Time is close for the 2025 Surf Coast Skepticamp (SCSC) held at Aireys Inlet this coming 15 March. This is Australia’s longest running Skepticamp and is lining up speakers for the eleventh time.
This year the event is being held at Aireys Inlet Community Hall from 10.30am to 4.30pm. The journey from Melbourne is around 1 hour 45 minutes by combustion engine, battery, or hybrid powered vehicles. Time absolutely slides by as the stunning vista of Great Ocean Road scenery cruises by. The cost, of course, is free. But you should still help with arrangements by popping into Eventbrite here and picking up a ticket. Full details are available there also.
Topics covered in the past include: UFOs (Saunders & Dunning beamed live from Bend, Oregon!), Anti-vaxxers after COVID, Going Solar, Fake Martial Arts, Catching Academic Cheats, Climate change in Australia: fact vs. fiction, Crowdfunding Scams, Shayna Jack, sports supplements and regulators, The Weeping Woman and Other Tales: The Belief in the Supernatural in Latin America, Quiz: Just how smart are skeptics?, and much more.
This year we will be headed by published author and researcher Karen Bijkersma who will alert us to on-line subterfuge with “Reading Between the Lies: applied rhetoric in the digital dating era“. Then, regular attender Richard Saunders (Lifetime Skeptics Achievement Award winner) of The Skeptic Zone will drop in for a chat about the current skeptical investigations in Australia (on-line from Sydney). Nathan Eggins (Thornett Award winner) will perform for us (on-line from Brisbane) and maybe ask us to contribute duck quacks to the lyrics of his famous song, Paul Gallagher (Skeptic of the Year) – speaks about the “turbo cancer” conspiracy theory; Terry Kelly (past Presidents of the Vic Skeptics) – “The Dodgiest Skepticamp Stuff I have Seen”; Karl “Rocket Man” Hemphill ‘will analyse and dissect possibly the worst Olympic performance ever with “Raygun – a case study for skeptics”; and Don Hyatt (Convenor of SCSC and the National Convention 2012) will consider the obscure topic “Was Captain Smith a Flash in the Pan?“ and somehow link it to Black Swans.
Come along and enjoy the day. Or, why not bring your interests to Skepticamp and present a 20 minute-ish talk? If that sounds like you, just drop an email with your details and chosen topic to sgofvic@gmail.com. Skeptical thoughts on public health, alternatives to medicine, communicating with the dead, UFO/UAP reports, or the many bizarre claims reaching social media; any and all are welcome.
We break for lunch and visit the various eateries around Aireys Inlet then finish the evening with a wind down and meal at Aireys pub.
Losing In The Lucky Country 