Serious Inquiries Only

Hey, I know there's a ton to talk about with the Mythinformation fiasco but that will have to wait, as today I have David Tamayo of Hispanic American Freethinkers ! David will be at California Freethought Day (we hope you'll join us!) We discuss atheism and religion in the Hispanic and Latino community, and talk about the really interesting things his organization is doing to try to bring some mor...

I watched The Red Pill so you don't have to... In today's episode, due to some scheduling circumstances, I'm starting my next series before ending my previous one. Instead of Part 3 on Trump's participation trophies, it's part 1 on debunking the MRAs! #whatabout: workplace fatalities, suicide rates, college graduation rates, and homelessness rates? I take a look at these MRA claims in detail. Here...

On an episode of Dave Rubin, James Damore lamented the fact that no one on the left had been willing to have a long form discussion with him and that his previous ones had been edited to be misleading. So, I wanted to show that I, as a lefty, would be more than willing to have a long form, unedited discussion with him. Here is his original memo. Here's probably the best source of scientific refuta...

Thanks to Got Science? Podcast for supporting today's show! Listen and subscribe at gotsciencepodcast.org or in iTunes! It's another deep dive into Trump's alleged accomplishments. This one covers fascinating and wide-ranging territory including immigration, the wall, regulations, coal miners, and more! I really do try to be as fair as possible. There are some things we can give Trump a bit of cre...

Stephanie is a writer for The Orbit, her blog Almost Diamonds can be found here.  Stephanie was on the ground floor in terms of trying to get anti-harassment policies into the codes of conduct for skeptic and atheist conferences. We talk about the history of that, and then we discuss whether the atheist movement is worth saving or if we ought to abandon it altogether and start something new. Steph...

Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, and he also happens to be a Trump apologist to end all Trump apologists. He thinks Trump is the greatest persuader of people that has maybe ever lived, and he thinks half the country is in a mass hysteria and cognitive dissonance for not realizing that fact. You might have heard him on Sam Harris's podcast a while back and you might also have slammed your hea...

Today's episode is brought to you by Hello Fresh! Go to hellofresh.com and enter promo code seriouspod30 for $30 off your first week of deliveries! At long last, I finally have someone with expertise in the field of Gender Studies to ask about the Conceptual Penis Hoax and more! Dr. Roberta Chevrette completed her Ph. D in Communication and a graduate certificate in Gender Studies at Arizona State...

I once again interrupt my regularly scheduled whatever in order to bring you an interview with an undocumented immigrant, Christian. Christian is currently working under DACA and if the program is ended, he won't be able to work anymore, short of under the table/off the books jobs. He tells us his story and what exactly DACA means for him. Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, remember short a...

I'm joined by Chantelle Boduel, who recently completed her Masters in Human Rights Law at the University of Kent in Brussels. She did her thesis on FGM in the UK, and I thought it would be very educational to have her on to speak about what she learned. See the attached Word document for her sources. FGM-Sources Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, remember short and to the point! Support us...

Today I'm talking about the Arpaio pardon - how awful Arpaio is as a human, what he did that was so egregious, what he was found guilty of, and how he compares to some other historically bad pardons. Isn't it true that Obama pardoned some people who were WAY WORSE??? I investigate. Also, some great voicemails allow me the chance to talk about my appearance on wethepeoplelive - Josh Zepps' show - a...

Today I'm joined by Felicia Entwistle of the Utah Outcasts to talk about that Google memo and the science of gender differences. I think we did a good job of representing the nuance of the science and outlining some of the fallacies in the discourse over this whole thing. Lots of links! Original Memo With Links ;  NPR Why Women Stopped Coding ;  Justices Interrupted ;  Gender Differences Study ; ...

Sam once again had Douglas Murray on his show and they both said some incredibly ignorant things, in my opinion. The worst was Sam's condemnation of Black Lives Matter. He provided absolutely no facts about it or insights into his reasoning, something I would think you'd want to do before making a claim like that. I play a few clips and try to get to the bottom of this "Identity Politics" bogeyman...

You might have seen the news around Skeptic circles that Malaysian government officials want to hunt down members of an atheist group after a picture of a meetup went viral. Here's some coverage of it from Patheos.  Well it turns out a long-time listener and friend of the show, Adrian, lives in Malaysia and is a member of the Atheist Republic group there! He's on today to tell us about so-called r...

I've got some thoughts about Charlottesville, and then Charone Frankel of Habeas Humor to talk about whether the ACLU holds any responsibility for Nazi movements in America, since they've defended them in the past (and had a small hand in the Charlottesville case). Confederate Monuments Ward Churchill: - Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chicken https://cryptome.org/ward-churchill....

This episode is brought to you by Hello Fresh! Go to hellofresh.com and enter promo code seriouspod30 for $30 off! Andrew Torrez of the impossibly famous podcast Opening Arguments is here to talk about the Crime Bill of 1994 and some surrounding issues! Hillary was blamed for supporting this bill, by Bernie Bros, despite the fact that she wasn't in the Senate and the time and Bernie actually VOTED...

This episode is brought to you by Hello Fresh! Go to hellofresh.com and enter promo code seriouspod30 for $30 off! With the leak of some phone call transcripts we discover that the REAL Trump is...... the same Trump we've seen this entire time. There's no real Trump, there's just Trump. I go over some of the absolutely horrific details of these phones calls, then I talk about how Tillerson has gut...

Alix is back for another fascinating conversation! He answers my questions on The New Jim Crow, and much more. The Counted Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, remember short and to the point! Support us on Patreon at:   patreon.com/seriouspod Follow us on Twitter:  @ seriouspod Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/seriouspod For comments, email  thomas@seriouspod.com  

But first, I give a little book review of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. The book illustrated some vital concepts that are often missing from our conversation on race. I share some highlights. Then, it's a voicemail segment during which I talk at length about a column a lot of people have been sharing lately. It's called When Progressives Embrace Hate  and it talks about the leaders of th...

Joining me for some lively debate about the harms of neoliberalism is Michael A. Wood Jr. Michael ended his service in the USMC in 1998, and joined the Baltimore Police Department where he served as a narcotics detective until retiring as a patrol Sergeant medically in 2014. In 2015 Michael turned to twitter to reveal the culture of law enforcement and authored several essays and books on reforms....

Today I'm joined by not-her-real-name-Sarah, who is trans and is currently serving in the military. She is in danger of losing her job, given Trump's recent tweets. She discusses a bit of the policy history and helps put these monstrous ideas into perspective. After that, I do some commentary on some things including the fact that, yes, I'm outraged. Things are outrageous currently. But, if you're...

Joining us this week is Qasim Rashid. Qasim is an Ahmadi Muslim and author of the book Talk To Me . He claims that the true Islam is peaceful, but is he justified in making that claim? Is it bigoted to say otherwise? Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, remember short and to the point! Support us on Patreon at:   patreon.com/seriouspod Follow us on Twitter:  @ seriouspod Facebook:   https://w...

... to the degree that's possible on the internet these days... When Dave Rubin tweeted that we need to stop giving money to the ACLU and Sam Harris retweeted it, simply because they wrote a profile on Linda Sarsour, I decided I needed to look into this person. This is certainly a minefield... So here we go... my best effort at an objective look at Linda Sarsour. Links:  ACLU profile on Sarsour ; ...

Joining me on the show is Alix Jules! Alix is a super fascinating guy, and we talked for several hours, half of which is captured in today's episode. We definitely did not have the time to get to everything, or even a significant portion, but don't worry! We are already booked for another interview. In this iteration, we discuss his background, some of his activism, and he lends his perspectives t...

The first portion of this show, as referenced at the end of last episode, is about Peter Boghossian finally showing himself to be a sexist asshole. I also respond to the argument I frequently see of "Stop infighting, stop calling out atheist leaders, it distracts from our movement!" I think I have a good counter to that. After that, it's some amazing and difficult voicemails! Really top notch call...

Today's conversation is with Matthew Facciani and Jeremiah Traeger. They're here to educate us on some of the problems in publishing and academia! Matthew began his academic career in cognitive neuroscience and later switched to sociology where he is now finishing his PhD at The University of South Carolina. Currently, his main research area investigates why people reject scientific evidence. Facc...