positive mentions of paranormal/supernatural stuff in peer reviewed articles

[Danniel]

What do you people think of this?

There are some publications with reasonable impact factor that do have some positive mentions on very specific supernatural hypothesis.... such as memories from past lifes, scars and stuff...

I think these are rather hurried affirmations, since there´s no really known "causal factor" to be measured or anything. One thing is hypothesising genetic or ordinary non-genetic causes for a certain traits, since these things do exist and can be tested, but the traditional concept of conscious afterlife is not in the same situation.

If something like traditional conscious afterlife is mentionable as a possible explanatory cause of anything, many more creative non-traditional hypotheses with no less evidence could be used as well; for example, memories of past incarnations could be eventually inherited not because a integral soul reincarnated in another body, but because the brain creates a unconscious "ghost" of its memories of unknown matter, which usually degrades as the living body does after it dies, but eventually some "ghost-viruses" absorb this "past life information" before it totally decomposes, and transfer horizontally it more integrally to an unborn child, rather than the child being born with a "blank ghost" or with a ghost made out of permuted memories of its parents, relatives, and maybe even neighbours and friends.

The only reason that would really justify the suggestion of traditional afterlife hypothesis in a real peer reviewed paper would be it having more evidence and theoretical solidity than things that anyone can make up just like this one I did. I´m not aware of this being the case, so I think it´s just prejudice not being filtered by the peer review.

[Unnamed]

There are some publications with reasonable impact factor that do have some positive mentions on very specific supernatural hypothesis.... such as memories from past lifes, scars and stuff...
Do you have an example? It's hard to give an opinion otherwise.

[Danniel]

THE LANCET • Vol 358 • December 15, 2001. Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. Pim van Lommel, Ruud van Wees, Vincent Meyers, Ingrid Elfferich.

(I.F. 21.713 in 2004, according with the source that posted it in another forum)


- Near-death experiences. Relevance to the question of survival after death - JAMA 1979 Jul 20;242(3):265-7 Stevenson I, Greyson B.

(IF 24.831 in 2004)


- Case of Secondary Personality with Xenoglossy (1979), American Journal of Psychiatry, 1979, 136, pp. 1591-1592, Stevenson, I., Parisha, S.

(IF of 7.614, with no date mentioned)

("xenoglossy" I think is when people know languages that they´re "not supposed" to know)


- Cases of the Reincarnation Type with Memories from the Intermission Between Lives (2005) - Artigo publicado no Journal of Near-Death Studies 23(2):101-118 , escrito por Poonam Sharma e Dr. Jim B. Tucker

(no IF)


The phenomenon of claimed memories of previous lives: possible interpretations and importance (2000) - Medical Hypotheses 54(4), 652-659 , Ian Stevenson

(IF of 0,607)


Three New Cases of the Reincarnation Type in Sri Lanka with Written Records Made before Verification (1988) - Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 171:742-748, Ian Stevenson and Godwin Samararatne

(IF 1,463 in 2004)



One thing I noticed is that the IFs are of different years than the articles mentioned... I guess it demeanes some of the credit that these articles would have

[Danniel]

other thing that should be mentioned is that there are not even abstracts avaliable to some of these, and articles titled such as "Near-death experiences. Relevance to the question of survival after death" could very well conclude that there are none... but probably it´s not the case, judging by its author

[Unnamed]

The only reason that would really justify the suggestion of traditional afterlife hypothesis in a real peer reviewed paper would be it having more evidence and theoretical solidity than things that anyone can make up just like this one I did. I´m not aware of this being the case, so I think it´s just prejudice not being filtered by the peer review.
I read the Lancet paper and was unimpressed. (by the way, its impact factor in 2001 was 13.2, still very high).

Some key paragraph are these (emphasis mine): Our results show that medical factors cannot account for occurrence of NDE; although all patients had been clinically dead, most did not have NDE. Furthermore, seriousness of the crisis was not related to occurrence or depth of the experience. If purely physiological factors resulting from cerebral anoxia caused NDE, most of our patients should have had this experience.
I could rephrase their conclusion as "If non-physiological factors caused NDE, most of our patients should have had this experience" and it would sound equally valid (that is, in both cases there is a strong but unfounded assumption).

With lack of evidence for any other theories for NDE, the thus far assumed, but never proven, concept that consciousness and memories are localised in the brain should be discussed.Which is an argument from ignorance, since lack of evidence for one position is not evidence for an opposing position. And the lack of evidence comes because they chose to completely dismiss other explanations for NDE's:These induced experiences can consist of unconsciousness, out-of-body experiences, and perception of light or flashes of recollection from the past. These recollections, however, consist of fragmented and random memories unlike the panoramic life-review that can occur in NDE.

The paper passed peer review because it reported novel observations, adequately obtained. Probably the reviewers raised objections about their conclusions (which do not always follow from the observations), but the editor decided that it was worthy of publication anyway.

Peer review is just one step of the scientific process. Extraordinary conclusions such as those should be followed up with independent replication.

[Unnamed]

The Journal of Near-Death Studies does not seem to be an unbiased publication, and no impact factor is given because it is not listed in the Journal Citation Reports with that name.

The remaining publications are from Ian Stevenson. I don't know about him, but others have discussed him here in the board (search for the name). Randi mentions him in his commentary (http://www.randi.org/jr/090704bad.html#8), but it's for a short article critical of regression (http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/regression.cfm) theraphy. In any case, I would ask for independent confirmation.

[Unnamed]

Some articles about Stevenson in the Skeptic Report: a review (http://www.skepticreport.com/psychics/stevenson-book.htm) of "Children Who Remember Previous Lives" and a more personal discussion of his beliefs (http://www.skepticreport.com/psychics/stevenson-belief.htm).

[Dr B]

I think cases like this reflect a number of fallacies of reason. For me the logic of those NDE / survivial arguments have never stood up (for exactly the reasons discussed above).

They talk about anoxia as being one thing - it is not, there are sub-classes of anoxia and not all would necessary have memorable experiences associated with them. The differences can be coarsely described as differences in the rate and range of anoxic onset. Also, if one can remember an NDE - obviously memory was active and working (in order to encode the experiences) in the first place. We know memory and imagery are the most likely soruces of these experiences.

As noted above, the peer-review process is not perfect. Bad papers will slip through the net - but ultimately science will self-regulate these when independent verification is needed.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Welcome, Dr. B. You must have missed the memo about no more member names using "Dr." :D

~~ Paul

[Dr B]

If there was one - then indeed I did ;) However, in my defense, i use the same name on other boards - i always go for consistency ;) :cool:

and thank you indeed for the welcome! With one or two exceptions....seems nice around here.

[Hellbound]

If there was one - then indeed I did ;) However, in my defense, i use the same name on other boards - i always go for consistency ;) :cool:

and thank you indeed for the welcome! With one or two exceptions....seems nice around here.

You know, if we could just get a Dr. C, Dr. D, etc, we could have our own alphabet!

No, I had nothing useful to contribute :)

[Danniel]

Thanks, Unnamed

The paper passed peer review because it reported novel observations, adequately obtained. Probably the reviewers raised objections about their conclusions (which do not always follow from the observations), but the editor decided that it was worthy of publication anyway.
..hum... and in this decision there was some degree of subjectivity and indulgence from the editor, there was not?

... I think that... for exemple, something with the same degree of sustainability was submited, bringing adequately obtained novel observations, but with conclusions related with creationism/evolution denial, which is much more widely rejected by scientists and persons with higher education, it would much less likely be published...

just think of a statement like "With lack of evidence for any other theories for the evolution of the small toe of the left-handed albino echidna, the thus far assumed, but never proven, concept that common mechanisms of genetic mutation, populational genetics and selection account for the evolution of this weird trait should be discussed."