IN 1907, physician Duncan MacDougall tried to measure the human soul. He placed dying people on scales and weighed them as they passed away. The people supposedly lost an average of 21 grams, which MacDougall – glossing over the uncertainties in his measurements – took to be the soul leaving the body.
Even today people still seek transcendental truths in the scientific study of death. When researchers detected a wave of electrical activity in patients’ brains after their hearts had stopped, the spiritualist Deepak Chopra seized upon the results, arguing that they were evidence that consciousness can endure without…
