Skeptical Inquirer

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The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly, American magazine published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP, an organization whose mission statement is to "encourage the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminate factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community and the public." The Skeptical Inquirer is an internationally refereed journal (Bartholomew and Radford 2003:220), but it is not a formal scientific journal.

For the thirtieth anniversary of the Skeptical Inquirer in 2006, CSICOP founder Paul Kurtz listed four long-standing policies:

to criticize claims of the paranormal and pseudoscience
to replicate the methods of scientific inquiry and the nature of the scientific outlook
to seek a balanced view of science in the mass media
to teach critical thinking in the schools (Kurtz 2006:14) <ref>http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_5_30/ai_n16714523</ref>.

If an article criticizes a proponent of a paranormal claim, he is always given an opportunity to respond. (Kurtz 2006:15) <ref>http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_5_30/ai_n16714523</ref>. Some have taken advantage of that opportunity.

Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope calls the Skeptical Inquirer "one of the nation's leading antifruitcake journals". <ref>http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_344.html</ref>

1 History of publication
2 Collections of articles
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History of publication

Image:ZeteticVol1No1.jpg

The magazine was originally titled The Zetetic and and was founded and originally edited by Marcello Truzzi. The first issue was in the Fall of 1976. About a year later (starting with volume 2, issue 2) it was retitled Skeptical Inquirer and Kendrick Frazier (former editor of Science News) became the new editor. It retained The Zetetic as a subtitle through volume four. The magazine was initially a bi-annual publication in digest size (15cm by 23cm). In about two years it changed to being a quarterly publication; then in 1994 it started being published bimonthly. In 1995 it became a full-sized publication (21cm by 27 cm). Since January 1996, its subtitle has been: The magazine for science and reason. In 1998 it started using '"slick" paper. As of 2006 Frazier is the still the editor and Benjamin Radford is the managing editor.

The content consists of articles, columns and book reviews on a variety of topics that the authors seek to examine critically, including ESP, homeopathy, astrology, SETI, the creation-evolution controversy, the historical basis of legendary persons such as King Arthur, controversial medical diagnoses like Attention Deficit Disorder, etc. The magazine is headquartered in Amherst, New York.

[edit] Collections of articles

There have been several collections of articles from the Skeptical Inquirer, most edited by Frazier. A CD of all articles of the first thirty years is slated for release. Books of collections of articles are:

Paranormal Borderlands of Science (1981). edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books; ISBN 0-87975-148-7.

Science Confronts the Paranormal (1986). edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books; ISBN 0-87975-314-5.

The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal (1991). edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books; ISBN 0-87975-655-1

The Outer Edge: Classic Investigations of the Paranormal (1996). edited by Joe Nickell, Barry Karr, and Tom Genoni, CSICOP.

The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups (1997). edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books; ISBN 1-57392-131-9