The Soul Fallacy: What Science Shows We Gain from Letting Go of Our Soul Beliefs

Julien Musolino presents a compilation of the evidence for materialism and against souls in this work of popular science. Musolino asserts the strong claims that souls are a FALLACY, and refuted by science. If he managed to supports these claims, belief in souls would become untenable. However, his own argument suffered from fallacies, falsehoods, and conflicts with science. Julien Musolinio advocates consilience in this book – the accumulation of small evidences which are individually not decisive, but combined strongly support a POV. His repeated fallacies, falsehoods, and science rejections, each of which by itself could be considered an aberration, provide a cumulative consilience which strongly supports the soul hypothesis.As a general review of its contents, the book is relevant to an ongoing debate, well written and easily readable, and maintains a mostly positive and informative tone. I strongly agree with Musolino, and his deceased friend Victor Stenger, that much of the science-religion debate is over questions of science, and science is the tool we should use to address them. Musolino does well outlining the issue questions involved, how science should evaluate them, and outlining the hypotheses to be tested.But he then immediately runs into self contradictions. His first piece of evidence is an example of a procedure which produced well-meant but bogus responses for Autistic individuals. He then cited two other popularly observed events – table-turning, and Hans the counting horse, both of which turned out to be different phenomena than popularly believed as a result of their uncontrolled observation. The point of these examples is to show that observations and knowledge gained from uncontrolled conditions is not reliable – he will later argue for using only controlled science data as evidence. However, note a contradiction here. He is citing three instances – that are by definition anecdotes – to support a general principle of not accepting anecdotal data. He provides no widespread surveys of the quantity and accuracy of science data vs. knowledge collected anecdotally. If he had done so, he would doubtless have discovered that all but a tiny fraction of human knowledge is acquired though individual first person empiricism – ie anecdotally, and that an anti-anecdote program, if pursued rigorously, would lead to his knowing virtually nothing at all. Musolino then devotes several pages to smearing Dr Darryl Bem, describing this professor emeritus, partner author of a popular intro to psychology textbook series, and chapter author for a series of guidebooks on how to become a research psychologist, of: denial of reality, belief in a “flat earth”, use of flawed methods, unreliable results, and of being a general embarrassment to the field. What was Bem’s sin? He published a peer reviewed article showing evidence for precognition, and asked other researchers to attempt replications of his work! Musolino then writes: “detailed critiques of Bem’s general methodology, the design of his experiments, and his use of statistics have been published in peer reviewed journals and in popular science magazines7. Several attempts have also been made by other scientists to replicate Bem’s results, and they all failed8.”The above statements about Bem’s work demonstrates a large number of fallacies on Musolino’s part. The overall tone is a character assassination. Argument by ridicule is a fallacy. The accusations are all either false, or selectively cherry picked. Item by item:a) There WAS a rebuttal of Bem’s statistics in the journal he published in. However, that rebuttal explicitly noted that Bem was CORRECTLY using the current statistical standards of the field, and it argued for change in the practice of scientists, to use a Bayesian test rather than a T-test for significance, and asserted that a Bayesian test showed Bem’s results were not significant. Bem, collaborating with the developer of the Bayesian technique the critics used, published a reply which noted that another Bayesian analysis by a second set of critics arrived at dramatically different conclusions on the significance of Bem’s results than these first critics had, and the author of the Bayesian methodology they used pointed out the errors that these first critics had made, and that the second team’s Bayesian analysis was the more correct. http://dbem.ws/ResponsetoWagenmakers.pdf Musolino is a practicing researcher, and he knows how to evaluate statistical claims, and knows that the refutation of Wagenmacher was decisive. It showed that Bayesian analysis produces wildly different results on statistical significance tests depending on the analyst’s assumptions, and an objective T-test is a better standard. And that critics who claimed to be doing statistics more correctly than Bem were themselves making errors pointed out by the author of the technique they were using. But by not discussing the content of the debate, which demonstrated that it was the critics subjective approach, not Bem’s objective one which was inappropriate use of statistics, Musolino presented cherry picked information to falsely imply that poor statistical methods were the source of Bem’s significance results. This was an instance therefore of deliberate cherry picking to try to mislead readers into a false inference.b) To understand my second point, one must realize that there are political pressure groups that exist to try to skew science and public policy based on ideologies. These groups often use the language of science, but they share none of science’s goals, as the open investigation of questions which could harm their ideological view is anathema to them. These groups often engage in data fraud, falsified quotes (quote mining), and character assassination. Musolino’s reference 7 is from the Skeptical Inquirer, the mouthpiece of one of these groups. And the cited piece is typical of such material, including ridicule of quote-mined quotes from Bem’s chapter on how to conduct empirical research, inane complaints that the listed tests in his paper were not the sequential order he did them in, and character assassination accusations that Bem engaged in data fraud by recombining tests and retroactively searching for any possible statistics that might show some kind of effect. For readers who are not familiar with Skeptical Inquirer, citing this hit piece as evidence for any failings on Bem’s part is like citing a smear on a climate researcher from a climate denial site like Watts Up With That, or an attack on a biologist from an editorial put out by the Institute for Creation Research. And once more, Bem provided a rebuttal, showing that the two most substantive critiques (that he modified the pictures used part way through the process, and that he let testees choose their picture set, and both practices violate proper research protocols– and that he should have used a higher significance threshold because he did more than one significance test) were wrong in the first case (selection of pictures during an experiment for affect is standard practice in psychology research) and based on a misunderstanding of the test and how to do data analysis in the second (if the primary test thesis is not being changed, then the probabilities associated with it will not be affected by exploring other aspects of the data for its statistical features – and such investigations is not BAD practice, it is GOOD practice!). Criticism and reply are here: http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/back_from_the_future http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/response_to_alcocks_back_from_the_future_comments_on_bem Repeating, the only criticism of Bem’s test construction, methodology and statistical handling comes from a propaganda outlet, and was explicitly rejected by the journal referees AND the statistical critics of Bem published in the refereed journal. By misrepresenting this propaganda outlet as a “popular science” magazine, and comingling its smear with the science reviews that disagree with all of its claims, and failing to note the refutation of its few substantive points, Musolino goes far far beyond a “cherry picking” fallacy here. Musolino misrepresented a source (falsehood), deliberately comingled data from two very different sources to try to boost the credibility of a non-credible one (data misrepresentation -- ie falsehood), and endorses a false smear of a fellow researcher (falsehood plus fallacy).c) ALL replications failed?? Musolino’s own Reference 8 contains a meta analysis of 18 replication attempts of one of Bem’s 5 types of test, four of which showed statistical significance at 95% confidence! That four tests out of 18 showed statistically significant replication (at 95% confidence, the expected outcome for a non-existent effect, in which data noise fooled the researcher, would have been 1 out of 18) IS replication!. The meta analysis, which combined the data from all 18 did NOT show statistical significance, but that is a very different point than what Musolino claims. And a subsequent meta analysis, which looked at the ~90 replications of all 5 test types, shows statistical significance with high confidence across the full set of replication attempts. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2423692 The misrepresentation of the results of replication by Musolino again goes far beyond a mere cherry picking fallacy.In summary, in just few pages here, Musolino piled up four apparently deliberate falsehoods and two fallacies. The apparently deliberate falsehoods are the most troubling. No scientist would present known bogus information to back a view – this is the first of many anti-science attitudes that Musolino commits to in this work.Musolino holds that Bem’s claim of precognition is impossible. He claims “they fly in the face of everything we know about physics”. To bolster his claim he cites a physicist, Michio Kaku, who asserts precognition is impossible because of:• Newtonian Physics. The Iron rule of cause /effect is never violated• In quantum physics, despite antimatter being matter going backwards in time, causality is not violated• While tachyons may have set off the Big Bang, they no longer exist• Therefore precognition is a class III impossibilityWhat an odd set of claims. Basically none are credible. There is a good discussion of why the laws of physics are only approximate at this site: http://www.pnas.org/content/93/25/14256.full• Newtonian physics has been repeatedly violated over the past 100 years by pretty much everything we have learned about elementary particles and cosmology. Violating Newtonian physics does not make anything “impossible”• Newton himself broke the “Iron Rule of cause/effect”, which prior to him was assumed to require proximate physical contact to cause something. Causation has never been a coherent concept since his introduction of action at a distance.• Every probabilistic particle decay, every “probability distribution in a waveform” elementary particle, violates even the weakened Newtonian version of causation• Time is inherently symmetric at the elementary particle level, both forward-running and backward-running time appear equally valid based on the equations of physics.• Kaku himself admits inverted time particles are possible (tachyons) – their current non-existence is irrelevant to his theoretical impossibility claim• As noted in the citation above, pretty much every conservation or symmetry law has also been violated. Conservation of mass—does not hold in nuclear reactions. Conservation of mass/energy – does not hold in gravity fields, or in Inflation (part of Big Bang model), or at the Big Bang itself. 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not hold in an expanding universe. Both Charge-Parity-Time and Charge-Parity Symmetries have been observed to be broken. Violations of time-order causation is no different from these others.• And most decisively, inverse causation has been demonstrated in physics labs: http://sites.ifi.unicamp.br/aguiar/files/2014/11/scully2000.pdf, http://phys.org/news/2013-01-non-causal-quantum-eraser.htmlSo while Musolino cherry picked himself a physicist to support his views, both the theory and the data from physics show retro-causation is possible. As his citation of the impossibility of retro-causation in physics is the basis of his impossibility claim for precognition, his refutation by physics is decisive.This excursion by Musolino into an invalid set of claims about physics, was based on a much darker objective. In science, EVERYTHING we know is only tentative. One of the implicit jobs of scientists is to question consensus and received wisdom, and see if it can stand up to the challenge. This is how progress has been made in all our scientific endeavors, and over the last several centuries, we have seen multiple paradigms of thought overturned. Science journals are filled with articles challenging existing paradigms of thought, either conceptually or experimentally. But Musolino wants to change all that. He thinks that claims he considers impossible should not be published -- that the peer review process should have prevented Bem’s paper from being accepted by any refereed journal (this is what he means by “Darryl Bem’s paper did manage to slip through the cracks of the peer review process”). Musolino wants to abandon science and the questioning of assumptions, at least when the assumptions being questioned are HIS assumptions! Were he in charge of science journals, none of the physics papers I have cited on reverse causation or the breaking of symmetry laws would have seen the light of day. Which qualifies as the second anti-science position Musolino takes.In the next chapter Musolino starts discussing the evidence for souls. The first evidential subject he discusses is Near Death Experiences. He only discusses one case in detail, that of a heart attack patient, Marie, who, while confined to her bed with multiple attached devices, described Out of Body travel and views of various locations with significant details about the hospital, despite being bed-bound, and seriously ill. Most unusually, she also described a tennis shoe on an outside 3rd floor ledge, which, when the social worker (Clark) who reported all of this went to investigate, was discovered with significant difficulty. This case was investigated by skeptics, who published their investigation article which is available online, as is the original report. According to Musolino, the investigation succeeded in “demonstrating that Clark’s report had been embellished, and that Maria could easily have seen the shoe without “leaving” her body.” So how well does it hold up? As with several prior claims by Musolino, this one does not survive critical investigation. Itemizing:a) The “investigation”, like most of what graces the pages of Skeptical Inquirer, is primarily speculation – postulating one rationalization or another to dismiss the cited evidence -- followed by the author’s opinion endorsing their own rationalizations. This fluff, again per standard SI fare, is liberally intermingled with personal smears toward the author of the report, and anyone who might be soft-headed enough to believe her. The one actual “investigation” done was to put a shoe on a hospital ledge, then check to see if it was visible from the ground. It was visible. This is, of course, irrelevant if this shoe was not at the same location as the one seen in the NDE, and even if it were, has little relation to the claims of the NDE, as the patient was confined to a hospital bed, not outside the hospital.b) Musolino dismisses anecdotes as valid data. This “investigation” ‘s evidentiatory status is far far less than that of any anecdote. Yet he cites it as his most definitive evidence refuting NDEs. This is a shifting goalposts fallacy. He sets the standard for acceptable evidence so high for what he disbelieves that virtually nothing can satisfy it, while setting the standard for supporting evidence so low that a rationalizing piece of froth like this smear piece qualifies.c) Misrepresentation of content – even the article does not claim it “demonstrates” either of his summary claims, its conclusion only claims to have demonstrated the anecdote “is far from unassailable”. And as the shoe was on a different wall of the building than Maria’s room, and she never left her bed, Musolino’s claim that the article shows “Maria could easily have seen the shoe” is absolutely untrue. The article’s actual speculation was that the hospital staff might have seen the shoe, it might have been the subject of hallway discussion, and might have been discussed in Maria’s hearing, but without her realizing it, leading her to imagine it in the location and with the features she described. With the radical differences between Musolino’s summary, and the actual content of the article, it is plausible Musolino has never actually read his cited “definitive counterevidence”.d) An excellent discussion of this “investigation” is available here: http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/who-will-watch-the-watchers.htmlIn summary, his rejection of NDEs is once more based on anecdotal data (fallacy of selective application of acceptance standards for evidence), the one NDE Musolino discusses he misrepresents an “investigation” as if it actually investigated anything (falsehood, and no actual data), and misrepresents its conclusions with two claims unmade by the cited paper (two more falsehoods).Musolino then presents his standard for accepting NDE data as valid, and it once again involves a shifting goalpost fallacy. In a previous chapter, he would accept 3rd person evidence for internal states. In this chapter, he will only accept it if it is also a controlled study. He cites a database of thousands of accounts of NDEs – exactly the sort of 3rd person verbally digested down information cited as potentially valid in the previous chapter. Then he rejects it as evidence, citing Victor Stenger who declares that a database of several thousand anecdotes consisted solely of anecdotes (surprise!) – and was therefore not evidence! As he asserts science operates off consilience – the accumulation of non-definitive evidence into an overall definitive case – even if he is correct and the NDE anecdotes are not DEFINITIVE, this hardly makes them IRRELEVANT in a consilience compilation. As a side note – the controlled test he was looking for would be identification of well secured hidden objects/information as part of the NDE. This test had been done repeatedly WITHOUT the subject dying. Here are links to two databases of these experiments: http://www.remoteviewed.com/remote_viewing_history_military_b.htm, http://www.remoteviewed.com/remote-viewing-bibliography-papers2/ which contain multitudes of the significant studies he claims do not exist. This section therefore presented three more shifting goalpost fallacies, and another case of data cherrypicking to mislead the readers.The next evidence he discusses is the claim that arguments for souls consist of a fallacy, which he calls the “souls of the gaps” fallacy. He assumes that his showing several instances of an argument for something being invalid means all arguments for that something are invalid. Musolino here combined a hasty generalization fallacy with a guilt by association fallacy. He claims that any thesis for a soul which is designed to address questions that materialism cannot answer, must itself be a fallacy, which he names a “soul of the gaps” fallacy. He then narrows his definition by limiting this fallacy to “supernatural” explanations, with no particular reason given (which is a special pleading fallacy). is only assertion that Soul hypotheses are fallacies is itself based on THREE fallaciesWe can evaluate the validity of this supposed new “fallacy” he has discovered, by examining his application of it to a science claim. He discusses an author, Mark Baker, whose essay in the book The Soul Hypothesis addressed a possible test case for a Soul Hypothesis. Baker postulates that if there is a soul unique to humans, there should be features of human behavior that are not reducible to neurology, or evolutionarily developed. He identified, from his own area of expertise, linguistics, a possible candidate, the Creative Aspect of Language Use – CALU. Linguists divide our language use into lexicon, grammar, and CALU. He postulates that brains provide the hardware and software to run our language use (lexicon and grammar), but souls are the operator (source of CALU). If this postulate is true, then damage to brains could degrade lexicon and grammar, but not CALU. And that is what has been seen. Brain injuries, and genetic diseases, affect lexicon and grammar usage, but CALU is an all or nothing deal. And no other creatures in the animal kingdom produce CALU-level communication, including our great ape cousins. Baker concludes that this is supporting but not decisive evidence for the hypothesis, as well as an example of a soul hypothesis being useful in doing science. Musolino, in discussing this study, makes much over Baker’s admission that this investigation is not “conclusive proof” of a soul, and declares that this test does not “force a rational person to conclude that souls exist”. He declares its failure to provide such conviction is due to its being a fallacy! Of course not – it was a single test of a variant of a hypothesis, and it wasn’t a critical test case vs. materialism. It is exactly the sort of cumulative evidence of useful predictions from a model that he refers to as consilience. Musolino falsely labels it a fallacy, and dismisses the test unjustifiably.In his next chapter, Musolino attempts to close out his definitive case refuting souls. His points:• He points out that with evolution being true, souls cannot be unique to humans, or animals. This is reasonable, and is implicit in the thinking of those who observe consciousness in bacteria (Margulis, Humphrey, Popper).• He then claims that without conventional physical location, things cannot be associated with each other, therefore a soul cannot be associated with an individual. This claim is an argument from ignorance fallacy, combined with a false dichotomy that only full physical localism or no localism at all are the only possible options, and is easily refuted by counterexamples from logic, mathematics, algorithm development, and thinking sequences.• His third claim is that interaction between souls and the physical world would violate the conservation of energy, momentum, and mass. Recall these laws are empirical regularities, not theoretical necessities, and every one of them is known to be broken, so his claim that breaking them is an impossibility is false. The amount of energy needed to trigger a synapse is tiny, so interactive dualism does not require much energy, and the amount of “violation” involved is below the level we can currently test for in neurons. It is also very plausible that a study of soul dynamics would reveal an equivalent of energy gain/loss that would close these conservation laws again once it is understood.• Then he claims that if spirit can interact with and exchange energy with matter, then the rules for this are characterizable, and souls would then be “really” just another form of matter, since matter is defined as whatever we can characterize by science. He is confident that dualists would not accept this, because they are committed to absolute differences between soul and matter. His confidence is misplaced. Soul is a pragmatic hypothesis, that there are two weakly interacting types of thing. These two types of thing must share some features to be interactive – so their ultimate combination in a macro-theory of everything is implicit in interactive dualism. The division into two major categories is pragmatic and useful, not fundamental. If this sort of definitional gamesmanship would lead him to accept the soul hypothesis, good for him, go for it.• His final claim is that souls are predictively useless. Since his “refutation” points above were all based on soul predictions, and we have several examples of soul-based predictions in the prior chapter (NDEs, remote viewing, CALU), this claim is obviously false, based on his own book!And there we have it, his “kill shot” arguments against souls consists of three falsehoods (no predictions, physics impossibility, location necessary for relation), and a case of linguistic gamesmanship (do you call matter and souls one thing or two since they interact).Musolino then presents what he apparently considers the evidence for materialism. This chapter surprisingly does not consist of predictions based on materialism, but yet more predictions based on dualism, which he shows to be falsified. His case for materialism therefore consists ONLY in a case against dualism. But, rather than his more general dualist hypothesis listed earlier, Musolino expands dualism into several sub-claims – including the indivisibility of the soul, the full dependence of consciousness on souls alone, and the independence of the soul from physical influences. In each of his multiple examples cited, he DOES show that this variant of dualism is refuted by observations. However, none of the offending assumptions he is testing against were included in his earlier definition of dualism, and most are in direct contradiction of dualism as an INTERACTIVE model. These tests therefore constitute repeated instances of a strawman fallacy, in which one compares ones preferred claims against a flawed or weak variant of the competing view, and based on success against this weak version, declare the stronger version refuted.The strongest version of dualism is based on the observations previously noted by Karl Popper, Lyn Margulis, and Nicholas Humphrey that bacteria show behavior consistent with hypothesis forming, experiential awareness, and willful initiative – and one could therefore very plausibly postulate their having some degree of consciousness. As these features are evolutionarily useful, or we would not have them, consciousness is therefore intrinsic to all of life, and better use of consciousness is competitively beneficial. If one postulates interactive dualism – ie soul affects body, and body affects soul, then the evolutionary tuning of structures in cells and multicellular species to enhance and amplify these interactions is what evolution predicts would happen. Consciousness which is an intrinsic feature of souls, would be amplified when the soul is connected to a feedback system in a cell or body. This model is consistent with every test case he lists in this chapter. As the sole evidence he presents for materialism is the failure of dualism in these test cases, and this failure is only the result of his testing against a strawman version of dualism, he actually has NO evidence in this book whatsoever in favor of materialism.His final evidence discussion is to bring up consciousness. He notes that humans appear to be intrinsically dualist thinkers, and cites two reasons to think humans are hardwired that way, and two more for why our early first-person interactive learning would lead us to dualist conclusions. Evolutionarily, views that we are hardwired for should be mostly accurate, else they would be competitively fatal – which makes the first two bullets yet more evidence for dualism. I have also noted that almost all our valid knowledge is gained in first person empiricism, and that we become dualists as a result of this is yet more evidence for the validity of dualism. In previous chapters he asserted consciousness was neurology treated as an abstraction, but this functionalist/algorithmic approach he is referring to does not yield a first person perspective, initiative, will, stream of consciousness, or hypothesis forming any more than the neurologic/wiring substrate it is abstracted from. Neither wiring nor algorithms are conscious, as our machines show us. He goes on to admit that materialists cannot explain the first person aspects of consciousness, and floats Daniel Dennett’s anti science “deny the evidence” approach of explaining consciousness by denying the reality of first person experiences as a possible way out for materialists. So there you are – he cannot explain the key observation of human life materially that the soul hypothesis explains fully, he implicitly endorses yet another anti-science position, and in compiling his case, he actually cites three more evidences for souls.So, let us apply consilience, to what is presented in this book. The interactive dualism hypothesis explains the first person perspective of consciousness, places this in a natural selection context in which tuning of consciousness is an expected and likely outcome, we are evolutionarily predisposed and empirically reinforced by our experiences to hold by valid views and both are shown to support dualism, there are several specific predictions of a soul hypothesis discussed here (NDEs, remote viewing, psi, consciousness throughout life, CALU) which have been observed. And no fallacies or contradictions are present in this case for dualism. In contrast, materialism cannot explain consciousness, has no testable predictions presented, and in attempting to defend materialism against the evidence for souls, Musolino commits one fallacy after another, presents one falsehood after another, and repeatedly takes an anti-science approach. Applying the principle of consilience to the material Musolino himself presents, the case for souls is overwhelming.

The Soul Fallacy: What Science Shows We Gain From Letting Go of Our Soul Beliefs by Julien Musolino"The Soul Fallacy" is a fantastic look at the immortal soul as a scientific hypothesis. Cognitive scientist and professor at Rutgers University, Julien Musolino takes the reader on an enlightening journey of the soul. With mastery of the subject and ease of explanation Musolino dissects this fascinating topic from multiple angles and reaches a sound and satisfactory conclusion. This excellent 287-page book includes the following nine chapters: 1. Lifting the Veil Chapter, 2. The Spirit of the Age, 3.The First Principle, 4. Dualism on Trial, 5. Requiem for the Soul, 6. La Mettrie's Revenge, 7. Descartes's Shadow, 8. The Sum of All Fears, and 9. Imagine.Positives:1. A well-written, well-researched book that is a treat to read.2. An excellent topic: soul as a scientific hypothesis.3. Musolino has a great command of the topic. His writing style is clear and intelligible. His tone is respectful, his approach is sound and he has conviction behind his words.4. Book's format is logical and easy to follow. Each chapter builds from the previous as the author masterly builds his case for the nonexistence of the soul.5. Makes great use of the current scientific consensus of subject matter experts to build his strong case. I love how the author also doesn't shy away from debunking the strongest arguments from apologists like D'Souza.6. The book revolves around four conclusions: a. The soul can be treated as a scientific hypothesis, b. there is no credible evidence supporting the existence of the soul, c. modern science gives us every reason to believe that people do not have souls, and d. we do not lose anything morally by giving up soul beliefs.7. Provides an excellent tour of history, philosophy and science to show that the soul is a figment of our imagination. "Scientists have abandoned the soul because reason and evidence--the tools of their trade--compelled them to do so."8. Does a great job of explaining the traditional notion of the soul. "History teaches us that soul beliefs are timeless, close to universal, and that they have been associated with the phenomena of life, mind, and death. Along the way, we will discover that the soul began its life as a plurality of entities that have undergone important transformations in the course of history to give rise to the kind of soul that most people are familiar with today."9. Makes great use of polls to help gage where the belief in souls currently stand and what they believe in. "According to a 2009 Harris poll, 71 percent of Americans believe in the survival of the soul after death. Harris ran a follow up in 2013 and found that a solid majority of Americans, 64 percent, continue to believe in the immortality of the soul."10. Differentiates dualism from the materialistic hypothesis. "In sharp contrast, dualism is defined negatively. When dualists tell us that the soul is nonphysical or immaterial, they do not tell us what it is, they tell us what it is not."11. Explains ways how scientists evaluate evidence. "In English, the word evidence is often used with different meanings in ordinary parlance and in scientific discourse. All decisive evidence is evidence, but not everything that people call evidence counts as decisive evidence. And if we want to avoid fooling ourselves, decisive evidence is what we need to learn to recognize."12. Provides many interesting examples of soul advocates pushing their dualistic beliefs. Examines four families of soul claims: a. introspection, b. near-death experiences, c. appeal to recalcitrant phenomena like free will and consciousness, and d. attempts to argue that modern physics can be interpreted as lending support to the soul hypothesis. Great stuff!13. The concept of a soul in a nutshell. "There is no scientifically credible evidence for the detachability of body and mind... Worse, the concept of an immaterial soul substance has no useful formulation, if it even has a coherent one, and it is therefore utterly devoid of any explanatory power."14. Some statements are resounding. "If the term soul is simply a name that we give to our ignorance, it is no wonder that dualism still hasn't gotten off the ground as an explanatory framework more than two thousand years after it was proposed by philosophers like Plato." "What they really want to say is that the mind is separate from the body and can operate independently from it. This is what we called the detachability of mind and body. But calling the mind immaterial because it is an abstraction is not the same as showing that it can operate independently from the body. In the end, this last option also leads to an impasse for the dualist because it reduces the mental to the physical."15. In defense of materialism. "The materialistic alternative to these soul claims is that our moral sense is the result of biological evolution, and that, like every other human capacity, it has a physical basis in the brain."16. The hard problem, consciousness...discussed. "In asserting that consciousness is independent from matter, Dinesh D'Souza, like Will Ferrell in his parody of George W. Bush, is asking us to believe that facts are neither real nor relevant. We may not know how consciousness arises from neural computation, but there is little doubt that consciousness is intimately related to what goes on in the brain."17. Exposes the science deniers. "In 1999, these sentiments were expressed in a controversial manifesto that surfaced on the Internet. According to the Wedge Document, issued by the Discovery Institute, the goal of a new generation of cultural warriors in America was to "defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies" and "to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."18. The problem of free will.19. Provides meaning in life through scientific materialism.20. Debunks the notion that societies need "God" to flourish. "In sum, the claim that strong theistic beliefs lead to healthier societies is not supported by the data."21. Well-cited book, and formal bibliography.Negatives:1. There is some redundancy. The author does take glee in obliterating D'Souza...oh who am I kidding? I enjoyed that immensely.2. What took him so long to write this book?In summary, I loved this book. It's a treat to read a well-written book that covers a fascinating topic by asking the right questions (philosophy) and by providing the best answers (science) and does so to my satisfaction (logical conclusions). Musolino objectively dismantles the soul hypothesis by making reference to great science, sound reasoning and compelling storytelling. The book is immersed with anecdotes, references to great books and reaches sound conclusions. A hidden gem, a high recommendation!Further suggestions: " Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization " by Stephen Cave, " Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain " Michael S. Gazzaniga, " The Myth of Free Will, Revised & Expanded Edition " by Cris Evatt, " The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature " by Steven Pinker, " The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Shermer, Michael unknown Edition [Hardcover(2011) ]" by Michael Shermer, " Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Reveals about Morality " by Laurence Tancredi," The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life " by Jesse Bering, " 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True " by Guy P. Harrison, " Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts " by Carol Tavris. For the record, I have reviewed all the aforementioned books.

Very well written and an important text

Das Buch ist prall voll mit Argumenten und gut geeignet, jeder Form von dualistischem Glauben den Boden zu entziehen. Sprachlich und argumentativ klar und messerscharf! Es stellt allerdings auch etwas gehobene Ansprüche an die Englischkenntnisse des Lesers. Aber mit einem Wörterbuch daneben war das kein Problem.

A fantastic overview of the soul and why it's not there. Thoughtful and empathetic.mthe book doesn't try to beat you over the head nut takes you by the hand and walks you through the evidence.

I am glad I found this book and followed the author on his journey to why it would be better for humanity to let go of a literal belief in an eternal soul. It helped me become more realistic in my judgements and made life easier as well.

Very enlightening reading, I enjoyed the knowledge this writer shares and how he conveys it to the audience.This book satisfied my expectation in regard to the Soul Fallacy and I am glad I bought it.