On Wednesday, June 19, as in this past week, there was an article in the New York Times titled, 'A Vigorous Skeptic of Everything but Fact' and it was about the chairman for the Committee of Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal or CSICOP - Paul Kurtz. And in the very first paragraph there was a sentence that told the careful reader exactly what the problem is with CSICOP and more importantly, it's chairman - Paul Kurtz.

The article began, and I quote, "These are some of the things that Paul Kurtz, chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and publisher of the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, does not believe in: parapsychology, holistic cures for animal illnesses, the universal effectiveness of chiropractic, extraterrestrial beings, alternative medicine, Bigfoot and organized religion."

Did you catch it? The key phrase contained therein was "does not believe in" in other words, Mr. Kurtz has a closed mind! In order for somebody to do scientific investigation, they must maintain a completely Objective point of view and be open to the fact that anything is possible. If you believe in something or you do not believe in something, you are closing your mind to doing any constructive investigation and could possibly be open to adjusting any scientific data to re-enforce what you believe to be true rather than what truly is correct!

CSICOP has to be one of the most misleading organizations that has ever taken out a charter because they hide behind a name that is completely erroneous, they would have us believe that they investigate cases of paranormal activity, however they do no investigation whatsoever. They instead, dwell in their little building in Amherst, New York and proclaim as loudly and negatively as possible "Things are not real!" They publish their little magazine called Skeptical Inquirer - putting forth in print what they say anytime they can get in front of a camera. "I do not believe!" (Kinda reminds me of Chicken Little running around the farm shouting that the sky is falling because the leaf of a tree fell on his head.)

The single biggest thing that bothers me is how conveniently CSICOP lumps everything together. They would have us believe that religion, ufos, bigfoot and alternative medicine all falls into the same category. In other words, they combine belief systems in amongst things that have physical and tangible proof of existence. I'm not about to defend any Religious belief against CSICOP because there are many theologians out there that could do a far better job than I but religion depends on one thing and one thing only... that the advocate believes. I will however touch on one little statement made by Mr. Kurtz that boggles my mind and that was "There is a need for a scientific analysis of Islam's claims, such as the belief of some Muslims that religious martyrs are greeted by 72 virgins in Paradise." (Hold on a sec -- This man is calling for someone to scientifically analyze a belief! I would love for someone to explain how this could be even remotely possible!)

Those that study UFOs and UFO related material, otherwise known as Ufologists (and incidentally, not U.F.O.-ologists as the New York Times article wrongly called us) do not believe in UFOs. We're following the evidence and keeping an open mind because the evidence proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that something is out there that we simply cannot explain away as always being Venus - CSICOP's favourite explanation of a UFO sighting.

Mr. Kurtz states that he only believes in things that can be scientifically proven and claims that everything else is just pseudo-science. Mr. Kurtz's greatest hero is Darwin. Which means that he was probably one of the most vocal proponents of the Lucy skull hoax when it was still believed that it was the missing link.....

But that's just my take on it.....