As I’ll now be hosting two episodes of Point of Inquiry per month, there will be much to cover. My central area of focus will be the intersection of science and public policy–the issues where we need better literacy and citizen awareness, and less politics, to get the right answers.
I may as well make clear I am not going into this with the goal of having big arguments with leading New Atheists about science and religion. My position on this topic is well known, but as a host, my goal is not to advance it, but to create interesting, informative content. I am not ruling out covering evolution and religion, but the show also has another host, Robert Price, who, as D.J. Grothe points out, specializes in religious skepticism.
In any case, I want to make a public call for topics that Point of Inquiry, with me as host, ought to cover. What do you want to hear about?
February 4th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
In the interest of narrowing public-science divide and on the heels of finishing Specter’s Denialism, I would suggest talking to scientists about synthetic biology, nanotechnology, and geoengineering.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Find people that are communicating science to the public in novel ways and succeeding. Profile some of them. You can also use it as a launching pad to talk about effective and novel ways to get the public on the side of science. I know this is vague, mostly because I don’t have specific examples of people, but I’m thinking along the lines of variety performers (whether at science museums or the touring type, at high schools, libraries, etc.), comedians, television personalities, etc.
Giving it some thought…. perhaps Bill Nye. Anyone that’s a modern Mr. Wizard (I came across one on youtube but I don’t know the size of his audience). There’s also a highly respected magician by the name of Jamy Ian Swiss that I know has a critical thinking based act, though I don’t know how directly it focuses on science, if at all. I wish I could come up with more names but these are all that strike me at the moment.
I’d also love to hear about failures – what are the hard lessons people have learned in communicating science? Learning is a challenge. We always grow more from figuring out what doesn’t work than what does, and it helps put the effective stuff in context.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Hi Chris,
Speaking as a fan of both the podcast and your work, this is wonderful news. I don’t know if this topic would be of interest to your audience more broadly, but I often wonder (on a personal and professional level) how science organizations, funding bodies, and institutes can best communicate science to the public — taking advantage of digital platforms and helping to fill the growing hole traditional science journalism. I know you and Matt Nisbet have covered this subject broadly as it applies to individual scientists, but what about the organizations that unify and support them? NSF has tried some interesting experiments in this direction — the online magazine Science Nation, for example, which features reporting by Miles O’Brien and Producer Kate Tobin, both formerly of CNN’s science unit. I’m not sure how effective it is — there’s something off-putting to me, and I imagine other audiences, about a publication that’s journalistic in style but still clearly promotional in nature. So the question is, what IS the best way for an organization to promote public understanding of and interest in science? One answer: fund independent science journalism. Another answer: Find an empty content niche and fill it. What else?
February 4th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Market fundamentalism. There are a thousand points of tangency between it and general religion. The Ayn Rand cult. The Austrian economic subculture – particularly Von Mises’ expressed disdain for real-world fact-gathering. The way corporate personhood has grown to be reified and sanctified. The many ways in which “God would not let that happen” is replaced with “the Market would not let that happen” and “God’s will be done” to “the Market’s will be done.” The best reference to brush up is psychologist Albert Ellis’s “Are Capitalism, Objectivism and Libertarianism religions?”
Even outrageous debacles like the bankruptcy of Iceland *can* be explained away by market fundamentalists – just as the DI can explain away all the problems with intelligent design creationism. But its resistance to scientific rigor or even the normal discipline of an academic study is what qualifies the modern economic paradigm starting with Margaret Thatcher’s deeply fanatic slogan “There is No Alternative” as a religion. And possibly the most destructive – if Communism was the God that failed, that sets the precedent that Capitalism can be similarly.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
The reason the above is relevant: the elephant in the room is that market fundamentalism drives anti-environmental pseudoscience, particularly AGW denial, the way Christian and (in Turkey) Islamic fundamentalism drive creationism.
February 4th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
I suggest you have Delgado join the hosts in a round table discussion of why people who think like you are right and everyone else is wrong.
February 4th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
My favorite topic is the right’s anti-science “think” tank infrastructure and propaganda-ready media outlets. Since the early 80′s, culminating with Fox News in recent years, they created what Sydney Blumenthal called a “counterestablishment.”
This author argues they’re making headway on the intertubes as well:
http://www.alternet.org/media/145532/the_right-wing_media_machine_has_arrived_on_the_internet/?page=entire
February 4th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
By the way, that Robert Parry article mentions blogging “fellowships” –I wonder if any of our resident conservative commenters here have such fellowships (it wouldn’t be unprecedented).
February 4th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
I want to thank everyone for the great, great suggestions. Some I’d already thought of, but the focus on finding good and successful communicators–what works–is a very intriguing one. I will put your thoughts to good use….
February 5th, 2010 at 4:08 am
Dan Kahan, because of: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/463296a
February 5th, 2010 at 6:51 am
Chris, you say “My position on this topic is well known” on science and religion. I know I said I would begin to play adversary until a clear and coherent statement is made by you on this subject. I don’t want to do that. I’ve spent many, many hours on this blog supporting it while at times being a critic.
My frustration is that in fact your position is not well known or understood. I have read your words on the above subject time and time again, and there’s so much I agree with. I think we have fundamental agreements and shared skepticism of certain “new atheist” tactics.
However, your position is simply not clear, as much as you think it may be. I think you do need to come up with a clear statement on the subject with examples beyond young earth creationism (a favorite by the way of “new atheist apologists” like Russell Blackford). In that I would expect to see your position of applying scientific skepticism and science informed philosophy to claims, religious and otherwise. I hold applying those to religious claims does not automatically mean taking positions you appear to hold as unhelpful, you have ended up arguing an “either/or” as much as the “new atheist apologist”.
February 5th, 2010 at 9:30 am
I agree with Jon. Think-tank generated propaganda looks just enough like legitimate scientific research to fool the public. Scientists need to play a more active role in speaking out against this.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
It’s obvious. Climate change denier Anthony Watts. How does he manage to steer so many people against the published science and still be a “top” science blog. I’d say he is a master communicator.
But more seriously I’d love to hear James Hansen or Michael Mann interviewed and answer questions on how the media created “climategate” through inaccurate reporting and outright distortions.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Busiturtle, that response itself seems to me to validate that something very like overzealous religion is at play here. I can’t otherwise explain choosing the tiny volume of counterevidence over the overwhelming volume of evidence for AGW, among other things. I disagree that a little learning is more dangerous than none: I urge you to take as many science courses as you can stomach, whenever, wherever, and taught by whomever you’d like. I believe your perspective would change, as the bizarre suggestions that I think just like Chris Mooney or that his position is that only people who think like him are correct presupposes mind reading, misreads both Chris and me, and assumes Chris has an opinion on everything, which I doubt is the case.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
A critical look at what is scientifically sound and what is speculation or just BS on both sides of the climate change debate.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
FYI, Chris, there’s a longstanding thread on this in the CFI Forum:
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/1466/
February 5th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Or you can head over to http://www.forgoodreason.org/, the new interview program hosted by D.J. Grothe, and not have to worry about Chris Mooney ruining the fine POI podcast as I’m sure will be the case.
I want interviews with hard line atheists and skeptics who are not worried about building bridges with every wack job creationist/ani vaxer/climate change denier out there. I can watch FOX news for that sort of thing.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
By the way, Jeff @ comment #2, Jamy Ian Swiss is associated with the For Good Reason podcast.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
How about an interview with Ophelia Benson on “accommodationism”?
February 5th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
First off, congratulations to Chris Mooney for being appointed to co-host the podcasts!
I would like to see more podcasts involving:
1) science teachers teaching science in schools; how do they get children interested in science, and to stay interested?
2) interviews with science in implementation in ordinary people’s daily lives
3) the ways that science can be brought easily to help those on lowest-income brackets
4) more on enviromental issues / science
5) same with health-care / science
By the way, I have blogged about some of the weird reactions to Chris’ appointment, and I wish Chris all the best of luck in carrying out the mission in that position.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
This seems like a significant story
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20100205/india-ipcc-un-climate-change-global-warming.htm
The Indian government has moved to establish its own body to address and monitor science surrounding climate change, saying it “cannot rely” on the official United Nation panel.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Why not build a bridge to Jenny McCarthy? Here’s a recent article about her: http://www.theinsider.com/news/3185469_Jim_Carrey_Jenny_McCarthy_Get_Serious_on_Autism_Censorship_and_Monkeys The article calls Andrew Wakefield a “a respected and well-published gastroenterologist.” Let’s get that bridge to him underway, as well.
February 6th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
According to bob, there is no such thing as a religious moderate. All religious people are anti-science and should be treated as the Enemy, or fellow traveler of said Enemy, and should be treated as such. Who cares if religious moderates are a sizable part of the population? Who cares if their beliefs differ significantly from religious people who are not moderate?
The goal of a religion-free American society outweighs all other considerations. Because, if we have no more religion, we will all be rational and have no more problems, right?
February 6th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Nice piece of nonsense Jon; if you want to show the vacuity of the accommodationist position, you’ve achieved it. Well done.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Right, I brought up no valid points. None of them needs to be rebutted. It’s all just self-evidently beneath contempt, dismissed with a one-paragraph sneer from PZ Myers. I get it.
February 6th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
I love POI. Good luck with the podcasts, Chris. I look forward to new episodes. I’d be interested in hearing more interviews about:
historical biblical criticism
the psychology of belief
the evolution of religion
skeptical outreach and organization
modern neuroscience
history of religious critiques
debating creationists
secular humanism
moral theory
biographies of scientists (e.g. Feynman)
climate change politics and science
evolution of the talk radio –> FOX news propaganda / fear machine
A few specific interview suggestions:
Greg Epstein
Greg Dawes (“Theism and Explanation” and “The Historical Jesus Question”)
Richard Wiseman
Steve Novella
The Reasonable Doubts podcast trio
Jon Ronson
Jonah Lehrer
February 6th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Feature science reporters doing a particularly good job at telling a compelling story AND getting the science right – a la Amy Wallace in Wired. Generally, continue to talk about the “new media” and how it’s communicating science to the public. Explore other avenues for “community outreach” by scientists and about science – e.g., http://scienceinsociety.northwestern.edu/ and http://www.sciencecafes.org/.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
At some point, someone also has to distinguish between skepticism and methodological naturalism and an acceptance of scientific consensus, peer review, etc. on the one hand, and scientism on the other hand.
Some examples of scientism:
The complete ignoring or desparaging of the philosophy of science/history of science/sociology of science disciplines.
The conflation of skepticism and empricism with logical positivism – which is usually expressed in an exclusivist way.
In theoretical physics, there’s a boots-on-the-ground consensus that string theory is the most promising way forward in unification, but it’s scientism to say that that’s based on evidence instead of on history and sociology.
The pseudoscientific veneration of neoliberal economics as if it were a well-founded, empirical science. Even in economics, it achieved prominence not through evidence and prediction, but because of history and socieology.
Skepticism can give a person an over-estimation of their own reason and abilities if it isn’t self-critical. An author very popular with most people in the formal skeptics community was Robert A. Heinlein. One of his quotes is very germane here:
“Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.”
February 8th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Jon, what the hell are you talking about? I was talking about vaccination. I think you’re obsessed with atheists, and PZ Myers in particular. Settle down, champ.
March 20th, 2010 at 4:06 am
I ask Jon: Are you religious at all?
An honest answer may clear the conundrum.