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Response to survival research debate

To the editor,

Recent letters to the editor have exhumed society's pervasive obsession with the question of whether consciousness survives death, and it appears to have quickly sparked a heated division among the campus population. In the quest of responsible science, the lab has tried to maintain a moderate posture, letting the data speak for itself, which seems to have irked both parties. True believers harp that we should shed our scientific cloaks to proclaim the existence of an afterlife while staunch skeptics scorn that their hard-earned tuition is being spent on preposterous, quacky research. Such stimulating and meaningful debate is a welcome fodder to a distinguished educational setting. But the scientists conducting the research believe it is necessary to exonerate a few fundamental facts, as it is in the pursuit of truth that all science should be practiced.

All survival research conducted at the UA has been funded through private entities. HBO funded the Life Afterlife experiment with the condition that the findings would not be made public via the media or scientific juniors, until after the show aired. This is not an ideal funding situation, but research in this controversial field leaves few options.

We are also aware of the tactics employed by magicians who can fool even well educated intellects into believing they are talking to the dead. In fact, Gary Schwartz and I attended a non-credit Pima College course taught by a local professional magician who revealed to us his expertise in "cold reading" trickery. Unfortunately, Schwartz left the class even more befuddled about the apparent abilities of the research mediums who do not seem to be using any of these artifices. Most of the tactics, from as obvious as using the sitter's facial expressions and body language to as subtle as observing his change in pupil dilation, require visual contact with the sitter, which the experimental design eliminated (a screen separated the medium and sitter). However, to further investigate this possibility, a future study will pit magicians against the lab's "Dream Team" to settle this dispute.

Another magician ploy is the use of generalized dialogue that a person could misinterpret as individualized statements. Often called the Barnum Effect, it relies on people remembering the hits and forgetting the misses, much like a 10-cent horoscope. It was suggested that the study's positive results were inflated because the sitter was allowed to rate the readings. We don't believe this to be the case. Using word for word transcripts of the study, Schwartz read to the sitter every single word uttered by the mediums as I sat at the computer and recorded each statement's accuracy. This forced the sitter to remember the hits and the misses, and Schwartz, whenever possible, pushed for a negative scoring. After eight hours of tedious interviews, we had more than 500 individualized items, with the five mediums scoring 83 percent accuracy. And it's the lack of misses more than the frequency of hits that seem to dispel the Barnum Effect.

All five reported that the sitter had a deceased son (rated as a historical fact). One medium in reference to the son reported the number 20, his age at death (historical fact). Two said he committed suicide while a third reported he went out with a boom. The son shot himself (rated as historical facts). Two mediums reported the letter M, and one said Michael, which was his name (initial and name). It was also reported that the son apologized for his death (rated as opinion, the only unverifiable category for the study). The sitter's daughter was also mentioned by name, but all of the mediums reported her as living (historical fact and name). Based on reasoning and statistical coincidence, if this had been merely a circus act, at least one of the mediums should have inaccurately reported the daughter as deceased and the son as alive. And why didn't any of the mediums report that the son's name was Charlie? These are specific, not generalized facts.

However, the use of yes/no answers did allow the mediums to hear the sitter's voice, who, overwhelmed with emotions at times, most likely gave clues with her changes in tone and inflection. To test this theory further in the June replication study, a ten-minute silent period was implemented, where the sitter quietly sat six feet behind the mediums, who scored 74 percent correct without the aid of visual or auditory cueing. Future research will address this issue further.

In the HBO study, none of the mediums had any prior contact with the two subjects. In the June study, there were ten subjects, and a few did meet the mediums prior to the experiment. But the subjects did not disclose their participation. This was part of the design, to see whether the contact would have an affect on the reading. But since it was a blind setting, once the study started, the mediums did not know whom the experimenter had escorted into the room and was sitting behind them.

This week, astronomers reported the detection of a possible tenth planet in the solar system. But they haven't seen it yet. Astronomers have inferred that it is there by observing the planet's gravitational force. The lab believes the same philosophy can be applied to survival research. Through the mediums, we are seemingly observing an invisible realm that we can not see yet, though one day that may change. When Copernicus discovered the Earth was not the center of the universe, there were people who refused to even look into his telescope. All we are asking is that society takes a peek.

We appreciate the campus' intelligent parley, and it is our hope that the work will soon generate conclusive evidence that can erase humanity's division in this question, allowing us to face our inevitable fate together, whatever that may be. In the meantime, we will continue to "let the data speak," and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

John Brown

Research collaborator,

Human Energy Systems Lab