I am far from an expert on "Reincarnation," however, I have read and listened to about 100 articles and videos from reincarnationists (UVA, New Age, Zen Buddhism, Hindu, Pagan, etc.), and from lectures and books from Dr. Norman Geisler and Dr. Gary Habermas. I can see the appeal of reincarnation. They say a lot of nice and emotional things, but the entire doctrine of reincarnation, based on karma, seems to be without objective evidence.
It is contrary to common sense, science, sound psychology of human development, and morality. Further, it is opposed by clear teaching Scripture. Hence in spike of its popularity, even in the West, it is without rational and evidential foundation.
I can't find scholarly facts or information supporting its truth claims. All I've heard and read so far are opinions, assertions, and anecdotes. The primary reference sited by some thinking people was Dr. Ian Stevenson at UVA. But his methodology was strongly flawed. He and the scientific community have recognized it. But he chose to ignore it. All of his methodological problems come up as a result of a central flaw in Stevenson’s research: all he really did was to collect anecdotes. Anecdotal evidence may be useful at first, but it is not enough to build a strong case for a hypothesis.
- The main problem with Dr. Stevenson’s research, then, is that his hypotheses are not falsifiable, which is the definite criterion separating science from pseudoscience. No possible counterexample can ever refute pseudoscience, because pseudoscience always has a way of accommodating via ad hoc hypothesis. He never confronted evidence contrary to his theories. In his research, unlike true scientific research, there was no possible counterexample that he would be willing to take as a refutation of his claims. The question “what evidence would be enough for you to change your views?” was left unanswered by Stevenson.
- In Stevenson’s research, there are no controlled experiments.
- Another important criterion in the philosophy of science is predictability. Stevenson’s theories, had no predictive value.
Apart from Stevenson’s studies, little research has been done on the possibility of reincarnation. His data is too weak to even suggest reincarnation, and his collection methods are very questionable.
- He did not speak the languages of the societies in which he carried out his studies.
- He relied on local interpreters, and this allowed for various cases of corruption. In many of the countries where Stevenson did his research, there is considerable cultural expectation when it comes to cases of reincarnation.
- The interpreters, consciously or not, could have offered data confirming reincarnation, even though it may not have been the subjects’ original testimonies.
- Stevenson should have been careful to independently validate his interpreters’ translations, but he never did that.
- His research does not present audio recordings or even transcriptions of interviews in the informants’ original languages.
- In fact, Stevenson had some interpreters who were later found to be fraudulent. Stevenson himself admitted his interpreter’s dishonesty in some aspects, but he still trusted his translations. That is extremely naïve and scientifically unacceptable.
- There are other graver problems. In the vast majority of Stevenson’s cases, children claimed to remember the lives of people who were either a part of the child’s family or close to them.
- In addition, Stevenson’s questions induced the informants to give the information that he wanted in the first place.
- Furthermore, the interviewing time was extremely short, which again, seems to suggest that Stevenson was more interested in getting the information that fit his preconceived ideas, and after he got that, he would not investigate further.
- Stevenson also had the habit of not only incorporating the children’s testimonies, but also the adults’ interpretations into his reports. In most cases, adults would favor the reincarnation hypothesis, so their biases were incorporated into the data. In fact, Stevenson rarely spoke to the children, in part because the children were too shy to talk to a Western researcher.
- Adults spoke for the children, and again, this allowed for the adults’ biases to come through. Some parents even knew the relatives of the person whose life the child allegedly remembered; hence, the probability of the child getting information from them was increased. As a matter of fact, only in a small proportion of cases, the child’s family did not know the deceased person’s family.
- Generally, Stevenson received the news that in some village, a child claimed to remember past lives, and then, he went to investigate the case. Between the time that he received the news and he finally reached the village, a lengthy time (three weeks to two years) passed. During that time, the child’s family could have met the deceased person’s family, and they could have gathered information that ultimately reached the child. By the time Stevenson arrived, the child would be able to give some specific details, and of course, they would not come from the child’s alleged memories, but rather, from the information that came as a result of the families’ encounters.
- Furthermore, the fact that the majority of cases investigated by Stevenson were violent deaths also raises some suspicions. Violent deaths are much more publicized than nonviolent ones. That increases the availability of information, and hence, the probability of the child gaining details on the deceased person’s life.
- The fact that most of these cases take place in countries where reincarnation is a mainstream religious belief also raises suspicions. The child’s family may already be conditioned to believe that the child does remember a previous life, and they may actually encourage such beliefs in the child. Any small gesture coming from a child may be interpreted as a sign of remembering past lives, and this further serves as feedback for the child to elaborate on his claims in fulfilment of the parents’ expectations.
- In the cases collected by Stevenson, there also seemed to be a correlation between the culture’s beliefs and the way the cases develop. For example, in cultures where it is not accepted that someone may reincarnate in the opposite sex, no child would remember a previous life in the opposite sex. In matrilineal cultures, children mostly remembered the lives of matrilineal relatives, whereas in patrilineal cultures, children remembered the lives of patrilineal relatives.
- There is also the issue that many of Stevenson’s cases were from India. This raises the suspicion that some children may claim to remember the lives of people from upper castes as a way to scale upwards in the caste system.
- As for the extraordinary talents developed by children, reincarnation is not the only possible explanation. Talents (artistic, academic, and etc.) have various heritability rates, but basically most of them do have a genetic basis. Some defenders of reincarnation claim that some children with extraordinary talents come from families without those talents. However, that is not a good enough argument, for it ignores a basic law in Mendelian genetics: a given trait may disappear in one generation and reappear in another. The parents may carry the dominant unexpressed variety of a gene for a specific talent.
- It has been frequently claimed that Mozart must have been the reincarnation of a great musician, for, how can someone at such a young age develop those musical skills? Again, there is no need to appeal to reincarnation: it is quite possible that Mozart may have had an acute auditory cortex, which allowed him to develop his impressive musical talents at an early age.
- Stevenson always claimed that the most important cases were the ones in which children had birthmarks supposedly coinciding with the wounds that came as a result of the deceased person’s violent death. But again, all this evidence is just anecdotal. The deceased person’s body had already decomposed, so there did not seem to be a good opportunity to analyze the details of the wounds and compare them to the birthmark. Stevenson only relied on testimonies and photographs; both types of evidence are highly susceptible to fraud.
- Moreover, once again, in these cases, Stevenson arrived too late. This delay allowed for the possibility of the child’s family, by contemplating the child’s birthmark, investigating who in the village may have died with similar wounds. The families may have established contact, and the child may have been provided with information about the deceased person. By the time Stevenson arrived, the child may have elaborated his/her alleged memories feeding on that information.
- Furthermore, if reincarnation is just about the transmigration of souls, how exactly do marks appear on the body? Neither Stevenson nor any other defender of the reincarnation hypothesis has ever given a satisfactory response to this important question.
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