Arouet
Member
I removed the previous post because I'd sent it in a hurry, and didn't want what I'd said to be misconstrued because I ran out of time.
I hadn't ignored your post, Steve, I'd begun mine before you submitted it, and agree threads should be left intact so that neutrals can see how the debate pans out. However I think it's important that long threads on important topics like this should be summarised in the same way Michael Larkin condenses the original podcast. This will convey the merit or otherwise of dissenting views, and allow solid research to contribute to the totality of knowledge on the subject. If skeptics routinely derail threads as I suspect, it allows evidence to be side-lined adding to the claims that more is required to gain credibility. I don't believe there's a credibility gap or a volume of data gap, I think there's acceptance gap. This takes various forms including questions of what denotes evidence, but also subjects threads to silly and unfounded accusations like the one Small Dog makes of Dr Long promoting religion, which can take pages to fend off. Meanwhile the subject at hand is kicked into the long grass. Maintain similar accusations on a regular basis and all evidence is sullied or "debunked" before its implications gain traction. In this way data is depicted as inconclusive, professionals are subjected to smears, the study is dismissed as woo and onlookers are bored to tears based on a single fallacious premise.
I'm sorry Gabriel, but you're just off-base on almost every level here.
The fact that this study is completely self-selected and uncontrolled is a major issue that must be taken account to accurately interpret this study. That's selection bias within the NDE scale not to mention the greater selection bias of the NDE scale itself. Greyson himself calls it selected in his original article where he establishes his scale. Here's what he writes:
Subjects who believed they had had NDEs as described in the phenomenological literature were used, rather than unselected individuals who had come close to death, in order to increase the frequency of positive responses to the questionnaire, to reduce the confounding of NDE elements with symptoms of other stress-related syndromes, and to provide a criterion group with which to validate the scale.
[...]
As noted above, for the purpose of developing the NDE Scale, this selected sample was preferred over a sample of unselected individuals who had come close to death; use of the selected sample maximized positive responses and thereby facilitated interitem correlations, and reduced the number of elements characteristic of other stress-related syndromes not peculiar to the NDE.
[...]
As noted above, for the purpose of developing the NDE Scale, this selected sample was preferred over a sample of unselected individuals who had come close to death; use of the selected sample maximized positive responses and thereby facilitated interitem correlations, and reduced the number of elements characteristic of other stress-related syndromes not peculiar to the NDE.
He recognised possible bias effects from the manner in which the scale was constructed:
The final format of the NDE Scale, in which all 16 questions receive high scores for positive responses, resulted not from preselection of items but from the empirical analysis of the preliminary questionnaire responses: questions that received high scores for negative responses were eliminated from the final NDE Scale due to their low correlation with the rest of the questionnaire. The resultant unipolar wording of the final NDE Scale raises the question of response bias related to subject acquiescence; this matter should be explored in further studies, controlling. for acquiescence and social desirability.
Note the primary purpose of the scale initially was for therapeutic purposes. The focus on transpersonal effects were geared at the development of psychological therapy:
These attempts to measure the NDE treat the experience as a unitary phenomenon, a theoretical assumption that appears increasingly troublesome to those attempting explanations of the NDE. The NDE may comprise discrete parallel experiences with differing mechanisms and effects (6). If further study confirms the impressive reports of personality transformations following a NDE, then isolation of the particular components of the experience that are associated with positive outcomes may lead to significant therapeutic insights (7).
[...]
Clinicians may use the NDE Scale to differentiate near-death experiences from organic brain syndromes and nonspecific stress responses following close brushes with death.
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Clinicians may use the NDE Scale to differentiate near-death experiences from organic brain syndromes and nonspecific stress responses following close brushes with death.
He doesn't state quite why he feels this can do that accurately but I haven't looked into this issue yet so it might have been covered elsewhere. But look what he writes next:
For clinical use, a minimum cut-off point for the determination of a NDE may be unnecessary; dismissing a patient's claim of having had a NDE on
the basis of an arbitrary criterion score would be countertherapeutic.
the basis of an arbitrary criterion score would be countertherapeutic.
This is exactly in line with what Dr. Parnia writes in the AWARE study. The NDE scale was designed to for therapeutic reasons, with a hope that it could be useful for investigating NDE cause. But on this Greyson keeps the scale in context:
The NDE Scale and its components may be used as independent variables to discriminate among individuals varying in degree and type of NDE, in the investigation of psychological and clinical effects of a neardeath event. The scale may also be used as a dependent measure, to test hypotheses regarding causes and mechanisms of NDEs. For research purposes, the criterion of a score of 7 or higher (1 SD below the mean) seems a valid cut-off point for selecting a group of subjects with NDEs for further study.
From what I can tell, there hasn't been much discussion of the validity of the scale subsequent to this before the AWARE study. Again, I might just not have found one so I stand to be corrected.
What this all boils down to is that the NDE scale is useful but it must be applied properly. Even its author recognizes that it is based on selected samples, and that to some extent the criteria is arbitrary. The groupings are focussed on the aspects that have the most psychological impact. This makes sense with regard to the scale as a therapeutic tool. However, as a causal investigative tool it must be used more cautiously, and always kept in context.
Dr. Long's study without question does not do this. It has a very high risk of selection bias.
I don't want you to take my word for any of this. Do some research. Read about selection bias (I can give you some material if you'd like). Read the Greyson paper I linked above. Read the AWARE study. I am not pulling this stuff out of my ass. But with respect, without elaboration your assertion that none of this is relevant and that I'm just trying to smear parapsychologists comes across as exactly that. It is bluster designed to distract from substantive argument. For that matter, if you reread the thread, it is pretty clear that the derail was started by your rant, followed by Smithy misattributing a post to me (which he has retracted :)) and making a comment about your rant, which I then responded to. You then asked me a bunch of questions, which I proceeded to answer. And the discussion went from there. The suggestion that I intentionally derailed the thread is smoke and mirrors.