Tag Archives: Skepticon 2023

Annie McCubbin coming to Skepticon 2023

Posted in General, Skeptic by

Would you like to know why smart women make bad decisions? If so, buying Annie McCubbin’s book, Why Smart Women make Bad Decisions would be a great start.

Annie published it in 2020, then in May this year she published Why Smart Women Buy the Lies. Annie is more than a little annoyed that critical thinking is so often side-lined, whilst pseudoscience and New-Age waffle is instead shaping decision-making. Consequently, Annie focuses on helping women avoid being conned by the feel-good vibes of self-help promises.

Annie McCubbin

Annie trained and worked as a professional actor appearing in major theatre productions and Australian TV dramas.  In 2001, Annie founded COUP – a corporate development and communication consultancy – with her husband, David.  They have pioneered skills-based training drawn from theatre practice, critical thinking, and business principles, delivered to companies across Australasia in finance, professional services, pharma, resources, telecoms, FMCG, government and the profit-for-purpose sector.

Having trained and coached thousands of women leaders, it became blindingly apparent to Annie that understanding cognitive flaws and unconscious biases is the best protection from the deceptions and distortions that cause unwelcome drama in business. 

You can hear Annie speak at Skepticon 2023. Tickets for the convention and/or online viewing are available here.

Dr. John Cook will be at Skepticon 2023

Posted in climate change, General, Skeptic by

John Cook is a Senior Research Fellow with the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change at the University of Melbourne.

Dr John Cook

In 2013, John published Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, an award-winning paper quantifying the 97% scientific consensus on climate change. The paper has been highlighted by President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron. 

In 2007, John founded Skeptical Science, a website that won the 2011 Australia Museum Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge. He has an interest in using critical thinking to counter the effects of misinformation.

Tickets for Skepticon 2023 live and online, available here.

Zafir Ivanov and Reason’s Fulcrum coming to Skepticon 2023

Posted in General, Science, Skeptic by

The fact that two individuals can form opposite conclusions when faced with the same evidence, is something that Zafir Ivanov has pondered most of his life.

Zafir has devoted a great deal of time to understanding how we form beliefs. Why are some people immune to counter-evidence? Why are some easily swayed by weak arguments, and others unmoved by strong evidence? In fact, people respond to evidence quite differently.

Zafir’s interest led him to study research literature, experiment with difficult conversations and to become an amateur ethnographer. He writes, gives presentations, and talks about why we believe and why he thinks it best we believe as little as possible. Zafir has collaborated with the Cognitive Immunology Research Initiative and The Evolutionary Philosophy Circle.

At Skepticon 2023 he will introduce a modified version of a concept called Reason’s Fulcrum. Zafir will use this to demonstrate Bayesian Reasoning, and thinking in ratios in addition to how this can help one appropriately adjust when faced with new evidence. He will argue in support of rejecting absolute certainty and Truth (with a capital T).

Zafir Ivanov

In November last year Zafir presented the below TEDx talk, Our worldview alters our view of the world.

  • Skepticon 2023 runs over 2nd and 3rd of December. Live and online convention tickets, as well as tickets to the Saturday night dinner, are available here.

Stephen Bavaro coming to Skepticon 2023

Posted in General, Science, Skeptic by

Pseudoarchaeology is a type of fantasy story telling of the “ancient” past. A well referenced entry on Wikipedia basically describes it as the interpretation of the past without accepting existing evidence-based findings or applying the methodology of genuine archaeology. This 1987 article from Penn Museum’s Expedition Magazine confirms pseudoarchaeology was well established decades ago.

Seasoned skeptics tend to nod sagely and acknowledge the days of Chariots of the Gods?, by Erich von Dänniken whenever the topic comes up. More recently we have Ancient Apocalypse, masquerading as a documentary on Netflix and narrated by well known myth-maker, Graham Hancock. Like many baseless claims today, social media, slick videos and pseudoscientific language have contributed to a contemporary rise in the popularity of pseudoarchaeology. As an accurate understanding of our world and its past is critical, this is most unfortunate.

Enter Stephen Bavaro. Stephen is studying archaeology at Macquarie University in Sydney. He has a strong interest in pseudoarchaeology and pseudohistory, particularly with how they distort the study and understanding of past and current cultures. You can check out Stephen’s Facebook page here.

https://skepticon.org.au/speaker/stephen-bavaro/

At Skepticon in Canberra last year, Stephen spoke about von Dänniken and belief in ancient aliens. This year at Skepticon in Melbourne he will focus on Atlantis and the role of Ignatius Donnelly in popularising belief in an actual city, as opposed to Plato’s notion of an allegorical construct. Stephen spoke to Richard Saunders about his work during last weeks episode* of The Skeptic Zone.

You can read about all speakers at Skepticon 2023 here and look at ticket options here.

* Allow web fonts or hit “pause” to see the audio player, if you have an ad blocker.

Susan Gerbic at Skepticon 2023

Posted in General, Science, Skeptic by

Self-proclaimed skeptical junkie, Susan Gerbic, will be speaking at Skepticon 2023, which runs over December 2nd and 3rd this year.

Susan Gerbic

Susan has done some awesome things in the world of skeptical activism and is the founder of Monterey County Skeptics. In addition she founded and manages the About Time project, which you can check out here. Susan is a winner of the James Randi Foundation award for 2017 and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. She also contributes to Skeptical Inquirer.

Susan could also see, not just the potential of Wikipedia, but the potential power in genuinely educating those who visit Wikipedia to access information on a topic. We all end up on Wikipedia at some time to read up on any number of subjects. In fact it’s a top hit in searches. Susan felt strongly about the quality of information on Wikipedia, and how it influenced decisions people might make.

So Susan founded Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW). This involves organising a team of people across the globe, that edits pages on Wikipedia in multiple languages. Consider this GSoW slogan:

The mission of the Guerrilla Skepticism editing team is to improve skeptical content of Wikipedia. We do this by improving pages of our skeptic spokespeople, providing noteworthy citations, and removing the unsourced claims from paranormal and pseudoscientific pages. Why? Because evidence is cool. We train – We mentor – Join us.

GSoW was particularly relevant this year, with regards to unqualified and dangerous “naturopath”, Barbara O’Neill. An Australian, O’Neill is subject to a Permanent Prohibition Order from the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission. This hasn’t stopped her manipulating social media and exploiting opportunities to present harmful claims to audiences overseas, in pursuit of her lucrative scheme. Fortunately as her profile recently rose, so did hits on O’Neill’s Wikipedia page – one edited by GSoW.

Episodes of The Skeptic Zone on 18 June and 2nd July this year, featured Gerbic who discussed the spike in traffic to O’Neill’s Wikipedia page. In the wake of TikTok videos, hits on the page went from around 20 per day to 9,000 per day. No doubt, many were convinced to save their money.

Gerbic’s activism covers all areas of skepticism, particularly that of “Grief Vampires”. You can find links to Susan Gerbic’s Facebook and Twitter / X profiles here and access live and online tickets to Skepticon here.

Susan Gerbic on Guerrilla Skepticism