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♪ Jamy said he wanted a song
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But the intro he emailed me was long
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So I'm gonna have to just play a drone
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And read what he sent me off my phone ♪
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Magician, author, speaker and skeptic.
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Co-founder of the National Capital Area Skeptics.
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Co-founder of the New York City Skeptics.
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For the JREF he serves as chairman of the Advisory Committee to the President
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and on the Million Dollar Challenge subcommittee.
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♪ He was onstage to host the opening night proceedings of the very first TAM!
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And has been a presenter, moderator and performer at every TAM,
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except for one, but who's counting?
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So Jamy said he wanted a song ♪
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That's it. Ladies and gentleman, the one and only Jamy Ian Swiss!
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[Cheering, applause]
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I got a song.
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Hi!
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My name is Jamy.
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(Hi, Jamy!)
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And I'm a skeptic.
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[Cheering]
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What does that mean?
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What does that mean?
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Well, here's a book, with the definition of 'skepticism'.
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There's been a lot of heated discussion about this subject lately...
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[Laughter]
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That's it, that's all the magic crap you get from me this morning.
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Maybe you get a card trick later at the bar, try me out, no promises.
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That's it for now.
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As a skeptical activist for more than 25 years,
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one of the discussions I've engaged in countless times,
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probably from my time helping to write the first by-laws
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for the National Capital Area Skeptics in 1987,
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is the meaning of 'skepticism'.
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Not only in terms of what it means to individuals,
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but also organizations and indeed from the vantage of being part of a social movement,
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because skepticism is all those things:
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it's a personal world view,
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it's an organizational mission
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and it's a social movement.
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So what does it mean to be a skeptic?
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And what is the skeptic mission?
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The original skeptic organization created in 1976: CSICOP
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Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal,
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now known as CSI,
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— I guess those folks don't watch TV —
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[Laughter]
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offer these words as part of their mission statement, quote:
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"The mission of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry is to promote scientific inquiry,
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critical investigation and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims."
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Michael Shermer's Skeptic Society, in addition to its online mission statement,
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defines skepticism nicely as follows:
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"Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims.
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It is the application of reason to any and all ideas — no sacred cows allowed.
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In other words, skepticism is a method, not a position."
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Many such precedent-setting mission statements,
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including from groups I've personally been involved with:
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National Capital Area Skeptics, New York City Skeptics, the JREF itself,
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— and you can read the JREF mission statement right in the TAM program —
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...many such skeptical mission statements will be useful and informative
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in defining the meaning and scope of skeptical activism.
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You can find mission statements of countless skeptic organizations online.
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You'll see many such ideas similarly expressed.
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But I had to summarize or abbreviate all of that, I would say this:
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That scientific skepticism is a way of thinking.
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It is *not* about how-
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It is about *how* to think, and not about *what* to think.
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And the question of what it means to be a skeptic,
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or what the mission of a skeptics organization comprises
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has always been interesting to me and to us.
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But today, as the movement continues to expand in many directions,
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and indeed succeed in many ways, the question has become as or more important than ever.
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Because I believe that in some ways we have become victims of a kind of success.
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A success that has led at times to confusion within and among ourselves.
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It might be hard to think of the skeptic movement as a success
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when you look at the numbers of percentages of Americans
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who believe in psychics and conspiracy theories,
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anti-vaxx paranoia and so much more toxic nonsense.
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But everything's relative and surveys show that fewer Americans for example
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today believe in psychic phenomena than they did twenty years ago.
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A 2009 CBS poll... identified a decline of about 7% over a twenty year period.
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That is one kind of success,
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and I think skeptical activists can likely claim a hand, part of that progress.
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That's good news.
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Also the movement has grown wildly in numbers:
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numbers of individuals, numbers of organizations and activities and gatherings...
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And that too is very much a measure of success.
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I mentioned last night there is some 200 skeptic-related groups who include meet-ups
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— Skeptics in the Pub and such —
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and that is not including atheist or humanist groups,
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just skeptical activities and that's great.
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That's a very different thing than 36 years ago
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when there was only one organization
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trying to define itself and a fledgling movement.
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When it's just one group, it's easy to keep everybody under the same umbrella or in the party line.
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But as a movement grows in size, activists and organizations spend more time
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refining and often arguing about the more finely tuned differences
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in focus and opinion and perspective within the movement.
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And this is where we find ourselves now. Often to our detriment.
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It's not a bad thing to be having these conversations;
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we will always need to continue to have them,
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but it can be unfortunate to be battling over those conversations
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and allowing those battles to distract us and to spill over and in view of the larger public
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to whom we are trying to communicate a message.
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And I think that, to use the magicians' term, we've been misdirected in a way.
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By our successes.
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We've all been so happy and excited to welcome everyone into the club,
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for a while we didn't realize there were significant differences
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between various kinds of folks in the clubs,
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all of whom self-identify as "skeptics".
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Specifically for one example,
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I think we've been misdirected, and we've misdirected our own selves,
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by the visible growth and success of the so-called New Atheist movement.
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Now, don't get your undies in a bunch.
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At least not yet.
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[Laughter]
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I'm an atheist! As I've said on countless first dates in my life.
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I'm not just an atheist, I'm an atheist with an attitude!
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BUT!
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But! But! But!
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I'm not an atheist activist.
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I'm a skeptical activist.
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I have nothing against atheist activism, I'm in favor of it! I support it!
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I'm a strong supporter of the Richard Dawkins Foundation,
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and their approach to atheist activism; I've got a red A on my badge.
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But neither am I a skeptical humanist activist, for that matter.
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I don't particularly identify as a "Secular Humanist" capital "S" capital "H" kind of way.
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Even though I certainly am a humanist philosophically, and I've attended and presented and performed
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at humanist gatherings on behalf of CFI and the American Humanist Association.
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But I say it again: I'm not an atheist activist. I'm not a humanist activist.
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I'm a skeptical activist.
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And by very deliberate choice.
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And I think that I can explain why for myself in pretty simple terms.
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If skepticism is a broad-based way of thinking about claims,
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and trying to figure out what is and is not true,
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then atheism is simply skepticism applied to a single extraordinary claim.
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But I care about *all* of 'em.
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We've all heard the statement:
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give a man a fish, feed him for a day;
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teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.
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Here's my version for skeptics:
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Tell a man what to think, feed his head with one idea;
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teach him how to think, feed his head with a lifetime of ideas.
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That's why I'm a skeptical activist.
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[Applause]
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I'm not arguing against atheist activism,
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I'm just talking about why *I* am a skeptical activist,
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and how that's different.
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As skeptics we should not be committed to what to think, but to how to think.
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We don't need to tell other people what to think in order to be accepted
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as students of critical thinking, which is what we all are.
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And that's what we should be modelling.
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I have little interest in devoting myself to advocating simply for an outcome.
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I have great interest in advocating for a particular process of thinking.
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And I have zero interest in any implication that there should be any sort of litmus test
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of conclusions reached that should serve as requirements for entering the skeptic tent.
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If you're interested in the scientific method...
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[Applause]
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If you're interested in the scientific method and rational means of inquiry,
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if you're interested in empiricism and what it tells us about the world
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and methods of critical thinking as a way to discover more about that world every day,
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then you're welcome in my skeptical tent.
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And I don't really care if you bring some pet cooky idea with you,
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or on the other hand you simply haven't gotten quite all the way down the path yet to atheism.
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I don't in any way believe in or support that kind of political correctness in skepticism.
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[Applause]
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My reasoning is this: if someone embraces the basic tenets of critical thinking,
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of reason and rational inquiry,
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of the scientific method as a way of determining truths about the natural world and the universe
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then I believe that person is going to make the world a better place.
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And if they embrace that way of thinking just a little more today than they did yesterday,
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they're going to make the world a better place *today*!
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Because they're gonna make better decisions and help others to make better decisions
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and that's the only way the human race is going
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to solve the problems we're faced with in our world
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and that's the way I want my fellow human beings
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to contribute to making decisions
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that affect me, and affect us all, everyone of us, on the planet.
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So I want to welcome people who are willing to apply a process
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of using scientific and critical thinking to reach a conclusion
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regardless of what they believe today.
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I don't have to agree with their conclusions.
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As long as they are willing to apply that process
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and are open to revising those conclusions.
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So while I personally might like to think that embracing scientific skepticism is likely
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to lead to an eventual embrace of atheism,
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I'm willing to bide my time,
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and accept the best of what people have offer along that path
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even if they never get there.
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As Steven Novella has written, quote:
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"I prefer to give people critical thinking skills and a love for science,
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and not worry about their faith."
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But there's another reason why, as skeptics, we need to think clearly about these distinctions.
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And that's because the world is full of atheists who are not skeptics.
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When we were starting up the New York City Skeptics,
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one of my co-founders was involved with some atheist meet-ups.
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When were calling our first public gatherings, I cautioned my skeptic colleagues that,
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while the atheist meet-ups were very good places to start to get the word out
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and attract new people to our new skeptic organization, nevertheless those meet-up folks
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were not necessarily going to comprise a lot of our eventual target demographic.
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Sure enough, at our first Skeptics in the Pub,
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I ended up arguing with a woman about the book The Secret.
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You know? Oprah Winfrey fragrant.
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Now, that book is a toxic... sorry.
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That book is toxic pseudoscience, *cover to cover*!
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Filled with ancient recycled ideas that are both wrong and very, very bad.
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But this woman was an atheist who didn't have the first clue about what I was saying
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and could see nothing wrong with the book, no matter what I said.
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Several years ago my wife Kandace set out to form a...
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a rational parenting meet-up group.
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She decided to call it Atheist Parenting.
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So I cautioned it might not attract the demographic she was looking for,
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which was: we were looking for like-minded skeptical parents.
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But at the same time our boys were just entering school
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and hearing the word "God" for the first time in their lives,
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thanks to the Pledge of Allegiance, and we were suitably freaked out by all that...
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...and so it became the Atheist Parenting meet-up.
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And at the very first meeting,
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a woman turned to Kandace and asked: "So, what's your sign?!"
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[Laughter]
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We were at a dinner a couple months ago with Elizabeth Cornwell, Sean Faircloth and Richard Dawkins
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and Kandace told the five of us this story.
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And when she finished, Richard's eyes got literally wide and he goes:
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"That did not happen!"
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[Laughter]
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"Oh yes, it did!"
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[Laughter]
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How do you say: "Oh no it didn't!" in a British accent? I don't know.
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[Laughter]
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You know what you get when people come to skepticism... sorry.
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You know what you get when people come to atheism
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through routes other than scientific skepticism and a scientific worldview?
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You get Bill Maher!
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[Applause]
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A guy who is an outspoken atheist, which some of us love,
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and also an anti-science anti-vaxxer dangerous ignoramus,
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promoting toxic anti-science nonsense that KILLS people!
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This is a place that as a skeptic, I have to disagree with Richard Dawkins.
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He's indicated on this stage in a conversation with DJ Grothe
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that he's ok with accepting Bill Maher as an ally
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because Richard's priority as an activist is to combat religion.
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I'm not willing to accept that brokered alliance.