Point of Inquiry

Launched in 2005, Point of Inquiry is the premier podcast of the Center for Inquiry. Point of Inquiry critically examines topics in science, religion, philosophy, and politics. Each episode takes on a specific issue and features lively discussion with leading scientists, researchers and writers. Point of Inquiry is produced at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y.

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/to-the-temple-of-tranquility-and-step-on-it

The U.S. Supreme Court -- that over sixty years ago ruled against state-led prayer in public schools --  has swung back the other way with a vengeance. The ultra-conservative majority on the cur...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/supreme-injustice

The Nones are on the rise! When asked about their religious affiliation, year after year, more and more Americans are choosing “none of the above.” The number of religiously unaffiliated Amer...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/dr-juhem-navarro-rivera-on-the-challenge-of-rallying-the-nones

Of the 535 Members of Congress, only one is an out-of-the-closet atheist. His name is Jared Huffman, and he is a U.S. Representative from Northern California. He is also the co-chair (with Rep. ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/getting-to-know-us-congressman-jared-huffman

What happens when a group of skeptics from across the globe keeps score of over twenty years of psychic predictions? Any guesses? In this episode of Point of Inquiry, host Jim Underdown speaks ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/the-great-australian-psychic-prediction-project

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California may be the world's premiere space exploration facility. From the earliest days of rocketry, JPL has been at the vanguard of designing a...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/mg-lord-on-the-weird-and-wonderful-history-of-the-jet-propulsion-laboratory

“Many of us who are happy to live outside religion still suffer from a lack of things religion gives its members,” writes historian and poet Jennifer Michael Hecht. “It seems to me the reme...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jennifer-michael-hecht-on-the-power-of-poetry-and-the-weirdness-of-existence

Graham Cooks and his team at Purdue University have discovered a chemical process that has exciting implications for people who believe that life could have emerged spontaneously and through natu...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/new-discovery-in-the-chemistry-of-life

Launched in 2005, Point of Inquiry is the premier podcast of the Center for Inquiry. Point of Inquiry critically examines topics in science, religion, philosophy, and politics. Each episode takes on a specific issue and features lively discussion with leading scientists, researchers and writers. Point of Inquiry is produced at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y.

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/broken-promises-and-false-prophets-rina-raphael-on-the-business-of-wellness

Realizing the faith you've had your entire life is wrong can be devastating for some people. The process of deconversion can lead to panic attacks, depression, and more. What does it take for som...

https://pointofinquiry.org/2022/09/alice-greczyn-on-deconversion-and-her-escape-from-extremist-christianity/

What do we do when television shows dealing with extraordinary events focus on the ridiculous to bolster views? In today's episode, we take a behind-the-scenes look at two people with experience ...

https://centerforinquiry.org/pointofinquiry/2022/08/skepticism-behind-the-scenes/

This special episode of Point of Inquiry is brought to you by our friends at CFI Canada from their new podcast, Podcast for Inquiry . They recently spoke with author Steven Pinker and we wanted ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/steven-pinker-discusses-rationality-and-humanist-values

This week's episode is a bit different. Please enjoy a talk from Timothy Caulfield that originally aired on Skeptical Inquirer Presents. SIP is a live online series of talks from some of the brig...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/timothy-caulfield-on-the-infodemic-and-spread-of-misinformation

In this week's episode, we are diving into the flat-earth conspiracy theory and why people could believe such a thing with guest Kelly Weill and her new book, Off the Edge . In 2019 Jim Underd...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/kelly-weill-on-flat-earthers-and-why-people-will-believe-anything

What does it mean to be alive? Does life have a clear definition? On this week's episode, Carl Zimmer joins host Jim Underdown to discuss his new book, Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Carl_Zimmer_on_his_New_Book_Lifes_Edge.mp3

Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God who walked the Earth as a human being. Some Atheists believe none of the God bits but that there was a man named Jesus who did exist. There is als...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_The_Case_That_Jesus_Never_Existed.mp3

On today's episode we introduce the show's new guest host, Julia Sweeney and her interview with author David G. McAfee on his new book, Hi, I'm an Atheist!: What That Means and How to Talk About ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_David_G._McAfee_-_Hi_Im_an_Atheist.mp3

Throughout the modern world trust in science has continued to erode at dangerous speeds. From anti-vaxxers to climate change deniers, there is an ever growing movement of people that deny science...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Science_Denial.mp3

It’s a rare person indeed who can trick and amaze people on one hand while reassuring them that what they are experiencing is not real. Meet Banacek . He’s not only an illusionist, magician, ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Banachek_on_Being_a_Mentalist.mp3

Have you ever been curious about what other people believe in or how they navigate the ethical challenges of life? Ancient philosophy was partly used as a way to better understand the best way to...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_How_to_Live_a_Good_Life.mp3

A question on the minds of many theists and non-theists alike is why are so many Americans leaving religion and becoming religiously unaffiliated? What are the underlying factors causing this shi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/The_Rise_of_the_Nones_with_Ryan_Burge.mp3

In the June/July issue of Free Inquiry, today's guest Greg Paul makes the case that a loving God cannot possibly exist next to all the suffering and death, children have had to endure throughou...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Greg_Paul_on_the_Lost_Children_and_the_Implications_of_Natural_Evil.mp3

The Center for Inquiry Investigations Group tests extraordinary claims from anyone who believes they have paranormal or supernatural abilities like telekinesis, mind reading, and many otherworld...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Inside_the_Group_Investigating_Extraordinary_Paranormal_and_Supernatural_Claims.mp3

Annabelle Gurwitch is an award-winning actress, comedian, and writer. She's also a secular humanist and a skeptic, though that hasn't always been the case -- at least not the skeptic part. On t...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Annabelle_Gurwitch_on_Living_Through_Ups_and_Downs.mp3

David Javerbaum is the guest on this week's episode of Point of Inquiry. David discusses his early writing career and his current gig as God. David discusses starting out with The Onion and wha...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_David_Javerbaum.mp3

Have you wondered what it's like to get caught up in a conspiracy theory? QAnon, the 9/11 truth movement, lizard people who want to take over the world. What does it take for rational humans to b...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Stephanie_Kemmerer.mp3

An Atheist and a Christian Walk Into a Bar | Overcoming Differences America is as polarized as it's been in decades as our citizenry draws lines in the sand over a variety of issues. Friends an...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/An_Atheist_and_a_Christian_Walk_Into_a_Bar.mp3

Christmas in 2020 will be unlike any other in recent history due to COVID 19. Nevertheless, Christians around the world will be finding ways to celebrate the birth of Christ. On this episode of...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Tom_Flynn_-_POI.mp3

In 1997 Jim produced and directed a short documentary called “A Day in the Life of Frank Sinatra” that was an exploration of what it was like to be a homeless man with a famous name. Twenty t...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Frank_Sinatra.mp3

What does the Puritan founder of both the state of Rhode Island and the Baptist Church have to say about modern evangelicals?   Roger Williams had certain ideas that didn't fit into 17th centu...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Becky_Garrison.mp3

Author J.R. Becker joins Leighann Lord in this episode of Point of Inquiry to speak about his book series, Annabelle & Aiden. The series is a pro-science children's book series that explores sci...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/J.R._Becker_on_the_Annabelle__Aiden_Books_and_Teaching_Children_Critical_Thinking.mp3

Screenwriter and author Chris Matheson joins Jim in this episode which touches on the recently released Bill & Ted Face the Music, then dives deeply into Matheson's two comedic books on the Bible...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Chris_Matheson.mp3

The recent passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has left many shaken. A few weeks prior to her passing, Leighann Lord had the opportunity to speak with Rev. Barry Lynn, former executive direct...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Barry_Lynn.mp3

One professor is using social media to remind us that physics is the real magic of the universe. Through showing off his massive collection of science gadgets and physics toys, Dr. Raymond Hall i...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Raymond_Hall.mp3

Would you rather have your children looking at QAnon conspiracy Youtubers or porn online? That's a question author Erin Louis has had to confront with her teenage son. How do you employ critical ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/The_Brazen_Atheist_Erin_Louis_-_POI.mp3

The names Jim Jones, L.Ron Hubbard, David Koresh, and Sun Myung Moon might come to mind when someone uses the term cult leader. Many have suggested that Donald Trump falls into the category. But ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Hassan.mp3

In this episode of Point of Inquiry, co-host Leighann Lord talks with professor, writer, and humanist Dr. Anthony Pinn. Lord and Pinn discuss the power and persistence of magical thinking as we...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Anthony_Pinn.mp3

Looming over the sidewalk of Hollywood, California are tens of millions of dollars of buildings owned by the Church of Scientology. This beleaguered religion may have had a decade of bad PR, but ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Jim_Underdowns_Scientology_Tour.mp3

A short drive south of Cincinnati, OH, lie two well-funded, well-executed museums dedicated to the telling of biblical "history." The Creation Museum and the Ark Experience came about through Ans...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Monuments_to_Misinformation.mp3

In this episode of Point of Inquiry, cohost Leighann Lord talks with famous skeptic and Assistant Professor of Neurology, Steven Novella, MD. Novella is also the founder and current Executive E...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Steven_Novella.mp3

In this episode of Point of Inquiry, cohost Leighann Lord talks with fellow comic Ian Harris. Besides being a comedian, Harris is a voice actor, writer, director, and MMA trainer. He is also an...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Ian_Harris_Atheism_and_Skepticism.mp3

On this week's episode, Leighann Lord speaks with Mandisa Thomas, president of Black Nonbelievers . Black Nonbelievers connect with other Black folks and allies who have chosen to live without re...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Mandisa_Thomas.mp3

Kurt Andersen is the author of the novels Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History (2017), True Believers (2012), Heyday (2007), and Turn of the Century (1999). He's also written...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Kurt_Andersen.mp3

Coronavirus continues to infect more and more people around the world. As the number of infected grows so does the misinformation surrounding the virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. From f...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Coronavirus_Separating_Truth_and_Myths.mp3

Can our memories be trusted if they are easily manipulated by suggestions? Where is the line between repressed memories that bubble up to the surface and false memories that never existed? In t...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Elizabeth_Loftus.mp3

Where does the separation of church and state stand with a conservative majority in the Supreme Court? The short answer: not great. In this week's episode, Jim Underdown speaks to CFI board mem...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Where_Are_We_In_The_Battle_For_Church_State_Separation.mp3

James Sterba is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, USA. His book, Is a Good God Logically Possible? deals with the Argument from Evil and whether a God who is all good and ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Is_a_Good_God_Logically_Possible.mp3

Ian Ruskin is a producer, writer, actor and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He has starred in theatre, television, and film in both the UK and the US. He has written and p...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Ian_Ruskin_on_Thomas_Paine.mp3

Richard Dawkins is the recipient of a number of awards for his writing on science, including the Royal Society of Literature Award and the LA Times Literary Prize, he has also been awarded the Ro...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Richard_Dawking_and_Outgrowing_God.mp3

Chris French is a British psychologist and prominent skeptic focusing on the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences. He is currently Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths College, Unive...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Chris_French.mp3

Richard Wiseman is Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in England. Richard began his career as a professional magician before pursuing a career ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Richard_Wiseman.mp3

The European Council of Skeptical Organisations (ECSO) is an umbrella of skeptical organizations throughout the EU that investigate claims of pseudoscience, and defend scientific integrity and ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_The_State_of_Skepticism.mp3

In the second part of this two-part series on the prison system reform, Jim Underdown speaks with Andrew Glazier, president of Defy Ventures, on the high recidivism rates in prisons, how Glazier ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Prison_Recidivism_and_Rehabilitation.mp3

How humane are prisons in the U.S.? And what is their purpose – to punish or to rehabilitate? This is part one of a two-part series that dives into the prison system, what it looks like from ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Steve_Hill_on_the_Prison_System.mp3

Even though there’s growing awareness that race is a social construct — it defies biological definition — it’s really hard to let go of a concept that feels so real. There’s also a temp...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Angela_Saini_on_Race_Science.mp3

Point of Inquiry co-host Kavin Senapathy has covered food and agriculture for years, and if she’s learned one thing, it’s that people’s views on farming are rife with misconceptions. The co...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Dr._Taber_on_Agribusiness.mp3

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes actor, comedian, and former Jehovah's Witness, Jerry Minor. Minor has been a cast member and writer on Saturday Night Live and appeared on HBO's Mr. Show and ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Jerry_Minor.mp3

How well do you think you can assess risk? The evidence is clear that humans are innately poor at assessing risk in our personal lives, in part due to how our brains are wired, and that can make ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Risk_in_Perspective.mp3

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes comedian, monologist, and atheist, Julia Sweeney. Many may know Sweeney from her time on Saturday Night Live, her appearances on NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Julia_Sweeney_on_Atheism_SNL_and_Me_Too.mp3

Why do people love the taste of Umami but avoid monosodium glutamate (MSG), which is the purest form of Umami on Earth? In this episode of Point of Inquiry, Kavin Senapathy speaks with experts on...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_MSG_Umami_and_Ajinomoto.mp3

The Center for Inquiry has filed a lawsuit against Walmart for deceiving its customers with marketing, labeling, and product placement that present homeopathic medicines as equivalent and effec...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Nick_Little_and_the_suit_against_Walmart.mp3

Science for the People began as a group in 1969 that grew out of the anti-war movement and lasted until 1989. SftP has been rebirthed for a new generation of SftP members to explore the history ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Science_for_the_People.mp3

On this week's episode of Point of Inquiry, Jim Underdown speaks with longtime friend, actor, writer, and comedian Matt Walsh. This episode may be different from what you're used to as we take a ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Matt_Walsh.mp3

On this week's episode of Point of Inquiry, Dr. Jenny Yip discusses OCD and anxiety and the widespread impact these can have on our lives as well as how they're exhibited in different people. Kav...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Dr._Yip.mp3

This week’s episode of Point of Inquiry Jim Underdown speaks with Carol Tavris, social psychologist and author of Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) and Avrum Bluming, hematologist, medical on...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Carol_Tavris_and_Avrum_Bluming.mp3

This week's episode of Point of Inquiry is our final episode recorded from CSICon 2018. We're closing this series of interviews with Professor Massimo Pigliucci who discusses his ideas on scienti...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Pigliucci_and_Blackmore.mp3

On this week's episode of Point of Inquiry, we are thrilled to have friend of the Center for Inquiry , Susan Gerbic to talk about the recent New York Times featured story that detailed Gerbic a...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Susan_Gerbic.mp3

Mark Boslough is a Caltech-trained physicist and CSI Fellow who spent 34 years at Sandia National Laboratories doing research on hypervelocity impacts, energetic materials, explosions, and global...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Mark_Boslough.mp3

We find ourselves in the information age among many who, although have the access to proper and accurate scientific information, choose not to believe it. What causes the parents of a newborn t...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/poi-zimmer-and-offit

The world of skeptical investigation is full of interesting personalities full of stories about their run-ins with ghost chasers, debunking charlatans, and dealing with "magic". Today on Point o...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/poi-polidoro-and-biddle

Dr. Jen Gunter is an OB/GYN, pain medicine physician, and Twitter's resident gynecologist. She blogs and also writes The Cycle, a column on the intersection sex, science, and society, for the New...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/twitters-resident-gynecologist-and-the-crusher-of-the-gender-binary

As science standards across the country improve to include middle school standards on evolution, more and more teachers are teaching evolution for the first time and the battle to teach sound sci...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/the-battle-for-young-minds-bertha-vazquez-on-teaching-evolution-in-schools

Adam Conover is the creator and host of Adam Ruins Everything, an informational comedy show that debunks common misconceptions and encourages critical thinking. The New York Times calls it “o...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_-_Conover_and_Caulfield.mp3

In July of 2015, a spacecraft called New Horizons gave humankind its first close-up view of a small, misunderstood world called Pluto. It took almost 10 years for New Horizons to soar across more...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/New_Horizons_POI_-_51718_2.50_PM.mp3

We are living in a land of confusion, as the band Genesis warned us back in 1986, but even they could not have predicted just how much more confusing things would get 31 years later. With a stor...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/PointofInquiry-SciBabeandKavin_Senapathy122917.mp3

In the post-truth world, the mainstream media is beset on all sides. Peddlers of propaganda, misinformation, and conspiracy theories seek to strip the media of its authority by creating parallel ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Margaret_Sullivan_POI_12-6-17.mp3

It’s a big cosmos out there. It wasn’t too long ago that we couldn’t be sure that any planets existed anywhere outside of our own solar system. But in just the past handful of years, we’v...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Lee_Billings_POI.mp3

The modern conception of secular humanism arose in large part as a response to the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust, and the evils of racism and bigotry. Humanist Manifesto II, written in 1973...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/James_Croft_POI.mp3

The U.S. space program is both beloved and neglected. It brings us breathtaking pictures from distant worlds and drives the human species to push itself farther out into the cosmos. But at the sa...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Loren_Grush_POI_-_71817_12.22_PM.mp3

We want to believe that climate change can be stopped, that humanity can summon the political will to take decisive and meaningful action to avert disaster and save civilization. But the difficul...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_June_12_Kolbert__Hurley_-_61217_10.35_AM.mp3

On June 1, President Donald Trump declared that he was withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord, an international agreement meant to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissio...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Carl_Pope2.mp3

Don’t touch that podcast! Yes, Lindsay Beyerstein and Josh Zepps have moved on to new endeavors, but a new chapter for Point of Inquiry is about to begin, with new hosts and a new format. I...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/FINALPROMO3.mp3

Jill Tarter holds the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, CA where she also served as the former director of the Ce...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Josh_Last_episode.mp3

How did a man living an ostensibly godless, hedonistic life become the champion of the very groups who one would expect to denounce his behavior? Being a real estate mogul and reality TV star, it...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Sarah_Posner_final.mp3

While science was once the force that propelled humanity into an age of enlightenment, a pernicious fear of science and the unknown threatens to plunge society to into an age of darkness. So says...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Paul_Offit.mp3

  Often when we talk about privilege, we’re referring to the systemic advantages some groups of people have over others, by virtue of their race, gender, or orientation. Having social awaren...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Phoebe_Maltz_Bovey.mp3

People living at mountainous high altitudes account for only 10 percent of the world’s population, spread out over roughly 25 percent of the Earth’s surface, and yet they also are responsible...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Judith_Matloff2.mp3

President Trump’s travel ban aimed at select Muslim-majority countries (with exceptions for Christian minorities) was first framed this past January as an urgent action to protect the nation fr...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Lithwick.mp3

Fate. Purpose. Design. These are words that hang over many of our heads as we navigate the everyday chaos of life. Religion is often given exclusive purview over the discourse surrounding these c...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Lawrence_Krauss2.mp3

Americans have a stereotype of being somewhat lawsuit-happy. Any disagreements, no matter how small, wind up in court and we will sue the pants off our neighbors at the slightest scrape or bump. ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/David_Engel.mp3

Every significant turn towards progress has had its trailblazers, and history can easily forget these pioneering individuals who have helped get us to where we are today. One of the most importan...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/McGrathMorris.mp3

Diabetes and obesity are on the rise in America in epidemic proportions, but we don’t respond to it with the urgency of an epidemic. Sugar industry lobbyists work hard to keep regulations at ba...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Taubes.mp3

The United States leads the world in science and innovation, but there’s no guarantee that this will always be the case. The Trump administration’s orders to halt federal science publication ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Golbeck.mp3

Ronnie Green is a Pulitzer-winning journalist and author whose latest book is Shots on the Bridge: Police Violence and Cover-Up in the Wake of Katrina. His book follows the true story of an innoc...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Ronnie_Greene.mp3

Ted Conover is an American journalist and author, known for fully immersing himself in the world of the subjects he covers. Conover writes about the people we understand the least by attempting t...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Ted_Conover.mp3

Daniel C. Dennett is one of the most influential philosophers of our time, perhaps best known in cognitive science for his multiple drafts (or "fame in the brain") model of human consciousness, a...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Dan_Dennett_2017.mp3

With great power, comes great responsibility, so we are told by Voltaire and Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben. It’s something we learn anew with each presidency, as the person who holds the office mu...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Perlstein.mp3

Tom Flynn is Executive Director of Council for Secular Humanism (a program of the Center for Inquiry), as well as a novelist, journalist, and editor of Free Inquiry magazine. Outside of the freet...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Tom_Flynn_2016.mp3

There's no question that Trump and his incoming administration have plans to take the country in a very different direction on a plethora of issues. To help us sort through what to expect, we wel...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Marcotte_final.mp3

From the early isolationist policies of George Washington to Thomas Jefferson’s universal embargo on foreign trade, 19th century America had no plans to become an imperial power. How then does ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Cohen_2016.mp3

  Michael Berube is the Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University where he teaches American literature, disabilities studies, and cultural studies. ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Berube.mp3

This week we’re dusting off a favorite Point of Inquiry episode from three years ago: Josh Zepps' conversation with P.J. O'Rourke – humorist, cultural commentator and bestselling author of si...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/PJ_w_2016_intro.mp3

There’s no getting around the fact that the alt-right has come out of the shadows to fully embrace Trump as their candidate. From Steve Bannon to David Duke, controversial support did not wait ...

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The religiously unaffiliated, also known as the “nones,” are currently the largest “faith” demographic in the country. Yet evangelicals beat them two to one in turnout at the polls. We li...

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We live in a digital era in which science and technology have revealed new frontiers never before possible. In developing the complicated technologies that permeate our lives, is it possible that...

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Joe Nickell is perhaps the world's foremost investigator of the paranormal, as well as a magician and author, and he joins us for this special Halloween episode to discuss his recent feature arti...

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The cat. King of the jungle, emperor of the internet, overlord of our homes? Cats are easily among the most adaptable mesopredator, able to survive and thrive everywhere from the deserts of Austr...

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Halloween is almost here, and Target stores are pulling clown masks from their shelves. After the creepy clown craze made its way through Europe, the circus has finally arrived in the US with sig...

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Today the United States is the most secular and irreligious it has ever been. According to  http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/11/religious-nones-are-not-only-growing-theyre-becoming-m...

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Phil Torres is an author, contributing writer for the Future of Life Institute, and an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. His writing has been featured in nu...

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Dr. Julia Shaw is a psychological scientist and senior researcher in the Department of Law and Social Science at London South Bank University. She teaches at the undergraduate and graduate level ...

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Since the beginning of humankind unpredictable forces of nature have been among our most dangerous threats: volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, tornados, hurricanes, and other disa...

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Death is an unsettling thing to come to grips with. We know it is inevitable that it will one day happen to us. One of the first things most of us learn about death is that it happens to everyone...

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Emily Willingham is a journalist, scientist, and award winning skeptical blogger, with much of her work centered on autism and debunking junk science controversies. Recently the autism community ...

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Elizabeth Greenwood teaches at Columbia University and like many other young professionals she has an insurmountable amount of student loan debt. With the overwhelming feeling that she would neve...

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Bronwen Dickey is a contributing editor at The Oxford American, and author of Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon. Her writing can also be found in The New York Times, The Virginia Quarter...

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Those following the Olympics this year may have noticed Michael Phelps sporting circular bruises all over his body. That’s because Phelps, like many Olympic athletes, won’t go after their med...

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  Iraqi-born writer Faisal Saeed Al Mutar is a blogger for the Huffington Post and a columnist for the Center for Inquiry’s own Free Inquiry magazine. Having grown up in Iraq under the rule o...

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  David Cay Johnston is an award winning investigative journalist and New York Times best-selling author, as well as one of few journalists who has deeply dug into the dirty laundry of Donald ...

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Free speech on college campuses has become a topic of impassioned debate, as the lines between hate speech and harassment, or peaceful protest and public disturbance, are rather blurry and hotly ...

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  Religions have always gone through transitions over time. Not only do the faiths themselves evolve, but the role they play in day-to-day life adapts to fit the needs of a given culture. As th...

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    It was only a couple of decades ago that the most complex handheld computing system fathomable was a TI-83 graphing calculator. Technology has usually served to make our lives easier, but...

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Autumn Whitefield-Mandrano is the author of the acclaimed new book on feminism and beauty, Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women’s Lives. Her work can be found such outlets as Glamour...

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Michelle Vines grew up knowing she was different from other people. She always assumed she was just a bit odd and eccentric but never in a way that suggested she wasn’t neurotypical. She lived ...

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Secularist bloggers, writers and LGBT activists are being hacked to death in the streets of Bangladesh by militant Islamic groups. To help us get to the bottom of why there needs to be no end in ...

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Author and Guardian US columnist Jessica Valenti is a pioneer of digital-age feminist writing, starting her blog feministing.com ">Feministing in 2004, and becoming known as one of the leading...

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In the literature about religious conversion, embracing a new faith is usually explained as being a profound and magical experience. A flash of light, a near death experience, an emotional new be...

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Maia Szalavitz is an author and award-winning journalist specializing in science, public policy, and addiction treatment. Most famous of her several books was her 2006 exposé, Help at Any Cost: ...

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This week, Josh Zepps sits down with commentator and writer Shadi Hamid. He’s a senior fellow in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, a contributin...

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Dr. Amy Tuteur is an obstetrician-gynecologist and writer, returning to Point of Inquiry to discuss her new book, Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting. Known from her popular blog as ...

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Dr. Ned Hallowell is a child and adult psychiatrist, a New York Times bestselling author, and among the world’s leading experts in the field of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)....

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For a very long time marriage was considered a foundation of American life. Adulthood and marriage came hand in hand, and shortly after marriage children were the next logical step. Breaking that...

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Medical doctors can hold our lives in their hands. But with great power comes great responsibility, and doctors owe it to their patients to provide accurate information and treatments based on sc...

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This week we welcome back journalist Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. Hari is a vocal advocate for ending the drug war, and he joins us this...

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David Silverman, president of American Atheists, was recently seen on championing the importance of the atheist vote to American conservatives on the late night comedy show, a href="https://www....

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Many of us picture our dying moments as being surrounded by loved ones, uttering last words of gratitude and advice before we slip off into a peaceful departure. Yet the reality is that dying is ...

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  John Allen Paulos is an award winning mathematician and best selling author. A professor in mathematics at Temple University, he has written for The Guardian, CFI’s Committee for Skeptica...

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Today’s guest is former white supremacist Arno Michaelis, author of My Life After Hate. A leader within what he called a “racial holy war," Michaelis later realized his hate was misplaced, th...

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What is it about human behavior that allows con artists to pull off elaborate scams in which they fool thousands? Moreover what is about those thousands of people — many of them intelligent and...

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We know more and more about how repressive attitudes about blasphemy and religious criticism in parts of the Islamic world can become explosive, as with the Charlie Hebdo attacks or the murder of...

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Most of us have no problem operating under the notion that we should do unto others as we would have others do unto us. But what do we make of people who do go well beyond that, while asking for ...

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Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, speaker, and sex education activist, challenging misconceptions about what it means to have consenting, satisfying sex. She’s the author of What You Really Really W...

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The freethought movement has seen two of its most respected and influential institutions combine into what has been called a “supergroup” for secularism. The Center for Inquiry, the organizat...

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In ancient Greece, did everyone unquestioningly believe in the gods of Olympus? Was there no one in classical Athens to write the equivalent of “The Zeus Delusion”? According to our guest thi...

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The “nones” are on the rise in the U.S. with 33 million Americans identifying as having no religious affiliation. Atheists shouldn’t get too excited, though, because 68% of the unaffiliated...

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This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Dr. David Grimes, a board certified physician in obstetrics and gynecology and author of the new book Every Third Woman in America: How Legal Abortion Transfor...

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Throughout history, humans have looked to religion to explain why the world is the way it is. Thanks to the development of science, we now have more concrete ways of understanding the world, ways...

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During the perennial War on Christmas, certain Christians often feel the need to remind the rest pf us what the holiday season is really about. It’s Jesus Christ’s birthday and we’re all in...

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After the Paris attacks, tensions are running higher than they have in many years over the threat posed by Islamism, how we should talk about it, and how policy should respond to it. One of our m...

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You don’t have to be paranoid to recognize that privacy isn’t what it used to be. The government can get access to our phone calls and emails, video surveillance is becoming a norm in public ...

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  It used to be that autism was considered to be the result of poor parenting, but starting in the 1930s, it was understood to be a hereditary condition, and the behaviors often associated wit...

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  Is smoking pot a fundamental human right? On Wednesday, November 4th Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that four individuals involved in a private cannabis club have the constitutional right to...

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  Most people know Harry Houdini as the world famous magician and illusionist, but in addition to his life as a performer, Houdini was also known to have a deep fascination with the afterlife...

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This week Josh Zepps chats about the 2016 Republican presidential primaries with journalist Sarah Posner, a senior correspondent for Religion Dispatches and the author of Gods Profits: Faith, Fr...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/sarah-posner-trump-carson-and-the-religious-right-in-2016

Myths and pseudoscience do not only apply to the realms of religion, alternative medicine, and the paranormal. One area of our lives in which science and a little myth-busting can do enormous goo...

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With misinformation about vaccines proliferating among certain groups in the U.S., diseases that had previously been thought eradicated are creeping back into American life. As far as the law is ...

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  Brains, the means by which we scrutinize our world, are themselves inscrutable, and no more so than when things are going wrong. Just ask our guest this week, award winning medical journalis...

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When the public school board in Cobb County, Georgia, placed a disclaimer describing evolution as “just a theory” (in the non-scientific sense) and not a fact, citizen and author Jeffrey Selm...

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One of the United States’ most prominent and respected advocates for secularism is a reverend, and that of course is our guest this week, Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United...

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Last week marked 14 years since the attacks of 9/11, the reverberations of which will certainly be felt well into the future. But for all the impact and tragedy of the attacks, there is still so ...

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Corporate outsourcing is so common in the U.S. that it’s become exceedingly difficult to avoid consuming products made by unregulated and unethical means. But this has not always been the norm,...

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  Ten years ago on August 29, 2005, nearly 80 percent of New Orleans found itself underwater. Over the following months, the New York Times sent its correspondent Gary Rivlin to live in New Or...

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Our very special guest on Point of Inquiry this week is Eugenie Scott, the former director of the National Center for Science Education who has been waging and winning battles against creationis...

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Happy cows and chickens grazing in pastures, we see them plastered all over our milk and egg cartons at the grocery store. While most of us realize these images are more marketing than reality, t...

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Every year technology produces more innovative ways to entertain us. Everything from Twitter to Candy Crush and from billboards to viral commercials, the information that engrosses us on a daily ...

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This week on Point of Inquiry, our guest is Ta-Nehisi Coates, a renowned journalist and celebrated essayist on culture, history, and politics. He’s a senior editor at The Atlantic, where last ...

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As difficult it is to accept, there may be no loosening of the grip ISIS currently holds over its territory, at least not any time soon. Our guest, Stephen M. Walt, begins to come to terms with t...

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This week, Lindsay Beyerstein chats with medical ethicist Dr. Barron Lerner, author of the new book The Good Doctor: A Father, A Son and the Evolution of Medical Ethics. Lerner’s father Myer Le...

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On July 5th, 2015 Greece said no to a bailout and austerity measures that would have kept them in the eurozone, lending more uncertainty to an already weakened financial structure. The country th...

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Taslima Nasrin is a world-renowned author and secular activist from Bangladesh. A physician by training, she has written a plethora of novels, poems and papers standing for the rights of women an...

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This week we welcome Bangladeshi atheist blogger and social activist, Asif Mohiuddin, for a special episode of Point of Inquiry, recorded before a live audience at the Center for Inquiry’s Reas...

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  This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Richard Dawkins for a special episode recorded before a live audience at the Center for Inquiry’s Reason for Change conference in Buffalo, New York on...

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Celebrities have always played an oversized role in our culture, and there’s nothing new about them using their star power to endorse ideas or products. But we now live in a time in which mass ...

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Opponents of abortion have been largely successful in wielding the First Amendment in their fight to protest abortion providers and patients, and according to this week’s guest, this freedom ha...

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Religion is a very comforting aspect of many people’s lives, providing a community of like-minded individuals, as well as more than a little nostalgia. But even within the same faith groups, on...

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This week on Point of Inquiry, Lindsay Beyerstein is joined by renowned journalist Michael Specter, a staff writer for The New Yorker, to talk about the subject of his award-winning story, “Ag...

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Ex Machina, a new film that tells the story of a billionaire programmer who creates an artificially intelligent female robot, is in theaters now, and its writer and director, Alex Garland, is ou...

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When over one-third of American adults are obese, it’s no wonder that our culture is deluged with fad diets and alleged miracle supplements. Everyone is looking for the easiest way to obtain an...

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There are dozens of bestselling books on spirituality for teens (and many more not on the bestseller list), and many books on atheism as well. But, surprisingly, books about atheism and agnostici...

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Peter Singer has revolutionized the way we think about morals and values. He’s lead the way in providing evidence for some of the toughest moral controversies such as animal rights, abortion, a...

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Our guest this week says that the U.S. Supreme Court’s power to interpret the Constitution is so great that they can use it to justify nearly anything they please. Even the American founders wh...

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While Bassem Youssef’s satirical voice has made him widely known as the Egyptian Jon Stewart, merely five years ago Youssef was a heart surgeon broadcasting humorous political commentary on You...

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Phil Zuckerman is a professor of sociology at Pitzer College, and among the world's leading experts in the growing field of secular studies, with a deep understanding of how people's lives are li...

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Negotiations between Iran and the U.S. in concert with Germany and the United Nations Security Council are set to result in an agreement on March 31, 2015 regarding Iran’s nuclear program, po...

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Billions of dollars are funneled into federal drug programs to keep our children away from drugs and our cities safe from crime and economic turmoil. Our guest this week, journalist and author Jo...

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As climate change progresses and takes its toll on the planet, the life forms we share it with continue to evolve and adapt. Some species thrive while many face imminent extinction. What we often...

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This week on Point of Inquiry, Josh Zepps talks to Eli Lake, a journalist with extensive experience covering international intelligence, diplomacy, and the recent conflicts in the Muslim world. ...

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Memory is remarkably fallible, as we often frustrate ourselves with how certain we are about where we left our car keys only to realize how entirely wrong we were. But could it be that our memori...

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This week on a special episode highlighting the upcoming Reason for Change conference, Point of Inquiry welcomes stand up comedian Leighann Lord. Talking with show producer Nora Hurley, they di...

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This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Laci Green for a special tell-all Valentine's Day episode. Green is a popular Youtube video blogger, sex education activist and feminist. In a time when sex pe...

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Intuitively, it can feel as though the essence of our thoughts and feelings exists separate from the body and brain, and that essence is what is normally referred to as the soul. Empirical eviden...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Julien_Mussulino_final.mp3

Measles are the newest attraction at Disneyland this season, and unfortunately the only thing magical about them is how quickly they’ve begun to spread throughout California and Arizona. Althou...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/Paul_Offit_Measles2.mp3

This week on Point of inquiry, New York Times bestselling author Karen Abbott talks to Lindsay Beyerstein about her newest book, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, which tells the true story of f...

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The terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo was a human atrocity, as well as an assault on free expression. Yet numerous prominent news publications are still refusing to show the very Hebdo cartoons...

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The effort to overturn Roe v. Wade and criminalize abortion has spiraled into challenging not only women’s right to abortion, but a women’s right to carry her baby to term. Across the count...

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Tom Flynn is Executive Director of The Council for Secular Humanism, Editor of Free Inquiry magazine, as well as professional anti-Christmas advocate and author of “The Trouble with Christmas...

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Our Guest this week is Greta Christina, popular atheist blogger, speaker and author of several books on atheism including her newest, “Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do Wi...

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Fox News’ "War on Christmas" is already in full swing, as Bill O’Reilly wasted no time jumping into battle this year to defend the holiday from the great secular menace. However, it looks lik...

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Despite the fact that the United States was founded as a secular state, government neutrality toward religion remains a tumultuous and controversial issue -- a conversation-stopper in most public...

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Alan Turing was a true visionary. Founding what we understand today as computer science, he was also a mathematician, a philosopher, and an early trailblazer for gay equality. Without his genius ...

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As a nation, the U.S. prides itself on at least aspiring to the ideal of equality, even if it often falls short. The educational, health care, and legal systems, are plagued by institutional bias...

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As the threat posed by radical Islamists like those of ISIS grows in popular awareness, Islam itself becomes more of a target for criticism; some of it fair, and some of it based in ignorance or ...

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The English language is often treated as delicate and precious, and disagreements about what is “proper English” go back as far as the 18th century. Then as now, style manuals and grammar boo...

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There’s no doubt that Ebola is an incredibly dangerous and genuinely lethal virus, but it’s also a highly manageable one, though you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise given the kind of h...

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Harry Houdini, the most famous illusionist the world has ever known, spent the later part of his career fascinated with spiritualists and mediums. This led him to become a dedicated skeptic and i...

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Given the divisive nature of the debates over abortion, the subject is understandably not the best table-talk material. But despite the fact that abortion is a normal and often necessary (one in ...

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Our universe is made up of billions of galaxies. The cosmos is so mind-bogglingly vast, that it’s hard not to suppose that we aren’t alone, that life must exist somewhere else besides our ow...

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The rise of ISIS, the self proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has sparked debate about the role of religion — specifically Islam — in violent extremism. This week, Dr. Adam Silverman...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/the-theology-of-isis-with-dr-adam-silverman

Josh Zepps is off, and since this week is the 5th International Blasphemy Rights Day , we're rebroadcasting this interview by Chris Mooney with Austin Dacey, CFI's former UN representative and a...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/austin-dacey

This week Point of Inquiry welcomes journalist Mark Oppenheimer. Mark writes the Beliefs column for the New York Times, and is the author of the e-book The Zen Predator of The Upper East Side . H...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/mark-oppenheimer-on-misogyny-in-the-freethought-community

It’s National Chicken Month! But rather than celebrating the consumption of fowl, Point of Inquiry is asking what exactly is going on in America's meat industry? Is the way we consume meat at a...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/factory-farming-and-the-meat-racket-christopher-leonard-on-our-irrational-meat-industry

Point of Inquiry welcomes Caitlin Doughty, creator of the cult classic web series Ask A Mortician , which gives unvarnished answers to questions about dead bodies and the death industry. Caitlin ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/ask-a-mortician-caitlin-doughty-on-the-death-industrys-dirty-secrets

It’s been ten years since the publication of Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith  kicked off the cultural phenomenon of “new atheism,” bringing frank criticism of religion into mainstrea...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/sam-harris-seeking-transcendence-without-religion

This week Point Of Inquiry welcomes Dr. Adia Benton , a professor of medical anthropology at Brown University. She joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to talk about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa....

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/dr-aida-benton-on-the-west-african-ebola-outbreak

Point of Inquiry's hosts are off this week, so we're running Lindsay Beyerstein's excellent interview from earlier this year with Dr. Paul Offit. Dr. Offit will be the Center for Inquiry's specia...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/paul-offit-md-do-you-believe-in-magic-the-sense-and-nonsense-of-alternative-medicine-0

One hundred years ago, Great Britain declared war on Germany, joining in what we now refer to as World War I, a conflict which cost more than 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians their li...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/christopher-capozzola-100-years-after-the-great-war-lessons-in-reason

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Laurel Braitman, a TED fellow with a PhD in History and Anthropology of Science from MIT, and the author of Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parro...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/laurel-braitman-on-animals-and-mental-illness

How do we rationally assess risk? Following a terrible series of horrifying air travel disasters, reasonable people begin to question what we consider to be "safe." But should we?    To answe...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/david-ropeik-airplane-disasters-and-the-psychology-of-risk

On March 15, 2000, over a dozen whales beached themselves in the Bahamas in one of the largest multi-species strandings in history. Suspicion turned to U.S. Navy sonar, but at first there was no ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jason-horowitz-protecting-the-whales-from-the-us-navy

Point of Inquiry is taking a week off and filling in with a classic episode. After Saudi Arabia recently tried to silence the Center For Inquiry's UN representative, Josephine Macintosh, as she d...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/austin-dacey-the-un-and-defamation-of-religions

To discuss last week's Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Point of Inquiry welcomes Dr. Brian Leiter, law professor and philosopher at the University of Chicago. He's the author...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/the-gospel-according-to-hobby-lobby-with-brian-leiter

Best known for his 17 years as a talk show host, Montel Williams is now bringing his name and dynamic personality to activism on behalf of U.S. servicemen and women. Raised during the height of t...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/montel-williams-leading-a-surge-on-the-veterans-administration

We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in caves rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than wear sneakers—or did we? These, along with many other questions about what is o...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/marlene-zuk-the-paleo-delusion

Few intra-party political battles have been as astonishing and unexpected as last week's primary loss by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to religious-conservative challenger David Brat, who was...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/howard-fineman-on-eric-cantors-defeat-and-the-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-gop

This week POI welcomes bestselling author and trans rights activist, Janet Mock. Janet is the author of the new memoir Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love and So Much More ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/janet-mock-redefining-real-biology-sex-and-gender

This week, we welcome Negin Farsad, a groundbreaking Iranian American comedian. A TED speaker and TED Fellow, she was named one of the Huffington Post's 50 Funniest Women. She's been seen on C...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/negin-farsad-red-states-and-muslim-comedy

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Editor and Legal Correspondent for Slate, where she writes the "Supreme Court Dispatches" and "Jurisprudence" columns. Her legal co...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/capital-punishment-in-crisis-with-dahlia-lithwick

Our guest this week is Farzana Hassan, a Pakistani-Canadian political scientist, a columnist for the Toronto Sun, whose new book is Prophecy and the Fundamentalist Quest: An Integrative Study...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/farzana-hassan-on-islamic-extremism-and-the-boko-haram

Our guest this week is Donald Prothero, paleontologist, geologist, and author of the new book Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten our Future . He's an expert on the effect of past climat...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/science-denialism-with-donald-prothero

Our guest this week is Cara Santa Maria, contributor to Al Jazeera America's science show TechKnow , and the host of the podcast Talk Nerdy . This neuroscientist, science educator, producer, wr...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/talking-nerdy-and-ethically-with-cara-santa-maria

This week Point of Inquiry welcomes the well-known atheist blogger , speaker, and author Greta Christina to talk about her new book, Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other an...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/coming-out-atheist-greta-christina

This week, Point of Inquiry is excited to welcome “The Amazing” James Randi: famed magician a godfather (as it were) of the modern reason movement, and founder of the James Randi Educational ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/a-trek-through-skepticism-with-the-amazing-randi

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Barbara Ehrenreich, award-winning columnist and essayist, and author of 21 books. In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America , she went undercover as...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/living-with-a-wild-god-barbara-ehrenreich-atheism-and-transcendence

This week, Point of Inquiry is delighted to welcome Ann Druyan, co-writer and co-creator of both the original Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, starring her late husband Carl Sagan, as well as the n...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/ann-druyan-telling-the-story-of-the-cosmos

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Meredith Dank, PhD, Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute. Dank is the co-principal investigator on several international and domestic human traffi...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/investigating-the-oldest-profession-prostitution-and-science-meet-with-meredith-dank-of-the-urban-institute

Following the death of the Westboro Baptist Church's Fred Phelps, Josh Zepps discusses the state of religious fundamentalism with Frank Schaeffer, the New York Times bestselling author of Cra...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/-frank-schaeffer-on-escaping-fundamentalism-and-the-death-of-fred-phelps

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes David Gorski, MD, PhD: cancer researcher, surgeon, and managing editor of the Science-Based Medicine  blog, aka "Orac" of Respectful Insolence .     ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/cancer-quack-stanislaw-burzynski-exposed

Rebecca Goldstein, a professor of philosophy and the author of five novels and a collection of short stories, joins us on Point of Inquiry to discuss atheism, philosophy and her new book, Pla...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/rebecca-goldstein-plato-at-the-googleplex-why-philosophy-wont-go-away

This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Daniel Loxton, longtime Editor of Junior Skeptic, the 10-page kids' science section bound within Skeptic magazine, author and illustrator of the national awar...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/daniel-loxton-bigfoot-nessie-and-other-kinds-of-abominable-science

This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Gabriel Sherman, writer and contributing editor for New York Magazine and author of the new book The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombast...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/gabriel-sherman-the-loudest-voice-in-the-room-how-the-brilliant-bombastic-roger-ailes-built-fox-news-and-divided-a-country

This week, Point of Inquiry looks into midwives, home births, and what they mean for a safe delivery for child and mother. Our guest is skeptic, obstetrician, gynecologist, and author of How Y...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/amy-tuteur-md

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Stanton Peele, PhD., J.D.. Dr. Peele, an addiction expert and author of 12 books on the subject, discusses his views on the current ‘disease model’ view o...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/stanton-peele-ph-d-addiction-and-recovery

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Greg Dworkin, MD. Dr. Dworkin is a founding editor of Flu Wiki (http://fluwiki.info .) an international, WIKI-format clearinghouse of Influenza information DE...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/greg-dworkin-md-founding-editor-of-flu-wiki

This week Point of Inquiry discusses satire in politics and American life with J.R. Havlan, eight-time Emmy Award winning writer on The Daily Show. J.R. was previously a stand-up comic, inclu...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/j-r-havlan-writer-for-the-daily-show

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy at Yale and co-author of a provocative essay in last week’s New York Times entitled Is the United States a ‘Racial...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/-jason-stanley-is-the-united-states-a-racial-democracy

This week Point of Inquiry is discussing Death. Specifically, Brain death and the efforts of some areas of the religious right and their attempts to eliminate whole brain Brain Death as the lega...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/arthur-caplan-ph-d-ethics-of-brain-death-end-of-life-the-state-and-the-right

This week on Point of Inquiry we welcome Chris Emden, a Columbia Professor who's helped design New York City's public school policy, a leading science education researcher, and Harvard Hip Hop Ar...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/chris-emden-hip-hop-archivist-and-professor-at-teachers-college-columbia-university

As the War on Christmas wages on, our host, Josh Zepps, interviews Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst for American's United for the Separation of Church and State, Editor of Church & State magaz...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/the-war-on-christmas

Joining Lindsay Bernstein this week is Kathryn Joyce, one of the foremost reporters chronicling the Religious Right today.  She made “Quiverfull” a household name with her first book, Quive...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/kathryn-joyce-the-child-catchers-rescue-trafficking-and-the-new-gospel-of-adoption

This week on Point of Inquiry, Josh Zepps welcomes P.J. O’Rourke, humorist, cultural commentator, and best selling author of sixteen books. An early proponent of “gonzo journalism” and is a...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/p-j-o-rourke-american-satirist-journalist-and-author

> This week on Point of Inquiry, Lindsay Beyerstein talks with Barry > Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of > Church and State. He is an ordai...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/barry-w-lynn-executive-director-of-americans-united-for-separation-of-church-and-state

This week's Point of Inquiry features Gadadhara Pandit Dasa, first ever Hindu Chaplain for Columbia University and New York University, the interfaith chaplain at Union Theological Seminary, ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/gadadhara-pandit-dasa-first-hindu-chaplain-for-columbia-university

This week’s guest on Point of Inquiry, Paul A. Offit, MDis best known as a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine and a staunch, public supporter of vaccination and opponent of pseudoscientific ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/paul-offit-md-do-you-believe-in-magic-the-sense-and-nonsense-of-alternative-medicine

Famed educator, engineer and "Science Guy," Bill Nye Joins our host Josh Zepps for this week's Point of Inquiry. They discuss Bill's start as an Engineer and part time stand up comedian to his g...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/bill-nye-the-science-guy

Point of Inquiry, the flagship podcast for the Center for Inquiry, presents a special episode recorded before a live audience at the 2013 CFI Summit in Tacoma, Washington, with new co-host Lindsa...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/katherine-stewart-the-good-news-club-the-christian-right-s-stealth-assault-on-america-s-children

Point of Inquiry, the flagship podcast of the Center for Inquiry, relaunches with a special episode recorded before a live audience at the 2013 CFI Summit in Tacoma, Washington, with new co-host ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/leonard-mlodinow-subliminal-how-your-unconscious-mind-rules-your-behavior

Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Ny...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/neil-de-grasse-tyson-communicating-science

Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Ny...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/bill-nye-in-praise-of-reason-and-skepticism

Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Ny...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/brian-greene-the-fabric-of-the-cosmos-1

Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Ny...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/temple-grandin-the-science-of-livestock-animal-welfare

Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Ny...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/susan-jacoby-american-freethought-heritage

Point of Inquiry is on a short hiatus right now as we transition to a new podcast team. In the meantime, enjoy these classic episodes from the POI archives, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Ny...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/neil-de-grasse-tyson-communicating-science-to-the-public

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is an inspiring thinker whom we've wanted to get on the show for a long, long time: ETHAN ZUCKERMAN. He's the director of the Center for Civic Media at ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/ethan-zuckerman-digital-cosmopolitans-in-the-age-of-connection

Host: Chris Mooney One thing we often forget about great scientists, especially as they are lionized and mythologized: they made mistakes. Sometimes big ones. Sometimes, even, brilliant ones. ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/mario-livio-brilliant-blunders-from-darwin-to-einstein

Host: Indre Viskontas Having spent 50 years as an influential thinker, Daniel Dennett has earned the right to tell us how to think. His latest book is a collection of 77 tools for thinking, whi...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/daniel-dennett-tools-for-thinking

Host: Chris Mooney From 9-11, to the death of Osama bin Laden, to the Boston Bombings, there's been a consistently bizarre and troubling reaction by some members of the public. We're referrin...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/stephan-lewandowsky-the-mind-of-the-conspiracy-theorist

Host: Chris Mooney Over the weekend, the Center for Inquiry's Women in Secularism II  conference unfolded in Washington, D.C.—and we caught up with one of the event's most distinguished spea...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/katha-pollitt-is-religion-inherently-sexist

Host: Chris Mooney A few months back on this show, we heard from Bill McKibben , the celebrated environmental writer and, more recently, leader of a mass movement around preventing climate cha...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/michael-levi-fracking-pipelines-and-science

NOTE: YOU CAN WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE . In this special episode of Point of Inquiry, Chris and Indre speak with the Pulitzer Prize winning Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jared-diamond-the-world-until-yesterday

Host: Indre Viskontas In the science section at your local bookstore, you'll find plenty of books on everything from the brain, to the climate, to the cosmos. But how many books will you find...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/mary-roach-adventures-on-the-alimentary-canal

Host: Chris Mooney Back in the summer of 2011—just before the 10 year anniversary of 9/11—this show welcomed on Scott Atran, an anthropologist who is a leading expert on terrorism and viole...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/scott-atran-what-makes-a-terrorist

Host: Chris Mooney We've all heard the claim: Academia is liberal. And it indoctrinates students. It kills their religious faith and basically—or at least, so the allegation goes—transfor...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/neil-gross-why-are-professors-and-scientists-so-liberal

Host: Chris Mooney Remember all the greatest hits of religious apologists—the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for God's existence? You may have learned how to refute t...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/a-c-grayling-the-god-argument

Host: Chris Mooney You hear it a lot from religious believers: Faith is about doing good works, bringing about good in the world, and showing compassion. In fact, some go further and argue th...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/frans-de-waal-the-bonobo-and-the-atheist

Host: Indre Viskontas Back in February, Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer made a decision that pushed gender issues and the work/life balance back into the headlines: she mandated that her...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/carol-tavris-the-science-of-sex-and-gender

Host: Chris Mooney Later this year, May 17 to 19 in Washington, D.C., the Center for Inquiry will convene its second "Women in Secularism" conference . There are a host of great speakers, man...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/amanda-marcotte-skepticism-needs-feminism

Host: Chris Mooney I'm a big defender of the proposition that when it comes to abusing science, the political left and the political right are very different beasts. But that doesn't make the...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/mark-lynas-science-and-the-left

Host: Indre Viskontas Even the hard-core skeptics believe in magic, says Matthew Hutson in his new book The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep us Happy, Healthy and Sane wh...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/matthew-hutson-the-7-laws-of-magical-thinking

NOTE: YOU CAN WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE .  Since the horrendous massacre of children and teachers in Newtown, CT last year, gun control and the second amendment have been frequent topics ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/point-of-inquiry-live-steven-pinker-the-decline-of-violence

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is SUSAN JACOBY. She's the bestselling author of a number of books about secularism and American culture, including Freethinkers: A History of American ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/susan-jacoby-freethought-s-forgotten-hero

This year's flu season has been dubbed the worst in recent history, despite the fact that the flu vaccine is fairly effective and readily available. But of course, not everyone experiencing flu-l...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/carl-zimmer-viruses-and-other-little-things

Host: Chris Mooney We are thrilled by our guest this week, who is not only one of the world's most famous economists and economics commentators, but also a Nobel Laureate in his field: PAUL KRU...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/paul-krugman-science-and-pseudoscience-in-economics

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is Sean Carroll—theoretical physicist at CalTech, and skilled science communicator. I've known Sean and his work for almost a decade, and I've invited...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/sean-carroll-the-particle-at-the-end-of-the-universe

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is MARIA KONNIKOVA, who is the author of a simply fascinating new book about training your mind so you're as sharp as the fictional detective Sherlock Hol...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/maria-konnikova-how-to-think-like-sherlock-holmes

Host: Chris Mooney This is our first show of 2013, and notably, WE'RE STILL HERE. A lot of people actually thought the world was going to end at the end of last year, which, presumably, means...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/phil-plait-notpocalypse

Host: Indre Viskontas It's become almost a truism that in their spare time, skeptics tend to gravitate towards TV shows, novels and games that portray the very monsters, myths and conspiracies ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/scott-sigler-encouraging-critical-thinking-through-science-fiction

Host: Chris Mooney We usually record Point of Inquiry at a distance. Over the phone. Skyping. But for this show, I packed up my gear and hailed a cab—to the Center for Inquiry's brand new O...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/ronald-a-lindsay-and-michael-de-dora-mr-science-goes-to-washington

Host: Chris Mooney It's rare that I can say about a guest that, I read his books when I was a kid. But DAVID BRIN is just such a guest. He's the celebrated science fiction author of the Uplif...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/david-brin-uplifting-existence

Host: Chris Mooney When we last had Bill McKibben on this show  in 2010, I was mainly treating him as another bestselling science author—one who happens to focus on climate change. Well. ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/bill-mc-kibben-do-the-math

Host: Indre Viskontas Because we live in an uncertain world, we arm ourselves with facts to gain a sense of control and therefore some modicum of comfort. We know that the sun will rise tomorro...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/samuel-arbesman-the-half-life-of-facts

Host: Chris Mooney One of the first people I ever got to know in skepticism was Steven Novella. He was a professor at Yale, just starting out as an organized skeptic—I was a student, just g...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/steven-novella-exposing-medical-nonsense

Host: Chris Mooney Before the "complementary and alternative medicine" fad, and before UFO craze, lived a man whom you might call the first modern pseudoscientist. His name was Immanuel Velik...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/michael-gordin-the-psuedoscience-wars

Host: Chris Mooney On this show, we often debate the state of American secularism—covering topics like the rise of the so-called "nones," or the unending battle to rescue the country from the...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jacques-berlinerblau-how-to-be-secular

Host: Indre Viskotnas Despite our individual differences, highlighted especially during an election, much of what we see, hear, smell or feel is shareable: that is, when standing in front of an...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/oliver-sacks-hallucinations

Hosts: Indre Viskontas and Chris Mooney At the 2012 CSICON conference in Nashville, Tennessee, your Point of Inquiry hosts Indre Viskontas and Chris Mooney finally actually found themselves in ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/special-double-episode-jon-ronson-and-richard-wiseman-with-indre-viskontas-and-chris-mooney

Host: Indre Viskontas The month of October is associated with falling leaves, autumn winds and hallowe'en. But for sports fans in the US, it also signals a high point in America's national past...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/bruce-hood-superstitions-in-baseball

Host: Chris Mooney In this show, we talk to two founders of ScienceDebate, a nonprofit organization that in the last two election cycles has pushed to get the presidential candidates to talk ab...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/science-and-the-2012-election-shawn-otto-and-matthew-chapman

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is LISA RANDALL, the Harvard theoretical physicist and one of the most heavily cited and influential researchers in her field. She's a member of a number ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/lisa-randall-knocking-on-heaven-s-door

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is a return guest of the show, Massimo Pigliucci. We last heard  about his book Nonsense on Stilts, which was about how to distinguish between science...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/massimo-pigliucci-living-philosophically

Host: Indre Viskontas There is no doubt that our world is populated with cheats and liars. Most of us, slaves to the availability heuristic, think of major cheaters like Bernie Madoff, Tiger Wo...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/dan-ariely-the-honest-truth-about-dishonesty

Host: Chris Mooney How many atheists are there in the world? Where do they live? What kind of people are they, and how do they get that way? Are they happy? Are they prosperous? Do they drag ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/phil-zuckerman-the-sociology-of-irreligion

Host: Chris Mooney Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to make American politics just a little more rational, just a little more evidence based? Wouldn't it be even nicer if there was a w...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/rick-hayes-roth-truth-market

Host: Chris Mooney Several times on this show, we've discussed the topic of ideological asymmetry. In other words, are people of all political persuasions equally biased, equally prone to reaso...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/peter-ditto-morals-facts-and-libertarians

Host: Indre Viskontas According to the USDA, Americans produce and consume more beef, veal, and chicken than any other nation in the world. As a result, the status of animal welfare in the meat...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/temple-grandin-the-science-of-animal-livestock-welfare

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is ARIE KRUGLANSKI. He's a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland College Park, and has been a pioneer in the stud...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/arie-kruglanski-the-science-of-closed-mindedness

Host: Chris Mooney This week's guest is Joe Romm. You may know him as a top blogger on global warming and energy—but that's not why we're having him on. In an impressive show of versatility...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/joe-romm-language-intelligence

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is Peter Montgomery, senior fellow with People for the American Way and author of a new report entitled Twelve Rules for Mixing Religion and Politics , r...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/peter-montgomery-12-rules-for-mixing-religion-and-politics

Host: Indre Viskontas In an election year, it is especially important that our critical thinking skills be sharply honed. We have to sift through facts, fiction, and hyperbole in order to decid...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/christopher-di-carlo-how-to-become-a-really-good-pain-in-the-ass

Kerry Emanuel is a leading atmospheric scientist and a self-described conservative. As a result, lately he's been at the forefront of trying to convince his ideological brethren that the science ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2012_07_23_Kerry_Emanuel.mp3

Host: Chris Mooney Can people who care about secularism take America back from the religious right? Of all the questions that concern us on this show, this is perhaps the most important, the ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/david-niose-nonbeliever-nation

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest is TINA DUPUY—the reporter, comedian, skeptic, and editor-in-chief of the startup publication SoapBlox. Dupuy appears frequently on MSNBC, Current TV, RT and th...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/tina-dupuy-skepticism-meets-comedy

Host: Chris Mooney For this episode of Point of Inquiry, we tried something a little different. At Center for Inquiry headquarters in Amherst, NY, we filmed a special hour long program  with ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/special-in-studio-episode-jamie-kilstein-ed-brayton-and-more

Host: Indre Viskontas The idea that science moves forward by carefully peeling back layers of the onion of truth, one by one, in a deliberate fashion, is so prevalent that it borders on cliche....

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/stuart-firestein-how-ignorance-drives-science

Host: Chris Mooney  Our guest this week is CHRIS HAYES, host of MSNBC's Up With Chris Hayes and editor at large of The Nation. Hayes has come out with a much anticipated new book that makes ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/chris-hayes-twilight-of-the-elites

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is CARA SANTA MARIA, the senior science correspondent for the Huffington Post and the personage behind its "Talk Nerdy to Me" video series. Recent topics ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/cara-santa-maria-talk-nerdy-to-us

Host: Chris Mooney In late April, a study came out in Science  that really got the secular blogosphere hopping. It was a paper showing that something we've long suspected may be true—less...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/will-gervais-this-is-your-brain-on-religion

Host: Indre Viskontas Recently, there has been a flurry of neuroscientists declaring that free will is an illusion in the popular press. But before we can assess the extent to which we are zomb...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/christof-koch-consciousness-and-free-will

Host: Chris Mooney Over the weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend the 2012 World Skeptics Conference in Berlin. It's important to keep tabs on our skeptical and freethinking colleagues ar...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/johan-braeckman-the-rise-of-islamic-creationism

Our guest this week is Greta Christina, a leading atheist blogger, speaker, and commentator, and a regular contributor to AlterNet.org . Christina is author of the new ebook Why Are You Atheis...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/greta-christina-why-are-you-atheists-so-angry

Host: Indre Viskontas In developed countries at least, the status of women has improved considerably in the last century. But in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), they remain un...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/m-g-lord-the-accidental-feminist

Host: Chris Mooney This week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a conference convened entitled "Science Writing in the Age of Denial." The keynote speaker was a former Point of Inquiry gue...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/naomi-oreskes-neoliberalism-and-the-denial-of-global-warming-

Host: Chris Mooney This week, our guest is a return one: AUSTIN DACEY. He's a philosopher, a writer, and a human rights activist, and the creator of the Impossible Music Sessions , which we fe...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/austin-dacey-the-future-of-blasphemy

GUEST HOST: JOHN SHOOK  In this special episode of Point of Inquiry, we interview our host himself—about his new book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality....

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/chris-mooney-the-republican-brain

Host: Chris Mooney This week, Point of Inquiry is thrilled to welcome back one of our most popular guests: Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famed astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose Director of the H...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/neil-de-grasse-tyson-space-chronicles

Host: Indre Viskontas The end is nigh. 2012 is a banner year for doomsday prophecies, though there still seems to be debate concerning precisely how life as we know it will be snuffed out. Holl...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/david-morrison-cosmic-impact-hazard

Host: Chris Mooney Why is it that some of us are religious, some of us not... some of us liberal, some of us not? If you've been paying attention, then by now you might have noticed that this...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jonathan-haidt-the-righteous-mind

Host: Chris Mooney If there's one thing Point of Inquiry is concerned about, it's ensuring a rational, sensible conversation in politics, in public life. And you simply can't have such a conve...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/ari-rabin-havt-the-fox-effect

Host: Chris Mooney A common goal of freethinkers, humanists, skeptics, and atheists is to preserve Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation" between church and state. But we haven't always been s...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/sean-faircloth-attack-of-the-theocrats

Host: Indre Viskontas One of the costs of being conscious is that, once in a while, we are forced to contemplate the fact that we are mortal. Ironically, a close brush with the grim reaper leav...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/gerald-woerlee-and-susan-blackmore-near-dear-experiences-and-consciousness

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is Michael Mann, the prominent climatologist and, above all, leading defender of his field—and himself—against political attacks. Mann is out with a...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/michael-mann-the-hockey-stick-and-the-climate-wars

Host: Chris Mooney So who's right, factually, about politics and science? Who speaks truth, and who's just spinning? It's kind of the million dollar question. If we could actually answer it, ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/dan-kahan-the-great-ideological-asymmetry-debate

Host: Chris Mooney We had Lawrence Krauss on Point of Inquiry less than a year ago, to discuss his recent book on the scientific works of Richard Feynman. But in order to keep up with him, we...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/lawrence-krauss-a-universe-from-nothing

Host: Chris Mooney Earlier this month, Point of Inquiry host Chris Mooney attended Science Online, the premiere science blogging conference, in the research triangle area. There were many sci...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/brian-malow-the-science-comedian

Host: Chris Mooney Eugenie Scott is no stranger to Point of Inquiry, or to the secular community. Her endless travails to defend the teaching of evolution have won her immense respect. And th...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/eugenie-scott-defending-climate-education

Host: Chris Mooney It's the beginning of a new year here at Point of Inquiry, and we've got a pretty good guest to kick it off. He needs no introduction. He's Brian Greene—celebrity physici...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/brian-greene-the-fabric-of-the-cosmos

Host: Karen Stollznow Dr. Stuart Robbins is a postdoctoral researcher in astronomy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His work focuses on planetary geophysics, and he’s currently researc...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/stuart-robbins-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it

Host: Chris Mooney How do you successfully debunk misinformation? The question is a deceptively simple one—which is precisely the problem. Debunking is easy—just refute false claims, an...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/john-cook-the-debunking-handbook

Guest Host: John Shook Recently, the Center for Inquiry held a conference titled "Daniel Dennett and the Scientific Study of Religion: A Celebration of the Fifth Anniversary of Breaking the Spe...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/daniel-dennett-the-scientific-study-of-religion

Host: Chris Mooney Over the last decade, there have been many calls in the secular community for increased criticism of religion, and increased activism to help loosen its grip on the public. ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/robert-mc-cauley-why-religion-is-natural-and-science-is-not-

Host: Karen Stollznow Scott Gavura is a registered pharmacist in Ontario with a personal and professional interest in improving the way we use medication. Scott started the Science-Based Pharm...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/scott-gavura-dispensing-skepticism

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is Jonathan Weiler, a political scientist and director of global studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Weiler is co-author, with Mar...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jonathan-weiler-authoritarians-versus-reality

Host: Robert Price Ebenezer Scrooge once called Christmas "a false and commercial holiday." Is it? Should Humanists refuse to observe it? Should they wage war on it? Should they celebrate "Sank...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/tom-flynn-the-trouble-with-christmas

Host: Chris Mooney Recently in New Orleans, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry held the very first CSICON—the conference dedicated to scientific inquiry and critical thinking. The main hon...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/bill-nye-in-praise-of-reason-and-skepticism-

Host: Karen Stollznow Dr. Seth Shostak is the Senior Astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI). Seth is the author of Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scienti...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/seth-shostak-et-call-seti

Host: Chris Mooney Human cloning. Synthetic biology. Mood (and mind) altering drugs. Personalized medicine. Such topics are rarely at the top of the political agenda. Yet the changes they're ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jonathan-moreno-our-new-biopolitics

Host: Robert Price Richard C. Johnson Ph.D. is a retired chemist and serves as Treasurer for Freethought Arizona. For some 25 years, the company he founded worked with scientists and research...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/richard-c-johnson-religion-the-failed-narrative

Host: Chris Mooney In recent months, political attacks on science have been back in the news. Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman even famously tweeted , "To be clear, I believe i...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/shawn-otto-the-assault-on-science

Host: Adam Isaak This October-on Halloween weekend-the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry is holding a conference: CSICon . It's the latest in a line of CSI skeptics' conferences going back to wh...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/csi-con-the-conference-dedicated-to-scientific-inquiry-and-critical-thinking

Host: Karen Stollznow Indre Viskontas is a neuroscientist, a soprano, and a skeptic. She is a host of the television show The Miracle Detectives that recently aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/indre-viskontas-the-miracle-detective

Host: Chris Mooney This coming October, in Kabul, Afghanistan—on a date, and in a location, that remain undisclosed—there will be a rock concert that's billed as the world's "first stealth ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/austin-dacey-rock-the-theocrats

Host: Robert Price Lee Salisbury was at one time an up-and-coming Charismatic Christian pastor, even a healer! Then how did he wind up actively involved in the ranks of Minnesota Atheists? Of...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/lee-salisbury-from-faith-to-critical-thinking

Host: Chris Mooney We've heard a lot in the news lately about Dominionists—Christians who believe, basically, that they ought to be running this country. Dominionism has different strains. ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/rachel-tabachnick-exposing-dominionism

Host: Karen Stollznow John Dodes is a dentist with a special interest in dentistry and pseudoscience. He is one of the founding fellows of the Institute for Science in Medicine, a former Presid...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/john-dodes-the-tooth-about-dentistry

Host: Chris Mooney In less than two weeks, the ten year anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil—9/11—will be upon us. In the past decade, there has been much debate and di...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/scott-atran-violent-extremism-and-sacred-values

Host: Robert Price Host Robert M. Price felt uncannily as if he were talking to himself when he interviewed Dan Barker, the two share so much in common. But then their story is not so unusual, ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/dan-barker-u-turn-on-the-road-to-damascus

Host: Chris Mooney Why are human beings simultaneously capable of reasoning, and yet so bad at it? Why do we have such faulty mechanisms as the "confirmation bias" embedded in our brains, and y...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/did-reason-evolve-for-arguing-hugo-mercier

My guest this week is Donald Prothero, Professor of Geology at Occidental College, and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology. Don is a distinguished academic; a Fellow ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/donald-prothero-the-psychology-of-cryptozoologists

Host: Chris Mooney When it comes to the U.S. political right, it often appears that the opposition to science-and reason in general-is everywhere. From climate change denial to anti-evolutionis...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/david-frum-and-kenneth-silber-conservatives-and-science-

Host: Robert Price A couple of student hecklers once reproved Marlowe's Dr. Faustus: "Faustus! Plumb the depths of that which you profess!" Many evangelical Christians have buckled down to stud...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jaco-gericke-confessions-of-a-died-again-christian

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is Rebecca Watson, the founder of the Skepchick  blog. Recently, she's been at the center of an explosive controversy over the relationship between femi...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/rebecca-watson-skepticism-and-feminism

Host: Karen Stollznow Richard Wiseman is Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in England. Richard began his career as a professional magician b...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/richard-wiseman-paranormality

Host: Chris Mooney It's not often that Hollywood takes up the subject of atheism directly—much less sympathetically. Even rarer is finding this in a film starring major names like Liv Tyler...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/matthew-chapman-the-ledge

Host: Robert Price D.M. Murdock, who also goes by the pen name "Acharya S.," is the author of The Christ Conspiracy, the most controversial of modern treatments of the Christ Myth theory. She h...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/d-m-murdock-the-christ-conspiracy

Host: Chris Mooney Recently, we've seen a spate of news stories—and news incidents—involving conservative politicians and activists getting details wrong about American history. There was...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/rick-perlstein-is-there-a-republican-war-on-history-

Host: Karen Stollznow This week’s guest is Jean Mercer, a Developmental Psychologist and Professor Emerita at Richard Stockton College. She is the author of the new book Child Development: My...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jean-mercer-child-development-myths-and-misunderstandings

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine and head of the Skeptics Society, and a longtime commentator on issues relating to science, critical...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/michael-shermer-the-believing-brain

Host: Robert Price Do you often wish you lived in the far future? Or on a different planet? Do your friends and family think you belong there, too? Cheer up! This may not be just because you'...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/scott-lohman-star-trek-and-humanism

Host: Chris Mooney From Birthers, to Truthers, to Deathers—to occasional Liars—America seems to be crawling right now with fevered conspiracy mongers. What's up with that? To find out, Po...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jonathan-kay-among-the-truthers

Host: Karen Stollznow Robert Sheaffer is a Committee for Skeptical Inquiry fellow and author of the "Psychic Vibrations" column for Skeptical Inquirer magazine. He writes the "Bad UFO" blog and...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/robert-sheaffer-it-s-a-conspiracy

Special Guest Host: Ronald A. Lindsay In this special episode, Chris Mooney changes places and becomes the interviewee—and then finds himself facing some probing questions from CFI President ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/chris-mooney-accommodationism-and-the-psychology-of-belief

Host: Robert Price Robert "Bo" Bennett wears many hats (author, motivational speaker, black belt Karate master, businessman, etc.) but manages not to have a swelled head to accommodate them! Hi...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/bo-bennett-christian-nontheism

Host: Chris Mooney George Lakoff is a cognitive linguist at the University of California at Berkeley. But unlike many of his scientific peers, he's known as much for his work on politics as for...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/george-lakoff-enlightenments-old-and-new

Host: Karen Stollznow Our guest this week is Josh Rosenau, the Programs and Policy Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and writer of the blog "Thoughts from Kansas" �...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/josh-rosenau-the-evolution-revolution

Host: Chris Mooney When the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck Japan last month, it left behind not only mass destruction, but also a nuclear crisis that was covered 24-7 by the internat...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/nuclear-risk-and-reason-david-brenner-and-david-ropeik

Host: Robert Price One of the outstanding leaders of organized atheism in our day is a man named August Berkshire. He is a non-believer of broad sympathies, having served as an officer and/or b...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/august-berkshire-minnesota-atheist

Host: Chris Mooney Physicist Lawrence Krauss has written numerous popular books about science, including the bestselling The Physics of Star Trek. But now he's tried something different—pen...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/lawrence-krauss-quantum-man

Host: Karen Stollznow My guest this week is Cheryl Russell, a recognized authority on statistics and demographics. Cheryl is the editorial director of New Strategist Publications and the form...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/cheryl-russell-society-statistics-and-skepticism

Host: Chris Mooney Recently, it has come to light that many scientists—scientists who don't believe in God--nevertheless claim to be "spiritual but not religious." Some in the secular movemen...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/spirituality-friend-or-foe-adam-frank-and-tom-flynn

Host: Robert Price One of the most effective (not to mention hilarious) speakers for atheism and secular humanism today is Frank Zindler, author, linguist, translator, Bible scholar, and scient...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/frank-zindler-the-christ-myth

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week needs little introduction—he may be our most famous public communicator of science. He's Neil DeGrasse Tyson, renowned American astrophysicist, direct...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/neil-de-grasse-tyson-communicating-science-

Host: Karen Stollznow Michael Cicchini is a criminal defense attorney and a skeptic. Through extensive research and writing in the field of criminal law he has advocated for defendants' right...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/michael-cicchini-myths-misconceptions-and-the-law

Host: Chris Mooney Why do Americans claim to love science, but then selectively reject its findings when they're inconvenient? And why do some cultural groups reject certain types of scientific...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/dan-kahan-the-american-culture-war-of-fact

Host: Robert Price The nineties witnessed an outbreak of "Satanic Panic," with psychologists dredging up false memories of "Satanic ritual abuse" which landed innocent parents in jail and banke...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/don-webb-devil-s-advocate

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is Arthur Caplan, sometimes called the country's "most quoted bioethicist" and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. In ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/art-caplan-bioethics-comes-of-age-

Host: Karen Stollznow Joe Nickell is one of the world's most prominent skeptical investigators of the paranormal. He has researched numerous historical, paranormal, and forensic mysteries, myth...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/joe-nickell-the-other-side

Host: Chris Mooney Recently the British Medical Journal dealt yet another blow to 1998 scientific study that first terrified the public about the possibility that vaccines might cause autism. T...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/the-irrationality-vaccine-seth-mnookin

Host: Robert Price Robert Price interviews fellow Bible Geek and secular Bible scholar Hector Avalos on a wide range of topics, from the increasingly devotional character of the Society of Bibl...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/hector-avalos-the-end-of-biblical-studies

Host: Chris Mooney By now you've probably heard the finding-the United States is growing less godly. More precisely, more and more Americans in surveys report that they lack a religious identit...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/barry-kosmin-one-nation-losing-god

Host: Karen Stollznow Reed Esau is a skeptical activist and one of the founders of SkeptiCamp. Also known as Open Events, these are informal, community-organized conference where speakers tackl...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/reed-esau-skepti-camp-the-unconference

Ever been in an argument with someone and felt massively frustrated, because nothing you can say seems to change the person's mind? Maybe that's what you should expect to happen. Maybe you shou...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/why-facts-fail-brendan-nyhan

Host: Robert Price Roger Nygard recently produced and directed a feature documentary called The Nature of Existence. In it, he asks some of the biggest of questions to "the widest cross-section...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/roger-nygard-the-nature-of-existence

Host: Chris Mooney Recently at Pomona College in California, three atheists—one of them a Point of Inquiry host—got together to debate the future of the movement. And some sparks flew. ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/the-future-of-atheism-beyond-the-question-of-god

Host: Karen Stollznow This week is a special episode featuring interviews with two guests, James Randi and D.J. Grothe. James Randi is a world-renowned magician and the modern-day Houdini of ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/james-randi-and-d-j-grothe-amaz-ng-skepticism

Host: Chris Mooney For the community of scientists who study the Earth’s climate, these are bewildering times. They've seen wave upon wave of political attacks. They're getting accustomed t...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/john-abraham-and-scott-mandia-climate-science-strikes-back

Host: Robert Price How did his studies at Catholic Georgetown University set CFI President and CEO Ronald A. Lindsay on the primrose path to atheism? Does he now count himself a lawyer or a phi...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/ronald-a-lindsay-observations-on-ethics-law-and-cfi

Host: Chris Mooney It’s a longstanding debate in the philosophy of science: Is "demarcation" possible? Can we really draw firm lines between science and pseudoscience? Massimo Pigliucci thi...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/massimo-pigliucci-nonsense-on-stilts

Host: Karen Stollznow Warren Bonett is a skeptic, author and an independent bookseller. Warren wanted to become actively involved in critical thinking without joining an organization or becomin...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/warren-bonett-down-under-reason

Host: Chris Mooney On the show this week, Point of Inquiry features one of our most distinguished science writers—Carl Zimmer. He's the author of many acclaimed books, including Evolution: Th...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/carl-zimmer-this-is-your-brain-on-i-pad

Host: Robert Price Our guest is philosopher and author John Shook, discussing his experiences debating religious believers and whether such debates are a good idea. Some say no, that such spe...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/john-shook-the-god-debates

Recently at the 30th anniversary conference of the Council for Secular Humanism in Los Angeles, leading science blogger PZ Myers and Point of Inquiry host Chris Mooney appeared together on a pane...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/pz-myers-jennifer-michael-hecht-and-chris-mooney-new-atheism-or-accommodation-

Host: Karen Stollznow Steve Spangler is a science educator, inventor, and an Emmy Award winning TV personality. He is the author of Fizz Factor: 50 Amazing Experiments With Soda Pop, Secret Sci...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/steve-spangler-hands-on-science

Host: Chris Mooney Ever wonder about the mathematical basis for battling a zombie infestation? Jennifer Ouellette has. In her new book The Calculus Diaries, the English major turned science jou...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jennifer-ouellette-calculus-las-vegas-and-the-zombie-apocalypse

Host: Robert Price In this episode of Point of Inquiry, Robert Price interviews Jen Roth, co-founder of All Our Lives, a secular organization committed to advocating for women's right to exerci...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/jen-roth-atheist-against-abortion

Host: Chris Mooney At a recent conference in Lake Tahoe, demographer S. Jay Olshansky presented a roomful of technologists with an exciting prospect. Through a concerted scientific attack on th...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/s-jay-olshansky-can-science-extend-human-life-

Host: Karen Stollznow Brian Brushwood began his career in magic "To get free drinks at bars and impress friends," but ended up becoming a science communicator and skeptic. The author of Cheat...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/brian_brushwood_scams_swindles_and_skepticism

This is a show about evolution—but not, for once, about the evolution wars. Instead, it concerns one of the most intriguing ideas to emerge in quite some time about the evolution of humans. I...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/richard_wrangham_rediscovering_fire

Robert Price being off for the week, today we present a lecture given by Dr. Price at the Center for Inquiry's annual Student Leadership Conferece titled "Is the Bible Mein Kampf?" In his talk,...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/robert_m_price_is_the_bible_mein_kampf_

This week, the scope of Point of Inquiry expands to include politics and more particularly, the fount of misinformation that is Glenn Beck of Fox News. This TV and radio personality is ushering i...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/alexander_zaitchik_glenn_beck_s_war_on_reason

Andrew Mayne is a magician, paranormal illusionist, inventor, TV producer and skeptic. One of the most creative and innovative minds in magic, Andrew has written and produced over 40 books and ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/andrew_mayne_magic_mischief_and_mayhem

When President Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009, he pledged to “restore science to its rightful place” in the U.S. government. And true to his word, the president promptly staffed his...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/francesca_grifo_science_under_obama

Tom Quinn has spent the past 15 years as a documentary TV writer and producer for Discovery Channel, History Channel, National Geographic and others. He has traveled the world producing programs ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/tom_quinn_o_sweet_jesus

Our guest this week needs no introduction for those in the skeptical and secular world. After all, he has a frakkin' asteroid named after him. He’s Phil Plait—science blogger extraordinaire...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/phil_plait_death_from_the_skies

Adam Savage is an artist, actor, educator, special effects designer and co-host of the Discovery Channel's TV show Mythbusters.   Adam has a diverse background in animation and design, and for...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/adam_savage_skeptic_confirmed_

Recently in Amherst, New York, two of Point of Inquiry’s hosts sat down for a special in-studio episode of the show. One was a conservative (Robert Price), one a liberal (Chris Mooney)—and b...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/robert_price_chris_mooney_must_atheists_also_be_liberals_

Tom Flynn is Executive Director of The Council for Secular Humanism, Editor of Free Inquiry magazine, Director of Inquiry Media Productions, and Director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/tom_flynn_in_like_flynn

Global warming, we're often told, is an issue we must address for the sake of our grandchildren. We need to cut carbon because of our moral obligation to future generations. But according to ...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/bill_mc_kibben_our_strange_new_eaarth

Tim Farley is a computer software engineer, skeptic, and creator of the popular website What’s the Harm? His site answers this salient question with over 670,000 stories of people who have ind...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/tim_farley_what_s_the_harm_

This week’s guest is Naomi Oreskes, co-author with historian Eric Conway of the new book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Globa...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/naomi_oreskes_merchants_of_doubt_

S. T. Joshi is a leading authority on H. P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, and other writers, mostly in the realms of supernatural and fantasy fiction. He has edited corrected editions...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/s_t_joshi_fright_and_freethought

This week, we learned that J. Craig Venter has at long last created a synthetic organism—a simple life form constructed, for the first time, by man. Let the controversy begin—and if New Yorke...

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George Hrab is a composer, professional musician, singer, songwriter, podcaster, and skeptic. George is the Host and Producer of the Geologic Podcast, a popular weekly show about music, comedy, s...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_05_14_George_Hrab.mp3

It’s hard to think of an issue more contentious these days than the relationship between faith and science. If you have any doubt, just flip over to the science blogosphere: You’ll see the ar...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_05_07_Elaine_Ecklund.mp3

Lois Schadewald's interest in both science and pseudoscience rubbed off on her from her brilliant brother Robert J. Schadewald, a prolific author and debater. When Bob died a decade ago he left b...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_04_30_Lois_Schadewald.mp3

For many of us, chemistry is something we remember with groans from high school. Periodic Table of the Elements—what a pain to memorize, and what was the point, anyway? So how do you take a s...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_04_23_Deborah_Blum.mp3

Dr. Robert Todd Carroll is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and author of The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions. H...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_04_16_Bob_Carroll.mp3

For two decades now, we’ve failed to seriously address climate change. So the planet just keeps warming—and it could get very bad. Picture major droughts, calving of gigantic ice sheets, incr...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_04_09_Eli_Kintisch.mp3

Thomas J.J. Altizer burst onto the religious scene in the 1960s with his book The Gospel of Christian Atheism. He was one of the "Death of God" theologians discussed in the famous TIME cover stor...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_04_02_Thomas_Altizer.mp3

Paul Kurtz is founder and chair emeritus of the Center for Inquiry and founder of a number of other organizations. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is Profe...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_SE03_Paul_Kurtz.mp3

Dr. Scott Lilienfeld is Professor of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta. Scott is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a Consulting Editor for Skeptical Inquirer and the Founde...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_03_19_Scott_Lilienfeld.mp3

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 of Colorado Citizens for Science....

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_SE02_Victor_Stenger.mp3

We live in a science centered age—a time of private spaceflight and personalized medicine, amid path-breaking advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology. And we face science centered risks: c...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_03_12_Andrew_Revkin.mp3

Robert J. Miller is Rosenberger Chair of Christian and Religious Studies at Juniata College in Pennsylvania.  A Fellow of the Jesus Seminar since 1986, he was Scholar-in-Residence at Westar Inst...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_03_05_Robert_Miller.mp3

For the scientists who study global warming, now is the winter of their despair.   In the news, it has been climate scandal after alleged climate scandal.  First came “ClimateGate,” the...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_02_26_Michael_Mann.mp3

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 of Colorado Citizens for Scienc...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_SE01_Victor_Stenger.mp3

Ian Rowland is a Mentalist and Mind Reader living near London, UK.  The world’s foremost authority on cold reading, he is the author of the Full Facts Book of Cold Reading.  In this book, Row...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_02_19_Ian_Rowland.mp3

Recently, there was another nail in the coffin for vaccine skeptics. The British medical journal The Lancet took the dramatic step of retracting a 1998 paper that lies at the root of modern vacci...

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Banachek is an American mentalist and skeptic. He has written numerous books and invented various magic and mentalism effects, and is often sought out by top entertainers such as David Blaine, La...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_01_25_Banachek.mp3

Frank Schaeffer is New York Times best selling author whose books include three semi-biographical novels about life in a strict, fundamentalist household: Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma, ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_11_06_Frank_Schaeffer.mp3

Harry Houdini, the world-famous magician and debunker of mediums, earnestly explored the religion of spiritualism and communication with the dead after his beloved mother’s death in 1913. In th...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_10_30_Houdini_Seance.mp3

Randy Olson is a marine biologist and filmmaker who holds a PhD in biology from Harvard University. A graduate of the U.S.C. Cinema School in 1997, he wrote and directed the movies Flock of Dodos...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_10_23_Randy_Olson.mp3

Dr. Darrel W. Ray is author of three books, two on organizational psychology. He has been a psychologist for over 30 years. After practicing counseling and clinical psychology for 10 years, his f...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_10_16_Darrel_Ray.mp3

Chris Mooney is a 2009-2010 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and author of three books, including the New York Times bestselling The Republican War on Science, Storm World, and Unscientifi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_10_09_Chris_Mooney_2.mp3

Russell Blackford is an Australian writer, philosopher, and critic, and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Evolution and Technology. His new book, edited with Udo Schuklenk, is 50 Voices of Disbel...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_10_02_Russell_Blackford.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_09_25_Ben_Radford.mp3

Greg Craven is a high school science teacher and climate change activist from Oregon. His new book is What's the Worst That Could Happen? A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate. In this...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_09_18_Greg_Craven.mp3

J.D. Trout is a professor of philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, and an adjunct professor at the Parmly Sensory Sciences Institute. He writes on the nature of scientific and intellectual pro...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_09_11_JD_Trout.mp3

J.D. Trout is a professor of philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, and an adjunct professor at the Parmly Sensory Sciences Institute. He writes on the nature of scientific and intellectual pro...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_09_04_JD_Trout.mp3

Jeff Sharlet is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone, and a visiting research scholar at New York University's Center for Religion and Media, where he has taught journalism and re...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_08_28_Jeff_Sharlet.mp3

William Little is a freelance journalist based in London, England. He has written for the Saturday Telegraph magazine, Weekend Telegraph, the Guardian, The Times and the Financial Times. He has a...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_08_21_William_Little.mp3

Paul Kurtz is founder and chair emeritus of the Center for Inquiry and founder of a number of other organizations. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is Profe...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_08_14_Paul_Kurtz.mp3

Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and is also a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute. His books include Answering the New Atheism and Te...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_08_07_Benjamin_Wiker.mp3

Ronald A. Lindsay is a bioethicist, lawyer, and chief executive officer of the Center for Inquiry. For many years he practiced law in Washington, DC, and was an adjunct professor at Georgetown Un...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_07_31_Ron_Lindsay.mp3

Mark S. Blumberg is Professor and Starch Faculty Fellow at the University of Iowa. His books include The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Behavioral Neuroscience, Body Heat: Temperature and Life ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_07_24_Mark_Blumberg.mp3

Zachary Shore is Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley. H...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_07_17_Zachary_Shore.mp3

James "The Amazing" Randi is a world-renowned magician, skeptic and investigator of paranormal claims and is a central figure in the founding of the world-wide skeptical movement. Perhaps best kn...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_07_10_James_Randi.mp3

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, was raised Muslim, and spent her childhood and young adulthood in Africa and Saudi Arabia. In 1992, Hirsi Ali came to the Netherlands as a refugee....

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_07_03_Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali.mp3

Tom Flynn is Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Editor of Free Inquiry magazine. A journalist, novelist, entertainer, and folklorist, Flynn is the author of numerous ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_06_26_Tom_Flynn.mp3

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 m...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_06_19_Peter_Singer.mp3

Tom Clark is director of the non-profit Center for Naturalism and author of Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses. He writes on science, free will, consciousness, addiction and other ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_06_12_Tom_Clark.mp3

Ray Hyman is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon and one of the leading figures of modern skepticism. He was a founding member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (for...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_06_05_Ray_Hyman.mp3

Susan Sackett began an association with Gene Roddenberry, creator of the television legend “Star Trek,” serving as his personal executive assistant for over 17 years until his death in Octobe...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_05_29_Susan_Sackett.mp3

Michael Shermer is one of the most well-known skeptics in America, working for decades to advance the scientific outlook in society. He is a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Scientif...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_05_22_Michael_Shermer.mp3

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 Memi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_05_15_Dale_McGowan.mp3

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,...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_05_08_David_Koepsell.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_05_01_Jeff_Schweitzer.mp3

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 Phi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_04_24_Paul_Kurtz.mp3

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 sc...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_04_17_Bruce_Hood.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_04_10_Mary_Roach.mp3

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 research focuses on t...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_04_03_Dacher_Keltner.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_03_27_Austin_Dacey.mp3

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-winnin...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_03_20_Neil_deGrasse_Tyson.mp3

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 a...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_03_13_Angie_McQuaig.mp3

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 Creativit...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_03_06_Eric_Maisel.mp3

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 th...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_02_27_Jerry_Coyne.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_02_20_Norm_Allen.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_02_13_Ronald_Lindsay.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_02_06_David_Linden.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_01_30_John_Loftus.mp3

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, F...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_01_23_Kendrick_Frazier.mp3

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, advisi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_1_16_Christopher_Burns.mp3

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 neuro...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_01_09_Ginger_Campbell.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2009_01_02_Simon_Singh.mp3

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 issu...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_12_26_Tom_Flynn.mp3

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 chai...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_12_19_Paul_Kurtz.mp3

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 Reflect...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_12_12_Solomon_Schimmel.mp3

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 Reflect...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_12_05_Solomon_Schimmel.mp3

Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of award-winning books of philosophy, history, and poetry, including The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism and Anthropology; Doubt: A History;�...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_11_28_Jennifer_Michael_Hecht.mp3

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 operatio...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_11_21_James_McGaha.mp3

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 Phi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_11_14_Peter_Singer.mp3

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 Phi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_11_07_Peter_Singer.mp3

Harry Houdini, the world-famous magician and skeptic, sincerely explored the religion of spiritualism and communication with the dead after his beloved mother’s death in 1913. In this episode f...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_10_31_Houdini_Seance.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_10_24_Todd_Riniolo.mp3

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 19...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_10_17_Edward_Tabash.mp3

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 the...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_10_10_Lawrence_Krauss.mp3

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 p...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_10_03_Michael_Lackey.mp3

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 Paci...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_09_26_Greg_Long.mp3

Justin Trottier is Executive Director of the Centre for Inquiry in Ontario, the first venue dedicated to secular humanists and freethinkers in Canada, and helps oversees CFI Communities in Calga...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_09_19_Justin_Trottier.mp3

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 Endowmen...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_09_12_Andrew_Fraknoi.mp3

Barbara Oakley, PhD, has been dubbed a female Indiana Jones — her writing combines worldwide adventure with solid research expertise. Among other adventures, she has worked as a Russian transla...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_09_05_Barbara_Oakley.mp3

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. Fo...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_08_29_Ronald_Lindsay.mp3

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 audienc...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_08_22_Michael_Dowd.mp3

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 audienc...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_08_15_Michael_Dowd.mp3

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 Un...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_08_08_Allan_Mazur.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_08_01_Guy_Harrison.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_07_25_Lewis_Wolpert_a.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_07_18_Joe_Nickell.mp3

Maggie Jackson is an award-winning author and journalist who writes the popular “Balancing Acts” column in the Boston Globe. Her work also has appeared in the New York Times and on National P...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_07_11_Maggie_Jackson.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_07_04_Ben_Radford.mp3

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....

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_06_27_PZ_Myers_2.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_06_20_PZ_Myers.mp3

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 Po...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_06_13_Susan_Jacoby.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_06_06_Taner_Edis.mp3

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 Com...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_05_30_Robert_Price.mp3

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 a...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_05_23_Jamy_Ian_Swiss.mp3

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 S...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_05_16_Paul_Kurtz.mp3

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...

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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...

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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 wa...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_04_25_John_Shook.mp3

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 Uni...

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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 ...

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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 Un...

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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 lec...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_03_28_Sir_Harold_Kroto.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_03_21_Austin_Dacey.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_03_14_Norm_Allen.mp3

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 Com...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_03_07_Robert_Price.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_02_29_Matthew_Nisbet.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_02_22_Tom_Flynn.mp3

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, s...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_02_15_Lynne_Kelly.mp3

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 crit...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_02_08_Tory_Christman.mp3

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 year...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_02_01_Edward_Tabash.mp3

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 othe...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_01_25_John_Allen_Paulos.mp3

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 N...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_01_18_Colin_McGinn.mp3

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 cell...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_01_11_Aubrey_de_Grey.mp3

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 Frau...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2008_01_04_Stephen_Barrett.mp3

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 Universit...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_12_28_Lawrence_Krauss.mp3

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 S...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_12_21_Paul_Kurtz.mp3

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 grou...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_12_14_Student_Leaders.mp3

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 an...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_12_7_Richard_Dawkins.mp3

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 p...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_11_30_Keith_Stanovich.mp3

Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, started his working life as a professional magician. He currently holds Britain’s only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_11_23_Richard_Wiseman.mp3

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 galax...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_11_07_Neil_deGrasse_Tyson.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_11_07_Michael_Behe.mp3

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, even as he ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_11_02_Houdini_Seance.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_10_26_Steven_Pinker.mp3

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 year...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_10_19_Edward_Tabash.mp3

Barbara Oakley, PhD, has been dubbed a female Indiana Jones — her writing combines worldwide adventure with solid research expertise. Among other adventures, she has worked as a Russian transla...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/barbara_oakley_evil_genes

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 mill...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_10_05_Alan_Dershowitz.mp3

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 f...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_09_28_Joe_Nickell.mp3

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 under...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_09_21_Massimo_Pigliucci.mp3

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 S...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_09_14_Paul_Kurtz.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_09_07_Madeleine_Van_Hecke.mp3

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 D...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_08_31_Francis_Collins.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_08_24_Garrett_Fagan.mp3

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,...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_08_17_Chris_Mooney.mp3

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 Ch...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_08_10_Peter_Gilmore.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_08_03_Carol_Tavris.mp3

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 I...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_07_27_Peter_Irons.mp3

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 maintai...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_07_20_Ophelia_Benson.mp3

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 Scienc...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_07_13_Philip_Kitcher.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_07_06_Christopher_Hitchens.mp3

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, wher...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_06_29_Natalie_Angier.mp3

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 com...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_06_22_Tom_Clark.mp3

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 o...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_06_15_Joseph_Hoffmann.mp3

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 rec...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_06_08_Chris_Wisnia.mp3

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 wit...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_06_01_David_Triggle.mp3

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 f...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_05_25_Jennifer_Michael_Hecht.mp3

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 fo...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_05_18_David_Koepsell.mp3

The world’s 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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_05_11_Joe_Nickell.mp3

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 scholarsh...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_05_04_Hemant_Mehta.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_04_27_Taner_Edis.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_04_20_Matthew_Nisbet.mp3

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 p...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_04_13_Phil_Plait.mp3

The world's 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 o...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_04_06_Joe_Nickell.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_03_30_Nica_Lalli.mp3

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 Philosoph...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_03_23_Susan_Haack.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_03_16_Tawfik_Hamid.mp3

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 Commi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_03_09_Robert_Price.mp3

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 Citizen...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_03_02_Victor_Stenger.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_2007_02_23_Steven_Pinker.mp3

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 Distr...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI-2-16-07.mp3

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 infl...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI-2-9-07.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI-2-2-07.mp3

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 galax...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI-1-26-07.mp3

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 pro...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/john_shook_scientific_naturalism_and_its_discontents

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 ins...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI-1-12-07.mp3

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 advo...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI-1-5-07.mp3

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 o...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI_12_29_06.mp3

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 issu...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/POI-12-22-06.mp3

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 popul...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/12-15-06.mp3

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 orga...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/12-8-06.mp3

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 a...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/12-1-06.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/11-24-06.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/11-17-06.mp3

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 Univer...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/11-10-06.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/11-3-06.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/10-31-06.mp3

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 th...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/10-27-06.mp3

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 SE...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/10-20-06.mp3

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 an...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/10-16-06.mp3

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 bot...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/10-6-06.mp3

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 Commi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/9-29-06.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/9-22-06.mp3

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 wido...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/9-15-06.mp3

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 Phi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/9-8-06.mp3

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 Pro...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/9-1-06.mp3

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 ba...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/8-25-06.mp3

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 additi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/8-18-06.mp3

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 Colleg...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/8-11-06.mp3

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 t...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/8-4-06.mp3

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 Sec...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/7-28-06.mp3

Barry Beyerstein is Professor of Psychology and a member of the Brain Behaviour Laboratory at Simon Fraser University. His research has involved many areas related to his primary scholarly inter...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/7-21-06.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/7-14-06.mp3

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 Buff...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/july-seven-06.mp3

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 p...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/6-30-06.mp3

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-s...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/6-23-06.mp3

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 o...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/6-16-06.mp3

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 th...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/6-9-06.mp3

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 ba...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/6-2-06.mp3

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. ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/5-26-06.mp3

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 strate...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/5-19-06.mp3

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 Buff...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/May-12-06.mp3

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 year...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/5-5-06.mp3

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 Anthro...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/4-28-06.mp3

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 du...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/4-21-06.mp3

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 stu...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/4-14-06.mp3

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 stu...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/4-7-06.mp3

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 th...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/3-31-06.mp3

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 ...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/3-24-06.mp3

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 Time...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/3-17-06.mp3

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 Buff...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/3-10-06.mp3

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 Na...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/3-3-06.mp3

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 Chie...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/2-24-06.mp3

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 ba...

https://pointofinquiry.libsyn.com/joe_nickell_aliens_and_abductions

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/2-10-06.mp3

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...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/2-3-06.mp3

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 intersectio...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/1-27-06.mp3

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 Anthro...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/1-20-06.mp3

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." T...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/1-13-06.mp3

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 criti...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/1-6-06.mp3

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 Time...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/12-30-05.mp3

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 hi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/12-23-05.mp3

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 Universi...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/12-16-05.mp3

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 Sc...

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pointofinquiry/12-12-05.mp3