The Center for Inquiry(CFI) is a non-profit educational organization with headquarters in the United States whose primary mission is to encourage evidence-based inquiry into paranormal and fringe science claims, alternative medicine and mental health practices, religion, secular ethics, and society.
CFI is dedicated to promoting and defending science, reason, and free inquiry in all aspects of human interest.
The Center for Inquiry was established in 1991 by philosopher and author Paul Kurtz. It brought together two organizations: the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH), both of which had previously operated in tandem but were now formally affiliated under one umbrella. By 1995 CFI had expanded into its new headquarters in Amherst, NY, and in 1996 opened its first branch office in Los Angeles, CFI West. In the same year, CFI founded the Campus Freethought Alliance, organizing college students around issues of importance to CFI and its members.
By 1997 CFI had begun expanding its efforts internationally through an association with Moscow State University. CFI Moscow now operates an exchange program where Russian students and scholars are able to visit CFI headquarters in NY and participate in a summer institute each year. Additional international programs exist in Germany (Rossdorf), France (Nice), Spain (Bilbao), Poland (Warsaw), Nigeria (Ibadan), Uganda (Kampala), Kenya (Nairobi), Nepal (Katmandu), India (Pune) (Hyderabad), Egypt (Cairo), China (Beijing), New Zealand (Auckland), Peru (Lima), Argentina (Buenos Aires), Senegal (Dakar), Zambia (Lusaka), and Bangladesh (Dacca).
In 2003 CFI West became home to the Steve Allen Theater, named after the former Tonight Show host and CFI supporter. It operates as a fringe theater and theater of the absurd.
The Center for Inquiry’s programs focus on three broad areas: paranormal claims, health, and religion. Through the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, publisher of ‘Skeptical Inquirer’ magazine, the Center for Inquiry evaluates claims of the paranormal (phenomena allegedly beyond the range of normal scientific explanations), such as psychic phenomena, ghosts, communication with the dead, and alleged extraterrestrial visitations. It also explores the fringes and borderlands of the sciences, attempting to separate strictly evidence-based research from pseudosciences. The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH) stimulates critical scientific scrutiny of New Age medicine and the schools of psychotherapy. It supports naturalistic addiction recovery practices through Secular Organizations for Sobriety.
The Center promotes, through its connection with Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, critical inquiry into the foundations and social effects of the world religions. Since 1983 it has focused on such issues as fundamentalism in Christianity and Islam, humanistic alternatives to religious ethics, and religious sources of political violence. It is also the home of its affiliated organization, the Council for Secular Humanism, publisher of ‘Free Inquiry’ magazine, a bi-monthly journal of secular humanist thought and discussion.
CFI On Campus (originally the Campus Freethought Alliance) is a program launched by the Council for Secular Humanism in 1996 by Derek Araujo and others in order to reach out to university and high-school students. CFI On Campus provides funding, speakers or debaters, literature, and other promotional and educational resources to student groups that affiliate, and supports almost 200 campus groups around the world.
The Center for Inquiry Institute offers undergraduate level summer school, seminars, and workshops in critical thinking and the scientific outlook and its implications for religion, human values, and the borderlands of science. In addition to transferable undergraduate credit through the State University of New York (SUNY) system, CFI offers a thirty credit hour Certificate of Proficiency in Critical Inquiry. This three-year curriculum plan offers summer sessions at the main campus at SUNY-Buffalo in Amherst and the Skeptic’s Toolbox workshop at the University of Oregon, Eugene.
The Center for Inquiry Libraries is a consortium of four libraries in Amherst, New York. Operated by the Center for Inquiry, it is the largest library of its kind in the world. The building is over 20,000 square feet with meeting rooms and special collections housing 60,000 volumes of works specializing in science, skepticism, freethought, humanism, and American philosophical naturalism, and includes the complete line of Prometheus Books titles, a collection of Martin Gardner’s books and papers, Steve Allen’s manuscripts, and other special holdings.
The results of research and activities supported by the Center and its affiliates are published and distributed to the public in seventeen separate national and international magazines, journals, and newsletters. Among them are CSER’s ‘Quarterly Review,’ CSH’s ‘Free Inquiry, and CSICOP’s ‘Skeptical Inquirer,’ as well as the ‘Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine,’ ‘Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice,’ ‘The Skeptic’ in the UK, and ‘Philo.’
The Daily Omnivore 
Leave a comment