This is a guest post by Wendy Hughes, editor of Skeptic Ink’s Healthy Skepticsm channel and producer of The Odds Must Be Crazy.
What Skeptics Society Conference In the Year 2525: Big Science, Big History, and the Far Future of Humanity When May 29-31, 2015 Where Caltech's Beckman Auditorium Conference website
The Skeptics Society conference at the end of May is all about the future. The title, In the Year 2525, is the headline that announces speakers discussing the future of religion; language; morality; health and human longevity; civilization; space travel and colonization; war and human values; gender, race and human nature; science and life; and life on earth itself.
It will be different from other conferences I’ve attended in quite a few ways. First, it’s right here at home. Since the conference is in Pasadena, California, I won’t have to reserve a hotel room – the conference is about a half hour drive from my house. Also – although there will be a Friday evening reception, and a Sunday field trip, this conference will have all of the above topics covered in one day, Saturday May 30th.
Some of the speakers are familiar, and I look forward to seeing and hearing them again: Richard Dawkins, Jared Diamond, Lawrence Krauss, Carol Tavris, Michael Shermer, and Donald Prothero.
Some of them are new to me: Esther Dyson, John McWhorter, Ian Morris, Gregory Benford, and David Brin. [All speaker bios]
The topics are irresistible, a geek girl’s idea of a fun way to spend the day, meals included, and entertainment in the evening.
The Sunday field trip options are a geology tour led by Donald Prothero, and a tour led by Michael Shermer of Mt. Wilson observatory. Both sounded good – but I have a fondness for geology and I have felt as if I have been missing something by not going on Dr. Prothero’s tours in the past. We will be visiting Vasquez Rocks, the San Andreas fault, billion year old magma chambers, fun stuff. This is the one element if the conference that sounded more like a trip into the past rather than speculation about the future.
I’ll be glad to report on the conference again after it’s over. Here is a link to the conference page: http://www.skeptic.com/lectures/conferences/in-the-year-2525/
