Skeptic Ink meet-up at TAM 2013

TAM 2013 continues: today I am on a panel about philosophy and skepticism, while tomorrow I am scheduled to give my own talk – about science, skepticism, and denialism.

The Skeptic Ink contingent is pretty strong here at The Amazing Meeting, and we’ve been talking over many issues to do with the future of the site and the associated collaborative network. Hopefully some good decisions will come of all this, and meanwhile it’s valuable just to meet up and share our experiences and views. Here’s a whole gang of us from last night at the Del Mar Lounge: John Loftus, myself, Ed Clint, Jacques Rousseau, Caleb Lack, and Damion Reinhardt:

Oh, and it hasn’t escaped me that we’re all blokes in this photo. That doesn’t apply to the entire Skeptic Ink Network, of course. Still, it’s an issue to be addressed. Women still face barriers in (often) getting left out of blokey networking, and that should always prompt us to do a reality check – are we properly identifying and drawing on the female talent pool in our collaborative projects? That’s a question I’ve always asked myself when in a position as, say, an editor or a manager, and it’s been my practice always to take additional steps in response to that question. I.e., it’s genuinely a matter of doing something to counteract the continuing tendencies for female talent to be excluded or overlooked – it’s not mere tokenism for the sake of appearance.

I’m confident that all my colleagues at Skeptic Ink understand this, and I hope it will increasingly become apparent as the site develops and as the individuals here become involved in more collaborative initiatives within the broad secular or rationalist movement.