Summary: Co-host of Point of Inquiry, discusses how Skeptics approach psychic science. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with skeptical writer and blogger Dr. Karen Stollznow. During the interview Mr. Tsakiris and Dr. Stollznow discuss to role of science in skeptical investigations: Alex Tsakiris: I do feel you, especially as an intellectual… and I know you’re a linguist and not trained as a parapsychologist… but you have somewhat of an obligation to build off of the original research or the best research that we have in the field. So, Gary Schwartz does medium research. Then, Julie Beischel picks up the gauntlet and is going forward in publishing work with mediums. So you can like that or you can not like it, but it really to me seems to get to the core issue which is does this kind of anomalous cognition between a “medium” and a deceased person really exist? So, why aren’t you familiar with the research? Dr. Karen Stollznow: Well, once again, I think I’ve worked in so many different areas with so many different themes and topics within the paranormal and pseudo-science and often I’m writing an article that might be 1,000 words. I’m limited; I’ve got a word limit that I can’t go over so I need to condense anything that I write and if I’m going to a psychic fair and writing about my experiences there, I don’t need to necessarily reference the research of these people. If I was writing about the research of these people then that would be a different matter, obviously. I’d need to keep my finger on the pulse of everything that is being done in that industry. But if I’m looking at individuals out there on the street who are practicing this and given again, it’s just one small area of what I study and research, then I’m not necessarily obliged to know what these people are doing within that context. Dr. Karen Stollznow’s website Play it: Download MP3 (34:00 min.) Read it: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris. As you know, one of the things we like to do on Skeptiko is engage the skeptical community. If you go back through the past shows you’ll see that we’ve had on many, many of the leading skeptical figures, skeptical writers, publishers of skeptical magazines, hosts of skeptical shows, and certainly people who have viewpoints that are different from the guests that we normally have on-the proponents, the researchers, the thinkers about psi and parapsychology. It always surprises me that that willingness to look at both sides isn’t reciprocated by skeptics very much. You just won’t see that on skeptical shows. You’ll never see Dean Radin or Rupert Sheldrake or Jeff Long-I could go on and on-Roger Nelson, or any of the people that we’ve interviewed here that are scholarly, publishing in peer-reviewed papers, writing books, you’ll never see them on those skeptical shows. That’s one of the topics I touch on in my interview today with Dr. Karen Stollznow, who is the host of one such show, Point of Inquiry. She’s very open about a certain need to preach to the choir, and while I applaud Karen’s openness, it really got me thinking, I guess. And it got me riled up about a couple other things that seem to keep cropping up in this journey that is Skeptiko. One example of that came up when she referenced a couple of interviews and a joint investigation I did with skeptical science writer, Ben Radford. Now, if you’ve been around the show long enough to remember the psychic detective work that I did with Ben Radford then I really want to thank you. You’re a long-time, loyal listener. But that investigation with Ben was really somewhat of a turning point for me because I went into it thinking that if I could just get skeptics to look at the[...]
