Rhine credibility

Whats the credibility of Dr Rhine´s investigations, methodology and the work that he made at Duke University?

[arcticpenguin]

Not good. I don't think Rhine's sincerity and honesty was ever questioned, but one of his underlings was caught cheating and there is a repeated pattern of poorly controlled 'exploratory' studies showing a positive result, to be followed up by criticism of the poor controls. Subsequent better-controlled studies consistently showed no positive result.

Now, if positive results only happen during experimental conditions which cannot preclude cheating or sensory leakage, oce could conclude that either

a) paranormal effects happen but not under tight controls

or

b) someone was cheating (consciously or otherwise).

Bottom line: there is not a single paranormal phenomenon reported by the Duke group that can be replicated under well-controlled conditions.

Recommended reading: The search for psychic power by C.E.M. Hansel.

Thanks artic. That information is very valuable to me.
There is a psi-fenomena investigation group here in Chile that prouds itself that was founded by a former Dr Rhine disciple(sp?).
I had the idea of poor controls from that Institute, but I couldnt find info about it, apart from a article from Dr Susan Blackmore

[arcticpenguin]

Rhine doesn't have his own page in the Skeptic's Dictionary, but he shows up on several pages: http://skepdic.master.com/texis/master/search/?db=sites%2Fwww.skepdic.com&query=rhine

[Mercutio]

A bit on Rhine from Langmuir's talk on pathological science. (http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langC.htm#ESPerc) Complete article here. (http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langmuir.htm)

[arcticpenguin]

I think that's where the term "file drawer effect" came from.