Marcello Truzzi

Marcello Truzzi (6 September 1935 – 2 February 2003) was an American sociologist and professor at Eastern Michigan University, best known as a co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (originally CSICOP) who broke with the organisation within its first year over fundamental disagreements about what genuine "scientific investigation" of the paranormal should mean.

Early life and education

Truzzi was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to a family of circus performers, immigrating to the United States in 1940. He earned a BA from Florida State University in 1957, an MA from the University of Florida in 1962, and a PhD in sociology from Cornell University in 1970. He went on to chair the sociology department at Eastern Michigan University for over a decade.

Founding and leaving CSICOP

Truzzi co-founded and co-chaired the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) with Paul Kurtz in 1976, and edited its original journal, initially named The Zetetic. Unlike his co-founders, Truzzi wanted the organisation and its journal to genuinely engage with, and include, proponents of paranormal claims — including ufologists — rather than approach investigation with a settled debunking conclusion already in mind. This clashed with the more combative, media-facing approach favoured by fellow founders including Martin Gardner, and within about a year of CSICOP's founding, Truzzi received a vote of no confidence from its Executive Council; Kendrick Frazier became the journal's new editor, and it was renamed Skeptical Inquirer.

Zetetic Scholar and "pseudoskepticism"

After leaving CSICOP, Truzzi founded the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research (CSAR) in 1981 and launched his own journal, Zetetic Scholar: An Independent Scientific Review of Claims of Anomalies and the Paranormal, which he edited from 1978 to 1987, with contributors spanning committed sceptics including Gardner alongside UFO-sympathetic academics. He promoted the term "zeteticism" — from the Greek for "to search out, inquire," and linked to the ancient sceptic Pyrrho's tradition of suspending judgment — as an alternative to "skepticism," arguing the latter term had been claimed by what he called "pseudoskeptics": those who conclude a claim is false without genuinely investigating it first, rather than withholding judgment as a true sceptic should. He later summarised the distinction by describing himself as belonging to the Pyrrhonian sceptical tradition, in contrast to the "Academic" sceptical tradition he associated with most of his former CSICOP colleagues.

Truzzi's tenure at Zetetic Scholar also covered CSICOP's own "Mars Effect" controversy of the early 1980s, in which researcher Dennis Rawlins publicly accused the organisation of misrepresenting statistical findings on a claimed astrological correlation, in order to report a negative result.

Research on psychic detectives

Truzzi maintained a long-standing academic interest in claimed psychic detection, co-authoring with Arthur Lyons what is regarded as a definitive text on the subject, The Blue Sense: Psychic Detectives and Crime (1991) — a topic later also examined academically by Ciarán O'Keeffe in his own published research on the rhetoric used by self-described psychic detectives.

Later life

In his later career, Truzzi served as an advisor to the International Remote Viewing Association, reflecting his consistent position that claimed anomalous phenomena — including remote viewing — deserved genuinely open, rigorous investigation rather than dismissal on principle.

Death

Truzzi died on 2 February 2003 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, aged 67.

See also

• Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
• Paul Kurtz
• Martin Gardner
• Skepticism
• Ciarán O'Keeffe

External links

• davidhalperin.net — The Man Who Was a "Zetetic Scholar"
• Skeptic's Play — Marcello Truzzi and pseudoskepticism