Point of Inquiry

How did a man living an ostensibly godless, hedonistic life become the champion of the very groups who one would expect to denounce his behavior? Being a real estate mogul and reality TV star, it's no secret to anyone that President Trump has spent far more time in country clubs than churches. A man who's had several wives, owned casinos and bars, and had multiple accusations of sexual assault leveled against him is hardly the pinnacle of virtue the religious right professes to yearn for. Trump's aggressively nationalistic campaign rhetoric clearly appealed to the so-called "alt-right," but he could not have won the election without simultaneously appealing to religious conservatives. So what happened? Today's guest is investigative journalist Sarah Posner, whose expertise in reporting on religion and the conservative movement enable her to unravel the reasoning behind Trump's success with evangelical Christians. Posner's newest piece for The New Republic is "https://newrepublic.com/article/140961/amazing-disgrace-donald-trump-hijacked-religious-right">Amazing Disgrace," which explores how "a thrice-married, biblically illiterate sexual predator" hijacked the religious right. While the alt-right and the cultural conservative movement have long been at odds, they shared common goals and prospects in the 2016 election, and that what unites them in terms of race and nationalism may be greater than even they would like to admit. Special note from the Center for Inquiry: This is Lindsay Beyerstein's final episode of Point of Inquiry. We are enormously proud of Lindsay's remarkable body of work with Point of Inquiry. She is smart, insightful, witty, and has always been a genuine pleasure to work with, having grown tremendously as an interviewer over her time with us. We wish her great success with her new endeavors, including her new podcast, The Breach. Thank you, Lindsay! Stay tuned in the coming weeks for news about what's next for Point of Inquiry!

While science was once the force that propelled humanity into an age of enlightenment, a pernicious fear of science and the unknown threatens to plunge society to into an age of darkness. So says Dr. Paul Offit, a groundbreaking immunologist, and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Offit's new book, Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong, comes at a time when the fundamental concepts of evidence, facts, and truth itself are being smothered by a miasma of misinformation. Dr. Offit joins Point of Inquiry host Josh Zepps for a vital discussion about the prognosis for science under the Trump administration, the dangers of the anti-vaccination movement, the probability of future pandemics, and much more.

Often when we talk about privilege, we're referring to the systemic advantages some groups of people have over others, by virtue of their race, gender, or orientation. Having social awareness of privilege like this is an important part of fostering a more equal and inclusive society. Why then do people who value inclusiveness feel insulted when their own privilege is pointed out? Writer and editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy joins us to discus her new book, The Perils of "Privilege": Why Injustice Can't be Solved by Accusing Others of Advantage. Bovy explains that while "privilege" is meant to illustrate advantages placed on us by societal injustice, the word also has undertones suggesting economic wealth and a life free of hardship. She asserts that for this reason using the word provokes a lot of confusion and outrage. Bovy believes that because very few people's lives are without hardship, being told they are privileged can be counterproductive.

People living at mountainous high altitudes account for only 10 percent of the world's population, spread out over roughly 25 percent of the Earth's surface, and yet they also are responsible for a huge portion of the world's most violent and persistent conflicts. The reason for this correlation between altitude and violence isn't entirely understood, but there are several factors contributing to the effect the geography of mountain living undoubtedly plays in conflict. Journalist and foreign correspondent Judith Matloff has spent her career covering conflict across the world. She has been a leading pioneer in safety training for journalist abroad and now teaches conflict reporting at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Matloff first noticed this geographical trend of violence when her 10-year-old son asked her to point out all the places she's covered conflict on a globe. The boy quickly pointed out a curious pattern; that they all took place in mountainous regions. Since then, Matloff has thoroughly investigated the trend of violence in high altitude areas, which has led to the publication of her book No Friends But the Mountains: Dispatches from the World's Violent Highlands. In this eye opening discussion with Josh Zepps, Matloff explains the various reasons why these relatively small and isolated areas see so much trouble, and shares her thoughts on the growing dangers to journalists around the world.

President Trump's travel ban aimed at select Muslim-majority countries (with exceptions for Christian minorities) was first framed this past January as an urgent action to protect the nation from the imminent danger of foreign terror attacks. With airports in disarray over the unprompted and unclear executive order, the directive was quickly taken to court, and it became clear that Trump's dire warnings about national security threats were lacking one very important thing: evidence. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the ban was likely in violation of the Constitution. Trump's administration quickly began fine-tuning the ban in order to appease the court with a new order, claiming to be equally predicated on imminent danger to the nation. Here to offer insight on what we can expect with the new ban's rollout is Slate senior editor Dahila Lithwick. She specializes in writing about courts and law, regularly contributing to Slate's political columns Supreme Court Dispatches and Jurisprudence. Her most recent article on this topic is http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/03/trump_s_new_travel_ban_is_full_of_bogus_evidence_and_sketchy_claims.html">"The Bogus Logic of Trump's New Travel Ban." In this episode of Point of Inquiry she gives us a thorough overview of the new and original travel bans, and considers the many possible outcomes as we wait on the courts to rule.

Fate. Purpose. Design. These are words that hang over many of our heads as we navigate the everyday chaos of life. Religion is often given exclusive purview over the discourse surrounding these concepts, but what if science was able to answer some of these same deep existential questions? We may not always like the answers that science has to give us. Laurence Krauss is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, professor, author, and science communicator, and an honorary member of the Center for Inquiry Board of Directors. His newest book is The Greatest Story Ever Told… So Far, a look at the standard model of particle physics and its implications for our existence. It's a follow up to his critically acclaimed book A Universe From Nothing, in which Krauss not only delves into how we've reached our current understanding of the universe, but also celebrates the wonders and beauty of the natural world and our accidental existence. The universe, says Krauss, is not fine-tuned for life, but rather life is fine tuned for the universe.

Americans have a stereotype of being somewhat lawsuit-happy. Any disagreements, no matter how small, wind up in court and we will sue the pants off our neighbors at the slightest scrape or bump. David M. Engel, author and law professor at University at Buffalo, objects. His newest book is The Myth of the Litigious Society: Why We Don't Sue, where he explains that contrary to popular belief, most American injury victims never so much as contact a lawyer, let alone file a claim. Engel lays out the reasons that Americans rarely sue and why it is that we think we do anyway. He believes that understanding the realities of the American legal system is the first step toward answering questions about what we should do about injuries and restitution as a society to prevent and mitigate pain and suffering.

Every significant turn towards progress has had its trailblazers, and history can easily forget these pioneering individuals who have helped get us to where we are today. One of the most important figures at the height of the civil rights movement was activist and journalist Ethel Payne, who played a pivotal role as a trailblazer for both women's rights and civil rights in general, rising to become the first black female commentator employed by a national television network. James McGrath Morris is an American biographer whose newest book is Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, First Lady of the Black Press. Morris follows Payne's career as a journalist at the Chicago Defender, an important black newspaper known for covering stories the mainstream media didn't cover. She was one of the best journalists of her time and one of very few black female journalists. Morris tells of Payne's tenacity and her reputation for asking questions that no one else thought to ask, thereby arriving at the truth without having to persuade or editorialize.

Diabetes and obesity are on the rise in America in epidemic proportions, but we don't respond to it with the urgency of an epidemic. Sugar industry lobbyists work hard to keep regulations at bay, and today sugar can be found in everything from baby formula to cigarettes. There is no customer too young or too old for the sugar industry, and the earlier in a person's life a dependency is developed, the better. Renowned journalist and author Gary Taubes doesn't sugarcoat how bad our sugar problem really is in his new book The Case Against Sugar. Taubes exposes common misconceptions about sugar and brings to light the research that suggests just how helpless we may be to its deadly impact. While the harms are clear, the sugar lobby has successfully embedded it into the fabric of our culture — which is why Taubes believes that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium.

The United States leads the world in science and innovation, but there's no guarantee that this will always be the case. The Trump administration's orders to halt federal science publication and public communication has American scientists racing against the clock to back up their data in fear of it being eradicated. Meanwhile, the scientists who come to America from all over the world face new roadblocks, as the travel ban from select Muslim-majority nations is reeking havoc on scientists who are not only kept from visiting loved ones, but are unable to leave the country for academic work in fear of being barred from reentry. In this eye opening discussion, Point of Inquiry host Josh Zepps talks to Jen Golbeck, a computer scientist at the University of Maryland College Park. She speaks with first-hand experience about the blow American science is taking from the travel ban — not only in its immediate effects, but the long-term consequences these policies will undoubtedly have in putting America behind the rest of the world.

Ronnie Green is a Pulitzer-winning journalist and author whose latest book is Shots on the Bridge: Police Violence and Cover-Up in the Wake of Katrina. His book follows the true story of an innocent family seeking help and security in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but was instead ambushed by New Orleans police officers' gunfire. Further outrage comes not just from the massacre itself but that the officers and their supervisors at the New Orleans Police Department planted evidence in an attempt to cover up the murders. In a city overtaken my chaos and police officers overcome by fear, catastrophe ensued, leaving the surviving family to pick up the pieces left by the hurricane that ran through their lives. The victims' family endured over a decade of legal battles before the officers at fault pleaded guilty to the charges. This story is a clear account of how the very people meant to protect and serve citizens can break the law, cover their tracks, and manipulate the legal system.

Ted Conover is an American journalist and author, known for fully immersing himself in the world of the subjects he covers. Conover writes about the people we understand the least by attempting to live their lives. Whether he's riding freight trains with the homeless or navigating the ethical pitfalls of being a prison guard, he walks a mile in their shoes so we don't have to. His newest book is Immersion: A Writer's Guide to Going Deep, and in this week's episode of Point of Inquiry, Conover discloses to host Lindsay Beyerstein what some of the most difficult moments of his immersion-journalism career have been, and reveals some of the tricks of the trade for getting close to your subjects without losing yourself in the process.

Daniel C. Dennett is one of the most influential philosophers of our time, perhaps best known in cognitive science for his multiple drafts (or "fame in the brain") model of human consciousness, and to the secular community for his 2006 book Breaking the Spell. Author and co-author of two-dozen books, he's the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, where he taught our very own Point of Inquiry host Lindsay Beyerstein. Beyerstein and Dennett catch up to discuss Dennett's newest book, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds. It's a fresh look at Dennett's earlier work on the subject of consciousness, taken in new directions as he seeks a "bottom-up view of creation." Join Dennett and Beyerstein as they discuss the how's and why's of consciousness, not just from an evolutionary and neurological standpoint, but also through the lenses of computer science and human culture.

With great power, comes great responsibility, so we are told by Voltaire and Peter Parker's Uncle Ben. It's something we learn anew with each presidency, as the person who holds the office must decide how they will wield the power they've been given. For Richard Nixon, power was something to be used in the service of itself, to be maintained and defended at all costs. Soon to be our 45th president, Donald Trump comes to the office with some striking similarities to the 37th, complete with "enemies lists" and paranoid vendettas against foes real and imagined. To give us some historical perspective about the comparison between Trump and Nixon, we welcome historian, author, and journalist Rick Perlstein. Peristein is the bestselling author of Nixonland and Before the Storm, about the conservative movement sparked by Barry Goldwater. His newest book is The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and The Rise of Reagan. Perlstein recently published his latest critical analysis of Trump and Nixon in The New Republic, in an expose entitled "He's Making a List."

Tom Flynn is Executive Director of Council for Secular Humanism (a program of the Center for Inquiry), as well as a novelist, journalist, and editor of Free Inquiry magazine. Outside of the freethought universe, however, Flynn may be best known as a professional Christmas opponent "the Anti-Claus," and author of the book The Trouble with Christmas. For decades, Flynn has argued against atheists taking part in the celebration of Christmas, saying it makes hypocrites of nonbelievers and validates Christians' claims over the season. Point of Inquiry host Lindsay Beyerstein disagrees, and this week she and Flynn engage in a friendly debate over whether atheists should reject all trappings of the holiday, or claim its secular aspects for our own.

There's no question that Trump and his incoming administration have plans to take the country in a very different direction on a plethora of issues. To help us sort through what to expect, we welcome writer and political journalist, Amanda Marcotte. Marcotte currently blogs at The Raw Story and is a political contributor for Slate, Salon, and The Guardian. With Republican majorities in the House and Senate, Marcotte says we can expect drastic changes on a multitude of issues, and in areas such as immigration and climate change, Trump will not even require congressional approval. Labor rights, healthcare, and abortion rights, while vulnerable, will take more of an effort from Trump and Republican lawmakers to change. Marcotte urges progressives not to give up hope, as she lays out where Trump's agenda can be most effectively resisted.

From the early isolationist policies of George Washington to Thomas Jefferson's universal embargo on foreign trade, 19th century America had no plans to become an imperial power. How then does a nation with no navy and a commitment to not having a standing army become a global superpower? Andrew W. Cohen is an author and U.S. history professor at Syracuse University. His new book is Contraband: Smuggling and the Birth of the American Century. Cohen argues that looking at early 19th century American trade policies, and the effort to police smuggling goods and contraband, gives us some telling insight about the transformation of America into what it is today.

Michael Berube is the Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University where he teaches American literature, disabilities studies, and cultural studies. His newest book is Life as Jamie Knows it: An Exceptional Child Grows Up. The book follows Berube's son Jamie as he grows into adulthood, eagerly navigating the world as a young adult with Down syndrome. Berube tackles the misconceptions about intellectual disability from the perspectives of both a scholar of disabilities and that of a father. He challenges the misconception that intellectual disability detracts from the value of a life, as exemplified by his son Jamie, who Berube describes as witty, inquisitive, and full of a love for life. Berube asserts that like most children, when given ample amounts of love and attention, kids with Down syndrome have the best fighting chance at meeting their full potential and living a successful, happy life. Berube calls upon bioethicists, politicians, philosophers, and all of us to rethink how we approach disability, and advocates for changes that will move us towards a more inclusive society.

This week we're dusting off a favorite Point of Inquiry episode from three years ago: Josh Zepps' conversation with P.J. O'Rourke – humorist, cultural commentator and bestselling author of sixteen books. Originally broadcast in December of 2013, this episode's subject matter is remarkably relevant for this current political and cultural moment, as we prepare for the presidency of a man whose campaign was based on the promise to return America to a golden age that really never existed. O'Rourke is an early proponent of "gonzo journalism" and is a self described libertarian, he's served as editor-in-chief of National Lampoon, and has spent 20 years reporting for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic as the worlds only "trouble spot humorist" going to wars, riots, rebellions, and other "Holidays in Hell" in more than 40 countries. O'Rourke is the H.L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and a frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! In this episode they discuss everything from abortion and privacy, to the party following the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the looting of the Baghdad Museum. They discuss American values both of individualism and the fundamental shared American mentality of dissatisfaction, and that things are never good enough. The same dissatisfaction that often has us yearning for the "good ol' days" is also the American quality that propels us forward, hungry for a better life, and unwilling to settle.

There's no getting around the fact that the alt-right has come out of the shadows to fully embrace Trump as their candidate. From Steve Bannon to David Duke, controversial support did not wait long to rush to Trump's side. It's clear that for many "make America great again" may just mean to make America white again. To help us get to the root of this unprecedented following Trump has produced, we welcome author and award-winning journalist and blogger, David Neiwert. Neiwert is an expert on the radical right and a correspondent for the anti-hate group the Southern Poverty Law Center. He most recently coauthored an award-winning piece in Mother Jones titled, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-hate-groups-neo-nazi-white-supremacist-racism">"How Trump Took Hate Groups Mainstream." Neiwert and coauthor Sarah Posner have thoroughly tracked Trump's social media engagement with the white nationalist movement from the start of his campaign. Neiwert suggests that while we can't know for certain how many of these alt-right ideals are ones Trump personally adheres to, he undoubtedly shares alt-right rhetoric that has enticed a strength in the white nationalism movement we haven't seen in decades. Sarah Posner also appeared on Point of Inquiry last year in http://www.pointofinquiry.org/sarah_posner_trump_carson_and_the_religious_right_in_2016/">Sarah Posner: Trump, Carson and the Religious Right in 2016.

The religiously unaffiliated, also known as the "nones," are currently the largest "faith" demographic in the country. Yet evangelicals beat them two to one in turnout at the polls. We live in an increasingly secular nation based on secular principles, but in government, the secular worldview is badly underrepresented. President-elect Donald Trump spoke to many American's economic struggles, but his is also a victory for the religious right that rallied strongly behind him. Much of Trump's platform and policy agenda is incredibly unpopular with the American people, which is part of what is so perplexing about his victory. Yet despite being a relative minority within the population, evangelicals reliably vote, and secular Americans overwhelmingly do not. Here to talk about how we got here and the effort to fix this voting disparity is Larry Decker, Executive Director of Secular Coalition for America. Decker believes that much of America's core secular values are in grave danger with a Trump presidency. He asserts that SCA and its contributing members (which includes the Center for Inquiry, which produces this program) are preparing to fight relentlessly to make secular American voices heard in order to defend the wall of separation between church and state.

We live in a digital era in which science and technology have revealed new frontiers never before possible. In developing the complicated technologies that permeate our lives, is it possible that humans have failed to grasp the magnitude of the complexity they have created? This week's guest is a complexity scientist, Samuel Arbesman, author of the new book Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension. Arbesman explains that the rate of technological expansion is growing too quickly for our intellects to keep up, and the dangers of not understanding the inner workings of our creations are already revealing themselves, whether it's the New York Stock Exchange suspending trading without warning or Toyota cars accelerating uncontrollably to the surprise of their drivers. The complexity of the code behind much of what has become fundamental components of society are so far past the limits of human comprehension that oftentimes no one is even able to find the cause when these systems go awry. Arbesman lays out why it's so difficult for even experts to keep up with technological progress and how we can make efforts to prevent our creations from destroying themselves…or us.

Joe Nickell is perhaps the world's foremost investigator of the paranormal, as well as a magician and author, and he joins us for this special Halloween episode to discuss his recent feature article in Skeptical Inquirer, "Creators of The Paranormal." According to Nickell, the term "paranormal" refers to things that lie beyond the normal range of human experience and scientific explanation. Nickell's paranormal investigations have covered everything from spirits and psychic phenomena to less spectral phenomena such as UFOs and cryptozoology. Questions about the paranormal have haunted humans since ancient times, but much of our modern conceptions about the paranormal date back only as far as the 19th century. Nickell attributes the advent of modern day spiritualism and the proliferation of the paranormal to a handful of distinct individuals who, for better or worse, popularized paranormal beliefs that are still championed by believers to this day.

The cat. King of the jungle, emperor of the internet, overlord of our homes? Cats are easily among the most adaptable mesopredator, able to survive and thrive everywhere from the deserts of Australia, to the Arctic tundra, to a cramped studio apartment. Abigail Tucker is a contributing writer for Smithsonian and author of the new book, Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World. Tucker explains just how wild the beasts that live among us really are. Known for their independence and convenience, cats need little house training, if any. Tucker asserts that while cats don't require training, they may actually be the ones training us, monitoring our behaviors and teaching us how to keep them happy. So who, exactly, is domesticating whom? Tucker delves paws-first into the feline mind, debunking cat myths and misconceptions, and shedding light on the role cats have played throughout history, as well as how we might be able to benefit from them in the future.

Halloween is almost here, and Target stores are pulling clown masks from their shelves. After the creepy clown craze made its way through Europe, the circus has finally arrived in the US with sightings in at least 40 states, 10 of which have now resulted in actual arrests. With more reports filed every day, the clown scare that's taking the nation by storm shows no signs of breaking. Where are all these clowns coming from and why are these once-lovable jesters suddenly so terrifying? Point of Inquiry welcomes writer, author and skeptic Benjamin Radford to discuss his new book, Bad Clowns. Radford's research dives deep into the historical culture, pop culture, and counterculture of clowns in order to connect the dots to how we got here. Radford, deputy editor of the Center for Inquiry's Skeptical Inquirer magazine, compares the clown phenomenon to the appeal some find in Internet trolling. Being a killer clown allows you to be seen without actually being seen; it's the thrill of being a part of something big, a form performance art in which one's identity is hidden from ridicule and consequence.

Today the United States is the most secular and irreligious it has ever been. According to http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/11/religious-nones-are-not-only-growing-theyre-becoming-more-secular/">Pew Research, the percentage of Americans who identify as atheist, agnostic, or having no religion in particular is up to 23%, compared to the 16% it was in 2007. With a lack of religious affiliation becoming normalized, it's hard to imagine what it was like for the nonreligious when God's primacy was almost entirely unquestioned. Point of Inquiry welcomes Leigh Eric Schmidt, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the new book, Village Atheists: How America's Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation. Schmidt gives a detailed account of what it was like to be secular in a society where God was considered to be the sole source of all morality. While some worked to prove that God was not essential to being a moral, upstanding citizen, others were more concerned with reforming the way the church affected public life. Schmidt explains that in the 1850's, "liberal" was used interchangeably with "atheist." While some atheists felt it was important to blend in with the rest of God-abiding society, others felt their views on everything — from marriage reform and gender equality to civil rights and free speech — were in direct conflict with the church, and they challenged its claims to moral authority.

Phil Torres is an author, contributing writer for the Future of Life Institute, and an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. His writing has been featured in numerous publications such as Time, Motherboard, Salon, Huffington Post, and our very own https://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/3532">Free Inquiry. His book is The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us About the Apocalypse. Since the beginning of civilization, people have worried about its collapse. Pockets of people across the world have long warned that the end is near, and as it turns out, their warnings of apocalypse might be closer to the truth than we think. Torres joins Point of Inquiry host Josh Zepps to discuss just how close we are to experiencing catastrophes that have the potential to fuel our demise. With everything from climate change and biodiversity loss to uncontrollable technologies and the greater accessibility of advanced weaponry, Torres predicts that the human race is going to have some major hurdles to overcome if we want to survive the coming century.

Dr. Julia Shaw is a psychological scientist and senior researcher in the Department of Law and Social Science at London South Bank University. She teaches at the undergraduate and graduate level and her research on false memory has been published in several international academic journals. She returns to Point of Inquiry this week to discuss her new book, The Memory Illusion. Our memories are a collection of perceptions of our past experiences, and they influence what we think we're capable of in the future. Dr. Shaw argues that if we start to question the accuracy of our memories we're then forced to question the foundation of who we think we are. She shows us that our memories aren't as reliable as we think. Not only are we capable of co-opting other people's memories as our own, but we can also be easily persuaded by the power of suggestion that we've committed acts that have never actually occurred. Even when it comes to our most confident recollections, the potential for memory error has proven to be profound, and Dr. Shaw believes understanding the science of memory can help us deal with our brains' tendency to rewrite the past.

Since the beginning of humankind unpredictable forces of nature have been among our most dangerous threats: volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, tornados, hurricanes, and other disasters that trigger our fight-or-flight survival instincts. Pollution invoked climate change is exacerbating natural disasters and spurring unprecedented human migration. So when so many people are clamoring for safety and running for the hills, what does that mean for those who are already atop them? Author and geographer Barry Vann explains what awaits the future of our planet and its human populations in his new book Forces of Nature: Our Quest to Conquer the Planet. In this fascinating yet sobering conversation with Josh Zepps, Vann elaborates on both the causes of migration as well as the outcomes of the population shifts to come. They discuss both the impact humans have had on our planet, and how our planet affects us in turn. Vann is optimistic that while society is prone to taking the path of least resistance, the conditions brought about by climate change will soon become so unbearable it will force us to make tough decisions that will be crucial for our survival.

Death is an unsettling thing to come to grips with. We know it is inevitable that it will one day happen to us. One of the first things most of us learn about death is that it happens to everyone, yet perhaps because no one ever comes back to tell the tale, there's a lot about our impending doom that's difficult to fully grasp. To help us take comfort in our inexorable demise, we welcome Andrew Stark, an author and political science professor at the University of Toronto. Having spent time as a policy advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada, he now offers himself as a life advisor – or rather, a death advisor – in his new book The Consolations of Mortality: Making Sense of Death. Stark gives us an overview of what the greatest minds of history have said about what it means to die. With a skeptical eye, he sorts through the various arguments for how we should feel about death, effectively shaking off the sugar coating of mortality in an effort to provide us with solace that stands the test of logic.

Emily Willingham is a journalist, scientist, and award winning skeptical blogger, with much of her work centered on autism and debunking junk science controversies. Recently the autism community has shown a surge in support for medical cannabis, as anti-vaccination activists claim that cannabis may hold the key for a cure, and many people with autism claim it to be a useful for controlling their symptoms. Willingham and host Lindsay Beyerstein delve further into the topic to sort through the misconceptions that exist on both sides of the debate. Willingham explains that the data is limited on the relationship between cannabis and autism, in part because of the strict research restrictions that have been placed on what the government classifies as a Schedule I substance, a drug with no medical value. Despite the abundance of data showing its benefits and safety in regard to pain relief and inducing appetite, Willingham points out that the stigma against cannabis has lead to restrictions that are even more severe than those that exist on many other pain killers and opioids. Emily Willingham will also be speaking at the upcoming Women in Secularism conference, September 23-25 in Arlington, VA. For more information go to womeninsecularism.org.

Elizabeth Greenwood teaches at Columbia University and like many other young professionals she has an insurmountable amount of student loan debt. With the overwhelming feeling that she would never escape her debt she desperately longed for a new start. There was no going back on what she had done to accumulate her debt, but perhaps she could skip ahead. She began to investigate what it would take to fake one's own death in the 21st century. Greenwood was shocked to ​find a robust infrastructure of death fraud all at her fingertips. Eager to know more about the strange subculture, she decided to go through with faking her own death and writes about it in her new book, Playing Dead: A Journey Through The World of Death Fraud. She meets some interesting characters along the way and realizes that a new start might not be as easy and appealing as it sounds.

Bronwen Dickey is a contributing editor at The Oxford American, and author of Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon. Her writing can also be found in The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Newsweek, Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle, and numerous other publications. For Dickey's most recent piece, just published in Popular Mechanics, she embarks on the "Conspire-Sea Cruise," giving us an inside look at what the world of a conspiracy theorist is like and what fuels the need to believe in vast, nefarious plots. Dickey says she was inspired to report on the conspiracy cruise after working on Pit Bull, where she discovered just how strong the desire can be to ignore evidence and seek out junk science that supports one's existing beliefs. In conversation with host Lindsay Beyerstein, Dickey looks at the paranoia that propels people towards conspiracy and compares it to the tireless fear mongering pit bull breeds are subjected to. Dickey gives a detailed account of the history and science behind pit bulls and offers a hardheaded overview of what we know about them as a breed and the contrasting ways everyday Americans view them.

Those following the Olympics this year may have noticed Michael Phelps sporting circular bruises all over his body. That's because Phelps, like many Olympic athletes, won't go after their medals without going after their cups. The growing fad of cupping is an ancient practice in which cups are placed all over the body and skin is suctioned inside the cup, bursting blood vessels and creating circular bruises. The claim is that cupping releases toxins and heals muscle tissue, among a number of other alleged health benefits, none of which can be backed up by scientific evidence. Dr. David Gorski is a surgical oncologist, blogger, and advocate for evidence-based reasoning. He joins us today to discuss the latest Olympic pseudoscience fads and what it is about them that makes them pseudoscience. He gives his take on why alt-med practices like cupping are so appealing to people, and the best ways to go about persuading people out of them.

Iraqi-born writer Faisal Saeed Al Mutar is a blogger for the Huffington Post and a columnist for the Center for Inquiry's own Free Inquiry magazine. Having grown up in Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein, he's now a human rights activist and secularism advocate as well as founder of the Global Secular Humanist Movement and Secular Post. For Faisal and progressive Muslims and secularists across the globe, social media is the primary means of not only seeking community and acceptance, but to opening dialogues about fraught issues such as dissent from Islam. But recently Facebook seems to be singling out many of these conversations and communities, and shutting them down. In a conversation with Josh Zepps, Faisal gives several examples of Muslims and Arabs having their posts and pages removed. Arab secularist groups, condemnations of the Taliban, and other challenges to Islam are being banned from the site, which is often justified by claims of racism, hate speech, and other alleged violations of "community standards." Faisal argues that when Facebook censors Muslims and Arabs from being able to criticize extremism and terrorism within their own religion and culture it adds to the very stereotypes and fears surrounding Muslims that Facebook should want to prevent.

David Cay Johnston is an award winning investigative journalist and New York Times best-selling author, as well as one of few journalists who has deeply dug into the dirty laundry of Donald Trump, now the Republican nominee for President of the United States. In 1988 Johnston left the LA Times to report on casino gambling in Atlantic City, which resulted in uncovering a detailed history of corruption in Trump's past dealings. The information he began to unearth compelled Johnston to follow Trump's career closely for decades, eventually leading to the release of his newest book, The Making of Donald Trump. Point of Inquiry host Lindsay Beyerstien talks to Johnston about some of the key insights of his book, including the similarities between Trump and TV psychics, and Trump's astounding ability to deflect any responsibility, and avoid any consequences for his actions.

Free speech on college campuses has become a topic of impassioned debate, as the lines between hate speech and harassment, or peaceful protest and public disturbance, are rather blurry and hotly contested. Particularly since the protest movements of the 1960s, college campuses have long been a kind of testing ground for different norms and boundaries of free expression. At the same time, some institutions of higher learning have speech codes which many feel are serving to silence debate and discussion among students in the name of protecting feelings. Our guest this week, Wendy Kaminer, is among those who believe that things like speech codes and trigger warnings have gotten out of control. Kaminer is a lawyer and writer who has dedicated much of her life's work to defending free speech. She and host Lindsay Beyerstein engage in a spirited discussion about the grayest areas concerning speech and censorship on campus and in the culture at large. Kaminer will also be one of the many fantastic speakers at the fourth Women in Secularism conference, September 23-25 in Alexandria, Virgina.

Religions have always gone through transitions over time. Not only do the faiths themselves evolve, but the role they play in day-to-day life adapts to fit the needs of a given culture. As the youngest Abrahamic religion on the market, all eyes are on Islam, as a debate rages as to whether there is any chance of reform or secularization within a religion that is so deeply woven into the fabric of the Muslim world. Ali Rizvi is a Pakistani-Canadian writer, physician, and author of the new book Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason. Rizvi is one of many Muslims who assert that while they have lost their religion, they haven't lost their Muslim identity. Rizvi considers Islam to be a religion with a set of ideas that are fair game to be criticized, but he also sees Muslims as distinct, as a culture of which Islam is not a mandatory component. After losing his faith while studying as a scientist and physician, Rizvi continued to participate and identify with many of the cultural aspects of being Muslim. He found that he wasn't alone in his feelings, and predicts that today's young Muslims will be the start of the transition toward secularism for Muslims around world.

It was only a couple of decades ago that the most complex handheld computing system fathomable was a TI-83 graphing calculator. Technology has usually served to make our lives easier, but in the post-digital boom, in which full-blown pocket size computers are the norm, our attention spans are shrinking along with our free time (and graphing is the least of our data worries). Technology can seem to have made certain aspects of life simultaneously easier and more difficult. Our guest this week is David Levy, a computer scientist and professor at the Information School of the University of Washington. He was a member of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in Silicon Valley during the information revolution in which we began converting information from paper to digital. He has since focused the body of his work and research on information overload. His new book, Mindful Tech: How to Bring Balance to Our Digital Lives, offers simple strategies and exercises to help develop digital control and mindfulness. Levy doesn't claim to see the digital advancements of the world as being strictly an asset or detriment, but rather asserts that we need to begin to train our brains to process information differently to maintain control and balance over our increasingly fast-paced digital lives.

Autumn Whitefield-Mandrano is the author of the acclaimed new book on feminism and beauty, Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women's Lives. Her work can be found such outlets as Glamour, Jezebel, Salon, The Guardian, and her own blog, The Beheld: Beauty and What It Means. Her book takes a closer look at why beauty is so coveted in American society and how the pedestal of beauty affects women in particular. She and host Lindsay Beyerstein delve into perceptions of beauty from both scientific and sociological perspectives. While Autumn's research supports the notion that many women see beauty as a healthy celebration of individuality, she's also all too aware of the multi-billion-dollar industry that cynically peddles snake oil and empty promises to women who feel forced to maintain impossible beauty standards.

Michelle Vines grew up knowing she was different from other people. She always assumed she was just a bit odd and eccentric but never in a way that suggested she wasn't neurotypical. She lived in Australia where she excelled in math and science and became a chemical engineer in the oil and gas industry. After finding her work environment deeply unsatisfying and her personal relationships increasingly frustrating, she was forced to sort through why she was struggling. When the possibility of Asperger's syndrome was raised, it was both jarring and illuminating. In 2008 she put her chemical engineering career on hold and moved to the U.S. where at 30 years old she was formally diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at the University of Texas Health Science Center. The experience of living her entire life without fully understanding her own brain inspired her to write her memoir, Asperger's on the Inside. Since being diagnosed, she has been a strong advocate and spokesperson for autism and Asperger's, and hopes to help people on all ends of the neurological spectrum form a better understanding of what people with Asperger's go through on a daily basis.

Secularist bloggers, writers and LGBT activists are being hacked to death in the streets of Bangladesh by militant Islamic groups. To help us get to the bottom of why there needs to be no end in sight to the violence is the Center for Inquiry's Office of Public Policy Director, Michael De Dora. Starting in April of 2013 when secular activist Avijit Roy reached out to De Dora, the Center for Inquiry has worked closely with threatened individuals like Roy to move writers and bloggers in Bangladesh to safety. Roy was himself murdered in Dhaka in February of 2015, beginning the current wave of attacks. De Dora, who is also CFI's main representative to the United Nations, explains that many of these champions of free speech in Bangladesh have no other choice but to leave their home country, as the Bangladeshi government refuses to come to terms with the threat, and instead directs responsibility to the dead for their writings. While the current government in power is ostensibly secular and considered the more liberal of the two powerful political parties in Bangladesh, they have been reluctant to make a show of support of the victims, protect their citizens. De Dora suggests that it's because many of the people being attacked are criticizing the government, and as a result the only action being taken is victim blaming. Note: Over the weekend, Bangladeshi authorities arrested thousands people said to be connected to extremist groups responsible for the attacks.

Author and Guardian US columnist Jessica Valenti is a pioneer of digital-age feminist writing, starting her blog feministing.com">Feministing in 2004, and becoming known as one of the leading voices in the discussion about gender equality. Valenti's newest contribution to the movement is her new book, Sex Object: A Memoir. Her witty and courageous book explores the cold, hard realities of growing up female in a male-dominated society, with a unique spin on a story many women are all too familiar with. Point of Inquiry's Lindsay Beyerstein gets the inside scoop on what motivated Valenti to write the memoir and what she advises for the future of feminism and the fight for gender equality. They talk about many of the stories Valenti shares about her life, and discuss the personal impact of divulging one's most vulnerable experiences in order to tell the difficult truths about many women's everyday lives.

In the literature about religious conversion, embracing a new faith is usually explained as being a profound and magical experience. A flash of light, a near death experience, an emotional new beginning; these are all common themes in religious conversion stories. But what about the less flashy stories of people who change their religious affiliation simply for reasons of practicality? Point of Inquiry welcomes back bestselling, award-winning author Susan Jacoby to discus her new book, Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion, an exploration of the cultural, political and secular forces driving religious conversion in the western world. Jacoby argues that while spiritual revelation may be a motivator for some, the majority of religious conversions are far more often due to the secular components of an individual's life. Susan Jacoby was honored with a Center for Inquiry Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015, and formerly served as the program director of CFI's New York City branch.

Maia Szalavitz is an author and award-winning journalist specializing in science, public policy, and addiction treatment. Most famous of her several books was her 2006 exposé, Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled–Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids. Her latest book is Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction. As a recovering addict herself, Szalavitz knows about the stigma of addiction first hand. She spent much of her teen and young adult life addicted to drugs like heroin and cocaine, but now with over 20 years of sobriety under her belt she's dedicated a large portion of her career to investigating and reporting addiction treatment. Szalavitz's research suggests that addiction is actually an emotional learning disorder, which, if true, could revolutionize not only the way we treat addiction but also the way we perceive addiction treatment.

This week, Josh Zepps sits down with commentator and writer Shadi Hamid. He's a senior fellow in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, a contributing writer to The Atlantic, and his new book is http://amzn.to/1OcgSw3">Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World. There is a heated debate about whether there is something intrinsically unique about the religion of Islam that has lead to destructive groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS, or whether their existence has nothing to do with religion and are merely the product of politics. Many insist that Islam is not unlike any other religion in its infancy and that with time it will go through a natural course of reform. Hamid suggests that Islam is indeed distinct from other religions, but that those distinctions aren't in and of themselves good or bad. Hamid urges us to look at the root of these conflicts, because Islam's unique doctrine and origin will likely mean that its path to reform will look very different from the path of enlightenment values that other religions have embraced before it.

Dr. Amy Tuteur is an obstetrician-gynecologist and writer, returning to Point of Inquiry to discuss her new book, Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting. Known from her popular blog as The Skeptical OB, she has appeared in several publications and news outlets over the years educating the public about the facts of birthing healthy babies, and more importantly correcting the misinformation surrounding birth and mothering, such as breast feeding, nipple confusion, attachment theory, and "birth warriors." Her book takes a closer look at the factual misconceptions surrounding childbirth, as well as the history behind these unscientific ideas. Dr Tuteur and host Lindsay Beyerstein discuss the history of natural parenting and how it affects mothers today, particularly the ways myths about childbirth can make life miserable for mothers, and how the natural childbirth industry can profit from their worries.

Dr. Ned Hallowell is a child and adult psychiatrist, a New York Times bestselling author, and among the world's leading experts in the field of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He's written numerous books about ADHD and modern distraction, including Driven to Distraction, Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder, Worry: Controlling it and Using it Wisely, and others. Dr. Hallowell points out that those with ADHD possess what he calls a "race car brain," capable of brilliance and great creativity, but without an understanding of how to control and train minds with ADHD, it can result in chaos and havoc. Dr. Hallowell offers insight on the spectrum of ADHD, and the misuse of the diagnosis. In the age of digital distraction, a great many of us struggle to focus on tasks and goals. While his advice primarily focuses on helping people with ADHD to regain control of their minds and their lives, much of what he recommends can be helpful to chaotic, distracted, minds of all kinds.

For a very long time marriage was considered a foundation of American life. Adulthood and marriage came hand in hand, and shortly after marriage children were the next logical step. Breaking that mold wasn't a socially acceptable or financially viable option for women. Today, however, marriage rates show us a very different picture of what is considered the norm. To lend some insight into these changing conventions, Point of Inquiry welcomes Rebecca Traister, an author and award-winning journalist who is the writer-at-large for New York Magazine and a contributing editor at Elle. Her new book is All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation. In 1960, the majority of American women were married by age 29. Today only 20 percent of American women are married by then. For over a century the median age of first marriages for women in America had remained between 20 and 22, but in recent years it has jumped dramatically to age 27. Overall, fewer American women are married than ever before and Traister has investigated what's behind this dramatic change, and what it means for a new generation of single women in America.

Medical doctors can hold our lives in their hands. But with great power comes great responsibility, and doctors owe it to their patients to provide accurate information and treatments based on science and evidence. This is the standard we expect and take for granted; yet one doctor, Stanislaw Burzynski, has been skirting medical ethics and scientific protocols for decades with his controversial and unproven cancer treatments, which he claims without evidence, can destroy cancer cells. The Center for Inquiry, which produces this podcast, has worked to expose Burzynski’s treatments and for the FDA to http://www.centerforinquiry.net/newsroom/stop_burzynskis_dangerous_cancer_treatments/">reinstate restrictions on his dubious medical trials. This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes science journalist Tamar Wilner to discuss the most recent progress in the Burzynski case, and what it’s like to pursue the hard truth within such a murky and emotionally fraught situation. Wilner is a frequent contributor to the Columbia Journalism Review and a consultant for the Fact Checking Project at the American Press Institute; she’s written numerous articles on controversial science issues including her recent http://www.newsweek.com/2016/03/04/stanislaw-burzynski-cancer-medical-malfeasance-429057.html">Newsweek feature, “Cancer ‘Visionary’ Stanislaw Burzynski Stands Trial for Unprecedented Medical Malfeasance.” She’s also been featured at Skeptical Inquirer with a piece entitled http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/five_things_i_learned_writing_about_stanislaw_burzynski">“Five Things I Learned Writing about Stanislaw Burzynski.” A further explanation of Burzynski’s treatments, the lack of science behind them, and his run-ins with medical authorities can be found in a feature by Dr. David Gorski in the http://www.csicop.org/si/show/stanislaw_burzynski_four_decades_of_an_unproven_cancer_cure">March-April 2014 issue of Skeptical Inquirer