I will be very interested to hear the interview, though I have the horrible feeling I have already heard it, a hundred times before.
Shermer will use his usual defensive ammunition, a mixture of mainstream academic conservativism, and ignorance of any data challenging that closed echo chamber.
I have complete faith in Alex to ask the right questions, though unfortunately I imagine it will be more like a game of chess with each participant trying to think a couple of questions ahead of their opponent to check mate, rather than an open and honest exploration of meaningful questions and findings.
I haven't read shermer's book (nor will i), but I feel that the inclusion in the title of the search for "utopia" already gives away it's true intent.
Utopia is something quite easy to dismiss as fantasy, and is automatically regarded as a childish notion by most so called educated people. He's already half way psychologically speaking towards winning his case (which we know will be outright dismissal of the title topics).
I guess if you lump Afterlife and Immortality in with Utopia, it makes it easier to ridicule it all as part of the same ball of wax than treat each question as being uniquely singular.
It is a subtle but rather obvious tactic to my mind.
I would definitely ask him about the loaded psychological weighting of his title.
Indeed the term "utopia", I would suggest is almost synonymous with the term "fantasy", so it is quite revealing.
It just feels somehow manipulating, obfuscating, confounding and disingenuous.
Well, par for the course I suppose.