The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

America is being torn apart. Amid growing strife, many people are experiencing angst concerning the future of this country, a country once renowned for its exuberant spirit of discovery, progress, liberty. From across the increasingly tribal political landscape, one can observe attacks on the ideas that fueled America’s spectacular rise: reason, individualism, and political freedom. From the illiberal left the “woke” phenomenon has emerged, rising to dominance in cultural institutions and calling for “canceling” those institutions, symbols, and even thoughts…

In Science Salon podcast # 136, Michael Shermer speaks with Gad Saad about his new book The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense.

Shermer and Saad discuss: dangerous idea pathogens • ideological parasites • the origin of political correctness and how it was corrupted • identity politics and how it perpetrates bigotry, racism, and misogyny • the psychology of victimhood • virtue signaling and why it isn’t virtuous • why social justice is injustice • • the corruption of postmodernism • Islamophobia • diversity, inclusion and equity • safe spaces, microaggressions, trigger warnings • liberalism • the paradox of tolerance, and more…