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 are the subject of the new book by biologist, Dr. Marlene Zuk, Paleofantasies: What Evolution Really Tells …
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 …
Our guest this week is Donald Prothero, paleontologist, geologist, and author of the new book Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten our Future. He’s an expert on the effect of past climate change on the fossil record, as well as the co-author of Abominable Science, a skeptical look at cryptozoology and cryptozoologists with Daniel Loxton. Science Denialism …
Our guest this week is Cara Santa Maria, contributor to Al Jazeera America’s science show TechKnow, and the host of the podcast Talk Nerdy. This neuroscientist, science educator, producer, writer, and television personality has brought her intelligence and insights to the Huffington Post as its former senior science editor, was the co-host and producer of TakePart Live on Pivot TV, and …
This week, Point of Inquiry is delighted to welcome Ann Druyan, co-writer and co-creator of both the original Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, starring her late husband Carl Sagan, as well as the new series, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, starring Neil deGrasse Tyson. In a wide-ranging discussion, Druyan talks to Josh Zepps about how the first Cosmos series came to be, her efforts to …
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Meredith Dank, PhD, Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute. Dank is the co-principal investigator on several international and domestic human trafficking projects, including the new study, “Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities”, which attempts to put dollar figures on prostitution in Atlanta, …
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes David Gorski, MD, PhD: cancer researcher, surgeon, and managing editor of the Science-Based Medicine blog, aka “Orac” of Respectful Insolence. Gorski and Beyerstein discuss a pair of exposés of cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski in the March/April issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, one by Gorski and one by skeptical activist Robert Blaskiewicz. Gorski explains why Burzynski’s urine-derived antineoplaston therapy …
Rebecca Goldstein, a professor of philosophy and the author of five novels and a collection of short stories, joins us on Point of Inquiry to discuss atheism, philosophy and her new book, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away. Goldstein, who will be a speaker at the upcoming Women in Secularism III conference, has written five novels — …
This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Daniel Loxton, longtime Editor of Junior Skeptic, the 10-page kids’ science section bound within Skeptic magazine, author and illustrator of the national award-winning kids’ science book Evolution: How We and All Living Beings Came to Be, and a series of illustrated books subtitled Tales of Prehistoric Life. Loxton has published two major essays on skeptical activism; “Where …
This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Greg Dworkin, MD. Dr. Dworkin is a founding editor of Flu Wiki, an international, wiki-format clearinghouse of Influenza information designed to help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. He’s an expert on pandemic Flu preparedness and is joining us to discuss the Flu, …