The anniversary slipped by without my noticing it, but recently, while hunting down one of my earlier articles, I was reminded that my first online piece for Skeptical Inquirer, “Happiness, Religion, and the Status Quo,” was published on December 4, 2014. So, as of December 2024, I completed a decade writing the “Behavior & Belief” column for SI. As I recall, back in 2014, Barry Karr, then executive director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, noticed that I’d been writing blog posts on superstition and other skeptical topics for Psychology Today. He contacted me and said, “If you ever want to write for Skeptical Inquirer, we would be happy to have you,” or words to that effect. I didn’t have to give it a second thought. I’d subscribed to SI for years and assigned it in my psychology classes, so the chance to write a column for SI was a dream come true. I said, “Yes, please!” and never looked back.
Soon after I began writing online, Kendrick Frazier asked to add some of my articles to the print magazine, making me a columnist for SI both online and in print. I could not have been happier. I’d been a college professor for the bulk of my career and found teaching very satisfying, but for as long as I can remember, the title I most coveted was “writer.” I’d done the usual academic publishing required of a college professor, but my greatest pleasure as a writer has always come from producing interesting material for regular folks—the elusive “general reader.” To have been granted an outlet for my work from a publication and an organization I loved was a terrific turn of events.
When I began writing for SI, Barack Obama was in the middle of his second term, and it would be another six months before Donald Trump made his golden escalator ride, declaring his candidacy for president. The iPhone 6 had been released the prior September, but TikTok was still two years away, as was the Brexit vote that would lead to the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union. Closer to home, the merger of the Center for Inquiry with the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science was two years away, and Robyn Blumner had not yet taken the reins of the Center for Inquiry from Ronald Lindsay. (Happily, Lindsay has returned to us as editor of Free Inquiry magazine.)
Once I was a columnist, I began attending CSICon on a regular basis and rubbed shoulders with many of my skeptical heroes. I gained many new friends, whom I will always treasure, but in the years since I have been writing for SI, the skeptical community has also lost a number of leaders, including James Randi, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Tom Flynn, Harriet Hall, Kendrick Frazier, and most recently Joe Nickell. These were towering figures in our field, and each of these losses was a substantial blow to the organization and the cause of science and reason. In addition, my beloved first editor and executive director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Barry Karr, somehow managed to slip away into a well-deserved retirement. (Who approved that?!)
As difficult as it has been to lose these titans, I am greatly encouraged by the talented new voices that have joined the ranks of regular writers for the magazine, including health scientist Katie Suleta, immunologist and epidemiologist Andrea Love, exercise scientist Nicholas Tiller, science communicator Melanie Trecek-King, and folklorist Daniel Reed. The most important addition to the fold has been the new editor of SI, psychologist Stephen Hupp, who recently added executive director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry to his growing list of titles. If I ever worried that the skeptical movement would die out with the older generation, I don’t have that worry now. We have a group of smart, energetic, and dedicated young people coming up through the ranks at a time when we desperately need them. The world is awash with lies, bullshit, irrational beliefs, and medical pseudoscience, and we need all the help we can get.
Psychology has always been a relatively rational field. This is particularly true for my area of experimental psychology or what is now more often called behavioral or psychological science. There is a famous story about psychologist B.F. Skinner that exemplifies this point. According to legend, he had traveled with his fiancée, Yvonne (Eve) Blue, to meet her family for the first time, and it was decided that they need not wait any longer and should have the wedding on the spot while Eve’s family was present. A minister was summoned, and at some point before the ceremony, he took Skinner aside and said, “I hear you are a psychologist. Would you mind if I mentioned God in the ceremony?” Although today there is a strong movement toward more evidence-based methods in clinical psychology—the applied field devoted to helping people with emotional and behavioral problems—science-based methods have not always been popular. But behavioral scientists—like most scientists—are generally quite rational, which explains why there are so many of them in the skeptical community, perhaps second only to magicians.
In my case, it has been a great pleasure to write about psychology in SI. Over the past decade, one of my standard topic areas has been reporting about new research on the psychology of superstition and irrational beliefs. For example, a recent column discussed a new study of the gambler’s fallacy (Vyse 2025). I have also written regularly about the disturbing resurgence of pseudoscience in autism treatment. My fifth column for SI, “Facilitated Communication: The Fad That Will Not Die,” was published in May 2015, and because—far from dying out—this thoroughly debunked method and its variants have become even more popular with parents of nonspeaking autistic children, I have been writing about facilitated communication ever since. One of the highlights of my career so far has been the opportunity to break the tragic and disturbing story of Kevin Plantan, who was falsely imprisoned for ten months based on charges made through facilitated communication (Vyse 2024b).
But one of the most rewarding aspects of my career at SI has been the willingness of my editors to indulge my diverse whims. Once, when I suffered a Jones fracture in my foot, I wrote a long love letter to the inventors of crutches (Vyse 2019). (I am proud to report that the “Crutch” Wikipedia page now cites my article as a source.) I’ve written two skeptical travel guides to Paris (Vyse 2021a, 2023) and one of London (Vyse 2024c) and covered the skeptical and psychological aspects of abstract art (Vyse 2021c) and French movies (Vyse 2021b, 2024a). If you are reading this rather self-indulgent article now, it is because my kind editors have spoiled me once again. What more could a writer want?
Finally, speaking of editors, I’ve had the best. Over the past decade, I’ve had the honor of being edited by Barry Karr, Kendrick Frazier, Ben Radford, Nicole Scott, Julia Lavarnway, and Stephen Hupp. All have saved me from great embarrassment on multiple occasions, but, among these, SI Managing Editor Julia Lavarnway deserves particular thanks. She has read and edited almost every word I’ve ever written for SI with great professionalism, efficiency, and care. Thank you, Julia, and thank you all. The relationship between writer and editor can sometimes be fraught, but I have been quite lucky. The Center for Inquiry team is knowledgeable and dedicated. They believe in the cause and work hard to make SI what it has been for half a century: the world’s foremost magazine of science and reason.
As for me, dear reader, this is not a resignation letter. As long as the bosses will have me, I will keep writing the “Behavior & Belief” column. I’m already several columns into my second decade, and I can’t wait to see what the future will bring.
References
Vyse, Stuart. 2014. Happiness, religion, and the status quo. Skeptical Inquirer (December 4). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/happiness-religion-and-the-status-quo/.
———. 2015. Facilitated communication: The fad that will not die. Skeptical Inquirer (May 11). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/facilitated-communication-the-fad-that-will-not-die/.
———. 2019. In praise of the crutch-makers. Skeptical Inquirer (May 8). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/in-praise-of-the-crutch-makers/.
———. 2021a. French science & pseudoscience: A skeptic’s tour of Paris. Skeptical Inquirer (August 4). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/french-science-pseudoscience-a-skeptics-tour-of-paris/.
———. 2021b. The psychology of scary faces. Skeptical Inquirer (November 24). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-psychology-of-scary-faces/.
———. 2021c. Spiritualism and the birth of abstract art. Skeptical Inquirer (December 15). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/spiritualism-and-the-birth-of-abstract-art/.
———. 2023. Rhinos and radium: A skeptic’s tour of Paris, part II. Skeptical Inquirer (December 4).
———. 2024a. Magic at the horizon. Skeptical Inquirer (June 18). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/magic-at-the-horizon/.
———. 2024b. A life shattered by pseudoscience. Skeptical Inquirer (August 19). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/a-life-shattered-by-pseudoscience/.
———. 2024c. Science and pseudoscience in London: A skeptic’s tour. Skeptical Inquirer (October 7). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/science-and-pseudoscience-in-london-a-skeptics-tour/.
———. 2025. A closer look at the gambler’s fallacy and the hot hand. Skeptical Inquirer (July 30). Online at https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/a-closer-look-at-the-gamblers-fallacy-and-the-hot-hand/.
