Science: New Flap Over Uri

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Nature also praised as a "service" the concurrent publication of the 16-page New Scientist article, which was written by Physicist Joseph Hanlon after a two-month investigation of Geller, and the SRI experiments. Hanlon, who delayed publishing his article until Nature printed the SRI paper, cited examples of Geller's evasiveness and reports of his cheating on television and during interviews with journalists. He also criticized the controls that Targ and Puthoff used in their experiments. Hanlon noted that Geller's sponsor, Andrija Puharich, a doctor, holds 56 patents, primarily in medical electronics. He suggested that Puharich might well have implanted a tiny radio receiver in one of Geller's teeth; it could have been used to give Geller information about drawings being selected in another room. Hanlon also questions Geller's success with the die. "Knowing the inability of the SRI scientists to control the other experiments," he says, "I can only conclude that this one was just as badly organized."

Hanlon, who was somewhat inclined to believe in some of Geller's professed powers when he began his inquiry, now insists that "no matter how good they are as laser physicists, Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff are no match for Uri Geller." Furthermore, he says, the SRI paper published in Nature "simply does not stand up against the mass of circumstantial evidence that Uri Geller is simply a good magician."