Dr. Tara Moriarty (@MoriartyLab) was happy being a research scientist, studying how Lyme disease bacteria travel to different parts of our body using the bloodstream. Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and she saw a vast need for disseminating accurate information to the public. So she founded COVID-19 Resources Canada (http://www.covid19resources.ca) and learned on the fly to become a science communicator. Dr. Moriarty describes the reaction from the scientific community and the public, and shares some surprising statistics about the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.

Podcast for Inquiry is brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Hosted by Leslie Rosenblood. Produced by Lee Shields, Zack Dumont, and Martin Zielinski. Graphic design by Nikolay Nikitushkin. Music by Anthony Lazaro. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@centreforinquiry.ca.

Leslie talks with David McRaney (@davidmcraney) about his book, “How Minds Change”. They explore how social context is critical when people form their opinions. People don’t change their minds in a vacuum, and David describes how network effects lead to social cascades, such as how widespread resistance to equal marriage flipped to widespread acceptance in an astonishingly short period. David quizzes Leslie about the most recent movie he watched as a demonstration of how to get people to think differently. They discuss the role of truth in persuasion, and the utter failure of the “information deficit hypothesis”. You can learn more from David via his podcast You Are Not So Smart and on his website at davidmcraney.com.

Podcast for Inquiry is brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Hosted by Leslie Rosenblood. Produced by Lee Shields, Zack Dumont, and Martin Zielinski. Graphic design by Nikolay Nikitushkin. Music by Anthony Lazaro. Please contribute to Podcast for Inquiry at https://centreforinquiry.ca/donate. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@centreforinquiry.ca.

Catherine is a humanist activist, and believes the two go hand in hand. Catherine talks about the inherent tension within the Catholic Social Justice Movement, and her own journey out of Catholicism. She describes the link between Christofascism and Incels (see her article in Free Inquiry). Catherine’s activism today is focused on The Kimberley Project, a Canadian charity dedicated to the prevention of violence against women.

Podcast for Inquiry is brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Hosted by Leslie Rosenblood. Produced by Lee Shields, Zack Dumont, and Martin Zielinski. Graphic design by Nikolay Nikitushkin. Music by Anthony Lazaro. Please contribute to Podcast for Inquiry at https://centreforinquiry.ca/donate. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@centreforinquiry.ca.

How does one survive in an authoritarian regime, where you are sent away for education if the frame holding a picture of the Dear Leader gets dirty? When no one has enough to eat? Eunju Kim is the author of A Thousand Miles to Freedom, which describes her harrowing escape from North Korea to Seoul. She and Leslie discuss how the Kim dynasty is worshiped in North Korea, much like a God. Eunju details how escaping from North Korea is much harder today than it was when she fled. Today Eunju works for Freedom Speakers International, helping North Korean refugees settle into their new lives in South Korea.

Podcast for Inquiry is brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Hosted by Leslie Rosenblood. Produced by Lee Shields, Zack Dumont, and Martin Zielinski. Graphic design by Nikolay Nikitushkin. Music by Anthony Lazaro. Please contribute to Podcast for Inquiry at https://centreforinquiry.ca/donate. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@centreforinquiry.ca.

Welcome to the second episode of Leslie’s Diatribes, a sounding board for Leslie to fulminate on topics he is passionate about. Today’s topic is the Health Ethics Guide, a publication of the Catholic Health Alliance of Canada. Employees in Catholic health care facilities in eight provinces are told to sign this code of ethics every year, and many do so without reading it. Leslie highlights some salient aspects of its contents, and encourages those who object to what it demands to refrain from agreeing to it.

The opinions expressed in this episode are Leslie’s, and do not represent CFIC or any other organization.

Podcast for Inquiry is brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Hosted by Leslie Rosenblood. Produced by Lee Shields, Zack Dumont, and Martin Zielinski. Graphic design by Nikolay Nikitushkin. Music by Anthony Lazaro. Please contribute to Podcast for Inquiry at https://centreforinquiry.ca/donate. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@centreforinquiry.ca.

Why do publicly funded Catholic schools exist in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta? Does the government or the Church actually run them? Leslie speaks with Dr. Tonya Callaghan, author of Homophobia in the Hallways, about systemic homophobia in Canadian Catholic schools. They discuss the long struggle to establish Gay-Straight Alliances, the oddly selective enforcement of Catholic doctrine, and the contradiction at the heart of professing compassion for all at the same time as demanding lifetime celibacy from those with same sex attraction.

Podcast for Inquiry is brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Hosted by Leslie Rosenblood. Produced by Lee Shields, Zack Dumont, and Martin Zielinski. Graphic design by Nikolay Nikitushkin. Music by Anthony Lazaro. Please contribute to Podcast for Inquiry at https://centreforinquiry.ca/donate. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@centreforinquiry.ca.