TAM 8 – Thoughts about Day 2

I’m in the back of the room listening to a fascinating talk by Dr. Bruce Hood, author of Supersense.  Already this morning I’ve talked with James Randi about a mysterious Georgia poltergeist case which I’ll put up on MonsterTalk soon.  I learned things in that interview that I’d never heard and am excited that he’s written it up in his new book which should be out in a few months. But that’s today and I want to write a bit about yesterday.   This is day three of TAM 8 in Las Vegas – but I want to talk about what happened on day 2.

Bruce Hood sounds very smart.  He’s talking about the brain and how it works.  He seems very well informed, though my first meeting with him was last night in the hotel bar when he was wearing a fake moustache and singing the theme music from Star Trek in an impromptu barber-shop quartet.  It’s amazing – and yes, I can tell you that this conference lives up to its name.

Friday was really a packed day of intellectual discussions and delightful talks. It’s such a thrill for me to be able to hear these well informed experts get up and talk about big ideas, and to be able to get up after the talk and have post-talk discussions with well informed attendees from around the world.  The value of TAM exceeds the value of any single talk – and perhaps even the cumulative information from all the talks.  These lectures spur on the minds of all the audience members and then they get new ideas and the ideas branch and flower and take new paths.

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, gave a talk about the importance of civility.  He quoted Wil Wheaton and his talk could be summarized in four words, “Don’t be a dick.”  For some people that idea is counter-intuitive.  When you know that something isn’t so it is often difficult to find a nice and constructive way to share it.  It’s an important idea for pro-reality advocates since science, which many of us claim to support, shows that simply telling people they are wrong is likely to make them more certain they’re right!  Well said, Mr. Plait.

Joe Nickell, one of my personal heroes, gave a lovely lecture on his many “in disguise” investigations.  I’ve heard a lot of Joe’s talks before, but every time I learn something new or hear a new story.  I hope he’s around for many years to come.

One of the highlights of the day’s events was a talk consisting of Ray Hyman, Paul Kurtz, Ken Frazier and James Randi.  It was all about the origin of the skeptics movement, and in the end it culminated with Randi presenting a lifetime achievement to Dr. Kurtz.  I hope the JREF is getting all of this stuff successfully recorded because there are many historic moments taking place here.  I saw Paul Kurtz meet science journalist Simon Singh in a hallway – for the first time.  It was a private, brief meeting between two people I respect very much and I only got to see it because I happened to be in the right place in the right time.  In Las Vegas at TAM 8.

Adam Savage of the Mythbusters gave a fantastic and enthusiastic speech coming in just days after his show was nominated for an emmy, and he gave us the news that Mythbusters has been signed on for 5 more years!  There are many myths to be investigated, and many more things to be blown-up.

Women had a lot to say yesterday on skepticsim, science, feminism, and more.  There is a really great mix of people here of known and unknown champions of truth.  For one brief moment we got to see Eugenie Scott, another hero for the advancement of science education.  Little cameos like that of unadvertised awesome abound here.

It will take me some time to parse through all the information I’m getting here.  And to keep in touch with all the people I’m meeting.  And to calm down and get back to real life when I leave.  BUT, I don’t have to because there’s two more days!

So not yet.

For now I’ll just take an aspirin because my face hurts a bit from grinning so much!