Alex Tsakiris
| Alex Tsakiris | |
|---|---|
| Alex Tsakiris author of Why Science is Wrong About Almost EverythingAlex Tsakiris author of Why Science is Wrong About Almost Everything | |
| Born | |
| 🏳️ Nationality | American |
| 💼 Occupation | Author and producer of Skeptiko |
| 🌐 Website | www |
Alex Tsakiris (born 1958) is an author and producer of the podcast Skeptiko.[1][2]
In November 2014, he published Why Science Is Wrong…About Almost Everything. In the book, Tsakiris discusses near-death experiences, mediums, telepathy, healing, psychic detectives and psi.[3][4] He has appeared on syndicated radio talk shows in the United States and the United Kingdom.[5] During an appearance on the syndicated radio talk show Coast to Coast, Tsakiris explained his stance on whether or not there is life after death.[6] Tsakiris's work as an investigator has been referenced by parapsychologists and near-death researchers[7][8][9] and books by Rupert Sheldrake[10] and Sam Harris.[11] His podcast, Skeptiko, covers research in the science of consciousness including subjects such as precognition, telepathy and near-death experiences.
Criticism
Mentalist and noted skeptic Mark Edward who appeared on a podcast to debate Tsakiris, has written:
- Mr. Tsakiris is just a symptom of a much larger problem. This guy and others like him on the Internet are even worse than the run-of-the-mill believers you see wandering in and out of psychic fairs. Mr. Tsakiris is not just a believer, he’s clearly a con artist out to sell himself as an “expert in the field.” He’s not an expert at all. I doubt if he’s really even a believer if you get right down to it. He is playing what he thinks is a shrewd game of playing both sides against the middle and creating a win/win situation for himself. There’s no science at Skeptiko.[12]
In response to Tsakiris’s book “Why Science Is Wrong,” writer Benjamin Radford who investigated what Tsakiris offered to him as the “best case for psychic detectives” (and which appears in the book as chapter 8) wrote an in-depth blog addressing the claims. The complex case, originally profiled on a 2006 episode of a TV show, involved a psychic named Nancy Weber who claimed that 30 years earlier she helped catch serial killer James Koedatich by giving police officers Jim Moore and Bill Hughes biographical details about the killer long before he was caught—details that Weber and Tsakiris claim turned out to be amazingly accurate. Tsakiris wrote that “the police detectives repeatedly corroborated psychic detective Nancy Weber’s amazing account.... Amazingly, Radford still denies this fact” (p. 90).
Radford notes that “No one, including Tsakiris, Weber, Moore, or Hughes, offered any evidence whatsoever supporting their claims” and that “this ‘amazing’ case rests entirely on the contradictory memories of three people from a third of a century ago, yet Tsakiris boldly offers it as an example of Why Science Is Wrong.” Furthermore in contrast to Tsakiris’s claim that “the police detectives repeatedly corroborated psychic detective Nancy Weber’s amazing account,” a close review of their statements reveals “that they contradicted virtually every specific claim Weber made about what she told them.” In chapter 6 of his 2010 book Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries, Radford lists six examples of specific information Weber claims to have given police and quotes one or both of the officers as either refuting or being unable to confirm virtually all of Weber’s claims. In fact “Sgt. Hughes admitted that no information she gave led to his arrest...the case was solved by good police work.”
Radford discovered using a New Jersey phone book from 1982 that if Weber had indeed given the detectives all the evidence she claimed she had at the time, the police could have discovered the killer with a 15-minute search through the phone book, yet the police were unable to find the killer until he called them to his home. Radford’s research also revealed that Weber falsely claimed to have psychically known unpublished details about the murder of Koedatich victim Aimee Hoffman (whose name Tsakiris repeatedly misspells as “Amy Hoffman”) when in fact those details had been reported on the front page of the local newspaper. Radford attributes the case to a series of memory errors, confirmation bias, and mystery mongering.[13]
Bibliography
- Why Science Is Wrong...About Almost Everything (2014) ISBN 1938398319
References
- ↑ "Alex Tsakiris on BoA:Audio". February 26, 2015. Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Conversations Beyond Science and Religion – Alex Tsakiris: Why Science is Wrong About Almost Everything". Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Now Available: Why Science Is Wrong…About Almost Everything". December 3, 2014. Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Alex Tsakiris on Why Science is Wrong... about almost Everything". January 10, 2015. Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Why Science is Wrong … About Almost Everything". Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Alex Tsakiris". Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Differentiating Spiritual and Psychotic Experiences: Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar" (PDF). Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "False Equivalencies and the Mediocrity of Nonlocal Consciousness Research Criticism". Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There". Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: Fully Updated and Revised". Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion". Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- ↑ Edward, Mark. (2009). "Everybody's an Expert". The Skeptics Society. Retrieved December 05, 2015
- ↑ Radford, Benjamin. "Alex Tsakiris, Psychic Detectives, and Bad Science". Skeptical Inquirer Magazine. Center for Inquiry. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
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