Why don't you start with that case? So far, you haven't done anything to debunk it.
Reincarnation Is A FACT!!!!!!!!
- Thread starter Space_Ed
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I made it quite clear why I don't want to do that.
I do not want to start with any case; I want to finish with one.
Is the Watseka Wonder your one best example or not? If it is, I will delve into as soon as you start a thread for it in the appropriate forum laying out your case. If it is not, then let me know what is and I will delve into it as soon as you start a thread for in in the appropriate forum laying out your case.
Far too often you get away with saying: This isn't debunked; I won't provide specifics but it counts as proof until skeptics demonstrate otherwise.
I do not want to play that game. Your last post was wrong, but I won't go farther into it until you do what I've asked.
juryjone
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Garrette,
I realize that your 20(19) cases are Keen's idea of 20 good cases. I was wondering if you know whether the Stevenson cases included were numbered among his 20 special cases.
What struck me (after the fact that Stevenson could not seem to follow his own criteria in the instance of Jassbir, case #4) is that two other Stevenson cases had nothing to do with reincarnation. Case #5 was not reincarnation since Thompson knew Gifford. Since they were alive concurrently, no reincarnation (at least under any definition of reincarnation I'm aware of) could be said to take place.
Case #12, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Missing Leg, was a reading from a medium. Also no reincarnation. (I would guess, however, that Bugs Meany had the femur. Little @%#.)
If these cases are, in fact, included amongst Stevenson's 20 cases, then I would think that no further attention needs to be paid to Dr. Stevenson, since he proves with these three cases that he cannot be said to be rigorous in his protocol.
I realize that your 20(19) cases are Keen's idea of 20 good cases. I was wondering if you know whether the Stevenson cases included were numbered among his 20 special cases.
What struck me (after the fact that Stevenson could not seem to follow his own criteria in the instance of Jassbir, case #4) is that two other Stevenson cases had nothing to do with reincarnation. Case #5 was not reincarnation since Thompson knew Gifford. Since they were alive concurrently, no reincarnation (at least under any definition of reincarnation I'm aware of) could be said to take place.
Case #12, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Missing Leg, was a reading from a medium. Also no reincarnation. (I would guess, however, that Bugs Meany had the femur. Little @%#.)
If these cases are, in fact, included amongst Stevenson's 20 cases, then I would think that no further attention needs to be paid to Dr. Stevenson, since he proves with these three cases that he cannot be said to be rigorous in his protocol.
See below.
I LOVED Encyclopedia Brown!juryjone said:
juryjone said:
I think no further attention needs be paid. I don't recall which ones are from the 20 cases book, but at least one has to be, or else Monty Keen lists references he didn't use.
This is also from my post on the other forum:
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These are the references Keen uses in his list of 19. I cleared up the formatting a bit where possible. I include all the data Keen provided:
Bolded items are those I can not find at all (or without the requirement to buy them) and, because of that, can offer little or no comment on the cases. If you want more, you’ll have to give me more specifics on the case.
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These are additional references I used:
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Garrette, old friend, you're the one who claims that you have debunked most of Montague Keen's 20 best cases for after-death survival. I have examined your very first claim and have found it wanting. Whether that is the best case for after-death survival, I'm not sure, but you're the one who brought it up. So, at a minimum, you need to inform the readers of this thread where the following "facts" came from, and how - even if true -- they lead to your conclusion that the Mary Roff/Lurancy Vennum possession case has been debunked:
The Roffs were long-time neighbors of the Vennums.
Vennum had no episodes of possession until she was seen by Dr. Stevens who came all the way from Wisconsin when Mr. Roff insisted on him because Stevens had treated Mary Roff.
Mr. Roff was present at the first session with Vennum and Stevens, and he was present at most of the following sessions. Mrs. Roff was present at some of them, too.
Vennum ‘brought forth’ numerous unidentified spirits but got no reaction. Later, when she said “Mary Roff,” Mr. Roff insisted that Mary be the one to speak.
Between sessions, Vennum—ostensibly as Mary Roff—spent considerable time at the Roff residence, speaking with and learning about the Roffs. The hits came only after several of these visits had occurred.
Sigh. Rodney, I know you don't play to the skeptic audience but instead play to the fence-sitting lurkers--and you really do put on a good show for them--but it gets frustrating going through this nearly every time with you.
First, if my information is speculation and unsubstantiated, then so is the original claim. Keen did not use primary source documents.
Second, we get back to where we frequently end up: even if everything I say is absolutely wrong, the best that can be said for the pro-reincarnation side is that their case has been neither proven nor disproven.
That said, I did your work for you again. See this thread.
EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
See you over at This thread.See below....
I would be delighted.....
Garrette's "debunk" is a combination of speculation and misstatements of facts. He has done nothing to discredit the story.
blutoski
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One of the key problems with these case studies (I'm going to avoid the word anecdote for now) is that by the time the investigators show up on the scene, the opportunity to eliminate the possibility of information contamination has long passed.
That's why the case studies are essentially all hearsay at this point.
There may not be a scientific approach to investigating reincarnation, except for those that are similar to the approaches undertaken to prove any post-death survival. eg: the person prepares a passphrase before dying and promises to reveal the pass through a seance.
If a kid could open up a 4096-bit encrypted passphrase-protected pgp file in one shot, it'd get my attention.
Instead, we're told this fru-fru stuff is 'scientific'... which it isn't. It looks like exercises in confirmation-seeking. Where's the disproof test?
I'm reading a textbook that was intended for psychology undergrads that is focused on distinguishing between scientific versus pseudoscientific approaches. I'll post the author's checklist when I get home.
That's why the case studies are essentially all hearsay at this point.
There may not be a scientific approach to investigating reincarnation, except for those that are similar to the approaches undertaken to prove any post-death survival. eg: the person prepares a passphrase before dying and promises to reveal the pass through a seance.
If a kid could open up a 4096-bit encrypted passphrase-protected pgp file in one shot, it'd get my attention.
Instead, we're told this fru-fru stuff is 'scientific'... which it isn't. It looks like exercises in confirmation-seeking. Where's the disproof test?
I'm reading a textbook that was intended for psychology undergrads that is focused on distinguishing between scientific versus pseudoscientific approaches. I'll post the author's checklist when I get home.
skeptical
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Well actually, the numbers don't really mean much, and in a sense actually count against the claim for a couple of reasons.
First, unless the methodology is rigorous, the numbers only mean that the researchers are diligent in seeking out stories. That means they are industrious and that the claims are legion, but 10,000 poorly researched claims are really no better than 1 in terms of the _veracity_ of the claims. It may tell us something interesting about human psychology and cultural influences, but if we want to know if the claims are _true_, then we need a methodology for separating the wheat from the chaffe that we have a high degree of confidence in.
Second, the sheer number of claims makes it look like the researchers found every single claim they researched credible. That would be even more astonishing than the claim of reincarnation in the first place. Surely it stretches believability of even the most credulous person to think there weren't ANY frauds among the thousands of claims? Surely simple common sense, history and statistics would require that there be some significant number of false reports. If the researchers couldn't detect them, what does that say about their methodology? What does that say about their credulity that it doesn't seem strange to them that they didn't find many cases of fraud?
If we accept that the thousands of claims they researched are actual cases, then we must accept there are thousands more, perhaps millions more unless we are going to say that the researchers were incredibly lucky in the cases they selected and the phenomenon occurs only in the populations they selected. That seems unbelievably hard to accept, which would mean that just about every family on the planet has someone who has been reincarnated. Doesn't that seem like a rather strange idea?
Unless they 1) lay out their methodology for detecting fraud in very specific detail and 2) have a significant number of examples of how their methodology detected fraud, I would have no interest in spending money on their work.
I might check it out of the library, but honestly why would someone spend their precious time reading stories like this when there are many, many, many of these types of stories that you can read for free on the Internet. One claim is as good an another, it is the independent verification and methodology for fraud detection that matter. Otherwise its just a collection of potentially interesting stories.
Space_Ed
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Bodhi Dharma Zen
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Good one. Touché on some people who uses ad-hoc arguments all the time (not that I have anything to say about reincarnation).RichardR
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Details of flaws in more of Stevenson's work. Summsry - there are other explanations for Stevenson's work that don't require you to believe in reincarnation.
tsig
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If one part smells funny the whole pile will stink.
Space_Ed
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This what they say about fraud detection...
-refering to a weaker case of a young girl that knew her greatgrandmother's name-
Fraud
This would mean that Abby's mother intentionally lied to us about what happened. This is theoretically possible. Abby did not remember that night when we met her two years later, and no other witnesses were there to confirm the story. Someone could make up such a story if she had a reason to do so, which is why we only report cases in which we have interviewed the families ourselves. When we interview them, we try to judge how reliable they are (Space Ed addition- subjective and flawed methodology).
The problem with the explanation of fraud is that for the vast majority of cases, the family has absolutely no reason to make up such a story. Abby's mother certainly did not. The only thing that she got out of contacting us was having her home invaded by a psychiatrist and a psychologist who asked a lot of questions, so unless she was badly in need of attention from two strangers, she would have no motivation to lie to us. Though she believed in reincarnation (Space Ed - *cough*), her husband did not. he did not seem thrilled to have us in his home, so any potential unhappiness on his part would have presumably made her even less likely to invent a story when she contacted us. Similarly, the people involved in the cases in other countries get no material benefit. Though families have on rare occasion tried to get gifts from the families of the previous personality, almost all of them have appeared to be ordinary, decent people (Space Ed- *cough- the return*) who happened to have children who said some extraordinary things.
In addition, Abby's case is unusual because there is only one witness. In many of the others, numerous family members and friends have heard the child talk about a previous life, along with several family members of the previous personality who later heard the child aswell. For fraud to exist, a consiracy would have to be responsible, and though many cases may bring the families some brief notoriety, the absence of any meaningful benefit to all the people who would have to be involved in this elaborate undertaking makes this scenario very unlikely.
The other possibility for fraud is that the investigators have made up the cases. We know that we have met these children but you do not. Nonetherless, the field notes packed in the filing cabinets in our offices document that the interviews have taken place (Space Ed- *Cough- When good coughs go bad*). In addition, anyone who reads Dr Stevenson's write-ups of the cases, in which he highlights the weaknesses of the cases along with the strengths, will understand that he has not committed fraud, even if he is mistaken about the significance of these cases. Another practical objection to investigator fraud is that six of us have published cases, so the fraud would have to involve a number of professionals who have never shown tendencies toward dishonesty in their work (Space Ed- says you!).
Though the possibility exists that Abby's mother made up the story, the chances that fraud is responsible for this case, and for the cases as a group, are small.
-refering to a weaker case of a young girl that knew her greatgrandmother's name-
Fraud
This would mean that Abby's mother intentionally lied to us about what happened. This is theoretically possible. Abby did not remember that night when we met her two years later, and no other witnesses were there to confirm the story. Someone could make up such a story if she had a reason to do so, which is why we only report cases in which we have interviewed the families ourselves. When we interview them, we try to judge how reliable they are (Space Ed addition- subjective and flawed methodology).
The problem with the explanation of fraud is that for the vast majority of cases, the family has absolutely no reason to make up such a story. Abby's mother certainly did not. The only thing that she got out of contacting us was having her home invaded by a psychiatrist and a psychologist who asked a lot of questions, so unless she was badly in need of attention from two strangers, she would have no motivation to lie to us. Though she believed in reincarnation (Space Ed - *cough*), her husband did not. he did not seem thrilled to have us in his home, so any potential unhappiness on his part would have presumably made her even less likely to invent a story when she contacted us. Similarly, the people involved in the cases in other countries get no material benefit. Though families have on rare occasion tried to get gifts from the families of the previous personality, almost all of them have appeared to be ordinary, decent people (Space Ed- *cough- the return*) who happened to have children who said some extraordinary things.
In addition, Abby's case is unusual because there is only one witness. In many of the others, numerous family members and friends have heard the child talk about a previous life, along with several family members of the previous personality who later heard the child aswell. For fraud to exist, a consiracy would have to be responsible, and though many cases may bring the families some brief notoriety, the absence of any meaningful benefit to all the people who would have to be involved in this elaborate undertaking makes this scenario very unlikely.
The other possibility for fraud is that the investigators have made up the cases. We know that we have met these children but you do not. Nonetherless, the field notes packed in the filing cabinets in our offices document that the interviews have taken place (Space Ed- *Cough- When good coughs go bad*). In addition, anyone who reads Dr Stevenson's write-ups of the cases, in which he highlights the weaknesses of the cases along with the strengths, will understand that he has not committed fraud, even if he is mistaken about the significance of these cases. Another practical objection to investigator fraud is that six of us have published cases, so the fraud would have to involve a number of professionals who have never shown tendencies toward dishonesty in their work (Space Ed- says you!).
Though the possibility exists that Abby's mother made up the story, the chances that fraud is responsible for this case, and for the cases as a group, are small.
Gravy
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...and the Naiveté of the Month Award goes to...
tsig
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Not fraud just confirmation bias.
Space_Ed
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Thanks for that link. Some of the information put forward here about Dr Stevenson has definately sabotaged potential respect I could have developed for him as a critical thinker and a scientist. Although he is certainly not completely rational in his approach and his assumptions it is still a possibility that he is right.
skeptical
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I'm a little confused. Are you saying you agree that their methodology is flawed? It would appear that is what you were alluding to with your asides, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.
If what you posted is what they think fraud detection is, I now know for certain I would not be interested in their work. First, the idea that someone has "no reason" to make up a story like these is completely and utterly ridiculous on its face. There is always a psychological benefit that a believer gets from participating in stories like this, and it also ignores the quite obvious issue that the person telling the story might half believe it is true. Many people have fantasy prone personalities, and when their confabulations are reinforced by a sympathetic ear, they begin to actually accept that the stories they are "remembering" happened. This happens in other types of extraordinary claims such as alien abduction. The fact the "researchers" don't know this shows an extreme naiveté.
Second, this demonstrates conclusively that they have absolutely no methodology whatsoever for detecting fraud other than "gee, I can't think of a reason for these people to lie". To say that is weak and unreliable is a gargantuan understatement. Why in the world would anyone think this "research" carries any reliability whatsoever?
Space_Ed
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Ofcourse their methodology is flawed. I don't think there could be a methodology for this type of research that wasn't flawed. How would you go about finding evidence for fraud? I don't think that you could invent any method that is any more effective than their type of reasoning. Unless they built a time machine and and invisibility cape..... lol
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