Gordon Stein (April 30, 1941 – August 27, 1996) was an American author, physiologist, and activist for atheism and

religious skepticism Religious skepticism is a type of skepticism relating to religion. Religious skeptics question religious authority and are not necessarily anti-religious but skeptical of specific or all religious beliefs and/or practices. Socrates was one of th ...

Biography

Stein was born in New York to Jewish parents, and from an early age took an interest in science. He earned degrees in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

and

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ...

, a doctorate in

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

and master's degrees in Management and Library Science from

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...

, Adelphi College, and the University of California at Los Angeles. He was an author of books for

secular humanist Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality ...

and rationalist publications, he also was a critic of claims of

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

phenomena. Stein was an outspoken atheist and publicly debated Christian apologists such as Greg Bahnsen. He served as editor of the '' American Rationalist'' and was the librarian of the Center for Inquiry, which houses both the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and the

Council for Secular Humanism The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a US nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal, as well as to fight the influence of religion in government. History The Center for Inquiry was established in 199 ...

(CSH). Stein died of lung cancer in Buffalo General Hospital.

Paranormal

He published articles critical of the paranormal in the ''

Skeptical Inquirer ''Skeptical Inquirer'' is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: ''The Magazine for Science and Reason''. Mission statement and goals Daniel Loxton, writing in 2 ...

''. His book ''The Sorcerer of Kings: The Case of Daniel Dunglas Home and William Crookes'' (1993) is a debunking of the mediumship of Daniel Douglas Home and the spiritualist claims of

William Crookes Sir William Crookes (; 17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing t ...

. Stein suspected that Crookes was too ashamed to admit he had been duped by the medium Florence Cook, or that he had conspired with her for sexual favors. He also suggested that Crookes had conspired with

Anna Eva Fay Anna Eva Fay Pingree (March 31, 1851 – May 12, 1927) was a famous medium and stage mentalist of the twentieth century. Biography Fay was born Ann Eliza Heathman in Southington, Ohio. She married Henry Melville Cummings, a medium, who went by ...

. He noted that contrary to popular belief, Home had been exposed as a fraud on several occasions. Stein concluded that all the feats of Home were conjuring tricks. In a review, biographer William Hodson Brock wrote that Stein made his "case against Crookes and Home clearly and logically." He also edited the ''Encyclopedia of the Paranormal'' (1996), which received positive reviews. Stein had documented the tricks of fraudulent mediums. He discovered that a levitation photograph of

Carmine Mirabelli Carmine Carlos Mirabelli (2 January 1889 – 30 April 1951) was a Brazilian physical medium and Spiritualist.Anderson, Rodger. (2006). ''Psychics, Sensitives and Somnambules: A Biographical Dictionary with Bibliographies''. McFarland & Company. ...

had been chemically retouched. Nickell, Joe. (2005). ''Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation''.

University Press of Kentucky The University Press of Kentucky (UPK) is the scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and was organized in 1969 as successor to the University of Kentucky Press. The university had sponsored scholarly publication since 1943. In 194 ...

. p. 178.

Publications

*''Robert Ingersoll: A Checklist'' (1969) *''Free Thought in the United States: A Descriptive Bibliography'' (1978) *''Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism'' (Editor, with Marshall Brown, 1980) *''Freethought in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth: A Descriptive Bibliography'' (1981) *''Encyclopedia of Unbelief'' (Editor, 1985) *''A Second Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism'' (Editor, 1987) *''God Pro and Con: A Bibliography of Atheism'' (Editor, 1990) *''The Sorcerer of Kings: The Case of Daniel Dunglas Home and William Crookes'' (1993) *''Encyclopedia of Hoaxes'' (Editor, 1993) *''Hoaxes! Dupes, Dodges & Other Dastardly Deceptions (1995) *''Encyclopedia of the Paranormal'' (Editor, 1996)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stein, Gordon 1941 births 1996 deaths 20th-century American educators 20th-century American essayists 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American male writers 20th-century atheists 20th-century American historians Adelphi University alumni American atheism activists American bibliographers American cultural critics American encyclopedists American humanists American librarians American male essayists American male non-fiction writers American physiologists 20th-century American psychologists American religious skeptics American secularists American skeptics American social commentators American writers on paranormal topics American zoologists Anomalistic psychology Anthologists Critics of parapsychology Critics of religions Deaths from lung cancer Freethought writers Jewish American academics Jewish American atheists Jewish encyclopedists Jewish historians Jewish skeptics Literacy and society theorists Ohio State University alumni Paranormal investigators Secular humanists Social critics University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Rochester alumni Writers about activism and social change Writers about religion and science Writers from New York (state)