 | |
| Abbreviation | CSI |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1976 |
| Type | Nonprofit organization (1976–2015) Program of the Center for Inquiry (2015–present) |
| Purpose | Skeptical inquiry of paranormal claims |
| Headquarters | Amherst, New York, United States |
Region served
| Worldwide |
Executive director
| Barry Karr |
| Website | csicop.org |
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the transnational American non-profit educational organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims." Paul Kurtz proposed the establishment of CSICOP in 1976 as an independent non-profit organization (before merging with CFI as one of its programs in 2015), to counter what he regarded as an uncritical acceptance of, and support for, paranormal claims by both the media and society in general. Its philosophical position is one of scientific skepticism. CSI's fellows have included notable scientists, Nobel laureates, philosophers, psychologists, educators and authors. It is headquartered in Amherst, New York.
History
The Banquet at the 1983 CSICOP Conference in Buffalo, NY
In the early 1970s, there was an upsurge of interest in the
paranormal in the United States. This generated concern in some quarters, where it was seen as part of a growing tide of irrationalism. In 1975, secular humanist philosopher and professor Paul Kurtz had previously initiated a statement, "Objections to Astrology", which was co-written with Bart Bok and Lawrence E. Jerome, and endorsed by 186 scientists including 19 Nobel laureates and published in the American Humanist Association (AHA)'s newsletter The Humanist,
of which Kurtz was then editor. According to Kurtz, the statement was
sent to every newspaper in the United States and Canada. The positive
reaction to this statement encouraged Kurtz to invite "as many skeptical
researchers as [he] could locate" to the 1976 conference with the aim
of establishing a new organization dedicated to examining critically a
wide range of paranormal claims. Among those invited were Martin Gardner, Ray Hyman, James Randi, and Marcello Truzzi,
all members of the Resources for the Scientific Evaluation of the
Paranormal (RSEP), a fledgling group with objectives similar to those
CSI would subsequently adopt.
RSEP disbanded and its members, along with others such as Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, B.F. Skinner, and Philip J. Klass,
joined Kurtz, Randi, Gardner and Hyman to formally found the Committee
for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). Kurtz, Randi, Gardner and Hyman took seats on the executive board. CSICOP was officially launched at a specially convened conference of the AHA on April 30 and May 1, 1976. CSICOP would be funded with donations and sales of their magazine, Skeptical Inquirer.
According to the published correspondence between Gardner and
Truzzi, disagreements over what CSICOP should be showed how volatile the
beginnings of the organization were. Truzzi criticised CSICOP for
"acted(ing) more like lawyers" taking on a position of dismissal before
evaluating the claims, saying that CSICOP took a "debunking stance".
Gardner on the other hand "opposed 'believers' in the paranormal
becoming CSICOP members" which Truzzi supported. Gardner felt that
Truzzi "conferred too much respectability to nonsense".
Mission statement
The formal mission statement, approved in 2006 and still current, states:
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry promotes science and scientific inquiry, critical thinking, science education, and the use of reason in examining important issues. It encourages the critical investigation of controversial or extraordinary claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminates factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community, the media, and the public.
A
shorter version of the mission statement appears in every issue: "...
promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of
reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims."
A previous mission statement referred to "investigation of paranormal
and fringe-science claims", but the 2006 change recognized and ratified a
wider purview for CSI and its magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, that
includes "new sciencerelated issues at the intersection of science and
public concerns, while not ignoring [their] core topics". A history of the first two decades is available in The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal published in 1998 by S.I. editor Kendrick Frazier.
In 2018, Frazier reemphasized the importance of the Committee's work by
saying that "[w]e need independent, evidence-based, science-based
critical investigation and inquiry ow more than perhaps at any other
time in our history."
Name
Paul Kurtz was inspired by the 1949 Belgian organization Comité Para, whose full name was Comité Belge pour l'Investigation Scientifique des Phénomènes Réputés Paranormaux ("Belgian Committee for Scientific Investigation of Purported Paranormal Phenomena").
In 1976, the proposed name was "Committee for the Scientific
Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and Other Phenomena" which was
shortened to "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of
the Paranormal." The initial acronym, "CSICP" was difficult to pronounce and so was changed to "CSICOP." According to James Alcock, it was never intended to be "Psi Cop", a nickname that some of the group's detractors adopted.
In November 2006, CSICOP further shortened its name to "Committee for Skeptical Inquiry" (CSI), pronounced C-S-I.
The reasons for the change were to create a name that was shorter,
more "media-friendly", to remove "paranormal" from the name, and to
reflect more accurately the actual scope of the organization with its
broader focus on critical thinking, science, and rationality in general,
and because "it includes the root words of our magazine's title, the Skeptical Inquirer".
Activities
In order to carry out its mission, the Committee "maintains a network
of people interested in critically examining paranormal, fringe
science, and other claims, and in contributing to consumer education;
prepares bibliographies of published materials that carefully examine
such claims;encourages research by objective and impartial inquiry in
areas where it is needed; convenes conferences and meetings; publishes
articles that examine claims of the paranormal; does not reject claims
on a priori grounds, antecedent to inquiry, but examines them objectively and carefully".
Standard
An axiom often repeated among CSI members is the quote "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence",
which Carl Sagan made famous and adapted from an earlier quote by
Marcello Truzzi: "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof". (Truzzi in turn traced the idea back through the Principle of Laplace to the philosopher David Hume.)
According to CSI member Martin Gardner, CSI regularly puts into practice H. L. Mencken's maxim "one horse-laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms."
Publications
Logo of the Skeptical Inquirer.
CSI publishes the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, which was founded by Truzzi, under the name The Zetetic and retitled after a few months under the editorship of Kendrick Frazier, former editor of Science News. Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope calls Skeptical Inquirer "one of the nation's leading antifruitcake journals". In addition, it publishes Skeptical Briefs, a quarterly newsletter published for associate members.
CSI conducts and publishes investigations into Bigfoot and UFO sightings, psychics, astrologers, alternative medicine, religious cults, and paranormal or pseudoscientific claims.
Conferences
Barbara Forrest participating in the "Creation and Evolution" panel at CSICon 2011 in New Orleans.
Bill Nye speaking about science education at CSICon 2013 in Tacoma, Washington.
CSI Staff at CSICon Halloween Party 2016
CSICOP has held dozens of conferences between 1983 and 2005, two of
them in Europe, and all six World Skeptics Congresses so far were
sponsored by it. Since 2011, the conference is known as CSICon. Two
conventions have been held in conjunction with its sister and parent
organizations, CSH and CFI, in 2013 and 2015. The conferences bring
together some of the most prominent figures in scientific research,
science communication and skeptical activism, to exchange information on
all topics of common concern and to strengthen the movement and
community of skeptics.
CSI has also supported local grassroot efforts, such as SkeptiCamp community-organized conferences.
Response to mass media
Many CSI activities are oriented towards the media. As CSI's former
executive director Lee Nisbet wrote in the 25th-anniversary issue of the
group's journal, Skeptical Inquirer:
CSICOP originated in the spring of 1976 to fight mass-media exploitation of supposedly "occult" and "paranormal" phenomena. The strategy was twofold: First, to strengthen the hand of skeptics in the media by providing information that "debunked" paranormal wonders. Second, to serve as a "media-watchdog" group which would direct public and media attention to egregious media exploitation of the supposed paranormal wonders. An underlying principle of action was to use the mainline media's thirst for public-attracting controversies to keep our activities in the media, hence public eye.
Involvement with mass media continues to the present day with, for example, CSI founding the Council for Media Integrity in 1996, and co-producing a TV documentary series Critical Eye hosted by William B. Davis. CSI members can be seen regularly in the mainstream media offering their perspective on a variety of paranormal claims. In 1999 Joe Nickell was appointed special consultant on a number of investigative documentaries for the BBC.
As a media-watchdog, CSI has "mobilized thousands of scientists,
academics and responsible communicators" to criticize what it regards as
"media's most blatant excesses."
Criticism has focused on factual TV programming or newspaper articles
offering support for paranormal claims, and programs such as The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which its members believe portray skeptics and science in a bad light and help to promote belief in the paranormal. CSI's website currently
lists the email addresses of over ninety U.S. media organizations and
encourages visitors to "directly influence" the media by contacting "the
networks, the TV shows and the editors responsible for the way [they
portray] the world."
Following pseudoscientific and paranormal belief trends
CSI was quoted to consider pseudoscience topics to include yogic flying, therapeutic touch, astrology, fire walking, voodoo, magical thinking, Uri Geller, alternative medicine, channeling, psychic hotlines and detectives, near-death experiences, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), the Bermuda Triangle, homeopathy, faith healing, and reincarnation.
CSI changes its focus with the changing popularity and prominence of
what it considers to be pseudoscientific and paranormal belief. For
example, as promoters of intelligent design
increased their efforts to include it in school curricula in recent
years, CSI stepped up its attention to the subject, creating an
"Intelligent Design Watch" website publishing numerous articles on evolution and intelligent design in Skeptical Inquirer and on the Internet.
Health and safety
CSI is concerned with paranormal or pseudoscientific claims that may
endanger people's health or safety, such as the use of alternative
medicine in place of science-based healthcare. Investigations by CSI and
others, including consumer watchdog groups, law enforcement and government regulatory agencies,
have shown that the sale of alternative medicines, paranormal
paraphernalia, or pseudoscience-based products can be enormously
profitable. CSI says this profitability has provided various
pro-paranormal groups large resources for advertising, lobbying efforts,
and other forms of advocacy, to the detriment of public health and
safety.
Organization
Umbrella organization
The Center for Inquiry is the transnational non-profit umbrella organization comprising CSI, the Council for Secular Humanism, the Center for Inquiry - On Campus national youth group and the Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health.
These organizations share headquarters and some staff, and each have
their own list of fellows and their distinct mandates. CSI generally
addresses questions of religion only in cases in which testable
scientific assertions have been made (such as weeping statues or faith healing).
Independent Investigation Group
The Center for Inquiry West, located in Hollywood, California Executive Director Jim Underdown founded the Independent Investigations Group (IIG), a volunteer-based organization in January 2000. The IIG investigates fringe science, paranormal
and extraordinary claims from a rational, scientific viewpoint and
disseminates factual information about such inquiries to the public. IIG
has offered a $50,000 prize "to anyone who can show, under proper
observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event", to which 7 people applied from 2009-2012.
Dominique Dawes and IIG's James Underdown discuss test protocols Oct 28, 2010
Controversy and criticism
CSI's activities have garnered criticism from individuals or groups which have been the focus of the organization's attention. Television celebrity and claimed psychic Uri Geller, for example, was until recently in open dispute with the organization, filing a number of unsuccessful lawsuits against them. Some criticism has also come from within the scientific community and at times from within CSI itself. Marcello Truzzi, one of CSICOP's co-founders, left the organization after only a short time, arguing that many of those involved "tend to block honest inquiry, in my opinion. Most of them are not agnostic toward claims of the paranormal; they are out to knock them. [...] When an experiment of the paranormal meets their requirements, then they move the goal posts." Truzzi coined the term pseudoskeptic to describe critics in whom he detected such an attitude.Uri Geller filed a number of unsuccessful lawsuits against CSICOP
Mars effect, 1975
An early controversy concerned the so-called Mars effect: French statistician Michel Gauquelin's claim that champion athletes are more likely to be born when the planet Mars is in certain positions in the sky. In late 1975, prior to the formal launch of CSICOP, astronomer Dennis Rawlins, along with Paul Kurtz, George Abell and Marvin Zelen (all subsequent members of CSICOP) began investigating the claim. Rawlins, a founding member of CSICOP at its launch in May 1976, resigned in early 1980 claiming that other CSICOP researchers had used incorrect statistics, faulty science, and outright falsification in an attempt to debunk Gauquelin's claims. In an article for the pro-paranormal magazine Fate, he wrote: "I am still skeptical of the occult beliefs CSICOP was created to debunk. But I have changed my mind about the integrity of some of those who make a career of opposing occultism." CSICOP's Philip J. Klass responded by circulating an article to CSICOP members critical of Rawlins' arguments and motives; Klass's unpublished response, refused publication by Fate, itself became the target for further criticism.
Church of Scientology 1977
In 1977, an FBI raid on the offices of the Church of Scientology uncovered a project to discredit CSICOP so that it and its publications would cease criticism of Dianetics and Scientology. This included forging a CIA memo and sending it to media sources, including The New York Times, to spread rumors that CSICOP was a front group for the CIA. A letter from CSICOP founder Paul Kurtz was forged to discredit him in the eyes of parapsychology researchers.
Natasha Demkina, 2004
In 2004, CSICOP was accused of scientific misconduct over its involvement in the Discovery Channel's test of the "girl with X-ray eyes", Natasha Demkina. In a self-published commentary, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Brian Josephson criticized the test and evaluation methods and argued that the results should have been deemed "inconclusive" rather than judged in the negative. Josephson, the director of the University of Cambridge's Mind–Matter Unification Project, questioned the researchers' motives, saying: "On the face of it, it looks as if there was some kind of plot to discredit the teenage claimed psychic by setting up the conditions to make it likely that they could pass her off as a failure." Ray Hyman, one of the three researchers who designed and conducted the test, published a response to this and other criticisms. CSI's Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health also published a detailed response to these and other objections, saying that the choice of critical level was appropriate, because her claims were unlikely to be true:
I decided against setting the critical level at seven because this would require Natasha to be 100% accurate in our test. We wanted to give her some leeway. More important, setting the critical value at seven would make it difficult to detect a true effect. On the other hand, I did not want to set the critical value at four because this would be treating the hypothesis that she could see into people's bodies as if it were highly plausible. The compromise was to set the value at five.
General criticism and reply
On a more general level, proponents of parapsychology have accused CSI of pseudoskepticism, and an overly dogmatic and arrogant approach based on a priori convictions. A 1992 article in The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, an organ for the Parapsychological Association, suggests that CSI's aggressive style of skepticism could discourage scientific research into the paranormal. Astronomer Carl Sagan wrote on this in 1995:
Have I ever heard a skeptic wax superior and contemptuous? Certainly. I've even sometimes heard, to my retrospective dismay, that unpleasant tone in my own voice. There are human imperfections on both sides of this issue. Even when it's applied sensitively, scientific skepticism may come across as arrogant, dogmatic, heartless, and dismissive of the feelings and deeply held beliefs of others ... CSICOP is imperfect. In certain cases [criticism of CSICOP] is to some degree justified. But from my point of view CSICOP serves an important social function – as a well-known organization to which media can apply when they wish to hear the other side of the story, especially when some amazing claim of pseudoscience is judged newsworthy ... CSICOP represents a counterbalance, although not yet nearly a loud enough voice, to the pseudoscience gullibility that seems second nature to so much of the media.
