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Who Gets to Validate Alternative Medicine?
Throughout history, human beings always have sought to prevent disease, cure illness, reduce pain, and relieve suffering. In recent times, science has made medicine more predictable, increasing success rates and identifying side effects to an unprecedented extent. But challenges to scientific medicine have accelerated in the past 30 years. In this program, the challenged give the challengers one tough time.
Participants
 | | Hyla Cass M.D.
Psychiatrist, Integrative Medicine |
| | William Jarvis Ph.D.
Consumer Health Specialist |
| | Dan Labriola N.D.
Naturopathic Physician |
| | Wallace Sampson M.D.
Editor-in -Chief, Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine |
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Is Consciousness Definable?
One problem is that there are too many definitions! And getting these four guests to agree on what consciousness is and what causes it, is a fun but hopeless task that is revelatory at the same time.
Participants
| | Leslie Brothers M.D.
Psychiatrist |
| | Joseph E. Bogen M.D.
Neurosurgeon |
| | Stuart Hameroff M.D.
Anesthesiologist, Theoretician |
| | Christof Koch Ph.D.
Computation and Neural Systems |
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Is the Universe Full of Life?
Humans have long wondered whether life exists beyond our home planet. In recent years, a host of new technologies are turning speculation into science. We now have the ability to discern the atmosphere of an extra-solar planet so distant we can't even see it, to detect the presence of dozens of new planets circling stars similar to our own sun, and have discovered life in environments on Earth so extreme it's not unreasonable to imagine that microbes -- or more-- may flourish elsewhere in the Universe.
Participants
| | Shri Kulkarni Ph.D.
Planetary Astronomer, Caltech |
| | Bruce Murray Ph.D.
Planetary Astronomer/Geologist, Caltech |
| | Neil de Grasse Tyson Ph.D.
Astrophysicist; Director, Hayden Planetarium |
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Can Religion Withstand Technology?
A skeptic, a devout Muslim scientist, and an expert in the sociology of religion examine an intriguing paradox: as the world becomes more scientific, extreme religions are gaining ground. More people than ever before are devout as measured by attendance in houses of worship. In the U.S. alone, on a percentage basis, three times more people attend a church, synagogue, temple, or mosque than did when the nation was founded.
Participants
| | Muzaffar Iqbal Ph.D.
Founder, Center for Science & Islam |
| | Donald Miller Ph.D.
Religious Scholar |
| | Michael Shermer Ph.D.
President, the Skeptics Society |
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Testing New Drugs: Are People Guinea Pigs?
Instituted in the sixties, clinical drug trials today have become a vast and expensive enterprise in which drug companies can spend over $100 million to bring a new molecule to market. FDA procedures are complex and elaborate as they should be, in order to bring new drugs to market quickly to help people in need, but to do good science to protect the public from a drug's potentially dangerous side effects.
Participants
| | Alexander Capron
Professor of Law & Medicine, USC |
| | Andrea Kovacs M.D.
Dir. HIV Family Clinic, USC |
| | Robert Temple M.D.
Assoc. Dir. Medical Policy, FDA |
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