Point Of Inquiry

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 most difficult cultural challenges is distinguishing the acts of violent Islamists from public attitudes towards Muslims in general, and specifically how heated and often ugly rhetoric impacts how we confront the massive refugee crisis.   To discuss this thorny and emotionally charged issue, Josh Zepps talks with Michael Brooks, contributor for the award-winning daily political talk show, The Majority Report. It is a lively discussion of a highly polarized issue, revealing just how complicated and nuanced Islam’s role in these crises truly is.

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 places, and nearly everyone has the ability to record at will, discreetly from their cellphones. It’s no wonder that paranoia is becoming a common phenomenon. But at what point does a healthy suspicion become delusional denial?   Today’s guest is clinical psychologist David Laporte, a professor of psychology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and author of the new book, Paranoid: Exploring Suspicion from the Dubious to the Delusional. Laporte considers paranoia a defining affliction of the modern age, as the paranoid mindset becomes ever more legitimized by the media and political figures. Research suggests that one need not be schizophrenic to suffer from a paranoia disorder, as many people may fall within a spectrum of varying gravities of paranoia, much of which is just beginning to be understood in clinical psyc

  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 with autism turn out to be present, to one degree or another, in most of us. Though attitudes about autism have changed over the decades, the stigma attached to it lingers on. To discuss our evolving understanding of autism, Point of Inquiry welcomes award-winning science journalist Steve Silberman, author of the new book Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. Silberman uncovers the lost history of autism, and shows how we arrived at the concept of the autism spectrum. Steve argues that many of us have autistic traits, and that some of which, such as social awkwardness and highly focused passions, have actually helped to shape the world in which we live, especially the digital realm we all now depend upon.

  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 grow, sell, and smoke cannabis based on  “the right to the free development of one’s personality.” The ruling was limited to the specific individuals who brought the suit, but it introduces a host of questions about what might happen if the trend toward broader marijuana legalization continues in Mexico.   Here to talk about the current political climate as it relates to drugs in Mexico is journalist and intelligence analyst Sylvia Longmire. Longmire specializes in Mexico’s drug war, and provides valuable insight not only into this latest development, but also the particular quirks of the Mexican legal system, and the potential repercussions of Mexican drug legalization on cartels, the illegal drug trade, and drug policies in the U.S.         

  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. So much so he spent the later part of his career investigating spiritualists and mediums. With the help of his undercover assistant Rose Mackenberg, he was able to investigate spiritual claims and assess if they were in fact actual paranormal occurrences or mere illusions, much like the ones he preformed as a magician. In this special Halloween extra, Point of Inquiry’s producer Nora Hurley chats with Joe Nickell, the world’s leading paranormal investigator. Together, they conduct the Center for Inquiry’s Annual Houdini Séance. While summoning the dead, Nickell explains precisely how Houdini worked closely with his assistant Rose to expose fraudulent mediums and spiritualists, who were using illusions and trickery to profit off the grief of innocent people. Having poor luck contacting Houdini in previous years, Joe

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, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters. She is an expert in the political machinations of the religious right in the United States.   The current GOP field has Seventh-day Adventist Ben Carson and the newly Bible-loving Donald Trump battling for the top spot in polls, despite their theological differences with the Evangelical base of the party. Posner explores what’s behind the appeal of these two unlikely front-runners, compares their very different demeanors, and weighs on such topics as the influence of Pope Francis and the prospects for atheist political candidates. 

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 good is…cooking! This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Kenji Lopez-Alt, managing culinary director of the website Serious Eats. Kenji suggests we take the scientific methods we’ve learned in school and bring them into our kitchens in his new book The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science. Chatting with host Lindsay Beyerstein, he shows how cooking is nothing more than a series of reactions between heat, energy and molecules, and experimenting with what we know about these reactions can help us all to perfect our favorite recipes, and, really, make the world a happier place.

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 concerned, whether or not a parent chooses to put their own child at risk by denying them vaccinations remains, largely, their personal choice. But this hands-off attitude toward vaccinations, particularly among children, puts everyone else at risk.   Here to talk about the threat posed by the anti-vaccination movement, and what we can do to stop it, are Sarah Levin and Ed Beck. Sarah Levin is the Legislative Associate of the Secular Coalition and Ed Beck is the senior policy analyst for the Center For Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy. CFI is working with SCA to launch a new campaign called Put Kids First. For additional information about how you can help combat anti-vaccination laws in your area check out the campaign website, and visit CFI’s Keep Health Care Safe and Secular website to learn more about the fight

  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 journalist Jon Palfreman. After spending years of his life studying Parkinson’s in order to write the classic book, The Case of the Frozen Addicts, Palfreman was himself diagnosed with the very disease he built his career around understanding. Palfreman’s new book is called Brain Storms: The Race to Unlock the Mysteries of Parkinson’s Disease.     As modern medicine allows our bodies to live longer with each new generation, the search is on to find ways of preserving our brains from neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, diseases that drain much of the value from these lengthening lifespans. Palfreman gives insight into both our understanding of the disease, as well as the latest medical advancements and further points of study in our race to understand the brain.

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 Selman knew he had to take a stand for the integrity of his son’s education.    This week on Point of Inquiry Josh Zepps talks to Selman about his new book, God Sent Me: A Textbook Case On Evolution vs. Creation, which is Selman’s personal account of reaching out to the ACLU and taking the entire school board of Cobb County to court for misrepresenting the credibility of evolution in order to promote religious belief. A strong supporter of religious freedom and a person of faith, Selman explains why separation of church and state is especially crucial in public schools, where vulnerable younger minds are heavily influenced by peer pressure and institutional coercion.   

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 for Separation of Church and State. Few have more experience untangling religion from government as Rev. Lynn, who has spent a career making the case that a truly free country requires a secular government, and true religious freedom requires church-state separation.   He and host Lindsay Beyerstein discuss the numerous ways the mixing of church and state have resulted in corruption and injustice. While Lynn believes that religion can play an important role in our communities and in many people’s lives, government should never be in a position to rely upon whatever charitable services a religious group might provide. Recounting some of fascinating experiences from his career, many from his new book God and Government: Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Equality, Secularism, and Freedom Of Conscience, Lynn believes tha

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 much that remains unanswered, and unanswered for. Here to lend some insight is American journalist Craig Unger, whose bestselling books include House of Bush, House of Saud, a book that explores the relationship between the Bush family (including its various advisors and functionaries) and the Saudi royal family.  Unger’s work drew attention to several unresolved questions about the Bush administration’s response to the attacks, and how we found ourselves mired in a global military project known as the War on Terror. In conversation with Josh Zepps, Unger looks at the radical religious ideology of the Saudis, its ongoing and confusing alliance with the U.S., and the complications brought on by conflicts with Iran and ISIS.

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, as several decades ago America’s working class economy was booming, and with the advent of unions, labor laws, and environmental protections, the American dream seemed alive and well.   Here to talk about the history of corporate outsourcing in America, and the effects it has had on the economy, the environment, and the lives and well being of countless overseas workers, is author and labor expert, Dr. Erik Loomis. Dr. Loomis is a history professor, blogger, activist and author of the new book Out of Sight: The Long and Disturbing Story of Corporations Outsourcing Catastrophe. Dr. Loomis explains how various legislative incentives have made it nearly impossible for corporations to invest in cutting back on their carbon output, and why irresponsible corporate behavior has led to numerous disasters that take innoc

  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 Orleans and report on the city’s effort to rebuild. To this day, much of New Orleans are still in shambles and few outside of the city understand the nature of the chaos that ensued during and after the storm. In his new book Katrina: After The Flood, Rivlin reveals how the story of Katrina, and why its impact was so devastating, was much more complicated than the simple narrative much of the media was providing. A decade after the disaster, he joins Josh Zepps on Point of Inquiry this week to discuss how Katrina created a huge racial and class division in New Orleans, and how we might learn from the mistakes that were made in managing the aftermath of the storm.

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 creationism and pseudoscience for years, and has become one of the most venerated luminaries of the skeptic and secular movements. A Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, in 2013 she was honored with the Center for Inquiry Lifetime Achievement Award. Scott is getting back to her roots as a biological anthropologist to talk about cryptozoology and other fringe anthropological claims. Talking with host Lindsay Beyerstein, Scott explains the distinctions between real science and pseudoscience, as well as some of the common misconceptions that lead people to mistake fiction for fact. Why is the existence of things like yetis so improbable? Why couldn’t humans and aliens procreate? Questions like these point to a need that is at the core of Scott’s career: the need to better educate kids about the methods of science. Sc

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, the truth about how animals are treated in factory farming is far worse than most of us imagine. It’s not even clear exactly how much better animals fare when packaging advertises things like "cage-free," "natural" and "vegetarian-fed.”  This week on Point of Inquiry, Paul Shapiro, the vice president of farm animal protection for the Humane Society, is here to sort through some of the common misconceptions about the meat industry. As a former factory farm inspector, Shapiro knows first hand how normalized animal suffering has become, and how lax the regulations are for determine how animals can be treated and mistreated throughout their lives. Shapiro and host Lindsay Beyerstein sort through many of the myths and misconceptions consumers have about animal well-being, from chickens raised in “battery cages,” to

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 basis makes dull tasks such as waiting in line at the post office pass in the blink of an eye. But what happens when the distractions of technology don’t disappear when you leave the queue?   Here to talk about the difficulty of unplugging our brains from our media-drenched world is author and contributing editor to The New Atlantis, Mathew Crawford.   Crawford is a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia and the author of The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. Crawford explains some of the extensive research that is behind the design of manufactured experiences like social media and advertising, and explains how our brains are susceptible to these distractions in ways that give us very little control in escaping them. M

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 year he ignited national introspection and heated debate with his cover feature, “The Case for Reparations.” He is also author of the new bestseller, Between the World and Me, a book he wrote for his son about surviving in America as a black man.    Coates joins Lindsay Beyerstein to discuss the heightening racial tension in America, the result of what he describes as a country built on black bodies and black suffering. In this evocative conversation, Coates compels us to look clearly at our illusions about American identity and social mobility, and explores what difficult remedies will be necessary to begin to rectify the damage American policies have done to black men and women over the centuries. He also considers how his atheism has influenced his own thinking about civil rights, justice, and forgiveness.

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 this unpleasant situation in a new article for Foreign Policy magazine,“What Should We Do if the Islamic State Wins?” His answer is not an inspiring one, but one based on the facts as he sees them: We will have to live with it. On Point of Inquiry this week, Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, explores with host Josh Zepps the historical precedence for successful revolutionary movements and their near-intractability once they’ve claimed power. According to Walt, once established, these revolutionary regimes will either continue to act as dangerous rogues who are isolated and contained by neighboring countries, or eventually moderate themselves to the point where even the U.S. may eventually be able t

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 Lerner was a renowned infectious disease specialist who practiced medicine during what many consider to be the golden era of American medicine. Being a generation apart, Barron and Myer Lerner where taught very different approaches to medical ethics, especially when it came to patient autonomy and end-of-life issues.   Dr. Lerner critically examines the ethical principles that his father operated under during his years in practice, and explores how these ethical norms have either retained their value or become outdated. His understanding of his father’s point of view was illuminated when he was forced to make decisions about what was in the best interest of his father’s own medical care, without the benefit of his father’s input on the matter. Barron's unique perspective paints a global picture of all of the ethica