Point Of Inquiry

  • Author: Vários
  • Narrator: Vários
  • Publisher: Podcast
  • Duration: 421:25:57
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Synopsis

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.

Episodes

  • Austin Dacey

    29/09/2014 Duration: 41min

    Josh Zepps is off, and since this week is the 5th International Blasphemy Rights Day, we're rebroadcasting this interview by Chris Mooney with Austin Dacey, CFI's former UN representative and an expert on the subject of blasphemy laws. *** This week, our guest is a return one: Austin Dacey. He's a philosopher, a writer, a human rights activist, and the creator of the Impossible Music Sessions, which we featured in a past show. Austin's books include The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life and, just out, The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights. This show focused on Austin's new book on blasphemy. But he helped enhance the discussion with a few pieces of music that have been called blasphemous—which is why we wanted to distribute them as widely as possible.

  • Mark Oppenheimer on Misogyny in the Freethought Community

    22/09/2014 Duration: 36min

    This week Point of Inquiry welcomes journalist Mark Oppenheimer. Mark writes the Beliefs column for the New York Times, and is the author of the e-book The Zen Predator of The Upper East Side. He is an expert on how religious and philosophical communities deal--or refuse to deal--with allegations of abuse in their ranks.    Mark joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to talk about a feature he wrote for BuzzFeed entitled "Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement?", a discussion (as he puts it, "from an outsiders' perspective") about sexism and sexual coercion in organized secularism and skepticism, a phenomenon that he concludes is a threat to the movement's potential to grow and achieve mainstream acceptance. They explore this tumultuous topic both in terms of current debates, as well as in context of the freethought movement's broader history.

  • Factory Farming and the Meat Racket: Christopher Leonard on our Irrational Meat Industry

    17/09/2014 Duration: 39min

    It’s National Chicken Month! But rather than celebrating the consumption of fowl, Point of Inquiry is asking what exactly is going on in America's meat industry? Is the way we consume meat at all rational?    Joining us this week is Christopher Leonard, investigative journalist whose work has appeared in Fortune, Slate, and The New York Times. He is a fellow with The New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute in Washington, DC., and the author of The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business.       Leonard and host Josh Zepps explore the morality of super-industrialized meat production, the iron grip of certain large corporations, and how the centralized system of factory farming is, to Leonard, “Soviet-esque.”

  • Ask a Mortician: Caitlin Doughty on the Death Industry's Dirty Secrets

    08/09/2014 Duration: 30min

    Point of Inquiry welcomes Caitlin Doughty, creator of the cult classic web series Ask A Mortician, which gives unvarnished answers to questions about dead bodies and the death industry. Caitlin has tackled topics ranging from "What to say to a grieving person?" to "How could my titanium hip implant end up as part of a road sign in the Midwest?"    Caitlin is the author of the new book Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: and Other Lessons from the Crematory, the story of her stint as a crematory operator in Los Angeles. She went on to become a licensed mortician to launch a one-woman crusade to change our culture's attitudes about death. 

  • Sam Harris: Seeking Transcendence Without Religion

    02/09/2014 Duration: 49min

    It’s been ten years since the publication of Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith kicked off the cultural phenomenon of “new atheism,” bringing frank criticism of religion into mainstream conversation. In the decade since, Harris has emerged as something of a maverick among nonbelievers and progressives, frequently at the center of controversy with his opinions on Islam and extremism, science’s role in morality, and his embrace of a kind of “spiritualism” grounded in science.   It is this last item that is the subject of his latest book, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, in which he seeks a rational approach to transcendence; one that puts the supernatural aside in favor of an honest, scientific exploration of the mind, altered states of consciousness, and other (as he puts it) “spooky phenomena.”    On this special episode of Point of Inquiry, Harris talks to host Josh Zepps about his foray into the mystical. In this fascinating interview, Harris asserts that experiences such as bliss and tr

  • Dr. Adia Benton on The West African Ebola Outbreak

    25/08/2014 Duration: 39min

    This week Point Of Inquiry welcomes Dr. Adia Benton, a professor of medical anthropology at Brown University. She joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to talk about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.Medical anthropologists bring a unique expertise to epidemics because they study both the physiology of illness and the cultural factors that influence its transmission. That's why the World Health Organization has deployed med anthros to combat prior Ebloa outbreaks. They ask questions like: "How do people think a disease is spread?," "What role do traditional healers play in this culture?," and "Do people trust Western medicine?" The answers can be used to craft more effective public health messages.  These are urgent questions for the current Ebola outbreak, where some are resisting quarantine, attacking hospitals, and blaming the outbreak on doctors and nurses. In a crisis, culturally competent care can be a matter of life and death. 

  • Paul Offit, MD - Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

    18/08/2014 Duration: 38min

    Point of Inquiry's hosts are off this week, so we're running Lindsay Beyerstein's excellent interview from earlier this year with Dr. Paul Offit. Dr. Offit will be the Center for Inquiry's special guest on September 6th in Amherst, NY, as he is awarded the Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking.  *   *   *  Paul A. Offit, MD is best known as a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine and a staunch, public supporter of vaccination and opponent of pseudoscientific alternative medicine.  His most recent book, Do you Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicinepoints a critical eye at the alt-med industry, one than takes in 34 billion dollars a year with little to no regulation. Are patients being harmed, and is it any worse or better than so-called “Big Pharma”?  Dr. Offit talks with our host, Lindsay Beyerstein, about all of this and much more on this week’s Point of Inquiry.  Dr. Offit has published over 130 scholarly articles on the rotavirus vaccine and vaccine safety and efficacy in ge

  • Christopher Capozzola: 100 Years After the Great War, Lessons in Reason

    11/08/2014 Duration: 30min

    One hundred years ago, Great Britain declared war on Germany, joining in what we now refer to as World War I, a conflict which cost more than 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians their lives, and shaped the the world we know today. How did reasonable people let "The Great War" begin, and what can reasonable people today learn from it?   Joining us this week is Christopher Capozzola, an MIT professor in political and legal history, war, and the military, and author of Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen.     How did rational people plummet themselves into the irrationalism and chaos that tore apart the continent of Europe along with the rest of the world while sowing the seeds of much of the 20th Century's subsequent horrors? Dr. Capozzola and host Josh Zepps examine the kind of day-to-day rationality which can spiral off into madness.

  • Laurel Braitman on Animals and Mental Illness

    04/08/2014 Duration: 35min

    This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Laurel Braitman, a TED fellow with a PhD in History and Anthropology of Science from MIT, and the author of Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves.   It might sound strange to say that animals suffer from mental illness but the brain systems that regulate anxiety, attachment, and arousal are evolutionarily ancient. If faulty neurochemistry compounded by stress can lead to mental illness in humans, is it such a stretch to imagine it in other animals as well?    Today we look into the minds of our fellow animals. What do their minds and mental illnesses teach us about sanity, insanity and the concept of consciousness?

  • David Ropeik: Airplane Disasters and the Psychology of Risk

    29/07/2014 Duration: 30min

    How do we rationally assess risk? Following a terrible series of horrifying air travel disasters, reasonable people begin to question what we consider to be "safe." But should we?    To answer this question, our host Josh Zepps is joined by David Ropeik, an international consultant and expert on the subject of risk perception and communication, and author of Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding Whats Really Safe and Whats Really Dangerous in the World Around You and How Risky Is It, Really?: Why Our Fears Don't Always Match the Facts.    Ropeik discusses how human beings perceive danger versus mathematical probabilities, how fear and optimism affect our perception, and how it might be a good idea to be "gentle" with the word "rational" when it comes to the subject risk. 

  • Jason Horowitz: Protecting the Whales from the U.S. Navy

    21/07/2014 Duration: 37min

    On March 15, 2000, over a dozen whales beached themselves in the Bahamas in one of the largest multi-species strandings in history. Suspicion turned to U.S. Navy sonar, but at first there was no proof. This revelation brings us into the detective story told in War of the Whales: A True Story. Point of Inquiry welcomes the author, Joshua Horowitz.  We discuss the history of the U.S. Navy’s use of high-intensity active sonar; the cover-up of sonar in the Bahamas; and the titanic struggle between the Navy and an unlikely team of conservationists: marine biologist and ex-Navy sonar man Ken Balcomb, and environmental lawyer Joel Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defense Council.   Host, Lindsay Beyerstein and Horowitz also delve into the history of sonar, the militarization of dolphins, and the sordid history of whales in captivity. 

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

    14/07/2014 Duration: 24min

    Point of Inquiry is taking a week off and filling in with a classic episode. After Saudi Arabia recently tried to silence the Center For Inquiry's UN representative, Josephine Macintosh, as she delivered a statement critical of their repeated assaults on freedom of religion, belief and expression, we felt that our Austin Dacey episode was fitting to fill in during our week off. Austin Dacey serves as a respresentative to the United Nations for CFI, and is also on the editorial staff of Skeptical Inquirer and Free Inquiry magazines. His writings have appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times and USA Today. His new book is The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life.   In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Austin Dacey details his trip to Geneva, Switzerland on behalf of the Center for Inquiry's UN mission. He describes the UN lobbying efforts of the Center and its response to the United Nations Human Rights Council's resolution "Combatting the Defamation of Religions." He expl

  • The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby--With Brian Leiter

    07/07/2014 Duration: 38min

    To discuss last week's Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Point of Inquiry welcomes Dr. Brian Leiter, law professor and philosopher at the University of Chicago. He's the author of several books including Why Tolerate Religion?. He blogs at Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog.  Leiter and host Lindsay Beyerstein discuss what the Hobby Lobby decision means for women's health, corporate personhood, and the separation of church and state.    In 2013, Leiter headlined a daylong symposium with the Center for Inquiry (the organization that produces Point of Inquiry), and you can watch the video here.    

  • Montel Williams: Leading a Surge on the Veterans Administration

    02/07/2014 Duration: 33min

    Best known for his 17 years as a talk show host, Montel Williams is now bringing his name and dynamic personality to activism on behalf of U.S. servicemen and women. Raised during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and into the tumultuous sixties, he joined the Marines as a young man and enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy, earning a Bachelor of Science in Engineering.    After spending years as a motivational speaker and talk show host he returns to his roots in supporting U.S. military men and women after their return home. Williams has put his weight behind a petition to the White House and a campaign known as #VASURGE in an effort to push the federal government to reform and improve the Veterans Administration, a crisis that has reached its boiling point after years of overlapping American wars. 

  • Marlene Zuk: The Paleo Delusion

    23/06/2014 Duration: 34min

    We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in caves rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than wear sneakers—or did we? These, along with many other questions about what is or is not "natural" for humans from an evolutionary perspective and is the subject of the new book by biologist, Dr. Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasies: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live. The book was recently long-listed for the Royal Society's Winton Prize, one of the most book prizes in science writing.   Dr. Zuk is an evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist at the University of Minnesota, where she heads the Zuk Lab. She has published many papers and books on evolution and evolutionary biology.     Lindsay interviews her about the book with a view to the "Paleo" craze in health and nutrition, asking if we really know what some claim we do about our paleolithic ancestors and what impact, if any, that knowledge should have on our lives.

  • Howard Fineman on Eric Cantor's Defeat and the Battle for the Soul of the GOP

    16/06/2014 Duration: 33min

    Few intra-party political battles have been as astonishing and unexpected as last week's primary loss by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to religious-conservative challenger David Brat, who was quickly embraced by the Tea Party after his victory. To discuss what this means for the future of the GOP, and how religion has waxed and waned as a factor in American politics, Point of Inquiry welcomes the great political analyst Howard Fineman.   Howard Fineman is the editorial director of The Huffington Post Media Group, an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, former senior editor and columnist for Newsweek, and author of a best-selling book about political history called The Thirteen American Arguments.

  • Janet Mock, Redefining Realness, Biology, Sex and Gender

    09/06/2014 Duration: 40min

    This week POI welcomes bestselling author and trans rights activist, Janet Mock. Janet is the author of the new memoir Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love and So Much More, which recounts her emotional and physical transition from an infant sexed male at birth in Hawaii in 1983, to a young woman in New York City.   Some traditionalists accuse trans activists of playing games with language when they insist on the right of trans people to be called by their preferred pronouns and to be treated as real members of their self-identified gender. Traditionalists claim that anatomy at birth is the only "real" litmus test of gender, despite the empirical evidence calling that simplistic formulation into question.    Trans activists and allies are throwing the burden of proof back on the claimant. Why should the traditional ideology of gender take precedence over the lived experience of trans people?    It's great to be skeptical of ideas that are obviously dubious, like astrology or Bigfoot. But

  • Negin Farsad: Red States and Muslim Comedy

    03/06/2014 Duration: 46min

    This week, we welcome Negin Farsad, a groundbreaking Iranian American comedian. A TED speaker and TED Fellow, she was named one of the Huffington Post's 50 Funniest Women. She's been seen on Comedy Central, MTV, CNN, MSNBC, and in her movie The Muslims are Coming!, a documentary following some of the funniest Muslim comedians as they travel America's Red States, cracking people up and demolishing stereotypes. Host Josh Zepps and Farsad discuss everything from the gray areas in religious identification, to the situation for Muslims in post-9/11 America, and the theocracy in Iran. How does one of the best educated and culturally Western populations in the Middle East coexist with the theocratic totalitarianism of Iran's regime? What can Western liberals do to help moderates in these countries lessen the influence of Islam's radicals? Does any cultural action on the part of the West do more harm than good? And just what can you do with two masters degrees from Columbia? Apparently, comedy!

  • Capital Punishment in Crisis with Dahlia Lithwick

    27/05/2014 Duration: 33min

    This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Editor and Legal Correspondent for Slate, where she writes the "Supreme Court Dispatches" and "Jurisprudence" columns. Her legal commentary won her a National Magazine Award in 2013. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School and she joins Lindsay Beyerstein to talk about the crisis facing capital punishment in the United States.   Almost all executions in the United States are performed by lethal Injection but America's go-to lethal injection drug cocktail is rapidly becoming obsolete because a key component is no longer readily available. States have been reduced to scrounging drugs from unregulated bulk pharmacies and experimenting with secret and untested mixtures of medications, a practice that may amount to cruel and unusual punishment.    On May 21, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the execution of Russell Bucklew of Missouri, just two hours before he was scheduled to be executed for the murder of Michael Sanders. Bucklew suffers from a condition

  • Farzana Hassan on Islamic Extremism and the Boko Haram

    20/05/2014 Duration: 35min

    Our guest this week is Farzana Hassan, a Pakistani-Canadian political scientist, a columnist for the Toronto Sun, whose new book is Prophecy and the Fundamentalist Quest: An Integrative Study of Christian and Muslim Apocalyptic Religion.  Hassan joins Point of Inquiry's Josh Zepps to talk about issues surrounding Islam, in particular the difficulty in honestly dealing with terrorism and extremism and their relation to Islam, and the fine line between legitimate criticism and Islamophobia. Hassan, herself a Muslim, suggests that there exists doctrinal support within Islam for many of the terrible acts we see today done in its name. Hassan and Josh discuss whether moderate Muslims are serving as a cover for the extremists, or whether bridges should be built for moderate Muslims as the means to limiting the influence of radicals. Hear all this and more on this week's Point of Inquiry.

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