Evidence of the Afterlife; I'm Skeptical - Website

An update to our review of Evidence of the Afterlife; The Science of Near-Death Experiences.  As it turns out, the book is extremely light.  I've been told that most books intended for a lay audience are written around a sixth-grade level.  If that's the case, Evidence is written at a third- or fourth-grade level.

There are interesting tidbits though; for example, on the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation's website, there is a little page titled "Skeptic's Corner."  My favorite article there is Debunking the Debunkers by Jody A. Long.

The entire "debunking" is done on the basis of straw-men and ad hominem attacks.  From the opening paragraph:

On one hand you have those who consider the experience as real (usually the experiencer), and on the other hand you have the nay-Sayers (the non-experiencers) who consider the experience nothing more than brain-chemistry.  In the middle of the road, are those who seek truth – the true skeptics.

Interestingly, this statement excludes both "believers" and "unbelievers" from the category of someone who genuinely seeks truth.  She manages to insult both believers and skeptics at the same time!

The first part of the article is just silly; Long defines "skeptic" as one who "habitually questions assertions or generally accepted conclusions."  Fair enough.  She also defines "cynic" as "one who believes all men are motivated by selfishness."  She then simply paints anyone skeptical of an afterlife as being "cynical" instead of honestly "skeptical."

. . . techniques used in the Lancet commentary such as implying that the whole experience was imagined or that the experiencer was fancifully filling in the gaps. What better way to discredit an NDEr than to assume they are lying about their experience or convince others that the NDEr is of unsound of mind?

I love how we go from "the experience could have been imagined, or your mind could have filled in the gaps" straight to, "you're lying or insane."  It's just grossly dishonest to say that our skeptical response to NDEs is to simply say that the person is lying.  Memory is highly fallible, as well; nobody is saying that you have to be insane to formulate false or unreliable memories, far from it, especially memories that you are highly emotionally attached to, or that came from an altered state of consciousness!

Whenever there are some glaring facts that don’t fit into a preconceived world view, these facts are conveniently ignored.  The most ignored facts that NDE cynics gloss over are those that occur in the out-of-body phase of the NDE.  There is no way possible that brain chemistry can be argued when a person is verifiably DEAD, . . .

This is the exact opposite of true.  The out-of-body experience is one of the most (or one of the only . . .) testable hypotheses of these claims about NDEs.  Thus, it's one of the easiest methods of falsifying Long's hypothesis, as we'll see in that chapter of his book.

Inventing false explanations can best be seen by Susan Blackmore . . .  While some of these explanations may be true for some of the reports, they certainly are not true for all accounts.

Of course, there's no reason given why there has to be some NDEs that these explanations simply don't work for.  Long simply states, as a matter of fact, that not all NDEs could be a result of these naturalistic "false" explanations.  She returns to this statement several times over the course of the rest of the article.

These are all examples that Long gives of tactics and rhetoric used by "cynics" as opposed to "skeptics."   It only gets worse, though, when she talks about what would be good evidence, presented by skeptics.

In a court of law, there are rules that allow people to testify (give their oral narratives) to the truth of the matter. . . .  Therefore, much of Susan Blackmore’s arguments against NDE would fail the relevancy test. When viewed in the context of the near death experience, the explanations lack probative value because false explanations do not tend to prove or disprove NDE since they only apply to a few of the NDE accounts.  Moreover, even if false explanations were allowed as evidence, they could still be excluded because false explanations tend to cloud the real issues; and ultimately, they are a waste of time since no single explanation or group of explanations that she gives results in a total explanation for all NDEs.

Long equates a skeptic's naturalistic explanations for NDEs to a testimony given in court, which is a really spectacularly bad analogy. Even ignoring the fact that she tries to name the same issue as two separate cases against the skeptic's argument, a testimony given in court is a specific account given about a one-time event, by a witness to the event.  It's not comparable to giving a naturalistic explanation for a large number of events at all.  I suppose one could still insist that NDEs are evidence of an afterlife, and that a skeptic pointing out naturalistic explanations for NDEs is "irrelevant," but you'd be wrong.  It's pretty close to the most relevant response possible, actually.

Long takes her courtroom analogy and runs with it, rightly acknowledging that their case for the afterlife is built entirely upon hearsay.  She rightly states that usually, hearsay is such a terrible excuse for evidence that it's inadmissible in a court of law (which is saying something, since the debate standards in a court of law are already far, far less rigorous than the standards for a scientific debate).  Amazingly, she claims that hearsay can be very good evidence:

However, even hearsay can be reliable in court.  Some of the exceptions that apply to NDE are called present sense impressions and excited utterances. The rationale of the rule is that the “element of spontaneity reduces the chance of misrepresentation to an acceptable level.”  Even more reliable is evidence obtained while a person is under the stress of the excitement caused by the event or condition, with the key being the spontaneity of the statements.

It should be obvious that this rule only applies when we're trying to get at someone's genuine impression of a situation (especially a situation that's not too complicated, where we can conclude that there's a minimal chance of them just being flat-out wrong about what happened).  Equally clear is how bad such testimony is when trying to determine the objective reality of a very amazing, complex situation.

If a man shot someone else, and was heard yelling at the time, "AAAAHHHH I SHOT HIIIIIIIIIIM . . .  SOMEONE HELP, I SHOT HIIIIIIIIM . . ." and later claimed that they didn't shoot him, then testimony of his yelling would be good evidence (for a testimonial anecdote, anyway).  Now, let's try and formulate an analogy that would actually be closer to a NDE.  If, on the other hand, a carnival ride malfunctioned and spun out of control, and someone managed to record the most terrified, hysterical person trapped on the ride (someone with a highly altered state of consciousness), and that person happened to scream something about the ride going two hundred miles an hour, would that be a good measure of the objective reality of the situation?

Here are some other choice statements:

Few NDErs have anything to gain by telling their story.  Most “skeptics” have books and reputations to defend.

Um, the Dr. Longs have books and reputations to defend.  Ziztur and I don't.  This is just a particularly bad ad hominem.

Other valid observations about anecdotal evidence is that it is mostly reliable in regards to every day things.  Over 90 percent of what we hear from others is accurate when dealing with life.  We talk to others about what they had for lunch, what is playing at the movies, or what happened on the way to work.  While some of this might be small talk, for the most part an anecdotal account, it is not deemed a false memory or hallucination. If anecdotal evidence were inherently unreliable, we would typically not believe a word anyone tells us.

I love this one.  Obvious response, right?  Extraordinary claims?  Duh?  Well, Long has an answer for that:

 I frequently hear that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. . . .  What constitutes extraordinary claims to one person may not be the same for another person.  What is extraordinary becomes a subjective term and open to interpretation.

And there we have it.  Because there's no absolute standard of an "extraordinary" claim, it's no more outrageous to insist that you have scientifically proven the afterlife than it is to state that you had the turkey at lunch today.  I don't think I need to point out why this doesn't convince me.

It is important to remember that just because something hasn’t been scientifically proven, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.  Many times, it is just a matter of developing technology to be sensitive enough to sense germs, viruses, other galaxies, microwaves, electromagnetic fields, or gravity.  There are many things that did not exist at various times in mans’ existence, yet they still existed. 

Therefore, it is more accurate to state, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to convince skeptics, but not necessarily to exist in objective reality.”

Let's clarify the old adage; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be accepted rationally.  This is exactly like the old anti-reason, pro-faith argument:  "There was a time when claiming that the earth was round was an extraordinary claim, and there was no evidence to prove that extraordinary claim true - did that mean that the earth was flat?"

The answer is simple; thousands of years ago, accepting a flat earth was absolutely the logical, rational conclusion based on the available evidence.  New evidence overturned that conclusion, yes, but the only reason that we know that this particular piece of knowledge was dead wrong was exactly because of that overwhelming weight of evidence.  It's absolutely ridiculous to assume that overwhelmingly-accepted-fact-X will someday inevitably be overturned with amazing evidence to the contrary.  Here's a claim; gravity doesn't exist.  An infinite number of invisible, suspiciously humanoid imps and fairies just really enjoy pushing matter together, according to it's mass.  We don't accept this claim, while we do accept that the earth is round.

It's really clear that you shouldn't make the "extraordinary, fantastic, seemingly impossible claims can still exist in spite of no good evidence" argument.  By definition, it's an admission that you have no evidence for your position.

That fact, and thus the reason why the Longs' so-called evidence is so unconvincing to skeptics, is well summed up in Dr. Long's own words:

Consider that just because a person can’t scientifically prove something does not mean that it is false or nonexistent.  For instance, science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God or life after death.

How on earth do you make a case for scientifically proving that there is an afterlife when you admit straight out that there literally cannot be any scientific evidence for or against your claim?

Check out this link, found at the bottom of the article (but only if you feel like weeping for the state of critical thinking skills and scientific education in the world).

Evidence of the Afterlife; I'm Skeptical - Introduction, Pt. 2

This is possibly the most important portion of the Introductory chapter.  Here, Jeffrey Long looks at the twelve most common aspects of a NDE, according to his research.  These are:

1.  Out-of-body experience (OBE):  Separation of consciousness from the physical body.
2.  Heightened senses.
3.  Intense and generally positive emotions or feelings.
4.  Passing into or through a tunnel.
5.  Encountering a mystical or bright light.
6.  Encountering other beings, either mystical beings or deceased relatives or friends.
7.  A sense of alteration of time or space.
8.  Life review.
9.  Encountering unworldly ("heavenly") realms.
10.  Encountering or learning special knowledge.
11.  Encountering a boundary or barrier.
12.  A return to the body, either voluntary or involuntary.

He goes into a bit of detail for each.

1.  Out-of-body experiences.  This is exactly as it sounds like.  I find that many, many people put stock in out-of-body experiences, so I might address this topic more closely on its own, in a brief post later.  Long claims that:

The NDERF survey asked 613 NDErs, "Did you experience a separation of your consciousness from your body?" In response, 75.4 percent answered "Yes."

My first question is, why only 613?  Long is very happy with the fact that he has over 1300 stories from people who have submitted the online form, which does ask about out-of-body experiences.  If he has the results from 1300 people, why does he include less than half than number in his statistic?  More than one question in the online form addressed out-of-body experiences; yet he only includes the number for this one question.  Why?

2.  Heightened senses.  Long claims that 74.4 percent of respondents indicated that they had "More consciousness and alertness than normal."

3.  Intense and generally positive emotions or feelings.  Responding to, "Did you have a feeling of peace or pleasantness?", 76.2 percent claimed "Incredible peace or pleasantness."  Responding to, "Did you have a feeling of joy?", 52.5 claimed "Incredible joy."  He mentions that a few people's NDE are "frightening."  He refers the reader to an end note, which refers the reader to a portion of his website, which contains a small section about frightening NDEs.  All he states in the actual book is that frightening NDEs are "beyond the scope" of his book.

Encountering frightening moments during a NDE is not rare.  The NDERF survey asked “During your experience, did you consider the contents of your experience (NOT the possible life-threatening event that led up to the experience) to be:”, followed by the options of “Wonderful”, “Mixed”, or “Frightening.”  Of the 613 NDErs responding to this question with a NDE Scale score of seven or higher, 62.5% selected “Wonderful”, 33.8% “Mixed”, and only 3.8% “Frightening.”  The finding that about one in three NDEs selected “Mixed” is surprising.  It has not been widely appreciated that such a high percentage of NDEs have such an apparent mixed emotional component.

You'd think this would be important information, especially as he uses these twelve points to . . . well, you'll see.

4.  Passing into or through a tunnel.  33.8 percent of respondents report an experience of this nature.

5.  Encountering a mystical or brilliant light.  64.6 percent report such a thing.

6.  Encountering other beings, either mystical beings or deceased relatives or friends.  57.3 percent report encountering other beings during their NDE.

7.  A sense of alteration of time or space.  60.5 percent report this.

8.  Life review.  Only 22.2 percent report experiencing something like this.

9.  Encountering unworldly ("heavenly") realms.  52.2 percent of respondents had such an experience.

10.  Encountering or learning special knowledge.  When asked, "Did you have a sense of knowing special knowledge, universal order, and/or purpose?" 56 percent answered "Yes."  31.5 percent said that they seemed to understand everything "about the universe."  31.3 percent said that they seemed to understand everything "about myself or others."

11.  Encountering a boundary or border.  31 percent of respondents claim to have encountered some kind of boundary or limiting physical structure.

12.  A return to the body, either voluntary or involuntary.  The online form asked, "Were you involved in or aware of a decision regarding your return to the body?"  58.5 percent answered, "Yes."

The main point I want to make about these is that a huge part of his argument is that NDEs are very, very consistent.  As we look at his argument in-depth in later chapters, keep these bits in mind . . . the most common elements of NDEs still only show up as inconsistently as above.  Many of them, like the out-of-body experience, are well-explained by modern neuroscience.  Keep in mind how inconsistent these elements are observed as we look at his arguments about how "consistent" NDEs are.

Evidence of the Afterlife; I'm Skeptical - Introduction

The first part in our new in-depth book review of Evidence of the Afterlife, The Science of Near-Death Experiences by Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry.

The Introduction is, ironically, one of the longest chapters of the book (which isn't saying much; the book is only about 200 pages long and no more than 300 words per page).  It gives a very summarized overview of what Long considers to be his very strong evidence for the afterlife.  Since he goes over these arguments and evidence in much greater detail in the rest of the book, I'll just comment, briefly, on some of the most note-worthy here.

He mentions that at the time the book was published, the data was from "more than 1300 people who had a near-death experience."  Long's website now claims it has received over 2000 such testimonials.  Yes, ALL of the data used in this "research" was submitted via an electronic form and testimonials from people who simply visited his website and claim to have had a near-death experience.  Readers, expect periodic lessons on the scientific method throughout these review posts.

We can comfortably dismiss the entire book on this basis alone.  How can Long not see what a spectacular sampling bias this would create?  I'll get into this in greater detail later, as he addresses this criticism directly at one point.

Entertainingly, he moves straight from the mention of the volume of testimonials and the method by which he collected them into this interesting claim:

More than 95 percent of respondents feel their NDE was "definitely real," while virtually all of the remaining respondents feel it was "probably real."  Not one respondent has said it was "definitely not real."

Isn't it obvious why this isn't saying anything?  Sampling bias.  Everything about the website screams in very emotional language that NDEs are evidence of the afterlife.  We would absolutely expect it to attract people who have little doubt that their NDEs has showed them a glimpse of the afterlife.  If a faith-healer had a website that stated everywhere that testimonials prove his healing power, and invited people who have been healed by him to submit their testimony via the website (and the website screens out anyone who they believe to be "fake"), we would absolutely expect the vast majority of the testimony to claim that the healing was "real."  This wouldn't be evidence for the "healings" at all.  It is also deceptively worded.  Nobody is debating that there were no NDEs.  Of course there were "real" NDEs.  What we are skeptical of is the claim that this constitutes any decent evidence of an afterlife.

A considerable portion of his writing is not evidence or argument, it's Long talking about how wonderful NDEs are, how much they change people's lives, what good news the existence of an afterlife is, etc.

The "scientific" principle that Long has used to "prove" the existence of the afterlife through NDEs is:  "What is real is consistently seen among many different observations."  He frequently states outright that NDEs are incredibly consistent.  Again, I'll address this in more detail later, when he makes his full argument that consistent details prove that NDEs show us the afterlife.  For now, I'll just say that he's quite wrong about NDEs being very consistent in their detail, even using his own data, gross sampling bias and all.

He specifies that he uses a definition of "near-death" to be "so physically compromised that they would die if their condition did not improve."  That language is kind of vague, isn't it?  Next, he says that "The NDErs studied were generally unconscious and often apparently clinically dead . . ."  Sigh.  "Generally" unconscious?  "Often apparently" clinically dead?  One of his first major arguments is that people experience things during a NDE, even though they shouldn't be able to, medically speaking.  Yet he can only say that they're "generally" unconscious?

Here's a hilarious bit; he claims in the book to have nine distinct lines of evidence proving the existence of an afterlife.  He says that the convergence of nine lines of evidence builds a much stronger case than only one.  Well, yes, Dr. Long, but you haven't shown any of your evidences yet.  He even does the math for us:

For example, suppose we had only two lines of NDE evidence.  We may not be 100 percent convinced that these two lines of evidence prove an afterlife, but perhaps each line of evidence by itself is 90 percent convincing.  Combined, these two lines of evidence by mathematical calculation are 99 percent convincing that the afterlife exists.

He even gives an end-note referring us to the back of the book, where he gives us an even more simplified version of the math, reaching the same result.  The argument here is that if just two lines of evidence can give us 99 percent certainty of a claim, how convincing are nine lines of evidence?  I find this suspicious; Dr. Long hasn't even given us his evidence yet, and he's already given us a suggested percentage rate of how convincing his arguments could be, and then tried to show how (because there's nine of them) they should rationally create virtual certainty!  Let's not jump the gun here, Dr. Long.  I'll take a look at your actual evidence first.  You'll understand if I carefully mentally discard your self-serving 90 percent figure for now, right?

Next; Dr. Long talks about the twelve common attributes of NDEs, and what he's found out about them in his research.

Our Newest Book Project!

Some of the most fun and illustrative content that Ziztur and I have dived into on this blog were our grossly in-depth book reviews; You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, but You Can't Make Him Think, by Ray Comfort, and the classic Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis.  Well, we decided that it's high time we started in on a new book.

Thus, Evidence of the Afterlife, The Science of Near-Death Experiences, by Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry.  This book has only been out since January 19, and became a best-seller almost immediately.  An in-depth review of this book appealed to us for several reasons.  For one, its cultural appeal is incredibly broad.  The arguments and evidence in this book, as well as a thorough, critical examination of it, are relevant to Christians, atheist, spiritualists, and everyone in between.  The arguments here are unique.  Ziztur and I have beaten all the old arguments for the existence of God to death, but an argument for the afterlife, based on near-death experiences, is something we haven't carefully looked at on the blog yet.

A few interesting notes:  Jeffrey Long seems to have assembled the data for this book by simply accepting people's near-death experience testimony via a form on his website (at least, that's what it says on the Near Death Experience Research Foundations's website).

Evidence of the Afterlife is by far the largest scientific study of NDE ever presented, and is based on researching over 1300 NDEs shared with NDERF.

Of course, Ziztur and I, being curmudgeonly skeptics who care about science, would point out that claiming a "scientific"conclusion based on anecdotes submitted to a website is as unscientific as it gets.  It would be very difficult for the authors to screw up the scientific method any worse if they actually tried.  We could reasonably dismiss the entire book's conclusions based on a sampling method as grossly biased as this, but of course we're going to take a closer look.

Look for us to dive into Jeffrey Long's specific claims and arguments soon.  If reading this kind of "evidence" and "science" makes you a feel slightly ill, laughter is the best medicine.  Thus, I leave you with the words of Tim Challies, a Christian reviewer of best-selling books, and his thoughts on this evidence of the afterlife.

The accounts are too common and too consistent to ignore entirely. So we see that such experiences do appear to exist and that they seem to lead directly away from what the Bible teaches us. What recourse do we have, then, but to state with some confidence that these experiences are somehow a trick of Satan?