Stay ConnectedPoint of Inquiry is the Center for Inquiry’s flagship podcast, where the brightest minds of our time sound off on all the things you’re not supposed to talk about at the dinner table: science, religion, and politics.
Guests have included Brian Greene, Susan Jacoby, Richard Dawkins, Ann Druyan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Eugenie Scott, Adam Savage, Bill Nye, and Francis Collins.
Point of Inquiry is produced at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y.
Copyright: © Center for Inquiry
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: climate and energy crises, biological and nuclear terror threats, mega-disasters and global pandemics.
So you would think science journalism would be booming—yet nothing could be further from the case. If you watch 5 hours of cable news today, expect to see just 1 minute devoted to science and technology. From 1989-2005, meanwhile, the number of major newspapers featuring weekly science sections shrank from 95 to 34.
Epitomizing the current decline is longtime New York Times science writer Andrew Revkin, who recently left the paper for a career in academia.
In this conversation with host Chris Mooney, Revkin discusses the uncertain future of his field, the perils of the science blogosphere, his battles with climate blogger Joe Romm, and what it’s like (no joke) to have Rush Limbaugh suggest that you kill yourself. Moving on to the topics he’s covered for over a decade, Revkin also addresses the problem of population growth, the long-range risks that our minds just aren’t trained to think about, and the likely worsening of earthquake and other catastrophes as more people pack into vulnerable places.
Andrew Revkin was the science and environment reporter for the New York Times from 1995 through 2009. During the 2000s, he broke numerous front page stories about how the Bush administration was suppressing science, and launched the highly popular blog Dot Earth. But last year, Revkin announced he was leaving the Times. He accepted a post as a senior fellow of environmental understanding at Pace University in White Plains, New York, where he will focus on teaching and two new book projects—complementing existing works like The North Pole Was Here, a book about the vanishing Arctic aimed at middle and high schoolers. In his new life, Andy will also have much more time to play with what he dubs his “rustic-rootsy” band, Uncle Wade.
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 Institute in 2001. He is the of author numerous books, including Born Divine: The Births of Jesus and Other Sons of God, The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics, and editor of The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate and The Complete Gospels.
In this conversation with host Robert Price, Miller discusses his work as a Jesus Seminar scholar. He reveals the unique methods of the Seminar that attracted him to it in the first place and the benefits that he sees in them. He explains the goals of the Jesus Seminar and whether or not they have changed since its beginnings. Miller lists why there has been public confusion regarding the Seminar and how it has affected public opinion of Jesus and the Bible. Miller elaborates on his own research, explaining how religious fundamentalism gets in the way of understanding how early Christians viewed some writings and shows how some New Testament authors altered Old Testament prophecies to fit their needs. He explains why the view of Jesus as an End-Times Prophet is faulty and the implications of that. He also voices his concern for debating fundamentalist scholars and suggests that it might end up lending undue legitimacy.
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,” then “GlacierGate,” “Amazon Gate,” and so on. In public opinion polls, meanwhile, Americans’ acceptance of the science of global warming appears to be declining. Even a freak snowstorm now seems to sow added doubt about this rigorous body of research.
In response to growing public skepticism—and a wave of dramatic attacks on individual researchers—the scientific community is now bucking up to more strongly defend its knowledge. Leading the charge is one of the most frequently attacked researchers of them all—Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann.
In this interview with host Chris Mooney, Mann pulls no punches. He defends the fundamental scientific consensus on climate change, and explains why those who attack it consistently miss the target. He also answers critics of his “hockey stick” study, and explains why the charges that have arisen in “ClimateGate” seem much more smoke than fire.
Dr. Michael E. Mann is a member of the Pennsylvania State University faculty, and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. His research focuses on the application of statistical techniques to understanding climate variability and change, and he was a Lead Author on the “Observed Climate Variability and Change” chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report. Among many other distinguished scientific activities, editorships, and awards, Mann is author of more than 120 peer-reviewed and edited publications. That includes, most famously, the 1998 study that introduced the so called “hockey stick,” a graph showing that modern temperatures appear to be much higher than anything seen in at least the last thousand years. With his colleague Lee Kump, Mann also recently authored the book Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming. Finally, he is one of the founders and contributors to the prominent global warming blog, RealClimate.org.
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. He's held visiting faculty positions at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and at Oxford in the United Kingdom, and has been a visiting researcher at Rutherford Laboratory in England, the National Nuclear Physics Laboratory in Frascati, Italy, and the University of Florence in Italy. Stenger’s research career has spanned the period of great progress in elementary particle physics that ultimately led to the current standard model. He participated in experiments that helped establish the properties of strange particles, quarks, gluons, and neutrinos and has also helped pioneer the emerging fields of very high energy gamma ray and neutrino astronomy. In his last project before retiring, Vic collaborated on the experiment in Japan which showed for the first time that the neutrino has mass. He is the author of many books, including Comprehensible Cosmos, The Unconscious Quantum, Not by Design, Has Science Found God, the New York times best-seller God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist, and The New Atheists: Standing Up for Science and Reason.
In this, the first of three special-edition epsiodes featuring D.J. Grothe, Vic Stenger discusses The New Atheism, contrasting it with the old atheism, in that it is more uncompromising in its critique of religion and God-belief. He defends the view that a soft stand on religion for the sake of science education is unacceptable, because the evils resulting from religion demand a vocal response. He describes his own history as an author critical of the paranormal and how this further fueled his atheism, contending that skepticism of the paranormal may lead to skepticism of religion. He talks about Carl Sagan and Stephen J. Gould, and their reluctance to criticize theism, and argues that sometimes, contra Sagan's famous line, "absence of evidence is evidence of absence." He defends making a positive statement that God does not exist -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- as opposed to merely stating that one lacks belief in God. He wonders if authors Susan Jacoby and Jennifer Michael Hecht should also be considered New Atheists. He describes lines of positive evidence from cosmology, physics, biology and neuroscience that he says necessary leads to a conclusion of atheism. He tells why he doesn't think the battle over evolution education should take priority over the New Atheist's larger war on faith, and why rationalists should not unduly seek the support of religious moderates and religious supporters of science. And he shares his optimism about the growing popularity of vocal, uncompromising atheism, especially among young people.
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, Rowland has defined and categorized the different types of psychic readings, and created a taxonomy of cold reading techniques. Rowland was the first person to lecture on cold reading to the Magic Circle and his book has been described as “the definitive work” on the subject by Derren Brown, James Randi, Martin Gardner, Teller, and Banachek.
Rowland is a prolific writer and a charismatic lecturer and entertainer who has appeared on television numerous times and performed in many countries around the world. Rowland performs better than the psychics. He convinced an audience he was a psychic medium for ABC’s Primetime, and during a BBC documentary one of his psychic readings was rated as 99.9% accurate.
In this conversation with host Karen Stollznow, Rowland explains the history and meaning of cold reading, and how and why it works. He demonstrates how cold reading is a “Win-Win Game” and psychics are “right” even when they’re wrong. He claims that he can replicate any psychic ability. Rowland recounts some of his performances as a psychic, tarot reader, astrologer, and medium, and his “miracles” of spoon bending, psychic surgery, and hammering a nail into his head.
Rowland also discusses the practical, non-New Age applications for cold reading, and how these strategies can be used for law enforcement and business, but why they probably shouldn’t be used for romance. A qualified yet reluctant spokesperson for skepticism, Rowland presents his “off-message skepticism”, and shares his opinion of what he thinks the movement is doing right, and what he thinks we are doing wrong.
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 vaccine denialism. Authored by a doctor named Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues, it was heavily touted as having uncovered a new cause of autism—the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, or, the MMR vaccine.
Not so fast. Twelve years later, there are more problems with the paper than you can count—and yet somehow, it managed to spawn a movement.
In this conversation with host Chris Mooney, Dr. Paul Offit— author of Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure—discusses the state of the vaccine skeptic movement in light of this latest news. In particular, Offit explores why the tides may be turning on the movement—as well as the grave public health consequences of ongoing vaccine avoidance.
Paul A. Offit, MD is the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In addition, Dr. Offit is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Offit has published more than 130 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety. He is also the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq, recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC. Dr Offit was a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a founding advisory board member of the Autism Science Foundation, and is the author of five books, the latest of which is Autism’s False Prophets.
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, Lance Burton, James Randi and Criss Angel. He has been the recipient of a number of awards and recognitions, including the Dave Lederman Memorial Award (Awarded for Creativity in Mentalism) and the Dunninger Memorial Award (Awarded for Distinguished Professionalism in the Performance of Mentalism), both awarded by the Psychic Entertainers Association, as well as the College Campus Novelty Act of the Year, and the Entertainer of the Year on two occasions, all awarded by the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities. He is renowned for fooling scientists at Washington University into believing that his supposed psychic abilities were genuine during the Project Alpha hoax in the early 1980s. In 2009, he conducted a preliminary test of psychic claimant Connie Sonne's dowsing ability for the James Randi Educational Foundation's Million Dollar Challenge that was witnessed by hundreds in person at The Amazing Meeting 7 in Las Vegas, NV.
In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Banachek recounts his origins as a mentalist in South Africa, including how James Randi's books influenced the development of his worldview. He talks about his involvement helping develop Penn and Teller's bullet catch, the current finale to their Las Vegas show. He describes his role in Project Alpha, and explores to what extent he thinks the researchers involved were aware of his and his colleague's deceptions. He details the role that magicians and mentalists may play in informing the public about psychic and other paranormal claims, and describes the virtues of being an open-minded skeptic as opposed to a "debunker." He talks about his role n the James Randi Educational Foundation's Million Dollar Challenge, and recounts his preliminary testing of Connie Sonne's dowsing ability in front of a live audience at The Amazing Meeting 7, in Las Vegas in 2009.
Link of interest: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.htmlFrank 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, and also the memoir Crazy For God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, which is now out in paper back. His latest book is Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism).
In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Frank Schaeffer discusses Crazy for God, describing how he grew up in fundamentalist Christianity with his famous father, Francis Schaeffer, a leading founder of the Religious Right, and recounts his role in his father's career. He details how his relationships were affected by his leaving the movement. He explains exactly how fundamentalist Christianity took over the Republican Party. He describes the anti-democratic and anti-American elements within Evangelical Christianity. He draws a direct line from the worldview promoted by the Religious Right to the Tea Party movement, the rise of Glen Beck and Sarah Palin, the recent murder or Dr. George Tiller, and the use of biblical passages calling for the assassination of President Obama.
He shows how the Religious Right actively wants America to fail, in order to prove that it has taken the wrong path in adopting secular, democratic and humanist values. He explores how evangelical "foot soldiers" are often used by secular neoconservatives to advance political aims seemingly unrelated to Christianity, such as energy deregulation and public policies in support of the insurance lobby. He defines secular humanism, and tells how his father at once opposed humanism in his writings such as The Christian Manifesto, even while living a complex, and sometimes deeply humanistic life. Finally, he contrasts and compares the New Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, to leaders of the Religious Right, arguing that they are both not only extreme in their views, but also absolutist in their views of fundamental truth.
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 this episode for Halloween 2009, skeptics and former professional magicians Joe Nickell and D.J. Grothe discuss how Houdini's background in magic motivated his debunking of spiritualism. They discuss his religious beliefs. They explore the fraudulent methods of the mediums, including slate writing, the Sprit Trumpet, spirit photography and the use of "ectoplasm." And they conclude their conversation by conducting the Center for Inquiry's 13th Annual Houdini Seance.
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: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus, and Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy. His new book is Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style.
In this interview with D.J. Grothe, Randy Olson discusses his background as a Harvard-trained scientist and tenured professor and why he changed careers to become a filmmaker. He explains the differences between science education and science communication. He recounts the social changes, beginning in the 1980's, that have harmed science education and the communication of science to the public. He describes the ways that filmmaking is ideal for public science advocacy, and how his films, such as Flock of Dodos, have unexpectedly led to further public engagement with the scientific community. He emphasizes the role of storytelling as the means to best communicate science to the public, and describes how scientific papers are like screenplays.
He talks about the Daily Show and the Colbert Report as examples of how serious issues, including scientific controversies, can be communicated to the public in entertaining and engaging ways. He talks about how Stephen J. Gould and Carl Sagan exemplified ways to avoid being "such a scientist," by arousing interest and by being likable. He addresses the stereotypes of scientists as being humorless, stuffy and too literal. He describes the reaction his book has received from the science community. He criticizes the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science for their disinterest in science activism. He contrasts the community of scientists with other professional learned societies, such as within law or medicine. He examines the responsibility of the public to learn science even despite how effective scientists are at communicating it. And he explores the role of increasingly mainstream anti-science movements in the public's misunderstanding of climate research, evolution, and vaccinations.
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