how do we have outcomes and they keep offering new measures. it is not implemented. there is no culture of enforcement. and that is why i argue what we are facing in this country is what amounts to an epidemic of malpractice even if it isn't acknowledg acknowledged. the reality is the attorneys don't take the case unless someone dies. >> and you are watching booktv on c-span2. joining us is author michael

sherman who is with skeptic magazine. his newest book is called skeptic? viewing the world with a rational eye. he has a new ones called heavens on earth. the scientific search for the afterlife, imortality and utopia. you write those of us who practice skepticism find us tip toe around the pc police. who are the pc police? >> it has gotten worse actually. as we saw on the campus protest going on and disruptions of speakers and microaggression and

deplatforming of speakers in the last two years even has gone crazy. the argument on the left and this is the regressive left, far left progressives but really regressive when it comes to the values we cherish that is enl t enlightenment, freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of religious worship and all those values are forms of oppression, bigotry, racism, misogyny. they are ways of controlling people. instead of treating individuals an antonymous people with their own rights they have come to believe people are members of groups competing for power.

your transgender versus the whoever. it is sort of this competition of groups. this is mostly on college campuses but they see it playing out in the real world. this is not acceptable to a lot of us. if you don't like what somebody is saying come up with a better idea to counter them or don't go to the speech. but the idea of shutting down a speech because the words that the person may say are a form of violence, this is what they actually think, words are harm people and of course they immediately geographic to -- go to the most extreme and that is the use of n-word. therefore if you disagree with me on tax policy or foreign policy or anything then your disagreement with me is a form of violence and i must counter

it with shutting or down or most recently with physical violence as we saw with charles murray who physically attacked him and his host. i am very concerned about the future of our country. these students are our future leaders. >> how is that a scientific argument rather than a political argument? >> well, i define science in a much broader sense than most people conceive of it. any attempt to find a cause and effect relationship of any kind, so whether it is the physical world, the biological world, or the social world. in my previous book, i argue what the enlightenment did was the same thing newton did with physics or that biologist did in medicine and that is the principle that the universe is

governed by natural law we can discover and understand and apply to good news. the industrial revolution is based on principles of physics. and so after newton publishes and sort of consolidated the physical sciences then all the founding fathers were what we would call sciences. they didn't call themselves that because that word wasn't even used until the 1860s but they were natural philosophers and designed the country to be an x experime experiment. we have 50 different states. 50 different constitutions. 50 different laws. different forms of taxation and gun control laws. those are experiments. we can look at the data, see the results, and adjust the next

experiments. i consider that to be a form of science. a social and moral science. david hume calls this is the moral science. i see the stuff we talk about at freedom fest is a form of moral or social science. >> you write the process of critical feedback is the life blood of science as is the willingness however begrudgingly to say i was wrong. >> most of us are wrong about many of the things we believe. the only way to find out if you are wrong is to engage with other people particularly other knowledgeable people. particularly knowledgeable people that disagree with you because that is the only way to find out. if you are in the echo chamber, the bubble, and surround yourself with people that only believe you believe. if you only read newspapers that already believe what you read. if you are conservative you read "the wall street journal."

that is final but pick up another paper every once in a while. read an -- if you can't defend your position against critics how strong is your position to begin with? it is a way of testing your only beliefs. it is always possible you might be wrong. science depends on peer review. it depends on collaboration with other people. it depends on other people testing your hypothesis because we are all subject to the conformation bias and all these biases that reenforce what we want to be true but they may not be. that is why debate and free speech is important. >> in your books, skeptic, you write you want to start a c-span for science.

>> well, we kind of have that since i wrote it. the discovery, history, and science channel. they are rating-driven unfortunately. so they end up veering toward conspiracy theories and big foot and ufo and area 51 and almost starts at a look like alex jones. it is like calm down and let's stick to reality. >> you talk about area 51. are you not a believer? >> it is real and exists. it is a government operation and a base where they test experimental aircraft. that is for sure true. but of course what so-called believers think is they engineered alien spacecraft and no evidence of this at all. you and i are not going to find out.

they are not going to let us in. i can't prove there is an alien space raft there. you prove it is. what is the more logical conclusion and that is of course governments keep secrets and lie to citizens about national security issues. that is true. when conspiracy theorists talk about governments lying to citizens about what is going on yeah, but so what? that dozen mean aliens visited us. i think it is good to chekeep i mind the evidence of positive and negative. >> is there a real debate in this country about evolution and creationism? >> there is a debate amongst a small group of fundamentalist

christians who don't accept it. but the vast majority of people, of course all scientists, except evolution and most religions. catholics, for example, accept evolution. it is primary evangelicals of the fundamentalist kind that don't really. there is theories evolution was god's way of creating life. i don't have a quibble with that. whatever you think is behind the laws of nature. but it is the laws of nature we study. they are either true or not regardless of what your religion is. reality exists whether you want it to be there or not. >> but is it ginned up in the president a little bit? >> the debate? these things erupt every once in a while. most recently in kentucky where the genesis group had a creation

museum i have been to and last year they opened the ark where we constructed this life size version of noah's ark. unfortunately he got a bond, state money, for a private religious institution which is definitely in violation of the first amendment. the u.s. government or state governments are not allowed by the constitution to support financially certain religions to the exclusion of others. can't do it. it makes the press and seems like it is a big thing when it happens but for most it is not. >> did this issue lead to your next book coming out in january of 2018? >> the heavens on earth book actually came about initially right wrighting about utopias because why did they always fail? -- writing -- and the reason is people have a longing for a

perfect place to be whether it is heaven, afterlife, or here on earth where we will create and engineer the perfect society in which everyone is happy forever. no such place exists. that is what utopia means. no place. i have written a few columns in scientific american about scientific attempts to achieve mortality. radicalized extension. radical calorie restriction. or cwhere jow yourself frozen o engineer your telemeres in your genome. or up loading your mind into a computer so you can live forever like johnny depp in transcendent. there are many groups working towards this.

i am is skeptical. when they say don't you want to be a 100 or 500? just get me to 90 without cancer and 100 without alzheimer's and 110 i am not in a bed with tubes. let's not aim for living 10,000 years. how many marriages are you have going to have and careers? calm down. let's just work on this one little problem right here. baby boomers are hitting the wall. we can see the wall. here it comes. we have to do something about.

i applaud it. go for it. i am right there with you but let's not offer something that is not realistic. >> is there any scientific proof of an after life? >> there is no evidence for the after life. most religions believe in an afterlife but first they don't agree with each other at all. there is quite a few different scenario. there is also the problem of who you are. how you define the self and how that would then get copied and resurrected into some other format or medium. how does this work? no one has any good explanation because there is none. whether there is a heaven or not after this life, we should make this life count the most because the idea that we are in a staging area before the big play and next line where all the action is you will miss out on

the important things here and now. thinking about the here after you might miss the here. these things matter now. >> my grandmother who is dead and all of a sudden his radio that has been dead came alive and started playing beautiful music in the drawer where they left a dead radio and it played for the entire day and night.

it is just the weirdest thing. i wrote about it saying weird things happen and i can't explain it. doesn't mean grandpa was in the next life. but it is okay to say that was special and unusual and weird and i am going to just enjoy the experience. >> what was your life's reaction? >> felt like her grandfather was there and whether he is is not the point. it is symbolically he was there and she felt touched from that. she is from germany and we were in california and it made her feel like she had family here. most of the mail i got were people who had similar experiences. some were just incredible stories. to all of them i say enjoy the mystery. just because i am a science guy and debunk non-sense doesn't

mean i can't appreciate the mystery. >> why are you at freedom fest? what is the connection? >> i have known the owner and director a long time. i am largely a life long -- libertarian. i am not sure i agree with all the points. but in general i believe in free speech, civil rights, civil liberty, the individual, bv and

i think the constitution got it right. we would call them classical liberals. the word liberal has taken on a new meaning in the last few decades different from its original use. >> skeptic; viewing the world with a rational eye and coming utin january of 2018 is heavens on earth. the scientific search for the afterlife, immortality and utopia. >> booktv tapes hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long. tuesday we are at the new york public library in manhattan to

hear mike wallace talk about his pulitzer prize book on new york city. and later we will be hearing about how arguing about creating jobs is more sustainable than aid. and on friday, we are off to detroit to source book sellers to hear historians tia miles examine the role slavery played in the city's early history. and wrapping up the week, back at washington d.c. where chester a arthur's life will be recounted. look for many of these programs to air in the near future on booktv on c-span2. this is what churchill had to

face. from this first day in office he begged franklin roosevelt for help to save off hitler but the president was aware of the isolationist mood of the country. he didn't want fto get involved in this war if he could help it. most people in washington including him were convinced britain would be easily defeated. how could it possibly survive when no other european country had? >> former u.s. secretary of state called the most chronicle of world war ii politics and e diplomacy. ....