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Hubert Pearce
Joseph Gaither Pratt (August 31, 1910 – November 3, 1979) was an American psychologist who specialized in the field of parapsychology. Among his research interests were extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, mediumship and poltergeists. Much of Pratt's research was conducted while he was associated with J. B. Rhine's Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University (1932–1964), and he also conducted research while associated with Columbia University (1935–1937), under Gardner Murphy, and the University of Virginia (1964–1975). Pratt was co-experimenter in the Pearce–Pratt and Pratt–Woodruff tests that are considered by some parapsychologists to have provided evidence for psi, though critics discovered flaws in the experiments. Hansel, C. E. M. (1980). ''ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Re-Evaluation''. Prometheus Books. pp. 125–140. Stenger, Victor J. (1990). ''Physics and Psychics: The Search for a World Beyond the Senses''. Prometheus Books. pp. 171–174. He was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parapsychology
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. Criticized as being a pseudoscience, the majority of mainstream scientists reject it. Parapsychology has also been criticised by mainstream critics for many of its practitioners claiming that their studies are plausible in spite of there being no convincing evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research. Parapsychology research rarely appears in mainstream scientific journals; instead, most papers about parapsychology are published in a small number of niche journals. Terminology The term ''parapsychology'' was coined in 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir as the German . It was adopted by J. B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extrasensory Perception
Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as intuition, telepathy, psychometry, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, empathy and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition. Second sight is a form of extrasensory perception, whereby a person perceives information, in the form of a vision, about future events before they happen (precognition), or about things or events at remote locations (remote viewing). There is no evidence that second sight exists. Reports of second sight are known only from anecdotes. Second sight and ESP are classified as pseudosciences. History In the 1930s, at Duke University in North Carolina, J. B. Rhine and his wife Louisa E. Rhine conducted an investigation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frontier Science Of The Mind
A frontier is the political and geographical area near or beyond a boundary. A frontier can also be referred to as a "front". The term came from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"—the region of a country that fronts on another country (see also marches). Unlike a border—a rigid and clear-cut form of state boundary—in the most general sense a frontier can be fuzzy or diffuse. For example, the frontier between the Eastern United States and the Old West in the 1800s was an area where European American settlements gradually thinned out and gave way to Native American settlements or uninhabited land. The frontier was not always a single continuous area, as California and various large cities were populated before the land that connected those to the East. Frontiers and borders also imply different geopolitical strategies. In Ancient Rome, the Roman Republic experienced a period of active expansion and creating new frontiers. From the reign of Augus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady Wonder
Lady Wonder (February 9, 1924 – March 19, 1957) was a mare some claimed to have psychic abilities and be able to perform intellectually demanding tasks such as arithmetic and spelling. Lady's owner, Claudia E. Fonda, trained her to operate a device that she used to spell out answers to the more than 150,000 visitors. Nickell, Joe. (2002)"Psychic Pets and Pet Psychics" Csicop.org. Retrieved 2014-10-11. Lady was said to have predicted the outcome of boxing fights and political elections, and was consulted by the police in criminal investigations. The parapsychologist researcher J. B. Rhine investigated Lady's alleged abilities and concluded that there was evidence for extrasensory perception between human and horse. The magicians and skeptical investigators Milbourne Christopher and John Scarne showed that Lady's prediction abilities resulted from Mrs. Fonda employing mentalism tricks and signaling the answers to Lady. Life and activity Lady was born on February 9, 1924. Clare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kendrick Frazier
Kendrick Crosby Frazier (March 19, 1942 – November 7, 2022) was an American science writer and longtime editor of ''Skeptical Inquirer'' magazine. He was also a former editor of '' Science News'', author or editor of ten books, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was a fellow and a member of the executive council of Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), an international organization which promotes scientific inquiry. Frazier wrote extensively about a variety of science topics including astronomy, space exploration, the earth and planetary sciences, archaeology, technology, the history and philosophy of science, public issues of science, and the critical examination of pseudoscience and fringe science. Personal life Frazier received a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Colorado and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University. He was a member of the National Association of Science Writers and the American Geophysical Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton.Martin (2010) He was also a leading authority on Lewis Carroll. ''The Annotated Alice'', which incorporated the text of Carroll's two Alice books, was his most successful work and sold over a million copies. He had a lifelong interest in magic and illusion and in 1999, MAGIC magazine named him as one of the "100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century". He was considered the doyen of American puzzlers. He was a prolific and versatile author, publishing more than 100 books. Gardner was best known for creating and sustaining interest in recreational mathematicsand by extension, mathematics in generalthroughout the latter half of the 20th century, principally through his "Mathema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Stevenson
Ian Pretyman Stevenson (October 31, 1918 – February 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American psychiatrist, the founder and director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He was a professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine for fifty years. He was chair of their department of psychiatry from 1957 to 1967, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry from 1967 to 2001, and Research Professor of Psychiatry from 2002 until his death in 2007. As founder and director of the University of Virginia School of Medicine's Division of Perceptual Studies (originally named "Division of Personality Studies"), which investigates the paranormal, Stevenson became known for his research into cases he considered suggestive of reincarnation – the idea that emotions, memories, and even physical bodily features can be passed on from one incarnation to another. In the course of his forty years doing international fieldwork, he researched three thous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gordon Stein
Gordon Stein (April 30, 1941 – August 27, 1996) was an American author, physiologist, and activist for atheism and religious skepticism. Biography Stein was born in New York to Jewish parents, and from an early age took an interest in science. He earned degrees in psychology and zoology, a doctorate in physiology from Ohio State University and master's degrees in Management and Library Science from University of Rochester, Adelphi College, and the University of California at Los Angeles. He was an author of books for secular humanist and rationalist publications, he also was a critic of claims of paranormal phenomena. Stein was an outspoken atheist and publicly debated Christian apologists such as Greg Bahnsen. He served as editor of the '' American Rationalist'' and was the librarian of the Center for Inquiry, which houses both the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH). Stein died of lung c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Kurtz
Paul Kurtz (December 21, 1925 – October 20, 2012) was an American scientific skeptic and Secular humanism, secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism". He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, State University of New York at Buffalo, having previously also taught at Vassar, Trinity, and Union colleges, and the New School for Social Research. Kurtz founded the publishing house Prometheus Books in 1969. He was also the founder and past chairman of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI, formerly the ''Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal'', CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Center for Inquiry. He was editor in chief of ''Free Inquiry'' magazine, a publication of the Council for Secular Humanism. He was co-chair of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) from 1986 to 1994. He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Adva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Sladek
John Thomas Sladek (December 15, 1937 – March 10, 2000) was an American science fiction author, known for his satirical and surreal novels. Life and work Born in Waverly, Iowa, in 1937, Sladek was in England in the 1960s for the New Wave movement and published his first story in the magazine'' New Worlds''. His first science fiction novel, published in London by Gollancz as '' The Reproductive System'' and in the United States as '' Mechasm'', dealt with a project to build machines that build copies of themselves, a process that gets out of hand and threatens to destroy humanity. In '' The Müller-Fokker Effect'', an attempt to preserve human personality on tape likewise goes awry, giving the author a chance to satirize big business, big religion, superpatriotism, and men's magazines, among other things. ''Roderick'' and ''Roderick at Random'' offer the traditional satirical approach of looking at the world through the eyes of an innocent, in this case a robot. Sladek r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane Pratt
Jane Pratt (born November 11, 1962) is the founding editor of '' Sassy'', ''Jane and'' xoJane. She is the host of the talk show ''Jane Radio'' on Sirius XM Radio. Early life Jane Pratt was born in San Francisco, California, to Sheila Marks Blake, an artist, and Vernon Pratt, a minimalist painter and professor of art at Duke University. Her mother grew up in Queens, New York, and her maternal grandfather, Joseph Marks, was a vice-president of the Doubleday publishing company. Her paternal grandfather was Gaither Pratt, a paranormal psychology researcher at the University of Virginia. Pratt's parents were divorced when she was 13. She was raised in Durham, North Carolina, and attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, at the age of 15. After graduating from Phillips Academy, Pratt enrolled at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, where she received a degree in communications with a minor in modern dance. Her publishing career began with internships at ''Rolling Stone'' mag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Soal
Samuel George Soal (1889–1975) was a British mathematician and parapsychologist. He was charged with fraudulent production of data in his work in parapsychology. Biography Soal graduated with first class honours in mathematics from Queen Mary College (then East London College) in 1910. After service in World War I, in which he suffered shelling at the Battle of the Somme, he lectured in mathematics at Oxford in the Army School of Education, before returning as a lecturer to Queen Mary College, University of London. In 1944, he was awarded the D.Sc. from Queen Mary College, where he continued to lecture in mathematics until his retirement in 1954. In 1947, he presented the Ninth Myers Memorial Lecture to the Society for Psychical Research, largely on the topic of the card-guessing experiments he had been recently conducting. He served as president of the Society for the years 1950-1952. He was a Fulbright Scholar in 1951, for which he journeyed to the USA to work with J. G. P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
