Podcast For Inquiry - Centre for Inquiry Canada

A podcast for scientific, skeptical, secular, rational and humanistic inquiry.

You’ve got answers? We’ve got questions.

A podcast for scientific, skeptical, secular, rational and humanistic inquiry.

You’ve got answers? We’ve got questions.

Justin Ling on the right wing media ecosystem

Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) is an investigative journalist who writes the Bug-eyed and Shameless newsletter and recently published the book The 51st State Votes.

The conversation begins with the right wing media ecosystem, and its effect particularly on US politics. Justin explains why there isn’t really a counterpart on the left, and what makes Canada different from the United States in this regard. Leslie and Justin move on to democracy and authoritarianism on the international stage, and how to develop healthy media consumption habits in today’s world.

Podcast for Inquiry is hosted by Leslie Rosenblood and brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Join today! Produced by Zack Dumont, Martin Zielinski, and Leslie Rosenblood. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@centreforinquiry.ca.

September 24, 2025

The Examined Run with Sabrina Little

Sabrina Little is a philosopher, ultra-runner, and the author of The Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners. She is a five-time U.S. National Champion in trail and ultrarunning, a former American Record Holder, and World Silver Medalist.

In today’s episode, Sabrina answers the question: Why do good people make better runners? What are the performance enhancing virtues, and do they outweigh the performance enhancing vices? She talks about the difference in taking a short vs long term perspective, the importance and challenge of balancing the multiple areas of life that need your time and attention, what being competitive means, and how the same behaviours can be described in very different ways.

September 11, 2025

ENCORE: Gretchen Morgenson on her book These are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs — and Wrecks — America

What is Private Equity, and how does it work? Gretchen Morgenson (@gmorgenson) is a Pulitzer-winning journalist whose latest book is These are the Plunderers. Gretchen exposes the bad and often illegal activities of Private Equity firms, and tries to explain why they have been allowed to get away with it for so long. She explains how Private Equity firms operate behind the scenes to ensure the loopholes that substantially reduce their tax bills are never closed, and details recent events that might give cause for hope.

August 27, 2025

ENCORE – The Christian Destruction of the Classical World with Catherine Nixey

Catherine Nixey is the author of The Darkening Age, which documents how early Christians burned texts, defaced or demolished statues, and became increasingly intolerant of any thought or behaviour that deviated from their interpretation of Scripture. Catherine and Leslie discuss religious pluralism in the Roman Empire and how it changed after the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity – and why Christianity, despite its similarity to many other cults that arose at that time. It is a rare book that is well-researched, engrossing, on an interesting topic, and superbly written, but The Darkening Age is all of these.

August 13, 2025

ENCORE: Seth Andrews, host of the Thinking Atheist, on Christians acting in un-Christian ways

Seth Andrews (@SethAndrewsTTA) is the host of The Thinking Atheist, a very popular podcast and online resource for nonbelievers. Seth talks about his life as an evangelical Christian and what led him to leave his faith. He and Leslie talk about how many Christians embrace seemingly un-Christian beliefs and policies, and what Humanists need to do to make the world a better place.

July 30, 2025

Leslie’s Diatribes #4: AI: Show Me the Money!

There are many critiques that people have made about the AI industry: privacy, piracy, electricity and water usage, hallucinations, and more. Leslie focuses on one aspect he doesn’t understand at all: Where does the money come from? Each AI datacentre costs tens of billions to build – hundreds of billions have been spent across the industry. And answering each question, or generating each image, sound, or video – is also very expensive. Hardly any consumers, and very few companies, are paying for AI services. If they’re not profitable, and there’s no clear path to become so, why are the market capitalizations of AI firms so high?

Leslie asks these questions, and more, in his latest diatribe.

Opinions in this bonus episode are Leslie’s alone, and are not shared by others on the Podcast for Inquiry team or the Centre for inquiry Canada.

July 16, 2025