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 left innocent of science abuses—and one man who knows that very well is Mark Lynas. He’s a British environmentalist and author, and he recently gained …
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 which has just been released in paperback. Most of us have some sentimental objects that would seem to lose their importance if replaced by an exact …
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 of the national conversation. Point of Inquiry would be remiss if we didn’t add our signature long-form interview style to the discussion. To that end, …
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 Secularism and The Age of American Unreason. Jacoby started her career at the Washington Post, and her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles …
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-like symptoms actually has the flu—with so many cold viruses and bacterial infections being passed around, it seems that everyone has been sick this …
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 Krugman. In case he needs any introduction: He is a professor of economics at Princeton and a columnist for the New York Times, as …
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 him on to talk about his latest book: The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New …
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 Holmes. It’s entitled Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. In addition to her new book, Konnikova writes the “Literally Psyched” column for Scientific American, …
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 that now it’s rejoicing time. And also reflection time. Time for reflection on all the things that people are capable of believing, …
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 that they work so hard to debunk. A great story is just as entertaining to the most hardened skeptics as it is to the rest of the …