Point of Inquiry

Phil Zuckerman is a professor of sociology at Pitzer College, and among the world's leading experts in the growing field of secular studies, with a deep understanding of how people's lives are lived without religion. He’s the author of the books  Living the Secular Life: New Answers to Old Questions ,  Society without God , and  Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion . There is wide range of se...

Negotiations between Iran and the U.S. in concert with Germany and the United Nations Security Council are set to result in an agreement on  March 31, 2015  regarding Iran’s nuclear program, potentially restricting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Senior Historian for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and adviser to senior government officials on Iranian issues, David Crist, joins host Josh Zepps...

Billions of dollars are funneled into federal drug programs to keep our children away from drugs and our cities safe from crime and economic turmoil. Our guest this week, journalist and author Johann Hari, has spent the last several years traveling and researching the war on drugs for his new book Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs , to find out if federal programs are...

As climate change progresses and takes its toll on the planet, the life forms we share it with continue to evolve and adapt. Some species thrive while many face imminent extinction. What we often fail to realize as humans is that the world will continue to exist long after we’re unable to live on it. Our guest this week is science journalist Michael Tennesen, author of  The Next Species: The Futur...

This week on  Point of Inquiry , Josh Zepps talks to Eli Lake, a journalist with extensive experience covering international intelligence, diplomacy, and the recent conflicts in the Muslim world. With the Islamic State now eclipsing Al Qaeda as a prime flashpoint for terrorism, discussing and defining the ideology behind the violence is fraught with tension, as evidenced by the uproar over Preside...

Memory is remarkably fallible, as we often frustrate ourselves with how certain we are about where we left our car keys only to realize how entirely wrong we were. But could it be that our memories are so easily corrupted that we could be led to believe we’ve committed crimes that never happened? (And while we’re at it, could Brian Williams have sincerely believed that he had been under attack in...

This week on a special episode highlighting the upcoming Reason for Change conference,  Point of Inquiry  welcomes stand up comedian Leighann Lord. Talking with show producer Nora Hurley, they discuss how the worlds of comedy and skepticism are not as distant as they seem. They explore the unique dynamic comedy creates for critical thinking, and how a good joke may just be the gateway to discourse...

This week Point of Inquiry welcomes Laci Green for a special tell-all Valentine's Day episode. Green is a popular Youtube video blogger, sex education activist and feminist. In a time when sex pervades popular culture and marketing, and yet rarely discussed, her videos have managed to shed light on a plethora of minefield topics concerning sex, love, and gender issues. This Valentine's Day enhance...

Intuitively, it can feel as though the essence of our thoughts and feelings exists separate from the body and brain, and that essence is what is normally referred to as the soul. Empirical evidence, however, forces us to reconcile our intuitions with reality. As the science of the brain and consciousness advances, the case for the existence of a soul deteriorates.   This week on  Point of Inquiry,...

Measles are the newest attraction at Disneyland this season, and unfortunately the only thing magical about them is how quickly they’ve begun to spread throughout California and Arizona. Although measles were eliminated in the U.S. by 2000, the misinformation of the anti-vaccine movement has caused a return of a full-fledged outbreak.   Here to discuss the severity of the problem is Paul Offit. He...

This week on  Point of inquiry ,  New York Times  bestselling author Karen Abbott talks to Lindsay Beyerstein about her newest book,  Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy , which tells the true story of four women who served as spies during the U.S. Civil War.   In a time when women had few of the rights they would later win for themselves, the need for espionage turned out to be an early and important s...

The terrorist attack on  Charlie Hebdo  was a human atrocity, as well as an assault on free expression. Yet numerous prominent news publications are still refusing to show the very Hebdo cartoons at the center of the story. Last year, in the midst of nebulous threats, Sony had removed their satirical film from theaters. How can we avoid yielding control to terrorism with censorship without putting...

The effort to overturn  Roe v. Wade  and criminalize abortion has spiraled into challenging not only women’s right to abortion, but a women’s right to carry her baby to term. Across the country, women who seek medical help for pregnancy complications are being met with incarceration and outrageous sentences, all without proper representation. According to this week’s guest, if a woman would like t...

Tom Flynn is Executive Director of The Council for Secular Humanism, Editor of  Free Inquiry  magazine, as well as professional anti-Christmas advocate and author of “The Trouble with Christmas.” Tom is on his 30 th  year of being completely Yule free and he’s here to talk about why the rest of us should join him in protesting the holidays.

Our Guest this week is Greta Christina, popular atheist blogger, speaker and author of several books on atheism including her newest, “Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do With God.”   Christina discusses with Lindsay Beyerstein the tendencies we have to avoid and deny death and how it affects our abilities to cope. Christina explains how the concept of an afterlife may actually...

Fox News’ "War on Christmas" is already in full swing, as Bill O’Reilly wasted no time jumping into battle this year to defend the holiday from the great secular menace. However, it looks like Bill might be able to leave the trenches a little early this year; according to a new Pew survey, just over 70 percent of Americans believe that Jesus was literally birthed from the womb of a virgin (a stagg...

Despite the fact that the United States was founded as a secular state, government neutrality toward religion remains a tumultuous and controversial issue -- a conversation-stopper in most public policy discussions. This week on the show, Lindsay Beyerstein welcomes Ronald A. Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, the organization responsible for Point of Inquiry. Ron joins us to di...

Alan Turing was a true visionary. Founding what we understand today as computer science, he was also a mathematician, a philosopher, and an early trailblazer for gay equality. Without his genius for codebreaking, the Second World War might have gone in a much darker direction. He saved millions of lives and potentially the world as we know it, yet his efforts for humanity were not enough to spare...

As a nation, the U.S. prides itself on at least aspiring to the ideal of equality, even if it often falls short. The educational, health care, and legal systems, are plagued by institutional biases against racial minorities. The good news is that these disparities are likely not due to hateful intent, but caused by a combination of factors that include implicit bias, racial anxiety, and stereotype...

As the threat posed by radical Islamists like those of ISIS grows in popular awareness, Islam itself becomes more of a target for criticism; some of it fair, and some of it based in ignorance or bigotry. Can efforts to defend Islam and Muslims from discrimination and racism go too far, and keep us from having an honest discussion about something of such critical importance?    This week,  Point of...

The English language is often treated as delicate and precious, and disagreements about what is “proper English” go back as far as the 18th century. Then as now, style manuals and grammar books placed innumerable restrictions on what is and isn’t “correct,” as "Language Mavens" continue to delight in pointing out the unforgivable errors of others. To bring some fresh perspective to this remarkably...

There’s no doubt that Ebola is an incredibly dangerous and genuinely lethal virus, but it’s also a highly manageable one, though you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise given the kind of hyperbolic coverage we’ve seen of the epidemic. In order to sort fact from fiction about the real threat posed by Ebola, and to better understand its origins and wider implications,  Point of Inquiry  presents a...

Harry Houdini, the most famous illusionist the world has ever known, spent the later part of his career fascinated with spiritualists and mediums. This led him to become a dedicated skeptic and investigator.  In this special Halloween episode for 2014,  Point of Inquiry’s new producer Nora Hurley chats with  Joe Nickell, the world’s leading paranormal investigator, and a former professional magici...

Given the divisive nature of the debates over abortion, the subject is understandably not the best table-talk material. But despite the fact that abortion is a normal and often necessary (one in three women will have an abortion before menopause), even those who are staunchly pro-choice feel compelled to hedge their support by making sounds about how abortions are "horrible" and "unfortunate." Whe...

Our universe is made up of billions of galaxies. The cosmos is so mind-bogglingly vast, that it’s hard not to suppose that we aren’t alone, that life must  exist somewhere else besides our own planet. Last month, some of the world’s leading scientists gathered at an Astrobiology Symposium run by NASA and the Library of Congress to discuss where we stand in our search for extraterrestrial life. Thi...