I haven't been in communication with this list for some time as we've been swamped with activities between the race/sports symposium and our annual Caltech conference. I have just today come up for air and apologize for the delay.

I am pleased to report that our Caltech conference was our biggest event to date, with just slightly more than 700 attendees. All of our speakers were brilliant, each one seemingly try to top the previous ones, resulting in performances rather than just lectures. Don Prothero gave a wonderful history of paleontology and Gould's role in the development of paleobiology. Carol Tavris gave what I consider to be her greatest show--funny, witty, and filled with data on the "mismeasure of women." Frank Sulloway and I did a one-two lecture on Gould's work and personality, and the science of biography. James Randi stunned the audience with some killer magic tricks. Bill Nye the Science Guy did 30 minutes of science stand-up comedy. Paul MacCready, whom Gould called "the Leonardo of our time," wowed us with the latest research and development his company Aerivironment is working on in aerospace and elsewhere. Louis Friedman of the Planetary Society, and James Powell from the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, related Gould's work to their own fields, particularly SETI (in Friedman's case) and geology (in Powell's case). And Gould gave us a performance the likes of which I've never seen him give. And the best part is that we've got it all on tape, which will be available in a few weeks.

Our next two events at Caltech are:

Decars. Pennock is the author of the brilliant Tower of Babel which, along with Ken Miller's equally brillian Finding Darwin's God, are the two best book-length treatments of the latest arguments of intelligent design creationism.

January 14: Bob Friedhoffer, the "madman of magic," on: The Deception of Perception

A look at the methods by which malefactors, practitioners of the occult, and magicians (not necessarily in this order) manipulate the perception of the onlooker. The hows and whys of ways that the "smart ones" are often taken in. A brief discussion on the nature of perception precedes some entertaining and elucidating demonstrations in the "art of the scam" as practiced upon all segments of society. Bring an open mind, a willingness to suspend disbelief and a well secured wallet.

This is from skeptic Paul Bernhardt, in Salt Lake City:

Knowing that Skeptic has published articles about holocaust denial, I thought y'all might want to know about this event, possibly to forward through your email lists so that interested skeptics in the St. Louis area can attend if they wish.

Paul Bernhardt, Salt Lake City, Utah

Webster University's Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights is honored to present Dr. Israel Charny on "Standing Up to Denials and Deniers: Preserving A Genuine Sense of Tragedy and Moral Outrage about the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and All Genocides."

Dr. Israel Charny is the Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Genocide, and Professor of Psychology and Family Therapy at the Hebrew University

Event Information:

Oct. 18, 7:00 p.m.
Winifred Moore Auditorium
Webster University
470 East Lockwood
St. Louis, Missouri 63119

This event is free and open to the public

For more information, go to http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/charny.html or email woolflm@webster.edu