Posted on

Show 346: The Brain: Revisited!

The Human Brain, as it is presented in the new exhibition at The American Museum of Natural History called “Brain: The Inside Story.”

Audio 1 here!

Audio 2 here!

Understanding that our brain is the source of all of our behavior, thoughts, and personality may seem obvious to people who are naturalistic in their world-view, however in mainstream culture, this outlook is not widely held.

Despite all evidence to the contrary it’s surprising how many people continue to believe that personality and behavior are manifestations of supernatural phenomena, such as an immortal soul, or some other immaterial, non-local, manifestation. The impact that such thinking has on everything, from the way we treat one another to the nature of our social institutions, is vast.

Because of this Equal Time for Freethought believes that the supernatural view of who we are needs to be challenged and, in recent memory, one of the best approaches to doing this that we’ve encountered is embodied in the incredible new exhibition.

Continue reading “Show 346: The Brain: Revisited!”

Posted on

Show 345: Crises in Egypt

Crises in Egypt

Audio here!

Michael O’Neil interviews Larry Pintak who spent time living and working in Cairo for many years. Our previously announced program will air, instead, in Mar…ch, 2011.

Larry Pintak is the founding dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University.

Pintak spent four years as director of the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at The American University in Cairo where he led the only graduate journalism program in the Arab world, headed a variety of USAID-funded professional journalism training programs, and created Arab Media & Society, Mogtamana.org, a portal for Egyptian civil society, a U.S. election resource site for Arab journalists, and the first Arab “virtual newsroom” in Second Life.

His columns and op-eds appear in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Daily Star Beirut, The Daily News Cairo, Arab News, Gulf News, Tempo (Indonesia), The Jakarta Post, Al-Shurooq Egypt, the Turkish Daily News and other newspapers in the Middle East and Muslim world, along with Columbia Journalism Review online, Newsweek.WashingtonPost.com, CommonDreams.org and a variety of U.S. and European outlets. He is the author of “Seeds of Hate: How America’s Flawed Middle East Policy Ignited the Jihad and “Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam & the War of Ideas”

Pintak holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies and has also written extensively on Buddhism and Eastern religion.

Posted on

Show 344: The Morality of Abortion…

The Morality of Abortion and the Immorality of Those Who Would Force Women to Bear Children Against Their Will.

Audio here!

For the 38th anniversary of Roe V. Wade, join Sunsara Taylor for a special hour of Equal Time for Free Thought celebrating the right to abortion, celebrating the doctors and health care providers who risk their lives every day to provide women access to this essential right, and to examine the state of abortion rights today.

The hour will begin with Dr. Leroy Carhart, one of the few doctors left who provides second trimester abortions.  After the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in 2009, Dr. Carhart stepped out even further – and became targeted by the anti-choice fascists as “enemy # 1” – by declaring that he will continue to serve the women who need abortions in his area.  Further, he has expanded his practice to Baltimore and is working to train more doctors in later term abortion services.

Then, the show will feature a three way conversation between:

Merle Hoffman, the President and Founder of Choices Women’s Medical Center and the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of On the Issues Magazine.  She has been on the front lines providing abortions since 1971 and an outspoken activist and women’s rights advocate.

Debra Sweet, the National Director of World Can’t Wait.  She was central to organizing clinic defense against Operation Rescue across the country throughout the 90’s and continues to expose and mobilize against the attacks on women’s right to abortion and the providers who serve them.

Carole Joffe, author of “Dispatches From the Abortion Wars: The Cost of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us,” as well as, “Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion Before and After Roe V. Wade.”

Together, we will look back to the days before abortion was legal, examine the changing moral discourse surrounding abortion, confront the full scope of the danger now posed to women who so desperately need this right, and celebrate – and draw inspiration from – those who have committed themselves to fighting to protect and expand abortion access.

Posted on

Show 343: Brains, Consciousness, & Mental Health w/ Rob DeSalle

Brains, Consciousness, & Mental Health w/ Rob DeSalle

Audio here!

While it seems an obvious reality for people who are naturalistic in their world-view, understanding our brain as the source of all of our behavior, thoughts, and personality, is not necessarily the way most people think.  It is surprising how many people have the belief that consciousness is – in one form or another – supernatural.

The enduring belief that consciousness is the manifestation of a nonmaterial phenomenon, such as a soul, and not directly the result of our brains interacting with our environment is an idea which we on ETFF think needs to be challenged.

This month, in particular, the horrific events in Arizona raises the issue of the way our society regards and responds to mental illness, and that seems to call into question whether we believe that our behavior is primarily the result of our brains responding to our environment, or something more.

While many media pundits  are quick to use judgmental terms as regards the shootings – such as ‘crazy,’ ‘evil,’ ‘psycho,’ such language fails to get us close to any sort of effective method to prevent or at least reduce the number of such incidents.

The naturalistic alternative to understanding human behavior is embodied in the wonderful new exhibition called “Brain: The Inside Story” at AMNH.

Rob DeSalle is a Curator of Entomology at the American Museum of Natural History.  He is affiliated with the AMNH Division of Invertebrate Zoology and works at the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, where he leads a group of researchers working on molecular systematics, molecular evolution, population and conservation genetics, and evolutionary genomics of a wide array of life forms ranging from viruses, bacteria, corals, and plants, to all kinds of insects, reptiles, and mammals.

Rob is also Adjunct Professor at Columbia University (Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology), Distinguished Professor in Residence at New York University (Department of Biology), Adjunct Professor at City University of New York (Subprogram in Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior), Resource Faculty at the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, and Professor at the AMNH Richard Gilder Graduate School.

Posted on

Show 342: An Anti-American Manifesto w/ Ted Rall

An Anti-American Manifesto?

Audio here!

Sound a bit too radical for Freethinkers? Even for left-leaning humanists and atheists? Maybe a wee bit too “negative” for “Bright-Sided“* Americans (*thanks Barbara Ehrenreich!)?

Well then, what about “violent revolution?” That may even make radical philosopher Ted Honderich flinch!

Ted Rall, cartoonist for Universal Press Syndicate, is a revolutionary. While not devoted to any particular revolutionary flag – communist, socialist, anarchist or otherwise – he IS suggesting that the time for radical change has come, and if we don’t move NOW to be the ones we’ve been waiting for, “they” will.

In his new book, he writes, “Right-wing organizational names change, but they amount to the same thing: the reactionary sociopolitical force – the sole force – poised to fill the vacuum when collapse occurs. The scenario outlined by Margaret Atwood’s prescient novel The Handmaid’s Tale – rednecks in the trenches, hard military men running things, minorities and liberals taken away and massacred, setting the stage for an even more extreme form of laissez-faire corporate capitalism than we’re suffering under today – is a fair guess of how a post-U.S. scenario will play out unless we prepare to turn it in another direction.”

Posted on

Show 341: “Naturalistic Christmas” Special!

Equal Time for Freethought’s 2-Hour “Naturalistic Christmas” Special!

Audio here!

Experience Christmas as only WBAI can offer with a naturalized, secular, and faith-free twist; including a very special Christmas guided meditation, and our exclusive Christmas morning interview with Santa Claus, who as it turns out is a skeptic himself.

And, as on many a Christmas past, we’ll be taking your calls to hear how your Christmas is going and where you see hope for tomorrow.

Okay, now, if Christmas for you is all about religion, then you may prefer to listen to something a bit more devotional – but for everyone else, tune in and let the Naturalistic Christmas fun begin!

Posted on

Show 340: Sex, Love & Marriage

Sex, Love & Marriage: What We’ve been Doing Wrong (and Right) for 8,000 years!

Audio here!

The Judeo-Christian traditions, and others over the last 6,000 years or so, have turned human sexuality and romantic love on its head.  For 98% of human existence (of which 8,000 years is but a blink of an eye), humans lived in small communities ‘where everybody knew your name.’  Our ancestors led very egalitarian lives compared to the dominance based, often patriarchal societies of so-called modern civilization.

Today, ‘unnatural’ (as in, not part of the social evolution of humanity until very recently) emphasis has been put on competition with its Hobbesian attitudes of a selfish, brutish, cold human existence.  This has, in part, let to inherently self-centered economic systems like Capitalism (based on the artificial notion of Private Property) which has, among other problems, demanded sexuality be considered almost inhuman, scarce, and hierarchical, and thus championing the supposedly moral virtues of monogamy and the “nuclear family.”  Any  real attempts of returning to our basic human natures has been faced with threats from the State, Church, and even from the Sciences (particularly from the field of evolutionary psychology).

So, how can humanists and other freethinkers better understand the nature of human nature with regards to Sex, Love and Marriage in such a society as ours?  On this 2-hour special, we turn to two researchers in these areas to try to get a better handle on what and who we are, and where we may want to venture in the 21st Century.

Continue reading “Show 340: Sex, Love & Marriage”

Posted on

Show 339: Social Science Under Fire II

Social Science Under Fire II

Audio here!

It’s generally accepted by most freethinkers that it’s very easy, and quite common for our bias to reduce our ability to perceive the world around us accurately. Accordingly, freethinkers overwhelmingly agree that we can significantly limit the effects of bias when we employ scientific method.

Surprisingly however, when to comes to understanding the human condition, freethinkers often demonstrate the same, folksy, traditional biases we all do before we consider the scientific evidence, even after they’ve consulted the research!

The picture painted of the human experience as described by scientific research is remarkably different than those folk or traditional ways of knowing ourselves; therefore, the implications for our political and economic institutions is vast. Or perhaps this is the cause of the bias, itself.

To take a look at this phenomenon we will be speaking with two scientists on the nature of social science and it’s ability to tell us who and what we are, and the big question of “human nature.”

Continue reading “Show 339: Social Science Under Fire II”

Posted on

Show 338: Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff on his book, Program or Be Programmed

Audio here!

**UPDATE** During my interview with Douglas, I mention that I heard one of the parties involved in the allegations of rape against  Julian Assange had “backed out” of the investigation. That was my misinterpretation of the timeline of the Assange investigation, during which the initial prosecutor dropped the rape charges. Another prosecutor later overturned that decision. I apologize for contributing to misinformation regarding this important investigation.

—————————

The debate over whether the Net is good or bad for us fills the airwaves and the blogosphere. But for all the heat of claim and counter-claim, the argument is essentially beside the point: it’s here; it’s everywhere. The real question is, do we direct technology, or do we let ourselves be directed by it and those who have mastered it?

“Choose the former,” writes Rushkoff, “and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.”

Michael O’Neil talks with Douglas Rushkoff this Saturday on Equal Time for Freethought at 3:00 pm!

Continue reading “Show 338: Douglas Rushkoff”

Posted on

Show 337: Special Call-In Show on “Right Wing Dogmatic Thinking”

Special Call-In Show on “Right Wing Dogmatic Thinking”

Audio here!

We’d like to welcome our new listeners and longtime fanbase to our new day and time with a special Call-In program on this second week at our new timeslot!  Matthew LaClair will be at the helm, and the theme will revolve around trying to better understand our right wing brothers and sisters, their tendencies to be caught up in dogma (both religious and political), and what humanists need to do about this if we are to bring about progressive social change.