It’s time for South Bay skeptics to gather at the pub again! Since last month’s get-together at O’Flaherty’s in San Jose went so well, we’ll be meeting there again tonight. We have fifteen freethinkers signed up to show up tonight (a veritable convention).
An Agenda
Just in case this “informal forum” doesn’t lift itself up by its own bootstraps, I’m offering up the following framework:
1. Personal Introductions
- Personal Background (and how it inspired the skeptic in you)
- Favorite Self-Label: skeptic? atheist? freethinker? contrarian? drunk?
- Favorite Topics: religion, pseudoscience, alternative medicine, climate change, etc.
2. In the News
Scientology: in the FBI’s crosshairs?
- The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology, in New Yorker Magazine (Feb 7 or 14?)
- The New Yourker’s Scientology expose: 7 key revelations, in the Week (Feb 8, 2011)
- Skeptoid #242: Scientology (Jan 24, 2011)
Homeopathy
- Magician James Randi, skeptics launch attack on makers of homeopathic ‘drugs’ (LA Times, Feb 5)
- The 10:23 Campaign “Homeopathy: there’s nothing to it.”
- The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe #290 (Jan 31, 2011)
- PZ Myers: It almost makes me disbelieve that HIV causes AIDS! (Pharyngula, Jan 24, 2011)
Bacterial Intelligence
- The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe #291 (Feb 9, 2011)
3. Hot Topics
Topics recently covered by noted skeptics
Skepticism
- Yes, but how do you know? (The Philosopher’s Zone, Jan 22)
- Dan Kahan: The American Culture War of Fact (Point of Inquiry, Feb 14)
Wine-Tasting
- The philosophy of wine (The Philosopher’s Zone, Feb 5)
Climate Change
- Skeptoid #244: Nuclear War and Nuclear Winter (Feb 8, 2011)
Vaccination
- Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent (British Medical Journal, Jan 5)
- How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed (British Medical Journal, Jan 5)
- The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe #287: BMJ Slams Wakefield (Jan 12)
- Seth Mnookin, The Panic Virus
- Seth Mnookin, The problems with the BMJ’s Wakefield-fraud story (Jan 6)