Forum Borealis has become a goto podcast of mine. It was really cool chatting with Al.

But it's you that have claimed this is disingenuous.
Care to articulate your thoughts? Or is more about busting balls? :)

Cheers

Have you listened to the interview? We can only speculate why Alex thought their religious beliefs were important enough to bring up and as we've established, there's nothing wrong with speculation.
 
Here's the thing. I don't think it's that important.
E.g. Rupert Sheldrake in recent years has openly spoken about his Christian faith. Does this invalidate his work or his integrity as a scientist? I don't think it's even relevant. It's the research that has to be solid and withstand replication and peer analysis.

I can't see how scrutinizing every researcher's belief and conviction would help us gauging the merits of their work.

What I suspect some folks are trying to argue here is that researchers may not be religious in a literal sense (e.g. faithful Christians or Muslims) but rather in a non denominational fashion: e.g. belive in an afterlife, immortality of the soul, God as primal mover rather than the temperamental bearded guy in the sky, etc.

From there goes the allegation that these beliefs are "coloring" their research and the conclusions they make. I.e. those are not objective conclusions, rather they are influenced by previous belief.
Well, surprise surprise, welcome to the world. Scientists are human beings, if this obviousness had to be restated. Find me one without any form of belief or convictions!

If we're not to believe the conclusions of scientists that have a more or less developed spiritual side, I don't see a good reason to believe those who deny any form of spirituality.
Are we going to disocunt Einstein's work because he believed in a superior mind? [1]

I find this whole argument a big slice of baloney :D (or mortadella, as it's called over here, the actual salame I mean).

Cheers
When 'materialist' researchers fail to replicate psi studies, their prior beliefs and biases are cited as reasons for that failure by proponents of psi. Perhaps we are just more forgiving of those whose biases align with our own?
 
Have you listened to the interview? We can only speculate why Alex thought their religious beliefs were important enough to bring up and as we've established, there's nothing wrong with speculation.
because some Fundy Atheists incorrectly assume NDE researchers like Jeff Long and Pim Van Lommel are driven by a religious agenda when they clearly are not.
 
When 'materialist' researchers fail to replicate psi studies, their prior beliefs and biases are cited as reasons for that failure by proponents of psi. Perhaps we are just more forgiving of those whose biases align with our own?
Glad you finally have discovered warm water :)
 
Long isn't really doing anything more than collecting and curating stories (outside of aware, that may apply to the entire NDE field). Is that science? Maybe in the softest sense.
Well, when the goal of your research is to study specific experiences what else could you do?
Surely, in terms of rigorous academic research you can find better work such as that of Greyson, Fenwick etc... Still, I am not sure why this should be discounted as "just stories". That's basically the best you can get if you want to learn about people's experiences anyway.

Has he had a study published?
To the best of my knowledge, no.
 
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