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

25 January – Virtual Skeptics in the Pub
9 February – SkepTalk
22 February – Virtual Skeptics in the Pub
9 March – SkepTalk

Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

WHAT: Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

This is a casual night of socializing with fellow skeptics. If needed, we will have a number of breakout rooms for quieter conversations.

Please join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome, but please be respectful of others.

WHEN: Wednesday 25 January 7-9pm PST (0300-0500 UTC Thurs)

HOW: Zoom. Join HERE. Passcode: 1023

SkepTalk – Online

Jennifer Reich, Ph.D.

WHAT: The Cultural Logic of Vaccine Refusal
Healthcare decisions are deeply personal. Yet infectious disease reveals how our personal choices inevitably affect others. Drawing on more than a decade of research on why parents reject vaccines for their children, this talk examines perceptions of vaccines and how parents come to see vaccines as unnecessary or risky. Rather than seeing parents who reject vaccines as ignorant, anti-science, selfish, or delusional, I show how vaccine hesitancy and refusal are in many ways logical responses to the cultural pressures placed on parents. I conclude by considering why vaccines work best when used by a critical mass of people and how we might encourage a culture of shared responsibility that in turn could increase participation in public health interventions like immunization, and thus lead to healthier communities.

WHO: Dr. Jennifer Reich is Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research examines how individuals and families weigh information and strategize their interactions with the state and service providers in the context of public policy, particularly as they relate to healthcare and welfare. She is author of two award-winning books, Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System and Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines, and is editor of the books, Reproduction and Society and State of Families, and the book series Health, Society and Inequality at NYU Press. Her work has been featured in many news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, and Newsweek, and on the Netflix show, Bill Nye Saves the World.

WHEN: Thursday 9 February 7:30PM Pacific (0330 UTC)

WHERE: Online. Click HERE to join.

Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

WHAT: Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

This is a casual night of socializing with fellow skeptics. If needed, we will have a number of breakout rooms for quieter conversations.

Please join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome, but please be respectful of others.

WHEN: Wednesday 22 February 7-9pm PST (0300-0500 UTC Thurs)

HOW: Zoom. Join HERE. Passcode: 1023

SkepTalk – Online

John Hoopes, PhD

WHAT: Netflix, Apocalypses, and the Lost Civilization: Confronting Mainstream Pseudoarchaeology
The 2022 Netflix “docuseries” Ancient Apocalypse, hosted by former journalist and author Graham Hancock, has provoked a firestorm of discussion in the press and social media. In this series, the host claims that comets destroyed an advanced civilization that existed during the Ice Age and whose survivors were the progenitors of ancient complex societies around the world. Archaeologists contend that Hancock’s claims are a form of pseudoarchaeology that misrepresent science and revive Victorian-era explanations of the past that are associated with colonialism and notions of cultural superiority. Hancock’s attack on archaeology and archaeologists has been so dismissive that it prompted an open letter to Netflix from the Society for American Archaeology, outlining the potential harm to the profession in the minds of the public and alluding to the ways this series could contribute to issues of racism and white supremacy. The series is just one recent example of the rejection of academic expertise and the promotion of conspiracy theories about scientific authority. Hancock and his supporters complain that archaeologists are practicing “wokeism,” bringing the debate squarely into current culture wars that include the rejection of liberal higher education.

WHO: John W. Hoopes received his PhD in anthropology from Harvard University. He has been a professor on the faculty of the University of Kansas since 1989. Hoopes is an archaeologist who specializes in the archaeology of Latin America with a specific focus on pre-Hispanic cultures of the Isthmo-Colombian area. His interests include the origins of ceramic technology, gold metallurgy, and complex society. Hoopes recently co-edited two books for Dumbarton Oaks with the late Colin McEwan: Pre-Columbian Art from Central America and Colombia at Dumbarton Oaks and Pre-Columbian Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador: Toward an Integrated Approach. Hoopes has had a long-term engagement with pseudoarchaeology, having assisted Prof. Stephen Williams to develop the first course ever on this topic forty years ago as a graduate student at Harvard. He was a scholar and outspoken critic of the so-called Maya Apocalypse that did not occur on December 21, 2012, having published several peer-reviewed articles, including in the book 2012: The Counterculture Apocalypse (2011) and a special 2012 issue of the journal Archaeoastronomy. His skeptical commentary was featured in the 2017 book and documentary film Lost City of the Monkey God (2021), about an archaeological project in Honduras. In 2019 Hoopes edited a thematic issue of The SAA Archaeological Record, the official magazine of the Society for American Archaeology, titled “Pseudoarchaeology, Scholarship, and Popular Interests in the Past in the Present” that provided colleagues with a context for interpreting the work of Graham Hancock. As an active contributor to Wikipedia and discussions on social media, Hoopes’ interests have included Western esoterica and the occult, psychedelics and popular culture, and proactive critiques of pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology. For the past four years, he has taught a seminar for first-year college students titled, “How to Find a Lost City.”

WHEN: Thursday 9 March 7:30PM Pacific (0330 UTC)

WHERE: Online. Click HERE to join.