This is the transcript of the interview I did with Alex Tsakiris at Skeptiko. It got a bit testy at times. Here’s a snatch on the subject of reincarnation. In the context, I was trying to explain that the fact that some children know what happened to a deceased adult is not necessarily obvious, slam dunk proof of reincarnation: [were these people trying to set me up? Wow!]
Denyse O’ Leary: … there’s probably more than one model that might explain what was happening responsible research is that the mind is not as closely link to the brain as has been formerly thought. So that way, one can move out into an area that’s well-sourced without attracting a whole bunch of [c]ranks because we do need to admit that this sort of research; any sort of research like this and I include that in the Christian community as well as others could attract [c]ranks. So that’s why some of us tend to try to be fairly based on.
Alex Tsakiris: I really have to take issue with that because I think it’s a strategy that folks in the parapsychology and in the other alternative conscious community have tried to do. Have tried to kind of bow to the altar of materialism and say, “No, we just want our little peace over here” and I think it’s a failed strategy. I think the accounts…
Denyse O’Leary: You’re the first person who has ever suggested that I was bowing to anyone like that but you go on.
Hey, the interview was a lot of fun, actually, and I hope you enjoy it.
(Note: I switched “pranks” in the quoted transcript above to [c]ranks. “Cranks” is what I said, and what I meant. Some of the rest of the transcript could do with editing for sentence flow and grammar, but I am not getting involved with that …
I am in no way responsible for the obviously bad transcript. Despite all my – widely attested – other faults, I speak perfect English. I probably could not make a significant grammar error if I tried. I would correct myself in mid-sentence.
Also just up at The Mindful Hack:
Animal minds: One way that animals teach
Society and values: Forget teaching about right and wrong where sex is concerned?
Spirituality and popular culture: Amazon’s #1 atheist book wasChristian?
At MercatorNet: Why women love shopping, and other myths (“Come to think of it, why does social neuroscience only tell us what we keep hearing from that high school drop-out cousin who listens to a lot of TV while shooting pool down in the rec room, between his split shifts at the loading dock?”)