Dr. Anthony Pratkanis, UC Santa Cruz psychology professor and social psychology researcher, held hundreds of students, employees, and community members in raptAnthony Pratkanis attention last Friday at Ohlone College in Fremont, CA. Entitled “Selling FlimFlam,” Pratkanis' talk began with a loud admonition to “leave your conscience at the door.” It then delivered a powerful 1½ hour lesson that masqueraded as a guide to selling flimflam, but which was actually designed to teach us the signs that we’re being conned, duped, sold a bill of goods, and presented with empty promises. Pratkanis' talk began with background information that showed how widespread and costly flimflam can be. In the U.S., more money is spent on medical quackery than on hospitalization. Con criminals rake in over $100 billion each year, promising everything from free food, to sex,

"How three women fabricated the most famous case of Multiple Personality Disorder and damaged thousands of lives" Sybil Exposed Read the article on Salon.com: http://tinyurl.com/SybilExposed

Chris DiCarlo: photo by Jay Diamond San Francisco-based skeptic group Reason4Reason (www.Reason4Reason.org) hosted a talk on August 13th by Dr. Christopher DiCarlo, promoted with the not-so-subtle moniker "How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass," the title of DiCarlo's latest book. The talk was attended by several dozen eager skeptic-minded folks. Looking around the room, I couldn't help but ask myself, "Are these people all here because they want to be a pain in the ass?" Although I doubt that was the case, it wouldn't have mattered. The content of Dr. DiCarlo's talk was better described by his book's subtitle, "A Critical Thinker's Guide to Asking the Right Questions." In both the talk and the book, DiCarlo covered such topics as how to formulate strong, logical arguments (and how to recognize when they are flawed), a brief history of Socrates and his brilliant method of examining reality, as well as the definitions and importance of answering "The Big Five" questions (What can I know? Why

Dan Werthimerby Tucker Hiatt UC Berkeley astronomer Dan Werthimer delivered a seductive break-out session at SkeptiCal 2011 entitled "XXX Astronomy: Exoplanets, Exobiology, and Extraterrestrials." On that May 29th date at Berkeley's Double Tree Hotel, some 50 eager space cadets heard Werthimer talk about all aspects of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Werthimer is the chief scientist of the SETI@home project, Earth's most popular search for ET. SETI@home gathers data from the planet's most sensitive radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and then shares those data with some five million participants worldwide. The participants' personal computers analyze the data for any trace of unnatural radio signals. Collectively, SETI@home computers constitute the most powerful parallel processor ever created. Werthimer's presentation covered the past, present, and future of SETI: from the Giordano Bruno's heretical -- and fatal -- 16th-century assertion that other inhabited worlds exist, to the latest high-tech search for optical laser beacons between the stars.

William R. CorlissOne of the most interesting and scientifically-important people I ever met was the independent scientist William R. Corliss. Since the 1970s, he was by far the world's finest collector, categorizer, and ranker of scientific anomalies. He made himself the world's greatest authority on things that don't fit the paradigms of the times. I had a long meeting with him in 1988, and corresponded several times with him afterward. He was always a scrupulous scientist and a quiet, reserved, proper gentleman. Bill died of a heart attack on July 8th, age 84. Bill experienced organized Skeptics as debunkers, enforcers for mainstream-paradigm-as-law, and thus enemies of anomalies. He definitely recognized that some claims are indeed bunk, deserving and needing debunking. Science always notices a lot of things, and it takes time to fit these pieces into the puzzle - sometimes months, sometimes centuries. Until they fit, the odder pieces are anomalies. Narrow-minded swallowers of paradigms-they-are-taught ignore them whenever possible, and pooh-pooh them when th

From time to time, Bay Area Skeptics board members are asked about BAS's position on religion. We have a brief mission statement that explains our policy of religious neutrality, but like all such statements, from time to time one must consider whether it is communicating fully the organization's perspective. You can read it at http://www.baskeptics.org/about/policies In recent correspondence with a friend about the topic of skepticism and atheism, I wrote the following, which, although not an official BAS statement, reflects what most (though not all) of the BAS officers have thought over the years. For what it's worth -- here are some additional thoughts on the matter: Dear _____, People on my side of the issue want skepticism to be about appreciation and enjoyment of science, and critical thinking, which of course is not philosophy-specific. After all, if your concern is showing people scientifically why homeopathy is quackery, religion isn't an issue. And skeptics are more concerned with things like homeopathy than with the meaning of life. This doesn't prohibit us from evaluating/criticizing fact claims made in the name of religion if such claims are shown to be wrong through science. We can show through science why the catastrophic cut