"Science and the taboo of psi" with Dean Radin

Google Tech Talks
January, 16 2008

ABSTRACT

Do telepathy, clairvoyance and other "psi" abilities exist? The majority of the general population believes that they do, and yet fewer than one percent of mainstream academic institutions have any faculty known for their interest in these frequently reported experiences. Why is a topic of enduring and widespread interest met with such resounding silence in academia? The answer is not due to a lack of scientific evidence, or even to a lack of scientific interest, but rather involves a taboo. I will discuss the nature of this taboo, some of the empirical evidence and critical responses, and speculate on the implications.

Speaker: Dean Radin
Dean Radin is a researcher and author in the field of parapsychology. He is Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and four-time former President of the Parapsychological Association. He holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a masters degree in electrical engineering and a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has worked at AT&T Bell Labs and GTE Labs, mainly on human factors of advanced telecommunications products and services, and held appointments at Princeton University, Edinburgh University, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, SRI International, Interval Research Corporation, and Boundary Institute. At these facilities he was engaged in basic research on exceptional human capacities, principally psi phenomena.

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  People & Blogs

[LesbianStraightGay]

There is a large number of peer-reviewed papers published on the subject.

[wjcroft]

Dean is the best.  Admired his extraordinary equanimity in the face of the Google Geek squad.

[Beatnuk]

Fuck off you skidmark.

[hznfrst]

EVIDENCE, you bloody simpleton!!

[Beatnuk]

What are you basing this "reality filter" on?

[oberns]

Whether or not the dude is "loony" or not, he gives examples of studies that show that this could be a real phenomenon. The truth does not require your consent to be true.

[hznfrst]

I wasted 30 minutes of my life on it. The guy is just another loony-tune.