Barry Beyerstein
Encyclopedia
Barry L Beyerstein, Ph.D. (May 19, 1947 - June 25, 2007) was a noted scientific skeptic and professor of psychology
at Simon Fraser University
in Burnaby, British Columbia
. Beyerstein's research explored brain mechanisms of perception
and consciousness
, the effects of drugs on the brain and mind, sense of smell and its lesser-known contributions to human cognition
and emotion
.
, Alberta
. He died suddenly at age 60 in his office on Burnaby Mountain
, of an apparent heart attack.
He is survived by his brother Dale, his wife Suzi, his daughter Lindsay, and his son Loren. He is predeceased by his father, Hilliard Beyerstein
.
In the 1970s Beyerstein collaborated with his colleague Bruce Alexander on the famous Rat Park
study of addiction.
Beyerstein was a co-founder of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He was chair of the BC Skeptics Society.
He co-authored a book about handwriting analysis and graphology, and has been a public critic of such methods, which he identifies as pseudoscience similar to phrenology.
He has been publicly critical of unsupported claims of techniques to improve brain function.
He also made an appearance in the first season of the television show Penn and Teller: Bullshit! to discuss the scientific basis of near-death experiences.
In an article for Skeptical Inquirer
magazine titled "Why Bogus Therapies Seem to Work", Beyerstein outlined ten errors and biases that can lead people to incorrectly perceive medical benefits from ineffective treatments.
Beyerstein was close friends with Ray Hyman
and together they founded an annual workshop in 1992 in Eugene, Oregon called Skeptic's Toolbox which is still being held.
Illustrator
, author
, skeptic Daniel Loxton
credits Beyerstein for his interest in skepticism, in several interviews Loxton talks about attending a science fiction conference in British Columbia in 1991 and hearing Beyerstein speak on behalf of the BC Skeptics. "He calmly and kindly fielded questions from the audience—and I was shocked by almost everything he said. This wasn’t the usual fluff: this guy really knew what he was talking about, in a way that I had never encountered before. Even his “I don’t know”s were substantial in a way that I wasn’t used to hearing."
Beyerstein on Beyerstein=
Experts taken from "Skeptical Odysseys" edited by Paul Kurtz
Raised on Fate (magazine) and Popular Science
magazines as well as many paranormal TV shows, Beyerstein felt that this “enchantment...inclined me toward an eventual career in the study of consciousness”. Intrigued throughout high school with séances, handwriting analysis, hypnosis and other paranormal beliefs Beyerstein with the help of his friends, conducted many experiments. This was far before he learned about experimental controls, which explained the constant success of their tests.
Entering Simon Fraser University
in 1965, Beyerstein declared his major in psychology with a minor in philosophy, “as I delved deeper into those subjects, I began to doubt the inevitability of an eventual happy marriage between science and the paranormal...after my first course in the philosophy of science...the fundamental assumptions and modus operandi of science were seriously at odds with most of what I knew of physical research.”
By his junior year in college he was hooked on studying the brain. Beyerstein moved to the San Francisco area to attend University of California at Berkeley in 1968. Where “party chit chat could accept a guest's description of his latest out-of-body experience
or the need to have her chakras realigned as casually as one might receive the morning's weather forecast. I frequently found myself the odd man out...(they thought) I was a nice guy, but hopelessly 'linear' and 'left-brained', despite my de rigueur shoulder-length hair, tie-dye t-shirt, bell bottoms and cowboy boots.”
While working as a Professor at Simon Fraiser, Beyerstein was asked to oversee an approval of a pro-parapsychology class. He assembled the writings of “some of the leading figures in the nascent skeptics alliance that Paul Kurtz
was in the process of forging.” This is when Beyerstein became aware of CSICOP “and got hooked on it”. After writing for Skeptical Inquirer
magazine (1985-88) Beyerstein was elected to the executive council.
A reporter working on the story of a graphologist and the Vancouver School Board being discovered reviewing the handwriting of teachers to identify which were child molesters, he asked if there were any evidence to support the invalidity of handwriting analysis. Beyerstein responded with the help of his brother Dale, by editing the book “The Write Stuff” which interviews graphologists along with their critics.
Concerning Beyerstein's views of the skeptical community, “I have enjoyed my association with CSICOP so thoroughly as the opportunity it has afforded me to meet so many world scholars. I think the work that they do in the skeptical arena is often under appreciated in academic circles because many specialists fail to grasp the potential consequences of the strong antirational and antisciencific trends in modern society. They see no pressing need to oppose something publicly that they see as transparently ridiculous”.
The scientific community Beyerstein felt had an obligation to reach out and explain. “If we want the public to pay taxes to support research, we owe them understandable explanations of what we do and the significance it has for them.” He called the skeptical movement a “watchdog” and used the phrase when explaining CSICOP to the unknowing, “A sort of Consumer Reports
of the mind”.
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
in Burnaby, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. Beyerstein's research explored brain mechanisms of perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
and consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
, the effects of drugs on the brain and mind, sense of smell and its lesser-known contributions to human cognition
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
and emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
.
Personal life
Beyerstein was born in EdmontonEdmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
. He died suddenly at age 60 in his office on Burnaby Mountain
Burnaby Mountain
Burnaby Mountain, elev. , is a low, forested mountain in the city of Burnaby, British Columbia, overlooking the upper arms of Burrard Inlet. It is the location of Simon Fraser University, the Discovery Park research community, and the System Control Tower of BC Hydro and a new complex of...
, of an apparent heart attack.
He is survived by his brother Dale, his wife Suzi, his daughter Lindsay, and his son Loren. He is predeceased by his father, Hilliard Beyerstein
Hilliard Beyerstein
Hilliard Harris William Beyerstein was a chiropractor and Canadian federal politician.Born in Meeting Creek, Alberta, Beyerstein first ran for the Canadian House of Commons as a Social Credit Party candidate in the 1949 federal election. He defeated 3 other candidates to win the Camrose electoral...
.
Career
Beyerstein received his B.A. from Simon Fraser University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Experimental and Biological Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1973.In the 1970s Beyerstein collaborated with his colleague Bruce Alexander on the famous Rat Park
Rat Park
Rat Park was a study into drug addiction conducted in the late 1970s , by Canadian psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada....
study of addiction.
Beyerstein was a co-founder of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He was chair of the BC Skeptics Society.
He co-authored a book about handwriting analysis and graphology, and has been a public critic of such methods, which he identifies as pseudoscience similar to phrenology.
He has been publicly critical of unsupported claims of techniques to improve brain function.
He also made an appearance in the first season of the television show Penn and Teller: Bullshit! to discuss the scientific basis of near-death experiences.
In an article for Skeptical Inquirer
Skeptical Inquirer
The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with the subtitle: The magazine for science and reason....
magazine titled "Why Bogus Therapies Seem to Work", Beyerstein outlined ten errors and biases that can lead people to incorrectly perceive medical benefits from ineffective treatments.
Beyerstein was close friends with Ray Hyman
Ray Hyman
Ray Hyman is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and a noted critic of parapsychology.-Career:...
and together they founded an annual workshop in 1992 in Eugene, Oregon called Skeptic's Toolbox which is still being held.
Illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, skeptic Daniel Loxton
Daniel Loxton
Daniel Loxton is a Canadian writer, illustrator, and skeptic. He is the Editor of Junior Skeptic magazine, a kids’ science section bound into the Skeptics Society's Skeptic magazine...
credits Beyerstein for his interest in skepticism, in several interviews Loxton talks about attending a science fiction conference in British Columbia in 1991 and hearing Beyerstein speak on behalf of the BC Skeptics. "He calmly and kindly fielded questions from the audience—and I was shocked by almost everything he said. This wasn’t the usual fluff: this guy really knew what he was talking about, in a way that I had never encountered before. Even his “I don’t know”s were substantial in a way that I wasn’t used to hearing."
Beyerstein on Beyerstein=
Experts taken from "Skeptical Odysseys" edited by Paul Kurtz
Paul Kurtz
Paul Kurtz is a prominent American skeptic and secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism." He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, having previously also taught at Vassar, Trinity, and Union colleges, and the New School for...
Raised on Fate (magazine) and Popular Science
Popular Science
Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...
magazines as well as many paranormal TV shows, Beyerstein felt that this “enchantment...inclined me toward an eventual career in the study of consciousness”. Intrigued throughout high school with séances, handwriting analysis, hypnosis and other paranormal beliefs Beyerstein with the help of his friends, conducted many experiments. This was far before he learned about experimental controls, which explained the constant success of their tests.
Entering Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
in 1965, Beyerstein declared his major in psychology with a minor in philosophy, “as I delved deeper into those subjects, I began to doubt the inevitability of an eventual happy marriage between science and the paranormal...after my first course in the philosophy of science...the fundamental assumptions and modus operandi of science were seriously at odds with most of what I knew of physical research.”
By his junior year in college he was hooked on studying the brain. Beyerstein moved to the San Francisco area to attend University of California at Berkeley in 1968. Where “party chit chat could accept a guest's description of his latest out-of-body experience
Out-of-body experience
An out-of-body experience is an experience that typically involves a sensation of floating outside of one's body and, in some cases, perceiving one's physical body from a place outside one's body ....
or the need to have her chakras realigned as casually as one might receive the morning's weather forecast. I frequently found myself the odd man out...(they thought) I was a nice guy, but hopelessly 'linear' and 'left-brained', despite my de rigueur shoulder-length hair, tie-dye t-shirt, bell bottoms and cowboy boots.”
While working as a Professor at Simon Fraiser, Beyerstein was asked to oversee an approval of a pro-parapsychology class. He assembled the writings of “some of the leading figures in the nascent skeptics alliance that Paul Kurtz
Paul Kurtz
Paul Kurtz is a prominent American skeptic and secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism." He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, having previously also taught at Vassar, Trinity, and Union colleges, and the New School for...
was in the process of forging.” This is when Beyerstein became aware of CSICOP “and got hooked on it”. After writing for Skeptical Inquirer
Skeptical Inquirer
The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with the subtitle: The magazine for science and reason....
magazine (1985-88) Beyerstein was elected to the executive council.
A reporter working on the story of a graphologist and the Vancouver School Board being discovered reviewing the handwriting of teachers to identify which were child molesters, he asked if there were any evidence to support the invalidity of handwriting analysis. Beyerstein responded with the help of his brother Dale, by editing the book “The Write Stuff” which interviews graphologists along with their critics.
Concerning Beyerstein's views of the skeptical community, “I have enjoyed my association with CSICOP so thoroughly as the opportunity it has afforded me to meet so many world scholars. I think the work that they do in the skeptical arena is often under appreciated in academic circles because many specialists fail to grasp the potential consequences of the strong antirational and antisciencific trends in modern society. They see no pressing need to oppose something publicly that they see as transparently ridiculous”.
The scientific community Beyerstein felt had an obligation to reach out and explain. “If we want the public to pay taxes to support research, we owe them understandable explanations of what we do and the significance it has for them.” He called the skeptical movement a “watchdog” and used the phrase when explaining CSICOP to the unknowing, “A sort of Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports is an American magazine published monthly by Consumers Union since 1936. It publishes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory. It also publishes cleaning and general buying guides...
of the mind”.