John de Lancie is an actor best known for his portrayal of “Q” on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. He’s also appeared on Breaking Bad and The West Wing. In September, he filmed a video for the Openly Secular campaign.

So what happens when two people who have never watched Star Trek get a chance to interview him on extremely short notice? We talk about the current golden age of television, what defines a great actor, and whether we need to use labels like “Humanist” at all.

We spoke at the recent American Humanist Association conference in Chicago, where he was receiving the Humanist Arts Award.

Dr. Elizabeth Loftus is a cognitive psychologist who specializes in the malleability of human memory. She has done groundbreaking research into why our memories are not always reliable and how we might create false memories that we fully accept as real.

Since earning her Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University, Dr. Loftus has published 23 books, more than 500 scientific articles, and is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

At the recent American Humanist Association conference in Chicago, where she was receiving the Isaac Asimov Award, we spoke with her about how faulty memories can form in our minds, whether research into this subject is ethical, and if “believing the victim” is always the way to go.

Notes:

Be sure to check out Dr. Loftus’ 2013 TED talk!

Dr. Jerry Coyne is a now-retired Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. He has written over 115 refereed scientific papers; 130 additional articles, book reviews, and columns; and a scholarly book about his field (Speciation, co-authored with H. Allen Orr).

He may be most familiar to listeners for his books Why Evolution is True (which spawned his blog of the same name) and Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible.

At the recent American Humanist Association conference in Chicago, we spoke with Dr. Coyne about why science and religion are incompatible, the problems with the “Regressive Left” on college campuses, and what he discusses with his atheist/scientist friends.

(Image via Robert Kozloff)

Katherine Ozment is the author of Grace Without God: The Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging in a Secular Age. She has worked for National Geographic and Boston magazine and been published in the New York Times. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three children.

For years now, she has been exploring how the ever-growing segment of non-religious parents raise their children. They’re not all atheists, but they have to grapple with the Big Questions about life and death and belonging, all without supernatural faith. She wrote a magazine article about it a few years ago, and she has now written a full-length examination into the topic.

I spoke with her about what secular “grace” looks like, why atheists may want rituals traditionally reserved for the religious, and how the landscape for atheist parents is rapidly changing.