http://www.skeptiko.com Explore controversial science with leading researchers and their critics... the leading source for intelligent skeptic-versus-believer debate... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:57:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 en hourly 1 ©Alex Tsakiris http://www.skeptiko.com/wp-feed.php alex@skeptiko.com (Alex Tsakiris) alex@skeptiko.com(Alex Tsakiris) Science & Spirituality 1440 ESP, Psychokinesis, Mental Healing, psychic medium, Near Death Experiences, Reincarnation Explore controversial science with leading researchers and their critics... the leading source for intelligent skeptic-versus-believer debate. Explore controversial science with leading researchers and their critics. Skeptiko.com has become the leading source for intelligent skeptic-versus-believer debate with guests like: Dr. Rupert Sheldrake - Dr. Michael Shermer - Dr. Dean Radin - James Randi - Dr. Peter Fenwick - Dr. Richard Wiseman - Dr. Raymond Moody - Dr. Marilyn Schlitz - Dr. Steven Novella - Dr. Alan Wallace - Stephan A. Schwartz - Dr. Edward Kelly - Dr. Emily Kelly - Dr. Charles Tart - Dr. Julie Beischel - Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris - Dr. Carol Tavris - Dr. Michael Brooks - Dr. Susan Blackmore - Dr. James Alcock - D.J. Grothe - Ben Radford Alex Tsakiris Alex Tsakiris alex@skeptiko.com No no http://www.skeptiko.com/gfx/itunes144.jpg http://www.skeptiko.com 144 144 http://www.skeptiko.com/112-gary-habermas-skeptical-of-near-death-experience-spirituality/ http://www.skeptiko.com/112-gary-habermas-skeptical-of-near-death-experience-spirituality/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:38:57 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=890 http://www.skeptiko.com/112-gary-habermas-skeptical-of-near-death-experience-spirituality/feed/ 74:42 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 ... 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, ldquo;hellip; 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 worldhellip; 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.rdquo; Habermas also asserts that while Christian claims of the supernatural resurrection of Jesus are well established, other supernatural claims may not be, ldquo;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 thesismdash;now this is not my thesismdash;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.rdquo; Dr. Gary Habermas Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-112-gary-habermas.mp3] Download MP3 (75:00 min.) Read it: 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. Alex Tsakiris: I am, too. And I really wanted to jump right into this and pick up on the discussion that we really started last week because it was so interesting and it's a topic that I think you're not as well known for but something you've researched quite a bit and bring some very unique and refreshing perspectives on. And that's near-death experience. Now this is something we've looked at quite a bit on this show. We've interviewed near-death experience researchers like Raymond Moody, Dr. Peter Fenwick, Dr. Penny Sartori. We've also spoken with near-death experiencer, one of whom is also a researcher, Dr. Yvonne Cason. So in our audience you're going to find people with, like myself, a great deal of interest in this and some familiarity with it. So with that as a launching point in our conversation I thought we might start with can you tell us a little bit about how you became interested in NDEs and then we can lead into what you discovered once you looked into it. Dr. Gary Habermas: Well, I've been in t... Uncategorized Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/parapsychology-researcher-stephen-braude/ http://www.skeptiko.com/parapsychology-researcher-stephen-braude/#comments Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:32:54 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=882 http://www.skeptiko.com/parapsychology-researcher-stephen-braude/feed/ 30:46 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, ... 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 itrsquo;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, ldquo;hellip; there was all this other stuff that had been happening outside the lab from seacute;ances 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 awayhellip; I discovered that the evidence was much cleaner than people made it out to be.rdquo; Braude continues, ldquo;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.rdquo; Dr. Stephen Braude Adam Curry at Psyleron, a company that explores the connection between the mind and the physical world. Update from Dr. Sam Parnia Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-111-stephen-braude.mp3] Download MP3 (31:00 min.) Read it: Adam Curry: So Steve, can you give me a little capsule about who you are? Dr. Steven Braude: I'm a Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Presumably what you want to know is how I got involved in this grubby psi research. The short story is that I started off in philosophy, doing work in temporal logic and the philosophy of time, but I'd had a remarkable experience in graduate school watching my own table tilt in the air during an informal seacute;ance, which I conveniently put on the back burner and put out of mind until I got a job and got tenure. So I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid. And I knew that some well-known philosophers had taken parapsychological research seriously and I knew that if I was an honest academic I needed to come to terms with this and come up with something or other to say about this remarkable experience I'd had. So I read what these philosophers had to say and decided there was, in fact, something worth sinking my teeth into. Then I decided if I was going to do a responsible job of that, I needed to become an insider in the community of academics and scientists who are looking carefully at the evidence. I've done that. And I also decided initially that if I was going to write about this stuff, I needed first to confront the experimental evidence on the assumption that if there was some parapsychological evidence that was going to be clean and capable of convincing the scientific community of the reality of psychic functioning that it could only be the experimental evidence. So I did crank out a book on that topic. But I also knew at the same time that there was all this other stuff that had been happening outside the lab from seacute;ances and anecdotal reports and I figured again, 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 psychokinesis, and physical mediumship in particular. That was a momentous event because the evidence blew me... parapsychology,,psi,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/christian-atheist-dr-robert-price/ http://www.skeptiko.com/christian-atheist-dr-robert-price/#comments Tue, 03 Aug 2010 17:26:13 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=873 http://www.skeptiko.com/christian-atheist-dr-robert-price/feed/ 90:32 Interview with Dr. Robert Price reveals why biblical scholar, and former Baptist minister, turnednbsp; away from Christianity. With battle lines in the culture war over science ... Interview with Dr. Robert Price reveals why biblical scholar, and former Baptist minister, turnednbsp; 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 doesnrsquo;t take a stand on the possibility that miracles and paranormal events like those described in the Bible can happen, hersquo;s firmly against the position most Christian theologians take, ldquo;they argue again and again that if miracles are possible theoretically, then legends are impossible, which doesn't followhellip; 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.rdquo; While Price is skeptical of traditional Christian theology he remains opens good arguments, ldquo;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 momenthellip; 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.rdquo; Dr. Robert Price Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-110-robert-price.mp3] Download MP3 (90:00 min.) 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. Now, I actually did this interview with Bob many months ago, but I just really, really liked it so much that I was holding on to it because I thought I'd do something else with it-actually launch another website that I want to get into, but that's kind of another story. Skeptiko is still my main focus. So here is a very interesting interview with a guy who I greatly admire for, as that opening clip said, his "fairness in argument"; someone who's willing to go against not only the trends of society in general which is still pretty much dominated by Christianity in the West, but also willing to go against his training. So imagine going through two Ph.D. programs, going through seminary, being an evangelical Christian and then through your studies, through knowledge, through reason, and then coming to realize that what you're learning doesn't really stack up, and having the courage to change course and take a very unpopular position. Now, I'm not an atheist and as you'll hear in this dialogue, Bob and I don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but my respect for his openness and his fairness in argument makes him one of my very favorite guests on Skeptiko. It's a rather long dialogue because I was just enjoying it so much I didn't want to let him get off the phone. So I hope you can stick around for the whole thing. There are a lot of good nuggets in there. Here's my interview with Dr. Robert Price: ... OBE,,atheism,,telepathy Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/sam-parnia-aware-doomed-to-fai/ http://www.skeptiko.com/sam-parnia-aware-doomed-to-fai/#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:22:49 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=864 http://www.skeptiko.com/sam-parnia-aware-doomed-to-fai/feed/ 19:04 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 ... 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, ldquo;trick of the mindrdquo;. Dr. Parniarsquo;s group is using visual targets placed near the ceiling of the patientrsquo;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, ldquo;Irsquo;ve spoken with a lot of near death experience researchers. Theyrsquo;re telling me Parniarsquo;s methods go against what wersquo;ve learned about NDEsrdquo;. Tsakiris continued, ldquo;near death experiencers have been know to bring back some remarkable, verifiable information about what happens after clinical death, but therersquo;s little to suggest they will see and remember Dr. Parnia targets.rdquo; Tsakiris also questions whether Dr. Parniarsquo;s skepticism about near death experiences has led him to create an experiment thatrsquo;s designed to fail, ldquo;itrsquo;s a subtle thing, Dr. Parnia public statements about his skepticism of the near death experience doesnrsquo;t mean hersquo;s intentionally trying to debunk the survival of consciousness hypothesishellip; but it does make you wonder.rdquo; Watch Dr. Parnia's video lecture Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-109-sam-parnia1.mp3] Download MP3 (17:00 min.) Read it: 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. So let me explain a little bit about what's going on. Dr. Parnia, as many of you are aware, is a well-known near-death experience researcher, a guy who splits his time between the UK and New York's Cornell University, where he's a Fellow there in pulmonary care. What Dr. Parnia is really best known for is the Aware Study, a very novel, interesting way of looking at near-death experiences that's received quite a bit of media buzz, primarily because of the way the experiment is done. What Dr. Parnia and his group have devised is a way of putting targets-that is, pictures inside the room of someone who may experience cardiac arrest. They may experience clinical death. Up above their bed, very close to the ceiling, is a target that they can't see unless they're way up in the ceiling looking down, okay? So the idea is that near-death experiencers routinely report that they're out of their body, that they're having this out-of-body experience and Dr. Parnia and his group said, "Hey, let's devise an experiment so objectively see whether they can report information that only they could see." In other words, when somebody comes into the hospital, let's put them in a room. If they have cardiac arrest, let's go and talk to them and see if they saw our target that was placed above their bed that only they could see. If a lot of them see it, then this survival of consciousness thing must be real. If they don't see it, then it's not. So that's the Aware Study, and it's ge... near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/christian-theologian-claims-near-death-experience-not-devine/ http://www.skeptiko.com/christian-theologian-claims-near-death-experience-not-devine/#comments Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:31:14 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=855 http://www.skeptiko.com/christian-theologian-claims-near-death-experience-not-devine/feed/ 37:03 Oxford Professor of Medicine, and theologian, Michael Marsh finds much he doesnrsquo;t like about near-death experience claims of spirit communication. Many within the mainstream medical community ... Oxford Professor of Medicine, and theologian, Michael Marsh finds much he doesnrsquo;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.nbsp; 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, ldquo;no!rdquo; 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 havehellip; 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.rdquo; Read Dr. Marsh's book Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-108-michael-marsh.mp3] Download MP3 (37:00 min.) Read it: 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? Dr. Marsh, thank you for joining me today on Skeptiko. Dr. Michael Marsh: My pleasure. Alex Tsakiris: Well, you know, I was fascinated by the book. I have to thank one of our listeners who pointed it out to me. Over the last few months we've done quite a few interviews with near-death experience researchers and probably an equal number of interviews with skeptics, people who've either come at it from a skeptical position without doing a lot of research or maybe have done a little bit of research and wound up in a skeptical position. So I really find this debate fascinating. One aspect of the debate that I've alluded to several times on the show but have never delved into very much are the theological objections or the theological skeptics of near-death experience. So with that as a little bit of an introduction in some of the ways that you're coming at this subject, tell us a little bit about your book and your perspective on this area of science. Dr. Michael Marsh: Okay. Well, the rationale for the book derived from Ring's book of 1980 and it's on page 216, Life At Death, that's his book. And there was a challenge in that he was protesting against any kind of young upstart and neuroscientist attempting to explain the entire complex of phenomena by a scientific approach. And Ring, I think to my mind, tried to argue that the entire complex of the experience and for Ring, the experience consists of a sequence, an out-of-body experience, paranormal knowledge, a tunnel, light, voices, and a presence, which may be a divine presence or of a deceased relative or friend, beautiful vistas, a life review for the subject, and a judgment. And he was saying it would be impossible to explain that as a consequence of neurally-triggered events. Now I think that Ring is hopelessly wrong on that and Moody earlier in the same ... OBE,,near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/massimo-pigliucci-on-how-to-tell-science-from-bunk/ http://www.skeptiko.com/massimo-pigliucci-on-how-to-tell-science-from-bunk/#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:34:50 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=847 http://www.skeptiko.com/massimo-pigliucci-on-how-to-tell-science-from-bunk/feed/ 56:59 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 sciencehellip; at ... 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 sciencehellip; 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." Read Dr. Bruce Greyson's review of near-death expereince research (2007) Read Dr. Jeffrey Long's book, Evidence of the Afterlife Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-107-Massimo-Pigliucci.mp3] Download MP3 (57:00 min.) Read it: 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 ofnbsp; 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. So while I was reading your book, Nonsense on Stilts, I kept coming back to a quote, a comment from a recent guest of ours, Dr. Peter Bancel who's an experimental physicist in France and is a collaborator on the Global Consciousness Project. So what I'd like to do to kick things off, if this is okay, is I'd like to play you this clip from Dr. Bancel, which I think will really frame up this discussion, and then get your reaction, if that's okay. Dr. Massimo Pigliucci: Sounds good. "The skeptical approach is interesting, but it's-to my mind it's not science. Skeptics are basically concerned that somebody is wrong in their thinking and that thinking should be corrected. And so skeptics are worried about sort of convincing people that they're wrong, or something like that. So it has to do with a sort of a social question. I mean, science is something else. Science is-to my mind it doesn't really even take a skeptical stance. It's just trying to ask the best questions that you can and then devise the best experiments to add... Uncategorized Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/psychic-medium-experiment-not-enough-for-skeptics/ http://www.skeptiko.com/psychic-medium-experiment-not-enough-for-skeptics/#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:06:33 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=844 http://www.skeptiko.com/psychic-medium-experiment-not-enough-for-skeptics/feed/ 73:33 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 ... 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 thatrsquo;s where the lines of debate are usually drawnhellip; 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 Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-106-rightous-indignation.mp3] Download MP3 (80:32 min.) 106 psychic,medium,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-research-debate-with-steven-novella/ http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-research-debate-with-steven-novella/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 14:47:38 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=836 http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-research-debate-with-steven-novella/feed/ 80:08 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. ... 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 literaturehellip; 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 morehellip;" Novella and Tsakiris also discuss anesthesia awareness as a possible explanation for near-death experience accounts, " Any anesthesiologist will tell youhellip; that patients can wake up during anesthesiahellip; that is a perfectly plausible explanation for those cases.", Novella stated. Tsakiris replied, "It doesn't hold uphellip; first of all its rarehellip; the other thing is it has all sort of symptoms associated with it that don't show up in any of these cases. Read Dr. Susan Blackmore's review of near-death epxerience research (1996) Read Dr. Bruce Greyson's review of near-death expereince research (2007) Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-105-steven-novella.mp3] Download MP3 (80:32 min.) Read it: 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. Now as many of you know, on the last episode of Skeptiko we reviewed Dr. Novella's comments regarding this research, kind of as a prep to get the ball rolling and tee up some issues in advance of this interview. I think, as you'll hear, it did stir up a lot to talk about. It's a pretty dense interview. I had originally planned to publish it without any comments, but like I said, the interview's quite dense and it has a lot of references to issues for follow-up. Steve would say something or reference a bit of research and I'd say, "Great. I'll follow that up, and we'll just kind of leave that issue." Well, since the interview, I've started to do that follow-up and I really want to share some of my findings with you, because as is so often the case here on Skeptiko, the follow-up, the pulling apart, the digging through what is said, is often just as interesting or sometimes even more interesting than the interview itself. So I've included some of those findings at the end of this interview. But just to give you a flavor for what I mean, I want to share with you one bit of follow-up I've done regarding the NDE CO2 study that we've talked so much about in the last few episodes. We've talked about it not so much because of the significance of the research, but because of the way it was covered and how that reveals so much about the state of near-death experience science. Anyway, during the last episode of Skeptiko, I pointed out that Steve had made some errors in his analysis of the study. Now in the interview you're about to hear, you'll hear Steve say that I was wrong and I had misread the study. And then I say no, he was wrong. And I can now report to you that we were both right. And that we were both wrong. Let me break it down a little bit. Big picture: I was right to point out that he reported on a study that concluded the opposite of what he said. The study concludes it is not thought possible to explain NDEs only in terms of physiological processes. So their conclusion is m... near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/steven-novella-dead-wrong-on-near-death-experience-research/ http://www.skeptiko.com/steven-novella-dead-wrong-on-near-death-experience-research/#comments Thu, 13 May 2010 13:53:46 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=817 http://www.skeptiko.com/steven-novella-dead-wrong-on-near-death-experience-research/feed/ 24:32 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 ... 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.nbsp; The shows examine whether near-death experiences are best explained by conventional medical science.nbsp; 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.nbsp;nbsp; 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. Read Keith Wood's analysis of Steve's comments Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-104-steven-novella.mp3] Download MP3 (24:32 min.) Read it: 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. So here's what I thought I'd do: I'm going to play some of the clips from Steve's recent show and offer my critique - and I have a lot of them - and then Steve has agreed to come back on after that and we'll have a dialogue about his views on this topic as opposed to the views that I've developed after talking to all the guests who you've heard from on this show. So Dr. Novella is someone who I genuinely respect. He's a smart guy, very articulate. His show is extremely popular, as well it should be. But all that brain power made it even harder to accept and understand this recent broadcast of Steve's where he touched on so many of the topics that are commonly brought up in near-death experience and even the topic of this recent study that we've been talking so much about with the CO2 and the blood thing. We'll get into that. But I think as we get into this, you're going to see all the elements that we've been talking about. How a materialistic view can blind people in terms of really looking at the data. So with that, let's jump into what Steve had to say during his April 17, 2010 broadcast of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Here goes the first clip: "Skeptical neuroscientists like myself and others point out that these experiences are remarkably similar to what happens to the brain when it is deprived of oxygen. And in fact, we could induce all the components of that experience, floating outside one's body for example, with either medications - now we can do it by using transcranial magnetic stimulation to turn off parts of the brain. I've had patients who've had that experience while having a seizure. So a lot of evidence sort of triangulating on the fact that this is probably a brain experience, not any kind of dualist... near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-research-do-science-journalists-get-it-wrong/ http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-research-do-science-journalists-get-it-wrong/#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 15:29:29 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=808 http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-research-do-science-journalists-get-it-wrong/feed/ 34:15 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 ... 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 codehellip; 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 perspectivehellip; 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 interestinghellip; 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 worldhellip;" Jeff Wise's Blog Dr. Joni Johnston -- The Human Equation Dr. Bruce Greyson's email regarding CO2/NDE study Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-103-jeff-wise.mp3] Download MP3 (34:15 min.) Read it: 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. Jeff, thank you for joining me today on Skeptiko. Jeff Wise: My pleasure. Alex Tsakiris: Your book sounds fascinating, and I hope we have a chance to chat about it a little bit. I'm sure we will. But as you know, the main reason I wanted to have you on today is to discuss a recent blog post of yours on the Psychology Today website, where I have to mention my wife blogs, Joanie Johnston, so I was cruising through there and ran across it. Anyway, your post of April 16th was on some near-death experience research that has received a remarkable amount of press coverage, and it has to do with this group of Slovenian doctors who found a correlation between the levels of Co2 in the blood of certain near-death experiencers and the likelihood that they would report a near-death experience. nbsp;So I thought we'd talk a little bit about that, and in particular the how and why you reported on this story, and how the media deals with near-death experience. Here's where I thought we'd start. Why don't I start with a quote from your blog post? Again, this is on April 16th. You write: "To those of a certain mindset, near-death experiences are supernatural phenomena, an early glimpse of the afterlife. To those of a more materialistic persuasion, these sensations must be generated by some common brain architecture that gets activated under intense stress. As it happens, this lay review has just received some intriguing scientific backing in the form of a paper in the latest issue of The Journal of Critical Care. The key component of NDES, it appears, is carbon dioxide in the blood. Yes, the same thing that makes Cokes fizzy also makes your life flash in front of your eyes." I love the little twist at the end, there. Tell us a little bit about how you approached this story and how you found this research... near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/peter-bancel-global-consciousness-project/ http://www.skeptiko.com/peter-bancel-global-consciousness-project/#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:41:55 +0000 admin http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=801 http://www.skeptiko.com/peter-bancel-global-consciousness-project/feed/ 52:28 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 ... 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.nbsp; That may change.nbsp; 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." Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-102-peter-bancel.mp3] Download MP3 (50:20 min.) Read it: Alex Tsakiris:nbsp;nbsp; 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. Tamas Borbely:nbsp; Hello, Alex. Alex Tsakiris:nbsp;nbsp; Thanks so much for joining me. And as I was just about to say in the chat we were having before this conversation, when we had an email exchange, you pointed out much of the research here hasn't begun. I said I think that's okay because what I really thought we'd do today is really stake out the territory, if you will, and lay the foundation for the work that hopefully will be done between you and Roger Nelson's group on the Global Consciousness Project. So with all that, tell us a little bit about your background and about what you're doing in investigating global consciousness. Tamas Borbely:nbsp; Okay. I have a degree in psychology and from the outset I was interested in the unconscious biases that shape human thinking and behavior. At the outset I wanted to go into occupational psychology and have a look at how those biases affect work efficiency. But then during the social and cumulative psychology courses, I realized that these are much more wide-spread than I originally thought. So now I'm mostly interested in those commissions that are not based on external factors - thoughts, beliefs that are not based on empirical evidence but stem from somewhere else. Obviously, belief in the paranormal is of great relevance to me and of great interest. You ment... Global,Consciousness,Project,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-skeptics-running-out-of-excuses/ http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-skeptics-running-out-of-excuses/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:30:45 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=795 http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-skeptics-running-out-of-excuses/feed/ 33:20 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 ... 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.nbsp; Our mind is our brain and when we die we die they claim.nbsp; 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.nbsp; 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.nbsp; 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. Read Kieth Wood's critique of Dr. Woerlee's claims Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-101-NDE-excuses2.mp3] Download MP3 (33:20 min.) Read it: 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. Alex Tsakiris: It's good to have you back. As I mentioned during our last visit, I think it's good and it's really useful to have this give-and-take, back-and-forth over a couple of sessions because it really takes a couple of rounds to dialogue on these issues properly. Here's where I'd like to start today. As many Skeptiko listeners will know, of course, we've had this series of discussions on near-death experiences. We've talked to a number of NDE researchers as well as qualified skeptics like yourself. The last time around, you presented the evidence for your claims regarding the possibility that near-death experiences can be explained by normal processes that are understood by physicians like yourself. Since then, we've heard from Dr. Jeffrey Long, and we've also heard from some other folks who posted on the website. They have some push-backs and doubts about your claims. The principle claim that you make against the NDE researchers is that they've ignored the fact that these patients who have this horrendous brush with death, that they're receiving CPR. They're receiving chest compressions. Someone's coming around and pounding on their chest and that's pumping blood into their brain and this flow of blood is causing them to regain consciousness. Kind of a NDE by CPR theory, if you will. And here's the quote from your actual website. You say, "And then Jeffrey Long proceeds to make the same unbelievable assumption, as just about every other doctor publishing studies on near-death experience during cardiac arrest. He forgets to tell us that all those who survived cardiac arrest underwent cardiac massage." So that's where I really want to start digging into that s... near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/garret-moddel-brings-psi-to-colorado/ http://www.skeptiko.com/garret-moddel-brings-psi-to-colorado/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:55:15 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=745 http://www.skeptiko.com/garret-moddel-brings-psi-to-colorado/feed/ 43:30 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 ... 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. nbsp;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. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-100-garret-moddel.mp3] Download MP3 (43:30 min.) Read it: 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. Wow, that's pretty impressive. So it's with great pleasure that I welcome Garret Moddel to Skeptiko. Dr. Garret Moddel: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Alex Tsakiris: It's certainly a pleasure to talk to you. I was really amazed when I dug into your work. I guess the first thing that popped out at me - and we chatted a little bit about this in the email exchange we had - is that hey, you look like such a mainstream guy there at the University of Colorado. What are you doing fooling around with psi stuff? Dr. Garret Moddel: Fortunately, I have tenure. [laughs] It's essential for what I'm doing. So I spent most of my career doing essentially quantum engineering, which is engineering little devices based upon quantum mechanical principles. And you're right, it is mainstream. 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 ... psi Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/jeffrey_long_takes_on_critics_of_evidence_of_the_afterlife/ http://www.skeptiko.com/jeffrey_long_takes_on_critics_of_evidence_of_the_afterlife/#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:49:46 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=649 http://www.skeptiko.com/jeffrey_long_takes_on_critics_of_evidence_of_the_afterlife/feed/ 43:03 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 ... 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.nbsp; 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.nbsp; 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.nbsp; 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. From Dr. Long's website:nbsp;Does Near-Death Experience (NDE) Evidence Prove an Afterlife? Consider the Evidence, and Determine YOUR Answer! Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-99-jeffrey-long-responds.mp3] Download MP3 (43:03 min.) Read it: 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. Dr. Long, welcome back to... near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-skeptic-gm-woerlee/ http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-skeptic-gm-woerlee/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:11:16 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=642 http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-skeptic-gm-woerlee/feed/ 89:37 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. ... 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.nbsp; 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 thenbsp;existencenbsp;of an afterlife as outlined in Dr. Jeffrey Long's book.nbsp; Dr. Long has agreed to issues a response during a future episode of Skeptiko. Read Dr. Woerlee's critique Evidence of the Afterlife Read a detailed response from Kieth Wood, a Skepitko listener Read/Listen to Dr. Long's response Get a free download of Dr. Woerlee's book: The Unholy Legacy of Abraham Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-98-woerlee.mp3] Download MP3 (89:37 min.) Read it: 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. Dr. Woerlee, welcome to Skeptiko. Dr. G.M. Woerlee: Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here. I would like to make one other point and that is that I've also written another book and that is called, The Unholy Legacy of Abraham, which uses a biology of near-death experiences and explains it rather more fully. Alex Tsakiris: We might also point out that that second book that you mentioned is available as a free download to anyone. I think that's correct, right? Dr. G.M. Woerlee: That's correct. Alex Tsakiris:nbsp;nbsp; We'll have a link to that in the Skeptiko show notes as well as a link to the article that we're going to talk mostly about today. That's this critique that you offered to Dr. Jeffrey Long's book, Evidence of an Afterlife. That's what we're going to focus the main part of our discussion about today and you've really written quite an extensive critique of that. I thought it would be a great opportunity to have you on and get your perspective. We have a lot of information I'd like to try and cover today between Dr. Long's book and your critique. There's quite a lot to sort through. Let me start by attempting to give a little bit of a big picture summary and you can see if you think this is accurate or not. Both you and Dr. Long have looked at the near-death experience phenomena in some depth and Dr. Long thinks that his research and the research of other folks in the field is highly suggestive that consciousness somehow, in some way, survives death. In other words, he finds reason to believe these near-death experiencers who think they've experienced what we all call an afterlife. Then you, on the other hand, believe that there's a more physiological explanation for what's going on and you mainly focus on the hypothesis that near-death experience... near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/rupert-sheldrake-and-richard-wiseman-clash/ http://www.skeptiko.com/rupert-sheldrake-and-richard-wiseman-clash/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:39:39 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=622 http://www.skeptiko.com/rupert-sheldrake-and-richard-wiseman-clash/feed/ 75:48 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 ... 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.nbsp; He went to great lengths explaining why skeptics and psi proponents should team-up on experiments of telepathy and other psi phenomena.nbsp; 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,nbsp; "I contacted three very prominent psi researchers and convinced them to take Wiseman up on his offer.nbsp; They agree, but Wiseman would not.nbsp; He made various demands aimed at agitating the other researchers, and even balked at a mere one-hour initial dialog.nbsp; 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.nbsp; 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.nbsp; 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 ... parapsychology,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/renee-scheltema-something-unknown/ http://www.skeptiko.com/renee-scheltema-something-unknown/#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:41:28 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=617 http://www.skeptiko.com/renee-scheltema-something-unknown/feed/ 29:55 Reneacute;e Scheltema discusses her documentary, Something Unknown Is Doing We Donrsquo;t Know What. nbsp;Motivated to explain hernbsp;curious psychic experiences, documentary filmmaker Reneacute;e Scheltema decided to ... Reneacute;e Scheltema discusses her documentary, Something Unknown Is Doing We Donrsquo;t Know What. nbsp;Motivated to explain hernbsp;curious psychic experiences, documentary filmmaker Reneacute;e 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. Jacob of mind-energy.net has also published an nbsp;interview with Reneacute;e Scheltema. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/Skeptiko-96-Renee-Scheltema.mp3] Download MP3 (29:55 min.) parapsychology,,psi Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/jref-million-dollar-challenge-d-j-grothe/ http://www.skeptiko.com/jref-million-dollar-challenge-d-j-grothe/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:04:03 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=611 http://www.skeptiko.com/jref-million-dollar-challenge-d-j-grothe/feed/ 95:47 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'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. nbsp;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." Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-95-dj-grothe.mp3] Download MP3 (95:47 min.) Read it: 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. Now you notice that I use the word, "formerly" because D.J. has taken a new job. He's now the President of the James Randi Educational Foundation which many of you know as JREF. It's in that role that we welcome today D.J. Grothe. Welcome back to Skeptiko. D.J. Grothe: Well, thank you, Alex. It's a pleasure to be back on the show. I always enjoy our conversations. Alex Tsakiris: Good. As I just mentioned, D.J., you're the newly minted President of JREF. Actually, it's been a couple of months now, but for folks who don't know too much about JREF, let me read to you the description I got from the JREF Web site. I found it refreshingly straightforward and concise. Here it is":nbsp; A non-profit foundation headed by a professional magician. Exposes psychics, faith healers and such." Perhaps you want to flesh that out a little bit and tell folks what JREF is. D.J. Grothe: The big answer is it's an educational non-profit founded by James Randi, who is this public intellectual and magician, as you mentioned. Really, the leading figure in the history of organized skepticism or grass roots skepticism. You know, the people who get their righteous indignation up when there are hucksters or possibly frauds or charlatans out there making claims that aren't substantiated and that can do harm to believers. Randi started all of this and the James Randi Educational Foundation is his educational non-profit. Our goal is not just to expose frauds, though. It should be said we're an educational non-profit committed to advancing critical thinking in general and also specifically about the supernatural, about the paranormal, about pseudo-science claims. It should be said that not all of those claims will involve frauds or charlatans. Sometimes it's just pseudo-science or self-deceived folks, so I want to offer that clarification. Alex Tsakiris: Let me jump right into this because you're t... skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/94-jeffrey-long-near-death-experience-research/ http://www.skeptiko.com/94-jeffrey-long-near-death-experience-research/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:04:12 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=561 http://www.skeptiko.com/94-jeffrey-long-near-death-experience-research/feed/ 39:09 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 ... 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 nbsp;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. From D... Skeptiko,,Uncategorized,,near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/kevin-nelson-skeptical-of-near-death-experience-accounts/ http://www.skeptiko.com/kevin-nelson-skeptical-of-near-death-experience-accounts/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:57:39 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=553 http://www.skeptiko.com/kevin-nelson-skeptical-of-near-death-experience-accounts/feed/ 35:30 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 ... 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?nbsp; 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.nbsp; 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. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-93-kevin-nelson.mp3] Download MP3 (13:15 min.) Read it: 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." I think that's a pretty good summary of what he's saying, although you'll hear him really back off from any kind of reference to dream or dream-like, which I don't exactly know why he was so unwilling to go there. We had quite an exchange, if you will. It got a little testy at times. But hey, I really appreciate the guy coming on the show and engaging in the dialogue. I think that's awesome to be able to have this kind of sometimes uncomfortable dialogue about things we disagree with. He was certainly willing to engage. I think you'll enjoy it. Here's Dr. Kevin Nelson from the University of Kentucky, a near-death experience skeptic. Alex Tsakiris: We're joined today by Dr. Kevin Nelson, Professor of Neurology at the University of Kentucky, where he's also a Director of Medical Affairs and Assistant Dean of Clinical Affairs. Dr. Nelson, thanks so much for joining us today on Skeptiko. Dr. Kevin Nelson: My pleasure. Alex Tsakiris: Well, you know the title from CNN that caught my attention was, "Dr. Says Near-Death Experiences Are in the Mind." Since that doctor they're referring to is you, I thought we would try and connect ... Skeptiko,,near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/92-dr-rupert-sheldrake%e2%80%99s-telephone-telepathy-project-seeks-intern/ http://www.skeptiko.com/92-dr-rupert-sheldrake%e2%80%99s-telephone-telepathy-project-seeks-intern/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:38:12 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=547 http://www.skeptiko.com/92-dr-rupert-sheldrake%e2%80%99s-telephone-telepathy-project-seeks-intern/feed/ 5:02 Biologist, and noted telepathy researcher, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake is developing an automated telephone telepathy system and is looking for qualified interns to help. Despite the ever ... Biologist, and noted telepathy researcher, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake is developing an automated telephone telepathy system and is looking for qualified interns to help. Despite the ever increasing pace of modern life many of us experience brief glimpses of a reality just beyond our grasp.nbsp; One such example is the experience of hearing the phone ring and having an unexplainable sense of knowing who is calling.nbsp; The phenomenon has been called telephone telepathy by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. Sheldrake, a former Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge and current director of the Perrott-Warrick project, has developed a automated system for testing the telephone telepathy phenomenon in the U.K. "The experiments we've run in Britain have yielded impressive results, but the new telephone telepathy system we're developing will allow us to take these tests to the next level and further investigate this interesting phenomenon throughout the U.S. and Canada." Sheldrake continued, "We're in need of talented people with technical and project management experience who can assist in bringing this web-based system to completion.nbsp; It's a chance for someone to join a research project that has a chance to fundamentally change long held scientific beliefs about our connection to one and other... it's very exciting." For information on the internship opportunities with Dr. Sheldrake's telephone telepathy project please email intern@telepathyexperiment.com. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-92-sheldrake-seeks-intern.mp3] Download MP3 (13:15 min.) Read it: 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 have another brief update for you. If you recall, on the last episode of Skeptiko, we talked a little bit about the Global Consciousness Project and how we've gotten involved with that a little bit. One of the other projects that regular listeners will know that we've been involved with for a long time is some of the research of Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. Now as many of you know, Dr. Sheldrake is a long-time friend of the Skeptiko show and was actually one of our first guests on Skeptiko and has been on a couple times since. His research has been fascinating to me and I have always admired his clear thinking, his forthrightness and his willingness to, I guess, buck the critics. He's certainly taken his share of criticism for really nothing else than just expressing unconventional ideas and as you know, that's not the way science is supposed to work. So a couple years ago, I got involved with Dr. Sheldrake and tried to help with the Dogs That Know experiment. I've updated you all a couple times on that; had some very limited success in finding dogs; kept after it for a long, long time. This may be the final update on this because I've kind of run into a brick wall. I've just had a very, very hard time making that experiment work. I put the word out a number of ways and I found people that were quite confident that their dog did this. They had some very good anecdotal evidence of it, but I was never able to quite close the loop in terms of getting people to follow through with the experiment, videotape their dog, record the times and log the times that they're coming home with a cell phone, and just the whole procedure. I'm really surprised. It doesn't seem like that hard of an experiment, but after banging my head against the wall for a pretty long time with a bunch of people, and sending laptops here and there all around the country to try and get people to do it, it just became more effort than it was worth. I have to report that I have some here and there, scattered evidence of it, but I don't have that stellar dog that I would like to put forward as the dog we can go into testing with and prove the phenomena once and for all. So I definite... Skeptiko,,skeptic,v.,believer,,telepathy Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/91-global-consciousness-project-welcomes-collaboration-with-skeptics/ http://www.skeptiko.com/91-global-consciousness-project-welcomes-collaboration-with-skeptics/#comments Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:22:35 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=531 http://www.skeptiko.com/91-global-consciousness-project-welcomes-collaboration-with-skeptics/feed/ 13:15 When it comes to claims of a global consciousness linking us all to tragedies like the earthquake in Haiti, or the terrorist attacks ofnbsp; 9/11, ... When it comes to claims of a global consciousness linking us all to tragedies like the earthquake in Haiti, or the terrorist attacks ofnbsp; 9/11, there are many skeptics. While the research results of the 12 year old Global Consciousness Project have withstood serious skeptical examination from researchers who've dug into the millions of test results collected on the publicly available website, skepticism persists. But according to Alex Tsakiris, host of the Skpetiko science podcast, dialog between controversial science researchers and their doubters is a good for science, "it's easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to unconventional science - that's what makes it unconventional - but skeptics need to look deeper... critical thinking demands we're sometimes critical of our own cherished beliefs." Tsakiris continued: "We've helpednbsp;initiatenbsp;a collaboration on the Globalnbsp;Consciousnessnbsp;Research Project work of Dr. Roger Nelson, and a skeptical researcher from the University of London named Dr. Chris French. nbsp;That's a step in the right direction. nbsp;Many skeptics bemoan the lack of interest in science education, but when presented with the chance to explore topics like the Global Consciousness Project, that clearly have great fascination to the public, they shy away.nbsp; This is unfortunate. Science is a method, it's not a position.nbsp; There are no unscientific topics, just unscientific methods." Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-91-global-consciousness-project.mp3] Download MP3 (13:15 min.) Read it: 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 wanted to do a little bit of an update. I've received several e-mails from folks saying, hey, what's going on with this project, what's going on with that project? And I realized that over the last couple years I have started several initiatives and maybe not updated everyone as well as I could as to what's going on. So this and a couple episodes after this will be quick little updates, if you will, of some of the things that are going on here at Skeptiko. And there will be a call for you to maybe get involved if you can. There's a couple of areas where we could really use some help. So the first project I wanted to give you a little update on is the Global Consciousness Project research. Now, for those of you who are coming in totally in the dark about the Global Consciousness Project, I'd point you to a couple of episodes we did a few months back. We have an interview in there with Roger Nelson and Dean Radin, two of the principal investigators in the Global Consciousness Project. Real quickly, here's what it is. The Global Consciousness Project asks the question, are we connected? Are we all connected in some way that we don't fully understand but that is measurable in some way? The way they go about doing this is very clever, and it came out of some research that was done at Princeton University, and that is, they set up these random number generators and they give these to folks all over the world. These random number generators are hooked up to their computer. Then they just turn them on and they get all this data back. They see if there's any correlation between these random number generators in their variance off of being random. So, the biggest news event associated with the Global Consciousness Project came after 911. When they analyzed the data from all these random number generators spread out across the world, they found a huge spike in the correlation greater than they had in any of the years previously. In any day, 911 stood out. This got a lot of people's attention. Well, it also got the attention of a lot of skeptics. The main skeptical argument against the Global Consciousness Project is that of data mining. So if you just talk to skep... Uncategorized Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/eeg-expert-on-near-death-experience/ http://www.skeptiko.com/eeg-expert-on-near-death-experience/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:34:50 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=514 http://www.skeptiko.com/eeg-expert-on-near-death-experience/feed/ 29:04 Neurologist and University of Toledo Neuroscience Researcher, Dr. John Greenfield considers the EEG data from patients with near death experience (NDE). For near death experience skeptics, ... Neurologist and University of Toledo Neuroscience Researcher, Dr. John Greenfield considers the EEG data from patients with near death experience (NDE). For near death experience skeptics, medical evidence of a flat EEG during an out of body experience has always been a stumbling block.nbsp; After all, a brain dead patient can't hallucinate.nbsp; But, does a flat EEG really mean no brain activity?nbsp; NDEnbsp; doubters have claimed activity deep inside the brain, beyond the reach of EEG instruments, must account for the complex "realer than real" experiences reported by those who briefly pass into the afterlife.nbsp; Now, University of Toledo Neuroscience researcher, and EEG expert, Dr. John Greenfield explains why this claim doesn't hold up. "It's very unlikely that a hypoperfused brain [someone with no blood flow to the brain], with no evidence of electrical activity could generate NDEs.nbsp; Human studies as well as animal studies have typically shown very little brain perfusion [blood flow] or glucose utilization when the EEG is flat.nbsp; There are deep brain areas involved in generating memories that might still operate at some very reduced level during cardiac arrest, but of course any subcortically generated activity can't be brought to consciousness without at least one functioning cerebral hemisphere.nbsp; So even if there were some way that NDEs were generated during the hypoxic state [while the brain is shut off from oxygen], you would not experience them until reperfusion [blood flow] allowed you to dream them or wake up and talk about them", Greenfield stated. NDE Researcher, Dr. Penny Sartori, examines memories of resuscitation by patients suffering cardiac arrest. With near death experience cases making there way into the, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Psychiatry, and other major medical journals, NDE doubters have looked to the timing of patient memories as a way of explaining this unexplainable phenomena.nbsp; If memories of out of body travel, and all embracing love occur after ones brush with death, NDEs may still fit within our medical science worldview. The timing of NDE memories is the research question Dr. Penny Sartori sought to answer, "I worked in the intensive care unit and because of the nature of my job, of course, I'd come across a lot of death. And of course makes you wonder what happens when we die.nbsp; For five years I gathered data, where I spoke to patients in the intensive care unit and particularly patients who'd had a cardiac arrest. When these patients revived, as soon as they were medically fit, I approached them and asked the simple question, 'Did you have any memory of the time that you were unconscious?'" "For the people who had a near-death experience and out of body experience [their recollection of resuscitation] was really quite accurate and I decided then to ask the control group, the people who'd had a cardiac arrest but had no recollection of anything at all. I asked them if they would reenact their resuscitation scenario and tell me what they thought that we had done to resuscitate them. And what I found is that many of the patients couldn't even guess as to what we'd done. They had no idea at all. And then some of them did make guesses, but these were based on TV hospital dramas that they'd seen. I found that what they reported was widely inaccurate. So there was a stark contrast really in the very accurate out of body experiences reported and then the guesses that the control group had made.", Dr. Sartori reported. While research like this may never be enough to convince dogmatic skeptics, the medical evidence for near death experience continues to challenge us to reexamine our beliefs about what lies beyond death. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-90-Penny-Sartori.mp3] Download MP3 (29:04 min.) Read it: Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading res... OBE,,Skeptiko,,near-death,experience,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/michael-persinger-discovers-telepathic-link/ http://www.skeptiko.com/michael-persinger-discovers-telepathic-link/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:22:37 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=507 http://www.skeptiko.com/michael-persinger-discovers-telepathic-link/feed/ 35:40 Neuroscience Researcher and Laurentian University professor, Dr. Michael Persinger, demonstrates telepathy under laboratory conditions. Claims of telepathy, ESP and other psi phenomena are a mainstay of ... Neuroscience Researcher and Laurentian University professor, Dr. Michael Persinger, demonstrates telepathy under laboratory conditions. Claims of telepathy, ESP and other psi phenomena are a mainstay of popular culture but taboo in neuroscience research circles.nbsp; Fortunately, Dr. Michael Persinger of Canada's Laurentian University has never been afraid to venture where other researchers fear to go. In the 1980's Persinger made headlines with his "God Helmet", a device that stimulates temporal lobes with a weak magnetic field in order to produce religious states. Now, Persinger has discovered the same type of brain stimulation can create metal states conducive to human telepathy.nbsp; "What we have found is that if you place two different people at a distance and put a circular magnetic field around both, and you make sure they are connected to the same computer so they get the same stimulation, then if you flash a light in one person's eye the person in the other room receiving just the magnetic field will show changes in their brain as if they saw the flash of light. We think that's tremendous because it may be the first macro demonstration of a quantum connection, or so-called quantum entanglement. If true, then there's another way of potential communication that may have physical applications, for example, in space travel." While Persinger's experiments could prove groundbreaking, he remains doubtful about his controversial findings reaching his colleagues, "I think the critical thing about science is to be open-minded. It's really important to realize that the true subject matter of science is the pursuit of the unknown. Sadly scientists have become extraordinarily group-oriented. Our most typical critics are not are mystic believer types. nbsp;They are scientists who have a narrow vision of what the world is like." Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-89-Michael-Persinger.mp3] Download MP3 (35:40 min.) Read it: Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I'm your host, Alex Tsakiris, and before we get started with today's interview, and a very fascinating interview it is with Dr. Michael Persinger, I'm going to take a minute and invite you to connect - connect with this show, Skeptiko, and with me personally. In the last few months as I had a chance to talk to more and more researchers and dig into all the science surrounding human consciousness and spirituality and where science is leading us, I felt a stronger and stronger need to connect with you and to create a community, if you will, of like-minded people. So in the last week or so I've tried to take some steps in that direction. I've finally gotten on Facebook and Twitter and I'm going to try and post there more regularly. But I'm going to invite you to join me. To follow me and to allow me to follow you and see if we can create a community, if you will, of like-minded people who are interested in following the data wherever it leads, as I say. So you'll find all the links on the Skeptiko Web site for following me and please connect up and I'll do the same. But for right now, let's move into this interview that I have with Dr. Michael Persinger. nbsp;And quite a fascinating interview it is. I really, really admire the courage that the maverick scientist has, and that's where Dr. Michael Persinger is. You know, he gets it from both sides. He really is a materialist and very much a mind equals brain guy. That's not where I see the data leading but it's certainly where he sees the data leading, and he really approaches it from a "let's get down and prove it, here's the research." He doesn't shy away from that. He doesn't throw extraordinary claims, extraordinary proof kind of bullcrap. He just says, "Hey, here's what I'm finding, here's what I think, here's the way I think things are showing themselves." I find that v... Skeptiko,,skeptic,v.,believer,,telepathy Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/59-opensourcescience-medium-experiment-janice-ervin/ http://www.skeptiko.com/59-opensourcescience-medium-experiment-janice-ervin/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:52:40 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=597 http://www.skeptiko.com/59-opensourcescience-medium-experiment-janice-ervin/feed/ 39:19 Guest: Hospice specialistnbsp;Janice Ervin discusses the OpenSourceScience medium experiment. Click here to join this experiment as a skeptical participant Download MP3 (39:19min, 18MB) Guest: Hospice specialistnbsp;Janice Ervin discusses the OpenSourceScience medium experiment. Click here to join this experiment as a skeptical participant Download MP3 (39:19min, 18MB) psychic,medium Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/88-scientific-community-unfair-to-rupert-sheldrake/ http://www.skeptiko.com/88-scientific-community-unfair-to-rupert-sheldrake/#comments Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:23:16 +0000 admin http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=488 http://www.skeptiko.com/88-scientific-community-unfair-to-rupert-sheldrake/feed/ 28:36 Faced with choosing a prominent figure for his Science and Society Masters dissertation, Phillip Stevens avoided the obvious.nbsp; Instead of Kepler, Newton, or Darwin, Stevens ... Faced with choosing a prominent figure for his Science and Society Masters dissertation, Phillip Stevens avoided the obvious.nbsp; Instead of Kepler, Newton, or Darwin, Stevens chose controversial British biologist, and Perrott-Warrick Scholar, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. "I'd known about Rupert Sheldrake and I found him very interesting", Phillips said. Although skeptical of Sheldrake's theories, Phillips focused on how Sheldrake was being judged, "I wanted to be impartial as to whether he was right or wrong and instead go on and look at whether he'd been treated fairly." What he discovered surprised him.nbsp; Stevens found that despite an unblemished academic record and a research fellowship at the Royal Society, Sheldrake faced public scorn from colleagues for publishing his theory of morphic fields which suggests a living, developing universe with its own inherent memory. "There was a review in the journal, Nature in which the editor, John Maddox said that the book, A New Science of Life, should be burned", Stevens said. "You'd think that that sort of attitude towards what was just a theory would be out of date and would be seen as you know, unscientific. But in fact, it damaged Sheldrake's career, not John Maddox's career." But the biggest surprise came when Stevens looked at Sheldrake's collaboration with skeptics like Dr. Richard Wiseman.nbsp; According to Stevens Wiseman failed to follow normal procedures scientists use when collaborating and reporting their results. "Wiseman actually did repeats of Sheldrake's results. He never denied this, but he only admitted it, I think, ten years later. I mean, in normal experiments, if you repeat someone's results, you say it. And there didn't seem to be any reason for him not to say, 'I've repeated his results. These experiments work. Sheldrake wasn't wrong.' And you know what? Sheldrake was a Research Fellow at the Royal Society. I would hope that when he has some experiments and tests things he'd get it right because he's from one of the best institutions of science in Britain and in the world. So I really don't know why Wiseman took so long just to say, 'Yes, the patterns in Sheldrake's works were repeated in my own.'", said Stevens. Read the complete dissertation here. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-88-philip-stevens.mp3] Download MP3 (28:36 min.) Read it: 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 we're going to talk about science and skepticism. You know, a few months ago I received an e-mail from a gentleman in the UK who was completing his master's dissertation on the philosophy of science. He had chosen Rupert Sheldrake as the person that he was going to profile as part of his dissertation. I had done a couple of interviews with Dr. Sheldrake, as well as delved into the research that he had done with skeptic Richard Wiseman, who's a professor in the UK as well. So this gentleman, Philip Stevens, wanted to get some background information, wanted to get my thoughts and I have to say, when I first spoke with Philip I really didn't think that this would all lead to a very fair, even-handed review of exactly what had occurred. You know we've dealt with that quite a bit on this show. So I was really quite pleasantly surprised when Philip completed his dissertation, sent me a copy, and I read it and it really affirmed just about everything we've been talking about here. It's really obvious to anyone who looks at the research, really looks at the accounts that the individuals have given. We've hashed it out a couple times before on this show but I think it's worth looking at an objective person from the outside who came in and just asked the question, "How does science deal with controversial theories like those of Sheldrake's? Can someone like that expect a fair treat... Skeptiko,,Uncategorized,,parapsychology,,psi,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/87-remote-viewing-fact-and-fiction-paul-h-smith/ http://www.skeptiko.com/87-remote-viewing-fact-and-fiction-paul-h-smith/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:51:50 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=477 http://www.skeptiko.com/87-remote-viewing-fact-and-fiction-paul-h-smith/feed/ 62:51 Join Host Alex Tsakiris for a discussion with remote viewer and former U.S. Army psychic spy, retired Major Paul H. Smith.nbsp; The hour long interview ... Join Host Alex Tsakiris for a discussion with remote viewer and former U.S. Army psychic spy, retired Major Paul H. Smith.nbsp; The hour long interview explores the science of remote viewing portrayed in the film, The Men Who Stare at Goats and role Major Smith played in the StarGate project. Major (Retired) Paul H. Smith served for seven years in the government's remote viewing psychic espionage program at Ft. Meade, MD. He is one of only a handful of government personnel to be personally trained in remote viewing by Ingo Swann at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). nbsp;He has a MS from the Defense Intelligence College, and is currently completing his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Texas. Paul Smith's review of, Men Who Stare at Goats Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-87-paul-h-smith.mp3] Download MP3 (62:55 min.) Watch it: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zGY-2WAAzc Read it: Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko, remote viewer and retired psychic spy, Major Paul H. Smith. "Ronson himself is on record that he only cared about the people, not about the phenomena, but that's because as I think he said on your interview, that he didn't actually believe in the phenomenon. And he said something about he hadn't seen any evidence that convinced him, but I know I'm paraphrasing here. I'm not exactly sure how he said it, but he said that he hadn't seen any evidence that convinced him. In fact, kind of just the opposite. Well the fact is, he never saw any of the evidence. He never looked into the evidence. You know, he might have listened to some of the stories but he of course, is able to dismiss those because when we did tell him credible things - now he interviewed me at length at the Remote Viewing Conference and I tried to present some real bottom-line, fundamental -- this is how it really was, these are the kind of things that we did - that kind of stuff. None of that shows up in the book. None of that shows up anywhere, which just to me, that's irresponsible. " Announcer: Stay with us for Skeptiko. 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 we're going to return to The Men Who Stare at Goats. The reason we're going to return to this is because after I published the last episode of Skeptiko, which was an interview with the book's author, Jon Ronson, I received an interesting e-mail from Major Paul Smith, who is now retired from the United States Army but spent seven years in the Remote Viewing Program, part of this psychic warrior thing that's portrayed in both the book and the movie, "The Men Who Stare at Goats." So, Paul stepped forward and had a number of interesting insights about what that program was really all about, and about how it was being portrayed, both in Jon Ronson's book and in the movie. Now, for some of you, you might be wondering why even return to this topic, but I have to say I think it's worthwhile because this whole subject really encapsulates everything that we really are interested in and talk about here on Skeptiko. First, it relates to psi, it relates to skepticism, it relates to science, and it relates to how our culture deals with anyone who steps outside of the materialistic paradigm that we seem to be so stuck in. So I thought it would be interesting to return to this and hear from a real insider and kind of sort out the fact versus fiction of both the book and the movie. Maybe that's the first place to start in examining this whole thing, is to kind of separate out where the book and the documentary that Jon Ronson did, where that ends and where the movie begins. Because clearly the movie has added this story element to it that really doesn't exist in the original book. But other than that, I have to tell you, if you really dig into this, you'd be surprised at... remote,viewing,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/86-the-men-who-stare-at-goats-science-with-jon-ronson/ http://www.skeptiko.com/86-the-men-who-stare-at-goats-science-with-jon-ronson/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:58:40 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=471 http://www.skeptiko.com/86-the-men-who-stare-at-goats-science-with-jon-ronson/feed/ 32:56 Join Host Alex Tsakiris for a discussion with The Men Who Stare at Goats author, Jon Ronson.nbsp; The 35-minute interview explores the science of remote ... Join Host Alex Tsakiris for a discussion with The Men Who Stare at Goats author, Jon Ronson.nbsp; The 35-minute interview explores the science of remote viewing portrayed in the film, and whether skepticism is warranted. Jon Ronson is a British journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker.nbsp; Ronson has a distinctive self-deprecating reporting style, which incorporates aspects of Gonzo journalism while skeptically exploring quirky characters. Ronson's third book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, has been turned into a major motion picture starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-86-jon-ronson2.mp3] Download MP3 (33:55 min.) Read it: Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko, author of The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson. "They stuck a bunch of soldiers in a room at Fort Meade in Maryland, including some who've gone on to become quite famous paranormal buffs like Ed Dames and Dermot Monocle and Ingo Swann and so on, and they kind of stuck them in a room and told them to be psychic. And some of them tried to be psychic for like 20 years and they do point to some remote viewing successes, but even if they did manage to harness psychic powers which you know, I suspect they probably didn't, but even if they did, there was still nothing the military could do with it." Announcer: Stay with us for Skeptiko. 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 a very interesting interview with the author and really main character behind the movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson. Of course, I was more interested in the science behind the movie and the skeptical spin on it. I mean, haven't people like Hal Puthoff and Steven Schwartz established that remote viewing really works and that the military should be interested in it? So we had a chance to talk about that and a number of other of Jon's projects. And stick around for the end of the interview and I'll tell you about a little bit of the additional research I did and some of the follow-up e-mail exchange I had with Jon. Here's my dialogue with Jon Ronson. We're joined by quite a fascinating, fascinating guy. He's a writer, documentary filmmaker, several international bestsellers, including, Them: Adventures with Extremists, and a book that we were just chatting a little bit about that's going to be turned into a movie starring George Clooney, The Men Who Stare at Goats. Jon Ronson, thank you for joining me on Skeptiko. Jon Ronson: Oh, that's my pleasure, Alex. And in fact the movie is about to come out. It's coming out on November the 6th. It's finished and ready to go. Alex Tsakiris: And is that going to be released at the same time in the United States as well as in the UK? Jon Ronson: Yeah, yeah, it seems to be getting released in both countries on the same day. And it's been shown at a few festivals. It was shown in Venice and in Toronto and in Austin, and a lot of people seem to like it. And it's about the kind of things that interest your listeners, I think. It's about how the U.S. military in the 80s post-Vietnam became really interested in the paranormal. They got into a sort of bubble of thought in which they believed that it was possible to teach the American soldier how to walk through walls and become invisible and kill goats just by staring at them. Hence the name of the book and movie. And so they spent a long time, you know, trying to drop goats by staring at them and once or twice goats did fall over, but presumably out of boredom as opposed to actual paranormal powers on the part of soldiers. Alex Tsakiris: Really? I mean, I found all that quite fascinating. I have to say in some of the interviews I had heard from before, it sounded like the results from a paranormal standpoint were a l... Uncategorized,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/85-atheism-and-the-comedy-jesus-show/ http://www.skeptiko.com/85-atheism-and-the-comedy-jesus-show/#comments Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:26:55 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=457 http://www.skeptiko.com/85-atheism-and-the-comedy-jesus-show/feed/ 29:50 Guest: Troy Conrad is a comedian, writer, actor, producer, and former college teacher who comments on the hypocrisy of religion through the Comedy Jesus Show. Play ... Guest: Troy Conrad is a comedian, writer, actor, producer, and former college teacher who comments on the hypocrisy of religion through the Comedy Jesus Show. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-85-troy-conrad.mp3] Download MP3 (29:50 min.) Read it: Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko comedian and creator of the Comedy Jesus Show, Troy Conrad. "We can't just rest on a bunch of facts and expect that to be food for the soul. Even though it may not be proven that we have a soul, I still think it's important to feed it." Announcer: Stay with us for Skeptiko. [Theme Music] 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 we are going to return to a topic that I just find fascinating and that's Atheism, and particularly the interplay between Atheism and Christianity, that anti-theism of Atheism being usually against Christianity, although in recent years they've kind of turned their aim also to Islam because that seems to be another really easy target. The topic is very interesting to me, maybe because I was raised Christian in a Greek Orthodox church, but like a lot of people, got to college and came to question a lot of the dogma and doctrine that I had been fed as a child. So in my search within the Atheist community I came across today's guest, Troy Conrad, who puts on a very funny show called, "The Jesus Comedy Show," and you'll hear much more about it. Not surprisingly, the show's become very popular with the new Atheist crowd, the Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett crowd. But I was very pleased and interested to find that there's a lot more depth to Troy and his view of Atheism than the standard spiel nbsp;you get from the new atheists. So stay with me for a very interesting dialogue with -- Jesus. Jesus: "I'm going to answer your questions. It's going to be just like prayer except you get a real answer." [Laughter] Jesus: "I am black. I have to show up white in America or no one will listen, okay?" [Laughter] Jesus: "We gave every single planet three challenges. Nuclear technology, religion, and Celine Dion. Who would have known they would abuse any of them?" [Laughter] Jesus: "Frankly, I don't know your President. We don't have a 'special relationship.' His prayers go right into my Spam folder." [Laughter, Applause] Jesus: "Dear Jesus, was professional wrestling real in Biblical times? Okay, here's the weird thing. Yes, it was. Everything starts out good and then corporations come in and fill up." [Laughter] Alex Tsakiris: Hi, I'm joined today by Troy Conrad, the producer and star of The Jesus Show, a satire that depicts the life of Jesus as a stand-up comic who has returned to tell us all another version of the Good News. Troy, welcome to Skeptiko. Troy Conrad: Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Alex. Alex Tsakiris: Well, it's a real pleasure to have you. You know, I just was doing my usual kind of surfing around the Web and have been exploring Atheism lately, and ran across your site and then was able to dabble in it because you have a number of YouTube videos up there. Was able to dabble into some of your work and just first and foremost, I love comedy and it's just really, really, really funny stuff. It's great stuff. So tell us a little bit about your background, about your bio which you sent me which is very interesting. How you came to do the show, a little bit about what Atheism has meant to you and how you came to it. Troy Conrad: Yeah, well basically the Comedy Jesus Show started sort of accidently and at the time I was still a very Agnostic person, coming from a background of selling Bibles door-to-door, this was right when I was in college. I grew up Fundamentalist so I was kind of a shoe-in for this. I embraced Christianity quite a bit, more than my parents did, and I go... Skeptiko,,atheism Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/rupert-sheldrake-responds-chris-french/ http://www.skeptiko.com/rupert-sheldrake-responds-chris-french/#comments Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:49:53 +0000 tess http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=444 http://www.skeptiko.com/rupert-sheldrake-responds-chris-french/feed/ 25:01 Guest:nbsp; Dr. Rupert Sheldrake is the current Perrott-Warrick Scholar and Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic ... Guest:nbsp; Dr. Rupert Sheldrake is the current Perrott-Warrick Scholar and Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, near San Francisco, and a Visiting Professor and Academic Director of the Holistic Thinking Program at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-84-rupert-sheldrake.mp3] Download MP3 (25:01 min.) Read it: Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. Dr. Rupert Sheldrake: The heads I win, tails you lose, Chris French says that psychic researchers do this. Actually, I think skeptics do it more. If they get a result that shows no effect then they say, oh well, it hasn't worked to this new phenomenon here. If there's a positive result, as there are in many of my own experiments, then they say, oh, then the experiments must be flawed in some way. So I think this way of arguing works absolutely both ways. Announcer: Stay with us for Skeptiko. [Theme Music] 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 interesting interview with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. Now you'll recall that on the last episode of Skeptiko we talked to Dr. Chris French, from the University of London, and one of the topics that came up was his collaboration with Dr. Sheldrake, particularly on the telephone telepathy experiment they've been looking at but also on the other experiments with telepathy that Sheldrake has pioneered. So after I got done with Dr. French I thought it would be interesting to get Dr. Sheldrake's take on the collaboration. He was nice enough to sit down with me for this interview. I think you'll enjoy it. Some very, very intriguing stuff if you like to dig into the details of these experiments which is pretty much what Skeptiko is all about. Here's my conversation with Dr. Sheldrake. We're joined today by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, and I asked Dr. Sheldrake to come back on Skeptiko because the conversation that I had last episode with Chris French was really quite interesting. We entered discussion about anomalistic psychology and about parapsychology, and particularly about how collaboration between - to use simple terms - skeptics and believers, how that takes place and some of the pitfalls of it. So it was very, very generous of Dr. Sheldrake to offer to come back on and discuss a couple of these points with me. It was a request I made because I wanted to follow up on this. Dr. Sheldrake, thanks again for joining me today. Dr. Rupert Sheldrake: It's a pleasure. Alex Tsakiris: I sent to you a clip of part of the interview that I had with Dr. French and I just wanted to get a brief response on a couple of points. Let's talk a little bit, to begin with, about some of the replications that Dr. French's group has done of your experiments. Now he was pretty direct in saying that he has never, nor have any of his students, ever been able to replicate any of your experiments despite many attempts. Would you have anything to comment on on that statement? Dr. Rupert Sheldrake: Well yes. I mean it sounds as if he's tried really hard over a long period of time and nothing I do ever works when they do it. It's not quite like that and first of all there haven't been that many attempts. He did a staring experiment, I think it was the first thing that he did that was related to my own work. He used different methods than ones I'd used and his student came up with a result that was statistically significant by one test and not significant by another. Probably the one that they used was the most appropriate, but it was on the borderline of significance, so I asked for the data, to analyze it using different statistical procedures. They'd used a t-test and there were other ways of doing the analysis. I just wanted to see how that woul... Uncategorized Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/83-chris-french-psi-claims/ http://www.skeptiko.com/83-chris-french-psi-claims/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:55:43 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=402 http://www.skeptiko.com/83-chris-french-psi-claims/feed/ 50:16 Guest:nbsp; Dr. Chris French of the University of London discusses his skeptical research of Dr. Rupert Sheldrake's Telephone Telepathy experiments and the psychology ... Guest:nbsp; Dr. Chris French of the University of London discusses his skeptical research of Dr. Rupert Sheldrake's Telephone Telepathy experiments and the psychology of skepticism. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-83-chris-french.mp3] Download MP3 (50:16 min.) Read it: Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko, Dr. Chris French. Dr. Chris French: I imagine in lots of ways parapsychologists are sometimes ahead of the game. I mean, again, Irsquo;ve actually argued this in print at least here. I, for a long time, as I said, when I first became a skeptic, I was kind of an early extreme skeptic and had an overly negative view of parapsychology. And I used to go along with the argument that parapsychology was a pseudo-science. I donrsquo;t anymore. Announcer: Stay with us for Skeptiko. [Theme Music] Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. Irsquo;m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode of Skeptiko, I have an interview with Dr. Chris French from the University of London, a well-known skeptic and a publisher of a skeptical magazine there in the UK. Dr. French, of course, is not only known as a researcher of anomalous psychology, more or less his official title, but is quite a skeptic and someone who has collaborated with Dr. Richard Wiseman, who we spoke about many times on this show, in debunking various claims including psychics. Hersquo;s appeared many times on TV doing so, and most recently began an investigation with Dr. Wiseman. They selected one very public psychic and tested her. Hersquo;s also done quite a bit of work in collaborating with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake on his experiments. And he, from time to time, has investigated a number of other parapsychology claims. So we had a lot to talk about. I think itrsquo;s a good conversation. Herersquo;s my dialogue with Dr. Chris French. So Irsquo;m joined today by Dr. Chris French, a professor of psychology and Head of Anomalistic Psychology, the research unit at University of London. Dr. French, as many of you know, is well regarded in the skeptical community, as well as in the scientific community in general, particularly in the UK. Hersquo;s also known generally as an open-minded, fair-minded skeptic, so thatrsquo;s quite a reputation and wersquo;ve had quite a chat leading up to this conversation. Irsquo;m really looking forward to it. Dr. French, thanks again for joining me here today on Skeptiko. Dr. Chris French: My pleasurehellip;I hope. [laughs] Alex Tsakiris: [laughs] Okay, you know, where I thought wersquo;d start, and I was in preparation for this, I saw a YouTube clip, a little interview in the pub that you didhellip; Dr. Chris French: Uh-huh (yes). Alex Tsakiris: hellip;and I think I picked this up that you actually used to be a believer, I think, as you said, sohellip; Dr. Chris French: Absolutely true, yes. Alex Tsakiris: I didnrsquo;t know that. I thought maybe you could tell us a little bit about your background, and particularly about this sordid part about being a believer. Dr. Chris French: [laughs] Um, I think like lots of people, as I grew up I was interested and intrigued by tales of the paranormal. I wouldnrsquo;t say I kind of spent a huge amount of time, but I certainly read books around it, Irsquo;d watch TV programs about it. I mean, one thing back in those days, you know wersquo;re talking a long time ago now, unfortunately, is that the wasnrsquo;t really such a thing as an organized skeptical movement. Now how happy or otherwise you might be about that, we can talk about later. But I think -- I mean anybody would agree that the vast majority of the coverage then was very uncritical. It was all very pro-paranormal. And so it was perfectly reasonable anybody who had an interest in those things in those days would assume it was all true. I did a psychology degree and this kind of thing was not really tou... Uncategorized Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/82-mark-edward-the-lost-interview/ http://www.skeptiko.com/82-mark-edward-the-lost-interview/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:23:50 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=385 http://www.skeptiko.com/82-mark-edward-the-lost-interview/feed/ 9:01 Update on the Skeptiko's Summer Vacation and my non-interview with mentalist Mark Edward. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/podcast/skeptiko-82-mark-edward.mp3] Download MP3 (9:11 min.) Read it: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore c Update on the Skeptiko's Summer Vacation and my non-interview with mentalist Mark Edward. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/podcast/skeptiko-82-mark-edward.mp3] Download MP3 (9:11 min.) Read it: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. Irsquo;m your host, Alex Tsakiris. I hadnrsquo;t really planned on doing this little update here, but I was visiting the Skeptiko Forum which I havenrsquo;t been visiting quite as often lately, and I read some posts that I just thought I really need to give some attention to and update folks on a couple of things. First thing I guess I have to explain is why I havenrsquo;t been quite as active with Skeptiko over the summer and itrsquo;s certainly not been because Irsquo;ve lost interest, but a couple things are going on and very exciting things. First, there was just the issue of summer. Summer for folks like us who have four kids and two kids visiting from Latvia can be a little bit busy, and it was for us. I just didnrsquo;t have time to do a whole lot of Skeptiko stuff. But the other reason I havenrsquo;t been quite as active is I have a new project. Irsquo;m doing a documentary film on science and spirituality along with many of the guests that yoursquo;ve heard here on Skeptiko. Itrsquo;s quite an exciting project for me. Irsquo;ve really jumped into film-making with both feet, really enjoyed it. Have a lot of help from some folks up in Hollywood that are some very, very skilled filmmakers, and thatrsquo;s been a great, interesting project. Itrsquo;s going to take a while before yoursquo;ll have a chance to see much of it, but next year in 2010 yoursquo;ll see the fruits of our efforts. We have some great, great folks lined up for the documentary and I think itrsquo;s really going to turn out well. So those two things have caused me to maybe not pay as much attention to some of the Skeptiko things that are going on. But when I popped over to the forum today, I saw some of the comments, particularly about this interview that I had, this non-interview that I had with Mark Edward. I thought I should pop in here, give you a little bit of update on Skeptiko, and talk a little bit about this interview that I did with Mark Edward. So Mark Edward is a mentalist and a performer and quite a hard-core skeptic. Hersquo;s one of The Skeptologists, a group along with Brian Dunning of Skeptoid who yoursquo;ve heard on this show, who make an effort to debunk what they believe to be kind of false paranormal claims. Which is fine and well. And I really thought it would be interesting to have Mark on the show to talk about the medium experiment that wersquo;ve done and which has kind of fallen off the radar a little bit, although Irsquo;m still working on it. I just havenrsquo;t had much time to devote to it. So I set up this interview. The interview went in just a really strange way. Mark had this just tirade ndash; I donrsquo;t know why he got so angry with me, but he was really, really upset at the end of it. But he just ndash; I thought he really embarrassed himself. So lo and behold, I finish the interview and I realize I have totally messed up and you know, I had switched over to a different system and I guess I just made a mistake. I hadnrsquo;t recorded the interview and I was just ah! I was just so aggravated. One, because it took a long time to set up the interview with Mark. He can only talk at certain times. He can only talk at night and I generally donrsquo;t like to do these interviews in the evening. So it had taken a lot of my time and here I didnrsquo;t have it. So, I wondered what to do, you know, I didnrsquo;t have the interview and I figured, just drop it. One, there was a lot of negative stuff in there, you know, he had really gotten so mad and I donrsquo;t really like to go that negative, but so at the end of the day I said, ldquo;Just drop it, forget it.rdquo; Now I have to men... Skeptiko,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/81-dr-phil-plait-defends-jref/ http://www.skeptiko.com/81-dr-phil-plait-defends-jref/#comments Sat, 22 Aug 2009 14:42:04 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=375 http://www.skeptiko.com/81-dr-phil-plait-defends-jref/feed/ 64:11 Guest: Dr. Phil Plait, author of Bad Astronomy defends JREF. Other links: Rosemary Breen is conducting a survey on paranormal experiences. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/podcast/skeptiko-81-phil-plait.mp3] Download MP3 (64:11 min.) Guest: Dr. Phil Plait, author of Bad Astronomy defends JREF. Other links: Rosemary Breen is conducting a survey on paranormal experiences. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/podcast/skeptiko-81-phil-plait.mp3] Download MP3 (64:11 min.) Read it: Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko, Dr. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer. Dr. Phil Plait: My initial reaction to what yoursquo;re saying is strong disagreement with what yoursquo;re saying. First of all, science is not a single track. Itrsquo;s not saying letrsquo;s look for a God gene to explain everything. There are psychologists, there are researchers whorsquo;ve gone out and researched this sort of thing. Why do people believe in some things? There are people who study brain physiology, try to figure this kind of stuff out. If ndash; there are reasons we speak. There are reasons we communicate. There are reasons our hands work the way they do. And it all ties into the function of the brain. And there are people who are in there looking at sort of the brain-mind connection. Announcer: Stay with us for Skeptiko. Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. Irsquo;m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode I have an interview ndash; quite a long interview ndash; with Dr. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer. Now in the course of this interview yoursquo;ll hear me several times talk about finding a skeptic to follow-up on the Global Consciousness Project and to kind of face off with the data and with me on that. And I have followed up with Phil on that, but Irsquo;d also like to follow-up with you, the Skeptiko audience, find someone, if yoursquo;re skeptical, who you think can do a good job of debunking or just countering the claims of the Global Consciousness Project. Wersquo;d love to have them on. Similarly, on some of the other topics that wersquo;ve been talking about here, if yoursquo;re skeptical and you want to see a serious scientifically-oriented skeptic come on the show and talk about that, wersquo;d love to have them on, because I have to tell you, at this point Irsquo;m having trouble finding credible skeptics to really confront some of these issues. So if you know of someone or if you are someone who has a scientific background and does have a counter position on near-death experience, psychic medium research, Global Consciousness Project, psychic detective work, or any of the other topics that yoursquo;ve heard us talk about on the show, please get in touch with me and come on. Wersquo;d love to have you on and further that dialogue. Okay, so now onto my interview with the Bad Astronomer, Dr. Dr. Phil Plait. Wersquo;re joined today by scientist turned blogger and author. Hersquo;s the creator of the hugely successful Bad Astronomy Blog and the author of Bad Astronomy and Death From the Skies, Dr. Dr. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer. Welcome to Skeptiko. Dr. Phil Plait: Hi, thanks for having me on. Alex Tsakiris: Well, itrsquo;s a real pleasure. You know, the Bad Astronomy Blog has been an absolute Internet sensation and Irsquo;m surehellip; Dr. Phil Plait: True. Alex Tsakiris: hellip;most everyone whorsquo;s listening has, right. So, start off, tell us a little bit about how that happened. I mean, Irsquo;m sure therersquo;s a lot of folks listening that really are wanting to know how they can do something like that. Howrsquo;d you make that happen? Dr. Phil Plait: Yeah, I get a lot of requests about that, you know? How do I become a big blogger or something like that? And I tell them, yeah, build a time machine, go back to 1993hellip; Alex Tsakiris: [laughs] Right. Dr. Phil Plait: hellip;you know, itrsquo;s a matter of timing as much as it was anything else. If you can catch that wave when itrsquo;s at the right time, like being on Twitter and getting a gazillion followers like Wil Wheaton or Stephen Frey or those kind of peo... skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/80-craig-hogan-mind-is-not-brain/ http://www.skeptiko.com/80-craig-hogan-mind-is-not-brain/#comments Sat, 08 Aug 2009 02:32:02 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=372 http://www.skeptiko.com/80-craig-hogan-mind-is-not-brain/feed/ 54:30 Guest: R. Craig Hogan, author of Your Eternal Self claims studies unmistakably point to the finding that the mind is separate from the brain. Play it: [audio: ... Guest: R. Craig Hogan, author of Your Eternal Self claims studies unmistakably point to the finding that the mind is separate from the brain. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/podcast/skeptiko-80-craig-hogan-rerun.mp3] Download MP3 (54:30 min.) skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/79-skeptic-zone-host-richard-saunders/ http://www.skeptiko.com/79-skeptic-zone-host-richard-saunders/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:06:46 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=365 http://www.skeptiko.com/79-skeptic-zone-host-richard-saunders/feed/ 33:11 Guest: Richard Saunders, host of The Skeptic Zone discusses current issues in the "skeptical community". Psychic Detective Dorothy Allison Redux Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/podcast/skeptiko-79-richard-saunders.mp3] Download MP3 ( Guest: Richard Saunders, host of The Skeptic Zone discusses current issues in the "skeptical community". Psychic Detective Dorothy Allison Redux Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/podcast/skeptiko-79-richard-saunders.mp3] Download MP3 (33:13 min.) Uncategorized Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/psychic-detective-noreen-renier-interview/ http://www.skeptiko.com/psychic-detective-noreen-renier-interview/#comments Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:01:39 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=330 http://www.skeptiko.com/psychic-detective-noreen-renier-interview/feed/ 47:03 Guest: Psychic detective Noreen Renier discusses the current state of psychic detective work and provides an overview of some of her current cases.nbsp; Alex also ... Guest: Psychic detective Noreen Renier discusses the current state of psychic detective work and provides an overview of some of her current cases.nbsp; Alex also discusses Ben Radford's appearance on the Skepticality podcast. Photo of the scarf Noreen used in her reading. Deposition of F.B.I. agent Robert Ressler -- Noreen Renier predicts the assassination attempt on president Ronald Regan. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/podcast/skeptiko-78-noreen-renier.mp3] Download MP3 (47:13 min.) Read it: Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko, psychic detective Noreen Renier. Noreen Renier: "I was lecturing at the FBI Academy and it was after my lecture that it was open to questions and someone had asked me about Reagan and what I saw for the future. So I sort of tuned in and I saw coming from the outside in the upper chest, he was going to have an injury, and I told the month. So of course, when the attempted assassination happened during the month that I had said, they asked the FBI why didnrsquo;t you let us know that? It was the Secret Service that was asking them. And they said, lsquo;Well, we really didnrsquo;t believe her.rsquo;rdquo; Announcer: And clips from skeptic investigator, Ben Radford. Ben Radford: ldquo;Do you believe the psychic or do you believe the cops?rdquo; Announcer: Stay with us for Skeptiko. Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. Irsquo;m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on todayrsquo;s episode of Skeptiko, we are going to jump right back into the psychic detective debate. Now for those of you whorsquo;ve followed Skeptiko, you know this is a topic that wersquo;ve spent quite a bit of time covering over the last several months. And, as a matter of fact, itrsquo;s a topic we had spent so much time on that I didnrsquo;t really anticipate doing another show on it for quite a while. But then a listener sent me an e-mail alerting me to a recent broadcast that Ben Radford had done on a Skeptical show where he had spoken at great length about the case. I felt like he had really misrepresented things. So despite the disparaging things that he had to say about mehellip; Female: ldquo;Skeptiko with a k is a little crazy.rdquo; Male: ldquo;We donrsquo;t even know what theyrsquo;re doing.rdquo; Alex Tsakiris: I immediately contacted Derek, the showrsquo;s host and producer and invited him on the show. And I also invited Ben back on to continue this dialogue. Irsquo;m going to tell you how all that played out a little bit later in this broadcast. As you might have figured out by now, they decided not to join me on todayrsquo;s show. So just so wersquo;re all on a level playing field, let me get you caught up a little bit. What wersquo;re going to be speaking about today is one case that we found from the mid-eighties involving a double homicide in New Jersey. There was a psychic detective named Nancy Webber who assisted two police officers, Lieutenant Bill Hughes and Captain Jim Moore, in carrying out an investigation. There was some TV documentaries that were made about their work and that was the case we selected to investigate with Ben Radford, who is an editor at the Skeptical Inquirer Magazine and claims some degree of expertise in skeptically investigating psychic detectives. So thatrsquo;s a quick background on the case. Again, if yoursquo;re not familiar with it, you might want to go back and listen to some previous episodes. So what wersquo;re going to do today is look at Benrsquo;s appearance on this show, Skepticality, which is the official podcast of Michael Shermerrsquo;s Skeptic magazine. Wersquo;re going to critically examine some of the things that he had to say on there, because I think therersquo;s some serious inaccuracies there. And also because I think it speaks to this larger issue of how skeptics and believers debate, and how that debate often degrades into ... psychic,detectives Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/77-mark-ireland-psychic-medium-communication/ http://www.skeptiko.com/77-mark-ireland-psychic-medium-communication/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:17:47 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=319 http://www.skeptiko.com/77-mark-ireland-psychic-medium-communication/feed/ 37:13 Guest: Mark Ireland, discusses his book Soul Shift, and how psychic medium communication with his deceased son sent him on a journey of spiritual discovery. Video: ... Guest: Mark Ireland, discusses his book Soul Shift, and how psychic medium communication with his deceased son sent him on a journey of spiritual discovery. Video: Mark's father, Dr. Richard Ireland demonstrates his psychic abilities on the Steve Allen show in 1969. Play it: [audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/podcast/skeptiko-77-mark-ireland-soul-shift.mp3] Download MP3 (37:13 min.) Read it: On this episode of Skeptiko, Mark Ireland, author of Soul Shift: psychic,medium Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/75-marilynn-hughes-obe-experiment/ http://www.skeptiko.com/75-marilynn-hughes-obe-experiment/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:00:53 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=245 http://www.skeptiko.com/75-marilynn-hughes-obe-experiment/feed/ http://www.skeptiko.com/74-radin-nelson-global-consciousness/ http://www.skeptiko.com/74-radin-nelson-global-consciousness/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 13:18:12 +0000 admin http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=169 http://www.skeptiko.com/74-radin-nelson-global-consciousness/feed/ 48:24 74. Dr. Dean Radin And Dr. Roger Nelson Respond to Global Consciousness Project Criticisms Explore controversial science with leading researchers and their critics. Skeptiko.com has become the leading source for intelligent skeptic-versus-believer debate with guests like: Dr. Rupert Sheldrake - Dr. Michael Shermer - Dr. Dean Radin - James Randi - Dr. Peter Fenwick - Dr. Richard Wiseman - Dr. Raymond Moody - Dr. Marilyn Schlitz - Dr. Steven Novella - Dr. Alan Wallace - Stephan A. Schwartz - Dr. Edward Kelly - Dr. Emily Kelly - Dr. Charles Tart - Dr. Julie Beischel - Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris - Dr. Carol Tavris - Dr. Michael Brooks - Dr. Susan Blackmore - Dr. James Alcock - D.J. Grothe - Ben Radford psi,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/72-new-skeptiko-website/ http://www.skeptiko.com/72-new-skeptiko-website/#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 15:28:22 +0000 admin http://www.hyas.net/skeptiko/?p=9 http://www.skeptiko.com/72-new-skeptiko-website/feed/ 0:35 Skeptiko has a new website. Click here for all previous shows Skeptiko has a new website. Click here for all previous shows Skeptiko Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/guy-harrison-50-reasons-people-give-for-believing-in-a-god/ http://www.skeptiko.com/guy-harrison-50-reasons-people-give-for-believing-in-a-god/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:33:29 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=575 http://www.skeptiko.com/guy-harrison-50-reasons-people-give-for-believing-in-a-god/feed/ 30:24 Guest:nbsp;Guy P. Harrison, author of,nbsp;50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God Download MP3 (30:24min, 14MB) Guest:nbsp;Guy P. Harrison, author of,nbsp;50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God Download MP3 (30:24min, 14MB) atheism,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/69-hold/ http://www.skeptiko.com/69-hold/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:56:34 +0000 admin http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=69 http://www.skeptiko.com/69-hold/feed/ 76:11 69 on hold: Psychic Detective Smackdown, Ben Radford Explore controversial science with leading researchers and their critics. Skeptiko.com has become the leading source for intelligent skeptic-versus-believer debate with guests like: Dr. Rupert Sheldrake - Dr. Michael Shermer - Dr. Dean Radin - James Randi - Dr. Peter Fenwick - Dr. Richard Wiseman - Dr. Raymond Moody - Dr. Marilyn Schlitz - Dr. Steven Novella - Dr. Alan Wallace - Stephan A. Schwartz - Dr. Edward Kelly - Dr. Emily Kelly - Dr. Charles Tart - Dr. Julie Beischel - Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris - Dr. Carol Tavris - Dr. Michael Brooks - Dr. Susan Blackmore - Dr. James Alcock - D.J. Grothe - Ben Radford psychic,detectives Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/67-greg-taylor-of-the-daily-grail-on-the-new-skeptics/ http://www.skeptiko.com/67-greg-taylor-of-the-daily-grail-on-the-new-skeptics/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:38:56 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=581 http://www.skeptiko.com/67-greg-taylor-of-the-daily-grail-on-the-new-skeptics/feed/ 34:08 Guest: Greg Taylor, creator of the popular paranormal websitenbsp;http://www.dailygrail.com/ Download MP3 (34:08min, 16MB) Guest: Greg Taylor, creator of the popular paranormal websitenbsp;http://www.dailygrail.com/ Download MP3 (34:08min, 16MB) skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/66-13-things-that-dont-make-sense-michael-brooks/ http://www.skeptiko.com/66-13-things-that-dont-make-sense-michael-brooks/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:40:56 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=583 http://www.skeptiko.com/66-13-things-that-dont-make-sense-michael-brooks/feed/ 34:54 Guest:nbsp;Michael Brooks, science journalist and author ofnbsp;13 Things That Donrsquo;t Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time. Michealrsquo;s blog post on his dialog ... Guest:nbsp;Michael Brooks, science journalist and author ofnbsp;13 Things That Donrsquo;t Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time. Michealrsquo;s blog post on his dialog with Rupert Sheldrake Download MP3 (34:54min, 16MB) parapsychology Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/65-psychic-medium-john-holland/ http://www.skeptiko.com/65-psychic-medium-john-holland/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:44:17 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=585 http://www.skeptiko.com/65-psychic-medium-john-holland/feed/ 29:47 Guest:nbsp;John Holland, renown psychic medium and author ofnbsp;Power of the Soul. Also Noted: Greg Taylor exposes a little bit of irony in the certainty ofnbsp;ldquo;scientific believersrdquo;. New book ... Guest:nbsp;John Holland, renown psychic medium and author ofnbsp;Power of the Soul. Also Noted: Greg Taylor exposes a little bit of irony in the certainty ofnbsp;ldquo;scientific believersrdquo;. New book by Dr. Piero Calvi-Parisetti, called ldquo;21 Days into the Afterliferdquo; is available for free download atnbsp;www.openmindsite.com. Download MP3 (29:47min, 14MB) psychic,medium Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/64-near-death-experience-research-dr-peter-fenwick/ http://www.skeptiko.com/64-near-death-experience-research-dr-peter-fenwick/#comments Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:46:15 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=587 http://www.skeptiko.com/64-near-death-experience-research-dr-peter-fenwick/feed/ 00:01:01 Guest:nbsp;Dr. Peter Fenwick, neuropsychiatrist, world renown expert on end of life phenomena, including near-death experiences and deathbed visions. His most recent book is,nbsp;The Art of ... Guest:nbsp;Dr. Peter Fenwick, neuropsychiatrist, world renown expert on end of life phenomena, including near-death experiences and deathbed visions. His most recent book is,nbsp;The Art of Dying. View a complete transcript of this interview. Download MP3 (60:21min, 28MB) near-death,experience Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/63-is-the-dalai-lama-an-atheist-dr-alan-wallace/ http://www.skeptiko.com/63-is-the-dalai-lama-an-atheist-dr-alan-wallace/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:47:11 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=589 http://www.skeptiko.com/63-is-the-dalai-lama-an-atheist-dr-alan-wallace/feed/ 44:31 Guest: Buddhist scholar and author of the upcomingnbsp;Mind in the Balance,nbsp;Dr. Alan Wallace discusses Buddhism and atheism. View a complete transcript of this interview. Download MP3 (44:31min, ... Guest: Buddhist scholar and author of the upcomingnbsp;Mind in the Balance,nbsp;Dr. Alan Wallace discusses Buddhism and atheism. View a complete transcript of this interview. Download MP3 (44:31min, 20MB) atheism Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/62-the-spiritual-brain-denyse-o%e2%80%99leary/ http://www.skeptiko.com/62-the-spiritual-brain-denyse-o%e2%80%99leary/#comments Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:48:36 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=591 http://www.skeptiko.com/62-the-spiritual-brain-denyse-o%e2%80%99leary/feed/ 47:18 Guest: Christian science writer, and author ofnbsp;The Spiritual Brain,Denyse Orsquo;Leary, on the compatibility of Christian doctrine to new discoveries in human consciousness. Download MP3 (47:18min, 22MB) Guest: Christian science writer, and author ofnbsp;The Spiritual Brain,Denyse Orsquo;Leary, on the compatibility of Christian doctrine to new discoveries in human consciousness. Download MP3 (47:18min, 22MB) atheism Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/61-medium-experiment-part-3-michael-tymn/ http://www.skeptiko.com/61-medium-experiment-part-3-michael-tymn/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:50:17 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=593 http://www.skeptiko.com/61-medium-experiment-part-3-michael-tymn/feed/ 52:40 Guest:nbsp;Michael Tymn author of the new book,nbsp;The Articulate Dead,discusses the history of mediumship and the scientific research surrounding the topic. Trial 3 is readyhellip; click here ... Guest:nbsp;Michael Tymn author of the new book,nbsp;The Articulate Dead,discusses the history of mediumship and the scientific research surrounding the topic. Trial 3 is readyhellip; click here to test your ldquo;cold readingrdquo; abilities. View a complete transcript of this interview. Music: 3rd Man #62; Madison Download MP3 (52:40min, 24MB) psychic,medium,,skeptic,v.,believer Alex Tsakiris no No http://www.skeptiko.com/58-psychic-detectives-and-police/ http://www.skeptiko.com/58-psychic-detectives-and-police/#comments Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:53:51 +0000 alex http://www.skeptiko.com/?p=599 http://www.skeptiko.com/58-psychic-detectives-and-police/feed/ 39:10 Guest: Lt. Bill Hughes of the New Jersey State Police and Captain (retired) Jim Moore of the Parsippany New Jersey police department discuss their experiences ... Guest: Lt. Bill Hughes of the New Jersey State Police and Captain (retired) Jim Moore of the Parsippany New Jersey police department discuss their experiences working with psychic detective Nancy Weber. Newspaper articles abou the case Download MP3 (39:10min, 18MB) psychic,detectives Alex Tsakiris no No