Joseph Banks Rhine - Criticism

Criticism

According to sceptical commentators, such as Martin Gardner, Rhine's results have never been duplicated. This includes the claim that Rhine repeatedly tried to replicate his work, but produced only failures that he never reported.

Gardner also criticized Rhine for not disclosing the names of assistants he caught cheating:

His paper "Security Versus Deception in Parapsychology" published in his journal (vol. 38, 1974), runs to 23 pages. Rhine selects twelve sample cases of dishonest experimenters that came to his attention from 1940 to 1950, four of whom were caught "red-handed". Not a single name is mentioned. What papers did they publish, one wonders.

This has suggested to Gardner that Rhine practised a "secrecy policy".

Gardner has also claimed to have inside information that Rhine's files contain "material suggesting fraud on the part of Hubert Pearce", but such information has not been independently confirmed.

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