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Our pick of the 33 best science books, films, games and TV of all time
Boredom setting in after the festive chaos? Never fear: our writers and contributors have chosen their favourite ever science-y books, films, TV shows, music, video games, board games and more to carry you into the New Year
Snowboarder Chloe Kim talks mental health, 2026 Olympics, Myles Garrett
Chloe Kim talked about prioritizing mental health, her offseason training and how she had no idea who Myles Garrett was before they stared dating.
DC mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George: ‘We have to address affordability’
My dad died unexpectedly. Picking up one of his hobbies has helped me feel more connected to him.
My dad died last year, and it still makes no sense to me. I've picked up his painting hobby, and it's created a tiny tether to feel connected to him.
Primary health care
Primary health care is an approach to health and wellbeing centred on the needs and circumstances of individuals, families and communities. It addresses comprehensive and interrelated physical, mental and social health and wellbeing.
Rocket League Season 21: Pursuit in Paris!
It’s a full-on French takeover in Rocket League Season 21 featuring the Parc de Paris Arena! Unlock three Car Bodies with Rocket Pass Premium.
OPINION: MSU needs to address the sports gambling problem
In the sports gambling debate, gambling addiction and its effect both on athletes and bettors is often forgotten. MSU's efforts to address this topic have been lacking.
Boehly’s Eldridge and Arctos to Manage Sports and Media Retail Fund
Eldridge and Arctos are teaming up to give individual investors access to the typically exclusive world of sports and media, the latest effort from major money managers to jump into the space.
OnePlus 15R pops up on Geekbench – and now the full spec picture is basically complete
A new Geekbench listing shows its scores, RAM, and software right before launch day.
Google’s Year in Search 2025: Cricket, IPL teams among trends and most-searched sports topics
Asia Cup, ICC Champions Trophy, Women’s Cricket World Cup and two IPL teams, Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals, were among the top trends in Google’s Year in Search 2025.
Memorable O'Sullivan moments as snooker great turns 50
As Ronnie O'Sullivan turns 50, BBC Sport picks out 10 great moments from his career - and it could have been many more.
Senyar Swamps Sumatra
A rare tropical cyclone dropped torrential rains on the Indonesian island, fueling extensive and destructive floods.
The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
Warriors epic comeback vs. Sixers falls short in heartbreaking fashion
Despite erasing a 24 point deficit, the Warriors' thrilling comeback in Philadelphia came up short in heartbreaking fashion.
Swiss researchers glad to have rejoined EU science schemes but ...
The country officially rejoined Horizon Europe and a range of other programmes in November but what did it cost its science base?
Miley Cyrus gives update on beloved country singer’s health
Parton’s health became a topic of public concern after she withdrew from scheduled events earlier this year.
It’s official, politics has ruined Eurovision
A toxic anti-Israel boycott has created the biggest crisis in the song contest’s history – it’s hard to see how it can move forward
Republican pitches health savings accounts 'on steroids' that Americans could use to buy insurance
Missouri Republican Rep. Eric Burlison envisions a super HSA that would let users buy health insurance and unprocessed foods with pre-tax dollars from employers.
NFL Week 14 picks, Cowboys-Lions preview for TNF and playoff projections
Here's everything you need to know about the NFL for Dec. 4
Report shows California health care jobs pay, but waitlists clog college on-ramp
Community college programs promise mobility — but demand far exceeds capacity, the PPIC finds.
Second padel recreational sports complex planned in Milwaukee
Epic Padel, an Arlington, Virginia-based indoor sports complex operator, is planning its first Wisconsin location in a new industrial building on
Cowboys vs. Lions: Predictions, picks, best bets for Week 14's Thursday Night Football matchup
CBS Sports NFL expert Will Brinson shares his favorite bets and props for Thursday's contest between Dallas and Detroit
NFL odds, lines, spreads: Week 14 predictions, best picks today
SportsLine's model simulates every game 10,000 times and reveals NFL picks
NFL playoff picture: How Cowboys-Lions impacts NFC seeding and wild-card race
Latest 2025 NFL playoff picture and standings update with which teams are in, out or still alive.
KC nonprofit is committed to strengthening Black-owned businesses, CEO says
“To promote and support Black businesses means that you look for them and you put forth an effort to do that.” Kim Davis, Black chamber CEO.
The New Yorker: Politics and a Movie; Senator Cory Booker; Zohran Mamdani Joins the Starbucks Picket Line; Are 'Porch Pirates" Stealing Your Packages? | The Brian Lehrer Show
The New Yorker: Politics and a Movie; National Politics with Senator Booker; The Mayor-Elect Joins the Starbucks Picket Line; Are 'Porch Pirates" Stealing Your Packages?
Supervisor Alan Wong rose in politics through unions. Now, he’s on thin ice.
Wong is now on shaky ground with organized labor in San Francisco after a schism earlier this year over his pick for City College chancellor.
Lions vs. Cowboys Prediction, Odds, Picks for Thursday Night Football
Preview the Week 14 matchup between the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys with predictions, odds, over/under, spread, betting lines and more.
NFL Week 14 picks straight up and against spread: Cowboys or Lions in must-win matchup?
This should be quite a weekend, featuring three games with first place in a division on the line.
Georgia football fans spend more on teams than on Christmas, study finds
A new study shows Georgia sports fans spend more on their favorite teams each year than they typically budget for Christmas gifts. Here's how much.
NFL Week 14 picks: Bears defeat Packers at Lambeau; Texans topple Chiefs
Sam Farmer makes his picks and predictions for Week 14 of the NFL season, with the Chicago Bears winning at Lambeau Field and the Chiefs moving to below .500.
BBC Entertainment Commissioning is looking for a new Comedy Entertainment series for BBC iPlayer and BBC Two
The aspiration is to find a format-first idea that prioritises funny moments and spontaneity rather than anything which is heavily scripted or topical
Team GB Olympic & Paralympic athletes get online abuse protection
Team GB Olympic and Paralympic athletes are to be offered a new form of artificial intelligence-based protection from online abuse.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei drags OpenAI and Google: 'We don't have to do any code reds'
Anthropic's CEO said his company is avoiding the kind of battles OpenAI and Google are fighting by targeting AI for enterprise instead of consumers.
Jennifer Lopez, Gwyneth Paltrow & More Attend 'THR's Women in Entertainment Gala
Goldie Hawn, Jennifer Lopez, Kerry Washington, and Regina Hall were just some of the iconic actresses to grace the red carpet for The Hollywood Reporter's Women in Entertainment gala Wednesday ... and we have pics from the epic event!
Sacramento Kings at Houston Rockets odds, picks and predictions
The Sacramento Kings and Houston Rockets clash Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET at Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.
B.B. King Biopic In Works From Canton Entertainment, Vassal Benford & The B.B. King Music Company
An authorized B.B. King from Canton Entertainment, Vassal Benford & The B.B. King Music Company is in development, Deadline cam report exclusively.
Is There Now an Opportunity in PENN Entertainment After Steep 5 Year Share Price Decline?
Wondering if PENN Entertainment’s beaten down share price is a hidden bargain or a value trap? This article will walk through the numbers with you, step by step. Despite some big swings over the last few years, PENN now trades around $14.69, with returns of -0.3% over 7 days, -11.6% over 30 days, -23.6% year to date, and a steep -33.0% over the last year that has clearly shifted market sentiment. Those declines sit on top of an even tougher long term picture, with shares down -55.9% over 3...
Epic bans indie game Horses from its storefront 24 hours before release
Developer Santa Ragione previously said it was at risk of closure after Valve blocked the game from Steam.
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.
Lula and Senate Tensions Continue Over Court Pick
Tensions between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government and Congress continued to escalate Tuesday, when Senate leader Davi Alcolumbre canceled a hearing for Supreme Court nominee Jorge Messias.
Coco Gauff and Victor Wembanyama named on Forbes 30 Under 30 Sports list
Brooke Raboutou and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander also named on the annual list that cites innovators in sport to watch for 2026
Olympic, Paralympic sports weekend preview: Grand Prix Final to sort figure skating favorites
The world's best figure skaters gather at the Grand Prix Final in a preview of the Milan Cortina Olympic competition.
Check out the first droolworthy pictures of the upcoming Motorola Edge 70 Ultra flagship!
Now this looks like a very different kind of Android high-ender than what we're normally used to.
Kennedy’s handpicked CDC advisers to weigh major change to childhood vaccine schedule
Vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may vote this week to make a major change to the childhood vaccine schedule, potentially delaying a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine given to newborns by weeks or even years.
Rebecca Lowe joining Fox’s World Cup coverage as host: Sources
Lowe’s role with NBC on the Premier League, the Olympics and Kentucky Derby will remain unchanged.
Steam, The Epic Games Store, And The Humble Store Refuse To Sell Indie Horror Game Horses
The controversial game has been pulled from several major storefronts, despite the developer's attempt to adjust its content.
Prisco's Week 14 NFL picks: Packers beat Bears, Cowboys keep rolling
Pete Prisco reveals all of his Week 14 picks, including Chiefs keeping playoff hopes alive.
Five of the best sports books of 2025
From the trauma and triumphs of Olympic cyclist Bradley Wiggins to the secret life of a match fixer
Scientific American’s Best Fiction and Nonfiction Picks for Science-Minded Readers
Scientific American unveils its first-ever best fiction and nonfiction books of the year, spotlighting stories that blend science, imagination and unforgettable voices.
East Charlotte businesses report thousands in losses during Border Patrol operation
Some local businesses lost thousands of dollars after federal Border Patrol agents came to the city, they said.
New York lawmakers aim to move 2028 primaries up to Super Tuesday
The voters who chose Zohran Mamdani might be about to get a bigger voice in picking Democrats’ next presidential nominee.
Republicans avoided a nightmare in Tennessee. Their electoral picture is still scary
Republicans avoided disaster on Tuesday night by winning a special election in a solidly red Tennessee congressional district.
Ignore the Jets tanking alarmists and focus on the bigger picture
To borrow from Herman Edwards’ famous rant: Play to win the game.
Plan a year of insights and entertainment with Monocle's 2026 cultural calendar
Pick up a fresh new diary and fill the forthcoming 12 months with art, books, design, fashion and more from...
Kentucky basketball vs. North Carolina: Get live updates, stats from critical game
Get live updates from the Kentucky-North Carolina men’s basketball game Tuesday.
Olympic ice surface being built to specs smaller than NHL rinks, per source, sparking new concerns
The Olympic rink will have a shorter length but not substantially greater width, per a source, leaving players with less room to maneuver.
Boom Fantasy Promo Code FOXSPORTS Unlocks $100 No Sweat Bet Plus Pick and Spin Promotion
Boom Fantasy Promo Code FOXSPORTS Unlocks $100 No Sweat Bet Plus Pick and Spin Promotion.
New league aims to drag ancient Olympic sport into entertainment era
Fencing may be one of the Olympics' oldest events, but three-time Olympian Miles Chamley-Watson says it urgently needs a reboot, hoping his new World Fencing League (WFL) will drag the sport into the modern entertainment age.
Spanberger announces seasoned policy advisor as Virginia’s next health and human resources secretary
As Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger prepares to take the helm of the state of Virginia, she has announced her pick for the next secretary of health and human resources: Marvin Figueroa.
Doctors still unsure about Trump’s heart health after ‘weird’ memo
It is still unclear which imaging services President Donald Trump underwent to evaluate his cardiovascular health. The White House shared a memo Monday as an attempt to put this topic to bed—but questions remain.
Trump picks College Football Playoff? Rubio had to be joking
Secretary of state says Miami Hurricanes should be in or Donald Trump should take over the CFP selection process.
The Big Picture: Who Will Win NFC West? Outlining Rams, Seahawks, 49ers Paths
The NFL's best division already has three teams with nine wins. Who has the edge among the Rams, Seahawks and 49ers entering December?
Is Claude really writing 90% of the code inside the company? Anthropic's own research suggests otherwise
The company releases a study that shows its own engineers use Claude more to debug code than to write new software.
Top Democratic senator on boat strike: I’m ‘very suspicious’ that administration is trying to ‘cover up what took place’
Android’s new ‘Call Reason’ flags important calls before you even pick up
When you really need to go get burritos.
Accused National Guard shooter pleaded not guilty to charges at first court appearance from the hospital
The Afghan man appeared in court virtually from his hospital bed on Tuesday to plead not guilty to charges related to the shooting two of National Guardsmen in Washington, DC.
Epic Games Store decides "at the last minute" not to distribute Horses
Epic Games Store is the latest online storefront to withdraw support for the provocative indie game, Horses.
Spanberger announces seasoned policy advisor as next health and human services secretary
As Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger prepares to take the helm of the state of Virginia, she has announced her pick for the next secretary of health and human services: Marvin Figueroa.
NFL odds, betting lines, spreads: Week 14 picks, best predictions today
SportsLine's model simulates every game 10,000 times and reveals NFL picks
Why Does It Feel Like You’re Dropping Around 30 Seconds After A Plane Takes Off?
Our ears and stomachs are very good at picking up on changes in acceleration.
Younghoe Koo on botched field goal: The ball was slipping so I pulled up
Giants kicker Younghoe Koo made one of the strangest plays of this NFL season when he kicked the turf in front of the football, not the ball itself, leaving holder Jamie Gillan with nothing to do but pick up the ball and run, which he did for a 13-yard loss.
Bernie Sanders and Mamdani joined the Starbucks picket line in Brooklyn
Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani joined striking Starbucks baristas in Brooklyn on Monday.
In Pictures: Sporting photos of the week
A selection of some of the most striking sports photographs taken around the world over the past seven days.
Health risks of taking too much turmeric: Hidden dangers for your liver, heart, digestion and iron levels | - The Times of India
Turmeric, a popular spice and supplement, offers health benefits but excessive intake can cause issues. High doses may lead to digestive upset, liver
S.F. Mayor Lurie takes another political gamble with latest Sunset supervisor pick
Alan Wong, who Lurie swore into office Monday as the Sunset’s new representative on the Board of Supervisors, has for years backed a variety of progressive politicians and policies.
Viola Nation 91: A New Hope (not really)
Mike, Mike, and Tito break down the start of a new Viola error that looks suspiciously like the preceding Viola era.
We found 25 great laptop deals you can still grab for Cyber Monday
Many of our top picks are over $300 off.
Sports betting is legal in Missouri. These icons, lawmaker were among the first
The three bets signified the rollout of the legal sports gambling industry in Missouri, which won narrow approval from voters.
USA Gymnastics and Olympic sports watchdog failed to stop coach’s sexual abuse, lawsuits allege
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Two gymnasts who say they were sexually abused at an elite academy in Iowa filed lawsuits Monday against the sport’s oversight bodies, alleging they failed to stop Sean Gardner…
Trump’s quest for political retribution is impeding the Justice Department : The NPR Politics Podcast
President Trump has vowed to seek retribution from his perceived political enemies and to reward his political allies. We discuss how that focus is playing out at the Justice Department, where career prosecutors and other civil servants are no longer calling the shots. How does this partisan shift affect major court cases, from redistricting in Texas to James Comey’s prosecution?This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.For handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR’s Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub.
As political winds shift, top chipmaker TSMC looks beyond Taiwan
The lifeblood of Silicon Valley — advanced microchips — pumps from a science park on Taiwan's west coast, mostly from TSMC, the world's biggest chipmaker. But now the company is looking abroad for places to grow.
College football odds, picks, lines, spreads: 2025 Championship Week predictions, best bets
SportsLine's model has revealed picks and best bets for college football's Championship Week
In rare move, Gov. Jeff Landry intervenes in House GOP leadership race. Here's why.
Governors have often picked speakers of the House and presidents of the Senate, but weighing in on the Republican Caucus leadership is unusual.
The "most capable" and "best-looking" Apple Watch Series 11 is cheapest at Best Buy and Amazon for Cyber Monday
Snap it up for $329 at either of these retailers, $70 off its typical retail price and worry less about battery life and more about hitting those training goals.
Cyber Monday Nintendo Switch 2 deals: Get $50 off the Mario Kart World bundle
Pick up the duo for $449 on Cyber Monday.
Olympic sports weekend recap: Mikaela Shiffrin as peerless as ever in slalom, makes 4th Olympics
Mikaela Shiffrin extended a slalom win streak but still has work to do in another event.
Early Fantasy baseball 2026 breakouts
Top 2026 fantasy breakout picks and key early players to target for big upside.
Lane Kiffin picks LSU to highlight college football coaching carousel chaos
It was a crazy weekend in sports from Lane Kiffin taking the LSU job to all of the NFL upsets
WHO recommends GLP-1 drugs for obesity
The weight loss medications can be part of a long-term treatment strategy for adults, according to new World Health Organization guidelines.
Understanding tea's health benefits and risks
The review confirms that tea, particularly green tea, plays a crucial role in preventing cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), obesity, diabetes, and certain types of cancer.
Exploring Denmark’s Tardigrade Fauna through Citizen Science
In a groundbreaking study that intertwines the realms of citizen science and systematic biology, researchers have successfully unveiled an intricate tapestry of tardigrade fauna residing in Danish cryptogams. Tardigrades, or “water bears,” are microscopic, water-dwelling ani
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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