Joseph Banks Rhine facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Joseph Banks Rhine
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| Born | September 29, 1895 |
| Died | February 20, 1980 (aged 84) |
| Occupation | Botanist, parapsychologist |
Joseph Banks Rhine (born September 29, 1895 – died February 20, 1980) was an American botanist. He is best known as J. B. Rhine. He started a new field of study called parapsychology. This field looks into unusual mental abilities.
Rhine set up the first parapsychology lab at Duke University. He also started the Journal of Parapsychology. He founded the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man and the Parapsychological Association. Rhine wrote important books like Extrasensory Perception. Another famous book was Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Joseph Banks Rhine was born in Waterloo, Pennsylvania. He was the second of five children. His father, Samuel Rhine, was a farmer and merchant. When Joseph was a teenager, his family moved to Marshallville, Ohio.
He went to Ohio Northern University and the College of Wooster. After college, he joined the Marine Corps. He was stationed in Santiago. Later, he studied at the University of Chicago. He earned his master's degree in botany in 1923. He got his PhD in botany in 1925.
While at Chicago, Rhine and his wife, Louisa E. Rhine, heard a lecture by Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle talked about scientific proof of talking with the dead. Rhine found this idea very exciting. He also read The Survival of Man by Oliver Lodge. This book was about mediumship and life after death. These ideas made Rhine very interested in unusual mental abilities.
After Chicago, he taught at Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research for a year. Then he studied psychology at Harvard University. In 1927, he moved to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. There, he worked with Professor William McDougall. Rhine began his famous studies at Duke. These studies helped make parapsychology a part of science. He saw it as a branch of "abnormal psychology."
Studying Unusual Abilities
Rhine wanted to study unusual mental abilities in a scientific way. He focused on two main areas: ESP and psychokinesis.
Investigating ESP (Extrasensory Perception)
Rhine tested many students for their ESP abilities. His first special subject was Adam Linzmayer, a student at Duke. In 1931, Linzmayer did very well on Zener card tests. These cards have five simple symbols. Linzmayer scored 100% correct on two short tests. On a longer test of 300 cards, he got 39.6% correct. This was much higher than the 20% expected by chance.
However, over time, Linzmayer's scores went down. They still stayed above chance, but not as high. Rhine thought that boredom or other distractions might have caused this.
The next year, Rhine tested Hubert Pearce. Pearce did even better than Linzmayer. Pearce's average score was 40% correct, while chance was 20%. Pearce was often allowed to handle the cards himself. He would shuffle and cut them.
The Pearce-Pratt Experiments
One of Rhine's most famous experiments involved Hubert Pearce and Joseph Gaither Pratt. Pratt was a research assistant. Pearce was tested using Zener cards. Pratt shuffled and recorded the cards in the lab. Pearce sat in a library cubicle 100 yards away.
This experiment had 37 runs of 25 trials each. It took place between August 1933 and March 1934. The number of correct guesses varied a lot. Sometimes it was much higher than chance. Other times it was much lower. These scores happened whether Pearce was 100 or 250 yards away from Pratt.
In 1934, Rhine published his book Extra-Sensory Perception. This book was based on his lab research and statistics. Many people read it for decades.
Researching Psychokinesis
In the late 1930s, Rhine also studied "psychokinesis" (PK). This is the idea of moving objects with your mind. Rhine made PK easy to test in the lab. He tested if a person could influence tossed dice. At first, people threw dice by hand. Later, they used a cup, and then a machine.
In 1940, Rhine and his team published Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years. This book reviewed all the studies on clairvoyance (seeing hidden things) and telepathy (mind reading). It was the first "meta-analysis" in science. A meta-analysis combines results from many studies.
During World War II, Rhine lost many male staff members. This slowed down new research. But it gave them time to publish older experiments on psychokinesis. After the war, he studied some amazing cases outside the lab.
Rhine's wife, Louisa E. Rhine, also did important work. In the late 1940s, she collected stories of spontaneous ESP. These were experiences people had outside a lab. But Rhine believed that lab research was key. He wanted the scientific community to take parapsychology seriously.
In the early 1960s, Rhine left Duke University. He founded the Institute for Parapsychology. This later became the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man. In the 1970s, Rhine tested more high-scoring subjects. These included Sean Harribance, M.B. Dykshoorn, and Bill Delmore. He retired shortly after.
Rhine's Lasting Impact
J. B. Rhine, along with William McDougall, helped create the term "parapsychology." This word came from a German term.
Many say Rhine almost single-handedly created the methods for parapsychology. He made it a form of experimental psychology. He set up the important organizations for parapsychology in the U.S. This included starting the Journal of Parapsychology. He also formed the Parapsychological Association and the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man (FRNM). The FRNM is now known as the Rhine Research Center. His research group was first part of Duke University, but now it is separate.
Rhine also had a big impact on science fiction. The writer John W. Campbell became very interested in Rhine's ideas. Campbell wrote about "psionic powers" and future human evolution.
Books by J. B. Rhine
- Rhine, J. B. (1934). Extra-Sensory Perception.
- Rhine, J. B. (1937). New Frontiers of the Mind.
- Rhine, J. B., Pratt, J. G., Stuart, C. E., Smith, B. M., Greenwood, J. A. (1940). Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years.
- Rhine, J. B. (1947). The Reach of the Mind.
- Rhine, J. B. (1953). New World of the Mind.
- Rhine, J. B., & Pratt, J. G. (1957). Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind.
- Rhine, J. B., & Associates (Eds.). (1965). Parapsychology from Duke to FRNM.
- Rhine, J. B., & Brier, R. (Eds.). (1968). Parapsychology Today.
- Rhine, J. B. (Ed.). (1971). Progress in Parapsychology.
Images for kids
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Joseph Banks Rhine with Hubert Pearce, one of his research subjects.
See also
In Spanish: Joseph Banks Rhine para niños
- Extrasensory perception
- Psychokinesis
- Zener card
