I've pointed out some serious issues with his data collection, and no one has stepped up to provide the journal references to his work. Has Long's work been published in a peer reviewed journal? You seem to be saying that the scientific method doesn't count for much, which is an opinion you are entitled to, but why try to pass off work as scientific that isn't if you really feel that way?
I've noticed that there are a number of researchers involved with the "life after death" crowd that do some peer reviewed stuff to keep up their contact with academia, but their peer reviewed material is quite different from what they promote in non-scientific circles as science. The heaven tourists don't understand science, and don't really like it, but for some reason they want a guy with credentials to say science backs up their belief system.
Long has set up a website that appears to skew the data towards a specific religious POV.
Concerns about skewing data for religious reasons are nothing new in NDE research.
http://www.newdualism.org/nde-papers/Ring/Ring-Journal of Near-Death Studies_2000-18-215-244.pdf
I am not disparaging science or the scientific method. Rather I am concerned that science can be used as a weapon against research that bothers some folk because they know that methods applied to physical science don't work in what is essentially social science. An earlier Skeptiko guest, Henry Bauer wrote
Science is Not What You Think. In it he provides a detailed critique of a number of popular notions about science, including the value of the peer review process. I am not saying that what Bauer wrote is gospel, but it gels with other critical assessments of science. Rupert Sheldrake is another who has written critically on science. His book is called
The Science Delusion in Australia and the UK, but the title is watered down in the USA.
I am not suggesting we are uncritical of the works of Long and others. A sceptical approach is always best. I read Long's
God and the Afterlife very carefully. I technically have two science degrees, but in Social Ecology (a Masters and Masters Honours), so I don't approach Long's work without some appreciation of rigorous research methodology. The problem is that if you know enough of the insider jargon you can call any study into question. If you look at Michael Cremo's work in
Human Devolution you will further appreciate that stuff we think is settled science is nothing of the sort.
My assessment of Long's work is also based on whether or not it fits with the general body of knowledge on human consciousness. Now this stuff isn't science. It is supposed not to be science because it is disreputable. But the fact is, and here we must go to Kripal's
Authors of the Impossible among many others to find that 'science' refused to engage in non-material in inquiry back in the latter part of the 19th century, despite strenuous efforts. Alfred William Wallace, the co-founder of the Theory of Evolution was a devoted inquirer into the paranormal (Cremo, in
Human Devolution covers his work extensively), as were many other notable thinkers of their day. But the materialistic mentality of orthodox 'science' won the day through ridicule and intimidation, and not argument.
The Oxford English Dictionary's definition of science is instructive - "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment". That's a decent condensed definition developed by experts on the English language. So what constitutes "the physical and natural world"? You can't include NDEs and refuse to study them or exclude them and object that the methods employed by those who do are not good science, or science at all. But that is precisely what a science community dominated and intimidated by materialists does.
The word 'science' has a latin root meaning, in essence, knowledge. Materialist scientists don't get to dictate how we gain knowledge, though they try, by denigrating whatever throws up data and propositions that offends their creed. We could refine the Oxford definition to say science is "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing systematic study to gain knowledge of human reality through observation and experiment". That would still fit the definition of 'science', but liberates it into being a free human inquiry, rather than one defined and determined by the academy. It is similar to saying that Christianity does not own spirituality despite a determined and brutal effort to do so.
Long's work stands, in my view, as valid and good science. It is systematic, disciplined, and in keeping with the knowledge in that field. It is nothing startling or astonishing. It confirms what is known and adds detail and colour. It is, I think, good solid and honest research.
Rather than ask whether it should be peer reviewed we first must determine whether it can be. NDEs are not a widely accepted phenomenon, and the evidence is inescapably reports by experiencers. If you deny NDEs then reports by experiencers cut no ice. Nothing they say can be evidence. You can't take experiencer reports and make them conform to evidence rules for science. They are not shared and they are not repeatable. You could get a bunch of sociologists to review the work. They are more Long's peers here than folk with medical degrees.
As humans we do not depend on others to confirm every aspect of our reality, though it is often comforting when they do. But the fact is that the most potent transformative experiences we have are often when we are alone. Sometimes that's the only way we can have the experience. For example indigenous people may have an initiation rite that sends a young male off on a 'vision quest'. It has to be solitary. We have many unique and unrepeatable experiences that happen when we are alone. If we accept the standard definition of good science these experiences may never be studied and the study given any merit -because the 'rules' some folk invented to define science do not, and cannot, apply.
Being sceptical means also being sceptical of claims made by 'science', and if Bauer and Sheldrake are worthy pointers, there's a lot to be wary of. Bauer made a vital observation. Science as we know it tends to study stuff that is stable and moves very slowly compared to what is. In the spectrum of human experience that's the easy stuff. Where, for example, is the science of Love - perhaps the most crucial experience we have as humans. Where is the science of justice or freedom? Why are the things that are most essential to us absent from science's agenda? Essentially because they are too complex and too hard. Science is not the arbiter of what is real, or good or true. It doesn't get to pass opinions on matters on which it has no actual knowledge, or which it dismisses without proper scientific inquiry.
I don't want to seem dismissive of any concerns about the validity of NDE research. But some aspects of 'science' will compare apples with oranges when it suits, and then try to bully us into thinking that's a fair thing. It isn't and it should be called out when it happens. Otherwise science descends into a dogma and a faith.