Paul Meehl, PhD, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota and 1962 APA president, died in February. Originally trained as a psychoanalyst, Meehl received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1945.
Meehl was well-known for his book "Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence"--which argued that psychologists weren't doing a good job of predicting human behavior--and for his 1960s assertion of a genetic link for schizophrenia. He wrote one of the scales in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, and more recently helped develop the field of taxometrics.
Conversant in a variety of fields, Meehl held faculty appointments in psychology, law, psychiatry, neurology and philosophy and wrote on those subjects as well as on religion and political science.
--M. GREENGRASS