It is also known as AREV, for its Spanish acronym. The description on its web page reads as follows (1):
The Rational and Skeptical Association of Venezuela (AREV) is an independent, non-profit organization, made up of open-minded people who have come together with the aim of spreading skepticism and rational thinking, and to put under scientific scrutiny the mystical and pseudo-scientific claims with which we are bombarded every day. The association promotes science and critical thinking as fundamental ways to improve the quality of life of citizens, providing them with the indispensable skeptical tools to confront the gratuitous and extravagant claims of superstition hucksters, paranormal hucksters and mystery mongers, who speculate on the ignorance of the public to obtain large dividends by offering panaceas and quick (and false) answers to human illness, misery and uncertainty.
AREV is virtually the only nationwide association dedicated to the dissemination of critical and skeptical thinking, with a special emphasis on fighting pseudosciences, especially pseudo-medicine and psychoanalysis; and, with the arrival of the "New Atheism" movement at the end of the 2000s, it has also mentioned the perverse consequences of religious thought, which at the time gave impetus to a certain growth of the Venezuelan skeptical movement, although in a rather unstructured way and without much organization.
The most finished product of the AREV is the magazine Lúcido [Lucid] (2), published until 2010 in digital format. Its editorial committee, in its last edition, was formed by Jorge Araica, Ricardo Babarro, Guido Nuñez, Álvaro Osorio, Jesús Pineda, Sami Rozenbaum and Domingo Subero, being Sami Rozenbaum the team coordinator. All of them AREV members.
At the time of writing these lines, we are fortunate to have the testimony of Guido Núñez, now living in the USA, He tells us how the Rational Association had quite humble and even somewhat ironic beginnings, in which his personal experience of getting rid (by the skin of his teeth) of religious fanaticism played a relevant role, as well as the humorous touch that has always been associated with skeptics and naturalists since Democritus: "I started looking on the Internet and entered several pages that not only made the matter clear to me but also freed me from Christianity". Guido specifies: "I was about to become a Jehovah's Witness, but the evolution thing didn't fit me".
The search for more information driven by curiosity in the incipient internet of the year 2000 would give the answer. One of them was Javier Garrido's website (hosted by Geocities) Paraciencias al día (3).
[The page] had excellent articles.... And I start writing. I get in touch with Javier and we start sending letters. February 2001 arrived and I bought El mundo y sus demonios as a birthday present (...) in public transport I heard warnings of witches and decided to visit a witch saying she was a member of the AREV.
Guido tells us.
[The AREV thing] was a joke to see how she would react. Then I told Javier and he said: "What the fuck are we waiting for? (...) Then we got Sami because I started talking to people from CSICOP, and they told me that Sami was [in that group].
After successive contacts and the impulse of its first members, the Skeptical Rational Association was formed. Lúcido was born as its informative organ in December 2001, and in its first edition in that month it rightly states that
...[the AREV] was born in February 2001, in a very characteristic way for our time, as a mailing list in which we have met professionals and students, with an average age around 30 years old. We live in different cities, so many of us do not yet know each other personally, but we have exchanged abundant information and ideas to the point that we form a true virtual community; as befits our definition of skeptics, controversies are not uncommon.
All thanks to happy coincidences and the always valuable exchange of ideas facilitated by technology.
In 2004, Lúcido won the "Arístides Bastidas" Municipal Prize for Scientific Journalism, mention "opinion", awarded by the Council of the Libertador Municipality of Caracas. Its members were also noted at the time in defense of rational thought, such as Sami Rozenbaum at the IV World Skeptical Congress of CSICOP in Los Angeles (2002), or Guido Núñez himself as a participant in the First Iberoamerican Conference on Critical Thinking in 2005. AREV also had its radio program, Science and Legend, which was rebroadcast via web (4).
Open society and skepticism (or lack thereof)
For better or worse, rather for worse, contemporary Venezuela offers additional difficulties for the development of any intellectual movement, and skepticism is no exception.
While the Association is not formally dissolved, it has not ceased to be a victim of the national situation that has driven the vast majority of Venezuela's citizens to survive and take care of more basic things like getting food and medicine. The urgency of daily life displaces little by little, and in the beginning almost without noticing it, the higher activities or those that would require more attention. Not to mention emigration, which has prevented several of its members from meeting more often.
"Politics killed everything," Guido tells us. And no, it's not necessarily about conflicts among its members for ideological reasons. It is politics that made it impossible to live normally in the country; first because it monopolized all public opinion, because of the merciless attack on democratic institutions throughout the 2000s; and then, because of the consequences of the subsequent economic crisis.
If we are talking about applying rational thinking, Venezuela today is plagued by irrationality in the form of public policies, and it freely reigns without restraint of any kind. In such a harsh environment, where universities struggle to survive without supplies, budgets, students, professors; where radio and television censorship is a harsh reality; where unreason takes human lives without any justification; and where, paraphrasing Carl Sagan, the shadows of the past grow stronger and stronger and reason is left alone like a small candle. It is in those places and moments when a necessary reflection is born: democracy and reason die in the dark.
Those who cherish their critical sense must always be alert to any irrational threat, even in the stillness and prosperity of what has been achieved, for the snake oil salesmen and agitators of hatred, anger and fear never rest. Whenever possible, the flame of science and reason, however feeble, must be lit.
Because the world where our demons rule is not a good place. And it never will be.
Notes
(1) https://arev.wordpress.com
(2) Note of the Editor:All of Lúcido's issues are on the web: https://arev.wordpress.com/revista-lucido/
(3) http://www.geocities.com/jgb64/Pseudo.htm -visible at Wayback Machine-.
(4) www.tecnologiahechapalabra.com
(Originally published in El Escéptico [The Skeptic] No. 52, Summer 2019, pp. 19 and 20. Digital version: https://www.escepticos.es/repositorio/elesceptico/articulos_pdf/ee_52/ee_52_sino_y_destino_de_la_asociacion_racional_esceptica_de_venezuela.pdf.. Translated from Spanish by Deepl.com)
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