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Fire Emblem Shadows Makes Metacritic's "Worst Games Of 2025" List
It can't quite make the top, though
John Crace on his book, The Bonfire of the Insanities
Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey speak to the Guardian’s sketch writer, John Crace, about his latest book, The Bonfire of the Insanities: How Does This Government Thing Work Again?
Child dies in Detroit house fire; Southfield schools addressing phishing scam; sports and weather
New Timing for Stubble Burning in India
Scientists say the seasonal crop fires are burning later in the day than in previous years.
ENTERTAINMENT: Repertory Theatre celebrates Christmas season
Little Rock's Arkansas Repertory Theatre celebrates the Christmas season with "Holiday Radio, Live at The Rep" and the Second North American tour production of the musical "Mrs. Doubtfire" sweeps the Baum Walker Hall stage at Fayetteville's Walton Arts Center.
Saturday Sports: Michigan's football coach fired; World Cup downhill skiing win; NFL
NPR's Rob Schmitz and sportswriter Howard Bryant discuss the latest on Sherrone Moore's case after his firing as head coach of Michigan football and subsequent arrest for assault.
US set to lose measles elimination status: The ‘house is on fire’
Measles outbreaks are spreading across the U.S., and the nation is likely to lose its status as a country where the disease is eliminated, something that infectious disease specialists say is direc…
Science news this week: Neanderthals made fire, orcas and dolphins team up, and the 'Star of Bethlehem' explored
Dec. 13, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
What ex-Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said in court at arraignment
Fired University of Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore was ordered to continue mental health treatment as a condition of his bond on Dec. 12.
Businesses in Pasadena hope Rose Parade, bowl game will help boost local economy after deadly wildfires
Small Business Administration offices in Palisades, Eaton fire zones to close next week
The Small Business Administration is preparing to close its two Los Angeles area offices, but those impacted by the January wildfires can still get help.
Belichick, UNC fire offensive, special teams coordinators after 4-8 season
Bill Belichick is making changes after his first season at North Carolina.
A top South Korean shipbuilder is arming the Philippines with a new fleet of warships built for tougher Pacific fights
HD Hyundai built two new guided-missile frigates for the Philippine Navy, giving it a firepower upgrade for South China Sea.
Thailand dissolves parliament, heightening political turmoil as Trump seeks to salvage ceasefire with Cambodia
The escalation broke the ceasefire brokered in July by Trump who threatened to halt trade talks with the two countries unless they ended the fight.
Auto repair business heavily damaged by fire in Cicero
A Chicago-area auto repair business was heavily damaged after a fire broke out Thursday.
BBC Audio | BBC Inside Science | Would our ancestors have benefited from early neanderthals making fire?
New evidence shows that early neanderthals made fire 350 thousand years before we thought.
Sherrone Moore fired: Inside the industry reaction after Michigan's move
With most of the carousel settled, Michigan's decision forces a rare late-cycle reset and could reshape the remaining coaching market.
Disney Fires Off Cease-And-Desist Letter To Google Claiming Its AI Services Infringe On Copyright On A “Massive Scale”
The letter comes as Disney struck a deal with OpenAI.
Social media and ADHD diagnosis, new mpox strain in England and early firestarters
Science editor Ian Sample sits down with co-host Madeleine Finlay to discuss three eye-catching stories from the week
Ex-Michigan coach Sherrone Moore in custody amid assault investigation after being fired for 'inappropriate relationship'
Warner Bros. Merger Fight Draws Fire Across US Political Divide
The battle for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. has already lit a fire in Hollywood, with unions decrying the potential job losses, theaters sounding an alarm about the future of film releases and actors worrying about free speech.
Ex-Michigan coach Sherrone Moore reportedly detained by police after being fired for 'inappropriate relationship'
Sherrone Moore fired for cause by Michigan amid 'inappropriate relationship' with staffer
The Wolverines will undergo their second coaching change in three years, releasing Moore after eight years with the organization, including two as head coach
Michigan Reportedly Fires Head Coach Sherrone Moore After 2 Seasons
Sherrone Moore's time in Ann Arbor is over.
You can now share live video with emergency services on Android
This feature could help give emergency dispatchers context in circumstances like car accidents, fires, or medical crises.
McDonald's AI Christmas ad controversy explained: How the fast food chain has responded to the backlash
McDonald's is under fire for releasing an AI-generated Christmas ad. Here's everything to know about the controversy, and how the fast food chain responded to the criticism.
Supreme Court considers vastly expanding the president’s powers : The NPR Politics Podcast
The Supreme Court is considering whether President Trump should be able to fire the head of the Federal Trade Commission and other independent agencies without cause. We discuss why Congress created these independent agencies in the first place and the broader impact of the court eroding the 90-year-old precedent that protects them from presidential politics.This episode: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, labor and workplace correspondent Andrea Hsu, 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.
Humans were making fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, study finds
LONDON (AP) — Scientists in Britain say ancient humans may have learned to make fire far earlier than previously believed, after uncovering evidence that deliberate fire-setting took place in what is now eastern England around 400,000 years ago. The findings, described in the journal Nature, push back the earliest known date for controlled fire-making by roughly 350,000 years. Until now, the oldest confirmed evidence had come from Neanderthal sites in what is now northern France
Humans were lighting fires from scratch a lot earlier than previously thought
A 400,000-year-old tinderbox is found in eastern England
People made fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, scientists find
Stone Age site in English county of Suffolk shows evidence of crucial stage in human development
Man made fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, discovery in Suffolk suggests
Groundbreaking find makes compelling case that humans were lighting fires much earlier than originally believed
Scientists discover oldest evidence of human-made fire in a 400,000-year-old hearth
A new archaeological find pushes back the timeline on when humans mastered the ability to make fires, a transformative technology.
Ancient Humans Were Making Fire 350,000 Years Earlier Than Scientists Realized
Making fire on demand was a milestone in the lives of our early ancestors. But the question of when that skill first arose has been difficult for scientists to pin down
Neanderthals harnessed fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought
'This is the most remarkable discovery of my career.’
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
Galleries - Ames Earth Science
Earth Science (SG) Landing – Menu BarHomeWho We AreWho We AreEarth Science Division (SG)Biospheric Science Branch (SGE)Atmospheric Science Branch (SGG)Project Management Branch (SGP)Airborne Science Branch (ASP)What We DoResearch TopicsMissionsStoriesFeaturesHighlights & NuggetsAwards & RecognitionVisiting ScienceContact Us Ames Earth Science Galleries Researchers from Ames’ Earth Science division travel all over the country – and the globe – to study the planet and the processes within. Take a look through the galleries below to get a peak into the aircraft and labs our scientists study in, and the oceans, fires, and volcanoes they are looking at. Complete Ames Earth Science Story/Gallery Repository about Ames Earth Science Galleries Galleries Calibration at the Airborne Sensor Facility Gallery13 ImagesFireSense Fort Stewart Prescribed Burn Campaign Gallery131 ImagesCRATER Gallery112 ImagesSARP East 2025 Gallery30 ImagesSARP West 2025 Gallery33 ImagesOCEANOS 2024 Gallery92 ImagesCoral Reef Gallery53 ImagesFireSense Missoula Deployment Gallery78 Images2023 SARP West Gallery67 Images
Disney's former top dealmaker predicts what will happen next in the fight for Warner Bros.
Former Disney dealmaker Kevin Mayer predicts "more fireworks" in the bidding war for Warner Bros. between Netflix and Paramount.
‘A huge rupture in everything’: US science faced major upheaval in 2025
Amid enormous shifts, many scientists pushed back and risked dismissal from their jobs even as federal agencies fired thousands of employees
Democratic firebrand Jasmine Crockett enters US Senate race in Texas
The Dallas-area lawmaker announced her U.S. Senate run Dec. 8. She's expected to face off in a competitive Democratic primary with James Talarico.
12 FBI agents fired for kneeling during protest sue to get their jobs back
They say their action had been intended to de-escalate a volatile situation and was not meant as a political gesture
Older Amazon Fire TV Stick Users Are Saving Money On Upgrades With This Offer
Amazon has started a trade-in program for older models of their products, so you can save 20% or more on the much better and new Fire TV Stick 4K Max.
Trinity College bans political activism over chalkboard messages
FIRE calls on Trinity to end its investigation into the matter and remove any existing policy prohibiting “political activism within academic settings.”
The maker of the Yankees' iconic stadium clock files for bankruptcy after smartwatch gamble backfires
E. Gluck Corporation — maker of Armitron watches and the Yankees' stadium clock — filed for bankruptcy after a failed push into the smartwatch market.
Supreme Court to hear separation of powers dispute over fired FTC commissioner
The Supreme Court on Monday will grapple with President Donald Trump’s power to capture control of independent agencies in an important case that could reshape large swaths of the federal government and unwind a precedent that has been on the books since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House.
Fighting forever chemicals from within: How microbiome science is shaping the next frontier against PFAS
Cambiotics is developing microbiome-based solutions to reduce the burden of forever chemicals in firefighting.
Bulgaria: Delayed Coal Phaseout Fuels Health Harm
Bulgaria’s delayed decommissioning of coal-fired power plants contributes to dangerous air pollution, risks breaching new air quality standards, and is slowing down the country’s transition away from fossil fuels.
Woman dies after explosion at Eustis business, family says
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
USB Video Capture Devices: Wow! They’re All Bad!!
[VWestlife] purchased all kinds of USB video capture devices — many of them from the early 2000s — and put them through their paces in trying to digitize VHS classics like Instant Firep…
Trump Is Repeating One of Biden’s Big Mistakes
Downplaying voters’ economic pain will backfire.
No essential supplies in truce: Gaza’s healthcare system broken by Israel
Israel is not allowing antibiotics, IV solutions or surgical material to enter besieged Gaza despite 2-month ceasefire.
Analysis: Trump’s retribution campaign is going poorly — and could backfire
President Donald Trump’s retribution campaign has long suffered from a very significant and important deficit — and that’s the actual evidence.
Expansive prescribed fire research project brings Montana scientists together
The SMART FIRES project combines smoke and fire science, smart sensors, sociology, artificial intelligence, ethics and more in the context of prescribed fires.
UNC researchers uncover wildfire smoke’s health impacts
Inhaling wood smoke can upset the natural balance of bacteria in the lungs and contribute to diseases like asthma.
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?
Firefighter injured in fire at Boyle Heights business
Firefighters protected nearby buildings from a fire at a Boyle Heights business. Video broadcast Thursday Dec. 4, 2025 on the NBC4 News at 11 a.m.
A US aircraft carrier's hard turn to avoid enemy fire surprised sailors and sent a jet with bad brakes into the sea
The $60 million F/A-18 and a tow tractor slid off the USS Harry S. Truman while it evaded a Houthi missile attack, new documents show.
A Navy warship mistook US fighter jets for enemy missiles and opened fire. The targeted pilot saw his life flash before his eyes.
New documents reveal how the USS Gettysburg shot down an F/A-18 and nearly hit a second one above the Red Sea last year.
Producers Andrea Bucko & Motoko Kimura Launch Yume Entertainment, First Up Is Genre Movie ‘The Red Room’ Based On Japanese Urban Legend
EXCLUSIVE: Producers Andrea Bucko (Deadman’s Wire) and Motoko Kimura (LDK) have launched film and TV production and finance company Yume Entertainment, which will look to bridge the Hollywood and Asian film industries. Yume (由夢), meaning “born from a dream” in Japanese, will look to champion emerging creators such as Yumiko Fujiwara, whose drama The Fire Outside was featured …
John Gruber Shares Scathing Commentary About Apple's Departing Software Design Chief
In a statement shared with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Apple confirmed that its software design chief Alan Dye will be leaving. Apple said Dye will be succeeded by Stephen Lemay, who has been a software designer at the company since 1999. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Dye will lead a new creative studio within the company's AR/VR division Reality Labs. On his blog Daring Fireball, longtime Apple commentator John Gruber has since reacted to the news with some scathing commentary about Dye.
Florida wildlife agency’s leaders claim they don’t have to follow science
When I was growing up here in Florida, everyone revered science. We looked to high-IQ scientists to tell us how to fly to the moon, how to transplant a heart, how to fire up a laser, how the universe began with a Big Bang. But science is clearly out of favor now, especially in Florida. […]
James Franklin explains Virginia Tech's run on Penn State commits
Penn State's recruiting has sunk to a new low since James Franklin was fired. Now at Virginia Tech, the Hokies' recruiting class is set to be their best in at least 13 years.
Sources: Louisville Coach Jeff Brohm Declines Penn State Offer
The Nittany Lions fired James Franklin in October and were turned down by BYU’s Kalani Sitake a day earlier with former Brian Daboll now rising as an option.
Amazon Fire TV's new AI feature lets you jump to scenes by describing them to Alexa+
Amazon says you can describe the scene to Alexa by mentioning details like the actor or character's name, or a memorable quote.
Inside Honeywell's business strategy for Golden Dome
In this fireside chat, Honeywell Aerospace executive Matthew Milas tells Breaking Defense how the firm is positioning itself in hopes of joining one of the biggest defense projects in a generation.
Crews battle large fire at business near 22nd Avenue and Roosevelt Street in Phoenix
Crews battled a second-alarm fire at a business in Phoenix early Wednesday morning. The cause is under investigation.
Overnight fire at Warren County business prompts large response
An overnight fire at a Warren County business has garnered a large response from first responders.
Florida wildlife agency’s leaders claim they don’t have to follow science
When I was growing up here in Florida, everyone revered science. We looked to high-IQ scientists to tell us how to fly to the moon, how to transplant a heart, how to fire up a laser, how the universe began with a Big Bang. But science is clearly out of favor now, especially in Florida. […]
Alexis Ohanian Is Bullish on Women’s Sports
In March 2019, in response to the news that players from the U.S. women’s national soccer team had filed a gender-discrimination against their employer, the U.S. Soccer Federation, over pay inequality, Alexis Ohanian fired off a series of tweets. Ohanian, an investor and entrepreneur who co-founded Reddit and, since 2017, has been married to Serena…
Marcos vs. Marcos: The New Front in Philippine Politics
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. is under fire for an enormous graft scandal that is unfolding under his watch. One prominent voice is his sister Senator Imee Marcos.
Sources: Kentucky hiring Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein to replace Mark Stoops
Kentucky fired Mark Stoops on Monday after 13 seasons.
Gov. Joe Lombardo signs first responder health bill passed during special session
The Professional Fire Fighters of Nevada, whose representatives had lobbied hard for the bill, thanked the governor in a news release issued Monday.
Genesis Mission: why Trump’s plan to put AIs in charge of science could backfire
AI enthusiasts are right that projects like AlphaFold are a huge leap forward, but the philosophy of science shows why excluding humans undermines it.
Hurry to Grab These Cyber Monday Tablet Steals: Get Up to 55% Off Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and More
Cyber Monday 2025 is live! Score close to 50% off Amazon Fire tablets, 36% off the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite, and amazing deals on Apple iPads.
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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