Podcast for Inquiry S05E18: Society suffers as sports gambling insinuates itself into people’s lives: Darragh McGee

Dr. Darragh McGee (Instagram) is an academic at the University of Bath and the author of Imitation Games. He details the deceptive practices gambling companies employ to entice new customers, and how they are encouraged to place bets habitually. In-play betting is very different from simply wagering on the outcome of a match - which leads to a discussion about the nature of addiction and its relationship with problem gambling. Like many firms, gambling companies prioritize profit above people, and Darragh compares gambling firms with Big Tobacco. Darragh describes how gambling firms make it trivially easy to sign up, and deliberately challenging to leave.

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Podcast for Inquiry S05E12: We’ve been here before: Apocalypses past and present with Lizzie Wade

Lizzie Wade is the author of APOCALYPSE: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures.  She is a science writer focusing on archaeology and anthropology, a contributing correspondent for Science, and her work has also appeared in Wired, Archaeology, National Geographic, and Slate. Follow her work via The Antiquarian newsletter at theantiquarian.email

The conversation starts with how ancient Egypt, which was very hierarchical and funneled lots of resources to its ruling class, collapsed when a prolonged drought struck. Lizzie explains how the Mayan civilization still very much existed when it was first contacted by the Spanish, despite the centralized state dissolving centuries earlier. Lizzie ponders whether there are grand themes in the study of history, or if it’s just one damn thing after another. According to Lizzie, contemporary society is facing its own apocalypse, but there are options available to us to address it. 

There are two great conferences taking place in Ontario in August 2026: 

• World Humanist Congress August 7-9 in Ottawa https://www.worldhumanistcongress.org/  
• BAHACON August 21-23 in Sarnia https://bahacon.com/ 

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Podcast for Inquiry S05E09: Religion, theism, and race: The Black Practice of Disbelief with Dr. Anthony Pinn

Dr. Anthony Pinn is a professor, prolific author and much sought-after lecturer committed to academic rigor. Known internationally as a leading expert in the field of African American religion, Dr.  Pinn’s teaching and research interests span liberation theologies, black religious aesthetics, religion and popular culture, and African American humanism. 

On today’s episode, I speak with Dr. Pinn about his book The Black Practice of Disbelief. We start with how he defines religion, which might differ slightly from what many Inquirers understand. We talk What distinguishes Black Humanism from Humanism in general, and the need to partner with progressive theists to achieve the social change Humanists strive for. Black Humanists are often considered outsiders even within the Black community, a minority within a minority. Nonetheless, according to Dr. Pinn, Black Humanism is always about what we can do to reduce suffering in this world.

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Podcast for Inquiry S05E07: Persistence, not patience, is required for progress: Feminism in 2026 with Linda Silver Dranoff

Linda Silver Dranoff is a precedent-setting lawyer, an empowering author about law, public policy and women’s rights, and a successful feminist activist for equality and family law reform. She is the author of Fairly Equal: Lawyering the Feminist Revolution. Linda has been honoured with the Order of Canada, Order of Ontario and Law Society Medal.

Her latest effort is Fairly Equal: Conversations Toward a Feminist Future - A new web series that looks at today’s threats to women’s equality rights and warns that we cannot take past advances for granted.

Linda begins the conversation by describing how women were viewed by the law well into the 20th century. Women were considered property - effectively owned by their husbands - under the law until the 1970s. 

We talk about the many areas women’s rights have advanced in the intervening decades - including progress in bodily autonomy, family law, employment equity, and more. But equality between men and women is still a distant goal. Even though laws pay equity laws have been on the books for four decades with the infrastructure to enforce them, women’s wages have advanced from 64 cents for every dollar men earn to only 68 cents. 

Linda concludes our conversation by providing some advice for those coming up in the world who want to continue working towards the goal of equality between the sexes.

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Podcast for Inquiry S05E02: Could we communicate with aliens if we found them? Daniel Whiteson wants to know.

Daniel is a professor of physics at UC Irvine, researching particle physics at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. He is the co-host of the podcast ‘Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe’ and the author of several books about physics for a general audience, including “Do Aliens Speak Physics?” and “We Have No Idea”.

In today’s episode, Daniel explores many questions, including:

• Would we recognize an alien message if we received one?
• If aliens landed in Central Park, would we be able to communicate?
• How can we catch a baseball if we ignore all the interactions at the quantum level?
• Why is even our best physics only an approximation?

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E25: Living life as a Humanist, with Steve Ghikadis

Steve Ghikadis is a Humanist Officiant, who conducts secular marriages, memorials, and other life affirming celebrations. Raised as a freethinker, Steve has been married to a Christian for over a decade. Steve serves as an Ambassador for Humanist Canada, Recovering from Religion, and Sunday Assembly.

I speak with Steve about his book, Humanism from the Heart. We discuss the many themes and ideas in his book, including:

• Why Steve tried to become a believer many times throughout his life
• Purpose, meaning, and destiny
• What “soft determinism” means
• The dynamics of a family with one Christian and one Humanist parent
• The value of the answer, “I don’t know”. 

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I've been published in a book!

Humanist Canada has just published a collection of essays in Humanism: Canadian Perspectives | Humanisme : Perspectives canadiennes which includes two contributions from me.

One is a personal essay, entitled Humanism over Atheism, that is an updated version of my 2011 post, Why I don't describe myself as an atheist. The second is on behalf of the Centre for Inquiry Canada, and summarizes the findings of the Cost of Religion in Canada research reports I helped write a few years ago. 

I'm looking forward to receiving my copy; feel free to support Humanist Canada by purchasing one for yourself as well.

Podcast for Inquiry S04E24: Can We Have a Conversation? Exploring Polarization to Find Common Ground, with Jasmin Faulk

My conversation with Jasmin Faulk begins with what Saudi Arabia was like when she was growing up, and what has and hasn’t changed since then. Jasmin talks about the fire of youth, the wisdom that comes from age, and how society needs both activists and advocates to move forward. She also shares her desire to have  genuine and difficult conversations with people with very different worldviews in an attempt to find, or create common ground. 

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E23: The building blocks of corporate scandals: Guido Palazzo reveals the Dark Pattern

Corporate scandals are depressingly common, and it’s all too easy to chalk them up to individual bad apples. Unfortunately, this simple explanation is not accurate. Guido’s research led him to write The Dark Pattern: The hidden dynamics of corporate scandals, which details the nine building blocks that lead otherwise good people to do bad things. He explains the importance of context, why psychopaths are wildly overrepresented in corporate boardrooms, and the societal structures that too often lead to egregious behaviour from companies across the globe. 

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E22: Andrew Coyne on the Crisis of Canadian Democracy

Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) is a columnist for The Globe and Mail and author of The Crisis of Canadian Democracy. In today’s episode, Andrew makes the case that Canadian democracy is headed for a crisis. He talks about the problems of Canada’s first past the post or “winner takes all” election system. The conversation includes an analysis of a wide range of issues: the diminishing contributions that MPs are allowed to make; how candidates, cabinet members, and even party leaders are selected; and the ever increasing concentration of power within the Prime Minister’s Office. Andrew outlines steps that can be taken to increase democratic representation in Canada that may avert a potential looming crisis of legitimacy.

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E21: Once Upon a Prime with Sarah Hart

My conversation with Sarah starts with the connections between mathematics and literature, including references to Shakespeare, Herman Melville, George Eliot, Lewis Carroll, Douglas Adams, and more. Good writing has structure, and structure can be understood in mathematical terms. Sarah explains how mathematics can greatly enrich one’s enjoyment of literature, and how mathematics can be used to obfuscate rather than clarify. In some ways, being a female mathematician today is different - and in other ways similar! - as in the 19th century.  

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E20: Modern Stoicism for modern life, with modern Stoic Donald Robertson

Donald Robertson (Substack) is a writer, cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, and trainer. He is one of the founding members of the Modern Stoicism nonprofit, and the founder and president of the Plato’s Academy Centre nonprofit in Athens, Greece.

My conversation with Donald traces the path from ancient Stoicism to the modern day. The word stoicism had come to mean something very different over time, but that has started to change as Stoicism (the philosophy) has been more popular in recent years. Stoic principles lie at the heart of cognitive behavioural therapy, and we talk about how incorporating Stoic principles into one’s own life can lead to more emotional resilience, a greater sense of satisfaction, and more meaningful relationships with others.

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E07: Cell phones, Cinemas, and Comestibles: Canada’s Conundrum with Monopolies, with Vass Bednar

Vass Bednar is the Executive Director of McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy program, and the co-author of The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians. Our conversation starts with the observation that many sectors in Canada’s economy are dominated by one or only a few firms. Vass and Leslie discuss whether that is good or bad for Canadians, including an analysis of cinemas, grocery stores, and banking. They debate the role of government, the tools it has at its disposal, and what the future might hold. 

Relevant resources:

• NICE, the Network of Independent Cinema Exhibitors: https://www.nicecinema.ca/2024/03/12/report-the-state-of-independent-film-exhibition-in-canada 
  
• Access to Markets https://accesstomarkets.org/about/ 
  
• Statistics Canada and Canadian Competition Bureau paper on markups: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/11F0019M2025001 

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E05: Distinguishing jargon from gobbledygook - Dr. Jonathan Stea on evidence-based medicine over wellness industry misinformation

Dr. 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. 

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E04: Burkas, beatings and bicycles - The life of Yasmine Mohammed

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

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E03: Everything you always wanted to know about the solar system* (*but were afraid to ask), with John E. Moores

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?

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Podcast for Inquiry S04E02: Gaia Vince identifies the four horsemen of the Anthropocene

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. 

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Podcast for Inquiry S03E24: Paco Calvo considers the possibility of plant intelligence

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.

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Podcast for Inquiry S03E23: Heresy: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God, with Catherine Nixey

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. 

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Podcast for Inquiry S3E19: Kate Cohen believes atheists should be out and proud

Kate Cohen talks about her journey from privately knowing she was a non-believer to writing We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (And Maybe You Should Too). She discusses how being an atheist and a commitment to honesty informed how she raised her children, and how being forthright about her lack of belief in social interactions has simplified her life. We also talk about some of the challenges associated with being an open atheist.

Kate is a Washington Post columnist and some of the articles she references in the conversation are below. 

• A Car Ride with Lena
• In America you have to opt out of religion in public life. That's backwards. 
• America doesn't need more God. It needs more atheists. 

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