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Show 219a: “Understanding and Defending Evolution” with Sam Datta and Massimo Pigliucci

Audio 1 here!

This two-part conversation with Sam Datta and Massimo Pigliucci will dig into how evolution takes place, including by taking on popular misconceptions about evolution, and explore why understanding the science of evolution matters. We will touch on the escalating attacks on evolution and science in general, and explore more fully why these are happening now, and visit the intersection where science and morality meet.

Since its publication last fall, The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism; Knowing What’s Real and Why it Matter, by Ardea Skybreak, has received increasing recognition from renowned scientists like Richard Leakey, Kevin Padian, Taner Edis and David Seaborg as well as educators… and from many people who are ordinarily denied access to science, including a large number of prisoners.

The book is unique in the way it popularizes the science of evolution and the scientific method and in the very non-defensive way it takes on religious superstition. It combines uncompromising scientific rigor with an accessible style which gives it the ability to connect with a broad and diverse audience.

Recently, Skybreak’s book was named as one of three finalists for the 2007 Benjamin Franklin award in the category of Science/Environment.

After reading this book a prisoner described the debate going on over evolution inside his prison, and remarked that, “A lot of these bible bangers who have been misled think this debate is about ‘winning or losing.’ I tell them this debate is about struggling for the truth.”

Skybreak was unavailable for this interview, but has connected us with one of her publicists, Sam Datta, whom we will be speaking with about her book.

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Show 218a: Thomas Clark – “Encountering Naturalism”

Audio here!

Or, Can You Call Yourself a Naturalist and Still Believe in Free Will?

At its core, the most defining element of a naturalistic world-view is the idea that there exists an unbroken chain of cause and effect which determines the way that all entities in our classical universe behave.

In a naturalistic world-view, there are no forces or entities that exist outside the chain of cause and effect that can influence events in our universe. Everything that exists, has ever existed, or ever will exist, is inextricably linked in this chain; and this, of course, includes humans.

Using this idea to address the most crucial questions of our time with regard to our place in the universe, our relationship to each other, and our understanding of our selves, is to bring the full power of the naturalistic world-view to its most practical social and personal applications.

This week and next, Equal Time for Freethought will be joined by the Director of The Center for Naturalism, and author of the new primer on naturalism Encountering Naturalism, Thomas Clark.

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Show 217: “ParEcon, ParPolity & the Future of the Left” with Robin Hahnel and Steven Shalom

“ParEcon, ParPolity & the Future of the Left” with Robin Hahnel and Steven Shalom”

Audio here!

What is ParEcon?

Participatory economics is a proposed economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and allocation of resources in a given society. Proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalist market economies and also an alternative to centrally planned socialism or coordinatorism, it is described as “an anarchistic economic vision.” It emerged from the work of activist and political theorist Michael Albert and that of radical economist Robin Hahnel, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s.

Albert and Hahnel stress that parecon is only meant to address an alternative economic theory and that it must be accompanied by equally important alternative visions in the fields of politics, culture and kinship.

What is ParPolity?

Stephen R. Shalom has begun work on a participatory political vision he calls “parpolity”. Elements of anarchism in the field of politics, polyculturalism in the field of culture, and feminism in the field of family and gender relations are also discussed by the authors as being possible foundations for future alternative visions in these other spheres of society.

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Show 216: Michael Albert – “Introduction to ParEcon”

Audio here!

Over the last few months, we have been airing an interview series on Equal Time for Freethought unofficially called the “Economics of Humanism.” The purpose of these programs is to address what I personally think ought to be the center of focus for 21st Century humanism; that is, humanism ought to redirect its primary focus away from atheism, secularism and religious critique and toward the sociopolitical and economic aspects of human culture.

Humanism, as promoted and defended in the Humanist Manifestos (which serve as modern humanism’s defining documents), is a philosophy or world-view about an ethical, moral system of thought, derived from scientific method, naturalism and reason, and must be applied to the real world. If we want – as is argued in these documents and elsewhere in myriad humanist literature – a cooperative, tolerant, peaceful society where everyone has equal opportunity to live “the good life,” where people are not held back by racism, class-ism, sexism and nationalism, and where we can control or even eliminate the more dangerous sides of human nature such as violence, crime and the actions born from religious fundamentalism, we have to be serious, focused, and even strident about our mission.

The crux of our humanity can be found in our relationships with one another in what we have come to call societies or cultures. The way in which we interact on the large scale as we need to with 6 billion of us on the planet and growing, falls within those areas of study sociologists are interested in – which of course, includes how we govern ourselves (politics) and how we share human made and natural resources (economics). And, If we want to apply humanist ethics and morals to creating a very real planetary humanism, the means must be equal – ethically and morally – to the ends.

The means modern humankind has endeavored at over the last 200 years or so – capitalism, hierarchal democracy, state socialism and Party Communism – have all failed to bring us close enough to the ethical and moral sensibilities of humanism. In fact, too often, they have taken us further away. Therefore, we interviewed for the “Economics of Humanism” series Annalee Newitz on how capitalism’s evils have been represented in horror films in March, Joel Kovel on ecosocialism in April, and Noam Chomsky and Michael Perelman on, in part, the problem of capitalism and old forms of socialism, and what do to about it, in June and July respectively.

And now, for this week and next, we will explore one possible alternative to both capitalism and our current form of democracy.
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Show 213: Call In Show – “The New Atheists: What do you Think?”

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“The New Atheists: What do you Think?” w/ Arnell Dowret

Do the “new atheists” speak for you? Do you find them persuasive? Will their efforts make things better for non-belief or worse?

You would have to have been on the moon to not have in some way encountered the work of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. If you are a believer, what do you make of it? If you are a nonbeliever, how does their strong message make you feel? Do you think their message is accurate? Is this the start of a new movement, or just more (ahh, you’ll excuse the expression, please) preaching to the choir?

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Show 212: Michael Perelman – “Markets, Competition and Economics”

Audio here!

About Michael Perelman:

Although I earned a degree in agricultural economics from the University
of California, Berkeley, I never could bring myself to accept the
ideological framework of conventional economics. When I looked more deeply into the environmental, social, and economic costs of the current agricultural system, I discovered how the profit-oriented agricultural system created hunger, pollution, serious public health consequences, and environmental disruption, while throwing millions of people off the land.

“Why do those whose work is most essential, such as farm workers, earn the least? Why are natural resources exploited in ways that do not take account of their scarcity? These are the disarmingly straightforward questions that dissident economist Michael Perelman directs at the discipline of economics–exploring the whole history of its development in his search for answers. In the process he has created one of the most revealing and accessible critiques of the narrow mind-set that constitutes conventional economics.
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Show 211: Fund Drive Show – “Evolution, Religion & the New Atheism” w/ David Sloan Wilson

Fund Drive Show – “Evolution, Religion & the New Atheism” w/ David Sloan Wilson

Audio here!

What does the Judeo-Christian, Islamic religious world view tell us about human nature and our place in the universe?

What does Evolutionary Biology and Scientific Naturalism itself tell us about human nature and our place in the Universe?

Where do these two worldviews merge – if they merge – and where do they differ… and how important is that difference?

And that all said, what does religion have to do with humanity’s evolution and how ought we view religion as our troubled societies move into post 9/11 times?

PODCAST/AUDIO for Interview Only
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