Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Latest Skeptiko Podcast

This week, Alex Tsakiris interviews Dr. James Alcock, professor of psychology at York University in Toronto and author of numerous scholarly articles and several books, including Psi Wars: Getting to Grips with the Paranormal.

During the 40-minute interview Alcock counters the notion that parapsychologists don’t garner attention from academia: “… if one could come up with good data that showed there’s something to it, the parapsychologists would be trampled by psychologists and physicists rushing to the study of it.” He also discusses the path forward for parapsychology research: “What I’d like to promote is that one … bend over backwards to think of ways that you can be fooled. To think of ways that you might be mistaken. The bane of every researcher is to be captivated by some notion, and then go find it, even if it’s not there.”

The podcast is avaible for download at Skeptiko.com.

1 comment:

M.C. said...

I must admit a bit of kicking Alcock in the shins over on AMNAP for this bit of silliness:

Alcock: I don't know if you're familiar with the staring experiments -- some of the early parapsychologists back in the 20s, did staring experiments, and they came to the conclusion there was nothing there, and this was then abandoned by modern parapsychology, no modern parapsychologist that I know of, apart from Dr. Sheldrake has had much, or any interest in this.


That shows such a lack of familiarity with the research that to me it brings Alcock's credentials as an "informed skeptic" into considerable question.