Point Of Inquiry

Kerry Emanuel is a leading atmospheric scientist and a self-described conservative. As a result, lately he's been at the forefront of trying to convince his ideological brethren that the science behind global warming is real. We invited Emanuel on to talk about whether global warming is indeed influencing the extreme weather that is afflicting the United States—and also for the unique vantage point that he brings to environmental and energy issues. Kerry Emanuel is professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an expert on global warming and on tropical cyclones—aka, hurricanes. In addition to his large volume of scientific papers, he is also author of two popular books: Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, and What We Know About Climate Change.

Host: Chris Mooney Can people who care about secularism take America back from the religious right? Of all the questions that concern us on this show, this is perhaps the most important, the most central, of all. And David Niose has an answer to it. Simply put, he thinks we can. In his new book, Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans, Niose outlines the damage the religious right has done, and how the growing forces of secularity stand poised to finally effectively counter them. Central to the strategy? Embracing the atheist, or at any rate, the secular identity, and wearing it proudly on one's sleeve. David Niose is an attorney and president of the Washington-based American Humanist Association. He has appeared widely in national and international media advocating for secularism and humanism, and serves as vice president of the Secular Coalition for America.

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest is Tina Dupuy—the reporter, comedian, skeptic, and editor-in-chief of the startup publication SoapBlox. Dupuy appears frequently on MSNBC, Current TV, RT and the BBC and on numerous radio shows. She has written for Mother Jones, the Atlantic, Skeptic, and many other publications. Her weekly oped is syndicated nationally by Cagle Cartoons.

Host: Chris Mooney For this episode of Point of Inquiry, we tried something a little different. At Center for Inquiry headquarters in Amherst, NY, we filmed a special hour long program with multiple in-studio guests, including the famed atheist comedian Jamie Kilstein. As usual, the program is also available as an audio-only podcast. In either format, here's what it contains: When Doubt is a Crime: Michael De Dora, director of the Center for Inquiry Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C., discusses the disturbing case of an Indonesian man who was recently sentenced to two and a half years in prison, just for questioning whether God exists. Fox News Bashing, Redux: Chris Mooney responds to recent listener comments, some of them complimentary, some... not so much. From the Culture Wars to... Chuck Norris: We talk with Ed Brayton, the blogger behind Dispatches from the Culture Wars and owner of the FreethoughtBlogs network, about recent church state issues—and his steady monitoring of everyone's favorite

Host: Indre Viskontas The idea that science moves forward by carefully peeling back layers of the onion of truth, one by one, in a deliberate fashion, is so prevalent that it borders on cliche. But the truth is that running scientific experiments often feels more akin to dipping a cup into a bottomless well of information: each new study simply raises more questions than it answers. Although scientific knowledge is vast, ignorance, or what's left to learn, dwarfs what we think we know. Exploring this boundless frontier, neurobiologist Stuart Firestein explains how ignorance, rather than facts, drives science. Stuart Firestein is the Chair of Columbia University's Department of Biological Sciences where he studies the vertebrate olfactory system, possibly the best chemical detector on the face of the planet. Dedicated to promoting the accessibility of science to a public audience Firestein serves as an advisor for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's program for the Public Understanding of Science. His popular cou

Host: Chris Mooney  Our guest this week is Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC's Up With Chris Hayes and editor at large of The Nation. Hayes has come out with a much anticipated new book that makes a surprising argument. It's called Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy, and in it, he attributes the stunning loss of trust in American institutions to, well, the system by which we chose who runs them. That system is a meritocracy—and it's supposed to be a fair one in which people get ahead or fall behind based on their own inherent abilities. But in reality, Hayes says, inequality in, inequality out. It's an intriguing and unexpected thesis, and after reading it, we wanted to ask Hayes about what this means for science in particular—which is, after all, a meritocracy. We also wanted to ask Hayes why people at the top of the totem pole—supposedly so smart, supposedly so well-trained and cultured—are in fact so poor at reasoning about those below them.

Host: Chris Mooney Our guest this week is Cara Santa Maria, the senior science correspondent for the Huffington Post and the personage behind its "Talk Nerdy to Me" video series. Recent topics range from cannibalism, to the non-power of positive thinking, to the strange sex lives of animals, to the, well, bizarreness of creationism. Cara has appeared previously on shows ranging from Larry King Live to Geraldo at Large, and has co-hosted an episode of Star Talk Radio with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. She was also recently seen hosting several episodes of The Young Turks' popular web spinoff series The Point. She tweets at @CaraSantaMaria, and you can find her videos at the Huffington Post's Talk Nerdy To Me.

Host: Chris Mooney In late April, a study came out in Science that really got the secular blogosphere hopping. It was a paper showing that something we've long suspected may be true—less critical thinking is associated with more religiosity. In fact, having a cognitive style where you're less analytic, and more intuitive, promotes faith. And vice versa. It turns out this paper is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we're learning about the religious mind. So to get deeper into the topic, we invited on Will Gervais, lead author of the current paper and of much other work besides. Will Gervais is a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Next year he will be an associate professor in psychology at the University of Kentucky. His research studies the cognitive, evolutionary, and cultural reasons why people entertain in supernatural beliefs—or, why they don't, which is perhaps equally interesting.

Host: Indre Viskontas Recently, there has been a flurry of neuroscientists declaring that free will is an illusion in the popular press. But before we can assess the extent to which we are zombies, we need to first tackle the question of what, exactly, is consciousness. To get up to speed on the state of the art, we talked to Christof Koch, a colorful pioneer in the application of scientific tools to delineate the neural correlates of consciousness, whose famous 18-year collaboration with Francis Crick helped legitimize the field. Koch has never shied away from controversy, commenting on sentience in machines and dogs without skipping a beat. Christof Koch is Professor of Biology and of Engineering at the California Institute of Technology and Chief Scientific Office of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. He is the author of Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist and The Quest for Consciousness, among other books.

Host: Chris Mooney Over the weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend the 2012 World Skeptics Conference in Berlin. It's important to keep tabs on our skeptical and freethinking colleagues around the world, and the challenges they're facing. And in this case, perhaps the most disturbing story out of the conference involved the spread of a new form of creationism—namely, Islamic creationism—in Europe. It's a topic I've wanted to explore on the show for some time. So in Berlin, I stopped to speak with Johan Braeckman, who has been tracking the subject closely. Johan Braeckman is a professor of philosophy of science at Ghent University in Belgium, and his research focuses on philosophical issues in the life sciences, particularly evolution and neuroscience. He's the author of a number of books and papers, including, most recently, Doubting Thomas Has a Point: A Guide to Critical Thinking, coauthored with Maarten Boudry.

Our guest this week is Greta Christina, a leading atheist blogger, speaker, and commentator, and a regular contributor to AlterNet.org. Christina is author of the new ebook Why Are You Atheists So Angry?: 99 Things that Piss Off the Godless, which grows out of a 2007 blog post on the same topic. The book will also be out in print in June. Greta Christina blogs at FreeThoughtBlogs.com, and her writing has appeared, among other places, in Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer. She is editor of the "Best Erotic Comics" anthology series, and of "Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients."

Host: Indre Viskontas In developed countries at least, the status of women has improved considerably in the last century. But in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), they remain underrepresented in all but one field, according to a recent study conducted by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Often, femininity can seem incompatible with STEM and other male-dominated careers—but can young women today find an unlikely role model in Elizabeth Taylor, an actress dogged by the Catholic Church because of her sex appeal and promotion of secular ideas, including gay and lesbian rights? Cultural critic and acclaimed author M.G. Lord explores the contributions of Elizabeth Taylor to feminism—and her struggles against the Church—in her latest book, The Accidental Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted By Her Beauty to Notice.

Host: Chris Mooney This week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a conference convened entitled "Science Writing in the Age of Denial." The keynote speaker was a former Point of Inquiry guest and a very popular one—Naomi Oreskes, co-author of the influential book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Point of Inquiry caught up with Dr. Oreskes at the conference and interviewed her about her lecture there, entitled "Neoliberalism and the Denial of Global Warming." Naomi Oreskes is professor of history and science studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her 2010 book Merchants of Doubt, written with Eric Conway, described how a small group of scientists sought to undermine a large body of research on issues like global warming, the health risks of smoking, and ozone depletion. She is the author of the famed 2004 essay for the journal Science entitled "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change," which was cited in the

Host: Chris Mooney This week, our guest is a return one: Austin Dacey. He's a philosopher, a writer, and a human rights activist, and the creator of the Impossible Music Sessions, which we featured in a past show. Austin's books include The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life and, just out, The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights. This show focused on Austin's new book on blasphemy. But he helped enhance the discussion with a few pieces of music that have been called blasphemous—which is why we wanted to distribute them as widely as possible.

Guest Host: John Shook  In this special episode of Point of Inquiry, we interview our host himself—about his new book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality. From climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing, as is the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy and much more. Why won't Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts? Science writer and host of Point of Inquiry Chris Mooney explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things; appear more likely than Democrats to oppose new ideas and less likely to change their beliefs in the face of new facts; and sometimes respond to compelling evidence by doubling down on their current beliefs.

Host: Chris Mooney This week, Point of Inquiry is thrilled to welcome back one of our most popular guests: Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famed astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Last time we had him on, Dr. Tyson engaged in a wide ranging discussion about science communication and the place of science in America. This time, we focus in on his new book—Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier—and his call for revitalizing NASA and letting it play a central role in reconnecting America and science. Neil deGrasse Tyson is America's most pre-eminent science communicator. In addition to his work at the Hayden Planetarium and his books and television appearances, he is also the host of Star Talk Radio.

Host: Indre Viskontas The end is nigh. 2012 is a banner year for doomsday prophecies, though there still seems to be debate concerning precisely how life as we know it will be snuffed out. Hollywood seems to prefer the 'death from the skies' scenario, with Lars von Trier's latest film Melancholia exploring the psychological consequences of believing that another planet is on a collision course with ours. But would we know? How much warning would we receive if such a catastrophe were to occur? There is no better source for this information than Dr. David Morrison, the founder of the field of astrobiology, or the study of life in the universe. Once the Director of Space at NASA Ames, he is best known for his work on assessing the risk of near earth objects such as asteroids and comets. As the mind behind the popular 'Ask an Astrobiologist' blog on NASA's website, Dr. Morrison has all the answers. David Morrison is the senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, where he part

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 doesn't really have a lot to do with the intellectual validity of religious, or irreligious, or liberal, or conservative ideas. So what causes it? And why can't we all get along? To get at this, Point of Inquiry invited on a scholar and thinker who has become famous for his scientific approach to this question—Jonathan Haidt, author of the new book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Jonathan Haidt is a professor of social psychology at the University of Virginia, and a visiting professor of business ethics at the NYU-Stern School of Business. Haidt's research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, and how morality varies across cultures. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, and he and his collaborators conduct research at th

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 conversation if the culture is awash in political, and politicized, misinformation. What do we mean by "misinformation"? The denial of global warming. Claims about "death panels." Assertions that the President of the United States wasn't actually born here. One thing all these falsehoods have in common is that if you watch Fox News, you're more likely to believe them. Fox increases your risk, so to speak, of believing factually wrong things to support a political agenda. With other networks, this "Fox effect" just isn't there. How did it get this way? How did one leading network become a fount of misinformation? For that, we turn to the most dedicated Fox monitors of them all—Media Matters. They've got a new book out on Fox, and I've invited their Executive Vice President, Ari Rabin-Havt, on to talk about it. Ari Rabin-Havt

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 successful in this area—help from the courts notwithstanding—or at beating back the steady advances of the religious right. How can we do better? Our guest this week has a new book on the topic, and just as important, a new way of thinking. His name is Sean Faircloth, the director of strategy and policy for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Before that, Faircloth served five terms in the Maine Legislature and went on to serve as executive director for the Secular Coalition for America. He's author of the newly released book Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Right Harms Us All and What to Do About It.