Point of Inquiry

Host: Indre Viskontas The end is nigh. 2012 is a banner year for doomsday prophecies, though there still seems to be debate concerning precisely how life as we know it will be snuffed out. Hollywood seems to prefer the 'death from the skies' scenario, with Lars von Trier's latest film Melancholia exploring the psychological consequences of believing that another planet is on a collision course with ours. But would we know? How much warning would we receive if such a catastrophe were to occur? There is no better source for this information than Dr. David Morrison, the founder of the field of astrobiology, or the study of life in the universe. Once the Director of Space at NASA Ames, he is best known for his work on assessing the risk of near earth objects such as asteroids and comets. As the mind behind the popular 'Ask an Astrobiologist' blog on NASA's website, Dr. Morrison has all the answers. David Morrison is the senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, where he participates in a variety of research programs in astrobiology—the study of the living universe. Dr. Morrison obtained his doctorate in astronomy from Harvard University. He is the author of more than 155 technical papers and has published a dozen books. He has been a science investigator on NASA's Mariner, Voyager and Galileo space missions. Morrison is recipient of the Dryden Medal for research of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Sagan Medal of the American Astronomical Society for public communication, and the Klumpke-Roberts award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for contributions to science education. He has received two NASA Outstanding Leadership medals and he was awarded the Presidential Meritorious Rank for his work as director of space at NASA Ames. Morrison is perhaps best known for his leadership since 1991 in defining the hazard of asteroid impacts and seeking ways to mitigate this risk. Asteroid 2410 Morrison is named in his honor.

Host: Chris Mooney Why is it that some of us are religious, some of us not... some of us liberal, some of us not? If you've been paying attention, then by now you might have noticed that this doesn't really have a lot to do with the intellectual validity of religious, or irreligious, or liberal, or conservative ideas. So what causes it? And why can't we all get along? To get at this, Point of Inquiry invited on a scholar and thinker who has become famous for his scientific approach to this question—Jonathan Haidt, author of the new book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Jonathan Haidt is a professor of social psychology at the University of Virginia, and a visiting professor of business ethics at the NYU-Stern School of Business. Haidt's research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, and how morality varies across cultures. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, and he and his collaborators conduct research at the website YourMorals.org.

Host: Chris Mooney If there's one thing Point of Inquiry is concerned about, it's ensuring a rational, sensible conversation in politics, in public life. And you simply can't have such a conversation if the culture is awash in political, and politicized, misinformation. What do we mean by "misinformation"? The denial of global warming. Claims about "death panels." Assertions that the President of the United States wasn't actually born here. One thing all these falsehoods have in common is that if you watch Fox News, you're more likely to believe them. Fox increases your risk, so to speak, of believing factually wrong things to support a political agenda. With other networks, this "Fox effect" just isn't there. How did it get this way? How did one leading network become a fount of misinformation? For that, we turn to the most dedicated Fox monitors of them all—Media Matters. They've got a new book out on Fox, and I've invited their Executive Vice President, Ari Rabin-Havt, on to talk about it. Ari Rabin-Havt is Executive Vice President at Media Matters. He is co-author, with David Brock, of The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine.

Host: Chris Mooney A common goal of freethinkers, humanists, skeptics, and atheists is to preserve Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation" between church and state. But we haven't always been successful in this area—help from the courts notwithstanding—or at beating back the steady advances of the religious right. How can we do better? Our guest this week has a new book on the topic, and just as important, a new way of thinking. His name is Sean Faircloth, the director of strategy and policy for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Before that, Faircloth served five terms in the Maine Legislature and went on to serve as executive director for the Secular Coalition for America. He's author of the newly released book Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Right Harms Us All and What to Do About It.

Host: Indre Viskontas One of the costs of being conscious is that, once in a while, we are forced to contemplate the fact that we are mortal. Ironically, a close brush with the grim reaper leaves many people more convinced than ever that our minds are not tethered to our bodies, and therefore can survive physical death. What can these near-death experiences tell us about how well we understand our own consciousness? To explore this topic, we first talked to anesthesiologist Gerald Woerlee, author of Mortal Minds: The Biology of NDEs to get a sense of what makes NDEs so compelling to people looking for evidence of an afterlife. Then, we sought the expertise of Susan Blackmore, psychologist and author, whose book Consciousness: An Introduction breaks down the complex theories of consciousness into digestible chunks. Dodging the sandtraps of dualism along the way, we speculate on implications of NDEs for meta-consciousness while keeping the mind strictly within the confines of the body.

In this discussion, Michael Mann, a prominent climatologist and director at Penn State, shares insights from his new book. He addresses the political attacks on climate science and the alarming issue of disinformation in schools. Mann recounts his journey from a computer scientist to a public advocate for climate action. He highlights the significance of the hockey stick graph and the importance of multiple lines of evidence for human-caused warming. Mann also emphasizes the need for solidarity among scientists and offers advice for younger researchers facing similar attacks.

Host: Chris Mooney So who's right, factually, about politics and science? Who speaks truth, and who's just spinning? It's kind of the million dollar question. If we could actually answer it, we'd have turned political debate itself into a... well, a science. And is such an answer possible? What does the scientific evidence suggest? In this episode of Point of Inquiry, Chris Mooney brought back a popular guest from last year, Yale's Dan Kahan, to discuss this very question-one that they've been emailing about pretty much continually ever since Kahan appeared on the show. In the episode, Kahan and Mooney not only review but debate the evidence on whether "motivated" ideological biases are the same on both sides of the political aisle—or alternatively, whether they're actually "asymmetrical." Dan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at the Yale Law School. He's also the Eli Goldston Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. His research focuses on "cultural cognition"-how our social and political group affiliations affect our views of what's true in contested areas like global warming and nuclear power-and motivated reasoning. Before then, he served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall, of the U.S. Supreme Court (1990-91) and to Judge Harry Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1989-90).

Host: Chris Mooney We had Lawrence Krauss on Point of Inquiry less than a year ago, to discuss his recent book on the scientific works of Richard Feynman. But in order to keep up with him, we had to have him on again. Already. You see, Krauss has a new book out that's causing quite a stir right now—A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing. Here's a hint as to why: Krauss's answer to this age-old question isn't God. In fact, as discussed on the program, Krauss has arguably written the book that "kicks God out of physics." And along the way, he also manages to explain a heck of a lot of science. Lawrence Krauss is an the internationally known theoretical physicist and popular author. He has published hundreds of scientific papers, as well as acclaimed books like the bestselling The Physics of Star Trek and Fear of Physics. He's director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University.

Host: Chris Mooney Earlier this month, Point of Inquiry host Chris Mooney attended Science Online, the premiere science blogging conference, in the research triangle area. There were many science aficionados, communicators, and wonks present, but Chris found himself hanging out a lot with Brian Malow—aka, the Science Comedian. And get this—Malow lived up to his name. He was pretty funny. Chris decided he had to get him on air. Now, obviously, we couldn't have Malow do stand up for this program. Instead, Chris had to try to... draw humor out of him. And in the process, however inadvertently, he may have even told a joke himself. Brian Malow describes himself as Earth's Premier Science Comedian. He makes science videos for Time Magazine's website and contributes to Neil deGrasse Tyson's radio show—and performs widely. He's been featured on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and in Nature, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

Host: Chris Mooney Eugenie Scott is no stranger to Point of Inquiry, or to the secular community. Her endless travails to defend the teaching of evolution have won her immense respect. And that's why, when Scott and her National Center for Science Education take on a new initiative, everybody listens. So for this Point of Inquiry episode, we invited Eugenie to break some news about why she is venturing into a very new and very challenging area—defending the teaching of accurate climate change science in schools from a mounting ideological assault—and how you can help her out.