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. 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."
The complete Skeptiko interview (audio and transcript) with D.J. Grothe is available at:
http://www.skeptiko.com/
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
