Steve Hill on Point of Inquiry
Point of Inquiry
When a business owner, ex-marine, and retired peace office is questioned and later arrested for what appear to be bigoted reasons, there should be recourse in our system of justice to right such a wrong. But Steve Hill is having a hell of a time finding help with his well-documented struggles. Should the fact that he is a black man and a member of the Satanic Temple enter into whether he is treated fairly or not – or even represented in court? Not if justice is blind and secular. Jim chats with Steve about his multi-year battle with law enforcement authorities and the courts to achieve...
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Robert Sapolsky POI
Point of Inquiry
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Leo Igwe on Point of Inquiry
Point of Inquiry
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There Are Definitely Atheists in Fox Holes
Point of Inquiry
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Kate Cohen on Atheism and the Rewards of Honesty
Point of Inquiry
Almost 30 percent of the U.S. population is religiously unaffiliated, but only a fraction of those so-called "Nones" identify as atheist or agnostic. Fewer still feel comfortable revealing to the people in their lives that they don't believe in God. Kate Cohen was one of those people. Though she had determined that God was a human-made fiction from a young age, the challenges of navigating social pressures and familial expectations led her to "play along" with God and religion well into adulthood. But then she had children of her own, and something changed. She decided to stop pretending to...
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Sarah An Myers on Secularism and the Millennial Mind
Point of Inquiry
Members of Gen X and older grew up in an America in which being religious was the default and atheism was, as best, on the fringes. A lot has changed in the last couple of decades, and for many Millennials and members of Gen Z, being nonreligious is really no big deal. Folks in younger generations are accustomed to living among people of various religious and ethnic backgrounds, and as the percentage of Nones (the religiously unaffiliated) has risen, relatively few young Americans feel the need to explicitly identify as a nonbeliever. So what does that mean for atheism and building a secular...
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Vaccine Hesitancy With Filmmaker Scott Kennedy
Point of Inquiry
In 2019, Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Scott Kennedy was working on a film about the years-long anti-vaxxer movement. Filming with top public health officials–including Tony Fauci–as well as rare interviews with anti-vaccine activists who were persuading parents by the millions to refuse vaccines for their children. And then COVID hit, and further fueled immunization fears that would kill countless people. Scott chronicled the subsequent events from day one in his film, Shot in the Arm, released in late 2023. Jim's conversation with Scott about his film, his...
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To The Temple of Tranquility, and Step on It
Point of Inquiry
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Supreme Injustice
Point of Inquiry
The U.S. Supreme Court -- that over sixty years ago ruled against state-led prayer in public schools -- has swung back the other way with a vengeance. The ultra-conservative majority on the current court has reversed 60 years of progress and put the rights of non-believers in jeopardy. In this episode, Jim Underdown speaks to Nick Little, former Director of CFI's Legal department, and Eddie Tabash, Chair of the CFI Board of Directors. The two lawyers talk about the state of the court, recent decisions, and the problematic future for secular Americans.
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Dr. Juhem Navarro-Rivera on the Challenge of Rallying the Nones
Point of Inquiry
The Nones are on the rise! When asked about their religious affiliation, year after year, more and more Americans are choosing “none of the above.” The number of religiously unaffiliated Americans, which includes atheists and agnostics, has been rocketing up over the past couple of decades, and today these Nones make up about one-third of the American population. But they’re not matching their religious counterparts in terms of political organization or cultivating tightly bonded communities, so what’s going on? In this episode of Point of Inquiry, Free Inquiry editor Paul Fidalgo...
info_outlineThroughout the modern world trust in science has continued to erode at dangerous speeds. From anti-vaxxers to climate change deniers, there is an ever growing movement of people that deny science at the peril of us all.
The shift towards a public with increasing lack of scientific literacy and critical-thinking skills combined with the proliferation of online misinformation and disinformation and social media algorithms that reinforce ingrained worldviews has caused a situation that is out of control.
On this episode of Point of Inquiry we speak with Gale Sinatra and Barbara Hofer on their new book, Science Denial: Why It Happens and What to Do About It. Sinatra and Hofer speak about their decades of research and work on science, scientific literacy, and how humans think and acquire knowledge, how "doing your own research" is explicitly not simply conducting a Google search. They also go into some of the psychological explanations for why people deny science and what everyone can do to help stem the tide.
Gale M. Sinatra is the Stephen H. Crocker Professor of Education and Psychology at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, where she directs the Motivated Change Research Lab. She received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has been recognized by the American Educational Research Association for career achievements in research with the Sylvia Scribner Award. She resides in Altadena, California.
Barbara K. Hofer is a Professor of Psychology Emerita at Middlebury College and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. She received her Ph.D. in psychology and education from the University of Michigan and an Ed.M. in human development from Harvard University. She is the recipient of national awards for both research and teaching, from the American Educational Research Association and the American Psychological Association. She lives in Middlebury, Vermont.