Scientific gathering focuses on the unusual

Monday, June 2, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

The human mind is the new frontier for 100 scientists meeting this week at the Monte Carlo hotel-casino.

The 16th annual meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration gets under way Thursday and continues through Saturday. The scientists from around the world will present papers on topics traditionally eschewed by mainstream researchers.

The society takes no advocacy position on any topic other than the need for careful research and informed criticism, said Dean Radin, director of the Consciousness Research Division at UNLV's Harry Reid Environmental Research Center.

While topics have ranged from cold fusion to earthquake forecasting at past meetings, this year's program promises 26 presentations from archaeology to UFOs.

Radin himself has prepared a paper on psychic phenomena research in the past century. Starting about 1880, scientists began controlled laboratory experiments to investigate telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis, he discovered.

From the beginning, researchers became frustrated at the difficulty of easily replicating reported phenomena in a lab setting. Many orthodox scientists questioned the existence of such phenomena and even the legitimacy of studying parapsychology as a scientific discipline.

"The results show that by the same standards used in many scientific disciplines to establish empirical proof, the results are unequivocal: psychic phenomena exist," Radin wrote in a short abstract. The evidence and the dramatic shift in the skeptics' positions will be discussed.

John Alexander, known for his research into non-lethal weapons at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., will talk about the new National Institute for Discovery Science, founded by real estate developer and philanthropist Robert Bigelow.

The institute's goals include studying consciousness survival beyond death along with unexplained aerial phenomena.

A presentation titled, "Cell biology meets Qi Gong," will update the audience on the study of an energy force drawn from Asian religions. The presentation will be made by Garrett Young of the Geraldine Brush Cancer Research Institute at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, and Dr. Yifang Qian of the University of California, San Francisco.

Roger Hart of Oregon State University will discuss evidence of permanent water in Thermokaarst Craters near the poles of the moon, suggesting permafrost keeps the water from flying off into space.

Jacques Vallee (the Francois Truffaut character in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was based on Vallee) lectures on historical evidence and current cases of UFOs. While what the technology people see are not necessarily extraterrestrial, the sightings bear serious investigation, Vallee argues.

Physics professor Gregory Benford of the University of California, Irvine, also a science fiction writer, gives the keynote address at a banquet Saturday.

Benford says biology will dominate the world of scientific exploration in the next century.

The registration fee for the three-day event is $120 for the full meeting or $45 a day.

Those interested may register with Radin at 895-1454 or by e-mail at dradin@nevada.edu.

Or visit the Society for Scientific Exploration website for a prepared form at http://www.jse.com