Comment on Steve Novella's "Rethinking the Skeptical Movement" a decade ago

 I just came across this comment I wrote a decade ago on a post that Steve Novella wrote on his blog, and I think it's pretty good, but it generated zero comment and no upvotes or downvotes. I just came across it again while looking for old comments I made about Al Seckel, who is in the news again for his role in attempting to scrub negative information about Jeffrey Epstein from the Internet.

lippard10 years ago

This sentence contains an argument in which the conclusion does not follow from the premises:

"The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) is one of the oldest standing skeptical organizations and they have editors, fellows, and advisory committee (of which I am a member) and therefore have the ability to maintain high levels of quality within their own sphere."

The history of organized skepticism shows that CSICOP has repeatedly run into issues of ethics, poor methodology, and fraud by its Fellows and associates that has only been dealt with because of external pressures. That includes the Mars effect controversy, plagiarism by Robert Baker in the pages of Skeptical Inquirer, credential misrepresentation by Al Seckel, and the Uri Geller lawsuits (which had nothing to do with whether or not he actually had psychic capabilities, though they are often misrepresented by skeptics as though that was what the lawsuits were about).

The skeptical movement arose in the U.S. in the 1970s as a counter-movement, as a response to an increase in belief in the occult, new religions, and the "New Age" movement. It has periodically resurged in response to various other challenges--faith healing televangelists, creationist legislation, parapsychology's finding du jour, and so on. But it seems to me that it has largely been reactionary and not a self-sustaining movement. Although it is supposedly a scientific movement, the choice was made at the beginning to address a popular audience, and, after the Mars effect, not to directly fund or sponsor scientific research. This was partly reversed as CSI "Research Fellows" were appointed, but most of their work tends to be historical or in response to specific popular claims, as opposed to experimental work--and it tends to be published in popular journals, not scientific ones.

CSI Fellows are not members of the organization and have no voting power or control over the organization, apart from those who are members of the Executive Council. They are, for the most part (with a few exceptions), famous figureheads who do not directly contribute research or work to the organization, but merely lend their reputations to the group for purposes of self-promotion. By contrast, the Parapsychological Association (for one example, the Society for Scientific Exploration is another) is an organization of practicing scientists, doing research in the area, who publish in an academic-style, peer-reviewed journal. The PA, unlike CSI, is a member of the AAAS.

CSICOP/CSI has published a series of goals and objectives in the Skeptical Inquirer over its history, and it has clearly achieved some of those goals (like the original "To establish a network of people interested in examining claims of the paranormal"--changed from "establish" to "maintain" in 1980--and "To convene conferences and meetings"), failed at others (like "To prepare bibliographies of published materials that carefully examine such claims", a goal deleted in 1998; and "To encourage and commission research by objective and impartial inquirers in areas where it is needed"--the "commisions" was removed in 1994). However, CSI removed most of these objectives from the Skeptical Inquirer in 2001, and hasn't listed any at all in the magazine since 2009.

A clear vision, mission, goals, and objectives are necessary for an effective organization.