Skeptiko
This podcast is a leading source for intelligent, hard-nosed skeptic vs. believer debate on science and spirituality. Each episode features lively discussion with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics.
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April 2nd, 2013 Alex Tsakiris
Interview with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake about censorship of his Science Set Free lecture.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake author of, Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery. During the interview Sheldrake talks about the controversy:
Alex Tsakiris: The irony of this is, if not hilarious, certainly inescapable. A reputable Cambridge biologist publishes a book claiming science is dogmatic. He’s then censored by an anonymous scientific board. You can’t script that any better. What does this say about how science can be dogmatic without even realizing it’s dogmatic?
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake: I think this whole controversy and the people who have weighed-in in favor of TED’s actions do indeed confirm what I’m saying. These dogmas are ones that most people within science don’t actually realize are dogmas. They just think they’re the truth. The point about really dogmatic people is that they don’t know that they have dogmas. Dogmas are beliefs and people who have really strong beliefs think of their beliefs as truths. They don’t actually see them as beliefs. So I think this whole controversy has actually highlighted exactly that.
The other thing that is highlighted is that there are a lot of people, far more than I imagined actually, who are not taken in by these dogmas, who do want to think about them critically. One of the remarkable things about these discussions is lots of people are really up for the discussion of these dogmas. They really want it to happen, far more than I’d imagined, actually. I’m impressed by that and I think this TED debate has actually helped show that the paradigm is shifting. There’s no longer a kind of automatic agreement by the great majority of people to dogmatic assertions by scientific materialists.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake’s Website
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Today we welcome Dr. Rupert Sheldrake back to Skeptiko. Many of you know the work of Cambridge biologist, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, including his latest book, Science Set Free. But now you may have heard that this book has seemed to have struck quite a nerve because Dr. Sheldrake has found himself in the middle of a controversy surrounding the censorship of a video lecture that he presented and that was then posted on the very popular TEDx YouTube channel. It was then removed after—and get this—an anonymous scientific board deemed it unscientific.
Rupert, welcome back to Skeptiko. Thanks for joining us. Tell us what’s happened here.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake: Well, you summarized it more-or-less. I gave a talk at the TEDx series of talks in London in Whitechapel. The organizers were young women, students at London University, who organized a very lively event. It was called Challenging Existing Paradigms. They asked me to talk about challenging existing paradigms, which seemed just the right theme for my book, Science Set Free. So I did a TEDx talk for it. It was extremely popular; the event was sold out. There was a lot of lively discussion that was really fun.
It went up on the TEDx website, as these TEDx talks often do, and all was well until it was denounced by two of America’s leading militant skeptics, PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne, who didn’t like it because it upset their rather dogmatic materialist worldview. So they called for it to be taken down and they said it discredited itself, etc. They put enormous pressure on TED and then they got armies of their supporters to send emails to TED and put comments on websites. Read the rest of this entry »
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December 11th, 2012 Alex Tsakiris
Interview with Dr. Mario Beauregard about his new book, Brain Wars, and the battle between old brain science and new brain science.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with neuroscientist and author Dr. Mario Beauregard about his new book, Brain Wars: The Scientific Battle Over the Existence of the Mind and the Proof That Will Change the Way We Live Our Lives. During the interview Beauregard discusses the coming revolution in the way science understands consciousness:
Alex Tsakiris: Near the end of your book, Brain Wars, you talk about a shift in consciousness within science. I’d like you to talk about whether you really think that is likely. I mean, we are so enmeshed — we are so married to this materialism — can we really get beyond it?
Dr. Mario Beauregard: Well, I can say that at least in my own field there’s an increasing number of scientists and also in other disciplines challenging the old materialist worldview, so it’s done not only by scientists but also by philosophers themselves. In the last few years we’ve seen books come out about the waning of materialism and so on. Now several different scientists are starting to question this. We’re in a transition period, like I said before, and in certain circles scientists are creating a sort of union where they’re getting together and trying to get organized.
For instance, there’s a special issue of a mainstream journal in neuroscience called, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, and next year there will be a special issue about the possibility of non-local mind. This is a sign of the times because only 10 years ago or 15 or 20 years ago, this would not have been possible at all. Now it’s becoming possible to discuss these important issues publicly and even to challenge the mainstream view overtly. This was not possible at all before.
There’s a progress regarding this evolution in our field. I think that there eventually will be another big revolution in science and this will be about mind and consciousness. The same kind of revolution that they’ve had about 100 years ago in physics from classical physics to quantum physics. We’ll have probably the same in our own field.
At the same time in parallel, like you said at the beginning of the interview, if you talk to laypeople, most people do not believe that they are strictly biological robots and don’t have any influence over their brain activity or what’s happening in their body. So, if there’s the start of really a transition within science, it will go quickly because the rest of the world is very sympathetic regarding a non-materialist view of consciousness and of human life and the universe.
Mario Beauregard’s Website
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Today we welcome Dr. Mario Beauregard to Skeptiko. Dr. Beauregard is an Associate Research Professor at the Neuroscience Research Center at the University of Montreal. He has a Ph.D. in neuroscience also from the University of Montreal. He also has two post-Doctorate fellowships in experimental neuropsychology. He’s the author of over 100 publications in neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry. And he’s here today to talk about his latest book, Brain Wars: The Scientific Battle Over the Existence of the Mind and the Proof That Will Change the Way We Live Our Lives.
Mario, thank you very much for joining me today on Skeptiko and welcome.
Dr. Mario Beauregard: Thanks to you.
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October 16th, 2012 Alex Tsakiris
Review of the recent controversy over the Newsweek magazine cover story, Heaven is Real, and Sam Harris’ response to an invitation to debate Dr. Eben Alexander regarding his near-death experience.
Dr. Eben Alexander Responds to Sam Harris’ Blog Post
The following is from an exchange between Dr. Sam Harris and Dr. Eben Alexander regarding Sam Harris’ blog post, This Must be Heaven, and the possibility of Dr. Harris debating Dr. Alexander on Skeptiko:
Sam Harris: …There’s nothing to debate either. He can’t reasonably claim that the relevant parts of his brain (not just the cortex) were “completely shut down.” It’s just not a factual statement.
Eben Alexander: Of course, it was premature for him to speak out based on the Newsweek article — he needs to at least read the book if he wants to avoid making embarrassing statements that he later regrets. Isolated preservation of cortical regions might have explained some elements of my experience, but certainly not the overall odyssey of rich experiential tapestry. The severity of my meningitis and its refractoriness to therapy for a week should have eliminated all but the most rudimentary of conscious experiences: peripheral white blood cell [WBC] count over 27,000 per mm3, 31 percent bands with toxic granulations, CSF WBC count over 4,300 per mm3, CSF glucose down to 1.0 mg/dl (normally 60-80, may drop down to ~ 20 in severe meningitis), CSF protein 1,340 mg/dl, diffuse meningeal involvement and widespread blurring of the gray-white junction, diffuse edema, with associated brain abnormalities revealed on my enhanced CT scan, and neurological exams showing severe alterations in cortical function (from posturing to no response to noxious stimuli, florid papilledema, and dysfunction of extraocular motility [no doll's eyes, pupils fixed], indicative of brainstem damage). Going from symptom onset to coma within 3 hours is a very dire prognostic sign, conferring 90% mortality at the very beginning, which only worsened over the week. No physician who knows anything about meningitis will just “blow off” the fact that I was deathly ill in every sense of the word, and that my neocortex was absolutely hammered. Anyone who simply concludes that “since I did so well I could not have been that sick” is begging the question, and knows nothing whatsoever about severe bacterial meningitis.
I invite the skeptical doctors to show me a case remotely similar to mine. My physicians, and their consultants at UVA, Bowman Gray-Wake Forest, Duke, Harvard, Stanford and beyond were astonished that I recovered.
In an effort to explain the “ultra-reality” of the experience, I examined this hypothesis: Was it possible that networks of inhibitory neurons might have been predominantly affected, allowing for unusually high levels of activity among the excitatory neuronal networks to generate the apparent “ultra-reality” of my experience? One would expect meningitis to preferentially disturb the superficial cortex, possibly leaving deeper layers partially functional. The computing unit of the neocortex is the six-layered “functional column,” each with a lateral diameter of 0.2–0.3 mm. There is significant interwiring laterally to immediately adjacent columns in response to modulatory control signals that originate largely from subcortical regions (the thalamus, basal ganglia, and brainstem). Each functional column has a component at the surface (layers 1–3), so that meningitis effectively disrupts the function of each column just by damaging the surface layers of the cortex. The anatomical distribution of inhibitory and excitatory cells, which have a fairly balanced distribution within the six layers, does not support this hypothesis. Diffuse meningitis over the brain’s surface effectively disables the entire neocortex due to this columnar architecture. Full-thickness destruction is unnecessary for total functional disruption. Given the prolonged course of my poor neurological function (seven days) and the severity of my infection, it is unlikely that even deeper layers of the cortex were still functioning in more than isolated pockets of small networks.
The thalamus, basal ganglia, and brainstem are deeper brain structures (“subcortical regions”) that some colleagues postulated might have contributed to the processing of such hyperreal experiences. In fact, all agreed that none of those structures could play any such role without having at least some regions of the neocortex still functional. All agreed in the end that such subcortical structures alone could not have handled the intense neural calculations required for such a richly interactive experiential tapestry.
There are 9 hypotheses discussed in an appendix of my book that I derived based on conversations with colleagues. None of them explained the hyper-reality in any brain-based fashion.
Sam Harris: And even if I granted that his brain had been shut down — it’s not shut down now. And there is absolutely no way for him to establish (or even to subjectively know) that he didn’t have his experience as his brain was coming back online. End of debate, as far as I’m concerned.
Eben Alexander: Again, he needs to read the book. In fact, I know that my experience happened within coma because of certain anchors to earth time in memory. Of course the whole issue of how I remembered so much haunted me from the beginning — before my coma, I would have stated flatly that someone that sick would remember absolutely nothing. And I would have been totally wrong. Memory extends beyond physical brain and physical universe (again, clues from transpersonal psychology, which I knew nothing of before). And time flow in that realm is very different. I would advise the skeptics to contribute to a much broader understanding, instead of just trying to deny, if they’re up to the challenge.
To any skeptic who thinks he has explained my experience as brain-based, he then needs to address the non-local nature of consciousness ~ the broad clinical experience in transpersonal psychology (notably all of the past life clinical work, the reincarnation work from Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker at UVA; also very relevant in terms of how I remembered so much) and address the overwhelming tsunami of evidence of the phenomena of non-local consciousness in Irreducible Mind (edited by Ed Kelly et alia, 2007) and Consciousness Beyond Life (Pim van Lommel, 2009).
Postscript:
Per Dr. Harris’ here is the full email he sent to me:
Hi Alex –
Unfortunately, I’m too busy to consider it. I’m up against a book deadline — and really couldn’t afford the time I spent on that blog post, but I couldn’t seem to resist…
The truth is, there’s nothing to debate either. He can’t reasonably claim that the relevant parts of his brain (not just the cortex) were “completely shut down.” It’s just not a factual statement. And yet, everything in his account hinges on his making that claim. And even if I granted that his brain had been shut down — it’s not shut down now. And there is absolutely no way for him to establish (or even to subjectively know) that he didn’t have his experience as his brain was coming back online. End of debate, as far as I’m concerned.
Best,
Sam
Commentary on the Skeptical Response to Eben Alexander
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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 we’re going to do something a little bit different. As you may have heard, Dr. Eben Alexander has a new book out. The book’s titled Proof of Heaven and Dr. Alexander is going to appear on Skeptiko next week in an interview we recorded a couple weeks ago.
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November 16th, 2011 Alex Tsakiris
Skeptics and Beliver square off in a discussion about Skepticism, science and some controversial past Skeptiko interviews.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for a discussion with Monster Talk podcast hosts Blake Smith, Ben Radford, and Karen Stollznow. This episode is also published on the Skepticality podcast.
Monster Talk Podcast Website
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June 7th, 2011 Alex Tsakiris
George Washington University Medical Center Professor, Dr. Lakhmir Chawla, answers critics of his near-death experience research.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Lakhmir Chawla. During the interview Dr. Chawla discussed whether his discovery of a surge in the brain’s electrical activity seconds before death might, or might not, be related to near-death experience:
Alex Tsakiris: A moment ago you referenced the discovery of the first black swan as reminder of how science has to be prepared for unexpected discoveries. Part of the frustration I hear from near-death experience researchers is, “hey, we keep finding all these black swans; where are the rest of you?” They keep finding cases where patients report a near-death experience during a time when there’s no brain activity — that’s a black swan. Then they look at your finding, which is interesting and surprising, but is quite speculative as far as being related to near-death experience and they say, “where’s the balance?”
Dr. Lakhmir Chawla: I think that’s a very important point. At the end of the day, if near-death experience is going to enter a very durable research area it has to answer some of these questions. Because right now we know that near-death experiences are very important to patients. So the stakeholders are very interested in it. So it will always have its relevant people who are very interested in it because it’s a big deal and it talks about the aspect of life when life potentially ends. What we’re suggesting in this paper is that we have an interesting finding at the time of death. It may have nothing to do with near-death experience, but the need to understand what this is or isn’t has a lot of value.
Now, I’ll tell you, the other important issue is that we have patients who we allow to pass away and then we take their organs. Currently we use EKG as the metric for when they’re dead. Some people have suggested that you should wait and see if they have this spike because that may, in fact, be the border. And this has real consequences for the quality of the organs that are taken from these patients if they’re allowed to sit for even a minute or two minutes longer. So, the implications are beyond the near-death experience.
Example of how Dr. Chawla’s finding was reported
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Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome to Skeptiko Associate Professor of Medicine at George Washington University Medical Center, Dr. Lakhmir Chawla. Dr. Chawla, thank you so much for joining me today on Skeptiko.
Dr. Lakhmir Chawla: Delighted to be here.
Alex Tsakiris: So, Dr. Chawla, in 2009 you published a paper with the surprising discovery that some of your patients who were very close to death experienced a final surge in brain activity and the paper has gained quite a bit of traction, media attention, mainly because of this quote of yours:
“We think that near-death experiences could be caused by a surge of electrical energy as the brain runs out of oxygen.”
It‘s been a while since that paper was published. So first I want to ask you, do you still think that what you saw has anything to do with near-death experience?
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May 31st, 2011 Alex Tsakiris
Noted parapsychology investigator and author Guy Lyon Playfair discusses poltergeists, after-death communication and the telepathy of twins.
Join Skeptiko guest host Steve Volk for an interview with Guy Lyon Playfair. During the interview Mr. Playfair summarizes what he’s learned about the poltergeist phenomena:
Steve Volk: What’s your best guess, at this stage, after all these years, on what poltergeists, or ghosts, are.
Guy Playfair: The short answer is that there are two possibilities. Either they are some kind of discarnate entity – which I certainly don’t rule out – or else they are an entirely unknown force that emanates from the human mind. How it works we simply don’t know. We can only observe its effects. I think there’s quite strong evidence that it’s some kind of so-called spirit or discarnate entity, kind of drifting blobs of exo-intelligence, if you like. But that is an extremely controversial opinion and not many people share it.
Steve Volk: I do find it interesting that in some cases skeptics have started putting forth more complicated and I would say more interesting theories than the usual, the mind plays tricks, wishful thinking, creaking floorboards, leaky pipes kind of explanations.
Guy Playfair: Yes, there’s another possible line of inquiry. Poltergeist outbreaks have got certain features in common with Tourette’s syndrome, where you get these sorts of jerks and muscular spasms and things and also very strange vocal sounds. A poltergeist looks rather like an extension of some super-Tourette’s where not only the muscles twitch but furniture starts twitching as well. But that’s not my idea. That was actually Michael Persinger and William Roll, who is a very experienced researcher. I think it’s an interesting line to follow up.
Guy Lyon Playfair’s wiki entry
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I’m Steve Volk, guest hosting for Alex Tsakiris on Skeptiko. My guest today is Guy Lyon Playfair, a journalist and translator who has been conducting paranormal research seemingly forever. His first book, The Unknown Power, a book on psychical research, was written in 1975. In the ensuing years he’s written about Uri Geller, hypnotism, telepathy among twins, reincarnation, and we’ll discuss some of those things.
Today we’re going to focus out of the gate on the topic of Guy’s new book, a re-release really, of a book first published in 1980. The book is called, This House Is Haunted, and it deals with the very famous Enfield Poltergeist case.
I wanted to talk to Guy because in my book, Fringe-ology, I kind of out myself, describing what I call “the family ghost,” an old ghost story I grew up with as a child. I was about six years old and have a few memories of the events my family’s described to me. In general, without getting into too much detail, there was a booming and thumping sound that came from the walls and ceiling. It seemed to respond to my parents’ movements in the house. My sisters talked about having the blankets pulled from them as they slept, their beds shaking in unison in the middle of the night, and a female apparition who walked through the room.
I’m hoping Guy, in talking about the Enfield case, can give me a little insight into poltergeists, including some details from a new study which used some recordings from the Enfield case, conducted by Dr. Barrie Colvin, with whom Guy cooperated. Hopefully we will get to much else besides. Guy, thanks for being on Skeptiko.
Guy Playfair: Thank you for having me.
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April 19th, 2011 alex
Biologist and author Rupert Sheldrake expresses dismay at latest claims made by Skeptic Richard Wiseman in his recent book, Paranormality.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. A distinguished biologist, Dr. Sheldrake is the author of several books including, Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. During the interview Mr. Tsakiris and Dr. Sheldrake discuss the latest claims of Skeptic Richard Wiseman:
Alex Tsakiris: When someone hears you say Richard Wiseman’s portrayal of your research is deceptive, well, it sounds so horrible. But in this case, the deception is so obvious, the misinformation so outrageous, that it’s hard to understand how he assumed he could get away with it. But then again, of course he’s going to get away with it. He’s gotten away with it for years.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake: Yes, it’s outrageous. Wiseman’s research on psychic pets was entirely parasitic on my research. He portrays himself as this kind of heroic debunking figure who goes in and exposes people who fool themselves about their dogs and so forth. But, in fact, his own tests show an even bigger effect than I’d observed. Incredibly, he then appeared on TV and made press releases, wrote a scientific paper in a scientific journal, claiming to have refuted the effect we both demonstrated. It is completely outrageous, but as you say, he’s got away with it before. He’s been exposed before, but that seems completely irrelevant to him.
Alex Tsakiris: What is going on here? What do you think is really behind this? Because it’s easy to spin out of control with conspiracies and all sorts of strange ideas. What’s your best guess, having been in this for as long as you have?
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake: Personally, I think it’s just what Wiseman said it is. I think it’s a tendency for people to see what they want to believe, to believe what they want to believe, to only notice evidence that fits their dogmatic point of view or their belief system. He himself is a perfect example of that. He accuses people who are interested in psychic phenomena and do research in an open-minded way of being fooled or of self-deception, but in fact this is the kind of thinking he’s engaged in. Basically, Wiseman is a dogmatic materialist. People who are materialists aren’t people who don’t believe anything; they’re people who have a really strong belief that the mind is nothing but the brain, that the free will doesn’t really exist and we are just robots. He tries to prove that in this book. I think it’s as simple as that. He’s dogmatically committed to that point of view. He firmly believes it. Therefore, the evidence must be flawed. People must be either deceiving themselves or deceiving others. So I think we have to see that we’re dealing here with a fundamentalist belief system of people who pretend to be scientific but are not.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake’s website
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Today we welcome back to Skeptiko biologist and author, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. Now, many of you know that Dr. Sheldrake has been nice enough to join me on Skeptiko several times in the past. He’s a real hero of mine-not just for his innovative and imaginative ideas and research, but for his clear, straightforward manner of talking about controversial science and those who oppose it. So I’m really delighted, Rupert, that you’ve joined me on Skeptiko today.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake: Yes, it’s a pleasure to be back.
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April 5th, 2011 alex
Pulitzer Prize winning author Deborah Blum discusses the challenges of science reporting and the paranormal taboo.
Skeptiko guest host Steve Volk welcomes Deborah Blum author of, Ghost Hunters – William James and the Hunt for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. During the interview Ms. Blum discusses her approach to covering the paranormal:
Steve Volk: This is one of the hardest things. Who do we believe? Who do we trust? I want to see somehow people in the middle pick this stuff up and look at it, but that’s a very, very rare occurrence.
Deborah Blum: I agree. Like I said, I’m a mainstream science journalist and daughter of a chemist. But what was fascinating to me when I started working on Ghost Hunters is that I’d go and give talks at different universities. I mean literally, I was at the University of Florida and they said, ‘Oh, let us tell you about our haunted laboratory.’ Or I was at a meeting with a bunch of animal researchers and I was sitting next to a very respected scientist from Stanford who immediately started telling me about the telepathic experiences she’d had with a friend of hers who is a scientist at Southwestern University. I thought to myself, ‘This whole world exists that really those of us in the skeptic/science community never see because people just don’t tell you about it.
Steve Volks’s website
Fringe-ology Trailer
Deborah Blum – Ghost Hunters
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Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris.
On this episode, as you just heard, there’s a new voice behind the interview so before we get started I thought we’d take a minute and introduce that voice, that being the voice of journalist and author, Steve Volk, who’s joining me right now.
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March 16th, 2011 alex
Two teachers of A Course in Miracles have differing views on the validity of channeled wisdom.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Gary Renard, author of, The Disappearance of the Universe, and Robert Perry, author of Signs: A New Approach to Coincidence, Synchronicity, Guidance, Life Purpose, and God’s Plan. During the interview Mr. Tsakiris and Gary Renard discuss verification of his work:
Alex Tsakiris: One of the points in your book where I really had to stop and go — wait a minute — is when you say that you had these two beings, “ascended masters” show up in your living room. Amazing, amazing. But not unique in that other people have claimed similar kinds of things. So I’m not willing to dismiss that out-of-hand, but Gary, they showed up 17 times… you don’t have a photograph? You don’t have videotape? You don’t have any kind of record of this?
Gary Renard: Well actually, they’re still showing up today. We’re going to do a fourth book together. They do show up and they said that for me to try to prove that they existed would be entirely missing the point. Yes, I could take pictures of them but what would prove, Alex, that those weren’t two actors in the pictures? If I recorded them, what would prove that those weren’t two actors speaking on the tape?
Gary Renard’s website
Robert Perry’s website
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Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris. On this episode, I’m going to tell you why I’m a skeptic.
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March 8th, 2011 alex
Co-host of Point of Inquiry, discusses how Skeptics approach psychic science.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with skeptical writer and blogger Dr. Karen Stollznow. During the interview Mr. Tsakiris and Dr. Stollznow discuss to role of science in skeptical investigations:
Alex Tsakiris: I do feel you, especially as an intellectual… and I know you’re a linguist and not trained as a parapsychologist… but you have somewhat of an obligation to build off of the original research or the best research that we have in the field. So, Gary Schwartz does medium research. Then, Julie Beischel picks up the gauntlet and is going forward in publishing work with mediums. So you can like that or you can not like it, but it really to me seems to get to the core issue which is does this kind of anomalous cognition between a “medium” and a deceased person really exist? So, why aren’t you familiar with the research?
Dr. Karen Stollznow: Well, once again, I think I’ve worked in so many different areas with so many different themes and topics within the paranormal and pseudo-science and often I’m writing an article that might be 1,000 words. I’m limited; I’ve got a word limit that I can’t go over so I need to condense anything that I write and if I’m going to a psychic fair and writing about my experiences there, I don’t need to necessarily reference the research of these people.
If I was writing about the research of these people then that would be a different matter, obviously. I’d need to keep my finger on the pulse of everything that is being done in that industry. But if I’m looking at individuals out there on the street who are practicing this and given again, it’s just one small area of what I study and research, then I’m not necessarily obliged to know what these people are doing within that context.
Dr. Karen Stollznow’s website
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Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris.
As you know, one of the things we like to do on Skeptiko is engage the skeptical community. If you go back through the past shows you’ll see that we’ve had on many, many of the leading skeptical figures, skeptical writers, publishers of skeptical magazines, hosts of skeptical shows, and certainly people who have viewpoints that are different from the guests that we normally have on-the proponents, the researchers, the thinkers about psi and parapsychology.
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207. Rupert Sheldrake Censored by TED Conference’s Anonymous Scientific Board [ 29:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
