Point of Inquiry

Aubrey de Grey, PhD, is a biomedical gerontologist and Chairman and Chief Science Officer of The Methuselah Foundation. His major research interests are the role and etiology of all forms of cellular and molecular damage in mammalian aging, and the design of interventions to reverse the age-related accumulation of such damage. He has published extensively on these and other areas of gerontology, a...

Stephen Barrett, M.D. has achieved national renown as an author, editor, and consumer advocate. In addition to heading Quackwatch, he is vice-president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, a scientific advisor to the American Council on Science and Health, and a Fellow of the Center for Inquiry's Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI). The recipient of a number of awards, including the FDA...

Lawrence M. Krauss is Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics, Prof of Astronomy, and Director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University. The author of 7 popular books including international bestseller, The Physics of Star Trek, and the award winning, Atom, and his newest book, Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensi...

Paul Kurtz, considered by many the father of the secular humanist 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 , he has advanced a critical, humanisti...

CFI supports a growing network of campus groups on about 200 campuses throughout North America and around the world. While this is a much smaller number than its "cultural competitors," with groups like Campus Crusade for Christ having an annual operating budget of $380 million, Center for Inquiry's campus groups are able to have an increasing impact through the dedication and vision of its studen...

Richard Dawkins, considered one of the world's most influential scientists, is the first holder of the Charles Simonyi professorship of the public understanding of science at Oxford University and the recipient of a number of awards for his writings and for his science, including the International Cosmos Prize, the Kistler Prize, and the Shakespeare Prize. He is the author of a number of criticall...

Keith Stanovich holds the Canada Research Chair of Applied Cognitive Science at the Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto. His research areas include the psychology of reasoning and rationality and the psychology of reading, which explores what happens in the brain and to the brain through the process of reading. Recently, he was named one of the 25 most pro...

Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, started his working life as a professional magician. He currently holds Britain's only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. He frequently appears in the media, and has written over 60 academic articles and several books, including the best-selling The Luck Factor. His newest book is Quirkology: How We...

Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of America's leading spokespersons for science. The research areas he focuses on are star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. In addition to many scholarly publications, Dr Tyson is one of America's most respected science writers, and he writes a monthly column for Natural History magazine simply titled the "Uni...

Michael J. Behe, a central figure in the Intelligent Design movement, is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He is the author of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution and most recently The Edge of Evolution: Searching for the Limits of Darwinism. In this conversation wit...

Harry Houdini, the world-famous magician and escape artist, earnestly explored the religion of spiritualism and communication with the dead after his beloved mother's death in 1913, even as he later crusaded against those whom he believed were fraudulent mediums. In this episode, recorded on Halloween, Joe Nickell, the world's leading paranormal investigator and CSI's senior research fellow, and D...

Steven Pinker, a renowned cognitive neuroscientist, a research psychologist, and is Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His research on cognition and language won the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences and two prizes from the American Psychological Association. He has also received several honorary doctorates and many awards for graduate and undergraduate teac...

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...

Barbara Oakley, PhD, has been dubbed a female Indiana Jones — her writing combines worldwide adventure with solid research expertise. Among other adventures, she has worked as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers in the Bering Sea, served as radio operator at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, and risen from private to regular army captain in the U.S. Army. Currently an associate professor o...

Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, is one of the country's foremost appellate lawyers and a distinguished defender of civil liberties. More than a million people have heard him lecture around the world. His books include the New York Times bestsellers The Case for Israel and Chutzpah as well as Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Right...

The world's leading paranormal investigator, Joe Nickell is a regular contributor to Skeptical Inquirer science magazine. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Looking for a Miracle , Inquest on the Shroud of Turin , and most recently The Relics of the Christ. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Joe Nickell explores what he calls the "new idolatry," the term he uses to...

Massimo Pigliucci is professor of Ecology and Evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is well known as an outspoken critic of creationism and advocate of the public understanding and appreciation of science. A recipient of the Dobzhansky Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, he has been awarded three times the Oak Ridge National Laboratories Science Alliance F...

Paul Kurtz, considered by many the father of the secular humanist 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 , he has advanced a critical, humanisti...

Madeleine Van KHecke is a licensed clinical psychologist and an adjunct faculty member at North College in Naperville, Illinois. She is a writer, and a lecturer and workshop leader for Open Arms Seminar. Her recent book is Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things . In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Van Hecke explores common missteps that even intelligent and educated people make when approa...

Francis Collins is one of the world's leading scientists. He has been the longtime head of the Human Genome Project, the groundbreaking international effort to map and sequence all of the human DNA and then determine its functions. The Project is widely considered the most significant scientific undertaking of our time. A devout religious believer, Dr. Collins brings a unique perspective on the co...

Garrett G. Fagan is Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Penn State University. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and McMaster University Canada. His main research interests lie in the field of Roman History, about which he's published numerous scholarly articles. He has lectured widely on topics in Roman history, and this year coedited From Augustus to Ner...

Chris Mooney is an acclaimed writer who focuses on subjects at the intersection of science and politics. His writing has appeared in Wired, New Scientist, Free Inquiry, Skeptical Inquirer, Slate, Mother Jones, The Washington Post, The LA Times, and The Boston Globe, and he has appeared widely in the media, on programs such as The Daily Show with John Stewart, NPR's Science Friday, and Fresh Air wi...

Peter H. Gilmore is the High Priest of the Church of Satan. He has been interviewed on numerous television and radio programs dealing with the topic of Satanism, including spots on The History Channel, BBC, The Sci-Fi Channel, and Bob Larson's Christian radio show. In 1989, he and his wife Peggy Nadramia began publishing The Black Flame; a Satanic journal, and continues to publish issues sporadica...

Carol Tavris is a social psychologist, lecturer, and writer whose books include Anger and The Mismeasure of Woman. She has written on psychological topics for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Scientific American, Skeptical Inquiry, and many other publications. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and a member of the editorial b...

Peter Irons is professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, San Diego. A noted constitutional scholar, historian, and lawyer, he is the author of the bestselling May It Please the Court; The Battle for the Constitution; War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution; and A People's History of the Supreme Court. His newest book is God on Trial: Dispatc...