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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November 16th, 2011 Alex
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
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
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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December 28th, 2010 alex
Author Robert McLuhan examines the psychology and hidden purpose behind the modern skeptical movement pioneered by James Randi.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with the author of, Randi’s Prize: What Sceptics Say About the Paranormal, Why They Are Wrong, and Why It Matters, Robert McLuhan. During the interview Mr. McLuhan discusses the possible motivation of skeptics, “…we complain an awful lot about people like James Randi who apparently subvert what seems to be a perfectly good data and rather deceptively distort perceptions… but I think we have to start thinking beyond that and start thinking about what it is exactly that these guys are trying to protect? Is it a rational thing they’re doing? Perhaps I can make the point more succinctly in terms of psychokinesis, just imagine the effects of science declaring psychokinesis is real. If you really think this through you see we are in a very changed environment if we say human minds can interact with matter. That raises all sorts of very difficult implications.”
McLuhan continues, “If we think some people can hex other people, or interfere with the brakes when they’re driving — it doesn’t even have to be true — but if science says something like that is feasible and possible, it might happen, then what sort of situation are we in? I suspect, and I’m not sure if this is a conscious idea skeptics have… but I think what I’m trying to say in a nutshell is we have to think about the wider implications of psi endorsed and accepted by a central authority like science.”
Rob McLuhan Blogs at Paranormalia
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Alex Tsakiris: Robert McLuhan is an Oxford-trained freelance journalist who’s authored Randy’s Prize: What Skeptics Say About the Paranormal, Why They’re Wrong, and Why it Matters. Robert, welcome to Skeptiko.
Robert McLuhan: Thanks, Alex; I’m glad to be here.
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December 20th, 2010 alex
Popular author Nick Bunick claims past-life regression provided remembrances of Jesus, but biblical scholars have doubts.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with bestselling author of, Time For Truth, Nick Bunick. During the interview Mr. Bunick discusses how a chance visit to a psychic revealed his past, ”Alex, I had no idea what he was talking about. Two thousand years ago I walked with the Master? I didn’t even have a religion. I’d never read the Gospels. I did have a relationship with God; it was a spiritual relationship. But what happened to me then over the next six or seven years, I had affirmation after affirmation from other sources that indeed, my spirit and soul had manifested itself 2,000 years ago in the person we know as the Apostle Paul.”
But, as Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris explains during the interview, biblical scholars take exception with some of Mr. Bunick’s claims, “I’ve tried to get a sense for biblical scholarship in general and it surprised how much we do know about the Bible. It is the most studied document in history. Millions of man-hours have been spent scouring the earth, finding every copy we can get our hands on. Scholars have gone through and scrutinized every word and every letter. I don’t think these scholars would agree with your account. Secular scholars like Bart Ehrman and Robert Price, as well as Christian Biblical scholars don’t find any support for your claim that the Bible used to support reincarnation.”
According to Bunick transcripts of past-life regression sessions, “gave information about the life of Paul never before known before, as well as the life of Jesus never before known. And also, it conflicted in many places with what is written in the New Testament.”
Nick Bunick
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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 I have to tell you that in preparing for this episode, in particular the introduction to this episode, I was really challenged. I was trying to figure out how to wrap my arms around what I wanted to say. And then I was going through the forum and I came across a video that one of our listeners had posted.
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December 7th, 2010 alex
Author Chris Carter discuses how Near Death Experience Science is misunderstood and misrepresented by mainstream science.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Chris Carter, author of, Science and the Near Death Experience. During the interview Carter explains how the acceptance of paradigm changing science like near death experience and telepathy wouldn’t change science as we know it, “…I do not agree with you that the acceptance-say of telepathy, or the acceptance of the near-death experience as a genuine separation of mind from body, I do not think that would challenge any aspect of science. I don’t think it would change the way that neuroscientists come in and do their jobs. I think that everything would be exactly the same. They’d continue looking for the same chemicals, the same neurotransmitters, the same areas of the brain that light up. They’d still be trying to work with split brain patients and patents who have damaged brains. I don’t think that anything would change. Except, yes, their conversations down at the pub on weekends would change. Absolutely. The philosophical conversations would change. But I really don’t think that it would impact anything in science simply because modern neuroscience is completely neutral as to whether the brain produces the mind or whether the brain acts as a receiver/transmitter for the mind.”
According to Chris Carter the real dividing point between mainstream science and the breakthroughs of near death experience science lie in conventional view that everything we experience can be reduced to just brain activity, “Materialists like to claim successes in modern science have been due to a Materialistic outlook. You’ve probably heard that before. But this is nonsense. The three men most responsible for the scientific revolution, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, were not Materialists. One of the reasons Galileo recanted his views is because he feared the Church would excommunicate him. Newton spent the last half of his life writing on theology. I mean, Materialism is an ancient philosophy that basically asserts that everything has a material cause. Therefore, the brain produces the mind. This dates back at least to Democritus in ancient Greece. It was thought to gain support from the physics of Isaac Newton, although Newton himself did not agree. Newton himself instead followed the Dualism of Renee Descartes. It was really the 18th century philosophers such as Diderot and Voltaire who spread the doctrines of Materialism and Mechanism. They did this in order to combat the religious fundamentalism and superstition, and the persecution that were common in their time.”
Chris Carter
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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.
Before we get to today’s interview with Chris Carter, I want to take a minute and tell you about something that happened to me this week. One of the benefits of doing Skeptiko and having it achieve the little bit of success that it has is that I now get books sent to me on a regular basis. Little surprises in the mail. A new book. A new movie to review.
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