SCEPCOP Forum

Hi everyone,
Well since the vote in favor of having a new acronym is 4 to 0, I guess we should change it.

Now the question is, which of the new acronyms to choose? Here are the two proposals.

Purple Scissor suggested:
"SCEPCOP - Scientific Committee for Exposing, Preventing and Correcting Organized Pseudo-Skepticism"

But I think this version should be shortened to: "Scientific Committee to Expose, Prevent and Correct Organized Pseudo-Skepticism" to eliminate the superfluous "ing"s.

Brian Josephson, the 1973 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, suggested this one:
"SCEPCOP - Scientific Committee for the Exposure of Pseudo-Skeptical Criticism of the Paranormal"

I think "Criticism" sounds more civil and professional than "Cynicism" so it definitely looks like it'd be an improvement. However, I'm not sure "exposure" is the right word since it sounds like getting publicity. So I think this version should read: "Scientific Committee to Expose Pseudo-Skeptical Criticism of the Paranormal"

So the two choices are:

1. "Scientific Committee to Expose, Prevent and Correct Organized Pseudo-Skepticism"
2. "Scientific Committee to Expose Pseudo-Skeptical Criticism of the Paranormal"

Which sounds better? I'd like to hear your opinion, so cast your vote above!

Thanks,
Vinstonas

Voting for the first one. It is a lot better than my suggestion. The main point I see in its favor is it does not tie us down to issues of the paranormal. There are other issues, like cold fusion, herbal remedies and homeopathy some of which have been subject to much pseudoskepticism, but which are not usually thought of as paranormal.

What do you all think of this one? Doesn't it sound a lot less antagonizing and more neutral, civil and professional?

"Scientific Committee to Evaluate Pseudo-Skeptical Criticism of the Paranormal"

Doesn't that sound more respectable?

Or since Purple Scissor suggested we not just cover the paranormal, but other things, how about this:

"Scientific Committee to Evaluate, Probe and Correct Organized Pseudo-Skepticism"

Or this:

"Scientific Committee to Evaluate Perpetual Criticisms of Pseudo-Skepticism"

At this point, here are the two acronym choices I've narrowed it down to, after changing "expose" to "evaluate" since it sounds more neutral and objective and less antagonistic.

"Scientific Committee to Evaluate Pseudo-Skeptical Criticism of the Paranormal"

"Scientific Committee to Evaluate, Probe and Correct Organized Pseudo-Skepticism"

Personally though, I strongly lean toward the first one above, for three reasons:

1. It sounds less antagonistic and more neutral, civil and respectable to use "evaluate" rather than "expose".
2. The second one contains too many verbs, three in a row, and doesn't flow as smoothly and cleanly as the first one. In fact, the verbs don't even look really necessary, but as if they were put there only to fill the letters of the acronym. Thus the first one has a smoother and more direct flow, a cleaner "feng shui" so to speak.
3. The second version was designed to take out the word "paranormal" to broaden the scope of SCEPCOP. However, just because there is the word "paranormal" in the acronym doesn't mean we have to stick only to paranormal topics. CSICOP does not only deal with paranormal topics either, for example, they have addressed many non-paranormal alternative topics as well. Thus, an organization does not have to stick religiously to its acronym.

What do you think? Are those good reasons that make sense?

Well, as you can see in the header of the forum and home page, the new acronym is now:

"Scientific Committee to Evaluate PseudoSkeptical Criticism of the Paranormal"

So I guess it's been decided. This new one just sounds a lot more civil and neutral than the last one, and hopefully improves our image. After sleeping over it, this one just feels right to me, and jives with my gut instinct.

Any objections?