Near-death experiences and consciousness

Come on Randman, you've had time to post a couple of pages about pakicetus, can't you even take a little time out to provide evidence for consciousness potentially seperate from a physical body?TTFN,WK

published by Zondervan is a clue too. known more for bibles than science books.

As far as I am concerned, I think the article is correct in it's claim, and that there is plenty of evidence for a reasonable person to conclude consciousness is likely to exist outside of the brain.You choose to reject that because you think the evidence is anecdotal, and that's fine except even anecdotal evidence is evidence for this type of query. If you want to call it unscientific, I really don't care because I have seen mainstream scientists advance very speculative data, and even false data, as evidence over and over again when it suits them.I lost interest in this thread because it was taking pages for jar to even admit that Van Lommel was even claiming consciousness without brain activity, and that's what I have come to expect, a total stonewalling of basic facts, even simple facts like evidentiary claims.

So you refuse to actually look at the reference to see if Van Lommel is right, you prefer to put your faith in him and believe he is correct regardless of the evidence, as long as we all know where we stand. Your regard for wishful thinking over facts is hereby noted.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 04-Dec-2005 12:27 PM

not in a scientific study, it's not. seriously, look at the source he cited. is it another scientific study? does it look like valid science?

---

אָרַח

Randman, you use the fact this is in a peer reviewed journal to justify sayoing it is true. Just because it is in a peer reviewed journal means nothing. What I would like to see is some peer-reviews of the article and data. The Lancet has published some very poor research in the past. For example endorsing a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, which has been discredited, also last year they published an article that 100,000 iraqis had been killed in the war. This was much higher than subsequent studies.
You have done this in the past and I have called you on it before. That it is published in a peer reviewed magazine does not make it any more true than anything else published. Show me some peer reviews and then you can have a basis for making the claim it is in a peer reviewed magazine

Funny how peer-review is so important to you guys until someone publishes something you disagree with.This message has been edited by randman, 12-15-2005 11:11 AM

Good point. Needs explaining eh?

I suppose the added comments are superfluous. Will edit them out.

I agree with Randman. It seems to be fairly hypocritical to always be bemoaning the fact that ID, creation scientists, UFO abductess, etc... are always wanting their claims to be treated scientifically without making it into peer reviewed journals and then turning around and saying when they finally do, 'Well I don't see any peer review, where is it?'.It is far better to do your own peer review. If the science is poor then explain why it is. If the references are deficient then explain in what way they are deficient.Clearly a newly published papaer is going to have little peer review outside of the in camera ones for the publishing journal. Even the most solid research may be barely cited, certainly not making it into many reviews, simply because it is in a highly specific field. What peer review other than ones own can you use in such cases.If there are scientific problems with a paper such as van Lommel's then rather than demand peer reviews to substantiate it we can make our own scientific case against it, as many of us have been doing on this thread.The other side of this of course is that it behoves Randman to do the same. When a scientific rationale, or a particular critique based on discrepancis between claims and the citations given to substatiate them, has been put forward to challenge a particular claim it is not enough to merely hide behind the authority of the publishing journal or the peer review process. The simple fact that a citation is given is by no means proof positive that that citation actually supports the claim with which it is associated.As we skeptics must perform our own peer review of the paper to convince ourselves of its accuracy so should Randman be prepared to provide evidence beyond the original paper if he wishes to convince us of the scientific value of its claims.A point in fact would the PBSW incident. The whole issue of how rigorous the peer review process was was something of a sideshow, and an irrelevant one compared to the absolute paucity of original or worthwhile science presented in the paper itself.TTFN,WK