CSICOP mutation

Has CSICOP Lost the 30 Years' War?

Part 6: CSICOP No More!

~ Guy Lyon Playfair

CSICOP has ceased to exist, it was announced in the Jan./Feb. 2007 issue of Skeptical Inquirer (SI) in an editorial entitled 'New Directions for Skeptical Inquiry'. It has been replaced by something called 'The Center for Scientific Inquiry' (CSI), the stated aims of which sound virtually identical to those of CSICOP. So why the change?

---------------

For a thorough look at the evolution of CSICOP the entire series of articles offers an enlightening view of who and what CSICOP was:

The Skeptical Observer

A series of articles by Guy Lyon Playfair

Has The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)Lost the 30 Years' War?

Part 1 - Birth of a Movement http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/observer/30yearswar_1.htm

Part 2: The Gauquelin Effect http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/observer/30yearswar_2.htm

Part 3: How Scientific is CSICOP? http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/observer/30yearswar_3.htm

Part 4: CSICOP Loses the Thirty Years War http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/observer/30yearswar_4.htm

Part 5: CSICOP's Stalinist Godfather http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/observer/30yearswar_5.htm

Part 6: CSICOP No More! http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/observer/30yearswar_6.htm

How Scepticism Blocks Progress

How Scepticism Blocks Progress: Cuvier and Spallanzani
by Guy Lyon Playfair

"In 1794 the eminent Italian physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-99), one of the founders of experimental biology, published a modest but heretical proposal. Long intrigued by the ability of bats to fly in total darkness without bumping into things, he set out to discover how they did it."

Although Spallanzani's research determined bats navigated through the sense of hearing, his discovery was not accepted, and did not surface again until the 20th century.