The Conspiracy Skeptic

Dr. David D. Perlmutter, a professor of Media and Communication at Texas Tech, returns for a breaking emergency episode about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and how conspiracy theories are literally playing themselves out, on both sides, right before our eyes. The title might be a little exaggerated but that's the way to get ears and eyeballs! Amiright?

New England author Eric Bickernicks is back with a sequel to his 2019 novel High Strangeness. It's naturally called Higher Strangeness. His first novel is stil a free Kindle download but do please consider buying this one.

Dr. Karen Stollznow comes on to discuss her new book Missed Conceptions. It's a book that looks at Karen's own journey to have a child as well as how history has treated women who are unable to have children. Missed Conceptions is a frank and honest work that anyone who is considering having a child should read.

Dr. Perlmutter and I review some of the key conspiracies that hit the net and airwaves this year and what it says about where society is heading.

If that voice sounds familiar it is because Darren McKee is the regular intro voice of Canada's long running and well regarded Reality Check podcast. When he's not podcasting, he is a policy advisor in Ottawa. Darren has recently published a very timely book on AI called Uncontrollable: The Threat of Artificial Superintelligence and the Race to Save the World (US Amazon link). We talk about his book and AI's past, present, and possible futures. Is AI like a more efficient tractor that will destroy some jobs but create more? Or is it something dot dot dot else?

Continuing in our Canadian trilogy, Antoine Delbast is a long time listener who comes on to talk about being secular celebrant who can marry people in Quebec 100 percent legal like. He talks about his journey from growing up in a secular French Canadian household to his life as a youthful believer in UFOs to his life as a skeptic.

Jeff Dupuis is a Canadian author, based in Toronto, who has written a series of mystery books called Creature X. His books (Roanoke Ridge, Lake Cresent, and Umboi Island) are not just whodunit novels but weave in cryptids and skepticism! He comes on the podcast to talk about his skeptical approach to writing and researching cryptids. Apologies: Jeff's family also comes from my hometown of Windsor so we chat a bit out that. As well, we're a couple Canadian lefties so we side track a bit there too. Canadian readers should check out his author page at Dundurn Press. American listeners, and points beyond, should find his books on Amazon.

It's finally show 100! Yeah. My very first official guest was Brian Thompson. Back then he was host of the Amateur Scientist podcast. Now he's host of the very funny, very meta Whatever Happened to Pizza at McDonald's. Brian comes on to talk about what he's been up to the last 14 years, the origins of his podcast, and how it mocks, among other things, conspiratorial thinking.

Cian Gill hosts an excellent podcast called Wide Atlantic Weird. It's skepticism meets Forteanism. Cian covers a wide range of topics but some of his best are when he brings on his brother Dr. Dónal Gill to talk about pro wrestling. No. Seriously. They come on my show to talk about one of the greatest pro westing conspiracies ever: the legendary Montreal screwjob.

Dr. David D. Perlmutter, a professor of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University, returns to talk about the the similarities between the true crime genre and conspiracy thinking.