Name C. M. | ||
Books The Search for Psychic Power: Esp and Parapsychology Revisited | ||
Charles Edward Mark Hansel (12 October 1917 – 28 March 2011) was a British psychologist most notable for his criticism of parapsychological studies.
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Biography
Hansel was born in 1917 in Bedford, England. He attended Bedford School and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University, where studied Moral Sciences and earned an MA, before joining the faculty at the University of Manchester as a lecturer in Psychology in 1949. He was an emeritus professor of psychology at Swansea University.
His book ESP: A Scientific Evaluation (1966), revised (1980, 1989) evaluated the claims of parapsychology. Hansel argued that the possibility of fraud had not been ruled out and the experiments were poorly designed. In the book he debunked many of the parapsychological experiments into ESP, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis as being based on error, misinterpretation and fraud. Hansel did not rule out the possibility of ESP but concluded there is no scientific evidence for it.
Hansel had originally suspected that Samuel Soal's ESP data was fraudulent. Parapsychologists refused to accept this charge, but Hansel was later proven correct.
Hansel was a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Reception
Hansel's book received positive reviews from scientists and skeptics. The physicist Victor J. Stenger noted that "Hansel succeeded brilliantly in exposing the shoddiness of the experimental procedures of Rhine's laboratory." Robert Sheaffer gave the book a positive review stating Hansel's criticisms were devastating to the claims of ESP and the book was a serious challenge to parapsychology.
It was heavily criticized by the parapsychologist John Beloff. In 1966, the parapsychologist Gardner Murphy gave it a mixed-review but recommended the book "as valuable for the parapsychologist in pointing out ways in which he must tighten his research." Hansel's revised edition in 1989 contained further studies and an appendix with replies to his critics.
The psychologist David Marks in his book The Psychology of the Psychic (2000) noted that his discovery of experimental error in parapsychological experiments confirmed the research of Hansel.