Point of Inquiry is the Center for Inquiry's flagship podcast, where the brightest minds of our time sound off on all the things you're not supposed to talk about at the dinner table: science, religion, and politics.
Guests have included Brian Greene, Susan Jacoby, Richard Dawkins, Ann Druyan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Eugenie Scott, Adam Savage, Bill Nye, and Francis Collins.
Point of Inquiry is produced at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y.
The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism | Joe Kelly
When American fascists began goose-stepping down Main Street in the 1930s, fascism was seen by the rest of the country as a terrifying and radical new European import. It was not. It didn't come from abroad. Nor was it new or radical. The seeds of American fascism were planted by elite southern land owners who insisted that slavery need not be addressed in the Constitution because it would soon die out on its own, and/or because it was somehow just.
In The Biggest Lie, historian Joseph Kelly speaks with Jim about fascism's deep roots in the antebellum South; its codification under Jim Crow; and, then, after the Spanish American War, its ascendency in the form of Anglo-Saxon nationalism, proposing that the nation belongs to a master-race – the original lie of American fascism.
Joseph Kelly is a professor of literature and history at the College of Charleston. He is the author of two other books on American democracy: Marooned and America's Longest Siege.
30 Jul 2026
Sneeze: The History and Science of the Common Cold with Immunologist David Miles
The human race suffers from literally billions of colds every year. In this episode, Jim chats with Dr. David Miles about what a cold is, where it comes from, and how to avoid it.
David Miles is an infectious-disease immunologist who has worked mostly on diseases of childhood in Africa and the vaccinations that protect against them. He now lives in London and tutors on the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine's online MSc course. His latest book is Sneeze: The History and Science of the Common Cold.
6 Jul 2026
Round Trip to Christiantown
What happens when a professional atheist and skeptic addresses a classroom full of young earth creationists and fundamentalist Christians?
For 20 years, CFI West executive Director Jim Underdown has been going to a Christian high school in Southern California to represent atheism and secular humanism in that school's comparative religion class. Here is one of those discussions.
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