Sunday 10 January 2010

D. J. Grothe on The Pod Delusion

When I launched my occasional sceptical podcast Skepticule in September last year I lamented the apparent dearth of British sceptical podcasts. Little did I know that at the very same time a weekly UK-based sceptical podcast, The Pod Delusion, was also in the process of being launched. Though I had reservations about the variable audio quality of the first few episodes of The Pod Delusion, which perhaps is inevitable when a variety of independent contributors are involved, this now seems to have settled down.

Audio quality, though important, is secondary to content, and the latest edition of The Pod Delusion has scooped the global sceptical podcast community by releasing an interview by Jon Treadway with the new president of the James Randi Educational Foundation, D. J. Grothe. (And by the way, the audio quality is fine.)

D. J. comes to the JREF from the Center for Inquiry and the well-respected podcast Point of Inquiry. I've related elsewhere on this blog how I discovered sceptical podcasting — Skepticality was the first, but Point of Inquiry runs it a close second, and D. J. has some exciting revelations about the future of Point of Inquiry as well as sceptical podcasting from the JREF.

He also announced that there will be a second TAM London in 2010. This is great news. TAM London was a defining event for me last year and I'm delighted to hear that there will be another this year. I only hope the venue will be big enough, and that the registration will be less of a lottery.

The relevant Pod Delusion episode is available here:
http://poddelusion.co.uk/blog/2010/01/08/episode-16-8th-january-2010/

or you can subscribe in iTunes here:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=332231975

or with any podcatcher using this feed:
http://www.ipadio.com/phlog_rss.asp?phlogid=9216

You can listen to an extended version of the D. J. Grothe interview here:
http://www.ipadio.com/phlogs/PodDelusionExtra/2010/01/08/The-Pod-Delusion-DJ-Grothe-Interview


and this is also downloadable from RapidShare here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/333329812/PodDelusionExtra_DJGrothe_20100108.mp3

It seems that UK scepticism is at last taking off; we've already had the relaunch of the UK Skeptic magazine, and later this month I shall be pleased to attend the inaugural Winchester Skeptics in the Pub. Things are looking up.