Editing Reincarnation (section)

===Claims of memories of past lives===

Over a period of 40 years, psychiatrist [[Ian Stevenson]], from the [[University of Virginia]], recorded [[case study|case studies]] of young children who claimed to remember past lives, and published twelve books. In his cases he reported the child's statements and testimony from family members and others, often along with what he considered to be correlates to a [[deceased]] person who in some ways seemed to match the child's memory. Stevenson also investigated cases where he thought that [[birthmark]]s and [[birth defects]] seemed to match wounds and scars on the deceased. Sometimes included in his documentation were [[medical records]] like [[autopsy]] photographs.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cadoret |first1=Remi J. |title=European Cases of the Reincarnation Type |journal=American Journal of Psychiatry |date=April 2005 |volume=162 |issue=4 |pages=823–824 |doi=10.1176/appi.ajp.162.4.823 }}</ref> As any claim of past life memory is subject to charges of [[false memory|false memories]] and the ease with which such claims can be [[hoax]]ed, Stevenson expected the controversy and [[skepticism]] of his beliefs that followed. He said that he looked for disconfirming evidence and alternative explanations for reports, but, as the ''Washington Post'' reported, he typically concluded that no normal explanation sufficed.<ref name=Shroder2007>{{cite news |last1=Shroder |first1=Tom |title=Ian Stevenson; Sought To Document Memories Of Past Lives in Children |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021001393.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=11 February 2007 }}</ref>

Stevenson's work in this regard was impressive enough to [[Carl Sagan]] that he referred to what were apparently Stevenson's investigations in his book ''[[The Demon-Haunted World]]'' as an example of carefully collected empirical data, and though he rejected reincarnation as a parsimonious explanation for the stories, he wrote that the phenomenon of alleged past-life memories should be further researched.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tucker |first1=Jim B. |editor1-last=Presti |editor1-first=David E. |title=Mind Beyond Brain: Buddhism, Science, and the Paranormal |date=2018 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-54839-7 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h2NbDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT84 |chapter=Reports of Past-life Memories}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Sagan, Carl|title=Demon Haunted World|publisher=[[Random House]]|year=1996|isbn=978-0-394-53512-8|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ulqPDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA300 300]-[https://books.google.com/books?id=ulqPDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA302 302]|author-link=Carl Sagan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ulqPDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA300}}</ref> [[Sam Harris (author)|Sam Harris]] cited Stevenson's works in his book ''[[The End of Faith]]'' as part of a body of data that seems to attest to the reality of psychic phenomena.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Harris|first1=Sam|url=https://archive.org/details/endoffaithreligi00harr|title=The End of Faith|date=17 September 2005|publisher=W. W. Norton|isbn=0-393-32765-5|edition=Reprint|page=[https://archive.org/details/endoffaithreligi00harr/page/n41 41] endnote 18 on [https://archive.org/details/endoffaithreligi00harr/page/n243 page 242]|url-access=limited}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Emily Williams |title=Science, the Self, and Survival after Death: Selected Writings of Ian Stevenson |date=2012 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |isbn=978-1-4422-2115-4 |page=386 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mvzTCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA386}}</ref>

Stevenson's claims have been subject to criticism and [[debunking]], for example by the philosopher [[Paul Edwards (philosopher)|Paul Edwards]], who contended that Ian Stevenson's accounts of reincarnation were purely [[anecdotal evidence|anecdotal]] and [[Cherry picking|cherry-picked]].<ref name="skepticreport.com">Rockley, Richard. (2002). [https://web.archive.org/web/20090807184113/http://skepticreport.com/sr/?p=482 "Book Review: Children who Remember Previous Lives"]. SkepticReport. Retrieved 11 October 2014.</ref> Edwards attributed the stories to [[selective thinking]], [[suggestion]], and [[false memory syndrome|false memories]] that result from the family's or researcher's belief systems and thus did not rise to the standard of fairly sampled [[empirical evidence]].<ref>[[Paul Edwards (philosopher)|Edwards, Paul]]. (1996, reprinted in 2001). ''Reincarnation: A Critical Examination''. Prometheus Books. {{ISBN|1-57392-921-2}}</ref> The philosopher Keith Augustine wrote in critique that the fact that "the vast majority of Stevenson's cases come from countries where a religious belief in reincarnation is strong, and rarely elsewhere, seems to indicate that cultural conditioning (rather than reincarnation) generates claims of spontaneous past-life memories."<ref>{{cite web |date=31 March 1997 |title=The Case Against Immortality |url=http://infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/immortality.html |access-date=11 April 2014 |publisher=Infidels.org}}</ref> Edwards also objected that reincarnation invokes assumptions that are inconsistent with modern science.<ref>Cogan, Robert. (1998). ''Critical Thinking: Step by Step''. University Press of America. pp. 202–203. {{ISBN|0-7618-1067-6}} "Edwards catalogs common sense objections which have been made against reincarnation. 1) How does a soul exist between bodies? 2) Tertullian's objection: If there is reincarnation, why are not babies born with the mental abilities of adults? 3) Reincarnation claims an infinite series of prior incarnations. Evolution teaches that there was a time when humans did not yet exist. So reincarnation is inconsistent with modern science. 4) If there is reincarnation, then what is happening when the population increases? 5) If there is reincarnation, then why do so few, if any people, remember past lives?... To answer these objections believers in reincarnation must accept additional assumptions... Acceptance of these silly assumptions, Edwards says, amounts to a crucifixion of one's intellect."</ref><ref>
 [[Paul Edwards (philosopher)|Edwards, Paul]]. (1996, reprinted in 2001). ''Reincarnation: A Critical Examination''. Prometheus Books. {{ISBN|1-57392-921-2}}</ref> As the vast majority of people do not remember previous lives and there is no empirically documented mechanism known that allows personality to survive death and travel to another body, positing the existence of reincarnation is subject to the principle that "[[extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence]]". Further, [[Ian Wilson (author)|Ian Wilson]] wrote that a large number of Stevenson's cases consisted of poor children remembering wealthy lives or belonging to a [[Caste system in India|higher caste]]. In these societies, claims of reincarnation have been used as schemes to obtain money from the richer families of alleged former incarnations.<ref>[[Ian Wilson (author)|Wilson, Ian]]. (1981). ''Mind Out of Time: Reincarnation Investigated''. Gollancz. {{ISBN|0-575-02968-4}}</ref>

Stevenson also claimed there were a handful of cases that suggested evidence of [[xenoglossy]], including two where a subject under hypnosis allegedly conversed with people speaking the foreign language, instead of merely being able to recite foreign words. [[Sarah Thomason]], a linguist (and skeptical researcher) at the University of Michigan, reanalyzed these cases, concluding that "the linguistic evidence is too weak to provide support for the claims of xenoglossy".<ref>[[Sarah Thomason|Thomason, Sarah G.]] [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~thomason/papers/xenogl.pdf "Xenoglossy"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080911112406/http://www-personal.umich.edu/~thomason/papers/xenogl.pdf |date=2008-09-11 }}. In [[Gordon Stein]]. (1996). ''The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal''. Prometheus Books. {{ISBN|1-57392-021-5}}</ref>

Other academic researchers who have undertaken similar pursuits include [[Jim B. Tucker]], [[Antonia Mills]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Mills|url=http://jamesgmatlock.net/resources/researchers/mills/|work=Signs of Reincarnation}}</ref> [[Satwant Pasricha]], [[Godwin Samararatne]], and [[Erlendur Haraldsson]], but Stevenson's publications remain the most well known.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Moraes |first1=Lucam J. |last2=Barbosa |first2=Gabrielle S. |last3=Castro |first3=João Pedro G.B. |last4=Tucker |first4=Jim B. |last5=Moreira-Almeida |first5=Alexander |title=Academic studies on claimed past-life memories: A scoping review |journal=Explore |date=May 2022 |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=371–378 |doi=10.1016/j.explore.2021.05.006 |pmid=34147343 |s2cid=235491940 |doi-access=free }}</ref>