(from book description)

“Recent polls suggest that fewer than 40 per cent of Americans believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution, despite it being one of science’s best-established findings. More and more parents are refusing to vaccinate their children for fear it causes autism, though this link has been consistently disproved. And about 40 per cent of Americans believe that the threat of global warming is exaggerated, despite near consensus in the scientific community that manmade climate change is real.

“Why do people believe bunk? And what causes them to embrace such pseudoscientific beliefs and practices?

“Noted skeptic  Massimo Pigliucci sets out to separate the fact from the fantasy in this entertaining exploration of the nature of science, the borderlands of fringe science, and – borrowing a famous phrase from philosopher Jeremy Bentham – the nonsense on stilts. Presenting case studies on a number of controversial topics, Pigliucci cuts through the ambiguity surrounding science to look more closely at how science is conducted, how it is disseminated, how it is interpreted, and what it means to our society. The result is in many ways a ‘taxonomy of bunk’ that explores the intersection of science and culture at large. No one – not the public intellectuals in the culture wars between defenders and detractors of science nor the believers of pseudoscience themselves – is spared Pigliucci’s incisive analysis.

In the end, “Nonsense on Stilts” is a timely reminder of the need to maintain a line between expertise and assumption. Broad in scope and implication, it is also ultimately a captivating guide for the intelligent citizen who wishes to make up her own mind while navigating the perilous debates that will affect the future of our planet.”

Massimo Pigliucci has Ph.D. in botany from the University of Connecticut, and a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from the University of Tennessee. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Pigliucci writes regularly for Skeptical Inquirer on topics such as climate change denial. Has also written for Philosophy Now and maintains a blog called “Rationally Speaking.” He has debated “deniers of evolution” (young-earth creationists and intelligent design proponents), including young earth creationists Duane Gish and Kent Hovind and intelligent design proponents William Dembski and Jonathan Wells, on many occasions.

Pigliucci serves on the board of NYC Skeptics and on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America. He also co-hosts its official podcast: Rationally Speaking, with Julia Galef.

Creation w/ Special Guest, Science Writer Carl Zimmer

“A psychological, heart-wrenching love story starring Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) as Charles Darwin, the film is based on “Annie’s Box,” a biography penned by Darwin’s great-great-grandson Randal Keynes using personal letters and diaries of the Darwin family. We take a unique and inside look at Darwin, his family and his love for his deeply religious wife, played by Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream), as, torn between faith and science, Darwin struggles to finish his legendary book “On the Origin of Species,” which goes on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology.”

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Earlier this month, as some of us celebrated the founding of our country, we may have wondered how very different our society might have been had our founding fathers understood our empathetic nature. Instead, we live in a society…where we are all presumed to be self interested adversaries, who can be coerced into cooperating in exchange for financial rewards.

But today there is a new view of humanity and it’s being expressed by an ever widening range of writers, thinkers, and scientists. Rather than the traditional assumption that humans are primarily selfish and anti-social, this new view recognizes that our primary drive is social. A healthy human is inclined towards cooperating, and gets pleasure from taking care of others and making a positive social contribution.

To better understand this new view on these two programs we’ll speak with author of the recently published book “The Empathic Civilization,” Jeremy Rifkin. Rifkin will explain how human history has followed a particular direction which has made us increasingly empathetic. And he’ll discuss how, with the possibility of multiple catastrophes looming, it is our potential for a global empathy which is essential to saving us.

What is the relationship between God and Mind, or between Brain and Mind for that matter? And speaking of matter, how can we explain how the brain as a biological organ can produce immaterial thoughts, and indeed consciousness itself? From where did the concept of God really originate befor…e it became a (but certainly not thE) foundational reason for the broader sociopolitical construct we call religion? And finally, if we can better understand the questions I’ve just articulated, can we have a better understanding of human behavior itself? We will address these questions today and next week with two social scientists who have themselves grappled with the nature of God, Mind, Brain and Human Behavior.

We will be speaking with Dr. Lester Nugent Garwood, a psychiatrist with his own practice in White City Oregon. Perhaps unique to his profession, Dr. Garwood is a philosophical determinist. That is, he identifies as a scientific naturalist which is a philosophical outlook which deems the notion of Free Will to be a bogus account of human behavior. On his Determinist Blog, regarding the notion of Free Will and political discourse, he notes that “The evidence shows that we are an intrinsic component of the universe–not apart from it. Thus, to maintain FW as a guiding principle in public policymaking is an increasingly expensive, often cruel, and consistently futile endeavor.”

We’ll also be speaking with Dr. Michael Graziano, a Professor of Psychology at Princeton University in New Jersey. He has a doctorate in Neuroscience and has lectured internationally on this field at various Neuroscience Colloquiums, including Rutgers University in NJ last year, and at the City College of NY this year. In his field of study, he has authored two books; “The Intelligent Movement Machine: An Ethological Perspective on the Primate Motor System,” an academic book published in 2008 by Oxford University Press; and, “God, Soul, Mind, Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Reflections on the Spirit World,” published for a wider audience this year. Dr. Graziano is also a science fiction author whose books include “The Love Story of Monkey,” and “Cretaceous Dawn” co-authored with his Sister, Lisa Graziano.

In 1996, the Council for Secular Humanism brought seven college students to its headquarters at the Center for Inquiry Transnational in Amherst, New York. These seven students wanted to establish a network of non-believers and critical rationalists on university and college campuses around the world. They were concerned by the rising tide of religious-political extremism and anti-scientific outlooks among members of their generation, as well as the lack of a strong and supportive community for young freethinkers. Some came from families or communities that were openly hostile towards religious unbelievers.

Within a year, seven students’ dream had become a successful reality: forty campus groups were soon established or affiliated with what was then known as the Campus Freethought Alliance.

Matthew LaClair, ETFF host and president of CFI-On Campus, spoke recently with several students at the 2010 Leadership Conference at CFI Headquarters in West Amherst, NY … A conference which also included talks by former ETFF guests including biblical scholar Dr. Robert Price and science journalist Chris Mooney. On this edition of ETFF we will hear what the current students have been up to in their attempts to give equal time to freethought, atheism, and humanism on US college campuses!

{{UPDATE 6/23 — Still working on the extended interview, will have up by Friday morning…thanks for listening! -Michael O.}}

The Transition Town Movement!

With a “volcano of oil” plaguing the Gulf Coast and this week’s speech from President Obama stating that “we have known for decades that the days of easily accessible oil are numbered”, how can we imagine a society without cheap fossil fuels?

The Transition Town movement, founded in the UK and growing in America, offers a solution to meet our needs and increase community resilience. Applying lessons from permaculture and sustainable design to towns and cities, “Transition” maps out the positive changes needed from households to urban infrastructure to reduce our consumption and create real value at every opportunity. At the same time, the Transition movement aims to empower communities through innovative collective brainstorming and decision-making systems.

In the face of Peak Oil and Climate Change, do we have an opportunity to refashion society at a more *human* scale, with a higher quality of life, than transnational consumerism could ever provide? Michael ONeil will talk to Tina Clarke, a Transition Town educator, to find out what humanity will have to re-learn to overcome the challenges ahead.

Across Atlanta, ominous billboard ads have appeared with the face of a young Black child and the words, “Endangered Species.”  But rather than objecting to the massive incarceration of Black youth or the rampant police brutality and abuse that confronts them… rather than challenging the decaying inner city school systems or the massive transfer of wealth through foreclosure out of Black families… these ads are targeting Black women!  They are religiously motivated ads that are seeking to equate Black women who choose abortion to the white supremacist slave-owners and lynchers of U.S. history.  They call abortion by Black women, “womb lynchings.”

This week, on Equal Time for Free Thought, Sunsara Taylor will speak with Dr. Tonya Williams of SPARK, an organization in Atlanta that has been challenging these ads, fighting for the right to abortion AND against racial and sexual discrimination.

The truth is, there is a higher rate of abortion on average among Black women… but there is also a higher birthrate.  The common thread beneath both of these statistics is that Black women are among those who are most systematically denied education and access to their own reproductive health.  This is connected to the overall still existing oppression of Black people, which is – after all – why the invocation of “Black genocide” resonates in the first place.

Tune in this Sunday as Taylor and Williams unravel this sinister and dishonest effort to pit women’s rights and the lives of Black people against each other – and to highlight the common interests among all oppressed people in opposing these ads.

Creation

“A psychological, heart-wrenching love story starring Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) as Charles Darwin, the film is based on “Annie’s Box,” a biography penned by Darwin’s great-great-grandson Randal Keynes using personal letters and diaries of the Darwin family. We take a unique and inside look at Darwin, his family and his love for his deeply religious wife, played by Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream), as, torn between faith and science, Darwin struggles to finish his legendary book “On the Origin of Species,” which goes on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology.”

The Authoritarian Specter

Principle 8 of Humanist Manefesto II reads in part, “We must extend participatory democracy in its true sense to the economy, the school, the family, the workplace, and voluntary associations. Decision-making must be decentralized to include widespread involvement of people at all levels – social, political, and economic. All persons should have a voice in developing the values and goals that determine their lives … People are more important than decalogues, rules, proscriptions, or regulations.
If one had to name a common attribute shared between many of today’s Republicans, “conservative” Democrats, religious fundamentalists, many on Wall Street, many CEOs of multinational corporations, and probably most police officers and military personal, she would be not unwise to suggest authoritarianism. The effort to explain what’s behind the words and deeds of these members of our society may not be fully realized merely by taking stock of their social, political, economic, or even religious ideologies, but of their personality types.

So, one may then ask if authoritarianism is a natural outcome of human nature, a part of human behavior when responding to certain sorts of circumstances, or strictly a learned phenomenon?  She may also ask, if she believes this trait to be dangerous to the survival of the human species – as many of us on the Left do – if there is there a way we can overcome it?

Joining us for this 2-hour special discussion, The Authoritarian Specter, will be Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Robert Altemeyer, and anarchist documentary maker, Jonathan Shockley.

Matthew LaClair spoke with controversial figure Don McLeroy, a Christian literalist and Creationist member of the Texas Board of Education, and with another Republican member of the board, Bob Craig.  They discussed the Texas Board of Education’s curriculum changes that are likely to pass this May which, as the New York Times explains, “Stress(es) the superiority of American capitalism, question(s) the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government, and present(s) Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.”

SPECIAL NOTES:

As promised, here are the links to the proposed high school curriculum, the proposed middle school curriculum, and the proposed elementary school curriculum.

If you have any comments,  suggestions, or corrections you’d like to share with the Texas Board of Education concerning what you find there, please forward them to ETFF host, Matthew LaClair at either president@campusfreethought.org, or matthew@secularstudents.org, and he will rush them to Dr. McLeroy and the Texas Board of Education!!