It sounds like you're the one with the bias.
The article says they did exhaustive debunking and eliminated all cases possible, leaving only those bulletproof to denial.
Why don't you read his material before you prop up your own straw dogs to shoot down? You simply quote snippets from the article and make up your own supporting 'facts.'
I suggest you read some case studies about reincarnation on your own, and you'll see there are some of interest.
Or are you afraid your cherished atheism may take a hit?
By the way, it IS possible to not believe in "god" and still have an open mind about paranormal activity.

@Storm1752 I quoted the article above. See how he leaps to the notion that since the child thiks he was shot, an idea which is then encouraged and supported by the culture he lives in, AND some one was shot, that istantly makes that shot person the person which in no way would be provable)

"Stevenson had already confirmed the details of the boy’s statements about the life of a man who’d been shot in the head from behind with a rifle, so that seemed to fit"

and thats good enough, it seemed to fit . . .
That is indicative of a poor methodology.

As far as bias is concerned I suppose that is true. I have a TBI from my time in service. I clearly recall waking one spring morning and going outside to find it spring, an impossible spring as it was not yet Thanksgiving.

See I fell down and got myself a mild edema, which in the early 80's was "wait and see", during which time I was up, walking and talking, suffering mood swings, none of which I recall at all. For three months or so I was like that, So where was "I" then?

I do not see how software exists and operates without the requisite hardware. Documenting the anecdotal evidence of children does not make for credable scientific evidence. It makes for interesting annecdotes, some of which might not be easily explained.

The interpretation of that it as evidence of reincarnation requires a prerequisite belief reincarnation is possible, that conciousness can survive absent a brain. We have no evidence to indicate that aside from anecdotal tales mostly from cultures drenched in that notion.

Since we can create new conciousness by splitting a brain, and TBI's alter brain and personality, I find it hard to fathom how a person can consider such a notion without some supernatual idea of conciousness or a soul.

@Storm1752 "Or are you afraid your cherished atheism may take a hit?"
Atheism is not a thing, it is not my worldview, nor does it require any belief. It is not possible for a non thing to "take a hit".

Besides, I'm Ignostic

@Storm1752 Hmm, I can't find in the article where it actually says what you claim, only that he used his " own exhaustive efforts to disconfirm the paranormal account" without even mentioning the methodology he used. That is not the same thing, at all, or indicates that a scientific approach was employed. Coming to a conclusion that "seemed to fit" is far from debunking all other explanations. And if he did "debunk" all other explanations, how did he debunk them? What was his criteria?
Seems like you are the one with the bias in favor of reincarnation that fails to employ objective analysis and questioning. If you want to believe in reincarnation, fine, but do not attack others simply because they are being scientific and objective. Science is supposed to question the methodology and testing that is used, not simply take things at face value.

@Heraclitus, @Storm1752 Its from another article about him, in another parapsychology magazine.

Look at his Bio, he grew up as a Theosophist (who believe in reincarnation) and his entire life was an attempt to prove with science, that humans were souls.

The very best evidence he got in 45 years of work was a large collection of annecdotal tales, mostly from children (which pissed off the theosophists) but none of which is evidential at all. They have an appearance of similarity.

This is a common thing with humans, in 45 years he collects all the hits (stories which seemed to make sense) and discarded all the Millions of children the globe over which have no such imaginative memories. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for reincarnation.

MOST pointedly, why would anyone investigate the notion of reincarnation AT ALL, without an already underlying belief that it is possible (when there is no scientific reason to think so)?

If you go looking for chickens your likely to find chickens. If he had been coming at the problem like this "Gee, I have heard these kids with these stories, let me investigate" that would be one thing, but it is not like all kids have such stories and by his own admission he discarded the non hits(the negative evidence)
and kept ONLY the hits, over 45 years, which made sense to him.

Without a soul in a jar, or some kind of proof for a non biological conciousness, the entire avenue of research is an attempt to prove the soul, which was his stated goal in the 1950's.

This was his livlelyhood, and the Mulder Foxes of the world WANT to believe, so he sold a lot of books. Most ignored his research because of his flawed criteria. When he died others wrote three more books off his name.

Ian Pretyman Stevenson (October 31, 1918 – February 8, 2007)

"As founder and director of the university's Division of Perceptual Studies, which investigates the paranormal, Stevenson became known internationally for his research into reincarnation, the idea that emotions, memories, and even physical bodily features can be transferred from one life to another.[2] He traveled extensively over a period of forty years, investigating three thousand cases of children around the world who claimed to remember past lives.[3] His position was that certain phobias, philias, unusual abilities and illnesses could not be fully explained by heredity or the environment. He believed that reincarnation provided a third type of explanation.[4][5]

Stevenson helped to found the Society for Scientific Exploration in 1982 and was the author of around three hundred papers and fourteen books on reincarnation, including Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (1966) and European Cases of the Reincarnation Type (2003). His major work was the 2,268-page, two-volume Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects (1997). This reported two hundred cases of birthmarks and birth defects that seemed to correspond in some way to a wound on the deceased person whose life the child recalled. He wrote a shorter version of the same research for the general reader, Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect (1997).[6]

Reaction to his work was mixed. In his New York Times obituary, Margalit Fox wrote that Stevenson's supporters saw him as a misunderstood genius, but that most scientists had simply ignored his research and that his detractors regarded him as earnest but gullible"

Stevenson was born in Montreal and raised in Ottawa, one of three children.[7] His father, John Stevenson, was a Scottish lawyer who was working in Ottawa as the Canadian correspondent for The Times of London or The New York Times.[9] His mother, Ruth, had an interest in theosophy and an extensive library on the subject, to which Stevenson attributed his own early interest in the paranormal. As a child he was often bedridden with bronchitis, a condition that continued into adulthood and engendered in him a lifelong love of books.[10] According to Emily Williams Kelly, a colleague of his at the University of Virginia, he maintained a list of the books he had read, which numbered 3,535 between 1935 and 2003.[1]"

Look at your source. I find it all unbelieveable and lacking any evidence, a collection of ghost stories.

@Storm1752 wow, how do you think your blatant hostility to a well-reasoned response will play out in your reincarnation? Just sayin'.......

What consensus please? Would you cite the contrarian position?

@Storm1752 That reincarnation experience in the vast number of cases can with the minimum of research be proven to be Cryptomnesia, and or subconscious wish fulfilment.

We are talking here about a very exacting scientist who spent his career meticulously gathering data. I don’t see how you can so flippantly dismiss all those volumes without even looking at them.

@WilliamFleming Atheists ARE very flippant, Bill, as you must know. After all, they have "faith" in their own half-baked positions, just like their theist cousins.

@WilliamFleming Methodology, and I am not dismissive. It is the criteria used for such documentation and the nature of human psychology and culture.

@Storm1752 That's very close to insulting....just saying. Blatant insults won't win you any friends here.

@LucyLoohoo, @WilliamFleming Just so I know, Who did I insult?

@WilliamFleming Give me a break. The author may have been a scientist but he was not doing science when he wrote that dribble. There is no scientific theory of reincarnation It can not be falsified. It is no more a science than astrology. I take exception to your "flippant" remark. I was being silly. Just like you.

@Casey07 There is not yet a scientific theory that would account for reincarnation, but that is no reason to be close-minded and not look at the evidence. Individual claims of reincarnation can be falsified.

Anyone can repeat the experiment: Interview a young child who is talking about a previous life. Take carefully witnessed notes about the details of their story. Attempt to find friends and relatives of the previous embodiment, now dead. Compare details of the child’s report with testimony from existing people who knew the deceased.

In thousands of cases there is corroboration with the children’s stories. These cases are meticulously recorded and can be verified.

Sometimes I am also silly. Sorry if I offended you.

@WilliamFleming It's ok no offence taken. My only issue with you is whether or not this is science. Anecdotal stories no matter how detailed or corroborated prove nothing. If they did then UFO abductions, ghosts, the one god, all the other gods and yes evan Big Foot.should be taught in Science Class. That is why I am so adamant about what is or is not science....Ben Franklin PREDICTED that he could pull electricity out of the sky.. To prove it he performed an EXPERIMENT by flying a kite in a thunder storm. That is science. My description of the event may be lacking but the point is made. .

I read most of one of Stevenson’s books. His methods were very exacting and his records are impeccable. After I had read about a hundred cases, it seemed like a waste of time to continue.

Some people want to disbelieve so much that they bias their perspectives, and they frantically grab onto any article that bolsters their materialistic world views. I would say that in this case, if the evidence conflicts with your world view, that the problem is not with the evidence.

@WilliamFleming Are you a trained research scientist? Are you qualified to judge the veracity of this guys research methods?

@Stephanie99 I am not so trained, however Stevenson himself was a medical doctor and a psychiatrist. When you looked at the Wikipedia article you must have read only the negative criticism. There’s also a lot of support from qualified people:

[In an article published on Scientific American's website in 2013, favorably reviewing Stevenson's work, Jesse Bering, a professor of science communication, wrote, "Towards the end of her own storied life, the physicist Doris Kuhlmann-Wilsdorf—whose groundbreaking theories on surface physics earned her the prestigious Heyn Medal from the German Society for Material Sciences, surmised that Stevenson’s work had established that 'the statistical probability that reincarnation does in fact occur is so overwhelming … that cumulatively the evidence is not inferior to that for most if not all branches of science.' "[48]]

@MichaelSpinler I am not a Christian.

@MichaelSpinler It's the "I'm rubber and you're glue" arguement technique.

Yes! Exactly my point from my post above. It's all woo until it's put to test to falsify it or prove it to the exclusion of any other possibilities.

So far, people have either waved their hands saying "quantum mechanics" or poo-poo'd for dismissing the anecdotes.

Well, quantum mechanics suggests perpetual motion too, but it would be motion without energy which is why we don't see physicists climbing over each other to build a quantum perpetual motion engine.

And for the poo-poo's - if you are saying that reincarnation is possible, it is up to you to provide the experimental framework and publish the methodology so that the experiment can be replicated by independent sources - anecdotal stories don't count, only repeatable results. This Cattus can live with the null hypothesis until you do; which, by the way, when you can't even set up the experiment - that's a pretty good indicator that it's a non-starter...

"Arguments from authority are meaningless." - Dr. Carl Sagan

"That which is presented without evidence can be equally dismissed without evidence." - Christopher Hitchens.

"If you can't show it, then you don't know it..." - Aron-Ra

Ian Stevenson gave up any claims to eminence after the fiasco that was the Bridey Murphy/Morey Bernstein case, which though the most famous reincarnation investigation he was involved in was certainly not the only time he made a total fool of himself, being taken in by fraudsters, charlatans and publicity hunters.

@LenHazell53 okay thanks Len, I will have to revisit it.

For those too young to get that ref

@Davesnothere thanks, oh nevermind you're not here.

@oldFloyd Hey, you made midnight confessions start i my damn head, can't recall what I ate for luch, but lyrics 50 years gone, NP lol