I’d like to hear a serious discussion about transhumanism. The guest could be James Hughes, Nick Bostrom, or even Ray Kurzweil. I guess Chris Mooney would have to do this one.

Dom1978 - 08 October 2011 09:28 PM

I’d like to hear a serious discussion about transhumanism. The guest could be James Hughes, Nick Bostrom, or even Ray Kurzweil. I guess Chris Mooney would have to do this one.

DJ Grothe had Aubrey de Grey on awhile back ... not quite transhumanism but in the same ballpark.

Would really like to hear Hugh B. Urban on the podcast, discussing his book about Scientology.

Jake Farr-Wharton (pronounced Jake Fire-Water   )  of ImaginaryFriendsShow.com, “The One True Pode Caest”.  This guy is mainly on about atheism but also discusses all manner of skeptical issues in an entirely hilarious, yet fact filled manner.  His book “Letters to Christian Leaders—Hollow be thy claims” is at once an incredibly incisive take-down of the religious right and a ROTFLMAO hilarious read.  One of my favorite snippets from his book is:  “Religion is a sexually transmitted disease.”

I’d enjoy hearing an interview with Brian Cox the British scientist and science writer/presenter.

Very much in line with my suggesting Philipp Blom (author of Wicked Company), I have another history related one: Stephen Greenblatt, who recently wrote “The Swerve” in which he tells the story of the rediscovery of Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things and its impact on on western culture.
Also: Susan Jacoby about her new Ingersoll book.

Sorry if this is becoming tedious, but here’s another freethought history suggestion: Don’t know how good his english is but french philosopher Michel Onfray might be an interesting interviewee.
He or perhaps someone from Prometheus Books could talk about Jean Meslier and his Testament written in the early 18th century. I’m reading it at the moment, and… wow! I always figured it was mostly just a denouncement of faith, which would have been striking enough, considering it was written by a catholic priest. But it’s far more than that. In terms of argumentative refutations of (not only the Christian) religion, it’s basically all in there. But it’s also a powerful statement of human emancipation from any kind of religious or worldy ruling power.  Meslier’s message was too radical even for Voltaire who published his Testament in a censored version to make it more compatible to his own deism. So yeah, Meslier is my new hero.

I think Chris Mooney, on Point of Inquiry, ought to invite Charles A. Hall, a systems ecology professor at SUNY, to discuss his book “Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy”.  It is the best economics book out there and has no competition, because it is the ONLY book that puts economics on a scientific basis, with testable hypotheses.  A book review by Richard Vodra is worth reading as well (do an internet search)

I tried to attach a 2001 paper from BioScience of Hall’s on this topic titled “The need to reintegrate the natural sciences with economics”, but this post was flagged as spam—perhaps because of that? 

Alice Friedemann
energyskeptic dot com

p.s. In some ways, his earlier book “Making World Development Work: Scientific Alternatives to Neoclassical Economic Theory” by Grégoire Leclerc and Charles A. S. Hall (Jun 16, 2007) is even better as far as explaining why neo-classical economics is so far from reality.