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Even some Trump advisers are wary of a military pursuit of Greenland. Is an off-ramp possible?
Flying home this month from an extended Christmas vacation in Palm Beach, President Donald Trump was momentarily taken aback when a reporter asked him about the ice-covered island he’s openly trying to annex.
Current political climate spurs efforts to 'reclaim' MLK holiday
Activists worry American society has taken steps backward in recent years.
'Cyberpunk 2077' VR Mod Taken Down Following Legal Complaint, But There May Still Be Hope
Luke Ross, the prolific VR modder, has been forced to remove his popular Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod, citing legal concerns from CD PROJEKT. The News Ross released word via his Patreon on Saturday that Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt had issued a DMCA takedown notice for the removal of the game’s unofficial VR mod—just one […]
Thomas Frank future: Tottenham board hold talks over head coach with Dane under increasing pressure to keep job
Spurs boss Thomas Frank under increasing pressure to keep his job; Talks are believed to have taken place at board level about whether Frank should continue after Saturdays 2-1 home defeat by West Ham; Spurs hierarchy are believed to be looking at all options at this point
No One’s Buying? Maybe Consumers Are Just ‘Choiceful,’ Executives Say.
A new way to characterize unenthusiastic consumers has overtaken earnings calls.
AI Has Taken Over Every Industry — Here's How Your Business Can Actually Use It
Learn how to leverage AI to improve processes, power growth and make stronger connections with your customers.
Video: Opinion | Conservative Politics Can’t Just Be About Hate
Politics in America has taken an ugly turn, the conservative analyst Yuval Levin says on “The Ezra Klein Show,” arguing it has become too influenced by fear.
Kansas City, Missouri, leaders move to protect Midtown Costco amid business center rumors
Kansas City, Missouri, City Council leaders have taken action to ensure the global retail giant Costco in Midtown KCMO remains in place.
Duluth business owners speaking out on immigration enforcement
Business owners across the northland have taken to social media to publicly voice their stance on ICE.
Online mod for Rockstar’s classic Bully is abruptly taken down after one month
Developers say "this was not something we wanted" as they purge open source project.
Hubble's Album of Planet-Forming Disks
This collection of images taken by Hubble showcases protoplanetary disks, the swirling masses of gas and dust that surround forming stars.
Approval Rating: Reading Fans Pleased With Leam Richardson’s Start
Noel Hunt’s successor has been in post since October and taken charge of 11 matches in all competitions.
UW Health, Children's Wisconsin pausing gender-affirming care for patients under 18
MADISON (WKOW) — UW Health said it is pausing some gender-affirming care due to recent actions taken by the federal government.
Kate Hudson opens up about her 'Song Sung Blue' role
Kate Hudson transformed herself to play Claire Sardina in 'Song Sung Blue,' whose life as a singer was suddenly taken away after a horrific accident. Hudson talks about playing the 'incredibly resilient' fighter.
Man injured in shooting at Bay Area business
The victim was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and the shooter fled before officers arrived, San Jose police said.
What happens when the US decides to seize an oil ship?
Since early December the US Coast Guard and other military branches have boarded and taken control of five oil ships that had previously been sanctioned, all either accused of being in the process of transporting Venezuelan oil or on their way to take on oil that has been subject to US sanctions since President Donald Trump began a pressure campaign against the leadership of the country during his first term.
Vera C. Rubin Observatory discovers enormous, record-breaking asteroid in first 7 nights of observations
In its preliminary data release, taken from just seven nights of observations, the powerful Vera C. Rubin Observatory has discovered an enormous, fast-spinning asteroid that sets a new record.
Analysis: Pride as unbeaten run ends
Daniel Farke could not help but ruefully shake his head on the touchline. The Leeds United manager has seen a lot in the game, but this? This was just the sixth time a side had taken the lead three times in a Premier League match only to lose.
How the Increasingly Wide World of Sports Became the ‘Swiss Army Knife’ of International Relations
More than 80 percent of sports diplomacy today is undertaken by non-government-credentialed “diplomats.” Ahead of the Olympics, SPS’s Lindsay Krasnoff explains what that means.
Universal Music Takes 30% Stake in India’s Excel Entertainment at $257M Valuation
Universal Music Group has taken a 30% stake in Indian film and digital content studio Excel Entertainment at a $257 million valuation.
Ethiopia advances youth-led food systems transformation through new science-policy-society interface workshop
Ethiopia has taken an important step toward strengthening evidence-informed, inclusive, and youth-driven food systems transformation. With the workshop “Building the Next Generation of Ethiopia’s Food Systems Leaders”, the country launched a promising national Science-Policy-Society Interface...
Asad Haider, Leftist Critic of Identity Politics, Dies at 38
In “Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump,” he argued that focusing on identity obscured a more fundamental injustice: economic inequality.
No major change in troop levels after Trump says US is ‘locked and loaded’ to defend Iranian protesters
President Donald Trump was seeking to send a “strong warning” to Iran on Friday when he suggested in an early morning Truth Social post that the US would forcibly intervene if Tehran shot and killed protesters. But as of now, there have been no major changes to troop levels in the region and no direct action has been taken, officials told CNN.
Nativism and the disintegration of the UK
Letter: With the weakening of pro-integration parties, Ben Wellings warns that the continuation of the UK in its current form cannot be taken for granted
Can the Iranian Protesters Win?
Fed up with their country’s economic decline, Iranians have taken to the streets.
A Mayor’s Health Journey Sparks a Townwide Awakening as Irvington Enters 2026!
A Mayor’s Health Journey Sparks a Townwide Awakening as Irvington Enters 2026! As Irvington prepares to turn the calendar from 2025 to 2026, something extraordinary has taken place — not through a ribbon cutting or a campaign slogan, but through example. This holiday season, Mayor Tony Vauss did something rare in public life: he made[...]
Report: Apple's AI Strategy Could Finally Pay Off in 2026
Apple's restrained artificial intelligence strategy may pay off in 2026 amid the arrival of a revamped Siri and concerns around the AI market "bubble" bursting, The Information argues. The speculative report notes that Apple has taken a restrained approach with AI innovations compared with peers such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta, which are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in data centers, chips, and large language model training.
In a tumultuous year, US health policy has been dramatically reshaped under RFK Jr.
In the whirlwind first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, some of the most polarizing changes have taken place within the Department of Health and Human Services, where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has openly rebuffed the medical establishment as he converts the ideas of his Make America Healthy Again movement into public policy. Since entering office in February, the health secretary has overseen a dramatic reshaping of the agencies he oversees, including eliminating thousands of jobs and freezing or canceling billions of dollars for scientific research. As part of his campaign against chronic disease, he has redrawn the government's position on topics such as seed oils, fluoride and Tylenol.
In a Tumultuous Year, US Health Policy Has Been Dramatically Reshaped Under RFK Jr.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the whirlwind first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, some of the most polarizing changes have taken place within the Department of Health and Human Services, where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has openly rebuffed the medical establishment as he converts the ideas of his
‘It’s been a challenging year.’ Trump’s tariffs have taken a toll on small businesses.
It's been a year of complications and cost-cutting for business owners struggling to deal with unpredictable levies on imported goods.
Tom Jenkins’s best sport photographs of 2025
The Guardian sport photographer selects his favourite images he has taken this year and recalls the stories behind them
Petah Tikva declared 'red city' for measles outbreak, six-month-old children to be vaccinated
According to the ministry’s statement, the exceptional step was taken due to the rapid spread of the disease in the city and the makeup of the population.
Nate Bargatze named The Tennessean's first Entertainer of the Year
Nashville native and champion Nate Bargatze has taken the entertainment world by storm. His list of accomplishments from one year alone is more than many gain in an entire career.
Hilton Head community swarms to support family that lost home, had business damaged in a matter of hours
For nearly 16 years, Delisheeyo on Hilton Head Island has been serving frozen yogurt to its customers. That was almost taken away when someone ran through their business, and then just hours later, an unexpected electrical fire destroyed the owner’s house.
Whiskey, Soup, Parody and Politics: Lessons from Two Key District Court Trademark Decisions of 2025
This year started with a district court decision defining the parameters of parody and trademark infringement and ended with a case that could have taken the overlap of parody and political free speech to a new level, had it not settled.
High school girls hockey All-Star game highlights growth of the sport on Long Island
"It's such a great thing for women's hockey," Zoe Varkaris said. "It's taken a while to get this far."
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.
Safety panel says NASA should have taken Starliner incident more seriously
This particular anomaly deserves to be right up front and center for quite some time."
Subaru Telescope reveals a hidden giant planet
Astronomers have uncovered a massive hidden planet and a rare “failed star” by combining ultra-precise space data with some of the sharpest ground-based images ever taken. Using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaiʻi, the OASIS survey tracked subtle stellar wobbles to pinpoint where unseen worlds were lurking—then captured them directly.
Strengthening U.S.-Nigerian Health Cooperation under the America First Global Health Strategy - U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Nigeria
Strengthening U.S.-Nigerian Health Cooperation under the America First Global Health Strategy The United States signed a five-year, $5.1 billion bilateral health cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Federal Republic of Nigeria December 19 to advance the America First Global Health Strategy, supporting resilient, self-reliant, and durable health systems while promoting accountability and shared responsibility. Under the five-year MOU, the United States intends to commit nearly $2.1 billion in health assistance, with nearly $3.0 billion in new domestic health expenditures by the Government of Nigeria over the same five-year period. This represents the largest co-investment any country has made to date under the America First Global Health Strategy and underscore Nigeria’s commitment to greater national ownership of its health system. Under the MOU, the United States will continue to support surveillance and outbreak response, laboratory systems, health commodities; frontline healthcare workers, and data systems. Nigeria faces significant health challenges, including one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates globally and approximately30 percent of the global malaria burden. U.S. assistance under the MOU will expand access to affordable, preventive and curative services for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), malaria, polio, and maternal and child health, strengthening health outcomes across Nigeria. The MOU places a strong emphasis on Christian faith-based healthcare providers, recognizing their indispensable role in delivering care to communities in need. Nigeria’s more than 900 faith-based clinics and hospitals serve more than 30 percent of the country’s 230 million people, often in areas where healthcare facilities are limited or absent. The MOU provides approximately $200 million in dedicated support to strengthen and support these Christian facilities, enhance workforce capacity, and expand access to integrated HIV, TB, malaria, and maternal child health services. Investments in Christian faith-based health institutions are uniquely positioned to complement public-sector facilities and reinforce Nigeria’s overall health infrastructure. The MOU was negotiated in connection with reforms undertaken by the Government of Nigeria to prioritize the protection of Christian populations from extremist violence. As with all U.S. foreign assistance, the President and Secretary of State retain the right to pause or terminate programs that do not align with U.S. national interests, and the United States expects Nigeria to continue making measurable progress in combating religiously motivated violence against Christian communities. This five-year MOU is the latest of several health cooperation MOUs signed in Africa this month. The United States will continue to sign multi-year Bilateral Agreements on Global Health Cooperation with countries receiving U.S. health assistance to advance the America First Global Health Strategy.
China offers ‘wonderful opportunity’ for scientists: top European neurologist
Consciousness expert Steven Laureys has taken on a role at Hangzhou Normal University amid ‘challenging times’ for science in the US.
NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory Reveals ‘First Light’ Images
NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory has captured its first images from space, revealing rare views of Earth and the Moon in ultraviolet light. Taken on
A grad student’s wild idea triggers a major aging breakthrough
Senescent “zombie” cells are linked to aging and multiple diseases, but spotting them in living tissue has been notoriously difficult. Researchers at Mayo Clinic have now taken an inventive leap by using aptamers—tiny, shape-shifting DNA molecules—to selectively tag these elusive cells. The project began as an offbeat conversation between two graduate students and quickly evolved into a collaborative, cross-lab effort that uncovered aptamers capable of binding to unique surface proteins on senescent cells.
Comet 3I/ATLAS is getting greener and brighter as it approaches Earth, new images reveal
New images taken with the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii confirm that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has gotten brighter and greener since its close flyby of the sun in October.
First Brands Advances Business Stabilization Initiatives and Long-Term Paths to Create Value and Drive Growth
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich., December 12, 2025--First Brands Group, LLC ("First Brands" or the "Company"), a leading global supplier of aftermarket automotive parts, announced today a series of decisive steps the Company has taken to stabilize its operations, strengthen leadership, and maintain continuity of supply and service for customers, including:
The greatest Tyne-Wear derby moments?
When you have a rivalry as fierce and as storied as the Tyne-Wear derby, you are never short of memorable moments. With Sunderland and Newcastle set to face each other for the first time in the Premier League since 2016 on Sunday, we have taken a trip down Memory Lane to find some of the standout moments. Neither team came into the match in great form, but there was particular pressure on Newcastle boss Ruud Gullit after three defeats in the opening four games.
Past Ulster disappointments driving Kilcoo
With 13 Down titles over the past 14 years, one may get the impression that success can be taken for granted in Kilcoo, but current manager Martin Corey insists there is a sense they "have left a lot behind them" beyond their county boundary.
Blame Republicans for our health insurance mess
Conservatives haven’t taken health policy seriously for decades.
Weekend Entertainment | Holiday Spirit at Stage Left’s ‘Trailer Park’
The annual onslaught of holiday shows has overtaken local stages, and they’re a cherished part of the season for many folks.
IOC urges sports bodies to let Russian youth teams and athletes compete again with flag and anthem
The IOC has taken a big step toward reintegrating Russia and Belarus into world sports. It’s advising governing bodies of Olympic sports to let youth teams and athletes compete with their full identity of national flag and anthem.
Tiiny AI Pocket Lab: Mini PC with 12-core ARM CPU and 80 GB LPDDR5X memory unveiled ahead of CES
Tiiny AI is an American startup that has introduced a brand-new mini PC with one goal - putting large LLMs in user's pockets. The impressively tiny Pocket Lab mini PC packs a 12-core ARM CPU along with an NPU that is capable of up to 160 TOPS of compute power. Memory is crucial, taken care of by 80 GB of LPDDR5X RAM.
US seized oil tanker off Venezuelan coast, Trump says
President Donald Trump on Wednesday confirmed that the US has taken control of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
3 separate US strikes on alleged drug boats have initially left survivors. Each time they’ve been treated differently
As the US military has undertaken a campaign of attacks against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, at least five people have survived initial strikes ending up in the water after explosions killed fellow crew members and disabled their ships.
Matriarch's Death Prompts Mental Health Reckoning
When Cheryl Hill vanished around Thanksgiving and her late son’s birthday, her community rallied in a desperate search, ultimately uncovering the tragedy that the 69-year-old New Havener had taken her own life. Now, Hill's daughter plans to channel her grief into raising awareness around the importance of mental health.
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.
City Council creates entertainment zones in some neighborhoods to spur night life
Oakland has taken the first step toward building entertainment zones similar to San Francisco’s to boost foot traffic and support night life.
New images show an interstellar comet that will soon make its closest approach to Earth
New images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and a Jupiter-bound mission showcase interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS ahead of its close pass by Earth.
For once, Nigel Farage is the dog that doesn’t bark
Usually found at Monday press conferences, the Reform leader has taken a vow of silence in the face of mounting allegations
'We want to stop girls from dropping out of sport'
The students have taken part in a BBC documentary looking at ways to stop this from happening.
Deadly shooting being investigated outside Clearwater sports bar
One person was found in the parking lot, and several others were taken to the hospital.
California health officials issue urgent warning to mushroom foragers after deadly poisoning outbreak
California health officials warn against mushroom foraging after a deadly outbreak in which death cap mushrooms were mistaken for edible varieties.
2026 World Cup groups confirmed: Full draw, groups, details
The 2026 World Cup draw has taken place with the 12 groups confirmed for the tournament next summer.
How Donald Trump brings MAGA ideals into global politics
In his second term, US President Donald Trump has taken his MAGA movement global, criticizing election outcomes, climate change initiatives and migration policy while backing populist presidential candidates.
'Godfather of AI' Geoffrey Hinton says Google is 'beginning to overtake' OpenAI: 'My guess is Google will win'
Geoffrey Hinton, an AI pioneer who previously worked at Google Brain, said it was "surprising than it's taken this long" for Google to catch OpenAI.
Trump backs vessel strike effort amid follow-up hit fallout
“I want those boats taken out, and if we have to, we’ll attack on land also,” Trump said
Laura Woods: TV presenter 'taken ill' during England coverage
Presenter Laura Woods appears to faint while leading the coverage of England's friendly against Ghana on Tuesday.
A dementia vaccine could be real, and some of us have taken it without knowing | BBC Science Focus Magazine
Getting vaccinated against shingles could protect you from getting dementia, or slow the progression of the disease, says a new study.
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.
The most powerful news photos of the year
The most powerful news photos taken by Getty Images photographers in 2025 captured political unrest, natural disasters, and other major news events.
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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