2022-08-22, 06:55 AM
The latest issue of JSE, under the "Commentary" section at the following link, features a debate on the evidence for postmortem survival, centered on the BICS contest essays: https://journalofscientificexploration.o...ue/view/85. (Incidentally, does anyone know why the promised followup pieces by James Matlock and Michael Sudduth on the Leininger reincarnation case AREN'T in this issue?)
Probably the major proponent in the debate is Stephen Braude and the major skeptic Keith Augustine, whom PQ members probably know from his critique of NDEs as survival evidence. The new JSE editor, Houran, again has given skeptics the last word, which is kind of annoying because it's starting to look like a pattern suggestive of bias (he gave Sudduth the last word on the Leininger case in the last issue of JSE and apparently gave him the last word in reply to Matlock's forthcoming piece too).
In any case, there's a lot of interesting material in the exchange. In this final reply, Augustine presents a number of criticisms of the evidential value of Leonora Piper's mediumship, which were unfamiliar to me, though seemingly largely sourced from older material. I didn't previously know about James Munves' critique of Hodgson's research on Piper published in JSPR in 1997, for example. (This led me to realize that Alan Gauld's book from this year on mediumship cites Munves repeatedly, and points out that at least one of the claims from Munves aiming to undermine the Piper evidence, on which Augustine uncritically relies, is pretty weak: "Munves (1997-98: 143), criticizes Hodgson for having 'concealed' in the printed account of the sitting the fact that though he claims that the seance notes were his, he was absent from the sitting (having been sent out because of the sensitive nature of what was said) for a period, as estimated by Munves from the typescript, of 24 minutes, during which the notes were clearly made by Heard and several significant Pellew-related names were mentioned. 'Concealed' here is rather a tendentious word in view of the fact that the missing Pellew-related bits occupied only a single sentence of the printed paper and no specifics were revealed. However, Hodgson should certainly have mentioned his absence").
I wonder what PQ members think of the arguments on both sides.
Probably the major proponent in the debate is Stephen Braude and the major skeptic Keith Augustine, whom PQ members probably know from his critique of NDEs as survival evidence. The new JSE editor, Houran, again has given skeptics the last word, which is kind of annoying because it's starting to look like a pattern suggestive of bias (he gave Sudduth the last word on the Leininger case in the last issue of JSE and apparently gave him the last word in reply to Matlock's forthcoming piece too).
In any case, there's a lot of interesting material in the exchange. In this final reply, Augustine presents a number of criticisms of the evidential value of Leonora Piper's mediumship, which were unfamiliar to me, though seemingly largely sourced from older material. I didn't previously know about James Munves' critique of Hodgson's research on Piper published in JSPR in 1997, for example. (This led me to realize that Alan Gauld's book from this year on mediumship cites Munves repeatedly, and points out that at least one of the claims from Munves aiming to undermine the Piper evidence, on which Augustine uncritically relies, is pretty weak: "Munves (1997-98: 143), criticizes Hodgson for having 'concealed' in the printed account of the sitting the fact that though he claims that the seance notes were his, he was absent from the sitting (having been sent out because of the sensitive nature of what was said) for a period, as estimated by Munves from the typescript, of 24 minutes, during which the notes were clearly made by Heard and several significant Pellew-related names were mentioned. 'Concealed' here is rather a tendentious word in view of the fact that the missing Pellew-related bits occupied only a single sentence of the printed paper and no specifics were revealed. However, Hodgson should certainly have mentioned his absence").
I wonder what PQ members think of the arguments on both sides.