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Interview with resurrection of Jesus expert Dr. Gary Habermas reveals challenges facing Christians encountering near death experience science.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for and interview with distinguished professor of Apologetics and Philosophy, and best-selling author, Dr. Gary Habermas.During the interview Dr. Habermas discusses how we should examine evidence of supernatural phenomena like NDEs, “… let’s just say that we’ve agreed that it looks like Naturalism is the odd man out, so, you go, this is a religious world… where should we go? One thing I would caution against is getting too far away from the evidential paradigm where we say okay, just because there’s a supernatural world it doesn’t mean that everything that’s supernatural has equally good data in its favor.”
Habermas also asserts that while Christian claims of the supernatural resurrection of Jesus are well established, other supernatural claims may not be, “we have specific evidence for specific doctrines, like the Resurrection of Jesus would be the best example, but there are others… but when we’re saying that John has a near-death experience and John perceived that he went to Heaven and met Shiva or met an angel and John’s Jewish and he interprets that in his Jewish context. What is the evidence that John was in Heaven? I could have evidence that John was seeing something down the street and that brains don’t work that way in a Naturalistic context. So now I have some ideas about mind being beyond the brain. But where is the evidence that John spent time with an angel in Heaven? Most of the take-away type experiences and most of the transcendental-type experiences are without evidence. There’s virtually no evidence that NDEs in another world are evidence. Let me put it this way. What if I had a thesis—now this is not my thesis—but what if I had a thesis that said when I have this-worldly evidence I can make a this-worldly conclusion. But when I have other-worldly data without evidence, then I have to let that hang out there until I get some data to distinguish As from Bs. Otherwise, they’re just nice stories.”
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Alex Tsakiris: We’re joined today by Dr. Gary Habermas, a distinguished professor of Apologetics and Philosophy and Chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Theology at Liberty University in Virginia. He’s a best-selling author, lecturer, and frequent debater, very open to debating his views in a very entertaining and open-minded way. He’s best known in the fields of the historical Jesus and New Testament studies, and he frequently appears on major radio and television outlets.
Thanks for much for joining us today, Dr. Habermas.
Dr. Gary Habermas: Glad to be with you, Alex. I’m looking forward to a good chat with you.
Interview with Dr. Stephen Braude reveals challenges and opportunities of controversial psi research into mediumship and psychokinesis.
Research into controversial topics like psychic mediums is tough, but some researchers find it’s made even tougher when skeptics favor the weakest cases over the strongest.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for and interview with Professor of Philosophy and psi researcher, Dr. Stephen Braude. During the interview Dr. Braude recounts his entree into psi research, “… there was all this other stuff that had been happening outside the lab from séances and anecdotal reports and I figured if I was an honest intellect I at least needed to become acquainted with it before I rejected it summarily. So I first studied the evidence for large-scale, and physical mediumship in particular. That was a momentous event because the evidence blew me away… I discovered that the evidence was much cleaner than people made it out to be.”
Braude continues, “The usual arguments about the evidence being easily dismissed because of poor observation or poor conditions of observation demonstrated really a lack of command of the evidence. One of the things that struck me was that people were dismissing the non-experimental evidence by appealing to the sleaziest of arguments. They would focus on the weakest pieces of evidence and then generalize from that, which is simply straw man reasoning. The principle on which I operated all along is that the cases that matter from outside the lab have to be the strongest cases, the ones that are the hardest to explain away.”
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Interview with Dr. Robert Price reveals why biblical scholar, and former Baptist minister, turned away from Christianity.
With battle lines in the culture war over science and religion firmly entrenched some Biblical scholars are still hashing out the Bible facts with logic, reason and historical scholarship.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for and interview with noted biblical scholar and Christian-doubter Dr. Robert Price. Dr. Price is a noted theologian and writer who well known for his debates with Christian apologists (those who defend the faith on intellectual grounds).
While Price doesn’t take a stand on the possibility that miracles and paranormal events like those described in the Bible can happen, he’s firmly against the position most Christian theologians take, “they argue again and again that if miracles are possible theoretically, then legends are impossible, which doesn’t follow… there approach is that if we can say miracles might have happened then there should be no problem in accepting all the ones the Bible mentions and none of the ones in any other scriptures. Wait a minute. What you’re really saying is you just want us to believe what the Bible says, period. You’re not really suggesting any new method of inquiry.”
While Price is skeptical of traditional Christian theology he remains opens good arguments, “fairness in argument and getting all the evidence together and trying to address it, that was crucial to me because even as a college sophomore, junior, Apologist, I was reading all this inter-Varsity stuff and such. I wanted to witness and I did witness to people about my faith and tried to defend it. But I felt like I have to be honest about this. I’m only going to present it if I find it convincing. And to do that I’m going to have to put my faith on the side for the moment… then when I was getting into my master’s program at Gordon-Conwell Seminary I realized this has been misrepresented. These arguments are just bad.”
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Read it (abridged transcript… more good stuff in the audio version):
Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris. On today’s show I have an interview with Dr. Robert Price, who despite having two Ph.D.s in Biblical Studies, describes himself as a Christian Atheist.
Cornell University Professor and NDE researcher seeks to verify out of body experience after clinical death.
What will you see when you die? According to near death experience researcher Dr. Sam Parnia you may see a carefully hidden image placed several inches below the ceiling of your hospital room.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for the opening round of a dialog with well known near death experience researcher Dr. Sam Parnia. Dr. Parnia has made worldwide headlines with his novel approach to proving whether out of body experiences of cardiac arrest patients demonstrate proof of an afterlife, or whether such reports are merely a, “trick of the mind”. Dr. Parnia’s group is using visual targets placed near the ceiling of the patient’s hospital room in an attempt to objectively establish whether near death experiencers can see what others can’t.
According to Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris the study is unlikely to produce positive results, “I’ve spoken with a lot of near death experience researchers. They’re telling me Parnia’s methods go against what we’ve learned about NDEs”. Tsakiris continued, “near death experiencers have been know to bring back some remarkable, verifiable information about what happens after clinical death, but there’s little to suggest they will see and remember Dr. Parnia targets.”
Tsakiris also questions whether Dr. Parnia’s skepticism about near death experiences has led him to create an experiment that’s designed to fail, “it’s a subtle thing, Dr. Parnia public statements about his skepticism of the near death experience doesn’t mean he’s intentionally trying to debunk the survival of consciousness hypothesis… but it does make you wonder.”
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Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode of Skeptiko, I’m going to be opening up a dialogue with Dr. Sam Parnia. Now, the unusual thing about that is that Dr. Parnia isn’t here and he isn’t going to be joining me for an interview. In fact, what I’m doing is preparing some questions that I’m going to transcribe and then send to Dr. Parnia in hopes of getting a response from him.
Oxford Professor of Medicine, and theologian, Michael Marsh finds much he doesn’t like about near-death experience claims of spirit communication.
Many within the mainstream medical community have reservations about near death expereincers who claim to experience an afterlife, but many are surprised to hear the same doubts from Christian theologians.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Professor Michael Marsh, a former Professor of Medicine, at Oxford who returned to Oxford to complete PhD in Theology. Dr. Marsh, who recently authored, Out-Of-Body Experience and Near-Death Experiences: Brain-State Phenomena or Glimpses of Immortality?, rejects claims made by near-death experiencers. When asked if those who claim to encounter Jesus during their near-death experience are communicating with Christ Dr. Marsh responded with and emphatic, “no!”
Marsh also offers his opinion on how near death experiences compare to biblical accounts of an afterlife, “I don’t think there’s much that compares with our ideas of resurrection or theology. We talked a little bit about spirituality, and I don’t think that the sort of disclosures that we have… the inconsistencies of the pictures of so-called heaven, and the pictures of so-called Jesus and all the rest of it are consistent. You might expect them to be consistent if people really had been to heaven and seen Jesus or been in the presence of God.”
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Alex Tsakiris: We’re joined today by Professor Michael Marsh, a highly regarded academic biomedical researcher and physician who was formerly a Professor of Medicine at Oxford, and then later in his career returned to Oxford to complete a PhD in theology. Now, his doctoral thesis was on near-death experience and out-of-body experience, and that’s also the subject of his recently published book titled, Out-Of-Body Experience and Near-Death Experiences: Brain-State Phenomena or Glimpses of Immortality?
City University of New York Professor skeptical of near-death experience, likens NDE researchers to astrologers.
There’s pseudoscience, bunk, scientific nonsense, and then there’s real science… at least according to Dr. Massimo Pigliucci author of, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science From Bunk.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Professor Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. During the hour-long interview Dr. Pigliucci rejects claims of near-death experience science. When asked to explain why so many NDE researchers have concluded otherwise Dr. Pigliucci stated, ” that’s like saying the vast majority of astrologers are in agreement with the fact that astrology works.”
Pigliucci also offers his opinion on how non-scientists should choose sides on controversial science issues like climate change, “I am about to go to the Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas, which is organized by the James Randi Foundation, and I fully expect to upset several people there because my presentation will be about how skeptics are not scientists and therefore, they shouldn’t really pass judgment on issues for which the scientific community has reached a consensus. For instance, let me give you an example. Several skeptics, including James Randi, are skeptical of the notion of climate change and global warming. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s not their place. They’re not climate scientists; they know nothing about climate science. And frankly, they don’t have the expertise to pass judgment.”
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Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome someone who-let me get this straight-has three PhDs, is that right?
Dr. Massimo Pigliucci: That’s correct.
Alex Tsakiris: [Laughs] So Dr. Massimo Pigliucci is a Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. He’s a well-known thinker and writer in the skeptical community, and he’s also the author of several books, including his latest that we’re going to talk about today entitled, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science From Bunk. Dr. Pigliucci, welcome to Skeptiko.
Dr. Massimo Pigliucci: It’s a pleasure to be here.
Alex Tsakiris: Well, thanks so much for joining me. You know, I got my hands on your book, and it was really interesting. I experienced the full range of reactions reading it. At times I found myself in total agreement with you. Certainly what this show’s been all about is finding the data and trying to find the scientific data and follow it wherever it leads, even if it’s unconventional in its direction. But I also found myself, I guess, sometimes at odds with both your interpretation of the science methods and what science is revealing.
Righteous Indignation Skeptics not persuaded by psychic medium experiment, find fault with controls and results.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for discussion with Michael Marshall, Trystan Swale Gavin Schofield of the Righteous Indignation Podcast. During the hour-long discussion the group discusses a variety of topics including psychic medium communication experiments like the ones carried out by Dr. Julie Bieschel of the Windbridge Institute, and human consciousness experiments like those from the Global Consciousness Project headed by Dr. Roger Nelson.
Although the panel remains divided on the conclusions that can be drawn from this research, they found common ground on the need for dialog among skeptics and believers. “Everyone hates the phrase ’skeptics versus believers’, but that’s where the lines of debate are usually drawn… the key to generating any understanding between these groups is to keep the dialog going and resist the urge to shut down and stop listening”, Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris stated. Listen to Alex’s appearance on the Rightous Indignation Podcast
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Yale University Neurologist skeptical of near-death experience research claims.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for the second in a two-part series with Yale University Neurologist, Dr. Steven Novella. During the hour-long interview Dr. Novella had this to say about the near-death experience research, “It’s descriptively very broad and it may have as many different causes as there are types of experiences that people describe, that are being lumped into this sort of broad category of experiences we’re calling near-death experiences.”
But, this view was immediately challenged by Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris, “I don’t see where in the literature… particularly among near-death experience researchers, where there is this broad collection of different symptoms that are being lumped together, or experiences that are being lumped together. If anything, it seems like they’re honing in more and more…”
Novella and Tsakiris also discuss anesthesia awareness as a possible explanation for near-death experience accounts, ” Any anesthesiologist will tell you… that patients can wake up during anesthesia… that is a perfectly plausible explanation for those cases.”, Novella stated.
Tsakiris replied, “It doesn’t hold up… first of all its rare… the other thing is it has all sort of symptoms associated with it that don’t show up in any of these cases.
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Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode I have an interview with Dr. Steven Novella, to discuss his take on near-death experience research.
Skeptiko show considers claims of Yale University Neurologist regarding near-death experience research.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for the first in a two-part series with Yale University Neurologist, Dr. Steven Novella. The shows examine whether near-death experiences are best explained by conventional medical science. Novella, host of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, recently stated that research into the near-death experience phenomena is, “triangulating on the fact that this is probably a brain experience”. But, according to Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris, “Dr. Novella isn’t just a little bit wrong, he’s completely at odds with the large body of published research on near-death experience… the science of researchers we’ve interviewed like, Dr. Jeffrey Long, Dr. Peter Fenwick, Dr. Penny Sartori and others like Dr. Bruce Greyson and Dr. Sam Parnia and Dr. Michael Sabom, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, and many, many others all point in the opposite direction.”
The show also examines Dr. Novella’s recent analysis of research linking the CO2 blood levels in cardiac arrest patients with the near-death experience. According to Tsakiris, “Dr. Novella’s statements seem to contradict the very research he’s reporting on… his conclusions are also significantly different from the authors of the study.”
The second part of this broadcast, including an interview with Dr. Novella’s, is scheduled for June 2010.
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Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode of Skeptiko I was planning on interviewing Dr. Steven Novella, who is the host of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, as well as being an academic neurologist at the Yale School of Medicine. We were going to talk about near-death experience and Steve’s public statements about that recently. We’re still going to do that, but Steve had a scheduling conflict and we needed to reschedule that for a couple of weeks.
Interview with science journalist Jeff Wise examines the accuracy of news reports on near-death experience research.
Recent headlines on ABCnews.com, NationalGeographic.com, and RichardDawkins.net trumpeted a recent scientific study suggesting near-death experiences are caused by carbon dioxide in the blood. This stands in contrast to the opinion of near-death experience experts, and even the study’s authors, but they news reports persist.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with science journalist and author of ‘Extreme Fear’, Jeff Wise. During the 30-minute interview Mr. Wise explains why and how he and other science journalists reported on this recent near-death experience study. And whether science journalism, according to Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris, “is driven by a code… an invisible hand that drives them away from anything that might be labeled ’spiritual’, and simultaneously lowers their guard against weak research that confirms their pre-existing beliefs.”
Mr Wise replied, “That’s not what it feels like from my perspective… we’re interested in things that make sense in the context of everything else that we know, but that’s novel. So things that are boring, that we see every day we’re not interested in. Things that completely don’t make any sense or we have to completely deconstruct our entire worldview in order to incorporate them, those things also aren’t interesting… I think that’s really the problem. If you’re trying to propose a theory or a view of a phenomenon that is radically at odds with how, let’s say mainstream science views the operation of the world…”
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Alex Tsakiris: We’re joined today by Jeff Wise, a journalist, science writer for such publications as Popular Mechanics, the New York Times Magazine, Popular Science, and many others. He’s also the author of Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger.
Interviews with Tamas Borbely of Goldsmiths College and Dr. Peter Bancel of the Global Consciousness Project reveal common ground on revolutionary research.
The notion of a collective global consciousness is accepted truth within many cultures, but scoffed at by modern scientists. That may change. Once skeptical researchers investigating the 10-year Global Consciousness Project are finding solid data to support the conclusion that we’re all connected.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris an interview with Tamas Boberly of Goldsmiths College at the University of London, and Dr. Peter Bancel of the Global Consciousness Project. During the 50-minute interview Mr. Boberly recaps his analysis of the work done so far, “I’ve been reading the papers that Dr. Nelson and others produced on the Global Consciousness Project and it is my impression that they have a very, very solid methodology and a very good grasp of the statistics that are used… and if you look at the results, obviously the results they report are astronomical. They are very, very convincing. I think the only criticism, which is perhaps even unjust, could come in the form of claiming that because of the lack of a clear-cut definition for these events, perhaps not all, the negative results are reported. And like I said, I’m not suggesting that this is the case. But defining the events in advance would be an excellent way of silencing critics, because otherwise, having looked at the database that they have compiled in the past decade or more, it is certainly very convincing.”
Dr. Peter Bancel describes his involvement with the project, “I came into the project after it had been going for a couple of years and even at that point the cumulative effect of these events that Roger Nelson had been looking at had considerable significance. So one of the first things I set out to do was to see if I could find something methodological or otherwise wrong in how the project was set up. I was asking myself if there was anything fatal, and there wasn’t at all.”
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Alex Tsakiris: We’re joined today by Tamas Borbely, who is a research assistant at Goldsmiths College at the University of London. Tamas is one of the researchers that Chris French has tasked with looking into the Global Consciousness Project and doing a little bit of collaborative work and making an attempt to see if any of that research makes sense or needs further analysis. So with kind of a stumbling introduction, Tamas, welcome to Skeptiko.
Series of interviews with leading near-death experience skeptics show no plausible medical explanation for afterlife experiences.
The idea of an afterlife doesn’t sit well with the science-minded. Our mind is our brain and when we die we die they claim. But as conventional medical explanations for near-death experiences fall flat, and NDE research progresses, tradition-minded scientists are facing the impossible notion that the afterlife may be real.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for his second interview with near-death experience skeptic and author of Mortal Minds, Dr, G.M. Woerlee. During the 30-minute interview Dr. Woerlee continues his assertion that near-death experiences have normal medical explanations. When presented with the case of a young woman who suffered a severe a gunshot wound and was pronounced clinically dead by her doctor only to be miraculously revived after two unsuccessful rounds of defibrillation Dr. Woerlee concluded, “No, she was not dead… if she was dead the doctors would not have resuscitated her. She would have remained dead.”
As to her amazing near-death experience during which she left her body and was able to look down on medical stuff during their frantic attempt to revive her, Woerlee offered this explanation, “…she hears the conversations. She feels the sensations. And she also is a woman who also has seen films and she knows how these things go. She hears the conversations, why? Because she is awake. That does not surprise me.”
Dr. Woerlee’s claims contradict the accounts of medical staff on the scene. They indicated she was clinically dead, “what we call sheet-faced”, and under heavy anesthesia making it medically impossible for her to have a consciousness memory of the experience.
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Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome back Dr. G.M. Woerlee, an anesthesiologist in the Netherlands and a NDE skeptic and the author of several books, including Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near-Death Experiences. Dr. Woerlee, welcome back to Skeptiko.
Dr. G.M. Woerlee: Thank you very much. I’m glad to be here.
Professor at University of Colorado’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering guides students through experiments demonstrating unexplainable psychic phenomena.
With a stellar academic and professional background Dr. Garret Moddel had little to gain by venturing into controversial research on psychic phenomena. But for a professor who long ago tackled quantum engineering cutting edge research comes naturally.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with University of Colorado engineering professor Dr, Garret Moddel. During the 40-minute interview Dr. Moddel describes the challenges of bringing controversial research into the classroom, “I spent most of my career doing essentially quantum engineering, which is engineering little devices based upon quantum mechanical principles. Then about ten years ago on Sabbatical, I got in contact by accident with a physicist who had a library full of books on the science of psychic phenomena. I was absolutely blown away. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I ended up spending the whole Sabbatical going through his library. After that, I was convinced that this is really where the new science and revolutionary ideas are going to come from, so I still continue my mainstream research and most of my colleagues don’t know about my psi phenomena research, although it is on my website. I think they choose not to know.”
Dr. Moddel’s students learn about the science behind these strange phenomena and prove to themselves that they exist, “the course goes through the history of psi research and we use different textbooks depending on the time. Right now the two textbooks that I’m using are Dean Radin’s Entangled Minds, which is just a wonderful, wonderful book describing psi research and then also Chris Carter’s book on Parapsychology and the Skeptics, which takes a wonderful philosophical view of all of this and puts it in perspective. Then each student or each group of students must carry out an independent psi research project. This has to be high quality research. It’s got to be publishable quality research. Half the grade depends upon it. And they take it quite seriously. They come up with very creative experiments.”
The Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) is a professional organization of scientists and scholars who study unusual and unexplained phenomena. Subjects often cross mainstream boundaries, such as consciousness, ufos, and alternative medicine, yet often have profound implications for human knowledge and technology.
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Alex Tsakiris: Let me give you some of the highlights from the Curriculum Vitae of today’s guest. Let’s start with electrical engineering degree from Stanford, master’s and PhD in applied physics from Harvard, professor at University of Colorado, former CEO of a venture-backed high technology start-up. And on top of all that, President of the Society for Scientific Exploration.
Near-Death experience researcher Dr. Long offers a point-by-point response to skeptics of his New York Time best seller, Evidence of the Afterlife.
When near-death experience researcher Dr. Jeffery Long decided to publish his 10-year study of NDEs he knew there would be controversy, and critics. His conclusion, that consciousness survives bodily death and moves to an afterlife, is unsettling to many within a medical community built on death being absolute and final. But rather than shy away from critics, Dr. Long has engaged them.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an in-depth interview with near-death experience researcher, Dr, Jeffrey Long. During the 45-minute interview Dr. Long offers a point-by-point response to skeptics of his New York Time best seller, Evidence of the Afterlife.
In response to the criticisms of former Skeptiko guest Dr. G.M. Woerlee, Dr. Long said, “I think one of the biggest defenses from people that don’t believe in an afterlife, and this was brought out in your interview with Dr. Woerlee, is this barrier where they won’t hear it. They won’t respond to it. It’s just not something they care to address, which is somewhat surprising. I think all scholarly discussion of really any topic requires an open-minded dialogue about the evidence. It really starts with evidence.”
Regarding speculation that NDEs result from regaining consciousness during CPR chest compressions, Dr. Long said, “When you talk to the patients who have actually survived CPR one thing that is very, very obvious is that the substantial majority of them are confused or amnesic when they’re recovered. If you read even a few near-death experiences, you immediately realize essentially none of them talk about episodes of confusion when they just don’t understand what’s going on. You really don’t see that at all. In fact, our research found that 76% of people having a near-death experience said their level of consciousness and alertness during the NDE was actually greater than their earthly, everyday life. So, you have to come away with the conclusion that even if there’s blood flow to the brain induced by CPR, it’s not correlated with the level of consciousness and alertness reported during near-death experiences.”
Dr. Long continues, “But also, in addition, the substantial majority of people that have a near-death experience associated with cardiac arrest are actually seeing their physical body well prior to the time that CPR is initiated. Once CPR is initiated, you don’t see any alteration in the flow of the near-death experience, suggesting that blood flow to the brain isn’t affecting the content in any way.”
Dr. Long also discusses the nature of NDE skepticism, “The other issue I’ve seen with skeptics is they often have their pet theory. Their theory of how the world works, how things work, and it’s very, very difficult to dislodge them from their pet theory, even with overwhelming evidence.”
In the end Dr. Jeffery Long believes in his evidence, “I have confidence in the substantial majority of people. When they hear evidence, and it’s presented in a straightforward way, they’re smart enough to understand what’s real evidence and what’s evasiveness.”
Jeffrey Long, M.D., is a near death experience researcher and physician (radiation oncology). His book, ‘Evidence of the Afterlife’ (HarperCollins), was published in 2009.
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Alex Tsakiris: We’re joined today by Dr. Jeffrey Long, a practicing physician, he’s a radiation oncologist, and a near-death experience researcher. His book, Evidence of the Afterlife, is the most comprehensive study of NDEs ever published and it’s been a huge success.
Anesthesiologist Dr. G.M. Woerlee believes NDEs are in our body and our brain - not in the afterlife.
As a practicing anesthesiologist in the Netherlands G.M. Woerlee M.D. has seen many approach death’s door. For those returning with stories of an afterlife he advises a closer look at the medical evidence.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for a vigorous discussion with near-death experience skeptic, anesthesiologist G.M. Woerlee. During the 90-minute episode Woerlee sets out to refute the research Dr. Jeffrey Long published in, Evidence of the Afterlife.
According to Woerlee, there are a number of conventional medical explanations for the phenomena reported during NDEs, “ultimately, when you look at the total body of evidence explaining the physiological or biological basis of the near-death experience, the out-of-body experience, and the other experiences as reported by those undergoing near-death experiences, you come to the conclusion that most of them — in fact all of them — can be explained by body function and the changes in body function induced by the various - I call them stressors - or causes of the near-death experience. Hypoxia, drugs, anxiety and on and on.”
The discussion includes a point-by-point examination of the nine lines of evidence for the existence of an afterlife as outlined in Dr. Jeffrey Long’s book. Dr. Long has agreed to issues a response during a future episode of Skeptiko.
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Alex Tsakiris: We’re joined today by someone well qualified to enter into a discussion on the evidence of survival of consciousness and the near-death experience. Dr. G.M. Woerlee is a well-respected anesthesiologist in the Netherlands, a frequent lecturer in his field, and an author of three books including, Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near-Death Experiences.
Lively debate between biologist Rupert Sheldrake and telepathy skeptic Richard Wiseman reveals wide rift between skeptics and psi proponents
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for a spirited debate between biologist, author, and telepathy researcher, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, and noted researcher of anomalous psychology, and parapsychology skeptic, Dr. Richard Wiseman. During the 90-minute episode Sheldrake and Wiseman discuss the scientific evidence for telepathy and other psi phenomena.
The debate covers a range of topics, but according to moderator Alex Tsakiris, the real friction began after the debate ended, “During the debate, Dr. Wiseman appeared eager to participate in collaborative research with parapsychologists. He went to great lengths explaining why skeptics and psi proponents should team-up on experiments of telepathy and other psi phenomena. But during an email exchange following the debate (published on the Skeptiko website), his stance took a radical change.”
According to Tsakiris, Wiseman stonewalled attempts to create a skeptics/proponents research forum, “I contacted three very prominent psi researchers and convinced them to take Wiseman up on his offer. They agree, but Wiseman would not. He made various demands aimed at agitating the other researchers, and even balked at a mere one-hour initial dialog. I was stunned, especially since I offered to fund the research.”
The discussion began with Professor Richard Wiseman offering a defense for scientific skepticism regarding psi phenomena, “In terms of my own research, some of it has looked at the notion that certain individuals possessing very strong psychic abilities, the mediums and the psychics and so on, and I’m very, very skeptical about that data. I don’t think it shows anything particularly remarkable in terms of psychic ability going on. And then I’ve done a small amount of work, although other people have done a lot more, into the notion that psi is a more subtle signal. There, I’m fairly skeptical about the literature. I certainly wouldn’t want to argue the case that psi definitely exists on the basis of that literature.”
But Sheldrake challenged the idea of relegating telepathy and other psi phenomena to the fringes of science, “I just want to go back a bit to what Richard called the Humian argument against miracles. Hume’s argument against miracles was that miracles are extremely rare and it’s more likely that people have been lying about them than that they actually happened. They so defy the common experience of humanity. Now, I think the argument is exactly reversed when it comes to phenomena like telepathy. They’re not extremely rare. Whether it’s 30 percent, 50 percent, 70 percent of the population who have had them, the details don’t matter. The point is these things are very common. Hume’s argument was that commonsense, the kind of common experience of the bulk of humanity, is what gives credence to something. So I think it’s completely inappropriate to apply an argument against miracles to phenomena which happen on an everyday basis to large numbers of people.”
Next, the discussion examined the institution of science itself. Wiseman was asked to defend his statement, “I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that [psi] is proven. That begs the question do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal?”.
In defense of this, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” argument, Wiseman stated, “I think that parapsychologists by not far from 100 years of research have failed to come up with that level of evidence. It’s not to say they couldn’t in the future, but to me there just hasn’t been the level of progress that you would expect given the amount of work that’s been put in… that strength of evidence simply isn’t there.”
To which Sheldrake responded, “Again, I come back to the fact that what we’re dealing with here is an ideological issue. I mean, what Richard calls mainstream science and there’s a kind of materialistic faith that many scientists have, at least in public. Many of them in private have telepathic experiences and have quite different views.
Nevertheless, he’s right. There is a kind of materialistic ethos in science. I think that itself is something we need to question and look at because it leads to an extraordinary blindness. He said that if you said there’s a car outside, you wouldn’t need to look. If you said there’s a spaceship, you would, because that’s an incredible claim. So it’s okay for cosmologists to claim there are entire universes out there, a whole lot of universes, not just one, but trillions. No one bothers to look. The reason that gets past the filters is it doesn’t overturn a particular ideology. What’s at stake is not science itself but ideology.”
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Alex Tsakiris: We have a very special live dialogue today between Dr. Richard Wiseman, Professor of Psychology at University of Herefordshire in the UK. In addition to his job there at the university, Dr. Wiseman, as many of you know, is also a parapsychology skeptic and an author of many popular books such as Quirkology, which explores the quirky way our mind works.
Renée Scheltema discusses her documentary, Something Unknown Is Doing We Don’t Know What. Motivated to explain her curious psychic experiences, documentary filmmaker Renée Scheltema decided to set out to the US and meet with the top researchers in parapsychology.
She found how science is verifying numerous kinds of connections : ‘mind to mind’ ; ‘mind to body’ and ‘mind to world’, demonstrating that psychic abilities are part of our inherent nature.
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Skeptic’s Million Dollar Challenge To Be More Open and Transparent Says JREF President, D.J. Grothe
Join Skepitko host Alex Tsakiris for a 90-minute interview with journalist, skeptic, and president of the James Randi Educational Foundation, D.J. Grothe. During the interview Grothe discusses the science of skepticism, evidence for survival of consciousness, what constitutes “extraordinary proof”, and changes to the JREF Million Dollar Challenge.
“If some people conceive of the Million Dollar Challenge as the way science works, in other words, ‘to advance our scientific understanding in this field, be challenged for a million dollars’… well, science is not a cage match, despite the fact that you put some big personality scientists in a room and they fight, science doesn’t work that way.
The Million Dollar Challenge is done in the spirit of science. It’s done looking at the evidence, but it is a vehicle of a non-profit educational foundation to raise public consciousness and awareness about these important questions”, Grothe said.
Grothe also discussed ways to make the challenge of paranormal and supernatural claims more open and transparent, “I’m proud of the transparency so far and we want there to be even more transparency in the following ways. The claimants, when they apply, in short order - although I’m kind of letting the cat out of the bag - in the months ahead we want to have a running public display of all the claimants and the progress of their challenges and their applications.”
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Alex Tsakiris: We’re joined today by someone whose skills as a broadcaster, journalist, and activist I greatly admire. Formerly the host of Point of Inquiry, D.J. Grothe stood toe-to-toe with Nobel Prize winners, leading public intellectuals, and scores and scores of best-selling authors. He not only held his own, but he brought a depth and a command of the topics that was, well, was pretty darned impressive.
The most comprehensive research into near-death experience deals a kill shot to skeptics and aims to change how science views the afterlife.
Science has studied the near-death experience for more than 20 years. Most research has concluded NDEs are real and unexplainable, but scientists have been slow to accept consciousness beyond death. A new scientific study by Jeffrey Long, M. D. may change that. The research compiled in his new book, Evidence of the Afterlife, represents the largest, most comprehensive study of near-death experience and according to the study’s author is, “a real game-changer”.
Dr. Long explains, “we looked at nine lines of evidence that indicate the reality of near-death experiences and their consistent message of an afterlife. With each of these lines of evidence we carefully reviewed all prior scholarly research on the subject and made our contributions with our original research… from my point of view, the scientific term is compelling, but you can put it another way — the nine lines of evidence that I present is proof of the reality of near-death experiences.”
The conclusions of Dr. Long’s research are paradigm smashing for near-death experience skeptics who’ve argued that limited brain functioning may explain NDEs. “What near-death experiencers see correlates to their time of cardiac arrest and it is almost uniformly accurate in every detail. That pretty much refutes the possibility that these could be illusionary fragments, or unreal memories associated with hypoxia, chemicals, REM intrusion, anything that could cause brain dysfunction”, Dr. Long stated.
“I looked at over 280 near-death experiences that had out-of-body observations of Earthly ongoing events… If near-death experiences were just fragments of memory, unrealistic remembrances of a time approaching unconsciousness or returning from unconsciousness, there is no chance that the observations would have a high percent of completely accurate observations. They’d be dream-like or hallucinations. But 98% of them were entirely realistic… In fact, these observations of Earthly ongoing events often include observations of things that would be impossible for them to be aware of with any sensory function from their physical body. For example, they can see the tops of buildings. They can see far away. In my study over 60 of these near-death experiencers later went back and independently attempted to verify what they saw in the out-of-body state. Every single one of these over 60 near-death experiencers that reported checking or verifying their own observations found that they were absolutely correct in every detail.”, Dr. Long said.
While some near-death experience researchers have been reluctant to make the leap from NDEs to proof of the afterlife, Dr. Long is convinced by his research findings, “I’ve gone over every skeptic argument I can get my hands on. At the end of the day, I have no doubt in my mind near-death experience is for real. It’s a profound and reassuring message that we all have an afterlife. Every single one of us. And it’s wonderful. It is probably the greatest thrill of my life to be able to carry forward that important message to the world. I wouldn’t do it if I weren’t absolutely convinced that it’s correct.”
The conclusions of this research will be controversial, but Dr. Long stands ready to take on the critics, “I would be delighted to debate any near-death experience skeptic, any time, any place, on any media, as long as they’re scholarly, well informed, and as long as it can be a very high-level, intellectual debate.”
Jeffrey Long, M.D., is a physician practicing the specialty of radiation oncology (use of radiation to treat cancer) in Houma, Louisiana. Dr. Long has served on the Board of Directors of IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies), and is actively involved in NDE research. His book, Evidence of the Afterlife (HarperCollins), was published in 2010.
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Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on today’s show I have an interview with Dr. Jeff Long, author of, Evidence of the Afterlife. As you’ll hear, Dr. Long is probably one of the most qualified near-death experience researchers. He’s just compiled a huge body of that research into this book. This guy delivers the goods. I had a chance to interview him a few months ago for the documentary film that I’ve told some of you about that we’re putting together. He’s on top of his game. A medical doctor, well qualified in the field of medicine; also a very accomplished researcher.
Near-death experience skeptic, Dr. Kevin Nelson says the burden of proof is on experiencers to show their experiences are real.
We all dream, but do we know when we’re dreaming? Recent research from Dr. Kevin Nelson of the University of Kentucky suggests that near-death experience is akin to dreaming, and uses the same rapid eye movement mechanism associated with sleep. In a recent interview on Sketiko.com, Dr. Nelson defends this controversial research that contradicts the accounts of thousands of near-death experiencers:
Dr. Kevin Nelson: Then you ask how can we have experiences with a flat EEG? My question to you is, that’s an extraordinary claim. Where is the data that says the experience that they later remembered actually happened at the time the EEG was flat?
Alex Tsakiris: Penny Sartori’s research, where she went and interviewed people about their resuscitation process and found that people who have a near-death experience are much more accurate in reporting the specific events that go on during resuscitation, is pretty good, solid research that backs up what so many of the near-death experiencers say, which is that this was…
Dr. Kevin Nelson: Where’s the data?
Alex Tsakiris: Well, that’s data. I mean, if you ask people…
Dr. Kevin Nelson: No, what is her data?
Alex Tsakiris: Her data is that they’re statistically significantly more likely to recount the…
Dr. Kevin Nelson: No, that’s her conclusion. What’s her data?
Alex Tsakiris: Her data is the number of events in the resuscitation process that they’re able to recall. That’s the data.
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Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode of Skeptiko, I’m going to dig into the near-death experience research a little bit further. It’s just fascinating to me. Every time I turn over a new stone, it gets more and more interesting.
The stone I was looking to turn over today came about when I was Googling near-death experience research. What pops up over and over again in the most popular mainstream science kind of publications like CNN Health or CBS Science News, Time Magazine, these folks who just touch on this, what pops up over and over again is some research that was done a couple years ago by this guy at the University of Kentucky named Kevin Nelson. You’re going to hear from him today. The way CNN summed up his research is as follows:
“Nelson thinks that near-death experiences are a part of the dream mechanism and that the person having the experience is in a REM (rapid eye movement) state.”
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for and interview with distinguished professor of Apologetics and Philosophy, and best-selling author, Dr. Gary Habermas. During the interview Dr. Habermas discusses how we should examine evidence of supernatural phenomena like NDEs, “… let’s just say that we’ve agreed that it looks like Naturalism is the odd man out, so, you go, this is a religious world… where should we go? One thing I would caution against is getting too far away from the evidential paradigm where we say okay, just because there’s a supernatural world it doesn’t mean that everything that’s supernatural has equally good data in its favor.”
Research into controversial topics like psychic mediums is tough, but some researchers find it’s made even tougher when skeptics favor the weakest cases over the strongest.
What will you see when you die? According to near death experience researcher Dr. Sam Parnia you may see a carefully hidden image placed several inches below the ceiling of your hospital room.
Many within the mainstream medical community have reservations about near death expereincers who claim to experience an afterlife, but many are surprised to hear the same doubts from Christian theologians.
There’s pseudoscience, bunk, scientific nonsense, and then there’s real science… at least according to Dr. Massimo Pigliucci author of, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science From Bunk.
The notion of a collective global consciousness is accepted truth within many cultures, but scoffed at by modern scientists. That may change. Once skeptical researchers investigating the 10-year Global Consciousness Project are finding solid data to support the conclusion that we’re all connected.
The idea of an afterlife doesn’t sit well with the science-minded. Our mind is our brain and when we die we die they claim. But as conventional medical explanations for near-death experiences fall flat, and NDE research progresses, tradition-minded scientists are facing the impossible notion that the afterlife may be real.
With a stellar academic and professional background Dr. Garret Moddel had little to gain by venturing into controversial research on psychic phenomena. But for a professor who long ago tackled quantum engineering cutting edge research comes naturally.
As a practicing anesthesiologist in the Netherlands G.M. Woerlee M.D. has seen many approach death’s door. For those returning with stories of an afterlife he advises a closer look at the medical evidence.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for a spirited debate between biologist, author, and telepathy researcher, 
We all dream, but do we know when we’re dreaming? Recent research from Dr. Kevin Nelson of the University of Kentucky suggests that near-death experience is akin to dreaming, and uses the same rapid eye movement mechanism associated with sleep. In a recent interview on Sketiko.com, Dr. Nelson defends this controversial research that contradicts the accounts of thousands of near-death experiencers:
