Check out this Publishers Weekly interview with Uwem Akpan, author of Say You’re One of Them.  (Learn more and/or buy Say You’re One of Them here.)

In their recent book, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, Chris Mooney Sheril Kirshenbaum argue that while science matters more than ever before to domestic and world affairs, to our economy, and to our very future, Americans are paying less and less attention to science and scientists. Whether the subject’s climate change, the energy crisis, controversial biomedical research, the threat of global pandemics, nuclear proliferation, or tech-savvy terrorism–the list goes on–the American public lacks the most rudimentary knowledge it needs to weigh in on important policy decisions.

Mooney and Kirshenbaum argue pretty persuasively that there’s more than enough blame to go around for this sad state of affairs–it lies with public education, with the media, with political partisanship and with scientists themselves. And they put forward some common-sense initiatives aimed at bridging the divide, or starting to, between the scientific community and the rest of us.

I had Mooney and Kirshenbaum on the phone last month to talk about Unscientific America. Take a listen and let us know what you think.

Part 1 (11:28)

Click here and press play.

• How they got to worrying about the disconnect between science and the public.
• Some scientists are conscious that this is a problem.
• Science and the 2008 election.
• The Obama administration is pretty science friendly, but the problem goes way deeper than who’s in power.
• Media coverage of science dwindling even as science becomes more important.
• Why the explosion of new media is a mixed blessing for science coverage.
• Post World War II was a golden age for the public interest in science. How we got from there to here.

Part 2 (7:18)

Click here and press play.

• Increasing specialization has made scientists more isolated from the public.
• If you think science is throwing some difficult policy challenges our way, wait till you see what’s coming.
• How we start closing the gap between science and the larger culture. Start with how we train scientists. Create “an army for science.”

About Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum

Chris Mooney, author of Storm World and the New York Times bestseller The Republican War on Science, is a contributing editor to Science Progress. He writes for many publications, including Wired, Slate, and the American Prospect. With Sheril Kirshenbaum, he blogs at The Intersection.

Sheril Kirshenbaum is a marine scientist and research associate at Duke University. She previously served as a congressional science fellow. With Chris Mooney, she blogs at The Intersection. .

Captured on July 21st, 2009, from a live stream of Howard Dean at the University of California Washington Center in Washington DC for a discussion centered on the latest health care debate (sponsored by PBC and CampusProgress).

Dean, a six term Governor, physician, chairman of the PBC board, and author of the newly released book Howard Deans Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform, will be there to help separate what is real and factual in the health care debate from what is simply rhetoric. As Dean writes in his book, now is the time to “take back the health care reins.”

Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform is available now at the Progressive Book Club.

What level of responsibility do hate talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly bear for the violent acts of their fans and followers?

Do liberals who appear on Fox News shows inadvertently legitimize the violent rhetoric and bigotry of their hosts?

How did ideas and language and ideas once associated with right-wing fringe groups seep into mainstream conservative discourse?

Authors David Neiwert and Joe Conason tackle these and related questions in this two-part Progressive Book Club podcast. Neiwert’s recent book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right, is one of PBC’s July selections. It’s a richly detailed account of how mainstream conservatism came to be infected by a style of politics he dubs “Eliminationism” — a species of violent rhetoric eschews dialogue and democratic debate in favor of the pursuit or outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination.

This conversation was recorded on July 1.

Part I (8:34)

* How David came to write the book.
* What is Eliminationism and who are the Eliminationists?
* How much responsibility do mainstream hate talkers like O’Reilly and Hannity bear for violent acts committed by their followers and fans?
* Do liberals who appear on Fox shows and others in a way legitimate hate talkers and their violent rhetoric?

Click on the link and press play to listen.

David Neiwert and Joe Conason: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (Part I)

Part II (9:08)

* Is Eliminationism un-American or is it deeply rooted in American history? (Or both?)
* How do we combat eliminationist rhetoric?
* Is it time to make conservatives to pay a price for not distancing themselves from hate talkers?
* How serious a problem for American society is the violent and intolerant rhetoric issuing from the far right and mainstream conservatism?

Click on the link and press play to listen.

David Neiwert and Joe Conason: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (Part II)

About David Neiwert and Joe Conason

David Neiwert, author of The Eliminationists, Strawberry Days, Death on the Fourth of July, and In God’s Country, is a journalist and author based in Seattle. His reportage on domestic terrorism for MSNBC.com won a National Press Club Award in 2000. He is the founder of the award-winning blog Orcinus and the managing editor of the blog Crooks and Liars.

Joe Conason is national correspondent for the New York Observer, where he writes a weekly column distributed by Creators Syndicate. He is also a columnist for Salon.com, and the Director of the Nation Institute Investigative Fund. His books Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, and The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, with Gene Lyons, were both national bestsellers; his most recent book, It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush, was released in February 2007.

Here’s another in our series of short video interviews, each running a minute (give or take), with PBC authors. This one’s with Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side, which tells the inside story of how the US government shredded the Constitution after 9/11, adopting “war on terror” policies —indefinite detention, rendition, torture—that violated the most basic and cherished American values.

Here’s another in our series of short video interviews, each running a minute (give or take), with PBC authors. This one is with Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy, which details how investing in green jobs will solve the nation’s two most pressing challenges: how to alleviate poverty and make the economy work for all Americans and how to tackle climate change.

Here’s another in our series of short video interviews, each running a minute (give or take), with PBC authors. This one is with Robert Scheer, who talks about his recent book The Pornography of Power, which tells how defense hawks hijacked military spending after 9/11 and made America less safe.

Here’s the first in a series of short video interviews, each running a minute (give or take), with PBC authors. This one is with Samantha Power, who dropped by the PBC offices last fall to talk about her book Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World.

Fekkak Mamdouh is the co-author, with Rinku Sen, of The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization. He’s also the cofounder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York and codirector of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, the country’s first national restaurant worker organization. Until September 11, 2001, he was a headwaiter and beloved union leader at Windows on the World, a restaurant in the World Trade Towers. Mamdouh grew up poor in Morrocco, and then emigrated to Saudi Arabia as a young adult, where he worked for the Saudi Royal Family. He first came to the United States as a paid companion to a Saudi prince, then overstayed his visa and remained here permanently, changing his status from illegal to legal through marriage.

In this PBC video he talks about his life, his organizing work, and what being American means to him.

Learn more about The Accidental American here. And don’t miss this PBC video interview with co-author Rinku Sen.

Buy The Accidental American for FREE when you join Progressive Book Club!

Here’s our latest video interview, featuring Kim Phillips-Fein, author of Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan. (More about the book here.)