Talk:List of skeptical conferences

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Atheism, freethought, humanism, secularism

In principle, once could see atheism, humanism, freethought and secularism as a part of scientific skepticism. Jamy Ian Swiss argued in his 2012 TAM talk that they are "overlapping magisteria": they generally support science, rationality and favour criticising, restraining or replacing religion's role in society. But, Swiss and others have also warned that they are not the same thing, and that there are, for example, atheists like Bill Maher that are not skeptics when it comes to other topics than religion, in Maher's case vaccination (which is why many skeptics have heavily criticised him e.g. when he received the Richard Dawkins Award). Should we include conferences in this list that aren't necessarily broadly scientifically skeptical, but do support atheism, humanism etc., or should we create a separate list for them, or give them a separate section within this list, or simply state their focus in one of the columns? I'm thinking about Global Atheist Convention, Freethought Festival, Reason Rally, Imagine No Religion etc. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 13:49, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

While atheism/freethought/secular humanism are clearly in the same realm as scientific skepticism, I think it's fine to make a distinction between conferences that are explicitly about scientific skepticism in general and which are about atheism/freethought/secular humanism specifically. I get the impression that there is a difference in focus between these communities, with scientific skepticism being about an approach towards reasoning about the supernatural in general (which includes religion), and the atheism and freethought conferences being more about the specific issues in atheism (morality without god, issues of community, dealing with legal issues that come up in various countries, etc).

I could see there being some borderline cases where the conference is essentially about scientific skepticism as applied to religion, rather than being atheism per se, but even that would be something of an expansion of the current scope of the article. Right now, the only conferences listed are general skepticism conferences; I know that the Science-Based Medicine conference that took place during TAM 7 wasn't really an independent conference, but if that were to spin off into an ongoing, independent thing, it would be in a similar position - being a conference about a specific subset of skepticism. I think that conference feels like it would be within the scope of this article, so if a borderline atheism conference that's about skepticism as applied to religion were found, I'd probably be in favor of its inclusion as well. 0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 14:35, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Generally I support the notion of overlap with the groups you mention, as many skeptical groups also lack sufficient emphasis on religious skepticism. Much in the same way Bill Maher emphasizes religious skepticism while lacking proper scientific knowledge about vaccines. Structurally, I think we would just create subsections for each type of conference, easy peasy.

However, Maher is the perfect example of why I think expansion of this article might be a complicated process, because science in general is a skeptical pursuit. If we were to consider expanding this list beyond conferences that are specifically "Skeptical" in nature, I think you would be hard pressed to justify not including nearly all scientific conferences, as the pursuit of science is inherently a skeptical endeavor (when properly done). For instance, User:0x0077BE suggests above that the Science-Based Medicine sub-conference could be included if it splits from TAM, but this organization is not explicitly skeptical and is purely about encouraging a better scientific rigor in medicine (which includes much better skepticism of CAM). But Skepticism per say is not their mission, science is. "Skeptic" is not even mentioned once in their Mission/About statement, and yet I have no doubt the Novella and the rest are dedicated scientific skeptics. So, while I agree with your observation of overlap, I don't see a clear cut definition that doesn't open this list up to all scientific conferences. Perhaps the opening paragraph should even state that we are limiting this list to specifically skeptical conferences. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 19:10, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I should make clear, I am not in favor of adding freethought/atheist conferences to this article. I only brought up the Science-Based Medicine conference because I was under the impression that it was a skepticism-specific organization. I was trying to get across that if I had a conference called, say, "The Ghost Skepticism Conference" which is a yearly conference specifically about scientific skepticism as applied to ghost-hunters, that would be a strict subset of "skeptical conferences", and I would probably say they should be included. Atheism conferences are not a strict subset of skepticism conferences, as most of them are not focused on scientific skepticism in any way. Potentially, there could be skepticism conferences in the future whose entire focus is skepticism as applied to religion. Those would be primarily skepticism conferences, even though they would presumably be effectively on the subject of atheism. 0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 19:25, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for weighing in. The arguments mentioned are similar to the ones I had in mind, which is why I couldn't decide. I'd like to point out though that my 4th suggestion ("simply state their focus in one of the columns") was taken from the List of books about skepticism, where they've put it in practice. What do you think about that? Good solution? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:41, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ugg, that list of books is exactly what I warned about. There is no clear inclusion policy. It seams to be totally at the whim of the editors. With titles like "Crime Science: Methods of Forensic Detection", "The Encyclopedia of Evolution: Humanity's Search for Its Origins", and "Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life"; how can the inclusion criterion not simply be every philosophy and science book in existence? I may have to take the issue up on that talk page as well. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 19:00, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's a terribly under-sourced list, too. Since we've reached consensus here, we might want to move the discussion over to that page, but I would probably suggest over there something similar to the rules implemented on List of common misconceptions, where there is a 4-pronged test for inclusion, including a requirement for a citation that 1. it's a misconception and 2. it's common. Something similar can be done over there to include some reference specifying that it's explicitly about scientific skepticism, not just something skeptics would be interested in. 0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 19:29, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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