Theos-Talk Archives (November 2005 Message tt00203)

Dr. Ian Stevenson has observed:

"In the study of spontaneous paranormal phenomena we must usually 
interview and cross-question informants about events that have 
happened before we arrive on the scene. In principle, the methods are 
those that lawyers use in reconstructing a crime and historians use in 
understanding the past. Once we have the best account possible of the 
events in question, we consider one by one the alternative 
explanations and try to eliminate them until only the single most 
probable one remains. Then we try with further observations to confirm 
or reject the initially preferred explanation. In addition, we search 
through series of apparently similar phenomena for recurrent features 
that may provide clues to causative conditions and processes of 
occurrence."

This search for recurrent features is also done in many branches of 
science.