FREE admission – Everyone welcome, members and non-members
How is so much pseudoscientific junk on store shelves? Why isn’t homeopathy illegal? Nick Little, Legal Director and General Counsel of Center for Inquiry (CFI), explains the path that CFI has taken to filing consumer protection lawsuits against retail giants CVS and Walmart for their marketing of homeopathic products. The talk will address the limits of the law in dealing with pseudoscience, and how litigation and lobbying together can help skeptics challenge both government policies and private company promotion of pseudoscience — from climate change denial to snake oil medical products.
Nick Little is Vice President, General Counsel, and Legal Director of the Center for Inquiry. As CFI's attorney, he supervises the Center's litigation, both in the area of separation of church and state and the protection of the rights of non-believers, where he has brought multiple suits to require states to permit secular wedding celebrants, and in the area of skepticism, where he has filed CFI's groundbreaking consumer protection suit against CVS stores for their deceptive marketing of homeopathy. Educated at Oxford University, the University of Warwick, and Vanderbilt University Law School, Nick seeks to keep CFI involved in cutting edge litigation to further its mission of a secular society based on reason, science, and humanist values.
Refreshments will be available.
The underground parking garage entrance is located at the library's NW corner. Surface lots are north and east of the building.
February NCAS Lecture
Roopesh Ojha, PhD will discuss the alleged health impacts of fifth generation wireless technology in "Should We Worry About 5G Towers?" Saturday, February 8, 2020 at Connie Morella (formerly Bethesda Regional) Library.
National Archives Project Blue Book Exhibit
On December 5, the National Archives issued a press release about a new display in the East Rotunda Gallery of its museum in Washington: "Today, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the end of Project Blue Book [the Air Force's unidentified flying objects (UFOs) investigation], the National Archives is displaying a selection of records from the program in the East Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC. The records, on display through January 16, 2020, are a sample from the thousands of pages of textual records, still pictures, motion pictures, and sound recordings in National Archives holdings relating to Blue Book."
Comment by Scott Snell, NCAS President:
I've visited the exhibit. It's just a few artifacts in a display case. If you're already planning to visit the Archives museum (perhaps to double-check on what the Constitution says about impeachment?), spend a few extra minutes and visit the Project Blue Book exhibit. Otherwise I'd recommend using the two links above to see everything on your computer.
By the way, the two comic book pages in the display are excerpts of Weird Science-Fantasy #26 (December 1954) by EC Comics:
Prez Sez
By Scott Snell
Happy New Year and Decade! (The third decade of the century won't start until next year, but we've started the twenties!)
The holidays are often a time of wish lists and resolutions. At the recent (Dec 19) NCAS board meeting, I and the rest of the board put together a short wish list of ideas for new events, new things to try, etc. Some, perhaps all, will eventually be developed and announced.
What about you, our members? Do you have a wish list for NCAS? It could be an idea for a speaker, a lecture topic, a type of event that NCAS could present, or some other activity. If so, send an email to
ncas@ncas.org.
Regarding resolutions, I'll share one of mine here. But first, 2020 hasn't been announced as the "Year of the Skeptic," though maybe it should be. 2020 brings to mind the acuity of 20/20 vision. Perhaps it can bring to mind the acuity of thought as well.
My resolution is to improve my skepticism. I've always intended that, but making a resolution of it might be a step forward.
One of my "self tests" is to see how often I'm surprised by something in the news (assuming I've been following the particular topic long enough to have a sense of what's likely to follow). Are my predictions coming true? Am I confronted with more or fewer inconsistencies (conflicting information, or a mismatch between hypotheses and information) over time as I'm following the topic? Through an iterative process, I hope to find (though perhaps fool?) myself in a less-frequent confrontation with conflicting information, except for some cases when an important fact emerges.
It can be fun to do an "audit" of your positions. If you post on social media, review what you've posted about current events over a year or more and see how well they've held up over time.
If your audit turns out worse than you expected, you may feel the same way I have at times. Setting aside the normal and expected fallibility of news coverage of emerging stories, would it help to reconsider your sources of news, and how to think about the presented claims?
We skeptics have known for a long time about some publishers' and TV/radio producers' coverage of the paranormal, rife with omission of important information, unlikely interpretations of presented information, and undue emphasis or de-emphasis of particular details. The problems apparently aren't limited to paranormal topics. Personal biases and dedication to causes are why this occurs, though their own genuine ignorance and cynical exploitation of the public's misconceptions surely play a part too.
It can be time-consuming to find and play back full recordings of speeches and examine other primary sources of "political data," though that is one way to check on how well your news media sources are doing their job. A quicker way to check on them is to examine their news coverage for unasked questions. Are there particular "angles" that are omitted, either out of ineptitude or because of an agenda?
Hunt around a bit. Use keywords from the question(s) you would've asked. If you find another news source that includes the omitted elements, you may have found a better news source...at least for that topic, or in that particular case. It's frustrating when it's only for that topic or case. But we have to do our best with what we have available.
AmazonSmile: Thanks to our members who are supporting NCAS!
When shopping at
smile.amazon.com, you'll find the same low prices, vast selection, and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added bonus that a portion of the purchase price (0.5%) goes to NCAS! It's simple and automatic, and it doesn't cost you anything!
AmazonSmile's disbursements to NCAS in the third quarter of 2019 came to $13.51, meaning that over $2700 of purchases were designated in support of NCAS. (As an example of how NCAS can put that money to good use, it's more than enough to cover a half hour of a Montgomery County lecture room rental.)
Thanks again to our members who have chosen to support NCAS!
For more information:
http://smile.amazon.com/about
https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazon-launches-amazonsmile-simple-automatic-way-customers
Shadow Light
Some members and contacts of NCAS receive a postal notification of this and every new monthly
Shadow of a Doubt. The
Shadow Light postcard announces the monthly lecture and highlights of the electronic
Shadow of a Doubt, which is available online at
ncas.org/shadow. NCAS thereby reduces
Shadow production and postage costs. To further reduce costs, members and contacts can opt out of postal notification altogether, while continuing to receive
Shadow of a Doubt via e-mail. To opt out, send us an e-mail at
ncas@ncas.org.
Time to Renew?
Be sure to check your renewal date above your postal address on the
Shadow Light postcard. Send any queries to
ncas@ncas.org. Use the
online membership form to renew.
http://ncas.org/shadow
Dr. Ojha has worked for the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (including a year operating a telescope at the South Pole) in Cambridge, MA, the Australia Telescope National Facility in Sydney, and the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. He currently works for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space telescope primarily studying the physics of active galactic nuclei - galaxies where the dominant source of energy is matter falling onto a central supermassive black hole. Dr Ojha is known for his ability to communicate science at any level, from highly specialized scientific meetings to elementary school students. He is a regular speaker at local schools, non-profit organizations, and STEM events.
