George Lawrence
George Lawrence was an ARPA project manager who, along with two civilian psychologists, Robert Van de Castle and Ray Hyman, traveled to SRI to test Uri Geller's purported psychic abilities.
George Lawrence was an DARPA project manager who, along with two civilian psychologists, Robert Van de Castle and Ray Hyman, traveled to SRI to test Uri Geller's purported psychic abilities. Their conclusion, later reported in Time magazine, was that anyone who believed in Geller's powers was falling for the "ridiculous"1.
Lawrence expressed concern that Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ's "own experimental bias in favor of successful outcomes is undermining their objectivity in properly controlled experimental procedures." He opined that Puthoff and Targ were guilty of the same three claims Martin Gardner had leveled against J. B. Rhine's research: loose laboratory controls, skewing of data, and the premise that the attitude of the scientists could negatively influence the subject1.
Lawrence told Time editor Leon Jaroff that Geller was a "charlatan" and encouraged the magazine to write an exposé. This unauthorized communication with a reporter was a violation of his security clearance, leading to an investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite Lawrence's denial of having talked to Time, Jaroff insisted otherwise1.
Sources
- Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ↩
Local network
George Lawrence's direct connections. Click any node to navigate, drag to pan, scroll (or pinch) to zoom. + 2‑hop expands the neighborhood one level further.