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Benjamin Radford (born October 2, 1970) is an American writer and skeptic. He has authored, coauthored or contributed to twenty books and written over a thousand articles and columns on a wide variety of topics including urban legends, unexplained mysteries, the paranormal, critical thinking, mass hysteria, and media literacy. His most recent book, ''Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment'', was published in the summer of 2014 and is a scientific investigation of famous legends and folklore in the state of New Mexico. Radford has appeared on Good Morning America, CNN, The History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the Learning Channel, CBC, BBC, ABC News, The New York Times, and many other outlets. Radford characterizes himself as one of the world's few science-based paranormal investigators, and has done first-hand research into psychics, ghosts, exorcisms, miracles, Bigfoot, stigmata, lake monsters, UFO sightings, reincarnation, crop circles, and other topics. "I’m open-minded. I never said I don’t believe ghosts exist. But I can say I’ve looked at the research that’s been done, and I’ve done personal investigations. In each particular case there either is or isn’t good, compelling evidence, and so far I haven’t seen it." He regularly speaks at universities and conferences across the country about his research. Radford's books and investigations have been incorporated into several college and university courses on critical thinking, including at Western Washington University and the University of New Mexico. Radford is also a contributor to the Snopes.com urban legends web site, where he has researched and written articles debunking fakelore and a variety of popular myths including The Amityville Horror and the claim that humans only use 10% of their brains. ==Early life== Ben became interested in "the mysterious and the unexplained" as a child from reading books about, "monsters and dragons, the Bermuda Triangle, psychics in Russia that could move automobiles with their mind", etc. He also became interested through television shows such as That's Incredible and Ripley's Believe It or Not. He grew disenchanted with the lack of scientific rigor in the books and television shows because there seemed to be little or no investigation or proper references.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://meettheskeptics.libsyn.com/mts-meet-ben-radford )〕 "Like many youngsters, much of my childhood was eaten up by comic books and television. My skepticism was first tweaked by Superman... I was most interested in Superman’s ability to fly. Just how did he do that? How did he actually make himself fly? Did the act of putting his fist forward make him fly? Or did he just think about it and lift off the ground? Did he have some localized mental control over gravity? I wanted to know; I wanted to understand." His favorite comic hero, The Amazing Spider-Man, inspired Ben to ask questions about the mechanisms of how the super-hero's powers worked. "My first question was how he stuck to walls. Okay, I could buy that he could jump onto a wall and stick to it. But how did he actually make that happen? Did he stick to everything, or just walls? Why didn’t paper, pencils, dollar bills, and everything else stick to his hands, too?" As a teenager Ben was fascinated by books about the strange and mysterious. In addition to purchasing used books like those featuring Doc Savage, Tom Swift and Encyclopedia Brown with his allowance, he'd buy "True Mystery" collections with titles like "Stranger Than Science". Written by authors such as Frank Edwards, these promised "fully-documented stories taken from life that modern science is powerless to explain!". Noticing that the catchphrase "science cannot explain" was quite popular, he also noticed that these books failed to have any sources, references or documentation to support the wild claims made therein. "I continued to gather more and more of these books, and between the library and the bookstore, for a few summers I was a voracious reader. I had books on fortune telling, astrology, and the Bermuda Triangle. I had books on demonic possession, exorcism, palmistry, and dowsing. I had books on mysterious creatures, psychic powers, ghosts, flying saucers, and monsters in dark corners of the world. I assumed that these stories were all (or mostly) true—the authors seemed authoritative. They were learned men and women who had studied mysterious and unusual events, written other similar books, and were apparently well qualified to report the facts of these amazing stories. But I did notice that there seemed to be precious little actual investigation; instead, most of the accounts seemed merely copied from other, older sources. There were plenty of theories and bald assertions, but no real scientific investigation, no one doing a reality check on the stories. And there was a disconnect between what I was reading and my experiences." Ben's first encounter with formal Skepticism came as a result of a fruitless search for beer in an "dry" county in Utah. Winning a regional essay contest while at the University of New Mexico, he was flown to present his paper at a college town in Utah. He and his colleagues came across a tiny used bookstore where Ben acquired an old issue of Skeptical Inquirer Magazine featuring an article on the prophesies of Nostradamus penned by none other than James Randi. Ben relates that this was the first article he'd read criticizing Nostradamus and offered, "skeptical, logical, and reasonable explanations for the prophecies apparent accuracy." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Benjamin Radford」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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