Sandwalk: Summer Skeptics Bash July 12 & 13th

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Summer Skeptics Bash July 12 & 13th

Come to the Center for Inquiry, 216 Beverley Street at College, just south of the University of Toronto, in the heart of downtown.

In honour of Barry Beyerstein (1947-2007), author, Professor of Psychology at Simon Frasier University, Chair of the Society of B.C. Skeptics and Fellow of the CFI Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP).

FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER DINNER $5 (FREE for Friends of the Centre) Thurs, July 12, 7pm

Featuring screening & debunking of the paranormal-plugging What the Bleep do We Know? with physics PhD candidate Edward Ackad.
SUPERSTITION BASH, Friday, July 13

Featuring a full day of activities, including a presentation by world famous skeptical investigator Joe Nickell at 6pm and a haunted walk at 8:30pm

$5 (Joe Nickell talk), $15 (Full Day, with haunted walk) - $10 full day for Friends of the Centre.

FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER DINNER–Thurs, July 12

Come have all the spaghetti and salad you can eat in honor of his noodly goodness. Afterwards we will be showing some great films and documentaries that will be bound to spark a great conversation.

Film: What the Bleep do we Know??

SUMMARY (from what the bleep.com):WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?! is a new type of film. It is part documentary, part story, and part elaborate and inspiring visual effects and animations. The protagonist, Amanda, played by Marlee Matlin, finds herself in a fantastic Alice in Wonderland experience when her daily, uninspired life literally begins to unravel, revealing the uncertain world of the quantum field hidden behind what we consider to be our normal, waking reality…The chorus members act as hosts who live outside of the story, and from this Olympian view, comment on the actions of the characters below. They are also there to introduce the Great Questions framed by both science and religion, which divides the film into a series of acts. Through the course of the film, the distinction between science and religion becomes increasingly blurred, since we realize that, in essence, both science and religion describe the same phenomena.

- Featuring our "in house" physics Ph.D candidate Eddie Ackad to critically examine the documentary.

THE FRIDAY, JULY 13TH SUPERSTITION BASH

A day long event, featuring 3 components

The morning (9:00am - 12:30pm), with a Superstition obstacle course and related activities designed for children aged 7-9.
The afternoon (2:00pm - 5:00pm), with similar interactive activities designed for an older audience.
The evening (5:00pm - 9:30pm), with presentations and a haunted walk!

1. The morning (9:00am - 12:30pm)

9:00am: Introductions
9:15 – 10:15: Superstition Obstacle Course - 13 stations with interactive activities and educational information
10:15am – 10:45am: Jeopardy-style trivia game
10:45 – 11:00 minutes “Failed prediction listing” and snack
11:00 – 11:30: Fake séance (sceptics)
11:30 – 12:00: "Magic for sceptics", with Jennie Fiddes (see info below on this program)
12:00: Concluding Mirror smash, featuring Joe Nickell

2. The Afternoon (2:00pm - 5:00pm)
Similar activities as above, but with the following additional activities:

"Misfortune" telling
Homeopathic beer chugging contest
Voodoo Doll activity
Open mike setting for people to tell their own superstitions and ghost stories and for debunking opportunities
Evening Presentations and Events (5:00pm - 9:30pm)

5:00pm - 6:00pm: "Superstitions: A Critical Look" - presentation by Justin Trottier
6:00pm - 7:30pm: "Investigating Paranormal Claims" with Joe Nickell (see info below)
8:30pm: University of Toronto haunted walk, with Muddy York Walking Tours, the longest running haunted walk group in Toronto

Cost
The cost for participating in the July 13 Superstition Bash, which includes all activities, is $15. The cost for Dr. Nickell's talk only is $5. Friends of the Centre get in to all activities for $10

SPECIAL OFFER: Join now as a CFI Friend of the Centre and get into all two day Summer Skeptics Bash activities entirely free of charge!

Contact Information: Email: justin.trottier@gmail.com Phone: 416-971-5676

"Magic for Skeptics", with Jennie Fiddes

Jennie Fiddes is a recent graduate of U of T, earning a BA in Anthropology and Archaeology. She is currently employed as a field archaeologist in the GTA and is an amateur close-up magician. She recently completed an undergraduate thesis project on magic and magician culture in Toronto and is interested in all things magic related.

Jennie will be discussing why magic appeals to people and how this can be both entertaining and dangerous. By demonstrating a few tricks, she will take you through different styles of magic and show the effects they can have on the average thinker and how people can be readily fooled and the impact this can have on their emotions.

"Investigating Paranormal Claims", with Joe Nickell

As a highlight of the event, we are proud to present the world famous Dr. Joe Nickell. Joe Nickell, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and investigative columnist for Skeptical Inquirer magazine. A former professional stage magician and private investigator for a world-famous detective agency, Dr. Nickell utilizes his varied background as an investigator of myths and mysteries, frauds, forgeries, and hoaxes. He has been called "the modern Sherlock Holmes," "the original ghost buster," and "the real-life Scully”. He has investigated scores of haunted-house cases, including the Amityville Horror and the Mackenzie House in Toronto, Canada.

Dr. Nickell will be discussing his long history of skeptical inquiry including investigating superstitious claims, alien encounters, haunting, and the like. Dr. Nickell stories always entertain.

The Obstacle Course

Thirteen interactive superstition stations will be setup for your enjoyment and educational enrichment:
Station 1: The Ladder
Station 2: Lucky Charms
Station 3: Mirrors
Station 4: Horseshoes
Station 5: Black Cats
Station 6: Cracks
Station 7: Touch Wood
Station 8: Four-Leaf Clover
Station 9: Split Milk
Station 10: The Salt Bowl
Station 11: Pennies
Station 12: Umbrellas
Station 13: Hats

3 comments :

PZ Myers said...: Yikes. They would have to pay for my flight to Toronto and my room and give me free admission in order to get me to sit through "What the bleep do we know" again. That was an awful movie -- quantum idiocy, "you create your own reality", and incoherent film making, all at once.; Tuesday, July 10, 2007 8:36:00 PM
Anonymous said...: I like how they worked in the number thirteen (which I thought they had otherwise missed) into their number of stations.

I haven't watching What the Bleep yet. I'm a little afraid to do so, since it seems like there's likely to be a big chunk of quantum woo in it. Then again, I ought to take the Jason Rosenhouse approach of suffering through it so I can tear it to shreds ;)

I am steadfastly opposed to the "human consciousness required" version of quantum reality - in particular since decoherence is a phenomenon that can be investigated, and human consciousness is an emergent, not a primary, phenomenon. Also, it's an approach that prevents us from asking the right questions that could give us some real progress on understanding quantum processes.

I am pretty envious of all the activities going on after that. I mean, it may not be Randi's Amazing Meeting, but it sounds like a lot of fun, and I haven't seen anything like that pop up here in the prairies at all.

Maybe I'll go spill some salt now in protest, or something equally inefficaceous :); Wednesday, July 11, 2007 12:12:00 PM
Anonymous said...: I'd dismissed the notion of ever seeing 'What the @#$%' (as I have commented elsewhere, I find a certain delicious hypocrisy in the fact that they're too delicate to actually put the word 'fuck' or 'hell', or whatever it was supposed to be on their DVD cover, but they're quite okay with spewing utter bullshit for the length of a feature film) purely on the bases that (i) I spotted a really embarrassing bit of 'oh yes I must have one of those' marketing in a video store by one of the film's adherent/promoters, and (ii) geez, man, it's got that 'Ramtha' schmuck in it.

Anyhow. Have fun. I'd love to go to the bash, but I guess it ain't gonna happen (Shuffles morosely back to grindstone).; Thursday, July 12, 2007 10:38:00 AM

Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)

Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Peter Atkins

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake. Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory. Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat. Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is True

I once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000

It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma

One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick

There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins

Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod

The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.

Richard Lewontin

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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Summer Skeptics Bash July 12 & 13th

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