The Podcast For Inquiry

In 2019, Brian and Brent (members of the Calgary-based Rocky Mountain Atheists) joined a "Group of Five (G5)" sponsorship committee (one of the ways Canada allows private citizens to resettle refugees in Canada) to bring a UN recognized refugee, Omer, to Canada.

When Omer expressed doubts about his faith, he had to flee his native country of Pakistan due to threats on his life. Omer has been living in hiding in Nepal for several years.

Though Omer's should have been a straightforward case, the experience of navigating the bureaucracies of several nations - as well as the COVID-19 pandemic - has been anything but. Brian and Brent describe the challenges they have experienced with bringing Omer to Canada, as well their insights in Canada's overall refugee system.

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Join today! Produced by Zack Dumont, Martin Zielinski, and Leslie Rosenblood. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Jonathan Stea (BlueSky, Facebook) is a full-time practicing clinical psychologist and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. In today's episode, Jonathan reveals that many mental health practitioners have no scientific grounding for their treatments, which can lead to disaster - yet it can be very difficult for an layperson to distinguish between a new technique they don't understand that works, and a new technique they don't understand that is gibberish. "Quantum neurological reset therapy" should get your spidey sense tingling, and Jonathan shares a few other signs of pseudoscientific grift as well.

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Join today! Produced by Zack Dumont, Martin Zielinski, and Leslie Rosenblood. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Yasmine Mohammed is a human rights activist and author of Unveiled: How the West Empowers Radical Muslims. Yasmine is one of the most prominent and vocal figures supporting persecuted freethinkers across the globe, from elevating the voices of marginalized freethinkers on her podcast, to creating a global network of allies across religious and political divides through the CLARITy Coalition.

Yasmine shares how her childhood was dramatically changed when her mother became an unofficial "second wife" to a devout Muslim man, and how Canada failed to protect her due to the bigotry of low expectations. She describes her journey from non-practicing Muslim to becoming an open atheist, and how the trauma of her childhood continued to haunt her as an adult. We also discuss how countries suffer under Islamic rule, the particular hatred of Jews that is a core element of Islam, and the origin of and problems with the term Islamophobia.

Learn more about Yasmine and support her efforts:

Free Hearts Free Minds

Yasmine Mohammed Podcast

Unveiled: How the West Empowers Radical Muslims

Clarity Coalition

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Join today! Produced by Zack Dumont, Martin Zielinski, and Leslie Rosenblood. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

John E. Moores (X, Bluesky) is a planetary scientist and associate professor at York University. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, formerly served as the Science Advisor to the President of the Canadian Space Agency and has contributed to five NASA and ESA-led space missions. He is the co-author of Daydreaming in the Solar System, which imagines a future when visiting other planets is as common as hiking in a national park. The book is also grounded in the latest scientific knowledge about planetary geophysics. In addition to talking about the book, John answers some of Leslie's pressing questions about the solar system, including: How do planets and moons become tidally locked? Why are most planets in the solar system aligned in a plane? Why are there gaps in Saturn's rings? Is there life elsewhere in the solar system, or in the universe?

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Join today! Produced by Zack Dumont, Martin Zielinski, and Leslie Rosenblood. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Gaia Vince (@wanderinggaia) is an award-winning science writer and author. She is particularly interested in the interaction between human systems and Earth's planetary systems. Her research has taken her around the world. Gaia's latest book is Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World. We are already at 1.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, with significantly more to come. The four horsemen of the anthropocene - fire, heat, drought, and flood - will lead human migration on an unprecedented scale. Gaia describes what we must do, individually and collectively, to prepare.

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Join today! Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Maureen Bulbrook and Christina Ninham are Indigenous lawyers who know from direct experience that Canada has never stopped discriminating against its First Nations people, from the Doctrine of Discovery at the time of contact to current day (with Prime Minister Harper arguing that residential school records should be destroyed even as he apologized for Canada's treatment of Indigenous peoples and Prime Minister Trudeau failing to deliver on his promise of clean drinking water in all Indigenous communities). Canada passed a law in November 2024 banning forced sterilization because of the ongoing commonplace practice of doing so to primarily Indigenous women.

For reliable information about First Nations people, visit:

• Canadian government websites

• First Nations community websites

• APTN https://www.aptn.ca/

• Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations

• Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women final report

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Join today! Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Paco's thesis is a provocative one: plants are, in a meaningful sense, intelligent. Paco discusses what intelligence is, and how we might recognize it in other beings. People used to believe that only humans are intelligent. Over time, other mammals were deemed to also think and feel. Today, most people grant that many animals, such as birds and octopi, exhibit intelligent behaviours. Paco extends this to plants by detailing what science has to say - both theoretically and empirically - about the hypothesis of plant intelligence. The conversation concludes with some thoughts about the moral and philosophical implications if plants are found to be truly intelligent.

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Why do scholars now refer to early Christianities instead of early Christianity? How has the meaning of the word "Heresy" changed from its original definition to taking on its current connotations? Why did Christianity grow from a fringe cult with few followers and disdained by the intelligentsia and people in power to becoming the largest religion in the world today? What did humanity lose with Christianity's rise?

Catherine Nixey answers all these questions and more as she discusses her new book, Heresy, on Podcast for Inquiry.

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

All life on earth ultimately depends on energy and how it flows between biological and geochemical systems on the planet. Katherine Richardson and her team identified nine boundaries which need to be respected if our planet is to remain conducive to human thriving. Climate change is just one of them.

We are exceeding six boundaries, and in recent years they are all getting worse.

Katherine discusses how she and her team identified the nine planetary boundaries and why it is essential to consider how they interact, instead of viewing them as independent issues. The effects of exceeding planetary boundaries are affecting life today, disrupting air travel, causing severe flooding, and contributing to more frequent and powerful storms. (For the most up to date overview, read Planetary Boundaries guide humanity's future on Earth, published in Nature magazine on November 8, 2024.)

We have the knowledge and technology to live within the planetary boundaries; the question remains whether we have the will, and the time, to implement them.

The nine planetary boundaries are:

• Climate change

• Biosphere integrity

• Stratospheric ozone depletion

• Ocean acidification

• Phosphorus and nitrogen biogeochemical flows

• Land system change

• Freshwater change

• Atmospheric aerosol loading

• Novel entities

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Many people - especially those in skeptical organizations like CFIC - talk about the importance of critical thinking. But what is it? How can we use it effectively? How do people navigate complex subject areas without developing deep expertise? Melanie Trecek-King, creator of Thinking is Power, discusses how people internalize beliefs, how they can be a part of one's identity, why some issues become politicized, what constitutes good evidence, and much, much more.

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].