Dear visitor, welcome to the website of the Society for the scientific investigation of parasciences (Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften - GWUP), the German speaking skeptics society with members in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and world-wide.
The GWUP regards the critical contemplation of unproven claims in fields such as parasciences, esotericism, superstition, religion and alternative medicine as our main goals. We strive to achieve enlightenment in the sense of popular education and consumer protection. We underline the importance of scientific procedures and critical thinking for societal challenges. Besides a theoretical dispute, individuals like dowsers, telekinetics, proponents of energized water scams, practitioners of alternative medicine and astrologers are being criticised and their skills also partially put to empirical examination. The GWUP was founded as an "Eingetragener Verein" in Bonn on 11 October 1987. We are registered in Germany as a charitable organisation for our dedication to popular education, and we are headquartered in Roßdorf near Darmstadt
Our goal is the promotion of critical thinking and the sciences including their methods. Scientific methods should be disseminated, made understandable and applied to parasciences, pseudosciences as well as related belief systems. This also includes educating the general public about the current state of scientific knowledge about parascientific claims.
GWUP is a member of the European Council of Skeptical Organisations (ECSO), which also contains a list of member organisations in Europe. The ECSO site also shows a list of ongoing and planned events in Europe and worldwide. You can find more information on issues related to skeptics organisations in English at the websites of Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Skeptics Society and the James Randi Educational Foundation. For a complete list of skeptics' organizations around the world, please consult the list maintained by the UK skeptics organisation ASKE, also a member of ECSO.
Our website is in German only. If you have come across our site in search of a fringe-science claim or a topic that is relevant to Germany, please contact us using the following form. You can also reach us at normal office hours at +49 6154 695021. If you want to visit us: The GWUP office's address is Arheilger Weg 11 in 64380 Roßdorf.