Originally published 26 May 1986
Happy Anniversary, CSICOP!
Ten years ago [in 1976] a group of distinguished philosophers and scientists, disturbed by what they saw as a rising tide of interest in astrology and other pseudo-sciences, established the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.
CSICOP’s aim was to increase the quality of scientific investigations of paranormal phenomena by constructive criticism, and to expose and debunk invalid or fraudulent claims. For a decade, CSICOP has published a journal, The Skeptical Inquirer, and hosted annual conferences to raise public awareness of the difference between science and parascience.
Among the founders and early members of CSICOP were philosophers Paul Kurtz, Sidney Hook, Ernest Nagel, and W. V. Quine, astronomers George Abell, Bart Bok, and Carl Sagan, science writers Isaac Asimov and Martin Gardner, and magician (and expert fraud-detector) James Randi. Kurtz remains a driving force behind the work of the committee.
I recently asked Kendrick Frazier, editor of The Skeptical Inquirer, whether interest in paranormal phenomena has diminished in the ten years since the founding of CSICOP. In Frazier’s opinion, the parasciences remain as popular as ever, although he detects a shift in subject matter and in the way paranormal claims are communicated.
Changing interests
According to Frazier, there is now less interest in what he calls “the astro-geophysical fringe subjects,” such as UFOs, ancient astronauts, and Velikovskian worlds-in-collision. In their place, there is increased interest in parapsychological and health/medical pseudo-science.
Frazier claims that the number of books on parasciences is decreasing. Practitioners of the fringe sciences are now more likely to communicate their claims through newsletters, radio talk shows, and supermarket tabloids.
Frazier made reference to a Gallup poll published last year that showed that belief in astrology has risen dramatically among young people. Clearly, it remains as important as ever for the scientific community to make clear the difference between science and parascience.
Science is public knowledge. It is based upon observations that can be repeated by any investigator, believer or skeptic, with uniform results. For example, scientists may debate the agency or mode of evolution, but the fossil record in the rocks is there for anyone with eyes to see. The “phenomena” described by the parasciences — such as extra-sensory perception — are generally discernible only to advocates of those disciplines.
There are degrees of confidence in any scientific theory, based upon the soundness of the evidence. The degree of confidence in the reality of biological evolution is extremely high; so high that most scientists are prepared to say “fact.” The degree of confidence in ESP and astrology is close to zero.
Checks and balances
No one claims that science is perfect. Like any human activity, science is subject to the prejudices and personality defects of individuals. But the scientific community has evolved a system of checks and balances to ensure a fair hearing for any potentially fruitful idea, while at the same time holding at a distance the tide of bogus opinion that constantly laps upon the shores of legitimate public knowledge. The system occasionally slips, but on the whole it has worked very well.
In the March 13th [1986] issue of the British journal Nature, psychologist David Marks gave a ten-year score card on the investigations by CSICOP. Over the decade, he wrote, a considerable amount of fraud, error, and incompetence has been uncovered. Of more significance, not a single publicly repeatable experiment involving paranormal phenomena was encountered.
Marks concluded: “Parascience has all the qualities of a magical system while wearing the mantle of science. Until any significant discoveries are made, science can justifiably ignore it, but it is important to say why: parascience is a pseudo-scientific system of untestable beliefs steeped in illusion, error, and fraud.”
The physicist Michael Faraday once said: “Nothing is too wonderful to be true.” With that in mind, science must be open to the possibility that an apparently offbeat idea contains the seed of truth. At the same time, it is right to insist that certain evidential criteria must be met for an idea to qualify as science. If science is open to any private vision of reality, then its usefulness as public knowledge is severely impaired.
When parapsychology, astrology, or other popular paranormal “sciences,” can produce a single convincing experimental test of their claims — one that can be repeated by skeptics as well as believers — only then can it lay claim to being legitimate public knowledge. That is how these things are done in science…by definition.
CSICOP is still going strong in 2019, now known as CSI, or the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. CSICon, a conference hosted by CSI, is held annually in October. Alas, the general public’s appetite for pseudoscience continues unabated. ‑Ed.
