One of the ways you can tell “crank” science is a complete misunderstanding of how it is done. Scientists don’t do point/counterpoint like Fox News. They don’t have someone moderating the debate who knows nothing about their ideas say, “well, we’re out of time, let’s cut to this story about makeup”. They get funded, do experiments, create and collect data, then publish. It’s then reviewed, and usually revised. If the results are worth noting, someone will attempt to repeat the experiment, that’s the closest thing to a debate.
One of the ways you can tell “crank” science is a complete misunderstanding of how it is done. Scientists don’t do point/counterpoint like Fox News. They don’t have someone moderating the debate who knows nothing about their ideas say, “well, we’re out of time, let’s cut to this story about makeup”. They get funded, do experiments, create and collect data, then publish. It’s then reviewed, and usually revised. If the results are worth noting, someone will attempt to repeat the experiment, that’s the closest thing to a debate.
Re: “physically aligned with the events in the alleged past life”, see the first 15 minutes of Is There Life after Death? Fifty Years of Research at UVA - YouTube. Not sure where the point about debate came about. The question is simply how reincarnations can be explained.
The answer is also simple. There is no evidence. So nothing can be explained one way or the another.
“physically aligned with the events in the alleged past life”Is a bunch of words pasted together that don't mean anything, or explain anything.
Can’t the data given by https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/ be examined to determine if it can be treated as evidence?
Can’t the data given by "virginia. edu/perceptual-studies/" be examined to determine if it can be treated as evidence?Not by me, but I see that others who do understand this stuff have looked into it and see some legitimate issues.
A Critique of Ian Stevenson’s Rebirth Research Champe Ransom In Keith Augustine & Michael Martin (eds.), The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 571-574 (2015)Abstract
This abbreviated critique notes several weaknesses in Ian Stevenson’s reincarnation research based on an examination of the cases at the University of Virginia’s then Division of Parapsychology.The analysis raises issues about the use of leading questions, the inadequate depth of the investigations, the substantial allowance left for memory distortions and embellishment in the case reports, and the likelihood of contamination by normal sources in the vast majority of cases due to communication between the families of the deceased and the families of the “reborn” long before any investigation ensued.
In addition, the weaknesses of the cases are somewhat obscured by Stevenson discussing them in a general way in a separate part of the report or book rather than in the actual presentation of the case itself.
The critique concludes that both the behavioral and informational features of the “rebirth data” are weak.
Weaknesses in the Case Investigations and Reports –
Subsequent Rebirth Research
Me?
I’m an Earth Centrist, meaning I appreciate this planet as the source of our reality, and evolution as the source of me. In fact, I am an a self-aware element of Earth’s Evolution, and it feels good. Blessed with an appreciation for the pageant of evolution as it has unfolded over these past 4,600,000,000 some years.
This reincarnation stuff, is stuff we make up within our minds or our own entertainment.
Nothing wrong with that, but physical reality has no room for such meta-physical transferences or ectoplasm, or afterlife heaven and hell, or … Nope, our thoughts live on if recorded, then it takes a little longer before they disappear. The physical stuff gets recycles, and the mind and your experience of this life, that is your one shot deal, and if you aren’t paying attention to it, that’s your loss.
I wanted to add I was watching a show on drug addicts and these particular people were using anesthesia medicine that when taken completely cuts off all incoming information to the brain isolating it and these people say they loose their identity and even forget they are human in the experience.Which proves exactly the opposite of what you are trying to prove.
What you seem to forget is that under anesthesia your memories are not lost. As long as the brain remains controlled by homeostasis it retains memories . They are just locked up. When the anesthesia wears off, your memories come back gradually.
However when you die , your brain cells disintegrate and all memories are completely LOST. Just like the HD of you computer . If you destroy the surface of the HD all stored memory gets lost.
You better watch this video and learn from people who have worked with the phenomenon of consciousness all their lives.
This is another interesting topic but I’d like to start with some definitions of positions as a result of a thought process when we are faced with an unknown.
Here’s an example :
A 4 year old child has an exceptional knowledge about WW2 airplanes, their engine specifications, G-Forces, flight maneuvers etc. this same child also remembers the exact place where he died in WW2 in Japan. This is a child born after year 2000. How and Why would a child have this knowledge?
Before going into the validity of this story (and talking about personal testimonies) I would like to clear some positions .
If you’re an atheist you’re supposed to say “I don’t know”.
If you’re an materialistic atheist you usually say “this is stupid” but you really can’t say that because stupidity is a chemical reaction in the brain and you’re also not allowed to say “this song is beautiful” because your concert experience should be explained as “I had a great chemical reaction” not as “beautiful”. Are you being consistent with your reasoning for which you criticize others?
If you’re agnostic you can say whatever you want because your position allows it.
If you’re a believer like me, this is proof that something exists after death.
So where are you all with your positions and lifestyle which are a result of your thought processes?
Genetic inheritance explains the concept of reincarnation very clearly and precisely.
Genetic inheritance?
I’ve never heard of this. I will look it up now but if you have any good articles which explain this on a high level, I would appreciate it.
Umm so I was looking this up because I thought it might be a new term or something but I don’t see anything new.
I wonder if you understood my post or if I wasn’t clear.
A child born in year 2010, has a detailed experience about planes, war and his previous place of death.
This child is born into a different timeline, different geographical location with absolutely no relation at all gene-wise to the soldier who died in WW2.
You’re explaining this by genes which are passed on from parent to child? Seriously?
Are we mis-understanding each other here?
An inherited trait is one that is genetically determined. Inherited traits are passed from parent to offspring according to the rules of Mendelian genetics. Most traits are not strictly determined by genes, but rather are influenced by both genes and environment.
“Inherited” is a word we use to describe traits that are passed by genetics from parents to child. It is often confused with the word “familial”, which sometimes people use to mean the same thing. But it’s important to recall that familial traits can be either acquired or inherited and can be caused by shared environment. When geneticists use the word “inherited”, it’s limited to the vertical transmission of traits attributable to genes.
Leslie G. Biesecker, M.D.
We usually attribute genetic inheritance with detrimental genetic inheritances, but they also apply to beneficial genetic inheritances and of course drive the evolutionary train.
These inherited traits can be very subtle and undetectable such as specific genetically inherited brain configuration that lends itself to extraordinary artistic, literary linguistic , mathematical abilities, or at a cosmetic level, may resemble ancient relatives, eyecolor, hair color, skin color, physique, etc.
Actually all humans are reincarnations of the first homo sapiens that walked the earth, each with millions of years of evolutionary changes, but with an occasional activation of a latent gene that has lain dormant for centuries. Then we call it reincarnation.
So you ARE talking about the passing of genes from parent to child.
Lol. Ok this is great philosophy and this is pantheism or universal consciousness more or less but what is your official position? Atheist? Agnostic? Believer?
Universal consciousness is also something I admire by the way because it’s a variation of Hindu which says that consciousness goes into different bodies such as rocks, animals or rain and thunder.
In fact, the question is self destructive.
Reincarnation is one possible or impossible answer, the true question being : " How do you explain that some people have memories of past lives? "
Without getting into specifics of each religion, a faith-based explanation would be that consciousness (or the soul) continues after death.
Where is the proof? In these children telling these detailed and amazing stories about their past lives.
I mean I don’t know if any of you have children but I do. Any parent would know and find it extremely disturbing, baffling or shocking when their 4 year old talks about stuff which is college-grade or higher level when it comes to life-experience or details of a subject such as engines, planes or things like war and death.
This is all they talk about without anyone telling them anything and then they’re back to being 4 year old kids playing with toys and running around.
This is completely baffling.
Another famous case to mention here is the case of Omm SETI.
The reason this is famous is because the time span is huge (this person remembered being a high priestess in the Egyptian empire) and because this woman Dorothy made predictions about tombs which were proven to be true after.
It’s also famous because she continued to remember her past life memories and details whereas commonly children tend to forget their past memories as they start to become teenagers. They forget the details basically.
Because people want to believe it. I used investigate these, and every time they were exaggerations, misquotes, facts left out that when understood made it obvious the kid was prompted, coached, or just made stuff up.
I don’t bother debunking anymore, because if these stories were true, they wouldn’t be published in obscure places.
Maybe you don’t want to believe them for other reasons but you’re assigning a reason of “reputable sources” for now which is another lengthy biased discussion.
But there are people like Jim Tucker who have dedicated their lives to analyze these stories from a scientific perspective.
But approaching the supernatural from a scientific point of view is usually a dead end career-ending move which is why people like Jim Tucker are rare.
But there’s a bit of a cultural shift at the moment or “public opinion court” as you’ve mentioned in another post, where highly trained Air Force pilots are not afraid they’re going to lose their jobs for reporting ufos because now they are being encouraged to report them.
So maybe and eventually more people will study this stuff from a neutral non biased position.
They have. That’s how i know they aren’t true. I know how to evaluate data and figure out if someone is being honest. This Egypt kid, it’s all reports of a child who hit her head. She didn’t know anything that wasn’t already known.
Another case debunked 