Science and rationality are political issues, whether we like it or not. Amanda Marcotte, Get Opinionated: A Progressive’s Guide to Finding Your Voice (and Taking a Little Action).

On Jan 30, 2010 at 10:23am, more than three hundred skeptics in the UK (and a handful of groups internationally) took part in a mass homeopathic 'overdose' in protest at the high-street pharmacy / drug store chain Boots' continued endorsement and sale of homeopathic remedies, and to raise public awareness about the fact that homeopathic remedies have nothing in them.

But then what? Clearly Boots and many other retailers like them continue to sell homeopathic products. Did it change people’s minds as well as reach the news? Is there more to activism than ‘placebo’ stunts - and what really ensures effective change? In 2011, skeptics internationally are challenged to take it further – and come up with their own, locally-inspired activities. The next 10:23 Campaign (http://www.1023.org.uk) will take place across the weekend of the 5th and 6th of February, 2011.

Andy Wilson is a Board member of Merseyside Skeptics Society and co-founder of the 2010 10:23 campaign against the use of homeopathy in mainstream health.  Andy lives in Southport, Merseyside and is also host of the satirical, skeptical panel show podcast, InKredulous.

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Visit www.tokenskeptic.org – and I’d love to hear your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com. Theme songs are 'P&P' by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and '365' by Milton Mermikides, at www.miltonmermikides.com.

For many listening to this podcast - the phrase 'Did you see the gorilla?' might remind you of a group of people throwing a basketball to each other. For those who have no idea - before you go any further, check out the award-winning video that will feature in the show notes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY

Finished watching it? What you have just seen is part of a 2004 Ig Nobel award-winning study - which makes the following interview really quite special.

Christopher Chabris and Prof Daniel Simons have released a book about their ten years of research - on why people succumb to everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Called The Invisible Gorilla, it details the experiment and how it might explain such things as why companies spend billions on product they knows will fail and why award-winning movies are full of editing mistakes. They combine the work of other researchers with their own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble.

The Invisible Gorilla And Other Ways our Intuition Deceives Us is available from bookstores world-wide and I do suggest you check out my favourite bookstore online, Embiggen Books, for a copy. You can head to the official site to learn more, at http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com.

By the way - my science blog Podblack is up for an Australian science blogging award! Head to http://thebigblogtheory.com.au and support bloggers for Science Week!

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Speaking of  iTunes, you can find and rate all of the shows there, or you can visit www.tokenskeptic.org –  I’d love to hear your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com.

Theme songs are ‘P&P’ by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and ‘365’ by Milton Mermikides, at www.miltonmermikides.com.

'Did you know that children whose parents make a conscientious decision to have them opt out of Special Religious Education (SRE) are prohibited from any form of instruction during this period? NSW Department of Education policy provides for the supervision of these children but specifies they are not to have access to 'ethics, values, civics or general religious education.' - St James Ethics Centre.

Hello and welcome to one of the few live rather than Skyped interviews that I conduct for this podcast. Last week I attended the Federation of Australasian Philosophy in Schools Association annual conference, held at the University of NSW. One of the presenters was Dr Phillip Cam.

Dr Philip Cam is Associate Professor in the School of History and Philosophy at the University of New South Wales. He has particular interests in the philosophy of the mind, education, social philosophy and philosophical inquiry for children. Dr Cam has written several books related to philosophical inquiry for children, some of which have been widely translated, and he is the author of many articles on related aspects of education.

In 2004, I attended a Level 2 training course in Philosophy for Children, with about fifteen other teachers, attending lectures and workshops run by practioners,  including Dr Cam. At the FAPSA conference, he did a short presentation about the state's 10-week trial for secular ethics classes, which has caught some media attention - so I hoped to clear up a few misconceptions about the trial and whether it was, as some claimed, really 'in competition' with religious education classes.

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Speaking of iTunes, you can find and rate all of the shows there, or you can visit www.tokenskeptic.org – I’d love to hear your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com and do send in reviews for iTunes!

Theme songs are ‘P&P’ by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and ‘365’ by Milton Mermikides, at www.miltonmermikides.com.

Welcome to episode twenty seven of the Token Skeptic!

Dear listeners - firstly apologies for getting out two episodes out so soon after one another. Next week I'll be traveling, so it is unlikely that I'll get out an episode next week, so I hope you don't mind that there's a little space between this and episode twenty-eight. I'll be attending a Philosophy and Education conference in Sydney, on the other side of Australia, and will include the content from that in the next show.

This episode is called 'On Separation Between Scientific Truth and Belief'. This is a very current 'news' item online, involving a blog-post written by Dr Pamela  Gay and the response it has got from a variety of people, including Dr PZ 'Pharyngula' Myers. It is called Separation Between Scientific Truth and Belief, on her Starstryder blog.

Dr Gay is an astronomer, writer, and podcaster, who focuses on using new media to engage people in science and technology. On her website 'About' page, she writes that she is often asked about her belief system and created a page to answer that question here.

What this episode features is the second half of an interview - the first half with Dr Gay will feature on the Skeptic Zone podcast later this week, and I urge people who are not familiar or have not kept in touch with the work that Dr Gay does for astronomy and education, to download that too.

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Speaking of iTunes, you can find and rate all of the shows there, or you can visit www.tokenskeptic.org – I’d love to hear your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com and do send in reviews for iTunes!

Theme songs are ‘P&P’ by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and ‘365’ by Milton Mermikides, at www.miltonmermikides.com.

Welcome to episode twenty six of the Token Skeptic!

This week I’m interviewing Joey Haban of the blog Newly Nerfed. Newly Nerfed is a blog about chronic illness and disability, science and skepticism, and geekery of all kinds, that you can find at http://newly-nerfed.net.

She describes herself on her site as 'a 36-year-old geeky gal living in Los Angeles, with a husband (a videogame technical director) and two unemployed Burmese cats, Zen — the one with the game controller — and Satori.' She has a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, and finished the coursework for her master’s in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). Prior to becoming disabled, she was a sign language interpreter in the college setting, and later taught English grammar and writing to underprepared deaf college students. She is also a staff writer for AbleGamers and contributes to the Grassroots Skeptics.

Some of the topics we discuss are inspired by an excellent and thought-provoking blog-post called 'Bitten And Shy', which investigates how people may have a good reason, although not an excuse, to reject medical science. Joey shares some insights from her time as an interpreter of American Sign Language (ASL) and views on skepticism. You can follow her on Twitter at ZenMonkey and join her Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Newly-Nerfed/260287547080

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Speaking of iTunes, you can find and rate all of the shows there, or you can visit www.tokenskeptic.org - I'd love to hear your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com and do send in reviews for iTunes!

Theme songs are 'P&P' by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and ‘365’ by Milton Mermikides, at www.miltonmermikides.com.

Welcome to episode twenty five of the Token Skeptic!

This week I’m interviewing Warren Bonett of Embiggen Books, for the second book-review episode!

Warren’s bookstore, Embiggen Books, is in Noosaville on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland Australia. Their website is www.embiggenbooks.com.

The books reviewed for this episode are:

• Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God - A Novel, by Rebecca Goldstein;
• Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies.

You'll also hear us mention in passing the website 'Butterflies and Wheels' by Ophelia Benson (the book that I couldn't find in the room while I was talking to Warren was Does God Hate Women? by Jeremy Stangroom and Ophelia Benson.

If you’d like to suggest  some books for us to look at or make some recommendations, please feel free to contact either myself or Warren about this episode.

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Speaking of iTunes, you can find and rate all of the shows there, or you can visit www.tokenskeptic.org - I'd love to hear your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com and do send in reviews for iTunes!

Theme songs are 'P&P' by Derek K Miller of Penmachine.com and ‘365’ by Milton Mermikides, at www.miltonmermikides.com.

Dear George Hrab,

You're a very silly man and I'm not going to interview you.

Milton Mermikides is going to do it instead.

Regards,

Kylie Sturgess.

Trebuchet features 17 songs about skepticism, science, atheism, falling, flying, remnant evolutionary behavior, and the usefulness of one plastic lobster.

This is the first thirty-minutes of an extended interview by Milton Mermikides with George Hrab; the rest of the interview may feature on the Geologic Podcast.

Multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, producer, composer and heliocentrist George Hrab has written and produced five independent CDs; published one book; performed for President Clinton; shared the stage with countless numbers of musicians and acts; and has traveled across the country as drummer, vocalist, musical director, and event host for the nationally recognized Philadelphia Funk Authority. As defacto Despot-for-Life of his own original ensemble The Geologic Orchestra, George humbly follows in the footsteps of such icons as Frank Zappa, Mark Twain, Carl Sagan, and Will Rogers, making it a personal quest to improve the cognitive thinking skills of each and every American by reaching them through their funny bones and dance shoes. His music, skepticism and wit have been featured on many radio broadcasts, TV shows, and podcasts - his podcast is found at www.geologicpodcast.com

Milton Mermikides lives in London and enjoys a life working as a performing and session guitarist, composer of many styles, band leader, producer, recording engineer, leukaemia activist, lecturer and academic. He has a BSc from the London School of Economics, a BMus from Berklee College of Music and is currently completing a PhD at the University of Surrey in Performance and Composition.  At the age of 28, Milton was appointed a Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music followed by the position of Head of Music Technology. He is also professor of Jazz Guitar at the Royal College of Music. In 2004, Milton was appointed Designer and Director of the Creative Technology Lab - the Electro-acoustic research centre at the Royal Academy of Music, for which he received the ULU Laurel award for services to Music Technology. His website is www.miltonmermikides.com.

You can purchase Trebuchet via iTunes or at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hrab6 (which includes the option to purchase either the downloadable version or a physical copy that comes with a twenty-page booklet).

Thanks Milton, I couldn't have done this.

The Token Skeptic podcast site is at www.tokenskeptic.org. Theme songs are 'P&P' by Derek K Miller of Penmachine.com and '365' by Milton Mermikides, of MiltonMermikides.com.

Welcome to Token Skeptic #23 - a discussion between Dr Leslie Cannold and Michael McRae on perceptions of pharmaceutical companies!

After reading ‘The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks’ by Rebecca Skloot and talking to my students about medical ethics, and more recently, the Australian Vaccination Network - I really wanted to investigate the public perception of pharmaceutical companies and why it seems to have such a strange ‘either for or against!’ approach for many.

The questions I asked include: What do you think is the public perception of pharmaceutical companies and why? Have we learned from history about how drug companies gather and report results and are things improving? What should be the future of pharmaceutical products and whose responsibility is it to make sure that happens?

The article that we discuss around the twenty-minute mark is 'Ghost Stories', by Richard Guilliat, published in the Australian Magazine on April 3rd, 2010, about the multinational drug firm Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and the investigation into its promotion of Premarin hormone-replacement drugs.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/ghost-stories/story-e6frg8h6-1225848936455

Dr Leslie Cannold is an author, researcher, ethicist and vocalist. Her website is http://www.cannold.com

She worked for years at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne, and now holds an Honorary Fellowship at Melbourne, as well as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer position at Monash University. Leslie sits on various boards and committees, including the ethics panel of the Infertility Treatment Authority and the Human Research and Ethics Committee of the Victorian Department of Human Services. She is president of Reproductive Choice Australia and Pro-Choice Victoria, grass-roots advocacy groups that seek to maximise the reproductive rights and freedoms available to Australians.

The Token Skeptic podcast site is at www.tokenskeptic.org. Theme songs are 'P&P' by Derek K Miller of Penmachine.com and ‘365’ by Milton Mermikides, at www.miltonmermikides.com.

Professor Peter T. Leeson’s paper on 'Ordeals' looks at the medieval superstition 'iudicium dei' – or the judgment of God - the practice of judging a person’s innocence or guilt by ordeal. This could include putting your arm into boiling water, being dunked or even being burnt alive.

"It was expected that God, approving the act imposed or permitted by an authorized judge, would give a distinct manifestation of the truth to reveal the guilt or innocence of the accused. It was believed from these premises that an equitable judgment must surely result."

While many of us can see the humor in the overeager peasants wanting to burn a witch in the film 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail', belief in witchcraft and use of torture in their confession has continued for centuries. Even now, it demonstrates how sometimes superstitions can not only draw in mob support - but can be used to kill.

The article read out during the episode is called 'A Nigerian Witch-Hunter Defends Herself' from the New York Times, from the 22nd May, 2010, written by Mark Oppenheimer.

To learn more about the work of Leo Igwe, his work is documented at www.iheu.org/iheu and you can find some of his articles on his website.

Professor Peter T. Leeson is the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University  

The Token Skeptic podcast site is at www.tokenskeptic.org.

Theme songs are 'P&P' by Derek K Miller of Penmachine.com and ‘365’ by Milton Mermikides, at www.miltonmermikides.com.