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{{short description|American parapsychologist}}
'''Dean Radin''' is a researcher and author in the field of ]. He is Senior Scientist at the ], in ], USA, on the
{{Infobox person
Adjunct Faculty at ], on the Distinguished Consulting Faculty at ], and four-time former President of the ].<ref>http://parapsych.org/history_of_pa_presidents.html History of the PA Presidency Retrieved January 5, 2007</ref><ref>, retrieved on August 14, 2006</ref>
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'''Dean Radin''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|r|eɪ|d|ɪ|n}}<!--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6wfbClhwlU at 0:07-->; born February 29, 1952) investigates phenomena in ]. Following a bachelor and master's degree in ] and a PhD in ] Radin worked at ], as a researcher at ] and the ], and was a faculty member at ]. He then became Chief Scientist at the ] (IONS) in ], USA, later becoming the president of the ].<ref name="Haraldsson">{{cite web|title=History of the Parapsychological Association Presidents|author-link=Erlendur Haraldsson|last=Haraldsson|first= Erlendur|publisher=]|url=http://parapsych.org/history_of_pa_presidents.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030219181924/http://parapsych.org/history_of_pa_presidents.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 19, 2003|access-date=January 30, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Institute Staff|newspaper=Ions |publisher=]|url=http://www.noetic.org/directory/person/dean-radin/|access-date=October 20, 2013}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=October 2022}} He is also co-editor-in-chief of the journal '']''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Explore Editorial board|url=http://explorejournal.com/edboard|access-date=June 19, 2010}}</ref>
Radin's ideas and work have been criticized by scientists and philosophers skeptical of paranormal claims.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Milton|first1=Julie and Richard Wiseman|title=Guidelines for Extrasensory Perception Research (Guidelines for Research in Parapsychology)|date=April 28, 1997|publisher=University Of Hertfordshire Press|isbn=0900458747}}</ref><ref name="Stenger2002">{{cite journal|last=Stenger|first=Victor J.|title=Meta-Analysis and the Filedrawer Effect|journal=]|date=2002|volume= 12|url=http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/meta-analysis_and_the_filedrawer_effect|access-date=October 24, 2013|author-link=Victor J Stenger}}</ref><ref name="Carroll">{{cite web|url=http://skepdic.com/refuge/entangledreview.html |title=Entangled Minds by Dean Radin - Book Review |publisher= ] |access-date=2014-08-09}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Krippner|first1=Stanley| author1-link = Stanley Krippner|author2=Harris L. Friedman |title=Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential Or Human Illusion?|date=2010|publisher=]|isbn=978-0313392610}}</ref> The review of Radin's first book, ''The Conscious Universe'', that appeared in '']'' charged that Radin ignored the known hoaxes in the field, made ] and ignored plausible ] explanations for parapsychological data.<ref name="good97">{{Cite journal| last1 = Good | first1 = I. J.| title = Where has the billion trillion gone?| journal = ]| volume = 389| issue = 2| pages = 806–807| year = 1997| doi = 10.1038/39784|bibcode = 1997Natur.389..806G | s2cid = 2001477| doi-access = free}}</ref>


==Biography== ==Education==
Radin earned an ] degree in ] from the ], and earned both a ] in electrical engineering and a ] in ] from the ] at Urbana-Champaign.<ref name="autobio">http://www.deanradin.com/NewWeb/bio.html Biography on Dean Radin's own website retrieved on August 14, 2006</ref> Following a career in classical violin, Radin went on to earn an ] degree in electrical engineering from the ], as well as both a ] in electrical engineering and a ] in ] from the ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.harpercollins.com/author/microsite/about.aspx?authorid=7963 |title=Author Listings: HarperCollins Publishers |publisher=] |access-date=2014-07-12}}</ref> After his graduation, Radin worked at Bell Labs, and then conducted research at ], GTE Laboratories, ], SRI International, Interval Research Corporation, and was a faculty member at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.<ref name="Haraldsson"/>{{better source needed|date=October 2022}}


==Parapsychology==
He worked at ] ] and ], mainly on human factors of advanced ] products and services, and then held appointments at ], ], ], ], ], and Boundary Institute. At these facilities he was engaged in basic research on exceptional human capacities, principally ].<ref name="autobio" />
Radin was elected president of the ] in 1988, 1993, 1998, and 2005, and has published a number of articles and papers supporting the existence of ] phenomena, as well as two books directed to a popular audience: ''The Conscious Universe'' and ''Entangled Minds''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://archived.parapsych.org/members/d_radin.html |title=Dean Radin |publisher=Archived.parapsych.org |access-date=2014-07-12 |archive-date=2014-02-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140209093834/http://archived.parapsych.org/members/d_radin.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Radin believes that parapsychology is as repeatable as any scientific discipline, but that it is also, as paraphrased by sociologist ], "elusive, subtle and complex", a field of study that is "difficult to replicate" and that "our understanding of it is incomplete".<ref name=PhilOfPseudoscience>{{cite book|last1=Pigliucci |first1=Massimo |author-link1=Massimo Pigliucci |last2=Boudry |first2=Maarten |author-link2=Maarten Boudry|title=Philosophy of pseudoscience : reconsidering the demarcation problem|date=2013|publisher=]|location=Chicago |isbn=9780226051796}}</ref>{{rp|157}}


Radin's paranormal claims have been rejected by those in the skeptical and mainstream scientific communities, some of whom have suggested that Radin's beliefs embrace ] and that he misunderstands the ].<ref name=PhilOfPseudoscience />{{rp|158}}<ref>Smith, Jonathan (2009). . Wiley-Blackwell. {{ISBN|978-1405181228}}. Retrieved October 22, 2013.</ref><ref name="Park2000">] (2000). '']''. Oxford University Press. pp. 196-200. {{ISBN|0-19-860443-2}}</ref> The physicist ] has written "No proof of psychic phenomena is ever found. In spite of all the tests devised by parapsychologists like ] and Radin, and huge amounts of data collected over a period of many years, the results are no more convincing today than when they began their experiments."<ref name="Park2000"/>
In 1988, 1993, 1998, and 2005 Radin was the elected President of the ], an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published numerous scientific papers,<ref>http://www.deanradin.com/NewWeb/activitiespubs.html</ref> as well as articles and books written for a popular audience: ''The Conscious Universe'' (1997) and ''Entangled Minds'' (2006).<ref>http://www.deanradin.com/NewWeb/activities.html Bibliography on Dean Radin's website retrieved August 14, 2006</ref>


] criticized Radin for his selective historical overview of parapsychology and for ignoring clear evidence of fraud. French recounts that the medium ] was caught in acts of trickery and two of the ] confessed to fraud, but that Radin did not mention this fact.<ref>] (2010). ''Missing the Point?''. In Stanley Krippner, Harris L. Friedman. . Praeger. {{ISBN|978-0313392610}}. Retrieved October 22, 2013.</ref> Radin has claimed the results from parapsychological research are as consistent by the same standards as any other scientific discipline, but ] has written that many parapsychologists disagree with this, openly admitting that the evidence for parapsychology is "inconsistent, irreproducible, and fails to meet acceptable scientific standards".<ref>{{cite web|author=Ray Hyman |url=http://www.csicop.org/si/show/anomalous_cognition_a_second_perspective/ |title=Anomalous Cognition? A Second Perspective |website=csicop.org |date=July 2008 |access-date=2014-07-12|author-link=Ray Hyman }}</ref>
''The Conscious Universe'' (1997, HarperCollins) was awarded Amazon com's 1998 Category Bestseller Award, the Scientific and Medical Network 1997 Book Award, and the Anomalist's 1997 Book Award, and as of 2006 it is in its 16th printing. It has proved to be popular and has been translated into Turkish, Korean and French, with several other translations under way. In January, 1998, Nobel Laureate physicist ] wrote in the (British newspaper), the Guardian: "If asked to nominate the most significant scientific event of 1997, I would cite the publication of this book." ''Entangled Minds'' is being translated into Romanian, Portuguese and Japanese (as of December 2006). Nobel Laureate ] has added ''Entangled Minds'' to his list of recommended books on his website.<ref>www.karymullis.com recommended reading list</ref>


Radin and his colleagues have suggested that small-scale studies have produced a "genuine ] effect",<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Radin|first1=Dean|last2=Nelson|first2=Roger|last3=Dobyns|first3=York|last4=Houtkopper|first4=Joop|title=Reexamining psychokinesis: Comment on Bösch, Steinkamp, and Boller (2006)|journal=]|date=Jul 2006|volume=132|issue=4|pages=529–532|doi=10.1037/0033-2909.132.4.529 |pmid=16822164 |url=http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2006-08436-003|access-date=14 July 2014}}</ref> but critics have asserted that Radin has not shown evidence that the ] of such an effect could be confidently rejected.<ref>Wilson, David B.; Shadish, William R. (2006). (2006). '']'' 132: 524-528.</ref><ref name="Bower2006">{{cite web|url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mind-matter-data-analysis-challenges-psychokinesis |title=From Mind to Matter: Data analysis challenges psychokinesis |publisher=Science News |date=2006-07-19 |access-date=2014-07-12}}</ref> Further, psychologists David B. Wilson and William R. Shadish, writing in '']'', criticized claims made by Radin and his associates that human minds can psychically influence random number generators, saying that parapsychologists "need to go beyond statistics and explain how the mind might influence a computer, then test that prediction".<ref name="Bower2006"/> Radin has appealed to ] as a mechanism, claiming that it can explain the non-locality and backward causality associated with psi phenomena, though such ideas are harshly criticized by many physicists who study quantum mechanics as being ].<ref name=PhilOfPseudoscience />{{efn|See also ] and ]}}<ref name="Carroll" /><ref name=npr2009>{{cite web
== Research and Controversy ==
| url = https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104351710
| publisher = ]
| title = Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?
| series = The Science of Spirituality
| author = ]
| date = 2009-05-21
| quote = The 'Quantum Entanglement' Of Love: So how do you explain this? No one really knows. But Radin and a few others think that a theory known as "quantum entanglement" may offer some clues.
}}</ref> Radin has written that not all people experience paranormal phenomena (or see ]) because they block such signals due to the process of ].<ref>] (2006). {{dead link|date=February 2017}}. '']''. Monday October 30. p. 26</ref><ref>Radin, Dean. ''Entangled Minds'', Paraview Pocket Books, New York, 2006</ref>


==Books==
Radin's ] is regarded as scientifically controversial, and as such Radin has been a target of skeptics who assert that parapsychology is a ]<ref>http://www.skepticreport.com/pseudoscience/radinbook.htm ''Skeptic Report'' A detailed skeptical review of Dean Radin's ''The Conscious Universe'' by Morten Monrad Pedersen</ref><ref>http://skepticreport.com/pseudoscience/radin2002.htm ''An Evening with Dean Radin'' by Claus Larsen, a critical examination of Radin's research methodology</ref> despite the fact that the ] is a bona fide affiliate of the largest scientific organization in the world, the ]. Radin, and many other scientists over the past century, have responded to criticisms with additional research.<ref>http://anson.ucdavis.edu/%7Eutts/air2.html An Assessment for the Evidence For Psychic Functioning by Jessica Utts, 1995</ref><ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_2_63/ai_58517910/pg_1 ''The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena,'' book review by Richard Broughton '', The Journal of Parapsychology, June, 1999</ref><ref>http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/psi/tucson.html The Paranormal: The Evidence and its Implications for Consciousness by Jessica Utts and Brian D. Josephson, 1996 </ref>
While Radin's books have been reviewed favorably by groups that give general reviews such as '']'' and '']'',<ref name="publishersweekly1">{{cite web|url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-307-98690-0 |title=Nonfiction Book Review: Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities by Dean Radin|date=16 July 2013 |publisher=] |access-date=2014-07-23}}</ref><ref name=Kirkus>{{cite web|last=Love |first=Robert |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/dean-radin/supernormal/ |title=SUPERNORMAL by Dean Radin |publisher=]|date=2013-07-16 |access-date=2014-07-24}}</ref> independent reviews by scientists and ], as cited below, have often been negative.


===''The Conscious Universe''===
Radin has conducted research on how significant events which capture the attention of many people may affect ]s, including events such as the September 11 terrorist attacks, the announcement of the ] verdict, a ], and the American ] presentations.<ref>''The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena'' by Dean Radin, 1997 </ref> Other publications report analytical studies on how lunar cycles may affect psi and winning at gambling casinos,<ref>''Seeking psi in the casino.'' Radin, C.I. & Rebman, J. M. (1998), Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 62 (850), 193-219</ref> meta-analyses of experiments studying mind-matter interactions on the fall of dice and random events, experimental tests of "presentiment" effects in the autonomic and central nervous system, EEG correlations between distant dyads, effects of distant intention on physiology, and models of mind-matter interaction. Many of his reports can be found in peer-reviewed journals.<ref>see http://www.deanradin.com/NewWeb/activitiespubs.html for a list of publications</ref>
A critical review of ''The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena'' (1997)<ref>{{cite book|last1=Radin|first1=Dean I.|title=The conscious universe : the scientific truth of psychic phenomena|date=2009|publisher=HarperOne|location=New York|isbn=978-0061778995|edition=1st HarperCollins pbk.}}</ref>{{efn|In Great Britain this book is titled ''The Noetic Universe''.}} was published by the British mathematician ] in '']''. Good wrote about flaws in Radin's method for evaluating the ]. He stated that the book avoided mentioning the evidence of fraud in parapsychology.<ref name="good97"/> Radin replied to Good in a follow-up letter in the correspondence pages of ''Nature'', saying that Good in his review had misinterpreted a reference to a probability value. Good replied, saying that most readers would not arrive at the same interpretation of what Radin had written noting that readers would be surprised to learn that by "more than a billion trillion", Radin meant more than 10<sup>100</sup>". Further, Good noted that the file drawer effect does not account for intentional fraud, as was very probably the case with prominent ESP proponents such as ], nor is there any real means of estimating such "intellectual, observational or ethical lapses" within ESP.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Radin | first1 = D. | title = Extrasensory statistics | last2 = Good | first2 = I. J. | journal = Nature | volume = 394 | issue = 6692 | page = 413 | year = 1998 | doi = 10.1038/28721 | bibcode = 1998Natur.394..413R | s2cid = 5349010 | doi-access = free }}</ref> In 2002, ] gave a criticism of ''The Conscious Universe'' that aligned with Good's arguments that Radin did not perform the file-drawer analysis correctly, made fundamental errors in his calculations, and ignored non-paranormal explanations for the data.<ref name="Stenger2002"/>


The book was reviewed by the philosopher and skeptic ] in a thirteen-page chapter-by-chapter critique which noted how Radin had not cited the skeptical literature on the subject of parapsychology. Carroll stated that Radin had ignored "the many hoaxes and frauds that dot the landscape in the history of psi research."<ref name=Todd>* {{cite web|title=The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin - Book Review|first= Robert T.|last= Carroll|author-link=Robert T. Carroll|publisher=]|url=http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/radin1.html|access-date=January 30, 2010}}</ref>
Radin's last experiment before he left UNLV in 1997 consisted of Umbanda mediums (spiritual healers in Brazil) who attempted to affect the nervous systems of American subjects six thousand miles away at UNLV. In an interview, Radin stated that the reason his contract wasn't renewed was because of pressure from the university administration, which was hoping to enhance the image of UNLV as a serious university. ] was to take his place in 1998.<ref></ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://users.lycaeum.org/~maverick/radin.htm |title=David Jay Brown Interview with Dean Radin |accessdate=2007-04-05}}</ref>


===''Supernormal''===
According to Radin, the probable reality of ] was scientifically established by the US government's ].<ref>http://deanradin.blogspot.com/ Weird Science 12 Jun 2006 </ref><ref> ''Time magazine: The Vision Thing,'' by Douglas Waller, Washington, 11 Dec 1995, p. 48 </ref> Radin worked on a remote viewing project with former military remote viewer ] in 1996.<ref>http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/hambone/people1.html People / Researchers: Joseph McMoneagle, Dean Radin, Also a list of some of the top names in parapsychology research </ref><ref>''Captain of My Ship: Master of Soul'' by F. Holmes Atwater, Joseph McMoneagle, Dean Radin, Skip Atwater, Hamptons Road Publishing Co., 2001</ref><ref> ''The Ultimate Time Machine: A Remote Viewer's Perception of Time and Predictions For the New Millennium by Joseph McMoneagle and Charles T. Tart, Hampton Roads Publishing Co., 1998</ref><ref>http://deanradin.blogspot.com/ Weird Science 12 Jun 2006 </ref><ref>http://www.enlightenment.com/media/index.html An Enlightenment Interview with Dean Radin, Ph.D., 17 Sept 1998</ref> Despite his own skepticism about claims of ], Radin recounted in a recent interview how he bent the bowl of a heavy soup spoon<ref>http://www.skeptiko.com/index.php?id=9 Dean Radin interview on the perils of psi research and his spoon bending experience - 1/28/2007</ref> using a gentle touch at a ] party.
Radin's book ''Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities'' (2013), argues support for psychic phenomena, linking them to the ]s from yoga-related legends.<ref name="publishersweekly1"/><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.sfgate.com/living/article/Parapsychology-researcher-Dean-Radin-on-ESP-2503036.php|title=Parapsychology researcher Dean Radin on ESP, spirituality, and how the consciousness of individuals is connected|last=Miller|first=David Ian|work=]|date=2008-02-25|access-date=2014-03-29}}</ref> Publishers Weekly has reviewed it, saying of the book, that it is "unfocused and opaque at times" but "nevertheless an admirable attempt to bridge the gap between the scientific and the spiritual realm".<ref name="publishersweekly1"/> The anonymous review by '']'' gave it a positive review saying "certainly not for everyone, but a smart reminder that we haven’t got the whole scene covered".<ref name=Kirkus/>


Dale DeBakcsy, writing for the '']'', a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, reviewed ''Supernormal'' and criticized the work as "misrepresenting report data, lowering success criteria, and playing a somewhat loose game with how rigorously confidence information is presented". Debakcsy examined Radin's claim that a ] of ] published in parapsychological literature showed that Psi effects were present above chance to a probability of 10<sup>15</sup> to 1, noting that the study also reported that results varied wildly with an extremely unusual ], such that they dropped 10% of the most extreme variations which reduced the effect size. According to DeBakcsy, Radin chose not to report those variations.
==Dean Radin and the Indian Rope Trick==
When it comes to the famous ] Radin says," There are all these classic cases of the fakirs throwing the rope in the air and the little boy climbs up to the top and disappears and all kinds of magical things happen. All the Easterners see it and will swear up and down that they saw it, whereas the Westerners see nothing. They were watching the fakir just stand there with his arms folded and the little boy standing there and the rope is on the ground and nothing happened." Radin's explanation is the fakir ''melted minds''.<ref> Enlightenment Interview with Dean Radin See: ''The Weight of Credulity''</ref>


Debakcsy also criticized Radin's characterization of the results of a free-response experiment conducted at Princeton. Radin cited a test subject's response when asked to describe the future location of a distant agent:
==Trivia==
<blockquote>"A rather strange yet persistent image of inside a large bowl—a hemispheric indentation in the ground of some smooth man-made materials like concrete or cement. No color. Possibly covered with a glass dome. Unusual sense of inside/outside simultaneity. That’s all. It’s a large bowl. If it was full of soup would be the size of a large dumpling!"</blockquote>
Radin wrote that the subject's response "successfully" described the actual randomly selected location of the distant agent: the ]. Debakcsy noted that there are several radio telescopes at ], such as the ], but that telescope does not match the description given. DeBakcsy contends that, while the ] has some similar characteristics, it also differs in several aspects from the subject's description. DeBakcsy further commented that, considering this is the best example out of 653 possible other tests made at Princeton, it is quite poor. Noting the spread of meta-analyses of the same studies (where the individual studies are weighted differently), have wildly varying odds returned (from trillions to one, to indistinguishable from chance), DeBakcsy argues that this undermines the reliance on meta-analysis in the work since they lack standardization.<ref name=CSI>* {{cite web|author=Dale DeBakcsy |url=http://www.csicop.org/si/show/when_big_evidence_isnt_the_statistical_pitfalls_of_dean_radins_supernormal |title=When Big Evidence Isn't: The Statistical Pitfalls of Dean Radin's Supernormal |website=csicop.org |date=January 2014 |access-date=2014-07-12}}</ref>


===Other books===
*Radin resides in ].
* ''Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality'' (Paraview / ], 2006) {{ISBN|9781416516774}}
*Radin was a professional classical ] in his youth.
** Second edition: ], 2009. {{ISBN|9781439187937}}
*Radin is featured in the 2006 release of '']-Down the Rabbit Hole''.
* ''The Noetic Universe'' (], 2011) {{ISBN|9781446438886}} (British version of ''The Conscious Universe'')
* ''Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe'' ], 2018) {{ISBN|9781524758820}}

==Notes==
{{notelist}}


==References== ==References==
{{reflist|30em}}


==External links==
<div class="references-small">
* {{Official website|http://www.deanradin.org/}}
<references/>
* {{IMDb name|2119510}}
</div>
* {{cite web|title=Book Review: Dean Radin, "The Conscious Universe"|author=Pedersen, Morten Monrad|website=SkepticReport|date=January 1, 2004|url=http://skepticreport.com/sr/?p=537|access-date=2010-01-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807102814/http://www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=537|archive-date=2011-08-07|url-status=dead}}
* {{cite web|title=Entangled Minds by Dean Radin - Book Review|author-link=Robert T. Carroll |first= Robert T.|last= Carroll|website=]|url=http://skepdic.com/refuge/entangledreview.html|access-date=January 30, 2010}}


{{Authority control}}

==See also==
*]

==External links==
* - Contains a blog and various resources to do with his work
* provided by ''Shift in Action'', sponsored by the ]


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Latest revision as of 06:10, 24 April 2024

American parapsychologist
Dean Radin
Born1952 (age 71–72)
EducationBS in Electrical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst
OccupationParapsychologist
Musical career
GenresClassical
InstrumentViolin
Musical artist

Dean Radin (/ˈreɪdɪn/; born February 29, 1952) investigates phenomena in parapsychology. Following a bachelor and master's degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in educational psychology Radin worked at Bell Labs, as a researcher at Princeton University and the University of Edinburgh, and was a faculty member at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He then became Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Petaluma, California, USA, later becoming the president of the Parapsychological Association. He is also co-editor-in-chief of the journal Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing. Radin's ideas and work have been criticized by scientists and philosophers skeptical of paranormal claims. The review of Radin's first book, The Conscious Universe, that appeared in Nature charged that Radin ignored the known hoaxes in the field, made statistical errors and ignored plausible non-paranormal explanations for parapsychological data.

Education

Following a career in classical violin, Radin went on to earn an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as both a master's degree in electrical engineering and a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After his graduation, Radin worked at Bell Labs, and then conducted research at Princeton University, GTE Laboratories, University of Edinburgh, SRI International, Interval Research Corporation, and was a faculty member at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Parapsychology

Radin was elected president of the Parapsychological Association in 1988, 1993, 1998, and 2005, and has published a number of articles and papers supporting the existence of paranormal phenomena, as well as two books directed to a popular audience: The Conscious Universe and Entangled Minds. Radin believes that parapsychology is as repeatable as any scientific discipline, but that it is also, as paraphrased by sociologist Erich Goode, "elusive, subtle and complex", a field of study that is "difficult to replicate" and that "our understanding of it is incomplete".

Radin's paranormal claims have been rejected by those in the skeptical and mainstream scientific communities, some of whom have suggested that Radin's beliefs embrace pseudoscience and that he misunderstands the nature of science. The physicist Robert L. Park has written "No proof of psychic phenomena is ever found. In spite of all the tests devised by parapsychologists like Jahn and Radin, and huge amounts of data collected over a period of many years, the results are no more convincing today than when they began their experiments."

Chris French criticized Radin for his selective historical overview of parapsychology and for ignoring clear evidence of fraud. French recounts that the medium Florence Cook was caught in acts of trickery and two of the Fox sisters confessed to fraud, but that Radin did not mention this fact. Radin has claimed the results from parapsychological research are as consistent by the same standards as any other scientific discipline, but Ray Hyman has written that many parapsychologists disagree with this, openly admitting that the evidence for parapsychology is "inconsistent, irreproducible, and fails to meet acceptable scientific standards".

Radin and his colleagues have suggested that small-scale studies have produced a "genuine psychokinetic effect", but critics have asserted that Radin has not shown evidence that the null hypothesis of such an effect could be confidently rejected. Further, psychologists David B. Wilson and William R. Shadish, writing in Psychological Bulletin, criticized claims made by Radin and his associates that human minds can psychically influence random number generators, saying that parapsychologists "need to go beyond statistics and explain how the mind might influence a computer, then test that prediction". Radin has appealed to quantum mechanics as a mechanism, claiming that it can explain the non-locality and backward causality associated with psi phenomena, though such ideas are harshly criticized by many physicists who study quantum mechanics as being pseudoscientific. Radin has written that not all people experience paranormal phenomena (or see ghosts) because they block such signals due to the process of latent inhibition.

Books

While Radin's books have been reviewed favorably by groups that give general reviews such as Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, independent reviews by scientists and skeptics, as cited below, have often been negative.

The Conscious Universe

A critical review of The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena (1997) was published by the British mathematician I. J. Good in Nature. Good wrote about flaws in Radin's method for evaluating the file-drawer effect. He stated that the book avoided mentioning the evidence of fraud in parapsychology. Radin replied to Good in a follow-up letter in the correspondence pages of Nature, saying that Good in his review had misinterpreted a reference to a probability value. Good replied, saying that most readers would not arrive at the same interpretation of what Radin had written noting that readers would be surprised to learn that by "more than a billion trillion", Radin meant more than 10". Further, Good noted that the file drawer effect does not account for intentional fraud, as was very probably the case with prominent ESP proponents such as Samuel Soal, nor is there any real means of estimating such "intellectual, observational or ethical lapses" within ESP. In 2002, Victor J. Stenger gave a criticism of The Conscious Universe that aligned with Good's arguments that Radin did not perform the file-drawer analysis correctly, made fundamental errors in his calculations, and ignored non-paranormal explanations for the data.

The book was reviewed by the philosopher and skeptic Robert Todd Carroll in a thirteen-page chapter-by-chapter critique which noted how Radin had not cited the skeptical literature on the subject of parapsychology. Carroll stated that Radin had ignored "the many hoaxes and frauds that dot the landscape in the history of psi research."

Supernormal

Radin's book Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities (2013), argues support for psychic phenomena, linking them to the siddhis from yoga-related legends. Publishers Weekly has reviewed it, saying of the book, that it is "unfocused and opaque at times" but "nevertheless an admirable attempt to bridge the gap between the scientific and the spiritual realm". The anonymous review by Kirkus Reviews gave it a positive review saying "certainly not for everyone, but a smart reminder that we haven’t got the whole scene covered".

Dale DeBakcsy, writing for the Skeptical Inquirer, a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, reviewed Supernormal and criticized the work as "misrepresenting report data, lowering success criteria, and playing a somewhat loose game with how rigorously confidence information is presented". Debakcsy examined Radin's claim that a meta-analysis of forced choice recognition published in parapsychological literature showed that Psi effects were present above chance to a probability of 10 to 1, noting that the study also reported that results varied wildly with an extremely unusual standard deviation, such that they dropped 10% of the most extreme variations which reduced the effect size. According to DeBakcsy, Radin chose not to report those variations.

Debakcsy also criticized Radin's characterization of the results of a free-response experiment conducted at Princeton. Radin cited a test subject's response when asked to describe the future location of a distant agent:

"A rather strange yet persistent image of inside a large bowl—a hemispheric indentation in the ground of some smooth man-made materials like concrete or cement. No color. Possibly covered with a glass dome. Unusual sense of inside/outside simultaneity. That’s all. It’s a large bowl. If it was full of soup would be the size of a large dumpling!"

Radin wrote that the subject's response "successfully" described the actual randomly selected location of the distant agent: the Radio telescope at Kitt Peak. Debakcsy noted that there are several radio telescopes at Kitt Peak, such as the Very Long Baseline Array, but that telescope does not match the description given. DeBakcsy contends that, while the ARO 12m Radio Telescope has some similar characteristics, it also differs in several aspects from the subject's description. DeBakcsy further commented that, considering this is the best example out of 653 possible other tests made at Princeton, it is quite poor. Noting the spread of meta-analyses of the same studies (where the individual studies are weighted differently), have wildly varying odds returned (from trillions to one, to indistinguishable from chance), DeBakcsy argues that this undermines the reliance on meta-analysis in the work since they lack standardization.

Other books

Notes

  1. See also Quantum mysticism and Quantum mind
  2. In Great Britain this book is titled The Noetic Universe.

References

  1. ^ Haraldsson, Erlendur. "History of the Parapsychological Association Presidents". Parapsychological Association. Archived from the original on February 19, 2003. Retrieved January 30, 2010.
  2. "Institute Staff". Ions. Institute of Noetic Sciences. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
  3. "Explore Editorial board". Retrieved June 19, 2010.
  4. Milton, Julie and Richard Wiseman (April 28, 1997). Guidelines for Extrasensory Perception Research (Guidelines for Research in Parapsychology). University Of Hertfordshire Press. ISBN 0900458747.
  5. ^ Stenger, Victor J. (2002). "Meta-Analysis and the Filedrawer Effect". Skeptical Inquirer. 12. Retrieved October 24, 2013.
  6. ^ "Entangled Minds by Dean Radin - Book Review". The Skeptic's Dictionary. Retrieved 2014-08-09.
  7. Krippner, Stanley; Harris L. Friedman (2010). Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential Or Human Illusion?. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0313392610.
  8. ^ Good, I. J. (1997). "Where has the billion trillion gone?". Nature. 389 (2): 806–807. Bibcode:1997Natur.389..806G. doi:10.1038/39784. S2CID 2001477.
  9. "Author Listings: HarperCollins Publishers". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2014-07-12.
  10. "Dean Radin". Archived.parapsych.org. Archived from the original on 2014-02-09. Retrieved 2014-07-12.
  11. ^ Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten (2013). Philosophy of pseudoscience : reconsidering the demarcation problem. Chicago : Univ. of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226051796.
  12. Smith, Jonathan (2009). Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker's Toolkit. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1405181228. Retrieved October 22, 2013.
  13. ^ Park, Robert (2000). Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Oxford University Press. pp. 196-200. ISBN 0-19-860443-2
  14. French, Chris (2010). Missing the Point?. In Stanley Krippner, Harris L. Friedman. Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential Or Human Illusion?. Praeger. ISBN 978-0313392610. Retrieved October 22, 2013.
  15. Ray Hyman (July 2008). "Anomalous Cognition? A Second Perspective". csicop.org. Retrieved 2014-07-12.
  16. Radin, Dean; Nelson, Roger; Dobyns, York; Houtkopper, Joop (Jul 2006). "Reexamining psychokinesis: Comment on Bösch, Steinkamp, and Boller (2006)". APA PsycNET. 132 (4): 529–532. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.4.529. PMID 16822164. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
  17. Wilson, David B.; Shadish, William R. (2006). "On blowing trumpets to the tulips: To prove or not to prove the null hypothesis--Comment on Bösch, Steinkamp, and Boller" (2006). Psychological Bulletin 132: 524-528.
  18. ^ "From Mind to Matter: Data analysis challenges psychokinesis". Science News. 2006-07-19. Retrieved 2014-07-12.
  19. Barbara Bradley Hagerty (2009-05-21). "Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?". The Science of Spirituality. National Public Radio. The 'Quantum Entanglement' Of Love: So how do you explain this? No one really knows. But Radin and a few others think that a theory known as "quantum entanglement" may offer some clues.
  20. Blum, Deborah (2006). "Team won't give up the ghost". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Monday October 30. p. 26
  21. Radin, Dean. Entangled Minds, Paraview Pocket Books, New York, 2006
  22. ^ "Nonfiction Book Review: Supernormal: Science, Yoga, and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities by Dean Radin". Publishers Weekly. 16 July 2013. Retrieved 2014-07-23.
  23. ^ Love, Robert (2013-07-16). "SUPERNORMAL by Dean Radin". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2014-07-24.
  24. Radin, Dean I. (2009). The conscious universe : the scientific truth of psychic phenomena (1st HarperCollins pbk. ed.). New York: HarperOne. ISBN 978-0061778995.
  25. Radin, D.; Good, I. J. (1998). "Extrasensory statistics". Nature. 394 (6692): 413. Bibcode:1998Natur.394..413R. doi:10.1038/28721. S2CID 5349010.
  26. * Carroll, Robert T. "The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin - Book Review". The Skeptic's Dictionary. Retrieved January 30, 2010.
  27. Miller, David Ian (2008-02-25). "Parapsychology researcher Dean Radin on ESP, spirituality, and how the consciousness of individuals is connected". SF Gate. Retrieved 2014-03-29.
  28. * Dale DeBakcsy (January 2014). "When Big Evidence Isn't: The Statistical Pitfalls of Dean Radin's Supernormal". csicop.org. Retrieved 2014-07-12.

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