CSICon

CSICon
CSI Executive Director Barry Karr speaking at CSICon 2011
Status	Active
Genre	science and skepticism
Location(s)	Changes each year
Country	United States
Inaugurated	2011 (1983)
Attendance	500 in 2015
Organized by	Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
Website
csiconference.org

CSICon or CSIConference is an annual skeptical convention typically held in the United States. CSICon is hosted by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), which publishes the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, and which is a program of the Center for Inquiry (CFI).

CSICon's current format stems from 2011, but similar conferences by CSI (until 2006 known as CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) go back as far as 1983, when the first was held at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY). The second international CSICOP conference, themed "Paranormal Beliefs: Scientific Facts and Fictions", was held at Stanford University in 1984. The third, the first European CSICOP conference, was held at University College London in Britain, themed "Investigation and Belief".

Throughout the 1980s, the European readership of the Skeptical Inquirer was increasing, while CSICOP members James Randi and Paul Kurtz were visiting several European countries to help found national skeptical organizations with their own magazines. In 1989, the second European CSICOP conference occurred in Bad Tölz, Germany, co-organized by the GWUP and also known as the 1st European Skeptics Congress. It was followed by the formation of the European Council of Skeptical Organisations in 1994, that would henceforth host international skeptical conferences in Europe.

Subsequent CSICOP conferences were always held inside the United States. These included the First World Skeptics Congress at SUNY Buffalo (1996), "That’s Entertainment! Hollywood, the Media, and the Supernatural" with the Council for Media Integrity in Los Angeles (1998), "Science Meets 'Alternative Medicine'" in Philadelphia (1999) and others.