TsarBomba
One Damn Dirty Ape
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2007
- Messages
- 808
Having just gotten back from the first ever Skepticamp, held in Denver Colorado on August 4, 2007, I would like to report a roaring success. The idea was taken from the Bar Camp concept of an open source technology conference, where participants show up and provide the content.
Skepticamp actually began in the evening hours of August 3 with an exellent presentation debunking moon landing conspiracy hoax claims. We met in the basement of the Tivoli, a former brewery that now serves as the student union building for Metro State University and CU-Denver. We gathered again this morning and various participants wrote summaries of their proposed presentations on small pieces of paper, which were posted on a board. The orginizers then created a schedule and away we went. Roughly 30 people participated, and we had about 8 seperate presentations. Surprisingly, the most interesting feature (to me) was the presentation by a local "ghost hunting" group, the rocky mountain paranormal research group. They turned out to be very skeptical, rational, and clear minded. They freely admitted (without shame) that in 20 years of research, they have found no hard evidence of paranormal activity.
We also had a skeptical trivia challenge, and discussions of naturopathy, geology, libraries, attachment theropy, rhetoric, and a very interesting study on the personality traits of conspiracy theory believers.
I think that the organizers showed that an open-source informal skeptical "convention" can work anywhere. I would highly recomend that anyone interested contact the organizers (which you should be able to reach through the first embeded link above) and hold their own Skepticamp.
Here are some photographs of the fun
Here, the rocky Mountain Paranormal Group gives its presentation.
An interested listener
Anyone that's been to TAM should recognize the guy in the yellow shirt.
Reed, one of the ograinizers, gives his lecture.
Reed kept them interested.
Winding down
Skepticamp actually began in the evening hours of August 3 with an exellent presentation debunking moon landing conspiracy hoax claims. We met in the basement of the Tivoli, a former brewery that now serves as the student union building for Metro State University and CU-Denver. We gathered again this morning and various participants wrote summaries of their proposed presentations on small pieces of paper, which were posted on a board. The orginizers then created a schedule and away we went. Roughly 30 people participated, and we had about 8 seperate presentations. Surprisingly, the most interesting feature (to me) was the presentation by a local "ghost hunting" group, the rocky mountain paranormal research group. They turned out to be very skeptical, rational, and clear minded. They freely admitted (without shame) that in 20 years of research, they have found no hard evidence of paranormal activity.
We also had a skeptical trivia challenge, and discussions of naturopathy, geology, libraries, attachment theropy, rhetoric, and a very interesting study on the personality traits of conspiracy theory believers.
I think that the organizers showed that an open-source informal skeptical "convention" can work anywhere. I would highly recomend that anyone interested contact the organizers (which you should be able to reach through the first embeded link above) and hold their own Skepticamp.
Here are some photographs of the fun
Here, the rocky Mountain Paranormal Group gives its presentation.
An interested listener
Anyone that's been to TAM should recognize the guy in the yellow shirt.
Reed, one of the ograinizers, gives his lecture.
Reed kept them interested.
Winding down
