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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects. |
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THE |
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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects. |
[from http://www.skeptic.com/ ]
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Subject: About the Skeptics Society
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The Skeptics Society is a member-supported organization of
scholars, scientists, historians, magicians, and the
intellectually curious, that sponsors a lecture series at Caltech
and publishes the quarterly magazine Skeptic, for the purpose of
promoting science and critical thinking, and disseminating
information on pseudoscience, pseudohistory, the paranormal,
magic, superstition, fringe claims and groups, revolutionary
science, proto-science, and the history of science and
pseudoscience, in articles, essays, reviews, and letters. The
magazine is an international publication, available to all
members, as well as institutions and university, college, and
public libraries, and is available in most bookstores and
magazine outlets. Transcripts of Caltech lectures are reprinted
in Skeptic, and videotapes of the lectures are available through
the magazine. The Skeptics Society also holds an annual Awards
Ceremony to recognize those who have made significant
contributions toward the goals of the Society and the magazine.
In addition, as a Society, the Skeptics hold social events, take
trips, and make field excursions related to science, for both
educational and social purposes.
The Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine investigate claims by
scientists, pseudoscientists, and pseudohistorians on a wide
variety of theories and conjectures including but not limited to:
evolution and creationism; cults and religion; Holocaust
revisionism and extreme Afrocentrism; conspiracy theories;
near-death and out-of-body experiences; cryonics, life after
death and the quest for immortality; witchcraft and witch crazes;
mass hysterias and urban myths; the relationship of science and
science fiction; hypnosis and altered states of consciousness;
the difference between science and pseudoscience and the
difference between history and pseudo history; magic and the
paranormal; the use and abuse of theory and statistics in science
and pseudoscience; the role of skepticism; medical and
psychiatric claims; the scope and limitations of science and
technology; gender and race issues in science, society, and
history; cultural influences on science and scientific influences
on culture; the capacities and limitations of the human mind and
body; scientific and academic fraud and hoaxes. The question the
Skeptics Society asks about all claims it investigates is this:
How well do they hold up under scientific scrutiny?
With regard to statements, hypotheses, theories, and ideologies
considered by the Skeptics Society, the organization adopts the
posture of the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza:
"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to
bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them."
With regard to its procedure of examination of all claims, the
Skeptics Society adapts the scientific method developed in the
16th and 17th centuries. It recognizes the limitations and
socio-cultural influences on science, yet adopts the philosophy
of Albert Einstein:
"All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and
childlike--and yet it is the most precious thing we have."
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