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Scientific Investigation into Survival of Physical Death
Prof. David Fontana

The presentation will explain that what is known as the ‘scientific method’ - which essentially involves the three-stage process of hypothesis, experimentation and verification - was devised as a way of acquiring knowledge in the physical sciences, specifically physics and chemistry. However, much of what we recognise as science frequently does not make use of this method. Obvious examples are many branches of medicine, of astronomy, of biology, of geology, of engineering and of psychology, sociology and other social sciences. In disciplines such as these it is often inappropriate if not impossible to set up controlled experiments. Instead, the strategy used is that of careful observation and its accurate recording. The emphasis is not upon attempts to manipulate nature in the laboratory, but to study natural processes as they occur in the real world and to use the results of these to construct theories. Occasionally, inferences from experimental results in other disciplines can be found in support of these theories, but the acceptability or otherwise of the theories concerned depends not upon these but upon their own internal consistency.

The scientific method has been of enormous value in providing us with accurate information in physics and chemistry, but it is a mistake to suppose that information that is not acquired by this method is necessarily of lesser value and has no right to be known as scientific. This is particularly true of research into survival of physical death. In such research, controlled experiments such as those used in physics and chemistry are out of the question. Put at its most obvious, we cannot kill someone and then bring them back to life in order to ascertain if they experienced a continuation of consciousness during their period of demise. And of course, even if such an experiment were possible, critics would quickly move the goal posts and claim the individual was not really dead as they were capable of being resuscitated.

Scientific research into survival must therefore focus upon careful observation, and where possible upon ensuring that this observation is made under conditions where human error or fraud can be ruled out or minimised. Near Death Experiences, Out of the Body Experiences, ITC communications, ADCs (‘After Death Communications’) whether spontaneous or through mediums, and Death Bed Visions all provide opportunities for such observations, and the Presentation will look at each of these in turn. It will also look at the inferences we can draw for the reality of survival from other areas of parapsychological research where experimentation is possible, such as laboratory-based work in telepathy, remote viewing and psycho-kinesis.

The presentation will conclude by looking briefly at some of the reasons why the Super-ESP theory fails to account for the observations accumulated by research into survival.