The Zetetic Fall/Winter 1976 [antikvár]

EditorialsThis journal, the official organ of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, is intended to communicate scientific information about the many esoteric claims that have shown a growing influence upon the general public, educational curricula, and scientific institutions themselves. In addition we hope its pages will reflect a growing intelligent dialogue between those making claims for the paranormal and their critics.The word zetet/c means "skeptical seeker" and refers to the ancient Greek followers of the skeptic Pyrrho. As a name for the journal it reflects our belief that the proper attitude of science toward unusual claims should be one of balance between openness to new facts and skepticism with critical attention toward facts which are anomalous. Science is a constantly changing body of knowledge characterized not so much by its content as by its method, an approach which seeks generalizations from empirical observations that can be intersubjectively verified and are falsifiable. What is considered "paranormal," or "beyond science," has varied historically. Some empirical facts (e.g., meteorites) were once considered occult or paranormal claims while others (e.g., the relationships claimed between head shape and personality by phrenology) may have once been accepted by science but are today rejected by it. Science must necessarily be selective in its attention to the empirical world, but the ultimate goal of science must be to finally account for what Charles Fort called the "damned facts," which empirically exist but will not fit smoothly into our currently limited theories.At the same time that we must remain open to new and some-