Scott Lilienfeld
đź“·Scott Lilienfeld, a professor of psychology at Emory University, died Sept. 30, 2020. He was 59.
From taking on ghost chasers to beliefs that swimming with dolphins provides psychological therapy, Lilienfeld, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology at Emory University, spent much of his career extricating research- and data-driven facts from junk thought.
He was a meticulous master debunker, publishing more than 350 journal articles while also writing and editing textbooks and books — many aimed at broad audiences. Like his idol, the late astronomer Carl Sagan, who taught at Cornell University where Lilienfeld studied, Lilienfeld worked to bring together academic and lay communities.
“Scott didn’t suffer fools gladly,” said Lori Marino, his first wife and a neuroscientist living in southern Utah. “But he didn’t demean people. He was challenging long-held beliefs and he was sensitive to the fact this could frighten people, and when they get scared it weakens their intellectual defenses.”
Read more about Scott Lilienfeld from ajc.com
