Radin, Dean

Dean is Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and former president of the Parapsychological Association. For fifteen years, he has conducted experimental studies of psi phenomena in academia and industry, including appointments at Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, University of Nevada, and SRI International, the latter as a visiting scientist on a classified program of psi research. He is author or co-author of over 200 scientific and popular publications on psi phenomena, including two books, The Conscious Universe and Entangled Minds. He has been interviewed about his research for feature stories in The New York Times Magazine, Psychology Today, Newsweek, and New Scientist, and he has given dozens of invited talks around the world. Dean writes: “My interest in psi was originally motivated out of a child's intuitive sense that the mind is far more mysterious and powerful than we know. Through education and experience I've also come to appreciate that these experiences are also responsible for most of the greatest inventions, artistic and scientific achievements, creative insights, and religious epiphanies throughout history. Understanding this realm of human experience thus offers more than mere academic interest -- it touches upon the very best that the human intellect and spirit have had to offer. I discovered while working on these topics that I enjoy the challenge of exploring the frontiers of science, and that I am comfortable tolerating the ambiguity of not knowing the ‘right answer,’ which is a constant companion at the frontier. After experimentally studying these phenomena as a scientist for about 30 years, I've concluded (so far) that some psychic abilities are genuine, and as such, there are important aspects of the prevailing scientific worldview that are seriously incomplete. I've also learned that many people who claim to have extremely accurate or unfailingly reliable psychic abilities are delusional or mentally ill. There are also reprehensible con artists who claim to be psychic and charge huge sums for their services. These two classes of so-called psychics are the targets of celebrated prizes offered by magicians for demonstrations of psychic abilities. Those prizes are safe because the claimed abilities of these people either do not exist at all, or they're far weaker than the claimants wish to believe. But the vast majority of the scientific evidence for psi effects, and in particular the evidence that convinced me, is based on the accumulated laboratory performance of people who do not claim to possess special abilities. There is ample room for scholarly debate about these topics, and I know a number of informed scientists whom I respect who have reached different conclusions. But I've also learned that most of the hostile rants one reads about this topic are pure bluster proclaimed by those who don't know what they're talking about. Their rejections seem to be motivated by fundamentalist beliefs of the scientistic or religious kind, rather than by rational, well-reasoned arguments.”