Blue Collar Scientist

Last Thursday, I attended the Anchorage Science/Skeptics meetup as planned, and it was a ripping success! So much so that we’ve decided to do it again and again, and have set up a Google group for event announcements and member discussions.

Image courtesy the unknown barista who agreed to take the shot with Zach’s camera.

We had 14 people there at the peak, and at least three different conversations going on at any given time. Several people in attendance had heard about it from the announcement on Pharyngula, and a couple each from the announcement on Skepchick and Bad Astronomy.

Zach has already written up a review, so here are my highlights from the event:

• Zach and Scott Elyard told the story of the T. Rex skull cast that they worked on at the Alaska Museum of Natural History. And what an epic it was.
• Two people in the local media attended and determined they knew each other as colleagues.
• Ceci, who had read of PZ Myers’ expulsion from Expelled not long before our event started, was fairly bursting at the seams and made sure to tell us all to go read Pharyngula when we got home.
• Greg, Scott Rhode, Kent, and I discussed the difficulties of experimental design in psychology - a topic I’m barely educated in and yet strangely still opinionated about.
• Harun Yahya’s Atlas of Creation was shown in all its 50-lb, glossy-paged glory, complete with photos of fishing lures represented as living insects.
• Paleoart was not only shown, but produced, right there at the event!

I was down at one end of our long table, so I wasn’t able to track whatever was happening at the other end. We had that many people - we shoved together a bunch of tables into something approximately as long as an aircraft carrier, and then filled all the seats and then some.

We had a discussion of whether or not to do this again, and the consensus was yes, definitely. I was placed in charge of setting up a mailing list for event announcements and discussions amongst members. I unilaterally chose the name Science and Skepticism in Anchorage¹ for the name of our little dis-organization, and as mentioned above I’ve set up a mailing list for us. Check it out and sign up if you’d like.

Based on our discussions, we’re planning to hold an event about every three weeks or so, on different days of the week so that everyone interested gets a chance to attend at least some events. We will also cycle between coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and probably even my living room, so that we don’t get stale staring at the same walls, or bogged down with the same kind of venue each time. There are also plans to conduct an occasional Barcamp type event, a mini-conference with our members giving short presentations on topics of interest.

So, if you want to get involved, head on over to our Google group and sign up!

1. The name is intelligently designed to avoid an unfortunate acronym of the sort that a local used car dealer is saddled with. [↩]

If you are interested in science, the skeptical movement, or rational thinking; if you read and enjoy Pharyngula (see also here), the Bad Astronomy Blog, or Skepchick; and if you want to meet other such people, here’s all you have to do:

Go to the coffee shop at Barnes and Noble, tonight, Thursday, March 20, at 7:00 PM.

This meetup is co-sponsored by Zach Miller of the blog When Pigs Fly Returns, Scott Elyard of Coherent Lighthouse, and by yours truly.

If you don’t know any of us, just look for the MacBook with the JREF sticker on it:

The meeting will be informal and social, but we’ve got a couple activities on deck. According to Zach:

Scott is going to show everybody how to draw Euparkeria and I’m going to teach people how pterosaurs folded their wings. Jeff (the BCS) will be giving the keynote speech, and I’ve heard that…whisper it softly…he’s made of cheese.

Zach must have at least some of his tongue in his cheek, for Scott was last seen complaining about his drawing of Euparkeria, and I do not actually have a speech prepared (although it is possible I am made of cheese - it seems we could somehow experimentally verify this at the meetup). I do look forward to a pterosaur demonstration from Zach and some dinosaur art from both Zach and Scott. I will have a couple videos to play regarding Mythbusters. And if I remember, I’ll bring my Atlas of Creation so we can all see the gorgeous pictures of fishing lures that they used in place of living insects.

We will also be discussing the next meetup - we’ll probably be doing this biweekly or monthly - and soliciting opinions on whether we want to pick a regular venue. But mainly, we’re there to have good conversation and a good time.

Remember, there is a meetup this week, on Thursday, March 20, in the cafe at Barnes and Noble on Northern Lights, starting at 7:00 PM. Look for the white Macbook laptop with the JREF sticker if you don’t know any of us. Details can be found here.

The upcoming meetup for science buffs and skeptical thinkers - to be held at 7:00 PM, Thursday, March 20, in the cafe at Barnes & Noble on Northern Lights in Anchorage - has received some very high profile publicity, and I’d like to thank everyone for helping out.

PZ Myers has given his blessing on Pharyngula, the 500 pound gorilla octopus of science blogs, although someone pointed out to me that it looks like we have made him sad by not inviting him to attend personally. Actually, if you read carefully, the sadness is because we didn’t invite him and offer to pay his way. Maybe PZ should be told that the beginning of breakup is not an attractive season to visit Alaska. As I write, I’ve had about 150 hits referred from PZ’s blog or its mirrors.

The Bad Astronomer has also blogged about it, which has the effect of getting the announcement into the USA Today Alaska-edition feed, which I know a lot of local people read. The BA has driven about 75 hits to our announcement, combining the traffic from his blog and the USA Today feed. Also, I have finally figured out what a “BA-Blogee” is, and it is the same thing as what I styled a Bad Astronomy Buddy. I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to grok this prior to now, but I assure you, from here on out I will refer to BA fans (including myself) with the officially sanctioned nomenclature. (Did you actually get that through the IAU General Assembly, Phil?)

The Shepchick blog has done an over-the-top job of promoting us, too. Whereas I expected Rebecca to add our event to the Skepchick calendar and move on to more interesting things, what she actually did was add us to the calendar and then write a great post with a pertinent and eye-catching headline. When I saw it I got all excited - “cool,” I thought, “I get to go to a GEEK MEETUP!” - then I realized I was the guy organizing it and began to doubt my qualifications as a rational thinker. And so we’ve had about 60 hits from the Skepchicks blog.

So, that’s about 285 unique hits from these three bloggers, and Anchorage folks who didn’t know about us before learned about us from all three of these sites. So thanks a bunch, guys! Now I’m wondering what to expect. A few people have e-mailed me or commented that they are going to attend, or try to; but I wonder what percentage of the traffic that isn’t resulting in e-mails or blog comments are (a) Alaskans, who (b) are planning to attend? If it is even 10%, we’re going to have a lot more people than I anticipated. Which would be really cool. I expect the promotion conducted at my talk on exoplanets will get a few people out to join us as well.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to this, so don’t be surprised to see me promote it a couple more times over the next week.

I’m pleased to announce the first (of hopefully many) Anchorage meetup for:

• the Anchorage Skeptics
• Pharyngula Fans
• Bad Astronomy Buddies
• Skepchick readers
• And anyone else interested in science and skeptical thinking.

We will meet on Thursday, March 20, at 7:00 PM, in the cafe at Barnes and Noble on Northern Lights Blvd. in Anchorage. The cafe serves the usual gamut of coffee and tea (in both high-test and decaf versions), juices, soft drinks, muffins, pastries, and so on.

You can get a map if this one won’t do and you don’t already know where it is.

Among those who are planning to attend: Zach of the When Pigs Fly Returns blog, Scott of Coherent Lighthouse, at least a couple people from the Alaska Science Teachers Association, two regulars from the Pharyngula comments threads, two people who have actually met the Bad Astronomer, a local veterinarian who practices evidence-based medicine, and of course, yours truly, the BCS.

If you don’t know any of us, that’s fine - come anyway! Look for the group that has a white Apple MacBook with a sticker on it that says JREF:

The agenda for the meeting is to hang out, shoot the breeze, and plan the next such get-together. I will be sharing some material relating to an upcoming Mythbusters show, I’d like to have Zach explain how pterosaur arms work, and hopefully we can convince Scott and Zach to bring some dinosaur art to show.