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History of Parapsychology
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Robert Jütte, born in 1954, is currently Director of the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation and Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Stuttgart. From 1983 to 1989 he was Associate Professor at the Department of General History of the University of Haifa, Israel. A social and medical historian and the author or editor of over 20 books, he has published extensively on German and European urban, cultural, medical and social history. His most recent book in German is Geschichte der Alternativen Medizin (Munich, 1996). He is the editor of the journal Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte. He is a member of the Scientific Board of the German Medical Association and Secretary of the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health (since 1995) as well as vice-president of the German Society for Jewish Studies (since 1999).
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Radin does an excellent job of walking the reader through the history of parapsychology (psi) and makes many telling points. For example, at pp. 55-56 he notes how the meta-analysis that has been condemned by skeptics when applied to psi is what allowed researchers to determine that aspirin can help prevent heart attacks. Similarly, at pp. 56-58 he points out that, even in hard sciences such as particle physics, some study data are discarded to reduce outliers that are thought to be flawed in some way. This procedure does not raise eyebrows in the hard sciences, but it does in psi.
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Arranged alphabetically, this compilation of facts pertaining to actual investigations and theories as well as the history of ghosts and hauntings greatly expands the first edition. Entries vary between a few sentences (Afrit , an Arabian demon) and to nearly two pages (Hyslop, James Hervey [1854-1920], who conducted physical research). Many entries are followed by references for further reading, including Web sites. A few illustrations and photos are provided, and see references are frequent. The writing style is very readable, and browsers may find themselves reading the entire work.
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In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1963) the historian Thomas Kuhn observed that history was divided into long periods of "normal" science followed by shorter bursts of "revolutionary" science. Normal science does not aim for novelties of facts or theory, and when successful finds none. In times of revolutionary science, by contrast, the most fundamental scientific ideas are there for the taking - just as they were when Copernicus first declared that the earth went round the sun.
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Riitta Oittinen is Lecturer at the Department of Economic and Social History, Faculty of Social Sciences, at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is completing a PhD thesis on definitions and the market for quackery in Finland at the beginning of the twentieth century. Her publications include articles on the history of the body, especially beauty, ageing and cleanliness. Gendered practices of work is her other main research topic. She has participated in the design of several museum exhibitions in these areas of research, including 'Memory' at the Helsinki City Museum, which received the European Museum of the Year Award Special Commendation in 1995.
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The dichotomous view of replication has been used throughout the history of parapsychology, by both parapsychologists and critics (Utts, 1988). For example, the National Academy of Sciences report critically evaluated "signficant" experiments, but entirely ignored "nonsignificant" experiments.
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History of Parapsychology