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Dean Radin is a researcher in parapsychology. He is Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, in Petaluma, California, USA.
Biography Radin earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and earned both a masters degree in electrical engineering and a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1988, 1993, 1998, and 2005 Radin was the elected President of the Parapsychological Association, an affliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has presented around 100 talks for academic, technical and popular audiences. He has written over 200 articles, and two books for a popular audience, The Conscious Universe (1997, ISBN 0062515020) and Entangled Minds (2006, ISBN 1416516778). Despite his own skepticism about claims of psychokinetic metal-bending, in a footnote in Entangled Minds and on his website Radin claims that he recently bent the bowl of a heavy soup spoon using a gentle touch at a spoon bending party, with a half-dozen witnesses present. Jonathan Margolis, biographer of arch spoon-bender Uri Geller, claims similar results for himself In September 1997 Radin's semi-annual contract with UNLV was not renewed, less than three weeks after the publication of The Conscious Universe. Radin was also initially granted approval to teach one class at UNLV, but shortly after publication of The Conscious Universe the class he had planned to teach, "The History and Scientific Study of Psychic Phenomena" was cancelled without explanation. Radin was surprised by his dismissal, insisting that university pressure to leave had been tied to the attention he had received from the media. 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 the introduction of "The Conscious Universe" Carl Sagan is quoted from Page 302 of his book "The Demon-haunted World". "At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which in my opinion , deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random numbers in generators in computers; (2) that people under mild sensory deprivation can recieve thoughts or images "projected" at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarntion." Radin states this quote is an illustration of the "gradually changing attitudes of prominent skeptics" toward parapsychology. What Radin doesn't point out is the rest of quote. "I pick these claims not because I think they're likely to be valid (I don't), but as examples of contentions that might be true. The last three have at least some, although still dubious, experimental support. Of course I could be wrong." Skeptics conclude that Carl Sagan is still very skeptical about psi, and has been creatively quoted. How Random Number Generators can single out the thoughts relating to an O.J. Simpson broadcast, a Superbowl, the American Academy Awards presentations etc. from all the incidents occurring around the world seems unclear. Perhaps most controversially, the book features a chapter presenting Radin's own research and speculation on a possible relationship between lunar cycles and casino winnings. On a few web pages one can find skeptics who have criticised Radin's research methods and questioned the accuracy of his data. A more sympathetic review was presented in the June 1999 issue of The Journal of Parapsychology by Richard Broughton, twice past president and long time board member of the Parapsychological Association.. In January, 1998, Nobel Laureate physicist Brian Josephson 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." Despite the controversial nature of Radin's research, his work has at times been given qualified praise by some skeptics. One skeptical reviewer wrote "I don’t suffer from the delusion that my scribblings here will make anyone reject the research presented in "The Conscious Universe" – this has never been my intention and in my opinion "The Conscious Universe" is an interesting book, whose subject area deserves closer inspection. What I have tried to do in this article is to show there may be some discrepancies in the book, which I think are worth keeping in mind when evaluating it." Radin's latest book, Entangled Minds (2006, Simon & Schuster, Paraview Pocket Books), is now on its 4th printing and is being translated into Portugese and Japanese. Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis has added Entangled Minds to his list of recommended books on his website, alongside other controversial works such as The Urantia Book. Radin is featured in the 2006 release of What the Bleep!?-Down the Rabbit Hole. | ||||||||
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