THE VANCOUVER SUN, SATURDAY AUGUST 13, 1994 [Page D5]

    TRUTH CAN BE SELECTIVE FOR THE SKEPTICS WHO PROBE THE PARANORMAL

                            by Geoff Olson

  Seattle was host recently to the annual conference of CSICOP (pronounced
psi-cop), the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the
Paranormal. A large, influential skeptic's group, CSICOP chose Seattle for
this year's conference in acknowledgement of the 47th anniversary of pilot
Kenneth Arnold's report of UFOs in the Cascades.

  Among the speakers at the conference were astronomer Carl Sagan, who
believes all UFO reports are reducible to mundane causes, and Harvard
professor of psychiatry John Mack, who was there to defend his view that
alien abductions constitute a genuine phenomenon. The theme of the
conference was The Psychology of Belief.

  CSICOP takes as its mandate the weeding out of pseudoscience and bunk
from the garden of science. Many of CSICOP's targets, such as Uri Geller
and spoon-bending, pretty much wither under their gaze.

  Other targets - notably UFO reports - keep multiplying like toadstools,
keeping the CSICOPers busy with their trowels. This is principally done
through the organization's quarterly magazine, _The_Skeptical_Inquirer_, a
kind of _Consumer_Reports_ of the mind.

  The average CSICOP member is a professional in a science, or a
science-related field: a pilot, an electrical engineer. The vast majority
are older white males. In an audience of over 500, I could see very few
ethnic faces, and fewer still that appeared under 40. There are some women
in the ranks of CSICOP, but its pretty much an Old White Guys club.

  And it's some club. V.S. Naipaul once wrote a book called
_Among_the_Believers_. Well, I was among the _dis_believers, big time.
Whether it's the Kennedy Conspiracy, the Loch Ness monster or dowsing,
CSICOP doesn't buy it. In fact, one of the group's co-founders left
because he found more reflex naysaying among the members than actual
skepticism.

  What kind of a person puts such an emotional premium on disbelief?
CSICOPers often comment on people's misguided need to believe, whether its
in elves or Elvis. However, in their distaste for psychoanalysis (that's
bunk too), CSICOP members seem somewhat blind to their own motivations.

  At one point in the conference, a woman claiming UFO experiences was at
the podium. One of Dr. John Mack's patients, she began by asking for a
show of hands from the audience. "How many people here believe in God?"
she asked. To gradually building laughter, the CSICOP audience realized
how homogenous its thinking was: among over 500 people no one raised their
hands.

  The woman's point, I think, was that there's as much a belief system
among the so-called skeptics as there is among the "believers."

  Atheism has no more a logical foundation than blind faith.

  The response from the audience to her question strengthened an
interpretation of my own about "skeptics." The idea of UFOs as physically
real craft not from this earth is particular anathema to CSICOP.

  Any compelling physical evidence for UFOs, studied by competent
scientists such as Pierre Guerin or Jacques Vallee, has never been
adequately addressed by CSICOP. The reason, I believe, is that the idea of
a superior intelligence from the skies harkens back to the very thing that
CSICOPers find most repellent: the concept of God.

  The very reason some people uncritically accept UFOs is essentially the
same reason others so uncritically reject them: for their archetypal,
mythic baggage. God is dead, CSICOP has decided, and UFOs aren't doing so
well either.

  Are these mostly people who replaced one religion with another - science
- and turned disbelief into a belief system in itself?

  Worthwhile work is done by CSICOP. There are pseudo-sciences. And yes,
science is under attack these days from these pseudosciences, and various
ethereal, feel good, New Age philosophies.

  But the ground has been gained by these beliefs by default: people see
science in retreat from genuine anomalies that need study. And here's
where CSICOP has done the most damage, in promoting this retreat.

  We all have our cliques, our in-groups, both professionally and
privately. But it is dangerous when any group is convinced it has The
Truth.

  The conference in Seattle lasted four days, and I have never attended
any event where I heard as much smug, self-satisfied laughter. The
laughter seemed more in the service of the egos gathered than of any
actual science. If there was an official candy bar for the conference, it
would have been Snickers.

  In weeding out the garden of science, CSICOP may only end up digging
rational inquiry into a deeper hole.+

 ...Geoff Olson is a Vancouver writer.



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