Point of Inquiry

This week, Point of Inquiry welcomes Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy at Yale and co-author of a provocative essay in last week’s New York Times entitled Is the United States a ‘Racial Democracy? Dr. Stanley and his co-author, Dr. Vesla Weaver, argue that the disproportionate surveillance, imprisonment, and post-conviction voter disenfranchisement of black Americans threatens the very integrity of our democracy. On any given day, 5.85 million people are unable to vote because they are in prison, on parole, or disenfranchised as felons. A disproportionate percentage of them are black. Of the nation's 2.3 million prisoners, about 1 million are black, despite the fact that black people represent just 13% of the population. If current trends continue, 1 in 3 black men born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime. You don't even have to get arrested to be affected by the surveillance state. New research shows that any unwanted contact with police, even something as relatively brief as a stop-and-frisk, makes the target less likely to vote. Approximately 85% of those who were stopped and frisked in New York City last year were black or Latino. The essay raises pointed questions of interest to any skeptical citizen: Why do we strip prisoners of the right to vote in the first place? Does our fervent belief in democracy and equality blind us to the realities of our political system? How does racially-charged propaganda advance certain views while subtly stifling conflicting perspectives? Racial Democracy was a surprise breakout hit from the Times' philosophy blog. It rapidly became the ninth most-emailed and twelfth most-tweeted item on the entire New York Times website. Rarely does an essay that cites Plato, Aristotle, and Dewey beat out the Modern Love column, but this is an unusual essay.

This week Point of Inquiry is discussing Death. Specifically, Brain death and the efforts of some areas of the religious right and their attempts to eliminate whole brain Brain Death as the legal standard for death in America. To aid in that,Lindsay Beyerstein welcomes, head of the division of bioethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center, Arthur Caplan, PhD. Dr. Caplan is the author of 32 books and over 600 papers on bioethics as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Centering on the recent high-profile cases in recent months with brain dead people being kept 'alive' by machines long after total irreversible loss of brain function. They discuss these cases specifically but also the idea of Brain Death in general and what keeping a corpse alive on machines entails. What can and should you do to avoid putting your family through this ordeal if you were to fall into the dead zone of Brain Death? Of course, the unreasonable fear of organ thieves which seem to creep their fictitious noses into this discussion whenever it comes up, is discussed for any still afraid of that fate.

This week on Point of Inquiry we welcome Chris Emden, a Columbia Professor who's helped design New York City's public school policy, a leading science education researcher, and Harvard Hip Hop Archive Fellow. Chris Emden is a favored guest of Josh Zepps on Huffpost Live, and for good reason. They chat about the state of American science education, and the ways in which Emden is trying to shake things up. Josh and Emden talk about how we can make science education more interesting and culturally available for students across the country, how to introduce children to science as a personal discipline in life – not just a subject in school – and how to bring about a more scientifically literate population.

As the War on Christmas wages on, our host, Josh Zepps, interviews Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst for American's United for the Separation of Church and State, Editor of Church & State magazine and author of Close Encounters with the Religious Right : Journeys into the Twilight Zone of Religion and Politics. Together they get to the bottom of the War on Christmas. They explain how saying "Happy Holidays" is a violation of Christian liberty and explore the vast number of schools banning red, green, and jolly old men. Is the War on Christmas a fact or is it fear-mongering and imagined persecution among the Christian media elite? This week, an amusing, year end, episode of Point of Inquiry which actually delves into some serious Church-State, First Amendment issues along with some festive humor.

Joining Lindsay Bernstein this week is Kathryn Joyce, one of the foremost reporters chronicling the Religious Right today. She made “Quiverfull” a household name with her first book, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement.Her new book is called The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption. The book is the product of four years of reporting from four different countries. Joyce found that adoption has become the hot new spiritual fad among U.S. evangelicals, often with devastating consequences for children and families at home and abroad. Evangelical adoption crusaders sell the idea that there are tens of millions of orphans just waiting to be “saved” by devout American parents. But the true number of orphans is much smaller. With pastors in mega-church pulpits exhorting their flocks to adopt, adopt, adopt, the demand for children now outstrips the supply leading to dubious activities. Orphanages in countries like Ethiopia and Guatemala have come under pressure to produce phony orphans for baby-hungry American consumers. Birth mothers are tricked into signing over their children. Most American families prefer young children with clean bills of health. So, adoptive parents are told their children are younger and healthier than they really are. International adoption can be a Wild West where almost anyone can adopt any number of children. Some parents adopt several children at a time because it's cheaper in bulk. Not all adoptive parents are up for the challenge and our guest discusses some cases involving abuse, neglect and death of children at the hands of their supposed saviors.

This week on Point of Inquiry, Josh Zepps welcomes P.J. O’Rourke, humorist, cultural commentator, and best selling author of sixteen books. An early proponent of “gonzo journalism” and is a self-described libertarian, O’Rourke has served as editor-in-chief of National Lampoon, and has spent 20 years reporting for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic as the world’s only “trouble spot humorist,” going to wars, riots, rebellions, and other “Holidays in Hell” in more than 40 countries. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and a frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! In this episode they discuss everything from abortion and privacy, to the party following the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the looting of the Baghdad Museum. They are, however, able to steer clear of the dicey topic of free will.

This week on Point of Inquiry, Lindsay Beyerstein talks with Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, and a strong advocate of separation of church and state. The conversation focuses on the Supreme Court's recent decision to hear the Hobby Lobby contraception mandate case. This is the most high profile case challenging the birth control mandate, one of the requirements of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Lynn explains how Hobby Lobby's court challenge could open the door for Jehovah's Witness-owned companies to refuse to cover blood transfusions, or for Christian Scientist-owned companies to refuse to cover any medical care. ** Due to recording problems minutes 1:30 through 2:40 of Mr. Lynn's portion of the recording are slightly distorted. We apologize for the inconvenience and assure you that the remainder of the recording is clear and that, throughout, the discussion is in-depth and educating.

This week's Point of Inquiry features Gadadhara Pandit Dasa, first ever Hindu Chaplain for Columbia University and New York University, the interfaith chaplain at Union Theological Seminary, and author of Urban Monk: Exploring Karma, Consciousness, and the Divine. Pandit, who teaches courses on Hindu scriptures, has spoken at a recent TEDx Conference and was featured in the NPR piece "Long Days and Short Nights of a Hindu Monk." He appeared in a PBS documentary on the Bhagavad Gita, and is also a regular contributor for the Huffington Post. Host Josh Zepps frames this episode’s interview as a conversation between an atheist and a believer. Pandit discusses his views on science and faith, inter-religious conflict, and the perspectives of a believer on atheism.

This week’s guest on Point of Inquiry, Paul A. Offit, MDis best known as a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine and a staunch, public supporter of vaccination and opponent of pseudoscientific alternative medicine. His most recent book, Do you Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine points a critical eye at the alt-med industry, one than takes in 34 billion dollars a year with little to no regulation. Are patients being harmed, and is it any worse or better than so-called “Big Pharma”? Dr. Offit talks with our host, Lindsay Beyerstein, about all of this and much more on this week’s Point of Inquiry. Dr. Offit has published over 130 scholarly articles on the rotavirus vaccine and vaccine safety and efficacy in general. He has also authored or co-authored many books on pediatric medicine, childhood vaccination and opposing pseudoscience in Medicine. He is also the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as well as a member of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Offit is also a Founding Board Member of the Autism Science Foundation (ASF).

Famed educator, engineer and "Science Guy," Bill Nye Joins our host Josh Zepps for this week's Point of Inquiry. They discuss Bill's start as an Engineer and part time stand up comedian to his groundbreaking work in television educating a generation on science. They also delve into Bill's view into the future of science, science education, as well as how to become excessively rich using the tools of science to change the world.