Biography:Charles M. Fair
Charles Maitland Fair | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 18, 1916 |
| Died | July 28, 2014 (aged 97) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Neuroscience researcher and writer |
| Parents |
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Charles Maitland Fair (September 18, 1916 – July 28, 2014) was an American neuroscience researcher and writer.
Early life and education
Fair was born in New York City . His mother was the stage actress Gertrude Bryan. He attended the Buckley School, Fay School, and St. Paul's. Fair attended Yale University but was asked to leave before graduating.[1]
Career
Fair began to study the nervous system in the late 1950's out of his conviction that psychiatric theories of the self had failed.[1] In spite of his lack of a college degree, Fair distinguished himself as an independent scholar by holding several prestigious positions and writing three books on neuroscience. He was a Guggenheim Fellow at UCLA's Brain Research Institute[2] and worked as a scientist for MIT's Neuroscience Research Program and Massachusetts General Hospital.[3][4] Fair published several technical papers[5][6] and contributed to the academic journals Science[7] and Nature.[8]
Writing
Fair wrote poetry, literary commentary, and screenplays.[1] He published light verse in Punch and The New Yorker, wrote book reviews for the Providence Journal and the The Washington Post , and had a column in the American Poetry Review.[3] Fair wrote and narrated the soundtrack for the original Salem Witch Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.[3] He wrote three non-technical books on the subjects of the history of war (From the Jaws of Victory) and cultural criticism (The Dying Self; The New Nonsense: The End of the Rational Consensus).
Skepticism
Fair was a skeptic and early member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.[9] Fair's The New Nonsense critically examined pseudoscience and paranormal topics such as mind control, ESP, UFOs, and Velikovsky's cataclysm theory.[1][10][11] He pleaded for "rational renaissance" and praised reason as a guard against looming fascistic revolution and cultural decay.[11]
Personal life
Fair had a diverse range of occupations and interests. He worked as a jazz pianist, banana importer, computer company executive, editor, poet, writer, neuroscientist, and historian.[4] He enjoyed sailing and played the vibraphone.[1] "By doing a great many things and failing at half of them I found out who I really am, and something about what the world is really like," said Fair of his own life.[1]
Publications
- The Physical Foundations of the Psyche (1963)
- The Dying Self (1969)
- From the Jaws of Victory (1971)
- The New Nonsense: The End of the Rational Consensus (1974)
- Memory & Central Nervous Organization (1988)
- Cortical Memory Functions (1992)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Haines, John (12 April 1975). "Charles Fair, A Man of Many Talents". The Missoulian.
- ↑ "Guggenheim Fellows". https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/charles-m-fair/.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Obituaries: Charles M. Fair". The Post Star. 29 July 2014. https://poststar.com/lifestyles/announcements/obituaries/charles-m-fair/article_ebc91ac0-179a-11e4-a62a-0019bb2963f4.html.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Deaths: Charles M. Fair". The New York Times. 31 July 2014.
- ↑ Fair, Charles M. (1989). "A method of estimating the total number of words in English". Language Sciences 11 (4): 355–366. doi:10.1016/0388-0001(89)90026-0. ISSN 0388-0001. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0388-0001(89)90026-0.
- ↑ ASCD Yearbook Committee (1977). Feeling, valuing, and the art of growing : insights into the affective. Louise M. Berman, Jessie A. Roderick, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Washington, D.C.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. ISBN 0-87120-082-1. OCLC 2984748. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2984748.
- ↑ Fair, Charles (18 December 1987). "Monoclonal Antibodies as Phylogenetic Labels". Science 238 (4834): 1730–1731. doi:10.1126/science.3686014. PMID 3686014. Bibcode: 1987Sci...238.1730F.
- ↑ Fair, Charles (27 July 1989). "Room for Theory?". Nature 340 (6231): 260. doi:10.1038/340260d0. PMID 2747792. Bibcode: 1989Natur.340..260F.
- ↑ Binga, Timothy (9 November 2016). "In-Memoriam Segment from CSICon 2016". https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/in-memoriam-segment-from-csicon-2016/.
- ↑ Fair, Charles M. (1974). The new nonsense; the end of the rational consensus. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-21822-0. OCLC 898053. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/898053.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Reviews: The New Nonsense: The End of the Rational Consensus". Kirkus. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/charles-fair/the-new-nonsense-the-end-of-the-rational-consen/.
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