Barry Beyerstein Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

At a meeting of the executive council of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) in Denver, Colorado in April 2011, Beyerstein was selected for inclusion in CSI’s Pantheon of Skeptics. The Pantheon of Skeptics was created by CSI to remember the legacy of deceased fellows of CSI and their contributions to the cause of scientific skepticism. CSI was previously known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).

At the Skeptic’s Toolbox in 1993, Beyerstein laid out the unified theory by psychologists concerning brain function and the paranormal. “This theory holds that all mental phenomena are products of the physical brain and that when the brain is destroyed or severely damaged, consciousness ceases forever.” The physical-brain viewpoint, “is supported by evolution, by the development of the individual human being, by pharmacological experiments, and by research on the effects of accidents affecting the brain.”

Illustrator, author, skeptic Daniel Loxton credits Beyerstein for his interest in skepticism, in several interviews Loxton talks about attending a science fiction conference in British Columbia in 1991 and hearing Beyerstein speak on behalf of the BC Skeptics Society. “He calmly and kindly fielded questions from the audience – and I was shocked by almost everything he said. This wasn’t the usual fluff: this guy really knew what he was talking about, in a way that I had never encountered before. Even his “I don’t know”s were substantial in a way that I wasn’t used to hearing.” William B. Davis, of X-Files fame, also credits Beyerstein for introducing him to the skeptical community. After hearing an interview with Beyerstein, Davis, also a Canadian, became curious about the group and now lectures at skeptics’ conferences himself.

While working as a professor at Simon Fraser, Beyerstein was asked to oversee an approval of a pro-parapsychology class. He assembled the writings of “some of the leading figures in the nascent skeptics alliance that Paul Kurtz was in the process of forging.” This is when Beyerstein became aware of CSICOP “and got hooked on it”. After writing for Skeptical Inquirer magazine (1985–88) Beyerstein was elected to the Executive Council.

Beyerstein received his B.A. from Simon Fraser University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Experimental and Biological Psychology from the UC Berkeley in 1973. In the 1970s Beyerstein collaborated with his colleague Bruce K. Alexander on the famous Rat Park study of addiction.

Entering Simon Fraser University in 1965, Beyerstein declared his major in psychology with a minor in philosophy. “As I delved deeper into those subjects, I began to doubt the inevitability of an eventual happy marriage between science and the paranormal… after my first course in the philosophy of science… the fundamental assumptions and modus operandi of science were seriously at odds with most of what I knew of physical research.” By his junior year in college he was hooked on studying the brain. In 1968, Beyerstein moved to the San Francisco area to attend UC Berkeley, where “party chit-chat could accept a guest’s description of his latest out-of-body experience or the need to have her chakras realigned as casually as one might receive the morning’s weather forecast. I frequently found myself the odd man out… (they thought) I was a nice guy, but hopelessly ‘linear’ and ‘left-brained’, despite my de rigueur shoulder-length hair, tie-dye T-shirt, bell bottoms and cowboy boots.”

Barry L Beyerstein (May 19, 1947 – June 25, 2007) was a scientific skeptic and professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Beyerstein’s research explored brain mechanisms of perception and consciousness, the effects of drugs on the brain and mind, sense of smell and its lesser-known contributions to human cognition and emotion. He was founder and chair of the BC Skeptics Society, a Fellow and member of the Executive Council of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Associate editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine Journal as well as a contributor to Skeptical Inquirer, Beyerstein was one of the original faculty of CSICOP’s Skeptic’s Toolbox. Beyerstein was a co-founder of the Canadians for Rational Health Policy and a member of the advisory board of the Drug Policy Foundation of Washington D.C. He was a founding board member of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy and contributed to the International Journal of Drug Policy. According to long-time friend James Alcock, Beyerstein once addressed the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health during discussions leading up to the passage of the Controlled Substances Act”. Along with his brother Dale, Barry was active in the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.