Podcast appearances and mentions of paul fidalgo

We are living in a land of confusion, as the band Genesis warned us back in 1986, but even they could not have predicted just how much more confusing things would get 31 years later. With a storm of misinformation engulfing almost every field of human endeavor, 2017 was ripe with confusion. And one of the most bewildering subjects is also one of the most personal: our health. With celebrity gurus pitching pseudoscientific nonsense, conflicting news stories about what will and won't kill you, and an entire culture of hyper-privilege teaching people to be suspicious of science, people are being made to be afraid of their food. And there's a lot of money to made off of that fear. To help us navigate these choppy waters, Point of Inquiry host Paul Fidalgo is joined by two brilliant science communicators; Kavin Senapathy, a science and parenting columnist and co-author of The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House; and Yvette d'Entremont, better known as the SciBabe, whose writing has appeared in a variety of outlets such as The Outline, Gawker, and Cosmopolitan. The two of them will guide us through this land of confusion, and maybe, with their of smarts and humor, make this a place worth living in. Bonus for Point of Inquiry listeners: Get a special discount to purchase the new documentary Science Moms, featuring Kavin, when you use the promo code "CFI" (without quotes) at checkout.

In the post-truth world, the mainstream media is beset on all sides. Peddlers of propaganda, misinformation, and conspiracy theories seek to strip the media of its authority by creating parallel realities and fomenting anger and mistrust. At the same time, poor editorial judgments and a toxic culture of sexism have landed countless self-inflected wounds. How can a reality-based press ever hope to fulfill its mission to seek the truth, hold power accountable, and leave the public more informed? There may be no one better positioned to answer these questions than Margaret Sullivan. She's the media columnist for The Washington Post, and previously spent three and half years at The New York Times as its Public Editor, and as the first woman to be chief editor of The Buffalo News. She joins host Paul Fidalgo to talk about the crises facing journalism today, and why the reality-based press now finds itself at an inflection point: Its flaws have been exposed, and yet it is also producing some of the best journalism in ages. Can the press still deliver us the truth, or is the truth a sad casualty of a media landscape gone haywire?

It’s a big cosmos out there. It wasn’t too long ago that we couldn’t be sure that any planets existed anywhere outside of our own solar system. But in just the past handful of years, we’ve learned that planets orbiting stars are the rule, not the exception, which suggests that there may be 200 billion planets just in our galaxy alone, and trillions upon trillions of planets throughout the known universe. Surely, many of the planets in the Milky Way must be home to life forms, and even technologically advanced civilizations. So where the heck are they? Why can’t we find them? Why won’t they talk to us? Would we even know it if they did? To talk about the prospects for life on other worlds, intelligent and otherwise, Point of Inquiry host Paul Fidalgo talks to journalist Lee Billings. Lee is a reporter and editor for Scientific American covering space and physics, as well as the author of Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars. Billings explains how this quest, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, has become increasingly daunting even as our knowledge of the cosmos grows richer. It is a quest rife with pitfalls, paradoxes, and plain old speculation, and so far, it has proven fruitless. But despite our apparent solitude, we keep looking. We keep listening. And we keep reaching out. Do we have the patience and the will to continue searching and waiting for a sign that may never come?

The modern conception of secular humanism arose in large part as a response to the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust, and the evils of racism and bigotry. Humanist Manifesto II, written in 1973, called for “the elimination of all discrimination based upon race, religion, sex, age, or national origin,” and envisioned a world in which all human beings were given equal dignity within a global community. It is now two weeks since newly emboldened white supremacists, including Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen, marched on Charlottesville, attacked counter-protesters, and murdered Heather Heyer. President Trump has exacerbated the ensuing tension and fear by refusing to assign full responsibility to the white supremacists, and insisting that the blame be shared by some contingent of an alleged “alt-left.” It is time for humanism to respond once again. Our guest for this episode of Point of Inquiry is James Croft of the St. Louis Ethical Society, who encourages us to fully live out the values of humanism, not just as an academic philosophy but as an urgent call to act on behalf of others. “Be not restrained,” he advises, as he and host Paul Fidalgo discuss how humanists can lead the way in healing our national wounds, but that the process must begin by honestly acknowledging and addressing the injustices that have permeated American society from its very beginnings.

The U.S. space program is both beloved and neglected. It brings us breathtaking pictures from distant worlds and drives the human species to push itself farther out into the cosmos. But at the same time, it is subject to terrestrial political concerns, and without the urgency of a Cold War-era “moonshot” to galvanize the public’s enthusiasm, U.S. space policy is at times directionless, and always underfunded. To talk about the state of space exploration, Point of Inquiry host Paul Fidalgo talks to Loren Grush, space reporter for The Verge, and previously of Popular Science. They discuss space policy in the Trump era, the challenges NASA faces to realize its ambitions, the grand promises of the private space industry, the prospects and perils for a human mission to Mars, the hostility women continue to face within the space community, and much more. Oh, and we’ll also find out what it was that Mike Pence touched at the Kennedy Space Center that he was told not to touch. Links: Loren Grush’s work at The Verge Loren’s Popular Science piece, “How You’ll Die on Mars” Loren on Twitter: @lorengrush

We want to believe that climate change can be stopped, that humanity can summon the political will to take decisive and meaningful action to avert disaster and save civilization. But the difficult reality is that even if we make our very best efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is coming. The real question now is how bad are we going to allow it to get? There is perhaps no one better suited to discuss humanity’s unwitting impact on the planet than this episode’s guest, Elizabeth Kolbert. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History and as a staff writer at The New Yorker she has chronicled the agonizing but undeniable realities of the ecological damage wrought by humans and the complicated politics of confronting — or ignoring — that damage. Kolbert talks to Point of Inquiry host Paul Fidalgo about how we as a society and as individuals think and talk about climate change and the inevitable environmental and political disruptions to come. BONUS FEATURE: Point of Inquiry bids a fond farewell to Nora Hurley, the show’s producer since 2014, with a kind of “exit interview.” Nora and Paul discuss what’s next for her, as well as what working on (and listening to) Point of Inquiry has meant to them both.

On June 1, President Donald Trump declared that he was withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord, an international agreement meant to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the global average temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. For those who accept the reality of the threat posed by climate change, the news has sparked a good deal of anger, outrage, and not a small amount of despair for the fate of our planet.    Despair not, says our guest, Carl Pope, the former Executive Director of the Sierra Club, and the co-author of the optimistic new book Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses and Citizens Can Save the Planet, co-written with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.    In a timely conversation with Point of Inquiry’s new host Paul Fidalgo (in his first episode as host!), Pope rejects doomsday attitudes about global warming, insisting that the window to stop climate change has not closed. He’ll tell us why he’s so optimistic, and what he thinks about the president’s decision to reject the Paris accord.

Welcome to episode 8 of the Atheist Aus Podcast. Can you help build the World's Largest Skeptic & Atheist Community Center? United Church of Bacon wants to save Magician Penn Jillette's former home...The Slammer ...and create The Nevatican! Penn is the vocal half of the Las Vegas magic act Penn & Teller and for 20 years, his former home The Slammer has been a retreat of reason in the desert - and the United Church of Bacon wants to keep it that way. They've begun a Indiegogo, with a goal of half a million dollars, to save the building and make it a venue for all the faithless, for events, weddings and meetups. To find out more, I spoke to John Whiteside - he's the Founder and Bacon Prophet of the United Church of Bacon, an advisory board member of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and an advisory board member of the Secular Policy Institute. Head to the site at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-s-largest-skeptic-atheist-community-center/x/8728766#/story ******* Paul Fidalgo is our international correspondent on the show; he is the communications director for the skeptic and humanist organization the Center for Inquiry, where he writes the daily news roundup The Morning Heresy, among a bazillion other things. He blogs at iMortal over on the Patheos network and podcasts with Brian Hogg at www.thinkerypodcast.com. *Jeffrey Tayler at Salon looks at the political landscape, with some troubling polling on Americans' feelings about being a "Christian nation" * A psychic sues New York state for not giving him the reward money he says he deserves for allegedly helping to catch the two prison escapees earlier this year. * This may not be surprising, but research shows that a fearful disposition and belief in the paranormal are closely associated. Ugh, and 41.4% of Americans think ghosts are real. * Ensaf Haidar is reporting that floggings might very soon resume for her husband, Raif Badawi. We've not confirmed this, and as you might know, it's very hard to know exactly what's going on within the Saudi legal and penal systems. He's also been awarded the Sakharov Human Rights Prize! ***** In January, 2016, Think Inc. are bringing to Australia An Evening with Sam Harris. Audiences will be engaged with this most celebrated of critical thinkers on the matters of science, spirituality, and secularisation in an age where their conflict with religion is as amplified as ever. With big thanks to Think Inc, I spoke to Sam Harris about what it's been like since he was last here for the Global Atheist Convention. Get your tickets for the shows in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney at http://thinkinc.org.au/events/samharris. ***** In Australian and AFA forum board news – our correspondent GoldenMane gives us the lowdown on what’s happened this month on the boards. Join him and the lively crowd at atheistfoundation.org.au/forums. For more information visit: atheistfoundation.org.au/podcast/ All Atheist Aus Podcast episodes are under the Creative Commons license. You are free to distribute unedited versions of the episodes for non-commercial purposes. If you would like to edit the episode please contact us. The views expressed are not necessarily representative of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, its affiliates, sponsors or advertisers. Continue the conversation with atheists, the like-minded and the not-so-like minded at the AFA forums, found at atheistfoundation.org.au/forums or tweet us at twitter.com/atheistaus. Contact the show at atheistauspodcast@gmail.com. “Backed Vibes Clean” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ “Base Walker” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ You can find all the previous episodes of Atheist Aus over on the SoundCloud site and on iTunes!