Sacramento Area Skeptics January Newsletter

Thanks to the many skills of fellow Sacramento Area Skeptics Organizer Catherine Osborn, starting this month the SAS will produce a monthly newsletter that will be distributed at our monthly Drinking Skeptically events. It will then be posted to this website on the subsequent Monday in PDF format. Enjoy!

Sacramento Area Skeptics December Newsletter

It is not a new phenomena for movies to claim that they are based on a true story even though they are just as accurate to an event as any other movie, or as Roger Ebert states “Remember, even in a movie ‘based on a true story’, nothing before the actual end credits needs to be true.” Introducing a movie as being based on actual events is an easy way to get potential moviegoers to see the film and for those who see it, more into the film. This is especially true in the case of horror movies, since the goal of the movie is to scare you, it makes it that much easier if you believe that what you are watching had actually once happened. This has been the case with some paranormal based horror films recently. They have tried to advertise or imply that the movie was more or less based on actual events; however, further research into these stories shows other more likely explanations. [Read more →]

Northern California is a unique place for skeptics. We house several important universities as well as many top scientists and skeptics, facts that we can all be proud of; however, it is also the birth place to a whole lot of woo-woo. I will start documenting some of the more popular phenomena Northern California is known for on this site in future posts. Some of the stories many of you may be familiar with but there may be some that are surprising and new. In the spirit of the Halloween holiday last weekend, I will start off by covering Mrs. Sarah Winchester’s mansion.

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It is important to keep in mind that atheism and skepticism are separate. For skeptics the line separating the two can become blurry from time to time. This could be due to the fact that many if not most skeptics consider themselves atheists and that most of our intellectual skeptic hero’s are atheists (James Randi, Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins); however, there are many notable skeptics who are not atheists or agnostics (Harry Houdini, Martin Gardner, Hal Bidlack). Skepticism is a methodology which promotes critical thinking and the scientific method. There is no reason to needlessly burn bridges with important skeptics because they hold religious beliefs, or as Daniel Laxton put it in What do I do Next, “You don’t, after all, have to be against god to be against fraud.” It is important for skeptical groups to remain areligious for this reason. When religions make testable claims or hold stances that are blatantly anti-scientific then it is up the the skeptic community to call them out on it; otherwise, religious dogmatic claims are not the purview of science.

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