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| J. B. Rhine | |
|---|---|
| Name | Joseph Banks Rhine |
| Birth date | 29 September 1895 |
| Birth place | Hamilton, Ohio |
| Death date | 20 February 1980 |
| Death place | Durham, North Carolina |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Parapsychologist |
| Known for | Research on extrasensory perception, founder of parapsychology laboratory at Duke University |
| Spouse | Louisa E. Rhine |
J. B. Rhine was an American botanist turned parapsychologist best known for establishing experimental protocols for the study of extrasensory perception and founding the parapsychology laboratory at Duke University. He popularized the term extrasensory perception and promoted statistical approaches to anomalous cognition research, influencing both supporters and skeptics across twentieth-century debates involving psychical research, psychology, and statistics. Rhine's work generated extensive controversy involving figures from Harry Houdini to Carl Gustav Jung and institutions such as the American Psychological Association and the Society for Psychical Research.
Rhine was born in Hamilton, Ohio and raised in a milieu shaped by Midwestern Ohio State University-era scientific culture and World War I-era social change. He completed undergraduate studies at Miami University (Ohio) before earning a Ph.D. in botany and plant physiology from Columbia University where he studied under scholars connected to the broader networks of Thomas Hunt Morgan and experimental biology. Influences during his graduate training included exposure to debates involving William James and the late nineteenth-century institutions of Society for Psychical Research and the American Society for Psychical Research, which later informed his methodological turn toward laboratory investigation at Duke University.
At Duke University Rhine established the Institute of Parapsychology and the Parapsychology Laboratory, recruiting students and colleagues from the fields represented by Princeton University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley. He collaborated with figures affiliated with the Society for Psychical Research, Arthur Conan Doyle-era spiritualist proponents, and skeptical interlocutors such as Harry Houdini and researchers tied to the Rhine-Parapsychology controversy. His institutional career intersected with organizations like the American Society for Psychical Research, the American Philosophical Society, and later the Parapsychological Association.
Rhine developed card-based protocols using Zener cards to test claims of extrasensory perception and psychokinesis, emphasizing randomized procedures, controls, and quantitative assessment grounded in probability theory and statistical tools from practitioners associated with Ronald Fisher and Jerzy Neyman. He published large-scale statistical compilations of ESP results, attempting to demonstrate effects beyond chance using methods resonant with those in Biometrika and contemporary experimental design debates at institutions like University College London and Cambridge University. Rhine's laboratory produced notable studies claiming above-chance results in ESP tasks, provoking discussion among scholars from Carl Gustav Jung and William McDougall to critics at the American Psychological Association and investigators influenced by Skeptical Inquirer-type critique.
Rhine's claims attracted endorsement from some members of the parapsychological community while inciting methodological critique from mainstream scientists including those connected to University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania. Critics pointed to problems identified by investigators such as Samuel Soal and methodological skeptics influenced by Martin Gardner and James Randi, who argued issues of inadequate controls, sensory leakage, and statistical misapplication reminiscent of debates involving Francis Galton-era measurement. Other commentators drew on philosophical critiques from figures in the Vienna Circle and scientists associated with National Academy of Sciences concerns about reproducibility. Proponents responded by citing replication attempts and meta-analytic syntheses comparable to work published in venues like Journal of Parapsychology and reports from the Parapsychological Association.
In later decades Rhine expanded institutional efforts through the Division of Parapsychology at Duke University and through publications that influenced successors at the University of Virginia and Princeton University-affiliated researchers. His legacy shaped the formation of professional gatherings such as the Parapsychological Association (affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in later years) and inspired methodological reforms debated in journals like Journal of the American Statistical Association and Science. Rhine's name remains central in histories of parapsychology, the study of anomalous cognition, and in accounts of twentieth-century boundary disputes between mainstream science and fringe research, with ongoing discussions in works referencing Skeptical Inquirer, Nature, and historiographies tied to Science and Technology Studies.
Rhine married Louisa Elizabeth Rhine, a colleague and researcher who contributed substantially to case collections and publications associated with the Duke University laboratory; their partnership connected to networks that included the Society for Psychical Research and the Rhine Research Center. Honors and interactions included correspondence and disputes with public intellectuals such as Arthur Conan Doyle and engagements with scientific organizations like the American Psychological Association and the American Philosophical Society. Rhine received recognition within parapsychological circles, and his papers and archives have been cited in institutional collections at Duke University and in scholarly examinations hosted by Smithsonian Institution-adjacent historians and researchers in the histories of science.
Category:Parapsychologists Category:American scientists Category:1895 births Category:1980 deaths