Marcello Truzzi (September 6, 1935-February 2, 2003) was a professor of sociology at Eastern Michigan University, founding co-chairman of Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, a founder of the Society for Scientific Exploration, and director for the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research.

Biography

Truzzi was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. His family, a group of circus performers, moved to the United States in 1944. His father, Massimiliano Truzzi, was an outstanding juggler. Marcello served in the United States Army between 1958 and 1960. He became a naturalized citizen in 1961.

Truzzi was an investigator of various protosciences and pseudosciences and, as fellow CSICOP cofounder Paul Kurtz dubbed him, "the skeptic's skeptic." He is credited with originating the oft-used phrase "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." However, this is a rewording of the principle of Laplace which says, "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."

Truzzi founded the skeptical journal Explorations and was invited to be a founding member of the skeptic organization CSICOP. Truzzi's journal became the official journal of CSICOP and was renamed The Zetetic, still under his editorship. About a year later, he left CSICOP after receiving a vote of no confidence from the group's Executive Council. Truzzi wanted to include pro-paranormal people in the organization and pro-paranormal research in the journal, but CSICOP felt that there were already enough organizations and journals dedicated to the paranormal. Kendrick Frazier became the editor of CSICOP's journal and the name was changed to Skeptical Inquirer.

After leaving CSICOP, Truzzi started another journal, the Zetetic Scholar. He popularized the term Zeteticism as an alternative to Skepticism, because the term Skepticism, he thought, was being usurped by what he termed "pseudoskeptics". A zetetic is a "skeptical seeker." The term's origins lie in the word for the followers of the skeptic Pyrrho in ancient Greece and was used by flat-earthers in the 19th century.

Truzzi was skeptical of investigators and debunkers who determined the validity of a claim prior to investigation. He accused CSICOP of increasingly unscientific behavior, for which he coined the term pseudoskepticism. Truzzi stated,

"They tend to block honest inquiry, in my opinion. Most of them are not agnostic toward claims of the paranormal; they are out to knock them. ^* When an experiment of the paranormal meets their requirements, then they move the goal posts. Then, if the experiment is reputable, they say it's a mere anomaly."

Truzzi held that CSICOP researchers sometimes also put unreasonable limits on the standards for proof regarding the study of anomalies and the paranormal.

Truzzi co-authored a book on psychic detectives entitled The Blue Sense: Psychic Detectives and Crime. It investigated many psychic detectives and found them all to be either self-deceptive or intentionally deceptive. Nevertheless, the authors concluded that there might be some psychic detective out there somewhere with genuine psychic powers. This is said to be typical of Truzzi's approach.

Although he was very familiar with folie a deux, Truzzi was very confident a shared visual hallucination could not be skeptically examined by one of the participators. Thus he categorized it as an anomaly.

Truzzi died from cancer on February 2, 2003.

Books by Truzzi

• Arthur Lyons and Marcello Truzzi, The Blue Sense: Psychic Detectives and Crime, The Mysterious Press, 1991. ISBN 0-89296-426-X.

Obituaries

• Kurtz, Paul, "Skeptical gadfly Marcello Truzzi - 1935-2003", Skeptical Inquirer, News and Comment - Obituary. May-June, 2003.
• Coleman, Loren, "Marcello Truzzi, 67, Always Curious, Dies". 2003.
• Martin, Douglas, "Marcello Truzzi, 67; Sociologist Who Studied the Supernatural, Dies". New York Times, February 9, 2003, Section 1, page 44.
• Mathis, Jo Collins, "Expert on the Paranormal Dies: Longtime EMU Sociology Professor Marcello Truzzi Explored 'Things That Go Bump in the Night'". Ann Arbor News, Sunday, February 9, 2003.
• Oliver, Myrna, "Professor Studied the Far-Out From Witchcraft to Psychic Powers". Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2003, Home Edition, page B.11.
• "Marcello Truzzi, Sociologist was Student of Magic". Detroit News, February 12, 2003.

External articles and references

Truzzi writings

• Truzzi, Marcello, "''On Pseudo-Skepticism". The Anomalist, USA, 2005.
• Steveknightspost, "Emails from Marcello Truzzi".
• Truzzi, Marcello, "An End to the Uri Geller vs. Randi & CSICOP Litigations?". Psi Researcher No. 21. (originally in Parapsychological Association Newsletter)
• Truzzi, Marcello, "Reflection on the reception of unconventional claims of science". Frontier Perspectives, vol. 1 number 2, Fall/Winter 1990. (ed., copy located at: Marcello Truzzi on Zeteticism)
• Truzzi, Marcello, and Massimiliano Truzzi, "Notes toward a history of juggling". Bandwagon, Vol. 18 No. 2, March-April 1974.
• Truzzi, Marcello, "Massimiliano Truzzi's Act". Juggling Hall of Fame, July 1996.
• Truzzi, Marcello, "Project Alpha: Sabotage". Skeptical Inquirer, 8(2)187.

Other

• Hansen, George P., "Marcello Truzzi (1935 - 2003)". (ed., recognizes Marcello Truzzi's contributions to sociology, the history of juggling, magic, and the study of the paranormal.)
• Clark, Jerome, "Archive > Milestones Marcello Truzzi (1935-2003)". The Anomalist, USA, 2005.
• In memoriam

• Psychic detectives

1935 births | 2003 deaths | Naturalized citizens of the United States