Advisors

Susan Gerbic
Leonard Tramiel
Greg Dorais
Dan Dugan, Sound Designer		web
Dean Edell, M.D., ABC Medical Reporter
Andrew Fraknoi, Former Chair, Astronomy Department, Foothill College
Donald Goldsmith, Ph.D., Astronomer and Attorney
Mark Hodes, Education Consultant
Alexander Jason, Investigative Consultant
David Knapp, Ph.D., Physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Lerner, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, California State University, Long Beach
Larry Loebig, CEO, CaliforniaCom, Inc.	email	web
John E. McCosker, Ph.D., Director, Steinhart Aquarium, California Academy of Sciences
Kit Moser, Science writer
Richard J. Ofshe, Ph.D.,U. C. Berkeley
Kevin Padian, Ph.D., Professor, U. C. Berkeley
James Randi, Magician, Author, Lecturer
Francis Rigney, M.D., Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center
Terence Sandbek, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist	email	web
Eugenie C. Scott, Ph.D., Anthropologist; Founding Director, National Center for Science Education
Robert Sheaffer, Technical Writer, UFO expert
Ray Spangenburg, Science Writer
Jill C. Tarter, Ph.D., U.C. Berkely. Chair Emeritus, SETI Institute

SkepTalk – Online

A.J. White

WHAT: Dangers of the “Lost Civilization” Trope
Archaeological finds are often interpreted in popular science through the ‘lost civilization’ trope: once great metropolises and their people that mysteriously vanished in history. Although ruins suggest the abandonment of a specific location at a point in time, they do not suggest that its occupants and their culture disappeared; most often people simply moved somewhere else for a variety of reasons and their descendants and culture exist to this day in some form. By labelling a people as ‘lost’ in the past we erase or minimize their descendants and culture in the present. This talk focuses on Cahokia, one of the most frequently mentioned ‘lost civilizations’ in the world, and its post-abandonment history.

WHO: A.J. White is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. He holds a M.S. in geology from Long Beach State University and is chiefly interested in intersections of climate change and cultural change in the past. His methodological focus is the use of human fecal biomarkers to link archaeological and paleoclimatic data. He enjoys walking with his wife, son, and dog and making videos about local history and science.

WHEN: Thursday 9 December 7:30PM

WHERE: Online. Click HERE

SkepTalk – Online

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

WHAT: Who’s Making All Those Scam Calls?
Everyone has experienced the call. “This is Alex from the credit card company. We have a refund we want to give you that has to be deposited directly into your bank account. What is your bank account number?” or words to that effect. Or maybe “Alex” (or “Vicki”, or “Josh”) has bad news: your credit rating will plummet if you don’t send his/her company $200 immediately. What’s your credit card number? Calls like this bilk tens of thousands of people – many of them elderly – out of billions of dollars every year. What happens when a reporter traces one of these calls back to its source – in this case, to an Indian boiler room – with the assistance of a Brit hacker. Who is making all those scam calls, anyway, and what’s their story?

WHO: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a prize-winning reporter who worked for Science magazine until 2014. A contributing writer to the New York Times, the New Yorker, National Geographic, The Guardian, and other publications. A one-time crime reporter, he has long been interested in scams and frauds. His best-selling spy thriller, The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell, was described as “telling a story that would make a kickass movie”. It has, in fact, been optioned by Hollywood.

WHEN: Thursday 10 February 7:30PM

WHERE: Online. Details to come.