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Too often, political and/or religious ideologies stop open dialog. It’s time to speak freely and break down the barriers that keep people separated. Let's have an inappropriate conversation about …
Episodes
Sunday Sep 23, 2018
Sunday Sep 23, 2018
For science in particular, great leaps forward sometimes happen primarily because a person with means chooses to leave a very different legacy than a name on a building. The birth control pill is one example, a particularly relevant one still today.
Different Drummer: Katharine McCormick
World Contraception Day
Rethinking the Abortion Conversation
Wednesday Jun 17, 2015
Wednesday Jun 17, 2015
On June 22, 1633, Galileo was sentenced by the Roman Inquisition for being "vehemently suspect of heresy." He had told the truth, that the earth revolved around the sun according to astronomical evidence, but he was forced to recant that truth. There is a great deal of scientific knowledge we either would not have today, or would have obtained in very different ways, if Galileo had chosen a different course, if he had been "silenced" by more violent means. Speaking truth to power, as the saying goes, is rarely as clear as it sounds. Sometimes it doesn't require formal speech at all. A simple smartphone video can have the same impact today.
Different Drummer: Galileo Galilei
Monday Mar 30, 2015
Monday Mar 30, 2015
America's commitment to vaccination has been so great that nearly 2 million children committed to test a vaccine in the 1950s, so why would anyone walk away from the protection this has provided over any modern understanding of "safety" and risk?
Most Americans look back at the Jim Crow era with a great deal of embarrassment, justifiably, so why would anyone want to establish a set of "Jesus Crow" laws that surely will be just as embarrassing in the future -- to Christians in particular?
When World Vision completely reversed a proposed policy change just a few days after threats from influential conservative Christians immediately put thousands of children at risk, why didn't those same Christians victoriously, and perhaps even smugly, return to reinstate their support for the organization?
Sadly, these questions have no intelligent answers. They merely reflect the pungent state of anti-intellectualism in the United States of America today.
Different Drummer: Jonas Salk