Archive for the ‘podcast’ Category
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
We interview Mary Roach, author of the bestselling science-humor book Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. She’s also the author of Stiff (about human cadavers), Spook (the scientific inquest on life after death), and Bonk (the science of human sexuality). Packing for Mars is both educational and laugh-out-loud funny. It’s available in hardcover, audiobook, and for Kindle.
If you can’t get enough of Mary Roach (and let’s face it, who can?), John interviewed her back in 2005 at SciFiDimensions.com, and reviewed both Stiff and Spook.
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Tags: bonk, mary roach, packing for mars, spook, stiff
Posted in astronomy & space, books, humor, interviews, medical research, podcast, science | 2 Comments »
Monday, August 9th, 2010
In our live presentation to the Atlanta Freethought Society, “The Crescent and the Moonpie: Islam and the American South,” we look at the history of Islam in the Antebellum South, then jump forward to discuss how Muslim communities are being received in 21st century Dixie.
Mentioned in the presentation:
US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan and former heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali. Both men are native-born Southerners (Hasan in Virginia, Ali in Kentucky). Both are adherents of Islam, yet they took very different paths.
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Tags: american south, crescent and the moonpie, islam
Posted in civil rights, history, islam, news, podcast, politics, religion, religious rights | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
We discuss the Essential Freethought Library, the result of a poll of dozens of notable personalities in the freethought community. We asked them one simple question: “What ten books must the well-read freethinker have read?”
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Tags: essential freethought library, greater works assembly, guns in church, magic jeff
Posted in atheism, books, children, news, podcast, politics, religion | 4 Comments »
Monday, July 12th, 2010
We talk with Michael Largo, author of the entertaining, enlightening, encyclopedic tome God’s Lunatics: Lost Souls, False Prophets, Martyred Saints, Murderous Cults, Demonic Nuns, and Other Victims of Man’s Eternal Search for the Divine. His previous nonfiction works include Genius and Heroin, The Portable Obituary, and the award-winning Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die. For more about Michael and his books visit FinalExits.com.
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Tags: god's lunatics, michael largo
Posted in books, history, humor, interviews, podcast, religion | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
Writer/activist Christopher Hitchens has announced he’ll be stepping out of the public light to undergo chemotherapy to treat esophageal cancer. This is bad and scary news and we’re hoping for a speedy and relatively painless recovery.
Meanwhile, Hitchens has just published Hitch-22, a controversial memoir in which he reveals hitherto unknown details of his early life, and tries to explain his convoluted journey from hardcore Trotskyite to (for lack of a better term) neocon apologist. It’s not a dull read, although much of the name-dropping will go over the heads of average American readers who only know Hitch from his recent elevation to the ranks of the Four Horsemen. (Keep Wikipedia or Google handy and you’ll do just fine.)
Hitch-22 is available in hardcover, as an audiobook (read by Hitch himself) and in Kindle format.
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Tags: christopher hitchens, hitch-22
Posted in atheism, books, history, podcast | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 17th, 2010
We present Trebuchet, the new album from George Hrab. George is a podcaster, musician, comedian, rationalist and all-around interesting guy. If you don’t listen to the Geologic Podcast, well, you need to. Enjoy!
George Hrab Trebuchet
featuring Phil Plait, Peter Gregson, Slau, and The Skeptical Shoe Horns.
1. God is Not Great
2. Everything Alive Will Die Someday
3. Ms.Information
4. Fifty Stories
5. FAR
6. Remora
7. Sviatoslav Lobster
8. When I Was Your Age
9. Trebuchet
10. Atlanta
11. Death From The Skies
12. Never Knew
13. Hai Yookito ‘Ya
14. Where Have You Been?
15. One Hypnopompic Jerk
16. Small Comfort
17. Happy Birthday Baby
available at cdbaby.com/hrab6 and iTunes
all songs © 2010 Geologic Records / You Call That Music
Tags: geologic podcast, george hrab, trebuchet
Posted in music, podcast | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
We discuss the latest novel from Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass), which re-imagines Jesus Christ as twin brothers named “Jesus” and “Christ.” The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is published in hardcover by Canongate and in unabridged audio by Brilliance Audio.
Listen to our discussion of the movie adaptation of The Golden Compass from way back in podcast #3.
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Tags: golden compass, good man jesus and the scoundrel christ, his dark materials, philip pullman
Posted in books, children, christianity, podcast, religion | No Comments »
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
We talk with Christina L. Graves, a biology student (and prebiotic chemistry researcher) at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Christina walks us through the recent announcement by the J. Craig Venter Institute that they have created a self-replicating, synthetic cell. We also discuss the reaction to Venter’s news from religious groups like the Catholic Church, Creation Ministries International, and even the Raelians.
Briefly mentioned: The new Adrien Brody/Sarah Polley film Splice, a sci-fi-horror shocker about genetic engineering gone very very wrong.
Glossary of terms:
Abiogenesis – the theory of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter.
Prebiotic Chemistry – the field of study involving the spontaneous chemical reactions which may have led to the formation of biomolecules and/or life on early Earth.
Stanley Miller (1930-2007) – an American chemist and biologist who is known for his studies into the origin of life, particularly the Miller-Urey experiment which demonstrated that organic compounds can be created by fairly simple physical processes from inorganic substances.
Atheopath – A neologism, coined by Creation Ministries International’s Jonathan Sarfati and used (as far as we can tell) by no one else, which combines the word “atheist” and the suffix “-path” (”one afflicted by a specified disorder”) to create a word meaning something like “one afflicted by atheism.” Apparently it’s intended to echo scary words like sociopath and psychopath. Perhaps we should coin the counter-term “theopath.”
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Tags: abiogenesis, atheopath, j. craig venter institute, jcvi, prebiotic chemistry, raelians, splice, synthetic cell, venter
Posted in christianity, cults, interviews, medical research, new age, news, podcast, religion, science | No Comments »
Saturday, June 5th, 2010
We interview Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, evolutionary biologist, philosopher, science crusader, and author of Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. This new book explores the frontier between science and pseudoscience, the difficulty of defining exactly what is science (what Karl Popper dubbed “the demarcation problem”), and the attacks against science from the forces of anti-intellectualism and even from inside academia. Highly recommended.
Visit Dr. P on the web at RationallySpeaking.org, or listen to his new podcast–co-hosted with NYC Skeptics’ Julia Galeth–at RationallySpeakingPodcast.org.
Listen to our previous interview with Dr. P (from way back in February 2008) in podcast #11.
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Tags: massimo pigliucci, nonsense on stilts, pseudoscience, science
Posted in books, evolution, podcast, science, skepticism | 2 Comments »
