About the Skeptics Society

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."