All posts by Thomas Smith

AS284: Vaccines Are Not Killing Us! with Ken Camargo

My guest today is Dr. Ken Camargo. We discuss the anti-vaccination movement, the facts about vaccination, and what is behind all the misinformation out there.  Ken is an MD with a Master’s and a PhD in public health, a professor and researcher of the graduate program in public health at the Institute of Social Medicine, Rio de Janeiro University, in Brazil, and an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Public Health.  Ken shares a wealth of information and experience with us about a topic that is important to the health of everyone.

Here are some additional links he shared for more information:

History of Vaccines

Vaccine Knowledge Project

Common misconceptions about vaccination

CDC information about vaccination

Facebook reference page about vaccination

AS283: The Liberal Version of Trump

Today’s episode is a Tommentary on… Trump. Look I can’t help it, he’s the news right now. I’ve got a few thoughts on Trump’s taxes and his comments on PTSD that may run counter to what you’ve been hearing. Also I speculate on what a liberal version of Trump might look like.

Hey come see me at Mythinformation 3!!!

AS282: How Not To Hit On Tracey Moody

Today’s episode might be a bit of a departure but this is a very important topic to me. No matter what your views on the whole social justice divide might be, I am hoping that Tracey’s story of online harassment might make an impact. Tracey is not at all sensitive to male attention online. It’s something she’s used to in her line of work, but she has a disturbing story about when it went too far, and the response by the authorities was maybe even more appalling. Please listen. Making the internet a better place for women is very important to me and I hope this might make any small impact.

AS281: Village Atheists with Leigh Schmidt

My guest today is Leigh Schmidt. Leigh has a Ph.D. in religion from Princeton and his latest area of study is the irreligious. He has written a book called Village Atheists in which he discuses the history of atheism and looks at specific examples of atheists in US history. His book was the subject of an Atlantic Article.

If you’re interested in the book, you can find it here!

AS280: Richard Carrier’s Lawsuit, with Andrew Torrez

Dr. Richard Carrier has launched a lawsuit against several parties, including prominent atheists that the listeners will likely be familiar with. You can find the details spelled out pretty well here.  I wanted to learn more about these cases in general so I invited legal expert Andrew Torrez on the show to teach us! Stay tuned at the end for my opinion on the case given everything we learn from Andrew.

Here are several relevant links, special thanks to Haeley:

Richard’s post explaining the case

The Orbit- Stephanie Zvan

Freethought Blogs- PZ Meyers

Skepticon Conference- Lauren Lane

Amy Frank- Facebook post

AS279: No Child Left Alone, Part 2

Today we delve even further into the study found here. We talk more about the implications and possible explanations for the ultimate finding, which of course was a strong effect of people evaluating the danger of a situation not based on actual risk but on moral judgment.

AS278: No Child Left Alone

For the next two episodes I bring you a fascinating discussion with two of the three researchers who conducted the study described here. This is the perfect topic for this show because it illustrates how badly our intuitions track the data sometimes. It’s also a critical issue that could affect any of us! I hope you enjoy hearing from the researchers who brought us this study as much as I did!

AS277: Tommentary on the Harris-Buress Trainwreck, Kaepernick and More

It’s Tommentary time! I’ve got a few brief thoughts on the Sam Harris Hannibal Buress conversation that went off the rails a bit. After that I offer some brief thoughts on some general themes of the overwhelming number of comments I got about the Smalley episode. Then, an impassioned talk about the Kaepernick controversy. That’s right, impassioned.

AS276: Jesus Mythicism, with Tim O’Neill, Part 2

Tim is back with much, much more on the case for why Jesus was a historical figure!

Tim blogs about history here.  Here’s an article that I used to try to grill Tim a bit on the counter arguments, for your reference.

Here’s the post he specifically mentioned responding to Carrier’s paper.

AS275: Did Jesus Exist? With Tim O’Neill

Joining me for a second appearance is Tim O’Neill! Tim blogs about history here. After Tim’s very successful first appearance on the show, many listeners asked for a follow up on Mythicism and Tim was nice enough to oblige! Here’s an article that I used to try to grill Tim a bit on the counter arguments, for your reference.

Thank you so much to all my new patrons!