Another month passes by, and it seems another month is lost to the COVID-19 pandemic. I know many of us have used our time away from the normal world wisely. We’ve cleaned out every one our closets, found all our hidden childhood toys in the attic, rekindled our love affair with our pets, and watched in horror as the events of January 6 transpired. Additionally, I know thousands of you have tuned in (or Zoomed in) to the CSI lecture series Skeptical Inquirer Presents. It’s almost hard to believe that we are now eight months into the series.

We could not hold our CSICon conference in Las Vegas in October 2020 because of the pandemic, of course, so we started this lecture series to bring a little bit of CSICon to you. We started out featuring several speakers who were scheduled to take part in CSICon 2020, but it is interesting how it has morphed into something larger. 

When I am looking for speakers, I now find myself thinking in the back of my mind: I want people to tell me (us) what the heck is going on! Why are so many people against life-saving vaccinations? How did we get to the point where American citizens felt compelled to storm the Capitol? For the series, for the most part, we’ve been focused on conspiracy theories, countering anti-vaxxers, cognitive dissonance, medical myths, science denial, the Infodemic, QAnon, and related topics. I guess the overall theme we’ve been dealing with, in a broad sense, is Misinformation: Why People Fall for It and How to Combat It.  

Over the past few months, we’ve brought you lectures, discussions, and a chance to ask questions of such speakers as:

• Joseph Uscinski on “Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories”
• Paul Offit on “Developing a SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine: Is Warp Speed Too Fast?”
• Carol Tavris on “The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic”
• Seema Yasmin on “Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall For Them”
• Nathan Lents on “Evolution Only Breaks Things: Science Denial at the Heart of Intelligent Design”
• Sasha Sagan on “Rituals for Nonbelievers”
• John V. Petrocelli on “Persuasive Bullshitters and the Insidious Bullshit Hypothesis”
• Bob Nygaard on “Combating Fortunetelling Fraud (aka Psychic Fraud)”
• Sean B. Carroll on “A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You”
• Timothy Caulfield on “The Infodemic: Battle Does Bunk Work (Let’s Get To It!)”
• Odaelys Walwyn-Pollard on “Disparities in the Midst of COVID-19: Education, Health, and Race”
• Maria Konnikova on “The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win”
• Michael Mann on “The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet”

We just completed our largest talk so far (around 1,200 of your fellow skeptics) with Stephanie Kemmerer on “QAnon: Blood Libel for the Digital Age.” (Kemmerer is author of SI’s two-part series on QAnon.)

Upcoming talks include:

• Paul Offit on “SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines: Where Do We Stand?”
• Andrew Norman on “Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think”
• John Cook on “Gamification to Counter Science Misinformation?”

Each event is hosted by Leighann Lord, stand-up comedian, cohost of the CFI podcast Point of Inquiry, and so much more. (You should check out her website at veryfunnylady.com.)

Check out the dates of our upcoming events at skepticalinquirer.org and come join a thousand or so of your skeptical friends for the next Skeptical Inquirer Presents.