Schism among the Skeptics

Factual Questions
1

Most loyal followers of Cecil are, almost by definition, seekers after truth and wisdom, and not easily taken-in by urban legends, rumors, and so forth. In that sense, we are probably Rational Skeptics.

Some years ago (so I have read), a member of the leadership of the well-known skeptics group Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal quit the group in some disgust, creating a rival group which put out a magazine called The Zetetic Scholar, now known as The Skeptic. The contention involved a statistical study of some astrology-related claims: I think the dissenter had some methodological objections, but was not allowed to incorporate a minority report or note his objections in the magazine put out by the Committee.

My questions:

(1) To what extent, if any, does this incident undercut claims by CSICOP to provide an unbiased skeptical evaluation of their “cases”?

(2) How do they justify total exclusion of a dissenting opinion by one of their own members (if that’s what happened)?

(3) What is the difference, if any, between the “attitudes” of the two resultant organizations?

(4) Finally, can someone explain the connection between CSICOP, the American Humanists Association, the American atheists association (not sure of the name), philosopher Paul Kurtz, and Prometheus Books? Not conspiracy-hunting: just interested in the historical connections.

2

I have to leave. I’m sure someone else will tackle that question for you. Bye.

3

Your summary is almost but not quite accurate, Scott. For background:

CSICOP was first formed at the 1976 annual convention of the American Humanist Association. At that time, Marcello Truzzi, James Randi, Ray Hyman and Martin Gardner were all members of a group called Resources for the Scientific Evaluation of the Paranormal (RSEP). RSEP disbanded and the four joined CSICOP, along with Paul Kurtz, who was editor of Humanist the AHA’s publication.

Upon joining CSICOP, Truzzi became the editor of its new publication, called Zetetic for its first two issues. He resigned from CSICOP the next year, however, due to differences in how the organization should be run. He started publishing Zetetic Scholar on his own, while the name of CSICOP’s pub was changed to Skeptical Inquirer, with Kendrick Frazier as the new editor.

The event you refer to involved Dennis Rawlins a CSICOP Executive Council member. The magazine was planning an article on Gauquelin’s so-called “Mars Effect,” which claims a relationship between the time of Mars’s rising on the day of a person’s birth and their career. Rawlins conducted data analysis and calculation for the article based on tests conducted by American statistician Marvin Zelen. He discovered that the data they had supported a Mars Effect, and could in fact not be interpreted any other way. The article that was published in Skeptical Inquirer, however, did not make these results clear, and instead spent much time questioning Gauquelin’s original data.

SI then conducted its own study, with results that were almost the polar opposite of those obtained by Gauquelin. Rawlins complained to CSICOP and was ousted from the organization, later publishing an essay called sTARBABY in Fate, exposing the whole ordeal. CSICOP, as a result of the criticism it faced, no longer conducts or sponsors original research.

It was, no doubt, a fuckup of the highest degree, and contrary to the principles of skepticism, IMO. But, then again, Skeptical Inquirer, at least since Frazier took over, makes no claims to being unbiased.

As far as connections go, CSICOP is definitely an offshoot of the AHA, and Kurtz himself comes from the AHA. He is also the founder of Prometheus Books. American Atheists has no historical connection AFAIK; it was founded by Madelyn Murray O’Hair as an advocacy/lobbying organization.

4

And which has not published anything since 1986.

This is not accurate. Zelen never conduted tests, he was working with Gauquelin’s data. His assumption was that Gauquelin’s baseline (for chance) was wrong, and Rawlins asserted that if Gauquelin’s base data was already useless then the baseline recalculation would be ‘barking up the wrong tree’

**

Again this is not what happened. If you actually read the Ralwin’s article (without the emoitonal viritol) you will see no such accusations by Rawlins. Rawlins was annoyed at being ignored (perhaps properly so, but he was becoming a loose cannon in CSICOP) and the the Kurtz, Zelen, Abell trio were doing there best to try and justify why their line of approach should have worked when it wouldn’t.

There is a long history to this whole story and Rawlin’s tale barely covers one side of it. Not helping matters is that FATE added a line about ‘faking studies’ and ‘cover ups’ that were not part of Rawlin’s article, nor did he claim such inthe article. Most true beleivers simply assume it is so from the header to the article.

Its not a surprise, the people who know the most about the whole affair have staed that they have yet to see an account of events that didn’t have at least one major mistake in it. Most of this was a mass of miscommunication and large egos on many shoulders. It happens, nobody is perfect, but nothing was faked.

There are a couple of hard to find and very detailed chronolkgies by these same folks, and I foudn one brief summary online:

link

Sorry about the length, hope it works.

[I fixed the link-bibliophage]

[Edited by bibliophage on 08-29-2001 at 02:25 PM]

5

Thanks for the info.

Mr. Misk, is the reason Zetetic Scholar has not published anything since 1986 due to its name being changed to The Skeptic? Or are they supposed to be two distinct entities?

And-- Do I understand, then, that CSICOP now states openly that they are not unbiased with respect to the matters upon which they comment? If they no longer conduct their own investigations…what is the significance of the word “Investigation” in their name?

6

No, the Zetetic just stopped being published because Truzzi’s ideals just couldn’t carry a magazine. Unfortanately, all Zetetic is remembered for is its attacks on fellow skeptics. There’s enough of that already.

Skeptic magazine is another group altogether. They were formed out of the skeptics society. There’s criticism of the methodology between the two groups, but they are not mortal enemies or anything. They just prefer different approaches. The Skeptics Soc. got a big boost when James Randi started working when them after his departure from CSICOP. That departure was cordial, and was a legal move based on a certain spoonbender’s lawsuit-happy ways.

CSICOP never denied having at least some kind of bias. But its like saying you’re baised against moon being made out of green cheese. Truzzi wanted it to be a debating forum when he was in charge, but this was seen as being too soft on real nutty concepts. So the split took place. AFAIK, CSICOP has always admitted they are skeptical, but BFD, skeptical does not equal close-minded. If anything Truzzi has become more and more of a beleiver to the point of hanging out with the aforementioned spoonbender.

And yes, they still do investigations. Mostly small investigations (keep in mind, the data crunching in the whole Gauquelin affiar would today be considered ‘small’ what with the advent of computers and the like), such as Joe Nickel’s work on weeping Madonna’s and Spontanious Human Combustion. Some UFO’s are still debunked as well. Trouble is, beyond this there’s not too much to investigate that is ‘new’ from the new age crowd. So a large part of the Skeptical Inquirer gets devoted to philisophical articles that aren’t of too much interest. This is why the Skeptics society exists, they seem to be a little bit more nuts&bolts about things.

7

I read the article, and it seems to me that pld is right. Rawlins believed that the results were obtained by errors in the data. This implied that a similar study would not reproduce the same results. By contrast, the aproach taken by the SI people was to assert, as you say, that the baseline was off. Which implied that a similar study would reproduce the same results. When the American study did not produce similar results, it tended to disprove Gauquelin, but also to disprove the SI approach, which they were reluctant to abandon.

The SI people were locked into their approach by their offer of a challenge to Gauquelin to produce a baseline study. This study disproved their assertion, after which they attempted to fudge the issue in various ways.

That’s how it seems to me anyway, from a quick read. Rawlins does not write too clearly on the subject.

8

Is that not what I mentioned? Maybe I wasn’t clear. Either way, there is no “faked study” as FATE implied.

**

Depending on who’s take you beleive, mostly I think it was folks trying to to admit they were barking up the wrong tree. Nobody is really innocent in this matter (inclduing Gauquelin) but its also been something of a tempest in a teapot.

It really didn’t help that the only guy who had the right appraoch (Rawlins) was making mortal enemies left and right. Just because you’re right, doesn’t mean you can be an asshole.

**

No, there is a lot of one-sided and very unfair emotional rhetoric and attacks that made more of a mess of this issue. Unfortunately, many have since used misreadings of y this incident to deride CSICOP and all of its members.

Somewhere, there is a very telling timeline in .rtf format by a member of the Skeptics Society.

9

I presume this is a reference to Jim Lippard’s (invaluable) chronology of the Gauquelin affair. It certainly used to be available via here, but the FTP currently appears not to work.

10

Old thread, but some details to correct.

  1. There are no formal ties between CSICOP and the American Humanist Association. Several founders of CSICOP were AHA members, and developed the idea together. But CSICOP was founded as a separate organization, with the goal of reaching beyond AHA to a different purpose. Furthermore, Kurtz subsequently left the AHA and founded the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH).

  2. CODESH was subsequently renamed the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH). The are the organization who put out Free Inquiry magazine. CSH is a separate organization from CSICOP, with a different purpose and different aims. Of course, Paul Kurtz is involved with the leadership of both, and there is a sizable cross membership. This is probably the “atheist” group you are thinking of.

  3. Paul Kurtz and others decided that skeptical and humanist literature were not often able to get published, so they formed a publishing house for those specific topics - Prometheus books. I’m not entirely sure about the organizational connections between Prometheus and the two organizations. I think it has a separate board, but with Paul Kurtz at the head it is still somewhat interrelated.

  4. CSH is promoting secular humanism and sponsoring local groups. They are heavily supporting the spread of local Centers for Free Inquiry, forming buildings in major cities to serve as multi-purpose functions. Because secular humanists share as goals promotion of science and rationality, many are also active skeptics. The CFI typically provide meeting space, offices for local organizations, and library space. From what I can tell, they invite skeptic groups as well as humanist and freethought groups to use the facilities.

  5. AHA is a separate organization than CSH - they are effectively competitors for the humanist/freethought audience (though many people share membership in both orgs). Although there was originally some animosity (the reason Kurtz left), and there is still some points of contention over the differences in methods and structure of the organizations, there have been more recent reconciliations between the groups to work collectively to further the goal of promoting humanism and humanist ideals.