Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
===Name=== Paul Kurtz was inspired by the 1949 Belgian organization [[Comité Para]], whose full name was ''Comité Belge pour l'Investigation Scientifique des Phénomènes Réputés Paranormaux'' ("Belgian Committee for Scientific Investigation of Purported Paranormal Phenomena").<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.skeptic.com/downloads/Why-Is-There-a-Skeptical-Movement.pdf |title=Why Is There a Skeptical Movement? |author=[[Daniel Loxton]] |publisher=[[The Skeptics Society]] |page=3 |date=2013 |access-date=1 September 2014 |archive-date=March 30, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330130327/https://www.skeptic.com/downloads/Why-Is-There-a-Skeptical-Movement.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1976, the proposed name was "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and Other Phenomena" which was shortened to "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal". The initial [[acronym]], "CSICP" was difficult to pronounce and so was changed to "CSICOP". According to [[James Alcock]], it was never intended to be "Psi Cop", a nickname that some of the group's detractors adopted.{{sfn|Kurtz|2001a|p=42}} In November 2006, CSICOP further shortened its name to "Committee for Skeptical Inquiry" (CSI), pronounced C-S-I.{{r|csinow}}<ref name="name_change">[http://www.csicop.org/about/csi.html "CSICOP becomes CSI after thirty years"]. CSI. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090815024758/http://www.csicop.org/about/csi.html |date=August 15, 2009 }}</ref> The reasons for the change were to create a name that was shorter, more "media-friendly", to remove "paranormal" from the name, and to reflect more accurately the actual scope of the organization with its broader focus on critical thinking, science, and rationality in general, and because "it includes the root words of our magazine's title, the ''Skeptical Inquirer''".<ref name="CSI_Now">{{Cite web |url=http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/its_csi_now_not_csicop/ |title=It's CSI now, Not CSICOP |author=[[Kendrick Frazier]] |work=CSI website |publisher=CSI |date=4 December 2006 |access-date=1 September 2014 |archive-date=July 19, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140719010159/http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/its_csi_now_not_csicop/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)