Skeptical Inquirer

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Cover to the May/June 2006 Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

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."

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

1. to criticize claims of the paranormal and pseudoscience
2. to replicate the methods of scientific inquiry and the nature of the scientific outlook
3. to seek a balanced view od science in the mass media
4. to teach critical thinking in the schools Template:Ref harvard.

Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope calls the Skeptical Inquirer "one of the nation's leading antifruitcake journals".

History of publication

The magazine was founded by Marcello Truzzi under the name The Zetetic and was retitled after a few months under the editorship of Kendrick Frazier, former editor of Science News. Its 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.

The magazine's first issue was in the Fall of 1976, and it was initially a bi-annual publication in digest size. In 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. Since January 1996, its subtitle has been: The magazine for science and reason.

Collections of articles

There have been several collections of articles from the Skeptical Inquirer, most edited by Frazier:

• 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

• Encounters With the Paranormal: Science, Knowledge, and Belief (1998). edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books; ISBN 1-57392-203-X.

• Bizarre Cases: From the Files of The Skeptical Inquirer (2000). edited by Benjamin Radford, CSICOP

See also

• Skeptic magazine
• The Skeptic (UK magazine)

References

• ^{Kurtz 2006} Paul Kurtz (2006). "Science and the Public: Summing Up Thirty Years of the Skeptical Inquirer". Skeptical Inquirer. 30 (5): 13–19. Retrieved 25 October 2006. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

External links

• Skeptical Inquirer homepage
• CSICOP official site
• Science and the Public: Summing Up Thirty Years of the Skeptical Inquirer