Episode 54: Halloween special on psychic mediums

Episode 54: Halloween special on psychic mediums

Author: Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie October 29, 2024 Duration: 1:09:05

WoooOOOOOoooOOOOOoooo, it’s that time of year again! It’s Halloween, so it’s time for The Studies Show hosts to face their fears, and read the research from one of the weirdest areas of science, parapsychology.

This time it’s all about psychic mediums. What does it mean to test whether someone can talk to the dead? Are we any better at doing it now than we were 100 years ago at the height of “spiritualism”? And what do the most recent results tell us about the existence of the afterlife?

Happy Halloween! 🎃

This week, The Studies Show is brought to you by Semafor, the online newletter service that gives you everything you need to know about politics, business, economics, and much more in the form of email newsletters. This week we talked about Ben Smith’s newsletter on a topic that’s just as scary as Halloween: the US Presidential Election. You can find it and more excellent newsletters at www.semafor.com/newsletters.

Show notes

* Alfred Russel Wallace’s “Defence of Modern Spiritualism

* Article on Darwin’s views on spiritualism

* Peter Lamont’s book on Daniel Dunglas Home

* Sarcastic sceptical article on William Crookes’s botched investigation of Home

* Video of James Randi debunking the medium Peter Popoff

* Ray Hyman’s classic paper on cold reading

* 2021 meta-analysis on mediumship

* New Italian mediumship paper from 2022

* 2023 review on “Is Biological Death Final?” with discussion of the Drake Equation for parapsychology

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com/subscribe

Every week, Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie pull apart the biggest arguments and most confusing claims making headlines. Science Fictions isn't just about celebrating breakthroughs; it's a necessary dive into the messy, contested, and often surprising realities of how science actually works. You'll hear them unpack heated debates, examine questionable studies, and explore why even solid research can sometimes lead to public confusion. This podcast serves as a guide through the noise, separating compelling evidence from overblown narratives. Each episode feels like a conversation with two deeply informed friends who aren't afraid to ask tough questions, offering clarity on topics that matter. For anyone curious about the stories behind the science headlines, this is an essential listen. Tune in for thoughtful analysis that goes beyond the press release, grounded in a genuine fascination with how we know what we know.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Science Fictions
Podcast Episodes
Episode 72: Parenting (Part 1) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:52
The Studies Show LIVE (with special guest Jesse Singal) is this week! Friday 9 May, Conway Hall, London, 8pm. Get your tickets AT THIS LINK or at bit.ly/tss_live. Welcome to a new series of The Studies Show, all about pa…
Episode 71: The autism epidemic [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:31
The Studies Show LIVE (with special guest Jesse Singal) is next Friday, 9th of May, at Conway Hall in London. Get your tickets right HERE! Or go to bit.ly/tss_live. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. can’t be wrong about literally e…
Paid-only Episode 19: Circumcision [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:05
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comSome scientific controversies are quite surprising (why would the shape of the Earth be controversial, for example?). But some…
Episode 70: Bird flu [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:25
Don’t forget THE STUDIES SHOW LIVE—on 9 May in London! You can buy tickets at this link, or by going to bit.ly/tss_live.What’s going to be the next pandemic? For a long time you might’ve seen news stories about the curre…
Episode 69: Conspiracy theories [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:10:39
While you here do snoring lie, Open-eyed conspiracy His time doth take.If of life you keep a care, Shake off slumber, and beware: Awake, awake!…or so said William Shakespeare—about whom there are quite a few conspiracy t…
Episode 68: Cannabis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:47
The Studies Show LIVE! Get your tickets for our live show in London on Friday 9 May at this link.Blaze it up! It’s time for an episode on cannabis. And just to be clear, not “on cannabis”, but “on, as in about, cannabis”…
Invitation to The Studies Show LIVE [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:05
The Studies Show. Live. In London. With Jesse Singal. Talking about controversial science. Friday 9 May 2025. What more need we say? Well actually, we say a bit more in this brief podcast.Get your tickets HERE!Or go to b…
Paid-only Episode 18: Abortion [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:59
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.comAs if the basic “pro-life vs. pro-choice” issue wasn’t controversial enough, there’s been a decades-long scientific debate on t…
Episode 67: Seed oils [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:22
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. thinks that seed oils—like sunflower or soybean oil—are causing terrible damage to people’s health. And now he’s the US Health Secretary (wait, what?!) we should probably take him seriously.In this…
Episode 66: Superforecasting [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:15:53
Whether it’s the 1903 New York Times article that claimed a flying machine was ten million years away, or the record executive who (allegedly) told the Beatles in the early 1960s that guitar bands were on the way out, pr…