Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. An eminent philosopher, he is the author of many books on science, literature, and music, including Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism; The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities; and Science, Truth, and Democracy. Concerning himself mostly with the philosophy of science, he has also had influence in the study of the ethical and political constraints on scientific research, the evol...
Jul 13, 2007•44 min
Christopher Hitchens, one of the most celebrated social critics of our time, has been a columnist for Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The Nation, Slate and Free Inquiry. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including God is Not Great (2007), A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq (2003), Why Orwell Matters (2002), The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001), and Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001). Additionally, he has written prolifically for The London Review of Books, Granta, Harper's...
Jul 06, 2007•35 min
Natalie Anger is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist for the New York Times. Born in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York, she studied physics and English at Barnard College, where she graduated with high honors in 1978. From 1980 to 1984, Angier wrote about biology for Discover Magazine. She also worked as a science writer for Time Magazine. She is the recipient of a number of honors for her writing on science, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (A...
Jun 29, 2007•42 min
Tom Clark is founder and director of the Center For Naturalism, a non profit advocacy organization in the Boston area devoted to educating the public about naturalism, policy development, and community building. He is the editor of the popular online website, Naturalism.Org, which is among the web's most comprehensive resources on scientific naturalism, its implications and its applications. He is also the author of Encountering Naturalism. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Tom Clark explores...
Jun 22, 2007•30 min
Joe Hoffmann, formally at Oxford, is director of Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER). He has appeared widely in the media and at venues across the United States speaking on Christian origins, the historical Jesus, the proper role of religion in society, and similar topics. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Dr. Hoffmann details a new project invol...
Jun 16, 2007•36 min
Chris Wisnia has been involved with the comics self-publishing for several years. The creator of the celebrated comic books Tabloia, and Doris Danger Seeks Where Giant Monsters Creep, he also recently began a comic book with a decidedly skeptical theme titled Dr. DeBunko, which features a character who investigates and debunks the supernatural and paranormal beliefs in our culture. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Wisnia discusses Dr. DeBunko, the reception the book has garnered in the ske...
Jun 08, 2007•24 min
David Triggle is distinguished professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and president of the Center for Inquiry Institute. He is the author and editor of several books dealing with the autonomic nervous system and drug-receptor interactions, some two hundred and fifty research papers and some one hundred and fifty chapters and reviews. Currently, his research and teaching interests have expanded to include the philosophical basis of ethics and issues around the science-policy-pub...
Jun 01, 2007•33 min
Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of award-winning books of philosophy, history, and poetry. Her Doubt: A History (HarperCollins, 2003) demonstrates a long, strong history of religious doubt from the origins of written history to the present day, all over the world. Hecht's The End of the Soul: Scientific Modernity, Atheism and Anthropology (Columbia University, 2003), won the Phi Beta Kappa Society's 2004 prestigious Ralph Waldo Emerson Award for scholarly studies that contribute significant...
May 25, 2007•38 min
David Koepsell is the Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism, North America's leading organization for nonreligious people. An author, philosopher and an attorney, David's work focuses mostly on the nexus of science, technology, ethics and public policy. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, David explores the relationship between secular humanism and religion, whether secular humanism is just a religion for the nonreligious, the "tenets" of secular humanism, and addresses many ch...
May 18, 2007•28 min
The world’s leading paranormal investigator, Joe Nickell is a regular contributor to Skeptical Inquiry science magazine. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (1983, 1998) and most recently, The Relics of the Christ (2007). In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Nickell talks about his new book, Relics of the Christ, and various Holy Artifacts he has scientifically investigated over the years. He details current skeptical thinking on the Shr...
May 12, 2007•36 min
Hemant Mehta is an honors graduate from the university of Illinois, and has been involved in secularist student activism for years. Early on, he attended one of CFI's summer sessions on scholarship, becoming that year's student volunteer president of CFI's campus outreach program. He is now in graduate school at DePaul University. Mehta once held an unique auction on eBay wherein the highest bidder could send Mehta to a church of his or her choice. This led to his writing his new book, I Sold My...
May 04, 2007•28 min
Taner Edis, born and raised in Turkey, is associate professor of physics at Truman State University and the author of The Ghost in the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science and Science and Non-belief, among other publications. His latest book is An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Taner Edis explores whether the Koran anticipates the modern scientific understanding of the world, the intelligent design creationist movement within Islam,...
Apr 27, 2007•25 min
Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Communication at American University. His research tracks scientific and environmental controversies, examining the interactions between experts, journalists, and various publics. In this area, Nisbet has published numerous peer-reviewed studies, with his work having been cited more than 100 times over the past couple years. In addition to his research, Nisbet co-authored with Chris Mooney the much-talked-about Columbia Journalism Review ...
Apr 21, 2007•45 min
Phil Plait works in the physics and astronomy department at Sonoma State University. In the early '90's, he started Badastronomy.com, which has become a popular website focused on educating the public about astronomy and space science, especially as regards common misconceptions and pseudoscientific astronomy claims. In recent years, he has also been involved with debunking several more general pseudoscientific theories. In March 2006, Science magazine celebrated the Bad Astronomy website, prais...
Apr 13, 2007•39 min
The world's leading paranormal investigator, Joe Nickell is a regular contributor to Skeptical Inquiry science magazine. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Inquest on the Shroud of Turin (1983, 1998) and most recently, The Relics of the Christ (2007). In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Nickell debates "debunking" versus open-minded skepticism, and defends himself against the charge that he is a biased anti-paranormalist with an agenda. He also talks about his con...
Apr 06, 2007•34 min
Nica Lalli is an art educator working with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She also writes a weekly column in the Brooklyn Paper. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Nica talks about her new and acclaimed memoir of growing up nonreligious, Nothing: Something to Believe In. She also explores how to relate to devout relatives, the need to "come out" as a nonbeliever, and what she does believe in, if she doesn't believe in God.
Mar 31, 2007•29 min
Susan Haack, formerly Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge, and then professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, is presently Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law at the University of Miami. Her areas of interest include philosophy of logic and language, epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of science, including issues of scientific testimony in court, Pragmatism, and feminism. Professor Haack is the author of several celebrated books, ...
Mar 23, 2007•37 min
Tawfik Hamid, an expert on Islamic terrorism, joined the Islamic group Muslim GI in Egypt, while in medical school. His colleagues in the terror movement included Al Zawaherri, then a friend with whom Tawfik used to pray, and now the number 2 person of Al Qaeda. Eventually Dr. Hamid questioned the feelings of hatred and impulses to violence that his participation in extremist Islam was fomenting within him. He became a physician, and also a scholar of Islamic texts. When he began to preach in Mo...
Mar 17, 2007•38 min
Robert M. Price is professor of theology and scriptural studies at Coleman Theological Seminary and professor of Biblical Criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. He's a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion and the Jesus Seminar. Dr. Price is the author of a number of books such as Deconstructing Jesus, Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, and The Da Vinci Fraud. He has appeared widely in the media, and was featured prominently in the movie The God Who Wasn't Ther...
Mar 09, 2007•41 min
Victor Stenger is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Hawaii and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado. He is also founder and president of Colorado Citizens for Science. He's held visiting faculty positions at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and at Oxford in the United Kingdom, and has been a visiting researcher at Rutherford Laboratory in England, the National Nuclear Physics Laboratory in Frascati, Italy, and the University of Florence in Italy....
Mar 03, 2007•56 min
Steven Pinker, a renowned research psychologist, 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 teaching, general achievement, and his critically acclaimed books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Sl...
Feb 23, 2007•38 min
Barbara Forrest is a philosopher and public intellectual at Southeastern Louisiana University. Widely praised for her compelling expert testimony in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, she is a tireless defender of science education and the teaching of evolution in U.S. public schools. With Paul R. Gross, she is co-author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Oxford University Press, 2004), which examines the goals and strategies of the intelligent ...
Feb 16, 2007•34 min
Peter Singer has been called "the world's most influential living philosopher," by The New Yorker and Time Magazine listed him in "The Time 100," their annual listing of the world's 100 most influential people. One of the most controversial philosophers alive today, he is DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne. He has been recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the...
Feb 09, 2007•38 min
Solomon Schimmel is a psychologist of religion and Professor of Jewish Education and Psychology at Hebrew College. He has been a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar and Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University and has lectured widely throughout the world. An expert on the psychology of forgiveness and reconciliation among the world's religions, he is the author of The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian, and Classical Reflections on Human Psychology and Wounds Not Healed by Time: The Power of Repe...
Feb 02, 2007•56 min
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 "Universe." Among his eight books is his memoir The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astroph...
Jan 26, 2007•31 min
John Shook is Vice President for Research and Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry Transnational in Amherst, N.Y. He received his PhD in philosophy at the University at Buffalo and was a professor of philosophy at Oklahoma State University for six years. His research and writing focuses on American philosophy, philosophy of science, epistemology, and political theory. His most recent book is the Blackwell Companion to Pragmatism, edited with Joseph Margolis. He authored Dewey’s Empirical Th...
Jan 20, 2007•36 min
Eugene Burger, "universally recognized as perhaps the finest close-up magician in the world," (Stagebill magazine) has written fifteen best-selling books for magicians, starred in a number of instructional videos, lectured widely to magicians' groups in over a dozen countries, and his writings have been translated into several languages. His deep understanding of the psychology and philosophy behind magic has won him international accolades, cover stories in conjuring magazines, and four awards ...
Jan 12, 2007•30 min
Ann Druyan is an author, public lecturer, and TV and movie writer and producer whose work focuses on the worldview of science. She is the widow of Carl Sagan, the great astronomer and public advocate of science and reason. With him, she co-wrote the Emmy Award Winning and the Peabody Award Winning television series Cosmos. She served as Creative Director for NASA's Voyager Interstellar Record Project, the goldern record on the Voyager Spacecrafts that includes visual images and music and she co-...
Jan 06, 2007•45 min
Joe Hoffmann, formally at Oxford, is director of Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER). He has appeared widely in the media and at venues across the United States speaking on Christian origins, the historical Jesus, the proper role of religion in society, and similar topics. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Dr. Hoffmann explores the implications o...
Dec 29, 2006•36 min
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, many addressing church-state issues, as well as the best-selling The Trouble With Christmas, about which he 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-religious black comedy science fiction novel, Galactic Rapture. His latest work, th...
Dec 22, 2006•31 min
