point of view, on shows such as 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, Oprah, Unsolved Mysteries, and many more. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Shermer discusses evolution and Intelligent Design theory, Darwin's impact on the world today, the conflict and the compatibility of science and religion, and the meaning of life without God. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn asks Did You Know? about Darwin, sharing facts and trivia about one of the most influential scientists of the modern era.

Ann Druyan - Science, Wonder, and Spirituality

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:36:00 GMT

Ann Druyan is a renowned author, lecturer, and television and motion picture writer/producer whose work mostly explores the implications of science and technology for our society. She is the widow of the great Carl Sagan with whom she was a co-writer of the Emmy and Peabody Award winning television series Cosmos. She served as Creative Director for the NASA Voyager Interstellar Record Project that included music and images on the Voyager Spacecrafts that serve as a greeting to possible alien civilizations. She co-created and co-produced of the Oscar nominated movie Contact starring Jodie Foster, which is based on the novel of the same name that she co-wrote with Carl Sagan. She is also the author or co-author of several other books, including A Famous Broken Heart, and Comet, which was on the New York Times best seller list for two months. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, also written with Carl Sagan, was another New York Times best seller. Druyan has a new book out in November entitled The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, which explores hers and Sagan's views on science and religion. Druyan is co-founder and CEO of Cosmos Studios, which produces science-based entertainment across many types of media. Since 2000, Cosmos Studios has produced four documentaries, including "Cosmic Journey" which was nominated for an Emmy for the best nature/science documentary. She is a Fellow of CSICOP at the Center for Inquiry. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, she stresses the point that people can have a sense of awe and wonder about the universe without having to believe in God or the supernatural, discusses the work of Carl Sagan and his lasting impact, examines the growing need for scientific literacy in our society, and shares why, despite the current cultural war against science, she is optimistic about the future. Also in this episode, Carl Sagan's last public address for CSICOP, from its conference in Seattle in 1994, is presented in its entirety. In this keynote, entitled "Wonder and Skepticism," Sagan eloquently conveys prescient insights about the future of science and technology, argues why science is the best way of looking at the world, shares almost prophetic statements about the cultural war against science in America today, passionately calls for tempering skepticism with a humane understanding of why it is so easy in our society to not be skeptical, and encourages the listener to foster such appreciation for this kind of skepticism especially among young people. And in addition, Lauren Becker shares a moving piece entitled "The Gifts of Carl Sagan."

Paul Kurtz - World War and World Religions

Fri, 8 Sep 2006 23:52:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz is founder and chair of the Center for Inquiry and a number of other organizations. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books. He is editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry. He is the author or editor of over forty five books, including the recent Science and Religion: Are They Compatible. Throughout the last almost 40 years, Paul has been a leading defender of science and reason against the prevailing cults of irrationality in our society. He has been interviewed widely in the media on subjects ranging from alternative medicine and communication with the dead, to the historicity of Jesus. In this discussion with D. J. Grothe, Kurtz talks about the what he calls "creedal fascism," the connection between religion and violence, why it is so vital for humanity's future to critically examine religion, and also recounts his first published fears about Islamic extremism leading to world-wide violence over ten years ago in Free Inquiry. Also in this episode, David Koepsell, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, shares "An Open Letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld."

Amy-Jill Levine - Who Was Jesus of Nazareth

Fri, 1 Sep 2006 21:43:00 GMT

Amy-Jill Levine is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, where she also holds the position of Director of the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality. Her many books, articles, and essays address topics like Christian origins, Jewish-Christian relations, and women in the Bible. She has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biblical Literature and the Catholic Biblical Quarterly and has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association, and the Association for Jewish Studies. A widely sought-after speaker and favorite at the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, she has given hundreds of talks on biblical topics to both academic and nonacademic audiences. She is also a fellow of CSER, the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, one of the organizations at the Center for Inquiry. Her awards include grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She has a book out in the next few months called The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. About this episode: Over 2 billion people worldwide live their lives to one extent or another focused around the man who is central to Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth. Even as skeptics of religion, most listeners to Point of Inquiry will agree that Jesus was one of the most important figures in history, affecting so much of the world we see today: the Christian Church is very influential in politics and society, and fundamental to Christianity is this figure of Jesus of Nazareth; millions of Americans live their lives regularly asking What would Jesus Do? In this interview with DJ Grothe, Amy-Jill Levine explores the question Who Was Jesus of Nazareth? She also touches on the role old Christianity in American politics and the possible relationship between religion and violence. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn asks Did You Know about Christiantity in the ancient and modern world, and also discusses the Jesus-cross monument debacle on Mount Soledad in San Diego, California.

Joe Nickell - Ancient Astronauts and the Nazca Lines

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 00:27:00 GMT

Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow for CSICOP, is considered the world's leading paranormal investigator. A former professional stage magician and private investigator, he has used his varied background to investigate myths and mysteries, frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. He has been called "the modern Sherlock Holmes," "the original ghost buster," and "the real-life Scully" (after the character in The X-Files). A veteran of hundreds of TV and radio appearances, he is the author of over 20 books, including Secrets of the Supernatural, Entities, Psychic Sleuths, Real Life X Files, and The UFO Invasion. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Joe talks about his recent trip to Peru for CFI's second South American conference, and also about his visit to the world famous Nazca lines, which some people argue is evidence for ancient visits to earth from extra-terrestrials. He recounts his years of investigations into such "geoglyphs," and suggests some alternative scientific theories for their existence. Also in this episode, Debbie Goddard, a campus organizer with the Center for Inquiry, gives a back-to-school message.

Neil deGrasse Tyson - The Sky Is Not the Limit

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 04:31:00 GMT

Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of America's superstars of science, focuses his research on star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. In addition to dozens of scholarly publications, Dr. Tyson is one of America's most eloquent and popular science writers. He has a monthly column for Natural History magazine simply titled the "Universe." Among his seven 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. Origins is the companion book to the PBS-NOVA series of the same title, in which Dr. Tyson serves as the on-camera host. Beginning Fall 2006, he will appear as the on-camera host of PBS-NOVA's program ScienceNow, which will explore the frontiers of all the science that shapes our understanding of our place in the universe. Dr. Tyson is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates and the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal. His contributions to the public appreciation of the cosmos have been recognized by the International Astronomical Union in their official naming of asteroid "13123 Tyson". On a lighter note, a few years ago he was voted "Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive" by People Magazine. In this wide-ranging interview with DJ Grothe, Dr. Tyson discusses new developments this week in astronomy which may increase the count of planets in the solar system, reveals why he believes it is likely that there is life elsewhere in the universe, examines Intelligent Design and what he calls "stupid design," eloquently explains how parents may foster an appreciation for science in children, and also discusses science education's real-world economic impact for America. Also in this episode, DJ and Lauren Becker discuss the new collaborative effort between the Center for Inquiry and the State University of New York called Science and the Public.

Eugene Straus, M.D. - Medical Marvels, Compassion, and Skepticism

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 22:48:00 GMT

Eugene Straus, M.D., is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York Downstate College of Medicine. He's also served as a senior faculty member at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. In these positions, he directed research, teaching, and clinical activities for thirty-five years.ÂHe has published over 150 scientific papers and text book chapters. He has also traveled very widely to observe health care in many parts of the world, and has advised the Health Ministries of India and China. He is a member of many research and clinical societies. In this interview with DJ Grothe,Â he discusses his new book, Medical Marvels: The 100 Greatest Advances in Medicine. He also explores some of the problems he sees in current medicine and gives advice to consumers who areÂinundated with so many suggested alternatives to medical science.Â Also in this episode, Lauren Becker examines some of the possible reasons Alt Med attracts so many ailing our society.

Bill Cooke - Is Scientific Humanism Anti-Religious?

Fri, 4 Aug 2006 20:51:00 GMT

Bill Cooke, former international director for the Center for Inquiry, is a senior lecturer at the School of Visual Arts at University of Auckland at Manukau. He is a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion and now serves as CFI's Asia/Pacific coordinator. He is an acknowledged expert on the history of humanism and has written widely on the subject. He is author of the Dictionary Of Atheism, Skepticism, & Humanism, The Gathering of Infidels: A Hundred Years of the Rationalist Press Association and Heathen in Godzone: Seventy Years of Rationalism in New Zealand among other books. In this interview with DJ Grothe, Dr. Cooke discusses the history of humanism, how it is different than religion, and whether or not humanism is anti-religious. Also in this episode, Austin Dacey reports on the state of secularism in Bangladesh.

Derek Araujo - A Decade of Campus Freethought Activism

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:12:00 GMT

Derek Araujo was one of the founders and the first student president of the Campus Freethought Alliance in 1996. At the time he was attending Harvard College where he also founded the Harvard Secular Society before graduating magna cum laude in 1999. Mr. Araujo has since received a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School where he was a senior editor of the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, and is now an attorney based in the New York City. On July 15th 2006 Derek Araujo addressed a crowd of over 70 student leaders and 35 community leaders gathered at the Center for Inquiry headquarters in Amherst NY to mark the 10th anniversary of the Campus Freethought Alliance, what is now known as Center for Inquiry On Campus. This special episode of Point of Inquiry features Mr. Araujo's remarks, in their entirety, with an introduction by Paul Kurtz. Also in this episode, student leaders Eric Toedter from the University of Florida and Adria Updike from Clemson University share their thoughts about the importance of student activism.

Barry Beyerstein - The Sins of Big Pharma

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 01:14:00 GMT

Barry Beyerstein is Professor of Psychology and a member of the Brain Behaviour Laboratory at Simon Fraser University.ÂHis research has involved many areas related to his primary scholarly interests: brain mechanisms of perception and consciousness and the effects of drugs on the brain and mind.ÂHis work in these areas and his interest in the philosophy and history of science have also led him to be skeptical of many occult and New Age claims. This has prompted him to investigate the scientific status of many questionable products in the areas of medical and psychological treatment, as well as a number of dubious self-improvement techniques. Dr. Beyerstein serves as chair of the Society of B. C. Skeptics and he is a Fellow and a member of the Executive Council of CSICOP and serves on the editorial board of CSICOP's journal, The Skeptical Inquirer.Â He was also elected to the Council for Scientific Medicine, another organization headquartered at the Center for Inquiry; it provides critiques of unscientific and fraudulent health products.Â He is a founding member of Canadians for Rational Health policy and a Contributing Editor of the journal, The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine.Â He has published in these areas himself and is a frequent commentator on such topics on TV and Radio and in the print media. In this interview with DJ Grothe, Dr. Beyerstein discusses what he calls "the sins of Big Pharma," elaborating on what he considers the negative implications of the profit motive in theÂpharmaceutical industry and the development of new and unnecessary drugs due to possibly biased research. Also in this episode, Lauren Becker shares a commentary on secular humanist and skeptic "non-joiners."

Thomas Kida - Dont Believe Everything You Think

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 02:31:00 GMT

Thomas Kida is a professor in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the author of many articles on decision-making. For the last 25 years he has been researching and teaching how we form our beliefs and make decisions. His new book, Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking, presents this research. The book is about the ways our beliefs and decision making skills can go wrong. Do we all fall prey to problems in thinking? Why do we make these mistakes? Why do we believe the unbelievable? In the interview with DJ Grothe, Professor Kida highlights a few of the six mistakes of thinking discussed in the book, with real-world examples of how our thinking can go astray and what we can do about it. Also in this episode, Paul Kurtz and DJ discuss details of CFI's Student Leadership Conference celebrating 10 years of CFI's campus outreach. The event has attracted students from nearly 50 North American colleges and universities, in addition to universities in the Netherlands and Russia, and is being held this weekend in Amherst, NY.

Paul Kurtz - The Courage to Become

Sat, 8 Jul 2006 03:54:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz, considered the father of the secular humanist movement and a founder of the worldwide skeptic movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry magazine, he has advanced a critical, skeptical inquiry into many of the most cherished beliefs of society for the last forty years. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been featured very widely in the media, on topics as diverse as reincarnation, UFO abduction, secular versus religious ethics, communication with the dead, and the historicity of Jesus. In this interview with DJ Grothe, Paul Kurtz discusses the meaning of life from a scientific point of view, and expounds on the secular humanistic, stoical, skeptical perspective on questions regarding life after death and morality without belief in heaven or hell. Also in this episode DJ talks with Amanda Chesworth, educational director for CSICOP, about CFI's new summer camp promoting the scientific outlook to youngsters, Camp Inquiry.

James Randi - Science, Magic, and Future of Skepticism

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:39:00 GMT

James "The Amazing" Randi is a world-renowned magician, skeptic and investigator of paranormal claims. He has been a central figure in the development of the world-wide skeptical movement. He's perhaps most known for the One Million Dollar Challenge, in which his Foundation will award One Million Dollars to anyone who is able to show evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties. Randi has appeared very widely in the media, including on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show at least 22 times and he's also a regular on Penn and Teller's Showtime Series, BULLSHIT! He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including a MacArthur Genius Grant, a Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In 1989, the American Physical Society presented him with its Forum Award for Promoting Public Understanding of the Relation of Physics to Society. He is the author of many books, notably The Truth About Uri Geller, in which Randi aimed to use his background in magic to investigate the Israeli psychic and performer, and also The Faith Healers, Flim-Flam!, and An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Randi discusses critical thinking and magic, recounts his experiences as a leading paranormal investigator investigating people like Peter Popoff and others, shares his views about skepticism and religion, and reflects on the future of the skeptical movement. Also in this episode, Lauren Becker shares some thoughts about America's Founding and the Fourth of July.

Tom Flynn - The Rise of the Non-Religious

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 23:35:00 GMT

Tom Flynn is the Editor of Free Inquiry magazine. A journalist, novelist, entertainer, and folklorist, Flynn is the author of numerous articles for Free Inquiry magazine, many addressing church-state issues, as well as The Trouble With Christmas, and has made hundreds of radio and TV appearances in his role as the curmudgeonly "anti-Claus." He is also the author of the critically acclaimed anti-religious black comedy science fiction novel, Galactic Rapture. His lastest work, the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. is a comprehensive reference work on the history, beliefs, and thinking of America's fastest growing minority: those who live without religion. In the discussion with DJ Grothe, Flynn details numerous recent demographic surveys and new polling data showing a rise in the number of secularists, agnostics, atheists, humanists and other non-believers in the United States, especially among scientists. Also in this episode CFI summer intern Colin Koproske, from the University of Southern California, with a word about The Spiritual University.

Jerry Coyne - The Case Against Intelligent Design

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 20:57:00 GMT

Jerry Coyne is a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, where he works on diverse areas of evolutionary genetics. The main focus of his laboratory is on the original problem raised by Darwin - the origin of species - and on understanding this process through the genetic patterns it produces. His writings have appeared in a number of journals, magazines and other publications including Science, Nature, The Guardian and The New Republic. He is the author (with H. Allen Orr) of Speciation and a contributer to the new book Intelligent Thought : Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Professor Coyne explores the history, strategy, and motivation behind the modern Intelligent Design movement, and critiques the most widely used ID arguments. Also in this episode, Austin Dacey gives his impressions of the Darwin: His Life and Times exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History which has now been extended through August 20th, 2006.

Cathleen Falsani - The God Factor

Fri, 9 Jun 2006 23:48:00 GMT

Cathleen Falsani is the religion reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, where she has covered spirituality and popular culture from Vatican City, Ireland, the White House, the Playboy Mansion and the dugout at Wrigley Field. In her first book, The God Factor, she recounts her discussions about God and morality with more than 30 prominent figures who hold various religious and nonreligious worldviews. Her "subjects" include such diverse personalities as Sen. Barack Obama, Melissa Etheridge, Hugh Hefner and Jeffrey Sachs, the noted economist. Falsani is a graduate of Wheaton College, and holds a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University as well as a master's degree in theological studies from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, she comments on the religious or skeptical perspectives of the famous public figures profiled in her book, exploring a possible correlation between science and religious skepticism, and argues for the need for a more tolerant, open dialogue on religious issues. Also in this episode, Point of Inquiry contributor Lauren Becker shares a secular and humanist view of traditional marriage.

Joe Nickell - Psychic Detectives

Sat, 3 Jun 2006 03:33:00 GMT

Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow for CSICOP, is considered the world's leading paranormal investigator. A former professional stage magician and private investigator, he has used his varied background to investigate myths and mysteries, frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. He has been called the modern Sherlock Holmes, the original ghost buster, and the real-life Scully (after the character in The X-Files ). A veteran of hundreds of TV and radio appearances, he is the author of over 20 books, including Secrets of the Supernatural, Entities, Psychic Sleuths, Real Life X Files, and The UFO Invasion. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Nickell assesses some well-known psychic detectives such as Allison DuBois, on whom the NBC drama Medium is based, Carla Baron, and others. He also explains some of their methods and possible motivations. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn asks Did You Know?, detailing facts and figures about 6-6-06, the "Number of the Beast," and Tim LaHaye's Left Behind book series.

R. Joseph Hoffmann - Examining The Da Vinci Code

Fri, 26 May 2006 23:03:00 GMT

Joe Hoffmann is Campbell Professor of Religion and Human Values at Wells College, New York and chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) at the Center for Inquiry. He is formerly Professor of Civilization Studies at American University of Beirut and Senior Research Scholar of St. Cross College, Oxford. Dr. Hoffmann is a specialist in the social and cultural history of early Christianity, and the author of Jesus Outside the Gospels, coeditor of Biblical versus Secular Ethics, Jesus in Myth and History, Modern Spiritualities, The Origins of Christianity, The Secret Gospels, What the Bible Really Says, and editor and translator of the Oxford University Press editions of Celsus' On the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians and Porphyry's Against the Christians: The Literary Remains. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Professor Hoffmann probes the truth and fiction behind The Da Vinci Code, explores Christianity's true origins, and examines the public's overwhelming fascination with Dan Brown's worldwide best-selling novel. Also in this episode, Sarah Jordan stresses the importance of youth education in science and human values, as well as detailing CFI's new summer camp for children, Camp Inquiry.

Matt Nisbet - Framing Science

Sat, 20 May 2006 02:22:00 GMT

Matt Nisbet is assistant professor in the school of communication at the Ohio State University. He focuses on the intersections between science, media, and politics, tracking how political strategists, scientists, and the news media selectively define science in ways that shape policy decisions, public opinion, and political culture. His writing has appeared in a number of scholarly journals such as the Columbia Journalism Review, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, in addition to magazines such as The American Prospect. He also writes a regular web column for Skeptical Inquirer on science and the media. In this interview with DJ Grothe, Matt discusses ways he says the scientific community should reframe discussions about controversial science and its implications for the public. Also in this episode CFI summer intern Colin Koproske, from the University of Southern California, shares his views about the importance of scientific literacy.

Paul Kurtz - Science and Planetary Ethics

Fri, 12 May 2006 04:04:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz, considered the father of the secular humanist movement and a founder of the worldwide skeptic movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine, he has advanced a critical, skeptical inquiry into many of the most cherished beliefs of society for the last forty years. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been featured very widely in the media, on topics as diverse as reincarnation, UFO abduction, secular versus religious ethics, communication with the dead, and the historicity of Jesus. In this interview with DJ Grothe, Paul discusses planetary ethics and the implications of science and technology for the future of humanity. Also in this episode Thomas Donnelly discusses this summer's Student Leadership Conference, celebrating the 10th anniversary of CFI's campus outreach program.

Edward Tabash - True Meaning of Church/State Separation

Fri, 5 May 2006 04:53:00 GMT

Edward Tabash is a constitutional and civil rights lawyer in Beverly Hills, California. Graduating magna cum laude from UCLA in 1973, he graduated from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles three years later and was admitted to the California Bar that same year. He has chaired the National Legal Committee of Americans United for Separation of Church and State since 1995. He has been the most publicly-active man in the abortion rights movement in California since 1981. He has argued and won before the California Supreme Court and sits as a part-time judge for the Los Angeles County Superior Court system. Since 1990, he has been a member of the First Amendment Committee of the ACLU of Southern California. In election year 2000, he finished second out of four in a primary for the California State Assembly. He was the only open atheist to be a major contender for a state legislative seat in the United States during that election cycle. He has successfully represented the scientific outlook and secular humanism in public debates against the leading Christian philosophers around the world. In addition to serving on the Board of the Center for Inquiry and advising the Council for Secular Humanism's First Amendment Task Force, he chairs the Center for Inquiry West, in Hollywood, California. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, he explores the true meaning of separation of church and state, and defends secularism both for believer and unbeliever alike. Also in this episode, Lauren Becker announces Ten Amendments Day, as opposed to Ten Commandments Day, and explains ways listeners can personally get involved advancing public understanding of the Bill of Rights.

Eugenie Scott - Evolution vs. Religious Belief?

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 01:02:00 GMT

Bill Nye - Changing The World With Science Education

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 18:22:00 GMT

Bill Nye is one of America's leading popularizers of the scientific outlook. As a scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, he hosted Bill Nye The Science Guy, which earned 28 Emmys during its six year run. He is the author of a number of children's books about science and regularly lectures at Cornell University as part of the Frank H.T. Rhodes Visiting Professorship. He is also a Fellow of CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. His acclaimed new show The Eyes of Nye currently airs on PBS stations across the United States. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Bill Nye talks about the importance of science literacy, and how science best equips us to face the pressing challenges that threaten our future. Also in this episode, Point of Inquiry contributer Lauren Becker asks Have You Been Saved? (this Earth Day).

Sam Harris - The Mortal Dangers of Religion

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 21:53:00 GMT

Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestseller The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Mr. Harris is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University and has studied both Eastern and Western religious traditions, along with a variety of contemplative disciplines, for twenty years. His work has been discussed in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Economist, The Guardian, The Independent, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, New Scientist, SEED Magazine, Stanford Magazine, and many other journals. He is a columnist for Free Inquiry magazine and makes regular appearances on television and radio to discuss the danger that religion now poses to modern societies. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Harris talks about the destructive consequences of religious beliefs and also about contemplative practice and possible benefits it may bring even the nonbeliever. Also in this episode, Free Inquiry editor Tom Flynn asks Did You Know about recent developments regarding church state separation.

Sam Harris - The End of Faith

Fri, 7 Apr 2006 16:21:00 GMT

Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestseller The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Mr. Harris is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University and has studied both Eastern and Western religious traditions, along with a variety of contemplative disciplines, for twenty years. His work has been discussed in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Economist, The Guardian, The Independent, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, New Scientist, SEED Magazine, Stanford Magazine, and many other journals. He is a columnist for Free Inquiry magazine and makes regular appearances on television and radio to discuss the danger that religion now poses to modern societies. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Harris explores what he calls the dangers of religion, and argues that because of their destructive consequences, religious beliefs should not be given special sanction in our society. Also in this episode, Free Inquiry editor Tom Flynn defends the magazine's republishing of the cartoons critical of Islam originally published in a Danish newspaper, and that some say incited riots around the world. He also talks about the recent widespread media stir caused by the Borders Books and Music's ban of the issue.

Herbert Hauptman - The Joy of Science

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 23:46:00 GMT

Herbert Hauptman is winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering a mathematical model for determining the molecular structures of crystallized materials. This work has proved to be of the greatest importance because it relates molecular structure to biological activity, and allows for a better understanding of life processes and making possible the development of many new disease-fighting drugs. Dr. Hauptman is president of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, research professor in the Department of Biophysical Sciences, and adjunct professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University at Buffalo. Besides the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Dr. Hauptman has received many other honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of more than 170 publications. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Dr. Hauptman discussed the "joy of science," relates the events that led to his winning the Nobel Prize, and elaborates on why science is beautiful. Also in this episode, Point of Inquiry contributor Ben Radford sharesÂsome thoughts on science and the media.

Jamy Ian Swiss - Psychics, Science, and Magic

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 23:43:00 GMT

Jamy Ian Swiss is universally considered one of the world's top sleight of hand performers, famous to magicians for his subtlety, skill and depth of understanding of magic's history. He has made numerous television appearances in the United States, Europe, and Japan, including on The Today Show, CBS's 48 Hours, Comedy Central, CNN, PBS Nova and the PBS documentary, The Art of Magic. He's performed internationally for corporate clients, lectured to magicians in over a dozen countries, and is a co-producer of New York City's longest-running Off-Broadway magic show, Monday Night Magic. He is also a co-founder of the National Capital Area Skeptics and a long-time contributor to the skeptical movement and its magazines. Swiss is an author of The Art of Magic, which is the companion book to the PBS documentary of the same name, and he contributes a monthly book review column to Genii, the Conjurors' Magazine. He is also the author of Shattering Illusions, a collection of essays on the art and science of magic. In this interview with DJ Grothe, Swiss discusses the intersection of psychics, science, and magic. He also discusses how magicians have contributed to skeptical activism. Also in this episode, Point of Inquiry contributor Lauren Becker shares some thoughts about some dangerous distractions hiding "over the counter" at your local drug store.

Susan Jacoby - American Freethought Heritage

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 22:31:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz - Skepticism of the Third Kind

Sat, 11 Mar 2006 02:33:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz, considered the father of the secular humanist movement and a founder of the worldwide skeptic movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine, he has advanced a critical, skeptical inquiry into many of the most cherished beliefs of society for the last forty years. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been featured very widely in the media, on topics as diverse as reincarnation, UFO abduction, secular versus religious ethics, communication with the dead, and the historicity of Jesus. In this interview with DJ Grothe, Paul explores the history of skepticism, defines various types of skepticism, and highlights what he calls "skepticism of the third kind".

Daniel Dennett - Breaking the Spell

Fri, 3 Mar 2006 21:13:00 GMT

Daniel Dennett, the author of such groundbreaking and influential books as Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize), is famous for being a philosophical gadfly, challenging unexamined orthodoxies in our society. He has made considerable contributions to the study of consciousness, the understanding of the development of the child's mind, artificial intelligence and evolutionary theory. He is University Professor, professor of philosophy, and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. In this interview with DJ Grothe, he discusses his new book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn asks Did You Know?, detailing facts about world religions and their scientific study, Point of Inquiry contributor Benjamin Radford explores beauty and self-esteem, and in the second of a two-part series, DJ Grothe talks with CSICOP's Joe Nickell about real-life ghost-hunting, focusing on effective investigative methods.

Dr. Wallace Sampson - Science Meets Alternative Medicine

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 03:14:00 GMT

Dr. Wallace Sampson serves as editor of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine and is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Council Against Health Fraud. He has served as Chief of Medical Oncology at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, and is clinical Professor Emeritus of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Sampson is an expert on unscientific medical systems and alternative medicine claims, and teaches the critical analysis of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at Stanford University. He is co-editor of the book Science Meets Alternative Medicine. In this discussion with DJ Grothe, Dr. Sampson explores current trends in alternative medicine and offers the scientific alternative. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn asks Did You Know?, listing facts about the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Point of Inquiry contributor Benjamin Radford explores the use and abuse of labyrinths, and in the first of a two-part series, DJ Grothe talks with CSICOP's Joe Nickell about real-life ghost-hunting.

Joe Nickell - Aliens and Abductions

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 03:35:00 GMT

Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow for CSICOP, is considered the world's leading paranormal investigator. A former professional stage magician and private investigator, he has used his varied background to investigate myths and mysteries, frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. He has been called "the modern Sherlock Holmes," "the original ghost buster," and "the real-life Scully" (after the character in The X-Files ). A veteran of hundreds of TV and radio appearances, he is the author of over 20 books, including Secrets of the Supernatural, Entities, Psychic Sleuths, Real Life X Files, and The UFO Invasion. In this interview with DJ Grothe, he discusses aliens and alien abduction accounts and explores their significance for society today. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn asks Did You Know?, detailing facts and figures about UFOs, alien abductions and the new "Roses of Mohammed," Point of Inquiry contributor Sarah Jordan examines the meaning of science education, and DJ Grothe talks with Benjamin Radford about psychic detectives.

Richard Dawkins - The Root of All Evil?

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 00:59:00 GMT

Richard Dawkins is professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University. 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. In a recent poll in the United Kingdom, he was named Britain's leading public intellectual. 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 interview with DJ Grothe, he discusses his newest work, a two-part documentary series for British television entitled The Root of All Evil?, in which he challenges what he calls "the process of non-thinking called faith." Also in this episode, noted ex-muslim and best-selling Islamic scholar Ibn Warraq explores the recent worldwide riots over the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed as a terrorist and Point of Inquiry contributor Lauren Becker explores "defensive driving maneuvers" in a world where so many drive by faith and not by sight. DJ Grothe also talks with Derek and Swoopy, hosts of the wildly popular podcast Skepticality, to explore using this new medium to advance the critical, pro-science view in our society.

Marci Hamilton - Religion and the Rule of Law

Sat, 4 Feb 2006 02:36:00 GMT

Marci Hamilton is a distinguished constitutional law professor at Cordozo School of Law and is the author of the critically acclaimed book God vs. The Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law. She has appeared widely in the media, on shows such as The O'Reilly Factor and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In this interview, she explores the harms that are done to society by religion and how these harms are enabled by the courts and law enforcement because of an inaccurate understanding and application of the First Amendment. She challenges the widespread notion that all religious conduct deserves constitutional protection. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn presents Did You Know? detailing information about tax-payer funding of religious organizations, President Bush's fear of human-animal hybrids, and priestly child-abuse. Also, Benjamin Radford shares his segment Media Mythmakers, and in the second of a two part series entitled Investigating Ghosts and Hauntings, Joe Nickell, CSICOP's senior research fellow and renowned paranormal investigator, recounts experiences with photographing ghosts and why people might believe in them.

Chris Mooney - The Republican War on Science

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 02:52:00 GMT

Chris Mooney, a Washington correspondent for Seed magazine, a senior correspondent for the American Prospect, and a columnist for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, focuses on issues at the intersection of science and politics in his reporting. He has contributed to a number of other publications over the last few years including Wired, New Scientist, Slate, Mother Jones, The Washington Post, The LA Times, and The Boston Globe, in addition to appearing widely in the media, on shows such as The Daily Show with John Stewart, NPR's Science Friday, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. His blog, called "The Intersection," was recipient of Scientific American's 2005 Science and Technology web award, which noted that "science is lucky to have such a staunch ally in acclaimed journalist Chris Mooney." In this interview, he discusses his first book, The Republican War on Science, hailed as "a landmark in contemporary political reporting" by Salon.com and a "well-researched, closely argued and amply referenced indictment of the right wing's assault on science and scientists" by Scientific American. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn presents Did You Know? sharing facts and figures on paranormal belief in America and recent growth of religious extremism, Benjamin Radford shares his segment Media Mythmakers, commenting on social myths regarding Barbie Dolls, and in the first of a two part series entitled Investigating Ghosts and Hauntings, Joe Nickell, CSICOP's senior research fellow and renowned paranormal investigator, details specific investigations of haunted scenes he has conducted.

Eugenie Scott - The Dover Trial: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:54:00 GMT

Eugenie Scott, a physical anthropologist, has been the director of the National Center for Science Education for nearly 20 years. A former president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, she is one of the nation's leading defenders of the theory of evolution, and a vocal critic of creationism and Intelligent Design theory. She is the author of the widely used and comprehensive textbook Evolution Vs. Creationism. In this interview, she recounts events in the recent Dover, PA Intelligent Design case, and discusses why ID fails as a scientific theory. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn presents Did You Know? sharing facts and figures on church-state separation, and the Discovery Institute, a leading think-tank responsible for the promotion of Intelligent Design theory. Benjamin Radford, in his regular segment, Media Mythmakers, comments on social myths regarding disaster relief, and in the third of a three part series Can You Be Good Without God? Paul Kurtz explores the specific ethical ideals secular humanists cherish.

Max Maven - Magic and Skepticism

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 12:14:00 GMT

The great movie director Orson Welles wrote that Max Maven has "the most creative mind in magic." The New York Times observed that his "category-defying mind-reading veers into conceptual art." The Los Angeles Times stated that his "improvisational skill is enhanced by a charismatic animal magnetism." He has hosted eight TV specials in Japan (performing in Japanese) and starred in TV series in Taiwan, Sweden, Norway, Finland, England, the United States and Canada. Behind the scenes, Max Maven has been a consultant to the California ScienCenter, numerous universities, and to the magicians David Copperfield, Doug Henning, and Penn & Teller. He has published more than 2,000 articles. In addition, Maven is also the author of The Book of Fortunetelling, and is a contributor to a new traveling exhibition, "Magic: The Science of Illusion," which is touring science museums across North America through 2007. In this interview, Max Maven begins an exploration of the relationship between magic and skepticism, and how magicians may aid the skeptical enterprise. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn presents Did You Know? sharing quick facts on magic, skepticism, Friday the 13th, and unbelief in America, and Benjamin Radford, in his regular segment, Media Mythmakers, criticizes "tragedy journalism." In the second of a three part series Can You Be Good Without God? Paul Kurtz defends godless morality. And Joe Nickell explores the origins of superstitions surrounding Friday the 13th.

Ibn Warraq - Why I Am Not a Muslim

Fri, 6 Jan 2006 23:53:00 GMT

Ibn Warraq is the author of a number of books, including Why I Am Not A Muslim, considered among the most important critical looks at the negative aspects of Islam today. He is an outspoken critic of Islam who has written extensively on what he views as the oppressive nature of Islam and religion in general. Since the publication of Why I Am Not A Muslim, Ibn Warraq has appeared often in the media, including C-SPAN, National Public Radio, Canadian radio, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, in addition to consulting with Washington, D.C. think tanks, speech-writers for President Bush, international NGOs and the Center for Inquiry. In this interview, he discusses his problems with Islam, and why he argues Islam is incompatible with the democratic values of the West. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn presents Did You Know? breezing facts and figures about Islam, Mormonism, secular humanism, and paranormal belief in America and Benjamin Radford, in his regular segment, Media Mythmakers, casts a critical eye on blogosphere journalism. Also, in the first of a three part series entitled Can You Be Good Without God? Paul Kurtz explores the real origin of morality.

Susan Jacoby - The History of American Secularism

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 01:36:00 GMT

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. Since the publication of Freethinkers, Susan Jacoby has been interviewed on NOW with Bill Moyers, The O'Reilly Factor, and the Dennis Miller Show. She has been a guest on numerous National Public Radio programs, including the Diane Rehm and Tavis Smiley shows, as well as regional NPR programs broadcast from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Philadelphia, and Madison, WIS. In this passionate and insightful interview, she discusses America's freethought heritage and the Dover intelligent design ruling. Also in this episode, Tom Flynn presents a new segment called simply, Did You Know? detailing punchy facts about Campus Crusade for Christ, Jimmy Carter and UFO's, and the growth of superstition on American campuses; contributer Lauren Becker shares her personal reflections on her experiences working at a national park in the Bible belt. Also, Ben Radford, in his regular segment, Media Mythmakers, casts a critical eye on President Bush and his war on terror and Paul Kurtz examines the secular humanist pursuit of excellence.

Andrew Skolnick - The Dangers of Alternative Medicine

Fri, 23 Dec 2005 23:23:00 GMT

Andrew Skolnick, Executive Director of the Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health, is a nationally renowned science journalist who has won numerous national awards and honors for his reporting in biology, medicine, and human rights. Among those honors are Amnesty International USA's Spotlight on Media Award; World Hunger Year's Harry Chapin Award for Impact on Hunger and Poverty; the John P. McGovern Medal from the American Medical Writers Association; and a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. For nearly a decade, he served as an associate news editor for the Journal of the American Medical Association. He has been published in Smithsonian, Natural History, Ranger Rick Nature Magazine, National Geographic World, The New York Times, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and many other publications. In this interview, he discusses the dangers of alternative medicine, including unregulated dietary supplements, homeopathy, and more. Also, in the second of a two part interview entitled The Real War on Christmas, Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry magazine, urges listeners to wage an actual war on Christmas, in defense of America's religious diversity and the rights of nonbelievers. Point of Inquiry contributer Lauren Becker offers some insight into the recent ruling in the Dover Pennsylvania Intelligent Design case. Finally, In Ben Radford's regular commentary, Media Mythmakers, he discusses recent terror hoaxes.

Joe Nickell - Skeptical Inquiry vs. Debunking

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 22:51:00 GMT

Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow for CSICOP, is considered the world's leading paranormal investigator. A former professional stage magician and private investigator, he taught at the University of Kentucky before joining CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Using his varied background, Nickell has become widely known as an investigator of myths and mysteries, frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. He has been called "the modern Sherlock Holmes," "the original ghost buster," and "the real-life Scully" (after the character in "The X-Files" ). He has investigated scores of haunted-house cases, including the Amityville Horror and the Mackenzie House in Toronto, Canada. A veteran of hundreds of TV and radio appearances, he is the author of over 20 books, including Inquest of the Shroud of Turin, Secrets of the Supernatural, Looking for a Miracle, Entities, Psychic Sleuths, Real Life X Files, The UFO Invasion and the new title Secrets of the Sideshows. In this interview by DJ Grothe, Joe Nickell cautions the skeptic against debunking, and argues for open-minded investigation of paranormal claims. Also, in the first of a two part interview entitled The Real War on Christmas, Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry Magazine, urges listeners to wage an actual war on Christmas, in defense of America's religious diversity and the rights of nonbelievers. In Ben Radford's regular commentary, Media Mythmakers, he discusses recent irrational scares over violent video games.

Paul Kurtz - Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 23:54:00 GMT

Paul Kurtz, considered the father of the modern secular humanist movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine, he has advanced a critical, humanistic inquiry into many of the most cherished beliefs of society for the last forty years. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been featured very widely in the media, on topics as diverse as reincarnation, UFO abduction, secular versus religious ethics, communication with the dead, and the historicity of Jesus. In this controversial interview, Paul discusses his views on the war between religion against science, why he says science and religion are not compatible.