Ray Hyman
Ray Hyman is a psychologist and a prominent figure in the scientific skepticism movement.
Ray Hyman is a psychologist and a prominent figure in the scientific skepticism movement. He was contracted by DARPA in 1973 to evaluate Uri Geller's purported psychic abilities at SRI. Along with George Lawrence and Robert Van de Castle, Hyman concluded that anyone who believed in Geller's powers was falling for the "ridiculous"1.
Hyman, along with Martin Gardner, joined forces in an anti-Geller crusade. He was critical of Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ's methodology, echoing Gardner's criticisms of J. B. Rhine's research, citing loose laboratory controls, skewing of data, and the influence of experimenter bias1.
In 1983, Hyman weighed in on the James Randi hoax against the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research, stating that Randi was "very upset by Geller’s using trickery to deceive scientists. He thought it was very immoral. And he felt that it was a prostitution of his beloved magic"1.
In 1995, Hyman was one of the team leaders for the American Institutes for Research's evaluation of the Star Gate program, which ultimately recommended its cancellation. However, this evaluation was criticized for its limited scope and the researchers' pre-existing skeptical biases1.
Sources
- Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ↩
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