Point of Inquiry

Eugene Straus, M.D., is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York Downstate College of Medicine. He's also served as a senior faculty member at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. In these positions, he directed research, teaching, and clinical activities for thirty-five years. He has published over 150 sci...

Bill Cooke, former international director for the Center for Inquiry, is a senior lecturer at the School of Visual Arts at University of Auckland at Manukau. He is a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion and now serves as CFI's Asia/Pacific coordinator. He is an acknowledged expert on the history of humanism and has written widely on the subject. He is author of the Di...

Derek Araujo was one of the founders and the first student president of the Campus Freethought Alliance in 1996. At the time he was attending Harvard College where he also founded the Harvard Secular Society before graduating magna cum laude in 1999. Mr. Araujo has since received a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School where he was a senior editor of the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review,...

Barry Beyerstein is Professor of Psychology and a member of the Brain Behaviour Laboratory at Simon Fraser University. His research has involved many areas related to his primary scholarly interests: brain mechanisms of perception and consciousness and the effects of drugs on the brain and mind. His work in these areas and his interest in the philosophy and history of science have also led him to...

Thomas Kida is a professor in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the author of many articles on decision-making. For the last 25 years he has been researching and teaching how we form our beliefs and make decisions. His new book, Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking, presents this research. The book is about t...

Paul Kurtz, considered the father of the secular humanist movement and a founder of the worldwide skeptic movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry magazine...

James "The Amazing" Randi is a world-renowned magician, skeptic and investigator of paranormal claims. He has been a central figure in the development of the world-wide skeptical movement. He's perhaps most known for the One Million Dollar Challenge, in which his Foundation will award One Million Dollars to anyone who is able to show evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or even...

Tom Flynn is the Editor of Free Inquiry magazine. A journalist, novelist, entertainer, and folklorist, Flynn is the author of numerous articles for Free Inquiry magazine, many addressing church-state issues, as well as The Trouble With Christmas, and has made hundreds of radio and TV appearances in his role as the curmudgeonly "anti-Claus." He is also the author of the critically acclaimed anti-re...

Jerry Coyne is a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, where he works on diverse areas of evolutionary genetics. The main focus of his laboratory is on the original problem raised by Darwin - the origin of species - and on understanding this process through the genetic patterns it produces. His writings have appeared in a number of journals, magazines a...

Cathleen Falsani is the religion reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, where she has covered spirituality and popular culture from Vatican City, Ireland, the White House, the Playboy Mansion and the dugout at Wrigley Field. In her first book, The God Factor, she recounts her discussions about God and morality with more than 30 prominent figures who hold various religious and nonreligious worldviews....

Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow for CSICOP, is considered the world's leading paranormal investigator. A former professional stage magician and private investigator, he has used his varied background to investigate myths and mysteries, frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. He has been called the modern Sherlock Holmes, the original ghost buster, and the real-life Scully (after the character in The X-...

Joe Hoffmann is Campbell Professor of Religion and Human Values at Wells College, New York and chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) at the Center for Inquiry. He is formerly Professor of Civilization Studies at American University of Beirut and Senior Research Scholar of St. Cross College, Oxford. Dr. Hoffmann is a specialist in the social and cultural history o...

Matt Nisbet is assistant professor in the school of communication at the Ohio State University. He focuses on the intersections between science, media, and politics, tracking how political strategists, scientists, and the news media selectively define science in ways that shape policy decisions, public opinion, and political culture. His writing has appeared in a number of scholarly journals such...

Paul Kurtz, considered the father of the secular humanist movement and a founder of the worldwide skeptic movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine...

Edward Tabash is a constitutional and civil rights lawyer in Beverly Hills, California. Graduating magna cum laude from UCLA in 1973, he graduated from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles three years later and was admitted to the California Bar that same year. He has chaired the National Legal Committee of Americans United for Separation of Church and State since 1995. He has been the most publicly-a...

Eugenie Scott, a physical anthropologist, has been the director of the National Center for Science Education for nearly 20 years. A former president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, she is one of the nation's leading defenders of the theory of evolution, and a vocal critic of creationism and Intelligen...

Bill Nye is one of America's leading popularizers of the scientific outlook. As a scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, he hosted Bill Nye The Science Guy, which earned 28 Emmys during its six year run. He is the author of a number of children's books about science and regularly lectures at Cornell University as part of the Frank H.T. Rhodes Visiting Professorship. He is also a Fell...

Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestseller The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Mr. Harris is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University and has studied both Eastern and Western religious traditions, along with a variety of contemplative disciplines, for twenty years. His work has been discussed in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Fr...

Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestseller The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Mr. Harris is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University and has studied both Eastern and Western religious traditions, along with a variety of contemplative disciplines, for twenty years. His work has been discussed in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Fr...

Herbert Hauptman is winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering a mathematical model for determining the molecular structures of crystallized materials. This work has proved to be of the greatest importance because it relates molecular structure to biological activity, and allows for a better understanding of life processes and making possible the development of many new disease-fighting...

Jamy Ian Swiss is universally considered one of the world's top sleight of hand performers, famous to magicians for his subtlety, skill and depth of understanding of magic's history. He has made numerous television appearances in the United States, Europe, and Japan, including on The Today Show, CBS's 48 Hours, Comedy Central, CNN, PBS Nova and the PBS documentary, The Art of Magic. He's performed...

Susan Jacoby is the author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, now in its tenth hardcover printing and recently published in paperback. Freethinkers was hailed in the New York Times as an "ardent and insightful work that seeks to rescue a proud tradition from the indifference of posterity." Named a notable nonfiction book of 2004 by The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, Fre...

Paul Kurtz, considered the father of the secular humanist movement and a founder of the worldwide skeptic movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and as editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine...

Daniel Dennett, the author of such groundbreaking and influential books as Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize), is famous for being a philosophical gadfly, challenging unexamined orthodoxies in our society. He has made considerable contributions to the study of consciousnes...

Dr. Wallace Sampson serves as editor of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine and is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Council Against Health Fraud. He has served as Chief of Medical Oncology at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, and is clinical Professor Emeritus of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Sampson is an expert on unscientific medical sy...