Stuart Vyse — The Uses of Delusion: Why It’s Not Always Rational to Be Rational
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss272_Stuart_Vyse_2022_4_21.mp3 Download MP3 Shermer and Vyse discuss: What is a delusion? • veridical perception • perceptual illusions and...
View ArticleNature’s God: Why Christians Should Accept the Theory of Evolution
American Christian fundamentalists reject Darwinian evolution for at least two reasons. The first is their belief that the Bible has revealed a clear teaching about the divine creation of the world...
View ArticleMichael Strevens — The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern...
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss283_Michael_Strevens_2022_04_27.mp3 Download MP3 If is science so powerful why did it take so long — two thousand years after the invention of...
View ArticleYoram Hazony on Traditional Conservatism vs. Enlightenment Liberalism
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss284_Yoram_Hazony_2022_05_31.mp3 Download MP3 In this conversation based on his new book, political theorist Yoram Hazony argues that the best hope for...
View ArticleBobby Azarian — Life, the Universe, and Cosmic Complexity
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss287_Bobby_Azarian_2022_06_24.mp3 Download MP3 In this conversation based on his new book, The Romance of Reality, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby...
View ArticleMarian Tupy & Gale Pooley — Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth,...
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss295_Tupy_Pooley_2022_08_19.mp3 Download MP3 Shermer, Tupy, and Pooley discuss: Why do we long for the “good ol’ days” and some “golden age” past? the...
View ArticleHoly Relics, Holy Places, Wholly Fiction
I recently watched a television show alleging the fascination Hitler, Himmler, and the Nazis had for certain holy relics and their desire to possess them. Among these were the Ark of the Covenant,...
View ArticleAnti-Abortion: The Case for Life
Abortion is one of the most relevant issues of our time. As with many other subjects capable of arousing strong emotion, people tend to assume that the U.S. public is evenly divided, in this case...
View ArticleMeta Ethics: Toward a Universal Ethics — How Science & Reason Can Give Us...
William Lane Craig is one of the world’s foremost Christian apologists. He has presented this wellknown argument for the existence of God: If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist....
View ArticleWhy Nations Are Becoming More Secular
Jens is in his late sixties. He lives in a cozy house on a quiet street in a mid-sized city on the east coast of Jutland, Denmark. He’s many things: a widower, a lover of art and music, a retired radio...
View ArticleParadoxes of Religion and Science in the USA
Science and religion present two paradoxes in the United States. On the one hand, the U.S. is the undisputed world leader in science. Yet, the U.S. is also the wealthy industrialized country with the...
View ArticleElle Hardy — Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the...
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss323_Elle_Hardy_2023_01_09.mp3 Download MP3 Shermer and Hardy discuss: Hardy’s own religious journey (raised Catholic, now agnostic) origin of...
View ArticleMarc Schulz — The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific...
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss329_Marc_Schulz_2023_01_31.mp3 Download MP3 Marc Schulz is the associate director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and the Sue Kardas PhD 1971...
View ArticleWhy Nationalism Is Hostile to America
America is being torn apart. Amid growing strife, many people are experiencing angst concerning the future of this country, a country once renowned for its exuberant spirit of discovery, progress,...
View ArticleJim Davies — How to Be a Better Person
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss330_Jim_Davies_2023_02_07.mp3 Download MP3 Shermer and Davies discuss: an operational definition of the “good life” or “happiness” or “well being”...
View ArticleThe Christian Nationalist Threat Gets Real
What are we to make of the fact that a number of far-right politicians and activists, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, the U.S. Representative from Georgia, and Andrew Torba, the founder and CEO of Gab,...
View ArticleBaptism by Fire: How Christian Violence Abetted the Advent of Nationalism
In the year 390, the Roman Emperor Theodosius strode up the steps of a Cathedral in Milan, Italy. His entry into the church was interrupted by the Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose. Theodosius carried with...
View ArticleThe End of the World: Bart Ehrman on What the Bible Really Says About the End
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss334_Bart_Ehrman_2023_02_14.mp3 Download MP3 Shermer and Ehrman discuss: Ehrman’s religious journey Who wrote the Bible and why? how to read the Bible...
View ArticleThe Sacred Depths of Nature — Ursula Goodenough on How to Find Sacred...
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss336_Ursula_Goodenough_2023_03_14.mp3 Download MP3 For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age — the Big Bang, evolution,...
View ArticleMatt Johnson — How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless...
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss345_Matt_Johnson_2023_03_21.mp3 Download MP3 Shermer and Johnson discuss: Hitchens on free expression, identity politics, radicalism, interventionism,...
View ArticleGad Saad — The Saad Truth About Happiness
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss365_Gad_Saad_2023_07_18.mp3 Download MP3 Everyone wants to be happy. The question “How can I be happy?” drives countless decisions across the world,...
View ArticleEddie Tabash — The Law vs. Separation of Church and State
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss372_Eddie_Tabash_2023_07_19.mp3 Download MP3 Eddie Tabash is a constitutional lawyer in Los Angeles. He graduated magna cum laude from UCLA in 1973....
View ArticleMatthew Dallek — How the American Right Became Radicalized
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss375_Matt_Dallek_2023_07_20.mp3 Download MP3 At the height of the John Birch Society’s activity in the 1960s, critics dismissed its members as a...
View ArticleDaniel Dennett Looks Back on His Career
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss376_Dan_Dennett_2023_10_02.mp3 Download MP3 Preeminent philosopher and cognitive scientist, Daniel Dennett has spent his career considering the...
View ArticleDannagal Young — How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for...
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss390_Dannagal_Young_2023_09_27.mp3 Download MP3 Why are so many of us wrong about so much? From COVID-19 to climate change to the results of elections,...
View ArticleA Skeptical View of J. Edgar Hoover & the FBI
“Hoover’s strengths lay not in any great instinct for media manipulation or press management, but in the areas that had always served him well: the ability to learn quickly, to adapt to new...
View ArticlePhilip Goff — The Purpose of the Universe
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss391_Philip_Goff_2023_10_03.mp3 Download MP3 Why are we here? What’s the point of existence? On the ‘big questions’ of meaning and purpose, Western...
View ArticleAndrew Shtulman — Learning to Imagine: The Science of Discovering New...
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss393_Andrew_Shtulman_2023_10_10.mp3 Download MP3 Imagination is commonly thought to be the special province of youth―the natural companion of free play...
View ArticleCaylan Ford — Good and Evil, Human Nature, Education Reform, and Cancel Culture
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss395_Caylan_Ford_2023_11_16.mp3 Download MP3 Caylan Ford is a documentary filmmaker, writer, researcher, charter school founder, and a former political...
View ArticleRichard Nisbett on Thinking & Reason
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss227_Richard_Nisbett_2021_10_15.mp3 Download MP3 In this wide-ranging conversation Shermer and Nisbett discuss Nisbett’s research showing how people...
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