Duncan MacDougall (doctor)
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The 21 grams experiment refers to a scientific study published in 1907 by Duncan MacDougall, a physician from
Haverhill, Massachusetts Haverhill ( ) is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. Haverhill is located 35 miles north of Boston on the New Hampshire border and about 17 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. The population was 67,787 at the 2020 United States Cen ...
. MacDougall hypothesized that souls have physical weight, and attempted to measure the mass lost by a human when the soul departed the body. MacDougall attempted to measure the mass change of six patients at the moment of death. One of the six subjects lost three-quarters of an ounce (21.3 grams). MacDougall stated his experiment would have to be repeated many times before any conclusion could be obtained. The experiment is widely regarded as flawed and unscientific due to the small sample size, the methods used, as well as the fact only one of the six subjects met the hypothesis. The case has been cited as an example of
selective reporting In epidemiology, reporting bias is defined as "selective revealing or suppression of information" by subjects (for example about past medical history, smoking, sexual experiences). In artificial intelligence research, the term reporting bias is u ...
. Despite its rejection within the scientific community, MacDougall's experiment popularized the concept that the soul has weight, and specifically that it weighs 21 grams.


Experiment

In 1901, Duncan MacDougall, a physician from
Haverhill, Massachusetts Haverhill ( ) is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. Haverhill is located 35 miles north of Boston on the New Hampshire border and about 17 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. The population was 67,787 at the 2020 United States Cen ...
, who wished to scientifically determine if a soul had weight, identified six patients in nursing homes whose deaths were imminent. Four were suffering from tuberculosis, one from diabetes, and one from unspecified causes. MacDougall specifically chose people who were suffering from conditions that caused physical exhaustion, as he needed the patients to remain still when they died to measure them accurately. When the patients looked like they were close to death, their entire bed was placed on an industrial sized scale that was sensitive within two tenths of an ounce (5.6 grams). On the belief that humans have souls and that animals do not, MacDougall later measured the changes in weight from fifteen dogs after death. MacDougall said he wished to use dogs that were sick or dying for his experiment, though was unable to find any. It is therefore presumed he poisoned healthy dogs.


Results

One of the patients lost weight but then put the weight back on, and two of the other patients registered a loss of weight at death but a few minutes later lost even more weight. One of the patients lost "three-fourths of an ounce" (21.3 grams) in weight, coinciding with the time of death. MacDougall disregarded the results of another patient on the grounds the scales were "not finely adjusted", and discounted the results of another as the patient died while the equipment was still being calibrated. MacDougall said that none of the dogs lost any weight after death. While MacDougall believed that the results from his experiment showed the human soul might have weight, his report, which was not published until 1907, stated the experiment would have to be repeated many times before any conclusion could be obtained.


Reaction

Before MacDougall was able to publish the results of his experiments, '' The New York Times'' broke the story in an article titled "Soul has Weight, Physician Thinks". MacDougall's results were published in April of the same year in the '' Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research'', and the medical journal '' American Medicine''.


Criticism

Following the publication of the experiment in ''American Medicine'', physician Augustus P. Clarke criticized the experiment's validity. Clarke noted that at the time of death there is a sudden rise in body temperature as the lungs are no longer cooling blood, causing a subsequent rise in sweating which could easily account for MacDougall’s missing 21 grams. Clarke also pointed out that, as dogs do not have sweat glands, they would not lose weight in this manner after death. Clarke's criticism was published in the May issue of ''American Medicine''. Arguments between MacDougall and Clarke debating the validity of the experiment continued to be published in the journal until at least December that year. MacDougall's experiment has been rejected by the scientific community, and he has been accused of both flawed methods and outright fraud in obtaining his results. Noting that only one of the six patients measured supported the hypothesis,
Karl Kruszelnicki Karl Sven Woytek Sas Konkovitch Matthew Kruszelnicki (born 1948), often referred to as "Dr Karl", is an Australian science communicator and populariser, who is known as an author and a science commentator on Australian radio and television. K ...
has stated the experiment is a case of
selective reporting In epidemiology, reporting bias is defined as "selective revealing or suppression of information" by subjects (for example about past medical history, smoking, sexual experiences). In artificial intelligence research, the term reporting bias is u ...
, as MacDougall ignored the majority of the results. Kruszelnicki also criticized the small sample size, and questioned how MacDougall was able to determine the exact moment when a person had died considering the technology available at the time. Physicist
Robert L. Park Robert Lee Park (January 16, 1931 – April 29, 2020) was an American emeritus professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a former director of public information at the Washington office of the American Physical Society. ...
has written that MacDougall's experiments "are not regarded today as having any scientific merit", and psychologist Bruce Hood wrote that "because the weight loss was not reliable or replicable, his findings were unscientific". Professor Richard Wiseman said that within the scientific community, the experiment is confined to a "large pile of scientific curiosities labelled 'almost certainly not true'". An article by Snopes in 2013 said the experiment was flawed because the methods used were suspect, the sample size was much too small, and the capability to measure weight changes too imprecise, concluding: "credence should not be given to the idea his experiments proved something, let alone that they measured the weight of the soul as 21 grams." The fact that MacDougall likely poisoned and killed fifteen healthy dogs in an attempt to support his research has also been a source of criticism.


Aftermath

In 1911, ''The New York Times'' reported that MacDougall was hoping to run experiments to take photos of souls, but he appears to not have continued any further research into the area and died in 1920. His experiment has not been repeated.


Similar experiments

In December 2001, physicist Lewis E. Hollander Jr. published an article in '' Journal of Scientific Exploration'' where he exhibited the results of a similar experiment. He tested the weight of one ram, seven ewes, three lambs and one goat at the moment of death, seeking to explore upon MacDougall's purported findings. His experiment showed that seven of the adult sheep varied their weight upon dying, though not losing it, but rather gaining an amount of 18 to 780 grams, which was lost again over time until returning to their initial weight. In 2009, Hollander Jr.'s experiment was subjected to critical review by Masayoshi Ishida in the same journal. Ishida found Hollander's statement of a transient gain of weight was "not an appropriate expression of the experimental result", though he admitted "the cause of the force event remains to be explained". He also warned about possible malfunctions of the weighing platform in two of the cases. Similarly inspired by MacDougall's research, physician Gerard Nahum proposed in 2005 a follow-up experiment, based on utilizing an array of electromagnetic detectors to try to pick up any type of escaping energy at the moment of death. He offered to sell his idea to engineering, physics, and philosophy departments at Yale,
Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
, and
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
, as well as the Catholic Church, but he was rejected.


In popular culture

Despite its rejection as scientific fact, MacDougall's experiment popularized the idea that the soul has weight, and specifically that it weighs 21 grams. The title of the film ''
21 Grams ''21 Grams'' is a 2003 American psychological drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu from a screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga. The film stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Danny Huston and Benicio Del Toro. The seco ...
'' references the experiment. The concept of a soul weighing 21 grams is mentioned in numerous media, including a 2013 issue of the manga '' Gantz'', a 2013 podcast of '' Welcome to Night Vale'', the 2015 film '' The Empire of Corpses'' and a 2021 episode of '' Ted Lasso''. Songs entitled "21 Grams" which reference the weight of a soul have been released by
Niykee Heaton Nicolet Aleta Heaton; born December 4, 1994), better known by her stage name Niykee Heaton, is an American singer, songwriter and model. She was discovered through her YouTube channel after uploading acoustic guitar covers of contemporary hits, ...
(2015), Fedez (2015), August Burns Red (2015) and
Thundamentals Thundamentals are an Australian hip hop group originating from the Blue Mountains region bordering the metropolitan area of Sydney. The members are currently Tuka, Jeswon, and Morgs. They have released five studio albums. History Band origi ...
(2017). Travis Scott references the concept in the song "No Bystanders", released in 2018. MacDougall and his experiments are explicitly mentioned in the 1978 documentary film ''
Beyond and Back ''Beyond and Back'' is a 1978 documentary and "death-sploitation flick"''Beyond and ...
'', and episode five of the first season of '' Dark Matters: Twisted But True''. A fictional American scientist named "Mr. MacDougall" appears in
Gail Carriger Gail Carriger is the pen name of Tofa Borregaard, an author of steampunk fiction and an American archaeologist. She was born in Bolinas, an unincorporated community in Marin County, California, and attended high school at Marin Academy. She ...
's 2009 novel '' Soulless'', as an expert in the weight and measurement of souls.


See also

* Fringe science


References

{{Reflist


External links


Duncan MacDougall's original report
Fringe science Experiments Ghosts