Also, check out my books at bottom right–and follow me on Twitter, where a lot of the action is currently happening.

Finally, here’s a video of a recent talk:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Amanda Marcotte

The latest Point of Inquiry just went up. Here, I’m previewing the upcoming Women in Secularism conference in D.C. by interviewing Amanda Marcotte, a fantastic writer who has, like me, regularly covered the conservative “war on science”–but also writes more broadly on politics, pop culture, and feminism.

Our conversation had some range, but the central theme was exploring irrationalities on the Christian Right, and also at times in the male secular world, when it comes to women and feminism.

I do want to note one disagreement with Marcotte: She challenged whether there are gender differences when it comes to a personality trait like empathy/compassion. But it looks to me like the science supports this idea.

Overall, though, hope you enjoy the show!

Audience at the Tucson Festival of Books

It was a great series of talks and proves that interest in The Republican Brain remains high. Plus, I got to meet co-panelists Rafe Sagarin, author of Learning from the Octopus, and John Nichols of the Nation, who snapped this picture of the packed audience at one of our sessions.

I wrapped things up with a talk to Freethought Arizona and packed talk last night in Tempe to the Phoenix Area Skeptics Society. Overall, the experience fired me up to work on trying to get out a paperback version of the book, which is now about a year old.

Thanks, everyone!

Tucson Festival of Books, 2012

The Republican Brain is just about a year old now–but sales and interest are not flagging. It’s my most reviewed book on Amazon by far, and that’s not just because of all the 1 star reviews from right wingers who haven’t read it!

This coming weekend, I’ll be giving a multitude of talks about the book in Arizona–first, at the magnificent Tucson Festival of Books, and then outside it. So here is a list of events:

Saturday, March 9

10 am–“Biology Trumps Politics” panel, Tucson Festival of Books

Chemistry, Room 111

With Rafe Sagarin, author of Learning from the Octopus

1 pm–book signing at the Freethought AZ tent, Tucson Festival of Books

Sunday, March 10

10 am–“The State of Contemporary Politics” panel, Tucson Festival of Books

Chemistry, Room 111

With Jon Nichols of The Nation

1 pm–Lecture on “The Republican Brain” for Freethought Arizona

Duval Auditorium, University of Arizona Medical Center, Tucson

Monday, March 11

7 pm–Lecture on “The Republican Brain” for the Phoenix Area Skeptics Society

Sheraton Four Points

1333 South Rural Road, Tempe, AZ 85281

So if you’re in one of Arizona’s two biggest cities, definitely plenty of chances to come to my  talks. See you there!

Obama: Alan Freed / Shutterstock.com, dinosaur: DM7/Flickr

Following on the last post, I can now share my written Mother Jones rebuttal to Michael Shermer on the left, the right, and science.

Shermer penned a piece on the “Liberal War on Science” in Scientific American–I explain why he’s way off. This, in particular, is noteworthy:

“Shermer’s article ends with a statement that, as far as I can tell, is just incorrect: ‘Surveys show that moderate liberals and conservatives embrace science roughly equally,’ he writes. I’m not sure where he gets this, but for a direct rebuttal let me point you to a recent study in the American Sociological Review by Gordon Gauchat, which finds that unlike liberals or moderates, conservatives have lost trust in science rather precipitously over the past several decades.”

You can read the full item here.

My view is that while there are anti-science views on the left wing, they’re swamped by what’s on the right, and that’s really the nature of things–liberals and scientists are allies (and conservatives and scientists are opposed) due to their psychology.

So I didn’t agree with the centrist, pox-on-both-houses framing of the show (and the opinion of Michael Shermer, who argues this). Still, it was a good, meaty discussion:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Deck of the USS Nimitz, image credit Julia Whitty

Yesterday, I hosted the latest Climate Desk Live event in DC. The video is here, and a Mother Jones wrap-up piece is here.

The bottom line: I had a retired admiral and a captain of the Navy explaining why climate and energy, respectively, are a seriously big deal to the military. And then I had the former administrator of NOAA reporting on work he’s done for the CIA recently, about how climate extremes could upend unstable regions of the world, like the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.

So, I think concern about climate and energy is finding a very new audience–of very serious, pragmatic, get-it-done people. And I couldn’t be happier about that.

Video here, article here. Article that originally inspired it all, by Mother Jones’ environmental correspondent Julia Whitty, here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

At the end of the show there’s an interview with Tom Di Liberto, a NOAA meteorologist who two days earlier had won the America’s Science Idol competition at the meeting–a competition for which I served as emcee. Videos of this will be coming soon–for now, here’s an interview with the winner.

The interview ranged over a broad area–from Brin’s latest writings, to the future of the Internet and the interstellar quest for other intelligent civilizations.

The title of this post quotes one of the many gems of wisdom and insight from the interview.

Some others that I tweeted or will tweet:

The left-right axis is the “most lobotomizing metaphor in human history”: @DavidBrin1 on @pointofinquiry http://www.pointofinquiry.org/david_brin_uplifting_existence/

Kicking the Hobbit: @DavidBrin1 critiques the romantic impulse in sci-fi/fantasy on the latest @pointofinquiry http://www.pointofinquiry.org/david_brin_uplifting_existence/

“I’d much rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy” @DavidBrin1 on @pointofinquiry http://www.pointofinquiry.org/david_brin_uplifting_existence/

Too often, the “furniture of fantasy” stories is anti-democratic, anti-science @DavidBrin1 on @pointofinquiry http://www.pointofinquiry.org/david_brin_uplifting_existence/

How to change the Internet to ensure that bad ideas actually die! @DavidBrin1 on @pointofinquiry http://www.pointofinquiry.org/david_brin_uplifting_existence/

Check the show out here!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Note–there are some climate deniers in the comments on the video. But it’s a pile-on, with the forces of reason clearly winning….