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PhACT
PhACT, the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking -- a rationalist organization -- very kindly invited me to address them, and I accepted like a shot in case they saw sense and changed their minds. I'm going to be strutting such paltry stuff as I can muster on September 18. Here's the blurb from their site:
Upcoming Meetings
Saturday, September 18, 2010 - Denying Science - John Grant
Is global warming merely scaremongering by climatologists conspiring to protect their jobs? Is evolution "just a theory"? Do vaccinations cause autism? Did Pasteur recant the germ theory on his deathbed? Were those results showing a correlation between cigarettes and lung cancer faked up by anti-smoking Nazis out to stop us all from having a good time? Does HIV/AIDS exist as a disease at all or is it a figment dreamed up by greedy drug companies?The ideas behind all of these questions are ridiculous, of course: to believe in such notions you'd have to refuse the best understandings of modern science -- in essence, set your face firmly against reality. Yet many people, from average citizens to entertainment stars to powerful politicians, prefer to do exactly this rather than accept scientific findings that, for ideological, religious, or merely infantile reasons, they dislike. Some would quite literally prefer to watch their child die than admit that modern medicine works. And some denialists of science -- those who've convinced themselves and expend great effort convincing others that we have nothing to fear from greenhouse gases -- would rather see civilization founder than accept the need to change their daily habits.
John Grant is the author of the highly successful and sometimes controversial books Discarded Science, Corrupted Science, and Bogus Science, among about 60 others, and has won several international writing awards, including the Hugo (twice) and the World Fantasy Award. The book he is currently working on, Denying Science: Conspiracy Theories, Media Distortions, and the War Against Reality, will be published by Prometheus next year. In this talk he will, in effect, offer us a glimpse of a work in progress.
Here are the details of time and place:
Saturday September 18
2.00pm
C2-28 Lecture Room, Center for Business and Industry, Philadelphia Community College, 18th and Callowhill Streets, Philadelphia
Non-members welcome
Admission
There's a street map here that shows the Philadelphia Community College and a very snazzy (although not wonderfully helpful for Firefox users) campus map here; the Center for Business and Industry is the building at top right of the map. As for parking, here's from the PhACT site:
Note: Parking is available in the college parking garage, but it is no longer free as in the past. The Saturday rate is $3.00.
If the Westboro Baptist Church turn up, Dragon*Con-style, to bray and bawl their infantile obscenities, I shall ask Pam to deal with them in her customary fashion.
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Oh, that'd be fun. Fingers crossed you can make it.
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without any picketing
What? I'd assumed you'd be digging out and dusting off your old placards.
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Wish I could be there
Those striking air traffic controllers have a lot to answer for, don't they?
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