"We're at a time when we need critical thinking more than ever, and sadly, I'm not really seeing it happening." 

Professor Chris French is one of the world's leading researchers in anomalistic psychology and critical thinking. As former head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London, author of The Science of Weird Sht*, patron of Humanists UK, and former editor of The Skeptic magazine, Chris has spent decades investigating paranormal claims, debunking fraudsters, and exploring the psychology of belief. 

In this conversation, he unpacks why the paranormal is worth taking seriously as a scientific and psychological subject, what his own near-miss with precognition research taught him, why deliberate con artists deserve far more condemnation than sincere believers, and why we urgently need better critical thinking in schools, in public life, and in our politics.

Connect with Professor French

• Chris’s website
• Chris’s Guardian column
• Chris’s Skeptic column
• Chris’s profile page at Goldmiths
• Chris on Bluesky
• Chris being interviewed on the Plutopia podcast
• The Science of Weird Shit on Bookshop.org

Topics we cover

• How anomalistic psychology defines the paranormal  
• The sheep and goat scale: do believers and sceptics think differently?
• A near-miss with precognition research — when the data surprised the sceptics
• Why sincere mediums deserve a different response to deliberate con artists
• How a single book turned a believer into one of the world's leading sceptics
• The case for teaching critical thinking through ghost stories and UFOs
• The hard problem of conscious

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Music: Blossom by Light Prism

Podcast transcripts are AI-generated and may contain errors or omissions. They are provided to make our content more accessible, but should not be considered a fully accurate record of the conversation.