Eschaton 2012

Most of you missed the exciting Evolution Ottawa 2012 meeting earlier this month but, cheer up, you have another chance to visit Ottawa form Novermber 30 to December 2, 2012.

The meeting is called Eschaton 2012 where "eschaton" refers to the end of the world. That's because, as you all know by now, the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. The Mayans said so and so do a lot of modern kooks.

Here's an outline of the meeting.

The conference opens with a Friday night plenary session on the historical relationship between humans and our apocalypses. Saturday morning and afternoon, we have parallel tracks: 1) Talks and panels on skepticism/science/science communication (including a live recording of Ottawa Skeptics' podcast, The Reality Check) and 2) "The Immaculate Convention" - talks and panels on religion from an academic and sociological perspective. Saturday evening there will be a reception with food and drink in the early evening at the Canadian Museum of Nature (around the corner from the hotel), after which there will be a talk by PZ Myers, followed by a meet-and-greet social, with snacks, cash bar, and access to some of the galleries and exhibits. On Sunday the parallel tracks include panels and workshops on ethics, gender identity, parenting, and other exciting topics to be announced.

Here's the latest list of speakers. (I changed the order somewhat from the one on the website.)

• Larry Moran
• P.Z. Myers
• Ophelia Benson
• Chris DiCarlo
• Ian Cromwell
• Natalie Reed
• Udo Schuklenk
• Eugenie Scott
• Jim Linville
• Sara Mayhew
• Jeff Shallit
• Eric MacDonald
• Ania Bula
• Heina Dadabhoy
• The Reality Check
• Annie Urban
• Allan Daoust
• Crystal Beauvais Daoust
• Anila Asghar
• Steve Tomlins

I'm planning to talk about the accommodationist wars and why science and religion are incompatible. Hopefully, Genie Scott will represent the accommodationist position as promoted by NCSE.

Chris DiCarlo and I are teaching a course at the University of Toronto next Fall on scientific controversies and misconceptions (including evolution vs creationism). Maybe we can have a workshop on Sunday to discuss science literacy?

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