Summary: Interview with Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris examines the origins of the show and lessons learned. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for look back at 200 episodes to Skeptiko. During the interview Tsakiris discusses what he's discovered about other skeptical podcasts: Tim: There’s Skeptiko and you’re up against all of the skeptic shows: The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, Skepticality, Skeptoid… Alex Tsakiris: Not really, Tim. Those are like two different universes. I came into this from the outside and assumed that these two groups would fit together. If The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe and Skepticality and Skeptoid and all the rest of them are talking about parapsychology, although it be in a disparaging way, then naturally they’re going to want to dialogue with the same researchers I wanted to talk to. I was naïve enough to think that they actually did. What I’ve found is that they don’t. What the Skeptics really want is to be left in their little island over there, in their little world, so they can talk about these things among themselves. Play It: Listen Now: Download MP3 (59 min.) Read It: Today we have a special episode of Skeptiko. I have with me and I’ll soon be turning the mike over to Tim #$%, who is a long-time friend of mine and a long-time friend of Skeptiko. A guy who has literally listened to, I think, every show that I’ve produced. What makes this particularly interesting, other than I have this close personal relationship with Tim, is that Tim is a skeptic and he remains a skeptic. I love the fact that he’s stayed with the show, stayed with the material, has battled it out, and has remained a skeptic. So I think when Tim proposed the idea of doing an interview about Skeptiko, something I’ve been resistant to do, the more I thought about it the more I thought, ‘What more perfect person to conduct that interview than someone who’s deeply engaged in the show and remains opposed to a lot of the ideas. And that true spirit of sorting out the data and skepticism?’ I can now turn the mike over to Tim. Tim: Thank you, Alex. And thank you very much, honestly, for agreeing to do this. You and I had a bit of a back-and-forth on whether or not you thought this was a good idea but I do want to do this, primarily in my mind as a celebration of the fact that you’ve reached this milestone of 200 shows. So if you’ll look back at Skeptiko, it started January 7, 2007 and you introduced it with how controversial science is debated. So my idea for the next few minutes is to talk about the show. I’m hoping we can stay out of the topics of the show. We may bleed into that but I’m curious to get started with how the show got started. Take us back to 2007. Alex Tsakiris: Well, I started out as a listener. I’ve always been very interested in not only these topics but in general in the idea that I can learn. I can get better. I can improve by absorbing knowledge from other people. So I was a listener first, and I became quite interested in the whole idea of parapsychology and paranormal phenomena just at a very casual level, like anyone who watches a television program on the topic. That led me to Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, who is guest #1 of Skeptiko. The conversation I had with Rupert was along the lines of, “Hey, this is interesting. Why isn’t anyone talking about this in a serious way, interviewing these researchers and analyzing what they have to say, versus what people who oppose them have to say?” He said, “I don’t know.” I said, “We ought to make that happen and I’m willing to fund this. Let’s hire somebody to go do this show.” That was really how it started, is I was going to fund a show because I’m not a producer of any sort, and I’m not a radio guy or anything like that. Well, we went down that path and I asked Rupert for suggestions of who might be good for the show. That kind of played out and it’s like so many things you hear about, you know?
