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Alex Tsakiris and the Skeptiko Podcast - CRITICAL LOOK AND OVERVIEW.

Donn said:
To have a gent like Prof. Coyne at your disposal to talk evolution and learn, and then to dig in your pants and pull out your quantum-entanglement-with-neurons and science-doesn't-know-everything junk and spray it all over him...

What shocked me most was the straight-act. The intro-voice (a woman reading) very professionally, an engaging edit of the conversation to draw controversy. And his own voice; the reasoned tone. The use of all the normal science and skeptical words. There's no warning that double-barrel dumb is about to fire.

Ungh. The stupid is rude, and it burns.
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Totally unrelated, of course, there's currently a thread about the Dunning-Kruger effect.
 
zooterkin said:
Well, three days later, and the transcript has not been fixed. Colour me unsurprised.
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I e-mailed him about this, because he closed comments on the thread. Needless to say, I got no answer. He is a dishonest ignoramus. I believe the best policy is to ignore him altogether and let his silly sites wither away in the unfashionable backwaters of cyberlimbo.
 
zooterkin said:
Well done! What did he fix? I see it still says "quantum" instead of "Newtonian".
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He fixed these:

Another correction:

So even the phenomena of quantum mechanics has been found out through reductionistic materialistic investigation by scientists, so I don’t see a problem with the basic foundations of science being—remember, science is an inherently Deterministic. Determinism is found not to apply at least from a physics and quantum level, so it doesn’t mean that we’re constrained to be complete Determinists although I think most macro-phenomenon are in terms of Materialism and Naturalism, yeah. Those are solid things. That’s the way we find out stuff in science. We’ve never found out anything by rejecting those approaches so I don’t know what you mean when you say they’ve been undercut.

And another:

Dr. Jerry Coyne: Well, I don’t know that paper so I can’t comment. But you’re talking about quantum mechanics again, in which there may be observer effects but as far as I know there’s still a lot of controversy about that. How that deals with the Theory of Evolution is completely mystifying to me. I don’t know why you bring up this paper. I mean, if you want to use that paper to attack evolution, go ahead. But there’s no connection as far as I can see.


~~ Paul
 
Long time poster at Skeptiko here.

I just wanted to say I think the whole thing is a circus, and it gives me a headache. I don't bother with the Skeptiko forum much these days because I get tired of the same dogs-chasing-tails debate.

If somebody has a specific philosophy or point of view, it's pointless trying to force a new opinion out of them.

What Alex seems to do is find a guest who is known to have a very particular set of opinions, ie: materialistic. Then, he takes his own opinions (ie: The Near Death Experience sledgehammer) and tries to beat them with it.

I do applaud the fact that Alex engages directly with people he disagrees with. I just think the nature of the arguments that occur are completely ridiculous. No one gets anywhere.

He also should bring on guests he disagrees with and find some type of middle ground to prevent the podcast from being the equivalent to a UFC match. For instance, my personal opinions reflect some of Alex's--I also think based on evidence duality is an explanation toward things like NDEs, which places me more firmly in the "believer" camp. But that being said, I still have 90% of my opinions in common with people in the skeptic community about things like: UFO cults, fake mediums, bigfoot--and lately serious doubt I've raised toward parts of the natural health movement.

He could talk about any number of these topics with his skeptic guests, but instead he keeps beating the drum of the consciousness debate, and it doesn't lead to anything but internet publicity. I guess for these reasons I'm growing pretty tired of Skeptiko...
 
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CyrusK said:
Long time poster at Skeptiko here.

For instance, my personal opinions reflect some of Alex's--I also think based on evidence duality is an explanation toward things like NDEs, which places me more firmly in the "believer" camp. But that being said, I still have 90% of my opinions in common with people in the skeptic community about things like: UFO cults, fake mediums, bigfoot--and lately serious doubt I've raised toward parts of the natural health movement.

... I guess for these reasons I'm growing pretty tired of Skeptiko...
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Good for you, CyrusK. I disagree with you on the matter of dualism, but if you are genuinely interested in such issues I'd recommend you to stay away from amateur (euphemism for idiotic) sites and to have a look at the available serious philosophical and scientific literature. For a start, you could have a look at questia.com and google books.
 
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CyrusK said:
If somebody has a specific philosophy or point of view, it's pointless trying to force a new opinion out of them.
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Hi Cyrus, welcome to the forum :)

I certainly don't think it's pointless, far from it, although I don't think of this as forcing anything. Alex has said that he follows the evidence wherever it leads, that's great. I think it's a good idea to track down our differences point by point and evaluate the evidence behind them. We should be open to change our views and beliefs too if the evidence Alex provides is convincing enough.

One very important point is Alex's beliefs about the Double Slit experiment. It seems clear to me that he has bought the line that Deepak Chopra, What The Bleep Do We Know and other new age gurus promote actively.

I might be wrong about this myself, I'm no physicist, but I'm fairly confident that the Observer Effect doesn't work the way Alex thinks it does:

Dr. Jerry Coyne: And I cannot read every paper on quantum mechanics. You surely haven’t yourself to ask me enough questions about whether this has any effect on evolution or not.

Alex Tsakiris: Not at all because it’s so basic and fundamental I don’t have to go there.

Dr. Jerry Coyne: Okay, then you tell me how it’s so basic and fundamental for evolution if you think that this finding of quantum…

Alex Tsakiris: It’s the observer effect, Jerry. It’s the double-slit experiment. It’s our…

Dr. Jerry Coyne: Yeah, okay, what does that have to do with…

Alex Tsakiris: Are photons waves or particles, right? So it’s like…

Dr. Jerry Coyne: What does that have to do with evolution?

Alex Tsakiris: It has to do with evolution because what we find is that it’s consciousness. If we put our consciousness one way or another it measures this way or that way. We no longer have laws of physics the way that you talk about them in this high school science way in your USA Today articles.
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This is pretty much exactly how Deepak Chopra, WTBDWK and others are presenting the Double Slit experiment. I think this is a good and major point to start evaluating our differing views and beliefs.

This is why I don't think all this is pointless. I'm used to being around with believers from all sorts of traditions. Many of them are very smart people, they just have bad sources for their beliefs. I do believe that keeping the conversation civil and to the point can lead to a constructive dialogue between believers and skeptics, that is, if both sides are honestly open to change and willing to go with the best scientific evidence, I know I am, and I know Alex says the same.
 
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Kuko 4000 said:
I can do my best to make sure that Jerry sees them, I'm quite confident that he'd be happy to answer them.
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Kuko... I enjoy responding to some of your posts (you should join the Skeptiko forum), but you seem a little naive at times... did you really think Jerry was going to respond to any of the stuff about self-directed neuroplasiticity, or Bem or Radin?

Where's your confidence now that Jerry is dodging a follow-up dialog?
 
alex.tsakiris said:
Kuko... I enjoy responding to some of your posts (you should join the Skeptiko forum), but you seem a little naive at times... did you really think Jerry was going to respond to any of the stuff about self-directed neuroplasiticity, or Bem or Radin?

Where's your confidence now that Jerry is dodging a follow-up dialog?
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Fool me one shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
 
A new topic from Skeptiko with Bernardo Kastrup Alex's new go to man. With video interviews. I havn't had time to read this and digest it. If you comment try to keep the superficial snarky comments to a minimum, but rapier like criticisms on the inaccuracies should be used where appropriate.

Evolution, self-directed neuroplasticity, and quantum entanglement
I recently took part in an online discussion regarding whether recent scientific discoveries about self-directed neuroplasticity and quantum entanglement might be relevant to the theory of evolution. Since I've written about these topics before, both in my books and in this blog, I've decided to weigh-in for what it's worth. Indeed, at first sight, evolutionary biology seems to have no relation with either entanglement or neuroplasticity. Yet, I will argue below that there is indeed a very rational and clear link.
Let us first look at self-directed neuroplasticity. A book by UCLA Professor Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz summarizes the results of his experiments with patients suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The observations were that, through mindful meditation or other forms of self-directing one’s intention and attention, a patient could physically alter his or her brain in such a way as to counter the OCD. At first sight, this may sound no more striking than our ability to physically alter our muscles by choosing to exercise more. But there is a crucial difference: When we choose to exercise, that choice is, supposedly, the deterministic result of electrochemical processes taking place inside the brain and affecting a system separate from the brain (i.e. muscles); no form of self-reference is entailed. But in self-directed neuroplasticity the brain supposedly changes itself; it “re-wires” itself. So if the original physical constitution of the brain was wired for OCD, and therefore physically bound to OCD, where do the degrees of freedom come from that allow for it to intentionally re-wire itself out of OCD? In a way, this sounds like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps; so who is doing the re-wiring if not the brain? The suggestion is thus that it is a form of immaterial mind doing it; a mind that has direct causal efficacy on the inner-workings of the brain. This is called “downward causation” in philosophy of mind. Together with physicist Henry Stapp, Schwartz suggests that quantum wave-function collapse at the level of ion channels is the mechanism through which downward causation takes place in the brain. But note: Self-directed neuroplasticity is an empirically observed phenomenon not in dispute; what is in dispute is whether it necessarily entails downward causation.

More

http://www.bernardokastrup.com/2012/02/evolution-self-directed-neuroplasticity.html
 
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