Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal: Encyclopedia - Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal

Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal

The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP, is an organization formed to encourage open minded, critical investigation of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims from a responsible, scientific point of view. It is a nonprofit organization, founded in 1976 by Paul Kurtz.

Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal - Activities

According to CSICOP's charter, the organization exists to pursue six major goals:

1. Maintain a network of people interested in critically examining paranormal, fringe science, and other claims, and in contributing to consumer education.
2. Prepare bibliographies of published materials that carefully examine such claims.
3. Encourage research by objective and impartial inquiry in areas where it is needed.
4. Convene conferences and meetings.
5. Publish articles that examine claims of the paranormal.
6. Do not reject claims on a priori grounds, antecedent to inquiry, but examine them objectively and carefully.

CSICOP has conducted investigations into many paranormal claims, ranging from Bigfoot and UFO sightings to self-proclaimed psychics, pseudoscience, astrology, alternative medicines, and religious cults. Notable members of CSICOP have included TV science program host Bill Nye, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, Milbourne Christopher, Martin Gardner, James Randi, and many others.

CSICOP's critical investigations into claims of paranormal phenomena have been unrelenting; the organization has never abandoned its belief that claims of the paranormal must be proven to exist by scientific means, or else the claims must be considered baseless. CSICOP critics often accuse its members of arrogance and pseudoskepticism. Critics often claim that the group has a fixed opinion that paranormal phenomena do not exist, regardless of any evidence presented to them that such phenomena do indeed exist. CSICOP's response to these criticisms has been to state that no convincingly-replicated evidence of the existence of paranormal phenomena has been published in peer-reviewed journals.

CSICOP's criticism of paranormal phenomena, pseudoscience, and fringe groups that encourage these practices has won it a large number of critics. Some of these groups have claimed that CSICOP has no credibility. A 1977 government raid on the offices of the Church of Scientology uncovered considerable evidence of a plot against CSICOP by the Church; this included a plot by Scientology to discredit CSICOP by forging CIA documents. The documents seized by the FBI described a plan to spread rumors that CSICOP was actually a front group for the CIA. (Source: Toronto Globe and Mail, January 25, 1980.)

CSICOP states that the various pro-paranormal factions have exerted a vast amount of energy, time, and money to ensure that the "grey areas" surrounding their fields of study remain in flux, largely in order to protect their profits and sources of revenue. The group's investigations into pseudoscience have shown that the field of paranormal phenomena, alternative medicine, and pseudoscience is often quite profitable. One of CSICOP's major concerns about the persistence of the belief in magical thinking and the paranormal is the significant risk it poses to the people who depend on pseudoscience to treat various life-threatening ailments and situations. One slogan originated by CSICOP concerning the profitability of pseudoscience states: Junk science books sell far more than real science.

There is an asteroid named in honor of CSICOP called (6630) Skepticus.

The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal with The Council for Secular Humanism and The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health is an affiliate of the Center for Inquiry Transnational.

CSICOP is headquartered in Amherst, New York, a suburb of Buffalo.

Criticisms of CSICOP can be found at Pathological skepticism.

Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal - Skeptical Inquirer

CSICOP publishes the journal Skeptical Inquirer, containing articles on its inquiries and those of like-minded individuals. The Skeptical Inquirer was founded by Marcello Truzzi, under the name The Zetetic and retitled after a few months under the editorship of Kendrick Frazier, former editor of Science News. There have been several collections of articles from the Skeptical Inquirer, most edited by Frazier:

• Paranormal Borderlands of Science (1981) Prometheus Books; ISBN 0685041778
• Science Confronts the Paranormal (1986) Prometheus Books; ISBN 0879753145
• The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal (1991) Prometheus Books; ISBN 0879756551
• The Outer Edge: Classic Investigations of the Paranormal (1996) CSICOP
• The Ufo Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups (1997) Prometheus Books; ISBN 1573921319
• Encounters With the Paranormal: Science, Knowledge, and Belief (1998) Prometheus Books; ISBN 157392203X
• Bizarre Cases (2000) CSICOP

Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal - Partial list of CSICOP fellows past and present

• George O. Abell
• Isaac Asimov
• Stephen Barrett
• Susan Blackmore
• Bart Bok
• Jan Harold Brunvand
• Francis Crick
• Milbourne Christopher
• Richard Dawkins
• L. Sprague de Camp
• Daniel Dennett
• Ann Druyan
• Antony Flew
• Kendrick Frazier
• Martin Gardner
• Murray Gell-Mann
• Stephen Jay Gould
• Douglas Hofstadter
• Gerald Holton
• Ray Hyman
• Philip J. Klass
• Paul Kurtz
• Leon M. Lederman
• Elizabeth Loftus
• Marvin Minsky
• Richard A. Muller
• Joe Nickell
• Bill Nye, the science guy
• James Oberg
• Robert L. Park
• Willard Van Orman Quine
• James Randi
• Carl Sagan
• Eugenie Scott
• Glenn T. Seaborg
• Thomas Sebeok
• B. F. Skinner
• Jill Tarter
• Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Marilyn vos Savant
• Steven Weinberg
• E. O. Wilson

See also

• Mars effect
• Gérard Majax
• James Randi
• The Skeptics Society
• Milbourne Christopher
• Martin Gardner
• Australian Skeptics
• Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki