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Video Dr. Tim Johnson details personal health battle
The former "GMA" chief medical editor, who held the role for more than three decades, joins the show to discuss his own battle with prostate cancer.
Moving Sioux Falls Forward: Glanbia Nutritionals
A world-leading food provider has found success in Sioux Falls for more than a decade and continues to grow its reach.
Cooper Flagg drops a career-high 42 points, breaks decades-old LeBron James record in overtime loss to Jazz
Cooper Flagg is the only 18-year-old in NBA history to record a 40-point game.
Microsoft will finally kill obsolete cipher that has wreaked decades of havoc
The weak RC4 for administrative authentication has been a hacker Holy Grail for decades.
Penn State Health, Mid Penn Bank celebrate decade of No Shave November with record-breaking $355,000 raised
Penn State Health and Mid Penn Bank marked the 10th anniversary of their No Shave November campaign last month by raising an unprecedented $355,000, setting a new all-time record for the initiative.
Kinesiology and Health Sciences Program: Preparing Students for Dynamic Careers in Human Movement
Alma College’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences (KHS) is evolving — building on decades of expertise while expanding opportunities for students to engage deeply with human movement, clinical practice,
Kinesiology and Health Sciences Program: Preparing Students for Dynamic Careers in Human Movement
Alma College’s Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences (KHS) is evolving — building on decades of expertise while expanding opportunities for students to engage deeply with human movement, clinical practice,
Rob Reiner Turned Political Activism Into Lasting Impact: Director-Actor Played Key Role In Efforts On Early Childhood Development, LGBTQ+ Rights
As figures including Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom shared their tributes to Rob Reiner, it was a reminder that the director-actor’s impact on politics went beyond fund raising and celebrity endorsement. Over several decades, Reiner led efforts to pass an early childhood development initiative in California, and he later helped spearhead a drive […]
City casino bids face key vote by state gaming commission
The 1 p.m. vote is the final step in a decades-long process.
Behavioral health spending spikes to 40% of all children’s health expenditures
Expenditure nearly doubled in a decade; families paid $2.9 billion in out-of-pocket costs in 2022
Dropping equity goals for businesses widens inequality
We call on the MMSD Commission to build on decades of progress and uphold policies that narrow long-standing racial and gender inequities.
Nelson Returns As Assistant Sports Information Director - University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Athletics
Ricky Nelson, who owns a decade of experience with UW-Oshkosh Athletics, has returned to the Titans' sports information office as announced by UW-Oshkosh Sports Information Director Brady Halverson on Monday.
Entertainment industry remembers Rob Reiner's six-decade career in TV and film
Rob Reiner's career as an actor and director spanned six decades. The entertainment industry is honoring his legacy and mourning the reported deaths of Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.
Entertainment industry remembers Rob Reiner's six-decade career in TV and film
Rob Reiner's career as an actor and director spanned six decades. The entertainment industry is honoring his legacy and mourning the reported deaths of Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.
Convenience store closes all locations after more than 70 years in business
It’s the end of the road for a business chain that has been operating for decades.
Chiefs eliminated, Patrick Mahomes injured as an era ends in Kansas City
Los Angeles Chargers knock off Kansas City, 16-13, to eliminate Chiefs for the first time in a decade
A shakeup not seen in a decade is taking over NFL standings
The rise of once-lowly teams, and the regression of established powers, has combined to turn the playoff picture upside down
Exclusive: Is America ready for a woman president? Nancy Pelosi's surprising take.
Exit interview: After four decades, the most powerful woman in the history of the United States heads home. She's still defiant.
After nearly 40 Years, Pelosi closes a historic chapter in Washington
After nearly four decades shaping U.S. politics, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi reflects on her historic tenure.
Washington Twp. business owner is an immigrant whose family won a lottery to come to the U.S.
The journey from his birthplace in the island country of Fiji to becoming a business owner in Washington Twp. was decades long for Ashwin Narayan.
Column | More money, more corruption requires more attention, nonprofit says
OpenSecrets, which started four decades ago, is renewing its drive to help voters follow the money between special interests and government officials.
Klæbo makes shock exit as Russians return; Prevc family celebrates
Norwegian superstar Johannes Høsflot Klæbo failed to get beyond the quarter-finals of a cross country sprint race for the first time since his World Cup debut almost a decade ago. Klæbo has ruled the sprint over the years by winning the last two Olympic golds and four world titles, and he came into Saturday's race at the Swiss venue of Davos with 18 straight World Cup victories in the discipline.
Affable comedy acting legend Dick Van Dyke turns 100 years old
Comedy icon Dick Van Dyke is celebrating his 100th birthday. Van Dyke hit the century mark on Saturday, some six decades after he sang and danced with Julie Andrews in
Houston Museum of Natural Science's Foucault Pendulum has stopped after decades of swinging. Here's what happened.
Houston Museum of Natural Science's Foucault Pendulum has stopped after decades, and here's why.
FDA approves first new antibiotics to treat gonorrhea in decades, with hope to combat drug resistance
For the first time in decades, the US Food and Drug Administration has signed off on new antibiotics to fight gonorrhea. The approvals come at a critical moment: The sexually transmitted infection is growing harder to treat, and cases continue to climb nationwide.
How Mass Anti-Graft Protests Pushed Bulgaria Into a Political Crisis
Bulgaria is in political turmoil after the largest anti-corruption demonstrations in decades triggered the resignation of Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov’s minority government just weeks before the country is due to adopt the euro currency.
The Paris Agreement Fueled A Decade Of Economic Growth, With Business Leading The Way
A decade after the Paris Agreement, U.S. economic competitiveness depends on continued global business leadership
15 Big Ten sports scandals (including Rutgers) from the last 15 years
In the past decade and a half alone, the Big Ten has been marred by massive scandals at its most renowned institutions.
‘You won’t understand unless you chew on it’: Hideo Kojima wants you to remember his games for decades
With narrative storytelling, multimillion-dollar budgets and A-list casts, Hideo Kojima’s arthouse games — including the critically acclaimed “Metal Gear Solid” and “Death Stranding” franchises — are as cinematic as, well, cinema.
Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles for you
Preview: Order of the Sinking Star started small but became a “combinatoric explosion.”…
Packers-Broncos Preview
DENVER (AP) For the first time in a decade, Denver Broncos (11-2) stand atop the AFC playoff race heading into the holidays. They're the league's only unbeaten team at home. They've won 10 consecutive games and they've saddled their last 11 visitors with a loss going back 14 months.
Blame Republicans for our health insurance mess
Conservatives haven’t taken health policy seriously for decades.
Mayor Adams weighs in on his legacy, achievements
He will leave as New York City’s second Black mayor, and the first one-term mayor in more than three decades.
Mysterious X-ray signal from deep space may be the scream of a star ripped apart by two black holes
A strange X-ray signal spotted decades ago may be the result of a star that got attacked by two black holes, one after the other.
Mega Raichu Flies Around Like Superman, And It Rules
After a decade-long wait, Pokémon's mascot finally has two Mega Evolutions in Legends: Z-A's DLC
Driscoll elected to Virginia Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2026
Terry Driscoll, whose visionary leadership transformed William & Mary Athletics over more than two decades, has been elected to the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2026.
Hartford: 10-Year Analysis Shows Shifts in Common, Expensive Small-Business Claims
Liability risks for small businesses have shifted over the last decade, with fire and slip-and-falls becoming more expensive while water and freezing
A Democrat wins Miami mayor’s race for the first time in nearly 30 years
Democrat Eileen Higgins won the Miami mayor’s race on Tuesday, defeating a Republican endorsed by President Donald Trump to end her party’s nearly three-decade losing streak and give Democrats a boost in one of the last electoral battles ahead of the 2026 midterms.
I lived in Europe for almost a decade. Here are the 6 cities you should visit during the holiday season.
When I lived in Europe, I visited a variety of Christmas markets. I enjoyed the scenery, food, and trinkets at markets in Vienna, Geneva, and Bruges.
Cyberpunk 2077 Celebrates Five Years Since Launch!
CD PROJEKT RED proudly marks five years in Night City with a special anniversary trailer, partnerships, and announcements — all in celebration of Cyberpunk 2077’s journey over the last half a decade! Snapshot: A fifth anniversary trailer
Scientists discover a new state of matter at Earth’s center
New research reveals that Earth’s solid inner core is actually in a superionic state, where carbon atoms flow freely through a solid iron lattice. This unusual behavior makes the core soft, matching seismic observations that have puzzled scientists for decades. The mobility of these light elements may also contribute energy to Earth’s magnetic field. The findings reshape models of Earth’s interior and could apply to other rocky planets.
I went through early menopause at 29. It upended my work and life for nearly two decades — here's what finally helped.
After dealing with endometriosis since she was a teenager, Claudia Zimmerman had a hysterectomy at age 29. This was the start of a 17-year struggle.
The U.S. Needs a Better Strategy for Sports Diplomacy
The U.S. has never had a cohesive approach to sports diplomacy — which could be a problem while hosting the World Cup and the Olympics over the next decade.
Vegas Golden Knights Add Three Senior Executives to Accelerate Next Phase of Business Growth and Innovation
Golden Knights announced the addition of three senior executives who bring decades of experience
The Most Influential Man in Europe Thinks Europe is Full of Losers
The most important European policymaker for the first time in a decade is not a European and, increasingly, doesn’t even much like the place anymore.
Trump’s Idea for Health Accounts Has Been Tried. Millions of Patients Have Ended Up in Debt.
Republican calls to give Americans cash instead of health insurance subsidies double down on a decades-old strategy of moving people into high-deductible plans with health savings accounts.
Scientists Unveil the Most Realistic Black Hole Accretion Model Ever Created
Using cutting-edge algorithms and exascale supercomputers, researchers have created the most realistic simulations yet of matter flowing into black holes. Building on decades of research, a group of computational astrophysicists has reached an important breakthrough: they have created the most de
ACA approval hits new high: Gallup
More Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) than at any point since it took effect more than a decade ago, according to a new Gallup survey. In the survey, released Monday, 57 percent o…
JIM CLOERN: The scientist and science I mourn
By Ariel Rubissow Okamoto A man died recently who was one of my heroes. Inside his big brain lay the secrets of San Francisco Bay. In one sentence he could explain the relationships between the tiny plants drifting aimlessly in the shallows, the muscular salmon leaping upstream, and the health of the planet. He had a warm smile, a curl to his hair, a ready chuckle. But I did not know this man well. For decades he ran a monthly data […]
Ancient 'dirty dishes' may have led archaeologists astray for decades
A new study questions if Bronze Age dishes really do have traces of olive oil.
Democrats see an opening to win the Miami mayor's race in the latest test of the US political mood
Democrats are hoping to win a race for Miami mayor after decades out of power.
Democrats See an Opening to Win the Miami Mayor’s Race in the Latest Test of the US Political Mood
MIAMI (AP) — It has been nearly three decades since a Democrat held the mayor’s office in Miami, a span of futility the party is hoping to reverse during a special runoff election this week in one of the last electoral showdowns before next year’s midterms. While it is a local race, this election ...
Why do Gen Z have a growing appetite for retro tech?
Gen Z are going retro, with studies showing a resurgence in people buying tech in the modern age that can be dated back decades.
Decades Later, Scientists Finally Explain Voyager 2’s Bizarre Readings at Uranus
Powerful waves unleashed by solar storms could be the key to understanding extreme radiation. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) researchers now think they have found the answer to a puzzle that has lingered for nearly four decades involving Uranus and its unusual radiation environment. When Vo
‘Babies are at risk’: Health reporter breaks down CDC panel’s new Hepatitis B vaccine rules
The health community is in an uproar following a Friday vote by a federal vaccine committee ending a decadeslong recommendation that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B.
I saved $3 million but was afraid to spend it when I retired. 3 tactics changed my mindset after being frugal for decades.
Tactics like having a "war chest" for fun experiences and a "paycheck" helped Scott Scovel feel comfortable spending money after 40 years of saving.
What the heck is going on at Apple?
Apple for decades has been known for a consistent string of design-forward, tech-defining consumer products that have shaped how people use technology.
French Gourmet in Pacific Beach to close after nearly 4 decades in business
The bakery and restaurant occupy the site of a proposed residential tower on Turquoise Street.
Colorado health leaders react to CDC limiting hepatitis B vaccine recommendations
CDC vaccine advisory panel overturns decades-long guidance on the hepatitis B, a move the state health department does not support.
CDC advisers vote to overturn decades-long policy on hepatitis B vaccine for infants
In a controversial move, the vaccine advisory group reversed a recommendations for universal immunizing of newborns intended to protect them from a virus that attacks the liver.
Trump Says Europe Risks Being Wiped Away Unless Societies Change
The Trump administration said that European civilization is at risk of “erasure” as a result of decades of economic decline, political censorship and immigration.
Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros. in Deal Valued at $82.7 Billion
A deal "could potentially be killing three birds with one stone," argues one Wall Street analyst, while another one touts "iconic franchises that could be exploited for decades to come."
New 'physics shortcut' lets laptops tackle quantum problems once reserved for supercomputers and AI
Physicists have transformed a decades-old technique for simplifying quantum equations into a reusable, user-friendly "conversion table" that works on a laptop and returns results within hours.
American Science, Shattered
An eight-decade partnership between universities and the federal government made U.S. science preeminent. It took Trump less than a year to shred that
Roberts and Kagan prepare for another showdown on executive power
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
Faulkner University News – Harris College of Business and the Khadanga School of Executive Education Equips Students for Success
For decades, Faulkner’s Harris College of Business and the Khadanga School of Executive Education has been preparing students for success.
‘Samurai space opera’ action RPG SOL Shogunate announced for consoles, PC
Chaos Manufacturing, a studio founded by “veteran developers with decades of experience working on a wide range of acclaimed game franchises,” has announced SOL Shogunate a “samur…
Public Trust in Government: 1958-2025
While trust in government has been low for decades, the current measure is one of the lowest in the nearly seven decades since the question was first asked by the National Election Study, and it is lower than it was last year (22%).
States Tighten Oversight of Private Equity in Health Care
Private equity’s footprint in health care has expanded rapidly over the past decade, and in response states have begun to retool long‑standing doctrines
Seedy K’s GameCap: Arkansas
In my pregame prep, I refreshed my memory about some truly important mileposts, battles of note against Arkansas in decades past. The Good: Scooter or Charles one or the other or both following a shot to beat the Razorbacks in Knoxville in the Dream Game Chaser game. The Bad: The season ending loss to Arkansas […]
Through the lens: Four decades of arts & entertainment with photojournalist Roger Mastroianni
For more than 40 years, photojournalist Roger Mastroianni has chronicled Cleveland's arts, healthcare, and corporate landscapes—capturing everything from Cleveland Orchestra performances to hospital operating rooms.
Meta poaches Apple design exec Alan Dye
Dye led Apple's user interface team for the last decade.
Meta poaches Apple design exec Alan Dye to lead new creative studio in Reality Labs
Dye led Apple's user interface team for the last decade.
Michele Kang takes on women’s sports’ most neglected need
With a $55 million pledge, Kang is committing to research the women’s sports world has waited decades for.
Texas health agency's executive commissioner retiring
Young, who spent decades in state government, will step down on Jan. 2. Gov. Greg Abbott will pick a successor.
Launching hundreds of thousands of satellites will threaten space research, scientists warn
We've all come to appreciate the beautiful images space telescopes provide us of galaxies, nebulas and more, but they also provide astronomers with important scientific information about our universe. That science may be under threat in the next decade if the proposed 560,000 satellites are launched.
China has planted so many trees it's changed the entire country's water distribution
Huge "regreening" efforts in China over the past few decades have activated the country's water cycle and moved water in ways that scientists are just now starting to understand.
Where Science Meets Storytelling: Twelve Years of the Science Blogs Web Archive
More than a decade after its launch, the Science Blogs Web Archive continues to grow and evolve. In this interview, Jennifer “JJ” Harbster reflects on building and maintaining the collection, while intern Yahir Brito brings a fresh perspective on updating and expanding it. Together, they share a few of their favorite blogs and discuss why it is important to preserve these unique examples of scientific communication.
Mason restaurant closing after years of business citing rent hikes
A restaurant in Mason, Ohio is closing its doors after more than a decade of business, citing rent hikes.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is a technical marvel and game design nightmare
After a decade of development, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is a beautiful but befuddling game full of misguided design decisions and annoying sidekicks.
Live updates: Public will testify today on Indiana redistricting map
The Indiana House is launching the legislative process for mid-decade redistricting. Follow along for live updates.
How the U.S. let ‘everywhere chemicals’ threaten your health
These chemicals continue to contaminate Americans’ food, decades after scientists recognized their dangers.
After a Witcher-free decade, CDPR still promises three sequels in six years
CD Projekt Red says shift to Unreal Engine allows for more rapid development.
Hearing in case that could rewrite the rules of religion in politics
A Texas hearing saw pushback to the federal government's recent reversal of a decades-long precedent that banned churches from endorsing politicians.
Review: Marvel Cosmic Invasion (PS5) - Marvel's Most Fun Beat-'Em-Up in Decades
Beta Ray Brill
Mapping the exposome: Science broadens focus to environmental disease triggers
After decades of intense focus on genetics, the biomedical research community is undergoing a major shift, focusing on a new framework called "exposomics."
Science must move from materialism to mystery
Theoretical physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that modern science has become trapped in a framework that mistakes matter for the whole of reality. In this wide-ranging interview, Gómez-Marín challenges the foundations of materialism, defends the scientific study of near-death experiences, and calls for a new type of science grounded in mystery and a renewed sense of the sacred. He suggests that abandoning materialism could open the door to a deeper understanding of consciousness, death, and the purpose of human existence. Simon Custer: You are both a theoretical physicist and a neuroscientist, and you have also been fiercely critical of materialist theories of mind and consciousness. What do you think the ultimate nature of reality is?Àlex Gómez-Marín: I don't know what the ultimate nature of reality is, but what I try to first assess is whether the stories that they [mainstream science] have told us about it are right, or maybe whether there are other alternatives. That's why I've been a fierce critic of materialism. As a scientist, I realized that they had sold us this idea that to be a good scientist you also had to subscribe to many other -isms, like materialism, reductionism, and even secularism. And so first I think one needs to unmount these -isms, and then, as is happening today in consciousness studies, we have a huge landscape where there isn't only one game in town, the idea that matter is the only thing that really exists. But because we are studying the hard problem of consciousness, it may be the case that other views of reality, like idealism, or even dualism, or other theories like dual aspect monism... these are philosophical ideas that now, I think, have room in science to be taken seriously. How does something like materialism relate to dualism or idealism? What is materialism in the first place?Well, materialism is the philosophical position that matter is the only really ‘real’ thing in the universe. And I think that worked kind of well because science started 400 years ago and Galileo made that split, I call it the foundational wound. It was a great business move.He said, let's start doing science on that portion of reality that lends itself more easily to mathematization and measurement. So, for some reason, the solidity of this table or the movement of planets lend themselves very well to this foundational idea of science. But as time went on, 400 years later, we realized that we had forgotten the other side, which is what really matters.What really matters is pain, is love, is feelings, sensation, consciousness, which is very hard to define, but very intimate. We all know what it is. It's that thing that disappears when we go into deep sleep and comes back in the morning. SUGGESTED VIEWING On the edges of knowledge With Michael Shermer, Rupert Sheldrake, Güneş Taylor It's what it is like to be, as Nagel said. It's the feeling of being alive. So, materialism is good to study certain things, but then when it ossifies into this ideology and then is dressed like science, now it's preventing us from understanding these key questions that are really that everybody wants to know.Why are we here? Why do we feel reality? Where do we go when we die? And so we need other ways. We need pluralism. I'm only asking for having more options on the table and taking them seriously. Why does materialism fail to explain consciousness? For example, if you were to lobotomize me, I would not be a functional human being. What do you say to someone who might think that materialism adequately explains the mind?Well, here we could speak about different things. We could talk about physics or about neuroscience. I happen to have training with both.For instance, for neuroscientists, 99% of them, I'm not included in that portion, believe that the brain can only be a productive organ. It's an organ that somehow, somewhere, consciousness emerges. It's like a lamp. And then something happens, magic happens, and then consciousness emerges.That's the position you need to be if you're a materialist because if the only really ‘real’ thing is matter, then you need to say, just give us some more time and money and we'll figure out how mind emerges or is produced from matter. There are many philosophically sophisticated ways of criticizing this.Now there's another option, which is the brain as a permissive organ. This was said by William James more than 100 years ago.Now then the brain wouldn't be like this machine, like for instance, a heat engine whose smoke is consciousness, which is what we would have in the first big model, the productive model. But in the permissive model, the brain would be a kind of a filter. And so the brain would still have a very important role in consciousness, but it wouldn't be a productive role.It would be permissive, much like a filter or much like a prism which would receive light. And - I'm speaking metaphorically - it would receive the light of the mind and then it could reflect it and refract it.Now, with these two big options on the table, I think we can make progress into what I call the edges of consciousness, which are all these experiences, weird experiences that many people have, but we don't talk about enough, like near-death experiences, precognitive dreams, synchronicities. These experiences are very important for humans and they have a place in the permissive hypothesis and they are literally impossible in the productive hypothesis. So that's yet one more reason to explore alternatives to materialism. There may be anecdotal evidence for near-death experiences, but is there robust evidence that would be accepted by the majority of scientists who subscribe to the scientific method?Sure. And the plural of anecdotes, someone said, is data.And there's a lot of data. Actually, this year is the 50th anniversary, half a century, since Dr. Raymond Moody realized that we have two ears and one mouth and started listening to what his patients had to say about their experiences while they were clinically dead.The heart had stopped, breathing had stopped in these patients. These patients would come back and tell him these amazing stories that some people may say are hallucinations, but for the patients were hyper-real, like seeing light at the end of the tunnels, seeing deceased family members waiting for them, feeling bliss.___I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain.___And so he and others started taking them seriously and writing their accounts down. And then you can do a science based on that material of experience that people have. Now, on the more objective side, more recently people have started to measure what's going on in the brain when people are clinically dead and brought back. This has opened a proper field of study, which is near-death studies.Evidence is a difficult word, because sometimes people think that when you say evidence, this is just the final proof. Evidence is like in a jury. You bring testimony, you bring pieces of data that point in one direction or another.I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain. When brains are broken or shut off, there can still be mind going on. And that's revolutionary.That would entail that when we die, it's not game over, which, by the way, is the thesis of materialism. If consciousness survives, materialism dies. It's game over for materialism if something of us continues after we die. Do you think that there is mental continuity after death?Well, I think so, and I believe so, and I could also say I may have experienced it myself, because four years ago I had a near-death experience. I was in the hospital, I lost a lot of blood, and I saw those beings at the end of the tunnel, three beings, and there was yellow light. I was in a well, I was looking upwards, and I hadn't read about NDEs by then, but when I came back from this experience, I decided I would try to integrate this also in my professional life. Not just my personal life, of course, but my professional life as a physicist and as a neuroscientist. So I may have had the experience of glimpses of what an afterlife would be, and I'm not ashamed to say it in this way, and then one can do science of it, and then one can do philosophy of it.One can think about what -isms we were discussing, what views on reality would allow those experiences to be really ‘real,’ as opposed to, well, poor guy, the brain was kind of broken, it must have been a hallucination. Do you have a view about whether individuality or “the ego” persists after death, or whether we sort of merge into some sort of cosmic consciousness instead?I don't know, but my view would be along those lines you're suggesting. I think we could speak about a kind of universal mind, and then the problem is not how we emerge from matter, but how we fragment from a more holistic consciousness into these individual eddies and then when we die, this kind of dissipates.But I'm not sure. For instance, idealism would promote that view, but then what would survive of us after these eddies just vanish and become again the big Consciousness, I'm not sure what that would be. I don't know for sure, but I would tell you I believe something of us survives.And there are other lines of research, not just near-death experience, that can address this really hard question of survival. For instance, there are children who remember previous lives. This was studied by Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia for more than 50 years.___Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.___It's amazing research. He went all over the world, especially in the East, and collected all these case studies, all these stories. In plural, these were data of kids, very young age, who would describe up to 40 items that then he could go and verify.There was no internet. There was really no way the kid could know. Why would the kid say that when I was living in this other body and I was a woman and that's how my house would look like or that's how I would die, right? Again, there is evidence, not proof, but there's evidence not only that something weird and interesting is happening as we cross the threshold, but also when we come back to this life.Scientists should not be afraid of studying this, but they are because there's stigma. There's usually stigma upon the enigma, and this is so unfortunate. And one of the reasons is because of the ideology of materialism, because those things cannot be possible. What is wrong with the politics of science such that they have generated this stigma?So many things. Science is a human activity to begin with.So it falls prey to all our passions and ego and greed. That's one thing. Science is a job for the good and for the bad.You need to get a salary. You need to get grants. Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.And then, we didn't have time to unpack this, but science for many years become entangled, as I was suggesting before, to other -isms, materialism, secularism. So anything that smells like the afterlife, people may think has to do with God, and then they freak out.Anything that suggests that there's something about the mind that may not need a physical material substrate to exist, it smells like non-materialism. So, all these -isms are ideologically blocking that kind of research, and then there are all these sociopolitical constraints as to what should be studied and what shouldn't be studied.I call it the backstage of science. Sometimes we scientists or science communicators seem to speak as if the data is the only thing that matters. We say, well, data and theory.But then there's a third leg of this stool, which is all the politics that goes behind the scenes. And we often don't speak about this, and it's quite vicious and petty, and it's very real. Why is materialism so attractive to most scientists?Well, an easy answer is because we've grown up with it.It's what the educational system promotes, and that's what you hear when you go to university. So it's like growing in a culture. It feels like the air in which you breathe.So it's very hard to begin with to detect, well, maybe there's another alternative. Maybe there are other ways of doing science, other environments in which one could do science. That's one reason.And other reasons maybe are more profound, and I'm not qualified to explain them, but I could say, looking at this 400-year history of science, since it started around 1623 with Galileo's book The Assayer, that science went and coupled with all what's going on in the West.And so the fall of religion, you could say, and science presented us this new alternative that then could be coupled very well with other -isms, and this idea of growth, and then science losing its good twin brother, which was philosophy. There's a whole natural history of science starting as philosophy, kind of emancipating or breaking out from philosophy, and then marrying technology, and then marrying other social systems.From that point of view, materialism is a very convenient idea to propose. There were attempts, like the German idealists tried to do a more romantic science. But no, the idea prevailed, like Francis Bacon said: You should pursue nature through all her corners, he said, and make her spill her secrets.Our attitude towards nature in the science that dominates is very much reflecting how we treat nature in our society, in our culture, like a resource to extract secrets by force and then dominate it. How is materialism related to the notions of growth and progress? What's wrong with having a productive citizenry?This is another very interesting and very difficult question to answer.But there's this recent book coming out by Paul Kingsnorth. In it, he explains this idea of the machine and this idea of progress. And this, again, this conflation of more is better, of we need to go forward always, and convincing us that the way to do that is to continually extract more from nature. But because we don't have the religious context anymore, because God is dead, then what do we have? We have what we can do as humans with our own gadgets.It's kind of the story of the Promethean fire. We will just build anything to make ourselves God.A good example today is transhumanism. Transhumanism is this pseudo-religion dressed in technoscientific language whose goal is very religious. They promise immortality, they promise redemption, they promise transformation of the entire natural world, but it's done by human means through technology. Are you suggesting that we can't have ethics without religion?Well, we should have ethics with or without religion. That's another pruning that has happened in science. We say, forget about aesthetics, although some physicists still think that beautiful means probably true, and forget about politics. We pretend there's no backstage of science, and even let's forget about ethics.___Science needs to be in the service of mankind.___Scientists, when they become more like engineers, they're just thinking how to make things work so that they can go to the moon, go to Mars, make machines that think, but they don't think whether that's a good idea.And also consider metaphysics. Many scientists for a long time pretended, and maybe that comes from the stream of positivisms, that really one doesn't need metaphysics at all, except that materialism is always the metaphysics running the system.You see, it's not just ethics. It's the pruning of all of these, you could say, five main legs of philosophy that just makes a kind of unconscious science, a science that doesn't really know what it's doing. It's doing it very well locally, but it just doesn't know what it's doing globally. Do you think science has to have an ultimate vision and purpose behind it for it to be effective or for it to be meaningful and transformative?Yes, a way I would say that is that science needs to be in the service of mankind. And it hasn't been that. And we can see it through, you know, when we discovered the secrets of the atom, and all of a sudden, the Manhattan Project, and then we create nuclear weapons.And now we're trying to crack how machines may think, and now we're creating this mess, right? So science needs to be in service of mankind, not in service of a few ideas that maybe want to make more money or just dominate upon nature. What about planes, trains, automobiles, and modern medicine? Hasn't science served mankind by helping us develop those technologies?Yes and no. I see where you're going, and it's fair.I came here by plane, and it's a blessing. When I almost died, the surgeons did their job, and they saved my life. But these two forced choices between Luddites and Silicon Valley types, I think, of course, it's a false dichotomy.Progress, in a way, it's good, but we often don't speak about the dark side of the moon. We say the great things that progress has brought, and we don't speak about the disasters, the side effects that it has come with, and the same when we promise new technologies. We tend to think that any technology is great, that email is going to save us so much time because we don't need to write letters and send them anymore.Is that true? I spend so many hours a week writing emails. Let's just say there are great things about it and bad things about it. People like Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, for example, argue that we've made moral progress over time because of the Enlightenment. Do you think that's totally wrong-headed?I think he's emphasizing a side of the moon, and he does that very well, and you can find tons of plots where there's a slope going up and say it's great. But I think he should also tell the not-so-friendly story.But if your ideology is just to resist and continue to explain that the Enlightenment is the best thing ever and reason is the best thing ever… this feels to me like you're worshipping these abstractions.I'm very critical of it and also of these, again, science communicators and scientists that say, Oh, science says, in the name of science, experts say. It's like, come on, let's be careful because we can shoot ourselves in the foot by putting forth to the people an image of science that we know is not really true. Recently there's been a resurgence of spirituality and of people who say that they're spiritual but not religious, especially in the United States. If materialism is going away, what is going to fill that gap? Are we going to return to traditional religion? Do you see that being connected with the rise of the political right?I'm not a fortune teller, so I don't know what's going to happen. But, yeah, we could say we're in this post-materialist age and even post-secular age. One cannot come back to the past, but maybe just to contact with the roots is a good idea.What do I mean by that? I think we need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method. We need to do so in a culture where we realize humans cannot thrive in a vacuum where there's this idea that the sacred has to be removed.Now, how do we do that without bringing in back all the vices of religion? I don't know. I'm from a Catholic country.Here we are in England, so there are differences and interreligious dialogue has always been a challenge. But I think maybe a way of putting it is: after all these conflicts and branchings I was quickly alluding to, science from philosophy and then also from religion, now there's a time of reconciliation perhaps and maybe debates in the proper sense, like exchange of ideas in service of learning and getting into something higher than both poles. We need science to talk to religious people and it's interesting when people say they're spiritual and not religious.I think this is just a way of saying, no, I don't want to go back, I want to go forward. But at the end of the day, religions have offered us practices and grounding that we now desperately need. Everybody can and should just meditate or pray or do whatever they want, but we're in a crisis and it's time for reconciliation. What do you say to critics that say you are merely projecting our need for meaning onto a fundamentally indifferent universe?Yeah, I know that the typical science communicator says something like this. But we're not projecting. Human beings feed on meaning.It's the other way around. If you're a materialist, because the only thing that there is is matter, all that comes next, free will, consciousness, meaning, this is a kind of illusion that we need to explain.They're just craving for meaning, but there isn't really for them. I would also like to remind my materialist friends that for decades, if not centuries, they've said in the name of science, we know that this and this and this doesn't really exist. I think now they sense they're forced to say, well, actually, we don't know. We've been saying, for instance, that there's nothing after you die, and now probably they need to admit that they don't know the answer.___We need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method.___So it's a moment to open up possibilities and also to gently but fiercely critique these claims that I think harm society. If you say in the name of science, get on with it, when your father dies, you'll never see him again. Well, what the F do you know about it? You haven't studied the literature, you haven't had any of those experiences, and basically what you're doing is you're just doing marketing on ideology. This needs to stop. Do you think that it's scarier for some people to entertain the thought that there might be life after death, compared to a materialist worldview where you just die, given that there might be consequences for unsavory behaviour?Well, death and dying is scary. It's maybe the ultimate ending. It's a limit on life, and when we're in this conquest mode, we don't like limits.And it also has, there's a shockwave backwards, so I think if you change your notion of what death is or may be, you live differently. It also has consequences, as you're saying, for the future because this is not our only goal here and we come back in whatever form. And again, different religions would say different things. I the East, they are more happy with the idea of reincarnation, and here in the West, there are other preferences. But in any case, it changes how we live, and that's really what matters.It's not about just projecting or imagining what we'll be after, but how we live now and also how we treat those who are dying. So it goes from the individual to the families, to the hospitals.Now in the near-death research I do, this has ramifications at all these levels, all the way to society.But our society is thanatophobic. It has a phobia of death. We don't want to hear about death, and this is another thing we need to put on the table and be willing to talk about it. Do you think that we might get closer to answering ultimate questions like why is there anything at all if we jettison materialism?That’s an excellent question, Simon. Two things: we should stop treating reality, I believe, as a great sudoku, as an enigma, as something that with intelligence, money, and time that we will crack and instead treat reality more like a mystery. And what you do for in front of a mystery is not to be the clever guy in a class and say “I’ll solve you” but more like “I will bow and you will transform me.”I know this sounds a bit like a scientist speaking like a mystic. But I think this reorientation is needed. In the end, we won’t crack the big questions, but they will transform us. If we free ourselves from this prison of materialism, the way we will explore these questions will be freer, more creative, and in service of mankind. Do you think exploring mystery is the reason why we are here?I think we are here because, and this pseudo-theological argument I’m making off the cuff, But the One, the Absolute, if there is such a thing, had everything except limitation. We are that absolute experiencing that contingency. It’s like an act of divine proprioception. It’s a wonderful adventure, it’s just incredible to be alive. Perhaps we have forgotten why we are here and the whole point is to experience the flesh.Let me end by saying this. I criticize materialism harshly. I bang on this dead horse, because I think it’s dead. But matter is a great mystery. So maybe my invitation is as follows: hey materialist friends, come here, let’s work on materialism 2.0! Consciousness is a mystery, but matter is also a mystery. The fact that we can have an intersubjective experience consensus, the fact that we can apply mathematics, that we can measure things... the physical world we take for granted, but it is a great mystery too.Maybe that’s related to your last question: why are we here? Why did spirit decide to incarnate? Being in the flesh may be a great thing if spirit decided to do so.Àlex Gómez-Marín, thank you very much.My pleasure.
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