"The Unstoppable Schwartz"

[Nyarlathotep]

Here I thought this was going to be a thread about "moichandizing, moichandizing, moichandizing". I was all ready to go with my official Spaceballs lunchbox, T-shirt and flamethrower.

 

[Ersby]

0.26% you mean.

Oh yes. So it is.

And I fail to understand how this is generous. On the contrary, I would have thought this was very ungenerous.

Because I didn't use all organ transplants. If I had the figure would've been ten times smaller.

However if it is anything like only 0.26%, I think the hypothesis that various normal explanations suffice might well be reasonable.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

What if the recipients knew about the donor (as many do)? Wouldn't that mean that the changes in their personalities could be due to their belief that they should pick up traits from the donor?

 

[juryjone]

People used to think NDEs were extremely uncommon until the 1980's. But the same principle applies. Namely people are reluctant to talk about their experiences.

People used to think alien abduction was extremely uncommon until they heard the story of Betty and Barney Hill. But the same principle applies. People hear stories that predispose them to look for coincidences and label them astounding.

 

[Interesting Ian]

People used to think alien abduction was extremely uncommon until they heard the story of Betty and Barney Hill. But the same principle applies. People hear stories that predispose them to look for coincidences and label them astounding.

That might well be so, but it's not relevant at this juncture since the contention is that only 1 in 400 organ recipients experience anything unusual.

 

[CFLarsen]

0.26% you mean. And I fail to understand how this is generous. On the contrary, I would have thought this was very ungenerous. I would imagine people would tend to keep quiet about it for all sorts of reasons.

But we are not talking about some inner experience. We are talking about something that alters people's personalities in such a way that it stands out.

Not only themselves, but also their families, friends and coworkers would notice.

It would be impossible to keep it quiet.

 

[Interesting Ian]

II
0.26% you mean.

Ersby
Oh yes. So it is.

So already the figure has been knocked up a 100 fold.

Let's examine the figure further. You say there were 28,801 organ recipients in 10 years. Is your claim that only 0.26% of them experienced anything unusual? Or do you agree the figure might be much larger than this?

Were each of these 28,801 people given a personal interview to establish if they experienced anything unusual?

II
And I fail to understand how this is generous. On the contrary, I would have thought this was very ungenerous.

Ersby
Because I didn't use all organ transplants. If I had the figure would've been ten times smaller..

So Schwartz picked the people from all organ recipients rather than just the major organs?

 

[Interesting Ian]

But we are not talking about some inner experience. We are talking about something that alters people's personalities in such a way that it stands out.

Not only themselves, but also their families, friends and coworkers would notice.

It would be impossible to keep it quiet.

I don't think it would necessarily stand out. Suppose I received an organ from a woman and subsequently developed an interest in shopping. But presumably I could resist such an urge to go shopping. Or even do it secretly!

But suppose people did see me shopping, or talking politely to you guys, or some other uncharacteristic behaviour. Are you really suggesting that people would jump to the conclusion that it must be due to the organ transplant? Come now.

 

[Beth]

How does one determine whether a jounal is peer-reviewed or not? I'm asking because the Journal of Near Death Studies does not sound like it's peer-reviewed, but I'm more than willing to be shown I'm wrong.

It was stated on the site with the journal article.

His musical tastes changed? Pardon me, but that doesn't seem to be extraordinary in any way. I never used to like country music, but in my 30s developed an interest in certain kinds. About the same time a friend of mine started listening to classical music. No transplants necessary. Hardly seems astounding.

Most people have their musical tastes set by their early to mid twenties*. Thirties is late, but reasonable. The recipient was 47. It's quite unusal for someone that age to have a dramatic change in musical preference. However, you are right in that that fact alone would not be astounding. Schwartz claims that every case had 2 to 5 such coincidences occur.


*Holbrook, M.B. and R. M. Schindler (1989) "Some exploratory findings on the development of musical tastes" Journal of Consumer Research, Vol 16, pp. 119-124

 

[CFLarsen]

I don't think it would necessarily stand out. Suppose I received an organ from a woman and subsequently developed an interest in shopping. But presumably I could resist such an urge to go shopping. Or even do it secretly!

But suppose people did see me shopping, or talking politely to you guys, or some other uncharacteristic behaviour. Are you really suggesting that people would jump to the conclusion that it must be due to the organ transplant? Come now.

No, they wouldn't necessarily jump to that conclusion. But transplant patients are followed rather closely, to see if they suffer side effects.

If the people around them noticed a change, it would be spotted. And then, talk would begin.

 

[Beth]

What if the recipients knew about the donor (as many do)? Wouldn't that mean that the changes in their personalities could be due to their belief that they should pick up traits from the donor?

Recipients in the cases detailed did not know their donors. All ten of the cases detailed were either heart transplants or heart-lung transplants. Usually when the recipient knows the donor it's something like a kidney or bone marrow, where the donor is still living and is likely to be related to them.

 

[BrianSI]

Not if they just feel your impression is wrong rather than making a definitive claim.

The essence of irrationality.

Who made these rules anyway? I never got the memo.

 

[SteveGrenard]

http://farshores.org/jd083103.htm

 

[athon]

I'm not so much interested in the hypothesis as to why it happens. I'm more interested if some of these people really do change certain aspects of their personalities, and acquire new skills, which it would be unreasonable to suppose happened in any "normal" manner.



I make no claims and have no evidence apart from the stories I have read.

Hm, well, nothing to see here folks. I only address claims and discuss the validity of evidence.

Invisible arguments are down the hall, to the left. I have better things to do with my time.

Athon

 

[juryjone]

http://farshores.org/jd083103.htm

Well, that was "interesting". The article talks about a Discovery Channel "documentary" called "Transplanting Memories" which is chock full of fascinating anecdotes, including a fellow who seemed to be Schwartz's man with the Amazing Change in Musical Tastes. It goes on to document that over 100 years ago, Auerbach discovered that nerve cells like those in the brain were to be found in the stomach lining. Well, that's something at least. Call me when stomach transplants become common.

Then there's the story of the young heart transplant recipient who helped the police solve the murder of the donor through her dreams. I'm sure that's well-documented as well.

Got anything else?

 

[Ersby]

Let's examine the figure further. You say there were 28,801 organ recipients in 10 years. Is your claim that only 0.26% of them experienced anything unusual? Or do you agree the figure might be much larger than this?

I think it's a useful ball park figure. You wanted to know how common it was. Now we have some idea.

Were each of these 28,801 people given a personal interview to establish if they experienced anything unusual?

Well, I would hope the treatment continued after the operation. Patients are generally encouraged to tell their doctors about curious side effects.

So Schwartz picked the people from all organ recipients rather than just the major organs?

Schwartz didn't pick them. The paper I have doesn't specify which transplants were included, so I played safe and stuck to biggest.

 

[CFLarsen]

http://farshores.org/jd083103.htm

From the link:

In one amazing story, an eight-year-old girl who received the heart of a murdered 10-year- old, began having nightmares in which she relived the crime. Her dreams helped police solve the murder.

That sounds very much like Sylvia Browne's example of "Molly":

Molly gets a new heart from a murder victim. Soon after the transplant, Molly begins having dreams about a "dark figure in a ski mask", who, after Molly has been under hypnosis, turns out to be the murderer, who is now behind bars.
Source

In another story, a shy, reserved woman has vivid dreams about the donor, even though she never met this person. She also develops a more assertive personality.

It is a life-changing experience to get a transplant. Perhaps she realized how precious life is, and that she needed to live life here and now? No time to be timid?

A third heart recipient strangely picks up his donor's musical taste.

Did (s)he know about this taste in music before? Or is it a case of slow. What the heck is "musical taste" anyway? Does (s)he go from punk to Alban Berg?

From all indications, the cells communicate with one another, passing new memories on throughout the body when foreign cells are adhered to the body. This might explain why some humans have vivid memories of past lives, especially when under hypnosis, that were never lived. They are reacting to cellular memory, not reincarnation.

Yet another woo belief that is totally unfalsifiable: If this is true, then there is no way we can distinguish between cellular memory and fantasy.

More bunk. As if we needed that....

What do you think, Steve?

 

[Lothian]

I don't know about the cellular memory hypothesis, but the coincidences in the 10 cases that are detailed in the paper are pretty astounding.

All coincidences are astounding.

When you are asked to look for coincidences between two subjects it would be even more astounding if none could be found. However multiplying the coincidences that do exist does not make it more special nor does it mean there is a link, especially when the coincidences are not commonly shared.

I understand that Schwartz found 2- 5 coincidences in each patient. It would be more impressive if the same coincidence appeared time and time again. If most patients found their musical tastes changed that would be interesting, but even then it would need to be compared to a control group.

I agree that most people don’t switch musical tasted in the mid 40s but from what I understand there is only one person out of 28,000 has changed preferences post operation. That fits in with most people not changing.

Going about it the way Schwartz does if very iffy and it is difficult to come up with a meaningful comparison but I see it as being similar to someone looking at the effects of marriage, and finding that after marriage quite a few people changed their preferences for some activities. Some of those people had dramatic changes but the dramatic changes they had varied from person to person. So far nothing surprising however Schwartz goes a step further and claims that the change is not part of the normal changes we all go through but are caused by the married couple eating their own wedding cake !

Sure, he can always measure a correlation but can he prove the causation ?

 

[CFLarsen]

I understand that Schwartz found 2- 5 coincidences in each patient. It would be more impressive if the same coincidence appeared time and time again. If most patients found their musical tastes changed that would be interesting, but even then it would need to be compared to a control group.

I have absolutely no idea what your life is like. Apart from your interest in skepticism, I know zilch about you.

Yet, I am certain that we can find 2-5 - at least - "coincidences" among ourselves. If we look for similarities, we will find them.

Schwartz is, as usual, datamining.

 

[Lothian]

I have absolutely no idea what your life is like. Apart from your interest in skepticism, I know zilch about you.

Yet, I am certain that we can find 2-5 - at least - "coincidences" among ourselves. If we look for similarities, we will find them.

Schwartz is, as usual, datamining.

Hey that is what I way saying in the paragraph before the one you quoted. Coincidence or what !!!