Episode Forty-Four – On Pink Microscopes – A Strange Quarks Submission

Direct link to the Mp3 here. This is a short essay that was submitted to the new podcast ‘Strange Quarks‘ – and I strongly recommend that other podcasters consider sending in their own short essays! This is a short overview on the contribution of science education to challenging paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs in females. The influence of mainstream education in the face of numerous factors that encourages anomalistic... Read More

Re-Release of Episode Thirty-Eight (Minus The Bards)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (55.3MB) Fixed! You may have noticed (how could you have missed…) the additional ‘background sound’ during Episode Thirty-Eight – On Skepticism And Education At Dragon*Con 2010 – Live Panel Show (direct to mp3). JREF now has a Director of Educational Programs – what else is being done out there and how can skeptics help educate the next generation? This is the audio of the panel... Read More

Episode Fourteen – On Science Fiction And Skepticism (#Swancon Scott Sigler Interview)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.0MB) Download episode #14 using the links on the left-hand column – includes iTunes, mp3 and Zune! An exclusive! Scott Sigler – New York Times best-selling author, podcaster (and the man who shaved fellow presenter John Samuel’s hair to raise $300 for cancer charity) – was in my town for this weekend! SwanCon is a science-fiction convention that is held across the 2010 Easter break... Read More

Episode Twelve – On Science And Atheism

Welcome to an interview on a topic that has been buzzing all over the blogosphere! Daniel Loxton’s posts on Skeptic Blog, called “The Standard Pablum” — Science and Atheism and Further Thoughts on Atheism discuss reviews and issues raised by his new book Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be. Since comments on those posts have numbered over two-hundred and the debate has raged onto other people’s sites – I took... Read More

Episode Eleven – On Cognitive Dissonance and Hopeopathy – Interview With Bruce M. Hood

ANNOUNCEMENT! The transcript of this interview features at Curiouser and Curiouser – at the CSI Website! Hello to Token Skeptic listeners – right now, at this very minute, I am half-way through editing an article for a website, creating the slides for a presentation at a university lecture I’m presenting tomorrow, doing papers for my high school philosophy class … and also preparing for a conference in another city on the... Read More

Episode Ten – On Skepticism And Communication Part Two

Welcome to another special episode of the Token Skeptic – and thanks to everyone who keeps on subscribing to this show despite there being a gap between the episodes. Just when I think I’ve solved one technical hiccup, another appears – this time my recordings were apparently too soft to register and the quality had even me straining to figure out what I said! So, I’ll be rerecording the missing episodes and I really am very... Read More

Episode Two – On Examination Superstitions

Episode Two – 28th December, 2009. Although it is time for seasonal cheer, beer, what have you – the end of our school year for us in the southern hemisphere includes a fresh batch of abandoned lucky charms to clean out of my classroom. Here’s a short run-down on some of the reasons why! Transcript and references follow: Read More  Read More

On Santa – Token Skeptic Episode One

While listening to a great Skepticality podcast episode (www.skepticality.com), I found I had many unanswered questions. Delving into the research, I started checking out what research has been done into belief in Santa. Is it such a bad thing to believe in Santa… and how would you gather evidence about the pros and cons? Could belief in Santa, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy and so forth, be a natural part of childhood development…... Read More