John Perkins
Convention topic - The cost of religious delusion: Islam and terrorism
John L Perkins is an economist specialising in resource depletion and global warming models. He is an atheist activist and a regular contributor to freethought magazines. He obtained an MSc at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a PhD at Monash. He is a founding member and President of the Secular Party of Australia, a member of the Rationalist Society of Australia, the Australian Skeptics, the Humanist Society of Victoria, and is a Public Relations Team member of the Atheist Foundation of Australia. He works at the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research in Melbourne. His interests include long term global models of world trade and income, with particular application to income distribution, trade policy, resource depletion and global warming issues. His expertise is in statistical analysis, mathematical modelling and software development.
Publications
Religion, morality, welfare and humanism
The immorality of religion, Australian Humanist, No.66, Winter 2002 The economic cost of religion, Australian Humanist, No.68, Summer 2002 Economics and humanism. Australian Humanist, No.69, Autumn 2003.
Humanism and morality. Australian Humanist, No.69, Autumn 2003.
Book review: Atheism, Morality and Meaning, by Michael Martin.
Australian Humanist, No.74, Winter 2004
The Great Fraud against Humanism. Australian Humanist, No 77, Autumn 2005 Peace Prosperity and Propriety: Is Religion Really Good?. The Australian Rationalist, No.71, Spring 2005 Modernisation, multiculturalism and fundamentalism, The Australian Rationalist, No.72, Summer 2005-2006.
Creating a better Australia: reinventing secularism, Australian Humanist, No. 82, Autumn 2006.
The Need for Global Secularism, Australian Humanist, No. 85, Autumn 2007.
The Need for Secular Multiculturalism, The Australian Atheist, No 2, March-April 2007.
The Relevance of Darwin Day, The Australian Atheist, No.9, May-June 2008, presented to the Atheist Society, Melbourne, 12 February 2008.
Religious Instruction In Schools, Victorian Humanist, Vol. 47 No. 4, May 2008.
Supernatural Privileges. Dissent, No. 27, Spring 2008. Review of The Purple Economy by Max Wallace.
Mass delusions and their consequences, Online Opinion, 4 November 2008.
Taxes and subsidies: the cost of "advancing religion". Australian Humanist, No. 85, Autumn 2007.
Cults, Religion and Counselling. The Skeptic, Vol. 29, No. 3, September 2009.
Faith is not a Virtue, forthcoming in Australian Humanist, 2010.
Problems of Islam
Prosperity and the rise and fall of Islam, faithfreedom.org.
Islam and economic development, faithfreedom.org.
Islamic economics and politics, faithfreedom.org.
Islam and Arab Human Development, Free Inquiry, Vol. 24 No. 3, April / May 2004.
Religion and vilification, Dissent, No 17, Autumn/Winter 2005.
Book review: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Alim, The Australian Atheist, No.
3, May-June 2007.
Hirsi Ali's Courage The Australian Rationalist, No. 80, June 2008.
Islam's origins - Muhammad's military genius, Dissent, No.29, Autumn/Winter 2009. Review of Muhammad: Islam's First Great General by Richard A Gabriel Rejection of Darwin and the Failure of Islam Australian Rationalist, No.84, Summer 2009, presented to the Atheist Society, Melbourne, 10 February 2009,
Energy & global warming
Global warming: The case for a coal tax, NIEIR Conference Paper, July 2007
Australia, Coal and Global Warming, (The Age, Business Day, 27
September 2007)
A simple econometrician's guide to global warming The Skeptic, Vol.
28, No.4: Summer 2008
Australia's Coal Delusion. published as: Out with the coal, in
with the flue, The Age, Business Day, 11 September 2008.
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme - NIEIR Submission Department of
Climate Change, 10 September 2008.
Energy Resource Depletion and Carbon Emissions: Global Projections to 2050, UN Project LINK, United Nations Conference Centre, Bangkok, Thailand, 28 October 2009.
Resource depletion will reduce emissions, Energy Bulletin, December 25, 2009.
