by Alex Tsakiris
“I started this journey expecting genuine debate, a battle of ideas, a war over the evidence, but that’s not what I found. I found a lot of frustrated researchers who were facing a well-organized, aggressive skeptical community…”
Science philanthropist Alex Tsakiris looked back at over thirty episodes of [his podcast] Skeptiko to examine what he learned from his interviews with skeptics Michael Shermer, Steven Novella, James Alcock and James Randi.
He outlined the three biggest failings of the skeptical community and how their inability to successfully handle new research into human consciousness has limited scientific progress. He took a critical look at the skeptical community and its impact on controversial science research.
Tsakiris explained how his opinion of the skeptical community has evolved:
“I started this journey expecting genuine debate, a battle of ideas, a war over the evidence, but that’s not what I found. I found a lot of frustrated researchers who were facing a well-organized, aggressive skeptical community that’s managed to change the rules of the game when it comes to how certain kinds of controversial science research is done.”
Tsakiris also offered a challenge to skeptics who are doubtful of psychic medium research, like the work being done by Dr. Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona; Tsakiris offered to pay for a skeptic to follow Schwartz’s research protocol and then join him on the Skeptiko Podcast.
The 2007 interview is available for download free here.
About Skeptiko
Skeptiko is the first scientifically oriented Podcast exploring new research in controversial areas of science such as telepathy, psi, parapsychology, near-death-experience, reincarnation, and after-life encounters. Each episode features open, honest debate on new scientific discoveries. The show includes interviews with top research scientists and their critics.
Also See: Interview with Alex Tsakiris at Mind-Energy.net