Editing Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (section)

== History ==
[[File:CSICOP Banquet.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The Banquet at the 1983 CSICOP Conference in [[Buffalo, New York]]]]

The committee was officially launched on April 30, 1976, and was co-chaired by [[Paul Kurtz]] and [[Marcello Truzzi]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rensberger |first=Boyce |date=1976-05-01 |title=Paranormal Phenomena Facing Scientific Study |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/01/archives/paranormal-phenomena-facing-scientific-study.html |access-date=2022-03-20 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> In the early 1970s, scientific skeptics were concerned that interest in the paranormal was on the rise in the United States, part of a growing tide of irrationalism.<ref name=aspr92>''The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research'', Volume 86, No. 1, January 1992</ref>{{full citation needed|date=August 2016}} In 1975, Kurtz, a [[Secular humanism|secular humanist]], initiated a statement, "Objections to [[Astrology]]", which was co-written with [[Bart Bok]] and Lawrence E. Jerome, and endorsed by 186 scientists, including 19 Nobel laureates. The statement was published in the [[American Humanist Association]] (AHA)'s newsletter ''The Humanist'',<ref name=aspr92/> of which Kurtz was then editor. According to Kurtz, the statement was sent to every newspaper in the United States and Canada. It received a positive reaction, which encouraged Kurtz to invite skeptical researchers to a 1976 conference with the aim of establishing a new organization to critically examine a wide range of paranormal claims.<ref name=Kurtz/> Attendees included [[Martin Gardner]], [[Ray Hyman]], [[James Randi]], and Marcello Truzzi, all members of the Resources for the Scientific Evaluation of the Paranormal (RSEP), a fledgling group with objectives similar to those CSI would subsequently adopt.<ref name=aspr92/>

RSEP disbanded and its members, along with [[Carl Sagan]], [[Isaac Asimov]], [[B.F. Skinner]], and [[Philip J. Klass]], then joined Kurtz, Randi, Gardner, and Hyman to formally found the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).<ref name="Evans2012" /> Kurtz, Randi, Gardner, and Hyman took seats on the executive board.<ref name=NYTimes>Higginbotham, Adam (November 7, 2014). [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/magazine/the-unbelievable-skepticism-of-the-amazing-randi.html?_r=0 "The Unbelievable Skepticism of the Amazing Randi"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170826075948/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/magazine/the-unbelievable-skepticism-of-the-amazing-randi.html?_r=0 |date=August 26, 2017 }}. ''The New York Times''.</ref> CSICOP was officially launched at a specially convened conference of the AHA on April 30 and May 1, 1976.<ref name=Kurtz>{{cite web| last = Kurtz| first = Paul|date=July 2001|url = http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-07/kurtz.html| title = A Quarter Century of Skeptical Inquiry My Personal Involvement| publisher = Skeptical Inquirer|access-date = 2008-12-01|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080305043319/http://csicop.org/si/2001-07/kurtz.html |archive-date = March 5, 2008}}</ref>

According to the published correspondence between Gardner and Truzzi, disagreements over what CSICOP should show how volatile the beginnings of the organization were. Truzzi accused CSICOP of "act[ing] more like lawyers" taking on a position of dismissal before evaluating the claims, saying that CSICOP took a "debunking stance". Gardner, on the other hand, "opposed 'believers' in the paranormal becoming CSICOP members", which Truzzi supported. Gardner felt that Truzzi "conferred too much respectability to nonsense".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ward |first1=Ray |title=The Martin Gardner Correspondence with Marcello Truzzi |journal=Skeptical Inquirer |date=2017 |volume=41 |issue=6 |pages=57–59 |publisher=Committee for Skeptical Inquiry}}</ref>

CSICOP was funded in part with donations and sales of their magazine, ''[[Skeptical Inquirer]]''.<ref name="NYTimes" />