Gordon Stein (April 30, 1941 – August 27, 1996)
was an American author,
physiologist
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out chemical and ...
, and activist for
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...
and
religious skepticism
Religious skepticism is a type of skepticism relating to religion. Religious skeptics question religious authority and are not necessarily antireligious/clerical but rather are skeptical of either specific or all religious beliefs and/or practi ...
.
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. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
and
zoology
Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...
, a doctorate in
physiology
Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...
from
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...
and master's degrees in Management and
Library Science
Library and information science (LIS)Library and Information Sciences is the name used in the Dewey Decimal Classification for class 20 from the 18th edition (1971) to the 22nd edition (2003). are two interconnected disciplines that deal with info ...
from
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...
,
Adelphi College, and the
University of California at Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the Ca ...
.
He was an author of books for
secular humanist
Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system, or life stance that embraces human reason, logic, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basi ...
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
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
and publicly debated
Christian apologists
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words ''Christ'' and ''Ch ...
such as
Greg Bahnsen. He served as editor of the ''
American Rationalist'' and was the librarian of the
Center for Inquiry
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a U.S. nonprofit organization that works to mitigate belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal and to fight the influence of religion in government.
History
The Center for Inquiry was established in 1991 by ...
, which houses both the
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and the
Council for Secular Humanism (CSH).
Stein died of lung cancer in
Buffalo General Hospital.
Paranormal
He published articles critical of the paranormal in the ''
Skeptical Inquirer''. His book ''The Sorcerer of Kings: The Case of Daniel Dunglas Home and William Crookes'' (1993) is a debunking of the
mediumship
Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or ghost, spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or ...
of
Daniel Douglas Home and the
spiritualist claims of
William Crookes
Sir William Crookes (; 17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was an English 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 ...
. 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 ...
. 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 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.
Debate
In 1985, Gordon Stein debated Dr. Greg Bahnsen at the University of California (Irvine), on the topic, "The Great Debate: Does God Exist?" The Bahnsen Institute maintains the audio files of the debate in mp3 format, and several video versions are available on YouTube.
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
Jewish American atheism activists
American bibliographers
American encyclopedists
American humanists
American librarians
American male essayists
American male non-fiction writers
American physiologists
20th-century American psychologists
American religious skeptics
American critics of religions
American skeptics
American writers on paranormal topics
20th-century American zoologists
Anomalistic psychology
American anthologists
Critics of parapsychology
Deaths from lung cancer in New York (state)
Freethought writers
Jewish American academics
Jewish American essayists
Jewish American historians
Jewish encyclopedists
Jewish skeptics
Literacy and society theorists
Ohio State University alumni
Paranormal investigators
Secular humanists
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)