In a previous post, I submitted a website which provided a critique of the CSICOP association which attempts to debunk the paranormal, traditional Chinese medicine included.
http://www.alternativescience.com/csicop.htm
In an imperfect world, we all suffer from a gap between how we see ourselves and how others see us: between what we’d like to be and what we are. But in 30 years of journalism I haven’t found a more striking gulf between self-image and performance than CSICOP – the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.
Everything about CSICOP purports to be scientific – objective, fair, independent, investigative, rational. In reality, CSICOP is the home of the Paradigm Police, a kind of Pseudoscience-Central that deals in fundamentalist prejudice, opinion and bias, informed by a single, central hidden agenda – to debunk at any cost any phenomenon, evidence or theory that touches on the list of taboo subjects that CSICOP has drawn up as forbidden.
The contradictions start even with CSICOP’s name. Any rational person would expect an organisation that calls itself a Committee for Scientific Investigation to actually involve itself in carrying out scientific investigations, but CSICOP conducts no such investigations, it merely makes ex cathedra pronouncements telling the public what it should and shouldn’t believe, without troubling itself about conducting experiments.
When it was first formed in 1976, CSICOP did attempt a foray into scientific investigation, which turned into a farcical scandal. It decided to target the statistical work of French mathematician Michel Gauquelin whose work appeared to suggest there might be something in astrology after all.
Within a short time however, CSICOP officer Dennis Rawlins, who was acting as the study’s statistician and was the only astronomer on CSICOP’s council, announced he was quitting and accused CSICOP of blatantly fiddling the figures to prove Gauquelin wrong. (Click here for full story).
Since then, CSICOP has quietly dropped any pretence of being an investigating body and acts instead as the spiritual home of scientific fundamentalism – a church with many priests but few congregations.
CSICOP’s founder and president is Dr Paul Kurtz, formerly a professor with New York State University. Perhaps surprisingly, Dr Kurtz is not a scientist but a philosopher. In a memorable TV interview, on the subject of ‘aliens’, he said, “If we are going to admit aliens, what are we going to admit next? Fairies? Elves? Where do we draw the line?”
In this spontaneous comment Dr Kurtz has unconsciously disclosed his entire philosophy of science. For him, science is not open, without boundaries, up for exploration and discovery without fear or favour. Science is closed like a classified or restricted area to which ideas and people are “admitted” by duly authorised guardians, and once inside must stick to the authorised boundaries.
It is the guardians who “draw the line” around the boundaries of science. And Dr Kurtz clearly considers himself to be one of these guardians because he says “Where do we draw the line”?
Fairies, Elves, Aliens, Cold Fusion, Psychokinesis, ESP, acupressure, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, homeopathy, and dozens of other subjects are not acceptable subjects for investigation by science, or even by the media, not because the evidence says so, but because Dr Kurtz and his colleagues say so.
The fundamental rationale of Dr Kurtz’s brainchild organisation is the same as his personal world view: The public must not be given facts and arguments and left to make up their own mind. Science must be left to those, like Dr Kurtz, who are qualified to judge what is true and what is false. CSICOP sees its function as being to educate an ignorant public in what is scientifically acceptable.
Of course it is fair to add that while all this may be anti-scientific and against the spirit of academic freedom it is a perfectly legitimate position to adopt and Dr Kurtz and his colleagues are perfectly entitled to think and speak as they wish. So why is CSICOP cause for concern?
The reason is that CSICOP has not merely contented itself with engaging in debate against what it sees as crackpot science, its members have taken active steps designed to silence their opponents and deny them access to media outlets.
CSICOP has formed what it calls the “Council for Media Integrity”. This sounds like a worthy idea, and CSICOP claims its only aim is to provide a counter to what it regards as one-sided reporting – again a reasonable idea. Until, that is, you learn what some CSICOP members actually do.
CSICOP’s media relations officer, Matthew Nisbet, is quite open about the Council for Media Integrity’s real purpose. It is, he says, to “turn the heat up on the entertainment industry and media.”
Whenever a major TV network carries a programme whose content CSICOP disapproves, the organisation alerts members by email, encouraging them to bombard the network and the programme’s producers will vociferous complaints, insisting that such content should not be broadcast. Not unnaturally, some producers and network executives feel it wiser to give in to this kind of pressure from prominent academics and avoid such subjects in future.
More insidiously, CSICOP members have also complained vociferously to the commercial companies who sponsor the programmes in question by buying advertising time. CSICOP members have threatened to organise boycotts of the products of such sponsor companies if they fail to agree not to sponsor such programmes again – a powerful commercial threat that sounds alarmingly like intellectual
This is a relevant topic, with no foul language and provides an alternative assessement of those critiquing TCM.
The moderator of this forum has seen fit to remove it once and I have reported this to the administrator of the site. Should this be removed again, we will repeat the process or request a replacement moderator for this forum.
You sure? I find a great variety of science to be absolutely fascinating; full of romance and poetry. Why do you think otherwise? Freud, Darwin, and Einstein are absolutely fabulous. Nevermind Bohm, Leibniz, and that lot.