Does the Human Soul Weigh 21 grams?

The belief that the human soul weighs 21 grams, stems from experiments conducted by Dr. Duncan MacDougall in the early 20th century. MacDougall attempted to measure the weight change of six terminally ill patients at their moment of death to determine whether there was any mass loss that could be attributed to the soul departing the body. He reported that one subject had a sudden weight loss coinciding with death, approximately 21 grams. He continued further experimentation on dogs, reporting no weight loss in their moment of passing. He therefore derived that, unlike humans, dogs lacked souls. The study received major criticisms because the weight loss could alternatively be explained by a notable increase in sweating due to increased body temperature at the moment of death. Furthermore, this experiment has been widely criticized for its shortcomings such as its insufficient sample size to reflect a realistic population. This means the number of subjects used in the experiment was not enough to make a statement about the population at large. Reproducibility was another problem, meaning that other researchers could not obtain the same results after conducting the same experiment. Furthermore, scientific consensus does not support the notion that the soul has physical weight, thus, MacDougall’s results are generally regarded as scientifically unsupported and unreliable. Therefore, the claim that the human soul weighs 21 grams is not supported by evidence and is considered a pseudoscience. However, the effects of this outdated claim still linger in people’s perceptions to this day. This might be due to popular culture’s continuous referral to this myth, such as in the movie “21 Grams”, the TV series “Ted Lasso”, or Japanese comic books (manga) “Gantz” and “One Piece”.